“Good morning,” she answered quietly, her hands behind her.

“Sleep well?”

“Would you expect me to?”

“Why not, with York here doing the virgin-knight act outside your

door?”

Her puzzled eyes discovered that Neil’s face was one blush of

embarrassment.

“He slept here on the po’ch,” explained Leroy, amused. “It’s a great

fad, this outdoor sleeping. The doctors recommend it strong for sick

people. You wouldn’t think to look at him York was sick. He looks plumb

husky. But looks are right deceptive. It’s a fact, Miss Mackenzie, that

he was so sick last night I wasn’t dead sure he’d live till mo’ning.”

The eyes of the men met like rapiers. Neil said nothing, and Leroy

dropped him from his mind as if he were a trifle and devoted his

attention to Alice.

“Breakfast is ready, Miss Mackenzie. This way, please.”

The outlaw led her to the dining room, where the young woman met a

fresh surprise. The table was white with immaculate linen and shone

with silver. She sat down to breakfast food with cream, followed by

quail on toast, bacon and eggs, and really good coffee. Moreover, she

discovered that this terror of the border knew how to handle his knife

and fork, was not deficient in the little niceties of table decorum. He

talked, and talked well, ignoring, like a perfect host, the relation

that existed between them. They sat opposite each other and ate alone,

waited upon by the Mexican woman. Alice wondered if he kept solitary

state when she was not there or ate with the other men.

It was evening before Hardman returned from the mission upon which he

had been sent in place of the obstinate Neil. He reported at once to

Leroy, who came smilingly to the place where she was sitting on the

porch to tell her his news.

“Webb Mackenzie’s going to raise that thirty thousand, all right. He’s

promised to raise it inside of three days,” he told her triumphantly.

“And shall I have to stay here three whole days?”

He looked with half-shut, smoldering eyes at her slender exquisiteness,

compact of a strange charm that was both well-bred and gypsyish. There

was a scarce-veiled passion in his gaze that troubled her. More than

once that day she had caught it.

“Three days ain’t so long. I could stand three months of you and wish

for more,” he told her.

Lightly she turned the subject, but not without a chill of fear. Three

days was a long time. Much might happen if this wolf slipped the leash

of his civilization.

It was next day that an incident occurred which was to affect the

course of events more than she could guess at the time. A bunch of wild

hill steers had been driven down by Hardman, Reilly, and Neil in the

afternoon and were inclosed in the corral with the cows from the

Rocking Chair Ranch. Just before sunset Leroy, who had been away all

day, returned and sauntered over from the stable to join Alice. It

struck the girl from his flushed appearance that he had been drinking.

In his eye she found a wild devil of lawlessness that set her heart

pounding. If Neil and he clashed now there would be murder done. Of

that she felt sure.

That she set herself to humor the Wolf’s whims was no more for her own

safety than for that of the man who had been her friend. She curbed her

fears, clamped down her startled maiden modesty, parried his advances

with light words and gay smiles. Once Neil passed, and his eyes asked a

question. She shook her head, unnoticed by Leroy. She would fight her

own battle as long as she could. It was to divert him that she proposed

they go down to the corral and look at the wild cattle the men had

driven down. She told him she had heard a great deal about them, but

had never seen any. If he would go with her she would like to look at

them.

The outlaw was instantly at her service, and they sauntered across. In

her hand the girl carried a closed umbrella she had been using to keep

off the sun.

They stood at the gate of the corral looking at the long-legged, shaggy

creatures, as wild and as active almost as hill deer. On horseback one

could pass to and fro among them without danger, but in a closed corral

a man on foot would have taken a chance. Nobody knew this better than

Leroy. But the liquor was still in his head, and even when sober he was

reckless beyond other men.

“They need water,” he said, and with that opened the gate and started

for the windmill.

He sauntered carelessly across, with never a glance at the dangerous

animals among which he was venturing. A great bull pawed the ground

lowered its head, and made a rush at the unconscious man. Alice called

to him to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy

turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with

a deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of

its rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless.

Even as his revolver flashed out from the scabbard the outlaw knew he

was too late to save her, for she stood in such a position that he

could not hit a vital spot. Suddenly her umbrella opened in the face of

the animal. Frightened, it set its feet wide and slithered to a halt so

close to her that its chorus pierced the silk of the umbrella. With one

hand Leroy swept the girl behind him; with the other he pumped three

bullets into the forehead of the bull. Without a groan it keeled over,

dead before it reached the ground.

Alice leaned against the iron support of the windmill. She was so white

that the man expected her to sink down. One glance showed him other

cattle pawing the ground angrily.

“Come!” he ordered, and, putting an arm round her waist, he ran with

her to the gate. Yet a moment, and they were through in safety.

She leaned against him helpless for an instant before she had strength

to disengage herself. “Thank you. I’m all right now.”

“I thought you were going to faint,” he explained.

She nodded. “I nearly did.”

His face was colorless. “You saved my life.”

“Then we’re quits, for you saved mine,” she answered, with a shaken

attempt at a smile.

He shook his head. “That’s not the same at all. I had to do that, and

there was no risk to it. But you chose to save me, to risk your life

for mine.”

She saw that he was greatly moved, and that his emotion had swept away

the effects of the liquid as a fresh breeze does a fog.

“I didn’t know I was risking my life. I saw you didn’t see.”

“I didn’t think there was a woman alive had the pluck to do it—and for

me, your enemy. That what you count me, isn’t it—an enemy?”

“I don’t know. I can’t quite think of you as friend, can I?”

“And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost.”

“Except the danger of yourself,” she said, in low voice, meeting him

eye to eye.

He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning his

arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle between the

peak which still glowed with sunset light.

“I haven’t met a woman of your kind before in ten years,” he said

presently. “I’ve lived on your looks, your motions, the inflections of

your voice. I suppose I’ve been starved for that sort of thing and

didn’t know it till you came. It’s been like a glimpse of heaven to

me.” He laughed bitterly: and went on: “Of course, I had to take to

drinking and let you see the devil I am. When I’m sober you would be as

safe with me as with York. But the excitement of meeting you—I have to

ride my emotions to death so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink

stimulates the imagination, and I drank.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously. “You’re

only a girl. What do you know about men of my sort? You have been

wrappered and sheltered all your life. And yet you understand me better

than any of the people I meet. All my life I have fought with myself. I

might have been a gentleman and I’m only a wolf. My appetites and

passions, stronger than myself dragged me down. It was Kismet, the

destiny ordained for me from my birth.”

“Isn’t there always hope for a man who knows his weaknesses and fights

against them?” she asked timidly.

“No, there is not,” came the harsh answer. “Besides, I don’t fight. I

yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me.

You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt.”

“I didn’t think who you were,” her honesty compelled her to say.

“That doesn’t matter. You did it. I’m going to take you back to your

father and straight as I can.”

Her eyes lit. “Without a ransom?”

“Yes.”

“You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir.”

“I’m not coyote all through.”

She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her.

“What about your friends? Will they let me go?”

“They’ll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in

private, and when they’re away from me.”

“I don’t want to make trouble for you.”

“You won’t make trouble for me. If there’s any trouble it will be for

them,” he said grimly.

Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a

strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast

the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the

eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction

for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness

too late—too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed

inexorably the character he could no longer change.

“I am sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t see that in you at first. I

misjudged you. One can’t label men just good or bad, as the novelists

used to. You have taught me that—you and Mr. Neil.”

His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. “I’m bad enough. Don’t make any

mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York’s different. He’s just a good

man gone wrong. But I’m plain miscreant.”

“Oh, no,” she protested.

“As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through,” he said again.

“Something’s happened to me to-day. It won’t change me. I’ve gone too

far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf

Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his

opinion of the deceased you’ll remember one thing. He wasn’t a wolf to

you—not at the last.”

“I’ll not forget,” she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.

York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner

he had a joke up his sleeve.

“You’re wanted, Phil,” he announced.

“Wanted where?”

“You got a visitor in there,” Neil said, with a grin and a jerk of his

thumb toward the house. “Came blundering into the draw sorter

accidental-like, but some curious. So I asked him if he wouldn’t light

and stay a while. He thought it over, and figured he would.”

“Who is it?” asked Leroy.

“You go and see. I ain’t giving away what your Christmas presents are.

I aim to let Santa surprise you a few.”

Miss Mackenzie followed the outlaw chief into the house, and over his

shoulder glimpsed two men. One of them was the Irishman, Cork Reilly,

and he sat with a Winchester across his knees. The other had his back

toward them, but he turned as they entered, and nodded casually to the

outlaw. Helen’s heart jumped to her throat when she saw it was Val

Collins.

The two men looked at each other steadily in a long silence. Wolf Leroy

was the first to speak.

“You damn fool!” The swarthy face creased to an evil smile of derision.

“I ce’tainly do seem to butt in considerable, Mr. Leroy,” admitted

Collins, with an answering smile.

Leroy’s square jaw set like a vise. “It won’t happen again, Mr.

Sheriff.”

“I’d hate to gamble on that heavy,” returned Collins easily. Then he

caught sight of the girl’s white face, and rose to his feet with

outstretched hand.

“Sit down,” snapped out Reilly.

“Oh, that’s all right I’m shaking hands with the lady. Did you think I

was inviting you to drill a hole in me, Mr. Reilly?”

CHAPTER XVIII.

A DINNER FOR THREE

“I thought we bumped you off down at Epitaph,” Leroy said.

“Along with Scotty? Well, no. You see, I’m a regular cat to kill, Mr.

Leroy, and I couldn’t conscientiously join the angels with so lame a

story as a game laig to explain my coming,” said Collins cheerfully.

“In that case—”

“Yes, I understand. You’d be willing to accommodate with a hole in the

haid instead of one in the laig. But I’ll not trouble you.”

“What are you doing here? Didn’t I warn you to attend to your own

business and leave me alone?”

“Seems to me you did load me up with some good advice, but I plumb

forgot to follow it.”

The Wolf cursed under his breath. “You came here at your own risk,

then?”

“Well, I did and I didn’t,” corrected the sheriff easily. “I’ve got a

five-thousand policy in the Southeastern Life Insurance Company, so I

reckon it’s some risk to them. And, by the way, it’s a company I can

recommend.”

“Does it insure against suicide?” asked Leroy, his masked, smiling face

veiling thinly a ruthless purpose.

“And against hanging. Let me strongly urge you to take out a policy at

once,” came the prompt retort.

“You think it necessary?”

“Quite. When you and York Neil and Hardman made an end of Scotty you

threw ropes round your own necks. Any locoed tenderfoot would know

that.”

The sheriff’s unflinching look met the outlaw’s black frown serene and

clear-eyed.

“And would he know that you had committed suicide when you ran this

place down and came here?” asked Leroy, with silken cruelty.

“Well, he ought to know it. The fact is, Mr. Leroy, that it hadn’t

penetrated my think-tank that this was your hacienda when I came

mavericking in.”

“Just out riding for your health?”

“Not exactly. I was looking for Miss Mackenzie. I cut her trail about

six miles from the Rocking Chair and followed it where she wandered

around. The trail led directly away from the ranch toward the

mountains. That didn’t make me any easy in my mind. So I just jogged

along and elected myself an investigating committee. I arrived some

late, but here I am, right side up—and so hearty welcome that my friend

Cork won’t hear of my leaving at all. He don’t do a thing but entertain

me—never lets his attention wander. Oh, I’m the welcome guest, all

right. No doubt about that.”

Wolf Leroy turned to Alice. “I think you had better go to your room,”

he said gently.

“Oh, no, no; let me stay,” she implored. “You would never—you would

never—” The words died on her white lips, but the horror in her eyes

finished the question.

He met her gaze fully, and answered her doggedly. “You’re not in this,

Miss Mackenzie. It’s between him and me. I shan’t allow even you to

interfere.”

“But—oh, it is horrible! for two minutes.”

He shook his head.

“You must! Please.”

“What use?”

Let me see you alone

Her troubled gaze shifted to the strong, brown, sun-baked face of the

man who had put himself in this deadly peril to save her. His keen,

blue-gray eyes, very searching and steady, met hers with a courage she

thought splendid, and her heart cried out passionately against the

sacrifice.

“You shall not do it. Oh, please let me talk it over with you.”

“No.”

“Have you forgotten already?—and you said you would always remember.”

She almost whispered it.

She had stung his consent at last. “Very well,” he said, and opened the

door to let her pass into the inner room.

But she noticed that his eyes were hard as jade.

“Don’t you see that he came here to save me?” she cried, when they were

alone. “Don’t you see it was for me? He didn’t come to spy out your

place of hiding.”

“I see that he has found it. If I let him go, he will bring back a

posse to take us.”

“You could ride across the line into Mexico.”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“But why?”

“Because, Miss Mackenzie, the money we took from the express car of the

Limited is hidden here, and I don’t know where it is; because the sun

won’t ever rise on a day when Val Collins will drive me out of

Arizona.”

“I don’t know what you mean about the money, but you must let him go.

You spoke of a service I had done you. This is my pay.”

“To turn him loose to hunt us down?”

“He’ll not trouble you if you let him go.”

A sardonic smile touched his face. “A lot you know of him. He thinks it

his duty to rid the earth of vermin like us. He’d never let up till he

got us or we got him. Well, we’ve got him now, good and plenty. He took

his chances, didn’t he? It isn’t as if he didn’t know what he was up

against. He’ll tell you himself it’s a square deal. He’s game, and he

won’t squeal because we win and he has to pay forfeit.”

The girl wrung her hands despairingly.

“It’s his life or mine—and not only mine, but my men’s,” continued the

outlaw. “Would you turn a wolf loose from your sheep pen to lead the

pack to the kill?”

“But if he were to promise—”

“We’re not talking about the ordinary man—he’d promise anything and lie

to-morrow. But Sheriff Collins won’t do it. If you think you can twist

a promise out of him not to take advantage of what he has found out

you’re guessing wrong. When you think he’s a quitter, just look at that

cork hand of his, and remember how come he to get it. He’ll take his

medicine proper, but he’ll never crawl.”

“There must be some way,” she cried desperately,

“Since you make a point of it, I’ll give him his chance.”

“You’ll let him go?” The joy in her voice was tremulously plain.

He laughed, leaning carelessly against the mantelshelf. But his

narrowed eyes watched her vigilantly. “I didn’t say I would let him go.

What I said was that I’d give him a chance.”

“How?”

“They say he’s a dead shot. I’m a few with a gun myself. We’ll ride

down to the plains together, and find a good lonely spot suitable for a

graveyard. Then one of us will ride away, and the other will stay, or

perhaps both of us will stay.”

She shuddered. “No—no—no. I won’t have it.”

“Afraid something might happen to me, ma’am?” he asked, with a queer

laugh,

“I won’t have it.”

“Afraid, perhaps, he might be the one left for the coyotes and the

buzzards?”

She was white to the lips, but at his next word the blood came flaming

back to her cheeks.

“Why don’t you tell the truth? Why don’t you; say you love him, and be

done with it? Say it and I’ll take him back to Tucson with you safe as

if he were a baby.”

She covered her face with her hands, but with two steps he had reached

her and captured he hands.

“The truth,” he demanded, and his eyes compelled.

“It is to save his life?”

He laughed harshly. “Here’s melodrama for you! Yes—to save your lover’s

life.”

She lifted her eyes to his bravely. “What you say is true. I love him.”

Leroy bowed ironically. “I congratulate Mr. Collins, who is now quite

safe, so far as I am concerned. Meanwhile, lest he be jealous of your

absence, shall we return now?”

Some word of sympathy for the reckless scamp trembled on her lips, but

her instinct told her would hold it insult added to injury, and she

left her pity unvoiced.

“If you please.”

But as he heeled away she laid a timid hand on his arm. He turned and

looked grimly down at the working face, at the sweet, soft, pitiful

eyes brimming with tears. She was pure woman now, all the caste pride

dissolved in yearning pity.

“Oh, you lamb—you precious lamb,” he groaned, and clicked his teeth

shut on the poignant pain of his loss.

“I think you’re splendid,” she told him. “Oh, I know what you’ve

done—that you are not good. I know you’ve wasted your life and lived

with your hand against every man’s. But I can’t help all that. I look

for the good in you, and I find it. Even in your sins you are not

petty. You know how to rise to an opportunity.”

This man of contradictions, forever the creature of his impulses, gave

the lie to her last words by signally failing to rise to this one. He

snatched her to him, and looked down hungry-eyed at her sweet beauty,

as fresh and fragrant as the wild rose in the copse.

“Please,” she cried, straining from him with shy, frightened eyes.

For answer he kissed her fiercely on the cheeks, and eyes, and mouth.

“The rest are his, but these are mine,” he laughed mirthlessly.

Then, flinging her from him, he led the way into the next room. Flushed

and disheveled, she followed. He had outraged her maiden instincts and

trampled down her traditions of caste, but she had no time to think of

this now.

“If you’re through explaining the mechanism of that Winchester to

Sheriff Collins we’ll reluctantly dispense with your presence, Mr.

Reilly. We have arranged a temporary treaty of peace,” the chief outlaw

said.

Reilly, a huge lout of a fellow with a lowering countenance, ventured

to expostulate. “Ye want to be careful of him. He’s quicker’n chain

lightning.”

His chief exploded with low-voiced fury. “When I ask your advice, give

it, you fat-brained son of a brand blotter. Until then padlock that

mouth of yours. _Vamos_.”

Reilly vanished, his face a picture of impotent malice, and Leroy

continued:

“We’re going to the Rocking Chair in the morning, Mr. Collins—at least,

you and Miss Mackenzie are going there. I’m going part way. We’ve

arranged a little deal all by our lones, subject to your approval. You

get away without that hole in your head. Miss Mackenzie goes with you,

and I get in return the papers you took off Scotty and Webster.”

“You mean I am to give up the hunt?” asked Collins.

“Not at all. I’ll be glad to death to see you blundering in again when

Miss Mackenzie isn’t here to beg you off. The point is that in exchange

for your freedom and Miss Mackenzie’s I get those papers you left in a

safety-deposit vault in Epitaph. It’ll save me the trouble of sticking

up the First National and winging a few indiscreet citizens of that

burgh. Savvy?”

“That’s all you ask?” demanded the surprised sheriff.

“All I ask is to get those papers in my hand and a four-hour start

before you begin the hunt. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal, but I give it to you straight that I’ll be after you as

soon as the four hours are up,” returned Collins promptly. “I don’t

know what magic Miss Mackenzie used. Still, I must compliment her on

getting us out mighty easy.”

But though the sheriff looked smilingly at Alice, that young woman,

usually mistress of herself in all emergencies, did not lift her eyes

to meet his. Indeed, he thought her strangely embarrassed. She was as

flushed and tongue-tied as a country girl in unaccustomed company. She

seemed another woman than the self-possessed young beauty he had met a

month before on the Limited, but he found her shy abashment charming.

“I guess you thought you had come to the end of the passage, Mr.

Collins,” suggested the outlaw, with listless curiosity.

“I didn’t know whether to order the flowers or not, but way down in my

heart I was backing my luck,” Collins told him.

“Of course it’s understood that you are on parole until we separate,”

said Leroy curtly.

“Of course.”

“Then we’ll have supper at once, for we’ll have to be on the road

early.” He clapped his hands together, and the Mexican woman appeared.

Her master flung out a command or two in her own language.

“_Poco tiempo_,” she answered, and disappeared.

In a surprisingly short time the meal was ready, set out on a table

white with Irish linen and winking with cut glass and silver.

“Mr. Leroy does not believe at all in doing when in Rome as the Romans

do,” Alice explained to Collins, in answer to his start of amazement.

“He’s a regular Aladdin. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to see electric

lights come on next.”

“One has to attempt sometimes to blot out the forsaken desert,” said

Leroy. “Try this cut of slow elk, Miss Mackenzie. I think you’ll like

it.”

“Slow elk! What is that?” asked the girl, to make talk.

“Mr. Collins will tell you,” smiled Leroy.

She turned to the sheriff, who first apologized, with a smile, to his

host. “Slow elk, Miss Mackenzie, is veal that has been rustled. I

expect Mr. Leroy has pressed a stray calf into our Service.”

“I see,” she flashed. “Pressed veal.”

The outlaw smiled at her ready wit, and took on himself the burden of

further explanation. “And this particular slow elk comes from a ranch

on the Aravaipa owned by Mr. Collins. York shot it up in the hills a

day or two ago.”

“Shouldn’t have been straying so far from its range,” suggested

Collins, with a laugh. “But it’s good veal, even if I say it that

shouldn’t.”

“Thank you,” burlesqued the bandit gravely, with such an ironic touch

of convention that Alice smiled.

After dinner Leroy produced cigars, and with the permission of Miss

Mackenzie the two men smoked while the conversation ran on a topic as

impersonal as literature. A criticism of novels and plays written to

illustrate the frontier was the line into which the discussion fell,

and the girl from the city, listening with a vivid interest, was

pleased to find that these two real men talked with point and a sense

of dexterous turns. She felt a sort of proud proprietorship in their

power, and wished that some of the tailors’ models she had met in

society, who held so good a conceit of themselves, might come under the

spell of their strong, tolerant virility. Whatever the difference

between them, it might be truly said of both that they had lived at

first hand and come in touch closely with all the elemental realities.

One of them was a romantic villain and the other an unromantic hero,

but her pulsing emotions morally condemned one no more than the other.

This was the sheer delight of her esthetic sense of fitness, that

strong men engaged in a finish fight could rise to so perfect a

courtesy that an outsider could not have guessed the antagonism that

ran between them, enduring as life.

Leroy gave the signal for breaking up by looking at his watch. “Afraid

I must say ‘Lights out.’ It’s past eleven. We’ll have to be up and on

our way with the hooters. Sleep well, Miss Mackenzie. You don’t need to

worry about waking. I’ll have you called in good time. _Buenos

noches_.”

He held the door for her as she passed out; and, in passing, her eyes

rose to meet his.

“_Buenos noches, señor;_ I’m sure I shall sleep well to-night,” she

said.

It had been the day of Alice Mackenzie’ life. Emotions and sensations,

surging through her, had trodden on each other’s heels. Woman-like, she

welcomed the darkness to analyze and classify the turbid chaos of her

mind. She had been swept into sympathy with an outlaw, to give him no

worse name. She had felt herself nearer to him than to some honest men

she could name who had offered her their love.

Surely, that had been bad enough, but worse was to follow. This

discerning scamp had torn aside her veils of maiden reserve and exposed

the secret fancy of her heart, unknown before even to herself. She had

confessed love for this big-hearted sheriff and frontiersman. Here she

could plead an ulterior motive. To save his life any deception was

permissible. Yes, but where lay the truth? With that insistent demand

of the outlaw had rushed over her a sudden wave of joy. What could it

mean unless it meant what she would not admit that it could mean? Why,

the man was impossible. He was not of her class. She had scarce seen

him a half-dozen times. Her first meeting with him had been only a

month ago. One month ago—

A remembrance flashed through her that brought her from the bed in a

barefoot search for matches. When the candle was relit he slipped a

chamoisskin pouch from her neck and from it took a sealed envelope. It

was the note in which the sheriff on the night of the train robbery had

written his prediction of how the matter would come out. She was to

open the envelope in a month, and the month was up to-night.

As she tore open the flap it came to her with one of her little

flashing smiles that she could never have guessed under what

circumstances she would read it. By the dim flame of a guttering

candle, in a cotton nightgown borrowed from a Mexican menial, a

prisoner of the very man who had robbed her and the recipient of a

practical confession of love from him not three hours earlier! Surely

here was a situation to beggar romance. But before she had finished

reading the reality was still more unbelievable.

I have just met for the first time the woman I am going to marry if God

is good to one. I am writing this because I want her to know it as soon

as I decently can. Of course, I am not worthy of her, but then I don’t

know any man that is.

So the fact goes—I’m bound to marry her if there’s nobody else in the

way. This isn’t conceit. It is a deep-seated certainty I can’t get away

from, and don’t want to. When she reads this, she will think it a piece

of foolish presumption. My hope is she will not always think so. Her

Lover,

VAL COLLINS.

Her swift-pulsing heart was behaving very queerly. It seemed to hang

delightfully still, and then jump forward with odd little beats of joy.

She caught a glimpse of her happy face, and blew out the light for

shame, groping her way back to bed with the letter carefully guarded

against crumpling by her hand.

Foolish presumption indeed. Why, he had only seen her once, and he said

he would marry her with never a by-your-leave! Wasn’t that what he had

said? She had to strike another match to learn the lines that had not

stuck word for word in her mind, and after that another match to get a

picture of the scrawl to visualize in the dark.

How dared he take her for granted? But what a masterly way of wooing

for the right man! What idiotic folly if he had been the wrong one! Was

he, then, the right one? She questioned herself closely, but came to no

more definite answer than this—that her heart went glad with a sweet

joy to know he wanted to marry her.

She resolved to put him from her mind, and in this resolve she fell at

last into smiling sleep.

CHAPTER XIX.

A VILLON OF THE DESERT

When Alice Mackenzie looked back in after years upon the incidents

connected with that ride to the Rocking Chair, it was always with a

kind of glorified pride in her villain-hero. He had his moments, had

this twentieth-century Villon, when he represented not unworthily the

divinity in man; and this day held more than one of them. Since he was

what he was, it also held as many of his black moods.

The start was delayed, owing to a cause Leroy had not foreseen. When

York went, sleepy-eyed, to the corral to saddle the ponies, he found

the bars into the pasture let down, and the whole _remuda_ kicking up

its heels in a paddock large as a goodsized city. The result was that

it took two hours to run up the bunch of ponies and another half-hour

to cut out, rope, and saddle the three that were wanted. Throughout the

process Reilly sat on the fence and scowled.

Leroy, making an end of slapping on and cinching the last saddle,

wheeled suddenly on the Irishman. “What’s the matter, Reilly?”

“Was I saying anything was the matter?”

“You’ve been looking it right hard. Ain’t you man enough to say it

instead of playing dirty little three-for-a-cent tricks—like letting

down the corral-bars?”

Reilly flung a look at Neil that plainly demanded support, and then

descended with truculent defiance from the fence.

“Who says I let down the bars? You bet I am man enough to say what I

think; and if ye think I ain’t got the nerve—”

His master encouraged him with ironic derision. “That’s right, Reilly.

Who’s afraid? Cough it up and show York you’re game.”

“By thunder, I _am_ game. I’ve got a kick coming, sorr.”

“Yes?” Leroy rolled and lit a cigarette, his black eyes fixed intently

on the malcontent. “Well, register it on the jump. I’ve got to be off.”

“That’s the point.” The curly-headed Neil had lounged up to his

comrade’s support. “_Why_ have you got to be off? We don’t savvy your

game, cap.”

“Perhaps you would like to be major-domo of this outfit, Neil?” scoffed

his chief, eying him scornfully.

“No, sir. I ain’t aimin’ for no such thing. But we don’t like the way

things are shaping. What does all this here funny business mean,

anyhow?” His thumb jerked toward Collins, already mounted and waiting

for Leroy to join him. “Two days ago this world wasn’t big enough to

hold him and you. Well, I git the drop on him, and then you begin to

cotton up to him right away. Big dinner last night—champagne corks

popping, I hear. What I want to know is what it means. And here’s this

Miss Mackenzie. She’s good for a big ransom, but I don’t see it ambling

our way. It looks darned funny.”

“That’s the ticket, York,” derided Leroy. “Come again. Turn your wolf

loose.”

“Oh! I ain’t afraid to say what I think.”

“I see you’re not. You should try stump-speaking, my friend. There’s a

field fox you there.”

“I’m asking you a question, Mr. Leroy.”

“That’s whatever,” chipped in Reilly.

“Put a name to it.”

“Well, I want to know what’s the game, and where we come in.”

“Think you’re getting the double-cross?” asked Leroy pleasantly, his

vigilant eyes covering them like a weapon.

“Now you’re shouting. That’s what I’d like right well to know. There

_he_ sits”—with another thumbjerk at Collins—“and I’m a Chink if he

ain’t carryin’ them same two guns I took offen him, one on the train

and one here the other day. I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t all right, cap. But

what I do say is—how about it?”

Leroy did some thinking out loud. “Of course I might tell you boys to

go to the devil. That’s my right, because you chose me to run this

outfit without any advice from the rest of you. But you’re such

infants, I reckon I had better explain. You’re always worrying those

fat brains of yours with suspicions. After we stuck up the Limited you

couldn’t trust me to take care of the swag. Reilly here had to cook up

a fool scheme for us all to hide it blindfold together. I told you

straight what would happen, and it did. When Scotty crossed the divide

we were in a Jim Dandy of a hole. We had to have that paper of his to

find the boodle. Then Hardman gets caught, and coughs up his little

recipe for helping to find hidden treasure. Who gets them both? Mr.

Sheriff Collins, of course. Then he comes visiting us. Not being a

fool, he leaves the documents behind in a safety-deposit vault. Unless

I can fix up a deal with him, Mr. Reilly’s wise play buncoes us and

himself out of thirty thousand dollars.”

“Why don’t you let him send for the papers first?”

“Because he won’t do it. Threaten nothing! Collins ain’t that kind of a

hairpin. He’d tell us to shoot and be damned.”

“So you’ve got it fixed with him?” demanded Neil.

“You’ve a head like a sheep, York,” admired Leroy. “_You_ don’t need

any brick-wall hints to hit you. As your think-tank has guessed, I have

come to an understanding with Collins.”

“But the gyurl—I allow the old major would come down with a right smart

ransom.”

“Wrong guess, York. I allow he would come down with a right smart posse

and wipe us off the face of the earth. Collins tells me the major has

sent for a couple of Apache trailers from the reservation. That means

it’s up to us to hike for Sonora. The only point is whether we take

that buried money with us or leave it here. If I make a deal with

Collins, we get it. If I don’t, it’s somebody else’s gold-mine.

Anything more the committee of investigation would like to know?”

concluded Leroy, as his cold eyes raked them scornfully and came to

rest on Reilly.

“Not for mine,” said Neil, with an apologetic laugh. “I’m satisfied. I

just wanted to know. And I guess Cork corroborates.”

Reilly growled something under his breath, and turned to hulk away.

“One moment. You’ll listen to _me_, now. You have taken the liberty to

assume I was going to sell you out. I’ll not stand that from any man

alive. To-morrow night I’ll get back from Tucson. We’ll dig up the loot

and divide it. And right then we quit company. You go your way and I go

mine.” And with that as a parting shot, Leroy turned on his heel and

went direct to his horse.

Alice Mackenzie might have searched the West with a fine-tooth comb and

not found elsewhere two such riders for an escort as fenced her that

day. Physically they were a pair of superb animals, each perfect after

his fashion. If the fair-haired giant, with his lean, broad shoulders

and rippling flow of muscles, bulked more strikingly in a display of

sheer strength, the sinewy, tigerish grace of the dark Apollo left

nothing to be desired to the eye. Both of them had been brought up in

the saddle, and each was fit to the minute for any emergency likely to

appear.

But on this pleasant morning no test of their power seemed likely to

arise, and she could study them at her ease without hindrance. She had

never seen Leroy look more the vagabond enthroned. For dress, he wore

the common equipment of Cattleland—jingling spurs, fringed chaps,

leather cuffs, gray shirt, with kerchief knotted loosely at the neck,

and revolver ready to his hand. But he carried them with an air, an

inimitable grace, that marked him for a prince among his fellows.

Something of the kind she hinted to him in jesting paradoxical fashion,

making an attempt to win from his sardonic gloom one of his quick,

flashing smiles.

He countered by telling her what he had heard York say to Reilly of

her. “She’s a princess, Cork,” York had said. “Makes my Epitaph gyurl

look like a chromo beside her. Somehow, when she looks at a fellow, he

feels like a whitewashed nigger.”

All of them laughed at that, but both Leroy and the sheriff tried to

banter her by insisting that they knew exactly what York meant.

“You can be very splendid when you want to give a man that whitewashed

feeling; he isn’t right sure whether he’s on the map or not,”

reproached the train-robber.

She laughed in the slow, indolent way she had, taking the straw hat

from her dark head to catch better the faint breath of wind that was

soughing across the plains.

“I didn’t know I was so terrible. I don’t think _you_ ever had any awe

of anybody, Mr. Leroy.” Her soft cheek flushed in unexpected memory of

that moment when he had brushed aside all her maiden reserves and

ravished mad kisses from her. “And Mr. Collins is big enough to take

care of himself,” she added hastily, to banish the unwelcome

recollection.

Collins, with his eyes on the light-shot waves that crowned her vivid

face, wondered whether he was or not. If she had been a woman to desire

in the queenly, half-insolent indifference of manner with which she had

first met him, how much more of charm lay in this piquant gaiety, in

the warm sweetness of her softer and more pliant mood! It seemed to him

she had the gift of comradeship to perfection.

They unsaddled and ate lunch in the shade of the live-oaks at El Dorado

Springs, which used to be a much-frequented watering-hole in the days

when Camp Grant thrived and mule-skinners freighted supplies in to feed

Uncle Sam’s pets. Two hours later they stopped again at the edge of the

Santa Cruz wash, two miles from the Rocking Chair Ranch.

It was while they were resaddling that Collins caught sight of a cloud

of dust a mile or two away. He unslung his field-glasses, and looked

long at the approaching dust-swirl. Presently he handed the binoculars

to Leroy.

“Five of them; and that round-bellied Papago pony in front belongs to

Sheriff Forbes, or I’m away wrong.”

Leroy lowered the glasses, after a long, unflurried inspection. “Looks

that way to me. Expect I’d better be burning the wind.”

In a few sentences he and Collins arranged a meeting for next day up in

the hills. He trailed his spurs through the dust toward Alice

Mackenzie, and offered her his brown hand and wistful smile

irresistible. “Good-by. This is where you get quit of me for good.”

“Oh, I hope not,” she told him impulsively. “We must always be

friends.”

He laughed ruefully. “Your father wouldn’t indorse those unwise

sentiments, I reckon—and I’d hate to bet your husband would,” he added

audaciously, with a glance at Collins. “But I love to hear you say it,

even though we never could be. You’re a right game, stanch little

pardner. I’ll back that opinion with the lid off.”

“You should be a good judge of those qualities. I’m only sorry you

don’t always use them in a good cause.”

He swung himself to his saddle. “Good-by.”

“Good-by—till we meet again.”

“And that will be never. So-long, sheriff. Tell Forbes I’ve got a

particular engagement in the hills, but I’ll be right glad to meet him

when he comes.”

He rode up the draw and disappeared over the brow of the hillock. She

caught another glimpse of him a minute later on the summit of the hill

beyond. He waved a hand at her, half-turning in his saddle as he rode.

Presently she lost him, but faintly the wind swept back to her a

haunting snatch of uncouth song:

“Oh, bury me out on the lone prairee,

In my narrow grave just six by three,”

Were the words drifted to her by the wind. She thought it pathetically

likely he might get the wish of his song.

To Sheriff Forbes, dropping into the draw a few minutes later with his

posse, Collins was a well of misinformation literally true. Yes, he had

followed Miss Mackenzie’s trail into the hills and found her at a

mountain ranch-house. She had been there a couple of days, and was

about to set out for the Rocking Chair with the owner of the place,

when he arrived and volunteered to see her as far as her uncle’s ranch.

“I reckon there ain’t any use asking you if you seen anything of Wolf

Leroy’s outfit,” said Forbes, a weather-beaten Westerner with a shrewd,

wrinkled face.

“No, I reckon there’s no use asking me that,” returned Collins, with a

laugh that deceptively seemed to include the older man in the joke.

“We’re after them for rustling a bunch of Circle 33 cows. Well, I’ll be

moving. Glad you found the lady, Val. She don’t look none played out

from her little trek across the desert. Funny, ain’t it, how she could

have wandered that far and her afoot?”

The Arizona sun was setting in its accustomed blaze of splendor, when

Val Collins and Alice Mackenzie put their horses again toward the ranch

and the rainbow-hued west. In his contented eyes were reflected the

sunshine and a serenity born of life in the wide, open spaces. They

rode in silence for long, the gentle evening breeze blowing in soughs.

“Did you ever meet a man of such promises gone wrong so utterly? He

might have been anything—and it has come to this, that he is hunted

like a wild beast. I never saw anything so pitiful. I would give

anything to save him.”

He had no need to ask to whom she was referring. “Can’t be done. Good

qualities bulge out all over him, but they don’t count for anything.

‘Unstable as water.’ That’s what’s the matter with him. He is the slave

of his own whims. Hence he is only the splendid wreck of a man, full of

all kinds of rich outcropping pay-ore that pinch out when you try to

work them. They don’t raise men gamer, but that only makes him a more

dangerous foe to society. Same with his loyalty and his brilliancy.

He’s got a haid on him that works like they say old J. E. B. Stuart’s

did. He would run into a hundred traps, but somehow he always worked

his men out of them. That’s Leroy, too. If he had been an ordinary

criminal he would have been rounded up years ago. It’s his audacity,

his iron nerve, his good horse-sense judgment that saves his skin. But

he’s certainly up against it at last.”

“You think Sheriff Forbes will capture him?”

He laughed. “I think it more likely he’ll capture Forbes. But we know

now where he hangs out, and who he is. He has always been a mystery

till now. The mystery is solved, and unless he strikes out for Sonora,

Leroy is as good as a dead man.”

“A dead man?”

“Does he strike you as a man likely to be taken alive? I look to see a

dramatic exit to the sound of cracking Winchesters.”

“Yes, that would be like him,” she confessed with shudder. “I think he

was made to lead a forlorn hope. Pity it won’t be one worthy of the

best in him.”

“I guess he does have more moments set to music than most of us, and

I’ll bet, too, he has hidden way in him a list of ‘Thou shalt nots.’ I

read a book once by a man named Stevenson that was sure virgin gold. He

showed how every man, no matter how low he falls, has somewhere in him

a light that burns, some rag of honor for which he is still fighting

I’d hate to have to judge Leroy. Some men, I reckon, have to buck

against so much in themselves that even failure is a kind of success

for them.”

“Yet you will go out to hunt him down?” she’ said, marveling at the

broad sympathy of the man.

“Sure I will. My official duty is to look out for society. If something

in the machine breaks loose and goes to ripping things to pieces, the

engineer has to stop the damage, even if he has to smash the rod that’s

causing the trouble.”

The ponies dropped down again into the bed of the wash, and plowed

across through the heavy sand. After they had reached the solid road,

Collins resumed conversation at a new point.

“It’s a month and a day since I first met you Miss Mackenzie,” he said,

apparently apropos of nothing.

She felt her blood begin to choke. “Indeed!”

“I gave you a letter to read when I was on the train.”

“A letter!” she exclaimed, in well-affected surprise.

“Did you think it was a book of poems? No, ma’am, it was a letter. You

were to read it in a month. Time was up last night. I reckon you read

it.”

“Could I read a letter I left at Tucson, when it was a hundred miles

away?” she smiled with sweet patronage.

“Not if you left it at Tucson,” he assented, with an answering smile.

“Maybe I _did_ lose it.” She frowned, trying to remember.

“Then I’ll have to tell you what was in it.”

“Any time will do. I dare say it wasn’t important.”

“Then we’ll say _this_ time.”

“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Collins. I want to talk about our desert Villon.”

“I said in that letter—”

She put her pony to a canter, and they galloped side by side in silence

for half a mile. After she had slowed down to a walk, he continued

placidly, as if oblivious of an interruption:

“I said in that letter that I had just met the young lady I was

expecting to marry.”

“Dear me, how interesting! Was she in the smoker?”

“No, she was in Section 3 of the Pullman.”

“I wish I had happened to go into the other Pullman, but, of course, I

couldn’t know the young lady you were interested in was riding there.”

“She wasn’t.”

“But you’ve just told me—”

“That I said in the letter you took so much trouble to lose that I

expected to marry the young woman passing under the name of Miss

Wainwright.”

“Sir!”

“That I expected—”

“Really, I am not deaf, Mr. Collins.”

“—expected to marry her, just as soon as she was willing.”

“Oh, she is to be given a voice in the matter, is she?”

“Ce’tainly, ma’am.”

“And when?”

“Well, I had been thinking now was a right good time.”

“It can’t be too soon for me,” she flashed back, sweeping him with

proud, indignant eyes.

“But I ain’t so sure. I rather think I’d better wait.”

“No, no! Let us have it done with once and for all.”

He relapsed into a serene, abstracted silence.

“Aren’t you going to speak?” she flamed.

“I’ve decided to wait.”

“Well, _I_ haven’t. Ask me this minute, sir, to marry you.”

“Ce’tainly, if you cayn’t wait. Miss Mackenzie, will you—”

“No, sir, I won’t—not if you were the last man on earth,” she

interrupted hotly, whipping herself into a genuine rage. “I never was

so insulted in my life. It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so—so

outrageous. You _expect_, do you? And it isn’t conceit, but a

deep-seated certainty you can’t get away from.”

He had her fairly. “Then you _did_ read the letter.”

“Yes, sir, I read it—and for sheer, unmatched impudence I have never

seen its like.”

“Now, I wish you would tell me what you _really_ think,” he drawled.

Not being able, for reasons equestrian, to stamp her foot, she gave her

bronco the spur.

When Collins again found conversation practicable, the Rocking Chair, a

white adobe huddle in the moonlight, lay peacefully beneath them in the

alley.

“It’s a right quaint old ranch, and it’s seen a heap of

rough-and-tumble life in its day. If those old adobe bricks could tell

stories, I expect they could put some of these romances out of

business.” Miss Mackenzie’s covert glance questioned suspiciously what

this diversion might mean.

“All this country’s interesting. Take Tucson now that burg is loaded to

the roofs with live stories. It’s an all-right business town, too—the

best in the territory,” he continued patriotically. “She ain’t so great

as Douglas on ore or as Phoenix on lungers, but when it comes, to the

git-up-and-git hustle, she’s there rounding up the trade from early

morn till dine.”

He was still expatiating in a monologue with grave enthusiasm on the

town of his choice, when they came to the pasture fence of the ranch.

“Some folks don’t like it—call it adobe-town, and say it’s full of

greasers. Everybody to his taste, I say. Little old Tucson is good

enough for me.”

She gave a queer little laugh as he talked. She had put a taboo on his

love story herself, but she resented the perfectly unmoved good humor

with which he seemed to be accepting her verdict. She made up her mind

to punish him, but he gave her no chance. As he helped her to dismount,

he said:

“I’ll take the horses round to the stable, Miss Mackenzie. Probably I

won’t see you again before I leave, but I’m hoping to meet you again in

Tucson one of these days. Good-by.”

She nodded a curt good-by and passed into the house. She was vexed and

indignant, but had too strong a sense of humor not to enjoy a joke even

when it was against herself.

“I forgot to ask him whether he loves me or Tucson more, and as one of

the subjects seems to be closed I’ll probably never find out,” she told

herself, but with a queer little tug of pain in her laughter.

Next moment she was in the arms of her father.

CHAPTER XX.

BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY

To minimize the risk, Megales and Carlo left the prison by the secret

passage, following the fork to the river bank and digging at the

piled-up sand till they had forced an exit. O’Halloran met them here

with horses, and the three men followed the riverwash beyond the limits

of the town and cut across by a trail to a siding on the Central

Mexican Pacific tracks. The Irishman was careful to take no chances,

and kept his party in the mesquit till the headlight of an approaching

train was visible.

It drew up at the siding, and the three men boarded one of the two cars

which composed it. The coach next the engine was occupied by a dozen

trusted soldiers, who had formerly belonged to the bodyguard of

Megales. The last car was a private one, and in it the three found

Henderson, Bucky O’Connor, and his little friend, the latter still

garbed as a boy.

Frances was exceedingly eager to don again the clothes proper to her

sex, and she had promised herself that, once habited as she desired,

nothing could induce her ever to masquerade again. Until she met and

fell in love with the ranger she had thought nothing of it, since it

had been merely a matter of professional business to which she had been

forced. Indeed, she had sometimes enjoyed the humor of the deception.

It had lent a spice o enjoyment to a life not crowded with it. But

after she met Bucky there had grown up in her a new sensitiveness. She

wanted to be womanly, to forget her turbid past and the shifts to which

she had sometimes been put. She had been a child; she was now a woman.

She wanted to be one of whom he need be in no way ashamed.

When their train began to pull out of the depot at Chihuahua she drew a

deep sigh of relief.

“It’s good to get away from here back to the States. I’m tired of plots

and counterplots. For the rest of my life I want to be just a woman,”

she said to Bucky.

The young man smiled. “I reckon I must quit trying to make you a

gentleman. Fact is, I don’t want you to be one any more.”

She slanted a look at him to see what that might mean and another up

the car to make sure that Henderson was out of hearing.

“It was rather hopeless, wasn’t it?” she smiled. “We’ll do pretty well

if we succeed in making me a lady in course of time. I’ve a lot to

learn, you know.”

“Well, you got lots of time to learn it,” he replied cheerfully. “And

I’ve got a notion tucked away in the back of my haid that you haven’t

got such a heap to study up. Mrs. Mackenzie will put you next to the

etiquette wrinkles where you are shy.”

A shadow fell on the piquant, eager face beside him. “Do you think she

will love me?”

“I don’t think. I know. She can’t help it.”

“Because she is my mother? Oh, I hope that is true.”

“No, not only because she is your mother.”

She decided to ask for no more reasons. Henderson, pleased at the wide

stretch of plain as only one who had missed the open air for many years

could be, was on the observation platform in the rear of the car, one

glance at his empty seat showed her. There was no safety for her

shyness in the presence of that proverbial three which makes a crowd,

and she began to feel her heart again in panic as once before. She took

at once the opening she had given.

“I do need a mother so much, after growing up like Topsy all these

years. And mine is the dearest woman in the world. I fell in love with

her before, and I did not know who she was when I was at the ranch.”

“I’ll agree to the second dearest in the world, but I reckon you shoot

too high when you say the plumb dearest.”

“She is. We’ll quarrel if you don’t agree,” trying desperately to

divert him from the topic she knew he meant to pursue. For in the past

two days he had been so busy helping O’Halloran that he had not even

had a glimpse of her. As a consequence of which each felt half-dubious

of the other’s love, and Frances felt wholly shy about expressing her

own or even listening to his.

“Well, we’re due for a quarrel, I reckon. But we’ll postpone it till we

got more time to give it.” He drew a watch from his pocket and glanced

at it “In less than fifteen minutes Mike and our two friends who are

making their getaway will come in that door Henderson just went out of.

That means we won’t get a chance to be alone together, for about two

days. I’ve got something to say to you, Curly Haid, that won’t keep

that long with out running my temperature clear up. So I’m allowing to

say it right now immediate. No, you don’t need to turn them brown

appealers on me. It won’t do a mite of good. It’s Bucky to the bat and

he’s bound to make a hit or strike out.”

“I think I hear Mr. Henderson coming,” murmured Frances, for lack of

something more effective to say.

“Not him. He’s hogtied to the scenery long enough to do my business.

Now, it won’t take me long if I get off right foot first. You read my

letter, you said?”

“Which letter?” She was examining attentively the fringe of the sash

she wore.

“Why, honey, that love-letter I wrote you. If there was more than one

it must have been wrote in my sleep, for I ce’tainly disremember it.”

He could just hear her confused answer: “Oh, yes, I read that. I told

you that before.”

“What did you think? Tell me again.”

“I thought you misspelled feelings.”

“You don’t say. Now, ain’t that too bad? But, girl o’ mine, I expect

you were able to make it out, even if I did get the letters to milling

around wrong. I meant them feelings all right. Outside of the spelling,

did you have any objections to them,

“How can I remember what you wrote in that letter several days ago?”

“I’ll bet you know it by heart, honey, and, if you don’t, you’ll find

it in your inside vest pocket, tucked away right close to your heart.”

“It isn’t,” she denied, with a blush.

“Sho! Pinned to your shirt then, little pardner. I ain’t particular

which. Point is, if you need to refresh that ailin’ memory of yours,

the document is—right handy. But you don’t need to. It just says one

little sentence over and over again. All you have got to do is to say

one little word, and you don’t have to say it but once.”

“I don’t understand you,” her lips voiced.

“You understand me all right. What my letter said was ‘I love you,’ and

what you have got to say is: ‘Yes’.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll make out the meaning when you say it.”

“Do I have to say it?”

“You have to if you feel it.”

Slowly the big brown eyes came up to meet his bravely. “Yes, Bucky.”

He caught her hands and looked down into her pure, sweet soul.

“I’m in luck,” he breathed deeply. “In golden luck to have you look at

me twice. Are you sure?”

“Sure. I loved you that first day I met you. I’ve loved you every day

since,” she confessed simply.

Full on the lips he kissed her.

“Then we’ll be married as soon as we reach the Rocking Chair.”

“But you once said you didn’t want to be my husband,” she taunted

sweetly. “Don’t you remember? In the days when we were gipsies.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I want to, and I’m in a hurry.”

She shook her head. “No, dear. We shall have to wait. It wouldn’t be

fair to my mother to lose me just as soon as she finds me. It is her

right to get acquainted with me just as if I belonged to her alone. You

understand what I mean, Bucky. She must not feel as if she never had

found me, as if she never had been first with me. We can love each

other more simply if she doesn’t know about you. We’ll have it for a

secret for a month or two.”

She put her little hand on his arm appealingly to win his consent. His

eyes rested on it curiously, Then he took it in his big brown one and

turned it palm up. Its delicacy and perfect finish moved him, for it

seemed to him that in the contrast between the two hands he saw in

miniature the difference of sex. His showed strength and competency and

the roughness that comes of the struggle of life. But hers was

strangely tender and confiding, compact of the qualities that go to

make up the strength of the weak. Surely he deserved the worst if he

was not good to her, a shield and buckler against the storms that must

beat against them in the great adventure they were soon to begin

together.

Reverently he raised the little hand and kissed its palm.

“Sure, sweetheart I had forgotten about your mother’s claim. We can

wait, I reckon,” he added with a smile. “You must always set me

straight when I lose the trail of what’s right, Curly Haid. You are to

be a guiding-star to me.”

“And you to me. Oh, Bucky, isn’t it good?”

He kissed her again hurriedly, for the train was jarring to a halt.

Before he could answer in words, O’Halloran burst into the coach, at

the head of his little company.

“All serene, Bucky. This is the last scene, and the show went without a

hitch in the performance anywhere.”

Bucky smiled at Frances as he answered his enthusiastic friend:

“That’s right. Not a hitch anywhere.”

“And say, Bucky, who do you think is in the other coach dressed as one

of the guards?”

“Colonel Roosevelt,” the ranger guessed promptly.

“Our friend Chaves. He’s escaping because he thinks we’ll have him

assassinated in revenge,” the big Irishman returned gleefully. “You

should have seen his color, me bye, when he caught sight of me. I asked

him if he’d been reduced to the ranks, and he begged me not to tell you

he was here. Go in and devil him.”

Bucky glanced at his lover. “No, I’m so plumb contented I haven’t the

heart.”

At the Rocking Chair Ranch there was bustle and excitement. Mexicans

scrubbed and scoured under the direction of Alice and Mrs. Mackenzie,

and vaqueros rode hither and thither on bootless errands devised by

their nervous master. For late that morning a telephone call from

Aravaipa had brought Webb to the receiver to listen to a telegram. The

message was from Bucky, then on the train on his way home.

“The best of news. Reach the Rocking Chair tonight.”

That was the message which had disturbed the serenity of big Webb

Mackenzie and had given to the motherly heart of his wife an unusual

flutter. The best of news it could not be, for the ranger had already

written them of the confession of Anderson, which included the

statement of the death of their little daughter. But at least he might

bring the next best news, information that David Henderson was free at

last and his long martyrdom ended.

So all day hurried preparations were being made to receive the honored

guests with a fitting welcome. The Rocking Chair was a big ranch, and

its hospitality was famous all over the Southwest. It was quite

unnecessary to make special efforts to entertain, but Webb and his wife

took that means of relieving the strain on them till night.

Higher crept the hot sun of baked Arizona. It passed the zenith and

began to descend toward the purple hills in the west, went behind them

with a great rainbow splash of brilliancy peculiar to that country.

Dusk came, and died away in the midst of a love-concert of quails.

Velvet night, with its myriad stars, entranced the land and made magic

of its hills and valleys.

For the fiftieth time Webb dragged out his watch and consulted it.

“I wish that young man had let us know which way he was coming, so I

could go and meet them. If they come by the river they should be in the

Box canyon by this time. But if I was to ride out, like as not they

would come by the mesa,” he sputtered.

“What time is it, Webb?” asked his wife, scarcely less excited.

He had to look again, so absent-minded had been his last glance at the

watch. “Nine-fifteen. Why didn’t I telephone to Rogers and ask him to

find out which way they were coming? Sometimes I’m mighty

thick-headed.”

As Mackenzie had guessed, the party was winding its way through the Box

Canyon at that time of speaking. Bucky and Frances led the way,

followed by Henderson and the vaquero whom Mackenzie had telephoned to

guide them from Aravaipa.

“I reckon this night was made for us, Curly Haid. Even good old Arizona

never turned out such a one before. I expect it was ordered for us ever

since it was decided we belonged to each other. That may have been

thousands of years ago.” Bucky laughed, to relieve the tension, and

looked up at the milky way above. “We’re like those stars, honey. All

our lives we have been drifting around, but all the time it had been

decided by the God-of-things-as-they-are that our orbits were going to

run together and gravitate into the same one when the right time came.

It has come now.”

“Yes, Bucky,” she answered softly. “We belong, dear.”

“Hello, here’s the end of the cañon. The ranch lies right behind that

spur.”

“Does it?” Presently she added: “I’m all a-tremble, Bucky. To think I’m

going to meet my father and my mother for the first time really, for I

don’t count that other time when we didn’t know. Suppose they shouldn’t

like me.”

“Impossible. Suppose something reasonable,” her lover replied.

“But they might not. You think, you silly boy, that because you do

everybody must. But I’m so glad I’m clothed and in my right mind again.

I couldn’t have borne to meet my mother with that boys suit on. Do you

think I look nice in this? I had to take what I could find ready-made,

you know.”

Unless his eyes were blinded by the glamour of love, he saw the

sweetest vision of loveliness he had known. Such a surpassing miracle

of soft, dainty curves, such surplusage of beauty in bare throat,

speaking eye, sweet mouth, and dimpled cheeks! But Bucky was a lover,

and perhaps no fair judge, for in that touch of vagueness, of

fairy-land, lent by the moonlight, he found the world almost too

beautiful to believe. Did she look _nice?_ How beggarly words were to

express feelings, after all.

The vaquero with them rode forward and pointed to the valley below,

where the ranch-house huddled in a pellucid sea of moonlight.

“That’s the Rocking Chair, sir.”

Presently there came a shout from the ranch, and a man galloped toward

them. He passed Bucky with a wave of his hand and made directly for

Henderson.

“Dave! Dave, old partner,” he cried, leaping from his horse and

catching the other’s hand. “After all these years you’ve risen from the

dead and come back to me.” His voice was broken with emotion.

“Come! Let’s canter forward to the ranch,” said Bucky to Frances and

the vaquero, thinking it best to leave the two old comrades together

for a while.

Mrs. Mackenzie and Alice met them at the gate. “Did you bring him? Did

you bring Dave?” the older lady asked eagerly.

“Yes, we brought him,” answered Bucky, helping Frances to dismount.

He led the girl to her mother. “Mrs. Mackenzie, can you stand good

news?”

She caught at the gate. “What news? Who is this lady?”

“Her name is Frances.”

“Frances what?”

“Frances Mackenzie. She is your daughter, returned, after all these

years, to love and be loved.”

The mother gave a little throat cry, steadied herself, and fell into

the arms of her daughter. “Oh, my baby! My baby! Found at last.”

Quietly Bucky slipped away to the stables with the ponies. As quietly

Alice disappeared into the house. This was sacred ground, and not even

their feet should rest on it just now.

When Bucky returned to the house, he found his sweetheart sitting

between her father and mother, each of whom was holding one of her

hands. Henderson had retired to clean himself up. Happy tears were

coursing down the cheeks of the mother, and Webb found it necessary to

blow his nose frequently. He jumped up at sight of the ranger.

“Young man, you’re to blame for this. You’ve found my friend and you’ve

found my daughter. Brought them both back to us on the same day. What

do you want? Name it, and it’s yours, if I can give it.”

Bucky looked at Frances with a smile in his eyes. He knew very well

what he wanted, but he was under bonds not to name it yet.

“I’ll set you up in the cattle business, sir. I’ll buy you sheep, if

you prefer. I’ll get you an interest in a mine. Put a name to what you

want.”

“I’m no robber. You paid the expenses of my trip. That’s all I want

right now.”

“It’s not all you’ll get. Do you think I’m a cheap piker? No, sir.

You’ve got to let me grub-stake you.” Mackenzie thumped a clinched fist

down on the table.

“All right, seh. You’re the doctor. Give me an interest in that map and

I’ll prospect the mine this summer, if I can locate it.”

“Good enough, and I’ll finance the proposition. You and Dave can take

half-shares in the property. In the meantime, are you open to an

engagement?”

“Depends what it is,” replied Bucky cautiously.

“My foreman’s quit on me. Gone into business for himself. I’m looking

for a good man. Will you be my major-domo?”

Bucky’s heart leaped. He had been thinking of how he must report almost

immediately to HurryUp Millikan, of the rangers. Now, he could resign

from that body and stay near his love. Certainly things were coming his

way.

“I’d like to try it, seh,” he answered. “I may not make good, but I

sure would like to have a chance at it.”

“Make good! Of course you’ll make good. You’re the best man in Arizona,

sir,” cried Webb extravagantly. He wheeled on his new-found daughter.

“Don’t you think so, Frankie?”

Frances blushed, but answered bravely: “Yes, sir. He makes everything

right when he takes hold of it.”

“Good. We’re not going to let him get away from us after making us so

happy, are we, mother? This young man is going to stay right here. We

never had but one son, and we are going to treat him as much like one

as we can. Eh, mother?”

“If he will consent, Webb.” She went up to the ranger and kissed his

tanned cheek. “You must pardon an old woman whom you’ve made very

happy.”

Again Bucky’s laughing blue eyes met the brown ones of his sweetheart.

“Oh, I’ll consent, all right, and I reckon, ma’am, it’s mighty good of

you to treat me so white. I’ll sure try to please you.”

Webb thumped him on the back. “Now, you’re shouting. We want you to be

one of us, young man.”

Once more that happy, wireless message of eyes followed by O’Connor’s

assent. “That’s what I want myself, seh.”

Bucky found a surprise waiting for him at the stables. A heavy hand

descended upon his shoulder. He whirled, and looked up into the face of

Sheriff Collins.

“You here, Val?” he cried in surprise.

“That’s what. Any luck, Bucky?”

They went out and sat down on the big rocks back of the corral. Here

each told the other his story, with certain reservations. Collins had

just got back from Epitaph, where he had been to get the fragments of

paper which told the secret of the buried treasure. He was expecting to

set out in the early morning to meet Leroy.

“I’ll go with you,” said Bucky immediately.

Val shook his head. “No, I’m to go alone. That’s the agreement.”

“Of course if that’s the agreement.” Nevertheless, the ranger formed a

private intention not to be far from the scene of action.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE WOLF PACK

“Good evening, gentlemen. Hope I don’t intrude on the festivities.”

Leroy smiled down ironically on the four flushed, startled faces that

looked up at him. Suspicion was alive in every rustle of the men’s

clothes. It breathed from the lowering countenances. It itched at the

fingers longing for the trigger. The unending terror of a bandit’s life

is that no man trusts his fellow. Hence one betrays another for fear of

betrayal, or stabs him in the back to avoid it.

The outlaw chief had slipped into the room so silently that the first

inkling they had of his presence was that gentle, insulting voice. Now,

as he lounged easily before them, leg thrown over the back of a chair

and thumbs sagging from his trouser pockets, they looked the picture of

schoolboys caught by their master in a conspiracy. How long had he been

there? How much had he heard? Full of suspicion and bad whisky as they

were, his confident contempt still cowed the very men who were planning

his destruction. A minute before they had been full of loud threats and

boastings; now they could only search each other’s faces sullenly for a

cue.

“Celebrating Chaves’ return from manana land, I reckon. That’s the

proper ticket. I wonder if we couldn’t afford to kill another of

Collins’ fatted calves.”

Mr. Hardman, not enjoying the derisive raillery, took a hand in the

game. “I expect the boys hadn’t better touch the sheriff’s calves, now

you and him are so thick.”

“We’re thick, are we?” Leroy’s indolent eyes narrowed slightly as they

rested on him.

“Ain’t you? It sure seemed that way to me when I looked out of that

mesquit wash just above Eldorado Springs and seen you and him eating

together like brothers and laughing to beat the band. You was so clost

to him I couldn’t draw a bead on him without risking its hitting you.”

“Spying, eh?”

“If that’s the word you want to use, cap. And you were enjoying

yourselves proper.”

“Laughing, were we? That must have been when he told me how funny you

looked in the ‘altogether’ shedding false teeth and information about

hidden treasure.”

“Told you that, did he?” Mr. Hardman incontinently dropped repartee as

a weapon too subtle, and fell back on profanity.

“That’s right pat to the minute, cap, what you say about the

information he leaks,” put in Neil. “How about that information? I’ll

be plumb tickled to death to know you’re carrying it in you vest

pocket.”

“And if I’m not?”

“Then ye are a bigger fool than I had expected sorr, to come back here

at all,” said the Irishman truculently.

“I begin to think so myself, Mr. Reilly. Why keep faith with a set of

swine like you?”

“Are you giving it to us that you haven’t got those papers?”

Leroy nodded, watching them with steady, alert eyes. He knew he stood

on the edge of a volcano that might explode at any moment.

“What did I tell yez?” Reilly turned savagely to the other disaffected

members of the gang. “Didn’t I tell yez he was selling us out?”

Somehow Leroy’s revolver seemed to jump to his hand without a motion on

his part. It lay loosely in his limp fingers, unaimed and undirected.

“_Say that again, please_.”

Beneath the velvet of Leroy’s voice ran a note more deadly than any

threat could have been. It rang a bell for a silence in which the clock

of death seemed to tick. But as the seconds fled Reilly’s courage oozed

away. He dared not accept the invitation to reach for his weapon and

try conclusions with this debonair young daredevil. He mumbled a

retraction, and flung, with a curse, out of the room.

Leroy slipped the revolver back in his holster and quoted, with a

laugh:

“To every coward safety,

And afterward his evil hour.”

“What’s that?” demanded Neil. “I ain’t no coward, even if Jay is. I

don’t knuckle under to any man. You got a right to ante up with some

information. I want to know why you ain’t got them papers you promised

to bring back with you.”

“And I, too, señor. I desire to know what it means,” added Chaves, his

eyes glittering.

“That’s the way to chirp, gentlemen. I haven’t got them because Forbes

blundered on us, and I had to take a _pasear_ awful sudden. But I made

an appointment to meet Collins to-morrow.”

“And you think he’ll keep it?” scoffed Neil.

“I know he will.”

“You seem to know a heap about him,” was the significant retort.

“Take care, York.”

“I’m not Hardman, cap. I say what I think.

“And you think?” suggested Leroy gently.

“I don’t know what to think yet. You’re either a fool or a traitor. I

ain’t quite made up my mind. When I find out you’ll ce’tainly hear from

me straight. Come on, boys.” And Neil vanished through the door.

An hour later there came a knock at Leroy’s door. Neil answered his

permission to enter, followed by the other trio of flushed beauties. To

the outlaw chief it was at once apparent with what Dutch courage they

had been fortifying themselves to some resolve. It was characteristic

of him, though he knew on how precarious a thread his life was hanging,

that disgust at the foul breaths with which they were polluting the

atmosphere was his first dominant emotion.

“I wish, Lieutenant Chaves, next time you emigrate you’d bring another

brand of poison out to the boys. I can’t go this stuff. Just remember

that, will you?”

The outlaw chief’s hard eye ran over the rebels and read them like a

primer. They had come to depose him certainly, to kill him perhaps.

Though this last he doubted. It wouldn’t be like Neil to plan his

murder, and it wouldn’t be like the others to give him warning and meet

him in the open. Warily he stood behind the table, watching their

awkward embarrassment with easy assurance. Carefully he placed face

downward on the table the Villon he had been reading, but he did it

without lifting his eyes from them.

“You have business with me, I presume.”

“That’s what we have,” cried Reilly valiantly, from the rear.

“Then suppose we come to it and get the room aired as soon as

possible,” Leroy said tartly.

“You’re such a slap-up dude you’d ought to be a hotel clerk, cap.

You’re sure wasted out here. So we boys got together and held a little

election. Consequence is, we—fact is, we—”

Neil stuck, but Reilly came to his rescue.

“We elected York captain of this outfit.”

“To fill the vacancy created by my resignation. Poor York! You’re the

sacrifice, are you? On the whole, I think you fellows have made a wise

choice. York’s game, and he won’t squeal on you, which is more than I

could say of Reilly, or the play actor, or the gentlemen from

Chihuahua. But you want to watch out for a knife in the dark, York.

‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ you know.”

“We didn’t come here to listen to a speech, cap, but to notify you we

was dissatisfied, and wouldn’t have you run the outfit any longer,”

explained Neil.

“In that event, having heard the report of the committee, if there’s no

further new business, I declare this meeting adjourned _sine die_.

Kindly remove the perfume tubs, Captain Neil, at your earliest

convenience.”

The quartette retreated ignominiously. They had come prepared to gloat

over Leroy’s discomfiture, and he had mocked them with that insolent

ease of his that set their teeth in helpless rage.

But the deposed chief knew they had not struck their last blow.

Throughout the night he could hear the low-voiced murmur of their

plottings, and he knew that if the liquor held out long enough there

would be sudden death at Hidden Valley before twenty-four hours were

up. He looked carefully to his rifle and his revolvers, testing several

shells to make sure they had not been tampered with in his absence.

After he had made all necessary preparations, he drew the blinds of his

window and moved his easy-chair from its customary place beside the

fire. Also he was careful not to sit where any shadow would betray his

position. Then back he went to his Villon, a revolver lying on the

table within reach.

But the night passed without mishap, and with morning he ventured forth

to his meeting with the sheriff. He might have slipped out from the

back door of his cabin and gained the canyon, by circling unobserved,

up the draw and over the hogback, but he would not show by these

precautions any fear of the cutthroats with whom he had to deal. As was

his scrupulous custom, he shaved and took his morning bath before

appearing outdoors. In all Arizona no trimmer, more graceful figure of

jaunty recklessness could be seen than this one stepping lightly forth

to knock at the bunk-house door behind which he suspected were at least

two men determined on his death by treachery.

Neil came to the door in answer to his knock and within he could see

the villainous faces at bloodshot eyes of two of the others peering at

him.

“Good mo’ning, Captain Neil. I’m on my way to keep that appointment I

mentioned last night I’d ce’tainly be glad to have you go along.

Nothing like being on the spot to prevent double-crossing.”

“I’m with you in the fling of a cow’s tail. Come on, boys.”

“I think not. You and I will go alone.”

“Just as you say. Reilly, I guess you better saddle Two-step and the

Lazy B roan.”

“I ain’t saddling ponies for Mr. Leroy,” returned Reilly, with thick

defiance.

Neil was across the room in two strides. “When I tell you to do a

thing, jump! Get a move on and saddle those broncs.”

“I don’t know as—”

“_Vamos!_”

Reilly sullenly slouched out.

“I see you made them jump,” commented the former captain audibly,

seating himself comfortably on a rock. “It’s the only way you’ll get

along with them. See that they come to time or pump lead into them.

You’ll find there’s no middle way.”

Neil and Leroy had hardly passed beyond the rock-slide before the

others, suspicion awake in their sodden brains, dodged after them on

foot. For three miles they followed the broncos as the latter picked

their way up the steep trail that led to the Dalriada Mine.

“If Mr. Collins is here, he’s lying almighty low,” exclaimed Neil, as

he swung from his pony at the foot of the bluff from the brow of which

the gray dump of the mine straggled down like a Titan’s beard.

“Right you are, Mr. Neil.”

York whirled, revolver in hand, but the man who had risen from behind

the big boulder beside the trail was resting both hands on the rock

before him.

“You’re alone, are you?” demanded York.

“I am.”

Neil’s revolver slid back into its holster. “Mornin’, Val. What’s new

down at Tucson?” he said amiably.

“I understood I was to meet you alone, Mr. Leroy,” said the sheriff

quickly, his blue-gray eyes on the former chief.

“That was the agreement, Mr. Collins, but it seems the boys are on the

anxious seat about these little socials of ours. They’ve embraced the

notion that I’m selling them. I hated to have them harassed with

doubts, so I invited the new majordomo of the ranch to come with me. Of

cou’se, if you object—”

“I don’t object in the least, but I want him to understand the

agreement. I’ve got a posse waiting at Eldorado Springs, and as soon as

I get back there we take the trail after you. Bucky O’Connor is at the

head of the posse.”

York grinned. “We’ll be in Sonora then, Val. Think I’m going to wait

and let you shoot off my other fingers?”

Collins fished from his vest pocket the papers he had taken from

Scotty’s hat and from Webster. “I think I’ll be jogging along back to

the springs. I reckon these are what you want.”

Leroy took them from him and handed them to Neil. “Don’t let us detain

you any longer, Mr. Collins. I know you’re awful busy these days.”

The sheriff nodded a good day, cut down the hill on the slant, and

disappeared in a mesquit thicket, from the other side of which he

presently emerged astride a bay horse.

The two outlaws retraced their way to the foot of the hill and

remounted their broncos.

“I want to say, cap, that I’m eating humble-pie in big chunks right

this minute,” said Neil shamefacedly, scratching his curly poll and

looking apologetically at his former chief. “I might ’a’ knowed you was

straight as a string, all I’ve seen of you these last two years. If

those coyotes say another word, cap—”

An exploding echo seemed to shake the mountain, and then another. Leroy

swayed in the saddle, clutching at his side. He pitched forward, his

arms round the horse’s neck, and slid slowly to the ground.

Neil was off his horse in an instant, kneeling beside him. He lifted

him in his arms and carried him behind a great outcropping boulder.

“It’s that hound Collins,” he muttered, as he propped the wounded man’s

head on his arm. “By God, I didn’t think it of Val.”

Leroy opened his eyes and smiled faintly. “Guess again, York.”

“You don’t mean—”

He nodded. “Right this time—Hardman and Chaves and Reilly. They shot to

get us both. With us out of the way they could divide the treasure

between them.”

Neil choked. “You ain’t bad hurt, old man. Say you ain’t bad hurt,

Phil.”

“More than I can carry, York; shot through and through. I’ve been

doubtful of Reilly for a long time.”

“By the Lord, if I don’t get the rattlesnake for this!” swore Neil

between his teeth. “Ain’t there nothin’ I can do for you, old pardner?”

In sharp succession four shots rang out. Neil grasped his rifle,

leaning forward and crouching for cover. He turned a puzzled face

toward Leroy. “I don’t savvy. They ain’t shooting at us.”

“The sheriff,” explained Leroy. “They forgot him, and he doubled back

on them.”

“I’ll bet Val got one of them,” cried Neil, his face lighting.

“He’s got one—or he’s quit living. That’s a sure thing. Why don’t you

circle up on them from behind, York?”

“I hate to leave you, cap—and you so bad. Can’t I do a thing for you?”

Leroy smiled faintly. “Not a thing. I’ll be right here when you get

back, York.”

The curly-headed young puncher took Leroy’s hand in his, gulping down a

boyish sob. “I ain’t been square with you, cap. I reckon after

this—when you git well—I’ll not be such a coyote any more.”

The dying man’s eyes were lit with a beautiful tenderness. “There’s one

thing you can do for me, York.... I’m out of the game, but I want you

to make a new start.... I got you into this life, boy. Quit it, and

live straight. There’s nothing to it, York.”

The cowboy-bandit choked. “Don’t you worry about me, cap. I’m all

right. I’d just as lief quit this deviltry, anyhow.”

“I want you to promise, boy.” A whimsical, half-cynical smile touched

Leroy’s eyes. “You see, after living like a devil for thirty years, I

want to die like a Christian. Now, go, York.”

After Neil had left him, Leroy’s eyes closed. Faintly he heard two more

shots echoing down the valley, but the meaning of them was already lost

to his wandering mind.

Neil dodged rapidly round the foot of the mountain with intent to cut

off the bandits as they retreated. He found the sheriff crouching

behind a rock scarce two hundred yards from the scene of the murder. At

the same moment another shot echoed from well over to the left.

“Who can that be?” Neil asked, very much puzzled.

“That’s what’s worrying me, York,” the sheriff returned.

Together they zigzagged up the side of the mountain. Twice from above

there came sounds of rifle shots. Neil was the first to strike the

trail to the mine. None too soon for as he stepped upon it, breathing

heavily from his climb, Reilly swung round a curve and whipped his

weapon to his shoulder. The man fired before York could interfere and

stood watching tensely the result of his shot. He was silhouetted

against the skyline, a beautiful mark, but Neil did not cover him.

Instead, he spoke quietly to the other.

“Was it you that killed Phil, Reilly?”

The man whirled and saw Neil for the first time. His answer was

instant. Flinging up his rifle, he pumped a shot at York.

Neil’s retort came in a flash. Reilly clutched at his heart and toppled

backward from the precipice upon which he stood. Collins joined the

cowpuncher and together they stepped forward to the point from which

Reilly had plunged down two hundred feet to the jagged rocks below.

At the curve they came face to face with Bucky O’Connor. Three weapons

went up quicker than the beating of an eyelash. More slowly each went

down again.

“What are you doing here, Bucky?” the sheriff asked.

“Just pirootin’ around, Val. It occurred to me Leroy might not mean to

play fair with you, so I kinder invited myself to the party. When I

heard shooting I thought it was you they had bushwhacked, so I sat in

to the game.”

“You guessed wrong, Bucky. Reilly and the others rounded on Leroy.

While they were at it they figured to make a clean job and bump off

York, too. From what York says Leroy has got his.”

The ranger turned a jade eye on the outlaw. “Has Mr. Neil turned honest

man, Val? Taken him into your posse, have you?” he asked, with an edge

of irony in his voice.

The sheriff laid a hand on the shoulder of the man who had been his

friend before he turned miscreant.

“Don’t you worry about Neil, Bucky,” he advised gently. “It was York

shot Reilly, after York had cut loose at him, and I shouldn’t wonder if

that didn’t save your life. Neil has got to stand the gaff for what

he’s done, but I’ll pull wires to get his punishment made light.”

“Killed Reilly, did he?” repeated O’Connor. “I got Anderson back

there.”

“That makes only one left to account for. I wonder who he is?” Collins

turned absent-mindedly to Neil. The latter looked at him out of an

expressionless face. Even though his confederate had proved traitor he

would not betray him.

“I wonder,” he said.

Bucky laughed. “Made a mistake that time, Val.”

“I plumb forgot the situation for a moment,” the sheriff grinned.

“Anyhow, we better be hittin’ his trail.”

“How about Phil?” Neil suggested.

“That’s right. One of us has ce’tainly got to go back and attend to

him.”

“You and Neil go back. I’ll follow up this gentleman who is escaping,”

the ranger said.

And so it was arranged. The two men returned from their grim work of

justice to the place where the outlaw chief had been left. His eyes lit

feebly at sight of them.

“What news, York?” he asked.

“Reilly and Hardman are killed. How are you feelin’, cap?” The

cow-puncher knelt beside the dying outlaw and put an arm under his

head.

“Shot all to pieces, boy. No, I got no time to have you play doctor

with me.” He turned to Collins with a gleam of his unconquerable

spirit. “You came pretty near making a clean round-up, sheriff. I’m the

fourth to be put out of business. You’d ought to be content with that.

Let York here go.”

“I can’t do that, but I’ll do my best to see he gets off light.”

“I got him into this, sheriff. He was all right before he knew me. I

want him to get a chance now.”

“I wish I could give him a pardon, but I can’t do it. I’ll see the

governor for him though.”

The wounded man spoke to Collins alone for a few minutes, then began to

wander in his mind He babbled feebly of childhood days back in his

Kentucky home. The word most often on his lips was “Mother.” So, with

his head resting on Neil’s arm and his hand in that of his friend, he

slipped away to the Great Beyond.

CHAPTER XXII.

FOR A GOOD REASON

The young ladies, following the custom of Arizona in summer, were

riding by the light of the stars to avoid the heat of the day. They

rode leisurely, chatting as their ponies paced side by side. For though

they were cousins they were getting acquainted with each other for the

first time. Both of them found this a delightful process, not the less

so because they were temperamentally very different. Each of them knew

already that they were going to be great friends. They had exchanged

the histories of their lives, lying awake girl fashion to talk into the

small hours, each omitting certain passages, however, that had to do

with two men who were at that moment approaching nearer every minute to

them.

Bucky O’Connor and Sheriff Collins were returning to the Rocking Chair

Ranch from Epitaph, where they had just been to deposit twenty-seven

thousand dollars and a prisoner by the name of Chaves. Just at the

point where the road climbed from the plains and reached the summit of

the first stiff hill the two parties met and passed. The ranger and the

sheriff reined in simultaneously. Yet a moment and all four of them

were talking at once.

They turned toward the ranch, Bucky and Frances leading the way. Alice,

riding beside her lover in the darkness, found the defenses upon which

she had relied begin to fail her. Nevertheless, she summoned them to

her support and met him full armed with the evasions and complexities

of her sex.

“This _is_ a surprise, Mr. Collins,” he was informed in her best

society voice.

“And a pleasure?”

“Of course. But I’m sorry that father has been called to Phoenix. I

suppose you came to tell him about your success.”

“To brag about it,” he corrected. “But not to your father—to his

daughter.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. Will you begin now?”

“Not yet. There is something I have to tell you, Miss Mackenzie.”

At the gravity in his voice the lightness slipped from her like a

cloak.

“Yes. Tell me your news. Over the telephone all sorts of rumors have

come to us. But even these were hearsay.”

“I thought of telephoning you the facts. Then I decided to ride out and

tell you at once. I knew you would want to hear the story at first

hand.”

Her patrician manner was gone. Her eyes looked their thanks at him.

“That was good of you. I have been very anxious to get the facts. One

rumor was that you have captured Sir Leroy. Is it true?”

It seemed to her that his look was one of grave tenderness. “No, that

is not true. You remember what we said of him—of how he might die?”

“He is dead—you killed him,” she cried, all the color washed from her

face.

“He is dead, but I did not kill him.”

“Tell me,” she commanded.

He told her, beginning at the moment of his meeting with the outlaws at

the Dalriada dump and continuing to the last scene of the tragedy. It

touched her so nearly that she could not hear him through dry-eyed.

“And he spoke of me?” She said it in a low voice, to herself rather

than to him.

“It was just before his mind began to wander—almost his last conscious

thought. He said that when you heard the news you would remember. What

you were to remember he didn’t say. I took it you would know.”

“Yes. I was to remember that he was not all wolf to me.” She told it

with a little break of tears in her voice.

“Then he told me to tell you that it was the best way out for him. He

had come to the end of the road, and it would not have been possible

for him to go back.” Presently Collins added gently: “If you don’t mind

my saying so, I think he was right. He was content to go, quite game

and steady in his easy way. If he had lived, there could have been no

going back for him. It was his nature to go the limit. The tragedy is

in his life, not in his death.”

“Yes, I know that, but it hurts one to think it had to be—that all his

splendid gifts and capabilities should end like this, and that we are

forced to see it is best. He might have done so much.”

“And instead he became a miscreant. I reckon there was a lack in him

somewhere.”

“Yes, there was a great lack in him somewhere.”

They were silent for a time. She broke it to ask about York Neil.

“You wouldn’t send him to prison after doing what he did, would you?”

“Meaning what?”

“You say yourself he helped you against the other outlaws. Then he

showed you where to start in finding the buried money. He isn’t a bad

man. You know how he stood by me when I was a prisoner,” she pleaded.

He nodded. “That goes a long way with me, Miss Mackenzie. The governor

is a right good friend of mine. I meant to ask him for a pardon. I

reckon Neil means to live straight from now on. He promised Leroy he

would. He’s only a wild cow-puncher gone wrong, and now he’s haided

right he’ll pull up and walk the narrow trail.”

“But can you save him from the penitentiary?”

Collins smiled. “He saved me the trouble. Coming through the Cañon Del

Oro in the night, he ducked. I reckon he’s in Mexico now.”

“I’m glad.”

“Well, I ain’t sorry myself, though I helped Bucky hunt real thorough

for him.”

“Father will be pleased to know you got the treasure back,” Alice said

presently, after they had ridden a bit in silence.

“And your father’s daughter, Miss Alice—is she pleased?”

“What pleases father pleases me.” Her voice, cool as the plash of ice

water, might have daunted a less resolute man. But this one had long

since determined the manner of his wooing and was not to be driven from

it.

“I’m glad of that. Your father’s right friendly to me,” he announced,

with composure.

“Indeed!”

“Sho! I ain’t going to run away and hide because you look like you

don’t know I’m in Arizona. What kind of a lover would I be if I broke

for cover every time you flashed those dark eyes at me?”

“Mr. Collins!”

“My friends call me Val,” he suggested, smiling.

“I was going to ask, Mr. Collins, if you think you can bully me.”

“It might be a first rate thing for you if I did, Miss Mackenzie. All

your life you haven’t done anything but trample on sissy boys. Now, I

expect I’m not a sissy boy, but a fair imitation of a man, and I

shouldn’t wonder but you’d find me some too restless for a door-mat.”

His maimed hand happened to be resting on the saddle horn as he spoke,

and the story of the maiming emphasized potently the truth of his

claim.

“Don’t you assume a good deal, Mr. Collins, when you imply that I have

any desire to master you?”

“Not a bit,” he assured her cheerfully. “Every woman wants to boss the

man she’s going to marry, but if she finds she can’t she’s glad of it,

because then she knows she’s got a man.”

“You are quite sure I am going to marry you?” she asked gently—too

gently, he thought.

“I’m only reasonably sure,” he informed her. “You see, I can’t tell for

certain whether your pride or your good sense is the stronger.”

She caught a detached glimpse of the situation, and it made for

laughter.

“That’s right, I want you should enjoy it,” he said placidly.

“I do. It’s the most absurd proposal—I suppose you call it a

proposal—that ever I heard.”

“I expect you’ve heard a good many in your time.

“We’ll not discuss that, if you please.”

“I AM more interested in this one,” he agreed.

“Isn’t it about time to begin on Tucson?”

“Not to-day, ma’am. There are going to be a lot of to-morrows for you

and me, and Tucson will have to wait till then.”

“Didn’t I give you an answer last week?”

“You did, but I didn’t take it. Now I’m ready for your sure-enough

answer.”

She flashed a look at him that mocked his confidence. “I’ve heard about

the vanity of girls, but never in my experience have I met any so

colossal as this masculine vanity now on exhibit. Do you really think,

Mr. Collins, that all you have to do to win a woman is to look

impressive and tell her that you have decided to marry her?”

“Do I look as if I thought that?” he asked her.

“It is perfectly ridiculous—your absurd attitude of taking everything

for granted. Well, it may be the Tucson custom, but where I come from

it is not in vogue.”

“No, I reckon not. Back there a boy persuades girl he loves her by

ruining her digestion with candy and all sorts of ice arrangements from

soda-fountain. But I’m uncivilized enough to assume you’re a woman of

sense and not a spoiled schoolgirl.”

The velvet night was attuned to the rhythm of her love. She felt

herself, in this sea of moon romance, being swept from her moorings.

Star-eyed, she gazed at him while she still fought again his dominance.

“You _are_ uncivilized. Would you beat me when I didn’t obey?” she

asked tremulously.

He laughed in slow contentment. “Perhaps; but I’d love you while I did

it.”

“Oh, you would love me.” She looked across under her long lashes, not

as boldly as she would have liked, and her gaze fell before his. “I

haven t heard before that that was in the compact you proposed. I don’t

think you have remembered to mention it.”

He swung from the saddle and put a hand to her bridle rein.

“Get down,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I say so. Get down.”

She looked down at him, a man out of a thousand and for her one out of

a hundred million. Before she was conscious of willing it she stood

beside him. He trailed the reins of the ponies, and in two strides came

back to her.

“What—do you—want?”

“I want you, girl.” His arm swept round her, and he held her while he

looked down into her shining eyes. “So I haven’t told you that I love

you. Did you need to be told?”

“We must go on,” she murmured weakly. “Frances and Lieutenant

O’Connor—”

“—Have their own love-affairs to attend to.

“We’ll manage ours and not intrude.”

“They might think—”

He laughed in deep delight, “—that we love each other. They’re welcome

to the thought. I haven’t told you that I love you, eh? I tell you now.

It’s my last trump, and right here I table it. I’m no desert poet, but

I love you from that dark crown of yours to those little feet that tap

the floor so impatient sometimes. I love you all the time, no matter

what mood you’re in—when you flash dark angry eyes at me and when you

laugh in that slow, understanding way nobody else in God’s world has

the trick of. Makes no difference to me whether you’re glad or mad, I

want you just the same. That’s the reason why I’m going to make you

love me.”

“You can’t do it.” Her voice was very low and not quite steady.

“Why not—I’ll show you.”

“But you can’t—for a good reason.”

“Put a name to it.”

“Because. Oh, you big blind man—because I love you already.” She

burlesqued his drawl with a little joyous laugh: “I reckon if you’re

right set on it I’ll have to marry you, Val Collins.”

His arm tightened about her as if he would hold her against the whole

world. His ardent eyes possessed hers. She felt herself grow faint with

a poignant delight. Her lips met his slowly in their first kiss.