The foreman's eyes were glassy. His arms were so heavy he found difficulty in lifting them. The flailing fists of the cattleman landed almost at will, slashing both at the heaving belly and the battered face. Frawley was bewildered, beaten, almost helpless.
Casey said,' We'd better stop this.' He had no love for the wagon boss, but after all they belonged to the same outfit.
Frank Lovell stood in the doorway, his sister behind him. 'Keep out of this, boys,' he ordered. 'Frawley asked for it. He doesn't work for the Seven Up any more.'
'Gimme my gun,' Frawley demanded of Casey, and staggered toward him.
'Look out!' Dale cried sharply.
The warning was not needed. Frawley did not reach the cowboy. Hal's fist ripped up at his jaw, all the weight of his body back of the blow. The foreman swayed for a moment, feet spraddled, and went down like a log. His big body rolled over, and he lay still, not senseless but unable to rise.
The cowboy Bill goggled at Stevens. 'By golly, I didn't think there was a man in Arizona could do that.'
Hal said negligently, 'He fights like an old woman.'
Wonder in her eyes, Dale looked at the bleeding face of the victor. To Casey she gave an abrupt order. 'Empty all the cartridges from that revolver before you give it back to Frawley.'
'Did Frank mean he has quit this outfit?' Casey asked.
'I fired him ten minutes ago,' Dale answered. 'He has been helping the rustlers to steal our stock. See that he gets off the ranch as soon as he is able to ride.'
Casey watched the whipped man getting laboriously to his feet. The sight of the man's shamed, lowering face was convincing. He did not doubt that the accusation was true. Frawley's character was not of a kind to inspire confidence in his integrity anyhow.
'So he has sold his saddle,'1 Casey said contemptuously. 'Well, we've got Mr. Stevens to thank for giving him what was coming to the skunk. I'll say this, no scalawag ever got a more thorough licking.'
1When a cowboy reached the lowest point of degradation, he sold his saddle, but not until then. The expression came to be a figure of speech.
'I've had all I want of this spread,' Frawley said thickly. 'I was aiming to quit anyhow. I'll be damned if I'll work for a' — he stopped, changing the word he had been about to use — 'for a woman who is never satisfied.'
'Run up his horse for him, Bill,' suggested Frank.
'I can get my own horse. I don't want any favors from this two-bit outfit.' Frawley turned to Dale. 'I'll remember this, Miss. There will come a day when you'll wish you had sung a different song.' His gaze settled on Hal. 'As for you, I'll say just this. You're already a dead man and don't know it.'
'For a dead man he's mighty handy with his dibs,' Casey chuckled. 'Get a move on you, Frawley. If the boys hear you've been selling us out, they'll likely tar and feather you. I'd advise you to light a shuck pronto.'
The discharged foreman headed dejectedly for his cabin, rage and humiliation surging up in him.
CHAPTER 8
A Conference at the Seven Up and Down
DALE SAID, 'Come into the house and let me give first aid to your face.'
Hal grinned. 'I could do with a washup and some sticking plaster,' he admitted.
He followed Frank to a bathroom and washed his face in cold water several times. Blood still oozed out from the cuts.
A knock sounded on the door. 'Doctor Lovell ready for the patient,' Dale announced.
Hal dried his face and opened the door. 'Do I get medical service under the terms of our temporary defensive alliance?' he asked.
'When you are wounded in the service,' she told him. 'Sit down in this chair.'
He sat down, looking at her with a deceptive meekness behind which she discerned an impudent glee. 'My, but we are getting along fast,' he chuckled. 'Yesterday you were looking for a nice tree on which your boys could hang me. Now you are patching me up with your own lily-white hands.'
'I fixed our dog's wounds last week after he had gashed himself on barbed wire,' she mentioned tartly, and tilted his head up so that she could get at a cut better.
'But not an M K dog,' he murmured.
'That eye is going to close on you, I'm afraid. You had better lie down in Frank's room and put a cold pack on it.'
'Yes, ma'am,' he said obediently. 'By the way, Frawley is cut up some too. Does he get any kind attention?'
She ignored that. 'I wish you hadn't fought him. He'll never forgive you for shaming him.'
'He can't hate me much more than he did before our mixup. All he can do is shoot me, and I fancy that had already been arranged.'
'Why do you talk that way, as if it didn't matter?' Dale reproved.
'It matters a lot to me,' Hal replied. 'But why worry about it, since I don't expect the plans to succeed?'
One of the ranch riders knocked at the door and came in with the mail. He looked curiously at Stevens.
'I walked into a door,' Hal explained, a grin on his battered face.
'I reckon Jim must have walked into half a dozen doors,' the cowboy guessed. He handed three letters and a newspaper to Frank. 'There's one from the draft board,' he told the boy. 'Looks like this is it.'
Frank ripped open the letter and glanced it over. 'You're a hundred per cent right, Shorty,' he said. 'I'm to report at Tucson within forty-eight hours.'
After a moment his sister spoke. 'Maybe it is a good thing to have the call come now. Once you're in the army, these fellows won't bother you.'
'What fellows?' Shorty asked bluntly. 'Mebbe it's none of our business, Miss Dale, but then again mebbe it is. We boys in the bunkhouse can't quite figure this business out. If anything is liable to pop sudden, we'd be better prepared if we knew what it is all about.'
'You're right, Shorty,' Dale answered. 'Tell the boys to come to the house.'
'Has Frawley gone yet?' Frank inquired.
'He was saddling that pinto of his when I left.' The white teeth in the brown face of the cowpuncher flashed to a wide grin. 'Jim don't feel so awful good this mo'nin' — since he ran into them doors.'
'Keep an eye on him until he leaves,' Dale ordered. 'He's crazy enough with hate to start something.'
'Yes'm. We'll see him on his way and then come to the house.'
Dale finished giving first aid, cleaned up, and washed her hands. She stood beside the fireplace, a hand on the mantel, frowning down at the rug.
'Even though we think Black's crowd is doing this raiding, we are not much farther forward,' she said. 'How can we prove it? And, more important still, how can we prevent them from killing you two? If you were together, and we could keep you guarded— But even that would be difficult, since we don't know where and when they will strike.'
'You ought to have been a lawyer, Miss Lovell,' Hal responded. 'In three or four sentences you have summed up all our difficulties. Let's take one at a time. First, our personal danger. I suggest Frank and I go to Tucson this morning and stay there till Frank has joined up. We'll be safe there.'
'And after he is in the army, how safe will you be?' Dale wanted to know.
Her eyes met the quizzical gaze of their guest. The color beat up into her cheeks. She was annoyed that his cool, not unfriendly derision had so much power to disturb her, and she hastened to explain away her anxiety.
'Since the M K ranch is on our side during this trouble, I don't want to lose its help on account of an accident to its owner,' she said defensively.
'Neither do I,' he agreed. 'But we needn't worry about that. I'll come home unexpectedly and be all right.'
'And after you get there?'
He laughed, shrugging his shoulders. 'One bridge at a time, lady.'
Frank's mind could not leave the subject so lightly. 'You can't just toss the danger aside, Hal. If these fellows want to shoot you from ambush, they can do it. Out in the open you can't guard yourself every minute. You'll have to stay away until this wolves' den is cleared out.'
Hal did not argue the matter. 'About the other point y
ou raised, Miss Lovell, the matter of proof. We can work at that from two ends — here where the thieving takes place and at the place where the cattle are delivered.'
'Which may be anywhere within a radius of two hundred miles,' Frank said.
'Make it a hundred,' Hal differed. 'Let us say the last raid took place about midnight. Certainly it would not be before that. Frank was playing cards with them until after eleven. At ten o'clock next morning, I found three of these beauties at the Rest Easy. Black would not operate with a gang any larger than was necessary to do the job. All of them except Black himself and Frawley guarded the stock to the delivery point. I took the trouble to find out that Hanford, Fenwick, and Polk reached Big Bridge about seven-thirty. That would leave them not much over six hours to truck the cattle to the buyer, unload, and get back.'
'Maybe they have the stock cached somewhere in the hills to wait for a favorable chance to get rid of it,' Dale objected.
'Possible but not probable. Why risk making two trips when one will do? These fellows are not expecting to sell to some chance buyer. They know exactly where their market is. They would travel right to it. Of course, it is a black market. My guess is that some packing plant is running it in with their legitimate stuff.'
Casey, Bill, and Shorty trooped into the house.
'If I was a correspondent for the Star,' announced Shorty, 'I would write in that Mr. James Frawley, former foreman of the Seven Up and Down, with his pinto hoss, his war bag, and his six-gun minus cartridges, is now taking the valley road for the hills where he expects to spend some time with friends and make medicine.'
'The gent is frothing at the mouth and spittin' hate,' Bill added. 'His friends will have to look at him twice before they recognize his ugly mug. There wasn't a dry eye at the bunkhouse when he pulled his freight.'
'He sure enough knew how not to make friends,' Shorty commented. 'I was aimin' to buy him a copy of that Carnegie book for Christmas.'
Dale told them with one or two elisions the story of the past twenty-four hours.
'Do we put on our war paint?' Casey asked. He was a well-set red-headed Irishman just past the draft age. For eight years he had been employed by the Seven Up and Down. His frank face and steady blue eyes were better than letters of recommendation. Already Dale had decided to put him in Frawley's place.
'You had better carry revolvers — in case you should see rattlesnakes on the ridge.' The girl's voice was dry and brittle. 'But don't have any trouble with these fellows if you can help it. Avoid any arguments, and in case any of them get nasty, ride away and leave them.'
'Not so easy to do when a mean guy is crowding you, Miss Dale,' Shorty said. 'Talk nice to him, and he thinks you are scared and rides you harder.'
'I know. But do your best not to have any difficulty. We must stay on the side of the law.'
Casey shook his head. 'For us to talk and act humble won't do any good. This has gone too far for that. Frank knows too much. They dare not let him be a witness against them. And Mr. Stevens has hurt their pride so badly they won't rest till they have paid him off. They are a bad bunch. Don't forget that for a minute.'
'Frank is leaving this morning to join the army,' Dale explained.
'If the army wants him, it had better come and get him,' Casey said bluntly. 'Soon as Frawley reaches a phone, he will report to Tick Black, who will start stirring up trouble right then.'
'I'm driving to Tucson with Frank,' Hal said.
'That will make it fine and dandy.' Casey's smile was blandly sarcastic. 'They can get you both at one gather.'
'It can't be as bad as that.' Dale spoke with no conviction in her voice. 'They wouldn't go as far as open murder.'
'Wouldn't they?' The smile had been wiped from the face of Casey. 'I thought you knew Black.'
'I know he is a bad man, but—'
'A bad wily old devil who would stick at nothing,' Casey interrupted. 'And he has a pair of killers ready to jump when he gives the word, not to mention Frawley. Black is a smooth villain. The job won't be in the open probably. He'll cover it up somehow.'
'We had better get out before he has his trap set,' Frank said.
Dale was worried. 'Pack up and go,' she cried. 'Don't wait a minute longer.'
CHAPTER 9
A Young Woman Unafraid
HAL STEVENS and Frank Lovell did not take the valley highway to Big Bridge. They followed a little-used trail along the ridge, one too rough for ordinary travel by car. Frank drove, and his companion sat beside him, a rifle in the brown competent hands of the M K man. They did not do much talking. Hal's eyes searched the scenery to right and left. He thought it unlikely that their enemies would be guarding this trace so soon, but he did not want to underestimate the sly wariness of Tick Black. If he made one mistake, he might not live to make another.
The coupe bounced over rocks, climbed sharp rises along sloping ledge cuts just wide enough for a skillful driver to negotiate, and slithered down descents so precipitous that with the clutch in low Frank had to brake heavily to keep the car from crashing at the bottom. The radiator was blowing off steam like a kettle going dry.
'Nice treatment to give tires,' Lovell mentioned. 'A chuck wagon can make it, but no car ought to be asked to do it.'
Stevens grinned. 'We're getting too soft. When my dad came to this country, any road you could get over was a good one.'
'If I get into a tank division I'll probably think this was pretty easy,' the boy agreed.
'Yes. Hope you'll get a job in the army you like.'
'I don't want to sit at a desk all through the war. Two or three fellows I know are stuck in offices and can't get to the front. I'm a hell of a long way from being a hero, but I don't want to have to tell my kids, if I ever have any, that I won the war by filing papers at some camp in this country.'
'Some fellows have to do that, I suppose, but it's tough on them if they have lived outdoors and want to get into the scrap,' Hal said. He added ruefully: 'It isn't much fun either to be told every time you try to horn in to the armed forces that your job is to stay at home to raise beef. I was too young for the last war, and it looks as if I'm going to miss this one too.'
'I expect if I ever get where the going is pretty hot I'd be willing to let you have my share of it,' Frank admitted.
'No, you wouldn't. It's human nature for each of us to wonder how we would stand up to danger crowding on us, but when the time comes we take it. Oh, damn!'
The expletive had been jerked out of Hal by the blowing-out of a tire that had crashed down on a sharp boulder projecting from the ground.
Rifle in hand Hal climbed a bluff to search the terrain while Frank changed to the spare. Far down in the valley below him he saw a billow of dust behind a moving car.
'Somebody heading for Big Bridge,' he announced to Lovell. 'Likely some rancher going in for supplies.'
Frank was setting the jack under the hub. 'Hope so. If it is some of Black's boys going to welcome us, we'll know later.'
'Whoever it is will get there before we shall now. But they won't be expecting us to come down the cañon back of the hotel.'
They started again, climbed a long hill with a fairly easy grade, and dropped into Big Bridge Gulch. The road was better here, and the car did not have to take the jolting given it on the trail above. From the mouth of the cañon they came out to a sudden view of the little town.
'We'll have to stop at a filling station for water,' Frank said.
The place lay baking under the midday sun. Except a dog and a boy crossing the street there was no sign of life.
'Looks as safe as an old ladies' home,' Hal hazarded hopefully, his gaze sweeping the street.
They drew up at a filling station. No attendant was in sight. He had apparently closed up for dinner. Frank filled the radiator and Hal lounged against the fender. The rifle hung negligently from his right hand. Stevens looked a picture of easy unconcern, but every nerve in him was keyed to watchfulness. The cañon street cut the main one of
the town at right angles. If they were seen, it would be from the hotel or from the back of some saloon or store. Frank put down the water can and screwed on the radiator cap. He glanced at the hotel as he moved toward the car door.
A man came out of the hotel and stood on the porch. He looked up and down the main street, started back through the door, and stopped to sweep with his eyes the cañon road. The man was Cash Polk. His gaze fell on them and instantly he darted into the building.
'Let's go!' Frank cried.
They piled into the car. It started like a bucking bronco and shot down the roadbed of rubble to the main highway. Frank swung the wheel sharply to the right, in time to miss the platform of a feed store.
From the window of the hotel a single shot rang out. The right front tire exploded with a bang and the car instantly was out of control. It lurched drunkenly and crashed into a telephone pole.
Hal was flung clear, rifle still in hand. He got to his feet dizzily and looked around. Frank was climbing out of the smashed car. A bullet whistled past the boy and flung a spurt of dirt from the adobe wall across the street. He snatched his rifle from the coupe and ran.
'This way!' Hal shouted, and raced for the shelter of the nearest building.
Guns roared again as their feet flung up dust from the road. They were inside, safe for the moment, battered but unwounded by the fire.
'Hey! What's all this about?' a voice demanded sharply.
A young woman confronted them, arms akimbo, challenge in her sparkling eyes. She was red-headed, pretty, and quite mistress of the situation.
One glance told Hal that they were in a restaurant. The tables were set for lunch. A Mexican waiter with a water pitcher in his hand stared at them, a glass he had been filling poised in the air.
Stevens swept the hat from his head and smiled. 'Sorry, Miss Barnes. A port in storm.'
'I heard shooting,' she said. 'And a car smashed.'
'Afraid you'll hear more. We'll get out the back door. Come on, Frank.'
Who Wants to Live Forever? Page 5