by Unknown
"But the law--the Government? Haven't you a sheriff and officers?"
"Bannister has. He elects the sheriff in this county."
"Aren't there more honest people here than villains?"
"Ten times as many, but the trouble is that the honest folks can't trust each other. You see, if one of them made a mistake and confided in the wrong man--well, some fine day he would go riding herd and would not turn up at night. Next week, or next month, maybe, one of his partners might find a pile of bones in an arroyo.
"Have you ever seen this Bannister?"
"You MUST speak lower when you talk of him, Miss Messiter," the woman insisted. "Yes, I saw him once; at least I think I did. Mighty few folks know for sure that they have seen him. He is a mystery, and he travels under many names and disguises."
"When was it you think you saw him?"
"Two years ago at Ayr. The bank was looted that night and robbed of thirty thousand dollars. They roused the cashier from his bed and made him give the combination. He didn't want to, and Ned Bannister"--her voice sank to a tremulous whisper--"put red-hot running-irons between his fingers till he weakened. It was a moonlight night--much such a night as this--and after it was done I peeped through the blind of my room and saw them ride away. He rode in front of them and sang like an angel--did it out of daredeviltry to mock the people of the town that hadn't nerve enough to shoot him. You see, he knew that nobody would dare hurt him 'count of the revenge of his men."
"What was he like?" the mistress of the Lazy D asked, strangely awed at this recital of transcendent villainy."
"'Course he was masked, and I didn't see his face. But I'd know him anywhere. He's a long, slim fellow, built like a mountain lion. You couldn't look at him and ever forget him. He's one of these graceful, easy men that go so fur with fool women; one of the kind that half shuts his dark, devil eyes and masters them without seeming to try."
"So he's a woman killer, too, is he? Any more outstanding inconsistencies in this versatile Jesse James?"
"He's plumb crazy about music, they say. Has a piano and plays Grigg and Chopping, and all that classical kind of music. He went clear down to Denver last year to hear Mrs. Shoeman sing."
Helen smiled, guessing at Schumann-Heink as the singer in question, and Grieg and Chopin as the composers named. Her interest was incredibly aroused. She had expected the West and its products to exhilarate her, but she had not looked to find so finished a Mephisto among its vaunted "bad men." He was probably overrated; considered a wonder because his accomplishments outstepped those of the range. But Helen Messiter had quite determined on one thing. She was going to meet this redoubtable villain and make up her mind for herself. Already, before she had been in Wyoming six hours, this emancipated young woman had decided on that.
CHAPTER 3
. AN INVITATION GIVEN AND ACCEPTED
And already she had met him. Not only met him, but saved him from the just vengeance about to fall upon him. She had not yet seen her own ranch, had not spoken to a single one of her employees, for it had been a part of her plan to drop in unexpected and examine the situation before her foreman had a chance to put his best foot forward. So she had started alone from Gimlet Butte that morning in her machine, and had come almost in sight of the Lazy D ranch houses when the battle in the coulee invited her to take a hand.
She had acted on generous impulse, and the unforeseen result had been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was the home of such courage, such virility, that her unconsenting admiration went out in spite of herself. He was, at any rate, a MAN, square-jawed, resolute, implacable. In the sinuous trail of his life might lie arson, robbery, murder, but he still held to that dynamic spark of self-respect that is akin to the divine. Nor was it possible to believe that those unblinking gray eyes, with the capability of a latent sadness of despair in them, expressed a soul entirely without nobility. He had a certain gallant ease, a certain attractive candor, that did not consist with villainy unadulterated.
It was characteristic even of her impulsiveness that Helen Messiter curbed the swift condemnation that leaped to her lips when she knew that the man sitting beside her was the notorious bandit of the Shoshone fastnesses. She was not in the least afraid. A sure instinct told her he was not the kind of a man of whom a woman need have fear so long as her own anchor held fast. In good time she meant to let him have her unvarnished opinion of him, but she did not mean it to be an unconsidered one. Wherefore she drove the machine forward toward the camelbacked peak he had indicated, her eyes straight before her, a frown corrugating her forehead.
For him, having made his dramatic announcement, he seemed content for the present with silence. He leaned back in the car and appreciated her with a coolness that just missed impudence. Certainly her appearance proclaimed her very much worth while. To dwell on the long lines of her supple young body, the exquisite throat and chin curve, was a pleasure with a thrill to it. As a physical creation, a mere innocent young animal, he thought her perfect; attuned to a fine harmony of grace and color. But it was the animating vitality of her, the lightness of motion, the fire and sparkle of expression that gave her the captivating charm she possessed.
They were two miles nearer the camel-backed peak before he broke the silence.
"Beats a bronco for getting over the ground. Think I'll have to get one," he mused aloud.
"With the money you took from the Ayr bank?" she flashed.
"I might drive off some of your cows and sell them," he countered, promptly. "About how much will they hold me up for a machine like this?"
"This is only a runabout. You can get one for twelve or fourteen hundred dollars of anybody's money."
"Of yours?" he laughed.
"I haven't that much with me. If you'll come over and hold up the ranch perhaps we might raise it among us," she jeered.
His mirth was genuine. "But right now I couldn't get more than how much off y'u?"
"Sixty-three dollars is all I have with me, and I couldn't give you more--NOT EVEN IF YOU PUT RED HOT IRONS BETWEEN MY FINGERS." She gave it to him straight, her blue eyes fixed steadily on him.
Yet she was not prepared for the effect of her words. The last thing she had expected was to see the blood wash out of his bronzed face, to see his sensitive nostrils twitch with pain. He made her feel as if she had insulted him, as if she had been needlessly cruel. And because of it she hardened her heart. Why should she spare him the mention of it? He had not hesitated at the shameless deed itself. Why should she shrink before that wounded look that leaped to his fine eyes in that flash of time before he hardened them to steel?
"You did it--didn't you?" she demanded.
"That's what they say." His gaze met her defiantly.
"And it is true, isn't it?"
"Oh, anything is true of a man that herds sheep," he returned, bitterly.
"If that is true it would not be possible for you to understand how much I despise you."
"Thank you," he retorted, ironically.
"I don't understand at all. I don't see how you can be the man they say you are. Before I met you it was easy to understand. But somehow--I don't know--you don't LOOK like a villain." She found herself strangely voicing the deep hope of her heart. It was surely impossible to look at him and believe him guilty of the things of which, he was accused. And yet he offered no denial, suggested no defense.
Her troubled eyes went over his thin, sunbaked face with its touch, of bitterness, and she did not find it possible to dismiss the subject without giving him a chance to set himself right.
"You can't be as bad as they say. You are not, are you?" she asked, naively.
"What do y'u think?" he responded, coolly.
She flushed angrily at what she accepted as his insolence. "A man of any decency would have jumped at the chance to explain."
"But if there is nothing to exp
lain?"
"You are then guilty."
Their eyes met, and neither of them quailed.
"If I pleaded not guilty would y'u believe me?"
She hesitated. "I don't know. How could I when it is known by everybody? And yet--"
He smiled. "Why should I trouble y'u, then, with explanations? I reckon we'll let it go at guilty."
"Is that all you can say for yourself?"
He seemed to hang in doubt an instant, then shook his head and refused the opening.
"I expect if we changed the subject I could say a good deal for y'u," he drawled. "I never saw anything pluckier than the way y'u flew down from the mesa and conducted the cutting-out expedition. Y'u sure drilled through your punchers like a streak of lightning."
"I didn't know who you were," she explained, proudly.
"Would it have made any difference if y'u had?"
Again the angry flush touched her cheeks. "Not a bit. I would have saved you in order to have you properly hanged later," she cut back promptly.
He shook his head gayly. "I'm ce'tainly going to disappoint y'u some. Your enterprising punchers may collect me yet, but not alive, I reckon."
"I'll give them strict orders to bring you in alive."
"Did you ever want the moon when y'u was a little kid?" he asked.
"We'll see, Mr. Outlaw Bannister."
He laughed softly, in the quiet, indolent fashion that would have been pleasant if it had not been at her. "It's right kind of you to take so much interest in me. I'd most be willing to oblige by letting your boys rope me to renew this acquaintance, ma'am." Then, "I get out here Miss Messiter, he added.
She stopped on the instant. Plainly she could not get rid of him too soon. "Haven't you forgot one thing?" she asked, ironically.
"Yes, ma'am. To thank you proper for what y'u did for me." He limped gingerly down from the car and stood with his hand on one of the tires. "I have been trying to think how to say it right; but I guess I'll have to give it up. All is that if I ever get a chance to even the score--"
She waved his thanks aside impatiently "I didn't mean that. You have forgotten to take my purse.
His gravity was broken on the instant, and his laughter was certainly delightfully fresh. "I clean forgot, but I expect I'll drop over to the ranch for it some day."
"We'll try to make to make you welcome, Mr. Bannister."
"Don't put yourself out at all. I'll take pot-luck when I come."
"How many of you may we expect?" she asked, defiantly.
"Oh, I allow to come alone."
"You'll very likely forget."
"No, ma'am, I don't know so many ladies that I'm liable to such an oversight.
"I have heard a different story. But if you do remember to come, and will let us know when you expect to honor the Lazy D, I'll have messengers sent to meet you."
He perfectly understood her to mean leaden ones, and the humorous gleam in his eye sparkled in appreciation of her spirit. "I don't want all that fuss made over me. I reckon I'll drop in unexpected," he said.
She nodded curtly. "Good-bye. Hope your ankle won't trouble you very much."
"Thank y'u, ma'am. I reckon it won't. Good-bye, Miss Messiter."
Out of the tail of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian opera singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless as any stage villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when her machine swept round a curve and she could look back without seeming to do so, limping across through the sage brush toward a little hillock near the road. And as she looked the bare, curly head was inclined toward her in another low, mocking bow. He was certainly the gallantest vagabond unhanged.
CHAPTER 4
. AT THE LAZY D RANCH
Helen Messiter was a young woman very much alive, which implies that she was given to emotions; and as her machine skimmed over the ground to the Lazy D she had them to spare. For from the first this young man had taken her eye, and it had come upon her with a distinct shock that he was the notorious scoundrel who was terrorizing the countryside. She told herself almost passionately that she would never have believed it if he had not said so himself. She knew quite well that the coldness that had clutched her heart when he gave his name had had nothing to do with fear. There had been chagrin, disappointment, but nothing in the least like the terror she might have expected. The simple truth was that he had seemed so much a man that it had hurt her to find him also a wild beast.
Deep in her heart she resented the conviction forced upon her. Reckless he undoubtedly was, at odds with the law surely, but it was hard to admit that attractive personality to be the mask of fiendish cruelty and sinister malice. And yet--the facts spoke for themselves. He had not even attempted a denial. Still there was a mystery about him, else how was it possible for two so distinct personalities to dwell together in the same body.
She hated him with all her lusty young will; not only for what he was, but also for what she had been disappointed in not finding him after her first instinctive liking. Yet it was with an odd little thrill that she ran down again into the coulee where her prosaic life had found its first real adventure. He might be all they said, but nothing could wipe out the facts that she had offered her life to save his, and that he had lent her his body as a living shield for one exhilarating moment of danger.
As she reached the hill summit beyond the coulee, Helen Messiter was aware that a rider in ungainly chaps of white wool was rapidly approaching. He dipped down into the next depression without seeing her; and when they came face to face at the top of the rise the result was instantaneous. His pony did an animated two-step not on the programme. It took one glance at the diabolical machine, and went up on its hind legs, preliminary to giving an elaborate exhibition of pitching. The rider indulged in vivid profanity and plied his quirt vigorously. But the bronco, with the fear of this unknown evil on its soul, varied its bucking so effectively that the puncher astride its hurricane deck was forced, in the language of his kind, to "take the dust."
His red head sailed through the air and landed in the white sand at the girl's feet. For a moment he sat in the road and gazed with chagrin after the vanishing heels of his mount. Then his wrathful eyes came round to the owner of the machine that had caused the eruption. His mouth had opened to give adequate expression to his feelings, when he discovered anew the forgotten fact that he was dealing with a woman. His jaw hung open for an instant in amaze; and when he remembered the unedited vocabulary he had turned loose on the world a flood of purple swept his tanned face.
She wanted to laugh, but wisely refrained. "I'm very sorry," was what she said.
He stared in silence as he slowly picked himself from the ground. His red hair rose like the quills of a porcupine above a face that had the appearance of being unfinished. Neither nose nor mouth nor chin seemed to be quite definite enough.
She choked down her gayety and offered renewed apologies.
"I was going for a doc," he explained, by way of opening his share of the conversation.
"Then perhaps you had better jump in with me and ride back to the Lazy D. I suppose that's where you came from?"
He scratched his vivid head helplessly. "Yes, ma'am."
"Then jump in."
"I was going to Bear Creek, ma'am," he added dubiously.
"How far is it?"
"'Bout twenty-five miles, and then some."
"You don't expect to walk, do you?"
"No; I allowed--"
"I'll take you back to the ranch, where you can get another horse."
"I reckon, ma'am, I'd ruther walk."
"Nonsense! Why?"
"I ain't used to them gas wagons."
"It's quite safe. There is nothing to be afraid of."
Reluctantly he got in beside her, as happy as a calf in a branding pen.
"Are you the lady that sashaid off with Ned Bannister?" he asked presently, after he had had time to smother successively some of his fear, wonder and delight at their smooth, swift
progress.
"Yes. Why?"
"The boys allow you hadn't oughter have done it." Then, to place the responsibility properly on shoulders broader than his own, he added: "That's what Judd says."
"And who is Judd?"
"Judd, he's the foreman of the Lazy D."
Below them appeared the corrals and houses of a ranch nestling in a little valley flanked by hills.
"This yere's the Lazy D," announced the youth, with pride, and in the spirit of friendliness suggested a caution. "Judd, he's some peppery. You wanter smooth him down some, seeing as he's riled up to-day."