Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

by Jackson Gregory

  X

  UNDER FIRE

  Blue Lake, while but three miles farther eastward, flashed its jewelledwaters into the sun from a plane fully five hundred feet higher than thetall chimneys of the ranch-house. About it stood the most precipitousgranite cliffs to be found hereabouts. They rose, sheer and majestic,still another five hundred feet, here and there eight hundred and athousand. The lake, half a mile in diameter, circular like some polishedmirror presented by an ancient giant to his lady-love, was shut ineverywhere by these crags and cliffs save at the west, where theoverflowing water, going to swell the turbulent river, poured like moltencrystal through a wide gorge. The farther cliffs marked the easternboundary-line of the ranch. Beyond them lay a small plateau rimmed abouton three sides by still other steep precipices.

  Lee, coming to the water's edge sought to guess where the old IndianTrail came down. And again, startling him for a second time, Judith rodeup.

  She, too, had a fresh horse; she too now carried a rifle across her arm.Bud Lee frowned.

  "What makes you so certain, Bud Lee," was her abrupt word of greeting,"that Bayne Trevors is back of this deal?"

  "When did I say that?" he countered.

  "Yesterday, when I told you Charlie Miller had been held up, youintimated that a long-headed man had planned the whole thing. That meansTrevors, doesn't it?"

  "One of us," said Lee calmly, ignoring her question and looking herstraight in the eyes, "is going back. Which one?"

  "Neither!" she retorted promptly. She even smiled confidently at him."For I won't. And you won't."

  "Do you need to be told," he asked her coolly, "that this is no sort ofjob for a girl? You'd only be in the way."

  "If you want glittering generalities," she jeered at him, "then listen tothis: A man's job, first, last, and all the time, is to be chivalrous toa woman! And not a bumptious boor!"

  With that she spurred by him, taking the trail which led off to the rightand so under the cliffs and to the mouth of a great, ragged chasm. Inspite of him, Bud Lee grinned after her. And, seeing that she was not tobe turned back, he followed.

  They left their horses and followed the old footpath, made their way intothe chasm deeper and deeper and little by little climbed upward. Theclimb was less difficult than it looked, and fifteen minutes brought themto the upland plateau and to the door of an old cabin, made of logs, setback in a tiny grove of cedars.

  "I haven't been here for a year," cried the girl, forgetful of theconstraint which had held them until now. "It's like getting back homefor the first time! I love it."

  "So do I," Lee said within himself.

  "Look!" exclaimed Judith. "Some one has been repairing the old cabin!He's made a bench yonder under the big tree, too. And he has walled inthe spring with rocks, and . . . Who in the world can it be? There'seven a little garden of wild flowers!"

  Bud Lee, for no reason clear to himself, flushed. He offered noexplanation at first. Here he spent many an hour when the time was hisfor idling, lying on the grass, looking out over the immensity of thewilderness; here he came many a night to sleep under the stars, far fromthe other boys, when his soul craved solitude; here upon many a Sunday,when work was slack, did he come to smoke alone, loaf alone, read fromthe few books on the cabin's shelves.

  "Maybe," he suggested at last, when it was clear that Judith was goingstraight to the door, "this is where our stick-up gents hang out. Choiceplace for a cutthroat to hibernate, huh?"

  "I don't believe it," answered Judith positively. "The man who made hishermitage here has a soul!"

  Behind her back Lee smiled.

  "We've got something to do," he said hastily, "without wasting timepoking into old shacks. Where's the Indian Trail you talked about?"

  "Shack!" cried Judith indignantly. "You make me sick. Bud Lee! I'drather own this cabin and live here, than have a palace on Fifth Avenue!"

  She knocked at the door, knowing that silence would answer her, buthoping to have a man, calm-eyed, gentle-voiced, a romantic hermit in allof his picturesqueness, come to the door.

  "Going in?" asked Lee in well-simulated carelessness.

  "No," she told him freezingly. "Why should I? Would you want peoplepoking about into your home just because it was in the heart of thewilderness and you weren't there to drive them out?"

  "No," answered Bud gravely. "Now that you ask me, I wouldn't! Let's gofind that trail."

  "But," continued Judith, "not being a fool, and realizing that one of themen we want might possibly be in hiding in here, I am going to peek in."

  "Not being a fool," he repeated after her, adding gently, "and being agirl, which means filled with curiosity."

  A disdainful shoulder gave him his answer. The door was unlocked, afterimmemorial Western custom, and Judith opened it. Lee heard her littlegasp of pure delight.

  "He's a dear, the man who lives here!" she announced positively. "Youcan just tell by looking at his home."

  Looking in over her shoulder, Bud Lee wondered just what in his one-roomshanty had caught her enthusiasm. He was secretly pleased that it haddone so, though that "it" was somewhat vague in his masculine mind.There was the rock fireplace with an iron hook protruding from each sidefor coffee-pot and stew-pot; a bunk with a blanket smoothed overcedar-boughs; a shelf with a dozen books; little else, so far as he couldsee or remember, to catch at Judith's delight. Yet she, looking throughwoman's eyes, read in one quick "peek" the character of the dweller inthis abode. One who was content with little, who loved a clean, outdoorlife, and who was tranquilly above the pettiness of humanity. Judithclosed the door softly.

  "I'd like to look inside his books!" she confessed. "But I won't."

  The lean horse foreman chuckled. Judith sniffed at him.

  "You haven't any curiosity about such things as books," she retorted."To be sure, why should you have?"

  Again, leaving the cabin, she went before him. Going straight across theplateau, she showed him where one could clamber up a steep way to theridge. Once up there, it was but ten minutes until, in a hollow, theyfound the monument marking a trail, a stone set upon a boulder.

  It was after five o'clock. When, following the trail back and forth inits winding along the side of the ridge, they found the signs theysought, it was fast growing dark. But there, in a narrow defile whereloose soil had filtered down, were tracks left by a large boot. Lee wentdown on his hands and knees to study them in the dusk. He got up with alittle grunt and moved down the trail. Again he found tracks, this timemore clearly defined. So dark was it now that they had lighted severalmatches.

  "Two men," he announced wonderingly. "Fresh tracks, too. Made thismorning or last night, I'll bet. One coming east from Indian Head. Theother coming west from the plateau behind us. Who's _he_? Where'd hecome from?"

  "He's the second of the two men who shot at you," said Judith quickly."Don't I know every trail in this neck of the woods, Bud Lee? Hefollowed another old, worn-out trail on the south side of the ranch.They met here just as I knew they would!"

  "What for?" Lee frowned through the darkness at her eager face. "Whatwould they want to get together for? If they had any sense they wouldscatter and clean out of the country."

  "Unless," Judith reminded him, "they don't intend to clean out at all!Unless they mean to stick to the cliffs and try their hands again attheir sort of game. They'll figure that we will expect them to be a longway from here by now, won't they? Then where would they be safer thanright here in these mountains? Give me a rifle and something to eat andI'll defy an army getting me out there. And think of it: If this isTrevors's work, if he means business, think what two gunmen on theseheights could do to us. They could pick off a three-thousand-dollarstallion down in the pens; they could drop more than one prize bull orcow; and," she added sharply, "if they thought about girls as some menthink, they could take a chance on scaring Judith Sanford out of thecountry."

  Lee stared at her a long time in silence.
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  "I wouldn't have said," he offered finally, "that Bayne Trevors wouldmake quite so strong a play as that."

  "You wouldn't! Then look him in the eye! And where's his risk, if he'spicked the right men, if he sees them through, keeping the back door openwhen they want to run for it? You just gamble your boots, Bud Lee, thatBayne Trevors . . ."

  Without warning, without a sound of explosion came a wiry whine into thestill air, a little venomous ping, and a bullet sped by just over theirheads. But, through the gloom, they both saw the flash of the gun as itspat fire and lead, and, as though one impulse commanded them, Judith'srifle and Bud Lee's went to their shoulders and two reverberating reportsrang out in answer.

  "Lie down, damn it!" cried Bud Lee to the girl at his side, as againthere came the flash from the cliffs off to the right and as again heanswered it with his rifle.

  "Lie down yourself!" snapped Judith. And once more her rifle spoke withhis.

  For one instant, framed against the darkening sky along the cliff edgefive hundred yards away to the right, they saw the silhouette of a man,leaping from one boulder to another, a man who looked gigantically big inthe uncertain light. They fired; he jumped again and passed out of sight.

  "Got his nerve," grunted Lee as he pumped lead at the running figure.

  As an answer there came the third flash, the bullet striking the trail infront of them. And then the fourth flash, from a point a hundred yardsto the left of the other.

  "That's Number Two," muttered Lee. "They've got us in the open,Judith. Let's beat it back to the cabin."

  "I'm with you," said Judith, between shots. "It's justfoolishness" . . . _bang_! . . . "sticking out here" . . . _bang_! . . ."for them to pop us off." _Bang_! _Bang_!

  They ran then, Bud slipping in front of her, his tall body looming darklybetween her and the cliffs whence the shots came. He slid along thesharp slope to the plateau, putting out his arms toward her. And as shecame down, Bud Lee grunted and cursed under his breath. For there hadbeen another flash out of the thickening night, this one from the refugetoward which they were running. A third man was shooting from theshelter of the cabin walls. And Lee had felt a stinging pain as though ahot iron had scorched its way along the side of his leg.

  "Hurt much?" asked Judith quickly. Without waiting for an answer, shepumped two shots at the flash by the cabin.

  "No," grunted Lee. "Just scared. And now what? I want to know."