Brand Blotters Part 15

"I ain't knockin' you any, Jack. You're all right. But that's how I figure it out, and, by Gad! I'm hopin' it too," Farnum made answer recklessly.

Flatray laughed and strolled from the crowded room to the big piazza. A man had just cantered up and flung himself from his saddle. The ranger, looking at him, thought he had never seen another so strikingly handsome an Apollo. Black eyes looked into his from a sun-tanned face perfectly modelled. The pose of the head and figure would have delighted a sculptor.

There was a vigor, an unspoken hostility, in the gaze of both men.

"Mo'nin", Mr. Deputy Sheriff, one said; and the other, "Same to you, Mr.

Norris."

"You're on the job quick," sneered the cattle detective.

"The quicker the sooner, I expect."

"And by night you'll have Mr. Hold-up roped and hog-tied?"

"Not so you could notice it. Are you a sheep-herder these days, Mr.

Norris?"

The gentle irony of this was not lost on its object, for in the West a herder of sheep is the next remove from a dumb animal.

"No, I'm riding for the Quarter Circle K Bar outfit. This is the first time I ever took the dust of a sheep in my life. I did it to oblige Mr.

Lee."

"Oh! To oblige Mr. Lee?"

"He wanted to water them, and his herder wasn't here."

"Must 'a' been wanting water mighty bad, I reckon," commented Jack amiably.

"You bet! Lee feels better satisfied now he's watered them."

"I don't doubt it."

Norris changed the subject. "You must have burnt the wind getting here. I didn't expect to see you for some hours."

"I happened to be down at Yeager's ranch, and one of the boys got me on the line from Mesa."

"Picked up any clues yet?" asked the other carelessly, yet always with that hint of a sneer; and innocently Flatray answered, "They seem to be right seldom."

"Didn't know but you'd happened on the fellow's trail."

"I guess I'm as much at sea as you are," was the equivocal answer.

Lee came over from the stable, still wearing spurs and gauntlets.

"Howdy, Jack!" he nodded, not quite so much at his ease as usual. "Got hyer on the jump, didn't you?"

"I kept movin'."

"This sh.o.r.ely beats h.e.l.l, don't it?" Lee glanced around, selected a smooth boulder, and fired his discharge of tobacco juice at it true to the inch.

"Reminds me of the old days. You boys ain't old enough to recall them, but stage hold-ups were right numerous then."

Blandly the deputy looked from one to the other. "I don't suppose either of you gentlemen happen to have been down and looked over the ground where the hold-up was? The tracks were right cut up before I got there."

This center shot silenced Lee for an instant, but Norris was on the spot with smiling ease.

"No, Mr. Lee and I have been hunting strays on the mesa. We didn't hear about it till a few minutes ago. We're at your service, though, Mr.

Sheriff, to join any posses you want to send out."

"Much obliged. I'm going to send one out toward the Galiuros in a few minutes now. I'll be right glad to have you take charge of it, Mr.

Norris."

The derisive humor in the newly appointed deputy's eyes did not quite reach the surface.

"Sure. Whenever you want me."

"I'm going to send Alan McKinstra along to guide you. He knows that country like a book. You want to head for the lower pa.s.s, swing up Diable Canon, and work up in the headquarters of the Three Forks."

Within a quarter of an hour the posse was in motion. Flatray watched it disappear in the dust of the road without a smile. He had sent them out merely to distract the attention of the public and to get rid of as many as possible of the crowd. For he was quite as well aware as the leader of the posse that this search in the Galiuros was a wild-goose chase.

Somewhere within three hundred yards of the place he stood both the robber and his booty were in all probability to be found.

Flatray was quite right in his surmise, since Melissy Lee, who had come out to see the posse off, was standing at the end of the porch with her dusky eyes fastened on him, the while he stood beside the house with one foot resting negligently on the oilcloth cover of the wash-stand.

She had cast him out of her friendship because of his unworthiness, but there was a tumult in her heart at sight of him. No matter how her judgment condemned him as a villain, some instinct in her denied the possibility of it. She was torn in conflict between her liking for him and her conviction that he deserved only contempt. Somehow it hurt her too that he accepted without protest her verdict, appeared so willing to be a stranger to her.

Now that the actual physical danger of her adventure was past, Melissy was aware too of a chill dread lurking at her heart. She was no longer buoyed up by the swiftness of action which had called for her utmost nerve. There was nothing she could do now but wait, and waiting was of all things the one most foreign to her impulsive temperament. She acknowledged too some fear of this quiet, soft-spoken frontiersman. All Arizona knew not only the daredevil spirit that fired his gentleness, but the competence with which he set about any task he a.s.signed himself. She did not see how he _could_ unravel this mystery. She had left no clues behind her, she felt sure of that, and yet was troubled lest he guessed at her secret behind that mask of innocence he wore. He did not even remotely guess it as yet, but he was far closer to the truth than he pretended. The girl knew she should leave him and go about her work. Her role was to appear as inconspicuous as possible, but she could not resist the fascination of trying to probe his thoughts.

"I suppose your posse will come back with the hold-ups in a few hours.

Will it be worth while to wait for them?" she asked with amiable derision.

The ranger had been absorbed in thought, his chin in his hand, but he brought his gaze back from the distance to meet hers. What emotion lay behind those cold eyes she could not guess.

"You're more hopeful than I am, Miss Lee."

"What are you sending them out for, then?"

"Oh, well, the boys need to work off some of their energy, and there's always a show they might happen onto the robbers."

"Do you think some of the Roaring Fork gang did it?"

"Can't say."

"I suppose you are staying here in the hope that they will drop in and deliver themselves to you."

He looked at her out of an expressionless face. "That's about it, I reckon. But what I tell the public is that I'm staying so as to be within telephone connection. You see, Sheriff Burke is moving up to cut them off from the Catalinas, Jackson is riding out from Mammoth to haid them off that way, these anxious lads that have just pulled out from here are taking care of the Galiuros. I'm supposed to be sitting with my fingers on the keys as a sort of posse dispatcher."

"Well, I hope you won't catch them," she told him bluntly.

"That seems to be a prevailing sentiment round here. You say it right hearty too; couldn't be more certain of your feelings if it had been your own father."