The Settling of the Sage Part 20

"Why don't you fold your hands and give up your business the first thing that goes wrong?" she countered. "Instead of trying to remedy it?"

"But you don't have to do it," he urged.

"Neither do you," she said. "I've the same pride in the Three Bar that you have in anything you've helped build up. You'd fight all the harder for one of your schemes that was hard-pressed--and so would I."

She turned to her teepee and ended the discussion, her pride a little hurt that Deane should so little appreciate her work--and the spirit that made her hold on instead of giving up.

That evening they rode up to the Three Bar just as Waddles announced the evening meal.

"She's hot!" the big voice wailed. "She's re-e-ed hot!"

The hands were gathering at the ranch, coming in from the range for a frolic before the beef round-up should keep out for another month.

Deane's time was up and he had planned to leave on the following day.

"You can't do that," Harris said. "Two more days for you. I've given orders not to let you off the place till after the dance at Brill's.

This is Tuesday and the big frolic will be staged Thursday night. Then you're free to go."

Deane shook his head and prepared to offer an excuse but Harris smilingly refused to consider it.

"No use to try," he said. "The boys won't let you go. We've had you out in the rain and now we'll try to make amends for it. Billie, don't let him leave the place. I'll detail you as guard."

"You hear the orders," she said. "You're stuck for two more days at the Three Bar whether you like it or not."

"That settles it," Deane said. "I do want to see that dance."

Horne strolled up to them as they reached the corral.

"Another of the wild bunch down," he said. "Magill this time. Got it just the same as Barton did last week. Shot from in front; one empty sh.e.l.l in his gun. The Breaks is getting to be a hard place to reside in."

Again the girl felt that queer sensation of having expected this to transpire, as if possibly she had helped plan the deed herself and had forgotten it. That night as she lay in bed her mind was concerned with it and at times the solution seemed almost to reach the surface of her consciousness. Two belated riders came up the lane. As they rode past her open window she heard the name of Magill.

"That's two for Bangs," said a voice she knew for Moore's.

The evasive sense of familiarity, of being in some way identified with the killings, was suddenly clear to her,--so clear that she marveled at not having known at once.

Old Rile Foster was haunting the Breaks near Arnold's, imposing grim and merciless justice on all those whom he suspected of having had a hand in the finish of Bangs.

X

Harris had left the ranch an hour before daylight, his ride occasioned by the reports of several of the men. In the last three days each couple that worked the range had found one or more of the new white-face bulls shot down in their territory. The evidence, as Harris pieced the sc.r.a.ps together, indicated that a lone rider had made a swift raid, riding for forty miles along the foot of the hills in a single day, shooting down every Three Bar bull that crossed his trail.

A dozen dead animals marked his course. A few more such raids and the Three Bar calf crop would be extremely short the following spring. The near end of the foray had extended to within ten miles of the home ranch and Harris had gone out to have a look at some of the nearer victims. He located two by the flights of meat-eating birds but range stock had blotted out all possible signs. He rode back to the corrals in the early afternoon and joined Billie and Deane.

"Not a track," he said. "We must expect more or less of that. They'll cut in on us wherever there's a chance."

As Harris left them the girl pointed out a horseman riding up the lane.

"The sheriff," she volunteered, and Deane noted an odd tightening of her lips.

Alden dismounted and accosted Moore and Horne. From their grinning faces she knew that they were deliberately evading whatever questions the sheriff might be asking. Horne's voice reached them.

"Whoever it is seems to be doing a right neat job," he said. "Why not let him keep it up?"

The sheriff came over to Deane and the girl.

"Billie, I expect you can tell me who's doing this killing over in the Breaks," he said.

She was unaccustomed to the easy dissimulation that was second nature to the men of the whole countryside and her eyes fell under the sheriff's steady gaze. Deane was looking into her face and with a shock he realized that she could p.r.o.nounce the name of the a.s.sa.s.sin but was deliberately withholding it. She raised her head with a trace of defiance.

"No. I can't tell you," she said.

Deane expected to hear the sheriff's curt demand that she divulge the name of the man he sought. It must be easily apparent to him, as it was to Deane, that she knew. But Alden only dropped a hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her.

"All right, girl," he said mildly. "I reckon you can't tell. He can't be such a rotten sort; if you refuse to turn him up." He pushed back his hat and smiled at Deane. "We have to humor the womenfolks out here," he explained, as he turned toward the bunk house.

Deane, already at a loss to grasp the mental att.i.tude of the range dwellers, was further mystified by a sheriff who spoke of humoring the ladies in a matter pertaining to a double killing.

"Billie, you know!" he accused; "why wouldn't you tell?"

"Because there's a good chance that he's a friend of mine," she stated simply. "Those men had it coming to them and some way I can't feel any regret."

"But if it was justified he should give himself up and stand trial," he said.

"Then let him do it of his own accord," she said. "I certainly won't."

The memory of little Bangs, his adoring gaze fastened on her face, was uppermost in her mind and brought a lump to her throat. "I hope he gets them all."

"Billie, let me take you away from all this," Deane urged again. "Let me give you the things every girl should have--shut all the rough spots out of your path. I want to give you the things every girl needs to round out her life--a home and love and shelter."

Shelter! Slade's words recurred to her: "A soft front lawn to range in."

"This is what I need," she said and waved an arm in a comprehensive sweep. Two hands, recently arrived, were unpacking before the bunk house. A third was shoeing a horse near the blacksmith shop. The mule teams were plowing in the flats. A line of chap-clad men roosted as so many crows on the top bar of the corral, mildly interested in the performance of another who twirled a rope in a series of amazing tricks. "That's what I need; all that," she said. "And you're asking me to give it up."

"But it's not the life for a girl," he insisted.

"You've told me a hundred times that I was different from other girls.

But now you're wanting me to be like all the rest. Where would the difference be then?" she asked a little wistfully. "Why can't you go on liking me the way I am, instead of making me over?"

But Carlos Deane could not see. It was his last evening alone with her and after the meal they rode across the hills through the moonlight.

In that hour she was very near to doing as he wished. If only he had suggested that she come to him as soon as the Three Bar was once more a prosperous brand; had only pointed out how she could spend months of each year on the old home ranch,--then he might have won his point without waiting. But that is not the way of man toward woman. His plea was that she leave all this behind--for him. And his hold was not quite strong enough to induce her to give up every link of the life she had loved for long years before Carlos Deane had been even a part of it.

"I can't tell you now," she said as they rode back to the corrals.

"Not now. It would take something out of me--the vital part--if I had to leave the old Three Bar in the shape it's in today. It's sort of like deserting a crippled child."

The next day her stand was unaltered and in the evening, when the whole Three Bar personnel swung to their saddles and headed for the frolic at Brill's, Deane had been unable to gain her promise. His luggage had been sent ahead in a buckboard, for the dance was to be an all-night affair and he would leave on the morning stage.

There were but few horses at the hitch rails when they reached the post but a dozen voices raised in song drifted faintly to their ears and apprised them of the fact that other arrivals were not far behind. As the Three Bar girl entered at the head of her men she saw Bentley and Carpenter leaning against the bar, well toward the rear of the room.