"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"
Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there
are the horses in plain sight."
Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered.
At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung
its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained
handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack.
"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your
assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away."
Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve
and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining
with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself.
"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl
cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her
brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to
him.
"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine
enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause.
The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near
relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close.
"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?"
"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight
toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the
mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I
knew he would be here."
"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both
to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his
stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy.
Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did
you happen to see the fellow at all?"
"Yes. At a distance."
"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said.
She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of
him. Didn't you boys recognize him?"
After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough,
though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going
hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and
asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?"
For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the
doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the
manner of one very much at home.
"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same
low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for
the hills."
Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What
about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?"
The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came
this morning, Jim?"
Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some
husky guy to help me, so I got him."
"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim."
"Are you looking for a job, Brill?"
"No. Why?"
"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt
this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you
to O.K. him."
"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well,
though."
"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly,
level eyes steadily on those of his critic.
"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil.
Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been
about eight."
"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a
whisper.
"What man?" Jim asked.
"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a
shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil
exclaimed.
"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager.
"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his
getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip."
"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?"
"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are
built for hide and seek, looks like."
"Notice the color of his horse?"
"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward
the animal Keller had ridden.
All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings.
"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man
was."
Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one
on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler."
"Did he kill the cow?"
Phil nodded.
"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a
pal to drive it away."
"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?"
"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle.
Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he
looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to
your friends?" he demanded insolently.
There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that
there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had
felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as
often as they looked at each other.
"No," the nester answered.
"Why not?"
"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages."
"When I do I'll carry them with a gun."
"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and
dismissed the man.
"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first."
The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed
to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona.
Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the
trail with his broncho on the buck.
Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a
frosty eye.
"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said.
"Unload 'em."
Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on
the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it.
"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or
waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where
we're at."
"Meaning?"
"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up
accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't
that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water?
Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back
into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand.
Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being
right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below
the elbow?_"
Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock
Holmes, ain't you?"
"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in
at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?"
"Sleight of hand," suggested the other.
"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a
revolver."
"Anything more?"
"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above
clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but
she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?"
"That's it."
"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't
lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my
own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?"
"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?"
"Ain't you?"
"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"
Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No."
"Then I won't say it."
The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled
at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what
the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now."
"I can guess."
"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged
quarter."
"Why didn't you tell?"
Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl
Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I
ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father
has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should
I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?"
"You've already tried and convicted me, I see."
"The facts convict you, seh."
"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean."
"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them
different," Yeager cut back dryly.
The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up
a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently.
He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a
question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should
he keep his own counsel?
"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?"
Yeager made comment.
For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's
knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself
together lamely.
"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present.
Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market,
I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England."
"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see
her."
"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she
lends that knife to," Jim said proudly.
Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his
pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had
told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a
possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in
trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others
into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this
impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes.
Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would.
"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he
said gently.
"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for
yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You
may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for
Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know."
"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife."
Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If
you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back."
"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler."
"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to
find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered.