The Morgan Trail

W. C. TUTTLE

The Morgan Trail

A Story of Hashknife Hartley

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

1928

COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY WILBUR C. TUTTLE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

THE MORGAN TRAIL

CHAPTER I: REALIZATION AND A JOB

Rex Morgan came back from his mother’s funeral and sat down on the front porch of the little place he had always known as home. He was a slender young man, twenty years of age, with the complexion of a girl, well-moulded features, somber brown eyes, and an unruly mop of black hair.

His black suit was slightly threadbare, the cuffs of his shirt rough-edged from many washings. He smoothed back his hair, staring at the skyline of the little city of Northport, California. It had suddenly occurred to him that he was all alone in the world.

The death of his mother had been a great shock to him. The doctor had said it was heart failure. The rest of it had been a confusion of neighbors, who wanted to assist with everything, the sympathetic minister, the business-like, solemn-faced undertaker, who had talked with him on the price of caskets.

It seemed that there was a difference in price between sterling silver handles and the plated ones, but Rex did not remember which they had selected. Just now he stared at the skyline and wondered who would pay for everything; because he had suddenly remembered that he had no money.

As far as he knew he was all alone in the world. There were plenty of Morgans, of course, but he had never heard his mother mention one of them as being a relative. He had never given this a thought before. In fact, he had never given anything of that kind any thought.

Mrs. Morgan had always been an enigma to her neighbors. They had seen Rex grow from boyhood to manhood, practically tied to his mother’s apron-strings, as they expressed it. He had no companions. She had never allowed him to go to a public school, but had always employed a tutor.

Whence her income was derived, no one knew. But she was not wealthy. On the contrary, Mrs. Morgan practiced the strictest economy in order to make both ends meet. She was a slight little woman, evidently well-bred, who lived solely for her son; shielding him from the world in every way.

She had never told any one anything of her past life. Rex was like her in many respects. Now he was twenty years of age, educated from books—as ignorant of the world as a six-year-old. He did not know where his money came from. It had never meant anything to him.

In his own dumb sort of way he wondered where this money came from, and if there was any left. Another thing bothered him just a little. A newspaper reporter, writing up the death notice, asked Rex about his father.

‘I don’t know anything about him,’ Rex had replied. ‘In fact, I have never heard his name mentioned.’

‘Possibly his name was Morgan,’ suggested the reporter facetiously. ‘Didn’t your mother have a marriage certificate?’

‘I have never seen it.’

These things bothered him now. It seemed so ridiculous. There had been one man in Northport who had dropped in to see his mother once in a while. Rex knew him to be a Mr. J. E. Blair, an attorney at law. He did not come oftener than once every two or three months, and his visits were of short duration. Rex had never wondered about him, although he had never been present during these short visits.

The death of his mother had been a grand awakening for Rex. All his life he had drifted along, being content to let her guide him in everything, absolutely devoid of any initiative, and now he was like a rudderless ship in a storm.

He looked at his soft, white hands, and a flash of bitterness swept through his soul. He remembered what he had heard a man say one day:

‘That Morgan boy is going to grow up to be an educated damn fool.’

He did not understand it at the time—but now he knew. But Rex was not exactly a fool. He had absorbed education as a sponge absorbs water—but to no purpose. He realized that he knew nothing of the world, of people, except what he had learned from books. There was not a single thing he had learned that would fit him for making a living.

His next-door neighbor was coming across the little strip of lawn, and Rex looked at him curiously. His name was Amos Weed, a big, portly man, who owned a grocery store down in the center of the city. They had been neighbors for years, but nothing more than a nod had ever passed between them.

Amos Weed sat down beside Rex, shifted his cigar to the opposite side of his mouth, and considered him thoughtfully.

‘Me and the wife have been talkin’ about you,’ he said. ‘Been wonderin’ just what you’re intendin’ to do, young man.’

‘Going to do?’ Rex lifted his head and looked at Weed.

‘Yeah—work.’

‘Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.’

‘I see. Mebby it’s none of my business, but are yuh fixed so yuh don’t have to work?’

‘Why, I—I don’t really know.’

‘Uh-huh.’

He came over and sat down beside Rex.

‘Your mother traded with me a long time,’ he said slowly. ‘She always paid her bill right on the dot.’

‘Well?’ queried Rex.

‘No, she don’t owe me a red cent, young man. Yuh see, none of us ever understood her. We wanted to be neighbors, but she didn’t care to mix with us. We didn’t understand why she kept yuh so close all the time. Hirin’ private teachers and all that. Of course,’ quickly, ‘it wasn’t none of our business. But you’ve lived here a long time, and folks do get curious.’

‘I see,’ absently.

‘Ain’t you got no relations?’

Rex shook his head quickly. ‘None that I have ever heard about.’

‘Father dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Rex honestly.

‘Don’t know?’

‘Not a thing, Mr. Weed. I have never heard a word about him. My mother never mentioned him to me.’

‘Nor to anybody else, I guess.’

‘I must have had a father.’

‘Chances are, yuh did.’

‘Oh, I must have, you know.’

Weed shifted his cigar and looked intently at the sad-eyed young man.

‘Are you tryin’ to be funny, or are yuh just plain ignorant?’

Rex shook his head. ‘No, I’m not trying to be funny.’

‘I didn’t think yuh was,’ dryly. ‘But what’s your plans?’

‘I guess I haven’t any.’

‘Talkin’ cold-turkey, have you any money to live on?’

‘None. I haven’t a cent.’

‘You’ll have to get a job, eh?’

‘I—I suppose so. But I don’t know——’

‘All right. I need a boy to drive a delivery wagon for my grocery. You ought to know this town well enough. I’ll pay yuh forty a month—start to-morrow. What do yuh say?’

‘Drive a—a horse?’

‘Two of ’em.’

‘But I have never driven a horse.’

‘Listen to me, son.’ Weed tapped him on the knee with a huge finger. ‘You’re goin’ to do a hell of a lot of things that you’ve never done. You’re goin’ to get calluses on your hands, wear dirty clothes, swear like a man. Your private teacher will be old man Experience. He’ll teach yuh things that ain’t in books, and when yuh get a diploma from his school you’ll be the first damn man that ever did. Most of us die in the first grade. You show up at the store at seven o’clock in the mornin’, and Jerry will teach yuh how to harness a horse.’

Weed got up abruptly, hitched up his trousers and went striding back across the lawn to his own porch, whence he went clumping heavily into the house.

Rex stared after him a bit foolishly, got to his feet and went into the house. The air seemed heavy in there, and there was a faint scent of flowers. He remembered now that some one had sent a huge bouquet of flowers.

He sat down in an old rocker, staring moodily at the wall, where an old crocheted motto, slightly askew, stared back at him. Before he could read he had been taught that single line of cotton words, done in red against a brown background—‘Yield Not to Temptation.’

What temptation, he did not know. Possibly it meant any kind of temptation. Anyway, it had been held before his eyes since he could remember.

And there was another—‘Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.’ This one was in green on a tan background, with a grapevine effect. His mother had never said much about this one. He knew the house did not belong to them. Sam Tilton rented it to them.

Finally he got up from the chair and went to an old desk, where his mother kept her papers. There was a letter, which came the day she died, still unopened. He looked at the postmark on it, which was slightly smudged, but was able to decipher ‘Mesa City, Ariz.’

Slowly he tore it open and took out the single content—a folded green check on the Mesa City Bank, drawn in favor of Mrs. Peter Morgan, for the sum of seventy-five dollars. It was signed with an unintelligible scrawl, badly blotted.

He put the check back in the envelope. Some one was knocking at the front door, and that some one was Sam Tilton, short of stature, pudgy of waist, puffing heavily on the short butt of a cigar, almost enfolded between his thick lips.

‘I was thinkin’ about the rent,’ he panted. ‘Due las’ week. Don’t like to have it go too long. Sorry about your ma, young man.’

‘How much was the rent?’ asked Rex.

‘Seventy-fi’ dollars per quatter—due in advance.’

Rex drew out the check and handed it to him.

‘Fuf-fine,’ panted Tilton heavily, drawing out a much-thumbed receipt-book. ‘Goin’ to stay on, eh? Uh-uh——’

He squinted at the check, turned it over carefully.

‘No good this way,’ he said sadly. ‘Ain’t been endorsed. Your ma would have t’ sign it before I could take it.’

‘I’m afraid that is impossible, Mr. Tilton.’

‘Seems t’ me that way. Is that all you’ve got?’

‘Every cent.’

‘Well, well! Suppose I’ll have to take p’session. Huh, huh! Well, you stay here to-night, and move out t’morrow. I lose money on it, but can’t be helped. Did yore mother have a nice funeral? Queer woman. Don’t suppose many folks went to see her off. Well, I’ll be goin’.’

And the next morning Rex Morgan took his first job. Jerry, the big stable-man, showed him how to harness a horse. Jerry had barely gone past the primary grades in school, but he knew horses. Rex was afraid of being stepped on by the two big grays which he was supposed to drive, and he was as white as a sheet when he drove them through the narrow alley and out into the street in front of the grocery store.

He kept repeating under his breath: ‘Pull left line to turn left; right line to turn right, and both lines to stop them.’

The horses knew where to go, and he had no difficulty in swinging them around to the front door. Amos Weed looked quizzically at him.

‘Didn’t expect yuh to handle ’em so soon,’ he said. ‘Was goin’ to have Slim drive for yuh to-day. But I guess you’ll do. C’mon in and load up. First delivery almost ready.’

Two clerks helped him load the wagon, explaining just where he should go in order to shorten the route. Rex listened to them in sort of daze, saying yes, when he hadn’t the slightest idea of what it was all about.

Then he found himself back on the seat again. One of the men was explaining to him about the heavy iron weight, from which ran a strong strap, fastened to the bit of one of the horses.

‘Always throw down that anchor when you stop,’ explained the man. ‘Those horses are high-headed. Don’t depend on the brake. And don’t forget to take it up when you start again.’

Rex nodded absently and tightened the lines. He drove away from the store and the horses broke into a trot. It was exhilarating to sit up there and guide a stepping team. As an experiment he leaned back, reached down to pick up an order sheet from one of the boxes, and almost tore a front wheel off against a fire-plug. A policeman swore roundly at him, as he trotted his team around a corner, barely missing another vehicle, but Rex was trying to read the address on that slip of paper.

The horses were going faster now. He slipped the paper under his leg and shortened his grip on the lines. About a block ahead of him was a street car, just slowing to a stop.

Suddenly he heard the jangle of bells, the shrieking of a siren. It was behind him. Quickly he turned his head and looked back. It was the fire department, answering a call, heading down the street toward him.

For a moment he was paralyzed. He had been driving in the middle of the street, and now he forgot whether they were supposed to pass on the right or left-hand side of him. It seemed to him as though he was taking up all of the street, and that unless he did something real quick they would crash into him.

He reached back, picked up his whip, and slashed both horses, swinging heavily on the left line. With a lurch they broke into a running gallop, and the wheels of the wagon, skidding sideways on the car track, almost side-swiped the rear end of the street car.

Across a street intersection they went at a mad gallop, with the wagon doing a juggling act with the grocery orders. For two long blocks the way had been cleared for him, it seemed, but when half way down the next block he saw a heavily loaded truck lurch out through an alley, blocking his way.

He forgot to set back on the lines, forgot to apply the brake. Perhaps it would have availed him little. But one thought flashed through his brain—the anchor. It was the last thing any driver would have thought about—but Rex Morgan was not a driver.

And as quickly as the thought struck him he leaned over, hooked his fingers in that iron anchor, and threw it off the right side of the wagon.

The twelve-pound weight hurtled through the air, whipped around a telephone pole, where it hung long enough to throw one of the horses almost a complete somersault, the wagon buckled sideways and upended on the sidewalk, while Rex Morgan described a parabola, landed on his hands and knees in the doorway of a clothing store, and ended up on his back, with his feet up the side of a counter.

And he stayed right there, trying to pump air into his lungs, while a white-faced clerk, quivering all over, leaned across the counter and looked down at Rex.

‘What do you want?’ he asked inanely.

‘What have you got?’ replied Rex. His right eye was fast swelling shut, and the knees of his trousers were busted wide open, exposing badly bruised knees.

A crowd had gathered, and men were trying to untangle the two horses, which were miraculously unhurt. Even the wagon did not seem any the worse for it; but the grocery orders were a sad jumble. A policeman came in and looked at Rex. Finally he helped Rex to his feet, growling deep in his throat.

‘Did the fuf-fire department catch me?’ panted Rex.

‘Were ye runnin’ away from the department?’

‘Yes.’

‘They tur-rned a half-block fr-rom where ye started, ye poor fool. Who told ye ye could dr-rive?’

‘I—I can drive all right—but I don’t stop very well.’

‘Oh, ye stopped all right. Wan of yer horses had his nose through a wheel of the big tr-ruck. If ye hadn’t—’

But at that moment Amos Weed came in. His face was red and he was panting heavily. He looked at Rex, worked his jaws savagely, and glared at the policeman.

‘He ran a race wid the fire department, Mr. Weed,’ said the officer. ‘The boy is too swift to be drivin’ a delivery wagon.’

‘He is!’ exploded Weed angrily, turning on Rex. ‘You are fired! Don’t go near that wagon! You almost killed both horses. I was a fool to hire you, in the first place.’

Weed bustled outside into the crowd, while Rex leaned against a counter and tried to adjust his thoughts. He had never been hurt before, and the experience was quite a novelty. It was not remorse. He tried to grin.

‘Get away from that counter!’ snapped a voice. Rex turned his head slightly. The clerk was standing close to him, scowling and pointing.

‘Move on, will you?’ he demanded. ‘You’re bleeding on my counter. This is not a hospital. Will you move, or will—’

The man reached over and put a hand on Rex’s shoulder, as though to shove him away; and before Rex realized what he was doing he had clenched his fist and smashed the clerk square in the jaw, sending him spinning back against another counter.

Rex stared at the man, who made no move to resent the blow, but kept both hands up to his jaw. Like a man in a daze, Rex limped through the doorway, while the clerk ran out behind him, calling for the police. But the crowd had righted the wagon, untangled the team, and the policeman had gone on down his beat.

People looked curiously at the youth with the black eye, ripped trousers, which showed a bruised knee, as he walked down the street. His right hand was sore from the blow he had struck the clerk, and he grinned foolishly at his own reflection in a plate-glass show window.

He had unconsciously started toward home, but now he realized that he had no home. In fact, he had walked out early that morning, without taking anything except the clothes he had on his back. He stopped on a corner near a big bank and watched the people going in and out of the institution.

Reaching inside his coat pocket he drew out the green check for seventy-five dollars. Without the proper identification it was worthless, but without hesitating he went into the bank and wrote his mother’s signature across the back of the check.

The teller glanced at it closely, shot a quick glance at the bruised face of the young man, and shoved the check back to him.

‘You better write your own name on it, too,’ he said.

Fifteen minutes later Rex leaned against the ticket window at the Union Station.

‘A ticket to Mesa City, Arizona,’ he said.

After a few moments of investigation, the clerk replied.

‘I can sell you one to Cañonville. Mesa City is on a stage line from there. When do you want to leave?’

‘Right now.’

‘Train leaves in thirty minutes. Gives you time to check your baggage.’

‘Plenty,’ agreed Rex. ‘Were you ever in Mesa City?’

‘No; and that’s only half of it,’ replied the clerk blandly. ‘I prefer civilization.’

‘Isn’t Mesa City civilized?’

‘Well, it’s twenty-five miles from a railroad, in Arizona; so you may draw your own conclusions.’

CHAPTER II: THE FIGHTING NESTERS

About two thirds of the distance between Cañonville and Mesa City, traveling north toward Mesa City, the road keeps to the higher ground, several miles of it being along the rim of Coyote Cañon. From there it drops to the lower ground, nearly on a level with Black Horse River, and near the bottom of the grade it crosses Antelope Creek, which flows in from the northeast.

Just north of this crossing, on the right-hand side of the road, is an old weather-beaten sign, nailed to a gnarled cottonwood, and it reads:

THIS SIDE OF THE ROAD BELONGS TO THE 6X6
NESTERS KEEP OFF

That was Peter Morgan’s warning to any one who might entertain any idea of taking up a piece of ground on that side of the road. For a great number of years Peter Morgan and his hard-riding cowboys had enforced that warning. It is true that some had ignored the sign; but they made haste to move on, when the 6X6 outfit proceeded to show them the error of their ways.

Peter Morgan did not own all that range, but he surely did control it, until one day ‘Spike’ Cahill, one of the 6X6 punchers, rode in at the home ranch and announced that a nester family had moved in at the old ranch-house between Coyote Cañon and Antelope Creek.

‘They’ve got a few head of stock, couple of wagons, and the gall of a sidewinder,’ declared Spike.

‘Did you tell ’em to keep movin’?’ demanded Morgan hotly.

‘I shore did!’

‘What did they say?’

‘The old man said f’r me to git to hell away from there, before he blowed me back a few ginerations. What in hell is a gineration, Pete?’

‘Probably some kind of a damn gun,’ said Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs, the cook of the 6X6, whose opinion usually settled all arguments, as far as Briggs was concerned.

At any rate, Peter Morgan went down to see this nester, whose name happened to be Paul Lane, and was promptly told that he fully intended staying just where he was, and that if any pestiferous cowpunchers started trouble with him, he’d make ’em wish they were on a dairy, where they belonged.

It rather amused Peter Morgan, in a way, whose word had almost been law in that part of the country—the law of might. He noticed that this nester had a son and a daughter. The girl was possibly eighteen years of age, while the boy was a long, gangling youth, possibly twenty-five, with a devil-may-care air, which irritated Peter Morgan. The girl was tall and slender, and Peter Morgan thought she was rather pretty, although he knew more about cattle and horses and cards than he did of women.

But he was there for a purpose, and he told Paul Lane, in no uncertain terms, that he was an interloper, and that nesters were very unwelcome in any part of that range.

To which Paul Lane replied that he ‘aimed t’ stay just the same.’ Yes, he had read that sign at Antelope Creek, and in his opinion the man who put it there had a lot of gall.

‘There’s a hell of a lot of land on this side of that road,’ he told Morgan. ‘Fact of the matter is, yuh could go plumb around the world on it, and I don’t see how any one man has the gall to claim all of it.’

‘Then you aim to try and stay here, eh?’ queried Morgan.

‘I aim to stay here,’ corrected Lane. ‘And yuh might pass the word around that I’m settled.’

‘We don’t pass our troubles along,’ said Morgan. ‘I’ll give yuh three days to move on.’

‘And then what?’

‘Wait and see.’

Lane waited. He knew there was no use appealing to the law until something happened to injure him in some way; and he also knew that the nester would get little consideration in a Mesa City courtroom.

Peter Morgan’s first move, a petty one, was to make a night raid on the nester’s stable and silently remove all of his horses; herding them far back on the headwaters of Black Horse River, twenty miles away.

Two days later the horses were all back in Lane’s corral, and Dell Bowen, foreman of the 6X6, found two of the 6X6 saddle horses in the hills, sore-footed, sore-backed; attesting to the fact that Lane and his gangling son had used them to round up their stock.

And young Lane, who had gained the appellation of ‘Long’ Lane, told Spike Cahill confidentially that he and his father had fixed a trap-gun inside the stable door, which would blow hell out of anybody who opened it at night. He told this to Spike, just as though Spike had had nothing to do with the raid.

‘I dunno if he was tryin’ to be funny, or if he thought we didn’t do it,’ Spike told Peter Morgan, who exploded with wrath.

Morgan was a big man, his black hair slightly grizzled, piercing black eyes, like onyx beads, beneath heavy brows. His mouth was wide and thin-lipped; ready to laugh at anybody, except himself. Morgan was known as a hard man to deal with, but his word was as good as his bond.

The 6X6 was the biggest outfit in the country, and besides that Morgan owned the Oasis saloon and gambling house in Mesa City, which paid him a fine revenue. Morgan had little to do with the management of the Oasis, which was handled by Jack Fairweather.

A mining boom north of Mesa City had been responsible for the growth of the place, but the mines had been nearly worked out at this time. Cañonville was the county seat, a town nearly the same size as Mesa City.

The 6X6 ranch was located about three miles northeast of Mesa City, on Antelope Creek. Northwest of town, some two miles away, was the Flying M outfit, owned by Dave Morgan, a cousin of Peter Morgan. Dave had tried to be as big a man in the community as Peter, but too much indulgence in the flowing bowl and at the green-covered table had left him a sour-faced cattleman, fighting to keep ahead of a mortgage.

They had little in common, these two Morgans. Peter rather frowned upon Dave’s failures, and Dave sneered at Peter’s successes; although they were always friendly enough, if only in a cold way.

Dave was younger than Peter, who was past fifty, and they were not alike in any way, except coloring. Dave was slender, nervous, quick to take offense. He hired three cowboys—Ed Jones, Cal Dickenson, and ‘Red’ Eller.

Peter Morgan’s outfit consisted of Dell Bowen, foreman, Bert Roddy, Spike Cahill, Ben Leach, and Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs. And they were a hardbitted crew, even to Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs, who was so bow-legged he couldn’t sit in an armchair.

Napoleon defended his position as ranch cook by saying:

‘I riz from bein’ a common puncher.’

It did not take Peter Morgan long to discover that Paul Lane and his family did not intend to move away. And there was a law against killing nesters, even on the Black Horse range; so Peter instructed his punchers to confine their operations to annoyance, instead of open warfare.

‘You’ll never annoy that feller enough to make him move,’ declared Spike. ‘Mebby we can make him so fightin’ mad that he’ll kill some of us, and then yuh can have him hung.’

‘You watch him,’ said Peter. ‘Him and that fool son of his will likely maverick a few calves, and then we’ll have him where the hair’s short. There’s a maverick law, yuh know, Spike.’

‘What kind of a law?’

‘Every orejano belongs to the Cattlemen’s Association.’

‘Shucks! And I aimed to go into that cow business myself some day.’

It might be explained that an orejano is an unbranded, weaned calf, which had always been legitimate prey for the first man who found it and put on his brand. In some parts of the country, especially farther north, they were known as ‘mavericks,’ but in the Southwest, where many of the Spanish words were used, they were generally spoken of as an orejano.

The unbranded, motherless calf has often been the nucleus of a big herd, and the practice had become so common that industrious cowboys, anxious to build a herd as quickly as possible, ‘made’ mavericks or orejanos by the simple process of separating a calf from its mother by force. This practice became so prevalent that it became necessary to pass laws governing the disposal of all motherless, unbranded calves. This was a law that had been recently passed, and few of the cowboys were aware that such a thing had been done.

Dave Morgan seemed greatly amused at Peter’s failure to remove the Lane family, and his three punchers rubbed it in on the boys from the 6X6 on every occasion. Nan Lane came to Mesa City once in a while, and the cowboys looked upon her with great favor, although none of them had met her.

They did not like her brother. He played a little poker and drank more than a little.

‘Talks too much for a single-handed feller,’ declared Red Eller. ‘I wouldn’t talk that much, even with all the Flyin’ M behind me. But that sister of his is a dinger. I wish t’ the Lord somebody would git a knock-down to her; so I could meet her. Some day I’m goin’ to ride right up to that nester’s shack and say howdy.’

‘Howdy, Saint Peter,’ said Ben Leach dryly.

‘Hell, they can’t shoot yuh for sayin’ howdy.’

‘You just think they can’t, Red. Wait’ll yuh lock horns with old man Lane. He done told me things about my family that I never heard before. He’s what you’d call well-read.’

‘Fortune-teller?’ asked Red.

‘Fortune, hell! Disaster, I’d call it. He told me that my grandpappy was a pole-cat. Fact.’

‘Didja ever see yore grandpappy, Ben?’

‘No-o-o, I never did.’

‘Uh-huh. Well, yuh can’t hardly dispute him, can yuh? How soon does Peter Morgan expect to make Lane move out?’

‘You better go and ask Peter Morgan.’

Knowing that no one cared to discuss it with Peter Morgan, it was a good way to dismiss the argument.

Lem Sheeley, the sheriff, and Noah Evans, his deputy, riding through Mesa City, heard about the nester on the 6X6, and decided to investigate.

‘The nester part of it don’t interest me none, Noah,’ explained Lem. ‘But I’d kinda like to see what this here Lane looks like while he’s alive.’

Lem was almost too fat to be riding a horse. His face, surmounted by an unruly mop of corn-colored hair, was like a full moon. He was only thirty years of age; a native of the Black Horse country. Noah was tall, thin, with a hook-nose and watery eyes, which gave him the appearance of having a perpetual cold in his head. He wore shirts which were too small for him, and trousers that were too large. As Lem said, ‘Noah busts the elbows out of his shirts from grabbin’ at his pants.’

They rode in at the nester ranch, rather curious to see the man who defied the 6X6. It was not much of a ranch-house, being an old tumble-down affair on the edge of a swale which led down to Coyote Cañon. The fences were badly in need of repair, and the old sway-backed stable threatened at any time to collapse in the middle.

Years previous to this time some one had built the old place, ranged stock for a time, but finally gave it up. It had never been filed on as a homestead. Peter Morgan had often threatened to tear it down, burn it down, or otherwise destroy it, but had neglected to do so.

‘We better be a little careful,’ advised Noah. ‘You never stop to think you’re so damn fat that the worst shot in the world could hit yuh at four hundred yards with a twenty-two.’

‘Then you’d git my job,’ chuckled Lem, as they rode up to the ranch-house.

‘Don’t want it. Look at you. You’ve been sheriff only three years, and you weighed a hundred and fifty when yuh took office. Me and my indigestion would look like hell packin’ a hundred and thirty-five, wouldn’t—’

Noah stopped talking and looked intently at Nan Lane, who came out on the rickety front porch. She was wearing a pale blue dress and a white apron. She was quite the prettiest girl he had ever seen, and he was especially partial to pale blue. Lem folded his hands over the horn of his saddle and helped Noah look at her.

She brushed a hand across her forehead and smiled at them.

‘How do you do?’ she said pleasantly.

‘Nester, hell!’ snorted Noah under his breath.

‘Purty good,’ grinned Lem foolishly. ‘Yore pa at home, Miss?’

Nan was looking at him closely now. She had seen the flash of his badge in the sunlight, and her demeanor changed perceptibly.

‘Why did you want him?’ she asked coldly.

‘I’m the sheriff, and I——’

‘So I noticed.’

‘He shore wears it in sight, ma’am,’ said Noah quickly. ‘He got the biggest star they make. I hates t’ go out at night, ’cause it don’t show in the dark. I been tellin’——’

‘Shut up!’ snorted Lem disgustedly.

‘Did Peter Morgan send you over here?’ asked Nan.

‘He did not, ma’am. We heard about yuh; so me and Noah thought we’d kinda ride over and have a look at yuh.’

‘Go ahead and look,’ she said indifferently.

Noah turned his head and looked at Lem disgustedly.

‘Ma’am,’ he said to Nan solemnly, ‘you’ve heard of the hoof-and-mouth disease, haven’t yuh? Well, that’s what he’s got. Every time he opens his mouth he gets his foot in it.’

Lem grinned vacantly. ‘Nemmind him, ma’am,’ he said. ‘He has indigestion somethin’ awful. Nothin’ is funny to him. Eats sody by the pound. That’s why he rides around with his mouth open all the time. If he ever keeps his mouth shut for five minutes at a stretch, he’ll jist natcherally bust.’

‘I’d rather have indigestion than fatty degineration,’ declared Noah hotly.

Lem flopped his arms dismally. ‘I s’pose. Anyway, I don’t think this lady is a bit interested in our symptoms.’

‘Not a great deal,’ choked Nan. ‘Did you want to see my father?’

‘I was thinkin’ about it,’ said Lem solemnly. ‘But yore temperature went so danged low that I froze my ears, and now I dunno jist why I wanted to see him.’

‘He didn’t,’ declared Noah. ‘Somebody told him there was a mighty pretty girl over here. Lem would ride miles to investigate a rumor like that. Why, I’ve knowed him to ride a sore-footed horse plumb over to Gila County, and when——’

‘Whoa!’ snorted Lem. ‘That’ll be about all, Noah. Jist kinda calm down until yore vocal cords stop vibratin’, and you’ll feel all right again. You excuse him, ma’am. He’s one of them queer folks who dream things and tells ’em for pers’nal recollections.’

Noah subsided, grinning widely, while Nan leaned against a porch-post and wiped the tears from her eyes. It was the first time she had felt like screaming with laughter since they had moved into the Black Horse range.

A man was riding in from toward Mesa City, and they watched him approach. From the way he swayed in his saddle there was little doubt of his being either drunk or sick. He rode up to the stable, dismounted heavily, and removed his saddle, turning the horse into a corral.

It was Walter Lane, Nan’s brother, whose long, gangling frame had caused him to be known locally as ‘Long.’ He came up to the sheriff, and they noticed that his face was bruised and swollen, one eye having assumed a purplish cast. There was dried blood on his chin, on the front of his shirt, one sleeve of which had been almost torn off at the shoulder.

He eyed the sheriff owlishly.

‘Whazzamatter ’round here?’ he demanded.

‘Not a darn thing,’ grinned Lem.

‘Yea-a-ah?’ He looked at Nan inquiringly. ‘Nothin’s matter, eh?’

He rocked on his heels, trying to roll a cigarette.

‘You ought to go and clean up,’ said Nan wearily.

‘Thasso? Huh! Shay!’ He grinned crookedly at the sheriff. ‘I’ll betcha there’s one of that damn 6X6 outfit that won’t nav’gate f’r a while. Whooee! I shore fixed him.’

‘Walter, you haven’t been fighting, have you?’ asked Nan anxiously.

‘Have I?’ He winked at Lem drunkenly. ‘Lemme tell yuh somethin’. Lemme tell yuh——’

He shifted his feet and frowned at the sheriff.

‘What do you want here?’ he demanded.

‘We just dropped in,’ smiled Lem.

‘Isthasso? Well, as far as I’m concerned, yuh can jist drop out ag’in. You’re a friend of Pete Morgan, ain’t yuh? Oh, yeah, yuh are. He swings all the votes in this end of the county, and if you wasn’t his friend, you wouldn’t be sheriff. And no friend of——’

‘Walter, will you stop that?’ demanded Nan nervously. ‘These gentlemen merely stopped——’

‘Don’t let ’em fool yuh, kid,’ sneered the young man.

‘Hang onto yourself,’ advised Noah coldly. ‘You’re too drunk to sabe what you’re sayin’. We’re not interested in yore troubles with Peter Morgan, unless it comes down to reg’lar trouble.’

‘And then what chance has a nester?’

‘Depends on what the nester has done,’ said Lem.

‘If he protected his own?’ suggested the boy.

‘Lotsa ways of lookin’ at it,’ sighed Lem. He was more interested in talking with Nan than arguing with her drunken brother.

‘There’s just one way you’d look at it,’ said the boy. He spat dryly and had to move quickly to keep his balance.

‘You better wash yore face and go to bed,’ advised Lem.

‘A-a-aw right.’

He hitched up his belt and went up the steps past Nan, but stopped at the doorway and looked back.

‘Any old time they monkey with me, they git what’s comin’ to ’em,’ he said warningly, and went into the house.

Nan shook her head wearily and looked at Lem.

‘He will drink,’ she said sadly.

‘Shore,’ nodded Lem.

‘And he’s just the finest kind of a boy when he is sober.’

‘Shore,’ agreed Lem. ‘Hadn’t ort to drink.’

‘Here comes somebody,’ said Noah, twisting around in his saddle.

Four men were riding toward them, traveling rather slowly, and as they drew nearer the sheriff recognized Peter Morgan, Spike Cahill, of the 6X6, Ed Jones, of the Flying M, and Joe Cave, one of the stage drivers.

They seemed to recognize the sheriff and deputy and increased their speed.

‘What in hell has gone wrong now?’ growled Noah.

Joe Cave swung away from the rest and stopped his horse near the corral, while the other three men came up to the porch.

‘Hyah, Mr. Morgan,’ said Lem.

‘Hello, Lem.’

Peter Morgan looked closely at the sheriff and at Nan Lane. From the expression of their faces, these men came on no friendly mission.

‘Where’s Long Lane?’ asked Morgan. ‘You know who I mean,’ he said, when no one answered him. ‘He’s here. That’s his horse in the corral.’

‘What do you want him for, Peter Morgan?’ asked Nan anxiously.

Morgan merely glanced sharply at her, but directed his answer to Lem Sheeley.

‘Young Lane killed Ben Leach less than half an hour ago, sheriff. If yore judgment is good, you’ll ride back the way yuh came—and forget what I told yuh.’

Nan was standing on the top step, leaning forward, her eyes wide, as she listened to what Morgan said. But now she turned and ran to the doorway.

‘Stop that damn girl!’ snapped Peter Morgan. ‘Get to the back of the house, Spike!’

Spike Cahill spurred around to the back door, while Peter Morgan dismounted, drawing his gun. But before he could reach the steps, Lem Sheeley had dismounted and stopped him.

‘Just a minute, Morgan,’ said Lem coldly. ‘This is my job—not yours. And I’m not takin’ yore advice. If that drunken kid killed Ben Leach, it’s my job to take care of him.’

Morgan stepped back, scowling at the sheriff.

‘Well, go ahead and do it; we’ll argue later.’

Lem walked up the steps. Nan was still standing at the doorway.

‘Oh, he didn’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you see, they are trying to ruin us. It’s part of their game, Mr. Sheeley.’

Lem stopped and looked her straight in the eyes. It was probably the first time he had ever looked any woman straight in the eyes, and for a moment he forgot that inside the house was a murderer.

‘Do yuh think so?’ he asked softly.

‘I—I think so. They didn’t want you to interfere.’

‘Mm-m-m-m,’ Lem moved past her and in to the living-room. She did not leave the door, but watched Peter Morgan, standing at the bottom of the steps. Noah Evans still sat on his horse.

Slowly Lem moved through the living-room and into the kitchen. Through the window he could see Spike Cahill on his horse, gun in hand. Farther to the left and down by the corral sat Joe Cave.

But there was no sign of Long Lane. Lem moved slowly back to the living-room. There was another door, which led to a bedroom. It was not locked. Slowly Lem opened it and stepped inside. It was a small room, poorly furnished. On the floor was an empty box, which had contained rifle cartridges, and near the open window was a loaded thirty-thirty cartridge, evidently dropped by some one who was in a hurry.

There had been no one guarding that side of the house, and within fifty feet from the window was a thick fringe of brush which led to a deep arroyo. Lem peered out through the window, but could see no one. He lowered the window softly. There was an old nail, hanging on a string which had been used to block the lower half of the window. He inserted the nail in the little hole over the top of the sash, and went slowly back to the living-room, kicking the empty cartridge box under the bed and putting the loaded cartridge in his pocket.

There was a bed in the living-room, which he judged to be the one used by Paul Lane and his son, and the room he had just left was the one used by Nan. She was still standing at the doorway, and she looked curiously at Lem. Morgan came up to the doorway, halting just outside.

‘Is there any more rooms beside this room, the kitchen, and that bedroom?’ asked Lem.

Nan shook her head. Lem turned to Morgan.

‘He must have went straight through here, Morgan,’ he said. ‘I can’t find anybody.’

‘That’s damn funny!’ snorted Morgan. He surged into the house and went through to the kitchen, where he flung the back door open.

‘See anybody, Spike?’ he asked.

‘Not a soul.’

Spike dismounted and came inside. It did not take them long to satisfy themselves that Long Lane was not in the house.

‘We forgot about the winders on this side of the house,’ said Spike. ‘He could ’a’ gone out that one, Morgan.’

‘And fastened it behind himself,’ sneered Morgan. ‘Guess ag’in. No, he made you folks think he was goin’ to stop, but kept on goin’. Probably went through the house, circled around to the stable and saddled a fresh horse. But we’ll get him if he stays in this country.’

‘Of course, I’m only the sheriff,’ said Lem slowly, ‘but I’d shore like to find out what this killin’ was about.’

‘It started in Mesa City,’ said Morgan. ‘Young Lane had been drinkin’, and they met in the Oasis. Mebby Ben had a few drinks. I dunno exactly what it was about, Lem: but the boys said Ben called Lane a nester. One word led to another and they started a fight. I reckon it was a good fight, until Ben kinda got the best of it, and then Lane hit him with a chair.’

‘He knocked Ben down with it,’ declared Spike. ‘And before we could stop him he started to put the boots to Ben. But he didn’t hurt Ben much, before we stopped him, and then Lane started for home. Ben woke up and—and——’

‘And took out after Lane, eh?’ queried the sheriff.

‘Yeah. Ben was crazy mad. He fought fair, Ben did.’

‘And Lane killed him, eh?’

‘We took out after Ben right away,’ said Spike. ‘If it was goin’ to mean another fight, we intended to see that it was a fair one. We found Ben about a mile and a half from town, layin’ beside the road, with a bullet through his head. He’s there yet.’