She felt the color mounting into her cheeks. 'You like to stir up trouble. But it's none of my business.'
'Still a hundred per cent right,' he murmured.
'We tried to get a plane last night,' Wall cut in. 'But the pilot had never tried landing here and wouldn't tackle it in the dark. So we had to wait.'
Dale was annoyed, both at herself and at Stevens. It was just like him to stand back chuckling and watch her catch herself in a trap. She spoke to Wall, ignoring Hal. 'They are determined to kill you. Mr. Stevens seems to think this is some kind of a game. It isn't. If you hadn't been fortunate, you would both be dead now.'
'We don't aim to throw down on ourselves,' Wall replied. 'Till this rookus is over, I'm going to be one of Hal's hired hands.'
'You mustn't go out into the pastures, either of you,' Dale insisted.
'No, ma'am,' Hal said meekly.
'I think the M K is too close to their district anyhow,' the girl continued, disregarding her neighbor's ironic submission. 'And the country is so brushy they could easily ambush you. The boys can make room for you in our bunkhouse until the danger is past.'
'Don't you think we would be safer in a young ladies' seminary somewhere?' Hal asked.
She clamped her lips, to keep back an angry retort. When she spoke, it was to say in a dry, colorless voice, 'I see I'm still not minding my own business.'
But all through the breakfast they found waiting for them at the house, she wanted to renew the battle. Looking at this lean brown man with the slim whipcord figure and the reckless eyes, she felt a chill wind blow through her. Back of her anger at him was fear. He was so bold and careless. He would ride out from his ranch some morning. There would sound the crack of a rifle from the brush, his knees would lose their grip on the saddle, and the strong body would plunge down into the sand to lie there slack and lifeless. For the moment the picture was so vivid that the shock of it held her breathless, even while she sat opposite to him as he described with gay animation her brother getting into a uniform four sizes too large for him.
He would go his own way. There was nothing she could do or say to restrain him. They were not even friends, and even if she had been close to him, it would have made no difference. He was not a man to be swayed by a woman in matters of importance.
They stayed all day and left after dark, on horseback, riding across the south pasture to the boundary of the valley. From here they would ascend Frenchy's Draw into the hills.
Dale watched them go, war in her heart. All her life she had hated the Stevens outfit, lock, stock, and barrel. They had been enemies of her father, to whose memory she was devoted. She was furious at Hal, and all day had been barely civil to him, a fact of which he had been apparently quite oblivious. And all through the hours she had been torn by the knowledge that he possessed her heart wholly. The lean head so live, so strong. The rhythmic motions of his body, smooth and sure. The careless indomitable spirit. They drew her to this gay turbulent foe straight as filings to a magnet. Yet his ways were not hers. They could never be. Both the past and the present were impassable barriers between them. There was, too, the crowning humiliation that his only interest in her was as a source of amusement She ministered to his satiric humor. This alone was enough to keep resentment churning in her.
CHAPTER 17
Brick Fenwick Gives an Order
RANDOLPH ARNOLD rode the west fence of the M K. He had come to repair a break in it reported by one of the men. That was his ostensible motive, but there was another more important one. He wanted to meet and establish contact with some of the men nesting in the tangle of gulches between the M K and Rabbit Ear Gorge.
Arizona had got into his blood. In the clear cool air of early morning, with the sun streaming over the greasewood and the mesquite in a silvery sheen, he was in danger of forgetting that his business here was to uncover evidence to send criminals to their death. This desert atmosphere held some quality exciting as wine, an intoxicant of the spirit that did for him what the vitamin manufacturers claimed for their products. He had discovered that the desert was infinitely variable. It might be one hour an opalescent mirage, the next a bare baked caldron challenging any life to survive. The changing beauty of its sunsets never wearied him.
From the west fence he could look down across the huddled hills to the undulating valley of the Soledad, through which the winding river wound its lazy way. The windmills of the Seven Up and Down flung back glints of sunlight as the blades went round. Back of him was the Rabbit Ear Gorge. Though he had never been there, he had been told that the cañons in and leading to the porphyry range were a maze of crosscut defiles which could be traversed only by those to whom they were as familiar as the lines in the palms of their hands.
He tied his mount to a fencepost and began to work on the broken strand of wire. Occasionally he could see little dust puffs on the valley road stirred by a rider or a wagon. No other sign of human life gave evidence that he had a companion in this great gulf of space. So intent was he on his job that when a drawling voice broke the silence, it startled him.
'You want to anchor that wire better, brother,' it said.
A man was sitting his saddle indolently, body relaxed, gleaming white teeth parted in a smile. He had moved up the sandy wash so silently that no rumor of his coming had reached Arnold.
The tenderfoot gave him back his smile. 'I didn't hear you till you spoke,' he said.
Arnold knew the man by sight. He was the young fellow Brick Fenwick whom he had seen baiting Stevens in the Rest Easy.
The boy swung from the saddle, grounded his reins, and came forward. He took the pliers from Arnold and showed him how the barbed wire should be fastened. The Government man noticed how the long brown fingers of his hands worked with no loss of motion. There was something fascinating about their sureness. No doubt they could handle a gun with expert precision. Yet on more than one occasion, within a week, they had scored two or three misses. Hal Stevens had been lucky.
Fenwick returned the pliers. 'How's the job going?' he asked.
'All right, I guess.' Arnold added ruefully: 'Except that there isn't a thing on a ranch that I can do well. Life in Pittsburgh doesn't fit you for outdoor Arizona.'
'Like it here?'
'Funny thing is that I do. It's raw — elemental. No city conveniences. But you get so you don't miss them.'
'Get along all right with yore boss?'
'I haven't spoken ten sentences to him. My orders come from the foreman Holt.'
Fenwick slid a sharp look at the other. 'If you're a sick man here for yore health, you came to a funny place,' he said.
The tenderfoot showed surprise. 'I've always heard Arizona recommended as the best climate for t.b.'
'Maybe so. There are other things you can die of a heap quicker at the M K.'
There was puzzled innocence in Arnold's questioning gaze. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said.
A cold, fierce challenge shone in the shallow eyes of the gunman. 'Don't tell me you haven't heard that Stevens killed a man the other day at Big Bridge.'
'Sure I've heard about it. But that has nothing to do with me. I'm not in it. I'm a stranger here. Just a hired man.'
'You're in it up to yore neck,' Fenwick told him bluntly. 'Every man that works on the M K is. If Stevens tells you different, he's a liar.'
'But I don't see why I should be,' Arnold protested. 'I haven't been in the state two weeks. These rustlers who attacked Mr. Stevens are strangers to me. I never met any of them. They can't have anything against me.'
'You've got the story wrong,' Fenwick answered impatiently. 'They weren't rustlers, but deputy sheriffs arresting Stevens for holding up a poker game. He drew a gun and killed one of them. Now he is back at his ranch holed-up there. If he wasn't depending on his men to back him, he would have skedaddled out of the country.'
'I'm not backing him. Where I come from we don't get mixed up in feuds. I'm a peaceable citizen.'
'You're packing a gun righ
t now.' The boy's mouth was a thin cruel slash, his eyes tigerish.
'For rattlesnakes. Holt told me they were bad here in the pasture.'
'They've coached you good,' Fenwick jeered. 'Now tell me you don't even know the names of the men trying to arrest yore boss.'
'I heard the boys in the bunkhouse telling their names, but they didn't mean anything to me. Why should they? I tell you I am a stranger. When I got here, I didn't know there was a feud going on in this section.'
'Brick Fenwick was one of the men Stevens tried to kill that day.'
Arnold nodded. 'I remember the name now. I think another name was Frawley.'
'I'm Brick Fenwick,' the boy said, the words low and menacing.
The face of the tenderfoot lit up. 'You were in the Rest Easy the day I got here!' he exclaimed.
'Yore memory is improving,' the young desperado said dryly.
'I understand now,' Arnold replied. 'You are afraid I'm joining Stevens to oppose you.'
Fenwick came a step nearer. His body moved with the litheness of a cat. 'Get this, fellow,' he ordered. 'I'm not afraid of you — or him — or yore whole damned outfit. And I'm not arguing with you. I'm telling you. Get out of this valley. If you're what you claim you are, you have no business in this trouble. Beat it. Vamos. Light out.'
The eyes of Arnold met steadily the arrogant anger in the boyish face of the killer. Not a muscle of his body moved, but there was a change in it, as if the will had stiffened the shoulders and made taut the nerves.
'I'm new to the West, Mr. Fenwick,' he said quietly. 'I like it, because it is more friendly and less formal than the East. What you have just said surprises me. No man with any spirit could make any answer but one. I have as much right here as you have, and I'm going to stay.'
'That's bad.' The gunman's thin lips twisted to an evil smile. 'For you.'
He walked to his horse, mounted, and rode away.
Arnold reported the meeting to his host, whom he found at the corral watching a cowboy break a colt to the saddle. Hal rested his forearms on the top rail of the fence and looked sideways at his friend, a sardonic grin on his brown face.
'They're getting on to you, Ranny,' he said. 'At least, enough to be worried. Brick wouldn't think it worth while to serve notice on a lunger tenderfoot to get out. From now on they will be watching you as much as they will me.'
'I think I'll take the young scoundrel's advice — for a few days,' Arnold said, after a pause for consideration. 'This isn't ready to break yet from this end. I've got to find the receiving point for the cattle. Want to go along with me?'
Hal thought not. His job was on the ranch. If he went with Arnold, his presence would call attention to what the Government man was doing, 'You can send for me if you find I can help,' he said.
'Fact is, I don't like to leave you here,' Arnold explained. 'They mean to get you. It was just luck you weren't killed yesterday morning when some fellow took a crack at you from that hilltop over there.'
'It's a long shot,' Hal mentioned. 'He won't get a chance to try it again, since I'm keeping a man posted there.'
'You're too careless, Hal.'
'A namesake of mine once said four hundred years ago or more that out of the nettle danger he plucked the flower safety.'
'So Hotspur said,' answered Arnold dryly, 'but if I remember the play correctly, he plucked a poisonous weed called death.'
Hal laughed. 'You have me there. But don't worry, old man. The bullet isn't molded yet that will get me. Careful is going to be my middle name from now on.'
'That's a promise,' his friend said.
CHAPTER 18
Sheriff Elbert Takes a Stand
SHERIFF ELBERT looked up from the desk where he was sitting and greeted his visitor. Tick Black said, 'Mornin', Sheriff,' and eased himself into a chair.
'What can I do for you?' Elbert asked. He was thinking that no self-respecting tramp would wear the old and dirty clothes of this financially responsible ranchman.
'You can arrest Hal Stevens for the murder of Cad Hanford,' Black answered, his thin voice high and shrill.
The sheriff lit a cigar and leaned back in his chair. 'I had a talk with Hal the other day,' he said between the first few puffs. 'His story is that he was attacked by Hanford and some others. If that is true, he can claim self-defense.'
'He has to claim that to save his bacon. Fact is, Dud Calloway tried to arrest him for holding up some of the boys with a gun and robbing them. When he resisted, Dud deputized Cad and the others to take him. That was when he killed Cad. One of the most damnable murders I ever heard of.'
Elbert declined to get excited. He was a large well-fleshed man past fifty. In memory of his days as a cattleman he wore a big white Stetson, corduroy trousers and coat, and cowboy boots. His face was tanned and the back of his neck crisscrossed with deep wrinkles.
'I talked with several witnesses,' he mentioned casually. 'Among others Miss Lovell and Miss Barnes. They didn't look at this the same way you do, Tick. In fact, they agreed that if the Seven Up boys hadn't arrived in time, Stevens and young Frank Lovell would have been rubbed out.'
'Miss Lovell has to stand by her brother when the young fool gets in a jam, doesn't she? Count her out as a witness.'
The sheriff inspected the growing ash at the end of his cigar. 'I'm not satisfied with the way Dud behaved,' he said. 'He acted like a partisan. Cash Polk and his friends used him as a cover for the killing they meant to pull off. Dud did not admit that in so many words, but everything he said pointed to it. I'll say this for Dud. He didn't know how far they meant to go. His idea was they would stop with an arrest. But that wasn't their idea.'
'You've decided to tie in with the big ranches. That the long and the short of it, Elbert?'
The sheriff flushed with anger. 'I've decided to stand with honest men against rustlers and killers. But I didn't come to that decision this week or this year, as you damned well know. I would like to make some arrests in this case, but when I went into the hills looking for Cash Polk and Jim Frawley and that boy Fenwick, I couldn't find hide nor hair of them.'
'I expect they didn't know you wanted them.' Tick looked virtuously indignant. 'No reason for them to hide. They have done nothing wrong. But it's the old story. The law leans over backward to help rich folks against the poor.'
'You have money enough to burn a wet mule, Tick,' Elbert said tartly. 'But if I can show you are tied up with this gang of thieves and killers, you'll find out whether I go after the rich.'
Black leaned forward, his flinty eyes drained of expression. 'Don't make that claim, Carl, unless you can prove it,' he warned.
'When I can prove it, I won't talk but act,' the sheriff answered. 'You have come here to hurrah me, Tick. I thought you had better judgment than to try it.' He rose from his chair. 'You have your answer. If that is all the business you have with me, get out.'
'Sure I'll get out. When you ran for sheriff, you got a lot of votes from the hill country. I'll guarantee you won't get so many if you run again.'
'That will be fine,' Elbert replied. 'I don't want the votes of crooks. You might tell your friends that in my opinion when next election comes around, some of them won't be voting.'
As he went out, Black slammed the door hard behind him. He had come to find out just where the sheriff stood, though he already had a pretty fair idea. He knew Elbert could not have any sympathy with rustlers. All his background would prevent that. But he had not been sure whether he would have to count on him as an active enemy. It might be important to know. The sheriff had made his position clear.
Black got into his old rattletrap car and drove out of town. He left the paved road after a few miles, to take a dirt cross-cut to Big Bridge. Yellow dust rose behind him in thick clouds, churned to a fine powder by the wheels of the cars passing since the last rain of a month before. It hung in the air for many minutes after the automobile had stirred it up.
The hill cattleman wanted to see Brick Fenwick, and he knew the
young man would probably be found at Big Bridge. Of late he had been given to hanging around the Barnes restaurant. Black had a feeling that it would be well to move fast against Hal Stevens. With the M K man out of the picture, he would feel a great deal safer. Stevens not only knew and guessed too much. He meant to know a great deal more. The man was dangerous. He had not only a sharp fighting edge, but with it the wisdom to gauge and meet the dangers facing him. Within a few hours of the time that the body of the Government man Watts had been found, Stevens had been quartering over the ground gathering evidence to prove murder and not accident. His wily boldness had detached Frank Lovell from the side of the outlaws and made the boy a menace. As long as he was alive, there would be no safety for Black and his men.
CHAPTER 19
Tom Thinks Fast
HELEN BARNES was alone in her restaurant checking up the receipts and expenditures of the day. Manuel and the colored cook had gone home. She looked up from adding a column of figures, aware that the door she had purposely left unlocked had opened very softly and been closed again. On her lips was a welcoming smile, but it died away quickly. This was not the man she had been expecting.
Brick Fenwick stood with his back to the door, no motion in his neat lithe body, so insolently sure of himself that it sent a shiver through her. She must get him away from here before the other man arrived. But how? To the rebuffs she had given him during the past week, he paid not the least attention. Her anger he found amusing. Her contempt did not reach him.
'The restaurant is closed,' she told him. 'What do you want here?'
'You know what I want,' he said in a low purring voice. 'I want you.'
He moved forward with catlike grace to the raised cashier's desk behind which she sat.
Her blue eyes blazed. A pulse of anger beat in her throat. 'Can't you understand English,' she said. 'I've told you a dozen times that I think you evil — that I despise you — want nothing to do with you.'
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