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Title: Tumbleweeds

Author: Hal G. Evarts

Illustrator: W. H. D. Koerner

Release date: February 9, 2024 [eBook #72909]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Little, Brown, and Company

Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUMBLEWEEDS ***





TUMBLEWEEDS




By Hal G. Evarts

  THE CROSS PULL
  THE YELLOW HORDE
  THE PASSING OF THE OLD WEST
  THE BALD FACE: AND OTHER ANIMAL STORIES
  THE SETTLING OF THE SAGE
  FUR SIGN
  TUMBLEWEEDS




[Illustration: It was quite evident that all her thoughts centered
round the younger brother.

  FRONTISPIECE. _See page_ 54.




  TUMBLEWEEDS

  BY
  HAL G. EVARTS

  WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
  W. H. D. KOERNER

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON
  LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
  1923




  _Copyright, 1923_,
  BY HAL G. EVARTS

  _All rights reserved_

  Published January, 1923

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




TUMBLEWEEDS




TUMBLEWEEDS




I

  In all that vast expanse of country west of Fort Riley clear to the
  Sierras of California there are not over four hundred thousand acres
  of arable land.


This extract from McClelland’s report, later appearing as preface to
some fourteen volumes of Pacific Railroad explorations, evidently acted
as a direct challenge to the pioneering spirit of a country that was
young. Following immediately upon its publication, as if in a concerted
effort of refutation, the great westward trek across a continent set
in, the determined advance of a land-hungry horde intent upon seeking
out and settling that four hundred thousand acres of arable land; and
in the brief space of thirty years there were thirty million acres
under fence while the swarming multitude of hopeful settlers continued
to surge westward across the face of the earth.

Thus do even wise men frequently fail to vision the immensity of the
future which stretches forth ahead within the puny span of their own
remaining years.

Another few decades and old Joe Hinman, himself accounted a wise
man among his fellows, sat his horse on a little rise of ground
and lamented his own lack of foresight. Donald Carver, his younger
companion, gazed off across the flat where several riders held some
two thousand head of steers. Hinman had come with the vanguard of the
invaders and had watched succeeding waves of home seekers swarm past
on all the ancient trails, the bull trains stretching almost without
a break from the Missouri to the Colorado hills, when Cheyenne, Kiowa
and Comanche contested the advance at every crossing of the Republican
and the Smoky Hill, at the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and historic
Pawnee Rock; had watched the bull teams and the prairie schooner giving
way to freight cars that rattled past on steel rails which spanned a
continent. He had seen the rolling plains of Kansas, once constituting
the first reaches of the Great American Desert, lifted bodily into
statehood and wondrous fertility, so long since that younger men had
almost forgotten that their native State had ever been other than a
prosperous agricultural community. While the main tides of settlement
had swept on to the west and north, Hinman had turned aside and
traveled south on the Chisholm Trail till he reached a point where the
floods of home seekers were halted by some invisible barrier. There he
had settled and prospered, but even now, thirty years after driving his
first claim stakes through the prairie sod, that same barrier resisted
all advance. Just outside his dooryard a vast tract, sixty miles by
two hundred in extent, remained undeveloped and untouched. The land
was rich and beckoned temptingly to those who sought a scrap of ground
which might constitute a home, yet beyond Hinman’s holdings the virgin
sod extended to the far horizon with never a ribbon of smoke by day
or a twinkling window by night to indicate the friendly presence of
a settler’s cabin,--the Cherokee Strip, upon which the white man was
forbidden to settle by the terms of an ancient treaty. This great tract
had been set aside to serve as insulation between warring whites and
reds, its status still the same even though the necessity for such
insulation had been long since removed,--an empire lying dormant and
awaiting only the magic word which should strike off the shackles and
permit its broad miles to blossom into productiveness.

“There she lays, son,” Hinman said, waving an arm in a comprehensive
sweep toward the unowned lands. “Some day right soon they’ll open
her. Every land-hungry party in four States has his eye on the last
frontier and whenever she’s throwed open to settlement you’ll see one
hair-raising mad stampede. So if you’re going off somewheres, like I
heard it rumored, why I’d cancel the arrangements and sit tight.”

The younger man nodded without comment.

“Fortune always beckons from some place a long ways remote,” Hinman
rambled on. “When likely she’s roosting right at home, if only we’d
have a look. Now I quit Ohio as a youngster because there wasn’t any
land left open but hardwood swamp lands, which could be had for about a
dollar an acre, but I couldn’t see its value at a dollar a mile. To-day
that Ohio swamp land is selling round two hundred an acre while what
ground I’ve got under crop out here would average right at thirty and
raw grassland not over three or four.”

“But owning the most part of two countries,” Carver commented, “you can
maybe worry along.”

“Likely,” Hinman confessed. “But that’s not the point. I could have
stayed right at home with those swamp lands and without ever exerting
myself, except maybe to keep entertained with a brace of coon hounds,
I could have growed into more wealth by considerable than what I’ve
accumulated out here by steady work. That’s the real point; so it
appears that my leaving there was sheer lack of foresight. So it’s
likely that your best chance to get ahead and lay up an honest dollar
is by staying right here instead of stampeding off somewheres. That’s
the real reason I sent for you.”

“Since I’ve never even considered leaving, and you well aware of it,”
said Carver, grinning, “then the real reason you sent for me was to
engage me to perform something you didn’t want to do yourself--which in
turn is related to the possibility of my accumulating an honest dollar.
We’ve rambled all the way from timbered swamp land on down to the
surrounding short grass. What sort of country lays beyond? My curiosity
is fairly foaming over.”

Hinman regarded him quizzically and Carver bore the scrunity
undisturbed. The older man knew that Carver was dependable; that once
committed he would follow any mission to its termination and defend the
financial interests of his employer with every resource at his command.
It was only in his own affairs that he evidenced supreme carelessness.
Older men forgave his irresponsibility in that quarter and accorded him
a certain measure of respect for the reason that even in the midst of
some bit of recklessness he retained an underlying sense of balance
and proportion. And he had worked intermittently for old Joe Hinman for
the past twelve years.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do it myself,” Hinman denied, reverting
to Carver’s mild accusation. “It’s only that it wouldn’t look right
on the surface. Now whatever property is down in the Strip is legally
non-existent, you might say, and consequently untaxable,” thereby
disproving his oft-lamented lack of foresight. “And it’s drawing right
close to the first of March.”

“So you want me to move a thousand head of steers across the line and
hold ’em till after you’ve been assessed.” Carver hazarded.

“Two thousand, son,” Hinman corrected. “Two thousand head. You couldn’t
hold ’em in the quarantine belt for long without getting jumped, but
you know the boss of every outfit off to the south and you could maybe
trade deals with one of them. You’ll know how. It’ll save me taxes on
two thousand head and give me a few weeks’ free grass. That much for me
and a thousand nice dollars for you if you put it across.”

“An hour after dark I’ll be shoving those cows across the line,” Carver
promised. “Meantime you might advance a hundred. Unfortunately I’m
just out of funds.”

“Unfortunately,” said Hinman, “you’re just always out.” He counted off
the money. “You’ve worked for me on and off ever since you was big
enough to claw your way up onto a horse and on some occasions you’ve
exercised such fair average judgment in looking after my affairs that
I’ve wondered why on all occasions you was such a poor hand to look
after your own.”

“I’ve been so taken up with your business that I’ve sort of let my own
interests drift along,” Carver explained.

       *       *       *       *       *

“You’re right handy at doing things for me,” Hinman resumed. “But
when it comes to doing anything for yourself you’re somewhat the most
tinkering, trifling specimen I’ve come acrost. You really ought to
settle on some one job and stick at it.”

“That’s my one favorite motto,” Carver confessed. “Stick to your
bush--and be exhibited among the vegetables.”

He turned his eye upon a tumbleweed that raced madly past before
the wind. The dried skeleton was of the general size and shape of a
pumpkin. Two more of these discontented wraiths of the prairies hurtled
past.

“Now there goes a vegetable with ambitions,” said Carver. “Every winter
the tumbleweed tribe stages a protest against being mere plants rooted
forever to one spot.” He chanted a few of the numberless verses of a
prairie song:

  “Our size and shape is similar,”
  Said the tumbleweed to the pumpkin.
  “I’ll run you a race from here to there
  And all the way back again.

  “I’m a wild free blade of the open,
  The spirit of all unrest.
  I may end up in some worse place
  But I’m going to make the test.”

  “And I’m the soul of solid content,”
  Said the pumpkin to the weed.
  “Rather than take any chance at all
  I’ll stay here and go to seed.”

  But I’d rather be a traveling weed
  Than a stationary squash.

“I know,” Hinman said. “You’re a pure-bred tumbleweed and no mistake.
But most folks follow one business, and let the rest alone.”

“And it’s my observation that most folks are dissatisfied with what
they’re working at but keep on doing it the rest of their natural lives
just to try and vindicate their judgment,” Carver said. “Now if I
don’t settle on one pursuit there’ll never be any reason for me to be
discontented with my choice.”

The old man considered this bit of philosophy.

“If you ever decide to risk a mistake I’ll maybe help you out to a mild
extent,” he said, “provided you come through with this present little
errand I’m sending you on.”

Carver thanked him, pocketed the bills which constituted the advance
upon his venture, and headed his horse off to the east. As he rode he
reviewed all possible motives underlying Hinman’s proposal. Tax-dodging
on a smaller scale was no unusual thing along the line, but he was
morally certain that this motive, though the purported object of the
trip, was entirely secondary in Hinman’s considerations.

“The taxes won’t amount to half the expenses of the trip,” Carver
reflected. “Now just what is he aiming at?”

He had reached no satisfactory solution when, an hour later, the squat
buildings of Caldwell loomed before him. He dismissed the problem
temporarily. As he rode down the wide main thoroughfare it seemed
that the hand of time had been turned back two decades to the days of
Abilene, Hayes and Dodge, when each of those spots in turn had come
into its brief day of glory as the railroad’s end and the enviable
reputation of being the toughest camp on earth. In their day all
those towns had eclipsed the wildest heights of wickedness attained
by mushroom mining camps of lurid fame, then had passed on into the
quiet routine of permanent respectability as the trading centers of
prosperous agricultural communities. But little Caldwell stood unique,
as if she were a throwback to an earlier day, nestling in the edge
of a state where prohibition and anti-gambling regulations had long
prevailed, yet her saloons stood invitingly open by day and night and
the clatter of chips and the smooth purr of the ivory ball were never
silent in the halls of chance; for just beyond lay No Man’s Land,
the stamping ground of all those restless spirits who chafed against
restrictive laws that were not of their own making, and wide-open
Caldwell reaped the harvest of their free-flung dollars.

Groups of tall-hatted, chap-clad men hailed Carver from the sidewalk
as he rode down the wide main street. Scores of saddled horses drowsed
at the hitch rails and ranchers’ families rattled past in buckboards
drawn by half-wild ponies. The street was thronged with blanketed
Indians, for the Government beef issue was parcelled out semi-monthly
on the little hill south of Caldwell and every two weeks the whole
Cherokee nation made the pilgrimage to receive the largess of the
Great White Father. As if to complete the illusion that he had been
transported back to the days of Dodge and Abilene, Carver could make
out the low-hanging pall of dust which marked the slow progress of a
trail herd moving up from the south along the old Chisholm Trail, a
thoroughfare now paralleled by the railroad that pierced the Cherokee
Strip, but which was still available to those who would save freight
charges and elected instead to follow the old-time method of pastoral
transportation in marketing their droves.

Carver left his horse in a lean-to shed in rear of a two-room frame
house in the outskirts of town. The plot of ground on which it stood,
consisting of three corner lots, had come into his possession the
preceding winter through the medium of a poker hand. Instead of
disposing of the tract for ten dollars--the amount of chips which he
had risked against it--it had pleased him to retain it and construct
thereon the little board house, performing the work himself during
leisure hours.

He headed for the swinging doors of the Silver Dollar, hopeful of
finding congenial companionship even though this was the wrong time
of day for any considerable activity within doors. A group of men sat
along the rear wall and conversed in listless tones. Here were those
upon whom fortune had failed to smile the preceding night, waiting for
some kindred spirit who, more favored than themselves, might express a
willingness to relieve their temporary distress.

“It’s high noon and I’ll wager not a man present has even had his
breakfast,” Carver greeted. “But the rescue squad is here to provide
nourishment for the losers.”

He tendered a crisp bill to Alf Wellman.

“Fill the boys with food,” he invited. “And in the meantime, while
they’re deciding what to order--” and he motioned toward the polished
bar.

Wellman jerked a casual thumb in the direction of the three men in the
group who were unknown to Carver.

“These are the Lassiter boys,” he announced by way of introduction.
“Not bad after you get to knowing ’em.”

The three Lassiters were an oddly assorted crew; Milt, the eldest, a
gaunt, dark man who spoke but seldom; Noll, a sandy, self-assertive and
unprepossessing individual; while Bart, by several years their junior,
was a big blond youngster whose genial grin cemented Carver’s instant
friendship.

Noll Lassiter hitched from his chair, his eyes resting on the bank
note in Wellman’s hand, and as he attained his feet a slight lurch
testified to the fact that even if he had not found food during the
morning hours he had at least found drink. Being thus fortified his
desire for food was now uppermost.

“Let’s eat,” he said.

“Restrain yourself,” the younger brother admonished. “The gentleman’s
giving a party. Besides it’s downright harmful to eat breakfast on an
empty stomach--and mine is absolutely vacant.”

“Worst thing you could do,” Wellman seconded. “It will show up on a man
if he keeps at it.”

“I expect there have been folks tried it and went right on living till
they got kicked by a horse or died some other sort of a natural death,”
said Carver. “But what’s the use of taking chances?”

Noll restrained his urge for food while the host paid for two rounds,
then reverted to his original contention.

“And now,” said he, “let’s eat.”

“Not until I’ve purchased a return round for our old friend Carver,”
Bart dissented.

“How’re you going to manage it without a dime in your pockets?” Noll
demanded.

“You ought to be familiar with the state of my pockets,” the blond
youth returned, “having conducted a thorough search of them and
purloined therefrom my last ten spot before I was awake. Why didn’t you
reserve two bits for breakfast before you tossed it off on the wheel if
you’re so damn near starved?”

He remained with Carver while the others followed Wellman through the
swinging side door that led into the adjoining restaurant.

“And now, since Pete here,” said Bart, indicating the barkeeper,
“steadfastly refuses to open a charge account, I’ll have to do some
financing. Lend me a couple of quarts of your very worst,” he wheedled.
“Not charge, you understand, but just lend ’em to me for a period of
three minutes. Something round a dollar a quart.”

The bartender selected a brace of black bottles and shoved them across
to Lassiter who moved with them to a rear door that opened on an
alley. Several blanketed figures prowled this rear thoroughfare and
the copper-hued wards of the Government converged upon the man in
the doorway. He exchanged the two quarts for two five-dollar bills,
thereby becoming eligible for a protracted stay within the walls of the
penitentiary.

“Now we can start even,” he announced, paying Pete for the initial
stock and retaining the surplus. “Quick turns and small profits is my
rule of life.”

“One day you’ll acquire a new rule--long years and no profits,”
predicted the white-aproned philosopher behind the bar. “Unless you
learn to transact that sort of business by the dark of the moon.”

“Necessity,” Lassiter advanced in extenuation of his lack of caution.
“Suppose you set us out a sample of something a few shades more
palatable than what we just peddled to the old chief.”

The two pooled their resources and pursued their casual carefree way,
all sense of responsibility discarded for the moment, as one might
shed an uncomfortable garment with the idea of donning it again at
some future time. The youthful Lassiter, who deplored all things
serious while at play, found in Carver a delightful companion who
seemed sufficiently light-minded and irresponsible to satisfy the most
exacting. The wheel in the Silver Dollar, the faro bank in the Senate
and the crap layout in the Gilded Eagle, each contributed modestly to
their swelling bank roll in response to a few casual bets. As they
left this last-named resort Bart halted suddenly. Carver glanced up
to determine the cause of this abrupt halt. Freel, a deputy United
States marshal, had just passed, and Carver, recalling the incident
of the two black bottles, concluded that Lassiter had decided against
meeting the Federal officer at just that moment lest the news of
the transaction had reached him. Freel walked with a girl, his hand
clasping her arm familiarly as he piloted her through the crowd. Bart
frowned after the couple.

“I wouldn’t let the valiant marshal fret you,” Carver counselled. “I
don’t know much about him except that he strikes a flat note in me,
but I suspect he’s a pussy-footer and real harmless. I’ve heard things
about Freel.”

“That’s what I know,” said Lassiter. “So’ve I; and it’s the things I’ve
heard which keeps him on my mind. One day I’ll have to slip my twine
on him and canter off across a few thousand acres of country with him
dangling along behind.”

“Tell me when,” said Carver. “I’ll dab my noose on his off leg and
bounce my horse off the opposite direction like we was contending for
the biggest piece of a turkey’s wishbone. If half I hear is true he’s
got it coming and folks will hail us as public benefactors.”

Twice within the next hour Carver noticed Noll Lassiter conversing
with Freel. It was evident, that, whatever Bart’s grievance against
the marshal, the feeling was not shared by the elder brother. The
mid-afternoon crowd had gathered in the Silver Dollar by the time
Carver returned to the starting place. Men banked deep round the
roulette layout as it was whispered about that Carver and Bart Lassiter
were winning heavily from the bank. The professional chant of lookout
and croupier rose above the hum of conversation as the ivory ball
purred smoothly round the wheel of chance. Noll Lassiter shouldered his
way through the crowd and stationed himself between the two favorites
of fortune.

“Luck’s with us,” he genially proclaimed thereby identifying himself
with the winnings. “We’ll break this wheel between the three of us.
She’s running our way strong.”

Carver suddenly realized that the pair had become a trio as Noll
supplied himself with chips from the accumulation before the other two.
When these had joined their fellows in the check rack he appropriated
a fresh supply. Carver was conscious of a growing dislike for this
uninvited partner. He tapped Noll’s hand with a forefinger as the man
reached for a third stack of chips.

“Try keeping it in your pocket,” he mildly advised. “It’s as active
after chips as a sand rat after a beetle; and it makes me restless.”

“Half of these chips belong to Bart,” Noll insisted. But this sudden
assumption of the close-knit bond of brotherhood failed to rouse any
corresponding enthusiasm in the younger Lassiter.

“You’re blasting our luck,” he asserted. “Not to say annoying us. Take
yourself off somewheres.”

Noll, however, declined to heed this bit of counsel. Bart and Carver
pushed their chips across the board and cashed in.

“Cheerful companion, Noll is, when he’s packing a skinful,” Bart
commented as the doors of the Silver Dollar closed behind them. “And
he’s equally genial when he’s sober.”

“Offhand I’d pass unfavorable judgment on your relative,” Carver
confessed. “I don’t see much family resemblance. How come you’re
brothers?”

“Half-brothers,” Bart amended. “We had the same father. I came along
a dozen years late. Spoiled younger son, you know. Leastways I was
always spoiled in spots where Noll had been working on me. When I
turned sixteen I set out to spoil Noll. Since his convalescence he’s
had a notion I might declare another open season on the dove of peace
so we get along nowadays in regular family style. Say; now since we’re
rolling in wealth you wouldn’t mind if I held out twenty in case
fortune failed us? It’s not quite the thing to do but----”

“Bury it,” Carver agreed, waving his hesitancy aside. “Tuck it away
somewhere.” He knew his man and was certain that the twenty was
destined to fill some urgent necessity. “We’ll never even miss a little
piece like that.”

Lassiter led the way to a rooming house above a store and turned into
a dimly lighted room on one side of the narrow hall. Articles of man’s
attire lay scattered about the place.

“The three of us headquarter here when we’re in town,” Bart explained.
“I’ll plant these two tens in a dresser drawer.”

He opened the drawer in question and Carver, standing just to his
right, found himself gazing down upon a scrap of black cloth from which
two eyeholes stared blankly back at him. Lassiter placed the two gold
pieces beneath the old newspaper with which the drawer was carpeted,
closing it without comment, and they returned to the street and sought
the wheel in the Gilded Eagle. For a time fortune smiled on them. Then
a reverse tide set in. At the end of an hour each one shoved a stiff
bet upon the board. There was the usual brief hush as the ball neared
the end of its spin.

“The even losses to the odd and the red defeats the black,” the
croupier chanted. “The middle column pays the gambler and the others
pay the house. Place your bets for another turn.” He twisted the wheel
and snapped the ivory marble in the reverse direction. “The little
ivory ball--she spins! the flitting pill of fortune. Off again on the
giddy whirl.”

He glanced expectantly at the two chief players but they had explored
their pockets and failed to invoice sufficient resources with which to
purchase a white chip between the two of them.

“Odd how rapid a man can shed it if he sets out to exert himself,”
Carver commented.

Lassiter grinned and turned suddenly toward the door. It occurred to
Carver that the youth was starting forth to retrieve that twenty-dollar
reserve which was cached in the dresser drawer.

“Don’t you,” he admonished; but Lassiter had passed out the door.

Carver made a move to follow but met Carl Mattison, town marshal,
coming in.

“You recollect that extra saddle,” Carver greeted without parley. “The
one you was admiring, with all those silver trappings. If you still
admire it fifty dollars’ worth----”

“Sold,” said the marshal and counted out the money. “Send it round to
my room above the Boston Store.”

“I would,” said Carver, “only my delivery boy, the shiftless little
wart, is out somewhere spinning his top. Here’s the key to my shack.
You saunter past and collect it.”

Carver headed for Lassiter’s room. The door stood ajar and as he
entered he observed a stooping figure whose hand was busily exploring
the drawer of the dresser.

“We won’t need that twenty,” Carver said. “Let her ride where she is.”

The figure straightened and whirled to face him in the dim light. It
was Noll Lassiter, not Bart.

“Where’s Bart?” Carver asked.

“Haven’t seen him,” Noll returned.

“Then where’s Bart’s twenty dollars?” Carver inquired. “I mistrust that
you’ve got it--and I want it. S’pose you hand it over.”

“Make it out of here!” Noll ordered. “This is my room and I don’t want
you in it.”

“Someway you haven’t inspired me with any ardent fancy,” Carver stated.
“Right at present the feeling is mild, but it will grow acute if you
keep exploring in that drawer for Bart’s last twenty.”

Lassiter made a swift move behind him but his arms fell back at his
sides as Carver’s gun was jammed suddenly against his floating ribs.

“Tut, tut,” Carver admonished. “You’re way too awkward for that sort of
thing. Sometime you’ll do that and some excitable soul will shoot you
three or four times while you’re starting your wind-up.”

He removed Noll’s weapon and tossed both it and his own upon the bed.

“Now we can converse at our ease until Bart comes,” he said.

But Lassiter, angered beyond precaution, jumped for him the instant he
relinquished the weapons, and being heavier than Carver he sought to
bear him down by sheer weight. Carver rocked his head with two solid
smashes but Noll sought only to come to grips where he could exert his
strength, clutching at his opponent instead of returning his blows.
They fought in cramped quarters and Carver could not step to either
side lest he should give Lassiter access to the two guns reposing on
the bed. The huge paws clamped on his shoulders and Lassiter crushed
him back against the dresser. Carver elevated one knee between them,
planted his boot against the other’s paunch and propelled him violently
doorward. With a single step he retrieved his gun with intent to
discourage Lassiter’s return, but he had no need of it. The big man’s
head collided forcibly with the door jamb and he sprawled in a limp
heap just outside in the narrow corridor.

Bart Lassiter, just mounting the stairway, witnessed this strange exit
of his relative. He peered inside and discovered Carver, so he entered
and seated himself on the edge of the bed, twisting a cigarette while
he sought to reconcile the evidence before his eyes with the mental
picture of the empty room as he had left it not five minutes past.

“Incidentally, there seems to be a corpse on the threshold,” he
presently observed. “What did it die of?”

“General malignancy that set in right after birth and just now came to
a head,” Carver diagnosed. “He was prospecting for your cache when I
arrived.”

“He’d already located it,” Bart stated. “It was gone when I came up.
Likely he came back to hunt for more as I went down, and your trails
converged, sort of. Wellman said you’d just turned up the stairs, so I
came on back.”

He crossed over to inspect the sprawled figure in the hallway.

“I’d say he was totally defunct,” he reported; but as if to refute this
assertion Noll stirred an arm and grunted. “Unfortunately resuscitation
is already setting in,” Bart revised his statement. “Let’s be off
before he opens one eye and tries to borrow ten.”

An hour later the proceeds derived from the sale of the saddle had
faded in the face of the bank’s per cent and their finances were
totally exhausted except for a few small coins in Carver’s pocket.
Lassiter leaned rather heavily against the bar in the Silver Dollar and
straightened himself with an effort.

“It’s time for me to dangle,” he announced. “Hate to break up the party
and all that sort of thing, but I’m overdue right now. Meet you here in
an hour.”

He proceeded toward the door which opened into the adjoining restaurant
but Carver overhauled him while he was yet some ten feet from his goal.

“Now don’t you go trickling out on me,” he reproved. “I’ll be gone in
an hour--riding off for three weeks. Stay with me till then and we’ll
both move out together.”

Lassiter turned uncertainly and Carver, looking past him, discovered
that the swinging door into the restaurant stood half-open. The young
girl framed in the doorway was gazing straight into his eyes. Oddly
enough his first thought took the form of an intense desire to expend
large sums of money in buying things for her, this impulse coupled
with a swift regret that such amounts as he wished to squander were
not for the moment available. The eyes that looked back into his were
gray eyes, bordering on blue; and he gathered that they regarded him
with a mixture of doubt and pity. He straightened resentfully, never
having been doubted and refusing to be pitied, flooded with a sense
of having been detected in some bit of wickedness. For the first time
in his life his own eyes dropped before the direct gaze of another’s
yet in his whole past career there was not one deed for which he felt
any particular regret or shame. He lifted his eyes again with a hint
of defiance, but found himself staring at the blank swinging door; in
that split-second of averted glance the vision had disappeared, leaving
him with a vague impression of its unreality,--and with a pronounced
disinclination for continuing the party. Lassiter had not seen, and
Carver dispelled the blond youth’s hesitation.

“Maybe we’d better call it a day,” he said. “See you when I get back
from the Strip.”

Carver was conscious of a distaste for his surroundings, once the door
had closed behind his companion. These carousals in town always palled
on him in the end, giving way to the urge to straddle a horse and be
off through the clean outdoors while the wind fanned the fumes from
his head, but heretofore this state of mind had come about through
gradual transition instead of descending upon him in a single second as
had been the case to-day.

He gravitated to the roulette wheel through force of habit and risked
his handful of small coins, playing absently and placing his bets
without care or consideration. Now just why, he wondered, had he been
struck with a wild wish to buy things for a girl he had never glimpsed
before in his life. He was not conscious that she had been shabbily
clothed, for to save his immortal soul he could not have testified to
the color, texture or state of preservation of one single item of her
attire, but someway he felt that she was needing things and he wanted
to see that these things were provided. He cashed in his few remaining
chips and the banker handed him a single silver dollar in return.




II


Carver repaired to the shack to retrieve his horse and as he rode back
through town he observed a group round the town well in the center of
the wide main street. Mattison had laid aside his personal pursuits and
had donned his official rôle of town marshal, in which capacity he was
instructing Bart Lassiter in no uncertain terms as to the impropriety
of watering his horse from the oaken bucket attached to the well rope.

“Water him from the trough,” he ordered.

“After all those Cherokee ponies have been dipping their noses in it?”
Bart demanded. “Not this horse.”

“That bucket is for folks,” the marshal patiently explained.

“An’ this horse is folks,” Lassiter insisted. He continued to extend
the brimming bucket horseward with his left hand. The spectators
shifted, recalling that Mattison’s predecessor had fallen in a street
fight near this same well. There was no ill-feeling between the two
men, but neither of them would back down publicly under pressure.
Carver glanced aside as a voice called Bart’s name. The girl of the
Silver Dollar was peering from a window above a store, her gaze riveted
on the group at the well.

“Here’s two of my friends working up a grievance over well water,”
Carver said, dropping from his horse. “Wherever did the pair of you
acquire this sudden interest in it? I’m surprised at you.”

“If this party’s a friend of yours, why you take him,” said Mattison.
“He won’t mind me. Let him water his horse till the well goes dry.”

“No such thing,” Lassiter gracefully declined. “I wouldn’t think of
letting the critter slosh his muzzle in the town bucket.”

The marshal moved off and Carver reflected that the girl’s sudden
appearance in the doorway of the Silver Dollar had been occasioned by
Bart Lassiter’s failure to fulfill his appointment. It also accounted
for Bart’s hesitation as they had stepped out of the Golden Eagle
earlier in the day. He had halted to avoid meeting the girl, not to
avoid Freel, as Carver had previously supposed; and Bart’s grievance
against Freel rose from this same source, for undoubtedly the girl who
was being piloted down the street by the marshal at the moment of their
exit was the same who had later stirred Carver so strangely by her
unexpected appearance in the doorway.

“A lady was calling your name from a window a minute back,” he said.

“Likely it was Molly,” Bart returned. “That’s who that ten spot was
destined for--the one Noll lifted first. That twenty I planted later
would also have found its way to her except for Noll. She’s a sweet
kid, Molly, but she’s worried sick every minute I’m out of sight.”

Carver was conscious of a sense of irritation toward his friend, a
vague resentment at this implied familiarity between the boy and the
lady of the doorway.

“Then I wouldn’t be letting her wait around,” he reproved. “Damned if I
would.”

“But a man can’t tag his sister every living second,” Bart
expostulated. “I ask you now!”

“No,” said Carver. “Maybe not.” His irritation had evaporated. “But if
she was my sister I’d put in considerable time with her.”

The brother grinned unrepentantly.

“All right; you do that,” he urged. “Maybe she’ll take to worrying
about you instead of losing sleep over me. Appears to me like a nice
arrangement for all hands concerned.”

The girl appeared suddenly beside Lassiter and rested a hand on his arm.

“Put up your horse and stay here with me,” she urged.

“Can’t, Molly,” Bart declined. “I promised the boys I’d go and they’re
waiting now. We’re due to help Crowfoot gather a little bunch of beef
stuff to-morrow and we’ll have to ride all night if we make Turkey
Creek by morning.”

The girl turned to Carver.

“Thanks for interceding with your friend the marshal,” she said. “But
please go now. You’ve had Bart to yourself all day.”

Carver nodded assent, mounted and rode off down the street. As he
passed the Silver Dollar he felt the single coin in his pocket.

“That’s what I’m capitalized at,” he said. “Just one little measly
silver dollar. That’s my invoice. This morning I could have added a
horse, a house and an extra saddle to the statement. Now I’m out the
saddle and owe Hinman a sum sufficient to offset the value of both
horse and house. I’d sell under the hammer for a single dollar bill.
The lady read my face value at a glance and dismissed me offhand
without another look.”

He saw the two elder Lassiter brothers riding south at the next street
intersection. It was quite dark when he cleared the town and as he rode
on through the night he was conscious of a mild dissatisfaction. He
drew forth his last coin and addressed it.

“I’ve rode into town with a many a dollar on me,” he said. “But this is
about the first time I ever rode out and packed one away with me. That
shows I’m growing more conservative right along. You must be a lucky
little devil or else you wouldn’t have stayed with me till I got out of
town.” He slipped the coin back into his pocket. “Little lonely dollar,
you must mount up to a million.”

He heard the low rumble of animal voices and knew that Hinman’s cows
were being held on the bed ground somewhere just ahead. The old man
greeted him as he rode up.

“I’m sending Bradshaw and four others with you,” he announced. “One of
the boys is holding the pack outfit back behind. He’ll follow. I’ll
help you get ’em on their feet and moving.”

The men spread out at intervals to the north of the herd, riding along
its edge and crowding the cows on the near fringe to their feet. They
worked cautiously, for any slight commotion of an unusual nature,
the weird flap of a garment or any cry too startling, might serve to
throw a few cows into a panic which would be swiftly communicated to
the rest and put the whole herd off the bed ground in a mad stampede.
Their chief concern was to prevent a disastrous night run. The affair
was skilfully handled and the near fringe of cows rose reluctantly,
crowded back through the ranks of their reclining fellows and raising
them in turn till eventually the whole herd was up and drifting south.

The moon rose sharp and clear as they crossed into the Strip and for
hours they forged slowly ahead, their course a trifle south of west.
When they had covered ten miles the forward drift of the herd was
arrested and the tired cows bedded down at once.

“From now on they’re in your hands, son,” Hinman said to Carver. “I’ll
back any deal you make with the outfits off to the south, so play her
the best you know.”

He turned his horse back toward the State line and left Carver to solve
the problem as best he might. Their present stand was in the quarantine
belt, a strip some miles wide which paralleled the State line; this
to protect the stock of the Kansas cowmen from Texas fever and other
contagious afflictions so prevalent among the trail herds brought up
from the south. All southern cattle must be held in this quarantine
area until declared free of all disease before proceeding on their
northward course to market. This was the off-season for the pastoral
transportation of trail herds from the Texas cow country, and the only
official intervention against which Carver must guard was the possible
appearance of one of the infrequent cavalry patrols sent out from old
Fort Darlington on the southern extremity of the Strip.

The unowned lands were tenanted only by a few big cow outfits whose
owners had made satisfactory arrangements with the Cherokees,
paying their tribute in the shape of grazing fees, a custom so long
established that it was recognized by Federal authorities, and
government agents now collected the money and passed it on to the
territory tribes.

Carver stood his turn on first guard and as he rode round the herd he
pondered the problem in hand and sought for a solution which would
give him an insight into Hinman’s purpose. It was not so much from the
authorities but from the common themselves that he might expect prompt
interference. Those who leased range in the Strip did not often wait
upon the slow process of official intervention when outside brands
encroached upon their interests but took the law into their own hands
at once. Hinman was well aware of that condition, Carver reflected. He
circled the herd and sang to soothe his charges on the bed ground. Off
across he could hear the voice of another night guard raised in song.
He produced his one last coin and studied it in the moonlight.

“Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a million,” he chanted.
“And we’ll mount the first step upward if only I can fathom what
Hinman expects of me. He don’t care a dime about saving taxes on
this bunch, and he knows that I can see the costs will outweigh the
profits two to one even if everything goes through without a quiver.
He and Nate Younger, while they get along personal, have been whetting
their tomahawks for each other as far back as I can remember. Now he
leads us down here due north of the center of old Nate’s leases and
stresses the point that I can maybe trade deals with any outfit off to
the south--and Nate the only possible one I could deal with from this
point. What time I haven’t worked for Hinman, I’ve been working for
Nate, and Old Joe knows that Nate’s the best friend I’ve got outside
himself. Now what’s he aiming at?”

His shift on guard duty was half over before he found the slightest ray
of light on the problem.

“Joe must know that Nate will pounce down on us right off,” he mused.
“If they open the Strip for settlement, like Joe predicts, then Younger
will be forced out of the game. Now just why does Hinman provide him
with this opportunity for a big final disturbance with all the odds on
Nate’s side? He couldn’t have done it accidental and it appears more
and more like he’s deliberately throwing himself wide open.”

His mind traveled back over the events of the day and settled upon
the scene which had transpired near the town well just prior to his
departure.

“There now,” he suddenly remarked. “That’s sure enough the answer. Bart
and Mattison didn’t want to carry that altercation to a finish but
neither one would back down with folks looking on. These two stubborn
old pirates are likely in a similar frame of mind. It’s always seemed
to me someway, that they didn’t either one feel half so hostile toward
the other as they made it appear. Joe’s giving Nate one final chance to
show his hand--to take a whack at him or quit, hoping to cancel this
old feud before Nate’s crowded out. He didn’t send me down here to keep
out of trouble but shoved me right into it, knowing I’d do my best to
make it as light as possible when it came. That’s all the idea I’ve got
to work on.”

The men breakfasted in the first light of day and the cows were allowed
to scatter through the breaks on the far side of the creek.

“You boys hold ’em within fair limits,” Carver instructed Bradshaw.
“I’ll join you up here this evening. If a patrol should jump you by any
off chance, you just explain that you’re driving them down to the Half
Diamond H and laid over here a day to rest them.”

“They’d be sure to believe us,” Bradshaw commented skeptically. “Old
Nate Younger wouldn’t let a Kansas cow graze on the Half Diamond H for
the price of it. Leastways not one of Hinman’s.”

“He’s maybe changed his mind,” said Carver. “I’ll ride down and see.”

He headed for the home ranch of the Half Diamond H, located on a branch
of Cabin Creek some miles above that stream’s confluence with the Salt
Fork of the Arkansas. Younger met him halfway, a rider having already
reported the presence of the herd.

“Now just what are you doing with a bunch of Joe Hinman’s cows in the
quarantine strip and messing along the edge of my range?” he demanded.
“You’ve rode for me on enough different occasions to know better than
that.”

“They just came fogging down here of their own accord,” Carver
testified. “And I came after them.”

“I’ll see that you get plenty of help when it comes to running them
back,” Younger offered. He waved an arm toward a group of approaching
riders. “Here come my boys now. I’ll throw ’em in behind those cows
and jam them back across the line and scatter ’em over the whole west
half of Kansas; or else take charge and hold ’em till I can get a
detachment sent up from Fort Darlington to keep the whole mangy layout
in quarantine till they’re fined more’n their market price. I’ll----”

“I wouldn’t adopt either one of those courses you just mentioned Nate,”
Carver counselled. “If a patrol jumped us I was going to proclaim that
Joe was short of range and that you, being an old friend of his, had
volunteered to run this bunch on your leases till the grass greened up
next month. That was my idea.”

“I’ve got another idea that beats yours all to hell,” Younger retorted.
“About fifteen years back a bunch of my stuff drifted off in a storm
and fed out a few sections of Joe Hinman’s land that had blowed clear
of snow. He thought I’d shoved ’em on there to eat him out. This is the
first real good chance I’ve had to play even for what shape he left
those cows of mine in after hazing ’em at a run through a foot of snow.
What I’ll do to this bunch of Box T steers will be sufficient.”

He motioned his grinning riders to fall in behind him as he headed up
country with Carver.

“Then it does look as if I’d soon be out of a job,” Carver said, “if
you go and mess up my detail. Maybe you’d take me on for the summer.”

“You was top hand for me once,” Younger returned. “And you could be
again if you’d only stay at it. Anyway, I’ll put you on for the summer.”

“This season will likely see the last big round-up of all history,”
Carver predicted. “And I want to be part of it. I’d sort of planned to
go in with your wagon. I guess this is the last. The order is out to
comb every hoof from the unowned lands.”

The old man’s face clouded. Two years before all cowmen had been
ordered to clear their stock from the Cherokee Strip. They had grimly
refused, and now the order had been issued again.

“They mean business this time,” Carver predicted. “There’ll be cavalry
patrols riding to keep an eye on the round-up, likely, and make sure
that everything’s gathered and shoved outside. There’ll be upwards of
two hundred thousand cows collected and marketed this summer in order
to clear the Strip.”

“Maybe you’re right, son,” Younger said. “It’s beginning to look that
way. You don’t want to miss the round-up. The likes of it will never
be seen again on this old footstool. All wiped out in a single season.
It ain’t right. It just can’t be right.”

The old man’s thoughts strayed from the immediate matter in hand, that
of evening the old score with Hinman, and he nodded abstractedly to the
comments of his younger companion. He was possessed of cows in plenty
and if forced to market them he could cash in for a fortune; but this
game was his life. Take away his cows and money would mean little.

“I was just thinking, Nate,” Carver said. “It’ll take a long time to
settle all this country up after you folks are ordered out with your
stock, and there’ll be worlds of good range going to waste with nothing
to eat it off. A man could hold a dodge-bunch down here on good feed
and keep ’em moving from point to point. If we were questioned we could
explain that we were trail herding ’em through when they up and made a
night run off to one side; that we are just gathering ’em up again to
move them on up to the Box T range.”

“Box T!” Younger scoffed. “Joe Hinman, that wrinkled old pirate,
wouldn’t let a second elapse before he’d be spreading the news that I
had a bunch down here. He’d never let a Half Diamond H cow set foot on
his range and ever get off with its hide on.”

“But if you’d help him out now, like I said a while back, he’d be bound
to return it out of sheer human decency,” Carver pointed out. “I could
hold a bunch down here easy. If you help Joe out now he can’t go back
on you then.”

“Can’t be?” Nate inquired. “I don’t know.” The blank wall of a cowless
future loomed just ahead. In a few more months his old brand would be
but a tradition. The only alternative would be to buy out another brand
in some distant part where open range was still available. But this was
his chosen territory and a move did not appeal. “One time and another
I’ve dealt him a hell-slew of trouble.”

“He’s put in fifteen years handing it back to you,” Carver said.
“That’s part of the game, the way the pair of you has played it. Joe’s
not the man to stick at trifles like that.”

Younger shook his head.

“Then maybe he was mistaken about how you felt,” said Carver. “He
gave me my instructions straight enough. ‘If you strike trouble down
there just go right to the Half Diamond H and get in touch with Nate
Younger,’ he says. ‘He’ll put you straight, and if he can’t fix you up
then there’s no way out.’ That’s the last words he told me.”

“He didn’t,” Nate returned doubtfully. “You got mixed in the names. He
didn’t ever instruct you to look to me for anything but trouble.”

“Those were my orders,” Carver affirmed. “Word for word, as near as I
can recall, just as I recited them to you. That’s what he says, looking
right at me, just what I told you he did.”

“I don’t know what he’s driving at,” Younger stated. “But I’ll
certainly hand him a surprise. I’ll take him up--which’ll be exactly
the last thing he’d counted on.”

He tugged his hat over his eyes and turned to the nearest of the riders
who trailed behind him.

“You boys dangle along back and take down the north fence for a few
hundred yards west of the creek,” he instructed. “Pull the staples and
lay the wire flat on the ground so Carver can cross in with his bunch
any time.”

The men gazed in blank astonishment at thus being deprived of their
contemplated sport but they turned back without comment.

“That Carver now,” one youth remarked. “He’s the silver-tongued little
fixer. He’s somehow managed to reverse old Nate in mid-air. Once in
Caldwell he talked me out of my last dollar. He did, honest.”

“But he spent it on you later,” another testified. “That’s him. But now
he’s gone and ruined my whole day. I’d prefer to be jamming them cows
north at a run to coaxing staples out of fence posts.”

Some days thereafter Freel rode northward through the leases of the
Half Diamond H, crossed the Salt Fork and stayed overnight at the home
ranch of that brand. For several days the marshal had been visiting
the widely scattered outfits operating in that portion of the Strip
and making inquiries as to the whereabouts of certain men on a day of
the preceding week. Freel knew the customs of the men with whom he had
to deal, being familiar with the evasiveness which was a country-wide
characteristic whenever one citizen was questioned concerning the
possible operations of another. The marshal’s queries were therefore
more or less desultory and wholly unproductive.

On the date in question four masked horsemen had surrounded a box car
recently planted beside the railroad track in the Cherokee Strip. This
car had served as a station and the word “Casa” had been painted in
white letters upon either end. The stockmen had stubbornly resisted
all attempts to establish stations in the unowned lands, foreseeing
in such moves another possible link toward the dreaded settling of
the Strip. These wild riders had evicted the two men stationed there
and applied the torch to the box car which seemed to presage a future
settlement at that point. The embryo city of Casa was no more. Freel
was conscious of no particular regret over the fate of this defunct
metropolis, but in view of the fact that only Federal officers were
vested with authority in the Cherokee lands he felt it expedient to
make a few perfunctory inquiries.

When he rode away from the Half Diamond H he elected to wend his way
up Cabin Creek and so chanced across two thousand head of Joe Hinman’s
cows grazing in the quarantine strip. Freel sought out Carver and
acquainted him with the details of the Casa raid.

“The Lassiters rode out of Caldwell Tuesday night, you recollect,” he
said. “They’re a shifty bunch of boys, the Lassiters. But Crowfoot
assures me that they turned up at his place on Turkey Creek early
Wednesday morning and this Casa raid was Wednesday night. Crowfoot says
they’ve been there straight through. That lets the Lassiters out.”

Carver recalled the black scrap of cloth he had seen in the dresser
drawer in the Lassiter’s room, its eyeholes staring up at him.
Crowfoot’s testimony to the marshal did not cause Carver to revise
his former estimate of the cowman; rather it served to strengthen his
previous opinion as to Crowfoot’s character.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that lets the Lassiters out.”

“But it don’t have any particular bearing on the fact that Hinman’s
cows are grazing in the quarantine strip,” the marshal commented.

“Joe’s short of range,” Carver returned. This was according to formula.
“We’re resting ’em over here for a day before taking ’em on down to the
Half Diamond H.”

“That’s nice,” said Freel. “But of course it’s my duty as an officer
to report their presence to the Federal authorities. Then they can
use their own judgment as to quarantine proceedings and maybe even a
trespass suit. Tax-dodging, is he?”

“I’ll bet fifty even that you go and do that very thing,” Carver stated.

“How do you know?” the marshal retorted. “I’ll bet you a hundred I
don’t.”

“A hundred is way beyond my depth,” said Carver. “Even fifty would
strain me most to pieces, but I could manage to pay it the day I land
in Caldwell if I lost.”

“Fifty’s a bet,” the marshal accepted. “I’ll take you on. And don’t
forget to have the money in your clothes next time you show up in
Caldwell.”

Carver gazed after Freel’s retreating back as the worthy marshal rode
northward toward the line.

“There goes a part of my profits,” he observed. “This petty larceny
milking process enlightens me as to why I never could warm up to Freel.
I’d rather he’d held me up, but the man that’ll do one won’t do the
other--not ever. It all comes of my being too honest. If I’d neglected
to make that losing bet, he’d have made a report that might have caused
old Joe some grief. My conscience has let me down for fifty. Honesty
is maybe the best policy for the long pull but it’s ruinous in short
spurts.”

Someway he regretted the loss of that fifty dollars, a sentiment
hitherto unknown to him, for he had never valued dollars except as
a means to an end and the end was in each case the same,--the swift
squandering of the means. But of late, while riding his lonely way in
charge of Hinman’s cows, he had pondered the possibilities of various
projects in which he might engage, the accumulation of dollars, not
their spending, constituting the ultimate objective in each case.

When the marshal had disappeared Carver rode a few miles north to the
crest of a high ridge, from which point of vantage he could sweep a
considerable area. Off across the State line he could make out white
points of light at intervals of a mile or more, and he knew them for
the covered wagons of squatters who were camped just outside the Strip.
He knew too that as one neared Caldwell he would find the intervals
between these camps considerably decreased and he made a tentative
estimate that there were fifty such outfits camped along the line in
the twenty miles between himself and Caldwell. For three months these
homeless ones had been rolling up to the edge of the unowned lands and
making camp. These were but the vanguard, the first to respond to the
persistent rumor recently set afloat to the effect that the Strip would
soon be thrown open for entry and free homes be made available for all.

Carver allowed his mental vision to travel far beyond the horizon which
cut off his physical view, and he saw other wagons coming. He pictured
them scattered along the roads of Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, of
Illinois and Iowa. From far and near the landless of a vast country
were converging upon this last corner left unsettled, their worldly
effects crowded into the bulging beds of old-time prairie schooners,
their live stock trailing behind and the tousled heads of their
youngsters peering curiously from the wagons as they rolled through
country strange to them. Their pace was slow and plodding but intensely
purposeful, a miniature reproduction of that general movement which
had resulted in reclaiming the Great West from savagery a few decades
before,--a movement which Carver felt could not long be forestalled. He
addressed his luck piece in prophetic vein.

“It’s coming and we can’t head it off. In ten years there’ll be a
squatter on every second section and the old free range cut up with
fence. Little lonely dollar, what will you and me be doing then? That’s
the prospect that’s looming just ahead of us.”

In fact this prospect seemed nearer still when he crossed back with
Hinman’s cows some weeks thereafter. With the first warm days of
approaching spring the slow stream of incoming squatters had increased
and there were more outfits camped along the line. Carver rode up to
the ranch house in the gray light of dawn to report that the herd was
back on Hinman’s own range once more. He found old Joe at breakfast and
was invited to sit in.

“Draw up your stool and toss a feed in you,” the old man greeted.
“Tell me how everything came to pass.”

“It was a right uneventful trip,” Carver reported. “There was only one
patrol came messing through and we shifted the bunch down on to the
Half Diamond H for a week or more.”

“The Half Diamond H!” Hinman exclaimed. “Then Nate Younger must have
died without me getting word of it. I’ll send over some flowers right
away. It’s a moral certainty that roan-whiskered old lizard wouldn’t
let one of my cows have a spoonful of grass if he was alive and
kicking.”

“On the contrary,” said Carver; “he put himself out to invite us down
in case we thought best to pull off the quarantine belt. He ordered his
north fence laid flat as soon as he gets word we’re in the country with
your cows, and announced that he’d be palsied and paralyzed and even
worse than that before he’d be found lacking in hospitality toward a
friend in need.”

“Yes,” said Hinman. “Go right on. What else did he say?”

“Nothing to speak of,” Carver said. “He did sort of mention that you
was welcome to throw as much stuff as you liked on the Half Diamond H
as long as he was running it. So you might say the trip was more or
less of a holiday.”

Hinman allowed his gaze to rove through the window and settle upon a
covered wagon crawling slowly southward.

“He’ll be crowded clear off the map inside another year,” Hinman said.
“I don’t suppose you told him about how glad I’d be to have him swarm
over here on my grass with all his cows whenever he’s finally ordered
out down there; now did you?”

“I did sort of intimate that your range would always be wide open,”
Carver stated. “I was straining every little point to save the taxes on
that bunch of cows. I’ll bet it would have totalled up to anyhow six
hundred dollars, those taxes would.”

“Well, that’s all you agreed to do,” said Hinman. “And I guess I’d
better pay you off and have it over with, even if you did get me into
considerable of a snarl. Only one thing I can do now, since you made
all those arrangements, and that’s to back up anything you told Nate. I
never figured you’d let me in for anything like this.”

“I’d prefer to take my pay in some other form than cash,” Carver
announced as Hinman produced his check book. “Suppose you give me a
bill of sale for a hundred head of coming yearlings instead of nine
hundred cash and let ’em range with your stuff up on the west place
till November.”

“You can’t spend calves,” said Hinman.

“I could borrow against them if I was needing money,” Carver explained.

“But coming yearlings are worth twelve dollars a head,” Hinman objected.

“I’ll owe you the rest,” Carver offered.

“And when I deliver in November they’ll be worth more’n that. They’ll
bring round sixteen dollars a head by then.”

“That’s what I was counting on,” said Carver. “I like to feel every
morning that I’m worth just a little more than I was the night before.”

Hinman laid down the check book and regarded him.

“Now it’s always struck me that you put yourself out to be worth just
a mite less each morning than you was the night before,” he stated.
“Surely you haven’t gone and deserted the ranks of the tumbleweeds in
favor of the pumpkins. I never knew you to set a value on a dollar.”

“That’s because I never chanced across just the right sort of dollar,”
Carver explained. “Now this is different.” He produced his lucky coin
and handed it over for inspection. “I’m aiming to accumulate a number
of others just like this to keep it company.”

Hinman inspected the silver dollar.

“Yes,” he said. “This is a right unusual appearing sort of coin. Don’t
know as I ever see one just like it. Now if you really think there’s
a chance for you to collect some more like this and take an interest
in holding on to them, why we might make a deal. You’ve just effected
quite a saving on my taxes, so I can maybe stretch a point. But if I
don’t deliver till November, and run ’em meantime on my grass, those
critters will cost you fourteen apiece instead of twelve. You’ll be
owing me five hundred in place of three.”

“I don’t mind owing you,” said Carver. “We’ll close the deal.”

As he rode away from the Box T he sang:

  “Oh, I’ve risked many dollars
  On the rambling tumbleweed
  And only one on pumpkins
  But that one went to seed.”




III


The crest of the watershed separating the flow between the Salt Fork
and the Cimarron was also the dividing line between Crowfoot’s range
and the leases of the Half Diamond H. Carver crossed over this low
divide and angled toward Turkey Creek to intersect its course at a
point near Crowfoot’s place. Here the majority of the range stock wore
the straggling brand intended to represent a bird’s claw, the badge of
Crowfoot’s ownership.

Carver viewed the ranch buildings from the shoulder of a hill, noting
particularly the corral which was fashioned as a solid stockade
some ten feet high. Crowfoot had entered into a beef contract with
the railroad and his slaughtering was conducted within this small
enclosure. Carver entertained positive convictions as to the purpose
of this arrangement but in common with others of his kind he made a
religion of remaining strictly incurious regarding the calling or
customs of acquaintances except in so far as they might affect his own
immediate affairs.

He turned his horse up the Turkey Creek bottoms and followed that
stream for a dozen miles, then angled away to the right toward the
Half Diamond H range. When well up the gentle slope he rode out on to
the rim of a pocket. The scattering trees in the bottoms indicated the
presence of water. A spring branch probably headed in the pocket and
drained back toward Turkey Creek, he reflected. He pulled up his horse
as a woman’s voice floated up to him. Somewhere down below him a girl
was singing, and Carver headed his horse down the slope toward the
sound.

A sod house nestled under the hill beside the trickling spring-creek.
The singing ceased abruptly and a girl appeared in the door of the sod
house at the sound of his horse’s hoofs in the yard.

For the second time Carver saw her framed in a doorway and he was
conscious of a sudden pleased conviction that she should always choose
a similar setting. The drab surroundings served only as a background
to hold her vivid youth and charm in more startling relief. Carver
recollected that he had mauled one brother in no gentle fashion and was
held accountable for another’s day of transgressions; in consequence he
feared a cool reception from the sister. Instead, her face lighted with
sudden recognition.

“Oh, it’s you!” she greeted. “Bart will be coming home any time now and
he’d be so sorry if he missed you. Won’t you step down off your horse
and wait?”

She sat on the doorsill and motioned Carver to a seat on a bench
against the cabin. He removed his hat and tilted back against the sod
wall as she explained that Bart was even now overdue. As they talked
it was quite evident that all her thoughts centered round the younger
brother. Carver found the tones of her voice as pleasant to his ear
as the sight of her was pleasing to his eyes, and he was content to
listen, hoping meanwhile that Bart would never come.

He knew this for a Crowfoot line camp, recently installed, which
accounted for the fact that he had not chanced across it the year
before. The Lassiters, therefore, must ride for Crowfoot, he decided.

“Bart and I only came down last week,” she said. “We’ve been living in
your little house in Caldwell. Did you know?”

“I gave him the key and told him the place was his,” Carver said. “But
I’d have straightened it up a bit if I’d known he was going to install
you there.”

“It was supremely tidy,” she complimented. “Which was a distinct
surprise. Most men’s housekeeping is rather the reverse.”

Her gaze kept wandering off down the bottoms for some sign of Bart’s
return.

“I do hope he comes,” she said.

“I’m real anxious to see Bart,” he confessed. “I certainly hope he
turns up sometime inside of the next three or four hours for this is my
busy day and I couldn’t conscientiously wait on him longer than that.”

His tones expressed only a mild anxiety over the possible non-arrival
of his friend.

“Do please stay the very limit, at least,” she urged, and laughed up at
him. “You know, you’re like Bart in a great many ways.” Carver someway
felt that he knew her better after that laugh. “Don’t you think you two
are somewhat alike?”

He had divined the close bond between this girl and her brother and now
made swift use of the knowledge.

“Bart and I are so similar that we might easy be mistaken for twins,”
he admitted. “You might say we’re almost identical.”

“He means a lot to me Bart does,” she said. “In most ways he’s a
lovable youngster, but----”

Carver leaned back with an audible sigh.

“Tell me all about Bart,” he urged.

“I will,” she agreed. “In most ways he’s likable but he’s as wild as
a hawk. He is absolutely irresponsible and will commit any reckless
folly on a second’s notice without a thought of future consequences.
The future means not one thing to him. He’s sublimely confident that
every new day stands by itself, entirely unrelated to either yesterday
or to-morrow. And he’s too easily led. Now don’t you think you two are
considerably alike?”

Carver considered this at some length.

“There’s some few particulars wherein our make-ups branch way out
apart,” he testified. “On those points we’re altogether dissimilar. Now
me, I just can’t be led. I’m sometimes misled, maybe, but never plain
led. And so far as the relation of one day to another”--he produced a
silver dollar and regarded it--“why nothing could possibly convince
me that five weeks ago last Tuesday wasn’t close kin to to-day.” The
girl’s mind flashed back to that first meeting as he smiled across at
her and continued: “And I’m hoping that there’ll be other days in the
future that’ll belong to the same family group. You’d be downright
surprised to know how far my mind wanders into the future--and you
accusing me of not looking ahead.”

“He’s told me a lot about you,” she said. “You’re the supreme chief of
the tumbleweeds, from what I gather; openly irresponsible.”

“On the contrary, I’m apt to take my responsibilities too much to heart
if I don’t watch myself,” he defended. “Do you consider a state of
responsibility one to strive for?” Then, as she nodded, “Hereafter I’ll
track down responsibilities like a duck collects Junebugs, and assume
one after the next.”

“I’ve raised Bart from a baby,” she said. “And I don’t want to see him
go over to the wild bunch. He likes you a lot. Use that influence to
steady him, won’t you, instead of the other way?”

“Just what is the main thing you want Bart to stay clear of?” he asked.

“I want him to run straight,” she said.

Carver rose to take his leave, his departure hastened by the sight of
a horseman through the trees far down the bottoms. And the rider was
not Bart. He had no desire to meet Noll Lassiter during his first real
visit with the girl, and he somehow knew the identity of the man who
approached.

“Maybe I can do Bart a trifle of good in spots,” he said, as he stood
before her. “And I’ll guarantee not to do him any great amount of
harm.”

“Thanks,” she said, rising to face him and extending her hand. “I knew
you’d do it.”

Carver retained the hand and leaned to kiss her as she stood looking up
at him. The girl stepped back and studied him, evidencing no annoyance
but seeming rather to try to determine the thought which had occasioned
the act and searching for a possible trace of disrespect. Carver met
her eyes fairly.

“You oughtn’t to have smiled just at that particular moment,” he said.

“You see, you are irresponsible,” she pointed out. “That’s exactly what
Bart would have done. You yield to any passing whim.”

“That wasn’t any passing whim,” he corrected. “It was one powerful
impulse; and it’s permanent--not passing. It’s related to to-day and
five weeks ago Tuesday, and I’m hoping it’s related to to-morrow.”

She disregarded this except for an almost imperceptible shake of her
head.

“But you will remember about Bart,” she urged.

“I’ll try and collect all Bart’s loose ends and shape him up into one
solid pattern of propriety,” he promised. “You won’t hardly know him
for the same party after I’ve worked him over.” He swung to the saddle.
“But I’ll have to put in considerable time over here conferring with
you if we’re going to make a success out of Bart.”

He turned his horse to leave but the approaching rider had hastened
through the last belt of trees and he now held up a hand and signalled
Carver to wait. Lassiter pulled up his horse abruptly as he discovered
Carver’s identity.

“I thought it was Wellman,” he stated surlily. “Who asked you here?
This is a little off your range.”

“I travel on a roving permit,” Carver said. He explored his pockets as
if seeking the document and an expression of mock concern overspread
his face. “I declare, I must have mislaid it somehow. But I believe I
showed it to you once before; and anyway, I’m going now.”

He nodded a casual good-by to the girl, turned his back on Lassiter and
departed. As he mounted the cow trail leading out of the head of the
pocket he met Bart Lassiter coming down.

“I’ve just been over to your house visiting round with Miss Molly,”
Carver greeted. “Noll came riding up and I someway gathered the
impression that he wasn’t glad to see me.”

The two lolled sidewise in their saddles. Bart looked down the bottoms
toward the sod house.

“I’d keep an eye peeled for Noll,” he advised. “He’s out for you if he
sees the right chance. If you don’t watch sharp your horse will come
dangling in some day without a rider.”

“Sho!” Carver deprecated. “It’s been against the law to kill folks for
a long time now.”

“I know,” said Bart. “But the mere fact that we’ve got a law like that
proves that maybe some one did get killed once and there’s a chance it
might happen again.”

“He’s been telling you things,” Carver guessed. “Likely he was just
easing his mind.”

“Noll didn’t tell me a word,” Bart denied. “He don’t need to. I know
him. He rode hard on me with a club, up until I outgrew him, and I
can read what’s going on in his mind. I put in all my early years
dodging, until one day he cuffed Molly; then I forgot my timidity and
pulled down his meat house. It was weeks before he was up and around.
He’ll bear watching. I don’t mean to infer that Noll’s all charged
with valor, which he’s not, but he’s certainly loaded to the ears with
meanness and he’ll take a chance if the odds are all his way and no one
looking on.”

“Then I’ll take to surveying my back track,” Carver promised. “Because
if we meet it will likely be from the rear.”

“That’s where,” Bart agreed.

“What’s to hinder my taking you on as a bodyguard, sort of?” Carver
suggested. “I’m going in with the Half Diamond H wagon. Old Nate would
put you on.”

“The three of us are leaving for the X I L in a day or two,” said Bart.
“Otherwise I’d go with you. Milt has been trail boss for the X I L for
the last four summers and brought their trail herds through. Always
before we’ve gone on back and wintered there, but this season we laid
over to help Crowfoot.”

Carver turned this arrangement over in his mind. The X I L was a Texas
brand running south of the Washita country.

“I’ll have a little deal on this fall after round-up,” he said. “And
I’d like to have you cut in with me, provided you don’t hang out at
Crowfoot’s. I’m not over-squeamish and there’s one time and another
when I’ve rode for outfits whose methods was open to question. Most
riders have. But folks are coming to frown on irregularities and it’s
time a man reads his signs right and quits before it’s just too late.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Bart agreed easily. “I can see that plain.”

“It’s my surmise that there’s a right small percentage of the meat that
goes to fill Crowfoot’s contracts with the railroad that is dressed out
of steers wearing his own brand,” Carver said. “Of course, he’s too
smart to cut in on his neighbors, and they don’t bother to get curious
as long as they know their own strays are safe on his range. But it’s
my guess that if a steer from some foreign outfit turns up on the
Turkey Creek range he’ll get converted into beef overnight.”

Lassiter grinned and wagged a negative head.

“Now you wouldn’t go and suspect Crowfoot of filling his beef contracts
at other folks’ expense,” he reproved. “Besides, how could he when it’s
the law that whenever a cow critter is butchered its hide must be hung
on the fence till it’s been inspected and passed?”

“And our present hide inspector would ride miles out of his way rather
than meet a fresh hide face to face,” Carver testified. “I expect
maybe Crowfoot kills out a batch of his own steers, about every third
slaughtering. That way there’d always be enough fresh hides of his own
brand hanging round the place to make it look right. But he wouldn’t
dress out any more of his own till after one batch of pelts was too
dried out to answer. He’s not that improvident.”

“Well, maybe not,” Bart said. “I couldn’t say for sure. What has
Crowfoot done to you to start you commenting on his habits?”

“Not anything!” Carver confessed. “I don’t even lose sleep over what
he’s doing to other folks. I’m generalizing, kind of. Things are
changing rapid and a man had better let his glance rove a few years
ahead.”

“Hadn’t he, though?” Bart concurred. He didn’t inquire as to the nature
of Carver’s proposition, for it mattered not at all. “We’ll put on our
telescopes and spy out a soft berth for the future. That’s us. You can
count me in till the hair slips.”

With this casual promise they separated. Carver reviewed his recent
utterances with some doubt as he rode across the divide.

“That’s the first time I ever aspired to turn evangelist,” he said.
“And I’m awkward at it. The rôle don’t become me any to speak of, but
I’ve committed myself to take Bart in hand.”

Three days later he rode again to the little sod house on the
spring-creek. He came upon it from behind, his horse’s hoofs making
but slight sound on the springy turf. Not until he had dismounted and
rounded the corner on foot did he discover that a saddled horse stood
on the far side of the house. He stopped short, wondering which of the
three brothers might be at home. While he hesitated a man’s voice
sounded from within, and it was not that of any one of the Lassiters.
He took another step toward the door but halted again as he detected a
threat in the tones of the man inside.

“You listen to reason or I’ll have Bart locked up for the rest of his
natural life,” the voice proclaimed. “And that within the next two
days. I know his whereabouts on a certain night two years ago, when a
saloon in Taosin was ransacked.”

“You’ve told me all that,” said the girl. “But even if you could prove
it, why Bart was only seventeen then.”

“There’s places where they keep such naughty children,” the man pointed
out. “Then he was into that Casa affair, when the station was burned.”

This statement enabled Carver to identify the man whose voice had
seemed vaguely familiar. It could be no other than Freel.

“I’ve got a line on the whole past of the Lassiters,” Freel resumed.
“Clear back prior to when the old man was alive. He’d be wanted too, on
a dozen counts, if he was still above ground. You know what it is to
have the law always barking at your door. If you take up with me folks
would respect you. But any one in this whole country will tell you
that Freel is a bad man to have on the other side. You don’t want me
lined up against the Lassiters, girl.”

Carver stepped to the door. Freel’s back was toward him but he could
see the girl’s face. There was no trace of apprehension there, only
distaste for the man before her. Her eyes widened with surprise as they
met Carver’s and as she divined his purpose she made a move to station
herself between the two men but Carver held up a hand to halt her.
Freel had whirled to face the door when the girl’s face betrayed the
presence of a third party. He recovered his self-confidence, shaken for
the moment, with the discovery of the intruder’s identity.

“Morning,” he greeted casually. “Any more wagers on your mind to-day?”

“Yes,” said Carver. “Step outside. I’m going to make you another little
bet.”

He stepped aside as the marshal passed through the door, then followed
and closed it behind him.

“This wager’s not going to be in money,” Carver said. “If I lose I’ll
look you up and explain to you what the stakes are. I’m betting that
you don’t ever pass out any remarks about Bart Lassiter or his sister.
The bridle’s off as far as the other two boys are concerned. You can
go as far as you like with them.”

Freel sized him up, sensing a new quality in the man before him, a
certain tenseness which Carver concealed beneath the cloak of casual
speech.

“You drop out of this,” he advised. “I was offering to marry Miss
Lassiter when you romped in.”

“Offering to,” said Carver. “I thought maybe you was threatening to.”

“Any girl of the Lassiter tribe ought to be damn glad of an opportunity
to marry and live respectable,” Freel stated, and was instantly aware
that he had made a grave mistake, for that quality which he had sensed
in Carver was now quite openly apparent in his eyes.

“So you’re going to make her respectable,” Carver said. “That’s real
generous of you, I’d say. It’s rumored around that you set up to be a
bad one. I just heard you confess it. Let’s see how wicked you can be
when your badness all boils over.”

He took a step toward Freel and the marshal backed away, reading
Carver’s purpose in his eyes.

“It’s never my policy to start a quarrel without good reason,” he
announced.

“I’m laying myself out to supply the reason,” Carver said. “I always
did want to see a regular desperado working at his trade.” He removed
his hat with his left hand and brought it with a back-handed slash
across the marshal’s face. “You’re wicked clear through,” he said.
“You’re just as bad as you can be.”

He swung the hat twice again but Freel turned and walked toward his
horse.

“You’re not bad; you’re just tainted,” Carver stated. “I always felt
that about you and now I know for sure.”

The marshal mounted and turned upon Carver a face set in lines of stern
disapproval.

“I refuse to force an issue except in the regular routine of duty,” he
proclaimed. “This is not a matter of official business. Otherwise----”

He intended that the unfinished statement should carry an impressive
implication of power held in reserve and which he controlled only with
the greatest difficulty. He turned and rode off down the bottoms.

“I feel like I’d just come in off a spree,” Carver told himself. “It
shakes a man up something fearful to let his temper go running wild all
over the lot. I oughtn’t to have lost hold of myself.”

He regarded the closed door. A sharp rap sounded from the inside of
it and Carver smiled as he speculated as to how many people of his
acquaintance would have respected his unspoken wish that the door
remain closed. The rap sounded again.

“Come in,” he called.

She opened the door and answered his smile, her eyes following the
marshal as he disappeared in the scattering black-jacks of the bottoms.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you came just when you did. But I’m
sorry if you made an enemy of him. I really don’t mind him--much.”

“He’s right harmless,” said Carver. “But apt to be annoying. I don’t
surmise he’ll be turning up here again.”

He knew that the marshal operated only on safe ground. Freel had known
that both elder brothers would be entirely indifferent to any course
he might adopt toward Molly Lassiter if only it afforded a measure
of protection for themselves; and she would not mention any such
occurrence to Bart lest it precipitate trouble between himself and
Freel.

The girl motioned him to a seat on the bench.

“You did remember your promise of the other day,” she commended. “About
Bart, I mean. He said you’d pointed out the narrow pathway and invited
him to join forces.”

“I never did set up as a reformer,” Carver admitted, “and it likely
sounded a mite unnatural, coming from me.”

“Bart was a little vague about the plans,” she said. “Do you mind
telling me what the proposition was?”

“I couldn’t say any offhand,” he confessed. “You see I just put it up
to him and was intending to work out the details later on. There, now!”
he complained, as she laughed at this lack of definiteness. “You’re
doubting my stability again. There’s numerous ways open for me to
follow.” He checked them off on his fingers. “I might get appointed
marshal in Freel’s place and there’s any number of folks would
contribute to my success. I could assist Crowfoot to fill his beef
contracts; or I could get the job of hide inspector and Crowfoot would
then assist me.”

Beneath this facetious recitation of possibilities she read in his
reference to Crowfoot a deliberate intention to apprise her of the fact
that the man’s methods were open to question, leaving her to devise her
own means of utilizing the knowledge in so far as it related to Bart’s
employment by Crowfoot.

“The boys are all leaving for the X I L in a few days now,” she
returned.

“This man Bronson that owns the X I L--he’s someway related to
Crowfoot,” said Carver. “Seems like I’ve heard he was. Anyway, there’s
some connection. I spoke for a job for Bart with the Half Diamond H
wagon and was hoping he’d take it on.”

When Carver rose to leave he rested his hands on her shoulders as she
stood facing him.

“The round-up will cut into our conferences but I’m looking forward to
resuming them after it’s over.”

She stepped back and shook her head as he leaned toward her.

“Don’t forget how much I’m like Bart,” he urged. “And you know you’d do
that much for him. You might try it on me once, just for similarity’s
sake.”

The girl faced him gravely.

“I’m going to absolve you from that promise,” she said. “Try and forget
all about the Lassiters. We bring bad luck.”

“It’s too late to start forgetting; and besides, I cut my first baby
teeth on a horseshoe,” he returned; “and from that day on down to
date I’ve been the greatest sort of a hand to counteract bad luck. It
positively refuses to settle in my neighborhood. I’ll tell you all
about it, Honey, as soon as the round-up’s over.”

She stood and watched him ride off up the country, returning his
salutation when he turned in his saddle and waved to her as he reached
the rim of the pocket.

He spent the night at a line camp and the next day made a long ride
into Caldwell, dismounting before his little cabin in the early
evening. A blanketed figure prowled uneasily at the far side of the
street as Carver unsaddled, then crossed over and padded silently along
the path that led to the house.

“Me like whiskey,” the Indian stated.

“Yes,” said Carver. “So do I. But they do say it’s a sinful appetite.”

The red man pondered this.

“Me buy whiskey,” he amended, exhibiting a gold piece.

“I’m just out,” said Carver. “Try next door.”

The Indian departed, only to be replaced some few minutes later by a
second applicant. Carver recalled the incident of the two black bottles
on that other day when he had first met Bart Lassiter in the Silver
Dollar.

“Bart has been up to some more financing,” he reflected. “While Molly
was downtown somewhere, he was busy irrigating the Cherokee nation at
a profit. I’ve heard somewheres that if you do any one thing better
than your neighbors the world will beat a pathway to your door--and
this path looks well-worn and much-traveled. I’ll have to speak to Bart
about this.”

He retired for the night after a third thirsty soul had made the
pilgrimage down the pathway to the door.

“Before I can straighten out Molly’s affairs,” he said, “it does look
as if I’d have to discharge a marshal, reform one brother and practice
homicide on another.”

With this disquieting reflection he dropped instantly asleep. An hour
later his awakening was equally abrupt. It is given only to those who
live much in the open to wake suddenly from profound slumber with
every faculty alert. When Carver opened his eyes he was conscious that
something was amiss. He continued his regular deep breathing as if
still wrapped in sleep. His horse fidgeted nervously in the lean-to
shed behind; but he knew that this sound, being one to which he was
accustomed, would not have roused him. The spring lock on the door
had clicked slightly as if under the manipulation of a stealthy hand
and the sound had penetrated his consciousness even while he slept.
Probably another parched but hopeful Cherokee, he reflected, but he
rose noiselessly and stepped to the window.

“I didn’t start discharging and homiciding soon enough,” he told
himself.

Freel and Noll Lassiter stood outside in the bright moonlight, the
latter having just stepped back within Carver’s range of vision after
testing the spring lock on the door. Carver turned swiftly and donned
shirt and trousers. The latch clicked again as he pulled on his chaps;
then came a sharp knock at the door. Carver did not answer but finished
buckling his belt and drew on one boot. The rap was repeated.

“Ho!” Carver called loudly, as if suddenly roused from heavy sleep.
“What’s going on?”

“It’s Freel,” the deputy’s voice answered.

“Oh,” said Carver. “Come on in. I’m in bed.”

“Door’s locked,” Freel returned.

“Must have blown shut,” Carver stated. “There’s a spring lock on it.
Wait a minute and I’ll pile into some clothes and let you in. What do
you want, anyway, at this time of night?”

“There’s been complaints lodged against you for selling whiskey to the
Cherokees,” Freel explained apologetically. “I don’t suppose there’s
anything to it but I was ordered to make the arrest. You can clear
yourself likely.”

Carver laughed easily.

“Why, man! This is the first time I’ve been here in two months,” he
scoffed. “They won’t keep me overnight.”

“I hope not,” said Freel. “It’s the pen if they cinch you--Federal law,
you know. I didn’t like the idea of coming after you but I was ordered
to do it.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Carver answered cheerfully. “I can
explain it easy enough.”

He thumped the bed with the edge of his hand in imitation of a bare
foot descending upon the floor.

“Killed while resisting arrest,” he said to himself, his mind working
swiftly. “This is just a plain old-fashioned killing. Freel knows I
wouldn’t be so simple as to start shooting over being picked up on a
fool charge like this. I’d take it more as a joke. He’ll step in to
talk it over while Noll pots me from outside. Neighbors hear shots--a
regular battle in progress--and later, at the inquest, it transpires
that my gun’s been shot empty. They can prove that Cherokees have been
buying bottles here, whether I did it or not, and Freel, having heard
about it, had come out to investigate. I put up a desperate fight but
went down in the smoke--died hard as it were, but real dead. But they
wouldn’t do it before I was dressed. That might appear like they’d
slaughtered me in my sleep.”

Meanwhile he commented in disjointed fragments to Freel.

“I’ll go on down with you and explain it. It’s a right foolish charge.”
He was now fully dressed. “They’ll let me out by to-morrow so it don’t
matter any.” And to himself, “After Noll’s first shot there’s two from
inside. Neighbors look out into the moonlight. Freel has ducked back
outside and they see him prone on the ground shooting into the house.
He rushes the open door, calling out to me to surrender in the name of
the law, and the neighbors all hear him. There’s sounds of a struggle
inside; chairs overturned, and there’s shooting. A regular hell-roaring
combat--and me dead on the floor all the time.”

He moved to the window. Lassiter was nowhere in sight.

“Flat against the house between the window and the door,” he decided;
then aloud to Freel, “Anyone with you?”

“Not a soul,” Freel lied.

“Better so; maybe we can figure out some little bet whereby it would be
to your advantage to help me come clear of this charge.” He was now
fully clothed and he crossed to the door without permitting his boot
heels to touch the floor. “Can’t find a match,” he complained, fumbling
at the catch. “Come in and strike a light while I hop into my clothes.
I’m in my nightie.” He opened the door, standing back from the streak
of moonlight which streamed through. Freel would shoot if he saw that
Carver was already dressed.

“I’ll just wait here,” Freel said.

“And pot me as I step out,” Carver mentally completed.

“You’ll be out on bond in an hour,” Freel resumed. His head was within
a foot of the door as he attempted to peer inside.

Carver swung his gun with deadly precision and Freel collapsed without
a word as the heavy weapon descended solidly upon his skull. Before the
deputy had fairly struck the ground Carver was peering round the door
jamb with the gun levelled on Lassiter who was flattened against the
house some three feet from the door.

“Steady! Let it slide out of your hand!” Carver ordered.

Lassiter’s slow brain had scarcely grasped the fact that his plans
had gone amiss, and even as the hand which held his gun relaxed in
response to the order, Carver took one swift half step round the door
and swung his own weapon again.

Ten minutes later he had saddled and was riding out of town. As he
cleared it, he chanted a verse wherein the tumbleweed rebuked the
sluggish pumpkin for sticking to its garden patch as Thanksgiving day
approached.

  “You can lay right there and wait
  To be turned into pies and tarts,
  But me, I’ll jump the fence right now
  And head for other parts.”

“Freel’s bringing me in feet first, like he’d planned, could be easy
explained,” Carver reflected. “But a live active prisoner is different.
The last thing in this world he’d want is to book me for trial. I
couldn’t force myself on him as a captive. Next time I meet Freel out
in company I’ll surrender and insist that he puts me under arrest.”




IV


The cook wagon lumbered down Cabin Creek toward the Salt Fork of the
Arkansas. A dozen hands, riding in couplets, straggled irregularly
behind. The bed wagon followed and the horse wrangler brought up the
rear with the _remuda_ which numbered some two hundred head of horses,
including the string of extra mounts for each round-up hand who rode
with the Half Diamond H wagon.

A rider waited on the far bank of the Salt Fork with his string of
extra horses and the men speculated idly as to whether he represented
Crowfoot or the Coldstream Pool, it being the custom to exchange
“reps” to ride with neighboring wagons. The horseman proved to be Bart
Lassiter, repping for Crowfoot. Carver’s intimation as to Crowfoot’s
methods and their possible connection with the X I L trail herd,
dropped on the occasion of his last visit with Molly Lassiter, had
borne fruit. The Half Diamond H crew had been full-handed but the girl
had induced Bart to ride with their wagon as Crowfoot’s rep instead of
accompanying his half-brothers to the X I L.

Lassiter threw his extra mounts in with the _remuda_ and joined Carver,
who opened up on him without parley.

“I tendered you the key to my little house so that you could use it for
living purposes,” he said, “but without any notion that you’d start up
in business. From all that I can gather you set out to abate the thirst
of the whole Cherokee Nation.”

“Well, the poor devils are fixed up every other way,” Bart explained.
“They draw beef rations, flour rations, blanket issues and so on,
but nobody’s ever been thoughtful enough to provide them with licker
rations, so they’re forced to live a one-sided, unbalanced kind of
existence and I was striving to supply the lack and sort of round out
their lives.”

“An’ you came near to finishing mine,” Carver stated.

“It was only that once,” Bart defended. “I did dispose of several cases
at a right handsome profit and you’ve no notion how much they enjoyed
theirselves the next night. It would have done your heart good to have
heard it. All Caldwell turned out to listen to the expansive sounds
emanating from the Cherokee camp south of town.”

Carver had placed that first illusive impression that Molly Lassiter
was in grave need of something without which her life was not quite
complete. It was no material requirement but a need that was deeper
than that. She despised the ways of the two older half-brothers, who
had been practically strangers to her during her own early life,
showing up at her father’s home but infrequently. Later, after her
own mother’s death, they had returned and made it their home. There
had never been any bond between them and herself, and she had feared
the effect their ways might exercise upon Bart. Freel had spoken the
truth when he asserted that she knew what it was to have the law always
barking at her door. Carver knew now that what she most needed was
peace,--assurance that the same old conditions would not pertain to her
life and Bart’s.

“Why do you put Molly up against that sort of thing?” he demanded.

“She didn’t know,” Bart returned.

“But she’d know if they happened to clamp down on you for it,” Carver
insisted. “And that’s what she’s guarding against. She’s always had
that sort of thing to fight off.”

“She has for a fact,” Bart admitted. “The old man was a hard citizen
himself, way back in his youth. He’d quieted down for a good many years
but after the two boys came back he sort of leaned their way again.
There’s been times when Molly and me was kids, and left all alone in
the house or wherever we happened to be at the time, that folks would
come round inquiring about his whereabouts, and the old man hiding out
in the hills about them. She thought a lot of him, Molly did, and hated
Milt and Noll for leading him off.”

“Then why don’t you shake them?” Carver demanded. “There’s no common
bond between you and them, and Molly would be way better off.”

“I’ve made the break now and again,” Bart explained. “But they always
turn up. Our family line-up is fashioned after that fabled joint snake.
You can disrupt the critter but the pieces crawl back together again
and all stand united.”

“If there’s any more midnight visits made at my cabin,” said Carver;
“there’ll be one middle joint absent from the next family reunion.”

“I take it you’re referring to Noll,” said Bart. “If you’ll only accept
my earnest advice you’ll decoy Noll off to some quiet spot and snap a
cap at him. I promise it won’t upset me a bit.”

On the third day out from the ranch Carver rode with Nate Younger along
a low ridge studded with a straggling stand of black-jack timber. The
old man’s face was stern and set as he viewed the procession filing
for two miles along the open bottoms below them.

A dozen round-up crews made up the picture, for this was a coöperative
move by all the outfits ranging in the Strip, the great final combing
of stock from the unowned lands.

Far up the valley, a mere speck in the distance, the Half Diamond H
wagon led the way while the others trailed at intervals. Two hundred
riders, the personnel probably including the most efficient body of
cowhands in the world, straggled up the bottoms in irregular formation.
The extra horses, if combined into one _cavayado_ would number over
two thousand head. A group of riders hovered near the last wagon, it
having encountered difficulties in making the crossing of the Cimarron,
resuming their way as the quick-sands relinquished their sucking
hold upon the wheels and the floundering horses snaked the lumbering
vehicle out upon the solid shore. A band of twenty Cherokees flanked
the _cavalcade_ and dashed from one outfit to the next, begging food
from each wagon boss in turn. Midway of the procession a detachment
of cavalry rode in double file while the officer in command conferred
with the man in charge of that particular wagon. As Carver watched
they dropped back abreast of the next in line and he knew the message
delivered to each one in turn by the soldiery,--the instructions to
make a thorough sweep and clear every head of stock from the Cherokee
Strip.

The Indians, having gathered contributions sufficient for the moment,
including a steer which was pointed out to them by the owner of the
brand worn by the animal, hazed this moveable meat supply to the crest
of an adjacent knoll and there dropped it with an accompaniment of
rifle shots. Younger waved a hand toward the scene spread out before
him.

“That’s the way I saw the Old West first,” he said. “The picture
is mighty near identical; the wagons rolling along just like that,
only drawn up in more tight formation; the _cavayado_ trailing under
guard, holding all the extra horses of the settlers; maybe a band of
marauding reds clustered off to one side like them that are hacking
up that steer; sometimes a little escort of troopers helping us at
bad crossings where the Kiowas and Comanches was most liable to jump
us while a part of the train was bogged down in the sand. The wagons
was more likely dragged by bulls than horses then, and buffalo was
scattered round the landscape in place of range cows, but on the whole
the picture tallies close enough.” The old man turned his gaze away.
“That’s the way we was first ushered into the Old West, son. Maybe
it’s fitting that we’re being similarly ushered out of the last bit
that’s left for us.”

They rode on in silence and regained the head of the line. The various
wagons made camp at intervals sufficient to permit the _remudas_ of
different outfits to be held on good grass at widely separate points to
prevent the possibility of their mixing. On this occasion the men rode
from one night camp to the next to renew old friendships, fraternizing
with the hands who rode for rival brands. Another crew of similar
magnitude had assembled at another point in the Strip and during this
same hour these men too were mingling from one outfit to the next.
Perhaps among the entire three hundred odd gathered at these two
points there was not one man who fully realized that this meeting was
to be the last of its sort; not one who could even partly vision the
circumstances of the next.

Never again in history were these men to gather as a whole on the open
range. This night was the last. Many would meet in the future; others
would never meet again. Some would be neighbors for a lifetime and
it was slated that the trails of others should cross in far places.
Perhaps it is well that it is not given to man to look far into the
future. This last occasion was not marred by any thought that the
summons for the next gathering would not go forth for more than a
quarter of a century. There were many present who would heed that
plea which would one day be issued for all the old-time peelers and
bronc fighters of the Cherokee lands to assemble for a final rally.
They would not then travel across the open range with chuck wagons and
saddle horse. Some would be carried in luxuriously appointed coaches
that roared along steel rails; others in glittering vehicles that
purred swiftly along fenced and well-kept highways; some would arrive
in strange craft that swept across the skies above thriving western
cities situated on spots now widely known as ideal cow-camp sites.
A few indeed, but very few, would come in buckboards or ride in on
horses, their ropes coiled on ancient saddles; and it would be these
latter ones who would then appear strange and out of place. But no such
glimpse of future actualities troubled the men as they sought friends
who worked with other wagons. There was a general disposition to scoff
at the notion that there would be no more cows ranged on the Strip.
Even if it were opened for entry it would be long before there were
sufficient settlers to take up any great percentage of the range. The
settlement of any country was a slow and tedious process. In any event
there were long years of life in the open--the only sort of existence
which they could endure with satisfaction--stretching forth ahead of
them; so why concern themselves over vague possibilities of the future?
That was the general attitude of them all, excepting old Nate and his
contemporaries, men who, like himself, were being ushered out of their
domain as they had been ushered in a generation past. Their day was
passing and they knew it.

Throughout the following day various wagons turned aside to the right
or left, branching away toward some far spot allotted to them, there
to begin the first actual work. In the late afternoon the Half Diamond
H wagon made its stand on a creek that flowed to the Cimarron from the
low watershed between that stream and the North Fork of the Canadian.
The cook’s summons brought the men tumbling from their bed rolls an
hour before dawn. The night hawk hazed the _remuda_ into a corral
fashioned by a single rope stretched between stakes sledged solidly
into the sod, and after breakfasting the men entered in pairs, each to
rope a circle horse of his own particular string. In the first light of
day Younger led off up a ridge to the main divide flanking the creek
to the left and turned upstream along it. Other reps had joined the
wagon and there were now nearly twenty riders following where he led.
At the head of each draw he detailed one or two men to work it. When
half of the crew had been assigned to cover certain stretches Younger
dropped again to the bottoms, mounted to the opposite divide and moved
downstream in a similar fashion until even with the wagon, working the
last draw himself.

The riders combed the scrub-oak side hills and the gulches, shoving
all stock before them to the bottoms and heading them upstream. The
first riders to finish their details were stationed across the valley
to halt the cows brought in by others. The chuck wagon had lumbered on
up the creek to the point from which the next circle would be thrown.
The night hawk had gone off duty with sunrise but the wrangler held
the _remuda_ in a rope corral. While a part of the men held the herd
the others repaired to this enclosure and caught fresh horses, those
who were to engage in the next gathering swing putting their ropes on
circle mounts, while those detailed to bring up the day herd caught
trained cow horses belonging to their individual strings.

In a breeding-ranch country the herd would have been worked on the
spot, calves roped and ironed with the brand worn by their mothers, and
only the beef steers cut into a day herd, the she-stuff and all stock
younger than two-year-olds being allowed to scatter once more on the
range. But there were no calves to brand, no she-stock on the range,
for of late the cowmen of the Strip had come to follow one set rule in
accord with the transition of the cow business, forming an intermediate
link between the old-time cattle kings of the open range and the modern
feeders of the corn belt. For beef raising, instead of a one-outfit
business from start to finish, had come to be a business of progression
induced by the necessities of later-day conditions. Big breeding
ranches were now mainly confined to the vast wastes of Texas and the
Southwest and to similar stretches in the ranges of the Northwest.

The breeding ranches of Texas and New Mexico now gathered their
steers as two-year-olds and sold them to the intermediate beef-brands
operating in the Strip, the short-grass plains of Western Kansas and
the Sandhill country of Nebraska. Here they were ranged on grass till
they had turned four-year-olds, then resold to the feeders of Missouri,
Iowa and Illinois, who corn-fed and fattened and finished them for
market. Except for one breeding ranch confined to a great fenced-in
pasture, there was only beef stuff in the whole expanse of the Strip,
which rendered the round-up a comparatively simple affair. This last
event in particular was simplified by the orders which had just gone
forth from governmental sources, and every head of stock gathered in
each circle was held in the day herd.

The rope corral was dismantled, ropes and stakes loaded on the bed
wagon which promptly headed up country, trailed by the wrangler with
the _remuda_, and Carver led all the hands except those detailed with
the day herd up the bottoms toward the new stand of the cook wagon.
It was but ten o’clock when they dropped from their horses and fell
ravenously upon a hot meal which the cook had already prepared, for
while the cowhand’s day begins an hour before dawn his nooning comes at
ten and his knock-off time is seldom later than five P. M.

The second circle of the day was completed in the late afternoon.
The hands feasted to repletion and lolled about for an hour, buzzing
angrily over a new rumor which had just reached camp. The men spread
their bed rolls on the ground and retired with the setting sun.

Carver dropped instantly asleep but contrary to his usual custom he
waked within an hour and sleep would not come to him as he tossed
restlessly in his blankets. The turmoil of the round-up, the hoarse
bawls emanating from the throats of five hundred steers, the shrill
yelps of riders, the stifling dust of daytime activities; all these
had been superseded by the night sounds of the cow camp in the open.
A cool breeze stole across the range which now seemed mysteriously
hushed. Occasionally some night horse on picket or tied to the stake
ropes shifted uneasily and stamped a restless foot. The night hawk held
the _cavayado_ on good grass somewhere down the bottoms and his voice
drifted faintly to Carver as he sang to while away the lonely hours.
The night guards on duty with the herd were likewise singing to soothe
their charges on the bed ground a few hundred yards above the wagon,
and fragmentary snatches of their melodies floated down to Carver’s
ears as he blinked sleeplessly up at the stars. He remained awake
till the hour came to stand his turn on second guard and he rolled
out, mounted his night horse and rode with several others to relieve
the weary riders who had stood the first shift of the night after a
fourteen-hour day in the saddle.

As Carver circled the bed ground his thoughts were still concerned with
the text of the rumor so recently set afloat. It was said that not only
cows, but men would be ordered from the unowned lands; that every foot
of fence must be removed from the range and brand owners forced to
abandon home ranches. Bart Lassiter joined him.

“Well, what do you think of our latest bit of news?” he asked. “Think
they’ll go through with it?”

“It don’t seem reasonable that they’d put over any such drastic
measure,” Carver said. “They might. It will be hard on the old man if
they do.”

A figure rode toward him in the moonlight and the old man in question
joined him as Lassiter departed. Nate too had been restless and had
found himself unable to sleep. As Carver had reflected that such a move
would inflict an undeserved hardship upon his employer, so Nate was
wondering as to what effect it would have upon his hands, for in common
with all cowmen of his type, Younger was proud of the accomplishments
of his riders.

Every brand owner would stand back of the men who rode for him; every
rider evidenced a similar devotion to the owner’s interests,--a loyalty
to the brand for which he worked. Perhaps in all history there has
never been another calling which has inspired the same allegiance
throughout its entire personnel. A man must be proficient in many lines
to qualify as a cowhand. First of all he must be a horseman capable of
mastering any horse on the range and of training his mounts to perform
the various and intricate duties required of them; a roper of parts,
able to front-foot a calf or to rope and hog-tie a mighty range bull
with equal facility; sufficiently skilled in blacksmithing to shoe
his own horses; for these and many other acquirements, working at
them sixteen hours a day, he was paid a lesser sum than any unskilled
laborer received for ten hours of far less gruelling work. It was the
wild free life, not the pay, which held him to his chosen calling.
The driving spring rains which soaked his bed roll as he slept on wet
ground in the open; the shrivelling heat of summer and the shrieking
blasts of winter blizzards; the congenial companionship of round-up
days and the long lonely vigils at isolated winter line camps; all
these he chose in preference to the softer life and greater pay of
other less strenuous pursuits.

“What will all the boys be doing in another season?” Younger asked.
“Where’ll they all go when there’s no more range work for them to do?”

“Texas maybe,” Carver predicted. “Or New Mexico.”

“Both those countries are coming to be overrun with nesters,” Nate
returned. “The big brands are getting their range cut up right now.
They’ve been forced to reduce the size of their outfits in proportion
to the decrease in their range. There’s more cowhands down there now
than there are jobs to go around.”

“Then maybe the Northwest range country,” Carver suggested.

“The surplus bronc peelers of Texas and New Mexico have been drifting
up there for the last ten years,” Nate stated. “They’re a drug on the
market right now, cowhands are. And they’re irrigating that Northwest
country rapid and cutting up the range. Once they settle the Strip, all
the boys down there will have to go into other lines. That’s sure.”

The herd was worked and reworked almost daily as cows wearing brands
that ranged in different parts of the Strip were culled out and
turned over to some wagon crew whose ultimate destination lay in that
direction. All along a two-hundred-mile front more than a score of
wagons were operating in unison. Owners ranging south of the Strip sent
parties up to trail-herd back any of their stock that had wandered to
these parts. These men brought with them little bunches of Half Diamond
H cows and others that had drifted from the Strip to southern ranges.
Some came from beyond the Canadian and at least one little assortment
had been combed from the distant Washita. Younger, in common with other
large owners of his neighborhood, maintained drift fences and line
camps to prevent the drifting of his stock from the home range. Even
with these precautions there was a certain annual leakage, but the
percentage of Half Diamond H cows gathered south of the Cimarron was
small.

Day after day as the round-up progressed the men threshed out the fate
of the unowned lands. It constituted the sole topic of discussion
whenever two riders met on the circle or paused to converse as they
stood their turn on night guard. It filled that brief period of general
indolence in which they indulged each evening before taking to their
beds with the setting sun. Carver, perhaps to a greater extent than
any of them, had anticipated certain transitions. He had correctly
interpreted the presence of those white-topped wagons camped along the
line and knew what they portended, yet even now he found it impossible
to give credence to such drastic changes as were predicted by old Nate
and others of his kind. He sought for an analogous example and found it
in the settling process which Kansas had been undergoing for a period
of forty years; yet throughout the whole western half of that State
ranches of five to fifty thousand acres were the rule. In view of this
circumstance he could not quite conceive of the vast expanse of the
unowned lands being cut up into quarter sections in the space of a few
short years. It would all take time. He advanced this idea to Younger
on a day some three weeks out from the ranch.

“All this talk about men being ordered out of the Strip,” he said. “How
are they going about that? I’ve seen the squatter outfits rolling up to
the line and making camp. But we’ve had similar demonstrations before
now; that year the boomers fired the grass for one; and nothing came of
it. They were ordered out. Even if they let ’em in it will take years
to settle up the Strip.”

Younger nodded abstractly. Since that event had cost him a thousand
head of cows it was but natural that the incident was still fresh in
his mind. A few years past a swarm of squatters had invaded the unowned
lands in the face of all regulations. When the cowmen had sought to
expel them after they had refused to obey the government’s order to
move out, the boomers had scattered and fired the parched fall grass
and stock had died by thousands throughout the burned areas. The
negro cavalry had been sent in to enforce the regulations and were
thereafter stationed at Caldwell, patrolling the line and turning back
all insistent settlers who would enter. Now the Negro troopers had been
withdrawn and a second invasion seemed imminent.

“I know, son; but this time things will be reserved,” Nate prophesied.
“Then they ruled the squatters out and stood by us. This time they’ve
ruled us out instead.”

“They’ll open it for entry,” Carver agreed. “It’s come to that and it’s
likely we can’t postpone it. But this notion that the whole of the
Cherokee country will be settled up solid in a few years’ time seems
overdrawn.”

“A few months’ time, boy,” the old man corrected. “More likely a few
weeks will do the trick.”

Carver’s thoughts reverted to a similar prediction made by Hinman,
“It’ll be one hair-raising, mad stampede,” old Joe had said. But Carver
still dissented.

“It’ll take nearly fifty thousand families to file on every quarter
section in the Strip,” he said. “They’ll come eventually. I know that.
But where will that many come from in a few weeks’ time?”

“Son, they’ll come from every odd corner of the country,” Younger
stated. “They’ll swarm in and settle down in clouds like blackbirds in
a cane field. She’ll be the damnedest, wildest scramble a man will ever
live to witness. I’m telling you.”




V


The stockyards had been the scene of feverish activity for weeks. The
loading pens were crowded to capacity and throughout every hour of
the day and night there sounded the bawls of thirsty cattle and the
shrill yelps of cowhands as they urged unwilling steers through the
loading chutes. Long trainloads of cows rolled out of Caldwell in swift
succession and loading was resumed as soon as empty cattle cars could
be obtained. An antiquated switch engine wheezed noisily as it shunted
cars along the switches and spotted them at the chutes. Day by day the
congestion increased. The quarantine belt swarmed with stock, as some
two hundred thousand head had been gathered from the Cherokee lands for
shipment. In addition to these the regular run of summer business from
the south continued as the trail herds from Texas and New Mexico came
plodding up to add to the congestion.

Money flowed back into Caldwell in steady streams as trainloads of
cattle were converted into cash on the Kansas City and Chicago markets.
Many owners, having been deprived of their range by the stringent
orders, found themselves unable to reinvest in cows the funds received
from recent shipments. In their restlessness many of these turned
to the green tables for relaxation and there were stud games where
hundreds and often thousands were wagered on the turn of every card.
All the cowhands of the Strip were banked up in the quarantine belt,
holding the cows of their employers on grass until such time as they
could be cleared and shipped. In their leisure hours they swarmed the
streets of Caldwell. Added to these were the trail-herd crews from the
whole Southwest, among them many Mexican peelers with their tremendous
hats, silver-mounted saddles and three-inch silver rowels.

Four troops of cavalry were camped along the line and troopers mingled
with the crowds. Caldwell, the last of the old-time cow towns, had
now entered upon her last wild fling. It was now definitely known
that in three months’ time the Cherokee Strip would be thrown open
for settlement and the homeless from all corners of the country were
already beginning to assemble. For weeks on end there was not a room
available in town and men spread their campbeds in vacant lots.
Eating places were crowded to capacity and new restaurants were being
opened up in frame shacks or even in tents wherever vacant sites
were available. As always, where business is rushing and money freely
flowing, there were symptoms of a boom. It was openly predicted that
the settling of the country to the southward would throw Caldwell
into the enviable position of the one logical metropolis of the whole
Southwest.

Cowmen cursed the troopers, seeing in them the visible symbol of that
authority which had excluded them from their rightful domain. The
unowned lands were thoroughly patrolled and detachments of cavalry
were camped at strategic points throughout the Strip. It was this
latter circumstance which had upset Carver’s calculations. He had
planned with Bart Lassiter to hold a bunch of six hundred of Younger’s
three-year-old steers on the forbidden range for a period of one year,
receiving a substantial proportion of the increased price which they
would bring as four-year-olds. Both Carver and Nate Younger had seen
the futility of the attempt. Others had entertained similar ideas but
had abandoned them as events moved swiftly past the farthest bounds of
their previous comprehensions and rendered their hopes untenable.

Carver, once assured that his plans for the immediate future must be
relinquished, cast about for some substitute occupation which might
prove equally remunerative. He rode away from Younger after their
mutual decision, spinning his lone coin into the air and catching it as
his horse jogged slowly across the range.

“It appears as if it’s going to be real difficult to provide you with
all the company I’d counted on,” he said. “Time is skipping right along
and here you are--occupying my pocket all by yourself without even one
mate to jingle up against. Only last week I had it all mapped out to
gather in several thousand of your sort to keep you company. But that
plan’s flown out the window and here I am without one idea to work on.”

He turned along the south line fence of the Half Diamond H leases.

“Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a million,” he asserted.
“But we’ve got to insert our wedge somewheres right soon and start to
mounting.”

His eye traveled along the fence line to where it disappeared in the
distance, and suddenly he turned and rode back to where the outfit was
camped and sought out the boss.

“About those fences being ordered down,” he said. “What arrangements
have you made?”

“Not any,” Nate admitted. “What with gathering eight thousand head of
steers and shipping ’em I haven’t taken time off to worry over fences.
We’ll have the last steer headed north in a few days now. Then I’ll see
about scrapping fences--or let the squatters tear ’em down when they
come in to roost.”

“It won’t leave you short-handed now if Bart Lassiter and I lay off,”
Carver suggested. “You lend me a team and wagon from the home place and
we’ll snatch out those fences for what material there is in them.”

“The fence is yours,” Younger agreed. “Provided the other half-owners
of any stretches are agreeable. Go get it.”

Lassiter assented instantly when Carver stated the proposition.

“I always did feel suffocated in a fence country,” he announced. “I was
always so much opposed to seeing every fence go up that I figure it
will be a real entertaining pastime to help tear ’em down.”

This spirit of optimism lasted during the two days required to hunt up
other part owners of certain stretches and get their endorsement of
the plan, his enthusiasm lasting through the first few days of actual
work. They were out before sunrise and knocked off after dark, pulling
posts, coiling wire and freighting the materials to the Half Diamond
H home ranch. His interest lagged but he did not openly rebel until
after two thirds of the fence had been salvaged. Carver roused him one
morning for breakfast and Bart blinked sleepily at the smoky lantern
that lighted the sod hut in which they had stayed overnight.

“We’ve got enough wire piled up to enclose the State of Texas,” he
stated. “There’s thirty miles of three-wire fence we’ve collected if
there’s a foot. That’s twenty-nine miles more than both of us will ever
need. Let’s leave the rest of her set.”

“But we contracted to scrap the whole of it,” Carver dissented.
“Another week will see us through.”

“A week!” Lassiter moaned. “I just can’t face it, honest. I’ve
reformed. I hope I hang if I ever extract another staple.”

“A week’s not such a long stretch,” Carver urged.

“Donald, I’ll break down and cry if you lead me up to just one other
measly fence post,” Lassiter announced. “You take my half and let me
off. I’ve got to amble over to Crowfoot’s and draw my spring wages.
Then, too, I’d ought to collect Molly and get her settled somewhere in
Caldwell. She’s all alone over on Turkey Creek.”

“I’ll pay you thirty dollars for what time you’ve put in--sometime when
I’ve got it--and take over your wire and finish the job myself,” Carver
at last conceded. “You can locate Molly in my little plant in Caldwell;
only mark me now! There’ll be no more balancing of Cherokee rations
conducted on the premises. I’ll remonstrate with you at some length if
I catch you at it again.”

Carver worked on alone and at the end of another ten days he viewed
with satisfaction the numerous coils of fence wire and the great stack
of posts neatly corded behind the deserted buildings of the Half
Diamond H.

“At present that assortment is only wood and iron,” he said. “But it’s
a real imposing pile nevertheless, and I can likely convert it into
dollars when the squatters come romping in.”

When he rode into Caldwell he was amazed at the swift transitions. The
incoming transients had trebled the population in the last two months.
Being unprepared for this sweeping change he was all the more prepared
to lend a willing ear to the prediction that Caldwell was to become
the metropolis of the whole Southwest. There was a conversational boom
in progress and Carver, looking upon the crowded, teeming streets,
the numerous tent houses everywhere in evidence and the new frame
shacks in the process of construction through the town, divined the
possibility of actual boom days just ahead. He rode out to his little
frame cabin to visit with Molly Lassiter whom he had seen but three
times in as many months. He found neither Bart nor Molly at home but
the door was unlocked and he entered.

The two rooms of the bare little shack had been transformed. Two worn
Navajo rugs were spread on the pine-board floor and soft curtain
materials were draped across the windows.

“She’s made it all homelike,” Carver said. “Just with a touch here and
there. What couldn’t she do with things to work with and a real house
to operate on? We’ll give her one some day if only she’ll agree.” He
drew forth the lucky dollar and consulted it. “Let’s you and me hatch
out a new idea,” he invited. “We can’t be loafing on the job.”

While the idea was hatching he sat peering abstractedly through the
doorway, rousing from his reverie only when he found his gaze riveted
on the girl as she turned into the pathway leading to the house. Molly
halted suddenly when within a few feet of the door, as she saw him
sitting just inside it.

“I hadn’t expected you this soon,” she said.

“Bart told me the fence job would keep you another month at least. Did
you decide not to finish it?”

“It’s salvaged to the last strand of wire,” he returned. “I speeded up
some so as to have it over with.”

“I’m sorry Bart quit,” she said. “You see he won’t stick at anything.”

“Don’t know as I blame him,” said Carver. “The last few days I’ve
developed a downright aversion to the sight of fence wire myself. Glad
to see me?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be out of here and established in a room of
my own so that you can have your house by to-morrow, Don. I’ve been
waiting for the present occupants to vacate.”

“You stay right on here,” he insisted. “I won’t be needing it.”

“Thanks, Don, but I can’t do that,” she said. “I have to stop floating
and find some nook of my own. I can’t follow Bart around any longer.
For three years now we’ve drifted from one spot to the next; sometimes
in line camps; more frequently in some rooming house in any town where
we happened to be, always knowing that wherever it was it wouldn’t be
home for long. I didn’t mind at first, for I was trying to keep Bart
away from Milt and Noll; but they always turn up again and he follows
them off. I’d love even a sod house if only I could call it my own
and know I wouldn’t have to move out on an hour’s notice. I’m sick of
gypsying. I want to feel settled--feel that I’m attached!”

He reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“I know, Honey,” he said. “So do I. That’s exactly my own frame of
mind. The best way all round is for you and me to get attached and
settle. Won’t you?”

She felt that he had failed to grasp the fact of what a sense of
permanency would mean to her after the nomadic existence she had
followed for the past few years.

“Listen, Molly,” he said, divining something of her thoughts. “It’s not
the way a man says a thing but the way he means it that really counts.
And I was meaning that a lot.”

“But you don’t even know to-day what you’re going to do to-morrow,” she
said. “It would be only exchanging one state of gypsying for another.
Don’t you see that?”

He did, at least, see that the moment was not right and he settled back
into his chair and twisted a cigarette.

“You always lean to the dark side of things,” he accused. “Most
complaints I’ve heard about family strife was occasioned because
menfolks generally were so occupied with business that they didn’t
spend much time at home. Now with me not having any special business it
would leave me free to put in most of my time around the house. There’s
that advantage.”

“Yes,” she laughed. “There’s that. Sometimes, Don, I almost wish you
really were a settled sort of a soul; but that time will never be.”

Carver crooned softly:

  “Oh, I’m a rolling rambler,”
  Said the speeding tumbleweed.
  “The prairies are my race track,
  The wild wind is my steed.

  “I never cease my roaming;
  I’m always hard to catch,
  But the pumpkin stays forever
  In the same old garden patch.

  “But I’d rather be a wild, wild weed
  Than a sluggish yellow squash:”

“And I’d so much rather be a pumpkin than the wildest of all wild
weeds,” she said. “There’s only that little difference between the two
of us.”

“Tell me,” he urged, “what sort of a quiet home life do you pine for
most? Does your preference run to a cottage in town or stray off
towards a dwelling in the country?”

“The country,” she returned. “Somewhere on a farm where I could watch
things grow.”

“That’s my choice too,” he confessed. “Whatever business I settle on
will have to be at the source of things. Like you said, I want to watch
things grow--calves or crops, it don’t much matter which. I’ll start
casting about for a farm right off.”

After leaving her he mingled with the swarming crowds on the main
street. The conversational boom was in full swing and he heard it
discussed on all sides. There were but few who dissented from the
general prediction that an era of great prosperity lay ahead for
Caldwell. Carver put in three active hours, then sought out Nate
Younger to draw his back wages for the spring work, a sum totalling a
trifle less than two hundred dollars.

He found Younger in his room at the hotel in conference with Joe
Hinman. The two old cowmen had pooled resources and formed the Plains
Land and Cattle Company, Younger having purchased grasslands adjoining
Hinman’s holdings. They planned to make the new concern a beef ranch
straight through instead of a breeding ranch as now operated by Hinman.

“We’ll be the biggest outfit in this end of the State,” Hinman was
predicting, as Carver thrust his head through the door. “Come in, son,
and set on the bed. The Plains Land and Cattle Company is going to be
the biggest of the lot.”

“I’m counting some on organizing a similar concern myself,” said
Carver. “Maybe a trifle smaller than yours just at first; and in
order to make the start I’ve got to borrow somewhat. I’m owning a
nine-hundred-dollar equity in that bunch of calves we made the deal for
last spring. How about your lending me eight hundred against it?”

“But that would leave you owing me thirteen hundred on the bunch,”
Hinman objected. “And right now those calves wouldn’t fetch that price
on the market.”

“Set the date for maturity of the loan far enough ahead so they’ll grow
into it,” Carver suggested. “Before it comes due they’ll have advanced
way beyond that figure. Then if I don’t pay up you can close me out at
a profit.”

“Now ain’t that a fact!” Hinman exclaimed admiringly. “There was a
time, Buddy, when I marvelled at your ability to shed a season’s wages
overnight. It does look now as if you might also learn me a few tricks
on the reverse side of things. You’ve got a business mind.”

He produced a check book and a stub of pencil.

“How long do you want this loan to run?” Carver asked.

“According to your own figures the longer it runs the more I stand to
make,” said Hinman. “So I don’t know as it makes much difference. It
does appear as if you’d let me in on a pretty good thing--so set the
date yourself.”

“One year from to-day,” Carver decided.

“What do you aim to do with all this money?” Hinman inquired. “Setting
out to break the bank in the Gilded Eagle?”

“I’ve purchased a building,” Carver proclaimed.

“You’ve which?” said Hinman. “What building?”

“Pirie’s place; down in the next block,” Carver informed. “It’s got a
grocery business on the ground floor and the grocer’s wife rents room
upstairs.”

He extended a contract and Hinman perused it, observing that Carver had
agreed to purchase at three thousand dollars, paying six hundred down
and a like amount each year.

“I’d rented my little shack,” Carver explained. “Only to find that
there wasn’t a room for rent in town; not one! It was either buy a
place of my own or set up.”

“It’ll save you considerable room rent,” Hinman agreed, “you being in
town easy three nights out of the year. But what’s the final object?”

“Each season those calves will be worth more and I can borrow enough
additional against them to meet the payments,” Carver pointed out.
“Meantime the grocer pays me thirty dollars rent money every month,
which gives me a steady income to live off till such time as I can turn
the building at a profit and buy a tract of land to run those calves
on.”

“I didn’t know your ambitions run toward owning land,” said Hinman.

“But now since I’ve come into so much surplus fence wire,” Carver
explained, “it looks like the only economical thing to do is to acquire
a piece of land to set inside it.”

“Son, you’ve mapped out a self-operating business,” Nate Younger
congratulated. “All you have to do now is to stand back and watch it
ripen. Meantime why don’t you read up on Belgian hares?”

He handed over the sum due for back wages and Carver studied the two
checks reflectively.

“This surplus now,” he said. “I was figuring to put into horses.
They’ll almost give you horses nowadays just to come and drive them
off. If you don’t mind my throwing a few head up on your range, I’ll
buy up a little bunch and pay you fifty cents a head for pasture fees,
agreeing to get ’em off your grass November first.”

“We’d better let him put ’em on, Joe,” Nate agreed. “It’s that much
more security for that loan.”

Even under favorable circumstances the horse market was poor and now
with all those recently combed from the Strip as a surplus, horses
could be purchased at one’s own price. For a week Carver rode early and
late. The average run of Indian ponies were selling for less than five
dollars a head but it was not this class of horse flesh which Carver
sought. He selected young mares and geldings, ranging from eleven to
twelve hundred pounds in weight, which would serve for light work
stock, and eventually he drove fifty head well toward the northern
extremity of Hinman’s range. They had cost him an average of ten
dollars apiece and he had paid cash for half of them, issuing verbal
promises to pay for the rest. He rode back into Caldwell with something
over a hundred dollars in his pocket.

The equipment of all the deserted ranches in the unowned lands was
banked up in Caldwell. From the Coldstream Pool Carver purchased ten
sets of harness at fifteen dollars a set and three heavy wagons at
forty dollars each, paying his last hundred down and his personal note
for the balance.

Hinman witnessed this last transaction.

“Considering the size of your original stake you’ve stretched it to
cover considerable territory in the last few months,” he said.

“It’s only my surplus I’m spreading out so thin,” Carver explained. “My
capital is still intact.” He exhibited his silver dollar. “My one rule
of life is never to impair my principal.”

“Fine,” Hinman encouraged. “That’s conservative business. I was
satisfied you’d play it slow and safe.”

“Now if you’ll do me just one more little kindness I’ll be grateful;”
Carver said. “You and Nate engage Freel in conversation up on the
corner where he’s standing and inside of five minutes I’ll saunter up
and direct the course of the interview.”

“I’d like to hear it,” Hinman said. “We’ll detain him.”

Carver joined them before the appointed space of time had elapsed.

“Freel, I’ve been feeling real contrite about resisting arrest a few
weeks back,” Carver said. “I’ve decided to surrender and stand trial.”

The deputy marshal glanced apprehensively at the two old cowmen.

“Oh--that,” he said. “Why, I’ve let that matter drop. That’s all
closed.”

“And it was real accommodating of you to close it,” Carver returned,
“but I can’t stand by and see you get in trouble on my account. Orders
are orders, and you had yours. That’s the reason I wrote this letter
to Art Webb.” He tendered an unsealed letter to the deputy. Webb was
Freel’s chief, the head United States marshal of the district. “Webb is
a good friend of mine and I’m demanding that he inform me just why he
sent an order down here to you to pick me up. That will put you in the
clear for not rearresting me since that night I escaped.”

Carver turned to his two friends.

“You’ve both known Webb for years,” he said. “Did you write him like I
asked you?”

“It clear slipped my mind,” Hinman apologized. “I’ll get it off this
evening.”

“Mine goes on the same mail,” Nate concurred. “We’ll sift this thing
right to the bottom layer and clear Freel of any possible blame.”

“Freel will be on my side himself if it comes to a showdown,” Carver
asserted. “He’ll be the first to testify that I’d been away from home
for a solid month prior to the time that charge was lodged. Some one’s
tried to deal me from the bottom, and between the four of us we’ll
discover who it is.”

Freel laughed and slapped Carver on the shoulder.

“Matter of fact, that inquiry was for another party, wanting to know
if he’d turned up in these parts,” he said. “I went and got the names
mixed. The joke’s on me--likewise the drinks, and I’ll buy right now.”

He slowly tore up the letter to Webb.

“And here I’ve been worried almost sick,” Carver said. “It’s a big
relief to have it all cleared up. I still owe you fifty on that little
bet. Here’s an agreement to pay in ninety days, just as an evidence of
good faith.”

He handed Freel a folded paper and the marshal frowned as he read it.

“You’ll notice I stated why I owed it,” Carver amplified. “You’ve
always played square with the boys--and there’s maybe a half dozen
that’s willing to step forth and declare how you’ve always met them
halfway the same as you did with me.”

During the next hour Carver accosted a dozen intimate acquaintances and
told each in turn, quite confidentially, that there was a rumor afloat
to the effect that Freel was about to resign as deputy marshal and
that Mattison was making application for the post.

“By this time to-morrow every man in Caldwell will have commented on
this matter to Mattison and Freel,” Carver said to Hinman. “Not because
they take any special interest in it but just to make conversation.
But the principals, being only human and therefore self-centered, will
decide that the whole town is breathless over their affairs. Mattison
will feel his ambition mounting and Freel will suspect that there’s
been a fire kindled under him. Now if only you and Nate will put in
your pull with Webb to give Mattison the appointment, it looks as if
things would come out right.”

He rented an extra saddlehorse and invited Molly to join him in an
afternoon ride. They jogged out past the stockyards where cowhands
prodded unwilling steers through the loading chutes, on beyond the
sound of the wheezing switch engine and the rattle and smash of cars,
then angled westward through the quarantine belt where riders guarded
thousands of head of cows. In the gathering dusk they rode out on the
point of a lofty knoll which afforded a view throughout a great expanse
of country.

“Have a last look at all this, Molly girl,” Carver said, extending an
arm to the south. “There’s yesterday.”

The green summer range stretched away to the far horizon with never a
plow furrow to break it. Two trail herds had been bedded for the night
at widely separate points. A third, whose trail boss had evidently made
a hard day’s drive to reach the quarantine belt in hope of an earlier
clearance and shipping date than that accorded to his slower fellows,
passed below the two on the knoll and plodded northward. Two men rode
the points, the right and left forward extremities of the herd, guiding
the foremost animals on the chosen course. One man skirted either
flank and two others rode the “drags” in the rear of the herd to press
forward any stragglers as the weary cattle drifted slowly toward the
chuck wagon which was stationed a mile or more ahead and where the rest
of the trail-herd crew had already gathered.

“That’s yesterday, girl,” Carver repeated. “Remember all this as you
see it now; the green range and the trail herds coming up from the
south. Have a last look at it--for here comes to-morrow,” and he
pointed off to the northward.

Miles away across the quarantine belt a slender ragged line extended
either way beyond the range of their vision. A thousand ribbons of
white smoke writhed aloft and glowed in pallid outline against the
darkening sky. For two hundred miles along the line, wherever water was
available, there was one continuous camp of squatters, and still the
land seekers increased at the rate of two thousand families a week,
all the landless of a mighty nation gathering here to participate in
what would go down in history as the Cherokee Run, the most frenzied
stampede of the century.

Both watchers felt a sudden tightening of the throat as they gazed upon
the scene, their feelings much the same but occasioned by different
viewpoints. Carver’s sympathy was with the riders who handled the cows
on the near side of that continuous camp, men who, like himself, had
loved the old open range, the range that was passing for all time. The
girl’s heart went out to those homeless hosts outside the line, for she
herself was homeless and could understand the longing which had brought
them to this spot to join in a mad and desperate rush on the chance
that they might be among the fortunate locaters who should be first
to drive their stakes on any scrap of ground which would constitute
a home. Perhaps they too were tired of gypsying, she reflected, and
yearned for some one spot which they might call their own.

He pointed to the tiny scattering specks that were riders moving from
point to point, then on beyond them to that stolid line.

“Yonder come the pumpkins to crowd out the tumbleweeds,” he said.

The soft summer night shut down and transformed the pale smoke columns
into a tortuous trail of twinkling fires which extended for two hundred
miles along the line.

“We’d best be going now,” the girl said at last. “There’s a
fifteen-mile ride ahead. I’m glad you brought me here to see all this.
It means one thing to you, Don, and exactly the opposite to me. But
it’s something we won’t forget.”

“No,” he said. “We’ll not forget.”

They rode on in silence, the girl occupied with her thoughts of the
homeless legions who would soon have homes, Carver content with the
mere fact of her nearness. When he decided that this thoughtfulness had
claimed her for too long a time he recounted his transactions of the
past few days.

“About those responsibilities I promised you I’d acquire,” he said,
“I’m taking them on rapid. In addition to both residence and business
property here in town, I’m owning a considerable number of horses and a
hundred head of calves, not to mention harness, wagons and a few score
miles of good barbed wire. I’m accumulating responsibilities so fast
that there’s times I can’t be real sure whether they’re mine or some
one’s else.”




VI


A stray steer moved out of a coulee and bawled lustily for company. The
animal traveled at a fast walk, occasionally breaking into an awkward
trot but halting frequently to loose a plaintive bawl.

“He’s lonesome, that old fellow,” Carver surmised. “And hunting hard
for company.”

As he watched the animal he speculated idly as to the probable number
of stray steers scattered throughout the Strip. Always there was a
certain small percentage overlooked in the round-up, those feeding
in choppy timbered breaks or bedded in scrub-oak tangles and missed
by the circle riders who covered such stretches. These missing ones
were caught in subsequent roundups, so it mattered little. But on this
occasion they could be charged off, Carver reflected, for there would
be no future round-up. The owners could not afford to outfit parties
to cover such a great stretch of country for what few were left, yet
Carver estimated that there would be well over a hundred steers still
ranging the rougher parts of the twelve thousand square miles of the
unowned lands. He pulled up his horse and looked back at the bawling
steer, then drew forth his silver dollar and addressed it.

“An idea just hit me,” he asserted. “You and I don’t believe in taking
chances. Conservative, slow and safe, like Hinman said; that’s us every
time. But we’re going to make one more little investment in tumbleweeds
before we settle down.”

A few hours later he went into conference with Nate Younger.

“If you’ll get most of the brand owners that operated in the western
half of the Strip to sign an agreement whereby I get half the market
price of any of their stray steers I bring into Caldwell I’ll outfit a
combing party and go in after them,” Carver offered.

“They’d sign up quick enough,” Younger stated. “Jump at the chance
in fact. But if the owners themselves figure they can’t prorate the
expense of a trip like that and come out ahead, how does it come you
see a profit in footing all the expense for only half the proceeds?”

“Just a whim of mine,” Carver answered.

“Another point you’re overlooking is the nature of a steer,” Younger
protested. “Once he gets lonesome he’ll bawl and travel and attach
himself to the first trail herd that drifts through. Did you ever
consider that little kink in the make-up of a steer?”

“It was through studying over that very point that I acquired the
notion,” Carver said.

“Oh,” said Younger. “Yes, I see. All right, son, I’ll sign them up.”

“There’s the trail bosses of forty different Texas brands in town,”
Carver continued. “And there’s a dozen or so I’d like to sign up on the
same basis. I’ll go out and interview them while you fix up the others.”

“But you won’t find any Texas strays in this end of the Strip,” Younger
predicted. “A trail boss isn’t so much averse to letting an off-brand
join his herd, but he’s dead set against letting one of his own steers
desert it.”

Carver knew that this rule was true. Trailherds, traveling as they
did through cattle-populated ranges, experienced a certain accretion
of numbers through the joining of curious or lonesome cows and it was
no infrequent thing for a drove to reach the shipping point a number
of head stronger than on the start. The foremen of trail crews were
supposed to use every effort to avoid such accretions and to work
their herds at intervals and throw out any off-brands. Many, in order
to save time and trouble, waited until reaching the quarantine belt
before cutting their herds. The brand owners grazing in the unowned
lands had formed the Cherokee Strip Cattlemen’s Association, and this
organization maintained brand inspectors at the Caldwell stockyards
to guard against the possibility of any of its members’ cows being
inadvertently shipped with droves that had been trail-herded through
their ranges.

“No, the trail herds don’t usually drop many of their own steers en
route,” Carver agreed. “It’s more apt to be reversed. But the rule
holds good in Texas as well as in the Strip, so I’ll go out and sign
up a dozen or so of them, even if the paper proves to be only a futile
sort of a document in the end.”

Some three weeks thereafter Carver rode with Bart Lassiter up a
scrub-oak side hill. A little camp nestled in the draw below them where
two other men rode herd on a dozen head of steers.

“It appears to me like you’d staked a losing venture,” Bart asserted,
“with three riders and a cook on your payroll and only a dozen steers
in camp. We’ve covered this whole neighborhood thorough and yet you
stay round. Why don’t we move to some more likely piece of country, say
toward the head of the Cimarron?”

“But it’s so much simpler to let all those strays have time to come
down here and join us than by our rushing things and trying to ride
that whole big country in search of them ourselves,” said Carver.

They topped the ridge and Carver pulled up his horse behind a scrub-oak
thicket. A trail herd streamed down the far slope of the valley and was
halted in a meadow that opened out in the timbered bottoms of Turkey
Creek two miles above Crowfoot’s ranch, the one place in the Strip
not yet deserted. Crowfoot, having beef contracts to fill, had been
permitted to retain a number of steers on the Turkey Creek range with
the understanding that the last of the animals was to be slaughtered
and the place vacated thirty days prior to the date scheduled for the
entry of the Unowned Lands.

“Just consider the amount of territory that herd has covered,” Carver
commented.

Bart recognized the herd as that of X I L with his two half-brothers in
charge, and, as Carver had remarked, the drive had covered considerable
territory. It suddenly occurred to Bart that the trail bosses whose
signatures Carver had obtained were those representing Texas brands
ranging south of the Washita or between that stream and the Canadian,
the country through which the herd had passed. After entering the Strip
it was not Milt’s custom to follow the regular trail-herd routes
but instead he drifted his charges slowly down the North Fork of the
Canadian, then across to the Cimarron and down that stream.

“I expect strays have been joining them all along the line,” Carver
observed. “Now if they’d just happen to work the herd right here on
Turkey Creek instead of waiting till they reach quarantine it would be
right handy for us.”

Bart turned and regarded him, the main purpose of Carver’s venture now
quite clear to him. Milt would cut his herd here on Turkey Creek and
Crowfoot, having still time for one last turn in inexpensive beef,
would present him with ten dollars for every off-brand thrown out of
the herd. Bronson, the owner of the X I L and whose trail herd was the
medium for this traffic, probably received a like sum from Crowfoot.

“It’s been a nice safe occupation for a trail boss,” Bart said.
“He’s privileged to work his herd at any point he elects. It’s even
considered the honorable thing to do if he’s willing to take the time.
If by any chance some outside party gathers in the off-brands he’s
throwed out of the herd, it’s no fault of his.”

“That’s why I’d decided to gather in those off-brands myself,” said
Carver. “See how simple it is?”

“Oh, quite!” said Bart. “And also if I ride down with you on that
errand it will create a rift in my family tree.”

“You once remarked to me that your family relations had been strained
before now but that the breach had later healed,” said Carver. “This
will likely leave a permanent scar, but I’ll pay you three dollars a
head for all the off-brands we collect down there.”

“I value the esteem of Milt and Noll but I’m needing the money bad,”
said Bart. “Let’s you and me ride down.”

“Not right this minute,” Carver dissented. “Let them finish working the
herd. Then all we’ll have to do is to drive off our meat.”

“Or it’s just possible that we’ve mapped out quite a chore for
ourselves,” said Bart. “Milt is in charge down there. He’s easy to get
along with, mostly, but deadly as hell when he ain’t. I’m wondering how
he’ll take it.”

“Being a person of fair average brains, and not a haphazard homicide
like Noll, he’ll take it easy,” Carver said. “I’m armed with a permit
from the military authorities to conduct my work in any part of the
unowned lands. I represent half the brands that ranged in the Strip and
hold a like authority from the trail bosses of a dozen Texas outfits.”

He pointed to the work in progress in the bottoms. Riders were
stationed at intervals round the herd to hold it. Others entered and
singled out off-brands and once a trained cow-horse had spotted the
animal wanted by his rider, he followed doggedly, never losing his
prey, and when near the edge of the herd he crowded it out with a
sudden swift rush.

“They’re throwing them off up the bottoms,” Carver said. “In a few
hours we’ll get Bradshaw and saunter down. After chatting with them
for a spell we’ll mention that we’ve been sent in by the Cattlemen’s
Association. Their hands are tied.”

This assumption proved correct and Milt Lassiter, silent as always,
failed even to comment upon the matter when, some hours later, the
three men casually made known their errand and rode off up the bottoms
in search of strays. Three days later Carver reached the stockyards
with a hundred and twelve head of steers that wore brands of owners
whom he represented. The majority of these bore the insignia of Texas
outfits but there were some forty steers wearing the mark of Strip
owners, strays which had been run into the herd on its way down the
Cimarron. He was cleared and given immediate shipping facilities, for
the congestion of cows in the quarantine belt had passed, only to be
replaced by an even greater congestion of packed humanity just outside.

Thirty thousand souls had come to swell the transient population of
Caldwell. A like number were camped along the line and Caldwell drew
their trade. Day by day the jam increased. Incoming trains were packed
and roads converging upon the town were filled with a solid procession
of vehicles which bore families of hopeful home seekers toward the
edge of the unowned lands. Caldwell, three months since a little cow
town of but two thousand souls, was now doing business on the basis of
a hundred thousand population. Property prices doubled overnight and
still the swarm increased at the rate of a thousand a day.

And beyond, across the dead line which held the mob back from its goal,
the cause of all this rush and turmoil basked in peaceful serenity,
twelve thousand square miles of it, untenanted by a single soul. The
soldiers rode the line on all four sides of it to hold the over-anxious
back; on the west there were troopers stationed at intervals of a mile
the length of the Cherokee-Texas border, and on the south along the
Oklahoma line. To the east the Arkansas River, separating the Strip
from old Indian Territory, was similarly patrolled; yet with all these
precautions there were scores of sooners who had slipped through and
secreted themselves inside. On the appointed day they would come forth
from their retreat and drive their flag on some choice claim as the
horde rushed in.

Late summer droughts had claimed the country and the range was parched
and brown. Registration booths were erected along the line in the
glaring heat and as the day of entry approached there were long strings
of men, some extending for upwards of half a mile, lined up to await
their turn for registration. They camped in the line, sleeping where
they had been standing when night shut down and the registration booths
were closed, some reposing on bare ground, others in campbeds which
they rolled and utilized as seats throughout the day, dragging them
along as the line progressed. Wives and daughters carried meals to
their menfolk and vendors plied the line to peddle food and drink.

Every conceivable variety of business had opened up in Caldwell to
cater to the ever-increasing throngs. It was the wildest of all
frontier booms. Carver’s profit in stray steers had netted him
something over eighteen hundred dollars. He disposed of his business
building at a net profit of fifty-six hundred and sold out his three
lots and little house on the outskirts of town for an even thousand.
After clearing his indebtedness on calves, horses and equipment he
had something over sixty-three hundred left. He then entered into
consultation with Younger and Joe Hinman.

“How much would you figure the best of the bottom land in the Strip
will bring when it’s proved up?” he asked.

“Not much over eight or ten dollars at the first, maybe twelve an acre
for the best of it,” Hinman estimated.

“But if I live a long life I’ll see every foot of it touch fifty,” said
Carver. “Don’t you think?”

“And if you live a while longer than that you’ll see it top a hundred,”
Hinman stated. “It’ll take some time but it will get there. I’ve seen
it repeated before now as a country settles up.”

“I’ve made my last bet on tumbleweeds,” said Carver. “And I’d as soon
start my pumpkin patch down there as anywheres. It would be right nice
to have something over a thousand acres of good land down on Cabin
Creek, the old site of the Half Diamond H.”

“It would,” said Younger. “Only it can’t be done. A man can only file
on a quarter section and he has to live there to prove up. Even if you
could buy his relinquishment you couldn’t live on but one place at
once.”

“Last year when I went up to Kansas City in charge of a train-load
of your steers a banker showed me a collection of scrip he’d made,”
said Carver. “It was Civil War Scrip, issued to veterans in lieu of
pensions, or maybe on top of pensions, I don’t know which. Anyway, it
entitles the holder to lay that paper on any tract of government land
and get a patent to it without having to live there and prove up. A
number used it on small plots left open round where they lived and sold
off the fractions left over for whatever they could get. On and off in
the last ten years this banker has accumulated such fractions to the
amount of seventeen hundred acres. He intimated that he’d let them go
for the price of the raw land. If he’ll sell for three dollars an acre
he’s found a customer.”

“But the Strip won’t be opened for entry till a certain hour,” Hinman
objected. “And right then there’ll be three men for every claim turned
loose across the line at once.”

“There’s thousands making the run that don’t consider proving up,” said
Carver. “They’ll relinquish for whatever they can get. I can furnish
them with scrip to get their patent and they can deed it right back to
me.”

Carver returned a week later, owner of scrip to the extent of nearly
two thousand acres. As he stepped from the train he noted Bart and Noll
Lassiter conversing, Bart grinning as usual while Noll’s face expressed
black wrath.

“Noll is a trifle upset over our turn in off-brand steers,” Bart told
Carver as he joined him. “He considers me a traitor and is deciding
which of twenty different methods will be the most painful way to
kill me. Says he’s no brother of mine, which it’s a relief for me to
discover the fact, since I’ve always wished he wasn’t. He seemed real
irate.”

They turned to view a murky haze off to the south, a haze that changed
to dense billowing black smoke as a hungry blaze licked across the
parched prairies. Some thought the soldiers had fired the grass to
drive out the sooners that skulked in hiding in the Strip. Others
averred that the cowmen, remembering that time when the boomers had
fired the range, had waited till this time to retaliate, a few days
before the settlers were to take over their old domain. Whatever its
source, the fact remained that in the space of two days there were
hundreds of square miles of the unowned lands transformed into a black
and devastated waste.




VII


Soldiers sat their horses at half-mile intervals, awaiting the
appointed hour to give the signal for the home seekers to cross the
line.

Molly Lassiter’s eyes snapped excitedly as she viewed the scene,
a spectacle which has never been duplicated in all history. More
than a hundred and fifty thousand souls were banked up behind the
Cherokee-Kansas line and a thinner wave had assembled on the Oklahoma
side, where the barrier would be lowered at the same hour as that along
the northern edge.

“And six months ago I was thinking it would take years to settle it,”
Carver said. “There’s twelve thousand square miles in the unowned
lands--and within four hours from the time the pistol cracks she’ll be
settled solid; every foot of ground staked and tenanted, right down to
the last odd scrap.”

Bart Lassiter joined them as they rode along behind the line. Every
sort of conveyance the West has ever seen was represented. Hundreds of
canvas-covered wagons were stationed along the front ranks of the mob,
their owners having camped there for days, in frequent instances for
months, to make certain of holding a place in the forefront of the run.
Buckboards and lumbering farm wagons, top buggies and family carriages,
shining runabouts, with here and there a racing cart, the slender,
high-strung horse between the shafts fretting restlessly for the start.
Saddle horses of every conceivable size and color. Scores of Kentucky
thoroughbreds had been shipped in to make the run and even now, two
hours before the start, their riders were maneuvering for favorable
positions as formerly they had jockied at the wire.

Individuals reacted differently to the strain of waiting. Some genial
souls called encouragement to others and optimistically predicted that
there would be claims for all as they motioned some anxious newcomer
in the rear to some gap nearer the front. Others glared suspiciously
at all about them and resented every shift of their neighbors lest
the movement provide space for another hopeful soul. Many men seemed
anxious and careworn. Most of these had families and the next few
hours would mean much to them, their every hope based upon staking out
a claim. Some feverishly discussed their chances while others were
quite stolid; many were boastful, announcing for the benefit of all
within earshot that they knew exactly the best piece of ground in
the Strip and would beat all others to the spot. One woman called out
hysterically to a friend some yards away as the three riders passed
behind her,

“Have your man stake the claim next to ourn,” she screeched. “Then we
can neighbor back and forth. Watch now and pull right in behind us,”
she urged, as if the start were but two seconds off instead of as many
hours. “Don’t let any one wedge in between.”

There were already a half-dozen vehicles in between and their occupants
fidgeted irritably under the constant scourge of her insistent screech.

One ample soul fanned her infant while answering the questions showered
upon her by the rest of her brood, smiling meanwhile at all who caught
her eye and occasionally dropping a word of good cheer to the tall
lean man who occupied the seat beside her, his eyes roving moodily
off across the burned and blackened area of the promised land. A meek
little woman near by cried quietly while her man awkwardly sought to
dissuade her, speaking gruffly in his concern over this unforeseen
situation.

“Close up it sounds like a flock of chattering magpies,” said Carver.
“And from a distance it sounds like the everlasting blat of a band of
sheep. Whatever do you suppose brought all this swarm together?”

“The need that every human feels,” Molly answered. “The urge to have a
home.”

She had pulled up her horse and Carver, following the direction of her
gaze, saw an old couple on the seat of a wagon on the very front of
the line. The man’s beard was white and a ragged fringe of white hair
showed beneath his battered hat; one of the pioneers who had helped hew
out homes in the West for others but who had neglected to retain one
for himself. For a year old Judd Armstrong had been camped at various
points along the line and Caldwell had come to know him. The little old
lady beside him was hatless, her hair drawn tightly back from her brows
and twisted in a scanty knot behind, the blistering sun falling full
upon her wrinkled, weather-beaten face. She gazed serenely forth upon
the restless horde of humanity around her, undisturbed by the nearness
of the hour which would determine whether at last she should have a
home after having been deprived of one for all these many years. Life
had handed her many reverses but she had faced them all with that same
serenity, confident that old Judd would see her through.

“Is there any chance for them?” the girl anxiously inquired.

Carver shook his head doubtfully as he studied the two patient, bony
horses that were destined to carry the ancient couple into the wild
scramble of the most desperate stampede of the century.

“Not much, I’m fearing,” he returned. “This will be one awful tangle,
with every man for himself. Poor old souls; they oughtn’t to go into it
with that worn-out team.”

He turned to Molly and she was looking up at him, in her eyes that same
expression which, at that first meeting, had impressed him with the
thought that she was in grave need of something.

“Don’t look at me like that, Honey,” he said. “Not with folks looking
on. I might lose my head and forget there was any one around. Maybe
they’ll find a scrap of ground that the rest have run over without
noticing. We’ll hope it transpires that way, won’t we?”

She nodded without speaking and they rode on down the line. A little
knot of horsemen appeared some distance out across the blackened
landscape, their progress marked by puffs of fine black ashes and
tossed aloft by their horses’ hoofs.

“Cavalry patrol bringing out some sooner they’ve picked up,” Carver
stated, as he watched the group approach. “There’s likely two hundred
odd hiding out down there to take their pick of the claims when the run
sets in.”

All through the preceding night there had been irregular spurts of
rifle shots at various points along the line as troopers opened up on
sooners that had watched their chance to slip through the cordon of
guards and make a run for it.

“Did you hear the shooting last night?” she asked, and Carver nodded.

“Tumbleweeds drifting through,” he said. “Most of them urged on just
for the love of taking chances--others on the chance of making a few
dollars by selling out.”

“Are there many like that?” she asked. “I mean ones who are doing it
for the sake of a few dollars instead of with the idea of living on
their claims.”

“Thousands,” Carver testified. “Every puncher that ever rode in the
Strip will stake a claim and there’s not one out of ten that would live
on the place a week. Most of them are going in for the sport of making
the run.”

“And they’ll stake the best tracts,” she said.

“They will,” Carver agreed. “They know the country and are equipped
to get there first. But there’s such a scattering few compared to
the size of the country that their filings all combined won’t make a
pin-prick on the map.”

“And where will you file?” she inquired.

“The Half Diamond H,” he said. “That’s my destination. Every ranch down
there stands just as she was left when the cowmen vacated the Strip.
Owners are privileged to move their improvements off but they’re mostly
sod buildings. The parties filing on them will be saved the trouble and
expense of erecting new sod huts.”

“But there’s a frame house on the Half Diamond H,” she said.

“Four rooms--the only one in this end of the Strip,” he returned. “Old
Nate said he couldn’t move it off with any profit and that whoever
staked it wouldn’t likely offer any sum to speak of, so it was mine if
only I’d stake the place myself.”

“But won’t all the boys that used to ride that country be heading for
that same spot?” she asked.

“The old home-ranch sites will be the plums,” he admitted. “They’re
located in good country and all the peelers will line out for them.
If one of the boys beats me to it, I’ll give him a hundred to move on
and stake the next. The Half Diamond H sets in twenty sections of rich
bottom land in the Cabin Creek valley. There’ll likely be thirty or
more old friends of mine head right into that bottom to file, and I can
buy the big part of them out. They’ll sell to the first man who appears
and puts in a bid. That will be me.”

“You’ve found one customer now,” Bart announced. “You can buy me out
cheap.”

“Pick your places in the line and hold them,” Molly urged. “You’ll have
a bad start otherwise.”

“Plenty of time,” Carver said. “We couldn’t get into the front rank
or anywhere near it, so I’d as soon start from behind. A fifty-yard
handicap won’t matter much in a long pull. Those thoroughbreds will
stretch out in the lead for the first couple of miles and give their
riders a chance to stake, but they wouldn’t last on a long hard drag.
One of them would run my horse off his feet in the first three miles
and mine would kill him off in the next ten or twelve. You notice the
boys aren’t much concerned over places,” and he motioned toward an
irregular string of riders well back of the congested throng banked up
along the Cherokee-Kansas line.

All the old-time cowhands of the Strip were prowling here and there,
inspecting those who were so soon to swarm in and take over their old
stamping ground.

The crowd tightened as the hour approached, squeezing a few feet toward
the front as if every inch in the direction of their goal would count
for much in the final frenzied spurt of the get-away. Carver looked at
his watch and snapped it shut.

“Five minutes,” he announced. “You follow along to the Half Diamond H
if you lose us, Molly. I’ve got a food cache there.”

They pulled up their horses, having returned to the point of their
original stand. Judd Armstrong seemed never to have shifted in his
seat and the emaciated horses drooped contentedly, unmindful of the
sudden tenseness that gripped all those around. The more high-strung
horses sensed it and fidgeted nervously. The ample soul still mothered
her infant and smiled while her man sat as stolidly as before, gazing
somberly out across the blackened waste that stretched out ahead. The
troopers had ceased patrolling the line and now sat their horses at
half-mile intervals and faced the eager horde they had held in check
for so long a time. The hysterical lady cut short a screech of advice
to her neighbor four rigs away as the strains of a bugle sounded
faintly from afar, penetrating the buzz of conversation and silencing
it. A second note, far to the westward, joined the first and in a space
of two seconds the clear ringing strains of the bugles pealed the same
message along a front of two hundred miles.

There was a sudden tense hush, the troopers sitting rigidly in their
saddles. As the last notes died away each soldier fired a single shot,
and with a tremendous sullen roar the most spectacular run of all time
was off to a running start.




VIII


A slender thoroughbred leaped forward with the shots, his rider
crouched low along his neck. Carver had a brief glimpse of hundreds of
saddle horses fanning ahead of the main bulk of the stampede. Then his
view was cut off by the dense fog of black ashes churned aloft.

“Look!” he exclaimed.

In either direction, as far as the eye could reach this murky cloud
was sweeping forward. As it eddied and curled he could catch glimpses
of the swaying gray tops of covered wagons and the glittering flash of
newly painted runabouts. It seemed that a black cyclone belt a hundred
yards in width had sucked up thousands of strange land craft and
churned them across the prairies over an endless front.

Men shouted frenzied encouragement to their horses, their voices
lifting above the rattle of the laboring vehicles. Not infrequently
there sounded a splintering crash as some outfit was piled up in
a wreck or the sudden smash and subsequent groaning screech which
announced that two rival wagons had collided and locked hubs. A shrill
cowboy yelp of exultation rose high above the uproar.

“Now we can break through,” Carver stated, and they urged their horses
into a lope and passed the wagons that lagged behind, darting past
others as opportunity offered.

The girl saw humanity in the raw, the bars of convention lowered by
excitement and each man’s true nature standing forth undisguised. She
was treated to kaleidoscopic flashes of human avarice and sublime
generosity. A heavy wagon came to grief as its owner lashed his horses
over the four-foot bank of a dry wash. The tongue was stabbed into the
earth, buckled and snapped, piling the outfit up in a tangled heap in
the bottom of the dry gulch. A man in a light rig cheered the accident
as he made a safe crossing of the wash at a point some few feet away
where the banks were less precipitate, shrieking a derisive farewell to
the unfortunates as he passed. A chap-clad rider set his horse back on
its haunches and dismounted.

“Crawl him, stranger,” he invited. “Give that pony his head and he’ll
take you where you’re aiming for. I’ll help the woman straighten out
this tangle.”

The man boarded the horse and darted off, leaving the cowboy to care
for his wife and children and the struggling team.

Just beyond the wreck a man had leaped from a wagon to plant his flag
while his wife held the horses. A single man had unloaded from a
runabout with similar intent and as the girl passed them the two were
fighting savagely, endeavoring through the medium of physical combat
to settle the question as to which one had first placed foot upon the
ground. While the wife and family of the one gazed upon the scene from
the wagon, the horse of the other was running away with the runabout
which was lurching perilously across the dips and sways of the prairie.

They passed old Judd Armstrong, his bony horses surging on at an
awkward gallop. The little old lady gripped a staff topped by a white
scrap of cloth with which she intended to flag the first scrap of
ground they crossed where she could see no others out ahead. But always
there was a swarm of scurrying shapes far out in the lead.

Just as Carver pulled out ahead of the last fringe of wheeled
conveyances the girl heard again the shrill exultant cowboy yelp and
saw the man riding just ahead of them. He was a big fellow with a
week-old growth of beard, mounted on a rangy bay horse that wore a
Texas brand. He had given the animal its head and was half-turned in
the saddle, looking back at the sea of lurching, swaying vehicles. His
mouth was extended in a grin and he waved his gun aloft.

“Charge!” he bellowed. “Charge!”

He emptied his gun in the air and waved them on as if he were leading
the line into some desperate affray. He bawled facetious commands to
all within earshot. His noisy clamor reminded the girl of Noll, and she
hated the big Texan from the instant her mind conceived this fancied
resemblance. She herself read the pathos that was written in every
movement of the mad scramble, the hungry rush of the homeless; and
she told herself that the noisy horseman viewed it in the light of a
screaming comedy.

A wave of ground cut off her view toward the east, but as the slight
crest flattened to merge gradually with the surrounding prairie the
objects on the far side reappeared, at first merely the heads and
shoulders of those who traveled a parallel course, then their bodies,
then the mounts that carried them. One form seemed to progress smoothly
but there was a queer crouch to the head and shoulders. As more of
him rose into her level of vision, she saw that he rode an antiquated
bicycle with one huge wheel in front and a tiny one trailing in its
wake. The man was hunched over the handle bars and was pedalling
desperately, a grotesque figure with coattails streaming out behind,
a water bottle slung across his back with the shaft of a small flag
thrust through the strap.

“Oh, Don! Bart! Do look,” Molly implored. She was laughing in sheer
delight yet she was conscious of a swift, hot resentment when the big
Texan raised his voice in a joyous whoop as he sighted the strange
apparition and gave chase. He veered his mount to the left, unbuckling
his rope strap, and as the animal stretched into a full run behind the
speeding cyclist he shook out a few coils of his rope and whirled his
loop aloft. He did not make his throw but contented himself with giving
voice to a wild yelp with every jump of his horse. His victim turned
to cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder and the front wheel
collided with a dog mound and threw him. Even in the act of rising he
thrust his flag into the ground and staked his claim, the big fellow
cheering him as he passed.

Hundreds of riders were scattered out in the lead of the line of
oncoming vehicles that was strung out as far as the girl could see
toward the east and west. Whenever one horseman attained the lead in
his own particular section of the field he flung from the saddle and
planted his flag. Scattered at intervals through it all Molly could
make out moving specks of color--bright reds and purples, brilliant
orange and softer effects of lavender--and she knew these for the gaudy
regalia of the cowboys. These were not dismounting but riding steadily
ahead, each with some particular destination in mind, saving their
horses for the last wild spurt. Little by little the field thinned
out. Some few of the cowmen had dashed suddenly ahead to stake their
claims in some of the better valleys but the majority of them were
still holding on. They swept down into a wide brown valley untouched
by the fire and three times during the crossing of it Molly saw riders
dismount far ahead--too far; and she knew that these were sooners
who had been hiding in the unowned lands and who had now put in an
appearance as the peak of the run came in sight.

The Texan had lost ground in his chase of the cyclist but eventually
Molly heard him off to the right and rear, his big voice raised in a
song which she thought fitted him exactly.

  “I’m a wild, wild rider
  And an awful mean fighter,
  I’m a rough, tough, callous son-of-a-gun.
  I murder some folks quick
  And I kill off others slow,
  That’s the only way I ever take my fun.

  “I’m a devil with my quirt,
  A terror with my knife,
  A fearsome fiend when out for pistol practice,
  I wield a wicked spur,
  Twirl a nasty ten-foot loop
  And curry out my red mane with a cactus.”

When they had covered some ten miles Molly noted that the brilliant
specks were forging steadily forward through the scattered ranks of
their more somberly clad fellows and gradually attaining the very fore
fringe of the run. Another two miles and the bright dots were out in
the lead and it was apparent that many were converging upon the line
which Carver followed toward a distant dip in the landscape. Every
cowhand was up on a horse that had proved its speed and endurance in
many a hard round-up circle. The clatter and crash of vehicles had died
out behind. Carver glanced both ways along the line.

“The boys are drawing in toward the Cabin Creek bottoms,” he called to
Molly. “Best land in the Strip. There’ll be many a friend of mine in
the lot. Here’s hoping they stake near the old home ranch.”

He glanced along the scattered line again as they rode across a low
wave of the prairie and the broad bottoms of Cabin Creek opened out
below them, spared by the fire and carpeted with grass that was only
now turning brown.

“Now!” he said. “Run for it!” and they let their horses out and raced
down the gentle pitch.

Carver kept his eye on the low point of a ridge that thrust its nose
into the edge of the valley three miles below. Just beyond that
shoulder the Curl Fork of Cabin Creek joined in and the buildings
of the Half Diamond H nestled under the hill. Below that point the
bottoms widened out to twice the width of the part they now traversed.
More than thirty riders were strung out across the level floor of the
valley, careening down both sides of the creek.

Some dropped from the saddle and drove their flags, but a dozen or more
on Carver’s side of the creek held straight on. This last spurt was
a contest between seasoned riders and tried horses. Carver urged his
mount and the animal drew on his last reserve of speed. Molly felt the
smooth play of powerful muscle sweeping her on toward the goal as her
own horse, fresher from having carried less weight over the long miles,
ran nose to nose with Carver’s. Bart was twenty feet to their left and
as far in the rear.

As they thundered down upon a tiny spring-creek flowing on the near
side of the shoulder Carver waved a hand.

“Up there!” he shouted to Bart. “Flag it!”

Bart whirled up the course of the spring-creek and the girl wheeled her
horse to follow him while Carver held the straight course for the low
jutting point. As Bart and Molly turned aside, the big Texan dropped
from his horse a hundred yards down the little stream and planted his
flag.

A dozen riders were almost abreast of Carver as he rounded the point
and flung from his saddle in the ranch yard of the Half Diamond H. He
had staked the old home ranch.

He turned to watch the rest flash past and recognized a big paint horse
as a circle mount of Bradshaw’s string. The group that had clung so
persistently instead of staking farther up the valley was composed of
old friends to a man. He picked them one by one as they fanned out
through the widening bottoms and staked them from the creek to the
valley slope for two solid miles below the Half Diamond H.

“Box T riders or former Half Diamond hands,” he said. “Every man. I
needn’t have put on such a strenuous last spurt if I’d only looked back
to see who made up the bunch that was crowding me so hard on the final
lap. I see old Joe Hinman’s hand in this.”

He turned at a sound behind him. A man stood calmly by a lathered
horse some thirty yards back among the sod outbuildings.

“You’ll have to get off,” the stranger announced. “This is my ground. I
staked it first.”

Carver stared for a brief space, unable to grasp the fact that another
had rounded the point ahead of him. He certainly had not arrived since
Carver reached the spot so he must have been there first. Then Carver’s
comprehension cleared and he led his horse back toward the other.

“Looks like you had beat me here for a fact,” he said.

“By three minutes,” the stranger stated.

Carver glanced at the man’s horse. The animal’s shoulders and flanks
were lathered white, as if from a long hard run, but its breathing was
smooth and regular and its sides were steady. He glanced at his own
mount with its heaving flanks; listened to the animal’s heavy labored
breathing.

“Beat you by three minutes,” the stranger reasserted.

Carver touched the lathered horse with one forefinger, carried the
member to his mouth, then spat the soapsuds out.

“Yes, you beat me by three days,” he said. “Which is just a shade too
broad a margin. Now you step up into the middle of that pony, and start
working up a real sweat on him while you’re getting away from here.”

The sooner faced him defiantly, a black scowl on his countenance, but
he read the same purpose in Carver’s eyes that Freel had discovered
in them on the day the marshal had offered to make Molly Lassiter
respectable.

“I’ll sell out for five hundred,” he offered.

“In less than that many seconds you’ll be headed for some place where
money can’t follow you,” Carver returned evenly. “You climb that horse
and amble.”

The sooner swung to the saddle and rode off toward the eastern slope
of the valley. It would have availed him little to head down country,
for already the bottoms were filled with riders. Those left behind in
the last mad dash for the Half Diamond H were now pouring through in
hundreds. The side hills that flanked the western edge of the valley
were being staked and other riders streamed along their crests.

When Carver looked again he saw that the sooner had planted his flag
a half-mile up the little spring-creek that trickled past the doors
of the ranch house and on down to the parent stream, a mate for the
one that flowed on the far side of the ridge where he had sent Bart
Lassiter. The sooner’s present holding would be just across the ridge
from Bart. But Carver was not concerned over the future actions of
the man. If he succeeded in holding a piece of ground which should
have gone to some legitimate stampeder it was no affair of his, Carver
reflected, and dismissed it from his mind. For thirty minutes the home
seekers continued to pour through in gradually diminishing numbers.
Most of the wheeled conveyances had dropped out, their owners either
having won their goal at some point farther back or given up the race,
but a few buckboards rattled past in the wake of the last straggling
horseman.

Then Carver turned to the work in hand. Those in his immediate vicinity
who had made the run for the purpose of realizing a quick turn on their
relinquishments were the ones he sought. The cowhands were the logical
parties to interview.

Bradshaw was sprawled comfortably on the ground on the next quarter
section below.

“Old Joe is responsible for this,” Carver said, as he rode down toward
his friend. “He sorted out the Box T boys that were going to make a
filing just to sell it, and such of the old Half Diamond H boys as he
could locate. This way it helps us all. They find me a ready buyer and
I find them ready sellers, roosting on the very ground I want. Then,
too, Joe was thinking of old Nate. Younger lived here for twenty years.
With me on the Half Diamond H he can come down and find at least a part
of it the same.”

Bradshaw grinned as Carver neared him.

“What’s your offer?” he demanded. “Speak in big figures now or I’ll
stay here and farm this piece myself. Joe tipped us off to swarm in and
settle in a flock just below Nate’s old home ranch. Well, what do you
bid?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” Carver stated.

“Too much--but I’ll take it,” said Bradshaw. “Give me a commission and
I’ll buy the others out for you anywheres from fifty to a hundred.”

“Two hundred and fifty is my flat price to every man,” said Carver.
“That’s a good fair figure for both sides. They’ll have to take my
notes for it, dated eighteen months ahead at six per cent. They can
either wait and live off the interest meantime or discount them at the
bank--provided they can locate a banker who’s optimistic enough to make
an investment in my paper.”

“I’ll ride along with you to see the others,” Bradshaw volunteered.

“You all can go and make your filings in the next few days,” Carver
said. “Then I’ll furnish each of you with scrip to lay on your quarter.
You can deed it over to me when you get your patent.”

Two hours later Carver rode across the low ridge in search of Molly
Lassiter.

“Ever see a prettier nook than this?” he asked, as he dismounted. “I
told Bart I had just the place picked out for you and him.”

A few trees, somewhat gnarled and stunted--but every such growth is
noteworthy in a treeless country, and the black-jack belt did not
extend so far north as this--sprouted in a little dent in the base of
the ridge, a level floor of rich ground spread out before them. The
little creek, fed by side-hill springs, purred merrily along the foot
of the slope.

“It’s wonderful here,” she agreed. “I’d love it if only Bart would stay
here and prove up instead of selling out.”

“Maybe we can exert a little pressure and make Bart come to his milk,”
said Carver. “This is too good a place to sell out offhand. Wait till I
scour a few layers of ashes off my face and we’ll ride up to the ridge
so you can see my layout.”

His face was still black from the ride across the burned areas and he
repaired to the little creek and splashed face and hands in the clear
cold water. The big Texan had come part way up the creek to converse
with Bart and his voice carried to Carver as he made boastful comments
upon his own farsightedness.

“I don’t know this country but I staked as good a piece as there is
in the whole twelve thousand miles. That’s me! Know how? I’ll follow
the leather-legs, I decides; the peelers that has rode this stretch.
They’ll know where the best ground is. I’ll trail along and be there,
for there ain’t no man can outride me when I’m up on this bay horse.”

His voice followed them as Carver and Molly rode up the gentle slope of
the ridge and the girl hoped she would not have this man as a neighbor
for long. His bluster made her feel that Noll was near at hand. There
had been a clean break in their relations since Carver’s recent turn in
inexpensive beef, and Noll had asserted that Bart was no relative of
his. If only he could convince others of that, she reflected, she would
be far better satisfied.

“See,” Carver said, pointing as they topped the ridge. “I’ve bargained
for eleven quarters besides my own. That gives me eighteen hundred
acres in one block. I’ll leave that first piece in front of the house
in grass, just like it is now. Then when old Nate comes down to visit
round with me it will seem almost like the same old place he’s lived in
for the past twenty years or more.”

“I’m glad, Don,” she said. “But how can you be sure they’ll deed the
land over to you after they get their patents. There’s no possible way
to pin a man down to turn over his homestead to another.”

“Not a way in the world,” he conceded. “They could keep their place
or sell it, once the patent’s issued, and I couldn’t lift a hand. I’d
counted on losing maybe a quarter or two that very way. But not now;
not with those Box T and Half Diamond H boys on the other end of it.
Wouldn’t one of ’em throw me if he was offered ten times the price.”

She hoped that he had gauged them rightly but her experience had taught
her to doubt this class of drifting, homeless men. She had met a number
of such during the last few years of drifting with Bart, mainly the
associates of the two elder half-brothers, and she had come to believe
that trustworthiness was an infrequent trait among their kind.

Bart mounted the ridge and joined them.

“What’s offered for my farm?” he greeted.

“I’m not buying on the far side of the ridge,” said Carver. “Only down
below.”

“Then I’ll present it to you,” Bart returned cheerfully. “By the way,
you’re owing me three hundred or thereabouts on our little flier in
steers. If you could let me have a piece of it I’ll trickle into
Caldwell in the morning. I’ve got pressing business there in town.”

“I’ve invested that money for you,” Carver said. “I’ve reserved scrip
to cover your hundred and sixty acres. I’ll turn it over to you when
you make your filing. They’ll issue a patent and then you and Molly
will have some place to come back to whenever you get weary of moving
round. You’ll be owing me a little extra on the cost of the scrip but
you can pay it off whenever it comes handy in the future.”

Bart sighed gustily.

“I always did lean towards owning a farm that I didn’t have to live
on,” he stated, “and you’ve showed me the way. You always did treat me
all right, Don, and I thank you. As long as I already owe you money
I’d as leave owe you more. I’ll remember it better that way. Lend me
twenty. I suspect the boys will be looking at their hole cards somewhat
in your bunk house this evening and I’m always curious to see which
one of the fifty-two cards each man has got in the hole.”

Carver laughed and handed him the money.

“We’ll turn the house over to Molly to-night,” he said. “I’ve got a
tent cached in the bunk house that you can pitch over there on your
place to-morrow.”

The girl rested her hand on Carver’s arm as Bart left them.

“That was a wonderful thing to do for Bart,” she said. “Oh, Don! Don’t
you suppose he’ll stay there and keep it?”

“Sure, Honey,” Carver assured her. “You can’t clamp down on a range
colt too sudden and put him on the picket. We’ll keep an eye on him and
gradually decrease his range. Don’t you fret about Bart.”

He was peering off across the country and she followed the direction of
his gaze. A wagon had just crawled into view on the ridge on the far
side of Bart’s filing and near the upper edge of it. The last rays of
the setting sun caught the tattered canvas top. Even at a distance of
three quarters of a mile both Carver and the girl recognized the outfit
as old Judd Armstrong’s, the horses moving slowly, their heads drooping
dejectedly.

“You wait here, Molly,” Carver said. “I’ll ride over and help them
pick a good place to camp. Then we’ll stir up a bite for the boys to
eat.”

He intercepted the outfit as it pulled into the bottoms. The little old
lady still clasped the staff of her flag.

“Staked your piece yet, Uncle?” Carver greeted.

“Not yet,” said old Judd. “We’ll likely locate one to-morrow. These
horses is about played out and we’ll have to make camp here, I reckon.”

The woman nodded serene agreement. Ever since she could remember they
had been making camp.

“Maybe they can make one more drag of it over this next rise,” Carver
said. “It’s not much of a pull. There’s a nice little creek over across
and a ripping good piece of ground that hasn’t been staked. They all
run clear on acrost it and never noticed. It’s the next piece up the
creek from mine.”

He uncoiled his rope and made it fast to the wagon tongue, took a short
snub on his saddle horn and pulled in ahead of Judd’s weary team. The
horse buckled sturdily to his task and they made the crossing.

“You make camp right here on this creek,” Carver instructed. “This is
your claim. I’ll see you to-morrow, Aunty.”

“Thank you, son,” she said. “You’ve done us a big favor. This is better
ground than any we’ve crossed through. I was beginning to be just a
mite worried for fear we mightn’t find a piece. It was real nice of you
to tell us.”

Carver turned his horse up towards where the sooner reclined on the
creek bank.

“I instructed you to high-tail it out of the country,” he announced.
“So you put forth from here sudden.”

“Do you imagine you’re in charge of this whole territory?” the man
demanded.

“I was once,” said Carver. “Foreman of the old Half Diamond H. In lack
of any better authority I’ve elected myself temporary head of the
district so I can choose my own neighbors. I don’t pick you.”

He handed the man a ten-dollar bill.

“I’m sorry to see your efforts wasted but maybe you can drown your
grief in that,” he said. “There’s not a chance in the world for you to
make your claim stick--and I’ll see that you come to a bad end if you
try to file. You can use your own judgment about when you flit from
these parts.”

He turned back toward Molly but the girl had gone down her own side of
the ridge as a second wagon rolled into the bottoms and halted on the
upper end of the Texan’s filing. The outfit of the ample soul and her
solemn spouse had been wrecked in the early stages of the run and the
repairs had required too great a time to permit of their overtaking the
other stampeders. As Molly joined them she heard the voice of the Texan
lifted in his war song as he returned from a boastful visit with some
near-by homesteader.

  “I’m a wild, wild rider
  And an awful mean fighter----”

The song ceased abruptly as he spied the wagon on his claim and headed
his mount for the spot. He leaned from his saddle and inspected the
ample lady who still smiled through the grotesque mask of black ashes
that had settled on her face, then let his eyes rove over the children
in the depths of the wagon.

“This your claim?” the solemn man inquired. “We just want to wash up a
bit and camp here for the night.”

Molly waited for the abrupt refusal. The Texan gazed helplessly from
one to another of the group.

“Mean to say you didn’t get a piece of your own with all this stretch
to choose from?” he demanded.

The man shook his head.

“Have this one,” the Texan invited. “I’ve been wondering what the hell
I’d do with it.”

The woman still smiled but a tear squeezed through and trickled down,
leaving a trail in the grime of ashes on her face. She leaned over the
infant in her arms to hide the evidence of weakness, speaking a word
to the child. The Texan shifted uneasily in the saddle and Molly saw
him in a new guise; not as a big ruffian but as an overgrown, kindly
boy, helpless to extricate himself from this trying situation. A happy
thought struck him.

“I’d cry too if I thought I had to live here,” he said. “I’d trade this
whole damn country for a square rod in Texas,” and he headed his horse
back down the creek.

Hours later Molly Lassiter reclined on Carver’s camp bed which he had
spread for her on the floor of the Half Diamond H ranch house.

The Cherokee Run was over. At noon there had been a vast tract
of virgin territory, twelve thousand square miles of untenanted
lands,--and within four hours of that first bugle call it had been
settled, staked to the last square inch. The wildest stampede that the
world had ever seen was a matter of history.

A variety of sounds floated through the open window. The long,
many-roomed bunk house in rear of the frame building was crowded to
overflowing. All the cowhands for miles around had followed the old
custom of dropping in at the nearest ranch when caught out on the range
at night, certain of finding a welcome and a feed. They had feasted
unreservedly upon Carver’s food cache which he had planted at the ranch
weeks before.

Molly heard two voices raised in the chant of the tumbleweeds as two
belated riders approached. Always these men sang when they rode at
night, having acquired the habit on many a weary circuit of the herd,
singing to quiet their charges on the bed ground.

The big Texan’s voice carried to her from the bunk house.

“Now when I play poker with strangers I first state the rules,” he
announced. “The way stud poker is dealt is to hand out the top card
first and the next one next, and so on down to the bottom card which
comes off last and is not to be removed prior to its turn.”

“It’s nice to have some one who actually knows how the rules run,”
another voice answered. “If any little squabble crops up we won’t have
to debate the question but just ask you and find out for sure.”

“I’ll settle all arguments,” the Texan volunteered. “You’ll note that
I’ve stuck my knife here in the table and I’ll certainly remonstrate
with the first party that introduces any irregularities.”

The two newcomers rode into the yard, unsaddled and turned their horses
into the corral. One of them answered the questions regarding his claim
as he appeared in the door of the bunk house.

“I quit it,” he announced. “A wagon came dragging along an hour ago
with a wild woman aboard. Leastways she was talking wild--and frequent.
They’d locked hubs and piled up on the start. I presented them my
place. I hadn’t no use for it. All my life it’s been all I could do to
scratch a living off the face of the whole outdoors, so there wasn’t a
chance for me to scrape a income off one little quarter section anyway.”

“I had the piece next to his,” the second cowboy stated. “But the other
set of locked hubs came dangling along. The woman ahead would screech
back that the tangle was all her fault from keeping too close, and
wouldn’t the other party be sure to stake the next piece to theirs so’s
they could neighbor back and forth. Just to quiet her down I handed
mine to the parties she was so hell-bent to neighbor with. I was afraid
she’d have a headache in the morning if she kept at it; and besides I
couldn’t lay out there and listen to that gabble.”

Molly burrowed her face deep in the pillow. During the day she had seen
much that was gold beneath that rusty exterior of the tumbleweeds and
much that was dross beneath the golden surface of many of the pumpkins.
These men who rallied to Carver, drifters all, were a different breed
of drifters than those she had met as friends of her two half-brothers.
And now the tumbleweeds had been cast out of their domain.

“Hand me them cards,” said the big Texan. “Now we’ll have an honest
deal. I’d trust myself further than any other man I ever met.”




IX


Carver looked from the window of the Half Diamond H. All down the
valley were twinkling lights which denoted the presence of the homes
of early-rising settlers. Off to the east and west there were lights
resting at higher levels, these from cabins on side-hill claims on the
rising flanks of the valley. As the morning glow flooded across the
country the lights paled and the habitations themselves appeared, first
as darker blots emerging gradually from the surrounding obscurity, then
in distinct outline as the shadows lifted. Some were tiny frame cabins,
the most of them unpainted. The greater number were sod huts, some
few merely dugouts. Poor habitations these, no doubt, yet they were
homes and as circumstances permitted they would be replaced by more
pretentious ones.

The virgin stretches of the Cherokee lands had been transformed into
a solid agricultural community overnight. The run was not quite two
months past, yet even the style of expression, the customs of speech
and the topic of general conversation had experienced an alteration as
decided as the physical changes in the countryside. No more the heated
arguments over the relative merits of two cow horses but instead a less
spirited discussion concerning the desirability of Berkshires over
Durco-Jerseys. The never-ending controversy as to the superiority of
the center-fire as against the three-quarters’ rig had been supplanted
by an interchange of advice as to the seeding of crops and the proper
care of hogs. Where but a few weeks back the bronc fighters had met to
exchange bits of range gossip, housewives now visited back and forth to
exchange recipes for making jell.

Conditions had favored late plowing, a fortunate circumstance in view
of the late date of the opening, and a part of the settlers had made
every effort to seed a certain acreage to winter wheat. Carver had
not wasted a day in his endeavor to get a portion of his holdings
broken out and in shape to produce the following season. Circumstances
had favored him. Cash was a rare commodity among the majority of the
homesteaders and in lieu of it they frequently effected an exchange of
work. The spirit of coöperation was large. Homesteads must be fenced
and materials were expensive. Many could not afford such a drain upon
their finances until such time as they could harvest a crop.

Carver had supplied needy neighbors with posts and wire from the great
store he had salvaged from the line fences of the old Half Diamond H,
requiring of each man in return that he should start at once upon the
task of plowing, harrowing and drilling in winter wheat on a certain
specified acreage of Carver’s holdings. Most of the settlers had
implements of a sort. All had plows, some few possessed drills, and
what one man lacked he borrowed from his neighbor, the favor to be
later returned in like service or in labor when occasion should offer
and so all were enabled to perform the tasks which Carver required of
them in return for their fencing. He now had eight hundred acres seeded
to winter wheat, planted somewhat later than was customary but with an
even chance of making a crop.

The transformation of the unowned lands had been sweeping and complete.
One now rode between fences along section lines that would soon became
graded highways. Towns were springing up with mushroom suddenness and
country schoolhouses were in the course of construction at many points.
A picture of rural activity stretched away on all sides, yet through it
all a vague whisper of unrest persisted, as if the spirit of the old
days refused to be cast off so entirely.

The cowhands who had ridden the Strip continued to ride it. Always
there had been a surplus of riders during the winter months and these
jobless ones had grub-lined from one ranch to the next, certain of
finding a welcome and a meal at any spot where circumstance or fancy
led them. They continued to act upon this supposition, sanctioned by
long years of custom, and the settlers looked with disfavor upon these
rovers who dropped in at their cabins and expected to be fed as a
matter of course, deeming them parasites upon the community, drones who
were unwilling to work and produce; for the cowhands scornfully refused
to milk or follow a plow in return for their board. From the first they
had swarmed in upon Carver, overjoyed at finding one man of their own
sort among all this clutter of aliens,--one man who understood.

Carver had fed all comers, knowing that while they would neither milk
nor plow, they would willingly turn their hands to any task which had
been part of their regular duties with a cow outfit in the old range
days. They had stretched every foot of his fences. When there was
freighting to be done there were always willing volunteers. Some he had
sent north to Hinman’s range to bring back the fifty head of horses
he had purchased before the opening. The boys had gentled these green
colts and taught them the feel of harness. Always there were a dozen
grub-liners stopping at the bunk house overnight. Every evening Carver
recited the tasks of the following day and the men apportioned these
chores among themselves through the medium of freeze-out poker. Carver
had never cooked a meal or washed a dish since the day of the run.

He now thrust his head from the back door.

“Ho!” he called. “Roll out!”

There were sounds of instant activity from the bunk house.

Carver tapped on a door in the ranch house.

“Coming, son,” Nate Younger answered. “Be with you right off.”

The original owner of the Half Diamond H had come down to view it under
the new conditions. He had found his old room fitted up in much the
same fashion as when he had occupied it in the past. A hundred acres of
grassland, untouched by the plow, spread out before the house.

“Don’t find things so much changed right in the immediate foreground,
do you, Nate?” Carver asked.

“Not much,” said Nate. “Looks pretty much the same. It is real white of
you to reserve the old man’s room for him.”

He listened to the drone of voices from the bunk house.

“Must be considerable of a drain on your finances to feed all the
grub-liners these days,” he said.

“Somewhat,” Carver admitted. “But I someway can’t gather courage to
shut them off. Half of them are still conversing about when work opens
up in the spring, same as they’ve always talked in winters. They don’t
realize yet that spring work won’t ever open up for their sort again.”

After breakfasting Carver rode up the trail that threaded the low
saddle in the ridge back of the house and dropped down to the
Lassiters’ claim on the far side of it. Bart, fired by the example
of those around him, had worked steadily since the day of the run.
Cowhands stopping at Carver’s place had helped Bart fence his claim.
With two of Carver’s teams he had broken out a forty-acre piece and
seeded it to winter wheat. Through the medium of the nightly poker game
in the bunk house of the Half Diamond H he had accumulated enough cash
to purchase the materials for the construction of a three-room frame
house to supplement the sod hut in which he and Molly had been living
since the run. But now his enthusiasm had waned and Carver found him
seated on a pile of new lumber, gazing moodily off across the country.

“I’m needing relaxation bad,” Bart greeted. “Why, I wouldn’t be able
to find my way around Caldwell, it’s been that long since I’ve been in
town. Isn’t it about time you’re getting that hundred head of yearlings
off Hinman’s range and bringing them down here?”

“In a few days now,” Carver admitted. “I’ll be starting up after them
before long.”

“Why don’t you send me?” Bart suggested.

“With you in charge they might increase too fast on the homeward way,”
said Carver.

“I’ll guarantee not to arrive with one extra head over the specified
number,” Bart offered. “I’ll go up and get them, just as a sort of
favor in return for many a kind deed you’ve done for me.”

“Not you,” Carver declined. “Anyway, you’ve got all your lumber on
the ground now and you want to stay on the job until you’ve built the
house. I’ll send over a few volunteers from the bunk house squad to
help you throw it up.”

“That lumber is too green to work up just yet,” Bart objected. “I’ll
rest up in town till the sap quits flowing through those boards and
they season up till a man can run a saw through ’em. The birds were
singing in those very trees last week.”

It was evident that Bart was bent upon having his vacation under any
possible excuse.

“All right--go ahead and relax,” said Carver. “Only don’t be gone too
long.”

“I’ll be drifting over to Casa and see how the County Seat ruckus is
coming on,” Bart decided. “I’ll report on the latest developments when
I come back.”

A thriving town had come into being on the site of the box car which
had once borne the name of Casa and which had been sacked and burned.
A bank and a frame hotel, two general merchandise establishments, a
hardware and implement concern, grocery stores, restaurants, saloons,
two livery barns, a drug store, barber shop and pool hall, all
glaringly new and mostly unpainted, made up the business district of
Casa, which now numbered a population of four hundred souls. Various
businesses were conducted in board-floored tents until such time as the
proprietors could secure more permanent quarters.

Casa, by virtue of both population and location, had considered
herself the logical choice for County Seat. The government appointee
charged with such locations had listened and agreed, provided only
that a personal bonus of one thousand dollars be tendered him along
with the other arguments. Graft was open and flagrant in the early
days of the Strip and communities as well as individuals paid the
price for official favors. The citizens’ council, a volunteer body of
Casa business men, had flatly refused and the locater had thereupon
designated Oval Springs, a little camp some miles to the south as
the legal center of county government. This move was destined to
precipitate one of the bitter and enduring county-seat wars for which
the West is famed. Casa was not alone in her troubles, for this was but
one of three such controversies at various points in the Strip.

The railroad had backed Casa in the feud from the first. At the time of
designation Oval Springs could boast neither a side track nor a station
and the railroad had steadfastly refused to halt its trains. The
citizens of Oval Springs had hastened to erect a large frame building
to serve as a courthouse, a second to serve as county jail, this last
edifice complete except for a few exterior touches and a coat of paint.
The steel-framed cells were already installed and the jail was open for
business. The trains still rolled through and eventually Oval Springs
took matters into their own hands and elected to make that point the
terminal from both ways by tearing up two hundred yards of track. A
stock train had been piled in a gulch, a passenger train derailed.
This last had constituted a case of obstructing the delivery of the
United States mail and Carl Mattison, appointed deputy marshal in the
post from which Freel had resigned, had been sent in with a posse to
straighten out the tangle.

Alf Wellman, who had staked his claim adjoining the present town site
of Oval Springs, had been appointed sheriff until such time as an
election could be held. It was freely stated in Casa that the sheriff
and his deputies declined to interfere with the lawless element that
sought to destroy railroad property and so force the railroad company
to halt its trains. The feud was destined to be bitter and sustained
and it was slated that another fifteen years should pass before Casa
should come into her own as the permanent seat of county affairs.

Two days after Bart’s departure he rode up to the Half Diamond H at
daylight.

“Just dropped by for breakfast and to report on the general situation,”
he informed. “I changed my mind after leaving the other day and dropped
down to view the new county seat. Quite an alteration in those parts
since the night you and me camped there during round-up without a house
anywheres in sight. There’s trouble brewing down there in quantities.”

“Then how did you happen to leave?” Carver inquired.

“Last night some unknown parties staged a midnight battle with the
marshal’s posse that’s guarding the relaid tracks, during which it’s
reported that one of the posse was killed and two others damaged. Under
cover of this ruckus some others succeeded in blowing up the bridge
just south of town and traffic is once more suspended.”

“And which side were you on?” Carver asked.

“I couldn’t hardly determine,” Bart confessed. “I was maybe just a
trifle lit.”

“Being one of our leading lights in that respect,” said Carver, “I
expect maybe you were.”

“As near as I can make out, I was on the side of the law,” Bart stated.
“Leastways I was in the powder squad that wrecked the bridge and the
sheriff headed the party. My participation was accidental. I saw
Wellman and another man easing out of town and I trailed them, arriving
just as they touched off the charge, so you might say I acted the rôle
of the passive spectator. The whole town boiled out and we dispersed
among the crowd. I was dead anxious to be lined up with law and order,
but with the law on both sides I couldn’t quite make out which one was
proper, so I flitted.”

“Any idea who led the fight against Mattison?” Carver asked.

“Not a guess--unless it was Freel,” Bart denied. “He’s Wellman’s head
deputy and it might have been him--only I can’t someway picture Freel
as indulging in a fracas where other folks will be shooting back at
him.”

“There’s quite a bunch of boys in the bunk house,” Carver said. “Right
after breakfast I’ll send over a bunch to help you start the house.”

“Right after breakfast I’ll be riding toward Caldwell,” said Bart. “In
proportion to the way Oval Springs has growed, I’d judge that Caldwell
would be bigger than London by now.”

“Caldwell has about a fourth the population she had three months ago,”
Carver informed.

“I’d as leave see a town that’s shrunk as one that has growed,” Bart
philosophically decided. “I’m not particular, and I’m bound to find it
filled with new interests. Just two days; then I’ll be back.”

In the early evening Carver mounted the cow trail that threaded the low
dip in the ridge between his place and Bart’s claim. As he topped it he
could see Molly coming up the hill from the cabin. They frequently met
here for a brief chat in the evenings.

“You mustn’t mind Bart’s rambling off for a few days,” he said, as the
girl joined him. “He’s stayed with it in good shape and it’s only in
the last week he’s been restless. He’ll be back on the job in a day or
two.”

He allowed his gaze to drift across the broad acreage of plowed ground
in the bottoms,--his ground, seeded to winter wheat.

“Eight hundred acres seeded to wheat,” he stated. “All put in by
trading around. I’ve got considerable of a farm, but don’t even own
one plow of my own--nor a drill. The grub-liners put up my fences and
broke all my horses to work. So far I’ve worried along without much of
an outlay of cash; not one cent paid out for labor. But I’m in debt
somewhat for seed wheat and provisions to feed the bunk house occupants
that turn up every night.”

He directed her gaze over the rich bottom land extending for five miles
down the valley to a point where the little town of Alvin had come into
being.

“The best land in this whole country,” he stated. “Every acre of it
will bring from twelve to fifteen dollars the day a man gets his
patent. I’ll buy it up piece by piece, a quarter at a time, as fast as
any party wants to sell; mortgage a part of it to buy more and turn
back every dollar that comes off of it into more land. Some day I’ll
own all that lower valley with the Half Diamond H at the head of it so
we can look out across it all from the house. I’ll follow the price up
till it touches forty and then stop buying. Then there’ll come a day
when we can stand there at the old ranch house and know that every acre
between it and the flourishing city of Alvin will be worth a hundred
dollars flat.”

As he sketched his plans she could vision thousands of acres of
ripening grain waving in the bottoms; the huge new barns of the Half
Diamond H groaning with hay and forage crops for feeding the hundreds
of sleek thoroughbred cattle with which the place was stocked. But
all that was a matter of the future and the present was sufficiently
amazing in itself.

A few months back she had resided in an isolated line camp on Turkey
Creek with no other habitation within a dozen miles. Now she was
blocked in on all sides by neighbors; Mrs. Cranston, the ample lady
who resided on the next claim below Molly’s,--and her husband was not
really a gloomy soul. He had merely been over anxious during the days
preceding the run, harassed by a haunting dread that he would not be
successful in locating a home for his family. He was in reality a
rather genial party, Molly had found. Then there was Mrs. Downing,
the hysterical lady, who was not in the least hysterical but quite
normal since Molly had nursed her through an illness brought on by the
excitement of the stampede; the Lees, with whom Mrs. Downing had been
so anxious to neighbor, had proved to be delightful neighbors indeed.
There was Orkstrom, the big Dane whose wife toiled with him in the
field; Arnold Crosby, fresh from school, who had brought his girl bride
to share his little frame homestead shack; old Judd Armstrong and his
serene little mate. The whole countryside for miles around was peopled
with a motley assortment ranging from retired professional men to
foreigners who spoke scarcely a word of understandable English.

“You told me once the sort of quiet home life you pined for most,” he
said. “And I volunteered to set out in search of it. This is it, all
round us, just as you pictured it to me on that day in Caldwell.”

“Yes,” she said. “This is it--exactly what I’ve always been wanting.”

She watched the smoke spirals rising from a hundred cabins; the
stretches of black plowed ground enclosed by long lines of fence posts.
Far down the valley the new buildings of Alvin showed as white spots
in the waning light. The new schoolhouse in the bottoms was nearly
completed, the school in which Molly was to teach; all these evidences
of an old civilization fastening upon a raw new country and lending an
air of permanency and peace.

“We’ve found what we were looking for,” he said. “What more peaceful
scene could one find?”

But Molly, too, was aware of that vague rustle of unrest, even a froth
of lawlessness, that seemed to pervade it all; the jobless cowhands
riding their old domain; the bitter county-seat feuds in progress. Over
the line in the Territory two trains had been held up and looted. Banks
in small towns along the southern fringe of Kansas had been subjected
to a series of daring raids. The forces of the law were imperfectly
organized, frequently leagued with the lawless. Many old-time riders of
the unowned lands were living on claims and their cabins were ever open
for any of the boys who sought safety there. They asked no questions,
these men, and answered none. The Osage Hills in the Territory afforded
a safe haven for those who were hard-pressed and the way of the
transgressor was not difficult. The girl commented upon this to Carver.

“That’s only the ghost of the old days hovering over the corpse of the
unowned lands,” he said. “A passing phase. It’s only a froth, like
bubbles and trash on the surface of a deep pond when it’s stirred by
the wind.”

He waved an arm toward the peaceful rural scene unrolling all around
them. “All that is the solid, enduring part. That will last. The other
is just the last feeble rustle of the tumbleweeds we’re hearing now.

  ‘All tumbleweeds hail from nowhere,
  Their one favorite residence;
  But all are bound for the same graveyard--
  Hung up in a barb-wire fence.’

“That’s the finish of all tumbleweeds, girl,” he said. “Soon or late
they get crowded into some fence corner and their travels cease. Now
me, I’m pocketed that way too, only I’ve taken root. Aren’t you about
ready to come over and ride herd on me, sort of, and see that some
strong breeze doesn’t uproot me and blow me off somewhere?”

“Not that, Don. I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I want to go on just as
I am for a while. It’s too perfect to disturb. You haven’t an idea how
much I’m enjoying it, visiting round with Mrs. Downing, the Cranstons
and the Lees and all the rest, exchanging recipes and listening to
all the family woes and triumphs. You wouldn’t find much excitement
in hearing for the fourth occasion just what a frightful time Johnny
Downing had when he cut his first baby teeth; or about that historical
event when Ella Cranston essayed her first barefooted venture outside
and stepped on a hornet, and what a fearful expense it’s been to
keep her in shoes ever since,--just refuses to go barefooted even in
summers, since that day, Ella does. But I positively revel in all that.
It’s been so long since I’ve had many women friends. I don’t want to
lose a minute of all this.”

“I’d contract not to spoil it for you,” he offered. “You could go right
on doing the same things you do now. Maybe I’d learn to tingle and
thrill over Johnny’s teething myself. He set them in my thumb the last
time I’m over at Downings so I take it they all come through in good
shape. Couldn’t you learn to be loving me just a trifle if you’d make a
real earnest effort?”

“A lot--without the least effort,” she frankly admitted. “Don’t you
know, Don, that every real woman is always just on the verge of loving
some tumbleweed? She doesn’t have to try loving him but to try to keep
from it. That’s the difficult part.”

“Then why not take the easy trail out?” he suggested.

“All women lean toward the wild weeds--they’ve got that in them,” she
said. “But the ones who listen to that call always pay in the end.
Oh, I don’t mean that you’d ever do anything I’d be ashamed of,” she
hastened to add. “You wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be distrust of you, but
fear for you, that would be my lot if I let myself get to caring. Don’t
you see? I’ve loved two tumbleweeds before now--Dad and Bart--and I
don’t feel quite up to loving a third. It’s a woman’s portion to sit
and wait for bad news. So let’s go on just as we are.”

Three wagons rolled up the valley and pulled into the Half Diamond H.

“There comes Thanksgiving dinner,” said Carver. “Old Nate was down
with us overnight. Likely he knew that I couldn’t afford to feed the
grub-liners indefinitely so he said he’d ride down to Alvin and send up
a bite for the boys. It appears like he’d sent it in tons; enough to
run to next August. We’ll be expecting you and Bart over for a turkey
dinner to-morrow.”




X


The one business block of Wharton, a little town twenty miles north
of the Cherokee-Kansas line, seemed almost deserted. Four men sat on
the edge of a raised-board sidewalk midway of the block. Two others
leaned against the support posts of a wooden shelter which roofed the
sidewalk before a hardware store. Four horsemen clattered round the
corner, their black masks furnishing a sinister contrast to the quiet
village scene, and the few citizens of Wharton who chanced to be abroad
witnessed the advent of the modern bandit, come to replace the road
agent whose day had passed when railroad transportation superseded
stage-coach travel on the overland trails.

Three of the men dropped from their saddles before the Wharton bank,
two of them entering while the third stood guard before the door and
the mounted man held the horses of the other three.

The man in the saddle addressed the startled spectators and his voice,
although not raised above a conversational tone, carried the length of
the silent street.

“Take it easy,” he advised. “No one’s going to get hurt unless you
start acting up.”

He spoke with quiet assurance but the man on the door was of a more
blustering type.

“All you cattle stand dead quiet,” he threatened. “Not a sound there!
You!” he bawled as a man shifted his position; “what did I tell you
about keeping quiet.”

“Keep quiet yourself,” the man on the horse advised. “You’ll stampede
the lot of them with your gab.”

Those within the bank reported later that one of the inside men was
silent throughout the affair, never speaking a word but instead making
his wishes known by motions of his hand. His companion seemed nervous
and excited.

The pair emerged from the bank and the three dismounted men swung to
their saddles. As the quartet jumped their horses down the street the
door of the hardware store opened and the reports of a rifle rolled
forth in swift succession. The man who had held the horses lurched
dizzily, sprawling forward over the saddle horn, then fell to the
street as his mount jumped sidewise. The silent man set his own horse
back on its haunches, seized the reins of the loose animal and leaned
from the saddle to help the fallen man to remount. The blustering party
whirled his horse and emptied his gun at the front of the store from
which the concealed riflemen operated. Spectators, galvanized into
action by the splintering glass of store windows, ducked hurriedly for
cover. As the fallen man regained his saddle the three men rounded
the corner and followed after the fourth, who had held on without
slackening his speed.

Near noon of the following day Carver was well on his way toward
Hinman’s range to bring back the hundred head of yearlings he had
purchased in the spring. The news of the Wharton raid had been carried
to the bunk house by a grub-liner the night before and Carver turned it
over in his mind as he rode.

“The blustering man on the door was Noll Lassiter,” he mused. “And the
silent man inside was Milt. The nervous party--I can’t place him. I’m
wondering about the casual individual who held the horses. It certainly
does look as if they’d cancelled the family feud.”

For Bart Lassiter’s two-day trip to Caldwell had lengthened into a week
and he had not yet returned. The name of Lassiter had been whispered in
connection with recent misdeeds but the raids had been frequent and at
widely separate points. It was certain that Milt and Noll Lassiter had
not participated in some of these, their whereabouts at the time having
been definitely established, and there was no proof that they had been
connected with any one of the numerous affairs.

Carver angled slightly westward as he reached the sand-hill country
near the line. This was the poorest land in all the Strip, yet in
common with better stuff it had been staked solidly on the day of the
run. The majority of these sand-hill claims were destined to change
hands many times before prove-up work would be completed and patents
issued for the land. Carver found this country unfenced and the few
homestead cabins were mainly deserted. The surface was rough and
choppy, a veritable maze of dunes, some covered with tufts of tall red
grass and studded with clumps of dwarfed brush and needle-leaved yucca
plants. There were ridges and domes of white blow-sand, worn by the
action of the wind. These stretches of sand had retarded the progress
of the fire which had swept the country in late summer and the most
of it was covered with grass. There were occasional flats carpeted
with short, wiry salt grass. As Carver neared the edge of one of these
basins he suddenly pulled up his horse and peered through the fringe
of tall grass that graced the crest of an intermediate ridge.

“Here comes the casual party now,” he commented. “Wounded as stated in
the reports, and with a posse right at his heels.”

Two hundred yards out in the flat a rider was pounding down toward the
possible cover afforded by the rough country which Carver had just
traversed. His left arm hung stiffly at his side and he turned in his
saddle with an effort as he gazed back at a group of horsemen, some
eight or ten of them, that were surging out into the far edge of the
depression a mile or more behind.

As Bart crossed the low ridge he started to whirl his horse at the
sight of the man posted in his line of flight, then recognized Carver
and held straight on. Carver turned and rode with him, noting that
Bart’s horse was almost spent.

“I’d trade mounts and let them pick me up instead. I could furnish a
perfect alibi,” Carver said. “But that wouldn’t do. They’d trace the
ownership of your horse.”

“Don’t let that point deter you,” Bart returned easily. “This is no
horse of mine. I wouldn’t own him. I borrowed him, sort of, on the spur
of the moment.”

“But the saddle,” Carver insisted.

“Goes with the horse,” said Bart. “You’re not up to yourself or you’d
recognize that it ain’t my outfit.”

“All right. Let’s switch. Quick!” Carver ordered. “Duck up that coulee
to the left and keep on the grass where it won’t leave any tracks,” he
advised, when the change had been effected. “Push him hard and hold to
the bottoms.”

Carver veered off to the right. He had covered something over half a
mile when the posse sighted him as he crossed a low ridge. For another
three miles he maintained a lead, then rode out on to a high point of
ground and halted his weary mount. The posse had fanned out over a
half-mile front to guard against their quarry’s doubling back through
the choppy breaks. One after another of the man-hunters sighted the
solitary figure on the ridge and headed for the spot. Carver turned and
regarded the first two that approached. They pulled their horses to
a walk, allowing time for another pair of riders to draw in from the
right.

“Sit tight there,” one man called. “No queer stuff now!”

“Where did all this delegation spring from?” Carver demanded.

The sheriff reached the spot and assumed command.

“You, Ben, get his gun,” he ordered and one of the four crowded his
horse closer to Carver’s and reached to remove his gun from its holster.

The sheriff reigned over a Kansas county and his jurisdiction did not
extend to the Strip, a fact which had not deterred him from crossing
the line with his posse when hot after his man. The men were regarding
their catch with some doubt.

“Was that buzzard wearing chaps?” one man asked of the others.

Carver grinned and answered the query as if it had been directed at him.

“I couldn’t say as to the style of his pants,” he returned. “But his
headgear was black.”

“It was for a fact,” one of the posse testified, eyeing Carver’s
battered gray hat.

“What’s all this?” the sheriff demanded. “What about a black hat?”

He too was studying Carver’s apparel.

“This fellow’s not dressed the same,” he admitted. “But the horse looks
like the one he was up on.”

“It’s the selfsame horse he was straddling,” said Carver. “He’s got a
better one under him now.”

“Did you trade?” the sheriff demanded.

“No, he did,” said Carver.

“Speak up! Get it out quick,” the officer ordered.

“I was off prospecting around on foot,” Carver explained. “As I
sauntered back I observed this crow-bait standing where my horse had
been. I caught one brief glimpse of a black hat through the grass on a
ridge and knew that the party under it was making off with my horse.
I crawled this old wreck and took in behind him. Never did see him
again--which isn’t surprising in view of the fact that he’s up in the
middle of the best horse in three States. That was one good horse of
mine. I’ll back him against any mount in these parts. That miscreant
made a good trade. One time during round-up last summer that pony
packed me seventy miles in one day and wasn’t even breathing hard.”

“Oh, damn your horse and its virtues,” the sheriff interrupted. “We’ll
take you along, anyway. How do I know you wasn’t planted out here to
help him make a get-away?”

“You don’t,” Carver admitted. “For all you know, why he might have sent
me word about whatever misdeed he was planning, stating the exact spot
where your posse would jump him and outlining his route of escape from
there on, so’s I could be posted just where his horse would play out
and he’d be needing a fresh one.”

The officer frowned at this absurd line of deduction and Carver grinned
at his discomfiture. The three additional members of the posse, having
ridden well off toward the left, had now sighted the group on the ridge
and were approaching the spot.

“If you want me for exhibit A in the evidence I don’t mind going
along,” Carver added.

The three additional members of the posse rode up and two of them
greeted Carver by name.

“Whenever did you elect to turn outlaw?” one man asked. “Sho! We’ve
snarled things up,” he added. “Carver wasn’t into this mess.”

“Do you know this party?” the sheriff inquired.

“Do I?” the man laughed. “If I had a dollar for every one I’ve borrowed
off him I’d pay half of ’em back.”

Carver’s name was known to the sheriff. It was certain that he could be
found if his testimony was needed later.

“No use holding you,” he said to Carver. “He’s made a clean get-away.
I’m a little off my range--no authority here in the Strip; but I wasn’t
going to let the line stop me when we was right on his heels.”

“Why were you wanting him?” Carver asked. He raised his eyebrows in
evident surprise as the officer gave the details of the Wharton hold-up
and announced that the man they had hunted was the wounded one of the
quartet.

“They holed up somewheres till dark but we got word they’d headed down
this way in the night,” the officer explained. “Likely this fellow was
feeling sick and had to hide out. He’d spotted us riding into the sand
hills and was just climbing his horse to make a run for it when we
sighted him over a mile ahead. He’d posted himself on a ridge so’s he
could watch all ways. He’s up on your fresh horse and miles off by now.
No use for us to go on. I’ll send word to Oval Springs to the sheriff
there that he’s down in this country.”

“Any idea who he might be?” Carver inquired. “Anyone along the line get
a look at him?”

“Not one,” the sheriff denied. “He’s in the clear as far as identity
is concerned. Nobody’s set eyes on him from the time they rode out of
Wharton till we jumped him this morning--excepting the man who reported
that he’d seen four men ride this way after night. That crippled
shoulder may give him away. We’ll be riding on back. I’ll want that
horse you’re on so we can trace its ownership. May get it on him that
way.”

“I’ll nurse him along over to Engle’s place on Slate Creek,” Carver
offered. “Engle will lend me a horse to ride home.”

When Carver reached the home ranch a man waited there to inform him
that Carl Mattison desired his presence in Oval Springs.

“Tell him I’ll be with him between now and to-morrow noon,” Carver
instructed the messenger.

Bart Lassiter rode up to the house an hour before dark. Carver had
expected him to wait until after nightfall before riding in and had
planned to intercept him before he reached the house.

“Why didn’t you lay out somewhere under cover till it was dark?” he
demanded. “Any of the neighbors see you straddling my horse?”

“A few of ’em, likely,” Bart returned. “What if they did? I was half
starved and got dead sick of waiting out there in the creek bottoms.”

Carver took him into the house and dressed the wounded shoulder. It
proved to be a clean hole, the ball having passed through the fleshy
parts without touching a bone. Bart spoke but seldom while the wound
was being dressed. He seemed gloomy and morose, his usual carefree
outlook entirely lacking for the time.

“It was the devil’s own luck, getting jumped just when I did,” he
stated at last.

“Your bad luck set in prior to that,” Carver returned. “It started when
you met Noll and Milt.”

Bart nodded, then suddenly gazed at Carver in surprise.

“But how did you know I’d met them?” he asked. “I didn’t have time to
tell you back there where we changed mounts.”

“It wasn’t hard to guess,” Carver said.

“Then you must know Noll better than I do, if you guessed that,” said
Bart. “I didn’t think the poison hound would shoot me down without a
word.”

“What?” Carver asked. “Noll, you say! D’you mean he shot you?”

“No other,” Bart affirmed. “The four of them rode up on me before I
knew they were anywheres within fifty miles.”

“What four?” Carver inquired.

“Milt, Noll and Freel,” Bart informed. “I don’t know who the fourth
was. Didn’t hear his voice. I was afoot and looking for my horse when
they came riding along. I couldn’t see who they were but Noll was
talking to Freel and I knew their voices. They were riding in front.
I asked ’em to raise another horse and save me a twenty-mile walk and
they halted without a word at the sound of my voice. Then Noll shot. He
cut down on me twice more after I hit the ground. One shot was close
enough to fill my right ear full of sand. Milt jumped his horse against
Noll’s, cussing him meanwhile, and they was off at a run before I could
pick myself up.”

Carver was conscious of a vague sense of relief coupled with knowledge
of previous deductions gone astray.

“Where were you yesterday?” he asked.

“Sleeping in the house you once owned in Caldwell, with my horse in the
shed out behind,” Bart informed. “It’s untenanted now so I entered by
the simple process of breaking a window. I recall that it had been a
wild night in Caldwell and was near daylight when I went to bed. It was
equally near dark when I waked. The festivities had palled on me and I
was ready to go home so I rode out of town.”

“But how did you happen to be way off to the south?” Carver asked.

Bart’s moroseness was dissipated by a grin, the scowl which had stamped
his face vanishing before the advent of some happy recollection.

“I had two pints in the saddle pockets for medicinal uses. After
taking one of them it occurred to me what a nice thing it would be to
surprise you by bringing down those yearlings of yours so I headed for
Hinman’s west place. After taking the other I evidently dismounted
thereabouts for a nap; and after napping I couldn’t locate my horse.
I’d left the reins looped on the horn, likely, and he headed for home.
While I was hunting round for him I heard folks riding toward me and
angled to cut their trail and get help, like I told you. Instead I got
shot. Then I rambled on afoot for a couple of miles and arrived at a
house. Some one is making a late evening call and has left his horse
tied outside, so I borrowed the old wreck and headed toward home. I
was feeling faint-like and weak, so I tied him up to a plum bush and
slept. I made another start about daylight and then got off for a rest.
It was then I see a dozen or so riders surging down on me. With half
the county out on the hunt thataway it come to me that maybe my motives
in borrowing the critter had been misunderstood so I made a break to
escape.”

Carver leaned back in his chair and laughed, swayed by a mixture of
irritation and relief.

“Could you, by any off chance, prove that you were asleep in Caldwell
yesterday and didn’t ride out till dark?” he asked.

“Positively not,” Bart stated. “No one will ever know who entered that
ex-house of yours by way of the window. My tracks are well covered.”

“Which is unfortunate in this particular instance,” Carver remarked.
“You’ve stepped into it up to the armpits. I had been wondering how
to help you avoid serving ten years for something you did. Now I’m
wondering if you won’t get twenty years for something you didn’t. Did
you happen to hear of the little event up in Wharton?”

“I’ve heard of the place,” said Bart. “But I thought it was against the
rules for anything to ever happen there. What did?”

Carver told him and Bart nodded as he listened. The black frown once
more stamped his face.

“And we know who it was,” Bart said. “But I hope they don’t get caught.
Noll might get sent up for twenty years--which span of time I’d find
tedious waiting for him to get out again. I’d hate awfully to shoot him
in the courtroom or through the bars. My fancy runs toward killing him
somewheres outdoors, so I better get started before he’s apprehended.”

Carver knew that Bart meant exactly what his statement intimated. The
breach in the Lassiter family was now irreparable but its operation
might prove to be even more detrimental to Bart than the influence
which his half-brothers had exercised over him in the old days when
they had all trailed together.

“You’re never clear of one mess before you’re into another,” Carver
commented. “Damn Noll! Forget him. Think what it would mean to Molly to
have a shooting in the family.”

“There’s been one shooting in the family within the past few hours. She
despises Noll and thinks considerable of me. Why should she feel worse
about my shooting him than about his taking that shot at me?” Bart
logically contended.

“Ask her,” Carver returned. “I’ll send you home now before some of
the boys roll in and start remarking broadcast about your being shot
through the shoulder. I have to ride over to Oval Springs sometime soon
and if you don’t keep that crippled shoulder under cover meantime, so’s
the neighbors won’t get to speculating about your case, why I’ll up and
jail you myself just to keep you out of trouble.”

Bart faced him gravely.

“There’s not much in this life I wouldn’t do for you,” he said. “I’d
ride on into Washington and loot the Mint if you was needing pin
money. If you had an enemy I’d assassinate him just to save you the
trouble. You’ve used me white. But there’s some things that just have
to be done. This here is one. I’m out to get Noll. He’s had it coming
all his life. The day Noll passes out I’ll put myself under your orders
and never stray outside my homestead fence for a solid year except when
you say the word. I’ll give you a guarantee to that effect.”

An hour after Bart’s departure Carver was saddling a fresh horse in the
corral when a voice called to him from the edge of it.

“What’s the trouble, Honey?” he inquired, resting his arms on the top
bar of the corral gate and facing Molly Lassiter across it.

“Don! Don’t let Bart go out after Noll,” she said. “Before I have time
to thank you for helping him out this morning I’m asking you to do
something else;” she essayed a laugh which ended in a sob. “But don’t
let him do this. Can’t you think of some way? I never knew him to be in
this mood before. He’s so quiet about it that I know he means to do it.”

“Likely it will wear off before morning,” Carver encouraged, but he
knew that morning would find Bart in the selfsame mood. Only years
would suffice to alter the determination he had read in Bart’s face an
hour past. “He’ll forget it in a day or two.”

He spoke unconcernedly to reassure the girl for she was nearer the
breaking point than he had ever seen her. Her habitual self-control had
broken down.

“You know he’ll never forget,” she said. “But I can’t have that--a
shooting between brothers--don’t you see? Not that Noll really is a
brother; but people will always think of it that way. I wish something
had happened to Noll before I ever saw him--just for what he’s done to
Dad and Bart. I’m wicked enough to wish him dead; he should be; he’s
not fit to live. But Bart mustn’t do it. He’d never live it down.”

She spoke disjointedly, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Carver
vaulted the corral bars and laid an arm about her shoulders.

“Sho! That’ll all pass off,” he said easily. “Bart wouldn’t--not after
he’d thought it over. He’s excited about it now.”

She knew that he spoke only to quiet her fears, that he himself lacked
the convictions which he expressed.

“He’s not excited,” she insisted. “He’s thought it all over now and
made his decision. Oh, anything but that. It’s the one worst thing I
can think of. There must be some way. Honestly, Don, I couldn’t stand
that after all the other things the name of Lassiter has been linked
with.”

“Then we’ll put a stop to it,” he said. “We’ll just fix it so he can’t.”

She noted the change in his voice. He was no longer speaking merely to
reassure her. This knowledge exerted a quieting effect. She someway
had vast confidence that Carver would find a way out. Bart’s quiet
insistence had terrified her but Carver had thought of some means to
dissuade him.

“I’ll be riding on into Oval Springs now,” he said. “Meantime you put
your mind at ease.” He drew her to him and when she made a motion of
dissent he gave her shoulders a little shake. “Right now,” he insisted
a trifle roughly, and she lifted her face to him.

“You promise you won’t let him?” she implored.

He stood looking down at her with a queer little smile.

“Rest easy,” he said. “I’ll take a contract to that effect.”

He dropped the corral bars and a moment later she watched him ride off
through the night toward Oval Springs.




XI


The atmosphere of Oval Springs reeked of new lumber and fresh paint. A
dozen business buildings were being hastily constructed and new houses
were started daily in the residence district of the town.

Carver strolled down the main street. Shafts of light, emanating from
store fronts, splashed across the board sidewalk and relieved the gloom
of the street. Scores of horses stood at the hitch rails. The blare of
a mechanical piano sounded from an open doorway, accompanied by the
scrape of boots and clank of spurs. The shrill laughter of a dance-hall
girl rose momentarily above the din. From another door there issued the
clinking of glassware at the bar and drunken voices raised in song; the
smooth purr of the roulette wheel and the professional drone of lookout
and croupier. The new county seat was a wide-open town.

Carver visited one place after another in search of Noll Lassiter. He
discovered him in a saloon near the end of the street but the man he
sought was in the center of a group near the bar. Carver nodded but
did not join them. What he had to say to Noll must be imparted when
there were no others to hear.

Noll was discoursing at some length to his companions and at the sight
of Carver he raised his voice with palpable intent to include Carver in
the circle of his hearers,--wherefore Carver listened.

“They hadn’t no business to throw me in,” Noll stated aggrievedly. “I
ask you now! Of course Crowfoot and Alf Wellman never was any special
friends of mine but they had no call to lock me up.”

“This may prove worth while. He’s anxious to have me get it,” Carver
decided, and as the case was restated he gathered the cause of Noll’s
grievance.

Two days before, in mid-afternoon, the two Lassiters had become openly
conspicuous and Noll had indulged in target practice in the street,
whereupon Crowfoot, acting town marshal, had declared that such sports
were out of season during the daylight hours and with the help of
the sheriff had conducted the two Lassiters to the county jail--that
structure serving also as a city prison--where they had languished
till noon of the present day. Their urgent representations, delivered
verbally to acquaintances who had chanced to pass the jail during the
morning, had resulted in their release at noon.

“The alibi club is in session,” Carver told himself. “It’s real
accommodating of Noll to stage a monologue just to deceive me. It’s
cleared up some points I was hazy on. The town marshal, the sheriff
and his deputies are still trailing with the old crowd. It works out
like this: Wellman and Crowfoot jail the two Lassiters in view of the
populace. After nightfall the two prisoners depart by the back stairs
and make a hard ride to some point near Wharton, hole up there till
afternoon and raid the bank, hide out again till after dark and make
another hard ride back to Oval Springs. They’re safe in jail before
dawn. This morning they comment through the bars to pedestrians passing
the jail. A perfect alibi--unless Noll overacts his part and talks
himself into trouble.”

He mused further on the subject as he waited for Noll to detach himself
from the group.

“This deal signifies that every man round the sheriff’s office is
cutting in with the boys,” he reflected. “Wellman has appointed the two
Ralston brothers deputies in addition to Freel. The fourth party in
that Wharton hold-up was likely one of the Ralston boys.”

Noll eventually moved toward the door but the others accompanied him.
Carver followed them out and called to Noll.

“Just a minute,” he said. “I have a bit of news to impart.”

Noll turned back and stood facing him while the others halted a few
feet away. Carver lowered his voice so his words would not reach them.

“You’ve tried for me twice,” he said. “From now on it’s reversed.”

“What d’you mean?” Noll demanded.

“That I’m going into action the next time you loom up anywhere within
range,” Carver stated. “I’m just telling you so that you’ll know how to
act the next time we meet. Right soon after we next sight each other
there’ll be one of us absent from human affairs.”

The group on the sidewalk saw nothing unusual in this interview,--merely
a low-voiced conversation between two acquaintances.

“Absent!” Noll repeated. “That one will be you!”

“Maybe,” Carver assented and turned off up the street.

He spent the night at the hotel and in the morning sought the deputy
United States marshal whose posse guarded against the destruction of
railroad property and the consequent interference with the delivery of
the United States’ mail.

“You helped me into this job,” Mattison greeted. “Now it’s up to you to
help me hold it. You’re to be my right-hand assistant until this mess
is cleared up. Did you know it?”

“Not for sure,” Carver said. “But I suspected it somewhat when you sent
over for me. I’ll make a deal with you. You can deputize me now till
we iron out this fuss, provided that some future time you agree to let
me deputize myself on some occasion when I may have to go into action
right rapid and you not at hand; when it’s a case where county officers
wouldn’t fit in and a deputy marshal would. I’d proclaim that I was
acting under orders from you, meantime having dispatched word for you
to make haste toward the spot. You arrive and assume command.”

“What’ve you got in mind?” Mattison inquired a bit doubtfully.

“Not anything special,” Carver returned. “I may never avail myself of
my end of the bargain. If ever I do I’ll guarantee that the parties I
move on will be eligible to arrest for shattering some Federal law and
I’ll be able to prove it. That will let you out.”

“Yes. Likely it will let me out of my job,” Mattison said. “But you’re
responsible for my getting it and I oughtn’t to object if you should
also be responsible for my losing it. We’ll close the deal.”

“One more small favor before you put me to work,” Carver requested. “I
wish you’d pass out the word, quiet like, among the boys that the first
time Bart Lassiter shows up here he’s to be arrested and sent up to
Caldwell.”

“What have you got against Bart,” Mattison asked. “I thought you was
friends.”

“That’s why I want him tossed into jail and kept out of trouble till I
give the word to free him again.”

“All right. We’ll toss him if he shows up in town,” Mattison agreed.
“Let’s head for the tracks and I’ll explain your job as we travel.”

For the next three nights Carver patrolled the railroad tracks for a
distance of over a mile north of town, visiting the six men stationed
in couples at intervals throughout that stretch. Mattison conducted a
similar patrol to the south. Throughout that period no move had been
made to tear up the tracks. Trains rolled through without a halt and no
incident transpired which would furnish the least surface indication
of the existence of a bitter feud. But both Carver and Mattison knew
that the undercurrent of lawlessness had not subsided; that it merely
smoldered, waiting an opportunity to break forth.

During the past month there had been five men killed and as many
wounded in the progress of the county-seat war. Three of the slain had
been members of the marshal’s posse, for Mattison’s operations were
handicapped by red tape, his instructions prohibiting the firing of a
shot except in case his own men were attacked. The participants on the
reverse side of the question were burdened by no such restrictions. The
marshal was unable to gather a single shred of information as to the
identity of the men concerned in any one of the wrecking parties. The
population of Oval Springs was solidly in favor of any move whatsoever,
if only it should result in the stopping of trains at that point.

In mid-afternoon of the fourth day Carver sat cross-legged on the
ground in the marshal’s camp beside the tracks a few hundred yards
north of town. He leaned back against a bed roll and inspected the
general surroundings through half-closed eyes. There was the usual
congestion round the three town wells which furnished the only supply
of water for the county seat. Tank wagons plied between these wells
and the surrounding country, supplying settlers with moisture at fifty
cents a barrel. Carver straightened, suddenly alert, as a rider
dropped from his horse at the end of the street. His left arm was bound
stiffly at his side.

“Bart couldn’t wait for that shoulder to cure before he started hunting
for Noll,” Carver said. He noted that two men had stepped in behind
Bart. They were Mattison’s men and Bart had not progressed a distance
of fifty yards from his horse before he was under arrest.

“That much accomplished,” Carver said. “Bart’s safe out of the way as
soon as they get him to Caldwell. Now it’s narrowed down to Noll and
myself. I don’t care overmuch for my job but she’d rather it would be
me than Bart to go through with it--some one outside the family; and
this will rule me outside for all time.”

Bradshaw rode into camp and joined Carver, leaving his mount with
several other saddled horses that grazed close at hand. Mattison’s
posse, down to the last man, was composed of old friends of Carver’s,
former riders of the Strip. Their old calling gone, they now gravitated
to any point which promised to afford a touch of excitement.

“They’ve let us alone for quite a spell now,” Bradshaw said. “Time
something was breaking.”

A stiff wind screeched across the country and the two men sought
shelter behind a pile of baled hay, sprawling comfortably in the sun
until Mattison located them there and reported a bit of news.

“Headquarters has thrown off the bridle and issued orders to shoot down
every man that tampers with the tracks,” he informed. “I just got the
word. Now that we’ve got free rein we’ll clean up this mess.”

These instructions were passed out to all of the marshal’s men. Two
hours after midnight Carver stood on the tracks with Mattison.

Both men turned to view a vague light that seemed to flicker up from
near a string of buildings at one end of the main street. The high wind
which had prevailed throughout the day had died down within the past
hour and in the resulting hush sounds could be heard at a considerable
distance. The light increased and shed a pinkish glow over a portion
of the sleeping town. A similar light, smaller and less evident, as if
but a reflection of the other, appeared near the courthouse at the far
end of the town. From somewhere there sounded the muffled thud of many
hoofs.

“I wonder now,” Carver said, as he caught this sound. “An hour ago,
before the wind went down, a fire would have wiped Oval Springs off
the map--no water.” He listened again to the rumble of hoofs. “It’s
come,” he announced. “Casa has been in a ferment for weeks, threatening
to ride over and sack Oval Springs. Now they’re at it.”

Black smoke rolled above the pink glow which was rapidly swelling into
a lurid glare. Tongues of scarlet flame now leaped above the buildings
as the fire, started in the rear of them, licked hungrily up the
back of the frame structures. There was a sudden clamor of voices as
sleeping citizens were roused by the glare of the fire, then a roar of
hoofs as forty horsemen thundered the length of the main street and
emptied their guns at the store fronts. They wheeled and rode back
through the street, shooting as they came, this last demonstration
for the purpose of keeping citizens within doors until the flames had
attained sufficient headway to spread beyond control.

The rumble of hoofs died out as the raiders pounded away toward the
north and the population of Oval Springs boiled out to check the spread
of the fire.

“It’s no affair of ours,” Mattison said. “Dog eat dog. Let ’em go.
Wellman, our good sheriff, hasn’t exerted himself to help find out
who’s been shooting my boys at night. Let him handle this deal
himself.”

The Casa raiders had planned well and if the wind had held Oval
Springs would have been reduced to ashes in an hour. But the fates had
intervened. The wind had slacked off, then died, and now a reverse wind
blew up and piled the flames back upon themselves. The fire at the
courthouse had not attained sufficient headway and a determined body of
citizens checked the spread of the flames. The blaze at the north end
of town was confined to the one section in which it started, the strong
wind from the south beating back the flames which leaped high above
the buildings. Men on adjacent structures stamped out the sparks which
were belched far and wide as each burning roof sagged and fell with a
hissing roar.

The conflagration lasted till dawn, was still smoldering when Carver
retired to the bed tent where he slumbered till high noon. An hour
after rising he sauntered along the tracks to the north for the purpose
of chatting for an hour with Bradshaw, who was stationed within a short
distance of camp. His friend was nowhere in sight.

“The sun’s nice and warm,” Carver said. “I’ll find Brad napping on the
sunny slope of the grade.”

A bare flat extended for four hundred yards on the east side of
the tracks. Beyond it the country was broken and rolling, studded
with dwarf brush and scattered thickets of scrub oak. Carver located
Bradshaw reclining on the west slope of the railroad embankment in the
sun, his hat pulled over his eyes. When within a few feet of Bradshaw’s
position Carver flinched convulsively as a rifle ball snapped past
within a foot of his head. The thin crack of a rifle accompanied the
sound and a faint spurt of blue smoke drifted hazily from a black-jack
clump on the far edge of the flat. Carver cleared the edge of the grade
at a bound.

No matter what else might occupy Carver’s mind, the thought of Noll
Lassiter was ever in the foreground of his consciousness, would remain
there until the matter between them was settled, and he knew without
question who had fired the shot from the black-jacks.

“Close shooting for four hundred yards. That didn’t miss me an inch,”
Carver said. “Get down!” he called sharply; for Bradshaw, thirty feet
farther north, had been roused by the sound of the shot and Carver’s
plunge down the sheltered side of the grade, and he had risen to his
knees to peer off to the east. “Down, Brad! Duck under the bank!”

The warning command came too late. Bradshaw sprawled on his face and
slid loosely down the embankment as the rifle spoke again from the
thicket. Carver ran to his friend but Bradshaw was beyond need of
assistance. He opened his eyes with an effort as Carver knelt over him.

“I’m sorry, Brad,” Carver said. “He was out after me and got you
instead when you raised up in sight. I’m sorry, old man.”

Bradshaw essayed a smile and made a feeble move to extend a hand for a
farewell shake with his friend.

“It’s all right,” he said--and passed out.

Carver ran back toward the camp, keeping under cover of the embankment.
Several men had heard the two shots and had mounted the tracks to
determine their source. They saw Carver running toward camp and knew
that the two stray reports had carried at least some significance.

“What’s up?” one man called as Carver came within hailing distance.

He did not answer till after reaching the spot where a half-dozen
saddled horses were grazing just outside camp, his own mount among
them. He slowed to a walk lest he stampede the horses by a too
precipitate approach. Mattison had come from the bed tent. Carver
jerked a thumb back in the direction from which he had come.

“Some one downed Brad from the bush out across the flat,” Carver
informed. “I’m going out to bring in the party that did it.”

The marshal turned to the men standing round.

“Saddles!” he ordered. “On your horses! Go bring him in!”

But Carver lifted a hand.

“This is my job,” he said. “I want him myself. He was trying for
me--and Brad’s been my friend for fifteen years. Hold ’em back!” he
insisted, as the men headed for their horses. He swung to the saddle.
“Send up word to let Bart Lassiter out,” he called back, as he jumped
his horse toward the tracks.

Mattison countermanded his previous order and the other men stayed
in camp, cursing fretfully over this sudden turn in affairs which
prevented their going.

Carver rode without caution, knowing that Noll would have departed
immediately after firing the shots. The man would have a mile lead by
now. The country to the southeast was a stretch of good land, solidly
settled and thoroughly fenced. A rider heading that way would find his
route confined to fenced section lines. Noll would head northeast where
the country was rough and mostly unfenced. Carver lined his horse out
at a run and after two miles he sighted his man, off to the left and a
half-mile ahead.

When he saw him again the distance between them had lessened. Noll
would hold on without stopping till he discovered the fact that a man
followed him. Even then he would hesitate to dismount and attempt to
bushwhack his hunter through fear that Mattison had turned the whole
posse loose on his trail. Another half-mile and Carver glimpsed him
again, this time less than four hundred yards in the lead. They passed
out of the brush-covered area into a country that, while still rough,
was covered only with coarse grass. It occurred to Carver that another
few miles would bring them out into a good-land district, settled and
fenced. Noll would never be crowded out into that section if he knew
Carver followed, for he would be forced to travel along fenced roadways
and settlers would witness his flight, establishing his identity.

As Carver crossed over a ridge he saw Noll again, only his head and
shoulders visible as he rode straight away a scant two hundred yards
ahead. Apparently he had no suspicion that there was a man on his
trail, yet it seemed certain that before now he would have halted under
cover of some ridge to scan his back track and ascertain if he were
followed. If he discovered a rider behind him he would halt again at
some other point to determine if others rode with the first.

It suddenly occurred to Carver that the swift lessening of distance
between them was occasioned by this very thing. Noll had stopped under
cover to view his back track; had halted again to make sure that but
one man followed his trail. Even as this thought flashed into his mind
Carver flung from the saddle and dropped flat on the ground.

He had ridden the length of a shallow draw and he left it only to
discover that the landscape had flattened out into low waves of ground.
It was the sight of the upper half of a riderless horse standing in
the shallow depression beyond one of these waves which had occasioned
his sudden fling from the saddle. Noll had dismounted in the next dip
ahead, intending to shoot as Carver rode into sight.

Carver lay flat on his face and crawled thirty feet to the north
through the shallow basin that sheltered him, then lifted his head
cautiously and inspected his surroundings. His range was limited to
a distance of fifty yards north and south. He might crawl back west
for some twenty yards. The character of his surroundings rendered it
impossible for him to move beyond this restricted area without showing
himself to the man who was cached in a similar depression somewhere
less than seventy yards east of him. And in all the shallow dip there
was not one point of sufficient depth to permit of his straightening up
on his knees without danger of bringing his head into view of the man
who waited for him over across.

Inch by inch, Carver worked his way toward a spot where a few
straggling stems of tall grass were scattered about. Poor cover this,
yet even a few spears of grass break up the view to a surprising extent
when one is prone on the ground. In thirty minutes he had covered as
many feet. He removed his hat and elevated his head.

First he studied the character of Noll’s retreat,--a depression similar
to the one which afforded him shelter, a trifle deeper perhaps and of
slightly greater area. But Noll could not progress a hundred yards in
any direction without coming into his view. Carver knew that somewhere
over there Noll was watching for the first glimpse of him. He could see
the empty scabbard on Lassiter’s saddle and knew that he was armed with
a rifle. His own rifle remained on the saddle of the horse he could not
reach without showing himself to Noll and he was armed only with the
gun on his belt.

“He’s got me handicapped a trifle on location and weapons,” Carver
reflected. “It’ll narrow down now to which one has the other
out-guessed for patience. What happened to Brad has put me in the humor
to go through with my job.”

There was no breath of wind and the sun glared down into the depression
with summerlike warmth. Carver crawled back to the lowest point in his
basin and divested himself of his jacket. An old brake block, dropped
from some chuck wagon in the old days of the round-up, was grown
half over with grass. He pried the block from its resting place and
regarded it, then set to work, first draping his jacket the length of
the twenty-inch slab of wood and observing the effect from one side.
Then he padded one shoulder with matted dead grass. His knife, its
point stabbed solidly into one edge of the block, served as a handle.
He crawled north through the depression, one arm extended, his hand
clasping the knife and holding the contraption two feet before him and
elevated to a point some ten inches higher than his own head as he
lay flat on the ground. He progressed slowly, squirming forward a few
inches at a time, wondering meanwhile if any one peering through the
grass from a short distance away would mistake it for the flat of a
man’s back and the hump of his shoulders. He covered ten feet; fifteen.
When one peered through the grass from a prone position the view was
none too distinct at best. He hitched forward another two feet. Surely
he was holding the decoy sufficiently high to bring it into Noll’s
range of vision. Another hitch of two feet, and suddenly his wrist
was jarred by the sharp sidewise wrench of the knife as a rifle shot
crashed forth from sixty yards to the eastward and the heavy ball tore
through the jacket and the block across which it was draped. Carver
emitted a single coughing gasp. A split-second later he flung one arm
aloft, the fingers outstretched, closing them tightly as the hand
was withdrawn. Then he turned back and crawled to his first point of
vantage where the scattering stems of coarse grass would tend to break
up the view.

An hour passed without a sound save the stamp of a hoof or the creak
of leather as the two horses moved about a few yards away. A huge
black buzzard wheeled high overhead. His spirals narrowed and a second
vulture joined him. The two great birds soared on motionless wings a
half-mile above the two quiet figures sprawled in the grass a stone’s
throw apart, each invisible to the other but quite visible to the
carrion birds that hovered over the spot. Carver longed for a smoke.
The craving for a cigarette became almost irresistible and in order to
combat this urge he forced himself to speculate as to the sensations of
the man in the opposite dip in the ground. He concentrated on this line
of thought until the study assumed actual interest.

Noll, being uncertain on several points, would soon become restless,
Carver reflected. He was half-convinced that Carver was dead. His
thoughts would constantly revert to that coughing gasp that had
followed his shot, that up-flung arm with the fingers clutching
spasmodically at nothing. Carver had no such uncertainty to disturb him
and congratulated himself upon this fact. Point by point he compared
his own plight with that of the enemy.

Time was passing,--time which meant nothing to him and meant much to
Lassiter. Noll must be wondering if any others of Mattison’s men had
set forth on his trail. Perhaps they were working it out bit by bit
and were even now nearing the spot. A dozen other contingencies might
arise. A stray horseman might sight the two riderless horses and set
forth to discover the reason. Carver had nothing to lose by discovery.
He would profit from such intervention instead, but the injection of
any such chance element would seal Lassiter’s doom. By thus dwelling
upon Noll’s discomforts Carver was able to partially assuage his
own,--all save that gnawing desire for a smoke. Another hour had
passed. Then Carver’s mind snapped back from abstract imaginings to the
world of realities.

A tuft of grass over across twitched sharply. It jerked again and
Carver slid his gun out before him to the length of his arm. For a
space of five minutes there was no other move and Carver relaxed, that
insane urge to have a smoke at all costs mounting again. A bird hopped
close to inspect him, its bright little eyes fixed on his own as it
turned its head from side to side for a better view of him. The peak of
a hat appeared above the grass tops sixty yards to the east. More of
the hat was lifted slowly into view until the whole crown was visible.
Carver pictured Noll’s eyes just beneath it, peering from under the
brim.

But of course the thing was a plant. Noll would not lift his head with
eight inches of hat above it to announce his position. He was raising
the hat into sight with a stick to lure Carver into firing as Carver
had decoyed him with the coat. Carver restrained the desire to shoot
through the grass tops four inches below the crown of the hat. The
thing disappeared only to come into view once more at a point some ten
feet from the first. Again the move was repeated and this time the
hat was thrust up abruptly as if its wearer could no longer exercise
sufficient restraint to elevate it an inch at a time. Noll was becoming
nervous, breaking under the strain. On the fourth event Carver saw a
clear space between the grass and the hat. It dropped back but the
crown remained in his range of view and for a space of ten minutes he
kept his eyes on that dark spot in the grass.

A movement ten yards to the left of it challenged his attention. A
second dark blot showed in the brown of the grass. It moved upward a
fraction, the top of a head. Carver noted the slight sidewise motion as
the man shifted for a better view. His gun hand contracted as he lined
down the barrel but he loosened his fingers again. It would not do to
shoot until he was sure, leaving him in the same state of uncertainty
which now handicapped Noll. The sun was swinging low in the west.
Another two hours and it would be too dark to see. If Noll could hold
out until then he could make a clean get-away. If Carver gave a sign
too soon Noll would know that his shot of two hours past had failed
to locate its mark and he would stay under cover till nightfall and
then make a run for it. It was the uncertainty that was breaking him
down. Noll couldn’t go against another two hours of that sort of thing,
Carver told himself.

He repeated this assurance a score of times after the head disappeared.
Two hours of uncertainty for Lassiter--two hours of craving for just
one cigarette for himself--which would win out? He composed himself for
another long wait.

Then Noll’s head and shoulders appeared as he rose to his knees, only
to be as quickly withdrawn from view as he dropped once more on his
face. His voice rose from the opposite depression, hoarse and unsteady
as he reviled Carver, hoping to taunt him into some answer,--the first
sound of a voice in nearly three hours. There came a crashing report
from the dip and Carver’s horse went down in a heap, shot through the
shoulders. The animal screamed once as it struggled on the ground. A
spurt of blue smoke revealed the rifleman’s position but Carver knew
that he was well below the danger line. The horse ceased struggling. A
bubbling rattle announced the death of his favorite mount. The voice of
the man who had fired the wanton shot rose with the sound.

“How do you like the sound of that?” he demanded. “That’s what will
happen to you between now and dark.”

He leaped to his feet and stood facing Carver, then dropped back out of
sight.

“He’s going to pieces,” Carver told himself. “He’ll make a break now
most any time.”

The exertion and relief from inaction apparently had lessened the
strain under which Noll had been laboring and he made no other move
for many long weary minutes. Then, without warning, he was up and
running toward Carver’s position, his rifle half raised before him.
He was within forty yards; thirty. Then Carver lifted his forearm and
fired. Lassiter tottered drunkenly and shot into the haze of smoke that
floated before Carver’s gun. The ball plowed a furrow three inches from
Carver’s ear and spattered fresh earth in his face. Carver shot twice
again. For a space of twenty seconds he held his place in the grass,
then sat up on his heels and twisted a cigarette.




XII


Molly Lassiter followed her usual daily routine, visiting back and
forth with the Cranstons, Lees and other neighbors, yet beneath it all
she was conscious of a certain uneasy expectancy, a sense of waiting
for something to transpire. There had been no word from Bart and his
whereabouts were unknown to her. Somewhere Bart was making a relentless
hunt for Noll and she expected hourly to hear news of their meeting.
She knew of Carver’s having joined the marshal’s posse at Oval Springs
and there was ever the possibility that she would get word that he had
fallen in the county-seat war. She had once told Carver that it was
the woman’s portion to wait for bad news,--and now she was waiting. In
another three weeks her school would open for the mid-winter term. A
few days past her interest had centered entirely on this great event
but now she found it had been relegated to a position of secondary
importance in her mind; would retain its minor significance until such
time as both Bart and Carver were safe home once more.

Then a sympathetic grub-liner dropped past with the word that Noll had
been killed in the county-seat fight. The bearer of the tidings, in an
awkward effort to lessen the shock of what he must impart, prefaced
his announcement with a rambling admonition to prepare herself for the
worst, and she was ready to shriek out to him to hasten on to the point
of his message. She found time to wonder at the fact that her chief
concern was a terrible dread that something had happened to Carver.
Then, at last, the man haltingly explained that Noll had passed out of
this world, one more victim of the county-seat feud.

Her reaction was so intense that she dropped to a seat on the doorsill
and stared mutely at her informer. The man rode away cursing himself
for breaking the news so abruptly. After his departure she accused
herself of great wickedness for the reason that she could not wring one
atom of regret from the fact of Noll’s passing. Rather, after the fear
for both Carver and Bart which had been roused by the man’s lengthy
preamble, she had experienced a positive relief to find that the news
concerned Noll. She hoped that the man had not divined this, and
again she accused herself of a callousness which she had never before
suspected as a part of her make-up.

She had known that it was only a question of time until Noll would
come to his end during some piece of outlawry, a bank hold-up or some
brawl in town, and it was infinitely preferable that it should have
happened in this way instead,--as the victim of the county-seat war in
which good men had gone down on both sides. It eliminated the certainty
of a fratricidal shooting between Noll and Bart in the very near
future. It was better this way.

The following day Bart rode up the lane and within an hour after his
arrival he had started upon the construction of the three-room house
which he had planned a month or more back. She observed that Bart,
notwithstanding the wounded shoulder which still bothered him slightly,
went about his work with a purposefulness which had not characterized
his activities in the past. A week had passed without his having shown
any evidence of restlessness or desire to ride into town.

Now that she had Bart safe at home it seemed that her anxiety should
have been decreased by more than half but instead it was augmented
by each bit of news pertaining to the intensity of the trouble round
Oval Springs. Another week passed without the least lessening of
Bart’s daily labors. The house was completed with the help of a few
grub-liners who were stopping at Carver’s to look after his affairs
during his absence.

They moved into the new house and Molly’s spirits soared. She sang
light-heartedly as she went about her work. She had a permanent home of
her own and Bart’s tendency to roam was becoming less pronounced. There
was no longer reason to dread the consequences of any possible rambles
he might take in the future, since Noll’s influence was now a thing of
the past. Her new school would soon open; and besides all these things
Molly had made a discovery which eclipsed all the rest. She had told
Carver that she did not feel quite up to having a third tumbleweed on
her hands to worry about, already having had two, her father and Bart,
but she had found herself worrying every minute since his departure;
and since it seemed that she was to have the worry in any event, she
had as well have her tumbleweed too. She knew that fact now and she
wanted to tell him. It was to be expected that Bart would feel the need
of relaxation after completing the house and she had decided that when
these symptoms became manifest she would suggest Oval Springs as his
destination and send a message to Carver. She had thought much over the
substance and wording of the message. She would send merely the word
that she was worrying over his connection with the marshal’s posse.
Carver would divine what lay behind the words and return to the ranch,
she reflected; he understood her so thoroughly.

Bart, however, failed to fulfill his part in her plans.

“You needn’t worry about my prowling off somewheres,” he informed her
one morning at breakfast. “I’m one tumbleweed that’s quit roaming.
There’s been a windbreak erected on all four sides of me that’ll
restrain me from drifting for one solid year. When I make a contract I
keep it--even if it only came about through a mistake in the wording.”

She pondered over this assertion while Bart finished his breakfast.

“Carver tricked me, sort of,” Bart amplified. “He couldn’t dissuade
me from setting out after Noll, but I made a rash statement that I’d
stay here on the place for one year from the day Noll’s case was
settled, having in mind, of course, that I’d do the settling myself but
neglecting to state it that way. Well, Noll’s case is settled, though
not just the way I’d planned it, and here I am. No more trips to town
until Don says the word.”

“I’m glad, Bart,” Molly said. “It’s so much better this way instead of
your being mixed up with it yourself. Don’t you see?”

He pushed back his chair and regarded her.

“I’ll never be convinced but what I’d ought to have done it myself,”
Bart insisted. “I would have too, if you hadn’t talked Don into beating
me to it. He knew you’d rather it would be him than me.”

Bart rose and moved about the room, commenting upon certain angles of
the case and from these fragments she was able to piece out the whole
picture. Bart spoke casually, believing that she had already become
acquainted with every phase of the affair. The girl sat very still, her
hands clenched in her lap. So it had been Carver. She had never given
that a thought until now, had not entertained even a suspicion of the
truth, and Bart was assuming that she knew every detail; that she was
responsible for having sent Carver. An hour past she had told herself
that Don understood her so well while in reality he understood her so
little that he had imagined she was sending him forth on such a mission
as that.

“But why in God’s name didn’t he let the posse go out instead of going
alone?” she asked at last.

“That’s just what he couldn’t do,” Bart dissented. “He knew that it
was on account of his own personal disagreement with Noll that Bradshaw
had been shot down, that it didn’t have any relation to the county-seat
squabble whatever. If the marshal’s boys had gone boiling across into
the brush after Noll there was a good chance that some other good men
would go the same route that Brad had. Don couldn’t chance that. It was
his own personal trouble and he felt obliged to take all the risks on
himself.”

She knew that Carver’s action, judged by the standards of his kind,
would command respect. But if only he had been content to stand back
and let the marshal’s men go out as a whole! It would then have seemed
an impersonal sort of affair instead of becoming openly known as a
personal issue between the two men. Even though she herself had always
refused to look upon Noll as a relative the world at large would not
hold that view. Centuries of custom decreed that such an occurrence
as this should operate as an insurmountable barrier between Don and
herself. There would always be that between them. Tongues would wag
until the end of time if they should violate that age-old tradition
by permitting any relationship deeper than mere acquaintance between
them. She must see Don and explain it all to him. He had made such an
unalterable mistake; had understood her so little. But she could not
see him till after the trouble at Oval Springs had been settled and he
returned to the ranch.

Even at that moment the county-seat war was nearing an abrupt
termination. Oval Springs had grown with amazing rapidity and there was
no longer an object in the refusal of the railroad company to halt its
trains at that point, the reverse now being true.

Carver watched the south-bound passenger train come to a halt for the
first time in weeks. The assembled population of Oval Springs cheered
this unexpected event. A group of officials descended to look over
the ground and one man announced to the crowd that they had come to
select a site for the new station, construction of which was to begin
on the morrow. Surveyors were unloading equipment. A work train crawled
into town and a hundred men swarmed off the cars to begin work on a
switch track. The feud was ended and Oval Springs had won out in the
fight. Years later it would break out again and again until Casa should
eventually come into her own.

Crowds of cheering citizens swarmed the streets of Oval Springs
throughout the rest of the day and there was every symptom that it
would be a wild night in town. Carver considered plunging into the
festivities. Someway the thought of returning to the ranch held forth
no appeal; this strange lack of interest was equally true when he
contemplated joining the celebration over the victory of Oval Springs.
He didn’t care a hang which town had won out.

“There don’t seem to be much of anything that I do want to indulge
in right now,” he remarked. “So I guess I’ll ride home. You won’t be
needing me any longer,” he said to Mattison. “If you don’t mind I’ll
resign and be on my way.”

He rode out of town in mid-afternoon and he failed to stop by the
Lassiter’s place as was his usual custom but held straight on to the
Half Diamond H.

Molly heard through Bart that he had returned. She expected to see
him waiting for her in the little saddle in the ridge where formerly
they had met of evenings but she watched the shadows fall on three
successive nights and failed to see him skylined there. Her school
opened with twenty pupils of assorted sizes, ages and degrees of
intelligence and she threw herself into this new work. As she rode home
on the second night after the opening she saw Carver in the field. He
waved his hat but made no move to cross over. The next evening she
motioned to him and he joined her in the road.

“They tell me you’ve got a family of youngsters ranging all the way
from Mexicans to Bostonese,” he greeted. “How’s the new school?”

“Perfect,” she said. “I love it.”

“Now me, I’d lose my mind after the first day,” he said. “Has Johnny
begun to shed his milk teeth yet? It’s a downright shame the boy has to
lose ’em again after all the trouble he had cutting his first ones.”

The girl remained silent while he made inquiries concerning a number
of her charges, recalling incidents from their past lives which she
had heard from fond parents and passed on to him at various times.
He had dropped into his old casual vein as easily as if nothing of
an unusual nature had occurred since their last meeting. But Molly
found it difficult to meet his mood and chat on trivial topics. She
was conscious of a certain restraint. It was fully to be expected that
he would mention the one thing which was uppermost in his mind and
hers, attempting to explain it by the code of his kind, but it became
increasingly evident that he did not intend to refer to it. She cast
about for something to say but could discover no topic. Her mind was
too exclusively occupied with that other.

“That’s a good-looking new shirt you have on,” she stated at last, and
was angrily conscious of the inanity of the observation in view of all
that was left unsaid between them. But she forced herself to go on. “I
like gray. You never affect red shirts like the most of the tumbleweeds
wear.”

She could have screamed at the idiocy of it all and found herself
unable to proceed but Carver inspected the sleeve of the shirt in
question and took the conversation away from her, dwelling upon the
topic as if her observation had been the most natural one in the world.

“Gray’s not a bad color for everyday wear,” he admitted. “I don’t run
much to red. Reason is this: There’s eleven or twelve of us children at
home; I forget without counting--but plenty--and the old man sometimes
buys assorted job lots of clothing that has gone maybe a bit out of
style. One day he turns up with an assortment of shoes. There’s gray,
black, bay and buckskin shades in that lot--and one pair of red button
shoes.”

He paused to chuckle softly at some recollection.

“The old man takes a squint at those red ones and begins to size up
my feet. I stage one frenzied protest. After they’d choked me into
submission and crowded my feet into those red button shoes they start
me off to school and my worst fears are realized. Right down to this
day I can’t set round in company without wanting to shove my feet
somewhere out of sight. Well, that same night I steal the old man’s
pistol and drop out the window. I ain’t ever been back. That seems to
have soured me on red for all time. I wouldn’t even put red paint on my
barn. That’s why I don’t run to loud colors; a quiet lavender shirt,
maybe, for Sundays, or a soft black-and-orange check if I want to dress
up, but no red for me.”

It was quite evident that he intended to hold the conversation to
purely casual channels. She knew now that he had not misunderstood
her; that he had assumed full responsibility for the affair, realizing
that it would react against him but believing that it would be easier
for her in the end if he were the one to go through with it instead
of Bart. He had known that he was locking himself outside and that
explanations would be of no avail so he was deliberately avoiding the
topic.

“That’s how I came to leave home,” he resumed. “If ever you note any
symptoms of madness in one of your pupils, why instead of chastizing
him regardless, I’d suggest that you institute a search for the red
button shoes in the background. Big events hinge on such trifles.
Now if I’d have stepped on a bee like Ella Cranston did--I forgot to
mention that I left those shoes behind in exchange for the pistol and
set out barefooted--it’s likely I’d have turned back and developed
into a first-rate barber or a banker in place of winding up as a bronc
fighter. Does Ella still persist in wearing shoes even in bright balmy
weather?”

“Oh, Don! Why did you?” Molly interrupted suddenly.

“It was due to come sometime; he’d already tried for me twice,” Carver
said, instantly altering his vein of speech to accord with her own. “So
I might as well have it out right then, I figured, and keep Bart out of
it all. Then he got Brad. Brad was my friend.”

“I’m sorry, Don; terribly sorry,” she said.

“Don’t you!” he admonished. “It just had to come up the way it did,
seems like. You’d rather it was me than Bart.”

“I wouldn’t!” she denied fiercely. “Oh! I wouldn’t! I’d a thousand
times rather it was Bart!”

She hung her spurs up into her pony’s flanks and the little horse
darted off up the road.

Carver stood looking after her.

“And I didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t find out till it was just too
late. Don’t that beat hell!”




XIII


Both Wellman and Freel had prospered. It was quite generally
believed, though it could not be proved, that both men had “sooned”
before the opening of the Strip, which fact accounted for their two
filings adjoining the town site of Oval Springs, property which
would eventually prove extremely valuable. However, they could not
yet realize on these holdings so it was evident that their present
affluence was derived from some other source.

Crowfoot, even before the run, had acquired moderate wealth but neither
Freel nor Wellman had been possessed of any considerable means. Freel
now owned the largest and most remunerative saloon in Oval Springs.
He had occupied the sheriff’s office since the first election in the
county, Wellman, the original appointee, having endorsed his candidacy
instead of running for the office himself. Wellman was proprietor of
the hotel, had been elected mayor of Oval Springs and was a stockholder
and director in the bank, of which Crowfoot was president.

It was generally conceded that the money of the ex-cowman was
responsible for the rise of the other two but there were some who,
knowing Crowfoot, doubted that he would use his own means for the
advancement of another. The three men were closely associated
nevertheless, a power to be reckoned with in business and political
circles, rated as influential and public-spirited citizens.

There was no longer necessity for Freel to associate himself closely
with the wild bunch, many of whose operations he had formerly planned.
The years he had served as marshal had fitted him for this work. He
could visualize a scene in advance, discount its dangerous features
and perfect an alibi that would stand the test. His was the mind that
planned but he had seldom been present to witness the execution of
those plans. His actual participation in the Wharton hold-up, the one
misdeed of its kind where he had been present in person, had been
occasioned by a desire to impress upon his associates that he was of
the same fiber as themselves. He had gone out in a spirit of bravado
and returned in a nervous panic. His main source of revenue was now
derived from protection money which he levied against the lawless who
operated in the county, these assessments collected through the agency
of the two Ralstons who were his deputies as they had been Wellman’s
before him. Protection came high and both Freel and Wellman profited
accordingly. Oval Springs was a hotbed of lawlessness and a concession
for any known transgression could be purchased for a price, a state
of affairs confined not merely to Oval Springs alone but prevalent
throughout the Strip.

The line between the law and the lawless was but vaguely defined.
Instances of the apprehension of any wrong-doer were decidedly
infrequent. Petty graft and crooked gambling flourished. As a carcass
attracts scavenger birds so conditions in the Strip drew the vicious
of the whole Southwest. Express messengers conveyed word of valuable
consignments to friends who would make sure that the shipments failed
to reach their destination. There were bankers who handled securities
at stiff discounts without inquiry as to their source, jewelers who
were equally incurious about the previous ownership of gems or gold,
judges and county attorneys who were open to reason and sheriffs who
followed false trails.

But all this was merely a passing phase coincident to the transition
period of a new and untried territory during its transformation into
an old and proven one. The background was one of enduring solidity.
More than thirty thousand families had found homes in a single day
and these toiled steadily on, unmindful of the wave of deviltry
and corruption that swept the Strip, such circumstances having no
particular bearing on their daily lives. Later, when they had more time
to devote to affairs outside of the immediate problem of shaping their
homesteads up into producing farms, they would rise up and cast out the
parasites without apparent effort, for after all the solid citizens
were many and the parasites comparatively few.

Freel rode out of Oval Springs and he traveled past occasional fields
that were green with waving wheat. Spring had brought fresh evidence
that the Strip, now a part of Oklahoma, would eventually prove to be
the most productive portion of the State. Spring crops of all sorts
were coming up in riotous profusion. Young orchards had been planted
round many a homestead cabin; rows of slender saplings marked the site
of future stately groves. The scattering fields that had been seeded
to winter wheat gave promise of a tremendous yield and an average of
more than twenty bushels to the acre was confidently predicted. Orderly
garden plots were in evidence on every homestead.

Since his occupancy of the Sheriff’s office Freel had several times
stopped at the Lassiters’ cabin. He had haunted Molly Lassiter’s
footsteps for a year prior to that day when Carver’s inopportune
arrival had put a stop to his advances. In his new guise as a moneyed,
influential citizen he saw one more chance of gaining the girl’s
favor. His manner was affable and without hint of previous unpleasant
relations. Rather his attitude was one of friendly interest which
any prosperous person might take in the affairs of a less fortunate
acquaintance. Molly, believing that the past had best be left
undisturbed, received him as she would any other casual acquaintance.
On the occasion of this last visit Freel found Bart at home.

Bart had worked steadily, seldom straying far from home but instead
finding relaxation at Carver’s bunk house where the grub-liners still
convened. There were times when he exhibited real enthusiasm for his
work and on such days he spoke of eventually buying out one or more
neighbors and operating a farm which would one day rival Carver’s
holdings across the ridge. There were other periods when the monotony
of farm life maddened him and he grew moody and restless, conscious of
the urge to straddle a horse and be off for some point where distance
was not measured by neatly fenced section lines but instead was
calculated in terms of a day’s travel on a horse. It was during the
darkest moments of one of these moods that Freel dropped in.

Bart listened while Freel commented upon various business and political
ventures upon which he was engaged. Bart was frankly disinterested, his
one thought for the moment being a desire to step up on a good horse
and ride across a sage-brush desert in the fierce glare of the summer
sun, or, as an alternative, to ride the same stretch in a screeching
winter blizzard; it mattered little which so long as there would be
neither fence nor human within a radius of twenty miles. All would have
been well except that Freel, equally self-centered, attributed Bart’s
abstraction to a feeling of envy induced by the attractive word picture
Freel had painted of his own successes. In parting he drew Bart aside.

“Any time I can hold out a helping hand you can count on me,” he
assured. “I’m in better shape to help you on your feet than any man in
these parts.”

Bart was not actively conscious that he was being patronized but he was
aware of a sense of irritation, and the tone as well as the substance
of the offer brought his ill humor to a sudden focus.

“Oh, hell!” he said wearily. “You can’t do me any favor except to let
me alone.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing,” Freel returned. “Hadn’t you noticed?”

“I haven’t missed you,” Bart confessed. “But keep it up and maybe I
will.”

“You’re somewhat in debt to me on that score right now,” Freel stated,
and recited a few details to prove his point.

Bart’s home-coming with a wounded shoulder the day following the
Wharton affair had created comment. His saddled horse had been found by
a farmer near the point from which a second mount had been stolen, this
last animal later recovered by the Kansas sheriff’s posse after its
rider had made good his escape. Rumor had linked Bart’s name with these
events and the news had trickled to the sheriff’s office.

“Do you think I’m asleep on the job?” Freel demanded. “I’ve known that
all along. Don’t you call that letting you alone? It all dovetails
right nicely, a clear case against you on both counts, robbery and
horse stealing--two cases of horse stealing, in fact.”

“Oh, I didn’t bother to steal the second one,” Bart stated. “Don’t
make your case too strong or maybe you’ll lose it. I run across Carver
out there and we swapped mounts, me escaping while he led that Kansas
outfit astray. Maybe you hadn’t heard that it was Carver’s horse I
came riding home on--but I can cite you to a few witnesses who saw it.”

Freel pondered this point. He had not heard the name of the man picked
up by the posse after the party they sought had presumably stolen his
horse.

“I’ll make it a point to cover any such little details as that,” he
said. “But you’re safe enough as long as you meet me halfway.”

“I’ll come the full distance and a few steps beyond,” Bart volunteered.
“I could throw some light on that Wharton affair myself and some day I
will.”

Freel experienced a recurrence of that apprehension which had assailed
him at intervals since his participation in the Wharton event. He
had never considered it possible that Bart could have determined the
identity of any one of the four men who had chanced across him that
night. It had all happened with such suddenness; a voice from the
darkness ahead. Then Noll had shot. Freel had been unaware of the
identity of Noll’s victim till after they had left the spot and Noll
had announced that the voice was Bart’s. Even then he had not been sure
of the point until hearing the rumors which he had just now recited to
Bart. It had seemed equally certain that Bart could not have recognized
him.

“You’ll have a chance to tell all you know to a jury,” Freel predicted.

“And right after I speak my piece they’ll cast a ballot to stretch your
neck a foot long,” Bart announced.

“Mine!” Freel said. “What fool notion are you working on now?”

“I’m not working--just resting,” said Bart. “Here you come with all
this patter about how you’ve befriended me by not having me jailed for
something you did yourself. That’s real generosity. Maybe it’s never
occurred to you that I recognized the four of you when you came riding
up on me that night when Noll tried his damnedest to kill me.”

Freel’s apprehension increased but he remained silent until Bart had
finished.

“If I start remarking broadcast about that little event just how long
do you imagine it would take folks to divine where the four of you
had come from?” Bart inquired. “A few minutes back you was reciting
about what a high place you’d attained in human affairs. Keep right on
mounting--only keep it in mind that some day when time hangs heavy and
I’m craving entertainment I’ll pull out your props and let you down
hard.”

He turned his back on Freel and retired to the house. Freel returned
to Oval Springs and sought a hasty conference with the mayor and the
president of the bank. He was palpably nervous as he recounted the
details of this complication.

“Get hold of yourself!” Wellman ordered. “You’re jumpy. What does it
signify anyhow? One man’s wild yarn about hearing your voice in the
dark wouldn’t even shake that alibi. It’s water-tight.”

Crowfoot nodded agreement and chewed placidly at his cigar. He could
face such a situation without turning a hair--as could Wellman.

“Bart’s in no shape to do any commenting,” Crowfoot amplified.

“But I tell you he will,” Freel insisted.

“Sit down,” Wellman instructed. “Plant yourself in a chair and quit
prowling in circles. You’ll wear out the rug.”

“Bart might be feeling a trifle venomous since Noll tried to down him,”
Crowfoot conceded. “It would have been preferable if Noll had quit
living before he took that shot at Bart. But in order to link you with
it he’d have to convince folks that he recognized your voice at night,
then prove that you’d come from Wharton instead of any one of a hundred
other points on the map. Not a chance in ten thousand.”

“But Carver’s into it now,” Freel pointed out. “You know what that
means. He’s been waiting for a chance at me.”

“What you mean is that you’ve been waiting for a chance at him,”
Crowfoot corrected. “And you’re crediting him with holding the same
sentiments toward you.” Crowfoot was not one to allow personal
differences or dislikes to obscure his judgment. “He’s the kind that’ll
not interest himself in your affairs unless you go romping over onto
his reservation and prod him into hostilities that he’d likely be
wanting to avoid if only you’d let him. You’d better let this man
Carver strictly alone. He’ll do the same by you.”

Neither Wellman nor Freel was prepared to accept this bit of advice.

“Then I’ll just tender one more suggestion,” Crowfoot announced, after
finding himself overruled. “If you’re set on this business, then I’d
urge that you do it yourselves, just the two of you, instead of hiring
it done.” He was familiar with Freel’s roundabout methods.

Wellman endorsed this last suggestion.

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Me and Freel will tend to this matter in
person.”

Freel failed to state whether or not these sentiments met with his full
approval. Crowfoot regarded him closely, then stretched and rose from
his chair.

“Once there was three men in a town,” he remarked. “The rest didn’t
count overmuch. One of the three had sand but no brains. Another was
equipped with cunning but was totally minus of nerve. The third had
both sand and brains.”

“And which one was you?” Freel inquired.

“I mentioned myself last,” Crowfoot answered without hesitation. “And
being equipped like I explained, it does look like I could do better to
trail by myself instead of being mixed up with a pair of rat-brained
miscreants like you. If you’re set on stirring up Carver, you can just
count me out.”

He departed and left Freel and Wellman to perfect their own plans.

They conferred at some length and as a result Freel spent several days
in making quiet investigations among the homesteaders north and west
of the Half Diamond H. Another evidence of the change that was taking
place in the country was the fact that the code of silence and refusal
to divulge information no longer prevailed. Many of the newcomers were
willing, even eager, to impart any possible scrap of information.
Freel found some who had noted Bart’s return with a crippled shoulder;
others that would testify that the horse upon which he was mounted
belonged to Carver. He discovered one man who had seen Bart ride up the
Half Diamond H lane in the evening. In each instance Freel shook his
head and commented upon the fact that it looked as if the two of them
had been mixed up in it; that it certainly seemed inevitable that he
should have to place them under arrest and charge them with the crime
if the evidence kept piling up. In each case also he requested secrecy.
In reality he gathered insufficient evidence to hold either of them
overnight but he had created an abundance of witnesses to serve his
purpose.

Some two weeks thereafter a man rode up to the rear door of the one
saloon in the little town of Alvin a few miles down the valley from the
Half Diamond H. He dropped his reins over a post a few feet from the
door and entered. For an hour he loitered at a table, playing solitaire
and making an occasional trip to the bar for a drink and a chat with
the bartender.

“Nice place,” he commented after he felt that their acquaintance had
ripened somewhat. “You own it?”

The man behind the bar nodded.

“Man by name of Carver live round here close?” the stranger inquired.

“A piece up the valley,” the bartender assented. “Not far.”

“Drop in here often, does he?” the man asked.

“Whenever he’s in town--couple of times a week average,” the proprietor
informed. “Drops in for a glass of beer before riding home. Mostly
he’s in of afternoons; once in a while of nights when some of the boys
gather here. You wanting to see him?”

“Yes,” the other man admitted.

“You can ride out to his place in half an hour.”

“Rather see him first and size him up,” the stranger stated. “Harvest
is coming on and he might use a hand. But I always like to look a man
over before I hire out to him.”

The saloon keeper nodded without comment. This was no harvest hand. The
stranger’s face was stamped with ruthlessness; straight thin lips, and
above them a pair of wide-set cold black eyes.

“Point him out to me when he comes in, will you?” he requested. “So’s I
can sort of size him up.”

Again the barman nodded. He noted the convenient arrangement; the open
back door with the saddled horse just outside.

“Sure,” he laconically assented. “I’ll tip you.”

Carver failed to appear and when the usual evening crowd began to
assemble the stranger departed. The following afternoon he reappeared,
leaving his horse at the same convenient post just outside the rear
entrance.

“You’d never recognize me if you was to see me again, now would you?”
he asked the proprietor. “You couldn’t accurately describe me right
now; and for all you can remember that bay horse of mine is a sorrel.”

He shoved two gold coins across the bar and fixed the other man with
his black eyes. The saloon man pocketed the money.

“Correct on all counts,” he agreed.

The stranger returned to his table and the bartender, under pretense of
arranging glassware and bottles, placed a long-barreled forty-five on
a shelf just under the bar. One never could tell. He had been old-time
rider of the unowned lands and could rightly read his signs. A few
stray customers dropped in and departed. The liveryman lingered over
two glasses of beer. The banker stepped in for his afternoon nip the
moment the bank was closed for the day, and the keeper of the general
store came in with the proprietor of the lumber yard. Three neighboring
farmers entered together and shook the dice to determine who should
pay for the round. The stranger surveyed each new arrival, peering
from beneath the brim of his hat while apparently absorbed in his game.
Each time the man behind the bar shook his head. When the last of these
patrons had departed Carver came in alone.

“A pint bottle of your best beer for me, Jimmy,” he greeted. “An’
another one for you.”

As Carver crossed to the bar the proprietor noted that he was not
wearing his gun. He had discarded the weapon the day of his return
from Oval Springs the preceding fall and had never worn it since. The
bartender gazed fixedly at the man at the table, then slowly shook his
head again, a signal which Carver could not fail to observe.

Carver accorded the stranger one casual glance. He could see the rump
of the horse that stood outside the open rear door. Jimmy spoke to the
stranger.

“That fellow Carver you was wanting to see just rode up the street,” he
said. “He’ll likely be in any time now.”

The man at the table nodded, frowning slightly at this reference before
a third party. Carver turned, apparently noting his presence for the
first time.

“Step up,” he invited. “I’ve only time for one; have to be dangling
along toward home; but you can linger over yours. Name it.”

The stranger was anxious to be rid of him before the man he expected
came in, so he moved to the bar in order to hasten proceedings. Jimmy
set his drink before him. The man nodded his thanks and remained
silent, not desiring to open a conversation lest it should cause his
host to alter his decision to depart at once. Jimmy was slouching
against the rear of the bar directly across from him, one hand resting
on the shelf beneath it as if to support his weight. Carver picked up
the pint of beer as if to drink from the bottle; then, as the stranger
reached for his drink, Carver swung the heavy bottle by the neck. The
man went down as the weapon struck him behind the ear.

“After your opening remarks it looked like the wise thing was to lay
him out first and make inquiries later,” Carver said as he retrieved
the fallen man’s gun.

“He was out for you,” Jimmy informed. “I don’t know why but maybe you
do.”

“Not an idea; never laid an eye on him before,” Carver asserted.

“He’s been waiting two days,” Jimmy said. He removed his hand from
beneath the bar and exhibited the long-barreled gun. “I had this
shoved against the front side of the bar within a foot of his vitals
so I could touch it off through the wood in case of a slip. Them’s
only half-inch boards there in front. You and me has been friends a
long time and I was half minded to down him before you showed up; only
you can’t put a man across just because he’s inquiring about a friend,
no matter what you suspect about his intentions--not without getting
thirty years or else take to the hills. But I was here to see that
things came out all right.”

“I wonder now,” Carver said, looking down at the man on the floor. “I
wonder who sent him.”

“You knew, didn’t you, that Freel has been round collecting evidence
against Bart in that Wharton affair?” Jimmy asked. “I’ve been hearing
that for quite a piece back. Folks get to talking over their drinks.
Most always they do.” He recited a few comments which had come to his
ears. “Just thought I’d tell you. If you look under that party’s vest
you’ll find a deputy’s badge. That’s a hard layout up at the county
seat and you’ve had words with different heads of the ring, so I
gather.”

“That clears up the reason for his being here,” Carver said. “They sent
him. He’d make a clean get-away if he could--flash that deputy’s badge
if he couldn’t, and they’d back him up.”

“He don’t know that you’re Carver,” Jimmy said. “I’ll bring him round
after you leave and explain that you was a friend of Carver’s and
decided that things wasn’t right when I made that incautious remark.
That will put me in the clear. I’ll announce how he’s unsafe in these
parts; that you brought in twenty-odd friends to view him laying there,
face up, on the floor; that they marked well his features and declared
open season on him anywheres in this part of the State. If he believes
me he’ll high-tail for parts unknown--and if he don’t, why, I’ll send
him there.”

Carver rode out to the Half Diamond H and entered the house. When he
reappeared he was wearing his gun and he rode on across the ridge
to the Lassiters. He found Bart seated on the corral bars, his chin
propped in his hands as he gazed moodily across a field of ripening
grain.

“How long since you indulged in some thoughtless comments about Freel’s
being mixed up in that Wharton hold-up?” Carver asked.

“Two weeks--maybe three,” Bart returned. “He was so satisfied with
himself that I just thought I’d tell him.”

“And right after that he started connecting you and me up with it,”
Carver said. “He’s been exerting himself to inquire among folks about
your horse being found up near where you departed with that old
crow-bait you was on when I met you; about that Kansas outfit jumping a
wounded outlaw and picking me up instead, and how you turned up on my
horse, you being shot in the shoulder.”

“Sho!” Bart deprecated. “He couldn’t make that stick. You don’t
imagine, now do you, that Freel’s fool enough to have us jailed? Not
when I could spill what I know. He wouldn’t even consider it.”

“That’s what he wouldn’t!” Carver agreed. “He’s just creating a
background. We’re not slated to languish in jail, you and me. We’re
marked out for the slaughter.”

Bart brightened.

“No!” he exclaimed. “Surely you can’t mean that something is going to
happen. It will provide me with a fresh interest in life if there’s a
prospect that I might possibly lose it. And how will all this come to
pass?”

“Killed while resisting arrest,” Carver stated.

“Sounds reasonable,” Bart admitted. “I’ll positively guarantee to
resist.”

“Before you’re ever arrested you’ll be much too dead to make any
protest,” Carver predicted. “Freel has planted the idea in folks’
minds that before long he’ll have to book you and me for that deal.
It’s been whispered about and they’re sort of expecting it. Then some
day he’ll drag in our corpses and announce that we’d been shot while
resisting his efforts to take us.”

“Interesting but only part way convincing,” said Bart. “You’ve
neglected to explain how he’s to gain possession of our corpses so
he can start dragging ’em in. I’ll remonstrate with him considerable
before I’ll let him have mine.”

“He won’t collect it in person,” Carver said.

“Maybe I’m supposed to send it to him,” Bart suggested. “But he don’t
deserve any such favors from me. I consider his scheme a flat failure,
myself.”

“That county-seat aggregation is a hard bunch to go up against, the
way they’re sitting right now,” Carver said. “They’ve got influence
and power behind ’em. This way of eliminating a troublesome party is
time-tried and tested. It’s found favor with many a sheriff and chief
of police before now and it’s an old favorite with Freel.”

“Then it appears that the clever thing to do is for us to organize
too,” Bart volunteered. “You can act as the chief and send me out to
get Freel. I’ll dry-gulch him so far from nowhere that even the coyotes
won’t find him.”

“Some other time,” said Carver. “Not now. We could hardly ride into
town and murder the mayor and the sheriff all in one day without some
sort of excuse. It would create unfavorable comment. This deal down
at Alvin bears the brand of Freel’s deep-seated planning. It’s likely
they’ll come after us themselves the next time they try it, just so
as to give it the earmarks of a lawful attempt to arrest. Meantime
we’ll have to work up a background of our own. The county seat needs
cleaning up wholesale. If a man’s going to live anywhere he might as
well have decent conditions. Once folks get that in their minds we can
defend ourselves and still render a patriotic service to the county as
a whole.”

“All right,” Bart agreed. “After you’ve unfurled the flag I’ll lead
the last desperate charge with the whole county cheering. But it still
appears to me that it would be simpler for me to lay out behind the
hedge somewheres and do a little bushwacking myself.”

“Meantime, just in case Freel sends out another hired killer, I
wouldn’t lay myself open to any chance stranger that comes dropping
along,” Carver advised.

“The first stranger that shows up anywhere within three hundred yards
goes down in the smoke,” Bart assured.

Molly Lassiter came from the house as Carver turned to leave. He did
not come often of late and she walked with him a short distance up the
trail.

“We’ll start cutting next week,” Carver stated. Their talks were
largely impersonal these days. “Harvest is crowding close to us now.”

“Bart expects to start cutting Monday,” she said. “How many bushels do
you think your wheat will thresh out?”

“It’ll run close to twenty,” he estimated. “Maybe more. We ought to get
fifteen thousand bushels or better.”

“And more next year,” she said. “You’ll put out more wheat this fall,
won’t you?”

“Likely,” he answered. “I hadn’t quite made all my plans for next
season.”

He had mentioned the fifteen thousand bushels of wheat casually and
without elation. It would pay for the new farm machinery with which the
Half Diamond H was now stocked but for which he still owed, leaving
him a big margin for future operations. This first year’s crop would
put him on a solid basis and well on his way toward the maturity of
his original plan to buy all of the best land in the valley. By the
time other homesteaders could prove up on their filings he would be in
a position to buy out all who would sell. He had no present need even
to avail himself of the assistance which both old Joe Hinman and Nate
Younger were anxious to extend. Younger’s outfit had been the largest
in the unowned lands in the old days and now Carver was building it up
into the largest of the new day that had dawned. He had been top hand
for both the Box Bar and the Half Diamond H under the old régime, a
moving spirit among the riders of the Cherokee Strip, and now he had
become a leader among the settlers. Both of his old employers, having
taken a part in raising him, were duly proud of the fact; theirs still
the loyalty that had always prevailed between an owner and the men who
rode for his brand. The easy road to success now opened invitingly to
Carver but he found no joy in the prospect. He had worked steadily
toward his original aim but his initial enthusiasm was lacking.

The girl had observed this change and it troubled her. Of late Carver
had exhibited a restlessness that was akin to Bart’s; and she wondered.
He had gone so far; would he turn back now?

She accompanied him but a short distance and the conversation was
confined to impersonal topics. She observed that for the first time in
six months he was wearing his gun. As they parted he noted her troubled
gaze resting upon it.

“Sho! This?” he said, tapping the weapon. “I someway don’t feel dressed
up without it. I wear it as an ornament, kind of, the way a girl wears
a ribbon,” and he moved on up the trail.

A few days later Molly mounted the ridge and watched the start of the
harvesting. There was nothing to attract swarms of harvest hands such
as crowded into the country farther north where the whole landscape
seemed a solid body of wheat. Another year, when the acreage seeded to
wheat would be increased fourfold, then they would come. But Carver
had found no scarcity of hands to help him harvest his crop. From her
point of vantage the girl could see tall-hatted, chap-clad men toiling
in the fields. Later in the season, after the wheat had been stacked,
she would see them plowing. They rode their horses out to their work as
they had always done, and left them standing about.

She would see no other harvest such as this. Another season and the
wheat fields of the Strip would be invaded by the riffraff that always
came south for the harvest and followed it north. Then the tumbleweeds
would be gone. Now they had rallied to lend a helping hand to one of
their own kind, one man who had understood. And as she watched them
toiling at these unfamiliar tasks she experienced a thrill of sympathy
for the men who had helped to make homes possible for others and now
found no place in the new scheme of things for themselves. For the
riders of the waste places had ever been the vanguards of civilization.
Fur traders had skimmed the riches of their calling from a vast
territory and departed, leaving it no more habitable than before; gold
seekers had prospected the hills and passed on but the cowhands had
stayed to make the West habitable for those who should follow. And now
that the followers had come there was no further use for the ones who
had led the way.

As the summer advanced the girl observed how swiftly the ranks of the
grub-liners were depleted as they were forced to realize the fact that
spring work would never open up for their sort again. Families of
Cherokees still prowled the countryside at will, pitching their teepees
along the streams, the squaws begging incessantly from one homestead
cabin to the next. The settlers, expecting nothing better from the
Indians, were prone to tolerate this sort of nuisance but looked with
increasing disfavor upon the nomadic white riders that drifted about in
much the same aimless fashion. Yet they were not parasites, these men,
even though the newcomers so viewed them. Rather they came from a proud
fraternity. In grub-lining they had been merely following an ancient
and respected custom of their kind and when they now found that this no
longer prevailed they desisted.

It was only through Carver’s insistence that grub-liners still
continued to drop in at the Half Diamond H. Their presence created the
one break in the monotony that seemed closing in upon him. He made
that clear to each comer and urged each one to return. But another old
custom was dying and the number of grub-line riders who turned up for
meals at the Half Diamond H was depleted by half before the summer was
ended, as these jobless ones drifted into other lines.

One by one, the girl watched them go and she wondered how they would
fare in these new pursuits which they adopted, not from choice but from
necessity. The majority would sink to oblivion, drudging at tasks which
they had always despised. But there were some whose names were slated
for fame in the annals of this new Southwest.

Carl Mattison was destined to become one of the most-famed marshals
of all time. Even now the fame of his reputation as a man hunter was
mounting. The name of Crowfoot was slated to become synonymous with
prestige and power, linked with perhaps the most impressive fortune in
the whole Southwest. There would be many others who would attain high
places. Milt Lassiter would create a place in history as one who would
defy the law for a dozen years with a price on his head and with every
officer in five States desirous of collecting it. And this last-named
career was even now exerting its influence on Molly’s understanding of
the conditions which prevailed in this new land.

In the main the old conventions were respected, old traditions upheld,
but modified to fit conditions as they were, not as other communities
decreed that they should be. Here actualities were everything,
appearances nothing, and there was not yet that rigid adherence to
minor banalities that were accepted as eternal verities in older
communities where such details were considered the bulwark of smug
respectability. Here a man was judged by what he stood for in his
present environment, his daily relations with his neighbors, not by
what his family had accomplished in generations past,--for the past had
no part in this new land that lived in the present with an eye to the
future. Ex-convicts were making a new start with their families; former
wildlings were making good and the rising above past transgressions
was considered a cause for congratulation, not one for reproach. Milt
Lassiter’s ill fame did not react to the detriment of either Bart or
the girl, their neighbors valuing the two for themselves alone.

This knowledge brought in a new doubt to Molly--a doubt which fostered
a certain content. After all, in a land of new standards, was it right
that her adherence to a moth-eaten tradition should keep Carver and
herself apart? This thought, gradually crystallizing into a conviction,
brought with it a measure of comfort, but Carver, not knowing,
experienced a daily increase of restlessness and discontent.

Few times when the bunk house held more than three grub-liners and all
too frequently it was unoccupied. Carver found time dragging slowly and
days and nights were equally monotonous. He knew that he could sell his
holdings for a considerable sum. Should he sell out and migrate to some
point where there was still some open range available and buy out a
small cow outfit? He debated this problem but lacked his usual gift of
quick decision.

There came a night when several old friends rode up to the bunk house.
Joe Hinman and Nate Younger dropped in for one of their frequent
overnight visits and Bart Lassiter came across the ridge. A stud game
was in order and Carver rose and went to the house, brought forth a
silver dollar and addressed it.

“Little lonely dollar, you was to mount up to a million. You haven’t
mounted that high yet but if I’d follow through it’s likely you’d
attain it. But is that what we’re wanting after all? I’ll put you to
the test--fair God or false--and let you decide it for me.”

He returned to the bunk house and took out a fifty-dollar stack of
chips, tossing one red chip back and replacing it with the silver
dollar.

Old Joe Hinman regarded the coin that crowned the stack of chips.

“Seems like I’ve seen the selfsame coin before,” he commented. “Surely
now, you wouldn’t go and risk it. It’s led you quite a piece, that
dollar has.”

“But maybe not in just the right direction,” Carver said. His thoughts
reverted to the day he had acquired it.

“What depends upon the outcome?” old Joe inquired. “Which way will you
leap?”

“Just this one stack,” said Carver. “If I double it I stay. If I lose
I go. It means the difference between here and somewhere else; pumpkins
or tumbleweeds, cows or crops--for one more year.”

An hour later he cashed in a double stack and the cards had decreed
that he stay for another year.

Bart Lassiter leaned back in his chair and grinned sympathetically.

“My year has another six months to run,” he said. “I’ll be free before
you regain your liberty. You’ll find me waiting for you somewhere out
yonder when your sentence has expired.”




XIV


Two settlers stood in the saloon in Alvin. The proprietor lowered his
voice and leaned across the bar.

“Look you, now--there’s going to be a killing,” he predicted. He jerked
a thumb toward the rear door. “Right out there is where he left his
horse and for two days he set there at that table waiting for Carver to
come in.”

Jimmy had just recited the incident of the stranger’s attempt to take
Carver unawares and was now merely adding a few conclusions of his own
to lend an air of spice and mystery to the tale.

“He knows too much about folks that are running things in the county
seat, Carver does; him and Bart Lassiter,” Jimmy stated. “A bartender
hears things. Folks get to talking over their drinks. Most always
they do. I’ve heard it said for a positive fact that Bart saw Wellman
blow up the bridge out of Oval Springs the night the up-passenger was
ditched and two men killed. Wellman was sheriff at the time.”

It seemed that the two homesteaders had also been hearing things.

“United States mail went up in smoke that night when the mail car
burned,” said one. “I’ve heard that Mattison’s still making inquiries
about that. He never quits, Mattison don’t.”

“Well, then, and who’s the two men that could convict Wellman and get
him hung a mile high?” The saloon man pointed out triumphantly. “Who,
now? Why, Bart Lassiter! And Carver! I’d never want it said that it
come from me; it’s only between us three. But who is it that knows
Freel led the shooting when some of Mattison’s men was killed at the
same time Wellman was wrecking the bridge? Whoever knew that would be
dangerous to Freel, wouldn’t he? See how it all works out?”

The two nodded agreement.

“There’s a dozen of Carver’s close neighbors that swear he was home the
whole day of that Wharton business that Freel was trying to connect him
up with,” one volunteered. “I guess Freel seen it wouldn’t do any good
to have him put under arrest.”

“Arrest! Listen!” and Jimmy leaned farther over the bar. “That was
months back. It’s no arrest that he wants. Didn’t I say there was due
to be a killing? He was just paving the way for it. Mark me, now! Some
day we all will hear that Carver and Bart has been arrested--dead!” He
lowered his voice still farther. “The fellow that left his horse out
there while he waited for Carver was wearing a deputy’s badge under his
vest. But he didn’t appear anxious to arrest Carver alive.”

Jimmy sighed and passed the two men a drink on the house. Later he
would charge that bit of hospitality against the sum Carver had left
with him for the purpose.

“Of course I wouldn’t want to be quoted,” he concluded. “But a
bartender hears things. Folks get to talking over their drinks. Most
always they do.”

It was perhaps the hundreth time he had detailed his conclusions
to different customers in the past two months. In various parts of
the country others of Carver’s friends had been similarly occupied
in breathing their suspicions into willing ears. It was being asked
why no arrests were made in the county except for minor offences.
The settlers, since their first crop was harvested and they had more
leisure time to devote to affairs outside their own personal labors,
were giving thought as to the manner in which the county seat was
managed; and their opinions were being furnished ready made.

A quiet individual turned up in Oval Springs and made a few discreet
inquiries, interviewing perhaps a dozen residents of the town, his
queries in each case the same. He merely asked if they could state
positively that Freel and the Ralstons had been in town on a certain
date some months back; and if they were willing to testify that Milt
and Noll Lassiter had been held in durance throughout that same day.
The date was that of the Wharton hold-up. No man could swear positively
to these facts. Whenever some party volunteered the information that he
was equally unable to swear to the contrary, the inquirer merely nodded
and replied that it would be quite unnecessary. Then, after three days
in the county seat, he left town in the night and was seen no more.
None had witnessed his departure; he had told no man his business and
there was widespread conjecture as to whether or not he was in the
employ of the Wharton bank.

He rode up to the Half Diamond H at daylight on the morning after
the cards had decreed that Carver should remain for another year. He
declined the money which Carver would have given him to cover expenses.

“Just for old times’ sake,” he said, and rode south to catch a train
out of Enid for his home ranch in Texas.

And just across the ridge Bart Lassiter was recounting the outcome of
the previous night’s poker session to his sister. The girl experienced
a queer little pang when she heard that Carver had risked the silver
dollar which he had treasured for so long a time. She knew its
associations, also that it rested within her power, and hers alone,
to reinstate them, vested with all their former meaning. A small
thing perhaps, but relatively unimportant events are frequently more
significant than the large and obvious, and this incident in some way
served to fix the conviction that had been growing upon her for weeks
past. After all, what did anything matter but her own viewpoint and
Carver’s? But Hinman and Nate Younger were waiting to ride with her
to Oval Springs for the first county fair, from which point she would
accompany them to Caldwell for a few days before the opening of her
school for the fall term. The two old cowmen had planned this trip for
weeks and she could not disappoint them now. She would be more sure
of herself before the day of her return; would have time in which to
determine whether or not the new-found conviction was permanent. And
suddenly she knew that she was sure of herself now,--very sure; but her
two old friends were waiting. She drew Bart aside.

“Tell Don not to risk it again,” she said. “I want him to keep it
always. Tell him that for me.”

And Bart, deciding that his sister’s whims had already imposed far too
many restrictions upon both his own activities and Carver’s, carefully
refrained from delivering the message. Instead, he registered a protest
when he crossed the ridge to see Carver.

“I’m becoming downright weary of listening to warnings,” he fretfully
declared. “Never a day goes by but what some friendly soul drops past
to inform me that Wellman and Freel are scheming to play it low-down on
me. Every man in the county must know it by now.”

“The most of them,” Carver agreed. “If anything was to happen to us now
there’d be five hundred men rise up and point out to their friends that
they’d been predicting that very thing--that they’d been telling ’em
all along how Wellman and Freel was planning to murder us some night.”

“It’s nice to know that we’ll be vindicated after we’re dead,” said
Bart. “But I was wondering if there maybe wasn’t some method by which
we could go right on living even if we don’t get quite so much credit
for our part in the affair. Personally I don’t approve of trifling
round trying to set the whole county on their trail when one man could
terminate their wickedness in two brief seconds.”

“But it’s paved the way for the clean-up of the county seat,” said
Carver.

“Let’s you and me ride over and clean it up in the old wild way,” Bart
urged.

“Only we’ll let them ride out here,” Carver substituted. “That
background I was speaking about a while back is all arranged.”

“I’m glad you’re satisfied with the background,” Bart returned. “I
still maintain that I ought to secrete myself behind a sprig of scrub
oak and wait until Freel comes riding into the foreground. That
way we’d take ’em front and rear. But anyway suits me, if only it
transpires soon.”

“Real soon now,” Carver promised. He turned to a grub-liner who was
saddling his horse in the corral.

“You’ll find Mattison waiting in the hotel at Casa,” he informed.
“He’ll be expecting the message. Tell him just this: That my time has
come to deputize him. He’ll know what to do. Then you forget it.” He
turned back to Bart. “Real soon now,” he repeated. “That’s the chief
reason why Hinman and old Nate insisted on taking Molly over to enjoy
herself at the fair.”

The girl was, in all truth, enjoying herself at the fair. It was as
old Joe Hinman remarked to a group of friends in the lobby of Wellman’s
hotel.

“Nate and me are giving the little girl a vacation,” he said. “First
time she’s been away from that homestead overnight since Bart filed on
it. She thinks a lot of that little place, Molly does. Even now she
won’t be persuaded to stay away but one night. We’ll take her up to
Caldwell this evening to buy a few women’s fixings and show her the
best time we can but she’ll come traipsing back home to-morrow. Can’t
keep her away. Carver had to promise to go over and stay all night with
Bart so no one could steal that homestead while she’s gone.”

Nate Younger remarked similarly in Freel’s saloon within earshot of the
two Ralstons who were refreshing themselves at the bar. In fact, the
two old cowmen mentioned the matter to a number of acquaintances whom
they chanced across in a variety of places throughout town and it was
within an hour of noon before they took Molly out to the fair.

The girl found the fair a mixture of the old way and the new. The
exhibits were those of the settlers but the sports and amusements
were those of an earlier day, a condition which would prevail for
many a year. Every such annual event would witness an increase of
agricultural exhibits, fine stock and blooded horses as the country
aged; but at fair time, too, the old-time riders of the unowned lands
would come into their own again for a single day. Then would bartenders
lay aside their white aprons, laborers drop their tools and officers
discard their stars, donning instead the regalia of the cowboys. Gaudy
shirts and angora chaps would be resurrected from the depths of ancient
war bags. Once more they would jangle boots and spurs and twirl old
reatas that had seen long service. The spirit of the old days would
prevail for a day and a night and fairgoers would quit the exhibits
to watch the bronc fighters ride ’em to a standstill, bulldog Texas
longhorns and rope, bust and hog-tie rangy steers, to cheer the relay
and the wild-horse races and all the rest of it; then a wild night in
town, ponies charging up and down the streets to the accompaniment of
shrill cowboy yelps and the occasional crash of a gun fired into the
air,--then back to the white aprons and the laborer’s tools for another
year.

The girl and her two old companions spent the day at the fair and in
the early evening took a train to Caldwell some two hours before Freel
and Wellman rode out of town. The evening’s festivities were in full
swing and none observed their departure. Freel was nervous and excited.

“We’d better have sent some one else,” he said.

Wellman turned on him angrily.

“And have the thing bungled again!” he said. “Damn your roundabout
planning and never doing anything yourself. If you hadn’t sent that
fool over to Alvin without letting me know we’d have had it all over by
now. Crowfoot told you we’d have to do it ourselves. So did I. And if
you’d only waited we’d have found an opening months back but that Alvin
fluke made Carver take cover and he’s never give us a chance at him
since. We wouldn’t even know there was one to-night if those two old
fossils hadn’t let it out accidental.”

“But maybe that talk of theirs was--” Freel began, but his companion
interrupted and cut short his complaint.

“We’ve give Carver time to do just what we was to head him from
doing--getting our names linked with every deal we wanted kept quiet.”

“He couldn’t prove a sentence of it in the next fifteen years,” Freel
asserted.

“He’s started folks thinking--and talking,” said Wellman. “They’ll talk
more every day. It’s right now or never with me!”

“But it’s too late to make out that it’s an arrest,” Freel protested.
“After all that’s been said.”

“That’s what I know,” said Wellman. “So we’ll hurry it up and slip back
into town. With all that fair crowd milling around, there won’t be one
man that could testify we’d ever left town; and I can produce several
that’ll swear positive that we’ve been there all along.”

They rode on in silence and they had not covered a distance of three
miles from town when Mattison rode into the county seat at the head of
a half-dozen men,--men who, incidentally, knew nothing whatever of his
mission except that they had been deputized to follow wherever he led.
As the marshal entered the outskirts of town a figure detached itself
from the shadows. Mattison joined the man who reported in tones that
did not carry to the rest of the posse.

“They’ve gone,” he informed. “I followed Freel every living minute till
he and Wellman slipped out of town together a half-hour ago.”

“Sure they didn’t change their plans and come back?” Mattison asked.

“Dead sure,” the man stated positively. “Not a chance.”

Mattison led his men direct to the county jail and left them just
outside the office while he entered alone. The two Ralstons occupied
the place at the time.

“Where’s Freel?” the marshal demanded.

“Couldn’t say,” one of the deputies answered. “Out around town
somewheres likely.” His eyes rested apprehensively on the group of men
standing just outside the door. “You wanting to see him?”

“Yes. I was--somewhat,” Mattison admitted. “I surmise you all know what
about.”

The Ralstons denied this.

“We’ll go out and look him up,” Mattison decided. “You two stay here. I
might be wanting to question you later.”

But the Ralstons failed to tarry. Within five minutes after the
marshal’s departure they set forth from town and the county was minus
the services of two deputies who neglected even to hand in their
resignations before quitting their posts.

A similar scene was enacted at Wellman’s hotel. The crowd in the lobby
turned suddenly quiet as Mattison led his men in and inquired at the
desk for Wellman. The proprietor was not to be found. The county
attorney reclined in a chair at one side of the lobby and Mattison
crossed over and addressed him.

“Any idea where I could locate Wellman and Freel?” he inquired.

The county attorney moistened his lips and disclaimed all knowledge of
their whereabouts. A voice rose from the far end of the lobby, a voice
which Mattison recognized as that of the man who had accosted him in
the outskirts as he rode into town.

“They got out ahead of you, Colonel,” the man stated. “Your birds has
flown.”

“What’s that?” Mattison asked, turning to face the informer. “How do
you know?”

“Just by sheer accident,” the man reported. “I see one party holding
two horses just outside of town. Another man joined him afoot. One of
’em touched off a smoke, and in the flare of the match I made out that
they was Wellman and Freel. They rode west.”

“That’s downright unfortunate,” Mattison said. “But it don’t matter
much. I was only wanting to see them to gather a little information
they might be able to give. Another time will do just as well.”

He turned and stared absently at the county attorney and that
gentleman’s florid countenance turned a shade lighter.

“Don’t matter,” the marshal repeated, rousing from his seeming
abstraction. “Nothing of any importance.”

He led his men from the lobby and rode west out of town. And out in the
country toward which he was heading were Carver and Bart Lassiter, both
prone in the grass a few yards apart and as many from Bart’s homestead
cabin.

“This is growing real tedious,” Bart stated. “Whatever leads you to
suspect that they’re due to pay their call on just this particular
night?”

“They won’t if you keep on talking,” Carver returned. “If you keep
quiet they might.”

Bart lapsed into silence. He had already spent a long hour in his
present location and would have preferred to be up and stirring about.
Another twenty minutes dragged by and he was on the point of addressing
Carver again when his intended utterance was cut short by a slight
sound close at hand. Five more interminable minutes passed and he heard
a single soft footfall a few feet away.

Two dim figures approached the house and slipped silently to the door.
The night was so black that they seemed but two wavering patches that
merged with the surrounding obscurity. One tested the latch and the
door opened on noiseless hinges. For a space both men stood there and
listened. Then one entered while the other remained at the door.

Carver spoke.

“What was you expecting to locate in there?” he asked softly.

The man in the door whirled and fired at the sound of his voice, the
flash of his gun a crimson streak in the velvet black of the night.
Carver shot back at the flash and Bart’s gun chimed with the report of
his own. There was a second flash from the doorway but this time the
crimson spurt leaped skyward for the shot was fired as the man sagged
and fell forward. There was a splintering crash of breaking glass as
the man inside cleared a window on the far side of the house. Bart shot
twice at the dim figure that moved through the night, then rose to his
feet intent upon following but Carver restrained him.

“Let him go!” he ordered. “One’s enough!”

“But just why the hell should I let Freel get away?” he demanded,
pulling back from the detaining hand which Carver had clamped on his
shoulder.

“It’s Wellman. Freel’s there by the door,” Carver said.

“How can you tell? It’s too black to see,” Bart insisted.

“Wellman would be the one to go in. Freel would be the one to hang
back,” Carver said. “That’s why I planned for you and me to stay
outside in the grass instead of waiting inside. Wellman and me used to
be friends--likely would be still if it wasn’t for Freel. It makes a
difference, some way. Wellman’s harmless to us from now on, outlawed
for this night’s business. He’ll be riding the hills with the wild
bunch till some one comes bringing him in.”

He stopped speaking to listen to the thud of many hoofs pounding down
the trail from the ridge.

“Now I wonder who that will be,” he speculated.

“You know now,” Bart accused. “You always know. Whoever it is didn’t
come without you had it planned in advance. But I’ll never tell what I
think.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Carver advised.

Mattison reached the foot of the trail with his men.

“What’s up?” he inquired. “We’d just stopped at the Half Diamond H to
ask you to put us up for the night. Nobody home. I thought I might find
you here so we’d just started over when all that shooting set in and we
hustled along. You two out hunting for owls?”

“Yes,” Carver said. “There’s one by the door. The other one flew out
the window. Bart and I was reclining out here in the grass talking
things over when the pair of them eased up to the door and one slipped
on in. I asked how about it and the man in the door started to shoot.
Then we did some shooting ourselves. The party there by the door is our
amiable sheriff.”

“Then the one that got off is Wellman,” one of the posse spoke up.
“Right from the first shot I guessed it. I’ve heard it whispered round
that they was planning to get you, and when the ruckus broke I was
looking to find you two dead when we got here. I’m glad they got it
instead. That whole county seat bunch needs cleaning out.”

There was a chorus of assent from the posse and under its cover Carver
murmured to Bart.

“So much for background,” he said.

“It’s a right queer bit of business for them two to be at,” Mattison
stated. “I’ll have to put off gathering that information from Freel.
You’d better saddle up and ride on into town with me, Carver, and we’ll
report this affair to the county attorney. You boys bring Freel in with
you. He’s likely got a horse tied round somewheres close. Scout around
till you find him. Yes, we’ve been needing a change of officials at
the county seat for some time and it does look like the alteration has
been effected to-night.”

Carver rode off with the marshal.

“Thanks for going to all that bother,” Carver said. “I’m indebted a
lot.”

“It just evens that score,” said the marshal. “And the whole thing
worked out nice. It’ll make a clean sweep in Oval Springs. Wellman
won’t show up any more. I’ll venture to predict that the two Ralstons
will have vanished from these parts before morning and the county
attorney is scared into a state of palpitation right now. He’ll attend
to all the necessary formalities to see that you’re given honorable
mention instead of a trial.”

“Then after we’ve finished with him I’ll take the night train for
Caldwell and loaf around a few days,” Carver announced. “I haven’t
traveled to any extent for some time.”

It was nearly morning when the train pulled into Caldwell.

“No use to go to bed now,” Carver decided. “I’ll find some of the boys
and set up.”

The Silver Dollar, now conducted in the rear of a cigar store which
had been fashioned across the front of the building since the old,
wide-open days had become a thing of the past in Caldwell, was still
operated as an all-night place of amusement. But Carver found that its
grandeur had vanished, the whole atmosphere of the place was different.
There were a dozen men in the place, but of them all Carver saw not one
of the riders that had been wont to forgather here.

He drew a tarnished silver coin from his pocket.

“Here’s where I got you and right here is where I leave you,” he said.
“You’ve sewed me up for one year now and I’m about to get shut of you
before you cinch me for another. We’ll spend you for a drink to the
boys that used to gather here. Back to your namesake, little silver
dollar.”

As he crossed to the bar he glanced at the swinging side door that
led into the adjoining restaurant. It opened and a girl stood there,
motioning him to join her. He followed her outside. Two horses stood at
a hitch rail down the street.

“Come on, Don; we’re going home,” she said. Then, as he seemed not
quite to understand, “Didn’t Bart tell you?”

“No,” he said. “Whatever it was, Bart didn’t tell me.”

“Then I’ll tell you myself on the way home,” she promised.

She linked an arm through his and moved toward the two horses at the
hitch rail.

“Tell me now,” he insisted, halting and swinging her round to face him.
“You can’t mean--but I must be reading my signs wrong, some way.”

“You’re reading them right,” she corrected. “All those outside things
don’t matter. I know that now. We’re going home, Don, just you and me.
That’s all that counts.”

He had a swift, uneasy vision of the occurrences of the night just past.

“But you haven’t heard--,” he commenced.

“Oh, yes; I’ve heard,” she interrupted. “The news was telephoned up
here and was spread all over Caldwell before you even took the train
from Oval Springs. That doesn’t matter either. Hinman phoned to
Mattison at the hotel and found that you were coming. That’s how I knew
and why I was waiting up. I’ve rented those two horses so we could ride
instead of taking a train to Oval Springs. I’d rather, wouldn’t you?”

“We’ll start in just one minute, Honey,” he said. “But first--”

She looked the length of the street and nodded, for there was no one
abroad.

Some miles out of Caldwell the girl pulled up her horse where the road
crossed the point of a hill.

“You remember?” she asked.

“I won’t forget,” he said.

For it was from this same point that they had watched the last of the
herds of the big cow outfits held in the quarantine belt awaiting
shipment, the riders guarding them, the trail herds moving up from the
south, while over across had been that solid line of camps where the
settlers were waiting to come in.

“We saw the sun set on the old days here,” she said. “Let’s watch it
rise on the new.”

For as far as they could see the lights were flashing from the windows
of early-rising settlers. A boy was calling his cows. A rooster crowed
triumphant greeting to the red-gray streaks that were showing in the
east. There came a flapping of wings as a flock of turkeys descended
from their perch on the ridgepole of a barn, then their querulous
yelping as the big birds prospected for food in the barn lot.

“It’s different,” he said.

Then, from the road below them, came the clatter of hoofs and riotous
voices raised in song; a few wild whoops and a gun fired in the air.

“The last few of the tumbleweeds, rattling their dry bones to impress
the pumpkins,” Carver said.

The words of the song drifted to them.

  I’m a wild, wild rider
  And an awful mean fighter,
  I’m a rough, tough, callous son-of-a-gun.
  I murder some folks quick
  And I kill off others slow;
  It’s the only way I ever take my fun.

The girl’s thoughts drifted back to the big Texan who had led the
stampede and then presented his claim to another. She leaned over and
rested a hand on Carver’s arm.

“I’m very much contented right now, Don,” she said. “But so terribly
sorry for the poor tumbleweeds that have been crowded out.”




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.





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