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Title: Timber-Wolf

Author: Jackson Gregory

Release date: February 6, 2020 [eBook #61329]

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)


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E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)



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TIMBER-WOLF


      *      *      *      *      *      *

BY JACKSON GREGORY

TIMBER-WOLF
THE EVERLASTING WHISPER
DESERT VALLEY
MAN TO MAN
LADYFINGERS
THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN
JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

      *      *      *      *      *      *


TIMBER-WOLF

by

JACKSON GREGORY

Author of The Everlasting Whisper,
Desert Valley, etc.






Charles Scribner's Sons
New York :: :: :: 1923

Copyright, 1923, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Copyright, 1923, by Doubleday, Page & Company

Printed in the United States of America

Published August, 1923


[Illustration: Logo]




TO SUE

"AS JULIANITO WOULD SAY: 'GOOD FOR
PASS THE TIME AWAY!'"




TIMBER-WOLF




CHAPTER I


Big Pine, tiny human outpost set well within the rim of the great
southwestern wilderness country, was, like other aloof mountain
settlements of its type, a place of infinite and monotonous quiet
during most days of most years. Infrequently, however, for one reason
or another, and at times seemingly for no reason whatever, came days of
excitement. And, as those who knew the place said, when the denizens
of Big Pine bestirred themselves into excitement they were never
content until they skyrocketed into the seventh heaven of turbulence.
The old-timers recalled how, back in '82, a dog fight in front of the
Gallup House started a riot; in spite of the dictum that it takes only
two dogs to make a fight, the two owners present entered with fine
esprit into the thing, and before nightfall men were carrying sawed-off
shotguns and some of the oldest and wisest citizens had dug themselves
in as for a state of siege.

This latest furore in and about Big Pine, however, had for cause an
incident which since time was young has electrified both more and less
sedate communities. True, it had begun with a fight; men, not dogs; yet
it was what chance spilled from the torn coat pocket of one of them
that transmuted slumbrous quiet into pandemonium. It was fitting that
the Gallup House, centre of local activities, was the scene of the
affair.

A mongrel sort of a man, one Joe Nuñez, known by everybody as Mexicali
Joe, came in and demanded corn whiskey and paid for it on the spot.
That in itself was interesting; Joe seldom had money. For twenty years
he had been content to have his wife support him while he combed the
ridges, always prospecting, always begging grub-stakes, always spending
the winters telling what he would do, come spring. To-night, looking
tired and dirty, he was triumphant. He spent his silver dollars with
a flourish, and an onlooker, laughing, announced that Joe must have
stolen his wife's money. Joe resented the accusation with dignity; he
knew what he knew; he wagged his head and stared insolently and tossed
off his drink in solemn silence. Thereafter he dropped innuendoes while
he had his second drink. The man, Barny McCuin, who had badgered him in
the first place, carelessly called him a liar. Joe, who had accepted
the familiar epithet a thousand times in his life, for once bridled up
and spat back. From so small a matter grew the fight.

Onlookers laughed and were amused, taking no serious stock in the
fracas because it appeared inevitable that in half a dozen minutes big
Barny McCuin would have Mexicali Joe whimpering and apologetic. But it
chanced that as Barny flung the smaller man about, the Mexican's coat
pocket was torn and from it spilled a handful of raw gold. Men pounced
upon the scattered bits of quartz, Barny among them; they caught it up
and stared from one another to Joe, who became suddenly quiet and tense
and alert. Then a great shout rumbled up:

"_Gold!_"

And that was the one word which set all Big Pine ablaze. Here, on the
fringe of a gold-mining country, which the latter years had all but
worn out, there had been made that fresh discovery which every man of
them always kept somewhere in the bottom of his mind as a possibility
for himself.

Gallup, called "Young Gallup," simply because he was the son of "Old
Gallup," who had gone to his last rest twenty-five years ago, was a man
eminently capable of dealing swiftly with unexpected situations; he did
not know the meaning of tact, but he did understand force. This was his
house and here his word was law; he broke into the room at the first
outcry, took in everything with one flick of his black eyes, and issued
his orders.

"Hand that stuff over," he commanded the men who still held bits of
the Mexican's specimens. "It belongs to Joe, and no man's going to be
robbed here under my nose, Mex or White."

The look which Mexicali Joe shot at his protector had in it far more of
suspicion than of gratitude. But his grimy fingers were eager enough
in snatching back the pieces of quartz from reluctant palms. Grown
sullen, he returned to his corn whiskey, drinking slowly, and holding
his tongue. When men asked him the inevitable quick questions he either
shrugged impatiently or ignored them altogether. They looked at one
another, and an understanding sprang up on the instant between big
Barny McCuin and some of the others. Presently Barny went out, followed
by the men who had caught his glance. Young Gallup, with eyes narrowing
and growing darker, watched them go.

"They'll get you outside, Joe," he said bluntly. "And they'll make you
open up for all you know."

Joe shifted uneasily; in his heart he knew himself for a poor fool
caught up between the devil, which was Gallup, and the deep sea.

Besides the proprietor and the Mexican there were now but three men
left in the room. One of them was Gallup's man, who cooked, did
chores, and, when need was, helped with the still and served drinks. At
a look from his employer he left the room. Of the others, one was old
man Parker, an ancient to be despised because feebleness made of him a
negligible quantity in any affair based upon the prowess of physical
manhood; the second was a youngster who stood in awe of Gallup and who
looked ill at ease as the hotel man stared at him.

"Better beat it, Tim," said Gallup. "And take old Parker along."

"But, look here, Gallup; you ain't got any right...."

"It's my house," said Gallup. "There's going to be no crooked work here
and you know it. Joe goes clear. If he wants to talk later on, why,
then he can come out and talk with you boys outside. You know you'll
find Barny and his friends not so far away."

Tim's self-pride, unimportant as it was, perked up at the realization
that Gallup was actually discussing a matter of import with him. He
tried to play the man.

"You want to get him all alone!"

Gallup sighed.

"You make me sick," he grunted disgustedly. "Now shut up and clear out.
You, too, Parker. It's closing time anyhow."

"I seen, didn't I?" clucked the old man, tapping nervously on the bare
floor with his peeled willow staff. "It was gold! Joe's stuck his pick
into the mother lode! Ain't I always told you young fools...."

Gallup, patient no longer, caught him by the thin old arm and jerked
him to the door, thrusting him out and unheeding the querulous
protests. Then he swung about upon the younger man.

"On your way, Tim," he commanded.

There was that in his voice which discouraged argument. For Gallup,
in the full power of his strength, a big man and heavy and hard, was
suddenly flaming with anger and the two great fists were lifting from
his sides. Tim, muttering, hastened after old Parker; behind him the
oak door was slammed and the bolt shot into its socket. He broke into a
run, seeking Barny McCuin and the others.

Gallup strode straight back to Mexicali Joe, clamping a ponderous hand
upon the shoulder which sought futilely to jerk free.

"Spit it out, Joe," he ordered. "Where'd that come from?"

"You let me go! I ain't workin' for you. You ain't my boss. What I got,
she's mine! Now I goin' home."

Gallup, still holding him with one hand, probed at him with his eyes,
seeking to fathom what powers of determination and stubbornness lay
within a mongrel soul. Joe looked frightened; there were beads of sweat
on his forehead, stealing downward from under his black matted hair.
But there was in his look the glint of desperate defiance.... Gallup
called softly:

"Hey, Ricky; come here."

His combination cook and chore man returned through the inner door with
an alacrity which must have told his employer that he had never stirred
a step from the threshold. He, like the others, was on fire with
suddenly stimulated greed.

"Go get Taggart," said Gallup, his eye all the time on Joe. "Slip out
the back way and go quiet. He's down at his cabin. I want him here in a
hurry."

Ricky, though with obvious reluctance, withdrew. Once out of sight,
however, he ran as fast as he could, anxious to be back with no loss of
time.

"Taggart?" muttered Joe. "What for? For why you send for him?"

"Why does a man generally send for him?" countered Gallup dryly. "Know
who he is, don't you, Joe?"

"Sure, I know! But I ain't done nothin'. I ain't no t'ief. This is
mine."

"Thief?" Gallup having repeated the word thoughtfully, said it a second
time: "_Thief!_ I hadn't thought of that."

"Let me go," cried Joe. With a sudden fierce jerk he broke free and
started to the door.

But Gallup, shaking his head, was at his side like a flash. He thrust
the Mexican aside and stood with his heavy square shoulders against
the oak panel. Joe, by now trembling with fury, slipped a hand into
his shirt. But before the hastening fingers could close about the
sheath-knife which Gallup knew well enough they sought, Gallup drew
back a heavy fist and struck the Mexican full in the face. Joe went
staggering across the room and fell, his battered lips writhing back
from his teeth. Again his hand went into his shirt. Gallup ran across
the room and stood over him, one heavy boot drawn back threateningly.

"Make one more move like that," he said coolly, "and I'll smash my boot
heel in your dirty mouth."


Outside, grouped expectantly in the middle of the road, Barny McCuin
and his friends, joined by old man Parker and Tim, alternately
speculated in quiet voices and watched for the door to open and Joe
to come forth. Tim, in his anger and excitement, called them crazy
fools; he warned them that Young Gallup, left alone with Joe, would
be making some deal with the Mexican and that, if they were only half
men they would come along of him and smash the door off and get in on
whatever was happening. But Tim was only a boy and talked more than
he acted; the others, knowing Young Gallup as they had cause to know
him, hesitated to grow violent at his door. Gallup, defending his own
property, would just as gladly pour a double-barrel shotgun load of
buckshot into them as he would turn up a bottle of bootleg. They were
not ready for murder and told Tim to shut up and keep his eye peeled.

But there was not a patient man among them, and to-night was no time
for any man's patience. When they had waited as long as they could,
perhaps half an hour, they turned back to Gallup's door, Barny leading
the way and knocking loudly. In return came Gallup's voice, untroubled
and cool.

"Locked up for the night," he said. And then, carelessly: "What do you
want, boys?"

McCuin simulated laughter.

"That's a good one, Gal. All we want is a chat with Joe. And...."

"Joe's gone," returned Gallup. He came to the door and opened it, his
lamp in hand. "Went about half an hour ago; just after you boys did.
Out the back way and on the run!" He laughed. "Guess he's foxy enough
to make a circle around you dubs. Oh, come in and look if you think I'm
lying to you."

He stepped aside and let them come in. They knew that he was lying and
they saw from his eyes that he understood that they were not fools
enough to take him at his word. Yet Joe had gone. In that Gallup had
told the truth; the lie lay in what he concealed.

"Where did he go?" demanded Tim earnestly.

Gallup jeered at him. "If I knew I'd tell you, wouldn't I, Timmy? Most
likely where little boys like you ought to be by now. Meaning in bed,
Timmy dear."

In time they went away; by now, drawn close together by a common
burning desire, they were resolved into a committee with one
objective. Late as it was they searched high and low for Mexicali Joe.
They went first to his wretched cabin among the pines at the edge of
the settlement; they got his wife out of bed and fired questions at
her, receiving only blank looks of wonder; clearly she had not seen Joe
and had no inkling of his sudden importance. They went away and in turn
looked in at every likely place which Big Pine offered. But they found
no sign of Joe. In a town of less than fifty houses he had vanished
like one shadow engulfed and blotted out by another. They began to fear
that he had fled, frightened, into the mountains.

A dozen men had seen Joe's gold. Before midnight no less than twenty
tongues had discussed the one matter of moment. Men cautioned other men
against letting too many people know; but such was the electric mood
swaying them that early the next morning the news began trickling forth
through the country surrounding Big Pine. By late afternoon word had
penetrated far up into the mountains and, following the stage road,
had gone fifty miles toward the distant railroad. And that same day it
leaked out that Mexicali Joe, who had so strangely disappeared, had
not fled at all but all the time had been in Big Pine. He had been
arrested by Sheriff Taggart and thrown into the town jail, charged with
disturbing the peace.

Taggart himself had nothing to say. He kept Joe shut up alone and let
no one see him.




CHAPTER II


A normal census gave Big Pine a population of about one hundred and
twenty inhabitants, and the most normal thing which any census does
is to exaggerate. But within forty-eight hours after the tearing of
Mexicali Joe's coat pocket between nine and twelve hundred people,
variously estimated, poured into the settlement. Wood-choppers and
timber jacks and lone prospectors hurried down from the mountains;
storekeepers and ranchmen came up from far below Rocky Bend and Red
Oak; that strange medley of humanity which always rushes first in the
wake of gold news filled Big Pine to overflowing, men and even women;
all straining to one purpose back of which lay many motives. Spring was
verging on summer; nights were cold, but the air was dry; they found
rooms where they could, and when they could not they builded great
camp-fires and found what comfort they might in the edges of the pine
groves. Gallup doubled his prices and then doubled them again, and
still his house was full. There were half a dozen empty houses, ancient
disreputable shacks long in disuse; these found usurping tenants the
first day. There were some few who had had forethought and took the
time to bring tents. Almost in an hour a quiet, sleepy little mountain
town was metamorphosed into a noisy, clamorous and sleepless mining
camp.

Among the first to arrive was a young man named Deveril. Very tall and
good-looking and gay and slender he was, making himself look taller
by the boots he wore and the way he pinched his soft hat into a peak.
Babe Deveril he was called by those who knew him, saving one only, who
called him Baby Devil and jeered at him with a pair of mocking eyes.

Deveril had been in Big Pine before, though not for some years. Also he
had seen his share of mining camps through Arizona and New Mexico and
Nevada, and knew something of congested conditions and the hardships
which accompanied the short-sighted. Before his arrival was ten minutes
old, he had cast about him for a shelter. Already the Gallup House was
full, but not yet had the disused, tumbled-down shacks been thought of.
He found a dilapidated building which once, long ago, had been a log
cabin; it stood in the pines set well back from the place of Mexicali
Joe; it had a fireplace. Deveril preempted it coolly, neither knowing
nor caring who the owner might be; he brought his slim bed-roll here,
followed it up with frying-pan, bacon, and coffee-pot and considered
himself established. Further, being just now in funds and always
yielding to the more fastidious impulses at moments when fortune was
kind, he secured a serving-maid. Maria, the dusky daughter of Mexicali
Joe, consented gladly to come in and cook and make the bed and keep
things tidy. He gave her a couple of silver dollars and made her a bow
to bind the bargain, tossing in for fair measure a flashing smile which
left the half-breed girl thrilling and sighing. Thereafter, bending his
mind to the main issue, he sought to find out for himself how much of
fact underlay the glittering rumors which had been pouring forth from
Big Pine like rays from the sun.

This heterogeneous mass of humanity occupying Big Pine had broken up
into numerous small groups, after the fashion of men who are so prone
to break large units down into smaller ones. Cupidity, jealousy, and
suspicion flaunted their banners on all hands; men watched one another
like so many thieves. The old inhabitants went about bristling,
resenting the presence of these outsiders who were rushing in to
steal the golden secret. Among themselves they were divided into two
antagonistic factions; there was the Gallup crowd, including Gallup and
Sheriff Taggart and the men who did their bidding; and there were those
who had heard Barny McCuin's tale and who were out to block the game of
Gallup and Taggart, or know the reason why.

Babe Deveril, sauntering here and there, identified himself with
no group; it was his preference always to hunt singly. But he went
everywhere, his mind and ears and eyes co-ordinating in the work he
set them. He listened to rumors and sifted them and went on to newer
and always contradictory rumors. It was said that Mexicali Joe had
been killed, his body found in a ravine three miles from town; that
Gallup had spirited him off last night into the mountains; that Joe had
made his strike in the old and long-deserted mining camp of Timkin's
Bar; that his specimens had come from Lost Woman's Gulch; that Joe
had never stirred a mile from Big Pine in his latter prospecting, and
that, therefore, at any moment any one of the thousand gold seekers
might stumble upon his prospect hole. It was said that Joe's pay-dirt
would run twenty dollars to the ton, and while this was being advanced
as though by one who knew all about it, another man was saying that it
would run a thousand dollars. Deveril, when he had heard a score of
empty though colorful tales, turned at last to the Gallup House; Gallup
and Taggart knew all that was to be known, and, although they had the
trick of the shut mouth and steady eye, there was always the chance of
a sign to be read by the watchful.

He came upon Gallup himself standing in his doorway, looking out
thoughtfully upon the road jammed tight with restless men.

"Hello, Gallup," he said.

Gallup regarded him briefly; again his gaze flicked away.

"Don't remember me, eh?" queried Deveril lightly.

"No," said Gallup, curt in his preoccupation. "I don't."

"Must have something disturbing on your mind," suggested Deveril as
genially as though Gallup's attitude had been exactly opposite what it
was. "Haven't looked in on you for half a dozen years, but you ought
to remember." Gallup's eyes came back slowly, a frown in them, and
the other concluded: "Known as Deveril ... Babe Deveril, formerly of
Cherokee...."

Gallup showed a quick, unmistakable sign of interest and Deveril
laughed. But Gallup's frown darkened and there came a sudden
compression to his lips.

"I got you, Kid," he said sharply. "You said it: There is a thing or
two on my mind and I've got no time for gab. Just the same, take this
from me: A certain Bruce Standing has been sent word the town can get
along without him showing his face; and maybe, being his cousin, you'll
trail your luck along with him."

"So you and Bruce Standing are still playing the nice little parlor
game of slap-the-wrist, are you?" Deveril jeered at him. But, still
highly good-humored, he went on: "He's no cousin of mine, Gallup.
You've got the family tree all mussed up. What fault is it of mine
if a thousand years ago Bruce Standing and I had the same murdering
old pirate for ancestor? At that, Standing descended from him in the
straight line and I am somewhat less directly related."

Gallup snorted.

"None of Standing's breed is wanted in my place," he said emphatically.

Deveril, though his eyes twinkled, appeared to be musing.

"So you sent him word to stay away? Didn't you know that he'd come,
red-hot and raging, as soon as he got your message? Oh, well, you and
my crazy kinsman fight it out to your liking; it would be a great thing
for the community if you'd both do a clean job, cutting each other's
throats.... By the way, where does Taggart fit in? How does he work it
to be hand in glove with both of you at the same time?"

"You heard what I said just now?"

"I did. Say, Gallup, where's Mexicali Joe? I've got some business with
him."

Gallup, brooding, appeared not to have heard. Then, making no answer,
he turned and went back into his house and into the big main room,
where a crowd of men had foregathered. Deveril, his hat far back,
his dark eyes keen and bright, followed him, almost at his heels.
Gallup saw him out of the tail of his eye but for once gulped down
his first hot impulse; his hands were full as things were and there
were large stakes to play for, with nothing to be gained just now by a
rough-and-tumble fist fight with a man who was obviously highly capable
of taking care of himself. So he pretended to let Deveril's entrance go
unnoted and thereafter ignored him.

For the first time in many days there were no drinks being served in
Gallup's House. With so many strangers in town, one did not know how
many federal agents might be snooping about. And, again, this was no
time for the main issue to become befogged with side issues; Gallup
did not want any unnecessary ruction on his hands. Nevertheless some
of the men drank now and then, but from pocket flasks which they had
brought in with them; flasks which for the most part came originally
from Gallup's stock but which had been sold on the street by Gallup's
man Ricky. The room was thick with heavy tobacco smoke; most of the men
remained strangely quiet, watching Gallup or Barny McCuin, who glowered
in a corner, or the sheriff who came and went among them. Deveril spent
not more than ten minutes here; once more he returned to the street and
to his passing from knot to knot of men.

"I'll bet a hat Gallup was lying about that warning to my mad kinsman,"
he told himself thoughtfully. "I don't believe he's man enough to get
rough with Bruce Standing."

It was almost at the moment that Deveril came out of Gallup's place
that the first shock of genuine news burst along the crowded road;
Mexicali Joe had been located. He was in the stone jail, not five
hundred yards from the thickest of his seekers, and had been there
since last night, locked up by Taggart! The crowd split asunder as
cleanly as though some gigantic axe had cloven its way between the two
fragments; one group at full tilt ran to the jail, to prove to their
own senses that here at last was a word of truth; the other streamed
down to the Gallup House, seeking Taggart and an explanation. With the
latter went Babe Deveril, who meant to keep his eye on Taggart and
Gallup.

There were three steps leading up to Gallup's side door through which
at last came Taggart, when the crowd clamored for him. He stood on the
top step, looking stolidly at the faces confronting him. He was a big
man, massive of physique, hard-eyed, strong-willed; he had been sheriff
for a dozen years and after long office as the chief representative
of the law bore in his look the stamp of that unquestioned authority
which is the unmistakable brand of the mountain sheriff. He had looked
straight into the eyes of many men in many moods and his own glance
never wavered. Never a great talker, he stood now a moment in silence,
tugging slowly at his heavy black mustache.

"Mexicali is my man right now," he said at last. "I got him in jail."

That was all. There was no belligerence in his tone; his look remained
untroubled. Babe Deveril, beginning to understand something of what
had happened and casting his own swift horoscope of the likely future,
wondered to what extent it was in the cards that Jim Taggart should
stand in his way. There was big game in the wind, or men like Gallup
and Taggart, who were always big-game men, would not be taking things
upon their shoulders thus. And to-day Jim Taggart was at his best; he
stood as solid and unmoved as a rock, with never a flick of the eyelid,
as he made his quiet announcement and awaited the breaking of any storm
which his words might evoke.

There was a short lull while men murmured among themselves, and yet,
digesting Taggart's statement, impressed by his manner, hesitated to
speak the thought which was forming in dozens of brains simultaneously.
Presently, however, a man at the far edge of the crowd shouted:

"What's he arrested for, Taggart? What did he do?"

Before the man had gotten his ten words out, the sheriff's keen eyes
found him where his lesser form was half hidden by the bigger men in
front of him.

"I hear you, Bill Cary," he said quietly. "And the only reason I'm
answering a regular none-of-your-business question is that all of
you other boys that have stampeded in here on a wild say-so will be
worrying your heads off until you know what's what. I pulled Joe on two
counts: First for disturbing the peace."

An uproar of laughter boomed out at that and even Jim Taggart smiled.
But he went on evenly:

"Of course that was a blind until I got the goods on the second count.
And I only got that a few minutes ago. This ain't any trial, exactly,
and still I guess it will save trouble if you know all about it. So
I'll let Cliff Shipton step up and testify."

Suddenly he stepped aside and a tall, hawk-faced man who had been
holding his place at Gallup's side, just behind Taggart's massive bulk,
stepped forward. Men craned their necks and crowded closer; nearly
all of them knew Cliff Shipton. He was a Gallup man and always had
been a Gallup man; for the last two years he had been in charge of a
profitless "gold-mine" which Gallup pretended to operate at the head
of the Lost Woman's Gulch; a property which, it was generally conceded
in and about Big Pine, was merely the proverbial hole in the ground
intended for sale to a fool.

"Last week, gents," said Shipton in his easy style, "we hit it rich out
at the Gallup Bonanza. Pocket or ledge, we're not saying which right
now. But we got the stuff. We been keeping it quiet until we got good
and ready to spring something. I had the choice specimens in a box in
my shack. That Mexican's been prowling around; I couldn't be sure until
I'd glimpsed the specimens, but I just looked 'em over. That's the
story; Mexicali, being half drunk and stupid generally, made his haul
out of my specimen box."

As the first slow murmur, gathering volume, began, Jim Taggart threw up
his hand and shouted:

"Now, men, go slow! I've seen a pack of gents before now get all het-up
because they was sore and disappointed. And I can read the eye-signs!
But pull off and think things over before you make a lot of howling
fools out of yourselves. If you want me any time.... Well, I'll be
right on hand!"

He stepped back swiftly, in through the open door, and it closed after
him.

For a little while the men remained uncertain. Jim Taggart represented
the law; further, he was no man at any time to trifle with. He had
offered them an explanation and the worst of it was that it might be
the truth. Discussions began on every hand; those who believed were in
the minority and lost voice as the other voices, becoming heated, grew
louder. Babe Deveril was turning away when a man caught at his sleeve.

"You know those men, Taggart and Gallup and the rest. What do you make
of it? What had we ought to do?"

Deveril shook the man off.

"Go slow until you know what you're doing," he admonished curtly. "Then
go like hell."

He skirted the crowd and went up to his cabin to be alone and do a bit
of thinking on his own part.




CHAPTER III


There was a crowd of men, tight-jammed, about the little square stone
jail as Deveril made his way toward his cabin. Every man of them was
striving for a glance through the barred slit of a window behind which
Mexicali Joe glared out at them. In the throng Deveril marked a man who
wore his deputy-sheriff's badge thrust prominently into notice and who
carried a rifle across the hollow of his arm. Deveril shrugged and went
on.

"In jail or out, the Mex is going to keep a shut mouth," he meditated.
"He'll never spill a word now, unless Taggart gets a chance to give him
a rough-and-ready third degree. And Taggart will get no such chance
to-night."

Through the dim dusk gathering among the pines he came to the cabin. A
light winked at him through the open door; Maria, Joe's daughter, was
getting his supper. Well, he was ready for it; blow hot, blow cold, a
man must eat.

"Hello, Señorita," he greeted her from the threshold. "How does it feel
to be the one and only daughter of the most distinguished gentleman in
town?"

Maria did not understand him, but her white teeth flashed and her large
southern eyes were warm and friendly.

"They found your papa," he told her. "He's in jail."

"_Seguro_," responded Maria, unmoved. "That is nothing for him."

Deveril laughed and went to wash at the bucket of water which the girl
had placed on a bench in the corner. Maria finished setting his table
with the few articles at hand, putting a black pot of red beans in
the place of honor before his plate. As he returned from washing and
smoothing his hair down, he noted the plate itself; a plain, cracked
affair of heavy crockery with a faded design in red roses. Plainly,
Maria had raided her mother's home for that. She was looking at him for
his approval and received it. At the moment she had both hands occupied
and he stooped forward and kissed her. It was lightly and carelessly
done; a gay salute to the girl's warm smouldering beauty. For beauty of
its kind she did have, that of the young half-bred animal.

She gasped; her face, whether through indignation or pleasure, went
a dark burning red. Deveril laughed softly and sat down upon the box
which she had drawn up for his chair.

It was only then that he saw that he had a visitor. His eyebrows shot
upward as he wondered. Another girl or young woman; in that light, as
she stood just outside his door, nothing very definite could be made of
her.

"Could I have a word with you, Mr. Deveril?"

He came to his feet almost at the first word, quick and lithe and
graceful. Always was Babe Deveril at his best when it was a question
of a lady. The voice accosting him was clear and cool and musically
modulated. He tried to make out her face, but was baffled by the shadow
cast by her wide hat. She was clad in a neat dark outing suit and
wore serviceable walking boots; she was slim and trim and young and
confident. Beyond that the dusk made a mystery of her.

"A thousand!" he returned in answer. "Won't you come in?"

"It is very pleasant outside. May I sit on your door-step?"

"Lord love you," he assured her, "you may do anything on earth that
pleases you.... Maria, my dear, you may run home to your mama; I have
affairs of state. And I'll be delighted to see you again at breakfast
time."

Maria put down her things and fled. Again Deveril laughed softly.

"It was no tender scene that you interrupted," he told his visitor. "I
was merely seeking expression in a bit of rudimentary human language of
my gratitude for the loan of a cracked plate! Look at it!" He held it
aloft.

"A gratitude which obviously springs from the heart," she returned as
lightly as he had spoken.

She sat down on the door-step. He came toward her, meaning to have a
better look at her.

"But you were just beginning your supper," she objected. "Please go on
with it while it is hot. Otherwise I shall most certainly leave without
talking with you as I had wished."

"But you? There is plenty for both of us."

She shook her head emphatically.

"No, thank you. It's very kind, but I have eaten."

"Then I eat, though it's putting a hungry man at an unfair advantage
to watch him at such a disgusting pastime." He poured himself a cup of
coffee, all the while trying to make out her features. He knew already
that she was pretty; one sensed a thing like that. But just how pretty,
that even Babe Deveril could not decide as long as the light was no
better and she hid in the shadows of her provoking hat. "And now, how
may I be of service?"

Thus of the two she was the first to be given the opportunity of
clear observation. There were two candles stuck in their own grease on
the rough table, and between them his face looking out toward her was
unshadowed. A face gay and insouciant, dark and clean-cut, the face of
devil-may-care youth. It struck her that there was an evidence of the
man's character in the fact that, though she had caught him in the act
of kissing his maid of all work, he was not in the least perturbed. She
thought that it would be easy to like this man; she was not sure that
she could ever trust him.

"I am Lynette Brooke," she said in a moment. "And I thought it possible
that, if you cared to do so, you might answer a question for me."

"If I may be of assistance to you," he told her, cordially, watching
her narrowly, "you have but to let me know."

"Thank you." He had inclined his head in acknowledgment of her
introduction and now her head tipped slightly toward him. "My question
has to do, naturally, with the one matter of general interest in Big
Pine to-day. You see, I have heard of you; I know that you know some of
the men here ... Sheriff Taggart and Mr. Gallup, for example. And ...
I once had the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Deveril. Small excuse for
troubling you, I know, but when one is in earnest...."

"I'll tell you something!" said Deveril quickly.

"Yes?"

"I'd give a whole lot for a good square look at you! I am no hand for
names; and I haven't been able to make out your face."

"A whole lot?" It was a fair guess that she was smiling. "Well, then,
it's a bargain. You give me an answer to a question!"

"Done! Any question!"

With a sudden gesture her two hands went up to her hat. At the same
moment she jumped to her feet and came three steps into his cabin.
As she brought the hat down to her side and turned toward him, the
candle-light streamed across her face and Babe Deveril sat back on his
box and with a sudden lighting up of his eyes collected his share of
the obligation by letting his admiring glance rove across her disclosed
features. Pretty; yes, far and away more than pretty. He was startled
by an unexpected, soft loveliness; an alluring, seductive charm of
line and expression. Just now it was her mood to smile at him; and she
was one of those rare girls whose smile is sheer tenderness. He marked
the curl in her soft brown hair; the sparkle in her big gray eyes; the
curve of the lips; in another moment the red mouth would be laughing at
him. She held herself erect under his frank inspection; her chin was
up; her eyes did not waver; she challenged him with her glance to look
his fill and shape his judgment of her.

"I think you are mistaken on one point," he told her quickly. "I never
saw you before, for I would not have forgotten."

"The obvious remark nicely made," she laughed at him.

He frowned.

"Through no fault of mine. You are welcome to know that I have a memory
for pretty girls. And that you are absolutely the prettiest girl I ever
saw."

"Thank you," she mocked him. She put her hat on again and went back to
the door-step. "Nevertheless, it is true that we have met before. Of
course," she amended hastily, "I am not going to claim any obligation
on either side because of that. But it suggested that I should come to
you now instead of taking my chances with utter strangers."

"If you care to do me a very great favor," said Deveril, "you will tell
me when you think you and I met."

"Certainly. I have no desire to make a mystery of so common an
occurrence. Last May you were in Carson?"

"Yes."

"There was a dance. You went with Mildred Darrel. When you called for
her she was out on the porch. Another girl was with her and you were
introduced."

"After all, I was right!" he cried triumphantly. "You were in the
shadows that the vines threw all over the porch. I don't believe I even
heard your name. Most positively I did not catch a glimpse of your
face."

She dismissed the subject with indifference.

"At least I have made my explanation. And now may I ask my question?"
And, when he nodded: "Are they telling the truth when they say that
Mexicali Joe stole his gold from Mr. Gallup's mine?"

He had expected something like that; all along he had felt that this
girl with the bright daring eyes and that eager confident carriage
was in Big Pine because she, equally with himself, was concerned with
the one occurrence which for the moment made the community a place of
interest to such as found no lure in the humdrum.

"Of course, you know that anything I could say in answer would be but
one man's opinion?"

"Yes. But knowing these men, your opinion would be of value to me."

"Well, then, I'd gamble my boots that they're lying. And I can advance
no reasons whatever for my belief. But there's your question answered."

"As I thought that it would be. I was sure of it before I came here.
You make me doubly sure."

He, for the moment, was more interested in her than in Mexicali Joe and
his gold.

"You don't belong up here in the mountains? You're a long way from your
stamping-ground, aren't you?"

"Of course. I happened to be down in Rocky Bend when the news came and
I caught the first stage up."

He tried to make her out. She did not look the type of woman who
followed in the wake of such news, adventuring. But then you could
never tell what a woman was inside by the outer peach-and-cream
softness of her, as Babe Deveril very well understood.

She appeared to be plunged deep into revery. Perhaps there was
something of weariness in the droop of her shoulders; if she had come
on the early stage, she might have had a hard day of it altogether....

"Were you able to get a room at the Gallup House?" he asked.

"Yes. I was one of the first, you know. As to how long I can keep my
room, I can't tell. Mr. Gallup has doubled his prices and is likely to
double them again."

"He's that sort," conceded Deveril. "He plays a big game and all the
time has a shrewd eye for the little bets. By the way, do you feel
entirely comfortable there?"

Her eyes drifted to a meeting with his.

"What do you mean?"

"There's as tough a crowd there and spread all over town as I ever saw.
Are you alone?"

"Yes. Quite."

"You don't mean to say that you, a young girl and not overused to
hardship, from the look of you, are up here to mix into such a
scrimmage as may be pulled off? To match your wits and your grit and
your endurance against the kind of men who go hell-raising into a new
gold strike?"

She tilted back her head against the door-jamb and looked up, straight
into his eyes. Thus he saw her chin brought forward prominently. It
was delicately turned and joined, softly curving, a full feminine
throat; and yet it was a chin which bespoke character and stubbornness.

"When men go rushing after gold," she said quietly, "more likely than
not they go with empty pockets if not empty stomachs. There is always a
chance, in a new mining-camp, for one who has a little money. A chance
to stake a miner, going shares; and always, of course, the chance to
stake one's own claim."

"But you.... What do you know of such things?"

"Not much, first-hand, perhaps. But it's in the blood!... You look a
very young man, Mr. Deveril, but you and I know that looks are not
everything; and it is quite possible that you are old enough to have
heard of Olymphe Labelle?"

"Why," he exclaimed, "I have seen her. I was only a boy; it was twenty
years ago. That was down at Horseshoe; why, bless your soul, I fell
head over heels in love with her! I can tell you how she dressed and
how she looked. Big blue eyes; golden hair; a pink dress; a great big
picture-hat, with ribbons. I was only eight or nine years old, but
forget? Never!"

"My father married her down in Horseshoe! That was the first time he
ever saw her and he didn't let her get away! Dick Brooke; maybe you
have heard of him, too? If so you won't ask why the daughter of Olymphe
Labelle and Dick Brooke has it in her veins to mingle with the first of
the crowd when there's word of a new strike!"

There was scarcely a community in all Arizona or New Mexico, certainly
none within the broad scope of the great southwestern plateau country,
which had not in its time, a generation ago, paid tribute to the
gaiety and grace and beauty of Olymphe Labelle. She danced for them;
she sang; she went triumphantly from one mining town or lumber-camp
to another and men went mad over her. They packed the houses in which
she appeared; they spent their money generously to see her, and night
after night, captivated, they tossed to the stage under her pretty
high-heeled feet both raw and minted gold. Olymphe was to this country
what Lotta was to the camps of California in an earlier day. Then young
Dick Brooke, a stalwart and hot-blooded young miner, saw her and that
was the end of Olymphe's dancing career. They were married within ten
days. And from this union was sprung the superb young creature now
sitting upon an adventurer's door-step and looking straight up into his
eyes.

"You see, it is only the thing to be expected, after all, that I should
follow the gleam!"

She, like himself, was young and eager and unafraid and adventuresome;
and within her pulsing arteries was that pioneer blood which, trickling
down through the generations is ever prone to set recklessness seething.


There was a man coming up through the pines on horseback. In the gloom
all detail was wanting. But obviously he meant to come straight on
to the cabin. Deveril, seeing this intent, stepped by the girl and
a couple of paces forward. The man, sitting in a strange, sideways
fashion in the saddle, drew rein and peered at him.

"Name of Deveril? Babe Deveril?"

"Right, friend. What's your trouble?"

"Offering to shake hands, to begin with. I'm Winch; Billy Winch. You
and me know each other."

He leaned outward from the saddle, putting out his hand. But Deveril
ignored it, saying coolly:

"Why should I shake hands with you? You and I are not friends that I
know of!"

Billy Winch sighed, and used his hand to remove his hat and then rumple
his bristly hair. Then he laughed softly. His horse, restless and fiery
and well-fed, whirled, and for the first time Lynette Brooke made out
the reason for that strange, lopsided attitude in the saddle; the man,
a little, weazened fellow, had lost his right leg above the knee and
managed a sure seat only by throwing his weight upon his left stirrup
and thus maintaining his balance.

"Well," said Winch good-naturedly, "_he_ said to start off by shaking
hands. Just to show as I _was_ friendly."

"_He?_" repeated Deveril. "You mean Bruce Standing?"

"Sure. Of course. When I just say _he_ I mean _him_."

The girl sitting in the shadows smiled. Deveril, however, whose profile
she could watch, appeared to have no good humor left to spend upon his
caller. She marked how his voice hardened and how he bit off his words
curtly.

"I have no business with either Bruce Standing or with you."

"Well," said Winch cheerfully, "here's the message: You're to meet him
in half an hour or so at the Gallup House."

For a moment Deveril was silent; then the girl heard his barely audible
muttering and knew that under his breath he was roundly cursing the
man who sent him a message like that. In another instant he flared out
hotly, forgetful of her or ignoring her:

"You go tell your Bruce Standing that I said that he is a land hog and
a thief and a damn' fool, all rolled in one; and that I'll meet him
nowhere this side of hell."

Billy Winch chuckled as at the rarest of all jests.

"I got a picture of _me_ going to _him_ with a mouthful like that! On
the low-down level, Deveril, he means to be friendly, I think...."

"Do your infernal thinking somewhere else," snapped Deveril angrily.
"Clear out or I'll throw you out!"

"I told him most likely you'd be sassy, so he won't be disappointed, I
guess. Well, I'm travelling, so you don't have to mess your place all
up throwing me off!" He was still chuckling good-naturedly as he swung
his horse about with a light touch of the reins. Over his shoulder he
called back: "He said it was important and he'd see you at Gallup's
inside the hour!" The voice was taunting; Billy Winch threw his weight
into his one stirrup, and even the attitude, though made necessary
through his physical handicap, was vaguely irritating, so carelessly
nonchalant did it appear. His horse bolted like a shot as he gave the
signal and in a moment bore him out of sight among the shadows under
the pines. Babe Deveril, hands on hips, stood staring after him.
Then he swung about and came back to the cabin, and the girl on his
door-step, seeing his face clearly in the candle-light streaming forth,
caught her breath sharply at the outward sign she glimpsed of the rage
burning high and hot in his breast.

"I'm of half a mind to meet him after all and break his confounded
neck!" he cried out, a passionate tremor in his voice.

All along he had intrigued her, with his handsome face and
devil-may-care air and light gracefulness; she estimated coolly that
if, as he had said of himself, he had a memory for pretty girls it was
something more than likely that more than one pretty girl had carried
in her heart the memory of him. Now, suddenly, his good looks were
sinister; his gaiety was so utterly gone that it was next door to
impossible to imagine that he could ever be inconsequentially gay. The
innate evil in the man stood up naked and ugly. And all because some
man, a certain Bruce Standing, had sent a message commanding a meeting
at the Gallup House.

It was not exactly the thing to do to put her question, but interest,
mounting above mere curiosity, piqued her, and, certain of an answer in
his present mood, she offered innocently:

"It seems to me I have heard the name Bruce Standing. Just who is he?"

Deveril glared at her and for a brief fragment of a second she was
afraid of him; it was as though, by the mere mention of the name, she
drew on herself something of the hatred he must have felt for this man
Standing.

"You heard me read his title clear enough to his one-legged dog
Winch," he told her harshly. "He is a man who came into this country
with nothing a dozen years ago and who now rolls in the fat of his
ill-gotten gains. He's a land hog who has robbed right and left and
who has with him the devil's luck. He owns thousands of acres of land
out yonder." A wide sweep of his arm indicated the endlessly rolling
wilderness land, sombre ridges and ebony cañons, rising into stony
barren crests here, thick timbered yonder where they slumbered under
the first stars. "He operates mines; he gambles in gold and copper
and lumber ... and life, curse him! And in human souls, his own with
the rest. He runs half a dozen lumber-camps and has a thousand of the
toughest men in the world working for him at one place and another. Men
hate him for what he is, a cold-blooded highwayman. They have sent him
a warning not to show his face in Big Pine, and being of the devil's
spawn he sends me word to meet him at Gallup's! That's his way and his
nerve and his colossal conceit. May hell take him!"

"And," suggested the girl, watchful of him as she ventured to probe at
his emotions, "on top of all of this ... your cousin?"

"_No!_" He shouted the word at her angrily. "No cousin, thank God.
Not so closely related as that. A kinsman of a sort, yes; but if you
go back far enough to dig out the roots of things, we are all kinsmen
since Adam. I claim no relationship with Bruce Standing."

"I should like to meet this wicked kinsman of yours," she said, as
though thoughtful and in earnest.

"And," she added, "warned against coming into Big Pine, he will still
come openly?"

"At least," he grunted back at her, "there is one thing I have never
denied him; he's no coward. No Gallup was ever conceived who can tell
him where to head in and get away with it. Of course he will come and
in the wide open and on the run."

She rose to go.

"I wish you all success in your dealings with your bold, bad kinsman.
And I do thank you for your frank answer to my question. And now ...
good night."

"I'll walk with you ... if you will let me?"

"Thank you, but...."

They heard the clippety-clop of horses' hoofs, running. Not one
horse this time, but three, bearing their riders like so many
indistinguishable dark blurs through the night, sweeping on to the
cabin. A man, one of the riders, was laughing, and Lynette Brooke knew
that already here was Billy Winch returning. Babe Deveril, too, must
have recognized the voice, for he jerked his head up and stiffened
where he stood, oblivious of the fact that she had broken off with an
objecting "but," conscious only of a hated man's impertinence.

Those three were expert riders, men who lived in the saddle. They and
their horses seemed moulded centaurs for certainty and the grace of
the habitual horseman. They came on at such a break-neck speed and so
close that the girl whipped back, thinking that they would run her and
her companion down. Then, with that quick light pluck at the reins,
they brought their horses down from a mad run to a trembling standstill.

"He said you was to meet him ... _about now!_"

That was Billy Winch, lopsided and cock-sure in the saddle, the chosen
messenger of his impudent, reckless chief.

Winch flung out his arm. In the dark they could have made nothing of
the gesture had it not been for the sudden sibilant hiss of the rope,
swung by an iron wrist, cutting through the air. The noose fell with
absolute exactness; Winch was not ten steps away and the rope thrown
so unerringly settled about Babe Deveril's shoulders and with a quick
jerk grew so tight that it cut into the flesh. On the instant the two
men with Winch left their saddles and struck earth, both on the run
forward. And, while Lynette Brooke thought with horror to see sudden
death dealt, they threw themselves upon the man already fighting
against the imprisonment of thirty feet of hemp.

She had never seen men battle as now these three battled while Billy
Winch sitting back in his saddle with his rope drawn tight, watched and
laughed and cried out in broken phrases expressing his satisfaction
with the situation. Babe Deveril, roped as he was, gave her such proof
of prowess as to make her admiration for the physical perfection of
him leap high. She, too, cried out brokenly; she wanted to see him win
against these unfair odds. But the men clung on and Billy Winch sat
laughing and tautening his rope; blows and curses and throaty growls,
the whole thing lasted not half a minute. Babe Deveril was down,
mastered by three men.

"Well?" she heard him pant furiously. "What now? Murder or only robbery
again?"

"Again? Robbery?" That was Winch's untroubled voice, always gay. "When
was the other time, pardner?"

"He robbed me once of three thousand dollars. Now what?"

"Now," said Winch coolly, loosening his rope an inch or two but still
on guard, "it's only what I said before: You are to meet him at the
Gallup House, and I'm responsible for your coming. So we're taking you."

Deveril lay very still, two brawny men upon him. When he made no
immediate reply Winch waited patiently and knew, as the girl knew, that
a man must be given a moment in such circumstances to collect his wits.
Deveril's panting gradually gave over to more quiet breathing; he lay
flat on his back and saw the two heads bending over his own and, beyond
them, the stars. He started once to speak, but clamped his lips tight.
Still, in high tolerant patience, Billy Winch waited upon him while
Lynette Brooke, trembling from head to foot with excitement, waited in
burning impatience.

"You got me, boys."

She could scarcely recognize Deveril's voice; at first she thought that
it was one of the other men speaking.

"That's sensible." That was Billy Winch. Again he loosened his rope.

"I guess," Deveril went on quietly, "that the three of you, jumping me
like that, regular Standing sneak-style, can lead me down to Gallup's.
Or, if you care to let me up, I'll save you the trouble, and will go
without your help."

"That's your promise?" queried Winch.

"Yes ... damn you."

"That's fair. Let him go, boys."

The two men holding him down, got to their feet and went back to their
horses as if, their bit of work done, they had lost all interest, as
perhaps they had. Deveril got to his feet and cast the rope off. Winch
drew it in, coiled it, and tied it at his saddle strings.

"Most any time now," he said casually. "He's on his way and due in a
dozen minutes. All you got to do is listen for him!"

Deveril stood, both arms stiffening at his sides, his head lifted high,
looking straight at Winch.

"Some fine day," he said with low-toned quiet anger, "I'll get you or
I'll get him. And it will be a great day!"

"It sure will, Kid," laughed Winch. "_Adios_, and all best wishes."

The three riders, all seated by now, sped away, their horses kicking
up the fine dust fragrant with fallen pine-needles. Deveril remained,
rigid and angry, looking after them.

"You don't know," he said heavily, as the pounding hoof beats dwindled
and the scurrying blurs of figures faded, "you don't know and can't
guess...."

And when he remained where he was, stiff, hands clinched at his sides
and face lifted to the stars, she thought that for an instant it was
given her to glimpse for the first time in her life something of the
realities working in a man's very soul. Almost she could see the hot
tears in his angry eyes.

She was very deeply moved. Clearly here was no concern of hers; these
men, all of them including Deveril, were strangers to her and their
loves and hates had nothing to do with Lynette Brooke. But none the
less that current of men's lives ran so strong and swift that she felt
as though she were being actually and physically drawn into it. Nor,
though her eyes did not once leave the rigid figure of Deveril, did her
thoughts concern themselves exclusively with him. She felt a sudden
strange and burning interest in that other man whom she had never seen
but of whose wild nature she had heard. She resented the work of Bruce
Standing, done for him by his emissaries; she felt that she, no less
than Babe Deveril, could hate a man like that. And yet already there
had sprung up within her a strong desire to see him for herself.

"How can it be," she wondered, "that if he is the lawbreaker you call
him, thief and worse, men allow him to go on his way?"

He looked at her curiously. Then he laughed his short angry laugh.

"He's a man for you to look into, girl with the daring eyes! A cruel,
merciless devil if half the tales are true and, to top off his madness,
a man who has not hate but an abiding contempt for all your gentle sex.
But you wonder why men let him roam free? In the first place, haven't
I told you that he rolls in wealth? That's one thing. Another is his
cursed craft. You wonder why I say in one breath that he stole three
thousand dollars from me and then merely growl that he remains outside
jail?"

"I don't understand it, of course."

"Here you go, then: Half a dozen years ago I held that Bruce Standing
and I were friends. He sent me word to come up here into his
wilderness; I was to bring whatever money I could raise and there was
the chance to double it. I came. When I met him, twenty miles off
over yonder in a cabin where he lived like a solitary old bear, we
talked things out. With all of his big ventures he was on the edge of
bankruptcy. He was grabbing money in both hands from any source and
every source. He wanted my three thousand to throw in with the rest,
the damned selfish hog that he was and is. I laughed at him and you
could have heard him growl a mile. We slept that night in his cabin. In
the middle of the night in the pitch black dark, I felt a man on top of
me in my bunk, his hands at my throat. I got a tap over the head with
something; when I woke up my money belt was gone and it was morning and
there was Bruce Standing, singing and grinning and getting breakfast
and asking me if I had had bad dreams."

"But...."

"The law? When he wouldn't either admit or deny? When he just laughed
and said, 'Where in this country, _my country_, will you get a jury to
convict me?' And where, by the same token, was any money left in my
pockets to do legal battle with a man intrenched as he is in his old
mountains?"

"And he goes on prospering?"

"I tell you he was hanging on the rim of nowhere, broke. And he used my
three thousand and God knows what other stolen funds, and now again he
is the one power across a hundred miles up here!"

There was one other thing she meant to ask. Billy Winch had said just
now that Standing was on his way; that all they had to do was _listen_
for him. She supposed that he had meant the clatter of a running
horse's hoofs; and yet something in Winch's tone implied something
else. No doubt Deveril understood; she was parting her lips to ask
when, across the fields of the silent night, Bruce Standing himself
answered her. A sudden thrill shot through her blood.

As she was to learn later, there were many wonderful things about Bruce
Standing. Among them were his reckless impudence and his glorious
voice. Now, before ever she saw the man, she heard him singing,
somewhere far out, under the stars, alone with his wilderness, sending
far ahead of him into Big Pine the word of his coming. A coming which
was in defiance of the order which had gone forth and which, with his
superb assurance, he was ignoring. It was a voice as sweet and clear
and true, for the high notes and the low notes alike, as a silver
trumpet. She stopped breathing to listen. She felt her heart leap and
quicken; a tingling quivered along her nerves. Never had she heard
singing like that, wild, free, a voice to haunt and linger echoing in
the memory.

And then, all of a sudden, she was set shivering. For the voice had
done with the song and, at the end, with a great unexpected upgathering
of sound was poured forth into a long-drawn-out call that was like
nothing on earth save the howling of a wolf. The night call throbbed
and billowed across the disturbed silences and all of a sudden was gone
and the night was again hushed and still.

"There you have one of the two good reasons why men call him
Timber-Wolf," said Deveril with a grunt.


She scarcely heard. Somewhere, deep down within her, that golden
outpouring, that rush of fierceness at the end, echoed and lived on.




CHAPTER IV


Bruce Standing--Timber-Wolf, as he exulted in being called--was a man
of few friends and many enemies. In and about Big Pine men disliked
him wholeheartedly; many hated him so that they would have been glad
to know that he was dead. And this was chiefly because he jeered at
them and overrode them; because at every opportunity, going out of his
way to make opportunity more often than not, he thrust them aside and
trod his unobstructed path through and over them, setting his heel upon
many; because he spat upon their laws and made his own. And he, in his
turn, held them in high contempt simply because always they stood aside
for him. Those few who did not hate him were the handful of hard men
whom, in the working out of his wide, overweening ambitions, he had
drawn to him like so many feudal henchmen; they were, in their lesser
degrees, of his stamp; they belonged in their hearts to an older day
and a wider frontier; there were scores taking his pay whose blood ran
hot and lawless.

So to-night he came riding down the winding trail from his mountains,
singing. Thus he shot his spirit across the miles ahead of him, to
invade Big Pine before his coming, to taunt before he brought his hard
eyes to mock at them. He had received his word and his warning, and
made his retort in the one way possible to him.

The road in front of the Gallup House, leading on to the pines and
the aloof jail where Mexicali Joe glared out, was thronged. Half a
dozen bonfires had been started, and in the ruddy light men stirred
restlessly. Their talk was becoming purposeful; they gathered in
knots about men who were showing impatient signs of initiative; they
had murmured and were looking this way and that, over their shoulders,
shifting their feet as they gave increasingly free expression to their
determination. They were working themselves up to the pitch of defiance
of the law, as represented by Sheriff Jim Taggart; as yet no man cared
to be first and still they looked frequently at the deputy sheriff with
the rifle across his arm, and meant to set Mexicali Joe free. A man
broke away from one of these groups and ran back to the Gallup House,
to carry warning to Taggart.

It was at this moment that Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf, rode into
town. He rode alone, on a powerful red-bay gelding, silent now, a
great-bulked man sitting straight in the saddle. One saw nothing of his
face under the wide black hat.

He had no word of greeting for any man of them; after his
characteristic coldly insolent way, he appeared to ignore them utterly.
On the instant he, rather than Mexicali Joe, became the central object
of interest. Most knew who he was and what he stood for, and wherein
his visit among them was to be regarded as worthy of interest; those
who did not know, marked the hush which greeted him, and in lowered
voices demanded the explanation which, in voices equally low, was
briefly given. They looked for him to draw rein at Gallup's and swing
down and go in. But, knowing that you could never be sure of him, they
watched to see.

He disappointed them. That, in itself, was like him. No doubt he got
his bit of glee out of knowing that, where they had looked to him
for one thing, he had given them another. He rode on by Gallup's
without turning his head. Where a tree grew at the road-crossing
he dismounted, tying his horse. They saw that his rifle was in its
scabbard, slung to the saddle; he left it where it was, and went
forward on foot. Bigger than ever he loomed among them, appearing to
walk leisurely, yet taking the long, measured strides which carried him
along swiftly. They let him go on his way, their eyes following him
with growing interest, some of the more curious of the crowd stringing
along in his wake. And all this time no man had given him the time of
day, and he had not opened his lips.

Meanwhile they saw him turn his head this way and that, as though he
sought something. Before he had gone fifty paces he found what he
wanted. A man was piling wood on his fire; the axe which he had used a
moment ago lay on the ground, glinting in the firelight. Bruce Standing
stooped and caught it up and went on--straight toward the jail. A
sudden shout from many voices burst out; men came running to see, now
that they understood what he meant to do. And those about the jail,
when they saw, drew back to right and left hurriedly, leaving only the
deputy with the rifle across his arm to block the way.

Now, the axe could mean only one thing in the world, and the deputy saw
it, and saw who it was that carried it and called out a sharp, throaty
warning. Standing came on, his stride quickened. He was not a dozen
steps away, carrying his axe lightly in his right hand. The deputy
jerked his rifle up, the butt to his shoulder, shouting:

"Stop, or...."

The man fired, but he was not quick enough. At that distance, had his
finger touched the hair-trigger the tenth of a second sooner, he could
not have failed to kill. But he was not the man, even though armed,
to dictate to Timber-Wolf. For Standing made instant answer to that
command, "Stop!" and hurled his only weapon, a heavy wood-cutter's axe,
straight into the deputy's face. The bullet went wild; the man who had
fired it, through the rarest chance left alive, went down in a heap,
unconscious before he struck ground. For, though the axe blade had very
narrowly missed his face, the hard hickory handle had taken him full
across the eyebrows and came near being the death of him. His rifle
clattered against the rock wall of the jail.

Bruce Standing, who had paused but the briefest moment, came on and
stepped over the fallen man, and caught up his axe again. He stooped
long enough to make out that the deputy's head was not split open; then
he swung up his axe, high above his head, and brought it crashing down
against the thick oak padlocked door. The sound of the stroke echoed
and the echoes were lost in the striking of the second blow. And, when
for the third time the axe rose and fell, flashing in the light of the
fires, the door fell.

"Out you come, Joe."

Standing's deep, full voice rumbled in a sort of rich, placid content.
And out like a rabbit, darted Mexicali Joe, looking pinched and starved
and frightened.

"It is you, Señor!" he gasped.

"The crowd will be after you," said Standing. "And I'm not going to
worry about what happens to you after this."

He was turning away when Joe caught his sleeve, and stood on his
tiptoes and began a rapid, excited whispering. Standing hesitated, then
laughed and shook the man off.

"You are a good little sport, Mexico," he chuckled. "Now, on your way."

Joe, with never another look behind him, turned and ran, disappearing
about the corner of the jail, sending back an account of himself in
the sound of his racing footfalls among the pines.

Once again came a great shouting from the crowd in the road; they had
seen, and now that they had their hearts' desire in having Mexicali
Joe free, they saw themselves losing all hope of coming at his secret
because they were losing him. Their brief interest in Bruce Standing
was dead for the present; Joe ran like a scared cat, and they, like so
many yelping dogs, set after him. And Timber-Wolf, watching, standing
where he was with his big hands on his hips, roared with laughter.


Babe Deveril and the girl, Lynette Brooke, had seen much of all this.
They were at the time on their way to the Gallup House, she to her
room and he to his meeting with his lawless kinsman. Thus it happened
that Deveril's first sight of Timber-Wolf in half a dozen years, and
Lynette's first sight of him in all her life, was at a moment when he
was engaged in an episode of the type which made him stand apart as the
man he was.

"Taggart ought to kill him for that," grunted Deveril. "And he probably
will before the night is over."

The girl shivered as she had done just now when she saw a rifle
raised and an axe flung. And yet within her, being woman, there was
the exultation which would not stay down, and the thought: "He is
magnificent.... A brute, maybe, but surely magnificent!" And she knew
that she would never be content until she had seen his face and looked
into his eyes. Already, being woman, she was concerned with his eyes;
whether they would be large or small, set wide apart or close together.
She wanted him to be the lion, not the wild boar.


The remainder of the night's happenings was to come, because of the
simple arrangement of rooms at the Gallup House, within the experience
of both Deveril and Lynette. They saw Bruce Standing go down the road
and followed him. He did not once look back. When he came to his
horse, he stopped only long enough to take down his rifle. Plainly
now he meant to go direct to the Gallup House. All the while men were
streaming by him, hurrying to join in the chase after the escaping
Mexicali Joe. So, by the time he came to Gallup's door, there were not
over a score of men remaining in the house.

The Gallup House was a long, squat building of two low stories, its
three main rooms on the ground floor facing the road. These were the
dining-room; a room given over to Gallup's office, and sufficient space
for a dozen chairs and a big sheet-iron stove--a sort of living-room
for Gallup's guests, when he had any; and, finally, a room which had in
older times been the barroom, and which, despite changing conditions,
remained in practice a barroom. At this hour both dining-room and
sitting-room were deserted, and the score or so of men, Gallup and
Taggart among them, were in the bar. Here were round tables, for it was
a big room, for games of cards or dice.

Deveril and the girl parted at the centre door through which she
entered direct into the general living-room. They saw Bruce Standing go
to the last of the three doors and step in unhesitantly, still carrying
his rifle lightly. Deveril followed him, and saw the looks on the faces
of Taggart and Gallup and some of their following.

"I stepped in to buy the drinks for the crowd," Timber-Wolf said
quietly, all the while his eyes flashing back and forth. "Gents, the
treats are on me."

Jim Taggart, his hands on his hips, was eying him like a hawk, and in
Taggart's face was a dull, hot flush. Gallup, however, standing close
at Taggart's side, was the first to speak. He cried out angrily:

"No man drinks with you in my house! Not as long as I live. And...."

Bruce Standing drew a wallet from his pocket.

"About twenty men here," he said, in the same slow, steady voice. "As
it's a night of celebration, we'll make it a dollar a drink. That's
twenty bucks, easy money, Young Gallup," he wound up with a sneer in
his voice. For all men knew Gallup's cupidity, which clutched at small
as well as large amounts.

But Gallup, shaken with rage, only shouted back at him:

"To hell with your twenty dollars! And with you, Bruce Standing!"

"So? Well, twenty dollars isn't much, after all, is it? Gents, we drink
to-night and damn the cost! Two bones for every glass of whiskey;
that's forty of the iron men, Gallup. Call Ricky with the bottles."

A couple of men laughed at that. Gallup, however, seeing himself
baited, roared out:

"I tell you, _no_! And out you go. You are not wanted here."

"Low bid loses, high bid wins," said Standing. Now he opened his wallet
and disclosed a tight pad of bills. "Three dollars for each and every
glass of imitation hootch! God, what a pirate you are, Gallup! Now,
trot it out."

"Sixty dollars, clean-cut velvet, Gal," said a man at his elbow,
willing to drink with the devil so the drink came paid for.

"And at last Young Gallup hesitates, his soul tempted by a row of dirty
pennies," gibed Standing. "Look, men, and you'll see that pale-yellow
soul of his snared clean out of his stingy hide. Look, Gallup! And
if you can say no this time you have established a new record for
yourself!"

Slowly, while they watched him, he counted off ten ten-dollar
bank-notes, and, with a careless gesture, tossed them to a table.

"That's for one round of your rotten bootleg liquor," he said
contemptuously. "Now, step out, Gallup, and show them the sort of
money-grabbing porker you are. You know you haven't got the guts to
save your own besmirched pride at the price of a hundred dollars."

Gallup would have sold out for far less, but Timber-Wolf was not the
man to haggle over what he termed dirty pennies. He shrugged his heavy
shoulders and caught up the money, counting it carefully, stuffing it
into his pocket and growling:

"You're not wanted here, Standing; but any time you're fool enough to
pay a hundred dollars for the privilege, I'll take the rules down for a
round of drinks! Hey, Ricky!"

Standing only grunted at that, though his eyes flashed.

"I come when I please and where I please, and you know it, Young
Gallup! And if you think you are the man to throw _me_ out, hop to it
and don't let a little hundred dollars hold you back! Better than that;
if you'll tie into me right now and chuck me out of doors, getting all
your hangdogs that will take a chance with you to help you, you've got
my word that I'll add a second hundred as your bonus! Or a thousand, by
heaven! And right now you'll toe the scratch or back down and shut your
mouth."

Gallup had never before in his life been faced down like that. And with
so many men looking on! Yet in his heart, though no man had ever called
him a coward, he was afraid of Timber-Wolf; mortally afraid. There was
the look of death itself in the eyes flashing into his own. He sought
to laugh the thing off, saying, with what semblance of fine scorn he
could master:

"_Your_ word!"

"I am no liar," said Standing wrathfully. "And no man in all Arizona
and New Mexico ever called me liar. Do you, Young Gallup?"

"Bruce!" called Sheriff Taggart sharply, for the first time speaking a
word. "What's the sense of trying to start a row? Drop all this foolery
and let me have a word with you."

"That's fair enough," agreed Standing. "I've no desire to break
Gallup's neck so long as he leaves me alone. But make it snappy, as I
have another engagement."

"I want to talk with you privately, Bruce." Taggart obviously was
angry, and yet it was equally clear that when it came to dealing with
the Timber-Wolf, Jim Taggart meant to hold himself well in hand.

"I won't stand for corner-whisperings," Standing told him sternly. "If
it happens you've got anything for my set of ears, they're listening.
But it's right now or never."

Taggart's black and ominous scowl deepened, and he shuffled his feet
back and forth, and in the end stamped them in his anger. But still he
held the curb line upon himself.

"You always was a strong-headed man, Bruce, that would have things his
way. So be it. And I guess, being a man myself that stands on his own
two legs, I can say it all in one mouthful: You and me has always been
friends. Are we that yet?"


Now for the first time Lynette Brooke, looking in from the adjoining
room through a door just ajar, saw Timber-Wolf clearly, his face under
his big hat unhidden as he turned a little in order to look straight
at Taggart. He did not see her, and she looked her fill at him; he
gave her a start of surprise, and after that start came a surge of
admiration. He was a young, blond giant of a man, eyes very blue and
laughing and _innocent_! And wide-spaced! A man no older than Babe
Deveril, one who bore himself like some old buccaneer or Norse Viking,
before men who would have given much for the courage and the power to
fly at his bared white throat and drag the life out of him; a man who
overflowed with his superabundant vital energy, and who stamped his own
character, through sheer force of unbroken will, upon others about him;
a man who believed in himself and who was at once implacable and gay.
Heartless he looked, and yet full of the dancing joy of life. She felt
herself on the instant both strongly drawn to him and frightened; the
mad vision presented itself to her of herself in his mighty arms. And
the odd tremor which shook her body, as she whipped back with flaming
face, was compounded of thrill and shiver. He confused her; at once she
was amazed that he could be like this and convinced that the owner of
that glorious voice which she had heard pulsing out across the fields
of night could be no jot different.... While she drew back to a dim
corner of the room, she managed not to lose sight of him.

His clear blue eyes kept on laughing; his was that silent laughter
which arises from the soul, and which mocked and insulted and was like
the cold mirth of Satan. And yet, in some vague way which she was all
at loss to plumb, and which troubled her strangely, Lynette Brooke
_knew_ that this corsair of a man was laughing because there was cold
anger in his heart and because, for some mysterious reason of his own,
he was set on holding his anger hidden. It troubled her so that, within
herself, she cried out passionately against _knowing_ through leaping
instinct anything of what might be going on within the dark caverns of
the Timber-Wolf's mind and heart. She wanted him and herself to be as
far apart as north and south; she meant them to be. And all the while
that compelling interest which he awoke within her tugged mightily and
she yielded to it in that, keeping out of his sight, she lost nothing
of the play of expressions upon his face.

As yet she knew nothing of that one thing which Bruce Standing,
forthright exponent of untrammelled manhood, held to be his greatest
weakness; the one and only thing of which he was bitterly ashamed. A
trifle, it amounted to; and a trifle he would have accounted it in any
other strong man. Yet within his hard breast it awoke the intensest
feeling of shame. And it was a thing which invariably sprang forth
upon him and humiliated him whenever once he let his passions fly. A
laughable thing, and yet one that put tears into his bright blue eyes.
But, on guard against it, he strove to curb his anger.

Of all this and the thing itself she knew nothing. But she felt and she
knew that the Timber-Wolf, laughing into Jim Taggart's gloomy face,
was fighting down his own anger, as a man may fight wild beasts. She
awaited, scarcely breathing, the answer he would make to that question
from Taggart: "Are we still friends?"

"No!" shouted Standing, and laughed at him. "No, by God!"

That was man talk! Straight, simple words--words that left little
enough to be said. But Taggart, though his face grew hotter and his
eyes seemed burning in their sockets, demanded further:

"And why not, Bruce Standing? You and me have been pardners. You
know and I know and a thousand men know what sort of a bond and an
understanding has always, for more than a dozen years, been between
us. And now, if that is busted and wiped out, I ask you, as man to man:
'_Why?_'"

"And as man to man," cried Timber-Wolf, his eyes brightening, "I'll
answer you, Jim Taggart. When I knew you for a man who played his
game he-man style and stood up and fought hard and took his chances,
I was for you! And I went out and shaped things up for you and made
you sheriff. And, when men got to know you and wanted no more of you
as master of law here in the mountains, I lifted you over their heads
and made you sheriff again and again. And now that you are done for
and are on your last legs, I would have done the same thing once
more. But when you got panicky, thinking that this was your last term
of office, and began to feather your dirty nest by running with the
breed of this Young Gallup and his crowd, and when I found the sort
of contemptible, hide-in-the-brush jobs you were pulling off, I got a
bellyful of you and your new kind of ways. And you double-crossed me,
thinking I wouldn't know! And on top of everything else, running neck
and neck with Gallup, you threw Mexicali Joe into jail ... knowing that
Joe, puny blackbird as he is, had been a friend of mine. For that I've
done two things, Jim Taggart: I've smashed your damned jail door off
its hinges and I've thrown you over. And there, until I'm sick of talk
about it, you've got your answer!"

Taggart, too, and with his own ulterior reasons, kept his head cool. He
said ponderously:

"You broke the law, Bruce, when you let Joe go. For that I could run
you in. But all Joe done was steal a pocketful of nuggets, and we got
them back. And there's bigger things than that, anyway. You and me has
been friends and so I'll go slow. But we got to have another talk.
You've got me down wrong, old-timer."

Never had Lynette Brooke seen such utter contempt as that which now
filled Bruce Standing's eyes. But he made no answer. At this moment the
man Ricky came in with a gallon earthen jug and began to pour out the
glasses set upon a table. Here was the Timber-Wolf's hundred-dollar
treat. Standing himself waved it aside and:

"I drink no poison in this house," he said briefly. And as he spoke he
saw for the first time Babe Deveril standing just inside the door, not
two steps behind him.

"By the Lord, Babe, I'm glad to see you! Shake!" he shouted, thrusting
out his big hand.

But now it was Deveril's turn to be cool and contemptuous.

"You and I, Bruce Standing," he said in that clear, insolent voice of
his, "have gone a long way beyond the point of shaking hands."

Standing frowned as he muttered:

"Don't be a young ass, Babe."

But Deveril only shook his head, retorting:

"I have come, according to promise, for a word with you. Suppose we
make it snappy."

"The same little Baby Devil!" Standing jeered at him, making Deveril
stiffen with that look of his eyes. "I'll give you a new dance tune
before I'm through with you. Come ahead!"--and with a suddenness which
took Lynette Brooke by surprise he struck back the door leading to the
room where she was and led the way in, Deveril at his heels.

But, though there were three or four coal-oil lamps burning in the room
which he had just quitted, there was but one here where she was. And
because its chimney was smoky and the flame burned crookedly and she
was in a dim corner, he could make nothing of the look of her. Had she
remained perfectly still he would scarcely have noted her presence. But
now she was suddenly impatient to be gone, and went hurrying to a door
which led into a hallway, the hallway in turn leading to her room at
the back of the house.

"A woman," growled Timber-Wolf disgustedly, getting only a glimpse of a
hastily departing figure. "It begins to look as though a man couldn't
pick him a spot in the wilderness that the female didn't crowd in."

Lynette heard, and knew with a flash of resentment that he did not care
whether she had heard or not, and that with the last word he would
be turning to Deveril and forgetting that he had seen her. She went
slowly down the hall, three or four paces only. There she paused and
lingered; it was no such pale incentive as curiosity which held her
now, but a peculiar fascination. Two men like those two, by far the
strongest-willed and most dynamic men she had ever known, with the
business which lay between them, made her ignore and give no thought to
the convention of shut ears against the talk of others. So she stood
here in the dim hallway, poised for instant flight if need be to her
own door, a couple of yards farther on.

"Now," said Deveril impatiently, "what is it?"

Timber-Wolf's mood softened and the old bright laughter welled up in
his dancing blue eyes.

"I pass it to you, Kid," he chuckled. "You've grown a man since last we
met. We'll not forget, either one of us ... will we?... that night in
my cabin?"

"I'll not forget," returned Deveril coolly. "And some day I'll square
the count."

"_You'll_ square the count?" The keen eyes twinkled like bits of
deep-blue glass on a frosty morning. "I was under the impression that
always you have held that I was the man to square things. Accusing me,
as you did, of so wicked a deed!"

"It was a treacherous thing at best," muttered Deveril, his own eyes
bleak with that bitter hatred which never slept. "I didn't know then
that you were, among other things, a damned thief."

Timber-Wolf's sudden laughter boomed out joyously, and he smote his
thigh so that the sound was sharp and loud, like a gunshot.

"But you knew that always and always and once again always I take what
I want! I asked you for the money, and I made you a fair proposition: I
would guarantee that you doubled your dinky three thousand, and I'd see
you had interest on top of it. And you hadn't the nerve to chip in...."

"Wasn't the fool, you mean!"

"And so ... I went and took it! And I took from other quarters the same
way. What I wanted I took. And when they all said I was busted in two,
like a rotten stick, I fooled 'em, and laughed at the whole crowd. And
now I'm whole again--and I've got what I want. That's me, Baby Devil! A
man who goes his way and blazes his trail wide. A man you can't stop!"

"A cursed, insufferable, conceited ass, rather than wolf," snapped
Deveril.

And still, in the rarest of high good humor, Timber-Wolf laughed, and
his rich, deep voice went rumbling through the house.

"You're sore, Baby Devil. And you're envious."

"Not of you, Bruce Standing! You...."

"Let's chop out the Sunday-school stuff, Kid!" cried Standing
impatiently. "I don't need your lecturings. Maybe I'm not what your
puling moralists call a good man, and maybe I'm not 'clean-hearted and
pure' and all that drivel. But, by God, I'm a man who's got his own
code and who sticks to it, blow high, blow low! A code that, if more
men followed it, would give us a world with more men in it and fewer
mollycoddle pups!"

"It would appear," sneered Deveril, "that you remain well contented
with yourself!"

"Like the rest of humanity--he, she, and it!" said Timber-Wolf equably.
"And so much for friendly chatter. Now a word whispered in your pretty
ear, since the Lord knoweth how many busybodies are straining their own
ears to listen-in on us."

Lynette, in the hallway, stiffened and felt her face grow hot. But,
with a strange new-born stubbornness, she remained where she was.

Timber-Wolf came a step closer to Deveril, and, lowering his voice so
that Lynette lost the words, he muttered:

"I _am_ under obligations to you, my dear kinsman, and since there is a
tough crowd in town, any man of whom would whack you over the head for
a handful of silver, I am keeping this between us." He took his wallet
from his pocket the second time, and drew from it several bank-notes.
These he proffered to Deveril, his eyes still bright with his cold
mirth.

"Count it and stick it in your jeans," he said softly. "There's your
three thousand. With it is another three thousand, the double of the
bet which I promised you. And with that is another two thousand, which
is a gain of ten per cent for you for six years, all rough figuring. In
all eight thousand in coin of the realm ... and I'm much obliged," he
ended mockingly, "for your generous loan!"

Babe Deveril, taken off his feet by the unexpectedness of this, stared
at the bank-notes in the great hard palm, and from them to the grinning
face. And slowly, from a conflicting tumult of emotions, in which,
strangely enough, anger surged highest, Deveril's face went violently
red.

"Damn you and your eternal posings!" Lynette caught those words,
clear and high. But she missed the eloquence of the shrug into which
Timber-Wolf's shoulders lifted.

"It's up to you, Kid," said Standing, and still he kept his voice low
and quiet. The money lay in his outstretched palm. "The minute I make
my offer I consider my obligation fulfilled. If you are too proud to
take it ... well, then, the devil take you for a fool, and I'll use the
money elsewhere."

Deveril put out his hand, selecting from the several bills.

"My three thousand, I take," he said, "because it is mine. And the two
thousand with it, judging that fair interest, considering the risks
my money took. As for the rest--" he whipped back, and his voice,
because of the emotions near choking him, was little more than a harsh
whisper--"you can keep it and go to hell with it! I want none of your
cursed charity!"

Timber-Wolf's thick eyebrows lifted, and a new look dawned in his eyes.

"By thunder, Baby Devil, you've the makings of a man in you!" he
exclaimed. "You and I could be friends!"

"Don't fool yourself. We won't be!"

"I didn't say we would!" And Bruce Standing glared at him angrily. "I
only said we _could_. There's a difference there, Kid. I could eat
tripe, but I'm damned if I ever will!"

As the two men eyed each other, it was impossible to conceive of any
earthly happening bringing them within the warm enclosure of man's
friendship.

But there was money in sight, and money in the hands of Timber-Wolf
was habitually offered to fate as free money. And always, in the heart
of Babe Deveril, when there was money in his pocket and money in sight,
there was the impulse to hazard, to win or lose, and know the wild
moment of a gambler's pleasure. And so he said swiftly:

"Just the same, I have a claim on that three thousand of yours!"

"Yes?" And again the heavy eyebrows were lifted as Timber-Wolf's
interest was snared.

"If it's mine, it comes to me. If it's yours, you keep it and take
three thousand from me to boot. I'll flip a coin with you!"

"Baby Devil!" laughed Standing softly. "Oh, Baby Devil, if your mamma
could only see you now!"

"Are you on?" demanded Deveril, in a suppressed voice.

"On? With bells, Baby Devil! Heads or tails, and let her flicker!"

Lynette Brooke could catch only enough of all this to set her
wondering. The two men were agreeing upon something, and all the while
jeering at each other, and, though they checked their words and subdued
their voices, anger was directing whatever they did or meant to do.

Both men were eager and tense. For both made of life a game of hazard.
With Babe Deveril three thousand dollars, to be won or lost in the
flicker of an eyelid, was a large sum of money; to Bruce Standing, a
man of millions, it was no great thing. Yet neither of them was more
tense and eager than the other. The game was the thing.

Automatically, perhaps subconsciously intending to have a free hand,
since his rifle was still held in his left, Bruce Standing stuffed his
spurned bank-notes into his pocket. But it was Deveril who, having
conceived the idea, was first to produce a coin; a silver dollar, and
mate to those other silver dollars which he had presented to the girl,
Maria.

"Heads or tails, Standing?" he demanded, holding the coin ready to toss
ceilingward.

"Throw it," said Timber-Wolf, with his characteristic grin, "and I name
it while it's in the air. For I don't know what sleight-of-hand you
may have acquired these later years, and I don't trust you, my sweet
kinsman! And shoot fast, as some one's coming."

For both had heard the rattle of hoofs in the road outside, as some
horseman came racing up to the door.

"Name it, then," cried Deveril, and shot the coin, spinning, upward.

"Heads!" Timber-Wolf named it. "Always heads. My motto there, Kid!"

The silver dollar, with such zest had it been pitched upward, struck
the ceiling and dropped to the floor, rolling. It rolled half across
the room, both men springing after it, stooping to watch and know how
fate decided matters between them. And in the end there was no decision
at all. For the coin rolled half-way into a crack between the boards
and stood thus, on edge, neither heads nor tails.

"Flip her again," growled Bruce Standing, deep in his throat. "And step
lively!"

Already the horse's hoofs, as its rider plucked at the reins, were
sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin and tossed it again. And
this time, true to his word, and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing
called before the silver dollar struck the floor:

"Tails!"

And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, and at last lay
flat, and the two stooped over it so close that almost the black hair
of one and the reddish hair of the other brushed, they saw that it was
heads. And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, "Always heads!" had
lost three thousand dollars. And at the instant their intruder burst in
upon them from the road.

Here, after his own strange fashion, came Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf's
one-legged retainer. An able-bodied man and agile had been Billy Winch
all of his hard life until, after a horse had fallen on him, the doctor
had cut his leg off above the knee. "You'll go on crutches the rest
of your life," they told him that day. And Billy Winch, weak and pale
and sick and haggard-eyed, muttered at them: "You're a pack of damn
liars! I'll cut my throat before I'll be a crutch-man." And he had kept
his oath. Seldom did he stir save on the back of his horse. And when
needs must that he go horseless some few steps, he went "like a man,
one-leg style, hopping!" Now, hopping on his one foot so that, with his
pinched, weazened face and small bright eyes, he resembled some uncouth
bird, he bounced into the room.

"I got word for you, Bruce Standing!" he cried excitedly.

"Clear out, you fool...."

"I won't clear out! This is the real thing. Listen: A man, and it
was a man paid by Young Gallup, has just went down the road with a
double-barrel shotgun, and the dirty skunk has shot your horse, good
old Sunlight ... dead!" By now Billy Winch was whimpering; tears,
whether of rage or grief, filled his bright eyes and streamed down
his face. And all the while, to maintain his balance, he was hopping
unsteadily about, his outflung hand groping for the wall.

And now at last Timber-Wolf's anger, a devastating, all-engulfing
rage which mastered him utterly, was unleashed. And with its release
came inevitably that one condition of which he was so terribly
ashamed. He cried out aloud, in a great, roaring voice ... and in
the fierce grip of his wrath his utterance was so affected that his
speech came enunciated in the most incongruous of fashions. For it was
Timber-Wolf's burning mortification that he, the strongest man of these
mountains, when in the clutch of his mightiest passions ... _lisped_
like an affected school-girl!

"Thunlight dead!" he stormed. "You thay that to me? Yeth? Then, by God,
juth ath thure as I live, I'll...."

He cut himself short; his face, instantly red with rage, grew redder
with shame. He snapped his great jaws shut, and across the room Deveril
heard the grinding of his teeth. He swerved about, charging toward the
door, which gave entrance to the room where Gallup was.

But a far more critical moment than Timber-Wolf knew was ticking in the
clock of his life. In the hall stood the girl, Lynette. She had heard
all of these words of Billy Winch, and she had heard Bruce Standing's
bellowed rejoinder. And she, already taut-nerved and keyed up, what
with fatigue and a strenuous night, was so struck by the absurdity of
a strong man lisping his passionate utterance, that she broke out into
uncontrollable laughter. And when Lynette Brooke's laughter caught her
unawares, it rang out as clearly as the chiming of silver bells. Now,
with nerves quivering, she was almost hysterical....

Timber-Wolf came to as dead a halt as though it had been a bullet
instead of the mockery of a girl's laughter which cut into his heart.
For only mockery he made of it, he who upon this one point, as upon no
other, was so sensitive. And to have a human female laugh at him!

His rage threatened to choke him. But now, even as he had forgotten
his lost bet with Babe Deveril, so did he forget a dead horse and Young
Gallup. The entire violence of his anger was deflected, turned upon a
woman who had eavesdropped upon his ignominy and then assailed him with
the mockery of her mirth. He who held all womankind in such high scorn,
to be now a woman's laughing-stock! He, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf!
He snatched at the hall door, and under his attack one of the ancient
hinges broke, and the door, flung back, leaned crazily against the
wall. And all the while, though he kept his teeth so hard set that his
jaws bulged with the strain, he was muttering curses in his throat. He
burst into the dim hallway, his brain on fire.

She heard him coming. More than that, and before, it seemed to her that
her instinct told her that he would come, bearing down upon her like a
hurricane, in such violence as would stamp her into the earth. She had
not meant to laugh at him; she did not want to laugh. And yet now all
that she could do was clap her hands over her mouth and run before him
as a blown leaf races before the storm. She sped down the hall, plunged
into her room, slammed the door after her.

... And in the hallway she heard the pounding of his heavy boots.
Already he was at her door. Before she could shoot the bolt, he had
gripped the knob. When he flung his weight against the panel, it flew
back, and under the impact she was thrown backward, and would have
fallen had it not been that she brought up against her bed. Here she
half fell, but was erect before he had stormed across the threshold.

"You...."

Why had she run from him? She was not afraid of him and she was not
afraid of anything on earth. Or, at least, making a sort of religion
out of it, that was the thing which she had always told herself. Just
at hand, on the little table by the open window, was her revolver. And
she could shoot and shoot true to the mark. She had told Babe Deveril
that she could take care of herself. She stood, rigid and defiant, and
in her heart unafraid.

On a bracketed shelf over her bed was a kerosene lamp which she had
left burning when she had gone out. She could see the working of his
lips. And he saw her.


Now those who knew Timber-Wolf best knew this about him--that he had
no use for womankind; that he held all of the female of the human race
to be weaklings and worse, leeches upon the strength of man, mere
outwardly glossed tricks of a scheming nature; things contemptible.
And at this moment, surely, Timber-Wolf was in no mood to revise for
the better his sweeping and deep-based opinion. But now, despite all
trumped-up reasonings, no matter how sincere, his first clear view of
this girl gave him pause.

She was superb. Physically, if not otherwise. For the first thing, her
hair snared him. Strong men are always caught by films; a big brute
of a man who may break his triumphant way through iron bands grows
powerless under a frail wisp of a frail woman's hair. In the hall
she had held her hat in her hands; her hair, loosely upgathered and
insecurely and hastily confined, had tumbled all about her face as she
bolted into her room. He saw that first of all. And then he saw her
eyes. At the moment, already in her room with the door slammed shut
behind him and his back against it, he looked, glowering, into her
eyes. And he found them at once soft and still amazingly unafraid;
those daring eyes of Lynette Brooke, daughter of a dancing-girl and of
the dare-all miner, Brooke. Unafraid, though he who might have choked
the life out of her between finger and thumb, turned his furious face
upon her.

He paid her tribute with a flash of his shining blue eyes. That was
for the physical beauty of her; that said, "Outwardly, girl, you are
superb!" Yet it remained that, his one weakness shaming him, she had
laughed at him. For the first time in his life a girl had laughed at
him....

She saw the sudden changing fires in his eyes and stepped closer to the
table on which lay that small, high-powered implement which puts the
weak on a level with the strong....

"By God, girl...."

There came a sudden sharp rapping at the door against which his
broad back leaned. There was Babe Deveril, who had lunged after him.
Timber-Wolf, growling savagely, flung himself about, for the second
ignoring the girl and facing the door. Deveril, just without, heard
the bolt shot home. And then he heard the second, the sinister sound.
A revolver shot, muffled by the four walls of a room. And he heard
Timber-Wolf, whose back had been turned to Lynette Brooke and the
gun upon the table, curse deep down in his throat, and heard almost
simultaneously the scraping of the heavy boots and the crashing fall
of the big body. Deveril shook fiercely at the door. Then he turned
and ran back down the hall, meaning to go through the room he had just
quitted and on through so as to come to Lynette's room by the rear.

But in the sitting-room Billy Winch, teetering on his one foot, grasped
him by the arm, demanding to know what had happened. Deveril savagely
shook him off, and Winch, raising the echoes with a shrilling voice,
toppled over and fell. But little time had been wasted, and yet, before
Deveril could free himself and run on, Lynette Brooke ran in upon him.
Her eyes were wild and staring; in her hand was her revolver, so lately
fired that the last wisp of smoke had not cleared from the barrel.

"Babe Deveril," she gasped. "They are after me!"

It was Sheriff Taggart who was after her. He was almost at her heels,
shouting:

"Stop! In the name of the law! You are under arrest for killing Bruce
Standing...."

Babe Deveril carried no weapon upon him. And he saw Taggart's pistols
dragging at his belt, the heavy forty-fives which, as sheriff, he was
entitled to carry openly. Taggart's hands were almost upon her.

Deveril did the one thing. He caught at the gun in Lynette's hand
and wrenched it free, and, having no time for accurate aim, did not
fire, but hurled the revolver itself, with all of his might, full into
Taggart's face. And Taggart, as though a thunderbolt had struck him,
went down, with a steel barrel driven against his skull, near the
temple, and lay a crumpled, still heap.

"The house is full of Taggart's friends!" Deveril cried sharply,
warning her and, at the same time, thinking for himself.

But already she was running again. She ran out into the road; but there
the brisk-burning bonfires made night into day. She dodged back into
the shadow cast by the corner of the house, and ran about to the rear.
Deveril hesitated only an instant; men were already rushing in from the
room where they had been drinking. He followed her through the door,
and here again he paused. Men were already stooping over the sheriff;
he heard one cry out the single word, "Dead!" His brain caught fire.
The girl had killed Timber Wolf; he had killed Jim Taggart. He and she
were fugitives. He followed her again into the shadows, running to the
back of the house.

And as he ran one thing angered him: He had won three thousand dollars
from Bruce Standing, and that three thousand dollars was at this moment
in Standing's pocket. And being Babe Deveril, who dared at least as far
as most men dare, he meant to have what fortune allowed him.

And so, when he came to an open and lighted window, and looked in and
saw the sprawling body of Timber-Wolf, Babe Deveril unhesitatingly
threw his leg over the sill and went in. In his judgment Standing was
as good as dead, shot in the back. Well, that was no affair of his,
and certainly he was not the man to grieve. Let "Serve him right" be
his epitaph. Deveril, in a feverish haste, began to feel in the fallen
man's pockets.

He found the bank-notes and stuffed them into his own pocket. At the
window, as he turned back to it, while he heard men hammering at the
locked door, he saw Lynette Brooke's white face. She had been watching
him. Yet even that, in the present need for haste, made no impression.
He slipped through, hearing a discordant shouting of many voices.

"We are in for it now," he panted. "Run!"

He caught her hand, and, holding it tight, the two raced into the
darkness under the pines.




CHAPTER V


Billy Winch was the first to come to the bolted door. He hopped swiftly
down the hall and beat at it with his fists. Snarling and snapping,
growling and finally whimpering, for the world like a dog, he cried out
through his fierce mutterings:

"I'm the only man here that can save him if he ain't dead already. And
if he is dead...."

He hurled himself bodily at the door; he jumped up at it and kicked it
with his one heavy boot and, falling, rolled over and crawled to his
foot and struck again.

The Gallup House had become a vortex of violent excitement. It was
shouted out that two men were dead, Bruce Standing shot by the new
adventuress whom many had noted; Jim Taggart killed as he sought to put
her under arrest. Voices clashed and so did thoughts and purposes. Men
streamed out into the firelit road; they heard running feet marking
the way the two fugitives had taken, and started headlong in pursuit,
stumbling and falling in the dark, and for the first few moments
making slight headway. Others, Gallup among them, were already with
Taggart, lifting him up and bearing him off to a bed. Still others,
hearkening to the strange word that a woman had killed Bruce Standing,
were suddenly charged with the morbid curiosity to look upon this man
dead. They found their way to the lighted window through which Lynette
Brooke had escaped, and through it made their way into the room, until
the small space was thick with their jostling bodies. All the while
Billy Winch was beating at the door, yelling curses and, at last, when
he heard them within, commanding and imploring to be let in. A man,
stepping over Timber-Wolf's body, obeyed and Billy Winch hopped in.
Immediately he was down at his chief's side, squatting, after his own
awkward fashion, upon a knee and balanced by a stub of a leg.

"He _ain't_ dead!" Billy Winch's breath was expelled in a long,
grateful sigh, which, before his lungs flattened, was choked by a
nervous giggle. "I'm here, Timber," he said softly. "You know me, old
boy!"

"You damn little fool," was Bruce Standing's grunted answer. Yet his
voice was gentle and his eyes for one rare and fleeting instant as soft
as a lover's.

Billy Winch, a man of resource, was now himself again, cool and past
all silly sentiment. He turned from the fallen man to the crowding
onlookers, and his eyes darkened with fury. He snatched up the rifle
which Standing had let fall, and, still kneeling, whipped it up over
his head, brandishing it like a war club.

"Out of this, every one of you!" he shouted at them. "Give him air and
give me room to work in, else I bash your brains out!"

Had he been less in earnest some man of them might have found occasion
to mark the absurdity of a cripple, squatting on the floor, waving a
gun over his head and ordering them about. But as things were, no man
appeared to glimpse this angle of it. One by one, with his eyes and the
eyes of Timber-Wolf glaring at them, they went hastily out through the
window.

"Ought to get a doctor in a hurry," one of the retreating men was
suggesting.

Billy Winch cursed him into silence. For Winch held himself as good a
physician and surgeon as any, having served in the veterinary capacity
for a score of years and having a natural aptitude for treating bad
cuts and gun wounds. Further, he loved this Timber-Wolf; and beyond,
with all his heart, Billy Winch distrusted and hated the breed of
doctors. His stump of a leg he attributed to the profound ignorance
drawn by the medical and surgical profession from their books of
theories.

"You ain't even bad hurt, Timber," he growled, as though disappointed
and angered that he had been tricked into a show of affection and
fright. His look accused Standing of having wilfully deceived him.
"Must have been just the shock, what we call the impack, that knocked
you over.... Oh, lie still, can't you!"

But Bruce Standing gave him no heed, and continued in his attempt to
draw himself up. While Billy Winch sat on the floor and looked up at
him, the bigger man got slowly to his feet and stood leaning against
the door.

"Anyway, get over on the bed and lay down and I'll look you over.
You're bleeding like a stuck pig. And you're as white as a clean rag."

Bruce Standing's face was already haggard and drawn, his mouth hard
with pain. Yet he ignored Winch's command, and walked slowly, forcing
his steps to be steady, to the one chair in the room. He sat down
upon it heavily, straddling it as though it were a horse, facing the
chair-back, and thus leaving his own back clearly proffered for Winch's
inspection. Winch got up and hopped to him, railing at him the while
for not lying down and obeying orders.

"Help me get my coat off," commanded Timber-Wolf curtly. "Then you can
dig around and find out what we're up against."

Men were still at the window, peering in.

"Scatter!" commanded Winch, waving the rifle at them. "And tell our
boys to come here. Dick Ross and Charley Peters. They ain't far."

Reluctantly the onlookers withdrew, some two or three of them to pause
in the shadows when once out of eye-shot, and look back. But from now
on Winch disregarded them. He helped the wounded man off with his coat,
yanked his shirts out from his belted waist, tore cloth freely when it
was in his way, and thus uncovered the wound.

"_She_ did that for you? That kid of a girl?"

"Yes, damn her," muttered Timber-Wolf angrily, as Billy Winch's
fingers, already scarlet, touched the wound. "Turned my back a second
... she ought to have shot me dead ... either a rotten shot or in an
awful hurry...."

"Or scared to death!" Winch's contempt was enormous. "That's the kind
that does the most harm, the scared-stiffs that's always shooting the
wrong time and the wrong man."

By now he had the shirts torn from top to bottom, and stood back,
looking appraisingly at the broad, naked back and the small hole which
a bullet had drilled. Against the great area of flesh, as white as a
girl's and smooth and clean with vigorous health, the smear of blood,
itself red with that same perfection of health, gave the wound an
appearance of ten times its real gravity. But Winch was accustomed to
blood, and knew that Bruce Standing could lose more of it than could
most men and be little the worse for the loss. He diagnosed the case
aloud, muttering thoughtfully:

"Thirty-two caliber, to begin with; a thirty-two ain't nothing, Timber.
Now, if it had been a forty-five, at that close-up range.... Well,
you see you was standing half-way slanting; it took you under that
big shoulder muscle and drilled in and hit a rib, one of the high-up
ones, and kept on going, sort of skirting round, skating on a rib, and
popped out under your arm. Lift it a bit? That's it. A clean hole. I
tell you, either you sort of slipped and fell, or it was the impack
that knocked you over.... The boys will be here any minute, and will
scare up a bar of castile soap for me and something to make a regular
poultice, what we calls a comprest, you know; I can make one out of
most anything; remember Sam True's thoroughbred stallion that got all
cut to hell last fall, and I made him a comprest out of sawdust! You
remind me," added Winch thoughtfully, drawing off one of his hopping
paces, to take in with an admiring and practised eye the now virtually
nude torso, a white, smooth-running engine of power and endurance,
"of a wild stallion mostly as much as a man, anyhow. A good smear of
mustang liniment on that shoulder, a application, you know; and a dose
of physic and a couple days' rest and careful diet, and you'll be as
good as new...."

"What happened in the other room?" demanded Standing, deaf to Winch's
mutterings. "After she went through the window?"

"She came busting in where Deveril and I was, her eyes the size of two
new dish pans. I put in _new_ because they was shining like it too; I
thought she'd seen the devil. She has a gun in her hand and she yells
out, 'Save me!' or something like that. And after her, doubled-up
running, comes Jim Taggart, yelling at her: 'I got you for killing
Bruce Standing!' And then that cool-headed, hot-hearted young Baby
Devil of yours grabs the gun out of her hand and whangs Taggart over
the head with it so that he drops dead in his tracks. And I hear a man
say he is dead, too; but I don't stop to see. Don't seem natural, and
yet a man's close to mortal danger if he gets whanged with any hard
object, such as steel gun-barrels, on the head, close up to the temple;
we call it the parrytal bone, you know, and I've known men and even
horses that was killed so quick...."

"Then what?" snapped Timber-Wolf.

"Then both him and her beats it like the mill-tails of hell! And that
part's natural enough, him figuring he's killed the sheriff, and her
figuring she's plumb killed you. They stampeded into the brush, ducking
out toward the timber-lands where it was darkest, a bunch of hollering
fools after them."

"And Jim Taggart?"

The "boys" whose presence Billy Winch had requested came hurrying in
at the hall door, excitement and alarm shining in their eyes. One
glance reassured them, and while Dick Ross gave expression to his
relief in a windy sigh and sought hastily for materials to build him
a cigarette to replace that which he had dropped as he raced here,
Charley Peters stood and mopped at his forehead with an enormous dingy
blue handkerchief and grinned. Billy Winch, who had the trick of pithy
brevity when there was need of it, made his wants known sharply, and
the two men, their spurs still dragging and clanking after them,
hastened away for basin and soap and whatever else of Winch's first-aid
materials might be had at hand. In the meantime, Winch was yanking a
sheet off Lynette Brooke's bed, and ripping it into tatters for his
bandages and rags and what he termed "mops and applications."

"It ain't necessary to probe for the bullet," he admitted, almost
regretfully. "But I might poke around in there a mite, while the
hole's good and wide open, to make sure that a piece of your shirt or
something didn't get lodged inside...."

"I'll break your damned neck for trying it," threatened Standing.

"Well," sighed Winch, "all I'll do then is just take a pack-needle and
put in a stitch or two. Remember when Dick Ross's horse...."

"You'll take some warm water and soap and wash me off," said Standing
emphatically. "Then you'll make me one of your infernal compresses out
of clean cloth; and after that you'll leave me alone.... Tell me about
my horse, old Sunlight. So Gallup had him killed for me?"

"Somebody pretty near blowed his head off with buckshot," Billy Winch
told him, and again twinkling fires of anger flickered in the little
man's eyes. "If Gallup didn't have the job done, who did? I ask you!"

Timber-Wolf stared at the wall. Within him, too, rose scorching anger,
that resurgent bitter flood which was not lessened now because in the
first place it had leaped upon him unexpectedly, and had thus been the
cause of his humiliation. But within him there was another emotion, one
of deep grief; for he loved a good horse, no man more. And Sunlight was
his pet and his trusted friend, and had been, for many a wilderness
week, his only companion.

"You didn't leave him suffering any, Bill?" His voice sounded cold and
impersonal and matter-of-fact. Yet Billy Winch understood and answered
softly:

"I stopped long enough to make sure, Timber. But I didn't have to shoot
him; he just rared his head up and looked at me straight in the eye,
as man to man, so help me God, and fell back ... dead. No; he didn't
suffer much."

Bruce Standing was silent a long time, his eyes brooding, his brows
drawn after a fashion which Billy Winch could make nothing certain
of; anger and bitterness or a sign of his own bodily pain. They heard
spurred boots in the hall, returning. Then a quick look passed between
Timber-Wolf and Billy Winch, and Timber-Wolf said hastily, dropping his
voice and speaking with a peculiar softness:

"When you get a chance, you take the boys and see that old Sunlight is
moved out of this skunk town; he's too fine a little horse to take his
last rest here. Out on a hilltop, somewhere; looking toward the east,
Bill. And a good, deep hole and ... leave the saddle and bridle on him,
Bill."

"I get you," returned Winch gravely. And, by way of thoughtful
acknowledgment of the justice of this thing, for Billy Winch, too,
loved a horse, he muttered: "That's fair."

With the return of Ross and Peters, Winch gave them their orders, as a
stern and dreaded head master might issue commands to a couple of his
boys, securing unfailing and immediate obedience. For the one job of
both Ross and Peters, and the one job which had been theirs for five
or six years, was to do what they were told by Billy Winch and ask no
questions, and look sharp that they did not seek to introduce any of
their own and original ideas into the carrying out of his behests. For
this they were paid by Timber-Wolf, who used them for many things,
consigning matters of vital importance into their hands by way of Billy
Winch's brains and tongue.

"Stand ready to hand me things when I ask for them, Dick," said Winch.
He scrubbed his own hands with soap, and let Dick pitch the water from
the basin out the window. Dick obeyed promptly, adding nothing of his
own to the simple task beyond making sure that he pitched the whole
basinful far out; far enough, in fact, to give a thorough wetting to
one of the curious who had lingered outside, watching through the
lighted window. "You, Charley," ran on Winch, "go down to where old
Sunlight is, and stick there until me and Dick come out. His saddle and
bridle ain't to be took off, and you'll have to keep your eye peeled
some regular Big Pine citizen don't snake 'em, for their silver, under
your eyes." Charley understood enough to do as he was told, and hurried
out. "Now, Dick, stand by with them rags and warm water."

Winch went promptly to work, and, in his rough-and-ready fashion, did a
good clean job of bandaging a simple wound. A raw wound like that must
of necessity be intensely painful; yet Timber-Wolf's quiet and regular
breathing never altered once, and not so much as the breadth of a hair
did the muscular back flinch. They had just gotten the torn shirts
lapped over into place and the coat thrown over Standing's shoulders,
and his hat picked up from the floor for him, when a man walking
heavily came down the hall and stopped at the door, knocking sharply.

"Who is it?" demanded Winch.

"It's me, Taggart. Is Standing all right?"

Bruce Standing himself, holding himself very erect, his head well up
and his eyes cold and hard, opened the door.

"So the devil refused to take you, after all," he grumbled. "They had
it reported that Deveril had killed you. At that, it looks as though
he'd come close to doing a good job of it."

For Jim Taggart's face, too, was white, and there was a broad band
about his head, stained in one spot near the left temple.

"The same kind thought rides double," rejoined Taggart, with a sudden
flash of the eyes. "That wildcat of a girl came close to marking out
your ticket to hell."

"Where is she now?" asked Standing eagerly. "Did they bring her back?"

"Gone clean, for the present," answered Taggart. "If that fool of a
Babe Deveril hadn't butted in, just piling up trouble for himself, and
knocked me out while I wasn't even looking at him, I'd of had her by
the heels. And now the two of 'em, two of a kind, if you ask me, are
off into the mountains together. And I'm starting after them in ten
minutes, and will drag 'em back before to-morrow night, just as sure as
you're a foot high."

"What have you come to sling all this at me for?" snapped Standing.

"I wanted to see if you was dead," returned Taggart coolly. "Now I just
pinch both of 'em for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
If you'd of died, it would of been murder for her."

"At least, I'm glad you blew in, Jim Taggart. There are two things it
might be just as well to get straight. First: When you and I, a dozen
years ago, were sidekicks, prospecting together, bunking together,
grubstaking each other, taking chances a lot of the time on a quick,
hard finish to the little old game of life, we had it understood that
if I died all of my belongings went to you; and if you cashed in first,
anything you had went to me."

Taggart nodded and said swiftly:

"My papers stand that way to this day! I never go back...."

"The more fool you, then," jeered Standing. "I'm done with you, and my
papers are changed already...."

"Already?" Taggart started visibly. "Since when?"

"Since yesterday. Nothing I own, not so much as a wart on a log of
mine, ever goes your way."

The bitterness in Taggart's soul overspilled into his voice as he cried
out savagely:

"Sure, there you are! That's the way it goes. Now that your luck's been
running high and you don't need me, now that my luck's been dragging
bottom, why then you're ready to pitch me over...."

"Liar!" Timber-Wolf cut him short with the word which was like an
explosion. But he did not pause to discuss a point of view, but
continued immediately: "That's the first thing. Here's the second:
You've decided to run neck and neck with Young Gallup. So you can take
him a word from me. Tell him"--and Standing's voice, husky with his
emotions, made even Jim Taggart wonder what was coming--"that I came
into his skunk hole of a town to-night just because he had the nerve to
tell me not to. Tell him that I know that was his work that my horse
was killed just now. Tell it him that if I ever come into his skunk
hole once more in my life, it will be to pull his damned town down
about his ears."

Taggart chose to break into contemptuous laughter. But Bruce Standing,
lost to all sense of his own pain, caught him angrily by the shoulder
and shouted into his ears:

"And this, for the last word ever to be spoken between you and me, Jim
Taggart. That rake-hell Jezebel that shot me, _shot me and not you_!
Got that? I'm not asking you, sheriff or no sheriff, to chip in on my
affairs; I'll attend to the little hell-cat, and you keep your hands
off. And, as for Babe Deveril, since the cursed fool wants to show his
hand by cutting in with her and trying to snatch her out of my reach,
I'll attend to him at the same time. The likely thing is that they've
headed into the wilderness, my wilderness, and I'm going after them.
And you are to keep out of my way."

With a violent shove he thrust Taggart out of his way and strode by
him, going swiftly down the hall, Dick Ross swinging along close behind
him and keeping a watchful eye upon Taggart, little Billy Winch hopping
along in the rear and spitting audacious venom at the sheriff with his
baneful eyes. In this order the three came out under the shining stars.




CHAPTER VI


Bruce Standing, a man of that strong, dominant, and self-centred
character which is prone to disregard the feelings of others, held
both Lynette Brooke and Babe Deveril his prey. But Jim Taggart, whose
professional business it appeared to be to bring in the girl, and
whose sore and aching head would not for many a day lose record of the
fact that it had been Babe Deveril who had forcibly put him out of the
running, had his own human purposes to serve, and set his nose to the
trail like a bloodhound. And yet, with these two bending every energy
to run them to earth, the two fugitives plunging headlong into the
friendly darkness were for the moment utterly lost to those who plunged
into the same darkness and in the same headlong style after them.

Hand in hand, chance-caught, and running swiftly, Lynette and Deveril
were in time to escape the first of their pursuers, a crowd of men who
got in one another's way, and who were too lately from the lighted
room of the house to see clearly outside. Behind Gallup's House was
the little creek which supplied the town with its water; it wound here
across a tiny flat, an open space save for its big cottonwoods. The
two, knowing that in the first heat of the chase opening at their heels
they were running from death, sped like two winged shadows merged into
one. After a hundred yards they hurled themselves into breast-high
bushes, a thick tangle--a growth which, in such a mad rush as theirs,
was no less formidable than a rock wall. They cast quick glances
backward; a score of men--appearing, in their widely spread formation
and from their cries and the racket of scuffling boots, to be a
hundred--shut off all retreat and made hopeless any thought to turn to
right or left.

"Down!" whispered Deveril. "Crawl for it! And quiet!"

On hands and knees they crawled into the thicket. Already hands and
faces were scratched, but they did not feel the scratches; already
their clothes were torn in many places. In a wild scramble they went
on, squeezing through narrow spaces, lying flat, wriggling, getting to
hands and knees again. And all the while with nerves jumping at each
breaking of a twig. It was only the shouting voices and the pounding
boots behind them that drowned in their pursuers' ears the sounds they
made.

"Still!" admonished Babe Deveril in a whisper.

And very still they lay, side by side, panting, in the heart of the
thicket. A voice called out, not twenty paces behind them:

"They're in there!" And another voice, louder than the first and more
insistent, they thanked their stars, boomed:

"No, no! They skirted the brush, off to the left, beating it for the
open! After 'em, boys!" And still other voices shouted and, it would
seem, every man of them had glimpsed his own tricking shadow and had
his own wild opinion.

Thus, for a brief enough moment, the pursuit was baffled.

"Slow and quiet does it!" It was for the third time Babe Deveril's
whisper, his lips close to her hair. "I see an opening. Follow close."

Lynette, still lying face down, lifted herself a little way upon her
two hands and looked after him.

"String 'em up!" a voice was calling. It was like the voice of a devil
down in hell, full of mob malice. She shivered. "They're murdering
devils. String 'em up!"

"Catch 'em first, you fool," called another voice. Again pounding boots
and ... far more sinister sound ... snapping brush where a man was
breaking his way straight into the thicket.

Like some grotesque, curiously shaped snake, Babe Deveril was writhing
along, ever deeper into the brush tangle, ahead of her. She began
crawling after him. Voices everywhere. And now dogs barking. A hundred
dogs, it seemed to her taut nerves. She knew dogs; she knew how they
went into a frenzy of excited joy when it was a question of a quarry,
any quarry; she knew the unfailing certainty of the dog's scent. She
began hurrying, struggling to get to her knees again....

"Sh! Down!"

She dropped down again and lay flat, scarce breathing. But once more
she saw the vague blot of Deveril's flat form wriggling on ahead of
her, almost gone now. It was so dark! She threw herself forward; she
threw her arm out and her hand brushed his boot. It was a wonderful
thing, to feel that boot. She was not alone. She began again following
him; dry, broken, and thorny twigs snared at her; they caught in her
clothes and in the laces of her boots; they tore at her skin. Yet this
time she was as silent a shadow as the shadow in front of her. On and
on and on, on endlessly through an eternity of darkness shot through
with dim star glimmerings, and pierced with horrible voices, she went.
She came out into an opening; she stood up. She was alone! And those
voices and the yelping of dogs and the scuffling of heavy, insensate,
merciless boots....

A hard, sudden hand caught her by the wrist. She whipped back, a scream
shaping her lips. But in time she clapped a hand over her mouth. She
was not alone; this was Babe Deveril, standing upright ... waiting for
her! She brought her hand down and clasped it, tight, over his hand.

"Run for it again," he whispered. "Off that way ... to the right. If we
can once get among those trees...."

Side by side, their hearts leaping, they ran. Gradually, but steadily,
the harsh noises grew fainter behind them. They gained the fringe of
trees; they splashed through the creek; they skirted a second tangle of
brush and rounded the crest of a hill. And steadily and swiftly now the
sounds of pursuit lessened behind them.

"And now," muttered Deveril, for the first time forsaking his cautious
whisper, "if we use what brains God gave us, we are free of that hell
pack."

"If they caught up with us?" she questioned him sharply.

"Most likely we'd both be swinging from a cottonwood in ten minutes!
There's no sanity in that crowd; it's all mob spirit. If it is true
that both Bruce Standing and Jim Taggart are dead.... Well, then,
Lynette Brooke, this is no place for you and me to-night! Come on!..."

"Babe Deveril," she returned, and now it was her fingers tightening
about his, "I'll never forget that you stood by me to-night!"

Babe Deveril, being himself and no other, a man reckless and unafraid
and eminently gay, and, so God made him, full of lilting appreciation
of the fair daughters of Eve, felt even at this moment her touch, like
so much warm quicksilver trickling through him from head to foot. He
gave her, in answer, a hearty pressure of the hand and his low, guarded
laughter, saying lightly:

"You interfere with the regular beating of a man's heart, Lynette
Brooke! But now you'll never remember to-night for any great measure
of hours, unless we step along. They'll hunt us all night. Come,
beautiful lady!"

Even then she marvelled at him. He, like herself, was tense and on
the _qui vive_; yet she sensed his utter fearlessness. She knew that
if they caught him and put a rope about his neck and led him under a
cottonwood branch, he would pay them back to the last with his light,
ringing laughter.

In this first wild rush they had had no time to think over what had
just happened; no time to cast ahead beyond each step deeper into
the night. Where they were going, what they were going to do--these
were issues to confront them later; now they were concerned with no
consideration other than haste and silence and each other's company.
To-night's section of destiny made of them, without any reasoning and
merely through an instinctive attraction, trail fellows. True, both
carried blurred pictures of what had occurred back there at the Gallup
House so few minutes ago, but these were but pictures, and as yet gave
rise to no logical speculation. As in a vision, she saw Timber-Wolf
sagging and falling as he strove to slew about; Deveril saw Taggart
rushing in at her heels, and then going down in a heap as a revolver
was flung in his face. Only dully at present were they concerned with
the query whether these two men were really dead. When one runs for his
life through the woods in a dark night, he has enough to do to avoid
limbs and tree trunks and keep on going.

Big Pine occupied the heart of a little upland flat. In ten minutes
Lynette and Deveril had traversed the entire stretch of partially level
land, and felt the ground begin to pitch sharply under foot. Here was a
sudden steep slope leading down into a rugged ravine; their sensation
was that of plunging over the brink of some direful precipice, feeling
at every instant that they were about to go tumbling into an abyss.
They were forced to go more slowly, sliding on their heels, ploughing
through patches of soil, stumbling across flinty areas.

"Down we go, as straight as we can," said Deveril. "And up on the other
side as straight as we can. Then we'll be in a bit of forest land where
the devil himself couldn't find us on a night like this.... How are you
standing the rough-stuff?"

It was the first time that he had given any indication of realizing
that her girl's body might not be equal to the work which they were
taking upon them. Swiftly she made her answer, saying lightly, despite
her labored breathing:

"Fine. This is nothing."

"If I hadn't forgotten my hat ... among other things," he chuckled,
"I'd take it off to you right now, Lynette Brooke!"

They paused and stood a moment in the gloom about the base of a big
boulder, listening. Now and then a man shouted; dogs still barked. But
the sounds were appreciably fainter, now that they had started down the
steeply pitching slope into the ravine.

"We can get away from them to-night," she said. "But to-morrow, when it
is light?"

"We'll see. For one thing, a chase like this always loses some of its
fine enthusiasm after the first spurt. For another, even if they did
pick us up to-morrow, they would have had time to cool off a bit; a mob
can't stay hot overnight. But give us a full night's head-start, and
I've a notion we've seen the last of them. Ready?"

"Always ready!"

Again they hurried on, straight down into the great cleft through the
mountains, swerving into brief détours only for upheaved piles of
boulders or for an occasional brushy tangle. In twenty minutes they
were down in the bed of the ravine, and splashing through a little
trickle of water; Lynette stooped and drank, while Deveril stood
listening; again, climbing now, they went on. The farther side of the
cañon was as steep as the one they had come down, and it was tedious
labor in the dark to make their way; at times they zigzagged one way
and another to lessen the sheerness of their path. And frequently now
they stopped and drank deep draughts of the clear mountain air.

Silence shut down about them, ruffled only by the soft wind stirring
across the mountain ridges. It was not that they were so soon out
of ear-shot of Big Pine; rather, this sudden lull meant that their
pursuers, done with the first moments of blind excitement, were now
gathering their wits and thinking coolly ... and planning. They would
be taking to horseback soon; scouting this way and that, organizing
and throwing out their lines like a great net. By now some one man,
perhaps Young Gallup, had taken charge and was directing them. The two
fugitives, senses sharpened, understood, and again hastened on. They
had not won to any degree of security, and felt with quickened nerves
the full menace of this new, sinister silence.

Onward and upward they labored, until at last they gained a less
steeply sloping timber belt, which stretched close under the peak of
the ridge. They walked more swiftly now; breathing was easier; there
were more and wider open spaces among the larger, more generously
spaced tree trunks.

"We'll strike into the Buck Valley road in a minute now," said Deveril.
"Then we'll have easy going...."

"And will leave tracks that they'll see in the morning!"

"Of course. Any fool ought to have thought of that," he muttered,
ashamed that it had been she instead of himself who had foreseen the
danger.

So they hearkened to the voice of caution and paralleled the road,
keeping a dozen or a score of paces to its side, and often tempted,
because of its comparative smoothness and the difficult brokenness of
the mountainside over which they elected to travel, to yield utterly to
its inviting voice. They turned back and glimpsed the twinkling lights
of Big Pine; they lost the lights as they forged on; they found them
again, grown fainter and fewer and farther away.

"Can you go on walking this way all night?" he asked her once.

"All night, if we have to," she told him simply.

They tramped along in silence, their boots rising and falling
regularly. The first tenseness, since human nerves will remain taut
only so long, had passed. They had time for thought now, both before
and after. Mentally each was reviewing all that had occurred to-night
and, building theoretically upon those happenings, was casting forward
into the future. The present was a path of hazard, and surely the
future lay shut in by black shadows. Yet both of them were young, and
youth is the time of golden hopes, no matter how drearily embraced by
stony facts. And youth, in both of them, despite the difference of
sex, was of the same order: a time of wild blood; youth at its animal
best, lusty, vigorous, dauntless, devil-may-care; theirs the spirits
which leap, hearts glad and fearless. And when, after a while, now and
then they spoke again, there was youth playing up to youth in its own
inevitable fashion; confidence asserting itself and begetting more
confidence; youth wearing its outer cloakings with its own inimitable
swagger.

They had trudged along the narrow mountain road for a full hour or more
when they heard the clattering noise of a horse's shod hoofs.

"I knew it," said Deveril sharply. "Damn them."

With one accord he and she withdrew hastily, slipping into the
convenient shadows thrown by a clump of trees, and peered forth through
a screen of high brush. The hurrying hoof beats came on, up-grade,
hence from the general direction of Big Pine. Two men, and riding neck
and neck, driving their horses hard. The riders drew on rapidly; were
for a fleeting moment vaguely outlined against a field of stars ...
swept on.

They came with a rush, with a rush they were gone. But Deveril, who
since he was taller, had seen more clearly than Lynette across the
brush, turned back to her eagerly, wondering if she had seen what he
had--if she had noted that one of the men loomed unusually large in the
saddle, and how the smaller at his side rode lopsidedly. In all reason
Bruce Standing should be dead by now or, at the very least, bedridden.
But when did Timber-Wolf ever do what other men expected of him? If he
were alive and not badly hurt; if Lynette knew this, then what? Deveril
would tell her, or would not tell her, as circumstances should decide
for him.

"Come on!" he cried sharply, certain that Lynette had not seen. "While
the night and the dark last. Let's hurry."

On and on they went until the dragging hours seemed endless. They saw
the wheeling progress of the stars; they saw the pools of gloom in the
woods deepen and darken; they felt, like thick black padded velvet,
the silence grow deeper, until it seemed scarcely ruffled by the thin
passing of the night air. Thus they put many a weary, hard-won mile
between them and Big Pine. Hours of that monotonous lifting of boot
after boot, of stumbling and straightening and driving on; of pushing
through brush copses, of winding wearily among the bigger boles of
the forest, of sliding down steep places and climbing up others, with
always the lure of the more easy way of the road tempting and mocking.

"We've got to find water again," said Deveril, out of a long silence.
"And we've got to dig ourselves in for a day of it. The dawn's coming."

For already the eastern sky stood forth in contrast against west and
south and north, a palely glimmering sweep of emptiness charged with
the promise of another day. The girl, too tired for speech, agreed
with a weary nod. She could think of nothing now, neither of past nor
present nor future, save of water, a long, cool bathing of burning
mouth and throat, and after that, rest and sleep. Her whole being was
resolved into an aching desire for these two simple balms to jaded
nature. Water and then sleep. And let the coming day bring what it
chose.

Long ago the mountain air, rare and sweet and clean, had grown cold,
but their bodies, warmed by exertion, were unaware of the chill. But
now, with fatigue working its will upon every laboring muscle, they
began to feel the cold. Lynette began shivering first; Deveril, when
they stopped a little while for one of their brief rests, began to
shiver with her.

Water was not to be found at every step in these mountains; they
labored on another three or four miles before they found it. Then they
came to a singing brook which shot under a little log bridge, and there
they lay flat, side by side, and drank their fill.

"And now, fair lady, to bed," said Deveril, looking at her curiously
and making nothing of her expression, since the starlight hid more
than it disclosed, and giving her as little glimpse of his own look.
"And when, I wonder, did you ever lay you down to sleep as you must
to-night?"

But he did see that she shivered. And yet, bravely enough, she answered
him, saying:

"Beggars must not be choosers, fair sir; and methinks we should go
down on our knees and offer up our thanks to Our Lady that we live and
breathe and have the option of choosing our sleeping places this night."

She had caught his cue, and her readiness threw him into a mood of
light laughter; he had drunk deep, and his youthful resilience buoyed
him up, and he found life, as always, a game far away and more than
worth the candle.

"You say truly, my fair lady," he said in mock gravity. "'Tis better to
sleep among the bushes than dangling at the end of a brief stretch of
rope."

But with all of their lightness of speech, which, after all, was but
the symbol of youth playing up to youth, the prospect was dreary
enough, and in their hearts there was little laughter. And the cold
bit at them with its icy teeth. A fire would have been more than
welcome, a thing to cheer as well as to warm; but a fire here, on the
mountainside, would have been a visible token of brainlessness; it
would throw its warmth five feet and its betraying light as many miles.

So, in the cold and dark they chose their sleeping place. Into a tangle
of fragrant bushes, not twenty paces from the Buck Valley road, they
crawled on hands and knees, as they had crawled into that first thicket
when pursuit yelped at their heels. Here they came by chance upon a
spot where two big pine-trees, standing close together companionably,
upreared from the very heart of the brushy tangle. Lynette could
scarcely drag her tired body here, caught and retarded by every twig
that clutched at her clothing. For the first time in her vigorous life
she came to understand the meaning of that ancient expression, "tired
to death." She felt herself drooping into unconsciousness almost
before her body slumped down upon the earth, thinly covered in fallen
leaves.

"I am sleepy," she murmured. "Almost dead for sleep...."

"You wonderful girl...."

"Sh! I can't talk any more. I can't think; I can't move; I can scarcely
breathe. Whether they find us in the morning or not ... it doesn't
matter to me now.... You have been good to me; be good to me still. And
... good-night, Babe Deveril ... Gentleman!"

He saw her, dimly, nestle down, cuddling her cheek against her arm,
drawing up her knees a little, snuggling into the very arms of mother
earth, like a baby finding its warm place against its mother's breast.
He sat down and slowly made himself a cigarette, and forgot for a
long time to light it, lost in his thoughts as he stared at her and
listened to her quiet breathing. He knew the moment that she went to
sleep. And in his heart of hearts he marvelled at her and called her
"a dead-game little sport." She, of a beauty which he in all of his
light adventurings found incomparable, had ventured with him, a man
unknown to her, into the depths of these solitudes and had never, for
a second, evinced the least fear of him. True, danger drove; and yet
danger always lay in the hands of a man, her sex's truest friend and
greatest foe. In his hands reposed her security and her undoing. And
yet, knowing all this, as she must, she lay down and sighed and went
to sleep. And her last word, ingenuous and yet packed to the brim with
human understanding, still rang in his ears.

"It's worth it," he decided, his eyes lingering with her gracefully
abandoned figure. "The whole damn thing, and may the devil whistle
through his fingers until his fires burn cold! And she's mine, and
I'll make her mine and keep her mine until the world goes dead. And my
friend, Wilfred Deveril, if you've ever said anything in your life,
you've said it now!"




CHAPTER VII


Glancing sunlight, striking at him through a nest of tumbled boulders
upon the ridge, woke Babe Deveril. He sat up sharply, stiff and cold
and confused, wondering briefly at finding himself here upon the
mountainside. Lynette was already sitting up, a huddling unit of
discomfort, her arms about her upgathered knees, her hair tousled, her
clothing torn, her eyes showing him that, though she had slept, she,
too, had awaked shivering and unrested. And yet, as he gathered his
wits, she was striving to smile.

"Good morning to you, my friend."

He got stiffly to his feet, stretching his arms up high above his head.

"At least, we're alive yet. That's something, Lynette."

"It's everything!" Emulating him she sprang up, scornfully disregarding
cramped body, her triumphant youth ignoring those little pains which
shot through her as pricking reminders of last night's endeavors. "To
live, to breathe, to be alive ... it's everything!"

"When one thinks back upon the possibilities of last night," he
answered, "the reply is 'Yes.' Good morning, and here's hoping that you
had no end of sweet dreams."

She looked at him curiously.

"I did dream," she said. "Did you?"

"No. When I slept, I slept hard. And your dreams?"

"Were all of two men. Of you and another man, Timber-Wolf, you call
him--Bruce Standing. I heard him call you 'Baby Devil'! That got into
my dreams. I thought that we three...."

She broke off, and still her eyes, fathomless, mysterious, regarded him
strangely.

"Well?" he demanded. "We three?"

She shivered. And, knowing that he had seen, she exclaimed quickly:

"That's because I'm cold! I'm near frozen. Can't we have a fire?"

"But the dream?" he insisted.

"Dreams are nothing by the time they're told," she answered swiftly.
"So why tell them? And the fire?"

"No," he told her, suddenly stubborn, and resentful that he could not
have free entrance into her sleeping-life. "We went without it when we
needed it most; now the sun's up and we don't need it; since, above
everything, there's no breakfast to cook."

"So you woke up hungry, too?"

"Hungry? I was eating my supper when first you showed upon my horizon.
And, what with looking at you or trying to look at you, I let half of
my supper go by me! I'd give a hundred dollars right this minute for
coffee and bacon and eggs!"

"You want a lot for a hundred dollars," she smiled back at him. Her
hands were already busy with her tumbled hair, for always was Lynette
purely feminine to her dainty finger-tips. "I'd give all of that just
for coffee alone."

"Come," said Deveril, "Let's go. Are you ready?"

"To move on? Somewhere, anywhere? And to search for breakfast? Yes; in
a minute."

First, she worked her way back through the brush, down into the creek
bed, and for a little while, as she bathed her face and neck and arms,
and did the most that circumstances permitted at making her morning
toilet, she was lost to his following eyes. Slowly he rolled himself a
cigarette; that, with a man, may take the place of breakfast, serving
to blunt the edge of a gnawing appetite. Long draughts of icy cold
water served her similarly. She stamped her feet and swung her arms and
twisted her body back and forth, striving to drive the cold out and get
her blood to leaping warmly. Then, before coming back to him, she stood
for a long time looking about her.

All the wilderness world was waking; she saw the scampering flash of a
rabbit; the little fellow came to a dead halt in a grassy open space,
and sat up with drooping forepaws and erect ears; she could fancy his
twitching nose as he investigated the morning air to inform himself as
to what scents, pleasurable, friendly, inimical, lay upon it.

"In case he is hungry, after nibbling about half the night," she mused,
"he knows just where to go for his breakfast."

The rabbit flapped his long ears and went about his business, whatever
it may have been, popping into the thicket. There grew in a pretty
grove both willows and wild cherry; beyond them a tall scattering of
cottonwoods; on the rising slope scrub-pines and juniper. And while
she stood there, looking down, she heard some quail calling, and saw
half a dozen sparrows busily beginning office hours, as it were, going
about their day's affairs. And one and all of these little fellows knew
just what he was about, and where to turn to a satisfying menu. When,
returning to Deveril, she confided in him something of her findings,
which would go to indicate that man was a pretty inefficient creature
when stood alongside the creatures of the wild, Deveril retorted:

"Let them eat their fill now; before night we'll be eating them!"

"You haven't even a gun...."

"I could run a scared rabbit to death, I'm that starved! And now
suppose we get out of this."

The sun was striking at the tops of the yellow pines on the distant
ridge; the light was filtering downward; shadows were thinning about
them and even in the ravine below. Walking stiffly, until their bodies
gradually grew warm with the exertion, and always keeping to the
thickest clump of trees or tallest patch of brush, they began to work
their way down into the cañon. The sun ran them a race, but theirs
was the victory; it was still half night in the great cleft among the
mountains when they slid down the last few feet and found more level
land underfoot, and the greensward of the wild-grass meadow fringing
the lower stream. The cañon creek went slithering by them, cold and
glassy-clear, whitening over the riffles, falling musically into the
pools, dimpling and ever ready to break into widening circles, a
smiling, happy stream. And in it, they knew, were trout. They stood for
a moment, catching breath after the steep descent, looking into it.

"I wonder if you have a pin," said Deveril.

She pondered the matter, struck immediately by the aptness of the
suggestion; he could see how she wrinkled her brows as she tried to
remember if possibly she had made use of a pin in getting dressed the
last time.

"I've a hairpin or two left. I wonder if we could make that do?"

"Just watch and see!" he exclaimed joyously.

In putting her tumbled hair straight just now she had discovered two
pins, which, even when her hair had come down about her shoulders, had
happened to catch in a little snarl in the thick tresses; these she had
saved and used in making her morning toilet. Now she took her hair down
again and presented him with the two pins, gathering her hair up in two
thick, loose braids, while with curious eyes he watched her; and as
curiously, the thing done, she watched him busy himself with the pins.

A few paces farther on, creeping forward under the willow branches,
they came to a spot where the creek banks were clear of brush along a
narrow grassy strip, which, however, was screened from the mountainside
by a growth of taller trees. Here Deveril went to work on his
improvised fish-hook. One hairpin he put carefully into his pocket; the
other he bent rudely into the required shape, making an eye in one end
by looping and twisting. The other end, that intended for the hungry
mouth of a greedy trout, he regarded long and without enthusiasm.

"Too blunt, to begin with; next, no barb, too smooth; and, finally, the
thing bends too easily. Hairpins should be made of steel!"

But at least two of the defects could be simply remedied up to a
certain though not entirely satisfactory point. He squatted down and,
employing two hard stones, hammered gently at the malleable wire
until he flattened out the end of it into a thin blade with sharp,
jagged edges. Then, using his pocket-knife, he managed to cut several
little slots in this thin blade, so that there resulted a series of
roughnesses which were not unlike barbs; whereas he could put no great
faith in any one of them holding very securely, at least, taken all
together, they would tend toward keeping his hook, if once taken, from
slipping out so smoothly. He re-bent his pin and suddenly looked up at
her with a flashing grin.

He robbed one of his boots of its string; he cut the first likely
willow wand. Without stirring from his spot he dug in the moist earth
and got his worm. And then, motioning her to be very still, he crept a
few feet farther along the brook, found a pool which pleased him, hid
behind a clump of bushes and gently lowered his baited hook toward the
shadowy surface. And before the worm touched the water, a big trout saw
and leaped and struck ... and did a clean job of snatching the worm off
without having appeared to so much as touch the bent hairpin!

Three quiet sounds came simultaneously: the splash of the falling
fish, a grunt from Deveril, a gasp from Lynette. Deveril, thinking she
was about to speak, glared at her in savage admonition for silence;
she understood and remained motionless. Slowly he crept back to the
spot where he had dug his worm, and scratched about until he had
two more. One of them went promptly to his hook, while he held the
other in reserve. Again he approached his pool, again he lowered his
bait about the bush. This time the offering barely touched the water
before the trout struck again. Now Deveril was ready for him, deftly
manoeuvring his pole; his string tautened, his wallow bent, the fat,
glistening trout swung above the racing water.... Lynette was already
wondering how they were going to cook it!... There was again a splash,
and Deveril stood staring at a silly-looking hairpin, dangling at the
end of an absurd boot-lace. For now the hairpin failed to present the
vaguest resemblance to any kind of a hook; the trout's weight had been
more than sufficient to straighten it out so that the fish slipped off.

Gradually, moving on noiseless feet, the girl withdrew; her last
glimpse of Deveril, before she slipped out of sight among the willows,
showed her his face, grim in its set purpose. He was trying the third
time, and she believed that he would stand there without moving all day
long, if necessary. In the meantime she was done with inactivity and
watching; doing nothing when there was much to be done irked her.

Withdrawn far enough to make her certain that no chance sound made by
her would disturb his trout, she went on through the grove and across
little grassy open spaces flooring the cañon, making her way further
up-stream. When a hundred yards above him, she turned about a tangled
thicket and came upon the creek where it flashed through shallows. All
of her life she had lived in the mountains; as a little girl, many a
day had she followed a stream like this, bickering away down the most
tempting of wild places; and more than once, lying by a tiny clear
pool, had she caught in her hands one of the quick fishes, just to set
him in a little lakelet of her own construction, where she played with
him before letting him go again. To-day ... if she could catch her fish
first! While Deveril, man-like, taking all such responsibilities upon
his own shoulders, cursed silently and achieved nothing beyond loss of
bait and loss of temper!

Up-stream, always keeping close to the merrily musical water, she made
her slow way until she found a likely spot. At the base of a tiny
waterfall was a big smooth rock; the water from above, glassily smooth
in its well-worn channel, struck upon the rock and was divided briefly
into two streams. One of them, the lesser, poured down into a small,
rock-rimmed pool; the other, deflected sharply, sped down another
course, to rejoin its fellow a few feet below the pool.

It was to the pool itself, half shut off from the main current, that
Lynette gave her quickened attention. She crept closer, noiseless,
peeping over. A sudden dark gleam, the quick, nervous steering of a
trout rewarded her. She stood still, making a profound study of what
lay before her; in what the rock-edged pool aided and wherein it would
present difficulties. Scarcely more than a trickle of water poured out
at the lower side; she could hastily pile up a few stones there, and
so construct a wall insurmountable to the trout if minded to escape
down-stream. Then she looked to the far side, where the water slipped
in. She could lay a few broken limbs across the rock there and build up
a rampart of stones and turf upon it, and so deflect nearly all of the
incoming water. Both these things done, she could, if need be, bail the
pool out, and so come with certainty upon whatever fish had blundered
into it. She began to hope that she would find a dozen!

Twice, standing upon the glassy rocks, she slipped; once she got
soaking wet to her knee; another time she saved herself from a thorough
drenching in the ice-cold stream only at the cost of plunging one arm
down into it, elbow-deep. She shivered but kept steadily on.

She heard a bird among the bushes and started, thinking that here came
Deveril; she fancied him with a string of fish in his hand, laughing at
her. Impulsively she called to him.

The close walls of the ravine shut in her voice; the thickets muffled
it; the splash and gurgle of the tumbling water drowned it out. She
stood very still, hushed; now suddenly the silence, the loneliness,
the bigness of the wilderness closed in about her. She looked about
fearfully, half expecting to see men spring out from behind every
boulder or tree trunk. She longed suddenly to see Babe Deveril coming
up along the creek to her. She was tempted to break into a run racing
back to him.

She caught herself up short. All this was only a foolish flurry in
her breast, conjured up by that sudden realization of loneliness when
her quickened voice died away into the whispered hush of the still
solitudes. For an instant that feeling of being alone had overpowered
her, or threatened to do so; then her only thought had been of Babe
Deveril; she could have rushed fairly into his arms, so did her
emotions drive her. Now she found time to puzzle over herself; it
struck her now, for the first time, how she had fled unquestioningly
into this wilderness with a man. A man whom she did not even know.
That hasty headlong act of hers would seem to indicate a trust of a
sort. But did she actually trust Babe Deveril, with those keen, cutting
eyes of his and the way he had of looking at a girl, and the whole of
his reckless and dare-devil personality? Lynette Brooke had not lived
in a cave all of her brief span of life; nor had she grown into slim
girlhood and the full bud of her glorious youth without more than one
look into a mirror. Vapidly vain she was not; but clear-visioned she
was, and she knew and was glad for the vital, vivid beauty which was
hers and thanked God for it. And she glimpsed, if somewhat vaguely,
that to a man like Babe Deveril, taking life lightly, there was no
lure beyond that of red lips and sparkling eyes. How far could she be
sure of him? She went back with slow steps to her trout; she was glad
that Babe Deveril had not heard and come running to her just then. But
when Deveril did come, carrying two gleaming trout, she masked her
misgivings and lifted a laughing face toward his triumphant one.

"We eat, Lynette!" he announced gaily.

Suddenly his eyes warmed to the picture she made, paying swift tribute
to the tousled, flushed beauty of her. His glance left her face and ran
swiftly down her form; she felt suddenly as though her wet clothing
were plastered tight to her.

"You can finish this," she told him swiftly, "if you want to take any
more fish."

"But, look here! Where are you going? Breakfast...."

Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

"I'm going to try to get dry. You can start breakfast or...."

She fled, and called herself a fool for growing scarlet, as she knew
that she did; as though two burning rays had been directed full upon
her back, she could feel his look as she ran from him; she could not
quickly enough vanish from his keen eyes, beyond the thicket. And how
on earth she was going to get dry again until the sun stood high in the
sky, she did not in the least know. She could wring out the free water;
she could make flails of her arms and run up and down until she got
warm.... If only she had a fire; but that would be foolhardy, the smoke
arising to stand a signal for miles of their whereabouts....

And until this moment she had not thought of how they were to convert
freshly caught fish into an edible breakfast! How, without fire? She
began to shiver again, from head to foot now, and, confronted by her
own problem, that of getting warm and dry, she was content to leave all
other solutions to Deveril.

When half an hour later she returned to him, she found him smoking a
cigarette and crouching over a bed of dying coals, whereon certain
tempting morsels lay; Deveril was turning them this way and that; with
the savory odor of the grilling fish there arose from the embers a
whiff of the green sage-leaves which he had plucked at the slope of
the cañon and laid first on his bed of coals. Crisp mountain-trout,
garnished with sage! And plenty of clear, cold, sparkling water to
drink thereafter! Truly a morning repast for king and queen.

"I hope they keep us on the run for a month!" Deveril greeted her. "I
haven't had this much fun for a dozen years!"

"But your fire?" she asked anxiously. "Aren't you afraid? The smoke?"

"Where there's smoke, there's always fire," he told her lightly. "But
when a man's on the dodge, as we are, he can have a fire that gives out
almighty little smoke! It's all bone-dry wood, with only the handful
of sage and a few crisscross willow sticks. Look up, and see how much
smoke you can see!"

He had built his small blaze, ringed about by some rocks, in the heart
of a small grove of trees which stood forty or fifty feet high; he had
got his fire burning with strong, clean flames, from a handful of dry
leaves and twigs; Lynette, looking up, could make out only the faintest
bluish-gray wisp of smoke against the gray-green of the leaves. She
understood; always it was inevitable that they must accept whatever
chances the moment brought them, yet it was not at all likely that
their faint plume of smoke, vanishing among the treetops, would ever
draw the glance of any human eye other than their own.

"I'll tell you ..." began Deveril, and broke short off there, as
she and he, alert and tense once more, reminded that they were
fugitives, listened to a sudden sound disturbing their silence. A sound
unmistakable--a man at no great distance from them, but, fortunately,
upon the farther side of the stream, and thus beyond the double screen
of willows, was breaking his way through the brush. Both Deveril and
Lynette crouched low, peering through the bushes. They could only
make out that the man was coming up-stream. Once they caught a vague,
blurred glimpse of his legs, faded overalls and ragged boots. Then
they lost him entirely. They knew when he stopped and both waited
breathlessly to know if he had come upon some sign of their own trail.
But once more he went on, but now in such silence, as he crossed a
little open spot, that they could scarcely make out a sound. Had it
not been for the willows intervening, they could then have answered
their own question, "Who is it?"--a question just now of supreme
importance, of the importance of life and death. They lay lower; they
strove as never before to catch some glimpse that would tell them what
they wanted to know. The man stopped again; again went on. There was
something guarded about his movements; they felt that he must have
seen their tracks, that he was seeking in a roundabout way to come
unexpectedly upon them. And then, because there was a narrow natural
avenue through the brush, they were given one clear, though fleeting
glimpse, of him ... of his face--a face as tense and watchful as their
own had been ... the face of Mexicali Joe.




CHAPTER VIII


A glimpse, scarcely more it was, had been given them of Mexicali Joe's
face. And at a considerable distance, at least for the reading of a
man's look. But yet they marked how the face was haggard and drawn and
furtive. Joe had no inkling of their presence. He had not seen their
wisp of smoke; there was no wind setting toward him to carry him the
smell of cooking trout. Plainly he had no desire for company other
than his own. He, no less than they, fled from all pursuit. Again he
was lost to them; he vanished, gone up-stream, beyond the thickets,
no faintest sound of his footfalls coming back to them. From him they
turned to each other, the same expression from the same flooding
thought in their eyes.

"We're on the jump and we'll keep on the jump!" said Deveril softly.
"And at the same time, Lynette Brooke, we'll stick as close as the
Lord'll let us to Mexicali Joe's coat-tails! Don't you worry; he'll
go back as sure as shooting to his gold-mine, if only to make certain
that no one else has squatted on it. And where he drives a stake, we'll
drive ours right alongside!"

"It's funny ... that he hasn't gotten any further ... that he should
come this way, too...."

"No telling how long he had to lie still while the pack yelped about
his hiding-place; that he came this way means only one thing. And that
is that our luck is with us, and we're headed as straight as he is
toward his prospect hole. Ready? Let's follow him!"

She jumped up. But before they started they gathered up, to the last
small bit, what was left of their fish; Deveril made the small bundle,
fish enwrapped in leaves, with a handkerchief about the whole.

"If he should hear us?" she whispered. "If he should lie in waiting and
see us?"

He chuckled.

"In any case, we'll have it on him! He can't know that we're on the
run, too; he got away too fast for that. And even if he should know,
what would he do about it? He has no love for Taggart, anyway; and he
has no wish to get himself into the hands of that mob that he has just
ducked away from, like a rabbit dodging a pack of hounds. If he catches
us ... why, then, we catch him at the same time! Come on."

Thus began the second lap of their journey; thus they, fleeing,
followed like shadows upon the traces of one who fled. For Mexicali
Joe would obviously keep to the bed of the cañon; if he forsook
it in order to climb up either slope to a ridge above, he must of
necessity pass through the more sparsely timbered spaces, where he
would run constantly into danger of being seen. The only danger to
their plans lay with the possibility that he might overhear sounds of
their following and might draw a little to one side and hide in some
dense copse, and so let them go by. But they had the advantage from
the beginning; they knew he was ahead, and he did not know that they
followed; so long as they, listening always, did not hear him ahead,
there was little danger of him hearing them coming after him. With
all the noise of the water, tumbling over falls and splashing along
over rocks, singing cheerily to itself at every step, there was small
likelihood of any one of the three cautious footfalls being heard....

There were the times, so intent were they following the Mexican, when
they forgot what was after all the main issue; forgot that they, too,
were followed. For the newer phase of the game was more zestful just
now than the other; they had neither glimpsed nor heard anything since
the passing of the two riders last night to hint that any danger of
discovery threatened them. They spoke seldom, only now and then,
pausing briefly, in lowered voices, as the speculations which had
been occupying both minds, demanded expression. Thus they were always
confronted by some new problem; at first, and for a mile or more, they
had full confidence that they had Joe straight ahead of them. But
presently they approached a fork of the cañon; it became imperative to
know if Joe had gone up the right or the left ravine. And here, where
most they wanted a glimpse of him, they had scant hope of seeing him,
so dense was the timber growth; he would keep close to the bed of the
stream, at times walking in the water so that the network of branches
from the brushy tangle on both banks would make for him a dim alleyway,
like a tunnel. They could not hope to hear him; they could not count
on finding his tracks, since none would be left upon the rocks and the
rushing water held none.

But they were alert, ears critical of the slightest rustling, eyes
never keener. And, their good fortune holding firm, when they came to
the forking of the ways, that which they had not hoped for, a track
upon a hard rock, set them right. For here Joe, but a few score yards
ahead of them, had slipped, and had crawled up over a boulder, and
there was still the wet trace of his passing, a sign to vanish, drying,
while they looked on it. Joe had gone on into the deeper cañon, headed
in the direction which last night they had elected for their own,
driving on toward the heart of the wilderness country.

They were no less relieved at finding what was the man's likely general
direction than at making sure that they were still almost at his heels.
For they had come to realize that, to explain Joe's presence here,
there were two directly opposing possibilities to consider: It was
imaginable that Joe would be making straight for his gold; and it was
just as reasonable that his craft might have suggested to him to head
in an opposite direction. Now that they might follow him and still be
going direct upon their own business, they were for the moment content
upon all points.

Deveril, for the most part, went ahead; now and then he paused a
moment for the girl to come up with him. But never did he have to wait
long. He began to wonder at her; they had covered many hard miles last
night; more hard miles this morning. How long, he asked himself, as his
eyes sought to read hers, could such a slender, altogether feminine,
blush-pink girl stand up under such relentless hardship as this flight
promised to give them? And always he went on again, reassured and
admiring; her eyes remained clear, her regard straight and cool. A girl
unafraid; the true daughter of dauntless, hot-blooded parents.

And she, watching his tall, always graceful form leading the way, found
ample time to wonder about him. She had seen him last night burst in
through a window and take the time coolly, though already the hue and
cry was breaking at his contemptuous heels, to rifle a man's pockets.
There was an indelible picture: the debonair Babe Deveril, who had
stepped unquestioningly into her fight, going down on his knees before
his fallen kinsman ... calmly bent upon robbery. For she had seen the
bank-notes in his hand.

The sun rose high and crested all the ridges with glorious light,
and poured its golden warmth down into the steep cañons. But, now
that shadows began to shrink and the little open spaces lay revealed
in detail, fresh labor was added in that they were steadily harder
driven to keep to cover; all day long, at intervals, they were to have
glimpses of the Buck Valley road, high above upon the mountain flank,
and at each view of the road they understood that a man up there might
have caught a glimpse of them. Ten o'clock came and found them doggedly
following along the way which they held the viewless Mexicali Joe must
have taken before them. They paused and stooped to the invitation of
the creek, and thereafter ate what was left them of their grilled
trout. Having eaten, they drank again; and having drunk, they again
took up the trail....

"If you can stand the pace?" queried Deveril over his shoulder. And
she read in the gleam in his eyes that he was set on seeing this thing
through; on sticking close to Mexicali Joe until he came, with Joe,
upon his secret.

"Why, of course!" she told him lightly, though already her body ached.

It was not over an hour later when they set their feet in a trail
which they were confident Mexicali Joe had followed; from the moment
they stepped into the trail they watched for some trace of him, but
the hard, rain-washed, rocky way which only a mountaineer could have
recognized as a trail, was such as to hold scant sign, if the one who
travelled it but exercised precaution. Babe Deveril, with his small
knowledge of these mountains, held it the old short-cut trail from
Timkin's Bar, long disused, since Timkin's Bar itself had a score of
years ago died the death of short-lived mining towns. Brush grew over
it, and again and again it vanished underfoot, and they were hard beset
to grope forward to it again. Yet trail of a sort it was, and it set
them to meditating: Timkin's Bar, in the late '80's, had created a gold
furor, and then, after its short and hectic life, had been abandoned,
as an orange, sucked dry by a child, is thrown aside. Was it possible
that among the old diggings Mexicali Joe had stumbled upon a vein which
the old-timers had overlooked?

At any rate, the trail lured them along, winding in their own general
direction; and Mexicali Joe still fled ahead. Of this latter fact they
had evidence when they came to the unmistakable sign ... to watchful
eyes ... of his recent passing: here, on the steep, ill-defined trail
he had slipped, and had caught at the branches of a wild cherry. They
saw the furrow made by his boot-heel and the scattered leaves and
broken twigs.

Gradually the trail led them up out of the cañon-bed, snaking along
the flank of the mountain. And gradually they were entering the great
forest land of yellow pines. If not already in Timber-Wolf's country,
here was the border-line of his monster holdings: few men could draw
the line exactly between the wide-reaching acres which were his and
those contiguous acres which were a portion of the government reserve.
Standing himself had quarrelled with the government upon the matter and
what was more, after no end of litigation, had won a point or two.

Once they diverged from the trail to climb and slide to the bottom of
the cañon for a long drink. But this and the sheer ascent took them in
their hurry only a few minutes. Again they took up the trail. It was
high noon and they were tired. But, alike disdainful of fatigue, driven
and lured, they pressed on.

Suddenly she startled him by catching him by the arm and whispering
warningly:

"Sh! Some one is following us!"

In another moment, drawing back from the trail, they were hidden among
the wild cherries in a little side ravine.

"Where?" he demanded, his voice hushed like hers, as he peered back
along the way they had come. "Who? How many of them?"

"I didn't see," she answered.

"What did you hear?"

"Nothing ... I just know ... I _felt_ that some one was trailing us
just as we are trailing Mexicali Joe! I feel it now; I know!"

"But you had something--something that you saw or heard--to tell you?"

She shook her head. And he saw, wondering at her, that she was very
deeply in earnest as she admitted:

"No. Nothing! But I know. I tell you, I know. Can't you feel that there
is some one back there, following us, spying on us, hiding and yet
dogging every step we take? Can't you _feel_ it?"

She saw him shaken with silent laughter. She understood that he, a
man, was convulsed with laughter at the imaginings of her, a maid.
And yet, also, since she was quick-minded, she noted how his laughter
was _silent_! He meant her to see that he put no credence in her
suspicions; and yet, for all that, he was impressed, and he did take
care that no one, who _might_ follow them, should overhear him!

"One doesn't feel things like that," he told her, as though positive.
But in the telling he kept his voice low, so that it was scarcely
louder than her own whisper.

"One does," she retorted. "And you know it, Babe Deveril!"

"But," he challenged her, "were you right, and were there a man or
several men back there tracking us, why all this caution on their
parts? What would they be waiting for, being armed themselves and
knowing us unarmed? What better place than this to take us in? Why give
us a minute's chance to slip away in the brush?"

"I don't know." She shrugged, and again he marvelled at her; she looked
like one who had little vital concern in what any others, pursuing,
might or might not do.

Despite his cool determination to adhere to calm reason and to discount
feminine impressionism, which he held to be fostered by a nervous
condition brought about by overexertion, Babe Deveril began to feel,
as she felt, that there was something more than imagination in her
contention. How does a man sense things which no one of his five senses
can explain to him? He could not see any reason in this abrupt change
in both their moods; and yet, none the less, it seemed to him, all of a
sudden, as though eyes were spying on him from behind every pine trunk,
and from the screen of every thicket.

"Joe won't escape us in a hurry," he muttered. "Not in this cañon. And
we'll see this thing through. Let's sit tight and watch."

And so, with that inexplicable sense that here in the wilderness they
were not yet free from pursuit, they crouched in the bushes and bent
every force of every sense to detect their fancied pursuers. But the
forest land, sun-smitten, a playland of light and shadow and tremulous
breeze, lay steeped in quiet about them, and they saw nothing moving
save the gently stirring leaves and occasional birds; half a dozen
sparrows briefly stayed their flight upon a shrub in flower with
pale-pink blossoms; a bevy of quail, forty strong, marched away through
the narrow roadways under the low, drooping branches, with crested
topknots bobbing; the forest land murmured and whispered and sang
softly, and seemed empty of any other human presence than their own.
And yet they waited, and at the end of their waiting, grown nervous
despite themselves, though they had had no slightest evidence that
pursuit was drawing close upon their heels, they were not able to shake
from them that _feeling_ that danger, the danger from which they fled,
was become a near-drawn menace. And all the more to be feared in that
it approached so silently, covertly, hidden and ready to strike when
their guard was down.

"Just the same," said Deveril, deep in his own musings, "it can't be
Jim Taggart, for that's not Taggart's way, having the goods on a man,
and, besides, I fancy I put him out of the running." Then he looked at
her curiously, and added: "And it can't be Bruce Standing, since you
put him down and out and...."

It was the first time that such a reference to the past had been made.
Now she startled him by the quick vehemence of her denial, saying:

"I didn't shoot Bruce Standing! I tell you...."

He looked at her steadily, and she broke off, as she saw dawning in his
eyes a look which was to be read as readily as were white stones to be
glimpsed in the bottom of a clear pool. She had made her statement,
and, whether true or false, he held it to be a lie.

"In case they should somehow lay us by the heels," he said dryly, "you
would come a lot closer to clearing yourself by saying that you shot
him in self-defense than in denying everything. But they haven't got
their ropes over our running horns yet!... Do you still feel that we
are followed?"

His look angered her; his words angered her still further. So to his
question she made no reply. He looked at her again curiously. She
refused to meet his eyes, coolly ignoring him. A little smile twitched
at his lips.

"It's a poor time for good friends to fall out," he said lightly.
"I don't care the snap of my fingers who shot him, or why. He ought
to have been shot a dozen years ago. And now I'll tell you what, I
think, explains this business of some one being close behind us, if
you are right in it. The big chance is that some one has been trailing
Mexicali Joe all along; and dropped in behind us when we dropped in
behind Joe. We've been doing a first-class job of sticking to cover;
mind you, we haven't caught a second glimpse of Joe all this time, and
therefore it is as likely as not that the gent whom you _feel_ to be
trailing us hasn't caught a glimpse of us. If this is right, we've got
a bully chance right now to prove it. We lie close where we are for ten
minutes, and see if your hombre doesn't slip on by us, nosing along
after Joe."

In silence she acquiesced. That sense of the nearness of another unseen
human being was insistent upon her. For a long time, as still as the
deep-rooted trees about them, they crouched, listening, watching. She
heard the watch ticking in Babe Deveril's pocket. She heard her own
breathing and his. She heard the brownie birds threshing among dead
leaves. Then there was the eternal whispering of the pines and the
faint murmurings from the stream far down in the cañon. At last it
would have been a relief to straining nerves if a man, or two or three
men, had stepped into sight in the trail from which she and Deveril
had withdrawn. For more certain than ever was Lynette Brooke, though
she could give neither rhyme nor reason for that certainty, that her
instincts had not tricked her. Therefore, instead of being reassured
at seeing or hearing no one, she was depressed and made anxious;
the silence became sinister, filled with vague threat; that she saw
no one was explicable to her by but the one ominous condition: that
person or those persons were watching even now, and knew where she and
Babe Deveril hid, and did not mean to stir until first their quarry
stirred. Why all this caution? She could not explain that to herself;
if some one followed, why should that some one hide? Why not step out
with gun levelled, and put an end to this grim game of hide-and-seek.

"You see," whispered Deveril, "there is no one behind us."

They had not moved for a full twenty minutes, and by now he began to
convict her of nervous imaginings, fancies of an overwrought girl. But
she answered him, saying with unshaken certainty:

"I tell you, I know! Some one has been following us, and now is hiding
and waiting for us to go on."

"Well, you are right or wrong, and in either case I don't fancy this
job of sitting so tight I feel as though I were growing roots. If you
should happen to be right, we'll know in time, I suppose. Let's go!"

To her, in her present mood, anything was better than inaction. They
left their hiding-place, found a silent and hidden way a bit farther
down the slope, went forward a hundred yards and stepped back into the
faint trail. Their concern, each said inwardly, was to forge on and
to follow Joe; thus they pretended within themselves to ignore that
nebulous warning that they, like Joe, were followed.

And so the day wore on, a day made up of uncertainty and vague threat.
How full the silent forest lands were of little sounds! For therein
lies the greatest of all forest-land mysteries; that silence in the
solitudes may be made audible. Uncertainty struck the key-note of their
long day. They sought to follow Mexicali Joe; they did not see him,
they did not hear him, they did not know where he was. Was he still
ahead of them, hastening on? How far ahead? A mile by now, not having
paused while they lost time? A hundred yards? Or had he turned aside?
Or had he thrown himself down flat somewhere, watching them go by? Was
he following them, or had he struck out east or west, while they went
on north? And was there some one following them? One man? Two? More? Or
none at all? Uncertainty. And as they grew tired and hungry, the great
silence oppressed them, and most of all this uncertainty of all things
began to bite in upon their nerves as acid eats into glass, etching its
own sign.

"I'm getting jumpy," muttered Deveril, glaring at her, his eyes looking
savage and stern. "This nonsense of yours...."

"It's not nonsense!"

"Anyway, it's getting on my nerves! There's no sense in this sort of
thing. We're scaring ourselves like two kids in the dark. What's more,
we are allowing a pace-setter to get us to going too hard and steady a
clip; we'll be done in, the first thing we know. And we've got to begin
figuring on where the next meal comes from. What I mean is, that we've
got enough to do without wasting any more nerve force on what may or
may not follow after us."

"Joe is still ahead of us," she reminded him; "or, at any rate, we
think that he is. He left last night in as big a hurry as we did; and
he, too, came away without gun and fishing-tackle, and didn't stop to
get Young Gallup to put him up a lunch. Then, on top of all that, Joe
knows this country better than we do."

"I get you!" he told her quickly. "Joe's as ready for food and lodging
as we are, and Joe, unless we're wrong all along, is hiking ahead of
us. Who knows but we'll invite ourselves to dine with Señor Joe before
the day's done!... Is that it?"

"I don't know how it may work out.... I hadn't gotten that far yet....
But if Joe is headed toward his secret, and if he does have a provision
cache somewhere in the mountains ... a few items in tinned goods and,
maybe, even coffee and sugar and canned milk...."

"Let's go!" broke in Deveril, half in laughter and half in eagerness.
"You make my mouth water with your surmisings."

Here in these steep-walled narrow gorges the shadows lengthened
swiftly after the sun had passed the zenith, and already, when now and
then they looked searchingly at what lay ahead, it was difficult to
distinguish the shadows from the substance. They must come close to Joe
if they meant to see him, and, by the same token, if a man followed
them, he was confronted by the same difficulty. So they hurried on,
walking more freely, keeping in the trail, climbing at times along the
ridge flank, frequently dipping down into the lower cañon. Babe Deveril
cut himself a green cudgel from a scrub-oak, trimming off the twigs as
he walked on. If it came to argument with Mexicali Joe, a club like
that might bring persuasion. And he fully meant that the Mexican should
show himself generous, even to the division of a last crust. Always
buoyed up by optimism, he was counting strongly on Joe's provision
cache.

When they dropped down into the cañon again, they saw the first star.
Lynette looked up at it; it trembled in its field of deep blue. She
was faint, almost dizzy; her muscles ached; fatigue bore hard upon
her spirit; she was footsore. But, most of all, like Deveril before
her, she was concerned with imaginings of supper. She pictured bacon
and a tin of tomatoes and shoe-string potatoes sizzling in the bacon
grease ... and coffee. Whether with milk or sugar, or without both, no
longer mattered. Then she sighed wearily, and had no other physical
nor mental occupation than that which had to do with the putting of
one foot before the other, plodding on and on and on. And all the
while the shadows deepened and thickened in the cañons, and the stars
multiplied, and the little evening breeze sharpened; she began to
shiver.

She could mark no trail underfoot; always Deveril, before her, was
breaking through a tangle, always at his heels, she kept his form in
sight; but she began to think that he had lost the way, and a new fear
gripped her. Instead of dining with Joe, they were losing him, and now,
with the utter dark already on the way, they would see no sign of him.
And in the dark they would not be able to snare a trout or anything
else that might be eaten. She got into the habit of breaking off twigs
and chewing at them....

And all the while Deveril was rushing on, faster and faster. It was
hard work keeping up with him.

"We've got him! Stay with it, Lynette; we've got him!"

It was Deveril's whisper, sharp and eager; there was Deveril himself
just ahead of her, pausing briefly.

"Come on. As fast and as quiet as you can."

Her heart leaped up; her life fires burned bright and warm again; the
pain went out of her. She began to run....

"Sh! Look! Off to the left in that little clearing."

On the mountain slope just ahead of them she marked the clearing and,
since there, too, the shadows were darkening, she saw nothing else. She
wondered what he saw or thought that he saw. He pointed, and she, with
straining eyes, made out a shadow which moved; Joe, going up a steep,
open trail. And just ahead of Joe a dark, square-cornered blot....

"A house ... a cabin...."

"A dirty dugout, most likely, and from the look of it. But, as sure
as you're born, there's Mexicali Joe's mountain headquarters. A clump
of bushes, willows, you can be sure, not ten feet from his door;
that will be his spring. And inside his shack ... a box of grub, Lady
Lynette! And if Joe doesn't have company for dinner, I'll eat your hat."

"I haven't any," said Lynette. "But we'd probably have to eat our own
shoes. Come on; let's hurry.... What are you waiting for?"

"I want to whet my appetite by loitering a while.... Listen, Lynette;
after all, there's no great hurry any longer. First thing, a hot supper
is what is needed, and Joe can make as good a fire as we can. You can
gamble that he won't waste any time, and that he'll cook a panful!"

"He might have only one panful ... and he might start in on it cold...."

"And if he has only that limited amount and it belongs to him and he
wants it, you don't mean to say that you would seek to take it away
from him? That's robbery...."

"We'll play square with him, Babe Deveril, and give him exactly
one-third. And man may call it robbery, but God and nature won't.
Come...."

"I'll come with you a few steps farther. And then we will possess our
souls in patience and will sit down among the bushes and will wait
until we smell coffee. And I'll tell you why."

She looked at him, wondering. And then suddenly she guessed somewhat of
his thought, though not all of it. She had forgotten her own certainty
that some one followed them; it surged back upon her now.

"Yes," he said, when she had spoken, "you're on the right track. We are
going to wait a few minutes to make sure. If some one was following
and wanted you and me, he could have had no object in hanging back,
spying on us. But if that same gent were following Mexicali Joe, he
would want to hang back, trusting to Joe to lead him to something worth
coming at. So, out of your _feeling_ I've built my theory: That this
gent thinks all the time he's trailing Joe, and doesn't know we are
here at all; tracks in the rocky trail wouldn't show him whether one or
a dozen had gone over it. And I get to this point: How did this gent
pick up Joe's trail in the dark? And I answer it by saying that he
could have known that Joe had a dugout up here, and so lay in wait for
him. And, that being true, by now he would be sure that Joe was going
straight to his camp, and so, at almost any moment, he would give up
his sneak-thief style of travelling and would come hurrying along. And,
if that's right, you and I can get a glimpse of this new hombre before
he does of us. It may come in handy, you know," he concluded dryly,
"to get the first swing at him if he's an ugly gent with a rifle. At
short range, and in the dark, and stepping lively, this club of mine is
way up. And, if we can take his rifle from him ... why, then into the
wilderness we go, without fear of starving. Which is a long speech for
the end of a perfect day, but I'm right!"

So insistent was he and so utterly weary she, they drew a few lagging
steps out of the trail, and sank down in the shadows. She lay flat;
she saw the stars swimming in the deepening purple; her eyes closed;
she felt two big tears of exhaustion slip out between the closed lids.
There was a faint drumming in her ears; she no longer cared for food.

... "Get up!" Deveril was saying curtly. "I guess we're both wrong. And
I'm going to eat, if the devil drops in to join us."

She didn't think she had been asleep. Nor yet that she had fallen prey
to swift, all-engulfing unconsciousness. Only that she had been in a
mood of utter indifference to all earthly matters. She tried, when he
commanded the second time, to rise. He helped her. She sat up.... She
saw a little sprinkling of sparks tossed upward from Joe's chimney;
stars at first she thought them--stars wavering and blurred and
uncertain.

"We've waited long enough," said Deveril.

She rose wearily, making no answer. He went ahead, she followed. Her
whole body cried out for rest; this brief, altogether too brief,
lingering had stiffened her and made her sore from head to foot. She
saw that Deveril was going up the steep trail slowly; he still strove
for caution, no doubt planning to burst in unexpectedly upon Mexicali
Joe. For Joe might have a gun there in his dugout; and he might have no
great stock of provisions and be of no mind to share with others. So
she, too, strove for silence.... A strangely familiar odor was afloat
on the night air ... coffee! Joe's coffee was boiling.

And then, at that moment of moments, jarring upon their nerves as a
sudden pistol-shot might have done, there came up to them from the
cañon they had just quitted the sharp sound made by a man breaking in
the dark through brush. And, with that sound, another; a man's voice,
a voice which both knew and yet on the instant were unable to place,
crying sharply, unguardedly:

"Come ahead, boys. There's his dugout and we got him dead to rights!"

"Down!" whispered Deveril. "Down! There's three or four of them...."

She dropped in her tracks, he at her side. They were in the little
clearing; if they went back it would be to run into the arms of the
men down there; if they went ahead it was to go straight on to Joe's
dugout. If they sought to turn to right or left, they must go through
the longest arms of the clearing, and must certainly be seen. The only
shadows into which they might slip were cast by the clump of willows
grouped in a span of half a dozen yards, and not over as many steps,
from Joe's door....

"Into the willows!" whispered Deveril. "Quick! It's our only show."

They crawled, wriggling forward, inching, but inching swiftly. Behind
them they heard voices, and a sudden running of heavy boots; before
them they heard a pot or pan dropped against Joe's stove, and then
Joe's excited muttering and the scuffle of Joe's boots. They scrambled
on; Deveril dragged himself, with a sudden heave, into the fringe of
the willow thicket; at his side, so close that elbow brushed elbow,
Lynette threw herself. They saw Joe come running out of his dugout;
they saw him pause a second; he could have seen them, surely, had he
looked down. But his eyes were for the cañon below, from which the
sudden voices had boomed up to him. And now came a voice again, that
first voice, shouting threateningly:

"I got you covered, Joe! With my rifle. And I'll drop you dead if you
move! You know me, Joe ... me, Jim Taggart!"

Still Joe hesitated ... and was lost. Up the steep slope came Jim
Taggart, and behind him Young Gallup; and after Gallup, Gallup's
man, Cliff Shipton. And every man of them carried a rifle, held in
readiness. Joe began to swear in Spanish, his voice shaken, quavering
with the fear upon him.

Deveril put out his hand until it lay upon Lynette's arm; his fingers
gave her a quick, warning squeeze. Taggart and the others were coming
on swiftly; it was almost too much to hope that they could pass and not
see the two figures outstretched in the willows. Still, there was the
chance, slim chance as it was....

If only Joe, poor stupid fool, as Deveril savagely called him in his
heart, would make a bolt for it! Then there'd surely be such a drawing
of their eyes to him that they would not see a white elephant tethered
at the door! But Joe stood as if his feet had grown into the ground.
Save for his continued mutterings, as Joe poured forth his eloquent
Spanish curses, he would have appeared a man bereft of all volition.
And Taggart and Young Gallup and Shipton came on at a run. Deveril
clutched his club; he turned an inch or two to be ready. Lynette, lying
so close to him, felt his body stiffen and guessed his purpose, and
this time it was her hand closing tight upon his forearm, warning him
to hold to caution as long as there was hope.

The three came steadily on, hastening all that they could up the steep
slope. A moment ago, when first Taggart called out, Joe might have
eluded them had he been lightning-swift and ready to take chances. But
now that he had hesitated, it was clear that his most shadowy hope of
escape was gone. He stood motionless, cursing them and his luck.

Babe Deveril's fingers were tight, as tight as rage could weld them
about his oak stick. At that moment he could have welcomed the excuse
to leap out with the unexpectedness of a cataclysm and the rush of a
catapult, to heave his club upward and bring it down, full force, upon
Taggart's head. For now he had the added rancour in his heart that Jim
Taggart, with his following, had chosen this one moment to come up with
them, just as Babe Deveril was counting in full confidence upon the
first square meal in twenty-four hours. Taggart, less than threatening
his safety, was stealing the supper which he had counted on having from
Mexicali Joe.

Jim Taggart began to laugh, more in malice than in mirth, and, most of
all, in an evil, gloating triumph. He came on, hurrying; he almost trod
on Lynette's boot. Instinctively she jerked away from him; yet only
because Taggart was so gloatingly bent upon his quarry he did not note
her movement, or must have supposed that he had set a stone rolling.

"Ho!" cried Taggart. "Joe's a good kid after all, boys! He's waited for
us, and he's got us a piping-hot supper! Wonder how he guessed we were
starved like wildcats?"

"Damn him!" Lynette heard Deveril, and her fingers gripped him with a
new agony of warning and supplication for silence.

"What's that?" demanded Taggart, thinking that Gallup or Shipton had
spoken.

"You robbers!" cried Joe nervously. "Already you tryin' rob me, las'
night. Now you tryin' rob me! I tell you...."

"Shut up!" snapped Taggart. "Back into your dirty den and we'll have a
nice little talk with you."

"I tell you...."

Taggart was close upon him now and caught him by the shoulder, flinging
him about, shoving him through the squat door of his dugout. Slight
enough was the diversion, but both Lynette and Deveril were thankful
for it, for the two figures drew the eyes of both Gallup and Shipton
and held them. Joe reeled across the threshold; Taggart, not knowing
what weapon Joe might have lying on his bunk, sprang nimbly after him.
And Gallup and Shipton, to see everything, drew on close behind him.
They passed the willows about the spring and, stooping, went in at
Joe's door.

Lynette and Deveril lay very still, hesitating to move hand or foot.
For both Gallup and Shipton stood on Joe's threshold, and that
threshold was a few steps only from their hiding-place. The snapping of
a twig, the crackling of a handful of dead leaves must certainly bring
swift, searching eyes upon them.




CHAPTER IX


"The first half chance we get," whispered Deveril, guardedly, "we've
got to sneak out of this! Lie still; I can see them without moving.
That man with the hawk face is turned this way."

He could see neither Joe nor Taggart in the dugout. Gallup he could
see, barely across the threshold now, watching Taggart and the Mexican.
The man Shipton, evidently fagged from a hard day of it, had slumped
down on the log that served as door-step, and faced outward, save when
now and then he half turned to glance curiously at the sheriff and his
captive.

"So we nabbed you, eh, Mexico?" gibed Taggart. "You damn little tricky
shrimp! To think you could put one across on me!"

"Gatham you!" shrilled Joe. "You big t'ief, you try one time an' you
see! I ain't do nothin' to you; I got the right...."

"Oh, shut up!" muttered Taggart impatiently. "Dry your palaver for
once. I'll give you chance enough to spill over when I get good and
ready." Outside Lynette and Deveril heard a sound which, in their
hunger, they were quick to read aright; Taggart, also hungry, had
stepped to the stove and had dragged a heavy iron frying-pan to him,
investigating its content. "Phew!" growled Taggart. "You infernal
garlic hound! Well, the jerked meat ought to go all right. And coffee,
huh? Come on, boys; we'll feed up, and then we'll tell Joe what's in
the wind."

"I ain't got much grub," Joe shouted back at him. "An' I need it
mysel'. You go...."

There was the sound of a blow and of scuffling feet, the thudding of a
body against the wall.

"Take that," Taggart told him viciously. And, his ugly voice thick with
threat: "And thank your Dago saints I only used my fist! Next time, so
help me, I'll bash you with a rifle barrel. Say, Cliff...."

"Say it," drawled Cliff.

"Scare up some dry wood; the fire's near out. And, Joe, you dig up a
candle or lamp or something. I'd like a little light in this stinking
hole."

Joe, though with infuriated mutterings, did as bid. Slowly the gaunt
form of Cliff Shipton rose from the rough-hewn log.

"God, I'm tired," he said. And then, when no one thought to sympathize,
he demanded querulously: "Say, Mex, where's your wood-pile?"

Gallup laughed at him.

"Imagine the lazy hound having a wood-pile! Skirmish around, Cliff, and
pick up some dead sticks."

Joe had found a stub of candle, and now its pale light vaguely
illuminated the dugout's interior. Since there was but the one opening,
the squat door, Deveril still saw only Gallup. Gallup by now was
sitting upon the narrow bunk at the back of the room, his rifle between
his knees, the shadow of his hat hiding his face. Shipton set his own
rifle down against the outside wall and began groping with his feet for
bits of wood.

"It's getting awful dark for this kind of thing," he was telling
himself in his eternally complaining voice. "Ain't he got a box or a
chair or a table or something in there that'll burn?" he called.

No one paid any attention to him and Shipton, scuffling gropingly with
his feet, widened his search. And now Lynette and Deveril scarcely
breathed. For it seemed inevitable that he was coming straight toward
the brushy-fringed spring where they lay. Deveril was now on his left
elbow, his body raised slightly, his legs drawn up under him, so
that he could readily fling himself to his feet, his oak club in his
right hand. Lynette understood and was ready, too; if Shipton came
dangerously near, she knew that it was Deveril's intent to drop him in
his tracks. Then there would remain but the one thing to do; to leap up
and run for it, run blindly, plunging into the nearest shadows, to run
on and on while men shot after them.

Shipton came nearer. She felt Babe Deveril stir, ever so slightly. Her
only concern now was: Would he strike just at the very second that he
should? Would he strike a second too early, before it was necessary,
and thus needlessly give himself away? Would he strike just a second
too late, giving Shipton first the time to see and cry out?

"God, I'm stiff and sore," Shipton was muttering.

His foot struck something, and he reached down, thinking it was a bit
of wood. But it was a stone, dirt-covered, and he kicked at it and came
on. Now he was not two steps away. Again he stooped; as he stooped,
Babe Deveril raised himself an inch or two higher. But now Shipton
found a fragment of a pine log, half rotted and of little use as fuel.
But in his present mood it served him; he picked it up and turned back
to the dug-out. Lynette heard Deveril's slowly expelled breath.

Within there was a scraping of frying-pan on stove top. They saw a tin
plate handed to Gallup on his bunk; Gallup began eating, noisy about
it; eating like a dog. Shipton went in with his log. Taggart caught
it from him, broke it up by striking it against the hard-packed dirt
floor, and began stoking the stove. A fresh gush of sparks shot up from
Joe's chimney. Shipton was demanding to be fed ... and for God's sake
give him a shot of coffee.

"Now's our chance," whispered Deveril. "None too good, but the best
we're going to have! Ready?"

And her whisper came back to him, "Always ready!"

"Now," he whispered. "Off to the right; slow and quiet; if once we can
snake across this open place and into the timber over there...."

"And now, Señor Joe," came Taggart's voice, and they knew from the
sound that Taggart, mouth full, was eating ravenously, "we got you!"

"Sure you got me," Joe rasped out at him, and still there remained
defiance in little Mexicali Joe. "Fine! But what you do with me? You
can't eat me, an' nobody ever yet put any bounty on my hide, an' when
you got me ... you no got nothin'. An', _cabrone_, what I got I keep
him!"

Taggart laughed at him in Taggart's ugly style.

"Talk big, little hombre, while you can! And now let me tell you
something: To-night, right now, inside ten minutes, you're going to
tell me just exactly where you got that stuff you spilled out of your
pocket last night. And in the morning, bright and early, you're going
to take me there!"

"I die firs'!"

"You'll be a long time dying! Think I'm fool enough to kill you ...
now? Know what the third degree is, Joe?" Taggart's voice was terrible
with its insinuation. "Me, when I give the third degree to any man, he
spills his guts before I'm done with him! You'll cough up everything
you know and be damn glad afterward to crawl off in the woods and die!
That's me, Joe."

Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching Mexicali Joe's
expression, laughed. After him Cliff Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe
began cursing nervously.

"Ready?" whispered Lynette. Taggart's threats horrified her and set her
trembling.

"No!... Don't you see? Taggart will make him tell everything he knows,
if he has to knock his teeth out one by one and break every bone in his
body! And I'm going to hear!... You crawl ahead while there's a chance;
I can up and run for it after you if I have to."

She was silent. There was excitement in his utterance and another
quality which sent a sudden chill to her heart. She stared at him
through the dark as at a stranger; the gold fever was rampant in his
veins, and she knew that he would lie here, never lifting hand or
voice, while Taggart tortured his captive until Joe shrieked out his
golden secret.

Before Lynette could speak or move, Taggart's voice once more cut
harshly through the silence.

"You wouldn't know, Joe, unless you'd been sheriff as long as me, how
many nice little ways there are of making a man hurry up about spitting
up all he knows!" Taggart was steadily cramming into his mouth the
half-cooked dried beef stew, appearing to have entirely forgotten
his dislike for garlic. "Me, I'm a man of brains and what you call
invention; I look around and see what I've got handy, and out of it I
make what I need! Now, look here. You see us boys eating hearty, and,
if I know what that look means in a man's eye, you got an appetite
yourself? Well, you don't get a scrap to eat nor a drink to drink until
you open up."

Joe sought to laugh at him. Taggart, still stuffing, went on steadily:

"Next, you see the stove with its hot lids? All right, pretty quick we
hold you so the palms of your hands stick to the hot lids and the skin
burns off. Oh, I know that don't hurt so much a man can't stand it;
sure not. But it does sort to set him to thinking things over in a new
fashion! And then, what next?"

"Make him eat salt," put in Shipton with a snicker. "And don't give him
any water! Lots of salt does the trick, Jimmie."

Taggart, a man of no subtlety, snorted at him.

"Maybe you can tell gold when you see it, Cliff," he said briefly. "But
that's all you do know.... Listen to me, Mexico. We got our rifles,
ain't we? We stand you with your back to the wall and dare you to move!
Then we practise shooting; just to see how close we can come! We don't
hit you, us three being good shots. Anyway, we don't hit you often, and
then it's only grazes! We make a game out of it; every man takes a shot
and him that comes closest gets a dollar every time; him that draws
blood puts up two dollars in the pot. And, pretty soon.... What are you
looking so sick for, Joe? Nobody ain't hurt you yet!"

Joe's curses were suddenly faint, for Joe's mouth and throat were dry
and he had grown limp and dizzy and sick.

"You see, I got you, Joe. Got you dead to rights!"

"The brute!" whispered Lynette, her own flesh set twitching. "The
horrible brute!"

"Sh! Just listen!"

"I don't believe he'd actually do that! He is just frightening
Joe--bluffing...."

"You the sheriff!" cried Joe, desperate. "You the one bigges' robber in
all these mount'!"

"Call me robber, will you, you skunk!"

Again they heard the sound of the blow, struck fiercely by Jim Taggart,
who, as he let all men understand, was the last man to brook an insult.
And they heard Joe's slight body hurled back, so that he toppled and
fell. And, thereafter, Taggart's brutish laughter. To-night, Jim
Taggart, no matter how disgruntled he had been during so many hours,
was at last enjoying himself. For to-night he was secure in his
expectations.

"You bleed awful easy, Joe," he jeered. "Ought to go get your teeth
straightened up, too! Cup of coffee? No? Then I'll take one; _gracias,
mi amigo!_"

"I hope you burn in hell!" screamed Joe.

"So?" And Taggart, swinging heavily, knocked him down again, and then
reached out for the can that held sugar and sweetened his coffee.
Shipton sniggered.

"You're a corker, Jim!" he declared.

"Me," acknowledged Taggart heavily, "I am what I am. But I never laid
down for a Mex breed yet, and I ain't going to."

Joe lay where he had fallen. His body was pain-wracked, for when
Jim Taggart struck in wrath he struck mightily, being a mighty man
physically, and hard. Joe's swart skin had paled; his eyes started from
his head; he feared, and not without reason, that a third blow like
that would kill him. And he knew that Jim Taggart was no man to lie
awake because he had killed another man.

"I got thirs'," said Joe thickly. He was sitting up, on the floor.
"Give me cup water!"

"What did I tell you, Joe?" Taggart grinned at him. "I got you. Got you
right."

"I burnin' up," said Joe weakly. "Maybe you killin' me. Give me drink
water."

"I got you, Joe," said Taggart speculatively. No mockery now; just a
vast, deep satisfaction. "I half believe one good kick in the belly
would settle you and you'd tell all you know. I got a hunch...."

"Go slow, Jim." This from the avaricious Young Gallup. "No sense
killing him, seeing you haven't found out a thing."

"You're right, Gal. Well, give him a drink, then; half a cup of water
and let him think things over.... If he opens up then, O. K. If he
don't we'll find the way to open him up."

"Let me go to the spring," said Joe. By now he was on his feet. "I was
jus' goin' for water when you come. The spring, she's right there. You
can see I don't run away...."

"Go scoop him up a can of water, Cliff," said Taggart. "You sit tight,
Joe. You don't go out to-night unless we take you out to put you in a
hole!"

"_Now!_" whispered Deveril sharply. "Now we've got to crawl for it!"

But Cliff Shipton demurred, saying surlily:

"I'm tired out, and I'm sore and stiff and stove-up. Let him go without
his water."

"We were crazy for waiting so long!" complained Deveril. "Hurry!"

In the dugout Gallup was saying slowly, after his ponderous fashion:

"I'll go get him his water. After that, like you say, Jim, he'll
open up--wide! Or, if he don't, I'll break his jaw-bone with my boot
heel.... Where's a can?"

Already Babe Deveril had wormed his way out of the willows and began
creeping about the edge of the tiny thicket that was farthest from
Joe's cabin. Lynette, feeling weak and sick, followed him like his own
shadow. Thus they skirted the brushy fringe of the spring.

Then Gallup, carrying his can, came out. Deveril dropped flat and lay
motionless, his body hidden, at least to careless eyes, by the spring
willows. Lynette dropped flat just behind him. She knew that again
Deveril was ready to leap and strike, mercilessly hard, if Gallup came
too near. It was almost an even chance whether Gallup would come their
way or not.... Lynette, cold and tired and hungry and at last afraid,
shivered.

But, almost immediately, it became obvious to both of them that Gallup
had been here before and knew his way about. He turned, as they had
hoped that he would, to the right; they heard him reach the spring and
dip his pan and fill it and turn back to the dugout, slopping water
after him. They saw him step on the threshold; already Deveril was
crawling cautiously again, and, after him, Lynette.

It was like life in a nightmare. So tortuously slow. So great a need
for quiet, and, like jeering, mocking voices, there came so many
little sounds, loud in their ears--twigs snapping, leaves rustling,
tiny stones set rolling. At first, what with the dark and her sole
thought to be gone, Lynette failed to understand just how Deveril
was directing his course. When she did grasp, she wondered at him.
Instead of hurrying straight across the clearing toward the haven of
the timber-line, he was drawing nearer and nearer the west end of the
dugout! Now she dared not whisper to him; she could not come up with
him to catch warningly at his boot. So she followed, striving with all
her caution to overtake him. And before she could do so, she glimpsed
his purpose.

True to type, Joe's dugout had but the one door, and the rear of the
building was a sort of timbered hole in the mountainside. Deveril
planned that if he could gain the back of the dugout he could hear
what was going on and run little danger of being detected; further,
that in that direction, did he elect to up and run for cover, he and
Lynette would have as good a chance as any to get away in the rim of
the forest. If they moved with all possible silence, and especially if
Taggart and the others within kept up their noise-making, snapping
and snarling and knocking things about, it was more than an even
break that neither Taggart nor any of his companions would come to
suspect that they were being spied upon; and when did Babe Deveril
ever ask more than the even break? Then ... there remained one other
consideration, one of exceedingly great importance in Deveril's
estimation, of which as yet Lynette had no inkling: while in hiding
down by the spring Deveril had made a discovery, or believed that he
had, and no opportunity had been given him either to speak of it or yet
to investigate.

Clearly now was the moment when Taggart and Gallup and the complaining
Cliff Shipton concentrated every thought upon their captive; Joe showed
signs of weakening, and every man of them held that if only Joe could
be led to "open up" they would all be made rich at his expense.

Meanwhile Gallup had given Joe his water; Joe had drunk rapidly,
gulping noisily. Taggart and Gallup and Shipton were eying him eagerly.
Joe had taken a deep breath; again he started to drink. Taggart struck
the can away from his mouth, commanding: "No more. You've got to talk
first; fast and straight and no lies! Understand?"

"How you goin' tell if I lie?" muttered Joe, something of his
stubbornness restored.

"Right now you tell us where the gold is. In the morning you take us to
the place. And if you make a little mistake and don't take us straight,
I'll make you sorry you were ever born!"

Deveril and Lynette passed within a few yards of the dugout's nearest
front corner; they groped onward up the steep slope; they came in a
brief détour to the rear, where the rude timbers supporting the shed
roof were at this end embedded in the earth. Here they stopped and
lay flat and listened. And they heard Joe mumbling: "If I tell, I tell
true. But I don't think I tell. You kick me out; you steal everything;
you get rich an' me--I die poor. Maybe better I die and fool you!"

"Listen, Joe." Gallup speaking--Gallup, who feared that Joe might be
fool enough to die with locked lips rather than be robbed of his new
fortune; Gallup, a man who could understand another man doing anything,
standing any torture, rather than lose the one golden thing in life.
"We'll make you a fair proposition, us three men. You found the gold;
all right, you got a right to a share. You can't hog it anyhow; other
men will come rushing in as soon as you drop a pick in it; they'll
stake claims all around you; more'n likely they'll cop off the very
cream of it, and you'll have just a pocket that will peter out on you.
We brought Cliff along; he knows pockets and veins and all kind of gold
signs, from stock to barrel. Now, you show sense; you take us along;
we form a company, just us four. And you get one-fourth the rake-off.
And we got the money to develop it; to make a big thing out of it. You
ain't got the money and you ain't got the business brains, and you'd
lose on it sooner or later, anyhow."

Silence. A long silence while three men watched him and while Deveril
and Lynette listened. A long silence during which all that strangely
blended craft which flowed into Mexicali Joe's veins from a mixture of
Latin and Indian ancestry was hard at work ... though this no one could
guess now, so immobile was Joe's face, so guarded his tone when he
spoke.

"That sound fine, Gallup! But how I know you don't cheat me? For why
you don't hit me in the head with a pick when I tell? For why you don't
take all ... everything?"

"I'm telling you why!" cried Gallup. "Look here. Suppose we did that
and croaked you and dug a hole and stuck you in. All right. Next thing
we pop up with a new gold-mine! And there'll be men to say: 'That ore
looks like the ore Mexicali Joe showed that night down to Gallup's
house!' And they'll say: 'Where's Joe?' And they'll begin making
trouble, all kinds; they'll want to run us out. They'll have us up
for killing you. There'll be a lot of talk, and always the chance, as
long's we live, they might pin something on us. And what would we make
by that sort of work? _Only a one-quarter interest in your diggings!_
Why, man, it ain't worth it! We got too much sense to kill any man for
the sake of a little ante like that. Sure, Joe; dead on the level, if
you play square with us, we play square with you."

Silence again. A longer silence than before. Then, while Joe must have
appeared to hesitate, Taggart said abruptly:

"And if you don't take our proposition and talk fast and straight, I'm
going to _make_ you talk! And then you don't get no thanks but a kick
and a get-the-hell-out! That's my way, you little greaser."

"Give him time, Jim," pleaded Gallup.

"All right!" cried Joe, seeming eager now. "I take the chance! You boys
just tell me 'So help me God, I play square!' and I take the chance!"

"So help me God!" cried Young Gallup, first of all. "I play square with
you, Joe!"

And after him, while Joe waited, both Taggart and Cliff Shipton said,
with a semblance of deep gravity: "So help me God."

"We pardners now? Us four?" demanded Joe. And when he had had his three
immediate, emphatic assurances--Deveril misjudged him a fool--Joe
began, speaking rapidly: "_Bueno!_ Now we talk. An' in the mornin' we
start an' to-morrow I show you! I got the bigges' mine you can't beat
in all New Mexico an' Arizona an' Nevada, too! For why I care take on
three pardners? I tell you, we got the money to devil-him-up, we all
rich like hell!..."

"Get going, Joe," growled Taggart. "Where? Down Light Ladies' Cañon,
and not more'n three or four miles from Big Pine?"

Joe cackled his derision at Taggart's guess.

"Me, I fool ever'body!" he said gleefully. "Me, I'm damn smart man,
Señor Taggart! Nowhere near Light Ladies'. The other way. We go all day
to-morrow, way back up in the mountains. One long, hard day, walkin'.
Maybe day an' a half. You know where Buck Valley? All right; you know,
on other side, Big Bear Creek? An' then you know, little bit more far,
two-t'ree mile, Grub Stake Cañon? You know...."

"By the living Lord," broke in Taggart. "That's right square in Bruce
Standing's country!"

Again Joe cackled.

"You know whole lot; you don't know ever'thing! Timber-Wolf's lands run
like this." (One could imagine a grimy forefinger set in a dirty palm.)
"His line, here. My mine, she's just the other side. Nobody's land;
gover'ment land." He chuckled. "An' ol' big Timber-Wolf, he goin' cry
... _boo-hoo-hoo!_ ... when he find out we got gold not mile an' half
from his line!"


Deveril was twitching at Lynette's sleeve. He began edging away. When
she came up with him he was standing; she rose and, together they
hurried across the clearing, and in a few moments were in the deep dark
of the embracing forest land.

"I know that country like a map!" he told her excitedly. "We were
already headed that way, and on we go! Why, it was right up by Big
Bear Creek that I spent a night with Bruce Standing six years ago
and he robbed me of my roll!... They start in the morning; we start
to-night! We'll be there when they come; there are ten thousand places
to hide out; we'll have a place on a ridge where we can watch them. And
they'll never have the vaguest idea that any one, you and I least of
all, is ahead of them. Somehow, Lynette Brooke, our luck is with us and
this whole game is going to play into our hands."

"If a little food would only play into them!... The smell of that
coffee ... the meat cooking...."

"Wait! Right here, by this tree. Don't move a step, no matter what
happens. I'll be back with you in two shakes."

She was almost too tired and faint from hunger to wonder at him. She
saw him go, and then she sank down, her back to the big yellow pine.
He went as straight as a string toward the spring; she saw him walking
swiftly, though with footfalls so guarded that she could not hear him
when he had gone ten steps. She knew that he was recklessly counting
upon a deal of quick chatter in the dugout, secure in his own bravado
that no man of the four there would at this electrically charged moment
have thought of anything but gold. He disappeared in the dark; he was
gone so long that she jumped up and stood staring in all directions;
but at last he was back at her side, chuckling, and then she knew he
had not been away ten minutes.

"I struck it with my elbow, while we were hiding down there," he told
her triumphantly. "Mexicali Joe's real cache!"

He had a square tin biscuit-box in his hands. She put her hand in
quickly. The box, which had been half buried in the cool earth by the
spring, was half full of tins and small packages.

Fatigue fled out of them. Hurriedly they went up over the ridge, deeper
and deeper into the forest land. And when, in half an hour, they came
down into the dark, tree-walled bed of another ravine, they made them
their small fire and tumbled out into its light their newly acquired
treasure-trove--sardines, beans, tinned milk ... yes, coffee!




CHAPTER X


"So the sheriff, Jim Taggart, is not dead, after all. And you...."

Deveril looked across their tiny fire at her, a strange expression in
his eyes, and said quietly:

"No; he is not dead. All along I judged that unlikely. Though I slung
your gun at him hard enough, if it hit a lucky spot. It's hard to kill
a man, you know.... And, to finish your thought, I am not running wild
with a hangman's noose hanging about my neck! And you...."

He took a certain devilish glee in concluding with an echo of her own
words. And with the added insinuation poured into them from his own. He
saw her jerk her head up defiantly.

"I told you...."

Again she broke off. He made no remark, but sat looking at her
intently. They had eaten and drunk their fill; there remained to them a
goodly stock of provisions; Deveril was smoking his cigarette.

"What now?" demanded Lynette, as one tired of a subject and impatient
to look forward.

He shrugged.

"All troubles have slipped off my shoulders. The worst they could
do to me, if they could lay me by the heels, would be to charge me
with assault and battery! And we're in a neck of the woods where men
laugh at a charge like that, and ask the assaulted one why the devil
he didn't hit back! What now? For you I'd advise keeping right on
travelling. For if Bruce Standing is dead it's up to you to keep
on the move! As for me, I never met up with a sweeter travelling
companion, nor yet with a nervier, nor yet, by God, with a lovelier!
Say the word, Lynette Brooke, and we strike on together, over the ridge
and deeper into the wilderness, headed for the land beyond Buck Valley,
beyond Big Bear Creek. For the wild lands beyond the last holdings
of the late Timber-Wolf, to be on the ground when Mexicali Joe leads
Taggart and Gallup and Shipton to his gold!"

She understood how Babe Deveril, as any man should be, was relieved
at knowing that the man he had stricken down was not dead; that
he, himself, was not hunted as a murderer. And yet she was vaguely
distressed and uneasy. She felt a change in him, and in his attitude
toward her.... When he awaited her reply, she made none. Again fatigue
swept over her, and with it a new stirring of uneasiness....

There was a drop of coffee left; she leaned forward and took it,
thinking: "He had his tobacco, and it has bolstered up his nerves." She
drank and then sat back, leaning against a tree, her face hidden from
him, while she searched his face in the dim light, searched it with a
stubborn desire to read the most hidden thought in his brain.

"I am tired," she said after a long while. He could make nothing of her
voice, low and impersonal, and with no inflection to give it expression
beyond the brief meanings of the words themselves. "Very tired. Yet
necessity drives. And it is not safe here, so near them. I can go on
for another hour, perhaps two or three hours. That will mean ... how
far? Four or five miles; maybe six, seven?"

Not only for one hour, not alone for just two or three hours did they
push on. But for half of that silent, starry night. A score of times
Babe Deveril said to her: "We've done our stunt; if any girl on earth
ever earned rest, you've done it." But always there was that driving
force and that allure, and another ridge just ahead, and her answer:
"Another mile.... I can do it."

Deveril, with a lighted match cupped in his hand, looked at his watch.

"It's long after midnight; nearly one o'clock."

They found a sheltered spot among the tall pines; above them the
keen edge of an up-thrust ridge; just below a thick-grown clump of
underbrush; underfoot dry needles, fallen and drifted from the pines.
Again he was all courtesy and kindliness toward her, seeing her hard
pressed, judging her, despite her mask of hardihood, near collapse. So
he cut pine boughs with his knife and broke them with his hands, and of
them piled her a couch. She thanked him gently; impulsively she gave
him her hand ... though, as his caught it eagerly, she jerked it away
quickly.... He watched her lie down, snuggling her cheek against the
curve of her arm. Near by he lay down on his back, his two hands under
his head, his eyes on the stars. A curious smile twitched at his lips.

And then, just as they were dropping off to sleep, they heard far off
a long-drawn, howling cry piercing through the great hush. Lynette
started up, her blood quickening; as she had heard Bruce Standing's
warning call that first time, so now did she think to hear it again.
Deveril leaped to his feet, no less startled. A moment later he called
softly to her, and it seemed to Lynette that he forced a tone of
lightness which did not ring true:

"A timber wolf ... but one that runs on four legs! It won't come near."
Then, as she made no answer and he could not see her face, he asked
sharply: "What did you think it was?"

She shivered and lay back.

"I didn't know."

And to herself she whispered:

"And I don't know now!"

Here among the uplands it was a night of piercing cold. The nearer the
dawn drew on, the icier grew the fingers of the wind which swept the
ridges and probed into the cañons. For a little while both Lynette
and Deveril slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion. But, after the first
couple of hours, neither slept beyond brief, uncomfortable dozes. They
shivered and woke and stirred; they found a growing torture in the rude
couches they slept upon, in the hard ground and stones, which seemed
always thrusting up in new places. Long before the night had begun to
thin to the first of daybreak's hint, Lynette was sitting, her back to
a tree, torn between the two impossibilities, that of remaining awake,
that of remaining asleep. Deveril got up and began stamping about,
trying to get warm and drive the cramp and soreness out of his muscles.

"A few more days and nights like this," he grumbled, "would be enough
to kill a pair of Esquimos! We've got to find us some sort of half-way
decent shelter for another night, and we've got to arrange to take a
holiday and rest up."

It was all that she could do to keep her teeth from chattering by
shutting them hard together; her only answer was a shivery sigh. She
could scarcely make him out, where he trod back and forth, the darkness
held so thick. She began to think so longingly of a fire that in
comparison with its cheer and warmth she felt that possible discovery
by Taggart would be a small misfortune. She could almost welcome being
put under arrest; taken back to Big Pine and jail; given a bed and
covers and one long sleep.

"Awake?" queried Deveril.

She nodded, as though he could see her nod through the dark. Then, with
an effort, she said an uncertain: "Y-e-s."

"I'll tell you," he said presently, coming close to her and looking
down upon the blot in the darkness which her huddled figure made at
the base of the pine. "Taggart will be on his way soon; he'll hardly
wait for day. He'll go the straightest, quickest way to the Big Bear
country. That means he'll steer on straight into Buck Valley. If you
and I went that way, we'd have him and his crowd at our heels all day,
and never know how close they were; and I, for one, am damned sick of
that _feeling_ that somebody's creeping up on us all the time! So we
swerve out from the direct way as soon as we start; we curve off to
the north for a couple of miles; then we make a bend around toward the
upper end of what I fancy must be the Grub Stake Cañon Joe is headed
for. That way we'll always have two or three miles between our trail
and theirs; at times we'll be five or six miles off to the side. That
means, of course, that they're pretty sure to get to Joe's diggings
ahead of us; not over half a day at that. For we're well ahead of them
now. And, in any case, you can bet the last sardine we've got that
they'll be a day or two just poking around, prospecting and trying to
make sure of what they've grabbed off.... Agreed, pardner?"

"Yes. I could even start now, just to get those few miles between our
trail and theirs. Then, when the sun was up and it was warm, we could
have a rest and an hour's sleep."

So, walking slowly, painfully, carrying what was left of their small
stock of provisions, they started on in the dark. Up a ridge they went
and into the thinning edge of the coming dawn; they picked their way
among trees and rocks; little by little they were able to see in more
detail what lay about them. Along the ridge they tramped northward.
They were warmer now that they walked; or, rather, they were some
degrees less cold. Gradually their paces grew swifter, as some of the
stiffness went out of their bodies; gradually the shadows thinned; the
stars paled, the east asserted itself above the other points of the
compass, softly tinted. The sleeping world began to awake all about
them; birds stirred with the first drowsy twitterings. The pallid
eastern tints grew brighter; as from a wine-cup, life was spilled again
upon the mountain tops. A bird began a clear-noted, joyous singing;
all of a sudden the morning breeze seemed sweeter and softer; there
came a brilliant, flaming glory in the sky which drew their eyes; all
life forces which had been at ebb began to flow strongly once more;
the sun thrust a gleaming golden edge up into the upper world, rolling
majestically from the under world. Deveril looked into her eyes and
laughed softly; her eyes smiled back into his.... She felt as though
she had had a bad dream, but was awake now; as though last night her
nerves had tricked her into wrongly judging her companion. Doubtings
always flock in the night; joy is never more joyous than when breaking
forth with the new day.

"It isn't so bad, after all," said Deveril. "Now, if we only had a
pack-mule and a roll of blankets and a bit of canvas.... What more
would you ask, Lynette Brooke, for a lark and a holiday to remember
pleasantly when we grew to be doddering old folks?"

"As long as you are wishing," returned Lynette lightly, "why not place
an order with the King of Ifs for a gun and some fishing-tackle and a
frying-pan and some more coffee? And a couple of hats; an outing suit
for me." She looked down at her suit; it was torn in numerous places;
it was gummed and sticky here and there with the resin from pines; it
caught upon every bush. "Then, you know, a needle and some thread; a
dozen fresh eggs, bread, and butter...."

"Too much soft living has spoiled you!" he laughed.

"If so, I am in ideal training to get unspoiled in short order!" she
laughed back.

And for all of this was the rising sun and the new, bright day
responsible; for the ancient way of youth playing up to youth.

What was happening within both of them was a great nervous relaxation.
They knew where Taggart and Gallup were, or at least were confident
that there was no immediate danger of Taggart and Gallup overhauling
them; they knew where Mexicali Joe was and where he was going. For the
moment they were freed from that crushing sense of uncertainty welded
to menace which had borne down upon them ever since they fled from Big
Pine. And consequently joy of life sprang up as a spring leaps the
instant that the weight is plucked from it.

"It's our lucky day!" said Deveril.

For the sun was scarcely up when a plump young rabbit hopped square
into their path, and Deveril, with a lucky throw, killed it with a
rock. And just as they were speaking of thirst, they came to a tiny
trickle of water among the rocks; and while Lynette was boiling coffee
over a tiny blaze, Deveril was preparing grilled cottontail for
breakfast. Savory odors floating out through the woodlands. Lynette was
singing softly:


     "_Merry it is in the good Greenwood!_"


They ate and rested and the sun warmed them. For a full two hours they
scarcely stirred. Then they drank again; Lynette bathed her hands and
face and arms; she set her hair in order, refashioning the two thick
braids. She shut one eye and then the other, striving to make certain
that there was not a black smudge somewhere upon her nose. They were
starting on when Deveril said soberly:

"Shall I save the rabbit skin?"

"Why?" she asked innocently.

A twinkle came into his eyes.

"A few more days of this sort of life, and My Lady Linnet is going to
require a new gown! Perhaps rabbit furs, if hunting is good, will do
it!"

She laughed at him, and her eyes were daring as she sang, improvising
as to melody:


     "And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
       That wont on harp to stray,
     A cloak must sheer from the slaughtered deer,
       To keep the cold away!"


"_Lynette!_"

A flash from her gay mood had set his eyes on fire. He sprang up and
came toward her, his two hands out. But as a black cloud can run over
the face of the young moon, so did a sudden change of mood wipe the
tempting look out of her eyes and darken them. Her spirit had peeped
forth at him, merry-making; as quick as bird-flight it was gone, and
she stepped back and looked at him steadily, cool now and aloof and
dampening to a man's ardent nonsense.

"You have a way of saying something, Babe Deveril," she told him
coolly, "which appeals to me. In your own upstanding words: 'Let's go!'"

He laughed back at her lightly, hiding under a light cloak his own
chagrin. At that moment he had wanted her in his arms; had wanted
that as he wanted neither Mexicali Joe's gold nor any other coldly
glittering thing. Now he felt himself growing angry with her....

"Right. You've said it. Let's go."

He made short work of catching up the few articles they were to carry
with them and of stamping into dead coals the few remaining glowing
embers of their fire. Then, striding ahead, he led the way. And for a
matter of a mile or more she was hard beset to keep up with him.


The day was filled with happenings to divert their thoughts from any
one channel. They startled, in a tiny meadow, three deer, which shot
away through a tangle of brush, leaping, plunging, shooting forward
and down a slope like great, gleaming, graceful arrows. "A man could
live like a king here, with a rifle," said Deveril longingly. They
saw a tall, thin wisp of smoke an hour before noon; it stood against
the sky to the southwest of them, at a distance of perhaps two miles.
"Taggart's noonday camp," they decided, deciding further that Taggart
must have insisted on an early start, and therefore had found his
stomach demanding lunch well before midday. Later, some two or three
hours after twelve, they heard the long, reverberating crack and rumble
and echo of a rifle-shot. "Taggart's crowd, killing a deer or bear or
rabbit," they imagined. And all along they were contented, making what
time they could through the open spaces, over the ridges, down through
tiny green valleys and up long, dreary slopes, resting frequently,
never hastening beyond their powers, secure in knowing that the Taggart
trail and the Lynette-Deveril trail, though paralleling, would have no
common point of contact before both trails ran into the country in the
vicinity of the Big Bear Creek, the rim of the Timber-Wolf country.

"The whole thing," exulted Babe Deveril, "lies in the fact that we
know where they are and they haven't the least idea where we are! We
know where they are going, and they haven't a guess which way we are
steering...."

"Do you know," said Lynette thoughtfully, "I don't believe that
Mexicali Joe intends for a minute to lead them to his gold!"

Deveril looked at her in astonishment.

"You don't! Why, couldn't you see that Taggart put the fear of the Lord
into him? That Gallup, slick as wet soap, tricked him? That...."

She broke in impatiently, saying:

"Yet Joe.... He seemed to me to give in to them in something too much
of a hurry ... as though he had his own wits about him, his own last
card in the hole, as dad used to say. I wonder...."

He stared at her, puzzled.

"When you _feel_ things," he muttered, none too pleasantly, "you get me
guessing. I don't know yet how you came to know that the Taggart bunch
was at our heels yesterday. But you did know; and you were right. As to
this other hunch of yours...."

"You'll see," said Lynette serenely. "Joe isn't the biggest fool in
that crowd of four. You wait and see."

"You'll give me the creeps yet," said Deveril.

They both laughed and went on--through brushy tangles; over rocky
ridges; through spacious forests; across soft, springy meadows; up
slope, down slope; on and on and endlessly on. Once they frightened a
young bear that was tearing away as if its life depended upon it upon
an old stump; the bear snorted and went lumbering away, as Deveril
said, like a young freight-train gone mad; Lynette, as she admitted
afterward, was twice as frightened, but did not run, herself, because
the bear ran first and because she couldn't get the hang of her feet as
quickly as he could! They came upon several bands of mountain-quail,
which shot away, buzzing like overgrown bees; Deveril hurled stones
and curses at many a scampering rabbit; once she and once he caught a
glimpse of that dark gleam, come and gone in a flash, which might have
been coyote or timber-wolf.... They did not speak of Bruce Standing.
But they wondered, both of them....

Toward four o'clock in the afternoon they heard for the second time the
crack of a rifle-shot. Farther to the south of them this time; a hint
farther eastward; fainter than when first heard. Taggart, they held in
full confidence, was following the trail which they had mapped for him;
he was going on steadily; he was forging ahead of them. And yet they
were content that this was so. They rested more often; they relaxed
more and more.

And before the brief reverberations of a distant rifle-shot had done
echoing through the gorges, they came to a full stop and determined to
make camp. Not for a second, all day long, had Deveril swerved from his
determination to "dig in in comfort for the night." They were, as both
were willing to admit, "done in."

Deveril employed his pocket-knife, long ago dulled, and now whetted
after a fashion upon a rough stone, to whack off small pine and willow
and the more leafy of sage branches. He made of them a goodly heap.
Then he gathered dead limbs, fallen from the parent trees, making his
second pile. All the while Lynette kept a small dry-wood and pine-cone
fire going hotly; little smoke, little swirl of sparks to rise above
the grove in which they were encamping; plenty of heat for body warmth
and for cooking. She was preoccupied, moving about listlessly. So
this was Bruce Standing's country? She looked about her with an
ever-deepening interest; this was a fitting land for such a man.
Bigness and dominance and a certain vital freshness struck altogether
the key-note here--and suggested Timber-Wolf. If he were not dead after
all---- Well, then, he would be somewhere near now for like a wounded
animal, he would have returned to his solitudes.

Deveril found near by a level space under the pines. Here he sought out
a scraggly tree which expressed an earth-loving soul in low-drooped
branches. Against a low arm which ran out horizontally from the trunk
he began placing his longer dead limbs, the butts in the ground,
sloping, the effect soon that of a tent. Against these a high-piled
wall of leafy branches. He stood back, judging from which direction
the wind would come. He piled more branches. Into his nostrils, filled
with the resinous incense of broken pine twigs, floated the tempting
aromas which spread out in all directions from Lynette's cooking. He
cocked his eye at the slanting sun; it was still early. He yielded to
the insistent invitation, and came down into the little cup of a meadow
to her, and she watched him coming: a picturesque figure in the forest
land, his black hair rumpled, his slender figure swinging on, his
sleeves rolled back, his eyes full of the flicker of his lively spirit.

When Deveril was hard pressed along the trail, worn out and on the
alert for oncoming danger from any quarter, he was impersonal; a mere
ally on whom she could depend. At moments like this one, when he was
rested and relaxed, and grasped in his eager hands a bit of the swift
life flowing by, he became different. A man now--a young man--one with
quick lights in his eyes and a lilting eagerness in his voice.

"It would be great sport," he said, "all life long ... to come home to
you and find you waiting ... with a smile and a wee cup o' tea! And...."

He was half serious, half laughing; she made a hasty light rejoinder,
and invited him to a hot supper waiting him.

They made a merry, frivolously light meal of it. There was plenty to
eat; water near by; there was coffee; above them the infinity of blue,
darkening skies, about them the peace and silence of the solitudes. And
within their souls security, if only for the swiftly passing moment.
They chose to be gay; they laughed often; Deveril asked her where
she had learned to quote Scott and she asked him, in obvious retort,
if he thought that she had never been to school! He sang for her,
low-voiced and musically, a Spanish love-song; she made high pretense
at missing the significance of the impassioned southern words. He,
having finished eating and having nearly finished his cigarette, lying
back upon the thick-padded pine-needles, jerked himself up, of a mood
for free translation; she, being quick of intuition, forestalled him,
crying out: "While I clean up our can dishes, if you will finish making
camp...."

He laughed at her, but got up and went back, whistling his love-song
refrain to his house-building. She, busied over her own labors, found
time more than once to glance at him through the trees ... wondering
about him, trying to probe her own instinctive distrust of one who had
all along befriended her.

When she joined him a few minutes later, coming up the slope slowly,
she looked tired, he thought, and listless. She sat down and watched
him finishing his labors; all of her spontaneous gaiety had fled; she
was silent and did not smile and appeared preoccupied. She sighed two
or three times, unconsciously, but her sighs did not escape him. Always
he had held her sex to be an utterly baffling, though none the less an
equally fascinating one. Now he would have given more than a little for
a clew to her thoughts ... or dreamings ... or vague preoccupation....

"My lady's bower!" he said lightly. "And what does my lady have to say
of it?"

A truly bowery little shelter it was, on leaning poles in an inverted
V, with leafy boughs making thick walls, through which only slender
sun-rays slipped in a golden dust; within a high-heaped pile of
fragrant boughs, with a heap of smaller green twigs and resinous
pine-tips for her couch.

"You are so good to me, Babe Deveril," was her grave answer.

And not altogether did her answer please him, for a quick hint of frown
touched his eyes, though he banished it almost before she was sure of
it. Those words of hers, though they thanked him, most of all reminded
him of his goodness and gentleness with her, and thus went farther and
assured him that she still counted upon his goodness and gentleness.

"I am afraid, Babe Deveril," she added quickly, though still her eyes
were grave and her lips unsmiling, "that I am pretty well tired out ...
all sort of let-down like, as an old miner I once knew used to say!
It's going to be sundown in a few minutes; can't we treat ourselves to
the luxury of a good blazing camp-fire, and sit by it, and get good and
warm and rested?"

Had she spoken her true thought she would have cried out instead:

"What troubles me, Babe Deveril, is that I am half afraid of you.
And, all of a sudden, of the wilderness. And of life and of all the
mysteries of the unknown! I am as near screaming from sheer nervousness
at this instant as I ever was in my life."

But Deveril, who could glean of her emotions only what she allowed to
lie among her spoken words, cried heartily:

"You just bet your sweet life we'll have a crackling, roaring fire.
Taggart and his crowd are half a dozen miles away right now and still
going; our fire down in that hollow will never cast a gleam over the
big ridge yonder and the other ridges which lie in between him and us.
Come ahead, my dear; here's for a real bonfire."

That "my dear" escaped him; but she did not appear to have noted it.
She rose and followed him back to their dying fire. He began piling
on dead branches; they caught and crackled and shot showering sparks
aloft. He brought more fuel, laying it close by. Already the blaze had
driven her back; she sat down by a pine, her knees in her hands, her
head tipped forward so that her face was shadowed, her two curly braids
over her shoulders.

Deveril lay near her, his hand palming his chin.

"Tell me, pretty maiden," he said lightly, "how far to the nearest
barber shop?"

"And tell me," she returned, looking at her fingers, "if in that same
shop they have a manicurist?"

Having glanced at her hands, she sighed, and then began working with
her hair; there was one thing which must not be utterly neglected. She
knew that if once it became snarled, she had small hope of saving it;
no comb, no brush, no scissors to snip off a troublesome lock; only the
inevitable result of such an utter snarl that she, too, in a week of
this sort of thing, must needs seek a barber who understood bobbing a
maid's hair. And with hair such as Lynette's, glorious, bronzy, with
all the brighter glowing colors of the sunlight snared in it, any true
girl should shudder at the barber's scissors.

All without warning a great booming voice crashed into their ears,
shattering the silence, as Bruce Standing bore down upon them from the
ridge, shouting:

"So, now I've got you! Got both of you! Got you where I want you, by
the living God!"




CHAPTER XI


The one first thought, bursting into full form and expression in
Lynette's brain, with the suddenness, and the shock of an explosion,
was: "He is alive!" And in Babe Deveril's mind the thought: "Bruce
Standing at last!... And drunk with rage!"

And Bruce Standing's one thought, as both understood somewhat as they
leaped to their feet:

"Into my hands, of all my enemies are those two whom I hate most
delivered!" For it had been almost like a religion with him, his
certainty that he would come up with them--the girl who had laughed and
shot him; the man who had stolen her away, cheating his vengeance.

Babe Deveril, on the alert in the first flash of comprehension,
stooped, groping among the shadows for his club, his only weapon. He
saw the sun glinting upon Bruce Standing's rifle barrel. That club of
his ... where was it? Dropped somewhere; perhaps while he was building
a leafy bower for a pretty lady; forgotten in a gush of other thoughts
... he couldn't find it. He stood straight again; his hands, clinched
and lifted, imitated clubs. The first weapons of the first men....

Lynette heard them shouting at each other, two men who hated each
other, two men seeing red as they looked through the spectacles which
always heady hatred wears. Men, both of them; masculinity asserting
itself triumphantly, belligerently; manhood rampant and, on the spur
of the moment, as warlike as two young bulls contending for a herd....
She heard them cursing each other; heard such plain-spoken Anglo-Saxon
epithets hurled back and forth as at any other time would have set
her ears burning. Just now the epithets meant less than nothing to
her; they were but windy words, and a word was less, far less, than a
stout club in a man's hand or a stone to hurl. She was of a mind to
run while yet she could; but that was only the first natural reaction,
lost and forgotten instantly. She stood without moving, watching them.
An odd thing, she thought afterward, wondering, that that which at the
moment made the strongest, longest-lasting impression upon her was the
picture which Timber-Wolf, himself, created as, with the low sun at his
back, he came rushing down upon them. Just now the mountain slope had
constituted but a quiet landscape in softening tones, like a painting
in pastels, with only the sun dropping down into the pine fringe to
constitute a brighter focal point; and now, all of a sudden, it was as
though the master artist, with impulsive inspiration, had slung with
sweeping brush this new element into the picture--that of a great blond
giant of a man, young and vigorous, and at this critical hour consumed
with hatred and anger and triumphant glee. He was always one to punish
his own enemies, was Bruce Standing. And now one felt that he carried
vengeance in both big, hard, relentless hands.

On he came, almost at a run, so eager was he. Came so close before
he stopped that Lynette saw the flash of his blue eyes--eyes which,
when she had seen them first in Big Pine had been laughing and
_innocent_--which now were the eyes of a blue-eyed devil. He was
laughing; it was a devil's laugh, she thought. For he jeered at her and
her companion. His mockery made her blood tingle; his eyes said evil
things of her. Her cheeks went hot-red under that one flashing look.

But he was not just now concerned with her! He meant to ignore her
until he had given his mind to other matters! He was still shouting in
that wonderful, golden voice of his; to every name in a calendar not
of saints he laid his tongue as he read Babe Deveril's title clear for
him. And, name to name, Babe Deveril checked off with him, hurling back
anathema and epithet as good as came his way.... Lynette understood
that both men had forgotten her. To them, passion-gripped as they were,
it was as though she did not exist and had never existed. And yet it
was largely because of her that they were gathering themselves to fly
at each other! Man inconsistent and therefore man. Otherwise something
either higher or lower; either of a devil-order or a god-order. But
as it is ... better as it is ... something of god and devil and
altogether--man.

And children of a sort, in their hearts. For, before a blow was struck,
they called names! So fast did the words fly, so hot and furious were
they, that she had the curious sense that their battle would end as it
began, in insults and mutterings. But when Timber-Wolf had shouted:
"Sneak and cur and coward ... a man to rifle another man's pockets,
after that other had played square and been generous with you...." And
when Deveril, his hands still lifted, while in his heart he could have
wept for a club lost, shouted back: "Cur and coward yourself ... with
a rifle against a man who has nothing ..." then she saw that the last
word had been spoken and that blows were inevitable. She drew back
swiftly, as any onlooker must give room to two big wild-wood beasts.

"Coward? Bruce Standing a coward? Why, damn your dirty soul...."

Bruce Standing caught his rifle by the end of the barrel; at first
Lynette, and Deveril also, thought that he meant to use it as a club.
But instead he flourished it about his head but the once, and hurled it
so far from him that it went, flashing in the sunlight, above a pine
top and fell far away somewhere down the slope. Never in all his life
had Bruce Standing had any man even think of naming him coward. As well
name sunlight darkness. For all men who knew Bruce Standing, and all
men who for the first and only time looked him square in the eyes, knew
of him that he was fearless.

Thus with a gesture ... he abandoned wordy outpourings of wrath and
hurled himself into flesh-and-blood combat. He did not turn to right or
left for the dwindling camp-fire; he came straight through it, his two
long arms outstretched, seeking Deveril. And Babe Deveril, the moment
he saw how the rifle sped through the air and understood his kinsman's
challenge, leaped forward eagerly to the meeting with him. Their four
boots began scattering firebrands....

Lynette, with all her fast-beating heart, wanted to come to Babe
Deveril's aid. The one thing which mattered was that, at her hour of
need, he had stood up for her; her soul was tumultuously crying out
for the opportunity to demonstrate beyond lip-service the meaning of
gratitude. She caught up a stone, and throughout the fight held it
gripped so hard that before the end her fingers were bleeding. But
never an opportunity did she have to hurl it as long as those two
contended.

Once it entered her thought that she must have dreamed of Bruce
Standing, shot and bleeding and senseless on the floor at the Gallup
House. For now, so few hours after, he gave no slightest hint of being
a man recently badly wounded. There was more of common sense in a
man's dying of such a wound as his than in his striking such great,
hammer-hard blows with both arms. He created within her from that
moment an odd sensation which grew with her later; the man was not of
the common mould. Something beyond and above mere flesh and blood and
the routine of human qualifications inspired him. There was something
_inevitable_ about Bruce Standing....

Babe Deveril fought like a young, lissome tiger.... He fought
with all of the might that lay within him, muscle and mind and
controlling spirit. When he struck a blow he put into it, with a
little coughing grunt, every last ounce of hostility which was at
his command; with every blow he longed to kill. And, as though the
two were blood-brothers, Bruce Standing fought as did Babe Deveril.
Straight, hard, merciless blow to answer blow as straight and hard and
merciless....

Timber-Wolf was a man to laugh at his own mine muckers when they could
not thrust a boulder aside, and to stoop and set his hands and arms
and back to the labor and pluck the thing up and hurl it above their
bewildered heads. He smote as though he carried a war-club in each
hand; he received a crashing blow full in the face, and, though the
blood came, he did not feel it; he struck back, and his great iron
fist beat through Deveril's guarding arms. No man, or at least no man
whom Bruce Standing in his wild life had ever met, could have stood up
against that blow. Babe Deveril, with the life almost jarred out of
his body, went down. And Bruce Standing, growling like an angry bear,
caught him up and lifted him high in air and flung him far away from
him, as lightly as though he flung but a fifty-pound weight. And where
Babe Deveril fell he lay still.... Lynette ran to him and knelt and put
her hands at his shoulders, thinking him dead.

A short fight it had been, but already had the swift end come. So hard
had that blow been, so tremendous had been the crash against rock and
earth when the flung body struck, there appeared to be but a pale
flame of life, flickering wanly, in Deveril's body. Timber-Wolf came
and stood over him and over Lynette, gloating, mumbling; muttering
while his great chest heaved: "Little rat that he is! A man to take
advantage when he found me down; a man to cheat me of the she-cat that
shot me. I could crush him into the dirt with my boot heel...."

"You great big brute!..."

It was then that she sprang to her feet and, almost inarticulate with
her own warring emotions, grief and fear and anger and hatred, flung
the jagged stone full into his face. He was unprepared; the stone
struck him full upon the forehead; he staggered backward, stumbling,
almost falling; his hands flew to his face. He was near-stunned;
blinded. Deveril was on his elbow....

"Come!" she screamed wildly. "Quick! You and I...."

"Treacherous devil-cat!" There was his thunderous voice shouting so
that she, so near him, was almost deafened.

Bruce Standing, wiping the blood from his eyes, his two arms out before
him, came back to the attack. Deveril, on his knees, surged to his
feet; Standing struck and Deveril went down like a poorly balanced
timber falling. Lynette was groping for another stone. Suddenly she
felt upon her wrist a grip like a circlet of cutting steel. She was
whisked about; Timber-Wolf held her, drawn close, staring face into
face. His other hand was lifted slowly; suddenly she felt it caught in
her loose hair....

And then, inexplicable to her now and ever after, there was in her ear
the sound of Bruce Standing's laughter. The hand at her hair fell away.
It went up to his eyes, wiping them clear. And then she saw in the eyes
what she had read in the voice ... laughter.

"Well, Deveril, what now?"

Again Deveril was on his feet. He swayed; his face was dead-white;
it was easy to see how fiercely he bent every energy at his command
to remain upright. There was a queer look in the eyes he turned upon
Timber-Wolf.

"I never saw a man ... like you."

He spoke with effort; he was like a man far gone in some devastating
lung trouble; his voice was windy and vibrant and weak.

"Baby Devil!" jeered Standing. "Oh, Baby Devil! And, when it comes to
dealing with a real man.... Why, then, less devil than baby! Ho!..."

"I am going to kill you...."

"God aids the righteous!" Standing told him sternly. "You go. To hell
with you and your kind."

_God aids the righteous!_ This from the lips of Bruce Standing,
Timber-Wolf!... Lynette, her nerves like wires smitten in an electric
storm, could have burst into wild laughter.... She wrenched at her
wrist; Standing's big hand neither tightened nor relaxed, giving her
the feeling of despair which a thick steel chain would have given had
she been locked and deserted in a dungeon.

Deveril was looking over his shoulder. In his glance ... the sun was
near setting among the pines, and they saw his face as his head jerked
about ... any one might read his thought: down there, somewhere among
the bushes, lay a rifle!

Standing laughed at him. And Standing, dragging Lynette along with him
as easily as he might have drawn a child of six, went down the slope
first. And first he came to the fallen rifle and caught it up and
brought it back to the trampled camp-fire.

"You're sneak enough for that, Baby Devil!" he taunted. "For that or
any other coward act. And so is this woman of yours. So I spike the
artillery. God! If the earth were only populated by men!... Now I've
got this word for your crafty ear: listen well." Instantly his voice
became as hard as flint and carried assurance that every word he was
going to say would be a word meant with all his heart and soul. And
all the while he gripped Lynette by the wrist and seemed unconscious
of that fact or that she struggled to be free. "I've given you a fair
fight, you who don't fight fair. And I've knocked the daylights out of
you. And now I'm sick of you. You can go. You can sneak off through the
timber and be out of sight inside of two minutes. Yet I'll give you
five. And at the end of that time, if you're in sight, I am going to
shoot you dead!"

Deveril glared at him, his glance laid upon Standing's as one rapier
may clash across another.

"Do your dirty killing and be damned to you!" said Deveril briefly.

Timber-Wolf looked at him in surprise; he began to cast about him for
a fresh and clearer comprehension of a man whom he despised. He strove
with all his power of clean vision to see to the bottom of Deveril's
most hidden thought.

"Now," said Standing slowly, "I am almost sorry for what I said. It
strikes into me, Kid, that you are not afraid!"

Deveril, breathless, panting, holding himself erect only through a
great call upon his will, made no spoken answer, but again laid the
blade of his glance shiningly across that of Timber-Wolf.

"You die just the same," said Standing coldly. "It's only because I
gave my word; that you can take in man-to-man style from me, Kid; for
once I am not ashamed to be related to you. Either you travel or, in
five minutes, you are a dead man."

Slowly Deveril's haggard eyes roved to Lynette's face ... Lynette
chained to Bruce Standing in that crushing grip....

"I am going," he said. And both knew he said it in fearlessness but
also in understanding of the power which lay in a rifle bullet and the
weakness of the barricade offered to it by a human skull. And both
understood, further, that it was to Lynette that he spoke. "I am coming
back!"

"For God's sake!" she screamed. "Go! Hurry!"

"Hurry!" Bruce Standing, with his own word of honor in the balance
against the weight of the life of a man whom he began to respect, was
all anxiety to have his kinsman gone.

Deveril's last word, with his last look, was for Lynette.

"A man who doesn't know when he's beat is a fool.... But you can be
sure of this: I'll be back!"

He went, walking crookedly at first among the knee-high bushes; then
growing straighter as he passed into the demesne of the tall, straight
pines. Not swiftly, since there was no possibility of any swift play of
muscles left within him; but steadily.

"A man!" grunted Timber-Wolf. Whether in admiration or disgust, Lynette
could not guess from his tone.

He had his watch in the palm of his hand; her gaze was riveted on it.
It seemed so tiny a thing in that great valley of his hand; a bauble.
Yet its even more insignificant minute-hand was assuming the office of
arbiter of human life; she knew that the moment the fifth minute was
ticked off Bruce Standing, true to his sworn word, would relinquish her
wrist just long enough to whip his rifle to his shoulder and fire ...
in case the uncertain form of Babe Deveril, going up over the ridge,
were still in sight. And she knew within her soul that just so sure as
gun butt struck shoulder and finger found trigger, so sure would Babe
Deveril toss his arms up and fall dead....

"Hurry, Kid ... you damn' fool ... _hurry_...."

All the while Timber-Wolf was muttering and glaring at his watch and
clinching her wrist; all the while forgetting that he held her. And,
this also she knew, regretting that he had the job set before him of
shooting down another man.

Lynette, her whole body atingle, every sense keyed up to its highest
stressing, knew as soon as did Bruce Standing when he was going to drop
her wrist and jerk his gun up. The five minutes were passing; still,
though at a distance far up on the ridge, seen only by glimpses now and
then under the setting sun, Babe Deveril was driving on, a man half
bereft of his sober senses, his brain reeling from savage blows and on
fire with rage and mortification; they saw him among the pines; they
lost him; they saw him again. Never once had he turned to look back.
Yet it did not seem that he hastened....

Timber-Wolf, growling deep down in his throat, lifted his rifle. But
Lynette, before the act, _knew_! She flung herself with sudden fury
upon his uplifted arm; she caught it, and with the weight of her body
dragged it down. He sought to fling her off; she wrapped both of her
arms about his right arm; she jerked at it so that he could have no
slightest hope of a steady aim....

He turned and looked down into her eyes; deep ... deep. For what seemed
to her a long, long time he stood looking down into her eyes.

Then, with sudden anger, he thrust her aside. Without looking to see
if she had fallen or stumbled and run, he raised his rifle again.

But just in time Babe Deveril was gone, over the ridge....




CHAPTER XII


"And now that you're half scared to death, you'd like to make a man
believe that you are not afraid of the devil himself!"

She flashed a burning look at him; chokingly she cried:

"At least, thank God, I am not afraid of you, Bruce Standing!... Big
brute and bully and ... Yes!... Coward!"

And yet, as never before in her life, her heart was beating wildly,
leaping against her side like an imprisoned thing struggling to break
through the walls which shut it in. His fingers were still locked about
her wrist; his grip tightened; he drew her closer in order to look
the more clearly into her eyes. Then his slow, mocking laughter smote
across her nerves like a rude hand brushing across harp-strings, making
clashing discords.

"You begin well!" he jeered at her. "We are going to see how you end."

"Let me go!" She jerked back; she twisted and dragged at her wrist,
trying wildly to break free. His mockery stung her into desperation.
With her one free hand she struck him across the face.

She struck hard, with all her might, with trebled strength through her
fury. And, maddening her, he gave no sign that she had hurt him. Still
jeering at her, all that he did was drop his rifle, so that with his
other hand he could take captive the hand which had struck him. And
then it was so easy a thing for him to take both her wrists into the
grip of his one, right hand; held thus, no matter how she fought, hers
was the sensation of utter powerlessness which is a child's when an
elder person, teasing, catches its two hands in one and lets it cry and
kick.... Suddenly she grew quiet....

"Well?" she demanded, panting, forcing her eyes to a steady meeting
with his. "What do you intend to do with me, now you've got me? There
doesn't appear to be any one near to keep you from woman-beating!"

"What am I going to do with you? If I knew, I'd tell you! When I do
know, I'll show you.... If I could catch you by the hair and drag you
through hell after me.... I pay all of my debts, girl! I have followed
you; I have found you; I have taken you, prying you loose from your
running mate.... You thought it fun to laugh at me once, did you?
Before I have done with you, you would give your soul for the power and
the will to laugh...."

"It is because I laughed at you?" she asked wonderingly.

"For what else?" he said sternly.

"And not because of a pistol shot?"

"Less for that than for the other. I allow it any man's privilege to
shoot at me if he doesn't like me; but no man's nor woman's privilege
to laugh."

"How do you know it was I who shot you?... Did you see?"

"Had I seen, I should not have held it against you; for that would have
meant that you struck in the open, any man's or woman's right! But to
shoot a man in the back.... Here; help me!"

She was perplexed to know what he meant. He dragged her after him, a
dozen paces from the fire; still holding her two hands caught in his
one, he sat down upon a big stone. Suddenly it struck her that all this
time, since he had dropped his rifle, his left arm had been hanging
limply at his side.

"When I let go of you," he said, very stern, "if you try to run for it
I'll catch you and drag you back. And I'm in no mood for gentleness!"
At that he let her go. He put his right hand to his shirt collar and
began unbuttoning it.

"My wound has broken open," he said, with a grunt of disgust. "That
Baby Devil of yours didn't care where he hit a man!... Here; there's a
bandage that has slipped. And I'm losing blood again. See what you can
do."

"Why should I?" she demanded coolly. "What is it to me whether or not
you bleed to death?"

Fury filled his eyes and he shouted at her:

"You, by God, drilled the cowardly hole; and you doctor it!"

"And if I won't?"

"Then, as I live, I'll make you! One way or another, girl, I'll make
you. That's Bruce Standing's word for you. Now hurry!"

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder; she was on the verge
of breaking into wild, headlong flight.... But certain knowledge
restrained her; she knew that he would overtake her, that he would drag
her back and ... that he was in no mood for gentleness. Therefore,
while her whole soul rebelled, she came closer, as he commanded.

... She had never dreamed that any man born could have a chest like
that; nor such shoulders, massive and yet beautiful as the pure-lined
expression of power; nor such skin, soft and smooth and white as a
girl's, the outward sign of another beauty, that of clean health.
Clean, hard, triumphant physical manhood.... It struck her at the time,
so that she marvelled at herself and wondered dully if she were taking
leave of her sober senses, that there was truer, finer beauty in the
body of such a man than in any girl's; that here was a true artist's
true triumph.... Physically he was splendid, superb.... In his own
image did God make man....

With his right hand he was working with the bandage where it was taped
about the bulge of his left breast; on the white cloth were fresh gouts
of blood. Impatiently he tore at his shirt collar; on the bandage,
where it passed about his left shoulder-blade, were red stains.

"Wait a minute," he commanded. "In my pocket I've got some sort of
salve; some idiotic mess that Billy Winch cooked up; the Lord knows
what it is or what he made it of; iodine and soap and flaxseed and
cobwebs, most likely! But it will chink up the leak ... and it feels
good and hasn't poisoned me so far! Here, smear it on."

... She felt as though she were dreaming all this! That wild,
uncontrollable laughter of hers which swept over her at times of taut
nerves and absurd situations, threatened to master her. She fought it
down. She touched his back. She, Lynette, administering to Timber-Wolf
... it would be better for her, far better for her, if his wound were
poisoned and he died!... Yet, as she touched his back, it was with
wondrously gentle fingers. There was a wound there; the ugly wound made
by a bullet, half healed, broken open anew under heavy blows. A little
shiver, a strange, new sort of shiver, ran through her; here she was
down to elementals, she, who with just cause and leaping instinct hated
this man, ministering to him....

"Smear the stuff on, I tell you. Over the wound. Enough of it to shut
out any infernal infection.... What in the devil's name is holding you?
Waiting for the sun to go down and come up again?"

She bit her lips; he looked suddenly into her face, and could have
no clew to her thought or emotion; he could not guess whether she bit
her lip to keep from laughing or crying!... She spread over the gaping
wound a thin film of Billy Winch's pungent salve. As she touched the
wound she looked for a muscular contraction, for the flinching from
pain. He did not move; there was not so much as the involuntary quiver
of a muscle. She wondered if the man felt as other human beings did?

... "Now a fresh piece of tape. That idiot Winch packed me off with my
pockets loaded like a drug-store shelf! That's all for this time; we'll
make a new dressing and bathe the wound in the morning. Now.... Here!
Let me look at you!"

He crimsoned her face with that way of his. She whipped back from him
and her eyes brightened with defiance. He sat looking at her a long
time, while with slow fingers he buttoned his collar; his face showed
not so much as a flicker of expression; his eyes were keen, but gave no
clew to his thought.

The sun was already down beyond the ridge; shadows here in the little
hollow had gathered swiftly; dark was on the way. He rose and went to
the fire, for an instant turning his back upon her as he piled on the
dead-wood which Deveril had gathered. But over his shoulder he called
to her coolly:

"I've warned you not to try to run for it!"

And from his tone she knew that he had easily guessed her thought; for
the impulse to attempt flight had been strong upon her the moment that
he turned. She remained where she stood; if only it were pitch-dark, if
only he went on a few paces farther away from her, if only the fringe
of trees offering refuge were a few paces nearer.... She was quick to
see the folly of making a premature dash; the wisdom in allowing him to
think that she could be looked to for obedience! Thus, later, when her
chance came and his watchfulness nodded, she'd be up and away like a
shot....

The fire caught the fresh fuel and crackled and blazed, sparks
showering about her where she stood. Now Standing, his face looking
ruddy in the glow, turned toward her, saying curtly:

"Come here. I want a good look at you ... in the full light."

"Brute and bully!" she cried, struggling with herself for an outward
semblance of calm. "You hold the high card. But the game isn't played
out between you and me yet, Bruce Standing." While speaking she came
closer, so that she too stood in the red fire glow. She held her head
up; she returned his unswerving gaze unswervingly.

"You've got the vocabulary of a gambler's daughter," he said. "That's
what you are, eh? A gambler's girl and, in your own penny-ante way, a
gambler yourself!"

"I am the daughter of Dick Brooke!" she told him proudly. "Dick Brooke
was a man and a miner and after that, if you like, a gambler."

"Dick Brooke? Dick Brooke's daughter? Why, then ... the daughter also
of a dancing-girl!"

Her face went white with anger.

"Oh ... I hate you! Oh, I hate you! You ... you are contemptible!"

"Aha! So that hurts!" he jeered at her.

"It is a cruel lie. Olymphe Labelle was not a dancing-girl.... She was
an artist! And a woman among ten thousand...."

The firelight cast its warm glow over her face. She lifted her chin
defiantly. Her hair fell in loose, rippling strands of bronze and over
her shoulders. She was very beautiful thus; no woman on whom Bruce
Standing had ever looked was half so beautiful. And haughty, like a
princess ... like a high-bred lady made captive, yet scorning to show
sign of fear....

"You are Lynette Brooke," he muttered; "you are the girl who laughed at
me, shaming me; you are the girl who shot me in the back! Those are the
things to remember. A treacherous cat of a woman; a gun woman! One to
go sneaking around with a revolver at hand to shoot a man in the back
with...."

"Any woman, dealing with men like you, has need of a gun!"

"I'll tell you this," he muttered. "I'm a fair judge of men, if not of
women. And when it's a case of a man ... why just show me a man who
carries a pocket-gun and I'll show you a cheap ragamuffin, a tin horn,
or an overgrown kid ... or a dirty coward. A man's weapon is a rifle
carried in the open; give me a good pair of boots and I'll stamp the
white livers out of a whole crowd of your little gunmen.... As for
women, gun-toting women...." He broke off with a heavy shrug. "Now,
girl, I'm hungry. The smell of your coffee has been in my nostrils a
long time. See what you can give me to eat."

"So I am to wait on you ... to be your servant...."

"To be my slave!" he shouted at her. "Proud, are you? So much the
better. I swore to make you pay, and you begin paying now. Yes, as my
slave as long as I like!"

"And you call yourself a man!"

"I call myself the best man that ever came into this wilderness
country," he told her impudently. "If you are in doubt, bring on any
other man of your choice and ask him, with your pretty smiles, if he
cares to stand up against me! Yes, a man who goes rough-shod over
everything and anything and anybody who stands in his way...."

"Boaster!" she named him scornfully.

He laughed loudly at that.

"I am no boaster and in your heart you know it!... There's another
damn-fool convention for you, that business of great modesty! A man who
is sure of himself doesn't have to walk easy and talk easy, but can
tell other men what he is, and then, by glory, show 'em!"

Still she was scornful of him ... though she could not keep out of her
thought that picture which he had made when, axe in hand, he had laid
an armed jailer in the dust, and single-handed had made a jail delivery
which hundreds of other men wanted to make and held back from ...
through lack of that unrestricted confidence which was Bruce Standing's.

He was staring at her.

"You, too ... for a woman ... have courage," he muttered. And then,
with a sudden arm flung out: "I'm hungry, I tell you."

"I'd rather die...."

"It's easy to die ... for any one who is not a coward. And I just told
you that you had courage." He came suddenly close to her. "But there
are other things that are not so easy! What if I put my two arms about
you? If I hold you tight ... and set my lips to yours ... and...."

"You beast...."

"But my dinner?" he jeered at her.

She went hot and cold; she cast a quick glance toward the forest land
where the night was thickening; she cast another glance at his rifle
where it lay, a few feet from the fire. Then, her lower lip caught
between her teeth, she went to the tin can in which she and Babe
Deveril had made coffee.

"A funny thing," said Bruce Standing, watching her; "you skipped out,
hot-foot, from Big Pine, thinking you had killed me! And your little
friend, meaning Baby Devil, skipped along, thinking he had done Jim
Taggart in! And, after all, nobody much hurt!... Glad to hear that
Taggart did not die?"

"I knew it already," she said, just to cheat him of any satisfaction in
telling her.

"Mexicali Joe skipped this way, too," he went on swiftly, so swiftly
that he succeeded in tricking her into saying:

"I knew that, too!"

Then he laughed at her, informing her:

"Now there remains little for you to tell me. You knew Taggart was
still on his feet and you knew Joe was travelling this way, and you've
come up from the general direction of Joe's dugout! Which tells me one
thing: where you and Baby Devil got the coffee and this tinned stuff.
Now let's hear details!"

"Oh ... I hate you!"

"You've told me that before. And...." He burst into booming laughter.
And then, still laughter-choked, he cried: "Like a good old-time
two-handled sword is the man Bruce Standing! And yet his wit, like a
Spanish dagger, is good match for a girl's!"

She made no reply, though her blood tingled, and though her hand, with
a will of its own, must be held back from striking him across the face
again. She brought him his coffee and thereafter food which he called
for from among the tins.

"What do you think has happened to your gentleman friend?" he mocked
her. And when she refused to reply, he told her: "He's gone on ...
where? After Taggart? To get a rifle and come back? Planning to hide
behind a tree and pop me off while I'm not looking? That would make a
hit with you, wouldn't it? Like your own best game of shooting a man in
the back! Or has he forgotten a pair of bright eyes and warm arms and
red lips? And is he content to trail Mexicali, spying on him, trying to
get in on the new gold diggings? Which, girl?"

"He hates you!... with cause. And he is no coward; he is as good a man,
if less brute, as you, Bruce Standing!..."

When he spoke finally it was to say:

"We're going to be short on provisions for a day or so, girl. Hungry?"

Here was her first, altogether too vague clew to his intentions.
Quickly she asked:

"Where are we going?"

"I to keep an engagement; you to accompany me."

He supposed that he had told her nothing. And yet she, quick-witted,
having never let slip from her mind a certain suspicion when Mexicali
Joe had too readily succumbed to Taggart, cried out:

"To a meeting with Mexicali Joe!"

"What makes you think that?" he asked sharply.

She pretended to laugh at him. He ate in silence; drank his coffee;
thereafter, stuffing a pipe full of crude black tobacco, smoked
thoughtfully. All the while the fire burned lower and the darkness,
ringing them around, drew closer in. She had been on the alert, while
looking to be hopelessly bowed where she sat. Suddenly he was at her
side, his grip like a steel bracelet about her wrist.

"About ready to jump and run for it?" he taunted her. "Not to-night, my
girl; and not to-morrow night nor yet for many a day to come. I've got
my own plans for you."

"Are you going to take me back to Big Pine? To hand me over to the law,
with a charge of attempted murder against me?"

"I am going to take you with me on into the wilderness. Into a country
which is absolutely the kingdom of Bruce Standing. Haven't I told you
that I have my own plans for you? I can hand you over to the cheap
degradation of a trial and conviction and jail sentence whenever I am
ready for it...."

"You can't keep me from killing myself...."

"But I can! I am master here, understand? And you.... By heaven, you
are nothing but my slave so long as I tolerate you!... Look here, what
I brought for you!... For I knew I'd find you!"

He began unwinding from his big body a thin steel chain, a chain which
he had brought with him from his ranch headquarters, where it had
served as leash for a wolf-hound. With a quick movement he snapped the
end of it about her waist; there was a steel padlock scarcely bigger
than a silver half-dollar; she heard the click as he locked it. Then he
stood back from her, the other end of the slight chain in his hand ...
and laughed at her!

"The sign of your servitude!... Proud? One way to make you pay! Will
you laugh again, girl? Will you, do you think, ever have the second
chance to shoot me in the back?... Come; we must be on our way before
daylight."

He caught up his rifle; that, together with the end of her chain, he
held in his hand. He began putting out the fire, stamping on the living
coals. Making her follow him, he went to the creek several times for
water, which he carried in his big hat, which held so much more than
any tin can in camp. When the fire was out, he turned with her toward
the bowery shelter which Babe Deveril, working and singing, had made
for her. With his shuffling boots he kicked the culled branches into
two heaps. He wrapped the end of her chain about his wrist; she heard
the snap as he fastened it. He thrust his rifle under him.

"I am going to sleep," he told her bluntly and cast himself down. "You
with your payment just begun, may lie awake all night ... wondering...."

... But it was a long, long while, a weary time of darkness sprinkled
with stars before he went to sleep. She sat up on her couch of boughs,
the chain about her waist galling her....




CHAPTER XIII


It may appear a strange thing that Lynette Brooke slept at all that
night. But a fatigued body, healthy and young, demanded its right, and
she did sleep and sleep well. A far stranger thing was that, after
she had sat in the dark a long time, there had at last come a queer
little smile upon her lips and into her eyes, and she had gone to sleep
smiling!

For in the deep black silence her quick mind had been busy, never so
busy; out of tiny scraps it had constructed a mental patchwork. Nor
were all dark-hued threads weaving in and out of it; here and there the
sombre pattern had bright-hued spots. Her courage was high, her hopes
always at surging high tide; her senses keen. And, after all, Bruce
Standing was a blunt, forthright man, in no degree subtle....

He had given her the impression an hour ago of being entirely
brute beast. That was true. Further, she told herself with growing
conviction, that it had been his great intent to make her regard him
as brute and beast; she had angered him, she had drawn upon herself
his vengeful wrath; he meant to make her pay; and his first step had
been to make her afraid of him.... She went on to other thoughts; Bruce
Standing was the man to defy Gallup in his own lair; the man to defy
the sheriff; to hurl an axe at an armed deputy ... and yet the only man
in Big Pine to lift an angry hand against the unfair play of shutting
little Mexicali Joe up in jail! He, alone, had not sought to steal
Joe's secret; he alone was ready, against all odds, to throw the door
back and let Joe go. Not altogether that the part of the brute and
beast!

Another thing: Bruce Standing did not lie. She _knew_ that. And he was
not a coward; he did not do petty, cowardly things.... He meant her
to believe that there was nothing too cruel and merciless for him to
inflict upon her. Yet she had struck him in the face with a stone; she
had struck him with her hands, and he had not so much as bruised the
skin of her wrists with his big hard hands!... Eager he had been to
humiliate her, calling her his slave; eagerly, as soon as he had read
her pride, he grasped at the first means of torturing it. Why that
great eagerness ... unless he, despite his threat, was casting about in
rather blind fashion for means to make her pay?... He wanted her to be
afraid of him ... and it came to her in the dark, so that she smiled,
that this was because there was little for her to fear!

"In his rage," she told herself, and, fettered as she was, a first
gleam of triumph visited her, "he came roaring after me. And, now he
has me, he doesn't know what to do with me! To make me his unwilling
slave ... _unwilling_!... that is all that he can think of now."

And again there was comfort in the thought:

"If he meant to harm me, why should he have let me go to-night? An
angry man, bent upon real brute vengeance, would have struck at the
first opportunity. The opportunity was when he sent Babe Deveril away
and had me to do what he pleased with. And he only played the perfectly
silly game of making me his slave ... _unwilling_...."

It was the thoughts which rose with the word that put the little smile
into her eyes and brought the first softening of her troubled lips....
Several times she heard him stirring restlessly; once he awakened
her with his muttering, and she knew that he was asleep, but that
either his wound pained him or his sleep was disturbed by unwelcome
dreams--perhaps both.

Bruce Standing woke and sat up in the early chill dawn. He looked
swiftly to where Lynette lay. She appeared to be plunged in deep,
restful sleep. She lay comfortably snuggled in among the boughs; the
curve of one arm was up about her face, so that he could not see her
eyes. Naturally he believed them shut; her breathing was low and quiet,
exactly as it should have been were she really fast asleep.... She
looked pretty and tiny and tired out, but resting. Suddenly he frowned
savagely. But he sat for a long time without stirring.

Lynette put up her arms and stretched and yawned sleepily, and then,
like a little girl of six, put her knuckles into her eyes. Then she,
too, sat up quickly.

"Oh," she said brightly. "Are you awake already? And making not a
bit of noise, so as to let me have my sleep out? Good morning, Mr.
Timber-Wolf!"

She was smiling at him! Smiling with soft red lips and gay eyes!

He frowned and with a sudden lurch was on his feet.

"Come," he said harshly. "I want to make an early start."

She sprang to her feet as though all eagerness, exclaiming brightly:

"If you'll get the fire started, I'll have breakfast in a minute! There
isn't much in the larder, but you'll see what a nice breakfast I can
make of it. Then I'll dress your wound and we'll be on our way."

"Look here," muttered Standing, swinging about to stare at her, "what
the devil are you up to?"

"What do you mean?" she asked innocently.

"I mean this cheap play-acting stuff ... as though you were as happy as
a bird!"

"Why, I always believe in making the best of a bad mess, don't you?"
she retorted. "And, after all, how do you know that I'm not as happy as
a bird? I nearly always am."

His eyes were blazing, his face flushed; she saw that she was lashing
him into rage. She began to fear that she had gone too far; for the
present she would go no farther. But meanwhile she gave him no hint of
any trepidation, but kept the clear, unconcerned look in her eyes.

He strode away from her, toward the charred remains of last night's
fire. He held her chain in his hand; she hurried along after him, so
that not once could the links tighten; so that not once could he feel
that he was dragging an unwilling captive behind him. Her heart was
beating like mad; she was aquiver with excitement over the working out
of her scheme, yet she gave him no inkling of any kind of nervousness.

"I don't know what you are up to and I don't care," he said abruptly.
"You are to do what you are told, girl."

"Of course!" she said quickly. "I understand that. I am ready...."

"I am going to take the chain off you now, simply because I don't need
it during daylight. But you're not to run away; if you try it I'll run
you down and drag you back. Do you understand? And after that I'll keep
you chained up."

"I understand," she nodded again. And, when he had removed the chain
from her waist, all the time not looking at her while she, all the
time, stood smiling, she said a quiet "Thank you."

"While I get some wood," he went on, "you can take some cans and go
down to the creek for water. I'll trust you that far ... and don't
you trust too much to the screen of willows to give you a chance for
a getaway! I tell you, I'd overhaul you as sure as there is a God in
heaven!"

She caught up two cans and went down the slope toward the creek. To
keep him from guessing how, all of a sudden, her heart was fluttering
again, she sang a little song as she went. He stared after her, puzzled
and wondering. Then with a short, savage grunt, he began gathering wood.

Was now her time? This her chance? She sang more loudly, clearly and
cheerily. She wanted to look back to see if he was watching her every
step; yet she beat down the temptation, knowing that if he did watch
and did see her turn he would know that she was overeager for flight.
She came to the creek; she passed carelessly about a little clump of
willows. Now she looked back, peering through the branches. He was
stooping, gathering wood; his back was to her!

"_Now!_" her impulses cried within her. "_Now!_"

She looked about her hurriedly, in all directions. There was so much
open country here; big pines, wide-spaced. If she ran down the slope
he must surely see her when she had gone fifty or a hundred yards. And
then he'd be after her! If she turned to right or left, the case was
almost the same. If it were only dark! But the sun was rising....

She began singing again, so that he might hear. A sudden anger blazed
up within her. With all his blunt ways, the man was not without his own
sort of shrewdness; he had known that she had no chance here to escape
him; no chance for such a head start as to give her an even break in a
race with him.

... After ten minutes she came back to him; she carried a dripping can
in each hand; she had bathed hands and arms and face and throat; she
had combed her hair out through her fingers, making new thick braids,
with loosely curling ends. She had taken time to twist those soft ends
about her fingers. He was standing over his newly built fire; his
rifle, with the chain tossed across it, lay against a rock; he gave no
sign of noting her approach.... Yet, while they ate a hurriedly warmed
breakfast, she caught him several times looking at her curiously....

Her heart began again to beat happily; never was hope long departed
from the breast of Lynette Brooke. She kept telling herself, over and
over, that he was not going to be brute and beast to her. Soon or late
she would find her chance for escape from him; she would let him think
her that weakling which it was his way to regard women in general;
there would come the time when, once more free, she could laugh at
him.... And she, when he did not observe, looked curiously at him many
a time.

When they had eaten and he had gathered up the few scraps of food and
had very carefully extinguished the last ember of their fire, he wound
the chain about his middle again, caught up the rifle and said briefly
and still without looking at her:

"Come."

She followed him, neither hesitating nor questioning; thus she was
gleefully sure she angered him.... She wondered what the day held in
store for her; she wondered what of good and bad lay ahead; and yet
she was now less filled with terror than with the burning zest for
life itself. Bruce Standing had told her that he was going to keep an
appointment; he had been the man to release Mexicali Joe; Mexicali Joe
had whispered something and Standing had laughed; Mexicali Joe was now
ahead of them, pretending to lead Taggart and Gallup and Cliff Shipton
to his gold! Her thoughts were busy enough and she, like her silent
companion, had small need for talk.

She wondered about Babe Deveril; how badly hurt he had been after Bruce
Standing's mauling; what he was doing now; where he was? A hundred
times that morning, hearing bird or squirrel and once a leaping buck,
she looked to see Babe Deveril bursting back upon them.... Had he
not gone far, last night? Had he remained near their camp and was he
following them to-day?...

They passed over a ridge and turned into a little cup of a green
valley; Standing, stalking ahead of her, went to a thicket and drew
from it a saddle and bridle and saddle blankets and a small canvas
pack. Then, standing with his hands on his hips, staring off in all
directions, he whistled shrilly. Whistled, and waited listening, and
whistled again. Lynette heard, from far off, the quick, glad _whicker_
of a horse. And here came the horse galloping; kicking up its heels;
shaking its head with flying mane; circling, snorting, with lowered
head; at standstill for a moment, a golden sorrel with snow-white mane
and tail; a mount for even Timber-Wolf, lover of horses, to be proud to
own and ride and whistle to through the forest land.... Lynette looked
swiftly at Standing's face; he was smiling; his eyes were bright.

He went forward and stroked his horse's satiny nose and wreathed a hand
in the mane and led the animal to the saddle, calling him softly, "Good
old Daylight." The horse nosed him; Standing laughed out loud and smote
the great shoulder with open palm.... Lynette saw with clear vision
that there was a great love between man and animal; and she thought
of another horse, Sunlight, slaughtered at Young Gallup's orders,
and of Standing's lisping rage and of her own nervous, uncontrollable
laughter....

There came a deep, ugly growling--a throaty, wolfish menace, almost at
her heels. She whirled about and cried out in sudden startled fright.

"Lie down Thor!" Standing shouted sternly. "Down, sir!"

Lynette had never seen a dog like this one, big and lean and
forbidding; as tall as a calf in her suddenly frightened eyes, wolfish
looking, with stiff bristles rising along powerful neck and back, and
eyes red-rimmed, and sharp-toothed mouth slavering. At Standing's
command the great dog, which had come upon her on such noiseless pads,
dropped to the ground as though a bullet instead of a commanding voice
had drilled its heart. But still the steady eyes filled with suspicion
and menace were fixed on her.

"He'd tear your throat out if I gave the word," said Standing. "Now you
do what I tell you; go to him and set your hand on his head!"

"I won't!" she cried out sharply, drawing back. The deep, throaty growl
came again; the dog's lips trembled and withdrew from the long, wolfish
teeth; the whole gaunt form was aquiver....

"But you will! Otherwise.... He'll not hurt you when once I tell him
not to. Go to him; put your hand on his head.... Afraid?" he jeered.

She was afraid. Sick-afraid. And yet she gave her taunter one withering
glance and stepped swiftly, though her flesh quivered, to the dog.

"Steady, Thor!" cried Standing sternly. "You dog, steady, sir!"

The dog growled and the teeth were like evil, poisonous fangs. Yet
Lynette came another step toward him; she stooped; she put forward her
hand....

"_Thor!_" Standing's voice rang out, filled with warning. Thor began
whining.

Lynette put her hand upon the big head. Thor trembled. Suddenly he
lay flat, belly down; the head between the outstretched fore paws. He
whined again. Standing laughed and began bridling and saddling his
horse. Thor jumped up and frisked about his master; Standing fondled
him, as he had fondled Daylight, by striking him resoundingly.

"To play safe," he flung over his shoulder at Lynette, "better come
here."

When she had drawn close Standing stooped and patted the dog's head.
Then, while Thor, snarling, looked on, he put out his hand and placed
it for a fleeting instant upon Lynette's shoulder.

"Good dog," he said quietly.

Then he caught up her hand and placed it on Thor's head, cupped under
his own.

"Good dog," he said again. And then he told Lynette to call the dog.
She did so, saying in an uncertain voice:

"Here, Thor!... Come here, Thor!"

"Thor!" cried Standing commandingly. "Good dog!"

Thor trembled, but he went to her. He allowed her to pat him. Then,
with a suddenness which startled her, he shot out a red tongue to lick
her hand. Standing burst into sudden pleased laughter.

"Your friend ... so long as I don't set him on you!" he cried out.

"You are a beast ... who herd with beasts!" she said, shuddering.

He laughed again and finished drawing tight cinch and strapping latigo.
He tied his small pack at the strings behind the saddle and said
briefly:

"Since we're in a hurry, suppose you ride while I walk alongside? We'll
make better time that way."

She was ashamed of herself--that she should have been afraid of a dog!
Now she was Lynette again, quick and capable and confident. He was
going to lend her a hand to mount; she forestalled him and went up into
the saddle like a flash. It was in her thought to take him by surprise;
to give Daylight his head and race away out of sight among the pines....

But he was scarcely less quick; his hand shot out, catching Daylight's
reins; he unwound the chain from about his middle and snapped the catch
into the horse's bit.... And she began to analyze, thinking:

"He took time to explain why he let me ride while he walked! He is less
beast and brute than he knows himself!... Less beast and brute than
... simple humbug!" And, before they had gone ten steps, he heard her
humming the air which she had sung at breakfast time.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, not for her to hear. "The
little devil ... she's taking advantage of me, every advantage. She....
Just the same ... just the same...."

And he, too, was wondering about Babe Deveril!

"We go this way," he said. "I'll lead; you follow."

"I know!" cried Lynette; she could not hold the words back. "Toward
Buck Valley and Big Bear Creek ... and Mexicali Joe. And...."

"And what?" he demanded, snatching at her chain, sensing that something
of import lay behind the abruptly checked words.

She only laughed at him.




CHAPTER XIV


Another day of wilderness wandering. A cabin sighted, but so far away
that it was merely a vague dot upon a distant ridge; miner's shack
or sheepman's or wood-cutter's? Housing an occupant or deserted for
years? No smoke from the rock chimney; no sign of any human being near
it. And all view of it so soon lost!... And, afterward, no other human
habitation of any kind; no road man-made; only trees and rocks, gorges
and ridges and brush, and a winding way to be chosen between them.
With, always, Bruce Standing driving on and on, relentlessly on, ever
deeper into the wilderness.

A day of life like a leaf torn out of the book of hell for Lynette. He
did not speak to her as they went on from dawn to noon and from noon
until afternoon shadows gathered; he did not so much as turn his eyes
full upon her own; for the most part he seemed altogether forgetful of
the fact that, besides himself, there was another of his species in all
the wide sweep of this land of mighty solitudes. For his dog, Thor, he
had a kindly though rough-spoken word now and then; for his horse a
word or a rude pat upon the shoulder or hip; for her nothing but his
utter, unruffled silence.... At times she hummed little snatches of gay
tunes, hoping to irritate him; at times she strove for an aloofness to
match his own. Countless times she looked over her shoulder, looking
for Babe Deveril. And so the day, a long day, went by until at last it
was late afternoon.

"Here we stop," said Standing abruptly. "Get down."

He would seem to have all advantage over her; yet she understood that
in one way, and in one way only, could she rob him of his advantage,
and that was by giving him swift and cheerful obedience. So she slipped
out of the saddle on the instant, giving him for answer only the light
gay words:

"Oh, it is beautiful here!" ...

It was beautiful.... He glared at her and led his horse away to
unsaddle; his big dog, Thor, had trotted along at Daylight's heels all
day and now slumped down, ears erect and suspicious, while he watched
his master and made certain of never losing sight for a second of his
master's new companion, whom he tolerated but did not trust. Lynette,
stiff from so many hours in the saddle, looked about her. They were
in the upper, brief space of a valley; above reared the mountains
steeply, rugged slopes with pines here and there, with more open
spaces and tumbled boulders. The valley itself was a pretty, pleasant
place, soft in short green grass, flower-dotted, smoothly curving down
into the more open level lands below. Yet here was no proper place to
pitch camp, especially at so early an hour when it was allowed to seek
further; it was too open, it would be unsheltered and cold; there was
no water....

"Come on!"

She started and turned again toward Standing. He had slung his small
pack across his shoulders and was going on. She looked forward toward
the ridge, which he faced; it rose sheer and forbidding. And she saw
that his face was white and drawn; she wondered quickly how sorely his
wound hurt him.

"Brute?" He could have been far more brutal to her.... He was
dead-tired, white-faced; he had fought hard last night, scorning the
advantage of an armed man against an unarmed; he had not harmed a hair
of her head! Almost ... _almost_ it lay within her to whisper "Poor
fellow!" And if only Bruce Standing could have known that!...

He led the way. She followed, since there was nothing else to think of
doing.

They climbed steadily upward out of this narrow green valley, finding
a steep but open way among the trees. Now and then they paused briefly
to breathe, and Lynette, looking back, saw more and more of the long,
winding valley, as it revealed itself to her from new vantage points.
Far away she caught the glint of the sunlight upon a little wandering
creek. They went on, and came to the crest of the ridge, in full
sunshine now; Standing led an unhesitating way through a natural pass,
and down on the other side, into shadows of a thick grove; through
thickets; they splashed across a creek, a thin line of clear, cool
water slipping through mountain willows, a tributary of the larger
stream in the valley below. Down here it was almost dark. But twenty
minutes later, climbing another slope where the larger timber stood
widely spaced, they came again into the full sunshine.... Lynette
began to wonder why he had left his horse so far back; how far did
the silent, tireless man mean to walk? Also, she began to welcome the
coming night with an eagerness which she was at all pains to conceal
from him; he was always ten steps ahead of her; if he walked on another
half-hour, she began to hope that they would come into a place of
shadows and clumps of trees among which she might dare make the attempt
for escape which had been denied her all day....

They came into a little upland flat, well watered, emerald-carpeted
with tender grass, shot through with lingering flowers and studded with
magnificent trees; it seemed the very heart of the great wilderness;
here was such glorious forest land as Lynette had never seen and did
not know existed in all the broad scope of the great Southwest mountain
country. She looked upward. Dark branches towered into the sky, the
tips still shot through with soft summer light. She heard the gush of
water--the tumble and splash and fall of water. Somewhere above, at the
upper end of the flat, where a dark ravine was an ebon-shadow-filled
gash through the hills, was a waterfall. She could not see it, but its
musical waters proclaimed it through the still air. She looked swiftly
down the other way; there it was growing dark. She glanced hurriedly at
Standing. And he, as though he had read her thought, stopped and turned
and, before she could stir, was at her side.

After that, with never a word, they went on, deeper into this shadowy
realm of big trees. He watched her at every step. Fury filled her
heart, but with compressed lips she maintained a silence like his own.
Thor trotted along with them, now in front of his master, as though
this were a way he had travelled before and knew well, now questing far
afield, now in the rear, eying his master's captive and setting his
dog's brains to the riddle.

Before they had walked another ten minutes, Standing threw down his
pack and said abruptly:

"This is as far as we go."

She sat down, her back to a tree, her face averted from him. She was
very tired and now she could have put her face into her hands and cried
from very weariness. But instead she caught her lip up between her
teeth and hid her face from him and ignored him. But in her heart she
was wondering; had he travelled all day long and then this far from the
spot where he had released his horse, just to pitch camp in a clump of
trees? Was this the spot toward which he had striven on so stubbornly
since daylight? Where was he going? Why? Old queries and doubts rushed
back upon her.... She was vaguely grateful that they were questions
which he and not she had to answer; that responsibilities were his
instead of hers. She was tired enough to lie down where she was and
cease to care what happened.... It was not as yet pitch-dark; the sun
was not down on the heights. But here, among the tall pines, in this
hollow, the shadows were thick; nothing stood out in detail to her
slowly closing eyes; here was a place of black blots, distorted glooms,
the weird formless outriders of the night.... She had not the remotest
suspicion that, where she had slumped down, she was almost at the door
of a cabin.

Rather, it would have been surprising had she known. For surely
there was never cabin like this hermit camp of Bruce Standing's! Two
sky-scraping pines stood close together; between them was the door,
framed by their own straight trunks. Smaller trees grew about the
ancient parents; these hid the walls which to escape notice required
little enough hiding at any time; a man might have passed here within
a few yards at noonday and not noticed all this which Lynette failed
to see in the dusk. For the walls of the tiny cabin were of rough logs
from which the bark had never been stripped, walls which blended so
perfectly with the greater note struck by the woodland that they failed
to draw the eye; the chimney, of loose-piled rocks, was viewless at
this time of day behind the tree trunks and inconspicuous at any time.
And low, over the flat roof drooped the concealing branches of the
trees. Of all this Lynette glimpsed nothing until Timber-Wolf said,
looking down at her:


     "When all the tavern is prepared within,
     Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside?"


She had striven in one way and another since she had had her first view
of him, axe in hand, for a clew to the real Bruce Standing. Now, again,
he set her jaded faculties to work: Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf, and
man of violence, quoting poetry to her! And at such a moment and under
such circumstances!... It is not merely the feminine soul which is
indeterminable, mystifying, intriguing into the ultimate bournes of
speculation; rather the human soul....

"I don't fancy guessing riddles this evening," she told him. "All
that I can think of by way of repartee is: 'What meanest thou, Sir
Tent-maker?'"

She thought that she heard him stifle a chuckle!

But, in this thickening gloom and through those heavy shadows which lay
across her soul in an hour of doubtings and uncertainties, she could be
certain of nothing.... He was saying merely:

"If you're not clean done in, I'd suggest you walk three steps into my
cabin. On the other hand, if you can't make it, I'll pick you up and
carry you in!"

At that she sprang to her feet; through the gathering dark he could
feel the burning look in her eyes.

Then, groping mentally and physically, it was given to her to
understand. For already he stood upon the rude threshold. She followed
after him.

She gasped, astonished, when she realized that already, in so few
steps, she had passed into the embrasure of four walls! Sturdy walls;
walls rude and unbeautiful, but rising stalwart bulwarks against
the cold of night mountain air. He, a blurred, gigantic form in the
dusk, was before her; his wolfish dog was at her heels. She heard the
scratch, she saw the blue and yellow spurt of a sulphur match. His
form suddenly loomed larger, leaped into grotesque giganticness; the
tiny room sprang waveringly out of darkness into the unreality of
half-light; he found a candle; a steady golden flame sent the shadows
racing into limbo; she looked about her wonderingly....

A room, bound in rough logs; a hastily, roughly hewn log set on other
logs, offering its surly service as table; a stump which obviously made
pretense at being a stool; a bunk against a wall, thick-padded with the
tips from pines; a tin cup, a tin plate, an imitation of a box against
a wall. And, hanging over a pole ... her first certainty that Bruce
Standing, though animal as she named him in her heart, was a clean
animal ... two or three blankets which, on last leaving this hut of
his, he had stretched to air.... A primitive room, and yet clean. And,
across from the narrow bunk, a deep, wide-mouthed fireplace made of big
rocks.... He himself must have made that fireplace, for what other man
could have lifted those rocks into place?

"I'm hungry," said Standing. "As hungry as a bear."

Already she was sitting on the edge of the bunk. She expected to hear
for his next words: "Get me my dinner." But, instead, he said, his
voice harsher than she had ever heard it before:

"And that's why I'm cooking for myself instead of making you do it! I
don't want you to get it into your head it's because I'm getting sorry
for you...."

She lay back, unanswering, and watched him. And presently, though not
for him to see, a little smile touched her lips and for a short instant
lighted her big gray eyes.... And in her heart she said: "He is so
obvious, with all his thinking that he is a man whom a girl cannot see
through! All day he has made me ride, while he walked! He said that
that was to make better time! And, with every opportunity to harm me,
he has not harmed a hair of my head! He has not even touched me with
his big, blundering hands!... And he looks white and sick from his
hurt...."

He rummaged in a corner; he made a fire in his fireplace; he ripped
open a couple of cans and set coffee to boil in a battered pot as black
as an African negro. Suddenly Lynette, who had been silent a long
while, exclaimed:

"I know now! We are still on your land. This is the very cabin where,
six years ago, you robbed Babe Deveril of three thousand dollars!"

"No!" he said. "You have guessed wrong!" And then: "So your little
friend, Baby Devil, told you many a tale about my wickedness?"

"He told me that one."

"And did he tell you the sequel? How I squared with him?"

So he wanted her to think well of him! She made herself comfortable,
leaning back against the wall.

"Have you the vaguest inkling of the difference between right and
wrong, Bruce Standing?" she asked him impudently.

He laughed at her--become suddenly harsh.

"Come," he said, "it is time for food. And then, for a man who does not
break his word, blow high, blow low, to keep an appointment."

With that conversation ceased. He drove Thor into a corner, and with a
word and a glance made the dog lie down. He boiled his coffee and set a
hurried meal; he caught up a tin plate and brought it to Lynette. She
was about to thank him when she saw how he was planning to serve a tin
platter like hers to his dog; then she could have screamed at him in
nerve-pent-up anger.

The three--master, captive, and dog--ate their late dinners while the
candle flame, pale yellow with its bluish centre, swayed gently in the
mild draft of air through the open door. Windows there were none,
saving the one square aperture over the bunk, boarded up now.

"What about Jim Taggart?" said Standing brusquely out of a long silence
toward the end of which the weary girl was near dozing. "What do you
know about him? Did he overhaul Mexicali Joe after all?"

She looked at him steadily; suddenly she was glad when a pine branch in
the fireplace, full of pitch, flared up so that he must have seen her
face more clearly than he could have done by mere pale candle-light;
she wanted him to see it and read something of the defiance which she
meant to offer him.

"So, after all, you have your engagement with Mexicali Joe? It was for
that that you set him free? That you, instead of others, might steal
his golden secret!"

"Then you won't answer, girl? You, whom I could crush between thumb and
finger, refuse to answer me?"

"Yes!" she cried out at him. "Yes! I am not afraid of you, Bruce
Standing!"

"Not afraid?" He glared at her, his flashing blue eyes full of threat.
Then he laughed contemptuously, saying: "And yet, were I minded to, I
could in a second have you on your knees, begging, pleading...."

"But you won't!" she dared fling at him. "And that is why I am not
afraid!"

"I am not so sure!" he muttered. "Not so sure. Before morning, girl,
you may come to know what fear is!"

She tried to toss back her fearless laughter, but at that look of his
and at that stern tone of his voice her laughter caught in her throat.

"You've got nerve," he said grudgingly. "More nerve than I thought any
girl could have ... since it's far and away more than most men have.
But just the same there's one thing you are afraid of! I've seen it a
dozen times to-day, no matter how well you thought you hid it! You are
afraid to death of old Thor, there!"

She shivered; she laid a quick command upon her muscles as upon her
spirit, but they failed her; she tried to tell herself and to show him
through her bearing, head up, eyes steady, that it was only fatigue and
the growing chill of the coming night that put that tremor upon her.
But he laughed at her and called his big dog to him and said heavily:

"Watch her, Thor! Watch her!"

Thor growled, a growl coming from deep down in the powerful throat; the
red eyes grew hot; bristles stood up along neck and back; there came
the gleam of the wolfish teeth. She shrank back against the wall.

"I have my appointment!... In an hour I must go. I give you your choice
of coming along with me, in leash! or of staying here, with only Thor
to guard, and taking your chances with him! Which is it?"

And she cried quickly:

"I'll go with you!" And then, lest he should think that he had
triumphed, she added swiftly: "For I, too, am interested in Mexicali
Joe!"

He caught down the blankets which had hung airing since last he came
here and tossed two of them to the bunk where she half lay; the third
he folded and placed on the floor, stretching out his own great bulk
upon it, his shoulders against the wall. He found his pipe, filled and
lighted it, and lay staring into the fire....

And she, drawing a blanket over her knees, crouched, looking into
the same dancing flames, overwhelmed for the moment by a total
sense-engulfing feeling of unreality. Could all of this which had
happened, which was still happening, be an actual experience for her,
Lynette Brooke? More did it resemble a long-drawn-out ugly dream than
actuality! To be here to-night, so far from the world, her own world,
in the heart of a gigantic wilderness, in a rude cabin; a giant of
a man who, as he had said truly, might have crushed her between his
powerful forefinger and thumb; a savage wolf of a dog watching her with
unblinking eyes; another man, somewhere, with vengeance in his heart,
following them; another man, clutching to his breast his golden secret,
not far away; ... nightmare ingredients! Did this man, Bruce Standing,
Timber-Wolf as men called him, really know where to find Mexicali
Joe? And, when he found him, would he come upon Taggart and Gallup
and that hawk-faced man whom they called Cliff Shipton? And with them
would there be Babe Deveril, who must have gone somewhere in his mad,
hungering hope to have a rifle in his hands?... Above all else, was
she the plaything of fate? Or the director of fate? Now it lay within
the scope of her power to cry out to Bruce Standing: "When you find
Mexicali Joe you will find others, no friends of yours, with him! With
them, probably, Babe Deveril! And more than one rifle ready to stand
between you and the Mexican!" ... If she kept her silence, there might
be bloodshed before morning; if she spoke her warning, she might be
doubly arming Timber-Wolf. She grew restless; so restless that Thor,
distrusting her, began growling.

And Bruce Standing, regarding her fixedly, demanded sharply:

"Well, what is it?"

Well ... what should she say? Anything or nothing? If she kept her
silence, would she in after-days know herself to blame for to-night's
bloodshed in that, keeping shut lips, she allowed him to stumble upon
all Taggart's crowd.

He was eying her sharply. She must make some answer, and so at last
she prefaced her reply by asking him:

"You say that we are not on your land?"

"I did not say that. I said that this is not the cabin in which I had
some years ago the pleasant experience of borrowing some money from
Babe Deveril. He has never been here; has never heard of this place. No
man other than myself, and until now no woman ever came here."

"That narrow end of a valley we crossed this afternoon ... that was the
upper end of Buck Valley? And the creek which came next was Big Bear
Creek? And, right near us somewhere is Grub Stake Cañon?"

"You know the country like a map!" He spoke carelessly enough and yet
was puzzled to understand how she knew; of course Deveril could have
told her something of it and yet Deveril's knowledge was restricted to
the slim gleanings of one short excursion of years ago, and he did not
believe that even Deveril had ever heard of Grub Stake Cañon.

"And," she ran on swiftly, "you were to meet Mexicali Joe to-night at
that other cabin of yours? Is that it?"

"Witch, are you? Picker of thoughts from men's brains?" He laughed
shortly and got to his feet. "And so you elect to go along and see what
happens? Rather than rest here with Thor to keep you company?"

She, too, rose swiftly.

"Yes!"

He took up his rifle, caught her hand and extinguished the candle.

"Down, Thor, old boy," he said as he might have spoken to a man,
without raising his voice. "Wait for me. Good dog, Thor."

Thor whined, but Lynette heard the sound he made in lying down
obediently; heard the thumping of his tail as he whined again. Standing
began leading the way through the dark among the big trees, his fingers
about her wrist.... She wondered how far they must go; suddenly as her
great weariness bore down upon her spirit that was become the greatest
of all considerations; greater, even, than what they should find at
the end of their walk. Almost she regretted not having remained in the
cabin ... with Thor.

Standing, despite the dark and the uneven ground underfoot, seemed to
have no difficulty in finding his way; he walked swiftly; she could
sense his eager impatience. She began wondering listlessly if he were
late to his appointment....

She had faint idea how far they had gone, a mile or two miles or but
half a mile, a weary time of heavily dragging footsteps, when suddenly
the silence was broken by men's voices. Far away, dimmed and all but
utterly hidden by the interval of forest, was a vague glow of light.
Standing came to a dead stop; she stumbled against him. There came,
throbbing through the night, a man's scream. Standing stiffened; she
felt a tremor run through his big body. A voice again, an evil voice in
evil laughter; a deeper voice, too far away for the words to carry any
meaning, not too far for the voice itself to be recognized by a man who
hated it.

"Taggart and Young Gallup," Standing muttered. "They've got Joe! They'd
cut his throat for ten cents!... Look here; what do you know about all
this?"

She answered hurriedly; that thin scream still echoed in her ears; she
remembered only too vividly Taggart's treatment of Joe at the dugout
and Taggart's threats; she shivered, saying:

"All I know.... Jim Taggart and Gallup and another man caught up with
Joe at his cabin; they made him bring them here ... to show them his
gold ... Taggart threatened him with torture...."

"Come! Hurry! Why in hell's name didn't you tell me?"

Still with her hand caught in his own he turned and ran, making her run
with him, back to his own cabin. Again they heard, fainter now since
the distance was greater, that thin cry bursting from Joe's lips; she
felt the hand on her own shut down, mercilessly hard.... Running, they
returned to his hidden cabin.

He went in with her; hurriedly he lighted the candle; the fire was
almost out. Wondering, she sank down upon the bunk.

"Down, Thor," he commanded; he made the dog lie again across the
threshold. "Watch her, Thor!" Thor growled; the red eyes watched her.

"Don't you move from that bunk until I get back!" Standing told her
sternly.

He ran out of the cabin. She heard him breaking through brush, going
the shortest, straightest way down toward the spot from which voices
had come up to them. Thor growled. She looked at the dog, fascinated
with fear of him. The big head was down now, resting between the big
fore paws; the unwinking eyes were on her.... She lay back on the bunk,
staring up at the smoke-blackened rafters.

It was very quiet. No longer could she hear the sound of Timber-Wolf's
running.... He, one man, pitting himself in blazing anger against at
least three men, ... perhaps four!... What if he were killed? Leaving
her here, under the relentless guard of Thor? She was taken with a long
fit of shivering. Thor growled.




CHAPTER XV


Every experience through which Lynette Brooke had gone until now
seemed suddenly dwarfed into insignificance by the present. She was
so utterly wearied out physically that muscles all over her body,
demanding their hour of relaxation and having that relaxation denied
them through the nervous stress laid upon her, quivered piteously.
Hers was that frame of mind which distorts and magnifies, whipping out
of its true semblance all actual conditions or building them up into
monstrous, grotesque shapes. She was afraid of that great, staring dog
on the threshold; more afraid of him than she had ever been of any
man, Thor's master not excepted. For here was a fear which she could
not throttle down. She would have sighed in content and have gone
to sleep, her turbulent emotions quieted, if only it had been Bruce
Standing's hard hand on the chain denying her her liberty instead of
a great dog lying across the door-step.... Enough here to make her
clinch her teeth to hold back a scream of panic-swept nerves; yet this
was not all. For still that cry, heard through the woods, rang in her
ears; still she built up in the picture which her quick fancy limned
the vision of Mexicali Joe at the mercy of merciless men; Joe, who had
lied to them, hoping to deliver them into the hands of one greater than
they; Joe, who at the end, with them demanding to see what he had to
show them, must be driven to the last extremity to fight for time....
And, blurring everything else at times, there swept over her another
picture; that of Timber-Wolf, wounded and white-faced, stalking in that
fearless way of his among them, confronting three armed men ... or
four?... and then man-killing.... They were all wolves! She shuddered.
And Thor, watching her, filled the quiet cabin with the sound of his
low suspicious growling.

"Thor!" she called him, hardly above a whisper. Her lips were dry.
"Good old Thor!"

His throaty rumble of a growl, telling her of his distrust as
eloquently as it could have done had Thor the words of man at his
command, was her answer.

"Thor!" She called him again, her voice soft, pleading, coaxing. Then
she lifted herself a few inches on her elbow; like a flash Thor was up
on his haunches, his growl became a snarl, a quick glint of his teeth
showing, a sharp-pointed gleam of menace.

Yet Lynette held her position, steady upon her elbow; she had never
known a tenser moment. Her throat contracted with her fear; and yet she
kept telling herself stubbornly that yonder was but a dog, a thing of
only brute intelligence, while she had the human brain to oppose him
with; that, some way, she could outwit him. So she did not lie back; to
do so would, she felt, show Thor that she was afraid of him. She made
no further forward movement but she held what she had been suffered to
gain.

And then she set herself to dominate Thor, a wolf-like dog. She spoke
to him; but first she waited until she could be sure of her voice. That
brute instinct of Thor's would know the slightest quaver of fear when
he heard it. She controlled herself and her voice; she made her tones
low and soft and gentle; she kept them firm. She told herself: "Thor is
but doing his master's bidding because he loves his master! I'll make
him love me! He distrusts.... I'll make him trust instead!" And all the
while she kept her own eyes steady upon Thor's.

"Thor!" she said quietly. And again: "Thor. Good old Thor. Good old
dog!"

... Thor had set her down as an enemy; his master's enemy; his master
had commanded him: "Watch her, Thor!" Thor's knowledge was not wide;
yet what he knew he did know thoroughly. And yet Thor had had no
evidence, beyond that offered by a chain, of any open enmity between
his master and this captive; master and girl had travelled all day long
together and neither had flown at the other's throat. More than that,
it had been at the master's own command this very morning that Thor had
felt her hand upon his head; a hand as light as a falling leaf. And now
she spoke to him in his master's own words, but with such a different
voice, calling him Thor, good old dog....

It was a soothing voice, a voice made for tender caresses. She spoke
again and again and again. And she was not afraid; Thor could see no
flickering sign of fear in her. A voice softer than had been the touch
of her hand.

"Thor!" she called him. And his growl was scarcely more growl than
whine. For Thor, before Bruce Standing had been gone twenty minutes,
was growing uncertain. Lynette had had dogs of her own; she knew the
ways of dogs, and in this she had the advantage, since Thor knew
nothing of the ways of women nor of their guile. The dog was restless;
his eyes, upon hers, were no longer so steady. Now and then Thor shook
his head and his eyes wandered.

"Thor," said Lynette, and now, though her voice, as before, was low and
gentle, there was the note of command in it, "lie down!"

There was an experiment ... and it failed. Thor was on four feet in a
flash; his growl was unmistakable now; the snarling note came back into
it threateningly. She thought that he was going to fly at her throat....

Yet already was the lesser intelligence, though coupled with the
greater physical power, confused.

Lynette moved slowly; she put her hands up above her head and stretched
out her arms and yawned; Thor growled, but there was little threat in
the growl; just suspicion. Again she moved slowly; close enough, in
the restricted area embraced by the cabin walls, was the table; on it
some morsels of food left from their dinner. Without rising from the
bunk, she reached the tin plate; she took it up, all the while moving
with unhastening slowness. Thor's eyes followed her straying hand; Thor
had been fed, and yet the dog's capacity for food was enormous. He
understood the meaning of her gesture; his eyes hungered.

She dropped the plate to the floor but, before it struck, not three
feet in front of the dog, she cried out sharply, her voice ringing, her
command at last emphatic:

"No, Thor! No! No, I tell you!"

Had she offered the dog the food she would have but awaked within him a
new and violent distrust; he was not so easily to be tricked. But when
she tossed before him something that he was slavering for, and then
laid her command upon him to hold back, she achieved something over
him; he would have held back in any case, but now he held back at her
command.

"Watch it, Thor!" she cried out loudly. "Watch it, sir!"

The big dog stared at her; at the fallen morsels; back at her, plainly
at loss. And then again, more sharply, she commanded him:

"Watch it, Thor!... Lie down, Thor!"

And Thor, though he growled, lay down.... And his wolfish eyes now were
upon the plate and its spilled contents rather than upon her.

"If I can but have time!" Lynette was telling herself excitedly. "If
only I can have time ... I can make that dog do what I say to do!...
God, give me time!"


When Bruce Standing, rushing through the forest land, came upon
them ... Taggart and the others ... they were grouped about a
despairing, hopeless Mexicali Joe. For Mexicali Joe's _amigo_, the
great Timber-Wolf, in whom next to God he put all trust, had failed
him. And Joe had come to the end of his tether, the end of lies and
excuses and empty explanations. And now Taggart, as brutal a man as
ever wore the badge of the law, was impatient, and meant to make an
end of all procrastinations. It was his intention to give Mexicali Joe
such a "third degree" as never any man had lived to experience before
to-night. Rage, chagrin, disappointment, and natural, innate brutality
spurred him on. Even Young Gallup, who was no chicken-hearted man at
best, demurred; but Taggart cursed him off and told him to hold his
tongue, and planned matters to his own liking.

"Jim Taggart's got Injun blood in him, you know," muttered Gallup
uneasily to Cliff Shipton ... as though that might explain anything.

Even to such as Young Gallup, a man of whose humanity little was to
be said, explanations were logical requirements. For Jim Taggart was
at his evil worst. With cruelly hard fist he had knocked the little
Mexican down; before Joe could get to his feet he booted him; when Joe
stood, tottering, Taggart knocked him down again, jarring the quivering
flame of life within him. And only at that did Jim Taggart, a man of
no imagination but of colossal brutality, count that he was beginning.
Then it was that Joe cried out; that his scream pierced through the
night's stillness; that he pleaded with Taggart, saying:

"This time, I tell you the true! I tell you ever'thing...."

"You're damned right you will," shouted Taggart, beside himself with
his long baffled rage. "When I get good and ready to listen. And I'm
not listening now, you Mexico pup! First you go through hell, and then
I'll know that you tell the truth! Fool with me, would you; with me,
Jim Taggart? You----"

Then Taggart began his third degree, listening to neither Joe's
pleadings nor yet to the voice of Young Gallup.

The four men were in Bruce Standing's old cabin; the door was wide
open, since here, so far from the world, in the dense outer fringes of
Timber-Wolf's isolated wilderness kingdom, no man of them ... saving
Joe alone, who had now given up hope ... had a thought of another human
eye to see; Shipton, at a curt word from Taggart, had piled the mouth
of the fireplace full of dead-wood, for the sole sake of light, and it
was hot in the small room. Taggart had bound the Mexican's hands behind
him, drawing the thong so tight that it cut cruelly into the flesh....
Taggart had knocked Joe down and had booted him to his heart's content;
the swarthy face had turned a sick white. Taggart's eyes were glowing
like coals raked out from hell's own sulphurous fires; he was sure of
the outcome, sure of swift success, and yet now, in pure fiendishness,
more absorbed in his own unleashed deviltry than in the mere matter of
raw gold, which he counted securely his as soon as he was ready for it.
Whether or not Indian blood ran in his veins, elemental savagery did.

Mexicali Joe, unable to rise, or in fear for his life if he stirred,
lay on the floor, his eyes dilated with terror, staring up into
Taggart's convulsed face.

"I tell you the true!" he screamed. "This time, before God, I tell----"

"Shut up, you greaser-dog!" Taggart, a man of full measure, kicked him,
and under the driving pain inflicted by that heavy boot, Joe's eyes
flickered and closed, and Joe's brain staggered upon the dizzy black
verge of unconsciousness. Taggart saw and understood and pitched a
dipperful of water in his face. Joe gasped faintly. Taggart stepped to
the fireplace, and snatched out a blazing pine branch.

"I've put my brand on more'n one treacherous dog!" he jeered. "You'll
find my stock running across the wild places in seven States! Here's
where I plant the sign of the cross on you, Mexico! Right square
between the eyes!"

Suddenly he thrust the burning brand toward Joe's forehead. Joe cried
out in terror:

"For the love of God!..." His two hands were behind him, but,
galvanized, he fought the pine fagot with his whole body. He strove to
thrust it aside; he fought against his weakness to roll over; Taggart's
heavy foot was in his middle, holding him down; the burning branch in
Taggart's heavy hands was as steady as a steel rod set in concrete;
Joe's threshing panic disturbed it scarcely more than the wind would
have done.... Another scream, shrilling through the night; the smell
of burnt flesh; a red wound on Joe's forehead; Taggart's ugly laugh;
and then suddenly, from just without the open doorway, a terrible shout
from Bruce Standing, and then, in two seconds, Bruce Standing's great
bulk among them.

"My God!" roared Standing. "_My God!_ ... You, Jim Taggart!..."

Shipton's rifle stood in a corner; Shipton, as lithe as a cat, leaped
for it. Gallup's was in his hand; he whipped it to his shoulder.
Taggart for one instant was stupefied; then he swept high above
his head the smoke-emitting, redly glowing pine limb. Joe, weeping
hysterically, writhing on the floor, was gasping: "_Jesus Maria!_" ...
God had heard his prayers; God and Bruce Standing.

But in to-night's game of hazard it was Timber-Wolf who chose to
shuffle, cut, and deal the cards; his rifle was in his hands; it
required but the gentlest touch of his finger to send any man of them
to his last repose. His eyes, the roving eyes of rage, were everywhere
at once.

"I'd kill you, Taggart, and be glad of the chanth! You, too, Gallup!
Drop that gun!"

First of them all, it was Cliff Shipton who came to the motionless halt
of shocked consternation; he lifted his hands, his face blanched; he
tried to speak, and only succeeded in making the noise of air gushing
through dry lips. Gallup stopped midway in his purpose of firing, for
Timber Wolf's rifle barrel was trained square upon his chest; at the
look in Standing's eye and the timbre of his voice, Gallup's gun fell
clattering to the floor. Taggart mouthed and cursed, and slowly let his
blazing fagot sink toward the floor.

For every man of them knew Timber-Wolf well; and they knew that
incongruous _lisping_ which surprised him and mastered his utterance
only when his rage was of the greatest. When Timber-Wolf lisped it was
because such a fiery storm raged through his breast as to make of him a
man who would kill and kill and kill and glory in the killing.

"And I'd have given a million dollars to thee any man of you put up a
fight!" he was saying harshly. "God, what a thet of cowardly curth! And
you, Jim Taggart, I onth had for bunk-mate and onth thought a man!"

He reached out suddenly, and with his bare, open palm slapped Taggart's
face; and Taggart staggered backward under the blow until his thick
shoulders brought up against the wall with such a thud that the cabin
shuddered under the impact.

"Get up, Joe!" growled Standing. "You're another yellow dog, but ...
get up and come here!"

Joe scrambled to his feet and came hurrying. Standing kept his rifle in
his right hand. Using his left stiffly, he got out his knife and cut
the Mexican's bonds.

"Go!" he cried savagely. "While you've got legth under you! And thith
time keep clear, or hell take you! I'm through with you ... you make me
thick!..."

Mexicali Joe, with one last frightened look over his shoulder, fled;
they heard his running feet outside. He was jabbering unintelligibly as
he fled: "_Señor Caballero!_ ... _Dios!_ ... those devils!..."

Joe was gone. Bruce Standing's work was done. He looked grim and
implacable, a man of iron heated in the red-hot furnace of rage. He
yearned for Taggart to make a move; or for Gallup. Shipton, as a lesser
cur, he ignored.

They saw how white, as white as a clean sheet of paper, his face was;
they did not fully understand why, since a man's face, when he is in a
terrible rage, may whiten, as an effect of the searing emotion; they
did not know how he had driven his wounded body all day long nor how
sore his wound was. They could not guess that even now he was holding
himself upright and towering among them through the fierce bending of
his indomitable will. That same will he bent terribly for clean-cut
articulation.

"Taggart!" he said, and his voice rang as clear as the striking of an
iron hammer upon a resounding anvil. "I'll tempt you to be a man such
as you _once_ were, before you went yellow clean through ... and I'll
show you, your _self_, how dirty a yellow you've gone! Pick up Young
Gallup's rifle!"

Taggart glared at him and muttered and hesitated, tugged one way
by hatred and the madness of wrath, tugged the other way by his
fear of the certainty of death. Lights, bluish lights, flickered in
Timber-Wolf's eyes. He said again:

"Pick up that rifle! Other_wise_, in _less_ than ten _sec_onds you are
a dead man!"

Taggart's face was red when Standing began to speak; ashen by the last
word. Nervously and in great haste he stooped and caught up the gun.

"You've got your _chance_, Jim Taggart! Your last _chance_! To fight
it out, or say, for _these_ men to hear: 'I'm a dirty yellow dog!' If
you're game we'll fight it out. I'll give you an even break; and we'll
kill each other!"

Taggart held the rifle, not lifted quite to his waist; his hands were
rigid upon it and did not tremble. He was not a coward; on many an
occasion, when he had borne his sheriff's badge recklessly through
violence, he had shown himself a brave man. He knew now that it lay
within his power, if he were quick and sure, to kill Bruce Standing,
whom he had come to hate, so that his hatred was like a running sore.
And he knew, too, that killing, he would be killed. If it were any man
on earth whom he confronted save Bruce Standing....

So he hesitated, for brave man as Jim Taggart always was, he was a man
who did not want to die. And Standing laughed at him and said:

"You've had your chance; you still have it. Now, fight it out or tuck
your tail between your legs and do my bidding! And my bidding to you,
so that I needn't expect a bullet in the back when I leave you, is to
smash that rifle into flinders against the rock chimney. _And step
lively!_"

The last words came sharp and sudden, and Taggart started. And then,
hesitating no longer, he whirled the rifle up by the barrel and brought
it with all his might crashing against the fireplace; the fragments
fell from his tingling fingers. And again Standing laughed at him and
again commanded him, saying:

"There are two more rifles; do the same for each one! And remember, Jim
Taggart, every time you touch a gun you've got the even break to fight
it out; and every time you smash a gun you are saying out loud: 'I'm a
dirty yellow dog!' _Only make it snappy, Jim Taggart!_"

One after the other, and hastily, Jim Taggart smashed the butts off
two rifles and jammed trigger and trigger-guard so that from firearms
the weapons were resolved into the estate of so much scrap-iron and
splintered wood.

"I'll take your two toy guns, Jim," said Standing. "And remember this;
at short range the man with the revolver has the edge! When you drag
a gun out you've got your chance to come up shooting! Don't overlook
that! And remember along with it, that when you hand me a gun, butt-end
first, you are saying aloud for the world to hear: 'I'm a dirty yellow
dog!'"

"By God...."

"Yes, Jim Taggart, ... by God, you're a dirty dog!"

Lingeringly Taggart drew forth the heavy side-arms dragging at his
holsters; all the while he was tempted almost beyond resistance to
avail himself of his opportunity and of that quick sure skill of his;
to shoot from the hip, as he could do with the swiftness of a flash
of the wrist; he could shoot and kill. And within his heart, knowing
Bruce Standing as he did, he knew, too, that though he shot true to a
hair line, none the less, Bruce Standing would kill him.... He gave a
gun into Standing's left hand and saw it thrust into his belt. Then
was Taggart's time to snatch out his other weapon and drill that hole
through the big body in front of him which would surely let the life
run out; now was his chance, while for an instant one of Standing's
hands was busy at his belt!... If it had been any other man in the
world there confronting him! Any man but Bruce Standing! Jim Taggart
was near weeping. But he drew out his second revolver and saw it
bestowed as its fellow had been.

"Four times you've said it, plainer than words!" cried Standing
ringingly. "Gallup will never forget; and he'll tell the tale! Shipton
will remember and will blab! And, what's worse for the soul of a man,
Jim Taggart, you'll remember to the last day you live!... And now you
three can consider yourselves as so many mongrel curs whose back-biting
teeth I've knocked down your throats for you! I'll leave you to your
growlings and whinings!"

He swung about and went out. He knew both Gallup and Shipton, knew
them and their habits well, and knew that neither man had the habit
of carrying a pistol. Further, their coats were off, and he had seen
that neither had a holster at his belt. So he turned his back on them
to emphasize his contempt and did not turn his head as he plunged
into the outside night and into the thick dark under the trees, going
back to his hidden cabin and Lynette and Thor. He realized that he
himself, despite a herculean physique, was near the tether's end of his
endurance; he realized that Lynette was also heavily borne down by all
that she, a girl, had gone through and that he had left her overlong
with his wolfish dog.

What he could not know was that a revolver which had once already
shot him in the back had followed him all these miles through the
wilderness and was now lying on the bunk in the cabin he had just
quitted; he could not know how, at the Gallup House after Babe Deveril
had flung it in Taggart's face, Lynette's pistol had lain there on the
floor until Taggart had been aroused to consciousness; nor how Gallup
had picked it up, nor how Taggart had muttered: "Save it, Young. It
may come in handy for evidence in court." Gallup had stuck it into his
pocket; he had brought it with him; he had tossed it down among the
blankets....

Taggart stared after him with terrible eyes; Taggart remembered and,
when he dared, flung himself across the room, snatching for it among
the covers. Standing, hastening, strode on. Taggart found the weapon;
he ran out of the cabin with it in his hand; dodged to one side of
the open door to be out of way of the firelight. Standing hurried on,
he had not seen Taggart; Taggart could scarcely see him, could but
make out vaguely a blur where he heard heavy footfalls.... It was all
chance; but now no longer was Taggart himself running the desperate
chances. He fired, one shot after another, until he emptied the little
gun--four shots altogether; the hammer clicked down on the fifth, the
empty shell.

Chance, pure chance; and yet chance is ironical and loves its own grim
jest. The first bullet, the only one of them all to find its target,
struck Timber-Wolf. And it was as though this questing bit of lead were
seeking to tread the same path blazed by its angry brother down at the
Gallup House in Big Pine. For it, like the other from the same muzzle,
struck him from behind; and it, too, struck him upon the left side, in
the outer shoulder, not half a dozen inches from the spot where he had
been shot before....

Standing staggered and caught his breath with a grunt; he lurched into
a tree and stood leaning against it. For a moment he was dizzied and
could not see clearly. Then, turning, he made out the cabin behind
him; the bright rectangle of the door; two dark running forms leaping
through it, gone into the gulf of the black night. He jerked up his
rifle, holding it in one hand, unsupported by the other, his shoulder,
the right, against the tree. But they were gone before he could shoot.
He waited. He heard a breaking through brush; men running. They were
running away! They did not know that they had hit him; they could not
tell, and they were afraid of his return! He lifted his voice and
shouted at them in the sudden grip of a terrible anger. He listened
to the noise they made and strove to judge their positions and began
shooting after them. He fired until the rifle clip was empty. Then,
while awkwardly, with one hand, he put in a fresh clip, he listened
again. Silence only.

... He was strangely weak and uncertain; he had to draw his brows down
with a steely effort to clear his thoughts. They were gone ... they
would not come back ... it was too dark to look for them. And he had
left that girl overlong ... and he was shot full of pain. A surge of
anger for every surge of weakness....

He started on toward his hidden cabin and Lynette. He blundered into a
tree. He could feel the hot blood down his shoulder. He began using his
rifle as a man may use a cane, leaning on it heavily.




CHAPTER XVI


Bruce Standing came, weaving his way, like a drunken man, through the
woods. He was sick; sick and weak. He muttered to himself constantly.
Lynette was at the top of his thought and at the bottom; she dominated
his whole mind. He was used through long years to such as Jim Taggart
and their crooked ways; he was not used to such as Lynette Brooke, a
girl like a flower and yet fearless. It had been his way to hold all
women in scorn, since it had not been given unto him during the hard
years of his life to know the finer women, the true women worth while,
more than worth the while of a mere man. He had held his head high; he
had mocked and jeered at them; he had been no man to doff his hat with
the flattering elegance of a Babe Deveril for every fair face seen.
So now the one thing which in his fiery and feverish mood galled him
most was the thought of being seen by Lynette as a man borne down and
crushed and made weak and sick. For most of all he hated weaklings.

"She laughed at me ... damn her," he muttered. And, as an afterthought:
"She shot me in the back, after the fashion of her treacherous sex!"

He had driven himself harder all day long than any sane man, wounded,
should have thought of doing. Now the thought, working its way
uppermost through the fomenting confusion of teeming thoughts, was:
"I'll let her go. I'll be rid of her." For already, deep down in the
depths of his heart, he knew that already a girl, a girl whom he
despised and had meant to pay in full for her wickedness, had intrigued
him; she had flung her defiant fearlessness into his face; she had
kept a lifted head and straightforward eyes; and ... those eyes of
Lynette Brooke! Deep, fathomless, gray, tender, alluring, the eyes of
the one woman for each man! Almost he could have forgotten, not merely
forgiven, her greater fault of laughing at his infirmity; if only she
had not been of the species, like Jim Taggart's, to shoot a man in the
back.

He meant to let her go free and he had his own reasons for his change
of front. Though she had laughed and galled him, though she had sunk to
a cowardly act and shot him when he was not looking, at least she was
not the coward which he had counted upon finding her; he gave credit
where credit was due. He had humiliated her sufficiently, dragging
her after him, humbling a spirit as proud as his own, making her his
handmaiden, calling her his slave. That was one thing. And another,
befogged as it was, was even clearer: In letting her go, in being
rid for all time of her and the lure of her eyes, he was protecting
himself, Bruce Standing, and none other! ... Fearless, he honored her
for that. And yet a treacherous she-animal; so he wanted no more of
her, no more of the look of her, the fragrance of her, the pressure
of her upon his own spirit. He held himself a man; a man he meant
to remain. And, for the first time in all his life he was a little
afraid....

And then, just at the moment when it would have been better for them
both if he had not come ... or when it was best that he should come ...
these are questions and the answers of all questions fate holds in her
lap, hidden by the films of the future ... he came staggering up to the
door of the hidden cabin. And, at the sight of her, he pulled himself
up, stiffening, as taut as a bowstring the instant that the arrow
thrills to the command to speed.

There, in the doorway framed by the two big-boled pines she stood,
vividly outlined by the firelight from within the cabin, superbly,
gloriously feminine, her own slender soft loveliness thrown into
tremendous contrast by the figure at her side, the figure of old Thor
on whose head her hand rested as light as a fallen leaf! Her hand
on Thor's head! She and Thor standing side by side, her hand on his
head....

Sudden rage flared up in Timber-Wolf's heart; he gripped his rifle
in both hands, contemptuously ignoring the pains which shot through
his left shoulder; at that moment he could have thanked God for
excuse enough to shoot her dead. She had seduced the loyalty and
trustworthiness of Thor; she had done that! If a man like Standing
could not trust his dog, when that dog was old Thor, then where on this
green earth could he plant his trust?

"Back!" he stormed at her. "Back!"

She was poised for flight. He came at the instant of her victory over
the brute intelligence of a dog, at the moment of her high hopes, when
her heart hot in rebellion throbbed with triumph. She, too, at that
moment, could she have commanded the lightnings, would have stricken
him dead. Her hatred of him reached in a flash such heights as it had
never aspired to before.

Back? He commanded her to turn back? Shouted his dictates at her in
that first moment when she sensed escape and freedom and victory
over him who had been victor long enough? Back? Not now; not though
he flourished his rifle, threatening her with that while he shouted
angrily at her. Briefly the sight of him had unnerved her, had created
within her an utter powerlessness to move hand or foot. But before he
could shout "Back!" the second time defiance, like a flood of fire,
broke along her veins, warming her from head to foot; she sprang out
from the area of light at the cabin door and, running more swiftly than
Bruce Standing had deemed any girl could ever run, she sped away among
the trees....

A moment ago he had but the one firm intention: To set her free and
be rid of her for all time. Now, not ten seconds after holding that
purpose, he was rushing after her, forgetful of everything, his wounds
and sick weariness, except his one determination to drag her back! He
was angry; in his anger, not admitting to himself the true explanation,
he felt that he must blame her for a third crime ... she had trifled
with the integrity of his dog's loyalty ... she had corrupted old
Thor's sturdy honesty....

She ran like a deer. The moment that she broke into headlong flight
that very act released within her a full tide of fright; it became a
panic like that of soldiers once they have thrown down their arms and
plunged into the delirium of disordered retreat. She ran as she had
never done before, even when she and Babe Deveril had fled through the
night. And Bruce Standing would never have come up with her that night
had it not been that in the dark she fell, stumbling over the low mound
left to mark the place where an ancient log had disintegrated. As she
floundered to her feet she felt his hand on her shoulder. She screamed,
she struck at him....

He caught her two hands as he had done once before; she could have no
inkling of the tremendous call he put upon himself, body and will; she
could hear his heavy, labored breathing, but she, too, was breathing
in gasps. She could see neither the whiteness of his face nor yet the
blood soaking his shirt. He did not speak. He was not thinking clearly.
He merely said within himself: "I got her!" That was everything. Until,
as they came again into the outward-pouring firelight in front of the
cabin door, he wondered somewhat uneasily: "What am I going to do with
her?"

Lynette, panting and piteously shaken, dropped down on the edge of the
bunk, overborne by disaster, hopeless, her face in her hands; she was
fighting with herself against a burst of tears. Thus she did not see
Bruce Standing as he stood at the threshold, looking at her. She heard
his step; it shuffled and was uncertain, but she did not at the moment
mark this. She heard a whine from old Thor, a Thor perplexed and ill at
ease.

... Suddenly she thought: "He hasn't moved; he hasn't spoken!" She
dropped her hands then and looked up swiftly. And, thus, she surprised
a queer look in his eyes; his own thoughts were all chaotic and yet
there was beginning to burn one steady thought among them like one
bright flame in a whirl of smoke. He had closed the door when they
came in; he had sat down upon the up-ended log which served here as a
chair; Thor's head was on the master's knee and absently Standing's
hand was stroking it. He had dropped his rifle outside when he started
to run after her; he had not stopped to look for it as they came in.
She saw that a revolver was half in and half out of his pocket.... Then
she marked, with a start, the dead-white of his face and the way his
left arm hung limp, and the red stain on his wrist and the back of his
hand where the blood had run down his sleeve. Her first thought was
of his old wound and how he was not the man to give a wound a chance
to heal, but rather would break it open again and again through his
violence. Then she recalled what, during these last few minutes she had
forgotten--the shots which she had heard a little while ago. And she
knew that, though he sat upright and stared at her with the old look
again in his eyes, he had been shot the second time.

"I brought you back, girl," he said at last, and she knew that he was
bending a vast resource of will to keep his tone clear and steady, "not
because I mean to keep you any longer ... but just to show you that
with all the tricks of your sex you can take no step that I do not tell
you to take! Now, I've the idea that I'd like best to be alone. You can
go."

In a flash she jumped to her feet; she would scarcely credit her ears,
and yet one look at the man told her reassuringly that he was in
earnest.

"I don't know where you'll go," he said. "And I don't care. But I can
tell you you'll find some good men and true, men of your own kind,
since they shoot in the back, down below my other cabin; Taggart and
Gallup and Shipton.... No, your friend Baby Devil isn't there! And
Mexicali Joe has skipped out. If you like to take your chances with
those birds...." He jerked out the revolver which recently had been
Taggart's and tossed it to the bunk. "You can take that along, if you
like."

She flushed up, her face as hot as fire, as he jeered at her, saying:
"Men of your own kind, since they shoot in the back!" ... She could
come close to an accurate guess of what had happened; since Mexicali
Joe was gone it must be that Standing had set him free; since Standing
returned with a fresh wound, it must be that Taggart or one of his
crowd had shot him in the back....

She had not meant to speak, but now she cried out hotly:

"I did not shoot you! You didn't see ... if you had seen you would
know. My pistol lay on the table ... the window was open ... some one
reached in and picked it up and shot you ... I was frightened, and when
the pistol was dropped back to the table, I caught it up...."

His eyes grew brilliant with the intensity of the look he turned upon
her.... But his brain was reeling, his weakness overpowered him ... he
was set with all the steel of his character against showing before her
the first sign of weakness....

"Liar!" he flung at her. "To lie about it ... that's worse than the
shot...."

He leaned back against the wall. "You're free now," he said. "I would
to God I had never seen you!"

For answer she flung her bright laughter back at him; defiant, angry,
bitter laughter. She caught up the heavy revolver he had thrown to her.

"I could shoot you now ... with no one to see...."

His own laughter, hard and ugly, answered while he found the strength
to say sternly:

"But with me looking you straight in the eyes ... you'd lose your nerve
at that!"

She flung the weapon down to the floor, scorning any gift of his.
Without another word, with never another glance toward him, she passed
to the door, jerked it open and went out.

He sat staring into the fire. Thor began sniffing at the limp hand.
Standing got to his feet; the fire was dying down and a sudden shiver
of cold prompted him to pile on fresh fuel. He kicked Taggart's
revolver viciously out of his way. He was going to the fireplace, but
in doing so passed the bunk. He sat down a moment, wiping the sweat
from his forehead ... cold and sweating at the same time. He lay back,
flat on his back, and shut his eyes. He wondered vaguely how much blood
he had lost coming up through the woods from the lower cabin where he
had been shot; how much blood he had lost while he ran like a madman
after that girl.... His eyes were shut doggedly tight and yet it seemed
to his dizzied senses as though he could feel the look of her eyes,
bending over him.... Now, that was a strange thing.... Never once had
she given him a look from those eyes of hers to show a single spasm of
fear.... Fearless? She, a girl? Did fearlessness and cowardice blend,
then, that the incomprehensible result might be known as woman? For it
was the supreme stroke of cowardice to shoot a man in the back. And
yet ... she had said: "I did not shoot you!" While she spoke, he had
believed!... He lay jeering at himself.... And all the while, as in a
vision, he saw a pair of big gray eyes, soft and tender and alluring,
bending over him....

"There's just one thing in the world," muttered Bruce Standing aloud,
as a man may do when hard driven by perplexity and safe in solitary
isolation from other ears than his own, "that I'd give everything to
know! To know for sure!... Just one thing...."




CHAPTER XVII


Lynette, running like one blind out into the dark silent forest land,
her own soul storm-tossed, stopped with sudden abruptness, staring
about her, striving to see what lay before her, about her. Free! As
free as the wind, to roam where she listed. And alone! Alone with the
wilderness for the first moment since she had fled the menace yelping
at her heels in Big Pine. _Alone._

And walled about by the wildest and most impenetrably blackly dark
solitudes. She had but the one impulse; to flee from this man whose
fellows termed him a wolf; but the one clear thought, that she _must_
hasten in search of the very man from whom originally she had fled,
Jim Taggart. For, since Bruce Standing had not been killed by that
shot fired in her room at the Gallup House, she, like Babe Deveril,
was no longer threatened with the most serious charge of murder. Let
Taggart place her under arrest; let him take her back into the region
of towns and stages and lamp-lit homes; let him accuse her. Suddenly it
seemed to her, wearied with endless exertion and privation and nervous
tension, that there could be no peace greater than that of being taken
back and placed in custody in Big Pine!

Now she had to guide her but a general, a very vague, sense of
direction. It was so absolutely dark! There were stars, but they seemed
little sparks of cold distant light, blurred and almost lost beyond
the tops of the pines. Standing had led her after him, on his way to
his lower cabin, down the gentle slope. Yes; she knew the general
direction. And the distance? She had little impression of the distance
between these two aloof lairs of Timber-Wolf; half a mile or two
miles, she did not know. She would go on and on, seeking a way among
the trees; on and on and on, stumbling in the dark. Then, after a
while, she would call; call and call again, praying that Taggart and
the others were lurking somewhere within ear-shot; that they would
hear and come to her ... and place her under arrest! And she wondered,
as she had done so many a time to-day, where was Babe Deveril? Was he
near? Would he, by any chance, hear her? Would he, too, come to her?
And, then, what?

She began hastening on; to be farther from him, though that meant to
come at every step nearer Jim Taggart and Young Gallup and that other
man with the hawk face. She could not be absolutely certain that the
direction she set her course by would ever lead her to the lower cabin;
but on one point she was assured: at every step she was getting farther
from wolf-man and wolf-dog. What a brute, what a beast he was! _And
yet_ ... _and yet_.... There swept across her, like a clean, cold wind
out of the north, a sudden appreciation of those finer qualities of
manhood which his nature and his fate had allowed to dwell on in that
anomaly, Bruce Standing. His absolute honesty, itself like a north
wind, was not to be gainsaid even by his bitterest enemy; his courage,
in any woman's eyes, was invested with sheer nobility. How he had
befriended poor little Mexicali Joe; how, to-night for the second time,
though handicapped by his wound, he had gone to Joe's relief; how he,
one against three, had had his way, like a lion among curs. Wolf or
lion?... And, finally, she abode wonderingly on that queer, distorted
chivalry which resided in the heart of him, his brutally chivalrous way
with her. For, no matter how harsh and bitter his tongue had been and
no matter how hard his eye, he had not harmed her; when his hands had
been like steel upon hers, commanding her while he jeered at her, they
had not once so much as bruised her soft skin. In no way had he harmed
her while it had been at his command, had he desired, to harm her in
all ways.... She thought of being alone with any man like Taggart or
Gallup or that hawk-faced hanger-on of theirs ... and shuddered. Even
Babe Deveril; he had looked at her last night, insinuating.... She
remembered how Bruce Standing, rushing down upon them, had thrown his
own rifle away to grapple with Deveril, man to man and no odds stolen;
she would never forget the picture of him with his axe, attacking the
jail and defying the law.... Her mind raced, her thoughts switched
into a new groove: how he had set her free just now and tossed her the
revolver....

And then came the most vivid picture of all, the latest one, that of
Bruce Standing glaring at her just before she ran out of the cabin. A
second time she came to a sudden stop. He had looked like a man dying!
Too proud, with that vainglorious pride of his, to have her, a girl,
watch him, a man, die. Too unyieldingly proud and defiant to have her,
a weakling, look on while he, the strongest man she had ever glimpsed,
yielded in anything, if even to death itself. What a man he was! A man
wrong-minded, maybe; a man who overrode others and bore them down; a
man who set up his own standards, such as they were, and battled for
them wholeheartedly. Even in the matter of high-handed robbery ... he
had robbed Babe Deveril of three thousand dollars, and yet voluntarily,
when he was ready to make restitution and not before, he had returned
the full amount, estimating in his own way that he had merely borrowed
it! There was the man disclosed; one who made his own laws, and yet
who abode by them as loyally and as unswervingly as a true priest may
abide by God's....

And he had looked like a man dying. She turned her head. The door
of his cabin was still wide open, as she had left it; light, though
failing, still gushed out. She told herself that it was only a natural
curiosity, surely her sex's most irrefutable prerogative, that made her
turn and look. She caught no sight of him; he was not striding up and
down. And he had not come outside for his fallen rifle....

Her breast rose and fell to a deep sigh. Of relief, perhaps; perhaps
for another emotion. Still she remained where she was, pondering. Which
way lay the path to the other cabin, where Taggart and Gallup and
the other man were? And what was Bruce Standing doing? He had named
her "Liar!" He did not believe when she had cried out passionately:
"I did not shoot you!" Darting considerations, flashing through her
consciousness. The one question was: "Was Bruce Standing mortally
wounded?" Shot in the back a second time; he had as much as told her
that.

Babe Deveril was what the world names a ladies' man. Bruce Standing
was a man's man. And the strange part of it is that the feminine soul
is drawn to the man's man inevitably more urgently than to the ladies'
man....

And all the while Lynette was saying to herself: "He is a brute and a
beast and yet ... he has not harmed me once and he has set me free and
there is some good in him and ... and he may be dying! Alone."

She had turned her head to look back; now, hesitatingly, her whole
body turned. Slowly, silently, she retraced her steps. She came closer
and closer to the hidden cabin; the light outlining the open door
grew fainter, dimmer as the fire died down; she heard no sound; she
caught no glimpse of a man within. She drew still closer; she heard
the strange whining of his dog. Even Thor she could not see until,
lingering at every step, she came close to the door. Then she saw
both, the man on his back, his lax hand on the floor; the dog whining,
distressed, licking the hand one instant and then looking wistfully
into the master's face. A face bloodlessly white, save for one smear of
blood, where a hand had sought to wipe his eyes clear of a gathering
film.

Hesitating no longer, she stepped across the threshold. Thor looked at
her and broke into a new whining, a note of sudden joyousness in it.
Standing did not hear and did not know that she had returned; his eyes
were shut and there was the pulse as of distant seas in his ears. She
hurried to the fireplace and tossed into it the last of the wood he had
gathered; then she came swiftly to where he lay. Her heart was beating
wildly....

She saw that his jaw was set, hard and stubborn. She stood, uncertain,
troubled, half regretful that she had come back, hence half of a mind
to go hurriedly. But she did not stir for a long time, and then only
to come the last step closer. His eyes flew open; he looked up at her.
And, as the fire she had freshly piled blazed higher, she saw a sudden
flash of his eyes ... whether the reflection of the fire or the flash
of the spirit within him, she could not tell.

"I thought you'd gone," he said. He sat up; it was a struggle for him
to do so, yet here was a man who made of all his life a struggle and
who thought nothing of a trifling victory over either nature itself or
his fellow man.

"You have been cruel...."

He mocked her with his haggard eyes.

"That," she ran on swiftly, "is what you expected me to say to you,
Bruce Standing, that you have been cruel! And, what I came back to say
is: '_You have been good to me!_'"

She had not meant to say anything of the kind. But when she looked into
his eyes, when she saw the clear-as-crystal soul of him, a soul as
simple as a child's and ... yes!... as clean; and when she remembered
how she had ridden all day long while he had walked, and how he had
steadfastly refused to so much as harm a hair of her head, the words
gushed forth.

He eyed her queerly; suspicion in his look and confusion. She could
have laughed out aloud suddenly, since her whole emotional being was
aquiver; for he, Timber-Wolf, like his own wolf-dog, Thor, distrusted
her and regarded her with fierce eyes and yet ... and yet....

"Your wound has not been dressed since morning," she said quietly. "And
now you've got yourself another wound. I am going to help you with
them."

His slave.... He had commanded her once to help him with his wound....
But his slave no longer, since he himself had set her free! Yet here
she was, saying that she stood ready to help him care for his wounds.
More, already she was getting warm water, and his old piece of castile
soap ... she was rolling up her sleeves....

He glared at her through a mist. He could be sure of nothing, since it
_seemed_ to him that she was half smiling! A tender, wistful sort of
smile ... as if she had it in her heart to forget injuries done, to
forgive him who had done them, and to succor him now that there was
little of man-strength left in his body.... Curse her! What right had
she to forgive, to look at a man that way? He had asked nothing from
her, save that she leave him....

He stirred uneasily. _Had_ she smiled? In this uncertain light one
could be certain of nothing; the flickering of the wood fire, casting
quick-racing little shadows, breaking into their play with sudden
warm, rosy gleamings, made it impossible for him to know if she had
smiled, or if that semblance of a smile were but the effect of shifting
lights. He held himself rigid, his back to the wall now, his right hand
clinched on his knee.

"When I am in need of your help ... you who shot me...."

She came to him unafraid; she set down the can of warm water on the
floor; she began unbuttoning the neck of his shirt. He threw up his
hand, the right, hard-clinched, as though he would strike her in the
face; but he let the hand fall back to his side. She heard a great sigh.

"I told you once," she said quietly, "that I did not shoot you. And I
am no more liar than you are, Bruce Standing."

He cursed himself for a fool; he was tired and weak and dizzy; his mind
was the abode of confusions; he no longer knew what was fact and what
illusion. One thing alone he did know, a marvellous thing; there was
in her low voice the ring of utter honesty when she said: "I did not
shoot you!" ... Liars; all her sex, waging their weak wars from ambush,
holding their place in the world through seduction and deceit, all were
liars. And yet she troubled him, and with that voice and those eyes
she bred uncertainty on top of uncertainty in his uncertain soul. Her
steady fingers were unbuttoning his collar....

"Then why," he muttered, jeering and challenging, "did you run as you
did after the shot? And how, since you and I were alone in the room...."

"The window was open! Under it was the table, my pistol where I had
dropped it on the table. You turned your back; I was going to jump out
the window and run because for the moment I was afraid! But some one,
some man, was there; I saw his hand; it caught up the pistol. It was he
who shot you in the back! And when he dropped the pistol back to the
table...."

Again he demanded fiercely:

"But you ran ... _why_? And with the gun in your hand! Why? _Why_,
girl, if you are not lying to me?"

"Haven't I told you?" Suddenly she was aflame with passionate
vehemence. "I was frightened; ready to run; keyed up to run! There came
that shot, and you were hit; I thought you were killed! It flashed over
me that I would be suspected and all evidence would point to me and I
would be convicted of murder! Cowardly murder!... One does not think at
such a time; there is only the rush of instinct and impulse. I was all
ready to run; I had no time to think...."

"But you had the revolver in your hand as you went through the window!"

"Impulse and instinct, I tell you!" she cried. "Instinct to flee; and
to snatch at the first weapon for protection, even though it was the
weapon that had just shot you! I was a fool, maybe; and maybe by acting
as I did I saved my own life!"

He was looking up into her face queerly; she saw the savage gathering
of his brows; with all his might he strove for clear vision and clear
thought. With a new, terrible keenness, he fixed his eyes upon her;
then he said deliberately: "Liar!"

He saw the flash of her eyes, the angry set of her mouth; her hands
were clinched now, and for a moment it was he who believed that he
was to be struck full across the face. And thereupon his own eyes
brightened; this girl did not speak like a liar; she did not carry
herself like one; she had yet to show the first streak of yellow which
is in the warp and woof of lying souls.

But Lynette curbed her quick temper and said only:

"You have no right to call me that; my word is as good as your word,
Bruce Standing. Had I shot you I should not have waited for you to turn
your back. One thing I did do for which I was sorry even while I did
it, and ashamed; I laughed at you even while I sympathized with your
anger against a man who, to be little and mean, could have your horse
killed. And it was not at you that I laughed, after all ... there come
times when I can't help laughing, though there is nothing to laugh at
... it was the shock, I think ... the incongruousness, to hear you...."

She ended there, sparing him any further reference to his lisping of
which he was so desperately ashamed; once more she began working at his
collar.... And again there came into the blue eyes of Bruce Standing a
flash as of blue fire, though he hid it from her; and a sudden great,
utterly mysterious gladness blossomed magically. For, though he did not
understand and though he would never rest until he did understand, yet
already he began to believe that this girl with the fearless look spoke
the truth! And this, because of the ring of her voice and the tip of
her head, erect on its white throat, and the flash of her own eyes, as
though the spirit of man and maid had struck fire, one from the other.

"If you'll help me ..." said Lynette. "If you can sit a little bit
forward?... Your shirt will have to be torn or cut; I can't get to your
shoulder otherwise...."

He put up his right hand; as he jerked vigorously there was the sound
of tearing and ripping; he thrust the cloth down from the left side and
laid bare his great chest and the powerfully muscled left shoulder and
upper arm. Lynette shuddered; he had lost so much blood! And against
the smooth perfect whiteness of his healthy skin the blood was so
emphasized. She found the new wound....

"Shot in the back ... twice shot in the back," she said, and again she
shivered. "And you don't know who shot you either time?"

"I have my own idea about both," he said curtly. And had nothing to add.

With the warm water and soap she cleansed the fresh wound and then the
older one. Then, with gentle fingers, she did as he bade her with Billy
Winch's salve, applying it generously.

When the thing was done they looked at each other strangely; man and
maid in the wild-wood, with much lying between them, with each asking
swift unanswerable questions, with the night in the solitudes advancing.

"It's a strange thing that you came back," said Standing.

"Where better had I to go?"

"I told you that Taggart and his friends were down there. You might
have found them."

She turned from him abruptly and went back to the fireplace; he could
see only the curve of her cheek and a curl and her shoulder.

"I have no greater liking for Sheriff Taggart than you have," she said.

He wanted to see her face, but she was stubborn in refusing to turn. He
said curiously:

"Your friend, Baby Devil, ought to be overhauling them before long! If
you think he decided to come this way?"

She did not answer. He began to grow angry with her for that; for
refusing to reply when he spoke; for refusing to discuss Babe Deveril.
But he kept a shut mouth, though with the effort his jaws bulged. He
began feeling in his pocket for pipe and tobacco; he felt the need of
it....

He would have sworn that she had not looked and could not have seen,
but when he struggled over the difficulty of doing everything with one
hand she whirled and came forward impulsively and finished the task for
him, packing the tobacco into the black bowl of his pipe and handing
him a lighted splinter from the fire.

He muttered something; she had gone back to her place at the fire
and did not know whether his muttering was of thanks or curses;
her attitude would have seemed to imply that either would find her
indifferent. He smoked slowly; the strong tobacco, sharp and acrid,
did him good; a man of steady nerve, he had come to a point where his
nerves needed steadying; just now he wanted silence and his pipe and
time to grope for certain readjustments. Sweeping in all his ways was
Bruce Standing; in building up, tearing down, building up again; and
always with him was the sheerest joy in building up.... And Lynette,
for the first time in many hours, experienced a moment of bright
happiness.

He knocked out the ashes of his pipe, rapping the black bowl sharply
against his boot heel. Heavily he got to his feet. From the bunk he
dragged a blanket tossing it on the floor in a corner by the fireplace.
Obviously he was intending it for his bed....

"You must lie on the bunk," she cried impulsively. "You are worse hurt
than you seem to know. In any case, I give you my word I'll not use it!"

"Why should I care what you do, girl?" he demanded, staring at her
fiercely. "The bunk is there; take it or leave it."

Defiantly she snatched up a second blanket and folded it into the
opposite corner, sitting down on it with her feet tucked under her,
beginning swiftly to rebraid her loose hair. He turned from her to
lie down. But since he had chosen the corner which he had, and since
because of his wounds he was forced to lie on his right side, he faced
toward her. She appeared not to notice him, having brooding eyes only
for the fire; and yet she had had her clear view of his haggard face.
Thor came to lie close to his master's feet.

There were three blankets. Lynette, only asking herself curiously what
explosion of wrath she might bring upon herself, rose and went for the
third, and, without saying anything, spread it over Standing. He looked
at her amazed. But he did not speak. Instead, after the briefest of
hesitations, he floundered to his feet, set one boot heel upon the edge
of the blanket while in his good hand he gripped a corner; with one
sudden effort he ripped the blanket fairly in two. He tramped across
the small room and dropped half by her side; he went back to his own
corner and lay down, dragging the other fragment up over his shoulders,
like a shawl....

Lynette was tired almost to the end of endurance; further, this night
had been no less a tax upon her than had the other nights. Now,
suddenly, she burst into that inimitable laughter of hers, sounding as
light and gay and mirthful as the laugh of a delighted child....

"Behold! The acme of politeness!" she cried merrily. "A perfectly good
bunk and the two travellers going to sleep on the floor!"

He stared at her unsmilingly for a long time.

"I haven't thanked you, girl, for what you've done for me to-night.
I am not without gratitude, but I'm no man for pretty speeches, I am
afraid. At any rate here's this: I came hunting a cowardly sneak of a
she-cat and I found a true sport. And I think I'm done with making war
on you!... Unless...."

"Unless ... _what_?" asked Lynette.

But he was lying back now, his eyes closed. He did not appear to have
heard. She, too, lay down with a little weary sigh. Her last thoughts
were three; they mingled and grew confused as all thoughts faded.
But before they blurred they were these: Bruce Standing had dropped
his rifle outside and had not gone out for it; Babe Deveril had not
returned for her, but no doubt was still seeking her; and Bruce
Standing was done making war on her, _unless_....




CHAPTER XVIII


Lynette awoke, shivering. It was pitch-dark; the fire had burned out;
it must be very late, as she was stiff and cold. She had been dreaming
and her shivering was half a shudder of fear. Her nightmare had been
one of herself attacked and pursued hideously by wild animals; lions
which in the fashion of dreams, changed into wolves, then into savages.
She sat up, gathering her blanket about her. She heard Standing
breathing heavily; she could hear, now and then, his mutterings of
uneasy sleep. Perhaps it had been this which had awaked her? She began
listening as one, startled out of slumber, inevitably does to another's
incoherencies. It was hard to catch a word despite the cabin's hushed
silence into which every slightest sound penetrated. The sounds were
like those of a man babbling in fever. Once it seemed to her that he
had hardly more than whispered "Girl!"

Always must the mind of one who listens thus be held under the spell of
another spirit winging its way among dreams; the moment is uncanny if
only because it brings in such close contact the commonplace of every
day and the inexplicable of dreams. In the night, in the silence, under
this queer spell, her own mind groping, she stirred uneasily.

It flashed across Lynette that it had not been Timber-Wolf's mumbling
voice that had awakened her. That there had been something else, a new
sound from without. She listened intently, straining her ears. _There
was some one or something outside!_ She started to her feet, though
clinging to the security offered by her corner.

The door was open; it was a mere degree less dark outside than within.
As she stared into the blackness she made out vaguely the mass of
trees. A black wall in a black night. Some one out there? Then who?
_Babe Deveril?_

All along she had held tenaciously to the thought that Babe Deveril
would come for her. Perhaps he had come now; perhaps he lingered
outside, not knowing positively that she was here, not knowing if
Standing were awake or asleep, not knowing if Standing were sick of his
wound or ready with rifle in hand.

Her thoughts began to fly like stabs of lightning; briefly they made
everything clear only to plunge her whole world of thought back into
even more profound darkness. Babe Deveril? It might be! Or it might be
Mexicali Joe, lurking after his fashion. Or it might, equally well, be
Taggart with Gallup and that other man at his heels. By now she was
certain of only one thing: _There was some one out there._

She stood rigid for ten or fifteen minutes; Standing had become quiet
save for his heavy breathing; she strove with all senses upgathered
tensely to read the riddle of the night. Once she was sure of a sound
outside; but the mystery of a night sound is so baffling! A man's
cautious tread? Or a limb stirring gently? Or a bird among leaves, or
a rabbit? It was so easy a matter, with her senses so freshly aroused
from a nightmare of wild animals and savage pursuers, to people the
night with fantastic menaces.

Bruce Standing was unarmed; his rifle dropped somewhere outside when
he had dashed after her. She, too, was without a weapon. He had given
her the big revolver; she had refused it; she had flung it angrily to
the floor, near the bunk. She remembered seeing it there, almost out of
sight, under the bunk....

If it were Babe Deveril, she had nothing to fear. If Mexicali Joe, she
had nothing to fear. If Taggart and Gallup and the other? What had she
to fear from them? Merely arrest, at most, and not so long ago she had
been eager for that! And if some prowling animal?

"There's nothing to hurt me," she told herself, fighting to throttle
down that trepidation which had leaped upon her when she first awoke
with the wildly beating heart of one threatened in sleep. "If I
only had that revolver now ... if it chanced to be wolf or bear or
mountain-cat, one shot at it would send it scurrying. And, if a man,
there is none for me to be afraid of."

She began, ever so slowly and guardedly, tiptoeing across the floor.
She came to the bunk; she stooped and groped, and at last her fingers
closed about the fallen revolver. She clinched it tightly and stood up,
again rigid. This time she was sure of the sound which came again; a
man's step, as guarded as her own had been, but betrayed by a little
dry twig snapping.

Again she waited, without moving, a long time. And not another sound;
only Standing's deep breathing. Once she thought that his breathing
had changed; that he, too, was awake. But after a moment she persuaded
herself that she had imagined that; that he was still sleeping heavily.
But no further sound outside. What a cautious man, or what a cowardly,
was he out there! What did he want?

Suddenly she thought of Thor. How was it that Thor, a dog, hence
man's superior in as many matters as he was man's inferior, a thing
of keenest senses, had given no sign? Why had not Thor stirred when
she did; why had he not heard what she heard; why was he not already
rushing out, growling, demanding to know what intruder lurked in such
stealth at his master's door? Had there been a ray of light in the
cabin she would have had her answer; for Bruce Standing was sitting up,
his arms were about Thor, one big hand was at Thor's muzzle, commanding
quiet. And when Standing commanded, Thor obeyed.

Some girls, some men ... perhaps most girls and most men ... would have
remained in the protection of the four walls, resigned to uncertainty,
until daybreak. Of their number was not Lynette Brooke, a girl little
given to fear and greatly moved by a desire to _know_! She waited as
long as she could bear to wait. Then, holding Taggart's revolver well
before her and walking with one silent footfall distanced patiently
from the other, she gained the door and stepped outside. She was
trembling; that she could not help. But she was determined to go on.
And on she did go, cautiously, until she had gone ten steps toward the
sound which she had heard. She paused, turning in all directions, ready
to fire and ready to run....

"_Sh! Come here!_"

A whisper through the dark. And one man's whisper is much like
another's. It could have been Deveril's or Taggart's or even Mexicali
Joe's.

"Who are you?" her own whisper answered him.

"Is Standing in there?"

"Who are you?" she insisted.

There was a pause, a silence; a long silence. Then:

"Come with me ... just a few feet. So we won't be overheard."

She found herself frowning. Was it Babe Deveril? She did not fancy
a man's whispering; she could not imagine a man like Bruce Standing
whispering at a moment like this! More like him, like any man who was
a man, to roar out what he had to say rather than whisper in the dark.
But that curiosity of hers, that inborn desire _to know_, lured her
on. But under guard. She held her weapon so that it menaced the vague
form so close to her and she whispered again, not realizing that she,
too, whispered, but because she was under the spell of the moment.

"I'll go with you another ten steps ... count them! And I have a
revolver in my hand, aimed at the middle of your body!"

"You're a game kid! Dead game and I don't mind saying so!"

They had stopped; the whisper was dropped for a low-toned voice. It was
not Babe Deveril! Not Mexicali Joe. Then Taggart?

"I want to talk to you. I take it he is in there. Asleep? So much the
better. I'm Taggart."

"Well? What can I do for you, Mr. Taggart?"

"That gun of yours," he said. "I don't know how used you are to guns.
Knowing who I am you can point it down!"

"Knowing who you are," she returned coolly, "I keep it just as it is! I
have asked what I could do for you?"

"I've seen Babe Deveril. He's told me all about everything."

"Babe Deveril! When? Where is he?"

Jim Taggart, had time and opportunity afforded, would have laughed at
her quickened exclamation, being an evil-thoughted individual with
restricted mental horizons. She appeared interested. He had his own
mind of her sex and it was not high, since those of her sex with whom
such as Jim Taggart consorted were not such as to give a man a high
idea of femininity. In the words which, had he spoken his thought
aloud, would have been his, Taggart estimated that "he had this dame's
number, street, and telephone."

"I'll tell you about Babe Deveril later; and what's more, kid, I'll
give you your show to throw in with him again. Now I'm cutting things
short; you know why. I was after him for hammering me over the head
with a gun; I was on your trail for killing a man. Now, since the
man you killed ain't dead at all and since I've had a good talk with
Deveril, I'm ready to let you both go. And just to take in a man named
Standing."

Through one of those odd tricks by which chance asserts itself at
times, Lynette made a discovery while Taggart was talking. She had
felt something underfoot--and that something turned out to be Bruce
Standing's rifle.

... What had this lost rifle to do with matters as they stood? Why
all Jim Taggart's caution, if he were armed? But then Standing had
brought Taggart's revolver back to the cabin with him.... What part
in to-night's game was this fallen rifle to play? Her thoughts had
been withdrawn; so, standing so that for the present Taggart could not
possibly touch with his own foot that which she had stumbled on in the
dark, she made him repeat what he had said.

Thus she caught a free instant for thought; thus also she grasped all
that he had to say and to insinuate. And at the end she answered him
with a baffling, feminine:

"Well?"

"I've got to talk fast!" growled Taggart. "He's in there, I know. Is he
hurt?"

"You know that he is...."

"I don't mean that shot at Gallup's ... that you gave him...."

"I did not shoot him!" she cried out hotly, sick of accusation.

Taggart sneered at her, muttering threateningly:

"You did! For I saw you! I was right there, close by...."


Within the cabin Bruce Standing, sitting very tense and straight,
nearly choking his big dog into silence, grew tenser and harder. So,
Taggart claimed to have seen her.... Taggart was "_right there, close
by_...."


"You say you saw me!" gasped Lynette. "_You!_"

"I tell you this is no time for palaver," said Taggart impatiently.
"What do you care, so long as I agree to let you go free? And to let
Deveril go free along with you! I guess that means something to you,
don't it? If it don't mean enough, let me show you: I can grab you
right now; me, I'm not afraid of any gun any woman ever waved! And I
can put you across for a good little vacation in jail. But I'm letting
that go by, wanting to get my hooks in one Bruce Standing, good and
deep. And I got just that! Seeing as Deveril told me what happened;
how Standing swooped down on you, how he beat Deveril up, how he put a
chain on you and dragged you away after him! If you'll step into court
and swear to that.... Why, kid, I got him! Got him right! Any jury in
this country will land on him _hard_ for doing to a woman like that.
And you can tell the other things he's done to you by now, you and him
all alone up here, him a brutal devil...."

Illogically enough it swept over her that it was she herself, Lynette,
whom the man was insulting, and her finger trembled so upon the trigger
that all unknowing Jim Taggart stood for the instant close upon the
verge of the great final blackness. But, steadying herself, she managed
to say:

"Babe Deveril told you that? That Bruce Standing had put a chain about
me? How did he know? That was after he had gone!"

"But," muttered Taggart harshly, "he did not go so fast! He went up
over a ridge and he stopped and rested, and in the dark he came back a
bit and he hid and saw! Anyway, it's the truth, ain't it? And I know?
So he must have come back to see!"

That thought became on the instant the only thought, one to rise up and
obstruct all others. Deveril had seen; he had lingered, hidden in the
forest land; he had watched her humiliation; he had known that Bruce
Standing, though armed, was a man sorely wounded ... and he had not
come to her then!

"Where is he?" she demanded swiftly. "When did you see him? Where has
he gone?"

"He came just as Standing, damn him, had jumped us to-night! All
unawares Standing took us ... when we were busy with other things. He
had the drop on us and he made us let the Mexico breed go. Deveril was
watching but he didn't have a gun and he couldn't step up and take a
hand, knowing his cousin for a dead shot and a man who'd rather kill
than not."

"But now," demanded Lynette. "_Now!_ Where is he?"

"He's a wised-up kid and I'm with him, tooth and toenail! He came up
then and he said his say ... and I let him go! And he told me to look
out for you and he hit the trail, dog-tired as he was, after Mexicali
Joe! If there's gold to be had, why Babe Deveril means to be in on it.
And me, so do I! And you, if you're on."

Underfoot, all this time, Lynette felt Bruce Standing's rifle....

There are times in life for methodical thought, other times for swift
decisions, bred of impulse and instinctive urge....

She lived again through a certain pregnant crisis, saw in mind the
whole scene as though some master artist with sweeping, bold brush had
created the perfect vision anew for her, the struggle which had been
hers and Babe Deveril's and Bruce Standing's, when Standing, with the
sun glowing red over his head, had come rushing down on them by their
camp-fire. She saw his rifle ... the one she now felt underfoot!... go
swirling over a pine top as he hurled from him any such advantage in
fair fight as it spelled; again she watched the fight ... she saw Babe
Deveril go up over the ridge; she saw herself, striking in fury against
Standing's arm, beating the rifle down....

"Well?" It was Taggart who spoke the brief word now. "Which is it? Jail
for you ... or a good long spell in the pen for him?"

... And Babe Deveril had come this close ... she had proof of that in
Taggart's knowledge of the chain! ... and had gone on, following the
golden lure of Mexicali Joe's trail!

"Well?" said Taggart.

"Suppose I were fool enough to refuse what you ask?"

"Then you'd go to jail as sure as hell! It's you or him! And I guess I
know the answer."

Then Lynette said hurriedly:

"Step back ... a little farther from the cabin. Let me make sure that
he is asleep! There never was a man like him.... Back a few steps and
wait...."

"There's no sense in that!"

"If you don't I'll scream out that you're here! Then you'll never take
him; you know the man he is!"

Taggart mistrusted, and yet, hard-driven and urged by her voice, obeyed
to the extent of drawing back a few steps. Not far, yet far enough for
Lynette to stoop and grope and find the rifle. She caught it up and
whirled and ran, ran as for her life, back to the cabin door. And she
threw the rifle inside, crying out:

"Wake up, Bruce Standing! There's your rifle ... and here's Jim Taggart
outside, looking for you!"


She came bursting into the cabin and full into Bruce Standing's arms.
For he was up on his feet, both arms, despite a sore side, lifted.

"By God!" he shouted.

He let her go and sought the rifle. She was first to find it and put it
into his searching hand.

"He is a contemptible coward!" she cried. "As if...."

Standing had the rifle now, and thrust by her and rushed into the
open doorway, Thor snarling at his side; and Standing's voice, lifted
mightily, shouted:

"Come ahead, Taggart! I'm waiting and ready for you! Come ahead!"

Later he laughed at himself for that, and thereafter explained his
laughter to Lynette, saying:

"He hasn't a gun on him! I cleaned him out, all but one pocket gun, and
I fancy he emptied that at me ... in the back. Come--we'll have a fire!"

Hastily she shut the door, lest Taggart might have one shot left.
Standing set his rifle down against the wall; she heard the thud of
the stock upon the floor. Clearly he had no fear of Taggart's return.
He began gathering up bits of wood, kneeling to get a fire started.
Presently under his hands the blaze leaped up and brought detail
vividly blossoming from the dark of the room; his face, white, with the
most eager, shining eyes she had ever seen; her own face scarcely less
pale; the homely appointments of the place. He was still on his knees
at the fireplace; he threw on the last bit of wood and watched the
quick flames lick at it; he swerved about, and it seemed that his eyes,
no less than the inflammable wood, had caught fire as he cried out in
a voice which startled her and in words which set her wondering:

"I told you, girl, I'd let you go scot-free ... _unless_! And here
I bogged down like a broken-legged steer in the quicksands! But now
... _Now_! I've got it all figured out. I don't let you go! Neither
to-night ..." and he was on his feet, towering over her--"or ever!"

And, as quick as thought, he was at the door and had shot a bolt home
and had clicked a padlock, and, swinging about again, stood looking
down at her, his eyes filled with dancing lights.




CHAPTER XIX


There was no more sleep through what was left of the night, and
scarcely more of talk. Standing piled his fire high, and, unmindful
of his discarded rifle, went out for more wood; Lynette dropped down
on the blanket in her corner and named herself a silly fool. He came
back, carefully relocking his door; kept his fire blazing, and made
his coffee and smoked his pipe. And then, in that great golden voice
of his, he began singing. And, through its wild rhythm, she knew the
song for the same as that which she had heard for the first time when
he had hurled himself both into Big Pine and into her life. His voice
rose and swelled and filled the poor cabin to overflowing, and must
have filtered through chinks and cracks and spilled out through the
forest land, and for great distances through the quiet solitudes. And,
at the end, in a sudden upgathering into all that tremendous resounding
volume of sound of which his magnificent voice was capable, came that
unforgettable wolf cry. If she required any reminding, here she had
it, that she was housed in the same cabin with Timber-Wolf! A fierce
outcry, to go resounding and echoing across miles and miles of forest
lands, meant, as she was quick to realize, to carry both defiance and
challenge to his enemies.

"You have had your choice, girl!" he shouted at her. "You could have
gone free! I gave you your freedom. But you would not go. And that was
because it was in the cards, in the fates, in the stars, if you like,
that you and I are not to part yet! The door is locked; I stand between
you and it. So, you stay here with me!"

For the first time she was truly and deeply afraid of him. But he went
back to his place by the fire, and sat on the old stump seat, and
filled his pipe again with hard, nervous fingers and glared at the
fire. For a little he seemed to have forgotten that she was there.
And then at last, when she saw that he was going to speak again, she
forestalled him, saying swiftly:

"I am tired and sleepy. I am going to sleep."

He checked his speech, saving whatever he had to say to her. She lay
back on her blankets, and, though she had had no such intention, soon
drifted off to sleep. And he, with pipe grown cold, sat and glowered
over his fire, and put to himself many a question, growing fierce over
his inability to answer any one of them. But, at least, in his groping
he forgot the pain of his wounds.

"You are not asleep," he said after a very long time. "I know that; I
can tell. You are pretending. And you are thinking, thinking hard and
fast! And so am I thinking! As I never did before now. You might as
well save yourself the labor of struggling with your problems, since I
am doing the planning for both of us right now; since everything is in
my hands and I mean to keep it there."

She heard but gave no sign of hearing; she kept her face averted from
him so that he could not see whether her eyes were open or shut. Open
they were, and the man appeared to know it.

"Am I wise man or fool?" he cried. "He only is wise who knows what he
knows and steers his craft by the one steady star in his sky!"

She would not answer him when he spoke; she could not just now. She lay
still, as if asleep. He relapsed into a long silence, his eyes now on
her, now on his fire.

"This neck o' the woods is getting all cluttered up with folks!" he
muttered abruptly, with such suddenness that he startled her. "I've a
notion to run the whole crowd in for trespassing!... Or better, girl,
you and I move on. Where there's elbow room; room to talk in. We've got
to quarry out our own blocks of stone and build up our own lives, and
we want a bit of the world to ourselves. What's more, we're going to
have it!"

She knew, as every girl knows when that mighty moment comes ... and
her girl-heart beat hard and fast ... that after his own fashion Bruce
Standing, Timber-Wolf, was making love to her.

"Dawn!" he said, and she understood that he spoke with himself as much
as with her. "That's all we're waiting for, the first streak of dawn.
Then we move on. Where? I know where, and no other man knows!"

He began impatiently stalking up and down; he seemed to have forgotten
his wounds, and yet, stealing her swift glances at him, she could see
that his face had lost little of its whiteness and that his whole left
side was stiff. Again, bestowing mentally a strange epithet upon him,
she regarded the man as "inevitable." Could anything stop him or divert
his career into any channel but that of his own choosing? She _was_
afraid of him.

"You told me that I might go! Where I pleased, when I pleased!"

He swung about and turned on her a face of whose expression in that
dim, flickering light she could make nothing.

"You had your choice! You came back! Now I know something which I did
not know before."

He began pacing up and down again, making the cabin's smallness further
dwarfed by his great strides. He fascinated her; she watched him, and
her fear, formless and nameless, grew until it seemed that it would
choke her.

There was a boarded-up window. A thin slit of light showed.

"We breakfast and go," he told her.

"And if I refuse to go with you?"

"I have my chain and my good right arm!"

Then, as once before, tingling with anger born of foreseen humiliation,
she cried out:

"I hate you, brute that you are!"

"Not brute, but man," he told her sternly. "And, ever since the world
was young, men, when they were men, claimed their mates and took and
held them!"

Again for a long time he was silent. And then, on his feet, his arms
thrown out, he cried in a strange voice:

"I love you!"

He made strange mad music in her soul. She tried again to cry out:
"I hate you!" She knew that still she was afraid of him, more afraid
than ever. Yet he strode up and down and looked a young valiant god,
and his golden voice found singing echoes within her soul and his wild
extravagances awoke throbbing extravagances in her.... What can one
know? What misdoubt? We are like babes in the dark. Of what can one be
sure? Of the stars above?... Our hopes are like stars....

"I am no poet, though next to a strong fighting man I'd rather be a
true poet than anything else God ever created! Were I a poet I'd build
a song for you, girl! A song to ring through the eternal ages; going
back to the roots of things when You and I were first You and I! It
would be a song like one of the old troubadours', telling of great
deeds and great loves only ... for you and I have never been the ones
for cowardly littlenesses! I'd make a song to hang about the world's
memory of you like a golden chain. And I'd carry on, having the poet's
soul and vision, into ten thousand lives to come; down to the end of
time when eternity is only at its beginnings!... But I am only plain
Bruce Standing, a simple fighting man, and no poet; one who at best
can but mouth the voicings of the true poets. So I can only pour all
my heart and soul, girl, into my brief poem: I love you. I have always
loved you! Always and always I shall love you!... And I'll crack any
man's skull that so much as looks at you!"

She was not sure of his sanity; not certain that a fever, bred of his
wounds, was not burning into his marrow. _And yet_----

"It's dawn, I tell you! We boil our coffee, we pick up a mouthful of
food. And then we move on! And why? Because we're sure to have callers
here in another day or so, and just now I don't want other people;
I want you, girl, and only you and the rest of the world can go to
pot!... And now we go!"




CHAPTER XX


Lynette, in a mood to expect anything of fate, wondered vaguely where
the steep trail of adventure now led. She would not have been surprised
had Standing set his plans for some spot a hundred miles distant. But
she was surprised to arrive so soon, after only two or three hours, at
their destination. He looked at her, exulting.

"Here is Eden!" he cried out joyously. "Remember the name, girl;
bestowed upon this spot no longer ago than this very minute! Eden! And
as far from the world as that other distant Eden. Here we stop and here
no man finds us!"

He had led the way, upward along a rocky slope. He had brought her into
a spot which she would have named "The Land of Waterfalls!" A tiny
valley with a sparkling mountain creek cleaving like flowing crystal
through a grassy meadow; tall trees, noble patriarchs bounding it.
Steep cañon walls shutting in the timber growth; a narrow ravine above
with the water leaping, plunging, tumbling translucent green over
jagged rocks, splashing into a series of pools, turned into rainbow
spray here and there in its wild cascadings. The world all about was
murmurous with living waters, with bees, with the eternal whisperings
of the pines.

And here began an idyl; a strange idyl. A man asserting his power as
captor; a maid made captive; two souls wide awake, questing, swung from
certainty to uncertainty, gathered up in doubt. Life grown a thing of
tremendous import.

All morning had Standing been wracked with pain. Yet none the less did
he hold unswervingly to his purpose. Now he sat down, his back to a
tree. Thor came and lay at his feet. Lynette stood looking down upon
the two.

"Rest," he said. "Here is your home for a time. A day? Ten days? Who
knows? Not I, girl! All that I know I have told you; here we rest and
here we take life into our hands and mould it ... as we have always
moulded it! We are at the gates; we enter or we turn to one side! We go
on or we go back. Which? When we know that, we know everything."

He had brought with him, slung across his back, a great roll from the
hidden cabin. His rifle lay across his knees. He looked up into her
face with eyes which, though haggard, shone wonderfully. She sat down,
ten steps from him; her clasped hands were in her lap; her eyes were
veiled mysteries.

"Taggart won't look for us here," he said. "He hasn't the brains of a
little gray seed-tick! He'll be sure we've made a big jump, forward or
back, ten times this distance. Besides, he has to go somewhere to get
himself a new set of guns! Imagine him tackling anything with an ounce
of risk in it unless he was heeled like an army corps! I begin to lose
respect for that man."

Lynette was thinking but one thing: "She was not afraid of this man;
not afraid to be alone with him in pathless solitudes. She might choose
to be elsewhere ... yet she was safe with him. For, above all, he was a
man; and never need a true girl fear a true man." And, when she stole
a swift glance at his face, it lay in her heart to be a bit sorry for
him. Sympathy? It lies close to another eternal human emotion! He
looked like one whom fate had crushed and yet whose spirit refused to
be crushed. He looked a sick man who, scorning all the commands laid
upon the flesh, carried on.

After a while he turned to look upon her, and for the first time she
saw a new and strange look in his eyes, a look of pleading.

"Don't misjudge me, girl," he said heavily. "Rather than see your
little finger bruised I'd have a man drive a knife in me! I'm just
blundering along now ... blundering ... trying to see daylight. I won't
hurt you. There's nothing on earth or in Heaven so sure as that. But
don't ask me to let you go!"

She made him no answer. She began thinking of his wounds; he gave them
such scant attention! He should be caring for them; what he should
do was to hasten to a surgeon. She wondered if still he clung to his
conviction, the natural one after all, that she had shot him? And she
wondered, as she had done so many a time before: "Who had shot him?"
Whose hand that which she had seen reach through her window and snatch
up her revolver and fire the cowardly shot? Taggart, only a few hours
ago, had said: "I saw! I was right there!" ...

"Was it Jim Taggart who shot you in the back last night?" she demanded
suddenly.

"Yes," he said. "At least, I think so."

"Is he that kind of man?"

Now his eyes were keen and hard upon hers.

"I begin to think that he is, girl," he said shortly. "Why?"

She shrugged and again turned away.

He lumbered to his feet. Thor, knowing where he was going, barked and
leaped ahead.

"Come, I'll show you where we pitch camp."

She looked about her. Mere madness to attempt flight now; he would bear
down upon her before she had run twenty steps. And did she want to run
just now? She had her own measure of curiosity.... Was it only that?...
and she had, locked away securely in her breast, her absolute positive
knowledge that she had nothing to fear at his hands. She rose and
followed him.

Suddenly he swerved about, confronting her, his eyes stern, his voice
hard with the emotion riding him.

"Madman I may be," he said. "Fool, I am not, praise God! Last night I
heard; you could have chucked that rifle into Taggart's hands and could
have gone free yourself ... and by now I'd be a dead man! But, glory
be, there isn't a streak of yellow in your whole glorious being!"

The blood ran up into her face; it made her hot throughout her whole
body. Praise, from him, to stir her like that! Her eyes flashed back
angrily, for she was angry with herself.

"Come," he muttered. "Talk's cheap at any time. And I'm to show you
where we make our first home."

With her teeth sharply catching up her underlip, she held her silence.
He went on some two-score paces and stopped; with a sudden gesture he
said:

"Here I've spent, God knows how many nights, when I had to be off by
myself! No roof for us, girl, but who wants a roof with that sky above
us?"

Here was a natural grotto which at another time would have made her
exclaim in delight: a nook, set apart, thresholded in tender grass shot
through with those tiny delicate blooms of mountain flowers. On one
side a cliff, outjutting, thrusting forward a great overhanging shelf
of rock which looked as though it must fall and yet which, obviously,
had held securely through the centuries. Three big pine-trees, two
of them leaning strangely toward the cliff, as though yearning to
lean against the sturdy rock and rest there upon its iron breast. The
whole ringed about by a dense copse of brush, thick as a wall and
rearing high above her head. Almost a cave made of cliff and growing
things, cosy and warm, with its opening fronting the stream which was
never silent. Thor ran ahead into the dusky seclusion and barked his
invitation to them to follow. A thick, dry mat, under Thor's feet, of
fallen pine-needles.

Standing tossed his roll inside; he began, with one hand, to work with
the knotted rope. Lynette came forward swiftly, saying:

"At least I have two hands...."

Their hands brushed over the labor. Again the hot blood raced through
her, and again sudden anger, anger at herself, flashed through her
being.

And a tingling, like that which shot through her, was in Bruce
Standing's veins. He caught her hand.

"Girl!" he said huskily.

"Don't!" she cried in alarm.

He dropped her hand and rose swiftly to his feet.

"You are right," he muttered. "Not yet...."

How could this man at a touch make her heart beat like mad? She was
afraid ... she knew that she was not afraid of _him_ ... yet she was
afraid.

"I'm sorry," he said roughly. Actually, marvelling, she saw that the
big man looked embarrassed. "Look here, girl: I've come to know you a
bit and, thinking what I think, I hold that I know you well! I'll take
my chance that you are no petty crook, that you are no coward, that you
are no liar! So...."

"Then," she cried, jumping to her feet, all eagerness, "do you believe
me when I say that I did not shoot you?"

His eyes met hers steadily; he answered promptly:

"You have told me ... and I believe. _I know!_"

A rush of gladness, an intoxication of gladness, swept over her. Her
eyes were shining, soft and bright and happy like stars.

"But," she said, "if not I, then who?"

"Jim Taggart," he said as unhesitatingly as he had spoken before. "Jim
told you that he saw, didn't he? That he was Johnny on the spot? Of
course he was! And we'd had our plain talk. And he figured it out, that
unless that very day I had changed my papers, I still named him in them
my old bunk-mate and friend, and that I'd not forget him with a legacy!
If I had died under that bullet, Jim Taggart would have had it doped
out that he'd stand to win about a hundred thousand dollars! And for a
tenth of that he'd crucify Christ!"

"But...."

"There are no buts about it! You did not do it; then Jim Taggart did.
He shot me last night, a second time and the second time in the back!
He was once a man; now he's a Gallup dog, a man gone to seed, a cur
and one for such as you and me to forget about. I hope to high heaven
I never see the man again; for the sake of what has been between Jim
Taggart and me, when both of us were younger, I'd rather let the past
bury its dead. For if he ever comes trailing his filth across my trail
again, I'll smash him into the earth." He made a wide angry gesture,
as though he would wipe an episode and a man out of his life. "But you
interrupt me; I was going to say something. Just this: I'll leave you
alone. For an hour, for a dozen hours! You want rest, you want solitude
and a chance to think. So do I. I can chain you to a tree and be sure
of you! Or I can ask you to give me your word that you'll wait here
until I come back to you ... and I already know you well enough to know
_that_ will hold you tighter than any chain that was ever forged!"

Lynette, without hesitating, answered:

"I do want rest and I do want to be alone. Is that to be wondered at?
Until noon I'll wait for you to come back."

"Until high noon," he said. "And, girl, you pledge me your word on
that?"

"Yes!"

"Come, Thor!" He turned and left her, his great dog at his heels, going
up the narrowing cañon.

"I'll not spy on you!" he called back, when he had gone a hundred
yards. "You'll hear me shouting to you well before I come within
eye-shot."

And then she lost him, gone among the lesser, denser trees thick about
the creek's margins.

She turned her back on the grotto of his choosing, and went out into
the full sunlight. She found a spot in the open, ringed about by the
majestic pines, a grassy sward with the cleaving silver line of the
creek cutting across it. For the first time in hours ... how many
endless hours? how many days?... she was alone! No man at her side,
either protecting or dominating. Her lungs filled with a deep sigh.
Alone and secure in her aloneness for a matter of several hours.

There was a certain singing happiness, electric within her, and it
sprang, bright-winged, from her own characteristic pride. Bruce
Standing had left her to an absolute physical freedom, knowing her
bound by that intangible and unbreakable bond of her promise. He, a man
who did not break his own word knew her for a girl who did not break
hers! And he knew, at last, that it had not been her hand that had
fired that cowardly shot.

"It was cruel ... to have laughed at him. I did not mean to laugh.
Would to God...."

But if she had not laughed? Then what? Then how much of her adventure
would have followed? How much of it did she, after all, regret?... She
fell to wondering dreamily on Babe Deveril. Where was he? And would she
see him again? And, if she should see him....

A thousand riddles and, as always, no answer to the riddles which
spring from eternity. Only the merry voice of the purling creek to talk
back to her, that and the rustling whisper ebbing and flowing through
the pine tops. The stream, like a companionable human voice, called to
her insistently. She rose and went down to it and stooped to drink; she
bathed her hands and arms and face. How lonely it was here! She cast
a quick glance up-stream; long ago Standing, with his big dog at his
heels, had passed out of sight. And he had given her gage of promise
for promise given ... he would send his shouting voice ahead of him
before he came back....

So she bathed fearlessly, watched only by the solitudes, guarded by
their sombre depths; she plunged, with a little shivery gasp, into the
deep, cool pool below the slithering waterfall; the water slipped,
gleaming like a bejewelled film over her pure-white body, making it
rosy when she emerged, like rose petals.... She dressed in furious
haste, all ablush and yet steeped in a confident knowledge that no
eye, save the bright eye of a curious brown bird, had seen. She felt
new-born; refreshed beyond belief. She ran back up the bank and sat
down in the very spot where she had dropped first when Standing had
left her. She began, always hurrying, to comb out her hair with her
fingers. Sitting there in the open she let it sun....

She rested. She drank deep, thankfully, of the hour. To be alone, to be
secure in the moment, to have no danger pressing down upon her, above
all to have no mind save her own dictating to her. It was glorious
and life was good and glad and golden, infinitely worth the living.
So passed an hour. It was so quiet here; so unutterably lonely. Only
the voice of the creek and the million-tongued murmuring pines. Her
swift thoughts raced ten thousand ways. They touched upon Big Pine; on
Taggart; Mexicali Joe; a gold-mine still for men to find; Maria, the
Indian girl whom Deveril had kissed; Deveril himself; that one-legged
man who rode horseback and carried forth the word and the law of his
master; Thor, a dog; Bruce Standing. Most of all, Bruce Standing. She
wondered where he was, what doing? Caring for his own wounds? Lying on
his back, his white face turned up, his eyes shut, tight shut? And he
loved her?

_Bruce Standing loved her, Lynette?_ Was that true? What was love?
Whence came love? For what purpose? What did it do to the hearts and
souls and bodies of men ... and girls? Was love for her? She had never
experienced it, not true, abiding love. Did Babe Deveril....

Another hour. Shadows slowly shifting, moving like gigantic hands of
eternal clocks. Time passing, time that answers all questions, man's
and maid's, saint's and sinner's. She stirred uneasily and sat up. She
looked at the pine tops and, beyond them, at the sun. It was almost
noon!

Come noon.... What then? Come high noon before Bruce Standing, and she
was free! Released from her promise, all bonds snapped! Free!

She jumped to her feet. Her eyes went questing, questing, everywhere.
To be free again; to be her own self, Lynette, untrammelled.... And she
felt awondering illogically: "Can it be that, after all, he was driving
himself beyond any man's endurance? that he is more badly hurt than
either he or I knew?"

But he returned a full half-hour before even the most eager could name
it noon. True to his word, he sent his voice, like a glorious herald,
ahead of him. She heard him call, not the wolf cry, but a rollicking
shout. And ten minutes later he himself came, plainly in the highest
of good humors. He was still pale and looked haggard, but his eyes were
flashing and triumphant and untroubled.

He came to her, splashing across the creek, water flying about his
boot-tops.

"I've had a bath," he announced from afar. "And I've plastered myself
with the worst that Billy Winch can concoct, and Richard is himself
again!" He came closer, towered above her and said: "You, too, have
bathed! You look it, as fresh from the plunge as any Diana! It's good
to be _clean_, isn't it?"

She flushed and was ashamed for it. She bit her lip and made no answer.

"Come," he said. "We'll lunch. And now, and from now on for some
sixty years, my girl, it will be I who waits on you! The slave rôle
reversed!" and he laughed.

"I promised to wait for you; I make no more promises!"

"That's fair enough! I watch you then!"

"Do you want to make me hate you?"

"Rather, I want you to come to love me."

"Could any girl come to love a man who treats her as you have done me?"

"Could any girl come to love a man," he demanded earnestly, "who
thought so little of her as to let her escape him when once destiny had
brought her and him together?"




CHAPTER XXI


The most perfect of the summer months in this secluded mountain nook,
not inaptly named "Eden" by Standing, was a period of time measuring
itself in soft, fragrant loveliness. The days were balmy, perfect,
halcyon; gentle hours of blue cloudlessness and golden sunshine and
little breezes which scarcely ruffled the clear water in the bigger
pools; night as clear as crystal, with flaring stars like distant
torches above the yellow pine tops; nature in her gentlest mood here
among the ruggedness of the wilderness, expressing herself in the most
delightful of odors wafted through the woods, in the tenderest tiniest
blossoms of wild flowers; a time of infinite hush and infinite solitude
and peace.

To have chafed and been unhappy here, to a spirit like either Bruce
Standing's or Lynette Brooke's, would have seemed next door to an
impossibility. Even the girl, though restrained, a prisoner of a
man's will when the bright star of her life had ever been one of
splendid independence, found it easier to smile or laugh aloud at the
sober-faced antics of Thor ... when she and Thor were alone with none
to see!... than to sigh. She knew her periods of restiveness and bitter
rebellion; they were due not to her environment, but to the thought
that another than herself was dictating to her. But for one reason or
another these periods were rarer and briefer than her other hours of a
strange sort of peacefulness.

"It's because I've been worn out and only now am resting," she tried
to tell herself. "Recuperating from a condition of exhausted mind and
body."

Thus four days and nights passed. There had been, during all that time,
not the slightest opportunity to escape. The first day Standing had
hurled the chain from him, as far as he could send it. But he had not
lost sight of her for more than a few minutes at a time, saving such
times that she gave him her promise that she would wait for him to come
back. He accepted her word as he expected all the world to accept his.
On other occasions, when he allowed her briefer freedoms, he had said
merely: "No chance to run for it, girl! I'd overtake you, you know, in
no time. Even if you hid, here'd be old Thor, nosing you out!" Then he
laughed, adding: "For his own sake, the renegade, as well as for his
master's! He's fallen in love with you, too." He made her bed in the
rock-and-tree grotto; he labored, one-handed, over it for hours. With
his heavy clasp knife he cut the tender tips of resinous branches; he
heaped them high; he covered all with great handfuls of fragrant grass,
thick with the tall red flowers that grew down by the creek, odorous
with the tender white blossoms which shyly lifted their little heads to
dot the grassy slopes.... He made her a bathing-pool: stiff and sore
all up and down his left side, he worked with his right hand, dragging
big boulders up out of their ancient beds, piling them in a ring about
the pool, plastering them over the top with great handfuls of that
carpet-like moss which thrived in these cool places.

"If you'd let me go!"

"No; not yet.... What man can read the mind of a girl? How do I know
what you would do? Where you would go? My wounds are healing; until
they heal I am only half a man. You might whisk away from me, I tell
you; and I'd have to follow and seek you, if you led me through hell
on the way to heaven; and I must be whole again. And I've got to get
everything straight...."

Always when he left her he returned before the end of the time she
had promised to wait for him. And always he sent, as herald of his
approach, his golden voice forward to her. At times in an echoing
shout. More than once in an outburst of singing which thrilled her
strangely. What a voice the man had! And once, when he had elected to
bathe in the starlight, he sent down to her that cry which she had
heard the first time from the door of Babe Deveril's cabin in Big Pine
... the wild, fierce call of the timber-wolf which, despite her naming
herself "fool," sent a shiver into her blood.... Once this happened:
He had left her in the forenoon, accepting her word that she would not
stir until high noon. Usually he came well in advance; this time she
watched the climbing sun and the creeping shade and suddenly her heart
began its wild beating; it was almost noon and he was not here; no
sound of his coming. When he shouted to her and then came rushing into
camp, he found that she had been working frenziedly with a stick and a
stone; driving the sliver of wood like a stake into the ground.... She
started up, her face crimson.

"Well?" he said, his hands on his hips, staring down at her. "What's
that?"

She blurted out the explanation and then was angry with herself for
telling him. She had meant to stay until the tip end of the giant
pine's shadow fell where it marked midday; she had meant there to drive
in her stake; for him it would be a marker, an assurance from her that
she had kept her word with him, that she had waited as she had promised
to wait ... that then, scorning him, she had snatched at her rights and
had fled!

His first impulse was toward laughter. And then, strangely quiet, he
stood looking at her and she saw a gathering mist in his eyes!

"Girl!" he muttered. "Oh, girl!... God, I love you!"

"I hate you...."

... How many times had she cried out in those words! And how much of
that did she mean? In her heart, in her soul ... in the most hidden
recesses of her most hidden being?

Thus she had hours to herself. And, therefore, had Bruce Standing hours
to himself. For he wanted them. He wanted to be away from her, where he
could not see her, could not hear that low music of her voice, could
not catch that soft lure of her eyes, could not be tempted to have
it happen that his rude hand brushed her hand.... Her hand, though
she had been all these days and nights outdoors, roughing it, seemed
to him a maddening realm of crumpled rose-leaves ... pink-and-white
rose-leaves. He left her, secure in her pledge that she would wait for
him, and threw himself down on his back and stared up through slowly
shifting branches and mused on her. He thought how like a flower she
was, the queen of flowers ... and he could have wept that he was so
big and ungentle. He thought of Babe Deveril, and cursed him for being
so slender and debonair; graceful and light of mood; gentle-voiced,
with the knack of pretty words to pretty ladies. And Babe Deveril
had befriended her; stood champion to her against him! He ground his
teeth. He leaped up and paced back and forth, forgetful of all such
insignificant nothings as trifling wounds of the flesh. He recalled
how, man to man, he had broken Babe Deveril, and he laughed out
loud.... Yet it remained that Babe Deveril had stood her friend and
protector when he had pursued them both, linking them but the closer,
with his wrath. She and Deveril had travelled together, side by side
and hand in hand, miles and other miles of the open solitudes; they
had been drawn close together, driven closer together. He, Bruce
Standing, Timber-Wolf, and Fool, had done that! And what spark had
been struck out of the flint of the adversity which he had hurled at
them?... Had they loved ... had they kissed ... was _she_ now longing
with a sick heart for the return of Babe Deveril?

"Oh, Lord!" he cried out, his great iron fingers crooking as his arms
were thrown out. "Deliver him into these hands!"

Lynette had no mirror. Standing began to grow a lusty young beard, as
blond as his hair, shot through with red gleams. She knew the need of
fresh clothing. When he was away she did her washing as best she could,
pounding garments against the rocks in the creek; she dried them and
hid them and donned them without his knowing ... though of course he
knew as she knew that he did his own rude washings. There was a spring
at the side of the cañon, one of the many sources which fed the stream;
a shadowed, tranquil place. Of this she made her pier-glass! She
stooped and looked down into its glassily smooth surface. It gave back
her own image; it reflected the dark green of the pines, the lighter
green of the willows. Even the subdued colors of her worn suit. She
washed her hair and groomed it; no comb, no brush, but agile fingers.
Most of all, when secure through his promise in return for her own,
did she enjoy her plunge in the pool he had made for her. The slender
whiteness of her slipped hastily down under the translucent cover of
the cool, flowing water; she was as swift in her movements as any
slim-bodied trout that darted about her, scurrying into its retreat;
the water shot a thrill through her; she emerged, dripping, charged
with all the electric currents of well-being.

"If this were only a holiday ... instead of imprisonment!"

She, too, thought of Babe Deveril, as was inevitable. And in many ways:
One, always recurrent, was: "Could she have been as _sure_ of Babe
Deveril as she was of Bruce Standing? As secure in her utter conviction
of safety?" And here was a question to which she found no ready answer.
Babe Deveril, leaping full-breastedly into the stream which had swept
her off her feet, had been a friend to her from the beginning; from the
beginning Bruce Standing had been a menace.

... Best of all she loved the waterfall. It was her shower-bath. But,
more than that, it was her friend and confidante, and, beyond aught
else, a living, glimmering, varicolored thing of gossamer beauty. It
talked with her, it was at once handmaiden and musician and troubadour;
it plashed and sang and poured its cadences into quiet harmonies which
sank into her soul. It had leapt and sparkled and poured itself onward
unstintedly, unafraid, for a thousand years; for a thousand years would
it keep up its merry dancings, uncaring if only the tall pines watched
or if men and maids brought hither their loves and hates and hopes and
fears. Unstable it was always, always falling; secure was it in its
diaphanous veilings of its own merry immortality. She loved it for its
abandon, for its recklessness, for its translucent myriad beauties.
It lived; it sang and sparkled; it filled the moment with musical
murmurings and recked not of all those vague threats and shadows of a
vague future.... She sat here, quiet under the spell of its dashings
and splashings and eerie flutings ... musing, her soul drawn forth into
all those vague and troublous musings which beset the heart of youth.

Youth? Young, too, was Bruce Standing! He hearkened to the cascading
waters; he listened to the harp-tongued whisperings of the pines.... He
had done everything wrong; he told himself that a thousand, thousand
times. Yet he told himself savagely that throughout the insanities,
the veritable madnesses of constricted human life there flowed always,
onward and sweepingly upward, the great, triumphal, eternal forces of
destiny. And, in the end ... in the end ... it all made for good. For
eternal and triumphant good.

... After all, but the old, old story of man and maid, converging to
the one gleaming, focal point though across distances oceans-wide
removed.

He had his point of view; Lynette Brooke had her point of view. Yet it
remains that from two widely separated peaks two eager hearts may see
the same sun rise.

"Tell me," he said once. "What manner of man is this Babe Deveril? I
know him as a man may know a man; you know him otherwise. Tell me; what
have you found him to be?"

Never would she have been Lynette, had she not been ever quick of
instinct ... instinct leaping, never looking, yet so certain to strike
true! She read the thought under a thought; there came a living, joyous
gloating; she cried warmly, all the while watching him:

"A true friend and a gentleman! A man unafraid ... one like a loyal
knight of the olden time! Like one of the King Arthur's knights...."

"Like one," he growled, deep down in his throat, angrily, "who saw
another Lynette across the four fords? That's not true, girl; else he
would not have forsaken you so long! Nor would he have given up so
easily when, in your view, I beat him down and sent him up over the
ridge!"

"He'll come back!"

"You think so?"

"_I know!_"

Chance remarks of hers ... this one above all others ... rankled. She
seemed so confident that Babe Deveril would come again, that he would
carry in his breast the memory of sweet hours with her, that he would
never rest until he, with her pleading eyes tender upon his, could
rescue her from the bondage which Bruce Standing had set upon her! So
it came about that nightly, and all night long, Bruce Standing dreamed
of Babe Deveril and of battling with him and of beating him finally
into such definite defeat as had not resulted from that other fierce
struggle before her widening eyes.

Another day went by and another, with Bruce Standing obsessed, knowing
himself for a man who yearned with all his soul for one thing and one
thing only, a mere slip of a gray-eyed girl who made madness in his
pulses. He had his moods of fierceness; on their heels came those
other moods of tenderness. More than once he came toward her, striding
through the woods, his mind made up to set her free, asking only her
happiness. And then he saw her; and in his heated fancies he saw Babe
Deveril; and he named Deveril a man of slight manhood and swore by his
own manhood that never would he show so lax and flabby a hand as to let
this priceless girl, drop into the graceful, careless hand of any Babe
Deveril who ever lived.

"He'd never know how to love her as I do!" That ancient cry of all true
lovers!

But all the while there bit into him doubtings, fears, those manifold
darts flung from love's alter ego, jealousy. He stood ready to give
this girl full-handedly everything; from her he craved with that direst
of all cravings, everything.... And when he could no longer hold back
the tumult within him and demanded: "What of this Baby Devil?" putting
a sneer into his voice, always she cried out warmly: "A true friend and
a gentleman!"


All unexpected by both of them, the less by him than her, Billy Winch,
Timber-Wolf's one-legged retainer, rode full tilt into camp. They
were lunching; they sat under a tree in the noonday shadow like two at
picnic. He had been saying: "We're running short of rations." Then it
was that Billy Winch, anxiously spurring a big roan saddle-horse, rode
down upon them and, seeing them, began waving his hat high over his
head in sweeping, joyous circles and shouting:

"So you're still alive! That's something!"

"You fool! Who told you to come here!"

Standing leaped to his feet; he was hot with anger.

"I knew where to find you, Timber!" cried Billy Winch gleefully.
"Unless, a fair bet, the devil had claimed you and taken you down
under, I knew I'd find you here!... How's the sick wing? Been usin' my
salve? Night and morning, keepin' it clean and...."

Billy Winch, headlong, stopping his horse with a sudden pluck of the
reins when the gaunt roan had come near setting his four flickering
hoofs in their midday fire, chose to ignore the fact that the
Timber-Wolf was not alone.

But Standing, springing up, strode out to meet him, his mien anything
but friendly.

"Damn you, Billy Winch," he muttered between his teeth, too low for the
wondering Lynette to hear. She, too, had sprung up and stood leaning
against the valiant pine-tree, wondering swiftly how this latest
happening, the coming of Billy Winch into the wild-wood, was to affect
her.

Billy Winch, as gay-hearted a rascal as ever stumped on one leg or
rode a wild, half-broken horse in carelessly lopsided fashion, laughed
gleefully.

"Ho, Timber!" he cried. "If I was a whole man, 'stead of half a one,
I'd just jump down and naturally beat you to death! Bein' what I am,
all carved to thunder, you're too much all gone to proud flesh to jerk
me out of the saddle to stomp on me! So I got the age on you! And I
asks you, Johnny Wolf, man-eater, how's tricks?"

"By God, Winch!" Standing in upstarting wrath had the roan horse by the
bit, shoving it back with one savage hand so that it fell back on its
haunches. "Just because I've stood a lot off you...."

"Slow does it, Timber!" cried Winch. "This is business. I've got a man
back there, just out of sight, ready to go clean crazy unless he can
have a word with you. To put a name to him ... well, then, Mexicali
Joe!"

Now Standing, deep down within him, knew why Billy Winch had come.
Never did more faithful heart beat in human breast than that heart
thrumming away beneath Billy Winch's faded blue shirt. Winch, having
always a shrewd guess where to find his chief, when Standing took it
upon himself to disappear from headquarters, had caught at the first
excuse to come in person and make sure with his own keen eyes that all
went well with a man whom many hated and whom he, above all men, loved.

"Hang Mexicali Joe to the first stout limb you come to!"

Lynette, of impulses ungovernable, could have broken into laughter. For
the amazing thing was that what Bruce Standing, impatient almost to
fury, said he meant. He had suffered enough inconvenience at Mexicali
Joe's hands; he wanted nothing of the man nor of his dross of gold.

Winch did laugh aloud. And then, keen-eyed to see the play of his
employer's expression, he grew sober and said earnestly:

"On the level, Mr. Standing, how's the hurt comin' along? Been usin'
the salve I told you to?"

Lynette, though he had ignored her presence or because of this very
attitude of his, could not hold back from exclaiming:

"He has two wounds now! Another shot in the back! And he gives them
less attention than a sane man would give a cut finger!"

"The old fool! No more sense than a rabbit! Shot again? Twice in the
back? Plugged a second time? The old fool!"

Like a flash in his quick movements he was down from the saddle; he
left his horse with dragging reins to wait for him; over the uneven
ground he came forward rapidly, queerly, hopping like an oddly
oversized bird. He caught at Standing's shoulder, crying out:

"Let me see them hurts! I tell you, I got to see them hurts! Shot twice
from behind? You bloody baby. Let me look at 'em. Blood poison most
likely settin' in!"

"I could kill you ... you interfering fool...."

But just then Billy Winch's one foot caught at a root and he came near
falling, and Standing, instead of carrying out a threat, sprang toward
him and steadied him; and Lynette saw a sincere rough affection in the
way the big arms closed about Winch's body. Friends, these two.

"Who plugged you, Timber? And for the love of Mike, how come you to let
it happen ... _twice_? But tell me: Who plugged you the second time?"

"Taggart," said Standing; "at least that's my bet. And," he added
hastily, "it was Taggart that shot me the first time, through the
window at Gallup's!"

Billy Winch looked sharp incredulity; his eyes flickered away to
Lynette as he gave sign of seeing her for the first time.

"But, man! I thought...."

"You thought wrong! She did not shoot me. You've got my word for that,
Bill. _She did not shoot me!_"

Winch looked perplexed.

"Sure, Timber?" he demanded. "Dead sure?"

"Yes," said Standing. "Taggart didn't believe I had already changed my
papers, ruling his name out. If he could have dropped me and made it
seem clear that she had done it.... See it, Bill?"

"Well," said Winch slowly, "I guess you know or you wouldn't say so.
And Jim Taggart was a real man once. But I've seen signs of late; he's
mildewed inside, clean through. As comes of running with such as Young
Gallup."

Suddenly he whipped off his battered hat and turned a pair of bright
and smiling, and at last warmly admiring eyes upon Lynette.

"I beg your pardon, Miss," he said genially.

"Now," said Standing. "About this Mexicali Joe. You go back and tell
him for me...."

Winch interrupted quickly, saying:

"No use, Timber. You got to see him. I tell you he's clean crazy to see
you; he'll stick on your trail until he finds you. He wants only ten
minutes; five would do it."

Lynette was mildly surprised to see Standing so easily persuaded; but
she had no way of knowing the relationship of this man and his chief
henchman nor how Billy Winch never took it upon himself to suggest
unless he knew what he was about.

"All right," said Standing, though he frowned as he spoke. "Go get your
man."

Winch jerked his head about and shouted; his long, halloing call
pierced clear through the woodland silences.

"Hi, Joe! This way, on the run! _Pronto, hombre!_"

Joe came almost immediately, mounted on a scrawny mulish-looking horse,
breaking an impatient way through the brush. His dark face still
carried a frightened, furtive expression which had not been absent
from it for a matter of days; not since a handful of raw gold had been
spilled from his torn pocket.

"_Señor!_" he cried ringingly from a distance. "_Señor Caballero!_
I tell you, they keel me! I got no chances! For sure, they keel me,
robbers!"

Standing answered roughly: "And what do I care? Serve you right for the
fool you are!"

"Now, he's here," said Winch. "Look here, Timber: you can take your
time talking to him. Let me look you over. I want to see that second
bullet hole."

"Winch, you idiot," Standing growled at him; "I got it close to a week
ago. I've tended to it myself; it's all right. I don't look like a
dying man, do I?"

"_Señor!_" Joe was crying, down on the ground now, tremendously excited.

"Are you usin' my salve?" demanded Winch. "Plenty of it, night and
morning?"

"I have been using it...."

"And you're out of it _now_!" With a triumphant flourish Winch dipped
into a pocket and extracted a small package. "Here you are, Timber!
And this is extra special! I got all the ingredients this time; tried
it out day before yesterday on that new pinto pony you bought from
Ferguson; got cut in the wire fence down by the pasture. Say, it works
like magic...."

Standing groaned. "Winch, some fine day I'll carve you all up with a
hand-axe, just to give you a chance to use your own filthy mess...."

"I wouldn't have been shy a leg, would I, if that fool doctor had had a
pint of this?"

"_Señor!_" Joe was crying. "You got to listen; you got to hear what I
goin' tell you! My gold, my gold that I find, me, myself, all alone...."

"What do I care for you or your gold!" cried Standing. "I don't need
it, do I? I don't ask you anything about it, do I? I don't want to know
anything about it! Go wallow in your gold and leave me alone!"

But Joe explained, growing vehement to the point of wildness; as Winch
had put it, "he was clean crazy over the thing." How could Joe wallow
in it, much as he would like to, when always there were men like ugly
hounds on his trail? What chance had he, poor devil that he styled
himself, against such men as Jim Taggart and Young Gallup and Cliff
Shipton and Babe Deveril and Barny McCuin.... He named a score. At the
name of Babe Deveril Standing's eyes flashed and sped to a meeting
with Lynette's; into hers, too, came a quick light. Joe had caught
Standing's interest.

"What about these men?" he asked. "What about Deveril?"

"Him? The worst of them all!" wailed Joe. He went on, bursting with all
the things he had to tell. That night when, for a second time, like God
himself, the grand Señor Caballero had burst into the cabin and set
him free, he had run! God, how he had run! But then he had thought of
his savior alone against so many hard, merciless men; he had come to a
sudden stop, saying to himself: "Joe, _mi amigo_, you must not desert
him!" And then, of a sudden, had that young devil Deveril burst from
the bushes upon him ... and Joe had fled again and Deveril had sought
after him. There was no shaking off this man; twice since then in the
forest Joe had barely escaped him.... Lynette had come close, was
listening breathlessly.

"I tell you where my gold is!" cried Joe. "You take what you like, I
don't care! You give me what you like ... I know you for one fair man.
That way we save it. Any other way, they get me; they burn me with
fire; they break my teeth and my fingers; they make me tell! And they
get it all. Taggart and Gallup and Deveril and...."

He broke off, half whimpering, cursing them with all the eloquence of
the Latin tongue.

Clearly Standing hesitated. Then, amazing them all, but with his own
mind clear, he said bluntly:

"Clear out! It's your game. I don't want to know anything about it."

"_It's down in Light Ladies' Gulch!_" screamed Joe. "Not two mile from
Big Pine! I lied to them ... a big pine, with crooked roots sticking
out ... a washout.... Last year I make mistake; I think down under the
Red Cliffs. But this time I find ... four miles the other side...."

"Why, you shrivelled-souled...."

Then suddenly Standing caught himself up short; there came a new look
into his eyes; he shouted, catching Joe by the shoulder:

"_Light Ladies' Cañon!_ Just across from Big Pine? Only a mile or two!"

"As God hears me, Señor!"

Standing broke into sudden laughter. He clapped Joe upon the shoulder
so that the little man staggered and paled under the jovial blow.

"With bells on! With bells, Mexico! By high Heaven.... Here, you,
Winch! On the run, back to headquarters. Take Joe with you; mount
guard over him night and day with a rifle. No man to have a word with
him. And wait for me. And, all the while, Bill Winch, _keep your mouth
shut_!"

Winch, with one arm out as a brace against a pine, stiffened.

"I guess I know how to take orders, Mr. Standing," he said, and his
tone sounded angry. "You don't need...."

Him also Standing smote on the shoulder.

"Why, God bless you, Bill Winch, you're the only man on earth I'd
trust! Those last words weren't necessary.... You're right and I
apologize for them! But now, go! Go, I tell you; I'll do anything you
say; I'll use your poison on me three times a day.... I'll eat it, if
you say so! Only hit the high spots and keep Mexicali under cover until
I come! No matter when or how long; there's your job ... old friend!"

Billy Winch, galvanized, went hopping to his horse; he flipped after
his own fashion up into the saddle; he loosened the rifle in its
holster strapped conveniently; he called to Joe:

"Quick does it, Mexico! We're on our way!"

Bruce Standing watched them ride away among the trees and stood
laughing! He had succeeded in puzzling two men; most of all had he set
Lynette wondering....




CHAPTER XXII


"I want a good long drink of fresh water," said Standing. "And you,
after this lunch of ours, will be thirsty. Let's go down to the creek;
down there, by the waterfall, after we've drunk, I want to talk with
you."

He had turned to her, that flash still in his eyes, before Billy Winch
and Mexicali Joe had ridden a dozen yards out of camp. She looked at
him in silence, wondering what lay in his thoughts; what had been the
sudden, compelling, and triumphant motive to actuate him when with his
great shout of laughter he had dismissed the two men. He had Joe's
secret now; she shared it herself: The gold was far from here and very
near Big Pine; in Light Ladies' Cañon! The strange part of it was
that Taggart's first surmise, when he and his companions had trapped
Mexicali Joe at the dugout, was that it was in Light Ladies' Cañon
that he had made his strike!... How many men and at least one girl had
travelled how many wilderness miles from Big Pine, when the gold lay so
snugly close to the starting-point! How Joe had tricked his captors,
leading them so far afield!

"If I should escape from you now," Lynette could not help crying, "what
is there to prevent me from staking the first claim? And bringing my
_friends_ ... to stake claims!"

"If you should happen to escape me!" he laughed back at her.

Then he stepped to the tree where his rifle stood and called to Thor as
he did always when he left the dog in camp: "Watch, Thor! Watch, sir."

It was not always that he carried his rifle. He explained, while he
looked to her to come with him.

"We'll talk things over; but in any case it's clear that we're getting
short of food. Maybe, while we talk, we can bring down something in the
way of provisions with a lucky shot."

Willing enough was she to-day for talk; at least to listen to whatever
he might say. She followed, stopping only to stoop and pat old Thor's
head; already she counted the faithful brute a friend. Thor tried to
lick her hand; for already Thor, like Thor's master, had bestowed an
abiding love to the first true girl who had ever intimately entered the
life of either. Thor wanted to follow; he whined and looked anxious,
ears pricked forward, tail wagging.

"Down, Thor," commanded Standing, if only because already he had issued
his command. "You watch camp for us; watch, Thor."

Thor dropped down at the entrance of Lynette's grotto; for one instant
his great head lay between his forepaws; then he jerked it up again so
that he might watch them as they went through the thickets to the creek.

Standing carried a cup with him. When they came to the waterfall
leaping down a twenty-foot rocky spillway, glassily clear, making a
pigmy thunder in the narrow-walled ravine, he rinsed and filled his
cup and gave it to Lynette. She drank. Thereafter, and with no further
rinsing, he drank. She sat upon a big rock, leaning back against
a leaning tree trunk; he sat down close enough to her to allow of
words carrying above the thunder of the falling waters and filled his
after-lunch pipe.

"I know as much as you do of the place to find the gold!" she told him
again. "And I, though a girl, have as much interest in a fortune to be
made as any man can have. That's fair warning to you, Bruce Standing!"

He laughed carelessly. Then he said:

"It's neither your gold nor mine. By right of discovery, it belongs to
a little shrimp named Mexicali Joe _Alguna-Cosa_. Our hands are off, so
far as our own pockets are concerned."

"But.... You took quick interest when you learned where it was! You
have some plan ... you commanded your friend Billy Winch to keep Joe
well guarded!"

His eyes were twinkling; and greed does not light twinkling lights!

"I've got gold of my own, girl! Gold enough to last me my life and you
your life and both of us together our lives! And to leave a decent
residuum after us.... But let's talk of Mexicali Joe's gold some other
time. To-day.... We have ourselves!"

"You have yourself!" cried Lynette with sudden bitterness. "I have not
even my own personal liberty!"

"And what if I let you go, girl? As I have a mind to do to-day? What
then? Where would you go? Where would I find you again? For find you I
must and will though 'it were ten thousand mile.'"

"Am I to suffer your dictation during the days of actual imprisonment
at your hands, and then, for all time afterward, render you an
accounting of my actions!"

"Why do you try to hate me so, girl?"

"Why should I not hate you?"

"What have I done to you? Have I done anything more than put out a hand
to stop time, to snatch time for you and me, for us to _know_!... Look
you, girl, a man, at least a man of my sort, may go a third of his
life or a fourth or a full half, and know much less than nothing of
what a true girl is! _How can he know?_ Already I have learned that you
have instincts which leap; a man gropes like a blind mole and it takes
him a long time to teach himself to see the stars ... _the star!_ Now
it's a fair bet, and no odds given or taken, that one Bruce Standing
happened to be an unruly devil, a blunt man, a man who has as a part
and parcel of his religion to shoot square and to hit hard, so long as
God lets him. I've done wrong and I've done right, and I'm doing as all
the rest of the great mass, in a state of flux, is doing; growing up
from the mud into something better. If not in this life or the next,
well then, since the mills grind with exceeding patience, in some
other life. At least I'm honest; at least, in plain English, I do my
damnedest! Take it or leave it, there's the truth. If it happens that
I'm a man of few friends.... Almost you can count 'em on Billy Winch's
one leg!... if few men love me and many men hate...."

"Yes!" cried Lynette, and her own earnestness was caught and compelled
by his own. "Most men, many, many men, hate you!... And yet you have it
within you to make them love you!"

"Love and hate! What have I to do with the loves and hates of men as I
know them? Shall I step to right or to left for all that? I play out my
part in the eternal game. I live my life!"

"But you don't live your life! You miss ... everything! If you would
but be kind instead of cruel; open-hearted and generous always ... you
have in you the seeds of all that. Then men might come to know the real
_you_; you could make them love instead of hate...."

But his eyes stabbed at her like quickened blue flames.

"So!" he said, and his tone was one of bitter mockery. "If I choose
to pay them for the pretty, empty compliment, they will call me a
good fellow and ... love me! If I kick them they will call me villain
and hate me. And there you have the epitome of that so-called love
and hate of mankind which sickens me. I'll be eternally damned before
I prostitute my immortal soul to pitch pennies out for a peck of
treacherous hearts. For, I tell you, girl ... Only Girl ... the love
that is to be bought is to be spat upon. I'll have none of it. Even
your love, that I'd give my soul to have freely, I'd have none of if it
were to be bought."

Lynette looked at him strangely, half pityingly. And she answered him
softly:

"You twist things out of all reason to make, to yourself, your own acts
appear something other than they are."

"A girl trying to turn logician?" he laughed at her, teasing.

Little effort on his part was required to set fire to her quick
inflammable temper.

"It's magnanimous of you to jeer at me," she retorted hotly. "Because
you have the physical strength of a beast and the beast's lack of
understanding...."

Now his golden outburst of laughter stopped her. He shouted:

"See! There you go! As if to preach me the final word of love and hate!
You'd hate me now, just because I tease you! If I said, with poets'
roses twining through the saying, that you were most beautiful and
no-end intellectual and beyond that of the heart of an angel, could
you not better tolerate me? And thus we come to the open pathway to
most human loves and hates; two little doors standing side by side.
For, I ask you, going back to your challenge to make men love rather
than despise me, what in the devil's name is that sort of _love_ but
transplanted self-love? A damned-fool sort of selfishness masking
like a hypocrite as something quite different.... If you loved a man
who beat you there would be something worth while in that sort of
loving; something divorced from plain selfishness and the eternal
I-want-to-get-all-I-can-out-of-everything! Now, I love you! I love you
so that my love for you comes near killing me! It gets me by the throat
at night. That's love; and there's less of self in it, I swear to you,
than there is of ... _you!_"

"You! You talk of love. To me!"

She broke into her light, taunting laughter. And yet he had set her
heart beating and the ancient fear ... not fear of him ... was upon
her. "You, talking of love, are like a blind man lecturing on the
colors of the rainbow! You...."

But he had started to his feet; his eyes went suddenly toward the camp,
all sight of which they had lost on coming down into the creek bed.

"Listen!" he cried. "What was that?"

She had heard nothing; nothing above the splash and fall of water ...
and the beating of her own heart.

"Listen!" he said the second time.

"What is it?"

He caught up his rifle and leaped across the creek. He began running,
back toward their camp.

"It's old Thor ... there's some one...."

And now, Lynette realized clearly, had come her first opportunity
to be free again! While Bruce Standing, because of something he had
heard above the merry-mad music of the waterfall, or had thought he
had heard, was running back to their encampment, she could run in the
opposite direction. She stood balancing, of this mind and that. What
had he heard in camp? What was happening there? As always, because
of that volatile nature of hers which was _en rapport_ with life's
pulsings, she wanted to know! And then there was a certain assurance
in her heart that after all these days the budding intention in Bruce
Standing's heart was bursting into full flower to set her free again!
She hesitated; she saw him running up the steep bank, charging back
toward camp, vanishing among the trees higher up on the slope.

And, then, she followed him.

... Before Lynette came, through the trees, within sight of the grotto
which Standing had given over to her, she heard a sound which brought
her, wondering, from swift haste to lingering; she stood, her breathing
stilled, listening, groping a moment blindly for an interpretation of
that sound for its explanation. Harsh it was ... terrible ... never
had she heard anything like it. At first she did not recognize it as a
sound man-made. She paused; she came a step nearer, peering through the
trees....

It was an inarticulate, stifled sound coming from the lips of Bruce
Standing! He was kneeling on the ground, bending forward. He had
dropped his rifle. There was something in his arms, upgathered into his
embrace, something held as a baby is held in its mother's arms....

Thor....

And those sounds from Bruce Standing's lips! There were tears in
them; his voice was shaken. He held Thor to him in a fierce agony of
sorrow....

Lynette came closer, tiptoeing. She heard the sounds as they seemed
to choke him, clutching like hands at his throat. And then suddenly,
before she caught her first clear view, she knew when, into that first
emotion there swept the second; when with the shock of deep grief there
mingled white-hot rage. He began to mutter again ... he was lisping ...
lisping as she had heard him do only once before ... lisping because
his one weakness had leaped out and caught him unaware. Lisping
curses....

She ran closer. She saw old Thor, Thor who had learned to love her
and whom she had learned to love, lying limp in Standing's arms. Thor
dead? Some one had killed him, then, and Standing, above the booming
of the waterfall, had heard? A sight, perhaps, to stir that wild,
uncontrollable laughter of Lynette! The sight of a big, strong man half
weeping over a dead dog in his arms.... Yet, when she came running
to him and dropped down on her knees and put out her quick hand and
Standing turned his face toward her ... he saw that this time there was
no laughter in her. Instead, her eyes were wet with a sudden dash of
tears.

"He's not dead ... we won't have it that he's dead! Thor!" she cried
softly.

She did not realize that she had put her warm, sympathetic hand on
Standing's arm before her other hand found the old dog's head.

"Thor!... Thor!"

Thor looked up at her; at Standing. The dog tried to stir; the faithful
tongue strove to overmaster the terrible inertia laid upon it; to
grant in last adulation the last farewell. For a stricken dog, like a
stricken man, knows after the way of all creatures which have the spark
of eternity within them, when the day's end is in doubt....

Standing tried to speak ... and grew silent. How she hated herself
then for that other time when he had slipped, through sorrowing rage,
into his one unmanly failing ... and she had laughed! Her tears began
running down. He saw; he jerked his head about, focussing his eyes upon
the eyes of a dog that he loved; a dog that had been faithful to him.

"Where is he hurt? He can't be shot," cried Lynette. "We would have
heard a shot! If he is poisoned...."

Standing had mastered himself. He said coldly.

"Look!"

"Who did ... _that_?"

"If I only knew! My God, if I only knew!"

Thor was not dead; his body jerked and quivered now and again, in
spasms. Yet he seemed to be dying. And it grew clear to Lynette, as,
at a glance, it had been clear to Standing, what had happened. Thor
had been left in charge of camp; but the one word had rung in the
faithful head: "Watch!" And then some one had come; Thor had been true
to his trust; some man had struck him down with club or a rifle barrel;
had struck and struck again. Thor's fore leg was broken; he had been
battered over the head ... bones were broken, the skull seemed crushed
... the dog stiffened; fell back....

"Dying," said Standing, still on his knees. He placed old Thor very
gently on the ground, striving after his own rough fashion to make
a dog's last few minutes of breathing no more tormenting than was
inevitable.

"Thor," said Standing gently. "Good old Thor!"

The dog tried to rouse. The old faithful head on Standing's knee
stirred ever so little. The old steadfast eyes, red-rimmed but
clear-sighted, were on Standing's. If ever a dog could have spoken....

Standing, with sudden thought, jumped to his feet.

"There's a chance for him yet! There is Billy Winch, the one man on
earth to save a dying dog or horse.... Yes, or man!"

He cupped his hands at his mouth and sent forth, piercing through the
leafy silences, that wild wolf-call which must bring Winch about in
short order ... if he was not already too far to hear it.

"He may be too far," cried Lynette. Already she was down upon her
knees, taking his place and gathering Thor's head into her lap.
"Hurry. If you can find your horse and ride after him, surely you can
overtake him."

"God bless you!" He began running. But before a dozen swift steps were
taken he stopped and came back to her, muttering: "But the man who did
this for Thor? He'll not be far away; I can't leave you...."

"I am not afraid of a man like him," said Lynette. "A coward, or he
would not have done this.... Leave me your rifle and hurry!"

"You'll wait for me, no matter what happens?"

"Of course I'll wait. Now, _hurry_!"

He placed his rifle at her side and with never a backward look was away
again on a run, breaking through breast-high brush; splashing once
again across the creek, calling to Winch as he ran.... He would be back
with her almost immediately....

So he plowed through the thickets; plunged down a slope, sped up a
slope, raced over a ridge. And, now with what breath was left in his
lungs, he began to send out his whistled call. That summons, which his
horse, if still lingering in these upland meadows, would welcome with
quick response.

Lynette stooped and laid her cheek against the grizzled old face of
Thor. And then, with a sudden access of emotion, she burst into fresh
tears.... Thor tried to wag his tail.... Lynette, like Standing before
her, felt that the dog was dying.

"Thor!" she whispered. "Can't you hold on? Can't you carry on? He will
bring Billy Winch and Billy Winch will help us...."

Then there burst upon her a surprise which moved her immeasurably.
There, almost at her side, stood Babe Deveril! A moment ago she was
alone in the wilderness with a dying dog; now Babe Deveril stood close
to her. With Thor's head still held in her lap she looked up into his
face. She saw that it was tense, the muscles drawn, the eyes hard and
bright.

"Lynette!" he cried softly. "Lynette! I've followed you half around the
world! And now.... Come quick! We go free and the world is ours!"

She sat, staring up at him, still bewildered.

"You!" she whispered. "And ... then it was you ... who did this?"

He caught her meaning; he glanced down at the thick green club in his
hands.

"I came to do what I could for you. That ugly brute stood up against
me. I had no gun; I knew Standing was armed. I thought that maybe he
had left his rifle in camp."

"What did Thor do to you that you should have done this to him?"

"Thor? That dog? He showed teeth and ... Look here, Lynette Brooke;
now's your one chance. I've gone through hell to come to you...."

"Tell me," she cried. "When did you come?..."

Deveril was as tense as a finely drawn steel wire. Again she marked
that hard glint in his dark eyes.

"It is up to you to do the telling!" he shot back at her. "I stood back
there in the trees; I saw that damned henchman of his and Mexicali Joe
come up to you! Joe, I've been following for days! I had no rifle; no
weapon of any kind and both Standing and Winch were armed. But I could
watch! Joe was terribly excited; I saw his waving arms. I heard him
yelling...."

"Yes," said Lynette. "And then?"

"And then?" exclaimed Deveril. "What then? You know what we came for,
don't you? You as well as I?"

"Yes! I know...."

He caught at her hand.

"Come! On the run. Before that madman gets back. We'll clean up on the
whole crowd of them!"

But she jerked her hand away.

"There are certain things I don't understand.... Did you see the other
night when he took Mexicali Joe out of their hands?"

"I saw; yes. It happened that I had just overhauled them at that
minute! I could have cried for rage! He had a rifle, damn him, and was
aching to use it! They laid down before him like pups...."

"_And you?_"

"What could I do, with a rotten stick in my hands!"

She looked up at him curiously.

"And, to-day?"

"To-day?" His hands hardened in his grip upon his club. "To-day, I tell
you, I followed them into your camp and I saw. Mexicali Joe...."

"You are after Mexicali Joe's gold, Babe Deveril?"

"As you are! That brought us both into Big Pine in the beginning and
then into the rest of it."

"And you were ... afraid to come into camp while Bruce Standing was
still here?"

He laughed at her, the old light laughter of debonair Babe Deveril.

"Afraid? Call it that if you like." He shrugged carelessly. "Yet, with
an oak club against a man with a modern rifle...."

"Do you remember the last time? How he threw his rifle away?"

Deveril flushed hotly.

"Some day," he muttered, "when it's an even break...."

"What do you want with me, Babe Deveril?"

He stared at her.

"Want with you? I want you to come, to be free from this Timber-Wolf.
Is he coming back soon?"

"I think so."

"Then hurry. Lynette...."

"Well?"

"Are you coming?"

She stooped over Thor.

"No," she said quietly.

"_What!_ After all this.... You're not coming?"

"No!"

"But.... Then why?" he demanded with a sudden flare of anger.

"For one thing," she told him without looking up, "because I told him
that I would wait for him. For another...."

"And that is?..."

She only shook her head, brown hair tumbling about her hidden face.

"I'll stay with old Thor," she said.

She had him cast away among the lost isles of bewilderment.

"But you'll tell me.... You and I have been friends; we've stood side
by side...." He broke off to demand: "You'll tell me about Mexicali
Joe's gold?"

"Gold?" she said. "Is gold the greatest thing in life?"

"But you know?"

"Yes! I know."

"Then listen: Taggart and Gallup and Shipton and a thousand other men
are going crazy to find out! You and I can turn the whole trick if luck
is good.... Why, we'll quit millionaires, Lynette!"

A shudder shot through the tortured body of old Thor. Lynette's long
lashes lifted, wet with her tears.

"There are things ... beyond millions...."

"I don't get you to-day!"

"Why did you kill this dog? What good did it do you? What harm had he
ever done you?"

"He was in my way. I thought, I told you, that a rifle might have been
left behind. And ... it's Standing's dog, anyway! And, beyond that, no
matter how you look at it, only a dog...."

"I think," said Lynette, and there was no music in her voice now and
no warmth in the eyes which she lifted briefly to his, "that you had
better go! Had you come, without rifle, upon Bruce Standing, at least
he would have thrown his rifle away to fight with you! You know that.
And ... and I am not going to go with you, having given my promise. And
I'll warn you of this: If he comes back and finds you here and knows
you for the man who killed Thor.... He will kill you!"

Never in all his daredevil life had Babe Deveril made pretense at
striking the angelic attitude. Now, in a rush of feeling, he grew black
with anger and there came a look into his eyes which put the hottest
flush of all her life into Lynette's cheeks, as he cried out:

"Tamed you, has he? So Timber-Wolf has taken a mate after the fashion
of wolves! And I, fool that I was, let you slip through my fingers!"

She did not answer him. Had she answered she could have said: "You
could have returned to fight with him; man to man and him wounded!
Later, when he snatched Mexicali Joe from them, you could have fought
with him. You could have followed him here, seeking me; and you
followed Joe, seeking gold. You could have fought with him to-day; and
instead you held back and spied and killed his dog and waited for him
to go!..." So Lynette, stooping low over Thor's battered head, made no
answer.

... She knew that Babe Deveril was no coward. She would always remember
how he had hurled that gun into Taggart's face and himself into her
adventures, reckless and unafraid. Yet Babe Deveril was no such man as
Bruce Standing; rather was he like a Jim Taggart, and Taggart was no
coward. But it remained that both these men, Deveril and Taggart, were
afraid to come to grips with that other man, whose fellows named him
Timber-Wolf. And he, the Timber-Wolf, was not afraid of life and all
that it bore; and was not afraid of sombre death, in which he did not
believe; was not afraid of God, in whom he trusted.

"You've thrown in with him!" Deveril cried it out angrily; his hands
were hard upon his club. "Here, I've given days and days trying to see
you through, and you've kicked in with him against me! He's had his
will with you and he's made you his woman and...."

"You'd better go!"

She was trembling. A spasm shook her, not unlike that which convulsed
Thor.

"You won't come with me then? You'll stick with him? After he put a
chain on you!"

"At least he did not stand back and see another man put a chain on me!"

"Is that my answer?"

"Yes!" she cried in sudden fury. "And now ... _go!_"

"I'll go, all right," said Deveril. And began to laugh. All that old
light laughter of his, gay and untroubled, which so many a time had
made dancing echoes in the souls of those who heard, bubbled up again.
He looked, as he had done when first she saw him, a slender, darkly
handsome and utterly care-free incarnation of debonair insolence. Still
striking the right note, he shrugged his shoulders and tossed his club
away as he said insolently:

"What need of all this heavy artillery ... since the Queen of my Heart
says Nay? I'll travel light after this!"

He turned away. But at the second step he stopped and swung about and
told her:

"I have a guess where Billy Winch will be taking Mexicali Joe! And I'll
be in on the final settlement. If you, with a rush of blood to the
head, throw in with Standing, I'll play the game out! And what will you
have left to trade to me for the pile I'm going to make out of this?...
For I heard, too, when Mexicali yelled out! And I'm throwing in with
Taggart and Gallup, headed straight for Light Ladies' Gulch!"

Lynette, unable to see anything in all the wide world clearly, could
only stoop her head over the stricken dog. Her arms tightened about
Thor.... If only Billy Winch would come in time, if only Billy Winch
would save that flickering little fire of life ... then, though she
hated all the rest of the world she'd love Billy Winch....




CHAPTER XXIII


Bruce Standing running, breaking a straight path through the brush,
came swiftly into the little upper valley. When in answer to his
whistling his horse came trotting up to him, he did not tarry to
saddle; he had picked up his bridle on his way and now mounted and
struck off bareback through the woods with no second's delay.

"Get into it, Daylight!" he muttered. "We're riding for old Thor
to-day!"

From a distance Billy Winch, hurrying homeward, heard that long call
he knew so well. He pulled his horse down from a steady canter and
turned, calling to Mexicali Joe to come back with him. Once within
sight Standing waved and shouted again; Winch and Joe sensed urgency
and dipped their spurs, riding back to a meeting with him. Winch stared
and frowned while his employer made his curt explanation; Mexicali Joe
gasped. But neither man had a word to say; Standing laid his brief
command upon them and the three turned back, riding hard, into the
mountains.

Again Standing called, when near enough to camp to hope that his voice
would carry above the noise of the tumbling waterfalls; this time to
Lynette, to tell her of their coming. He rode ahead; again and again he
shouted to her; he leaned out to right and left from his horse's back,
seeking a glimpse of her through the trees. And yet, when they were
almost in the camp, there still came no answer to his shoutings and he
caught no glimpse of her.... Suddenly, to his fancies, the woods seemed
strangely hushed--and empty.

"She's gone," said Winch carelessly.

"No!" said Standing with such brusque emphasis that Winch looked at him
wonderingly. "She said she'd wait for us, Bill."

But when they drew closer, so close that the various familiar camp
objects were revealed, and still there was no response and no sight of
her, Winch muttered:

"Just the same, gone or not gone, she ain't here, Timber."

"I tell you, man," snapped Standing, "she said she would wait. And what
she says she will do, she will do!"

Now the three dismounted in the heart of the camp and still there was
no sign of Lynette.

"Anyhow," said Winch, "it's a dog and not a girl we come looking for.
Thor'll be here ... if he's alive yet."

"He will be right where I left him." Standing led the way among the
big trees, an arm about Billy Winch, hopping at his side the last few
steps; they saw him looking in all directions and understood that while
he led them toward Thor he was seeking the girl. But they found only
the dog lying where he had been struck down; Thor barely able to lift
his bloody head, his sight dim, but his dog's intelligence telling
him that his master had come back to him; Thor whining weakly. Winch
squatted down at the dog's side, become upon the instant an impressive
diagnostician.

Standing stood a moment over the two, looking down upon them. Then he
turned away, leaving Thor in the skilful hands of Winch and hurrying
down to the creek, seeking Lynette. It was possible, he told himself,
that she had gone down for a drink; that so near the waterfall she had
not heard him calling. So he called again as he went on and looked
everywhere for her.

But she was not down by the creek and she did not answer him from the
woods. He came back, up into camp, perplexed. Winch was still bending
over Thor; he was snapping out brusque orders to Joe for hot water and
soap; Standing heard Mexicali Joe's mutterings:

"_Por Dios_, I no understan'. Somebody hurt one dog an' we wait, an'
we look for one girl ... an' all the time I got one meelion dollar
gol'-mine down yonder...."

"Shut up," Winch grunted at him. And, seeing Standing coming back:
"Say, Timber, we better take this dog home with us right away. We can
make a sling of that canvas of yours, tying either end to our saddle
horns, making a sort of stretcher; some blankets in it and old Thor on
top of 'em. And I'll tell you this: if we get him home alive, and I
think we will, I'll keep the life in him."

Thor was whining piteously; Winch shook his head; if only he had his
instruments, his antiseptics, and a bottle of chloroform! For here he
foresaw such an operation as did not come his way every day.

"Diagnosin' off-hand," Winch was telling the uninterested Joe, "I'd
say here's the two important facts: first, old Thor has been beat
unmerciful; his head's been whanged bad, but I don't believe the
skull's fractured; his left fore leg is busted and he may have a
cracked rib. Second and most important, after all that the old devil is
alive."

Bruce Standing, still seeking Lynette, more than satisfied to have Thor
in Billy Winch's capable hands, turned toward the grotto which he had
set apart for Lynette. And thus upon his first discovery. There was a
piece of paper tied with a bit of string so that it fluttered gently
from a low limb where it was inevitable that it must be seen. He caught
it down eagerly. On the scrap of paper were a few pencilled words,
written in a girlish-looking hand. At one sweeping glance he read:


     "I have gone back to Babe Deveril.

     LYNETTE."


He stood staring incredulously at the thing in his hand. Here was a
shock which for a moment confused him; here was something beyond
credence. Lynette gone ... to Deveril? For that first second his
brain groped blindly rather than functioned normally. Lynette gone to
Babe Deveril ... that cursed Baby Devil! A handsome, graceful, and
altogether irresistible young devil of a fellow to fill any girl's eye,
to stir vague romantic longings in her heart. So she had gone to him?
He had the proof of it in his hand; a word from her, signed with her
name. A cruel, chill, heartless message of seven meagre words.... And
she had broken her word; she had promised to wait for his return and
she had not waited. She had left a dying dog to die alone and had gone
to her lover ... and she carried with her the key to Mexicali Joe's
golden secret ... to turn it over to Deveril!

"What's eating you, Timber?" shouted Winch. "Gone to sleep or what?"

Standing tossed the scrap of paper away. And then suddenly he laughed
and both Winch and Joe were startled. Bill Winch had heard that laugh
once before and knew vaguely the sort of emotion which prompted it:
Standing's soul was suddenly steeped in rage ... and anguish....

"We'll be on our way pretty quick, Timber," said Winch. "We'll ride
slow and you can pick us up in no time. And ... if you've got anything
on your chest, any of your own private rat-killing to do, why, me and
Mexicali will make out fine as far as headquarters, and once there I'll
see old Thor through."

Standing only nodded at him curtly and went hurriedly to his horse.




CHAPTER XXIV


Timber-Wolf, his purposes crystallizing, did not attempt to rejoin
Winch and Mexicali Joe. By the time he had ridden to the spot where
his saddle was hidden and had thrown it upon Daylight's back, drawing
his cinch savagely, he had begun to get his proper perspective. He
knew that he could trust Billy Winch in all things; that Winch, with
all of that persevering patience which the occasion demanded and that
veterinary skill and love for animals which marked him, would do all
that any man could to get Thor home and to care for him. And now, for
Bruce Standing, beyond the stricken dog lay other considerations: There
remained Lynette and Babe Deveril! He ground his teeth in savage rage
and from Daylight's first leap under him rode hard.

Long before the early sun rose he was back at his own headquarters,
a man grim and hard and purposeful. Rough garbed and still booted
he strode through his study and into his larger office; and in this
environment the man's magnificent virility was strikingly accentuated.
Here was his wilderness home, a place of elegance and of palpitant
centres of numerous large activities; not a dozen miles from Big Pine
and yet, in all appearances, set apart from Young Gallup's crude town
as far as the ends of earth. He stood in a great, hard-wooded room of
orderly tables and desks and telephones and electric push-buttons. He
set an impatient thumb upon a button; at the same moment his other hand
caught up a telephone instrument. While the push-button still sent
its urgent message he caught a response from his telephone. Into the
receiver he called sharply:

"Bristow? In a hurry, Standing speaking: Give me the stables; get Billy
Winch!"

All the while that insistent thumb of his upon the button! There came
bursting into the big room, half dressed and clutching at his clothes,
a young man whose eyes were still heavy with sleep.

"You, Graham," Standing commanded him. "Get busy on our long-distance
wire. My lawyers.... Get Ben Brewster! It's the hurry of a lifetime!"

Young Graham, with suspenders dragging, flew to the switchboard.
Meantime came a response from the inter-phone connecting him with the
stables.

"Billy Winch?" he called.

"No, sir, Mr. Standing," said a voice. "This is Dick Ross. Bill, he got
in late and was up all night nearly, working over a bad case that come
in. Shall I...."

"That case," Standing told him abruptly, "was my dog, Thor. Find out
who was left in charge when Bill went to sleep; call me right away and
give me a report on Thor." With that he rang off.

All the while his secretary, Graham, had been plugging away
at his switchboard. Standing, pacing up and down, heard his
"Hello--hello--hello."

Within three minutes the stable telephone rang sharply. Standing caught
it up. It was Dick Ross again, reporting:

"Bill didn't go off the case until three o'clock this morning. Had to
operate again at about two; taking out a little piece of skull bone. He
left Charley Peters in charge then; Charley's on the job now."

"Thor's alive then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fine! I'll be out in a few minutes to see him. Bill's got him in the
'hospital'?"

"Sure, Mr. Standing. Thor couldn't be gettin' better care if he was
King of England."

Standing rang off and came back to Graham from whose eyes now all
heaviness of sleep had fled, leaving them keen and quick. Hardly more
than a youngster, this Graham, and yet Timber-Wolf's confidential
secretary, trained by Standing himself to Standing's ways.

"I've got Mr. Brewster's home on the wire," said Graham looking up.
"He's not up yet but they're calling him...."

Standing took the instrument.

"I'll hold it for him. Now, Graham, order breakfast served here for you
and me; plenty of extra coffee for the boys I'll be having in.... Get
Al Blake on our wire to Red Creek Mine.... Arrange to have Bill Winch
show up here as soon as he's awake; he's to bring Ross and Peters with
him.... And Mexicali Joe; make sure that Joe didn't see any one to talk
with last night. I want Joe here with Winch.... Hello! Hello! Is this
Ben Brewster?"

He heard his lawyer's voice over the wire; then, somewhere over the
long line something went wrong; Brewster was gone again. An operator at
the end of Standing's own private part of the line, seventy-five miles
away, was saying:

"Just a minute, Mr. Standing ... I'll get him for you...."

"Thanks, Henry," said Standing. And while he waited for the promised
service which was to link him with a man nearly two hundred miles away,
he was working hastily with pencil and pad. Graham was already carrying
out his string of orders, getting dressed with one hand meantime.

"Brewster?" Standing spoke again into the telephone. "I've got
something big and urgent on. Can you come up right away? Take a car
to Placer Hill. I'll have a man meet you there with a saddle-horse,
and you'll have to ride the last twenty miles in. We're forming a new
mining company; I want to shoot it through one-two-three! Bring what
papers we'll want; that will be all the baggage you need to stop for.
Graham will have all particulars ready for you. Thanks, Ben. So long.

"Graham!"

Graham swung about expectantly.

"Get the stables. A couple of the best horses...." "I've already got
them," said Graham.... It was for such reasons that Graham, though a
youngster, could hold so difficult position as private secretary to
Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf.

Al Blake was Standing's mining expert, general superintendent of all
his mining interests and the one source to which he applied for advice
on all mining matters. He was the highest salaried man on the extensive
pay-roll and the shrewdest. In a few minutes Graham announced that he
had the Red Creek Mine on the wire and that Blake was coming.

"I want you here on the jump, Al," said Standing. "And I need forty of
our best men; scare up as many as you can at your diggings; I can fill
the number down here. Just _good_ men, understand? Men you know; men
who at a pinch will fight like hell; every man with a rifle."

"Sounds like St. Ives!" grunted Blake, wide awake by now. "All right.
I'm on my way in ten minutes."

Standing began pacing up and down again, his eyes frowning. He needed
Billy Winch right now; needed him the worst way. For here was work
to be done of the sort which invariably he placed in Winch's capable
hands. But Winch had had a night of it and Standing was not the man to
overlook that fact as long as he could put his hand on another man who
would do....

"Have Dick Ross up, on the run," he told Graham.

Breakfast came, served on big massive trays by the Japanese servant.
Almost at the same moment, and literally on the run, Dick Ross came in.

"Scare up ten good men for me, Ross. With rifles, all ready to ride.
I'll have breakfast ready for them here." Graham caught the alert eye
of the Japanese who set down his trays hurriedly and with a quick nod
raced off to the kitchen. Standing looked sternly at Ross and said
curtly: "I'm handing you a job that would usually go to Winch, Ross,
but he's asleep...."

"He was just getting up again, Mr. Standing. Said he wanted to see for
himself how Thor was pulling along...."

"Then," said Standing, "hop back and tell Winch what I said. He can
tell you the men to pick ... or, if he's busy working with Thor he can
leave it to you. Of course I want you to be of the number; Peters also
if Winch doesn't need him; Winch, too, if he says the word...."

Standing and Graham ate standing up. Men summoned began coming in. Each
of them was given brief clean-cut orders and allowed brief time to gulp
a hot breakfast. Billy Winch came first, bringing with him Mexicali Joe.

"He's going to be all right, _I think_," said Winch by way of greeting,
and Standing understood that he was reporting on Thor. "I never saw
man or animal worse shot-all-to-hell, either. I got him in bed now,
strapped down; he's conscious this morning and had a fair night, all
things considered. There's nothing more to be done right away, just be
kept quiet...."

"I was coming out in a minute...."

"I can't have folks running in on him, Timber," said Winch, with a slow
shake of the head, mumbling over a mouthful of ham and egg. "But if
you'd just run in on him one second, to sort of let him know you was
with him, you know, and then beat it, it might do him good."

"Can you leave for two or three hours? To go down with Al Blake and
some of the boys to stake a string of mining claims down in Light
Ladies' Gulch?"

"That's why the rifles?" said Winch. "Sure, I can go, leaving Charley
Peters with full instructions. But I'll have to be back in, say, four
hours at latest."

Standing turned to Mexicali Joe.

"Joe," he said, "how many friends have you got that we can put on the
pay-roll for a few days at twenty-five dollars a day? To stake claims
down in the Gulch?"

"_Jesus Maria!_" gasped Joe. "Twenty-five dollars a day? For each man?
There would be one meelion men, Señor Caballero...."

"Take him in tow, Graham! Get a list of names from him, men to be
reached in an hour's ride. As many as you can get, twenty or thirty or
forty. And get them here ... quick."

Al Blake arrived from the Red Creek Mine. Stringing along after him
came a dozen men of his choosing; big, uncouth, unshaved, rough-looking
customers to the last man of them and yet ... as Standing and Blake
agreed ... _all good men!_ Good to carry out orders; to put up a fight
against odds; to hang on and fight to the last ditch. Graham saw to it
that every man Jack of them was fed and had his cigar from the Chief's
private stock. The men grouped outside and looked at one another,
but for the greater part wasted little breath in speculations and
questionings, each realizing that his fellows knew as little as himself.

It was a busy morning for Bruce Standing. Yet three times he found the
time ... rather he made it ... to go out to the "hospital" to stand
over old Thor and speak softly to him. Thor lay upon a white-enamelled
bed; his bed was softened for him by many downy pillows; at the bedside
sat Charley Peters, his face as grave, his eye as watchful, as could
have been had it been Timber-Wolf himself who lay there. And when
Standing came in Thor heard his step and tried to move; tried to lift
his poor battered head. But at the master's low voice, "Down, Thor!
Down, sir ... good old dog!" Thor lay back and his tired sigh was like
the sigh of a man. Standing's big hand rested gently upon the old
fellow ... then Standing went out, walking softly and Thor lay still a
very long while, waiting for him to come again....

Al Blake left within fifteen minutes of his arrival, a little army of
armed men at his back. With him, on the fastest horse in Standing's
stables, rode a man whose sole responsibility was to race back with
word of conditions. Fully Standing counted on hearing that already at
least two claims had been staked. But he was not ready to see Lynette
again so soon; he was not ready yet to see Babe Deveril. Never for a
single instant since seeing that bit of paper hung to a tree with a
girl's mockery upon it, had he doubted that this girl, whom he had
thought that he loved, had cast in with the Baby Devil, the two racing
side by side to steal Mexicali Joe's gold. He had said to Al Blake:

"Put them off ... but don't hurt either of them. Leave them to me."

Attorney Ben Brewster, a man much shaken, arrived in record time. He
could scarcely speak a word until Graham poured out for him a generous
glass of whiskey. Then he glared at Standing as though he would highly
enjoy killing him.

"You've got a fee to pay this trip," he groaned, "that will make you
sit up and stretch your eyes! Good God, man...."

"Give him another drink, Graham," said Standing. "He's a lawyer and
there's no danger of such getting drunk!... Curse your fees, Brewster.
What do I care so you make an iron-clad job of it."

"And the job?"

Graham saw that he had a cigar.

"Something crooked!" muttered Brewster. "I'll bet a hat!"

"Otherwise," jeered Standing, "why send for you!... Now shut up, Ben,
and get that infected brain of yours working. Here's the tale."

Ben Brewster, a man who knew his business ... and his client ... went
into action. That day he took in businesslike shape all possible steps
toward forming a new corporation, The Mexicali Joe Gold Mining Company.

"Lord, what a fool name!" he growled.

"Never mind the name," retorted Standing.

During the day many other men came in; among them no less than
seventeen swarthy men of Mexicali Joe's breed. Brewster took
signatures, and the men, showing their glistening white teeth, knew
nothing of what was happening save that each man of them was to draw
twenty-five dollars a day for driving a stake and sitting snug over it,
rifle in hand and cigarette in mouth! Brewster got other signatures
going down to Light Ladies' Gulch and among the men there. In all, he
signed names of about sixty men. The Mexicali Joe Gold Mining Company
was born. And the greater part of the stock, and the magnificently
shining title of president was invested in ... Mexicali Joe! Suddenly,
though all day he had been a man as dark-browed as a thunder-storm,
Standing burst out into that golden laughter of his. Not a single share
in his name; all immediate expenses to be paid by him, and they were to
be heavy; and yet he counted himself the man to draw a full ninety-nine
per cent of the dividends of sheer triumph! For it was to be a cold
shut-out to Taggart and Gallup and Shipton and all Big Pine! And, most
of all, for Babe Deveril and that girl! For early had come back the
report from Al Blake: "Neither of them here; no claims staked!"

Standing could only estimate that the girl had misunderstood; that,
hearing Joe's description of the place, she had not grasped the true
sense of his words. He lingered over the picture of her and Deveril,
hastening, driving their stakes somewhere else!

When Mexicali Joe came to understand, after much eloquence from Graham,
how matters stood ... how he swaggered! This, a day in a lifetime, was
Mexicali Joe's day.

"_Me, I'm President!_"

President of a gold-mining company! Mexicali Joe! And of a real mine;
for Al Blake had sent back the curt word: "He's got it; he's got a mine
that I'd advise you to buy in for a hundred thousand while you can. It
may run to anything. The best thing I've seen up here anywhere!"

Mexicali Joe on the high-road to become a millionaire ... through the
efforts of Bruce Standing.

To be sure, Joe, a man very profoundly bewildered, more dumfounded even
than elated, took never a single step and said never a single word
without going first to his friend "Señor Caballero." Before the end of
that glorious day Joe was dead-drunk; didn't know "whether he was afoot
or horseback." But in his crafty Latin way, he kept his mouth shut.

And then Bruce Standing, with an eye not to further wealth, but toward
the confounding of all hopes of such as Young Gallup and Jim Taggart
and Babe Deveril ... _and a certain girl_ ... sprang his coup. With
Ben Brewster guarding his rear in every advance, he "swallowed whole,"
as Brewster put it, every bit of available land above and below and on
every side of Joe's claims. He recked neither of present difficulties
and expenses nor of lawsuits to come. He wanted the land ... and he got
it! And he issued his proclamation:

"There's a _town_ there, on Light Ladies' Gulch. You don't see it? It's
there!... _Graham, get busy!_ A contractor; lumber; building materials;
carpenters! We build a town as big as Big Pine and we build it faster
than ever a town grew before! A store, blacksmith shop, hotel. Shacks
of all sorts. _Graham!_"

Graham, like a man with an electric current shot through him, jumped
out of his chair.

"Send a man on the run to Big Pine with a message for Young Gallup! And
the message is this: '_Bruce Standing promised to pull your damned town
down about your ears ... and the pulling has begun!_'"

"Yes, Mr. Standing," said Graham. And sent a man on a running horse.

And then took swift dictation. Standing made a budget of fifty thousand
dollars, as a "starter." Even Graham wondered what impulses were
rioting in his mad heart!

"We want scrapers and ploughs, a crew of road-makers! We build a new
road ... _on this side of Light Ladies' Gulch_! Got the idea, Graham?
We cut Big Pine out. We go by them, giving a shorter road to the
outside, a better road. We boycott Gallup's dinky town! Keep in mind
we'll double that first fifty thousand any time we need to. Get this
word around: 'Any man who buys a nickel's worth of tobacco in Big
Pine can't buy anything, even if he has his pockets full of clinking
gold, in our town! No man, once seen setting his foot down in Gallup's
town, is going to be tolerated two minutes in our town.' Get the idea,
Graham?"

"Yes, Mr. Standing!"

Standing smote him then so mightily upon the shoulder that Graham, a
small man, went pale, shot through with pain.

"Raise your own salary, Graham. _And earn it now!_"




CHAPTER XXV


What Bruce Standing could not know was that those few words signed
_Lynette_ and saying with such cruel curtness: "I have gone back to
Babe Deveril," had been written not by Lynette, but by Deveril himself.
Nor could he know that Lynette had not gone freely but under the harsh
coercion of four men.

Deveril, when Lynette refused to go with him, had hurried away
through the woods, his heart burning with jealous rage. Was the hated
Timber-Wolf to win again, not only in the game for gold but in another
game which was coming to be the one greatest consideration in Babe
Deveril's life?

"Not while I live!" he muttered to himself over and over. And once out
of sight of Lynette who still sat bowed over the dog he had struck
down, he broke into a run. Jim Taggart and Gallup and Cliff Shipton
were not so far away that he could not hope to reach them and to bring
them back before Standing returned.

Thus, not over fifteen minutes before Bruce Standing came back,
bringing Billy Winch and Mexicali Joe with him, Deveril had appeared
before Lynette a second time. And now she leaped to her feet, seeing
who his companions were and reading at one quick glance what lay
unhidden in their faces. Greed was there and savage gloating and
mercilessness; she knew that at least three of those men would stamp
her into the ground under their heavy boots if thus they might walk
over her body through the golden gates of Mexicali Joe's secret.

"You're arrested!" cried Taggart. "Come, get a move on. We clear out of
this on the run!"

"It was you who shot him, not I! And I'll not go with you. In a minute
he'll be back...."

Taggart was of no mind for delay and talk; he caught her roughly by the
arm. Her eyes went swiftly to Deveril's; of his look she could make
nothing. He shrugged and said only:

"Taggart's sheriff; he'll take you along, anyway. You might as well go
without a fuss."

Gallup, his face ugly with the emotions swaying him, was at her other
side. She looked to the hawk-faced man and then away with a shudder.
Then, trying to jerk away, she screamed out:

"Help! Bruce...."

Taggart's big hairy hand was over her mouth.

"Come along," he commanded angrily. "Get a move on."

Half dragging her the first few steps they led her out of camp, down
into the cañon and across among the trees. She gave over struggling;
they watched her so that she could not call again; Taggart threatened
to stuff his dirty bandana handkerchief into her mouth. Deveril alone
held back for a little; she did not know what he was doing; did not see
him as he wrote in a hand which he strove to give a girlish semblance
those few words to which he signed her name. She scarcely marked his
delay; she was trying now to think fast and logically.

These men were brutes, all of them; she had had ample evidence of that
already and had that evidence been lacking the information was there
emblazoned in their faces. Even Babe Deveril, in whom once she had
trusted, began to show the brutal lining of his insolent character. And
yet need she be afraid of any of them just now? If she openly thwarted
them, yes. They would show no mercy to a girl. But at the moment their
thoughts were set not upon her undoing, but upon Mexicali Joe's gold.
And she knew where it was and they knew that she knew.... Taggart was
speaking, growling into her ear:

"We followed Mexicali; we saw him come up here; Deveril followed him
into camp. He told where his gold was. And you heard it all!"

"Well?" said Lynette, striving with herself for calmness. She was
thinking: "If only I can have a little time. He will come for me.... If
only I can have a little time."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Taggart. "The whole earth ain't
Joe's because he picked up a nugget or two. Anybody's got a right to
stake a claim; I got a right and so has the boys ... and so have you."

"Suppose," offered Lynette as coolly as she could, "that I refused to
tell?"

There came a look into Taggart's hard eyes which answered her more
eloquently than any words from the man could have done, which put
certain knowledge and icy fear into her.

Always, when nervous or frightened, Lynette's laughter came easily to
her and now without awaiting any other answer from this man she began
laughing in such a fashion as to perplex him and bring a dragging frown
across his brows.

"Are you going to tell us?" he asked.

"If I do," she temporized, "do I have the chance to drive the first
stakes?"

"By God, yes! And say, little one, you're a peach into the bargain."

She did not appear to hear; she was thinking over and over: "Bruce
Standing will come after us as soon as he finds I am gone. I must gain
a little time, that is all."

If only she could make them think that the gold was somewhere near by
so that Standing must readily find them. But now Deveril had rejoined
them and she recalled how he had heard something, though not all, of
Joe's triumphant announcement. For Joe had shouted out at the top of
his voice, to catch and hold Timber-Wolf's attention: "Light Ladies'
Gulch!" Deveril had heard that; and Light Ladies' Gulch was many miles
away, down toward Big Pine....

Deveril was looking at her with eyes which were bright and hard and
told no tales of the man's thoughts.

"This lovely and altogether too charming young woman," Deveril said
lightly, his eyes still upon her, though his words were for the others,
"has a mind of her own. It would be as well to hear what she has to say
and learn what she intends to do."

"Will you try to lie to us?" demanded Taggart. "Or will you tell us the
truth?"

She, too, strove for lightness, saying:

"Think that out for yourself, Mr. Taggart. Bruce Standing knows where
the gold is now; both you and I know the sort of man he is and we can
imagine that if he drives the first stake he will see to it that he
takes the whole thing. Do you really think that after I came into this
country for gold myself I am going to miss my one chance now?" She
puzzled them again with her laughter and said: "Not that it would not
be a simple matter to trick you, were I minded to let my own chances go
for the sake of spoiling yours; Mexicali Joe fooled you so easily."

"Yet you yelled for Standing just now...."

"After you came rushing upon me as if you meant to tear me to pieces,
frightening the wits out of me."

"Well, then, tell us."

"If I told you now, then what? You'd desert me in a minute; you would
race on ahead; when I caught up with you there would be nothing left."

Deveril's eyes flashed and he said quickly:

"And give you the chance to send us to the wrong place, were you so
minded, so that you could slip off alone and be first at the other
spot! Very clever, Miss Lynette, but that won't work. You go with us."

And all the while she was trying so hard to think; and all the while
listening so eagerly for a certain glorious, golden voice shouting
after her. Deveril had heard part of Joe's exclamation....

"It is in Light Ladies' Gulch," she said quietly.

"Yes!" Here was Young Gallup speaking, his covetous soul aflame. "We
know that; Deveril heard. But Light Ladies' Gulch is forty miles long.
Where abouts in the gulch?"

She told herself that she would die before she led them aright. And yet
she realized to the full the danger to herself if she tricked them as
Joe had done and they discovered her trickery before Standing came. Yet
most of all was she confident that he would come and swiftly.... Joe's
words still rang in her memory; he had told first of the Red Cliffs,
how he had found color there last year; how he had made prospect
holes; how his real mine lay removed three or four miles. Still she
temporized, saying:

"Bruce Standing and Billy Winch and Joe have horses. We are on foot.
Tell me how we can hope to come to the spot first?"

"We'll have horses ourselves in a jiffy," said Taggart. "Stepping
lively, we're not more than a couple of hours from a cattle outfit over
the ridge. We'll get all the horses we want and we'll ride like hell!"

"You know where the Red Cliffs are? At the foot of the cliffs I'll show
you Joe's prospect holes...."

The pale-eyed, hawk-faced Cliff Shipton spoke for the first time.

"Not half a dozen miles out of Big Pine! I told you last year,
Gallup...."

Deveril, the keenest of them all, the one who knew her best, suspected
her from the beginning. His eyes never once left her face.

"How do we know," he said quietly, "that there's any gold there? That
Joe's gold is not somewhere else?"

"You will have to make your own decision," she told him as coolly as
she could. "If you think that I am mistaken or that I am trying to play
with you as Joe did, you are free to go where you please."

Taggart began cursing; his grip tightened on her arm so that he hurt
her terribly as he shouted at her:

"I'll give you one word of warning, little one! If you put up a game
on us now, you cut your own throat. In the first place I'll make it my
business that if we get shut out, you get shut out along with us. And
in the second place when I'm through with you no other man in the world
will have any use for you. Got that?"

She knew what he had done to Mexicali Joe; she could guess what other
unthinkable things he would have done. And she knew that if now she
tricked Jim Taggart and he found her out ... _before Bruce Standing
came_ ... she could only pray to die.

And yet at this, the supreme test in her life, she held steady to a
swiftly taken purpose. She would not put the game into these men's
hands. And she held steadfastly to her certainty, knowing the man,
that Bruce Standing would come. Therefore, though her face went a
little pale, and her mouth was so dry that she did not dare speak, she
shrugged her shoulders.

"Come, then," said Taggart. "Enough palaver. We're on our way."

And of them all, only Babe Deveril was still distrustful.


And thus Lynette, accepting her own grave risk with clear-eyed
comprehension and yet with unswerving determination, led these four men
to a spot where she knew that they would not find that gold for which
every man of them had striven so doggedly; thus it was she who made it
possible for Bruce Standing to be before all others and to triumph and
strike the death-blow to Big Pine and to begin that relentless campaign
which was to end in humbling his ancient enemy, Young Gallup. Yet there
was little exultation in Lynette's heart, but a growing fear, when,
after hours of furious haste, she and the four men came at last into
Light Ladies' Gulch and to the base of the towering red cliffs.

Cliff Shipton knew more of gold-mining than any of the others and
Lynette watched him narrowly as he went up and down under the high
cliffs. And she knew that she in turn was watched; in the first
excitement of coming to the long-sought spot she had hoped that she
might escape. But both Taggart and Deveril followed her at every step
with their eyes.

Desperately she clung to her assurance that Bruce Standing would come
for her. He had said that he would come "though it were ten thousand
mile." He might have difficulties in finding her; she might have to
wait a little while, an hour or two, or three hours. But it remained
that he was a man to surmount obstacles insurmountable to other men; a
man to pin faith upon. Yet time passed and he did not come.

They found indications of Mexicali Joe's labors, rock ledges at which
he had chipped and hammered, prospect holes lower on the steep slope.
And Cliff Shipton acknowledged that "the signs were all right." But
they did not find the gold and they did not find anything to show that
Joe or another had worked here recently.

"All this work," said Shipton, staring and frowning, "was done a year
ago."

"He'd be crafty enough," muttered Gallup, "to hide his real signs. We
got to look around every clump of brush and in every gully where maybe
he's covered things up.... You're sure," and he whipped about upon
Lynette, "that you got straight all he said?"

"I'm sure," said Lynette. And she was afraid that the men would hear
the beating of her heart.

"I am going up to the top of the cliffs again and see what I can see,"
she said.

"If there's gold anywhere it's down here," said Shipton. "There's
nothing on the top."

"Just the same I'm going!"

"Where the horses are?" jeered Taggart. "By God, if you have...."

"If you think I am trying to run away you can follow and watch me. I am
going!"

She turned. Deveril was watching her with keen, shrewd eyes. Taggart
took a quick stride toward her, his hand lifted to drag her back.
Deveril stepped before him, saying coolly:

"I'll go up with her, Taggart. And I guess you know how I stand on
this, don't you?"

"All right," conceded the sheriff. "Only keep your eye peeled. I'm
getting leery."

It was a long climb to the cliff tops and neither Lynette nor Deveril
at her heels spoke during the climb. They were silent when at last
they stood side by side near the tethered horses. Deveril's eyes were
upon her pale face; her own eyes ran swiftly, eagerly across the deep
cañon to the wooded lands beyond. She prayed with the fervor of growing
despair for the sight of a certain young blond giant of a man racing
headlong to her relief.

"Well?" said Deveril presently in a tone so strange, so vibrant with
suppressed emotion that he made her start and drew her wondering eyes
swiftly. "What are you looking for now?"

"Why do you talk like that ... what is the matter?"

His bitter laughter set her nerves quivering.

"Is the gold here, Lynette? Or is it some miles away, with Bruce
Standing already sinking his claws into it, Standing style?"

Again her eyes left him, returning across the gorge to the farther
wooded lands. Over there was a road, the road into which she and Babe
Deveril had turned briefly that night, a thousand years ago, when
they had fled from Big Pine in the dark; a road which led to Bruce
Standing's headquarters. From the top of the cliffs she caught a
glimpse of the road, winding among the trees; her eyes were fixedly
upon it; her lips were moving softly, though the words were not for
Babe Deveril's ears.

"Lynette," he said in that strangely tense and quiet voice, "if you
have been fool enough to try to put something over on this crowd....
Can't you guess how you'd fare in Jim Taggart's hands?"

She was not looking at him; she did not appear to mark his words. He
saw a sudden change in her expression; she started and the blood rushed
back into her cheeks and her eyes brightened. He looked where she was
looking. Far across the cañon, rising up among the trees, was a cloud
of dust. Some one was riding there, riding furiously....

Together they watched, waiting for that _some one_ to appear in the one
spot where the winding road could be glimpsed through the trees. And in
a moment they saw not one man only, but a dozen or a score of men, men
stooping in their saddles and riding hard, veiled in the rising dust
puffing up under their horses' flying feet. Now and then came a pale
glint of the sun striking upon the rifles which, to the last man, they
carried. They came into view with a rush, were gone with a rush. The
great cloud of dust rose and thinned and disappeared.

"That road will bring them down into Light Ladies' Gulch where it makes
the wide loop about three miles from here," said Deveril. "Have you an
idea who they are, Lynette?"

"No," she said, her lips dry; "I don't understand."

"I think that I do understand," he told her, with a flash of anger.
"Those are Standing's men and they are riding, armed, like the
mill-tails of hell. Listen to me while you've got the chance! That's
not the first bunch of men who have ridden over there like that to-day.
Two hours ago, when you went down the cliffs with the others and I
stopped up here, I saw the same sort of thing happening. If you're so
innocent," he sneered at her, "I'll read you the riddle. I've told you
those are Standing's men; then why the devil are they riding like that
and in such numbers? They're going straight down into the Gulch where
the gold is while you hold us back, up here. And Standing is paying off
an old grudge and jamming more gold into his bulging pockets.... And
you've got some men to reckon with in ten minutes who'll make you sorry
that you were ever born a girl!"

"No!" she cried hoarsely. "No. I won't believe it...."


He failed to catch just what she was thinking. She refused to believe
that Bruce Standing, instead of coming to her had raced instead to
Mexicali Joe's gold; that instead of scattering his men across fifty
miles of country seeking her, he was massing them at a new gold-mine.
Bruce Standing was not like that! She cried it passionately within her
spirit. She had stood loyally by him; she had, at all costs, kept her
word to him ... she had come to believe in his love for her and to long
for his return....

"If you saw men before ... if you thought the thing that you think now
... why didn't you rush on after them? It's not true!"

"I didn't rush after them," he returned curtly, "because I'd be a fool
for my pains and would only give that wolf-devil another chance to
laugh in my face. For if he's got this lead on us ... why, then, the
game is his."

"But I won't believe...."

"If you will watch you will see. I'll bet a thousand dollars he has a
hundred men down there already and that they'll be riding by all day;
they'll be staking claims which he will buy back from them at the price
of a day's work; he'll work a clean shut-out for Gallup and Taggart.
That's what he'd give his right hand to do. You watch a minute."

They watched. Once Taggart shouted up to them.

"Down in a minute, Taggart." Deveril called back.

Before long Lynette saw another cloud of dust; this time three or four
men rode into sight and sped away after the others; before the dust
had cleared another two or three men rode by. And at last Lynette felt
despair in her heart, rising into her throat, choking her. For she
understood that in her hour of direst need Bruce Standing had failed
her.

"Taggart will be wanting you in a minute," said Deveril. He spoke
casually; he appeared calm and untroubled; he took out tobacco and
papers and began rolling a cigarette. But Lynette saw that the man was
atremble with rage. "Before you go down to him, tell me: did you know
what you were doing when you brought us to the wrong place?"

"_Yes!_" It was scarcely above a whisper, yet she strove with all
her might to make it defiant. She was afraid and yet she fought with
herself, seeking to hide her fear from him.

He shrugged elaborately, as though the matter were of no great interest
and no longer concerned him.

"Then your blood be on your own head," he said carelessly. "I, for one,
will not raise my hand against you; what Taggart does to you concerns
only you and Taggart."

"Babe Deveril!"

She called to him with a new voice; she was afraid and no longer strove
to hide her fear. Until now she had carried on, head high, in full
confidence; confidence in a man. And that man, like Babe Deveril before
him, had thought first of gold instead of her. Bruce Standing had
spoken of love and had turned aside for gold; with both hands full of
the yellow stuff he thought only of more to be had, and not of her.

"Babe Deveril! Listen to me! I have been a fool ... oh, such a fool! I
knew so little of the real world and of men, and I thought that I knew
it all. My mother had me raised in a convent, thinking thus to protect
me against all the hardships she had endured; but she did not take into
consideration that her blood and Dick Brooke's blood was my blood! This
was all a glorious adventure to me; I thought ... I thought I could do
anything; I was not afraid of men, not of you nor of Bruce Standing nor
of any man. Now I am afraid ... of Jim Taggart! You helped me to run
from him once; help me again. Now. Let me have one of the horses ...
let me go...."

All the while he stood looking at her curiously. Toward the end there
was a look in his eyes which hinted at a sudden spiritual conflagration
within.

"You're not used to this sort of thing?" And when she shook her head
vehemently, he added sternly: "And you are not Bruce Standing's? And
have never been?"

"No, no!" she cried wildly, drawing back from him. "You don't think
that...."

Now he came to her and caught her two hands fiercely.

"Lynette!" he said eagerly. "Lynette, I love you! To-day you have stood
between me and a fortune, and I tell you ... I love you! Since first
you came to the door of my cabin I have loved you, you girl with the
daring eyes!"

"Don't!" she pleaded. "Let me go. Can't you see...."

"Tell me, Lynette," he said sternly, still holding her hands tight in
his, "is there any chance for me? I had never thought to marry; but
now I'd rather have you mine than have all the gold that ever came out
of the earth. Tell me and tell me the truth; we know each other rather
well for so few days, Lynette. So tell me; tell me, Lynette."

Again she shook her head.

"Let me go," she pleaded. "Let me have a horse and go. Before they come
up for me...."

"Then there's no chance, ever, for me?"

"Neither for you nor for any other man.... I have had enough of all
men.... Let me go, Babe Deveril!"

Still he held her, his hands hardening on her, as he demanded:

"And what of Bruce Standing?"

"I don't know ... I can't understand men ... I thought there never was
another man like him, a hard man who could be tender, a man who ... I
don't know; I want to go."

"Go?" There came a sudden gleam into his eyes. "And where? Back to
Bruce Standing maybe?"

"No! Anywhere on earth but back to him. To the stage which will be
leaving Big Pine in a little while; back to a land where trains run,
trains which can take me a thousand miles away. Oh, Babe Deveril...."

Taggart's voice rose up to them, sounding savage.

"What in hell's name are you doing up there?"

Then Deveril released her hands.

"Go to the horses," he commanded. "Untie all four. I'll ride with you
to the stage ... and we'll take the other horses along!"

She had scarcely hoped for this; for an instant she stood staring at
him, half afraid that he was jeering at her. Then she ran to the horses
and began wildly untying their ropes. Deveril, smoking his cigarette,
appeared on the edge of the cliff for Taggart to see, and called down
carelessly:

"What's all the excitement, Taggart?"

"Keep your eye on that girl. Shipton thinks she's fooled us. I want her
down here."

Deveril laughed at him and turned away. Once out of Taggart's sight he
ran. Lynette already was in the saddle; he mounted and took from her
the tie ropes of the other horses.

"On our way," he said crisply. "They'll be after us like bees out of a
jostled hive."


They did not ride into Big Pine, but into the road two or three miles
below where the stage would pass. Deveril hailed the stage when it came
and the driver took Lynette on as his solitary passenger. At the last
minute she caught Babe Deveril's hand in both of hers.

"There is good and bad in you, Babe Deveril, as I suppose there is in
all of us. But you have been good to me! I will never forget how you
have stood my friend twice; I will always remember that you were _a
man_; a man who never did little, mean things. And I shall always thank
God for that memory. And now, good-by, Babe Deveril and good luck go
with you!"

"And Standing?" he demanded at the end. "You are done with him, too?"

Suddenly she looked wearier than he had ever seen her even during their
days and nights together in the mountains. She looked a poor little
broken-hearted girl; there was a quick gathering of tears in her eyes,
which she strove to smile away. But despite the smile, the tears ran
down. She waved her hand; the stage driver cracked his long whip....
Deveril stood in the dusty road, his hat in his hand, staring down a
winding roadway. A clatter of hoofs, a rattle of wheels, a mist of dust
... and Lynette was gone.




CHAPTER XXVI


Deveril went back to his horse, mounting listlessly like a very
tired man. The spring had gone out of his step and something of the
elasticity out of that ever-young spirit which had always been his no
matter from what quarter blew the variable winds of chance. Lynette
was gone and he could not hold back his thoughts from winging back
along the trail he and she had trod together; there had been the time,
and now he knew it, when all things were possible; the time before
Bruce Standing came into her life, when Babe Deveril, had he then
understood both himself and her, might have won a thing more golden
than any man's mere gold. In his blindness he had judged her the light
adventuress which she seemed; now that it was given him to understand
that in Lynette Brooke he had found a pure-hearted girl whose inherited
adventuresome blood had led her into tangled paths, he understood that
in her there had come that one girl who comes once to all men ... and
that she had passed on and out of his life.

He caught up the reins of the horse she had left behind. His face grew
grim; he still had Jim Taggart to deal with and, therefore, it was as
well to take this horse and the others back to Big Pine and leave them
there for Taggart. For the first thing which would suggest itself to
the enraged sheriff would be to press a charge against him of horse
stealing, and in this country horse thieves were treated with no gentle
consideration.

"I'll leave the horses there ... and go."

Where? It did not matter. There was nothing left for him in these
mountains; Bruce Standing had the gold and the girl was on the stage.

But in his bleak broodings there remained one gleam of gloating
satisfaction: he had tricked Standing out of the girl! That Lynette
already loved his kinsman or at the least stood upon the very brink
of giving her heart unreservedly into his keeping, Deveril's keen
eyes, the eyes of jealous love, had been quick to read. It did not
once suggest itself to him that Standing could by any possibility have
failed to love Lynette. The two had been for days together, alone in
the mountains; why should Standing have kept her and have been gentle
with her, as he must have been, save for the one reason that he loved
her? Further, what man could have lived so long with Lynette of the
daring eyes and not love her? And he, Babe Deveril, had stolen her away
from Bruce Standing, had tricked him with a pencil scrawl, had lost
Lynette to him for all time. The stage carrying her away now was as
inevitable an instrument in the hand of fate as death itself.

He turned back for the other horses which he had tethered by the
roadside and led them on toward Big Pine.

"What the devil is love, anyway?" he muttered once.

It was not for a man such as Babe Deveril to know clearly; for love is
winged with unselfishness and self-sacrifice. And yet, after his own
fashion, he loved her and would love her always, though other pretty
faces came and went and he laughed into other eyes. She was lost to
him; there was the one great certainty like a rock wall across his
path. And she had said at the parting ... her last words to him were to
ring in his memory for many a long day ... that there was both good and
bad in him; and she chose to remember the good! He tried to laugh at
that; what did he care for good and bad? He, a man who went his way and
made reckoning to none?

And she had said that she knew him for _a man_; one who, whatever else
he might have done, had never stooped to a mean, contemptible act; she
thought of him and would always think of him as a man who, though he
struck unrighteous blows, dealt them in the open, man-style.... And yet
... the one deed of a significance so profound that it had directed the
currents of three lives, that writing of seven words, that signing of
her name under them....

"I am glad that I did that!" he triumphed. And gladdest of all, in his
heart, was he that Lynette did not know ... would never know.

Thus Babe Deveril, riding with drooping head, found certain living
fires among the ashes of dead hopes: A row to come with Taggart? He
could look forward to it with fierce eagerness. Standing and Lynette
separated; vindictive satisfaction there. He'd got his knife in
Standing's heart at last! He'd like to wait a year or a dozen until
some time Lynette forgot and another man came despite her sweeping
avowal and she married; he would like then to come back to Bruce
Standing and tell him the fool he had been and how it had been none
other than Baby Devil who had knifed him.

... And yet, all the while, Lynette's farewell words were in his mind.
And he saw before him, wherever he looked, her face as he had seen it
last, her eyes blurred with her tears. And he fought stubbornly with
himself against the insistent admission: It was Babe Deveril and none
other who, saying that he loved her, had put those tears there. Good
and bad? What the devil had he to do with sticking those labelling tags
upon what he or others did?


Bruce Standing was still in his office. He was a man who had won
another victory and yet one who had the taste of despair in his mouth.
Gallup's town was doomed; it was one of those little mountain towns
which had already outlived its period of usefulness and now with a man
like Timber-Wolf waging merciless war against it, Big Pine had its back
broken almost at the first savage blow struck. But Standing strode up
and down restlessly like a man broken by defeat rather than one whose
standards went flying on triumphantly; he knew that a new rival town,
his own town, was springing into being in a few hours; he had the brief
satisfaction of knowing that he was keeping an ancient promise and
striking a body blow from which there would be no recovery, making Big
Pine take the count and drop out of all men's consideration; he knew,
from having seen it many times, that pitiful spectacle which a dead and
deserted town presents; so, briefly, just as his kinsman was doing at
the same moment, he extracted what satisfaction he could from the hour.
He even had word sent to Gallup: "I am killing your town very much as
a man may kill an ugly snake. I shall see to it that goods are sold
cheaper here than at your store; there will be a better hotel here,
with a better shorter road leading to it. And I will build cabins as
fast as they are called for, to house deserters from your dying town.
And I will see to it that men from my town never set foot in your town.
This from me, Young Gallup: 'For the last time I have set foot upon
your dung heap. I'm through with you and the world is through with you.
You're dead and buried.'"

During the day, word came to him that several men and one girl had been
seen hastily occupied at the foot of the Red Cliffs; the girl Lynette;
one of the men, Deveril. And it seemed very clear to Standing that
Lynette had led Deveril and the others in hot haste to the Red Cliffs
only because she had misunderstood Mexicali Joe's directions, confused
by his mention of these cliffs where he had prospected last year.

"I'll go get them." Standing told himself a score of times. "Just as
soon as I know how to handle them. When I know how I can hurt him most
and her...."

Mexicali Joe swelled about the landscape all day like a bursting
balloon, a man swept up in a moment from a condition of less than
mediocrity to one, as Mexicali regarded it, of monumental magnificence
and the highest degree of earthly joy. Graham could not keep him out
of Standing's office; the second time he came in Timber-Wolf lifted
him upon his boot hurling him out through the door and promising him
seven kinds of ugly death if he ever came back. Whereupon Mexicali Joe,
shaking his head, went away without grumbling; for in the sky of his
adoration stood just two: God and Bruce Standing.

Graham was still laughing, when another man rode up to the door, and
Graham on the instant became alert and concerned. He hastened to
Standing, saying quickly:

"Mr. Deveril to see you. He has ridden his horse nearly to death. And I
don't like the look on his face."

"Show him in!" shouted Standing. "You fool ... don't you know he's the
one man in the world...."

Graham hurried out. Deveril, his face pale and hard, his eyes burning
as though the man were fever-ridden, came into the room. The door
closed after him.

"Well?" snapped Standing.

"Not so well, thanks," retorted Deveril with an attempt at his
characteristic inconsequential insolence. "Here's hoping the same to
you ... damn you!"

"If you've got anything to say, get it done with," commanded Standing
angrily.

"I'll say it," Deveril muttered. "But first I'll say this, though I
fancy it goes without saying: there is no man on earth I hate as I hate
you. As far as you and I are concerned I'd rather see you dead than
any other sight I'll ever see. And now, in spite of all that, I've come
to do you a good turn."

Standing scoffed at him, crying out: "I want none of your good turns; I
am satisfied to have your hate."

Deveril, with eyes which puzzled Timber-Wolf, was staring at him
curiously.

"Tell me, Bruce Standing," he demanded, "do you love her?"

"Love her?" cried Standing. "Rather I hate the ground she walks on!
She is your kind, Baby Devil; not mine." And he laughed his scorn of
her. But now there was no chiming of golden bells in that great volume
of laughter but rather a sinister ring like the angry clash of iron.
All the while Babe Deveril looked him straight in the eye ... and
understood!

"For once _you lie_! You love her and what is more ... and worse!...
she loves you! And that is why...."

"_Loves me?_ Are you drunk, man, or crazy? Loves me and leaves me for
you; leads you and your crowd to the Gulch, trying to stake on Joe's
claim, trying to...."

"She did not leave you for me! I took Taggart and Gallup to her, and
Taggart put her under arrest ... for shooting you! And she did not lead
us to the spot where she knew Joe's claim was; she made fools of us and
led us to the Red Cliffs, miles away!"

Standing's face was suddenly as tense as Deveril's, almost as white.

"She left a note; saying that she was going back to you...."

Deveril strode by him to a table on which lay some letter paper and
wrote slowly and with great care, laboring over each letter:


     I am going back to Babe Deveril.

     LYNETTE.


And then he threw the pencil down and stood looking at Standing. And he
saw an expression of bewilderment, and then one of amazement wiping it
out, and then a great light leaping into Standing's eyes.

"You made her go! You dragged her away! And you wrote that!"

Deveril turned toward the door.

"I have told you that she loves you. So it is for her happiness,
much as I hate you, that I have told you.... She, thinking that you
preferred gold to her, has just gone out on the down stage...."

"By the Lord, man," and now Standing's voice rang out joyously, clear
and golden once more, "you've done a wonderful thing to-day! I wonder
if I could have done what you are doing? By thunder, Babe Deveril, you
should be killed for the thing you did ... but you've wiped it out.
After this ... need there be hatred between us?"

He put out his hand. Deveril drew back and went out through the door.
His horse, wet with sweat and flecked with foam, was waiting for him.
As he set foot into the stirrup he called back in a voice which rang
queerly in Standing's ears:

"She doesn't know I wrote that. Unless it's necessary ... You see, I'd
like her to think as well...." He didn't finish, but rode away. And as
long as he was in sight he sat very erect in the saddle and sent back
for any listening ears a light and lively whistled tune.


The stage, carrying its one passenger came rocking and clattering about
the last bend in the grade where the road crosses that other road which
comes down from the mountains farther to the east, from the region
of Bruce Standing's holdings. The girl's figure drooped listlessly;
her eyes were dry and tired and blank with utter hopelessness. Long
ago the garrulous driver had given over trying to talk with her. Now
she was stooping forward, so that she saw nothing in all the dreary
world but the dusty dashboard before her ... and in her fancy, moving
across this like pictures on a screen, the images of faces ... Bruce
Standing's face when he had chained her; when he had cried out that he
loved her....

The driver slammed on his brakes, muttering; the wheels dragged; the
stage came to an abrupt halt. She looked up, without interest. And
there in the road, so close to the wheel that she could have put out a
hand and touched him, was Bruce Standing.

"Lynette!" he called to her.

She saw that he had a rifle in his hand; that a buckboard with a
restive span of colts was at the side of the road. The driver was
cursing; he understood that Standing, taking no chances, had meant to
stop him in any case.

"What's this?" he demanded. "Hold up?"

Standing ignored him. His arms were out; there was the gladdest look in
his eyes Lynette had ever seen in any man's; when he called to her he
sent a thrill like a shiver through her. He had come for her; he wanted
her....

"No!" she cried, remembering. "No! Drive on!"

"You bet your sweet life I'll drive on!" the driver burst out. And to
Standing: "Stand aside."

Then Standing put his hands out suddenly, dropping his rifle in the
road, and caught Lynette to him, lifting her out of her seat despite
her efforts to cling to the stage, and took up his rifle again, saying
sternly to the stage-driver:

"Now drive on!"

"No!" screamed Lynette, struggling against the one hand restraining
her ... and against herself! "He can't do this ... don't let him...."

But in the end she knew how it would be. The stage-driver was no man to
stand out against Bruce Standing ... she wondered if anywhere on earth
there lived a man to gainsay him when that light was in his eyes and
that tone vibrated in his voice.

"He's got the drop on me ... he'd drop me dead soon as not.... I'll go,
Miss; but I'll send back word...." And Lynette and Bruce Standing, in
the gathering dusk, were alone again in the quiet lands at the bases of
the mountains.

"Girl ... I did not know how I loved you until to-day!"

She whipped away from him, her eyes scornful.

"Love! You talk of love! And you leave me in the hands of those men
while you go looking for gold!"

"No," he said, "it wasn't that. I thought that you had no further use
for me; that you loved Deveril; that you had gone back to him; that you
were trying to lead him and the rest to Joe's gold; that...."

There was now no sign of weariness in a pair of gray eyes which flashed
in hot anger.

"What right had you to think that of me?" she challenged him. "That I
was a liar, breaking a promise I had made; and worse than a liar, to
betray a confidence? What right have you to think a thing like that,
Bruce Standing ... and talk to me of love!"

He could have told her; he could have quoted to her that message which
had been left behind, signed with her name. But, after all, in the end
he had Babe Deveril to think of, a man who had shown himself a man, who
had done his part for love of her, whose one reward if Bruce Standing
himself were a man, must lie in the meagre consolation that Lynette
held him above so petty an act as that one which he had committed. So
for a moment Standing was silent; and then he could only say earnestly:

"I am sorry, Lynette. I wronged you and I was a fool and worse. But
there were reasons why I thought that.... And after all we have
misunderstood each other; that is all. Joe's gold is still Joe's gold;
I have made it safe for him and not one cent of it is mine or will ever
be mine...."

"Nor do I believe that!" she cried. "Nor any other thing you may ever
tell me!"

"That, at least, I can make you believe." He was very stern-faced now
and began wondering if Deveril had been mad when he had told him that
Lynette loved him. How could Deveril know that? There was little enough
of the light of love in her eyes now. And yet....

"Are you willing to come back to headquarters with me?" he asked
gently. "There, at least, you can learn that I have told you the truth
about Mexicali Joe's gold. No matter how things go, girl, I don't want
you to think of me that I did a trick like that ... forgetting you to
go money-grabbing...."

"You can make me come," she said bitterly. "You have put a chain on me
before now. But you can never make me love you, Bruce Standing."

Now she saw in his face a look which stirred her to the depths; a look
of profound sadness.

"No," he said, "I'll never put chain on you again, girl; I'll never
lift my hand to make you do anything on earth; I would rather die than
force you to anything. But I shall go on loving you always. And now,"
and for the first time she heard him pleading! "is it so great a thing
that I ask? If you will not love me, at least I want you to think as
well of me as you can. That is only justice, girl; and you are very
just. If you will only come with me and learn from Mexicali Joe himself
that I have touched and shall touch no single ounce of his gold."

She knew that he was speaking truth; and yet she could not admit it
to him ... since she would not admit it to herself! And she wanted to
believe, and yet told herself that she would never believe. She was
glad that he was not dragging her back with him as she had been so
certain that he would ... and she did not know that she was not sorry.

"Will you do that one thing? I shall not try to hold you...."

"Yes," she said stiffly. And then she laughed nervously, saying in a
hard, suppressed voice: "What choice have I, after all? The stage has
gone and I have to go somewhere and find a stage again or a horse...."

"No. That is not necessary. If you will not come with me freely, I will
take you now where you wish; to overtake the stage."

And thus, when already it was hard enough for her, he unwittingly made
it harder. She wanted to go ... she did not want to go ... most of all
she did not want him to know what she wanted or did not want. She cried
out quickly:

"Let us go then! I don't believe you! And, if you dare let me talk
alone with Mexicali Joe, I shall know you for what you are!"


Lynette was in Bruce Standing's study. He had gone for Mexicali Joe.
She looked about her, seeing on all hands as she had seen during their
racing drive, an expression of the man himself. Here was a vital centre
of enormous activities; Standing was its very heart. The biggest man
she had ever known or dreamed of knowing; one who did big things;
one who was himself untrammelled by the dictates and conventions of
others. And in her heart she did believe every word that he spoke; and
thus she knew that he, this man among men, loved her!... And she loved
him! She knew that; she had known it ... how long? Perhaps with clear
definiteness for the first time while she spoke of him with Deveril,
yearning for his coming; certainly when she had started at the sight of
him at the stage wheel. So she held at last that it was for no selfish
mercenary gain that he had been so long coming to her, but rather
because he had lost faith in her, thinking ill of her. That was what
hurt; that was what held her back from his arms, since she would not
admit that he could love her truly and misdoubt her at the same time.
For certainly where one loved as she herself could love, one gave all,
even unto the last dregs of loyal, confident faith. How confident all
day she had been that he would come to her!

Lynette, restless, walked up and down, back and forth through the big
rooms, waiting. Her wandering eyes were everywhere ... upon only one
of the shining table tops was a scrap of paper. In her abstraction she
glanced at it. Her own name! Written as though signed to a note.

In a flash her quickened fancies pictured much of all that had
happened: Deveril to-day had told Standing she was going out on the
stage; Deveril had told Standing all that had happened ... because
Deveril, too, loved her and knew that she loved his kinsman. She
recalled now how Deveril had stopped a little while in camp after
Taggart had dragged her away. So Deveril had left this note behind? And
Standing knew now; he had said there were reasons why he had been so
sure she had gone to Deveril. She understood how now it would be with
him; Deveril had told him everything and he, accepting a rich, free
gift from the hand of a man he hated was not the man in turn to speak
ill of one who had striven to make restitution, though by speaking
the truth he might gain everything! These were men, these two; and to
be loved by two such men was like having the tribute of kings.... She
heard Standing at the door, bringing Mexicali Joe. There was a little
fire in the fireplace; she ran to it and dropped the paper into the
flames behind the big log. The door opened to Standing's hand. At his
heels she saw Mexicali Joe.

"No!" she cried, and he saw and marvelled at the new, shining look in
her eyes; a look which made him stop, his heart leaping as he cried out
wonderingly:

"Girl! oh, girl ... at last?"

"Don't bring Joe in! I don't want to talk with him; I want your word,
just yours alone, on everything!"

Now it was Mexicali Joe who was set wondering. For Standing, with a
sudden vigorous sweep of his arm, slammed the door in Joe's perplexed
face and came with swift eager strides to Lynette.

"It is I who have been of little faith and disloyal," she said softly.
"I was ungrateful enough to forget how you were big enough to take my
unproven word that it was not I who shot you, a thing I could never
prove! And yet I asked proof of you! I should have known all the time
that ... 'though it were ten thousand mile....'"

She was smiling now and yet her eyes were wet. She lifted them to his
that he might look down into them, through them into her heart.

"Let me say this ... first ..." she ran on hastily. "Babe Deveril saved
me the second time to-day from Taggart. And he told you where to find
me. I think that he has made amends."

"He wiped his slate clean," said Standing heartily. "Henceforth I am
no enemy of his. But it is not of Deveril now that we must talk. Girl,
can't you see...."

"Am I blind?" laughed Lynette happily.





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