HIDDEN BLOOD

BY

W. C. TUTTLE

GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers

New York

By arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company

COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY WILBUR C. TUTTLE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

HIDDEN BLOOD
CHAPTER I
HASHKNIFE HAS RHEUMATISM IN HIS LEG

“If I had rheumatism like you’ve got, I’d sure head for the hot springs. Yuh can boil it out easier’n any other way.”

The owner of Piute leaned back, braced his bony elbows on the bar, spat wisely, and squinted at the two cowboys, who were draped against the bar beside him.

“Hashknife” Hartley, a tall, thin, serious-faced cowboy, was standing on one leg, much in the attitude of a stork, except that his knee naturally bent the other way.

“Sleepy” Stevens, Hashknife’s partner, was of medium height, with a grin-wrinkled face and serious eyes. There was nothing colorful nor romantic about their raiment or physical appearance. They were clad in well-worn overalls, nondescript shirts, high-heeled boots, and sombreros.

Their cartridge belts were scarred, weathered, as were their holsters, from which protruded the plain wood butts of single-action Colt sixshooters. They wore no coats. Hashknife’s vest was little more than a wrinkled piece of cloth, suspended stringlike from his shoulders, affording him pocket room for his tobacco and cigarette papers.

“Which way do yuh head for hot springs, pardner?” asked Sleepy, making cabalistic marks on the scarred bar top with the bottom of his wet glass. “I’m goin’ to put this lean pardner of mine on to boil.”

“Aw, I’ll be all right,” protested Hashknife, flexing his aching leg.

“You won’t be until yuh are,” flared Sleepy. “Yuh can’t ride a horse thataway. I’ve done used up a bottle of horse liniment on yuh, and all it’s done is to make yuh smell.”

“Rheumatism ain’t no fun.” Thus the proprietor. “I sure had it ache hell out of me a few years ago.”

“Didja go to a hot spring?” asked Sleepy.

“Shore did. I went up into Hawk Hole and b’iled out up there. That sulphur water smells like all the bad aigs of the world had been busted; but it knocked my rheumatism.”

“Where’s this here Hawk Hole?” asked Hashknife, interested.

“South of here, about thirty mile. I dunno whether yuh can use the springs now or not. Belongs to ‘Big Medicine’ Hawkworth, and he ain’t so friendly as he might be.”

“We’d take a chance on him, if Hashknife was able to ride that far,” said Sleepy.

“Yuh might go by stage. She comes through here about midnight and changes horses here. On ’count of the heat they make the drive from Caliente at night. They go to Pinnacle; but in yore case they might swing around by Hawkworth’s place and let yuh off. If they don’t, it’s only two miles from Pinnacle.”

“That sounds good t’ me,” declared Sleepy. “How does she listen to you, pardner?”

“Well, all right, Sleepy. I’d go any place to get rid of this ache that’s twistin’ my muscles. I ain’t slept for three nights and days hand-runnin’. If this Hawkworth person tries to deny me a chance to boil the pain out of my carcass, I’ll try and make him see the error of his ways.”

“He prob’ly will deny yuh,” said the proprietor. “C’mon and let’s see if supper is ready.”

Piute consisted of one building, a long, low adobe structure, separated into three parts: a saloon, a dining-room and kitchen combined, and a place to sleep. Behind this long building were a shedlike stable, corrals, and a well.

Its only excuse for existence was to act as a stage station, or a night haven for those who traveled the road from Caliente to Pinnacle. Piute was always hot, except at night. To the north the road disappeared through mesquite-covered flats, while to the south it twisted higher into the hills; rocky hills, where grew stunted pine, piñon, and juniper; down into a land where the law held little sway, where only a range of hills separated them from the land of mañana.

Hashknife managed to limp into the dining-room assisted by Sleepy, flopped into a chair, and did justice to a feed of tortillas, frijoles, and coffee.

“You ain’t natives down in this here country, are yuh?” asked the proprietor.

“What makes yuh think that?” grinned Sleepy.

“Jist seen yuh blowin’ on yore frijoles. Yuh can’t cool no chili pepper by blowin’ on it, pardner.”

“My mistake,” grinned Sleepy. “The danged things are hot.”

“Need ’em inside yuh down here. Hot food is the stuff in this climate. Eskimo would explode on it. Never been over in Hawk Hole, have yuh?”

“Never heard of it,” said Hashknife.

“Town of Pinnacle’s over there. Ain’t much of a town. Lot of mines back in the Greenhorn country and they all outfits down in Pinnacle. Old Big Medicine Hawkworth owns most of Hawk Hole. Stage line does quite a business, haulin’ supplies, miners, and the kind of folks that clutter up a minin’ town. Pinnacle ain’t exactly in the Hole—kinda on the rim of it. Them hot springs are shore good for rheumatism, y’betcha. There’s cold springs there, too. Big Medicine has been there twenty-five year, and he shore hooked on to most of the place.”

“Does he run any cattle?” asked Sleepy.

“Yeah. He has the Tumblin’ H iron. The Hole is a dandy place for to run cows, except that she’s almost too close to the border.”

“We might get a job,” smiled Sleepy. “I’d punch cows while you boil out, Hashknife.”

“Yeah, yuh might,” agreed the proprietor. “But I’m bettin’ yuh won’t. Big Medicine will prob’ly tell yuh that yuh can’t take a soak in his hot springs, and tell yuh to get to hell off his place. He’s a old squaw-man—meaner than hell.

“Some folks say that Big Medicine is English, English from the old country. We don’t see much of him. He’s been out this far jist once since I’ve been here at Piute. I’ve heard folks say that he’s crazy. I dunno whether he is or not. Anyway, I do know that he wants folks to leave him alone—and they mostly always do the second time.”

Hashknife grimaced with pain as he shoved back from the table and tried to cross his knees.

“Does this Big Medicine person mind his own business?” he asked.

“Hm-m-m—well, I s’pose so. Down in this country yuh can hear all kinds of talk. It mostly goes into one of my ears and out the other, bein’ as I ain’t noways situated where I can talk a lot about my fellermen and keep my scalp where she belongs. He ain’t never bothered me; so I say he’s all right.”

Hashknife and Sleepy did not ask for any further information. They were in a strange country, whither they had drifted; wanderers into the cattle country of the Southwest. They had found things but little different from those in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, except for the desert stretches, style of architecture, and lack of streams.

All had been well until Hashknife had contracted rheumatism, which had crippled him so badly that he suffered keenly in riding. Sleepy had doctored him to the best of his limited ability, but the pain had grown steadily worse, and they both knew that it was a case of seeking medical assistance at once.

The arrival of the midnight stage interrupted their three-handed game of seven-up. It required four horses to haul the heavy stage over the grades ahead, and the proprietor assisted in changing teams.

The driver was a big, gruff Norwegian, with a big beard and a heavy head of hair, which stood up on his head like the roach of a grizzly bear.

The only passenger was a young man, well dressed, black-haired, and with a thin, dark face. He was hardly past twenty years of age, but his mouth and eyes already showed lines of dissipation. He drank whiskey at the bar and climbed back into the stage while Hashknife and Sleepy were tying their horses at the boot.

“You got de rheu-maticks?” asked the driver, when he noticed that Hashknife had difficulty getting aboard.

“That’s what she feels like,” grunted Hashknife. “I never had it before, but they say she acts like this.”

“Yah, she does. You go to Pinnacle, eh?”

“The hot springs.”

“So? To de hot springs, eh? All right.”

His long whip snapped in the moonlight, the four horses sprang into life, and the stage to Pinnacle went lurching and grinding up the grades, swinging wide on the narrow turns, where a driver is only allowed one mistake.

Over the top of the hill they swung back into another valley, a fairyland in the blue of the moonlight. The road was rough, badly engineered as to grades, but the driver swore in his own tongue, plied his long whip without stint or threw his weight on a protesting brake on the steep pitches.

The young man had nothing to say. He smoked innumerable cigarettes and huddled down in his seat. Hashknife suffered in silence, while Sleepy whistled unmusically between his teeth and cursed the driver.

“He’s hit every rock so far,” he told Hashknife. “I’ll bet yuh even money that this damned equipage don’t hold together to reach Pinnacle.”

Sleepy turned to the young man. “Have you ever been over this road, pardner?”

The young man removed his cigarette. “No,” he said.

“Think you’ll ever go agin’?”

“Maybe.”

Sleepy laughed and stretched out his legs. “You won’t never get hung for talkin’ too much.”

“What do you mean?” asked the stranger coldly.

“Oh, hell!”

Sleepy shifted his seat and rolled a cigarette. Hashknife forgot his pains long enough to laugh. Thereafter all conversation ceased, except from the driver. Stretches of smooth road lulled the passengers to sleep, only to shock them back with lurching bumps that even drew profanity from the lips of the driver.

About twenty-five miles of the journey had been completed. The road wound down the side of a mountain, twisting around the heads of deep, heavily timbered draws and out onto moonlit points, where far below stretched the haze of Hawk Hole. Here the roadbed was more smooth and the passengers dozed.

Suddenly the driver swore viciously, shoved on the brake until the rear wheels almost skidded off the grade. Sleepy was flung off his seat, and he fell across Hashknife’s lap, colliding with the stranger.

For several moments they were confused, dazed; and when they turned to the open windows of the stage, they looked into the muzzles of two shotguns, which were plainly defined in the moonlight.

“Stay jist like yuh are,” ordered a clear voice. “We can see yuh plenty plain, gents.”

The holdup men had their backs to the moon, which flung its rays into the stage, and Sleepy knew that a motion toward his holster would invite one or both of those shotguns to send a wicked shower of lead into them.

“Lift up yore hands,” ordered the voice again, and all three men complied. “Now git out of there, one at a time.”

Sleepy came out first and lined up against the side of the stage, while behind him came the stranger. Sleepy’s holster had twisted behind him. It was difficult for Hashknife to get out, and the men swore at him for his slowness.

“He’s got rheumatism, dang yuh!” snorted Sleepy.

“Excuse me,” laughed one of the men. “Now line up.”

One other man was helping himself to the strongbox, while the driver sat stolidly in his seat, arms reaching toward the sky. He yanked the strongbox out across the front wheel and let it fall into the dirt.

The man who had handled the box was carrying a revolver in one hand, and now he came back to those who were watching the passengers. The men were all masked. The man with the revolver looked at the passengers closely.

Suddenly, and with apparently no reason, he threw up his revolver and fired point-blank at the stranger. The action was so sudden, so uncalled for, that Hashknife and Sleepy instinctively ducked.

“Stand still, damn yuh!” roared one of the shotgun men.

The stranger went to his knees, groped blindly for a moment, and sprawled on his face.

For several moments not a sound was heard. Then the man who fired the shot shoved his gun back into his holster.

“The damn fool reached for a gun,” he said slowly. “Shove the rest of ’em back into the stage.”

Hashknife turned and climbed back inside, while one man picked up the strongbox and walked around the team. Sleepy got inside, menaced by those two guns, and sat down. The two men turned and started around the team, while Sleepy swore softly, swung his belt around, and jerked out his gun.

“Take it easy, pardner,” cautioned Hashknife. “They never hurt us.”

“They killed that poor devil,” replied Sleepy angrily. “He never tried to pull a gun, Hashknife.”

Sleepy stepped outside, gun in hand, but the men had disappeared. The driver was starting to get down.

“Held up, I’m a son of a gun!” he snorted, as he almost fell off the hub.

Sleepy knelt down and examined the stranger. He was breathing heavily, painfully, and was unconscious.

“Well, he ain’t dead,” declared Sleepy. “How far is it to town, driver?”

“’Bout five-six mile. I’m never held up before, I’m a son of a gun!”

“Put him in here,” ordered Hashknife.

Sleepy and the driver lifted the wounded man inside and eased him into a seat. He was as limp as a rag, so Sleepy sat beside him, holding him upright.

“Drive as fast as yuh can,” ordered Hashknife. “This man needs a doctor right now.”

“You bet you,” agreed the driver. “I’ll go like hell.”

He was as good as his word. Hashknife and Sleepy were not at all faint-hearted, but that driver brought prayers to their lips before the running team reached the bottom of Hawk Hole. In fact he had caused Hashknife to forget his rheumatism.

“How are yuh standin’ it, Hashknife?” asked Sleepy.

“He either scared or bumped it all out of me,” replied Hashknife.

“I’ll betcha. There’s some things that even rheumatism won’t stand for, I reckon. We ought to be close to town. That driver said five or six miles, and we fell that far.”

In a few minutes they drove into the sleeping town of Pinnacle and stopped in front of a stage station. Daylight was flooding the hill now. A sleepy-eyed individual opened the door of the stage office and came out to them. Across the street glowed the dim light of an oil lamp over a poker game.

Somewhere a cheap phonograph screeched a tune, following a squeaky announcement that it was being sung by So-and-So, for the So-and-So “Phonograph Cuc-cuc-company of New Yar-r-r-k and Par-Par-Paris.”

It did not take the excited driver long to blurt out the fact that he had been held up, robbed of the strongbox, and that he had a dying man inside the stage. The sleepy-eyed one snapped into life. He turned around twice, evidently undecided just what to do—and did nothing.

“Yore best bet is to take this feller to a doctor,” declared Hashknife.

“That’s right,” agreed the sleepy-eyed one. “Doc Henry lives jist outside town, Pete. He ain’t such a damn good doctor, I don’t suppose, but he’s all we’ve got. Say, the sheriff is here, I think. Anyway, he was here last night, and mebbe he’s over there in that poker game right now. Lemme look.”

He ran across the street into a saloon, and was back in a minute, followed by a short, heavy man, who questioned the driver regarding the affair.

“Is the man still alive?” he asked.

“He won’t be, if yuh don’t quit yappin’ and get him to a doctor,” declared Sleepy.

The sheriff came closer and peered into the stage. He was a serious-looking person, round eyed and with a heavy mustache. After a short inspection he nodded and turned to the driver.

“Take him to the doctor, Pete.”

“You go along, Sheriff?” asked the driver.

“No, I can’t. I’m right in a big pot. See yuh later.”

He turned and hurried back across the street, while the stage went on down to the doctor’s home.

Doctor Henry answered their knock, arrayed in a nightgown and a blanket, and told them to bring the man into the house.

An examination showed that the young man had been shot through the left shoulder, and that the bullet was still in him. He had lost considerable blood, but the doctor assured them that the wound was not necessarily fatal.

“I don’t know him,” replied the driver, in answer to the doctor’s questions. “He ride from Caliente. He say somet’ing ’bout San Francisco. He don’t talk much. Maybe somebody know him here.”

They left the doctor and went back. Pinnacle was beginning to wake up now. The driver let Hashknife and Sleepy have space in the stable for their horses, and offered them a bed at the rear of the stage office.

“That damned hotel no good,” he told them. “Too much bug. You have good bed in my place—cost not’ing.”

They thanked him kindly and accepted his offer. Hashknife’s rheumatism was less painful now; and while Pinnacle awoke to the fact that the stage had been robbed and a man shot, Hashknife and Sleepy burrowed down in a fairly good bed and forgot that such things as wounded men and stage robbers ever existed.

CHAPTER II
BIG MEDICINE HAWKWORTH

And at about the same time a cowboy had brought a message to Big Medicine Hawkworth. He was one of Hawkworth’s men, a thin, wry-necked cowboy, with badly bowed legs and bat ears.

The living-room of Hawkworth’s home was almost a hovel. The ceilings sagged badly and every board in the bare floor creaked in a different key. One or two faded pictures hung askew on the walls, and in the center of the ceiling hung an old oil-burning chandelier with a cracked chimney and a badly bent reflector.

Near the center of the room, huddled in a striped blanket, sat Big Medicine Hawkworth, a veritable giant in stature, but as lean as a wolf. His big, bony head was covered with a huge mop of yellowish-white hair, which flared out from his ears, reaching to his cheekbones, and giving him the appearance of wearing crumpled horns.

His forehead was broad and high, his eyes set far apart and hidden beneath heavy brows. The nostrils of his finely chiseled nose flared out above a wide, heavy mouth, which sagged just enough to show a glimpse of heavy teeth. The lower jaw was firm, and perhaps a trifle belligerent.

Just now he humped in his chair, as if asleep, his huge hands gripping slightly at the blanket at his knees. The cowboy who had brought the message squatted on his heels beside the door, slowly rolling a cigarette.

A big black cat, its eyes glistening in the rays from the lamp, came in past the squatting cowboy, shrank quickly away from his reaching hand, darted across the room, and sprang onto the table near Big Medicine.

The stairs creaked noisily as another cowboy came down into the hall, carrying his boots. He was a stolid-faced, pudgy-looking person. His socks were not mates, and one of them was minus the whole toe. He peered into the sitting-room, nodded at the squatting cowboy.

Against the wall, beyond Big Medicine, was a cheap phonograph. The bootless cowboy deposited his boots in the hall, crossed the room over the protesting boards, and squatted down to put on a record.

Big Medicine did not look up. He knew that “Musical” Matthews had come down the stairs, and was going to play something on the phonograph before breakfast. He had been doing the same thing before breakfast for five years.

From the kitchen came breakfast odors, the rattle of dishes, the unmistakable rattle of stove lids. From somewhere outside the house came the sound of a man’s voice raised in song:

I’ll saddle my pony and feed him some ha-a-a-ay;
And I’ll buy me a bottle to drink on the wa-a-ay.

Big Medicine lifted his head slightly, as the phonograph scratched and spluttered the opening of “The Holy City.” He had heard it every morning for five years—or one just like it. It was Musical Matthews’ favorite.

In fact it was the only one Musical Matthews played. He sat entranced until the last notes of the singer faded out in a splutter, like someone frying eggs in a hot pan. Then he got up, crossed the creaking floor to his boots, which he drew on slowly, and went out to the wash bench, where the other singer was washing his face and hands.

Big Medicine lifted his head and looked at the cowboy squatting at the door.

“The stage was held up, was it? And a man shot?”

“That’s what I heard,” replied the cowboy. “The sheriff came back to the poker game and told us. He didn’t know how much they got, nor he didn’t know how bad hurt this man was.”

Big Medicine nodded slowly and shifted his hands.

“And these two strange men, Ike. What did they look like?”

“I didn’t see ’em close, boss. One was tall and kinda limped; the other wasn’t so tall.”

“All right, Ike.”

The cowboy uncoiled and clumped outside. Big Medicine took a crumpled letter from inside his blanket and looked at it. The cowboy had brought it from Pinnacle. He seemed interested in a few lines, which read:

I am sending you the $20,000 by express, in a plain package. The valuation is just enough to have it carried in their safe, but not enough to tempt anyone to steal it.

Big Medicine put the paper back into his shirt and closed his eyes again. The black cat seemed to ooze off the table onto his lap, and one of his big hands caressed its head. A door creaked open and an Indian woman came softly down the hall to the living-room door.

She was a big woman, past middle age, with the stolid features of her race. Her calico dress was ill-fitting, but clean. Big Medicine lifted his head and looked at her for a long time before he said:

“Somebody held up stage last night, Lucy.” The squaw merely stared at him unmoved.

“My money was on that stage,” he told her. “It was much money—all we had. I was goin’ to buy half of the Yellow King Mine with that money.”

“From Jim Reed?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“No good. Jim Reed bad. You lose just same. Come and eat.”

Big Medicine squinted at her for several moments before getting to his feet. He was so tall that he had to stoop under the hanging lamp.

“Lucy,” he said, “there are times when I thank the good God that I have you instead of a white woman. You never complain, never nag; trust me implicitly, believe in your dumb way that what I do is best. By the gods, there are times when I thoroughly appreciate you, Lucy.”

“Sometime—not so much,” she said slowly.

Big Medicine reached up and turned down the big lamp, before following her out into the hall and down to the dining-room, which was a kitchen and dining-room combined.

A girl was standing at the stove, baking hot cakes, while Ike Marsh, Musical Matthews, and Cleve Davis, the singing cowpuncher, sat at the table, eating.

Big Medicine sat down at the head of the table, still wearing his blanket, and the girl came to him, carrying a platter heaped with steaming cakes. She was unmistakably a half-breed girl, but almost as white as Big Medicine; a tall, lithe, big-eyed girl, of about eighteen, with a long braid of raven hair thrown carelessly across one shoulder.

She was the daughter of Big Medicine and Lucy; half-English, half Nez Percé. Big Medicine had brought his squaw from the Northwest, and they had named the girl Kwann, which, in the trade language of the Northwest, means Glad. But she was known to everyone of Hawk Hole as Wanna.

Big Medicine did not realize that Wanna had suddenly grown from a gangling little girl to a handsome young lady; but Lucy knew it. She could tell it in the admiring glances of the cowboys when she and Wanna went to Pinnacle to trade; she could read it in the sidewise glances of Big Medicine’s own cowboys, and from the fact that they were always ready to bring wood or water for the kitchen.

“I seen Torres in Pinnacle last night,” offered Ike Marsh, his mouth filled with food. “Him and Luis Garcia comes into the Greenback Saloon.”

Big Medicine’s brows lifted slightly, but he did not comment on the appearance of two men he had ordered out of the country. Pedro Torres, or “Pete,” as he was better known, was an unprincipled rascal, flashy dresser, handsome in a way, and too clever ever to make an honest living.

Luis Garcia was Pete’s shadow; a low-caste, half-Mexican, half-Apache.

“I seen Jim Reed, too.” Ike was willing to pass out all the information he had, regardless of its interest. “Jim had a drink with Torres.”

“And how much did you lose?” asked Musical.

“Not a dern cent. I was in seventeen dollars and I cashed in seventy-three dollars and four bits.”

“‘Faro’ Lannin’ must be gittin’ easy,” grinned Cleve. “He never let me win that much.”

“Faro wasn’t playin’. ‘Arkansas’ Jones was runnin’ the game.”

Big Medicine looked up from eating, his deep-set eyes speculative.

“One of you boys go to Pinnacle and see how bad that feller was hurt,” he ordered. “The other two of yuh take a swing back toward the Devil’s Corral and look around.”

The Devil’s Corral was Big Medicine’s appellation for the wire fence which indicated the boundary line between Mexico and the United States. Big Medicine had no use for a Mexican, and the brown men on the opposite side of the line reciprocated, as far as Big Medicine was concerned.

“I’ll go to town,” said Ike, shoving back from the table.

“Sure yuh would,” grinned Musical. “That seventy-three dollars is burnin’ a hole in yore pocket.”

“Nawsir!” Ike shook his head violently. “Lot of that is goin’ into a new saddle—mebbe all of it. If I play a-tall, it’ll be jist to see if I can’t win enough to add a new pair of chaps, thassall.”

“Kiss yore money good-bye,” laughed Cleve. “It’s fellers like you that buy diamonds for fellers like Faro Lannin’. C’mon, Musical.”

They went outside, rattling their spurred heels on the rough boards. Lucy sat down at the table.

“Me and Wanna go to town bimeby,” she said. “Grocery most all gone. You want somethin’?”

Big Medicine shook his head and got up from the table. Wanna came from the stove and gave her mother a cup of coffee. Then she left the room. Big Medicine looked after her, a quizzical expression in his eyes. He turned to see Lucy looking after Wanna.

“Wanna is gettin’ to be a big girl,” he said slowly.

Lucy looked up at him.

“Yeah—woman now.”

“Eighteen,” said Big Medicine softly. “Eighteen years old. She’s pretty.”

“She’s half-breed, Big Medicine.”

The big man turned his head slowly and looked toward the door where Wanna had made her exit.

“Half-breed,” he muttered.

The squaw made a sucking noise as she drank coffee from her saucer.

“She marry greaser, Mexican, bad hombre some kind,” said the squaw slowly.

There was no bitterness in her voice, but Big Medicine knew what was in her heart.

“Mebbe not, Lucy,” he said. “Wanna is good girl.”

“Mebbe not?” Lucy lowered her saucer and stared up at him. “You say that? Will a crow try to mate with an eagle, Big Medicine?”

He shifted his eyes from her face and looked away. She was but quoting his own words, words which had been spoken years before. But the squaw had not forgotten them.

“If the crow thinks he is an eagle,” he said softly.

“Wanna knows.”

Lucy got up from the table and began clearing away the dishes. Big Medicine watched her, leaning one big hand on the table. His blanket had fallen from his massive shoulders, exposing a torso that would have been a credit to any professional athlete. Perhaps age had slowed those rope-like muscles, but it had sapped little of their strength.

After a few moments he replaced his blanket and turned to the doorway.

“Wanna knows,” repeated Lucy, as if to herself. “But she is only a squaw. Squaw don’t count.”

She did not look at Big Medicine, but busied herself at the stove. For several moments he looked at her, and seemed about to speak, but changed his mind. His blanketed shoulders shrugged slightly, as he turned, ducked his head and went back into the living-room, where the loose boards creaked under his heavy tread, and the rocking chair squeaked a protest when he sat down.

CHAPTER III
TORRES TAKES A BATH

It was about noon when Hashknife and Sleepy awoke. Hashknife had slept well for the first time in several nights, but was still crippled. They dressed and went into the street. The stagedriver, Olsen, had slept in the same room with them, but had managed to dress without awakening them.

There was nothing pretentious about Pinnacle. In fact there was little excuse for its existence, except as an outfitting point for the Greenhorn Mines. The buildings were mostly of adobe, and none of them more than one story.

On the west side of the street were a blacksmith shop, stage station, post-office, two saloons, and a restaurant, while on the opposite side were two saloons, two stores, a hotel, and an assay office.

One of these saloons was the Greenback, which boasted a full assortment of gambling paraphernalia, a small dance-hall, and enough “girls” to make things interesting for the lonely miners or cowpunchers.

There were no sidewalks in Pinnacle. The more pretentious of the buildings had porches or wooden awnings, supported by rough posts, and practically every building had a long hitch-rack in front, making almost a continual railing on each side of the street.

Hashknife and Sleepy found the sheriff, Lon Pelley, in the one café, and he made room for them at his table, after introducing himself. Their names meant nothing to the sheriff, who asked them for an account of the holdup and shooting. He had already had a talk with the stagedriver.

“Got any idea who this young feller is?” asked Hashknife, after he had told what they knew about it.

The sheriff shook his head quickly.

“I dunno who he is. The doctor says he’s goin’ to live. He’s conscious now.”

“How much of a haul did they make, Sheriff?”

“Dunno that either. The way bills of the express company were in the treasure box, so they got the whole works. I don’t reckon anybody’ll know until the express company checks up on it.”

“What gits me,” observed Sleepy, “is why they shot that young feller. He didn’t reach for no gun.”

“Didn’t, eh?”

“Hell, no! His hands were still in the air when he fell. It was a dirty deal, I tell yuh.”

“Don’t tell,” cautioned the sheriff. “Pinnacle is a place where folks with soft voices live longer than yelpers. No offense, my friend—just be cautious; sabe?”

“Thanks,” grunted Sleepy, and attacked his ham and eggs.

“This ain’t the county seat, is it?” asked Hashknife.

“This place?” The sheriff grinned. “Caliente is the county seat. Me and my deputy been back in the Greenhorn country on a case. Don’t get in here very often. Pinnacle ain’t favorable to sheriffs.”

A man came in and looked owlishly around. He was as tall as Hashknife, with a long, thin face, wispy mustache, which grew heavier on one side than the other, faded blond hair, and a nose that had been, at some time, knocked slightly out of plumb with the rest of his features.

He goggled at the sheriff, grinned widely, and pointed at him with a shaking finger.

“There y’are, li’l angel,” he gurgled. “Hol’ still, now.”

He came slowly across the room and almost fell over the table in seating himself. The sheriff grunted disgustedly, and it irritated the tall one.

“Ain’t I good enough t’ set here?” he asked indignantly. “Whazza matter ’ith me, I’d crave t’ know. Yesshir, I’d crave a li’l information, tha’s what I’d crave.”

“Yo’re goin’ to crave a punch in the nose, if yuh don’t sober up,” declared the sheriff.

“Thasso?”

The tall one looked drunkenly at Hashknife and Sleepy. Satisfied with his inspection he turned back to the sheriff.

“My God, Lonnie, yuh wouldn’t jump on to me, wouldja?” he asked tearfully. “I’m one of yore mos’ val’able friends. I’d do anythin’ for you, Lonnie—you sawed-off, bat-eared, bug-headed cross between a—Lonnie, I like you, and yore cruel words cuts me to the quick, that’s what they do.”

“Yeah, I’ll betcha.”

The sheriff turned and introduced his deputy, “Cloudy” Day, to Hashknife and Sleepy.

“He ain’t worth a damn to me,” declared the sheriff. “I dunno how I stand for him. He keeps sober in Caliente, ’cause he’s got a wife that whales hell out of him for drinkin’; but when he gits up here he forgets her.”

“Noshir.” Cloudy shook his head. “Ain’t true. I defy myshelf to get that drunk, and I ain’t curshed with a big mem’ry. My wife is a shister of our estimable sheriff, and”—Cloudy grinned widely—“if he didn’t give me a job, he’d have to board both of us; so he makes me earn m’ keep.”

“Lot of truth in that, too,” agreed the sheriff.

They left Cloudy trying to decide what to eat, and went to the Greenback Saloon. A few miners had come in from the camp at Greenhorn and were trying to beat one of the roulette wheels, but outside of that there was little going on there.

Ike Marsh was at the bar, talking to Faro Lanning, the owner of the Greenback. Lanning was a typical gambler, even to the waxed black mustache and the diamond horseshoe in his shirt bosom. He nodded to the sheriff, gave Hashknife and Sleepy a sharp glance, and turned back to the bar.

After the trio passed, he turned again and looked quizzically at Hashknife’s limping gait. Further back in the room, Torres and Garcia sat at a little table, Garcia asleep, while Torres perused a Mexican newspaper. At sight of Hashknife and Sleepy, Torres tapped Garcia on the ankle with the toe of his polished boot, and the half-breed looked quickly around.

The sheriff wandered over to the roulette wheel, while Hashknife and Sleepy sat down at a table. A man came in from the rear, and passed them on his way to the bar; a portly, well-dressed Chinaman. He gave them a keen glance, as he passed, and went to the bar.

“No pokah today, Faro?” he asked, smiling broadly.

“Hello, Lee.”

Faro removed his cigar and motioned the Chinaman to have a drink with him.

“No poker,” he replied. “Nobody wants to play, I guess.”

Torres and Garcia left their table and came past the bar, heading for the front door.

“Want to play pokah, Torres?” asked the Chinaman.

“Not today,” said the Mexican with hardly an accent. “Little too early, anyway. Later, perhaps.”

They went on outside, and Faro and the Chinaman turned back to their drinks.

“What do yuh think of this place?” asked Sleepy.

“Kinda peculiar,” smiled Hashknife softly. “Them two at the bar are wonderin’ who we are, and that flashy-lookin’ Mexican woke his pardner up to take a look at us.

“I’ve got a hunch that a Sunday School wouldn’t do very much business in Pinnacle, Sleepy; but that ain’t none of our business. I reckon we’ll saddle up and hunt for them hot springs pretty soon. That stagedriver scared a lot of rheumatism out of me last night, but most of it’s comin’ back.”

The sheriff left the roulette game and came back to them.

“Do you know where the hot springs are?” asked Sleepy.

“Hot springs? You mean the ones out at the Hawkworth ranch?”

“That’s the ones.”

“Yeah, I can tell yuh how to get there. It’s only two miles. Do you know Big Medicine Hawkworth?”

“Never heard of him until last night,” replied Hashknife. “They tell us the water is good for rheumatism.”

“Yeah? Well, I suppose it is. Big Medicine is a queer sort of a jigger. He don’t hardly leave the ranch. Ain’t been out of Hawk Hole for twenty-five years, they tell me. Mebbe he’ll let yuh bathe in his hot water, and mebbe he won’t.

“He owns most of Hawk Hole, yuh see. Owns about all the water, and nobody can range cattle here, except him. Had kind of a little kingdom of his own, until the Greenhorn Mines opened up and made an excuse for this town.

“Some of the boys say that the Hawkworth ranch is haunted. The old house creaks all over, and there’s black cats by the dozen, so they tell me. I dunno anythin’ about it. I do know that he’s got three cowpunchers that’ll fight anythin’. That was one of ’em at the bar when we come in. Name’s Ike Marsh.”

“Ain’t there any other cattle ranches in here?” asked Hashknife.

“Not in the Hole. East of here is the K-10 outfit. They’re runnin’ cattle in the hills. ‘Baldy’ Kern owns it. Baldy has six punchers with his outfit, and they ain’t shrinkin’ vi’lets, but he keeps his stock out of the Hole. Hawkworth don’t seem to be tryin’ to get rich. Ever’ so often he runs a few head of stock out to Caliente, sells ’em to a buyer there, and that’s all.

“I reckon he’s satisfied to set at home and kinda let the world alone. ’Tsall right, if yuh like it thataway. Ho hum-m-m-m”—he yawned widely—“I reckon I’ll find Cloudy and start for home. Long ways to Caliente. If yuh want to go to Hawkworth’s ranch, ride out the same way yuh came in last night. About a quarter of a mile out of town, take the road to the left.”

The sheriff drifted away, and Hashknife and Sleepy went outside. An old, dilapidated buckboard, drawn by two gray horses, came into the street and drew up in front of a store. In it were Lucy and Wanna. Torres and Garcia were just coming out of the store as they drove up to the hitch-rack, and Torres hurried out to tie the horses for them.

Hashknife and Sleepy sauntered down the street, passing the hitch-rack and getting their first glance at the feminine members of the Hawkworth household. Hashknife looked sharply at the older woman. He was familiar with the tribes of the Northwest, and it seemed homelike to see a familiar face again.

Torres was talking to Wanna, who turned away from him and looked at Hashknife. He had seen many half-breed girls, but none so pretty as Wanna Hawkworth. Lucy spoke sharply to the girl and started for the store; but Torres laughed and tried to detain Wanna.

“Let her go,” said Torres not unpleasantly. “It’s been a long time since I had a chance to talk to you, Wanna.”

“You no talk now,” said Lucy flatly. “Come, Wanna.” The girl started to walk around Torres, but the Mexican again blocked her. He seemed so persistent in forcing his attentions upon her that Hashknife stopped and walked toward them. The girl looked at Hashknife, who limped up within a few feet of Torres.

Garcia had halted near the end of the hitch-rack, rolling a cigarette, and evidently enjoying the scene—until Sleepy moved in beside him, resting one arm on the top pole of the rack and squinting into the half-breed Apache’s face.

Torres turned his head and looked at Hashknife, and as he did so, Wanna stepped past him and hurried to join her mother. Torres’ face flushed slightly, and his eyes narrowed.

“I just wondered,” said Hashknife slowly, half-apologetically, “if you had a match, pardner.”

Torres’ hand went to his pocket, but came away empty. He realized that Hashknife did not want a match. He turned his head and looked at Garcia, who was scowling at Sleepy.

“You want a match, eh?” said Torres slowly. “My friend, I am very sorry, but I have none.”

“Thassall right,” said Hashknife. “Much obliged just the same.”

He walked past Torres and went into the store, followed by Sleepy, who was grinning widely. Torres scowled heavily and looked at Garcia.

“Who are these men?” demanded Torres in Spanish.

“How should I know?” replied Garcia heavily. “I did not speak to the pig who grins only with his mouth.”

“They are strangers here,” mused Torres. “Last night they came on the stage.”

“This morning,” corrected Garcia. “They were talking with the sheriff, who is also a fool.”

“A fool is one who thinks that others do not have brains,” rebuked Torres. “A wise man overrates his opponent.”

This was a trifle beyond the mentality of Garcia, but he nodded violently, being of an agreeable disposition.

Hashknife and Sleepy went into the general store, where Lucy and Wanna were at a counter buying groceries. The girl glanced sharply at them, but the old squaw gazed upon them frankly. She realized that they had saved Wanna from an embarrassing situation, and she was grateful.

“Klahowya,” said Hashknife, smiling.

The old squaw opened her mouth twice before she replied with the same word. It was the universal greeting used by both whites and Indians where she had been raised, and it had been many years since she had heard it spoken.

For several moments she seemed deep in thought Then—

“Mah-sie,” she said softly.

It had been difficult for her to remember “Thank you” in that language.

Hashknife smiled and shook his head. Wanna was staring at him now. She did not understand the language. Hashknife and Sleepy purchased some tobacco and left the store, going over to the stage stable, where their horses had been put up.

“You made a hit with the old squaw,” grinned Sleepy. “By golly, she sure grinned a heap. But, honest to grandma, didja ever see a prettier half-breed girl, Hashknife?”

“For once in my life, I’ve got to agree with yuh,” grinned Hashknife. “She’s pretty. It seems kinda funny to see a klooch from the Northwest down in this country. She’s as far away from home as we are, and she’s been away a long time, too. It took her a long time to remember the jargon. I reckon she’s a Nez Percé or a Nespelem. Mebbe Flathead.”

“Somethin’ like that,” agreed Sleepy as they saddled. “Anyway, that tenas kloochman shore is pretty. A reg’lar Minnehaha Laughin’ Water.”

Hashknife turned from fastening a latigo and squinted at his partner.

“Aw, I know my loop’s draggin’,” grinned Sleepy. “Yuh don’t need to chide me, tall feller. Dang yuh, can’t I admire beauty if I want to? I’ve got eyes and a heart.”

“Yeah,” drawled Hashknife. “When they passed around eyes and hearts yuh robbed the platter, but when the brains came you was all filled up. Git yore thoughts off beauty and kinda concentrate on my rheumatism. That’s what we came here for.”

“That’s right, Hashknife. We’ve got to get you cured up, even if the pretty girls do show up to take my mind off yore aches.”

They led their horses back to the street through the alley between the stage station and the post-office. Torres was standing between them and the door of the post-office, looking intently at the door. He did not hear the two men and horses come out of the alley.

Three riders were coming in from the east, their horses drifting along slowly. Then the post-office door opened and Wanna came out, followed closely by Lucy. With an exaggerated bow, Torres swept off his sombrero. Lucy grasped Wanna by the arm, as if to turn her in the opposite direction, but Torres stepped in quickly and spoke to them.

His attitude was entirely apologetic, but his words were probably not, judging from the expression on the old squaw’s face. Hashknife dropped his reins, and in three long strides had reached Torres. His right hand caught the slack seat of Torres’ trousers, while his left twisted into the gorgeous silk muffler.

Torres ripped out an expressive Spanish oath, as his hands tried to draw a weapon, but Hashknife swung him aloft, whirled on his heels and fairly ran to the blacksmith shop, a short distance away, where the worthy smith was fitting shoes on a bad horse, and dumped the luckless Mexican headfirst into a very dirty slack tub.

This tub was made from a half-barrel, and was nearly full of inky water. The three riders whirled their horses up to the front of the shop and fairly fell out of their saddles. Sleepy had dropped the two sets of reins and was at the door of the shop ahead of the three men, as if to stop them from any interference.

The immersion of Torres seemed of great satisfaction to the blacksmith, whose buffalo-horn-like mustaches jiggled convulsively in a paroxysm of silent mirth. Hashknife knew just about how long a human being might safely be immersed; so he kept Torres under for the full limit, while the three riders, blocked from an entrance by Sleepy, who was willing to forego the pleasure of watching the ducking to prevent interference, grinned widely.

Torres was far from being gaudy when Hashknife drew him out, half-drowned, and sat him against the forge to recover. Several other men, attracted by those at the entrance, came to see what was going on. Faro Lanning was one of these.

Torres’ chin, which dripped dirty water and iron particles, was buried in the bosom of a once-ornate silk shirt, but now a dirty brown, as he wheezed audibly to draw air into his lungs. He was far from dead, but too watersoaked to care what went on around him.

Hashknife walked back to the door. The three riders looked him over critically, but said nothing.

“What was the matter?” asked Lanning, jerking his thumb in the general direction of Torres.

Hashknife squinted thoughtfully at Torres and back at Lanning.

“He forgot, I reckon.”

“Forgot what?”

“Forgot that I asked him for a match.”

Lanning scowled after Hashknife and Sleepy, who were heading for their horses, and turned to the three men who had ridden in.

“Do you know what it was all about?” he asked.

“No-o-o,” drawled one of the men. “We didn’t see that anythin’ was wrong, until this tall puncher had Torres in both hands and was packin’ him like a flag. He shore is deliberate, that feller. Haw, haw, haw, haw!”

Torres managed to get back to his feet and was clinging to the anvil. His eyes were red from the dirty water, and he was altogether mad, but his lips shut firmly as he looked at the crowd in front of the wide doorway.

“Kinda looks like it was goin’ to be a wet season,” remarked the smaller of the three cowboys humorously.

He was a thin-faced, sallow-looking person, and as he removed his big hat to wipe the perspiration from the sweatband, he exposed a head which was totally bald. The sallow skin of his head seemed to be stretched so tightly over his skull that it wrinkled slightly in the back of his neck, and there was a red circle around it, marking the line of his hat.

Taking him all in all, “Baldy” Kern was not a beautiful object. His teeth were bad, his boots bulged from bunions, and he did not conceal the fact that the law was something that concerned him not.

The other two cowboys laughed raucously at his witticism. Perhaps they were amused; perhaps they laughed because Baldy Kern had laughed. At any rate, Torres’ eyes flashed angrily as he lurched past them and out into the street, where he stopped and looked around, looking for the man who had almost drowned him.

Both Hashknife and Sleepy were already heading for the Hawkworth ranch, and the two men were just driving away from the hitch-rack farther up the street and across. Torres flapped his wet arms dismally and went stumbling across toward the Greenback Saloon.

“Who are them two strange punchers?” asked Kern.

Lanning did not know any more than Kern did, but he said: “I dunno. They spent a lot of time with the sheriff, if that means anything to you, Kern.”

After delivering this veiled information, Lanning went back up the street, leaving Kern to think it over.

“Didja hear about the holdup last night?” asked the blacksmith.

Kern looked up quickly. “What holdup?”

“Stage. Three men stuck her up back on the grades and swiped the treasure box. They shot a feller, too, a passenger. Didn’t kill him.”

“Who is he?” asked Kern.

“I dunno, Baldy. Stranger around here. Them two punchers was on the stage. Wounded man is down at the doctor’s house.”

Kern squinted thoughtfully over this information.

Then——

“How much of a haul did they git?”

“I dunno.”

It seemed a stock phrase with the blacksmith.

“Who was drivin’ the stage—Olsen?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did they shoot this stranger?”

“I dunno. Somebody said he went for his gun, but one of them punchers said it was a lie, that his hands were still in the air when he went down.”

“Kinda queer,” said Kern thoughtfully.

He shrugged his thin shoulders and went back to his horse. They crossed to the Greenback Saloon hitch-rack, and the blacksmith went back to work, grinning to himself. He did not like Torres.

Sleepy wore a wide grin as they rode away from Pinnacle, but Hashknife’s face was serious. The incident had not seemed as humorous to him as it had to Sleepy.

“I ain’t laughin’ at that gaudy Mexican’s bath,” explained Sleepy. “I’m grinnin’ to think that you even forgot to limp.”

“Eh?” Hashknife looked up quickly and a grin twisted his lips. “By golly, that’s right, Sleepy. I plumb forgot to limp. And that only goes to show that most of these diseases are all in yore head. I was plumb lame until I seen that feller tryin’ to talk to the women, and then I forgot all about it. Right now it’s commencin’ to hurt me, ’cause I’m thinkin’ about it.”

“You sure gave that Mexican a coolin’-off, cowboy. He jist sizzled. I didn’t see it all, ’cause them three fellers rode up kinda fast, and I thought mebbe they was goin’ to try and stop yuh. I dunno why it is”—Sleepy’s tone changed and he became mournful—“it seems like when there’s any heroin’ to be done I have to hold the horses.”

Hashknife laughed, as he sifted a cigarette paper full of Durham.

“I wasn’t tryin’ to be a hero, Sleepy.”

“You don’t have to try”—mournfully—“it jist comes kinda natural for you to do things like that. If I had tried it, I’d probably stubbed my toe before I got to him. Mebbe I’d ’a’ got a few inches of steel in my anatomy and had to kill him.”

“Mebbe I’ll get a few inches of his steel yet,” mused Hashknife. “He don’t look like a feller that would take a baptisin’ in a slack tub and jist grin.”

“Mebbe yuh will, tall feller. Life’s a queer thing, ain’t it? Here we come into this country to try and soak out a case of rheumatism; jist a harmless occupation. The first thing we do is to run into a holdup and a shootin’ scrape.”

“Well, that’s all right, Sleepy.”

“No, it ain’t.” Sleepy spoke with conviction. “It ain’t noways all right. I can see yore nose twitchin’ and yore ears hang down like the ears of a pointer dog or a bloodhound. It ain’t all right, I tell yuh. It ain’t none of our business.”

“Well,” laughed Hashknife, “what about it?”

Sleepy sighed and shifted himself.

“What about it? Hashknife, you know danged well what about it. Ever since I can remember, me and you have been gettin’ off to just this kind of a start. Trouble hunts us, I tell yuh.”

“And you shake hands with it like it was a long-lost brother,” grinned Hashknife. “If yo’re born to be hung, you’ll never choke to death on a fishbone, Sleepy.”

“All right,” nodded Sleepy. “Just the same, I wish we wasn’t here. Mebbe we can get the aches soaked out of you before they start heavin’ lead at us. We don’t sabe these folks down here. Likely got a lot of smart gunmen, too.”

“Well, old pessimist, we won’t even stop at the Hawkworth ranch,” decided Hashknife seriously. “If yo’re so scared of trouble, we’ll go right on. My rheumatism is a lot better, yuh know.”

“No, we won’t. We’re goin’ to get yuh fixed up, if we have to throw lead at every man in Hawk Hole. Just what do yuh reckon is wrong around here?”

Hashknife grinned under the shade of his wide sombrero and shook his head. He knew that Sleepy was not afraid of anything, and that he merely wanted an alibi to point back to, in case they got into serious trouble.

But Sleepy was right when he said that wherever they went trouble followed them. It seemed that Fate sent them from range to range to straighten out trouble. Time after time they brought peace to troubled cattle land, but they did not stay to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Something urged them to go on and on, always looking for the other side of the hill, and on the other side of the hill they found more trouble.

And in spite of the fact that they deplored their calling, both of them enjoyed it. They would not stay and enjoy the peace which they had brought. Always they rode on, looking for a place to settle down, where they might buy a little cattle outfit and live out their lives in peace; the end of the rainbow, which never would be found.

They were top-hand cowboys in every respect; gunmen, if you please, although neither of them could split a second on the draw, nor hit a dollar at forty paces. In fact they deplored their slowness with a gun, and assured each other that some day they would meet a regular gunman who would make them wish they had never worn a weapon.

It was Hashknife’s brain that worked out their problems. He was able to see details that an ordinary man would miss, and he had an uncanny way of piecing things together until he was able to weave a net around a criminal that nothing could break.

Sleepy’s mind did not travel fast enough to keep up with Hashknife, but he had an instinct that told him when to be ready for trouble to break; so between the two they had come practically unscathed from many a gun battle, where the souls of men had gone to their Maker with the reek of powder smoke on them.

All these things had made them fatalists, and to believe as Hashknife had said: “If yo’re born to be hung, you’ll never choke to death on a fishbone, Sleepy.”

This was their belief, ingrained from many incidents, which proved their point—to them, at least.

CHAPTER IV
SO DOES HASHKNIFE

Hawkworth’s Tumbling H ranch buildings were not much to look at. They were situated at the mouth of a cañon, which gave them a fair view of the broad expanse of Hawk Hole, and the elements had colored them until they blended into the gray of the landscape.

The ranch-house was a two-story, half-adobe, half-frame construction. The house had originally been a one-story adobe, but later a frame had been built upon the original, giving it the appearance of a shack that had been lifted by a mud upheaval.

Behind it and to the right was a one-story adobe stable and a pole corral, where several horses drowsed in the heat. To the left of the ranch-house was the little adobe blacksmith shop, and back of that, nearer the cañon, was the bathhouse.

There was a general air of don’t-care-a-hang-how-we-look about the place. The front yard was a bare expanse of gravel and weeds, the fence fallen down in places. It might have well been a deserted ranch, instead of what it was.

Sleepy sniffed disgustedly, as they rode in past the sagging gate.

“For gosh’ sake, what smells around here?” he asked.

“That’s the hot springs,” grinned Hashknife. “Sulphur and a lot of other stuff. I sabe the smell. Some folks like to drink it.”

“Some folks ought to be investigated,” grunted Sleepy. “You may lose yore rheumatism, but you’ll gain somethin’ worse. Git that stuff in yore hair and see how long I stay around yuh.”

A saddled horse was tied to a porch post, and as they dismounted its owner came out. And he stood not upon the order of his coming. The door had opened suddenly, and this man came out asprawl. He struck on his hands and knees at the edge of the top step, turned completely over, and landed out in the gravel.

He was a short, heavily built man of about forty years of age, with a reddish mustache and a florid complexion.

For several moments he blinked violently, got slowly to his feet, and walked over to his horse. He turned his head to stare at Hashknife and Sleepy, but lost no time in mounting his horse and riding away. His hat came out in the yard with him, but he did not stop to pick it up.

Hashknife and Sleepy grinned at each other, and turned toward the doorway to see Big Medicine Hawkworth looking at them. He was stooped in the doorway, his big hands hanging low, his mop of white hair falling forward over his eyes.

“What do you want?” he asked sullenly.

Hashknife grinned and looked toward the cloud of dust, which marked the passing of the man who had been thrown out.

“Not what he got,” said Hashknife.

Big Medicine lifted his head and squinted down the road. His attention was attracted by the hat in the yard. Slowly he came down the steps, picked up the hat and sailed it far off across the tumbledown fence. Hashknife and Sleepy watched him with amusement as he came back to the edge of the porch.

“Perhaps,” he said, “that was a childish thing to do, but I was irritated beyond endurance.”

“Yeah,” admitted Hashknife, “I reckon yuh was, pardner.”

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“I’ve got rheumatism,” stated Hashknife, “and somebody said that yore hot spring was a sure cure. How about it?”

He considered the question gravely. “My dear man, there is no such a thing as a sure cure. It is all theory until proved by practice, and on each individual case. Diseases do not react the same in all bodies.”

“You talk like a doctor,” smiled Hashknife.

“I have studied,” said Big Medicine slowly, pushing back the big mop of hair. “Perhaps I might better say, I have read.”

“Outside of that,” grinned Hashknife, “do I get to try out yore hot water?”

Big Medicine looked narrowly at Hashknife from under his bushy eyebrows for several moments. He seemed undecided. Then:

“I’m not in the habit of allowing strangers to use my spring, sir; but I should be a hell of a citizen if I refused to let a suffering man share what Nature provided. You are welcome to use it as long as you find the need.” He pointed to the rear of the ranch-house. “You will find the bathhouse back there, sir. I think your nose will guide you.”

He smiled and walked back into the house, closing the door behind him.

“Can yuh beat that?” grinned Hashknife. “Looks like one of the old Bible prophets, talks like a dictionary, and throws men out through the front door. No wonder they say queer things about Big Medicine Hawkworth. Let’s find the bathhouse.”

Big Medicine was correct when he said that their noses would guide them. A cloud of vapor was coming from the adobe bathhouse, and with it the odor that resembled that of decayed eggs.

Inside the place they found a six-by-nine sunken tub, made from rough boards, with an inlet and outlet made of square wooden pipe. Hashknife lost no time in undressing and getting into the tub. The water was almost too hot for comfort, but he was game to give it a trial.

Sleepy moved just outside the door to get away from the steam, and saw Lucy and Wanna drive up to the stable, where Ike Marsh met them and took charge of the team. They did not look toward the bathhouse as they crossed the yard and entered the kitchen door.

Hashknife spent about fifteen minutes in the tub, after which he dressed and came outside. The heat of the bath had weakened him, and he looked solemnly at Sleepy.

“If you’d stick a fork in me, you’d sure find me well done,” he declared shakily. “There’s parts of me that are kinda rare yet, I suppose, but another stewin’ like that would sure put me in the fried-egg class.”

“Yuh look kinda shriveled up,” admitted Sleepy, looking him over closely. “I seen a dead fish that looked like you. I’ll betcha you’ll start fallin’ apart as soon as yuh get into the saddle ag’in, so I’ll ride behind yuh and pick up the pieces.”

They went back to their horses and started to mount, when Big Medicine came out to them.

“Where are yuh goin’?” he asked.

“Back to town,” said Hashknife. “Thank yuh very much for the bath.”

“You ain’t goin’ back to no town,” declared Big Medicine. He was talking cow-town English now. “Yo’re goin’ to wrap up in a blanket and take a sleep. How in hell do yuh expect that hot bath to do yuh any good thataway? Yore pores are all open now, and if you catch cold, you’ll have pneumonia. C’mon in the house and I’ll show yuh a bed.”

He turned and stalked inside, leaving no course open to Hashknife and Sleepy except to follow him. He led them up the creaking stairs and into a bedroom.

“You flop into that bed,” he ordered. “When yuh get in, I’ll have Wanna bring yuh a hot drink.”

He turned to Sleepy.

“Put yore horses in the stable. Ike Marsh is down there and he’ll show yuh where to put ’em.”

He went back down with Sleepy and they met Lucy and Wanna in the living-room. Big Medicine turned to Sleepy.

“I beg your pardon,” he said slowly, “but I have never heard your name.”

“My name’s Stevens,” smiled Sleepy. “My friends all call me Sleepy.”

“Ah, yes.” He turned to the women. “May I present Mr. Stevens? Mr. Stevens, this is my wife, Mrs. Hawkworth, and my daughter, Wanna.”

The old squaw held out her hand.

“I like to meet you,” she said. “How do?”

“Pleased to meetcha,” grinned Sleepy, and held out his hand to Wanna. She shook hands shyly and moved back.

“His friend is upstairs in bed,” said Big Medicine, looking at Wanna. “In about ten minutes, I want you to mix him a hot drink of rum, sugar, and water and take it up to him, Wanna.”

The girl nodded quickly and went toward the kitchen. Big Medicine led Sleepy outside and pointed toward the corral, where Ike Marsh was repairing a broken pole.

“Take your horses down there, Mr. Stevens. Ike will show you where to put them.”

“Thank yuh,” nodded Sleepy, and went to get the animals.

Ike Marsh met him at the stable door and Sleepy told him Big Medicine’s orders.

“Yeah, we got room,” said Ike, opening the doors.

They put the animals in two vacant stalls and came outside. Sleepy passed his tobacco and papers and they squatted down to smoke.

“I seen you fellers go up to the bathhouse,” said Ike thoughtfully, “and I wondered if you was friends of Big Medicine.”

“We dunno yet,” smiled Sleepy. “Yuh see, we never seen him before in our lives.”

“Yuh didn’t?”

Ike inhaled deeply at the wonder of it all.

“Yuh never seen him before, eh? Well, I’ll just say that yo’re lucky, if yuh needed a hot bath. Big Medicine ain’t in the habit of lettin’ strangers use his private tub. Yuh see, he’s got an idea that somebody might beat him out of the spring.”

“Is it worth anythin’?” asked Sleepy.

“Hell, I dunno.” Ike wrinkled his nose. “Not to me, it ain’t. I’ve been here a long time, but she still smells like hell. I suppose she’s worth somethin’. I dunno. Goin’ to stay long?”

Sleepy told him why they hadn’t gone back to town.

“That makes me paw my head,” declared Ike. “Mebbe you and yore pardner hypnotized Big Medicine.”

“What kind of a feller is he?” asked Sleepy.

“Jist what you’ve seen. He’s two kinds of person, if yuh know what I mean. Sometimes he gits dignified as a undertaker and talks like a book, and the next minute he talks like the rest of us. Who in hell was Shakespeare?”

“I dunno him,” admitted Sleepy.

“Me neither. Big Medicine did. Hell, yeah! Repeats things that Shakespeare said. I don’t sabe what it means, but it kinda pleases Big Medicine; so we listen. Oh, he’s smart, all right. And if yuh don’t think he’ll fight, try him.”

“I’ll take yore word for it,” grinned Sleepy. “He throwed a man out just as we rode up.”

Ike grunted softly and looked at Sleepy.

“He did?”

“Him, or somebody else in the house,” nodded Sleepy. “Anyway, this feller sure came out all spraddled, clawed his way onto his horse, and fogged away toward town.”

“That was Jim Reed,” stated Ike wonderingly. “Wasn’t nobody else but Jim Reed. He showed up when me and Big Medicine was talkin’, so I came down here to the barn. Well, I’ll be darned! Throwed him plumb out, eh?”

“Right on his neck.”

“Uh-huh. Well, well! Him and Jim Reed was good friends.”

“I’ll betcha,” grinned Sleepy. “He must ’a’ jist loved old Jim.”

“It shore has the earmarks of brotherly love,” grinned Ike. “I don’t like Jim Reed. He’s from Greenhorn. Owns some mines, and I reckon he’s been tryin’ to peddle part of ’em to Big Medicine. How did yore pardner like his bath?”

“All right, I reckon. Big Medicine made him come in and go to bed. He’s had rheumatism pretty bad, and we came here to see if the springs would cure it, yuh see. He was almost cured today. Got peeved at a gaudy-lookin’ Mexican and throwed him into the slack tub in the blacksmith shop. Plumb forgot his limp.”

“Th’owed a gaudy-lookin’ Mex into a slack tub?” wondered Ike. “Had a little mustache, wore his hair long in front of his ears and dressed like a tin-horn gambler?”

“That’s the curio,” nodded Sleepy. “Wore a red sash instead of a belt.”

“Pete Torres, as sure as the Devil made little apples. Th’owed him into a tub of dirty water! What did Pete do?”

“He damn near drowned. When we rode away he was braced ag’in’ the forge, drippin’ rusty water. I’ll tell a man, he wasn’t noways gaudy then.”

“Aw, gosh, that sounds too good to be true. I’d give half of my life to ’a’ seen it done. Now listen: Tell yore pardner to look out for Torres. He’s a bad hombre. What he don’t know about th’owin’ a knife ain’t to be learned. Why, that son of a gun could pin yore ears to the wall plumb across a room, and he’s no slouch with a gun.

“And he’s got a pardner named Garcia, half-Mex, half-Apache. If Torres asked Garcia to kill somebody, Garcia’d do it. He ain’t got brains enough to see farther than the killin’. It won’t be a even break, and yuh can bet on that.”

“We’re much obliged,” said Sleepy sincerely. “Hashknife Hartley don’t ask for a even break. That’s my pardner’s name. Mine’s Sleepy Stevens.”

“Mine’s Ike Marsh.”

They shook hands solemnly.

“Pleased to meetcha,” said Sleepy.

“Happy t’ know yuh,” muttered Ike. “You fellers ain’t from down in this country, are yuh? Notice yore boots are higher than most punchers wear down here.”

“Got these in Miles City, Montana,” said Sleepy.

“Hell, you fellers are shore travelers. Way up there, eh? I’ve heard about the cow-country up thataway. Good riders up there, they tell me. A Oregon puncher was a-tellin’ me that the bronc-riders are better up there, and the horses bigger, but he said that the Southwest puncher was a better roper. I dunno.”

“Mebbe”—Sleepy passed his Durham and papers—“I ain’t seen enough punchers in this country to see how they compare. We’ve got some hy-iu cowhands up there, pardner. Where is that Oregon puncher?”

“Works for the K-10 outfit. Name’s Sam Blair. I dunno just where he’s from, but he talks about Oregon; so I figured he was from there.”

“Uh-huh.” Sleepy squinted away from the smoke of his cigarette and considered his toes. “What kind of an outfit is this K-10?”

“Cattle. Baldy Kern owns the place. Him and Big Medicine ain’t friendly. Yuh see, Big Medicine didn’t want another cattle outfit in Hawk Hole; so Baldy kinda sets on the edge. No, they ain’t never had no open trouble, but Baldy knows where to head in at.”

“Hawkworth been here a long time, ain’t he?”

“Hell, yes. Must ’a’ come here twenty-five years ago. Took up a homestead, I reckon. Then he got other men to take up homesteads and turn ’em over to him. Bimeby he’s got most of Hawk Hole. Then he bought the rest from the Government for about two bits per acre.

“I dunno what he wants it for. There’s just him and Lucy and Wanna. Big Medicine ain’t never been out of here since he came. Money don’t mean nothin’ to him. Once in a while we herds some cattle out to Caliente, sells ’em to a buyer, and Big Medicine shoves the money in his sock. Me and Musical and Cleve takes ’em out and brings back the money.”

“Kind of a funny way to live,” observed Sleepy. “His money don’t do him much good. That half-breed girl is kinda pretty.”

Ike ground his cigarette under his heel and got to his feet.

“She’s a real nice girl,” he said slowly, “and nobody ain’t allowed to think any other way around here, Stevens.”

“I didn’t say nothin’ wrong, did I?” asked Sleepy.

“No, yuh didn’t. I don’t think yuh had any idea of sayin’ anythin’ wrong, but I just wanted yuh to know how things lay.”

“Suits me,” smiled Sleepy. “Where I come from we ain’t in the habit of sayin’ anythin’ against any girl, Marsh.”

Ike considered it gravely and nodded.

“That’s a good country, Stevens. Let’s go up to the house.”

CHAPTER V
MOONLIGHT IN THE BORDER COUNTRY

Pedro Torres was in a bad frame of mind over his enforced bath in the blacksmith shop. He made a few purchases at one of the stores, bought a bath in the one tub at the hotel, and became presentable again.

But his vanity had been badly injured, and he swore dire threats toward the man who had insulted him. He assured himself that he had done nothing wrong, merely desiring to talk with a half-breed girl.

Garcia was not sympathetic. He had seen the incident, and the fact that Torres hankered for revenge made little difference to Garcia. If Torres had asked Garcia to kill Hashknife, Garcia would have instantly agreed to do it.

Baldy Kern smiled grimly and polished his head. He was curious to know a few things about Hashknife and Sleepy. Baldy was not talkative, so he chose to listen. Cloudy Day, still full of liquor, had been told of the incident, and imagined that he had seen it.

“It sure was good,” he announced in the Greenback Saloon. “That tall puncher was all crippled up with rheumatism, but he picked Torres up just like Torres wasn’t nothin’. If that feller’s got rheumatism, I’m paralyzed, thassall.”

Baldy grinned widely. He had seen no evidences of Hashknife’s being a cripple.

“Who is this feller, Cloudy?” he asked.

“Tha’s a question,” said Cloudy owlishly. “Lon introduced me to them, but I didn’t git the names.”

“Lon knows ’em, does he?”

“Oh, abs’lutely. Why, Lon’s an old friend of theirs.”

Baldy accepted this with a grain of salt. He knew that Cloudy was prone to exaggerate, especially when drinking; so he found Lon Belly in the Yellow Stamp Saloon, bought Lon a drink, and swung the conversation around to the baptism of Torres.

Lon hadn’t seen it either.

“Must be strong,” commented Baldy. “Torres ain’t no little kid. They tell me that this stranger picked Torres up and packed him to the blacksmith shop.”

“He’s tall, but don’t look very strong,” said Lon. “I dunno anythin’ about him, except what I got from talkin’ with him a little. They was on the stage when it was held up. The tall one said they was goin’ over to Hawkworth’s for him to take baths for his rheumatism.”

“Must be badly crippled,” mused Baldy aloud.

“He did limp a little,” offered Lon. “Mebbe he got so mad at Torres that he forgot to limp. A feller over in the restaurant seen it, and he said that Torres was bowin’ and scrapin’ to Wanna Hawkworth when this feller picked him up.”

Baldy smiled softly and bought another drink. Did Lon know what this tall feller’s name was?

“Name’s Hartley. Short one is Stevens.”

Baldy considered the names, but they meant nothing to him.

“How much of a haul did the robbers get?” he asked.

“Nobody seems to know,” replied Lon.

“Got any idea who done it, Lon?”

“Yeah—three men.”

Baldy left the Yellow Stamp and went down to the doctor’s house. He had known Doctor Henry for several months. The doctor was an oldish man, very methodical, reserved.

“The patient is doing very nicely,” he told Baldy. “I recovered the bullet, and can see no reason why, with proper care, he should not completely recover.”

“That’s fine,” agreed Baldy. “Yo’re some doctor. What was the feller’s name, Doc?”

“His name is Jack Hill, I believe.”

“Uh-huh. Jack Hill. Must be a stranger, eh?”

“I think he is, Mr. Kern. He is not inclined to talk about himself. My worry now is to get a suitable nurse for him. He says he is able to pay for services, and wants to be sent out, but such a thing would be impossible.”

“I dunno where you’d find a nurse, Doc. Wimmin ain’t noways plentiful around here, not the nursin’ kind.”

Baldy went back to the Greenback Saloon, none the wiser for his interviews.

He did not know anyone by the name of Jack Hill, and he wondered why the holdup man had shot him down. For his own satisfaction, Baldy desired to know things.

It was shortly after dark that Torres and Garcia mounted their horses and rode out of Pinnacle, heading south. Across the border was the Rancho Sierra, owned by Steve Guadalupe, who bred gamecocks and trouble. Steve was an old man and full of iniquity, who pointed with pride to the fact that his ancestors were pure Castilian, when, as a matter of fact, he was a mixture of Portuguese, Mexican, and Yaqui.

Torres and Garcia were friends of Steve, as were most of the denizens of the border, whose deviltry served to bring dishonor upon the Mexicans as a people. The Rancho Sierra was too isolated for the Mexican Government to bother with Steve’s doings, and the United States officers could only patrol the border and hate him from afar.

Two more of Baldy’s men, Sam Blair and Jack Baum, had ridden into town just before Torres and Garcia rode away. Blair was a blocky-faced individual, none too intelligent-looking and of rather unkempt appearance.

Baldy met him at the hitch-rack and whispered for him to follow Torres and see where he was going. Blair nodded and rode out of town a few minutes after Torres and Garcia. Blair did not ask questions; neither did Baldy tell him why he wanted Torres followed.

It was one of those moonlight nights down in the border country, when the moon seems to almost rest upon the hills and bathes the world in a blue light. Blair had no difficulty in following Torres and Garcia. They rode slowly toward the south until a mile out of town, when they turned northeast, circling back around Pinnacle.

Blair waited until they had made their swing before following them. He rode a gray horse, which made him almost invisible in the gray blue of the landscape. Torres and Garcia rode faster now, keeping off the road and heading straight for Hawkworth’s Tumbling H Ranch. Blair suspected that this was their goal, so he moved closer.

They swung wide of the ranch buildings and came in behind the stable, while Blair dismounted farther up the cañon and came down on foot. Two of the ranch-house buildings were illuminated, and he could hear a squeaky phonograph playing a waltz.

Blair came in behind the stable, going softly. He knew that Torres and Garcia were not far away. He crawled through the corral fence, went slowly along the side of the stable and out through the other side of the corral.

There was still no sign of Torres and Garcia. Blair peered around the corner of the stable. He could see the door of the bathhouse, which was illuminated from a light within. From the ranch-house came the sound of muffled voices.

Blair scratched his nose and considered things. If someone came from the rear door of the ranch-house, they could see him. He did not like his position in the matter at all. Someone was moving around in the bathhouse, and now the occupant came out, carrying a lantern, which gave little light.

Blair flattened himself against the wall, between the corner of the barn and the corral, peering around to see which way the lantern-bearer was going.

Then there came a dull thud, and the man with the lantern went down, throwing the lantern aside, but not extinguishing it. Blair jerked back. Torres and Garcia ran past him, going around the corner of the corral and out to their horses.

In another minute he heard them riding swiftly away. The phonograph had started another turn.

Blair squinted thoughtfully as he peered out again. He could see the black bulk of the man on the ground, and the spluttering lantern near him.

Cautiously Blair stepped away from the corner and went swiftly over to the man, who was lying on his back. He picked up the lantern and stepped in close, throwing the beams of light into the face of the man on the ground.

For several moments Blair stared down at that face, oblivious to everything. He bent closer, holding the lantern on a level with his own face, as he peered into the features of the injured man. A voice spoke to him out of the darkness and he jerked upright, still clutching the lantern.

It was late that evening when Musical Matthews and Cleve Davis rode in at the Tumbling H and met Hashknife and Sleepy. In a few short words Big Medicine told them that Hashknife and Sleepy would be with them until Hashknife’s rheumatism had succumbed to the effect of the hot baths.

Hashknife had just got out of bed and was feeling better, but slightly weak. Lucy had told about Hashknife’s encounter with Torres, and it seemed to please everyone except Hashknife. Big Medicine seemed a bit dubious over the outcome of it.

“Watch that Mexican,” he warned Hashknife. “He’s a snake.”

“I’ve made snakes bite themselves,” grinned Hashknife.

“Didja ever see one of them knife-throwin’ Mex handle his weapon?” asked Musical.

“No,” Hashknife shook his head. “I don’t sabe ’em much.”

“Then look out for ’em. Knives don’t make no noise. I’d shore rather face a six-gun than a knife, and either Torres or his dirty-face pardner, Garcia, can shore pin your ears back with a knife at twenty feet.”

Lucy came to announce supper, and they all clattered to the table, except Hashknife.

“I’ve done lost my appetite,” he told them. “Couldn’t eat a thing, folks; so I reckon I’ll take the lantern and go out to the bathhouse. Another good soakin’ and a big sleep will put me in the saddle again.”

Lucy secured the lantern for him and he went out through the kitchen, while the rest of them did ample justice to the culinary efforts of Lucy and Wanna, who waited on the table silently.

“We rode beyond the breaks,” Musical told Big Medicine. “As far as we can see, everythin’ is all right. There wasn’t many cows over on that side. From up on that saw-tooth ridge yuh can almost see the Rancho Sierra.”

Big Medicine nodded and turned to Sleepy.

“This Rancho Sierra is across the border. Belongs to old Steve Guadalupe, the meanest old Mexican that ever stole a cow. We have to keep our eyes open all the time, Stevens. They’ve raided us a few times.”

“Yuh can’t get ’em back after they cross the line, eh?”

“Not very well. Our business is to keep them far enough on this side to make it hard for them to grab very many. Guadalupe has a tough gang down there, rustlers, smugglers, and all that kind of folks.”

“I wonder if it was some of his gang that held us up the other night,” said Sleepy.

Big Medicine frowned heavily, but said nothing.

“Hell, yuh don’t have to go into Mexico to find holdup men,” said Cleve Davis. “There’s plenty of ’em on this side of the line. I’ve got a hunch that it was white men from this side of the line that stole the last bunch of cattle from us.”

“That K-10 outfit?” began Musical, but Big Medicine stopped him with a gesture.

“Name no names, Musical, please,” he said softly. “There is bad blood between this ranch and the K-10, and the least said the better. Give them the benefit of the doubt, until we are sure.”

“All right, Big Medicine. I s’pose that’s right, too. But I get kinda mad once in a while.”

“You should learn to control your temper.”

Sleepy grinned, as he remembered how Big Medicine had pitched Jim Reed out on his head that morning. Big Medicine had said nothing about being mad, but had admitted that Reed had irritated him beyond endurance. Sleepy wondered what Big Medicine might do if he became mad.

They finished their meal and went back to the creaky-floored living-room, where Musical proceeded to put a record on the phonograph. After the second record Sleepy grew nervous. He hitched his chair around, tore up two cigarette papers, and decided he would go and see how Hashknife was getting on with his bath.

He went out through the kitchen, where Lucy and Wanna were clearing off the table, and the old squaw handed him a clean towel.

“I ain’t goin’ to take a bath,” he told her smiling.

“All right. You giveum to tall man. He need much towel.”

“There is quite a lot of him,” grinned Sleepy. “Thanks.”

The door was not latched and he stepped out softly. The bathhouse was only fifty feet away. About ten feet from the open door of the bathhouse crouched a man, holding a lantern in such a way that his face was fully illuminated. Lying on the ground was the body of a man.

Sleepy stepped forward, his right hand reaching back to his gun.

“What are you doin’ here?” he almost shouted.

Sam Blair jerked up, still holding the lantern, but flung it aside as he drew his gun. The lantern had barely smashed to the ground when the two men began shooting.

Sleepy felt the first bullet as it passed his head, and fired twice in rapid succession. Blair fired again, but the streak of flame from his gun was pointing upward and the bullet went streaking toward the North Star, while Blair stumbled and went down in a heap.

It was all over in five seconds. The kitchen door crashed open and the three cowpunchers, headed by Big Medicine, came running out. Sleepy was going toward Blair, covering him with his gun, when Big Medicine joined him.

“What happened?” he panted. “What was the matter?”

“Watch that jigger,” said Sleepy hoarsely. “I think he’s got Hashknife.”

Sleepy fell on his knees beside Hashknife, while the others scratched matches. Big Medicine came from Blair.

“Take him into the house,” he ordered. “This other feller ain’t goin’ to get away, until he’s carried away.”

They carried Hashknife into the house and placed him on the floor, while Big Medicine made a swift examination.

“He got hit, that’s all,” declared Big Medicine, pointing to an egglike swelling on Hashknife’s head between his eye and ear. “He’ll be all right in a few minutes, I think.”

Sleepy sighed with relief and leaned against the wall.

“That other jigger opened the ball,” he said wearily. “His first bullet almost creased me. He was humped over Hashknife, lookin’ him over with a lantern, when I went out there. I just had a hunch that somethin’ was wrong.”

Big Medicine nodded slowly.

“It was Sam Blair of the K-10 outfit,” he said softly.

“Dead?” asked Musical.

“Yes.”

Musical shrugged his shoulders.

“The war is on, I reckon.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” said Sleepy. “Dang it, I had to shoot.”

“Sure yuh did,” assured Musical. “That’s all right, Stevens.”

The practical Lucy came in with a basin of water and a towel, with which she proceeded to bathe Hashknife’s head and face. He opened his eyes and stared up at them in wonderment.

“How are yuh feelin’, pardner?” asked Sleepy.

Hashknife sat up and felt gingerly of his head.

“What happened?” he asked foolishly.

“Somebody hit yuh when yuh came out of the bathhouse.”

“Oh, yeah.” Hashknife got to his feet and blinked painfully. “I remember startin’ out, when somethin’ hit me and I seen a million stars. Who was it, Sleepy?”

“I dunno.”

Sleepy scratched his head nervously, as he told Hashknife what he had done.

“They tell me that his name was Sam Blair,” said Sleepy.

“From the K-10 outfit,” said Musical quickly. “Mebbe we better kinda look around with a lantern, eh?”

Hashknife and Sleepy exchanged a quick glance.

“You feel good now?” asked Lucy anxiously, dripping water from the towel and the basin.

“Yeah, I feel fine,” lied Hashknife. “Ain’t got a pain in either leg.”

The boys had secured another lantern and were going out to look around. Hashknife sat down in a chair and Lucy proceeded to attack the swelling with compresses. In a few minutes Musical came back and placed a long-bladed knife, with a horn handle, on the table beside Hashknife.

“There’s what hit yuh,” he declared. “Whoever throwed it at yuh must ’a’ misjudged a little and hit yuh with the hilt. It was right near where yuh was layin’. And,” added Musical, “that Sam Blair wasn’t no knife-thrower.”

“Wasn’t he?”

Hashknife looked the knife over carefully. It was a wicked weapon, almost as sharp as a razor, and with a point like a needle.

“Do yuh reckon the Mexican did it?” asked Hashknife.

“You’ll probably never know who done it,” said Ike. “Sam Blair is too dead to skin. Mebbe he knowed who threw it. If he didn’t, what in hell was he doin’ out there? Big Medicine swore he’d kill the first K-10 puncher that showed up; swore that to Baldy Kern.

“It’s shore too bad, but it can’t be helped. The K-10 will declare war as sure as hell. Not that we care a whoop what they do, except that it’ll mean a killin’.”

Ike turned to Sleepy.

“That Sam Blair is the puncher I was tellin’ yuh about, from Oregon, or up thataway. Funny, ain’t it? Talkin’ about him today, and got him on our hands tonight—dead.”

Big Medicine came in and sat down. His face was very grave, as he rested his big hands on his knees and squinted thoughtfully. Ike handed him the knife and he hefted it in his hand.

“I don’t think that Blair ever threw it,” he said. “It looks like one that Pete Torres might use.”

“If Blair had nothin’ to do with it, why did he start shootin’ at Stevens?” asked Musical.

“I don’t know, Musical.”

Big Medicine handed back the knife.

“This will start trouble, won’t it?” asked Hashknife.

“Very likely,” said Big Medicine. “The K-10 outfit is not a crew of men you can talk things over with.”

“I’ll tell yuh what we’ll do,” suggested Hashknife. “We’ll pack the body in close to Pinnacle and swear that we met him and he started shootin’. That’ll let you folks out of it.”

“That’s it,” agreed Sleepy. “They’ll believe us.”

But Big Medicine shook his head quickly. “Since when did the Tumbling H shift a responsibility to a guest?” he demanded. “If Baldy Kern wants battle, he’ll get it.”

“Suits me,” said Musical joyfully. “I’ve been kinda——”

“Just a moment,” begged Hashknife. “We’re not askin’ to take any responsibility off the Tumblin’ H Ranch. There’s somethin’ wrong about this whole thing, folks. If Torres threw that knife, what did Blair have to do with it? Torres ain’t connected with the K-10, is he?”

“No, he sure ain’t,” declared Ike.

“Find Blair’s horse,” said Hashknife. “He didn’t walk here.”

Musical, Cleve, Ike, and Sleepy went horse-hunting, while Big Medicine watched Lucy draw most of the swelling from Hashknife’s injury. The hilt of the knife had bruised the scalp a little, but it would not be noticeable after the swelling was out.

“Torres probably threw that knife, saw you fall, and headed for the border,” said Big Medicine. “It isn’t often that he misses. Possibly he hurried his throw and misjudged the distance in the dark.”

“Always somethin’ to be thankful for,” grinned Hashknife. “It always seems that things might ’a’ been worse.”

In a few minutes the boys came in. They had found Blair’s gray horse, branded with the K-10, and brought it up to the house.

“What’s the next thing to do?” asked Ike.

“We’ll put Blair on his horse and take him to town,” said Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy found him beside the road when we were comin’ in from this ranch, and we don’t know a thing about how he got killed. There’s somethin’ wrong about this deal, and if we make a mystery about this, mebbe somebody will show their cards.”

Big Medicine nodded gravely.

“Possibly. I wish we could settle this without open warfare, but I do not want you to take the blame. Blair had no right to be here tonight. He knew that I had drawn a deadline against the K-10, and he knew that I would keep my word.”

They loaded Blair’s body on his horse, roped it on with Blair’s rope, and saddled their own horses. Hashknife walked with only a slight limp and was able to mount his horse without much suffering. His head ached slightly, but otherwise he felt able to take care of himself.

“Come out tomorrow mornin’,” invited Big Medicine.

“Come tonight,” said Lucy. “We got plenty bed.”

“Thank yuh,” grinned Hashknife. “We’ll see how this deal will work out. So long.”

CHAPTER VI
KNIFE OR GUN?

They rode away from the ranch over the road which led to Pinnacle, while the lights from the open door of the Tumbling H faded in the distance.

“So Sam Blair was the puncher from Oregon, eh?” said Hashknife.

“Kinda looks like it,” agreed Sleepy. “He had that lantern up close to his head and I knowed him right away. I’ll betcha he recognized you, Hashknife.”

“He sure would.”

Hashknife squinted ahead, as he visualized the day that he and Sleepy had busted up a little gang in the Idaho hills, a gang of four horse-thieves. Sam Blair had been the sole survivor. They turned him over to the sheriff, and he had later wounded a deputy sheriff and made his escape.

“Mebbe it’s a good thing he’s passed on,” observed Hashknife. “Blair could do us a lot of harm, if he’s connected with a bad outfit down here. We’ll just set tight and see which way things jump. Either Blair tried to kill me with a knife, or he was connected with Torres. I don’t think Blair done it. He got a good look at me, and when you showed up he got panicky and started throwin’ lead. But what was he there for?”

“Don’t ask me,” replied Sleepy. “I ain’t no use when it comes to thinkin’ things out. Where did we find Blair?”

“Right here.”

The road turned sharply around the point of a hill with brush on each side. Hashknife dismounted and kicked around in the brush, digging his heels into the dirt and otherwise making it appear as though the body had been found there. Sleepy forced the horses to turn several times in the road.

Then, as sort of an afterthought, Hashknife drew the long knife from inside his shirt bosom and tossed it near the spot.

“Somebody’ll recognize that knife, Sleepy,” he said as he mounted. “We’ll give ’em somethin’ to quarrel about.”

They rode into town and up to the front of the Greenback Saloon, where they dismounted and tied their horses. Lon Belly was in a poker game, sitting across the table from Baldy Kern. Cloudy Day leaned against the bar, talking with two of the men from the K-10. The other games were fairly well patronized, and the two-piece orchestra was dispensing music to three couples of dancers.

Hashknife went to the poker game and spoke directly to Lon Pelly.

“You better step out here a minute, Sheriff,” he said.

“I’ve got a dead man.”

“You’ve got a what?” blurted the sheriff, half-rising.

“Dead man,” repeated Hashknife. “Found him beside the road between here and the Tumbling H.”

“F’r gosh’ sakes!”

Lon Pelly upset his pile of poker chips in getting to his feet. The table was deserted in a moment, as all the players wanted to see who the corpse might be. They filed outside and helped Sleepy untie the body and take it into the saloon.

Baldy Kern swore softly as he looked at Blair’s body. There was little doubt in his mind that Torres or Garcia had killed Blair.

“Where did yuh find him?” asked the sheriff.

“About a mile from here, out toward the Tumblin’ H,” said Hashknife. “He was lyin’ near the road, and his horse had kinda got tangled in the brush. Do yuh know who he is?”

“Sam Blair,” said Baldy. “Worked for me.”

The crowd ringed the body, while the sheriff made his examination.

“Knife or gun?” queried Baldy.

“Gun—twice,” said the sheriff. “Good shootin’.”

He opened the dead man’s shirt and covered the two wounds with the palm of his hand.

“Wasn’t no nervous finger on that trigger, gents. Sam Blair never knowed what hit him.”

“Didja find his gun?” asked Baldy, examining the empty holster.

“Never looked,” replied Hashknife. “Probably there in the dirt.”

“We’ll take a look in the mornin’,” said the sheriff. “Some of you boys take the body down to the doctor’s place, will yuh? I’m right in a big jackpot. Anyway, there ain’t nothin’ I can do.”

Several of the men carried Blair’s body down to the doctor’s house, so Hashknife and Sleepy went along.

The doctor was properly indignant, and told them in plain language that he was not running a morgue, so they trooped back uptown with the body.

The doctor recognized Hashknife and Sleepy as being two of the men who had brought in the wounded stranger, and spoke to them about him, asking if they knew where he could get a nurse.

“You might get Mrs. Hawkworth,” said Hashknife. “She sure is a good nurse.”

“The Indian woman? Hm-m-m. I wonder if she would take the case. This man is out of danger, but needs a nurse badly. I can’t be here all the time, and I hate to leave him to the mercies of some man who knows nothing about nursing.”

“How long before he’ll be able to navigate?” asked Hashknife.

“Two weeks at least.”

“Well, I dunno about the Indian woman,” said Hashknife. “I’ll ask her.”

“You’d be doing me a big favor,” said the doctor. “I’ve got to get someone pretty soon.”

They went back to the Greenback and found that the body had been deposited in a vacant storeroom for the present. There was much speculation over who killed Blair, but Baldy Kern said nothing. He felt sure that Torres and Garcia had killed him. Jack Baum, who had been Blair’s bunkie, knew that Blair had ridden out to see where Torres went, and he also believed that Torres or Garcia had killed him.

The sheriff was too interested in the poker game to speculate on who might have killed Blair. Hashknife and Sleepy stood at the bar, listening to the buzz of conversation.

Lee Yung, the big Chinaman, was at the bar, sipping a drink, his inscrutable eyes taking in the activity of the place.

A little later the sheriff dropped out of the game and came to the bar. He had fared badly, and was not in good humor.

“Got three full-houses beat, hand-runnin’,” he complained. “When they do that to yuh, it’s time to quit.”

“Before that, if possible,” said Lee Yung in perfect English.

“That’s right,” laughed the sheriff. “Saves money, if you’ve got sense enough to see it.”

The stage line owner came into the saloon, saw the sheriff and came to him.

“I just got word from Caliente,” he explained hurriedly. “They couldn’t tell just how much of a haul the robbers got off the stage, but there was a valuable package for Hawkworth in the treasure box. I think Hawkworth’s package was valued at five hundred dollars.”

“For Big Medicine, eh?” mused the sheriff.

Hashknife and Sleepy had heard what was said, as had Lee Yung. The sheriff turned to Hashknife.

“When will you see Hawkworth again?” he asked.

“Tomorrow mornin’, I reckon.”

“All right. You tell him about that package, will yuh?”

“Sure thing.”

The agent went out and the sheriff went hunting for another chance to lose his money. He was an inveterate gambler. Lee Yung finished his drink and crossed to the roulette game, while Hashknife and Sleepy went to the hotel, engaged a room, and put their horses in the hotel stable.

“Well,” said Sleepy, “we got away with it, cowboy. They never even questioned us closely.”

“That’s true,” agreed Hashknife. “I wish I knew who Kern suspects. He kept his mouth shut tight, ’cause he thinks he’s got the deadwood on somebody. And there was a valuable package on that stage for Big Medicine, valued at five hundred dollars.”

“We’re here to cure yore rheumatism,” reminded Sleepy.

“I’m cured,” grinned Hashknife.

“Then we might as well roll our little ball of yarn out of here, eh?”

Hashknife squinted thoughtfully at the little oil lamp in their room, as he painfully bent his knee in removing a boot.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I ain’t exactly cured, Sleepy, but I’m recoverin’. That hot water sure is great medicine.”

“Between that and a pretty girl to bring yuh hot whiskey.”

Hashknife grinned widely.

“Y’betcha. I’d hate to be cured too quick. I noticed her smilin’ at you, Sleepy.”

“Yuh did not,” indignantly.

I did too. I asked her if she liked you and she says, “Kiwa teahwit.”

“What does that mean?”

“I dunno,” said Hashknife innocently. “There’s a lot of that language I don’t sabe myself. Anyway she smiled at yuh, so it must be all right.”

“I s’pose,” agreed Sleepy. “They’re real nice folks at that ranch.”

He walked to the window of their room, which was on the ground floor, and looked out. The night stage was just leaving, after waiting for the delayed mail from the Greenhorn Mines, and in the light from the hotel office, Sleepy was able to get a fairly clear view of the equipage.

He watched it disappear and turned to Hashknife, who was already in bed.

“The stage just left, and that big Chinaman was on the seat with the driver,” he said.

Hashknife rubbed his nose on the edge of the blanket and grinned at Sleepy.

“Didja want him for anythin’?”

“Not that anybody knows about,” retorted Sleepy. “I jist said that he went away on the stage. If you’d ’a’ told me that, I’d be supposed to marvel to beat hell and lose sleep over it, wouldn’t I?”

Hashknife nodded thoughtfully.

“Thank yuh, Mr. Stevens. I sure do appreciate yore information. C’mon to bed, you limber-jawed saddleslicker. Just because yuh saved my life tonight don’t give yuh no license to get sarcastic with me.”

“I never saved yore life,” declared Sleepy. “Sam Blair wasn’t tryin’ to kill yuh. He was jist lookin’ at yuh. I saved my own life, if anybody rises up to inquire.”

“Well, don’t brag about it, Sleepy. If yuh ever do anythin’ real big, I’d like to hear about it, but don’t bother me with little incidents. Blow out that lamp, if yuh ain’t run out of wind, and c’mon to bed.”

Early the following morning Ike Marsh rode into Pinnacle. He was too anxious to wait for the news, so came in to get it first hand. Guarded inquiries revealed the fact that Hashknife and Sleepy were at the hotel, and a short conversation with one of the swampers at the Greenback Saloon informed him that the body of Sam Blair was in a vacant storeroom.

Then Baldy Kern and Jack Baum rode in and tied their horses at the Greenback rack. Ike, being discreet, went out the back door and came around to the front just in time to meet the sheriff.

“Howdy, Lon,” he said, wondering just how much the sheriff knew.

“Hello, Ike,” returned the sheriff. “What do yuh know?”

Ike shook his head. That was the trouble; he wanted to know something. The sheriff squinted at the horses at the rack.

“Baldy Kern rode in early,” he observed. “I reckon he wants to see where Sam Blair was shot. Yuh heard about it, didn’t yuh?”

Ike spat dryly and shook his head. The sheriff told him about Hashknife and Sleepy’s finding Blair’s body beside the road, and Ike marveled greatly.

“Who done it, do yuh suppose?” he asked.

“Gosh only knows, Ike. Somebody sure shot straight. Here comes Hartley and his pardner.”

Hashknife and Sleepy were coming from the hotel, heading for the restaurant. Ike and the sheriff met them just as Baldy and Baum came from the saloon. Baldy scowled at Ike and got one in return, while Hashknife shook hands all around.

“I’d kinda like to see where yuh found Sam Blair,” said Baldy.

“Right away,” agreed Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy was goin’ to start for the Tumblin’ H, so we’ll all ride out to the spot.”

It did not take them long to ride to where Hashknife and Sleepy had planted the signs of conflict, and Baldy was the one to find the knife. He looked it over carefully and handed it to the sheriff.

“Some toad-sticker,” admitted the sheriff, testing the point with his thumb, as he scrutinized the ground carefully.

Baldy and Jack Baum exchanged knowing glances. That Torres had killed Sam Blair was a certainty now. They had seen Torres with that knife.

But search as they might, they could not find Blair’s gun.

“Hell, the murderer took it,” declared Baum. “He lost his knife, but took the gun. We’ll get him, y’betcha.”

Satisfied that they could find nothing more, Baldy, Baum, and the sheriff rode back toward town, while Hashknife, Sleepy, and Ike went on to the Tumbling H, where Big Medicine sat on the rickety porch and waited for the news.

Ike told him the whole story before Hashknife had a chance to explain anything.

“They even throwed that knife away where Baldy could find it,” declared Ike. “By golly, they sure drawed the wool over Lon Belly’s eyes, too. I seen Baldy look at Jack Baum when Baldy found that knife, and I’ll betcha they know who killed Blair.”

Big Medicine nodded approvingly.

“Thank you, boys. It will save a lot of trouble. Come in and eat breakfast.”

“That’s right,” grinned Sleepy. “We didn’t take time to eat in town.”

Big Medicine explained things to Lucy and Wanna, and the old squaw grinned delightedly, as she examined Hashknife’s wound of the night before.

“All gone,” she declared.

“Yo’re some doctor,” smiled Hashknife, patting her on the shoulder.

He turned to Big Medicine, who was sitting down at the table.

“Hawkworth, I had a talk with the doctor last night about that young feller who got shot the night we came in. The doctor can’t get anybody to nurse this feller, to look after him while the doctor is out on his cases.

“He’s kinda up against it, don’tcha know it. I suggested that he get yore wife to nurse this sick man. She sure could do a good job of it, and I feel sorry for the doc.”

Big Medicine stared at Hashknife and looked at Lucy.

“No,” he said gruffly. “Lucy don’t need a job.”

“It ain’t that,” assured Hashknife. “The doc knows that she don’t need the money.”

But Big Medicine shook his head.

“No, I need her here, Hartley.”

“Well, all right,” said Hashknife. “I just mentioned it.”

Big Medicine said little during the meal. He seemed doubly thoughtful, and his eyes were often turned toward Hashknife, as if wondering why Hashknife should concern himself with this stranger.

From the living-room came the squeaky strains of “The Holy City.” Musical Matthews, the last to arise, was having his “morning’s morning,” as usual. No one commented on it, as they were all used to it by this time.

Sleepy looked up from his breakfast and caught Wanna’s eye. She smiled at him and he dropped an egg off his knife onto his lap. Hashknife saw the egg fall and gave Sleepy a reproachful look. Wanna giggled and turned back to the stove.

“Mrs. Hawkworth, if you’ve got a rough knife, I wish you’d give it to Sleepy,” said Hashknife. “The one he’s got is too slick.”

“I look,” said Lucy seriously, and Ike went into a paroxysm of mirth.

He had seen Sleepy trying to rescue the egg, which managed to elude him. Wanna entered into the spirit of the thing and presented Sleepy with a pancake-turner.

Sleepy thanked her, upset his coffee with a careless elbow, and withdrew from the room, thankful to escape. Big Medicine looked reprovingly at Wanna, but did not know exactly what it was about, while Lucy still searched for a rough-bladed knife.

After breakfast Big Medicine drew Hashknife aside. They walked down by the corral and stopped in the shade of the stable.

“I heard last night that there was a package valued at five hundred dollars and consigned to you on that stage the other night,” said Hashknife. “It was among the stolen stuff, according to the manager of the stage office at Pinnacle.”

If Hashknife expected Big Medicine to show surprise, he was disappointed. The big man seemed not at all interested in the news.

“I was just wondering,” he said slowly, “why you suggested that my wife act as nurse for Doctor Henry.”

“Well, I dunno,” said Hashknife. “Mebbe it was ’cause she was the only woman I knew in this country, and because she knows how to take care of folks.”

“I see.” Big Medicine nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, but such a thing is impossible, Hartley. I couldn’t get along without her.”

“How about bringin’ the sick man out here?”

“No, I couldn’t think of such a thing.”

Hashknife squatted on his heels and began rolling a cigarette. Ike and Cleve came down past them, going to the stable, and Big Medicine told them to take things easy until he decided what he wanted them to do today.

“Hawkworth,” said Hashknife, after the boys had gone, “there’s somethin’ wrong around this country.”

Big Medicine looked at Hashknife, but did not reply.

“You lost five hundred dollars in that holdup,” continued Hashknife, “and a man was shot without visible cause. Last night someone tried to kill me with a knife. Sleepy killed a man who was lookin’ me over, and his own friends didn’t ask many questions. What’s it all about?”

Big Medicine leaned back against the barn and looked off across the hills.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe there is something wrong.” He turned to Hashknife. “Are you a detective?”

Hashknife smiled and shook his head.

“Not guilty, Hawkworth.”

“Then why are you interested?’

“Curiosity, I reckon. And you’ve got to figure that I was in that holdup, and that I got hit last night. Ain’t that enough to make me interested?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“All right. Will yuh do me a big favor, Hawkworth?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have ’em bring that stranger out here to the ranch. It’ll only be a matter of two weeks at the most.”

Big Medicine frowned heavily.

“Just why do you want him here, Hartley?”

“I just want to play my hunch. Do you know what a hunch is?”

“Yes. But where does he come in?”

“They shot him, Hawkworth. He had his hands in the air when they shot him.”

“M-m-m. You think he knows——”

“Holdup men don’t make a practice of shootin’ strangers.”

“No, I suppose not. But will you be able to find out anything from him?”

“I’m not goin’ to ask him questions. As far as he’s concerned, he’ll be just a sick man. What do yuh say?”

Big Medicine thought it over for a full minute. Then:

“I’ll have Ike and Cleve hitch up the wagon team, Hartley. I think Lucy can fix up a room for him.”

Big Medicine went striding over to the house, while Hashknife grinned and rolled a cigarette.

Musical Matthews was busy at the phonograph, so Sleepy left him and went to the kitchen door, where Wanna and Lucy were washing the breakfast dishes. Big Medicine came in and stopped near the middle of the room.

“I’m goin’ to send Ike and Cleve to Pinnacle with the wagon,” he told Lucy. “They’ll bring that young feller out here to stay awhile, the one that got shot. Can you take care of him?”

Lucy thought it over for a moment.

“I fix room,” she said simply, and turned back to her work.

Big Medicine walked past Sleepy and went into the living-room. Wanna went outside, carrying some chicken feed, and Sleepy stepped into the kitchen.

“I just wanted to ask yuh a question,” he told Lucy softly. “What does ‘kiwa teahwit’ mean?”

“Kiwa teahwit?” repeated Lucy thoughtfully. “I forget some word. Mm-m-m.” She looked up and smiled. “That mean crooked leg. Jus’ like bow leg, I think.”

Sleepy flushed slightly and his lips compressed a trifle.

“Does Wanna sabe that language?” he asked.

Lucy shook her head. “Wanna never hear. Long times I no hear.”

“Thank yuh,” nodded Sleepy, and went outside.

Ike and Cleve were hitching a team to the wagon. Big Medicine and Musical came out of the front door and walked down where Hashknife squatted in the shade of the stable.

Ike and Cleve drove away, and Sleepy went down to join those at the stable.

“What do yuh know about Lee Yung the Chinaman?” asked Hashknife.

“Not much,” replied Musical. “He’s a plunger, I sabe that much. Yuh can’t tell anythin’ about a Chink, but I’d bet my last cent that Lee Yung is a smuggler. I tell yuh there’s Chinks bein’ run through this country, and drugs. Lee Yung ain’t the kind that would waste his time over what he can win in Pinnacle.”

“He went out on the stage last night,” offered Sleepy.

“Thasso? Well, if I was a officer I’d watch that Chink.”

“Talks good English,” said Hashknife.

“And thinks like an Oriental, I suppose,” smiled Big Medicine. “It is a dangerous combination. I have never met Lee Yung. I feel morally responsible for Hawk Hole, and I hope that Musical is wrong about the drug-smuggling. As far as the smuggling of Chinese is concerned, I have nothing to say.

“They are not a menace as far as I can understand. Our Government admits many emigrants less desirable than Chinese. Except in rare cases, the Chinese are a peaceable race, and their troubles are only their own people. Unlike the whites, they are a bit particular whom they kill.”

“That’s right,” grinned Hashknife. “They seem to draw the color line. I’ve never seen one that would lie. They either tell yuh the truth, or tell yuh nothin’.”

“I wish more white men were thataway,” said Sleepy, looking seriously at Hashknife. “A lot of fellers’ brains and tongues are kiwa teahwit.”

Hashknife squinted closely at Sleepy, and his face broke into a wide grin. Big Medicine was not looking at either of them.

“Lucy got a lot of pleasure out of exchanging a few words in the trade language with you,” he said. “She said it was like seeing some of her own people again. None of the rest of us ever understood the language.”

“That’s what I understand,” said Sleepy, and Hashknife smothered a laugh in the sleeve of his shirt.

The joke had gone over better than he had anticipated, much better.

CHAPTER VII
THE MAN WITH THE WAXED MUSTACHE

It was about a week later, well past midnight, when the stage rattled down the grades which led into Hawk Hole. Olsen, the regular driver, was alone on the seat, with one passenger inside the stage.

They swept into the Hole and out onto the flat country, the four horses running at top speed. Far ahead of them a lantern blinked beside the road. Olsen drew the team down to a trot and stopped near the lantern, where a man held the heads of a team hitched to a buckboard.

The man climbed down from inside the stage and walked over to the lantern. He was a big man, almost as big as Big Medicine Hawkworth, and of about the same age. But this man’s face was pale and heavily lined, with a hawklike nose and piercing black eyes. His white mustache was waxed to needlelike points, and his white hair curled down around his shoulders from beneath a wide-brimmed, black hat.

“Well, yuh got here, Doc,” observed Baldy Kero, who held the team. “I just got here myself.”

“That wild devil of a driver swore he’d get me here one time,” replied the big man. “My God, I almost prayed several times.”

Olsen laughed loudly, whirled his long whip over the team, and rattled away in a cloud of dust. Baldy and the big man got into the buckboard, swung the team around, and headed across country toward the K-10 Ranch.

“Lee Yung didn’t come with yuh, eh?” queried Baldy, when he had slowed up to circle a washout.

“He came through last night. I thought it would be best. What is the latest news?”

“I don’t know any news,” replied Baldy. “Yuh see, I dunno what it’s all about. Lee Yung didn’t know either, Doc. We thought somethin’ was wrong, so Lee tells me he’s goin’ to Frisco and see Doc Meline. I ain’t seen Lee since he came back.”

“You didn’t get my letter, eh?” asked Doctor Meline.

“I dunno anythin’ about a letter.”

“The letter I sent you a few days before somebody held up the stage.”

“I didn’t git no letter from yuh, Doc.”

For some distance Doctor Meline remained silent. Then:

“Kern, I am only asking for a square deal. If you and the gang thought you could get that twenty thousand dollars——”

“Hold on!”

Kern jerked the horses to a stop and turned angrily to the big man.

“None of that, Doc. If you sent twenty thousand dollars by that stage, we never seen any of it.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Meline quickly. “I just wanted to know, Kern.”

“Well, you found out. Git up!”

They drove on in silence for another mile. Then——

“Mind explainin’ a few things?” asked Baldy.

“I came here to explain and to listen to explanations. I sent that twenty thousand dollars to Hawkworth, and I wrote you a letter, previous to shipping it, telling you when it would come. Who got that letter?”

“I didn’t,” said Baldy shortly.

“Who takes your mail out to the ranch from Pinnacle?”

“Anybody who happens to be in town.”

“Then there’s a traitor at the K-10, Kern.”

“You think that one of my men opened the letter?”

“And got help to rob that stage—yes.”

“You’re wrong, Doc. The night that stage was robbed every one of my men were at the ranch. Not a damn one of ’em was away.”

“And the man who was shot that night, Kern. How is he?”

“All right, I reckon. Yuh see, they took him out to Hawkworth’s ranch.”

“To Hawkworth’s ranch! Is that where he is now?”

“Well, I reckon he is, Doc. Doctor Henry couldn’t get a nurse to take care of him, so they shipped him out there. I suppose he’s gettin’ along all right.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” The big man exploded into a booming laugh.

“Who is he?” asked Baldy, after Meline’s mirth had subsided.

“Who is he? Kern, that young man is my son—Jack Meline.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.” Baldy drew the team to a slow walk. “Doc, did you send him in here to spy on us?”

“Spy on you?”

“Yeah, spy on us. Now listen to me, Doc. If you don’t think that we’re givin’ you a square deal, hire somebody else. Don’t spy. We’ve got to trust each other, or go bust. We’re both crooks, but we can’t afford to be crooked with each other. I’ll run this end of the game and you run your end.”

“Fair enough, Kern, but remember this: I can get men to run your end of it, but you can’t replace me.”

“That won’t keep me from quittin’,” replied Kern softly. “If I’ve got to watch you and watch some other gang who are tryin’ to bust up our game, I’ll quit. One of my men was killed the night that Lee Yung left for Frisco.”

“The Chinaman told me. His name was Blair, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, it was Blair. I sent him out to trail Torres.”

“And Torres killed him, did he? Why didn’t you kill Torres?”

“Down in this country,” said Baldy slowly, “yuh most always have to find a man before yuh can kill him.”

“Where is he?”

“I dunno. Mebbe he’s down at the Rancho Sierra.”

“Why not hire Steve Guadalupe to kill him?”

“That’s a fine idea. They’re both Mexicans, and Steve is making too much easy money to be attracted by blood money.”

They drove up to the K-10, and Baldy turned the team over to Jack Baum.

The K-10 ranch-house was a long adobe structure, situated on the edge of a mesa, which gave a fairly good view of the sweeping expanse of Hawk Hole. About a third of the house was used as a kitchen and dining-room, while the other two thirds was a combination living-quarters and bunkhouse.

Behind the house was a long series of low sheds and several corrals. Baldy introduced Doctor Meline to all the boys, except the Mexican cook, José, whose English was limited to profanity.

“I’ve seen you before, Doc,” said “Two Fingers” Kohler, a hard-faced cowpuncher, who had lost three fingers from his left hand in an argument with a Mexican.

“Have you?” smiled the big man.

“Yeah, in Frisco,” nodded Kohler. “You was standin’ on a platform, under one of them gas’line lights, sellin’ some kind of damned remedy. Yo’re kinda slick with cards, ain’tcha? By golly, yuh shore done some cute tricks, but I don’t s’pose that medicine would cure anythin’.”

Meline flushed slightly and lighted a cigar. He had been the prince of faker doctors until the police had stopped him from peddling a quack nostrum, a guaranteed cure-all, which was probably made from colored water and quinine.

The newspapers had taken up the case, and the resultant advertising had caused Doctor Meline to return to his big home out near the Presidio, where he proceeded to forget that he ever hawked cheap medicine with a ballyhoo, and to engage in a business of big returns with less publicity.

“Did yuh hear anythin’ from the Tumblin’ H today, Jack?” asked Baldy.

“Not a thing,” replied Baum. “I seen Hartley and Stevens in town, but they was only there a few minutes.”

“Who are they?” asked Meline curiously.

“Couple of punchers,” said Baldy. “One of ’em had rheumatism and come here to bathe in Hawkworth’s hot water.”

“Yes?” Meline smoked slowly, thoughtfully. “Came here to bathe in the hot springs, eh? How long have they been here?”

“They came the night of the holdup.”

“Did they? Hm-m-m. The night of the holdup. And what have they done since?”

“One of ’em stood Torres on his head in the blacksmith’s slack tub,” grinned Baldy. “They were the ones who found Blair after he was killed.”

“Yeah,” said Kohler, “and I heard Doctor Henry say that Hartley was the one who got Hawkworth to take that wounded man out to the Tumblin’ H Ranch.”

“Well!” Meline removed his cigar and grinned at Baldy. “It seems that these two cowpunchers have been real active. Baldy, did it ever occur to you that a stranger might be dangerous?”

“You mean, they might be——”

Baldy hesitated. Meline’s smile was sneering, pitying.

“You poor fool, of course! Did you think that the Government would hire flat-footed detectives to investigate in a cattle country?”

Baldy flushed angrily and got to his feet.

“You cut out that ‘fool’ stuff, Meline,” he warned. “You think that nobody has any brains but you, don’tcha?”

“Don’t get riled,” advised Meline coldly. “I’ve got a right to criticize when my life and liberty are concerned.”

“Your life and liberty be damned! You’re nothin’ but a retailer, Meline. We’re the ones to take the chances. When bullets start flyin’ in Hawk Hole, there’s damn few of ’em that’ll reach you in Frisco. You’ve covered yourself pretty damn well. Lee Yung and me are the only ones, until now, that knew who you were.”

“All right. We won’t argue, Kern. I’m sorry I had to come here. But maybe it is a good thing I did. Perhaps I was hasty in my criticism. I have learned to mistrust everyone.”

“You better git that out of yore system,” advised Baldy. “I suppose you’ll go over to see Hawkworth tomorrow, eh?”

“Don’t be a fool, Kern. Hawkworth must not see me, and neither must he know I am here. He is probably the biggest fool I have ever known—but a dangerous fool.”

“How long are yuh goin’ to stay here?” asked Baldy.

“Quien sabe? There are a few things to clear up, Kern. I want to find out who stole that money and shot my son.”

“You’ll prob’ly be here a hell of a long time. Let’s turn in. Take Blair’s bunk, if yuh want to. He died in a good cause.”

“Thanks. I am not afraid of dead men. They are harmless.”

It was the following day at the Tumbling H Ranch that the wounded man came slowly out through the kitchen door and sat down in a blanket-covered rocking chair which had been placed in the shade for him by Lucy.

He was still a trifle shaky, colorless, but able to get around. His thin face twisted wearily as he sat down and brushed back his black hair with a nervous gesture. It was washday at the Tumbling H, and the invalid watched Wanna as she hung out the clothes, her arms bare to the shoulder, her black hair hanging down her back in a big braid.

From around the corner came the everlasting rub-rub-rub as Lucy scrubbed the clothes. Down at the corral, Hashknife, Sleepy, and Musical were saddle-breaking a colt, and having a big time out of it. The pseudo Jack Hill scowled at them as he rolled a cigarette.

Wanna came back to the corner, carrying the empty basket. Jack smiled up at her and indicated for her to sit down on the steps. But Wanna shook her head with a smile.

“Work to be done,” she said.

“I don’t know how you stand it to live here all the time,” he said. “My God, I’d get the willies sure. And you say you’ve never been out of here, out of Hawk Hole?”

Wanna turned and scanned the hills, as she shook her head.

“No, I live here all the time.”

“That’s too bad, Wanna. I feel sorry for yuh. A pretty girl like you in a place like this. You ought to get out and see things, instead of living here and seeing nothing.”

“What would I see?” she asked innocently.

“What? My gosh! The world—the cities—everything.”

“Everything,” she repeated slowly. “What is a city—like Pinnacle?”

Jack laughed at her ignorance. Neither of them knew that Big Medicine had come to the kitchen door.

“Not hardly like Pinnacle,” said Jack, laughing. “There are many big buildings, many people, bright lights, and—life. You don’t live out here, Wanna.”

“You go back?” she asked.

“You bet. Just as soon as I can travel, I’m going back.”

“Maybe I go some day,” said Wanna wistfully. “I like to see everything.”

“You’d enjoy it. I’d like to show you the city, Wanna.”

“You like to show me?” eagerly.

Jack looked sidewise and a crooked smile twisted his lips.

“Yes, I would. You’re pretty enough to show to anybody.”

Lucy called sharply to Wanna and the girl went reluctantly back to her work. Big Medicine came slowly outside and stopped beside Jack’s chair.

“I heard what you said to her.”

Big Medicine’s voice was pitched low. Jack twisted nervously. He was afraid of this big man.

“Well, what of it?” he asked.

“I’ve watched you and her,” said Big Medicine softly. “Youth calls to youth, they say; but not in this case. I know your type, Jack Hill. The honor of a pretty girl means nothing to you. The cities are filled with young men like you, idlers, wine hounds—and worse.

“Wanna is a half-breed. Her Indian blood makes her believe what you tell her, while her white blood makes a romance of your mysterious shooting. You are something new to her. You do not talk the language of the hills and cattle ranges, and she puts you above the rest of the men.

“You are trying to make her unhappy with her life, with your word pictures of the cities. You wouldn’t marry her. To you she is a pretty girl, ignorant as a savage, something to play with. Let me tell you something, Jack Hill.” Big Medicine leaned closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “If you harm her in any way, by words or by actions, I’ll kill you. That is my promise.”

Big Medicine turned away and went back into the house, while Jack humped in his chair, his lips shut tightly, while the cigarette between his fingers, still glowing, was crushed to powder.

Inwardly he cursed Big Medicine, but deep in his heart he knew that Big Medicine spoke the truth. And he knew that the big man would keep his promise. But he hated Big Medicine now. It was true that he had filled Wanna’s ears with tales of faraway places, many of them untrue, but today was the first time that she had intimated that she would care to see these places.

From inside his shirt he drew out a little silk-covered parcel, hardly larger than an ordinary pocketbook. He seemed careful that no one might see what he was doing. Twisting the thing in his right hand, he opened a flexible corner and poured a tiny bit of the white powder on his left wrist.

He lifted his left hand toward his face, an innocent enough motion, brought the tiny bit of powder in contact with his nostrils—a sniff—and it was gone. The silken bag was put back inside his shirt. Thereupon Jack Hill shrugged his shoulders, sighed deeply, contentedly, and became at peace with the world.

Just one person saw what he had done—Big Medicine. He had stood at the kitchen window, wondering what effect his warning would have, and he had seen Jack Hill take his dose of cocaine. Big Medicine turned away, shaking his head, but resolving to be rid of Jack Hill as soon as possible.

Hashknife came up from the corral and stopped for a moment to chat with Jack.

“Feelin’ better, eh?” he commented. “Yore color is better today. This is sure a great place to get well, pardner. It cured me of rheumatism in a week.”

“I feel pretty good,” replied Jack, none too graciously. “I’m all fed up on this place, though, and the sooner I get out the better it will suit me.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s too bad, Hill. They’ve been mighty good to yuh here. Mrs. Hawkworth sure done a lot for you.”

“She’ll be well paid for it,” gruffly.

“Yeah, I s’pose,” Hashknife sighed. “She done a lot for me too, but I won’t be able to pay much. Still, I can sure be just as grateful as I can be to her and Wanna.”

“You rather like Wanna too, don’t you?” There was a sneer in Jack’s voice.

“Rather,” said Hashknife softly.

“I thought so. Well, don’t let me stand in your way, Hartley.”

Hashknife’s eyes half-closed as he looked at the younger man, a look that other men had seen just before a swift draw.

“Hill,” he said icily, “yo’re walkin’ a narrow trail. Wanna is a mighty sweet girl, and I’m old enough to be her father. Yo’re not in my way, young feller. If you was, I’d tie you in a hard knot, so damned hard that nothin’ would ever untie yuh. Personally, I don’t think yo’re worth the dynamite it would take to blow yuh to hell. Now yuh know where I stand.”

“I’m going to worry a lot about that,” sneered Hill.

He was stimulated to a point where nothing would make him realize his foolishness. His eyes were slightly glassy and he laughed immoderately. Hashknife looked at him curiously, turned, and went into the kitchen.

CHAPTER VIII
QUITE A LOT OF NEWS

Ike Marsh rode in from Pinnacle and turned his horse into the corral. Ike had suffered another session of poker, which was one of his chief vices, but this time the Greenback Saloon took most of his previous winnings.

He came up to the house, where he found Hashknife and Big Medicine in the living-room.

“Wasn’t no mail,” he told Big Medicine. “Torres and Garcia came to Pinnacle last night, and Lee Yung came in on the stage yesterday mornin’. And that’s all the news.”

“That’s quite a lot,” observed Hashknife thoughtfully. “I wonder what will happen now, Hawkworth. Both parties have been gone quite a while.”

“That’s hard to tell. If Baldy Kern thinks that Torres killed Blair, he will probably try to kill Torres. If Torres did try to kill you, and finds that he failed, he will probably try again.”

“Sounds reasonable,” grinned Hashknife. “I reckon I’ll ride to Pinnacle this evenin’. If Mr. Torres wants another chance, I’ll sure give it to him, unless Kern beats me to it.”

“I’m goin’ back,” said Ike quickly. “I’ve got enough left to buy a couple stacks of white chips, and I ain’t so sure but what I profited by my lesson of last night. I reckon Musical and Cleve intends to go in tonight.”

Ike knew that neither Musical nor Cleve had any idea of going to Pinnacle that night, but he was paving the way for the Tumbling H to be well represented in case of trouble.

“This is not our trouble,” Big Medicine reminded him.

“Oh, sure not.”

Ike hadn’t the slightest idea of mixing into any trouble. He went out, rattling his spurs, as he hurried down to tell Cleve and Musical that they were going to Pinnacle that night.

Hashknife smiled softly at Big Medicine. They had become fast friends during Hashknife’s short stay at the Tumbling H.

“The boys are worth having at your back,” said Big Medicine.

“Thank yuh,” said Hashknife. “It kinda looks like there ain’t nothin’ in my hunch this time. The bunch from the K-10 seem as friendly as anyone could be to me. Lookin’ at it from the outside, all is serene.

“I’ve wanted to tell yuh for quite a while that me and Sleepy knew Sam Blair up in the Northwest. We rounded him up in a raid on a horse-thief gang, in which Blair was the only survivor. He escaped later, after shootin’ a deputy sheriff, and nobody up there knowed where he went.

“I can’t quite figure out what he was doin’ out here that night. I don’t think he knew that we were in this country. It is hardly possible that he recognized Sleepy, but started shootin’ because he knowed he was caught.”

“I wondered if you didn’t know him,” said Big Medicine. “Sleepy did not ask questions after the killing, and it seemed to me that he knew the man. But you have a poker face, Hartley. When you heard who had been killed, you did not change expression.”

“Mebbe I wasn’t quite right in the head,” grinned Hashknife. “I got quite a tunk that night. I reckon we’ll stick around till the last of the week, and if nothin’ happens we’ll drift.”

“Stay as long as you wish,” said Big Medicine quickly. “The Tumbling H is your home, Hartley, and it will be mighty lonesome when you leave. The boys like you and Sleepy, and I know how Lucy and Wanna feel toward both of you. Wanna isn’t the kind to say things, but I can tell. And let me tell you something”—Big Medicine smiled broadly—“Lucy says to me, ‘We must get more cattle.’ I asked her why we should get more cattle, and she said, ‘Hire two more cowboys.’”

Hashknife laughed softly over his cigarette.

“Mebbe she likes us because I talk a little of the language she ain’t heard for a long time, Hawkworth.”

“Perhaps. But she says nothing about that part of it. Lucy likes company. I’m English, Hartley. I was born of a family in which there was too much money and too many sons. I was educated in England, brought up with some queer traditions in my brain, some queer ideas, you might call them.

“You wonder why I married a squaw? God knows, I sometimes wonder why myself. Perhaps it was because I lost faith. But no matter. Lucy has been a good wife. I suppose I did not realize what I was doing when I married her, but the realization came later.”

Big Medicine hooked his hands over his knees and stared at the threadbare carpet, deep in thought.

“The realization,” he continued softly, “was the fact that my children would be half-breeds. They could never take their place with the whites. It seemed to me that the Indian blood would predominate, always. And one reason for that would be the fact that they would know that they had an Indian mother.

“You have known Indians and half-breeds, Hartley. And you know that the half-breed never measures up. They inherit the vices of both bloods and the virtues of neither. They are a weak-kneed, and often treacherous combination.

“And that realization hurt, Hartley. I suppose it is the old pride of ancestry cropping out; my inheritance of a hidebound pride, in which the children are the greater. It was like a blow in the face, when the realization came to me. Perhaps I might have left Lucy and married a white woman—but I didn’t. I’ve some of the instincts of a gentleman left, some honor. But I knew that my offspring would always work under the handicap of an Indian mother.”

“And knowin’ that would make ’em more red than white?” asked Hashknife. “Is that yore theory, Hawkworth?”

“Yes. I wonder”—he lifted his head and looked at Hashknife keenly—“I wonder if a child born of a white man and an Indian woman, brought up away from them and taught to believe that nothing but white blood flowed in his or her veins—would they not be the same as a pure breed?”

“The psychology of ignorance?” smiled Hashknife. “I don’t know, Hawkworth. But what satisfaction would that be to either the white man or the Indian squaw? It might be a good experiment, but goshawful tough on the parents. By golly, I’d raise my own kid—regardless of who or what its mother might be.”

“And not give the child a chance?”

“That’s yore hidebound English croppin’ out, Hawkworth. If the child was worth a damn, it would make its own chance. Suppose you had done that with Wanna. Would she be any better off?”

“No white man would marry her, Hartley.”

“No? Then let her pick a man to suit herself. If a white man won’t marry her, what’s the odds? You talk like there wasn’t any good men in the world except white men. I’m sorry to say that I’ve done battle with a lot of thieves, crooks, and murderers; many of them are lookin’ up at the grass-roots right now—and they were all white men, Hawkworth.”

“I get your viewpoint, Hartley. Perhaps you are right. It is only a theory, at best. Living here for twenty-five years, I have had plenty of time for theorizing. It has been a long time, my friend, longer than you can realize. Men say that Big Medicine Hawkworth is a queer person, and that he is unfriendly. Some of them hate me because I own Hawk Hole, and hold it.

“Since the town of Pinnacle was built, Hawk Hole’s morals have not improved. The Greenhorn Mines have brought the riffraff of the Southwest into this place, until it seems to be a happy hunting ground for high-graders, cattle-thieves, smugglers. Is it any wonder that I do not welcome a stranger to my home?”

“I figure we were lucky to get in,” smiled Hashknife.

Big Medicine’s eyes twinkled.

“Do you know what did it? When I asked you what you wanted, you said, ‘Not what he got,’ referring to Jim Reed, whom I had thrown out of my house. It struck me that your sense of humor was too keen to be owned by less than a gentleman.”

Hashknife laughed softly.

“Mr. Reed sure came out. He didn’t do any complainin’ at all either. Just grabbed his bronc and whaled away from here. I took one look at you, and says to myself, ‘Here’s the prophet Elijah, wearin’ high-heeled boots.’

“And you kinda had a habit of switchin’ from good English to cow-town United States, Hawkworth. It was interestin’ to me. Some folks had kinda warned us against comin’ out to see you; but that would make me come if nothin’ else did. If a man or a woman is worth sayin’ things against, they’re worth meetin’.”

“And you’ve been worth talking to, Hashknife,” said Big Medicine warmly. “I hope your hunch, as you call it, will keep you in Hawk Hole for a long time. My definition of the word ‘gentleman’ has changed so greatly that I hesitate to use it; so I feel more safe in calling you my friend than a gentleman. I have a bottle of very old whiskey, older than you are, my friend, and I think it is a proper time to drink a health.”

“To you,” said Hashknife, and Big Medicine went after the bottle.

Pedro Torres was just vain enough over his knifethrowing ability to feel sure that he had killed the man who had humiliated him. Until he came back to Pinnacle there was not a doubt in his mind but that Hashknife Hartley had not lived long enough to know what had struck him.

But discreet questioning had brought him the information that Hashknife Hartley had evidently entirely recovered from his attack of rheumatism and was again enjoying good health.

And it was a distinct shock to hear that Sam Blair had been killed that night halfway between Pinnacle and the Tumbling H Ranch, and that a long-bladed knife had been found at the scene of the killing.

Torres rubbed his chin and considered things. He hated to admit to himself that he had miscalculated his throw, but how did his knife happen to be found near Blair’s body? The description of the knife, meager as it was, convinced Torres that it was the one he had flung at Hashknife from the shadows of the bathhouse.

But how had it been found beside a dead man, far removed from the yard of the Tumbling H? Torres rubbed his chin some more and decided that there was some hocus pocus in the wind. He had seen his victim fall. He questioned the slow-witted Garcia.

“He died,” declared Garcia in Spanish.

“He lives,” retorted Torres. “Sam Blair died a mile or more from the place where I threw the knife, and my knife was found beside him.”

“That is evil fortune,” said Garcia. “Other men will see that knife and know who owns it.”

“Croaking buzzard!” Torres spat angrily. “I must have hurried my throw—and it was dark.”

“A mile is a long throw,” observed Garcia blandly.

“I will kill you some day for being such a fool,” replied Torres. “Still,” he reflected, “it was found there, and who would leave it beside the dead body of Sam Blair? He was shot to death.”

“Your knife did not kill him?”

“No.”

“Then you have nothing to fear. He was not killed with your knife.”

“If I was not there, how did my knife fall to the ground?” demanded Torres hotly. “Perhaps I shot him and lost the knife.”