HIDDEN GOLD

BY

WILDER ANTHONY

FRONTISPIECE BY

G. W. GAGE

NEW YORK

THE MACAULAY COMPANY

Copyright, 1922,

By THE MACAULAY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

At the sharp crack of the rifle, Moran stopped short.

CONTENTS

HIDDEN GOLD

CHAPTER I

THE COMING OF THE SHEEP

From his seat on the top of a high ridge, Gordon Wade looked into the bowl-shaped valley beneath him, with an expression of amazement on his sun-burned face. Pouring through a narrow opening in the environing hills, and immediately spreading fan-like over the grass of the valley, were sheep; hundreds, thousands of them. Even where he sat, a good quarter mile above them, the air was rank with the peculiar smell of the animals he detested, and their ceaseless "Ba-a-a, ba-a-a, ba-a-a," sounded like the roar of surf on a distant coast. Driven frantic by the appetizing smell of the sweet bunch-grass, the like of which they had not seen in months, the sheep poured through the gap like a torrent of dirty, yellow water; urged on from the rear and sides by barking dogs and shouting herders.

Straightening his six feet of bone and muscle, the cattleman stood up and stepped to the extreme edge of the rim-rock, with hardened countenance and gleaming eyes. A herder saw him standing there, in open silhouette against the sky line, and with many wild gesticulations pointed him out to his companions. With a quick motion, Wade half raised his rifle from the crook of his arm toward his shoulder, and then snorted grimly as the herders scrambled for shelter. "Coyotes!" he muttered, reflecting that constant association with the beasts that such men tended, seemed to make cowards of them all.

With an ominous shake of his head, he went back on the ridge to his waiting horse, eager to bear word of the invasion to Santry, his ranch foreman and closest friend. Thrusting the short-barreled rifle into its scabbard beneath the stirrup leather, he mounted and rode rapidly away.

Dusk was gathering as he pushed his way through the willows which fringed Piah Creek and came out into the clearing which held his ranch buildings. Nestling against the foot of a high bluff with the clear waters of the creek sparkling a scant fifty yards from the door, the log ranch house remained hidden until one was almost upon it. To the left, at the foot of a long slope, the corrals and out-buildings were situated, while beyond them a range of snow-capped mountains rose in majestic grandeur. Back of the house, at the top of the bluff, a broad tableland extended for miles; this, with Crawling Water Valley, comprising the fine range land, on which fattened three thousand head of cattle, carrying the Wade brand, the Double Arrow. Barely an hour before, the owner had surveyed the scene with more than satisfaction, exulting in the promise of prosperity it seemed to convey. Now all his business future was threatened by the coming of the sheep.

After putting his horse in the corral, the ranch owner turned toward the house. As he walked slowly up the hill, he made a fine figure of a man; tall, straight, and bronzed like an Indian. His countenance in repose was frank and cheerful, and he walked with the free, swinging stride of an out-door man in full enjoyment of bodily health and vigor. Entering the cabin by the open door, he passed through to the rear where a rattling of pots and pans and an appetizing smell of frying bacon told that supper was in progress.

Bill Santry was standing by the stove, turning the bacon in its sizzling grease, with a knack which told of much experience in camp cookery. The face which the lean and grizzled plainsman turned toward his friend was seamed by a thousand tiny wrinkles in the leathery skin, the result of years of exposure to all kinds of weather.

"Hello, Gordon!" he exclaimed. His pale blue eyes showed like pin points under the shaggy, gray brows. "You're back early, just in time for me to remark that if we don't get a pot-wrastler for this here outfit pretty durn quick, the boys'll be cookin' their own chuck. I'm blamed if I'll herd this stove much longer."

Wade smiled as he passed into the adjoining room to remove his spurs and chaps. "There's a Chinese coming up from town to-morrow," he said.

Santry peered across the stove to watch him as he moved about his room. The week before, a large picture of an extremely beautiful girl, which she had sent to Wade and which at first he had seemed to consider his most precious ornament, had fallen face downward on the table. Santry was curious to see how long it would be before Wade would set it up again, and he chuckled to himself when he saw that no move was made to do so. Wade had presented Santry to the girl some months before, when the two men were on a cattle-selling trip to Chicago, and the old plainsman had not cared for her, although he had recognized her beauty and knew that she was wealthy in her own right, and moreover was the only child of a famous United States Senator.

"There's thunder to pay over in the valley, Bill." Wade had produced "makings," and rolled himself a cigarette as he watched the foreman cooking. "Sheep—thousands of them—are coming in."

"What?" Santry straightened up with a jerk which nearly capsized the frying pan. "Sheep? On our range? You ain't kiddin' me?"

"Nope. Wish I was, but it's a fact. The sheep are feeding on the grass that we hoped to save against the winter. It's the Jensen outfit, I could make that out from where I stood."

"Hell!" Stamping angrily across the floor, Santry gazed out into the twilight. "That dirty, low-lived Swede? But we'll fix him, boy. I know his breed, the skunk! I'll...." The veins in the old plainsman's throat stood out and the pupils of his eyes contracted. "I'll run his blamed outfit out of the valley before noon termorrer. I'll make Jensen wish...."

"Steady, Bill!" Wade interposed, before the other could voice the threat. "Violence may come later on perhaps; but right now we must try to avoid a fight."

"But by the great horned toad...!"

Santry stretched out his powerful hands and slowly clenched his fingers. He was thinking of the pleasure it would give him to fasten them on Jensen.

"The thing puzzles me," Wade went on, flecking his cigarette through the window. "Jensen would never dare to come in here on his own initiative. He knows that we cowmen have controlled this valley for years, and he's no fighter. There's lots of good grass on the other side of the mountains, and he knows that as well as we do. Why does he take chances, then, on losing his stock, and maybe some of his herders by butting in here?"

"That's what I want to know," Santry immediately agreed, as though the thought were his own. "Answer me that! By the great horned toad! If I had my way...."

"This country isn't what it was ten years ago, Bill. We're supposed to have courts here now, you know." Santry sighed heavily. "To-morrow," Wade continued, "I'll ride over and have a talk with whoever's in charge of the outfit. Maybe I can learn something. You stay here and keep Kelly and the rest quiet if they get wind of what's going on and seem inclined to show fight. I've been, in a way, looking for trouble ever since we refused to let that fellow, Moran, get a foothold in the valley. If he's back of this, we've got a clever man to fight."

"There's another hombre I'd like awful well to get my hands on to," declared Santry belligerently. "Damned oily, greedy land shark! All right, all right! Needn't say nothin', Don. You're the brains of this here outfit, an' 'thout you say the word, I'll behave. But when the time comes and you want a fightin' man, just let me at him! When you want to run some of these here crooks outer the country, you whisper quiet like to old Bill Santry. Until then, I'll wait. That is—" He waved a warning finger at Wade.—"That is, up to a certain point! We don't want war, that is to say, to want it, you understand me! But by the great horned toad, I ain't a-goin' to let no lousy, empty headed, stinkin', sheepherdin' Swede wipe his feet on me. No, siree, not by no means!"

Wade made no reply to this, and with a further admonitory shake of his grizzled head, the old man resumed his cooking.

"You're sure that Chink'll be over in the mornin'?" he asked anxiously, after a little; and Wade nodded abstractedly. "Cookin' ain't no job for a white man in this weather. Breakin' rock in Hell would be plumb cool alongside of it." He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Say, do you remember them biscuits you made over in the Painted Rock country? The batch I et ain't digisted yet.

"Every time I cook a meal," he went on, chuckling, "I think about the time Flour Sack Jim hired out to wrastle grub for that Englishman. Flour Sack was one of your real old timers, rough and ready, with a heart as big as a bucket, but he wouldn't bend his knee to no man livin'. The English jasper was all kinds of a swell, with money enough to burn a wet dog. For family reasons, he'd bought him a ranch and started to raise hosses. He wore one of these here two-peaked hats, with a bow on top, and he always had an eyeglass screwed into one eye.

"The first night after Flour Sack come on his job, he got up a mess of jack-rabbit stew, and stickin' his head out the door, yelled in real round-up style—'Come and git it!' Then he piled up his own plate and started in ter eat. In about ten minutes, in walks the English dude, and when he seen the cook eatin' away, he rares back and says, haughty-like—'Bless me soul, I cawn't eat with me servants, doncher know.' Flour Sack never bats an eye, but says, with his mouth full 'Take a cheer,' he says, 'an' wait until I git through.'"

Although Wade had heard the story before, he laughed pleasantly as Santry began to dish up the food; then the latter summoned the hired men.

"Mind, now, Bill," Wade admonished. "Not a word about the sheep."

The next morning, after a restless night, the young rancher set out alone for the sheep camp. He was more than ever concerned over the outlook, because sleep had brought to his pillow visions of cattle starving on a denuded range, and of Santry and Race Moran engaged in a death struggle. Particularly because of the danger of this, he had insisted upon Santry staying at home. The old plainsman, scarred veteran of many a frontier brawl, was too quick tempered and too proficient with his six-shooter to take back-talk from the despised sheep herders or to bandy words with a man he feared and hated. Wade was becoming convinced that Moran was responsible for the invasion of the range, although still at a loss for his reasons. The whole affair was marked with Moran's handiwork and the silent swiftness of his methods.

This Race Moran was a stranger who had come to Crawling Water some months before, and for reasons best known to himself, had been trying to ingratiate himself in the neighborhood, but, although he seemed to have plenty of funds, the ranch and stock men did not take kindly to his advances. He posed as the agent of some Eastern capitalists, and he had opened an office which for sumptuous appointments had never been equaled in that part of the country; but he had not been able to buy or lease land at the prices he offered and his business apparently had not prospered. Then sheep had begun to appear in great flocks in various parts of the surrounding country and some of these flocks to overflow into Crawling Water Valley. Moran denied, at first, that they had come at his instance, but later on, he tacitly admitted to the protesting cattlemen that he had a certain amount of interest in sheep raising.

More far-sighted than some of his neighbors, Wade had leased a large strip of land in the valley for use as winter range. Moran had seemed to want this land badly, and had offered a really fair price for it, but Wade had not cared to sell. Relying upon his privilege as lessee, Wade had not feared the approach of the sheep, and he had no reason to wish to dispose of his holdings. Now, it began to look as if the purpose was to "sheep" him out of his own territory, so that the agent might buy up the lease and homestead rights on practically his own terms. The thing had been done before in various parts of the cattle country.

Cattle and sheep cannot live on the same range, and when sheep take possession of a country, cattle must move out of it, or starve. No wonder, then, that the cattlemen of Crawling Water Valley were aroused. Their livelihood was slipping away from them, day by day, for unless prompt steps were taken the grass would be ruined by the woolly plague.

Thus far, Gordon Wade, a leader in the cattle faction, had been firm for peaceful measures though some of the ranchers had threatened an open war on the herders. "Avoid bloodshed at almost any cost," had been his advice, and he had done his best to restrain the more hot-headed members of his party, who were for shooting the sheep and driving out the herders at the rifle point. But there was a limit, even to Wade's patience, and his jaws squared grimly as he considered the probable result, should Moran and his followers, the sheep owners, persist in their present course of action.

It was still very early in the morning when Wade arrived at the herder's camp. Oscar Jensen, a short, thick-set man, with an unwholesome, heavy face, stepped out of the little tent as the rancher rode up.

"Mornin'."

"Good-morning!" The cattleman affected a cheerfulness which he did not feel. "Are these your sheep, Mr. Jensen?" He waved in the direction of the grazing band, a dirty white patch on the green of the valley.

"Yes."

"Perhaps you don't know that you are on Double Arrow land? I've ridden over to ask you to move your sheep. They're spoiling our grass."

Jensen grinned sardonically, for he had been expecting Wade's visit and was prepared for it.

"I got a right here," he said. "There's plenty good grass here and I take my sheep where they get fat. This is government land."

"It is government land," Wade quietly acknowledged, "but you have no right on it. I control this range, I've paid for it, and unless you move within the next twelve hours you'll be arrested for trespass."

The sheepman's sullen face darkened with anger.

"Who'll do it? The sheriff won't, and I'm not afeerd of you cattlemen. My sheep must eat as well as your cattle, and I got a good right here. I won't move."

"Then remember that I warned you if you get into trouble, Jensen. There's plenty of open range and good water on the other side of the hills. I advise you to trail your sheep there before it is too late. Don't think that Race Moran can save you from the law. Moran is not running this valley, and don't you forget it."

"How do you know Moran's backin' me?" The Swede could not conceal his surprise. "You can't bluff me, Wade. I know my rights, and I'm goin' to stick to 'em."

"The devil you say!" Now that he was sure of Moran's complicity in the matter, Wade felt himself becoming angry, in spite of his resolve to keep cool. "You'd best listen to reason and pull out while you're able to travel. There are men in this valley who won't waste time in talk when they know you're here."

"Bah!" Jensen snorted contemptuously. "I can take care of myself. I know what I'm doin', I tell you."

"You may, but you don't act like it," was Wade's parting remark, as he turned his horse and rode off.

"Go to hell!" the Swede shouted after him.

Heading toward Crawling Water, the ranch owner rode rapidly over the sun-baked ground, too full of rage to take notice of anything except his own helplessness. The sting of Jensen's impudence lay in Wade's realization that to enlist the aid of the sheriff against the sheep man would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible. There was very little law in that region, and what little there was seemed, somehow, to have been taken under the direction of Race Moran.

It was now broad day and the prairie warmed to the blazing sun. Long, rolling stretches of grass, topped with rocks and alkaline sand, gave back a blinding glare like the reflection of a summer sea, from which arose a haze of gray dust like ocean mists over distant reaches. Far to the South, a lone butte lifted its corrugated front in forbidding majesty.

Beyond the summit of the butte was a greenish-brown plateau of sagebrush and bunch-grass. Behind this mesa, a range of snow-topped mountains cut the horizon with their white peaks, and in their deep and gloomy canyons lurked great shadows of cool, rich green. As far as the eye could see, there was no sign of life save Wade and his mount.

The horse's feet kicked up a cloud of yellow dust that hung in the air like smoke from a battery of cannon. It enveloped the ranchman, who rode with the loose seat and straight back of his kind; it came to lie deeply on his shoulders and on his broad-brimmed Stetson hat, and in the wrinkles of the leather chaps that encased his legs. He looked steadily ahead, from under reddened eyelids, over the trackless plain that encompassed him. At a pace which would speedily cover the twenty odd miles to Crawling Water, he rode on his way to see Race Moran.

Two hours later Oscar Jensen was shot from behind as he was walking alone, a little distance from his camp. He fell dead and his assassin disappeared without being seen.

CHAPTER II

A MEETING AND A PARTING

Had some one of Gordon Wade's multitude of admirers in the East seen him as he stood looking out over his Wyoming ranch, he might have recognized the true cowboy composure with which the ranchman faced the coming storm, but he would not have recognized the stripling who had won scholastic and athletic honors at Princeton a few short years before, and who had spent a year after graduating in aimless travel and reckless adventure.

After flitting rapidly and at random almost all over the habitable globe, he had returned to his home in New York with some thought of settling down there, but the old family mansion was empty excepting for the servants, and his sense of loneliness and sorrow for the loved ones who were no longer there to greet him, drove him on speedily and he turned toward the West to explore his own country last of all, as so many other travelers do.

Attracted by the surpassing beauty of the country, he had lingered in Wyoming long enough to feel fascination of the ranch life that was then to be found in all its perfection in the wilder part of that State, and realizing that he had found the precise location and vocation that suited him, he had converted his modest fortune into cash, and invested all in the Double Arrow Ranch.

But on his way thither, he had stopped in Chicago, and there he had come face to face with Romance.

Before he had gone a dozen steps after getting off the train, some one dealt him a mighty blow between the shoulders, that well nigh sent him spinning. Before he could recover himself, he was caught from behind and hurled headlong into a taxicab.

"I've heard of Western hospitality before," he said, calmly, before he could see who his assailant was, "but you seem to be hard up for guests."

"No," said his college chum, George Stout, grinning happily as he clambered into the taxi, "but I wasn't taking chances; somebody else might have seen you first."

Followed three feverish days and nights; then as they sat in pajamas in Stout's apartment, Wade said: "I don't imagine there is anything more to see or do in this hectic city of yours, and I am free to say I don't like it; I think I'll move on."

"Not yet," said Stout, with the grin that endeared him to everybody that ever met him. "You've only seen the outside edges so far. To-night you are going to break into society."

"Do they have society here?" asked Wade.

"Well, they call it that," still grinning, "anyhow you'll be interested, not to say amused. The game is new as yet, but they go through the motions, and Oh, boy, how lavish they are! You'll see everything money can buy this evening, and probably meet people you wouldn't be likely to run across anywhere else.

"You're bidden to appear, sir, at the ornate mansion of a Senator of the United States—the Senator, perhaps, I should say, I've secured the invitation, and Mrs. Rexhill will never recognize me again if you don't go."

"Would that be serious?"

"Very serious. I am counsel for one of the Senator's companies."

"And does that imply social obligation?"

"It does with Mrs. Rexhill."

"Oh, very well, I'll go anywhere once, but who is Mrs. Rexhill? I suppose, of course, she is the Senator's wife, but who is she in society? I never heard of her."

"You wouldn't; it isn't what she is, it is what she wants to be. You must not laugh at her; she is doing the best she can. You'll admit one thing readily enough when you see her. She is probably the handsomest woman of her age in Chicago, and she isn't more than forty. Where the Senator found her, I can't say, but she was his wife when he made his first strike in Denver, and I will say to his credit that he has always been a devoted husband."

"I'm glad to hear something to his credit," said Wade dryly. "The general impression I've gathered from reading the newspapers lately, hasn't been of the most exalted sort."

"Oh, well," replied Stout, and his habitual grin faded away as he spoke. "A man in public life always makes enemies, and the Senator has plenty of them. It almost seems sometimes that he has more enemies than friends, and yet he has certainly been a very successful man, not only in politics, but in business. He has more irons in the fire than any one else I know, and somehow or other he seems to put everything through. I doubt if he could do so well if he was not at the same time a political power."

"Yes," said Wade, still more dryly. "I have heard the two facts mentioned together."

"Come, come," said Stout, more earnestly than he was in the habit of speaking, "you mustn't put too much faith in what the newspapers say. I know how they talk about him in the other party, but I happen to know him pretty well personally, and there is a good side to him as I suppose there is to everybody. Anyhow, he pays me well for my professional services, and I have seen nothing thus far that leads me to be disloyal to him."

It seemed to Wade's sensitive ear that his friend was speaking with a large mental reservation, but wisely reflecting that the matter did not concern him, he said no more, and when evening came, he went, willingly enough, to make the acquaintance of the man who was then counted as one of the greatest political powers in the country. Nor had he any premonition that in the near future he and his host of the evening would be engaged in a life and death struggle.

Of all that, however, there was no present indication whatever. On the contrary, the great man welcomed him with all the suavity of manner for which he was equally as famous as he was for the over-bearing rudeness he often displayed when his will was disputed. This latter trait had won for him the nickname of the Czar of American Politics; but he was an adroit politician, not lacking in courtesy to guests in his own house. Moreover, he was keen in his appraisal of men and quick to see that a man of Wade's type would be more valuable to him as an ally than as a foe.

Accordingly, he presented the young aristocrat to Mrs. Rexhill, who openly showed her delight in meeting one of such distinguished appearance, and with a great display of cordiality, she introduced him to her daughter Helen.

"It is her coming-out party, Mr. Wade," she said, gushingly, "and you must do all you can to make it a happy occasion."

One glance at the beautiful girl who stood before him was enough to determine Wade that her evening should be as happy as he could make it. The glaring ostentation of the house and its equipment had offended his fastidious taste when he entered, and the sight of the really handsome, but vulgarly overdressed and richly be-jeweled mother, had made him shudder inwardly, but when he looked into Helen's eyes, he forgot all his first impressions and imagined himself in Fairyland for the remainder of the evening.

An older head than his might easily have been turned and a wiser man bewildered by the tender glances of the charming girl who frankly met his advances half way, being as much impressed by his appearance as he with hers, and showing carelessness equal to his in regard to the comment they excited among the other guests. One thing that Helen Rexhill had never learned at school, or from the parents who had done all that could be done to spoil her, was to conceal her feelings. Just now she felt no inclination to do it, and she gave Wade dance after dance, with reckless disregard of her engagements and of the ill-concealed anger of some of the men she threw over with utter carelessness of social obligation.

Wade saw it clearly enough, but the preference she showed for him was so flattering as to make him indifferent, even had he considered himself responsible. He was therefore amused rather than exultant when man after man came up to claim a dance, only to be told "I just promised this one to Mr. Wade."

One such there was, who took his rebuff exceeding ill. Instead of retiring as the others had done, he stepped up closer to the girl and said rudely, "That's all very well, Helen, but you promised me first, and I hold you to it."

And he looked contemptuously at Wade who had started in surprise at his words, and had stiffened himself instinctively, as if to interfere, but who controlled himself instantly and kept silent despite his inclination.

A moment later he was glad he had done so. Helen's eyes flashed and she straightened her form proudly as she spoke.

"Did I really promise you, Race Moran? If I did, I have forgotten it, and anyhow, I am going to sit this dance out with Mr. Wade in the conservatory."

Race Moran, as she called him, was a handsome enough man, though rather flashy in appearance. But the evil look that came quickly on his face, no less than his huge and burly build, indicated that he would have been more at home in a barroom or a street fight, than where he was. For just a moment he seemed about to say more, but apparently thought better of it, and turning away with what sounded like a muttered oath, he walked toward the Senator, who stood at the other side of the room.

"I've made an enemy for you, Mr. Wade," said Helen, half laughingly and half seriously, as she led the way to the conservatory, closely followed by her eager escort.

"Well," said Wade lightly, "they say a man is poor, indeed, who hasn't a few enemies. I don't know that one more or less is of great importance, but it is well to know something about them. Who is the gentleman?"

"I hardly think you would call him a gentleman," said Helen, "though he thinks he's one; I wouldn't tolerate him a moment, only on my father's account. Dad calls him a political heeler, and says he is very useful."

"He ought to be that," said Wade, smiling; "I'd hardly call him ornamental."

"Indeed he isn't," said Helen, pouting prettily, "and he presumes too much on Dad's favor. He actually persecutes me with his attentions, but you know a politician's daughter has to put up with a good deal, sometimes."

"I don't think you need to suffer much," said Wade, gallantly. "You will always find admirers enough to stand between you and any trouble you may have. I rather think there is one of them coming this way at the moment. I shall certainly take pleasure in recognizing Mr. Moran as an enemy, but is this likely to be another one?"

"Oh, no," said Helen, laughingly, as an effeminate looking young man came up, evidently in search of her.

"I beg pardon, Miss Helen," he said, with a bow that seemed to include Wade, politely enough, in the apology, "But your mother asked me to find you. She wants you to meet some new guests who have just arrived."

"Oh, bother," said Helen carelessly. "She can look after them for a while. Tell her I'll be with her by-and-by," and she turned back to Wade, paying no further attention to the luckless messenger, who departed, hiding his chagrin as best he could, though not very successfully.

After he had gone, she said, "No, I don't think Maxwell Frayne is likely to be an enemy; at least, not one that you need fear. He is a gentleman, though he is too insipid to interest me."

"And you think Moran is a man to fear," asked Wade, trying to speak gravely, but showing amusement in spite of himself.

"I don't believe you fear the devil," said Helen, with open admiration, "but Race Moran can be very dangerous, and I feel sure he will try to injure you, if he ever finds a chance."

"Well in that case he will at least be interesting," said Wade, lightly. He would have been amazed if he had realized at the time how prophetic the girl's words were.

For the moment, however, he had little thought of peril and adventures to come. The time, the girl and the place, were all at hand, and he plunged headlong into a complication that kept him for weeks in Chicago, strongly inclined to stay permanently, yet reluctant to settle in a city so little to his liking, when the great out-doors was calling to him so urgently.

While the petals of the passion flower were unfolding so rapidly in the conservatory, Race Moran had taken the Senator to the latter's private room where they had had many secret conferences before. He had done the great man favors in New York where he was a valuable cog in the political machine, while the Senator was still a newcomer in the field, and with accurate judgment he had foreseen that Rexhill would be a winner.

Quick to see opportunities, he had cultivated the latter's acquaintance and courted his favor until he had become the Senator's most trusted adherent, and was admitted to the closest intimacy, so that he had become a constant visitor in the Rexhill home, and had definitely determined in his own mind, to become one of the family. He knew well enough that Helen disliked him, but his ideas of women had been gained from association with a class that is easily dominated, and he was confident of his own powers, which, in fact, were very considerable.

The Senator was not blind to the other's purpose, but though he was far from approving it, having other ideas concerning the daughter he idolized, he had not sought to discourage Moran, nor did he intend to. He would let him go on until a crisis should come, and in the meantime, Moran had not declared himself.

Helen's insolence at the door of the conservatory, however, had stung Moran, and as soon as he had the Senator in seclusion, he broke out.

"Who is that puppy Helen has on a string to-night?" he demanded roughly.

But the Senator could overlook rudeness when it suited his purpose to do so.

"I wouldn't call him a puppy exactly," he said, pleasantly enough; "he is a good deal younger than you and I, but he comes of pretty good stock in your town, Moran, and Stout tells me he has distinguished himself already in two or three ways. I reckon he'd be a pretty good friend to have, if he ever takes an interest in politics."

"Oh, I know the Wade family all right," said Moran impatiently; "they belong to the silk stockings, but we have our own way of dealing with that kind in New York, and I'm able to do the same thing anywhere else, if I have to. Maybe I will have to if he comes between me and Helen. Senator, I want to marry that girl myself. I ain't asking your consent, exactly, for me and her will be likely to do what we want to, anyhow, but I'd a heap rather have you favor the match."

That was almost too much, but the Senator knew his man and also knew how valuable he was. There was no sense in breaking with him until it was unavoidable, so he still spoke pleasantly, though he had flushed with anger for a moment.

"Yes, I reckon you and Helen will do as you like about it, especially as Helen likes. It was sort of decent of you to speak to me first, but there doesn't seem to be anything particular for me to say till you find out what Helen really thinks."

"Oh, I'll find that out, all right," said Moran, boastfully. "But this Wade person better look out; I might have him run into the river some night, if he pokes his nose in too far."

"I'd go easy on that, if I were you," said the Senator laughing heartily, "a dead Wade might interfere with your plans worse than a live one."

"Oh, of course," replied Moran, refusing to laugh. "I talk foolish with my mouth sometimes, when I'm mad, but all the same, he'd better look out."

"Now I wonder," said the Senator thoughtfully, after the other had left him, "how long it will be before he does find out, and how serious it will be. He's hit pretty hard, but I will have to keep him along some way or other; I can't afford to lose him."

And he sat musing over his cigar till one by one his guests had gone, but not until the great drawing room was well-nigh empty, did Helen leave the conservatory.

For a few weeks thereafter Chicago seemed, to Gordon Wade's fancy, to be the very center of the Universe. Gradually, however, the sturdy nature of the man asserted itself, and realizing that for him there were many more desirable places, he determined to look farther before choosing a permanent home. He told Helen frankly of his purpose, and to his great satisfaction she approved. There was no definite word of marriage between them, though they both looked forward to it and both, at the time of parting, deemed the understanding complete between them.

Helen would have had him turn to the East, for her heart was set on city life in one of the world's great capitals, but he declared he must see the West before deciding, and though she was dissatisfied, she was too wise to seek the domination she intended, at that stage of the game.

He departed, therefore, to find in Wyoming later on, his ideal of a home. His thought of Chicago thereafter, was that of the place where the girl he thought he loved was waiting for him, to claim her, so soon as his home was made suitable. There was much to do by way of preparation, however, and almost imperceptibly his ardor cooled as he found himself becoming prominent among the bold and independent citizens who were rapidly putting Wyoming on the map.

CHAPTER III

JEALOUSY

Meantime, many things of great interest to Gordon Wade happened without his knowledge.

A national election at which the previously dominant party was defeated, was a sad blow to Senator Rexhill, who not only suffered in prestige but in pocket. There was no question, even in the minds of his friends, that he frequently used his political influence to back up the many business enterprises in which he held an interest, and in which the greater part of his quickly-made fortune was invested. With the loss of his political pull, disaster came to one after another of those enterprises, and his successive losses were soon heavy enough to drive him almost to desperation.

His previous successes, however, had all been due to the audacity of his plans, for his boldness and courage were unquestionable. For a time he felt confident of winning again, and accordingly, maintained his lavish expenditures and luxurious style of living, with no word of caution to his wife and daughter, and he continued to seek for the long chances in business that offered the largest risks and the greatest gains.

All the redeeming qualities of his nature (and he had more than his enemies gave him credit for), were shown in his family life, and it was not surprising that Helen and her mother were both undisturbed by the gathering storm, but continued to live as he encouraged them to, having perfect confidence in his ability to overcome any and all the difficulties he might encounter.

Mrs. Rexhill continued to dream of social distinction. Failing to see that she had lost much of her own prestige by the Senator's political reverses, she continued to entertain so extravagantly in her palatial home, that she was still tolerated and she took infinite satisfaction in the position she thought she occupied.

She considered Chicago the greatest city in the world, and she dreamed of Helen as its queen. To her mind, the easiest way to accomplish that ambition was to persuade Helen to marry Maxwell Frayne. He had persistently courted the girl ever since he first met her, and he was heir to the great Frayne fortune.

The idea was not entirely revolting to Helen, though she had a small opinion of the elegant young trifler who pursued her so persistently, for she, too, had social aspirations, though being more clear-sighted than her mother, she dreamed of wider circles than those of Chicago. Her husband, whoever he was to be, should take her to Paris, or at least to New York.

Her infatuation for Gordon Wade, however, was as strong as ever. Perhaps she was right in thinking of it as true love, but she was greatly annoyed by Wade's choice of a ranchman's life, and by his settling down out of the world, as she considered he had done. Her letters to him, tender as they were, told him plainly enough of her dissatisfaction, and thereby undoubtedly contributed to the slow growth of his indifference.

For a time she failed to perceive this, and enjoying the excitement of the life she was leading, she was content to wait till Wade should tire of the wilderness, as she fully expected him to do, and should return to her. So she drifted, until after a time her suspicions were aroused by the tone of his letters, and she became anxious.

As time went on, Senator Rexhill's affairs became more and more involved. He realized that he stood little chance of reëlection, when his term of office should expire, and meantime, his fortune dwindled rapidly, though he was still careful not to betray that fact at home.

Moran knew the situation perfectly well, but he remained outwardly loyal to his employer, partly because of the latter's liberality, but more, perhaps, because of the hope he still had of winning Helen eventually, despite the dislike she took no pains to hide.

Knowing how bold the Senator was in his speculations, he came to him one day with an exciting story.

"There's a guy in town," he said, "who may be just a plain nut, but he has the name of being a scientific sharp who knows his business from A to Izzard, and he's either got something almighty big, or he's got the willies.

"What he says is, that he's found gold in a new spot and oodles of it. According to what he tells, it beats California in '49. It's so big, he says, that he's scared stiff, thinking he can't grab enough of it, and he don't know, no more'n a baby, what to do with it. So he's looking for somebody to take hold of it in a big way and give him a whack."

"Where is this gold?" asked the Senator incredulously.

"That's the funny part of it," says Moran; "it's in Wyoming, and as near as I can make out, it must be close to where that young squirt is that Helen thinks she's stuck on. I'm not sure but what it's on his place, but even if it is, there is no reason why he should have any of it. The expense will be pretty heavy to do the thing up right, but if you're game, I reckon we can hog the whole business. We can stall this scientific nut off with promises, and probably buy off Wade for the price of pasture land, and then file claim on the whole dog-gone tract."

This vision of enormous wealth was captivating to the Senator, who had made his first start in mining and knew something of its possibilities. Bold as he was, however, he was also cautious, but after several conferences with Moran, he fell in with the scheme, first securing the services of a skilled metallurgist and an equally capable engineer, who were liberally paid and solemnly sworn to secrecy. He sent them out to verify the discoverer's story, and sent Moran to Crawling Water, to establish himself, and to do such preparatory work as should be necessary. In due time, Moran reported by letter that the gold was located, and was beyond question abundant. He was having trouble, however, in getting the property, as Wade refused to sell.

"Of course," he wrote, "we can file mining claims on the ground we know of, and get possession that way, but we want to make more surveys before doing that, so as to be sure of getting all there is, and we can't do that without giving the whole snap away, and filling the mountains full of prospectors. If that damn Wade won't sell, I'll find some means to drive him away."

It was just after the receipt of this letter, which filled the Senator with hope on the one hand, and anxiety on the other that he came on Helen one evening, as she was entering her own sitting room, and followed her in for a chat.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked, presently, when she failed to notice some trivial question he had asked, and seemed to be in a reverie.

She looked at him with laughing eyes.

"Crawling Water."

"Gordon Wade, eh? Well, I wouldn't think of him too much. Better let that pass. You've outgrown it."

"Oh, no I haven't."

The Senator sighed.

"Mother said to me a little while ago, that he was probably going with other girls and forgetting me, and it made me angry."

"Well, I reckon your mother is about right. Gordon is a likely looking chap, you know. I've got nothing against him, except that he isn't good enough for you; no man is. You don't really care so much for him, do you?"

"Oh, don't I?" She viewed her father through half closed lids, in a quizzical way. "I care so very much for him that if I really thought there was another girl, I would go to Crawling Water to-morrow. You'd have to drop everything and take me."

Her father gently pinched her cheek.

"I would, eh? Well, maybe I'll have to go out there anyway. But do you realize what Crawling Water is like,—a rough, frontier town?"

"I wouldn't mind that for a while."

"No, I suppose not. You've got too much of your old dad in you to balk at a few difficulties. There's somebody else out there who'd be mighty glad to see your pretty face. Race Moran."

"Mr. Moran!"

The sudden change in the girl's tone from tenderness to scorn caused the Senator a twinge of uneasiness. His plans were so closely linked with Moran's for the present, that the man might prove dangerous if his love for Helen were too openly scorned. That she could scarcely tolerate him, despite his ability and force of character, her father knew from the past; but even in the moment of his need he did not seek to influence her in Moran's favor. His love for her was genuine and very deep.

"He's been out there for some time, as my agent."

"Yes, I know that. He—he has written to me, although I've never answered his letters. I've been curious to hear from him again, because he promised to send me some kodaks of Crawling Water."

"Maybe he hasn't done so because you've ignored his letters."

Helen's lip curled in disdain.

"He'd never let a little thing like that stop him. But perhaps I will answer the next one, if only to find out what is going on out there. It's all so very mysterious. Do you know, father,"—She playfully shook her finger at him—"this is the first time in a long while that you haven't taken me into your confidence, and I think it a very ominous sign. I'm sure you'll be punished for it."

The Senator winced at the word punished, and Helen laughed at what she thought was the effect of her raillery.

"Why don't you tell me? You see, I'm so worried about Gordon. Honestly, father, I'm serious about that. I—I love him, and I don't want him hurt."

"Hurt? Why, who is thinking of hurting him?"

"Oh, I don't know. Moran hates him, and has referred to him once or twice in a way that I do not understand. Do tell me all about it."

"Oh, well, my dear, there's really nothing to tell. It's all concerned with some homestead lands out there that I want to get hold of for an investment. Wade will not be hurt, no; that is, he won't be if he beats me out. If I win, he'll lose."

"He will?"

"We both can't win, of course. It's to be a fight, yes,—an amicable business struggle, I hope. There's no reason for it to be otherwise." The Senator appeared strangely nervous, despite his effort at self-control. "Wade as a man and a Westerner doesn't expect to be fed on pap, you know, any more than I do. May the best man win, that's the way of it."

Helen thought this over for a moment.

"Perhaps I'd better go out there with you, after all," she remarked, half in jest.

Then the Senator thought that over for a moment and left the room.

Next day Helen received a package by mail which proved to contain a dozen clear photographs of Crawling Water and its neighborhood.

First of all, as though Moran thought it most important, was a snapshot of himself, which had been taken, so he wrote on the back of the print, by an obliging cowboy. The girl's face was a study in amused scorn as she looked at the photograph, for which Moran has posed with a cigar in his mouth, his hands in his pockets.

Then there were a number of views of the town itself; of its main street, its hotel, its dance-hall, and of "some of the boys" in various poses of photographic self-consciousness. There were also pictures of the marvelously beautiful countryside, but as she neared the end of them, Helen was disappointed to find none of Wade. "Of course, he wouldn't send me one of him," she said petulantly to herself, and she was rapidly running through the remaining prints only to pause suddenly at the very last, while a rosy tide flooded her face and neck.

The little photograph showed a tall, handsome, vigorous looking man, in the garb of a cattleman, half turned in his saddle, with one hand resting on his pony's flank. The man was Wade. With his other hand, he was pointing ahead, apparently for the benefit of a girl—a very good looking girl whose fine head was thrown back, as the wind blew her hair into pretty disorder.

Helen Rexhill had not hitherto experienced real jealousy, but this little photograph excited it. In the highly actinic light of Crawling Water at noon the camera had done its work well, and the figures of the two stood out from the distant background with stereoscopic clearness. Wade was smiling at the girl, who seemed to be laughing back at him, although her face in the picture was partially turned away, so that Helen got only an impression of charm. But the impression was enough to rouse her jealousy.

On the back of the print, Moran had written:

"A surprise picture of Gordon Wade and our new fellow-townswoman, Miss Dorothy Purnell, whose beauty and general attractiveness have made her the idol of Crawling Water."

CHAPTER IV

THE GATHERING STORM

On the north bank of the river, from which it derived its name, the town of Crawling Water lay sprawled out in the shape of an irregular horn. Its original settlers had been men of large ideas, and having had plenty of space at their disposal, they had used it lavishly. The streets, bordered by dusty, weather-beaten, frame buildings, were as wide as those of a large city; indeed, in area, the town could compete with many a metropolis; but there the resemblance ended. Crawling Water was not fated to become a big city. The fact that the nearest railroad point was at Sheridan, forty miles away, did away with any ambitions that Crawling Water might have had to be more than a neighborhood center.

The mixed population was composed of cattlemen, sheep men, cow punchers and herders, with a sprinkling of gamblers and other riff-raff. Rough, uncouth, full-blooded men, they were, for the most part; hard working; decisive in their likes and dislikes; fearing neither God nor man, they met Life as they found it and faced Death with a laugh. They were the last of a fast disappearing type, picturesque, but lacking in many of the attributes which differentiate mankind from the beasts.

Hardly more than a village, Crawling Water was yet a town, and the seat of such machinery of government as had been established, and accordingly, Gordon Wade had ridden directly thither after his far from satisfactory interview with Oscar Jensen. After he had stabled his horse and seen it fed, he started up the street in the direction of Moran's office. He was resolved to find out where the agent stood on the sheep question without any unnecessary delay. Save for a few dogs, sleeping in the blaze of the noon-day sun, which hung overhead like a ball of fire, the town seemed deserted.

When Wade entered the office, Moran was seated at his desk, chewing on a cigar, above which his closely cropped reddish mustache bristled. Like Senator Rexhill, he was a man of girth and bulk, but his ape-like body was endowed with a strength which not even his gross life had been able to wreck, and he was always muscularly fit. Except for the miner's hip boots, which he wore, he was rather handsomely dressed, and would have been called tastefully so in the betting ring of a metropolitan race-track, where his diamond scarf-pin and ring would have been admired.

"Hello!" he boomed as Wade entered. "Have a cigar." He pushed a box of an excellent brand toward his visitor and waved him to a chair. His greeting was noisy rather than cordial.

Wade declined both the chair and the cigar.

"I dropped in to find out why you told Jensen to run his sheep in on my range," he began bluntly.

"Let me see—" The agent very deliberately lifted a large, white hand and took the cigar out of his mouth. "Just what range is that?"

"The upper valley range which I have under lease."

"Which you have under lease?" Moran affected sarcastic surprise. "I wasn't aware that you had any legal right to that part of the valley. It's government land, ain't it?"

"You seem to have forgotten that you once tried to buy the lease from me." The rancher bared his teeth in a grim smile. "We'll not quibble over that, however. We've got our legal rights, all of us; but we're a long distance from the courts here. What I want to know in plain English is, will you order Jensen to trail those sheep? Now, wait a moment!"

Moran subsided with a show of tolerance he did not feel.

"Think well before you answer," Wade went on. "I'm not here to threaten you, but there are desperate men in this valley who will take matters into their own hands, if this business is not stopped. There's plenty of grass on the other side of the mountains and your sheep are welcome to it. Why don't you make use of it?"

"Why should I? The sheep have a right to be where they are and there they'll stay until I get ready to move 'em. You cattlemen think you own this country, but when it comes to the show down, you're a bunch of bluffers. Now, Wade, I made you an offer once,—I'll admit it, and I'll make it again for the last time. Sell me your homestead and lease rights at the price I offered you—ten thousand dollars, and get out smiling. There isn't room for the two of us in the valley."

"Ten thousand for the homestead and the lease combined!" Wade laughed mirthlessly. "You're crazy, man. Why, you offered me that much for the lease alone a few weeks ago."

"Did I? I'd forgotten it. Anyway, it's a fair offer. The land is still owned by Uncle Sam, you know. You haven't proved up on your claims, and you never will if I can help it. We are spending lots of money here, and the government will see that our interests are protected. You cattlemen can't hog the whole of Crawling Water Valley. Times have changed. Well, what do you say?"

The ranchman dismissed the proposition with a gesture, but did not immediately speak. Silently, the two big men faced each other, their glances crossing like rapiers: the cattleman like a statue in bronze in the fixed rigidity of his attitude, but with an expression that showed him one dangerous to trifle with; the agent affecting that half tolerant amusement which one may feel toward an enemy unworthy of one's prowess. Wade presently broke the silence.

"Moran, you may be a big man in the East, but you're not big enough for the job you've tackled here. I've held my friends back as long as I can—longer than I thought I could—and when they break loose, this valley will be a little hell, perhaps a shambles. Men are going to be killed, and I have a feeling that you are going to be one of them. Against that time, once more, I warn you. Tell Jensen to trail his sheep!"

Swinging on his heel, the ranchman left the office, paying no attention to the ironical "Good night," which Moran called after him.

In the street, Wade chanced upon a neighboring cattle owner, Lem Trowbridge of the Circle Heart outfit, who fell into step with him.

"Gordon, how long are we going to stand for this thing, eh? Say, do you know what some are saying about you? Now, I'm your friend, and I'm telling you straight that you've gone far enough with this pacifist stuff."

"They say I'm afraid, I suppose?" Wade stopped and faced Trowbridge. "Have they said that to you?"

"To me? Say, what the —— kind of a friend do you take me for?" Trowbridge flamed up like a match. "No, they haven't said just that, Gordon; but they're hinting, and I don't like it."

"Well, if you hear it direct, send the man on to me with it," said Wade, his lips compressing ominously. "I'm about through, Lem, not quite, but pretty nearly. I've told Moran to have Jensen trail those sheep, and if he doesn't...."

Trowbridge nodded and smiled, as they paused at a street corner—one of the few that Crawling Water possessed.

"That's the idea, Gordon. We'll all be the readier for the waiting. Well, I'll not go any farther with you." He winked with elaborate precision and looked in the direction of a snug little cottage, with flower boxes in the windows, a biscuit toss away. "She's home. I saw her leave the store yonder a little while ago."

Wade blushed like a boy and looked foolish.

"I don't get into town so very often," he began lamely, when Trowbridge slapped him heartily on the back.

"You don't need to make any excuses to me, old man," he said, moving off. "That little woman has put Crawling Water on edge with admiration. You're not the only one—or, maybe, you are."

Secretly eager though Wade was to reach the cottage, the nearer he approached it, the slower he walked, fuming at himself for his sudden spinelessness. Although no ladies' man, he had never been woman wary until lately, and this of itself was a sign, the significance of which he was far from realizing. When he was with Dorothy Purnell, he almost forgot her sex in the easy companionability of their relationship; when away from her, he thought no more of her than he might of some man friend; but the approach had become a matter of embarrassing difficulty with him. There had even been occasions when he had walked past the cottage and ridden home without seeing her, trying speciously to convince himself that such had all along been his intention.

Something of the sort might have happened now had she not hailed him from the open doorway.

"Whither bound, stranger?" she smilingly demanded, in her low, rich contralto. "Better come in where it's cool. Mother'll be glad to see you, and I—shan't mind."

She had come to Crawling Water for the restorative effect of the bracing mountain air upon the health of her mother, who was threatened with nervous invalidism, following the death of Mr. Purnell, two years before. The town called them Easterners because their home was as far East as Michigan, but they had never been city dwellers, as Dorothy's fresh complexion and lithe, alert figure bore witness.

Her chestnut hair, piled in a silken crown on her shapely head, shaded a face that made those who saw it for the first time, catch their breath in instant admiration. Her radiance was of a glorious, compelling, and wholly distinct type, as refreshing as some view of green mountains from out a gloomy canyon. She had eyes, blue in repose, but shading to violet tints when aglow with vivacity; her nose was not perfect, because a trifle tip-tilted, but her face gained character through the defect; her very red lips held most delicious allurement in their slightly full curves. Her hands and feet were small enough to pay tribute to her birth and breeding, but not so small as to be doll-like. She wore a simple, white dress, freshly laundered, which made her look cool and inviting.

"You won't mind? Now that's good of you, and no mistake." Wade shook hands with her, slowly relinquishing her cool palm. "How is Mrs. Purnell? Better?"

"Oh, yes, I think so. You're better, aren't you, mother?" she asked, as they entered the cozy little living-room, where the temperature was in pleasant contrast to the outer heat. "The air up here does you good, doesn't it?"

Mrs. Purnell, a dispirited little person, admitted that she felt very well indeed, and seemed cheered at the sight of Wade, who greeted her deferentially but with easy geniality. She liked him for his wholesomeness, and she frequently declared that he was worth all the doctors in the country because of the impression of health and optimism which he bore with him. But she was aware that Dorothy liked him, too, and so presently made an excuse to leave the two young people together.

"Now, you may tell me all about what's worrying you," the girl said, seating herself across from Wade. "Something is. You can't keep the signs from me."

"Good girl!" His voice held a suggestion of tenderness, as he rolled and lighted a cigarette, in the home-like privilege which they allowed him there. "That's your way, always. No matter who's in trouble, you are ready to hasten to the rescue."

"Oh—," she deprecatingly began, with a trace of violet showing in her eyes, which meant a great deal more than words.

"No wonder every man in the valley considers himself your own, especial knight."

"I thought perhaps I could help you," she said briskly, to cover her sentimental moment. "But that was foolish of me, too, wasn't it? The idea of any one helping you."

"I'm likely to need all my friends soon, Dorothy," Wade answered soberly. "I came in to-day to see Race Moran. There's a big band of sheep on our upper range, and Jensen, who has charge of them, admitted to me this morning that Moran is behind him."

"Goodness, more sheep! Wherever do they come from?"

"I don't know where they come from, but they can't stay where they are unless I go out of business, that's certain." In a few words, he explained to her the significance of the movement, and told her of his talk with Moran. "I've no use for the man," he concluded, "and if it comes to a showdown between us, he need expect no sympathy. I've held back as long as I can. I understand better than he does what the crack of the first rifle will lead to."

"You have not liked him since you found that he took that snapshot of me," she said whimsically. "I didn't mind, but I can't imagine what he wanted it for."

Wade's face darkened.

"It was a confounded impertinence, whatever he wanted with it. But my dislike of him goes farther back than that."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, resting her chin in her hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she always did to those with whom she talked.

"It largely depends on him. Santry—you know how hot-headed he is—would run the herders away by force and kill off the sheep. As a last resort, of course, we may have to do something like that, but I want to win this fight without open violence if we can. A faction war, in the end, would be likely to ruin us all."

"You must be careful," the girl declared earnestly. "Moran is not going to be an easy man to handle. He seems to have plenty of money, and they say here in town that he stands in with the government; that he has some sort of 'pull.' He's clever, I think. He'll trick you if he can."

"I'm sure of that, Dorothy, but we're not going to let him. If only...! Say, do you know something else that is being said in this town? Something that they're saying about me?"

"Something nice?" her tone was archly inquiring.

He leaned forward and lightly rested his hand on her knee, just as he might have done with a man friend, and she took as little notice of it. His fingers were trembling a little under the stress of the emotion he felt.

"They're saying, those who don't like me, I guess, that I'm afraid of Moran and his crowd; afraid of a lot of sheep herders. No, of course, my friends don't believe it," he hastened to add when she started to interrupt. "But it's not doing me any good, especially now that public feeling is running so high."

"But you mustn't mind what they say, Gordon. That's part of the courage your friends know that you have; to do what you feel to be right, no matter what is said."

Her cheeks were glowing with indignation, and he appreciatively patted her hand before sitting erect in his chair again. It was no wonder, he reflected, in that almost womanless land, that many a cowpuncher rode the range by night, seeing her image in every star. The thought that each single man, and many a married one, in Crawling Water, would ride into the Pit itself to win one of her smiles, had been Wade's comfort, even when he was thinking of the possibility of bloodshed between the two hostile factions. But now, in the moment of her sympathy for him, he felt that he could not be content without some further assurance of her safety.

"What you say sounds well, Dorothy, but my pride's working on me, too, now. I can't help it. If my friends, who have been good enough to accept my leadership so far, should lose their heads and go to it without me, I might talk afterward until Kingdom come. I'd never convince anybody that I hadn't funked the thing. You spoke a few minutes ago of helping me. You can help me a great deal."

Her lovely face instantly blazed with eagerness.

"Can I? How?"

"By promising me that, if it comes to a fight, you and your mother will come out to my ranch. You'd be safer there. That is, of course, unless you'd prefer to leave Crawling Water altogether."

"Indeed, I shouldn't prefer to leave Crawling Water at this stage of the game, and"—she smiled reassuringly—"I'm sure we should be safe enough right here whatever happened. But, if you'd feel better about it, we would go to the ranch."

"Thanks. I feel better about it already, more free to show my hand. You are safe enough here now, of course, and might be clear through to the finish; but cheap whiskey has led many a fairly good man astray."

"If only there were some peaceable way out of it all." Her eyes became anxious as she thought of what he might have to face. "Can't you telegraph to Washington, or something?"

"Washington doesn't know whether Crawling Water is in the United States or in Timbuctoo," Wade laughed. "If we had some one in authority right here on the ground we might make him understand, but Mahomet will never come to these mountains, and they can't go to Mahomet. Why, what's the matter?"

His question was prompted by the sudden elation with which she had clapped her hands and sprung to her feet.

"How stupid of me, Gordon, to have forgotten." She stood over him with shining eyes and eager countenance, as lovely as a Lorelei. "There is an official of the United States Government here at this very moment."

"Here? In Crawling Water?" he exclaimed in amazement. "Who is he?"

"Senator Rexhill, Gordon." Wade stared almost vacuously at her as she ran on with her news. "He came in with his daughter last night on the Sheridan stage. Isn't that glorious? You must go up to see him at once."

"I will, of course," Wade said slowly, trying to catch his mental balance. "And with pleasure, too. It's been a long time since I last saw either of them."

"You know them—him?" Dorothy hesitated a little over which pronoun to use, with the somewhat disturbing reflection that Helen Rexhill was a most beautiful and distinguished looking girl. "That will make it all the easier," she added generously.

"Of course, Senator Rexhill has no authority of his own in such a matter, you know; but if we can get him interested, he may wake up Washington in our behalf. Only, I don't see what can have brought him to Crawling Water."

"Do you—do you know the daughter well?" Dorothy asked, with feminine cogency. "I suppose you met her back East?"

"We've known each other for a number of years." He arose, his face expressive of the delight he felt at the Rexhills' presence in town. "We used to be good friends. You'll like her. But it's strange they didn't tell me of their coming. You'll pardon me if I hurry over to the hotel, won't you, Dorothy?"

She gently urged him out of the house.

"Of course! Don't waste a moment, and let me know just as soon as you can what the outcome is. I do hope the Senator can settle all this trouble."

"I want you to meet them right away," he called, over his shoulder, and when he looked back for his answer, she nodded brightly.

But as she turned back into the cottage after watching him swing up the street she was not at all sure that she would like Helen Rexhill.

CHAPTER V

TREACHERY

Overjoyed at the prospect of a peaceful solution of the problem which confronted him, Wade walked rapidly toward the hotel, happy, too, in the thought of meeting Helen Rexhill.

Whether he loved her with the single-hearted devotion which a man should feel toward his future wife, he was not sure; but he was confident that he did not love any one else. The idea of love in connection with Dorothy had never occurred to him; she was his good friend, nothing more. To Helen, belonged the romance of his life, fostered in other years by the distinct preference she had shown for him. At one time, they had been reported engaged, and although the word had never actually passed between them, many things more significant than speech had contributed to the warm regard which they felt for each other. Beneath Helen's reputed coldness of heart lay intense feeling, and on numerous occasions she had verged on unwomanliness in baring her moods to Wade, in a way that many other men would have been quicker to fathom, and perhaps to take advantage of, than he had been.

Now, the knowledge that she was close at hand, and that he might see her at any moment, caused his heart to beat rapidly. If to others she had been cool, to him she had been ardent, and this warmth had been the one thing needful to make her physically captivating. Only when some vital cause impends is a young man likely to distinguish between the impulses of his body and the cravings of his soul, and no such vital exigency had as yet appeared in Wade's life. He wondered if she was as beautiful as ever, and began to reproach himself for lack of ardor in his recent letters to her, lest he should now be repaid in kind. He wanted to be received upon the old, delicious footing, with her in his arms, and her lips trembling beneath his.

There were dozens of men in Washington and New York who would almost have bartered their souls for such privilege, and Gordon Wade need not be decried for his moment of passionate yearning. He was enough of a man to put the thought aside, pending his interview with the Senator, which was his first purpose. He felt sure that if Senator Rexhill could be moved to interest in Crawling Water affairs, his influence would be potent enough to secure redress for the cattlemen, and Wade meant to pull every string that could bear upon so happy a result. He was glad that Mrs. Rexhill had not made the journey, for he was conscious of her hostility to him, and he felt that his chances of moving her husband were better without her.

When he inquired at the hotel, he was told that the Rexhills were in, and he presently found himself shaking hands with the Senator, who greeted him with effusive warmth.

"Helen is changing her gown and will be in shortly," the big man explained. "I'm mighty glad to see you, Gordon. Only this morning we were talking of looking you up. How are you? Sit down, my boy, sit down!"

"Senator," Wade began, after they had exchanged commonplaces for a few moments. "Glad as I am to see you, on my own account, I am more than glad in behalf of my friends, who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting you. Your arrival in Crawling Water could not possibly have been more opportune. You have come just in time to save us, most likely, from an internecine strife which might have ruined us all. I was more glad than I can tell you to learn that you were here."

"Indeed, Gordon? I—I am much interested. Perhaps, you will...."

While Wade succinctly sketched the situation, the Senator nervously toyed with his eyeglasses, now and then lifting his double chin from the confinement of his collar, only to let the mass of flesh settle again into inertness. He thought rapidly. Evidently, Moran had not divulged the fact that he, the Senator, was concerned in the Crawling Water enterprise. Certainly, Moran had done very well in that, and Rexhill almost wished now that he had been less precipitate in coming to Crawling Water. If he had stayed in the East, his complicity in the affair might possibly have been concealed to the very end. He hastily considered the advisability of remaining under cover; but now that he was on the ground he decided that he had better be open and above board, in so far at least as he could be so. It would prove awkward in the event of subsequent investigation, if he should be made to appear in the guise of a deliberate conspirator.

So, presently, as Wade neared the end of his résumé of the situation, Rexhill permitted an oleaginous smile to overspread his countenance. At the last, he even chuckled.

"It's really a bit amusing. No, no, not what you have said, my boy; but what I am about to say to you. You invoke my influence to stop these—er—depredations, as you call them, and up to a certain point, you shall have my aid, because I seem to see that matters have gone a bit beyond bounds. But when you ask me to go to extremes myself, why, I'm bound to tell you that I, too, have interests at stake. Why do you suppose I came to Crawling Water?"

"I'll admit that puzzled me."

Rexhill looked keenly at Wade, wondering if he were foolish enough to believe the trip a sentimental journey, purely. He concluded that the young ranchman had too much sense to jump at such a conclusion.

"Well, the reason is...." The Senator leaned ponderously forward, twiddling his glasses upon his thumb. "The reason is that I, if you please, am the moving spirit behind the company which Race Moran is representing here. You see...." He chuckled plethorically again at Wade's start of surprise. "It really is a bit amusing."

"Then Moran is your agent?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Well, I'll be damned!" The cattleman's tone was rich in disgust, but even more keen was his intense disappointment at this failure of his hopes. "Would you mind telling me, Senator, just what the purpose of your company is?"

"Certainly not. It's no secret," Rexhill replied briskly. "Certain parties back East, myself included, as I've told you, have reason to believe that a railroad will be put through this valley in the near future. This is an extremely rich and productive section, with natural resources which will make it heard from some day, so we are anxious to obtain a portion of the valley for speculative purposes. If the railroad comes through we'll probably build a town somewhere nearby and open up an irrigation project we have in mind. If not, we'll use our holdings to raise wheat and livestock. The proposition is a sound investment either way you look at it."

"A few years ago," said Wade, "I and several others leased upwards of twenty thousand acres of grass land here in the valley for stock grazing purposes. I, personally, filed a claim on the land I now call my home ranch. Our lease, which is direct from the Government, gives us entire control of the land so long as we pay for it.

"Besides ourselves, there are a number of ranches in the valley, all of them cattle and horse outfits. There has always been a tacit agreement that sheep should not be grazed here because sheep and cattle can't live on the same range in large numbers. Until Moran came here, we had no trouble whatever—the sheep ranchers kept to their own side of the mountains and we cattlemen kept to ours. Since Moran has arrived, however, the sheep have crossed the Divide in thousands, until the entire valley is being overrun with them.

"Only this morning, Moran admitted to me that the sheep men are acting with his authority and backing. Senator Rexhill, this is wrong, and your agent, or manager, is making a big mistake. Since you are the prime mover in this matter, your arrival is even more opportune than I at first thought, because you have the power to immediately correct your hired man's mistake. So far as we cattle ranchers can learn, Moran is bringing sheep in here with the deliberate intention of starving us out of our homes. He seems to want our range and he—I'll not say you—thinks that such a course is the cheapest way to gain possession. He'll find it the dearest in the end. Unless the sheep are moved mighty soon, we shall be mixed up in one of the bloodiest little wars in the history of the range country. Mark you, I'm no firebrand,—some call me too conservative; but we have about reached the limit, and something is bound to happen before many days."

Senator Rexhill drummed with his fingers on the table.

"Um! Does Moran know of this attitude in you and your friends, Gordon?"

"Yes. I have just finished telling him of it. But he merely laughs at us. We are a long way from the courts here, Senator, and we can't easily appeal to the authorities. We are obliged to settle our differences among ourselves. Moran knows this as well as I do; but he forgets that the thing can work two ways. Each day that the sheep are here in the valley they spoil more grass than all our cattle could eat in a week; in two months, if the sheep stay, the range will be as bare as a ball-room floor. Can you wonder that we ranchers are becoming desperate?"

"It's strange," Rexhill commented, apparently much perturbed. "Moran is not the sort to take useless risks. He's dominant, but he's no fool. Well, my boy, I'll talk this over with him; in fact, I really came out here to see how things were shaping up. If things can be peacefully arranged, that's the way we want them. We're not looking for trouble. Certainly, you are quite right to object to sheep being run on your leased pasture. I'll look into it right away and see what can be done."

"Thank you." Wade was much relieved and he showed it. "I felt sure that an appeal to your sense of fair play would not be fruitless. I'm mighty glad you are in town."

"Gordon!" a girl's voice exclaimed softly behind him.

"Helen!" He sprang to his feet and turned to seize her hands.

Those who admired Helen Rexhill at Washington social functions never saw her look more lovely than she did at this moment of meeting with Wade, for the reason that all the skill of the costumer could not beautify her so much as the radiance of love now in her face. The dress she wore was far from inexpensive, but it was cut with the art which conceals art, and to Wade it appeared simple.

Yet his first sensation was one of acute disappointment, which he strove rather ineffectually, to conceal. Doubtless, this was because his recollection of her had soared beyond the bounds of human perfection. But the gown, which she had chosen with so keen a wish to impress him, reminded him of the simple frocks which Dorothy Purnell wore, and in Helen Rexhill's face there was not the same sweet simplicity of expression which distinguished her rival. Flaming love was there, to transform her from the suggestion of a lily to that of a pomegranate; but it was the love that demands and devours, rather than the constant affection which, in giving all, seeks nothing but the privilege of loving in return. Without actually analyzing the impression which Helen made upon him, Wade felt something of the truth of this, and was disappointed in the realization of his dream of her. Materially she was too perfect, too exotic, for the setting of Crawling Water.

"Why, you look just the same," she happily exclaimed. "And I? Have I changed? Now, be careful what you say! You're not a bit of a courtier."

"Everything changes, doesn't it?" he said, slowly feeling his way. "Except the heart?" His answer pleased her.

"Will you listen to that, Father? In the cattle country, too."

"Very pretty," the Senator observed judicially. "Inspired, perhaps."

"How long are you going to stay?" asked Wade.

Helen laughed happily.

"Perhaps that will depend upon how glad I think you are to have us."

She gave him an ardent glance, which he was not proof against, nor would any other man have been so.

"No doubt of that." He laughed with her, his disappointment passing before the old love spell, which she knew so well how to cast about him. "You couldn't have come at a better time, either, for now there is some one here who can be company for you. That is," he added lamely, "when you're tired of having me around."

"Really?" Helen was a bit chilled by this obvious faux pas. Truly, despite his worth as a man, Gordon Wade was no courtier. "Who is it?"

"Of course, you haven't heard of her, but you'll like her. She's Miss Dorothy Purnell. Everybody does like her."

Helen affected a gayety which she could scarcely have been expected to feel. Although she was not socially adept in concealing her real feeling, Wade saw nothing wrong. Only the Senator twisted his mouth in a grim smile.

"Oh, but I have heard of her; indeed, I have. Mr. Moran sent me a little photograph of you both on horseback. Just see how her fame has crossed the continent. I shall be charmed to meet her."

A great light dawned upon Wade.

"Then that was what he wanted with the picture," he exclaimed. "We wondered at the time. I thought it pretty impudent of him, but, of course, if he wanted it just to send to you, that was all right."

Miss Rexhill winced inwardly. In spite of herself, her face expressed a certain amount of pique, for the implication was manifestly that if Race Moran had wanted the picture for himself, the idea would have been intolerable to Wade.

"Oh, yes, quite all right. You seem...." She checked herself, with the reproach upon her tongue, reflecting that, after all, she was most fond of Wade because of his naturalness. Maxwell Frayne, for instance, was without a peer in spinning graceful phrases; but he spun little else.

"But I don't understand why he should send it to you," Wade said, in a low tone, as the Senator turned to bend over an open traveling bag on a nearby chair. "Is he—do you—?" A slight rigor of jealousy seemed to seize upon him, under the witchery of her slow smile.

"Oh, he's been writing to me, and I suppose he thought I'd be interested. Of course, I was." She leaned toward him a trifle, a mere swaying of her body, like a lily in a breeze, and impulsively he placed his big hand over hers.

"He'd better not—he'd better mind his own business!" he said grimly.

She laughed softly, tantalizingly, and being human, Wade kissed her; the Senator being still busy with the contents of the bag.

Thus engaged, none of them heard a knock at the door, which finally opened before Moran, who, even if he did not actually see the kiss, could hardly have failed to suspect it from their embarrassed manner. Helen felt sure from his annoyed expression that he had witnessed the caress, and she was rather glad of it.

He exchanged a slightly stiff greeting with the rancher, and then while Wade and Helen continued their talk, the agent spoke in a carefully guarded undertone with his employer. The news he brought, whatever it was, seemed significant, for the Senator appeared worried and presently turned to Wade.

"You'll not mind if I go over to the office with Moran, Gordon?"

"Certainly not, Senator. Don't let me interrupt you. But what's the use of us staying indoors, Helen? The sun has turned now and it's cooler out. I'll show you something of our little metropolis. Or, I tell you what we'll do! Why not let me take you over and introduce you to the only woman you're likely to find congenial in this neighborhood? She'll be glad to meet you, I know."

In any other company, Miss Rexhill would probably have resented an invitation to call upon a rival, even apart from the ethics of social calls, but not before Race Moran. Before him, she would not humble Wade in the least degree, if only because to do so would reflect upon her own preference between the men. She could only pretend to welcome the prospect of going to see Miss Purnell, and she played her part well.

"We may as well stay here now," Rexhill said, when the two young people had left the room. "When did all this happen?"

"I just got word of it," Moran answered, a bit excitedly. "Don't you see how it plays right into our hands? It's the greatest thing that could have happened for us. It might have been made to order."

"Are you sure it wasn't? Are you sure you didn't have the man shot, Race?" Senator Rexhill's tone was very dry and he watched his companion keenly as he asked the question.

Moran assumed an attitude of indignation.

"Why, Senator...!"

"Tush! I want to know where we stand. By God, Race, you mustn't go too far! We're traveling mighty close to the wind as it is."

"But these brawls are likely to happen at any time. This one in particular has been brewing for weeks. Why connect me with it, unnecessarily?"

"All right. I see your point, of course. The assassin is unknown; suspicion naturally falls upon Wade, who is at the head of the cattle faction and who, as you say, threatened Jensen only this morning. If we can jail him for awhile his party is likely to fall down."

"Exactly!" Moran cried eagerly. "Fortune has placed him right in our hands."

"Well, I'm not going to have him arrested," Rexhill announced doggedly, "at least, not on any trumped up charge. He's broken my bread, Helen likes him. We call him a friend, in fact. I always play square with my friends—as far as possible. Strategy is strategy, nobody can quarrel with that; but this thing you propose is something more."

Moran, while listening, had restrained his impatience with difficulty. He not only had reason on his side, but personal hate as well. His sense of triumph in bringing the news to Rexhill had not been for their mutual cause alone; it had seemed to Moran to point toward the end of his rivalry with Wade for the love of Helen. To have the fruits of victory snatched from him, because of a sentiment of friendship, was almost more than the agent could stand for.

"Good God, Senator," he burst out, "don't throw this chance away! Think what it means to us! We are running close to the wind, and until this moment, it's been a toss up whether we'd get out of here with our lives; whether I would, at any rate. I've run a mighty big bluff on these cattle people, but I did it because it was the only way. I've held my own so far, but when they find out that it's not farm land we're after, but ore—why, Senator, there'll be no holding them at all! With Wade at their head and forty miles between us and the cars, where would we get off? We'd be lucky if we didn't swing from the limb of a tree. Do you suppose Wade would remember then that he'd broken your bread? I'll bet dollars to doughnuts he wouldn't.

"But"—his voice sank to a significant whisper—"if we land him in jail...."

"His friends here would get him out," interposed the Senator, nervously wiping his glasses.

"Then Uncle Sam would put him in again, with a troop of cavalry to keep order here, and that would be another advantage gained for our side. No, sir, once we get him in jail, we've got the law with us and against him, don't forget that. Then the cattle party would lay mighty low. Wade has been their leader right along. I tell you, it's the only way, and you know what it means to us—to you."

"You don't have to tell me that," rasped Rexhill. "If we fail to put this through, I'm a ruined man."

Moran's eyes gleamed.

"Well, then, it's the only way, unless—unless...."

"Unless what?"

"Unless your daughter marries him, and it all comes into the family." Upon that point, Moran wished to know just where he stood.

"I've never made a dollar through my daughter yet, and I never will," said the Senator grimly. "I'm not selling my own flesh and blood. I'll rot in the poor-house first."

Moran gently breathed his relief. He would have fought to the fullest extent of his power to have aborted such a marriage, but if the Senator had favored it, he knew that it would have been difficult to prevent.

"Wade has a foreman he's mighty fond of, an old man named Santry," the agent remarked, trying another tack.

"That's a horse of another color." Rexhill appeared aroused, at last. "I remember the old fellow. He must be nearly ready for the bone yard by this time anyhow. Saddle it on him, if you can. Wade's devoted to him. He'd do as much for Santry as for himself, maybe more."

"I've heard about that kind of devotion," the agent sneered, "but I've yet to see a sample of it."

"Well, you may before long. Your first proposition's no good anyway. It would simply further antagonize Wade's friends. It's quite possible, though, that Santry might have been mixed up in such a brawl. Get him arrested, and then we'll let Wade know, gradually, that our influence is at his command, for a price. I've no objection to that—none at all. By Heaven, we've got to do something."

"We'll do it all right. I'll have a warrant sworn out."

"Meanwhile, Race, go easy with those sheep. Wade was telling me about them, and as a matter of strategy, I had to pretend that I would help him. Move them across the Divide until we see what comes of this Santry affair. I can't go too heavy with the boy right at the start."

"All right." Moran arose. "The sheep don't count much now anyway."

"I don't mind saying, Race," Senator Rexhill observed, a trifle pompously, "that you've done pretty well so far. If you stick to it, you'll not find me ungrateful when the battle is over. You'll be entitled to your reward."

Moran hesitated, seeming to summon courage to say something.

"Maybe you've guessed the reward I'll ask, Senator," he said slowly. "There are some things that mean more to a man than mere money. I'm thinking of Miss Helen."

Rexhill found some difficulty in placing his gaze so that it would appear to naturally fall elsewhere than on Moran. He was mortified by a sense of shame that he could not deal squarely with this aspirant for his daughter's hand. He had been sincere in saying that he would never barter her to further his own interests, but so much hung in the balance here that until the issue really arose he feared to pass upon it. He felt himself stultified by this truth.

"I haven't spoken to her, Senator, because the time has not come, and just now she's too much occupied elsewhere, perhaps. But all my hopes are fixed on her, sir, and when the time does come, I trust you'll not oppose them."

Rexhill coughed to hide what his face might otherwise have shown.

"Well, Race," he said, with a choking sensation that was new to him, "you know what I think of you. As for the rest, well, that will depend entirely upon Helen."

CHAPTER VI

MURDER

"How do you think you'd like to live in Crawling Water?"

Wade looked whimsically at Helen, as she picked her way with the grace of a kitten through the dust of the main street. Carefully though she walked, her shoes and the bottom of her skirt were covered with dust, and gray with it.

"I shouldn't like it," she said, with a little moue. "I don't see why you stay here. You aren't going to always, are you?"

"I reckon it's likely."

"Not—for always?" She had stopped and was looking up into his face with delicious dismay. "That would be awful."

"Most of my friends, and all of my business interests are here. Besides, I have a kind of pride in growing up with this country. Back in the East, things have been settled for so long that a man's only a cog in a machine. Out here, a fellow has a sense of ownership, even in the hills. I think it's because he gets closer to the soil, until he comes to love it and to be almost a part of it."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the girl. "That sounds fine, but the reality isn't up to my anticipation of it."

Wade laughed in his hearty way.

"That's only because you haven't been here long enough, Helen."

"There are things that are splendid about the West," she generously admitted. "Its vastness and wholesomeness, and especially its men. I'm sure that's why I first liked you, Gordon, because you were different—not like the general run of young men in the East."

"Oh, there are lots of good men East, too."

"Not so very many. At least, I have seen very few who were at all worth while. There's one, Maxwell Frayne, who has been plaguing me for months; but I don't care for him—much." She was closely watching him as she spoke, and she smiled when he started.

"You'd better not."

"But if I really thought you meant to stay here all the time, I'm sure I'd love him devotedly. Now"—she eyed him mischievously—"I think this would be a nice place to call home, don't you know, just for fun, and then spend most of the time in New York and London. See that man staring at me!"

"How, staring at you?"

Wade turned and looked in the direction she indicated, surprised at the suggestion that she was being annoyed in Crawling Water, where chivalry to women ran high.

"Oh, he didn't mean anything, I daresay."

"They're friends of mine, and curious, perhaps." He referred to a group of cattlemen across the street, who did seem to be staring and talking, with some indecision in their attitude. "I wonder if anything can have happened? Oh, I guess not. Well, what would I do in London?"

"I didn't say anything about you being in London, did I?"

"Well, it's safe to say that where you were, I'd want to be, at any rate. Haven't I made two trips to Chicago for no real reason except to see you?" he demanded, fast slipping into the thralldom of her fascination.

She viewed him through half-closed eyes, knowing that the pose has always allured him.

"Don't you think you'd be kept busy looking after me?" she playfully asked. "Seriously, I hate an idle man, but I don't know what you'd find to do there. What a question. You'd have to have investments that would take you over every year or two."

"Now you're trying to make a city man of me," he said, half in jest. "Besides,"—a dogged note crept into his voice—"I'd have the right to expect something of you, wouldn't I?"

"Not the right, but the privilege," she answered softly.

"This is where the Purnells live." He turned her into the pathway to the door. "This is what I'd like, a neat little home like this, with a couple of kiddies and some dogs. Then I could spend my out-door time at the ranch."

Before Helen could reply to this, Mrs. Purnell appeared on the threshold to welcome them, but to Wade's surprise, she told them that Dorothy was not there.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Helen, with intense relief.

"I don't know where she went either," the mother went on. "She was out for a few minutes soon after you left, Gordon. Then she came back and called out something to me, but I didn't catch what she said. Before I knew what she was doing she had saddled her pony and ridden off. But come right in. I don't think she'll be gone long."

They entered and Helen, graciously choosing to overlook the fact that this was evidently Wade's second visit there within a very short time, sought to impress him with her tactfulness to Mrs. Purnell. She would have been amazed could she have guessed that she was actually arousing him to resentment. He felt, somehow, that she was patronizing their hostess, who was a woman of refinement, even if she lacked the artificiality of manner that Helen affected. He was sincerely glad when the visit came to an end.

"You must come again," said Mrs. Purnell, in a spirit of friendliness.

"So glad to have met you," Helen replied. "I hope to have the pleasure of meeting your daughter, too, before we leave Crawling Water."

"They're splendid women, both of them," Wade remarked, as they walked back toward the center of the town.

"Oh, yes," Helen agreed, without much spirit. "Nice, comfortable home people, I suppose."

"Best kind in the world."

"Gordon!" Helen laughed good-naturedly, facing him as she walked. "What in the world has been the matter with you to-day? We usually get on so well together, and to-day, if I do say it, only my unwillingness to quarrel has kept us from it."

"Oh, no!" He smiled, too. "Maybe that New York and London business rubbed me the wrong way; that's all. I have plenty of faults, but I'm loyal to my friends. I don't like even hints that they aren't the best friends a man could have."

"Surely, I haven't...."

"Maybe not. Maybe I imagined it. But Crawling Water is a lot more real than London, to my way of thinking."

"You haven't been to London."

"I'm not likely to go, either," he retorted.

Her red lips curled in a way that seemed to indicate that she thought he would go. Already, she was planning to get him out of Crawling Water and beyond the influence of Dorothy Purnell.

As they turned into the main street again, a man leaving a group near the livery stable, and mounting a horse, rode toward them.

"I wonder what's up now?" Wade muttered, recognizing the horseman as one of the Trowbridge outfit.

"Mr. Wade. Just a minute." With the grace of a Centaur, the rider swung his mount in beside them and doffed his hat. "Two of Jensen's herders have been shot. I thought you ought to know about it."

"What?" The ranch owner's jaw dropped at the news.

"It's true, sir. Word just came in."

"Thanks, Barker." Wade pulled himself together, as the restless pony raced back to the barn. "I must go, Helen," he went on, turning to the girl at his side. "There's been fighting—murder, perhaps—out near the ranch. Santry will need me." He was uneasy lest the old plainsman should have been concerned in the shooting.

"You'll take me to the hotel?"

"Of course, yes! Would you mind walking a little faster?" They quickened their pace. "I'm sorry, Helen; but I must hurry to the ranch." Even at that moment he could not but reflect that there would have been no need to take Dorothy home. Somehow, the ways of the East seemed to fit less and less aptly into the life of Crawling Water.

On his way to the livery stable after his horse, Wade did some rapid thinking. Santry might have been concerned in the shooting, but his employer thought not. The old fellow had promised to stay at home, and his word was as good as another man's bond. It was too bad, certainly, that the thing should have happened just when Senator Rexhill's promised aid had seemed in a fair way to settle the controversy. Now, the whole thing was more upset than ever, for Moran and Rexhill could hardly be blamed if they backed up their own men, especially if the herders had been blameless, as was probably the case. Yet if the Senator did this, Wade knew that a bloody little war would be the outcome.

"Where's Trowbridge, Barker?" he asked of the cowpuncher, whom he found waiting at the stable.

"At the ranch, I think."

Wade nodded. Ten minutes later he was in the saddle and headed for the mountains, just as dusk began to fall. The cool night air, blowing against his face as he reached the higher levels, was delightfully refreshing after the heat of the day. He took off his hat and opened the neck of his shirt to the breeze, which revived his energies like wine. He knew that as he felt, so his horse felt, and he was glad, for the animal would have to make a fast, hard trip. At the crest of the first hills, before dipping into the valley, he turned for an instant in his saddle to look backward over his trail toward the twinkling lights of Crawling Water in the distance below.

He had covered some five miles of his journey, to no other sound than the occasional note of some bird, when his quick ears caught the thud of a horse's feet on the trail ahead, with now and then a sharp clatter as the animal slipped on the stones. Wade slowed his own horse down to a walk, and eased his Colt in its holster. He expected to meet some harmless wayfarer, but, under the circumstances, it was just as well to be prepared for trouble. Soon, however, he smiled to himself, for whoever rode toward him made too much noise for any but a peaceful mission. The other horse, too, had been slowed down and the two riders approached each other with such caution that the rancher finally became impatient and pressed forward recklessly.

Out of the night the stranger came on, still slowly, until a turn in the trail brought them face to face.

"Don't shoot!" said a woman's contralto. "I'm a friend."

"Dorothy!" Wade ejaculated, at once recognizing the voice, although he could not see the girl distinctly in the darkness. "In Heaven's name, what are you doing out here?"

"Is it you, Gordon?" In her relief, she laughed softly as she pulled her pony up side of him. "I was a little scared for a second or two. I've awfully bad news, I'm afraid," she added, immediately serious. "I've been trying to find you. I went to the hotel and they told me you'd gone somewhere."

"Miss Rexhill and I went to call on you."

"You did? If I'd only known. I've been clear out to the ranch."

"Is Santry there?" In his anxiety he forgot momentarily the loneliness of her long ride. "They say some of Jensen's men have been shot up; and I'm anxious to find out what Bill knows."

"That's just what I want to tell you. I heard of the shooting before I left town. Whoa, Gypsy!" She reined up her pony, nervously, for it would not stand still. Wade seized the animal's bridle and quieted it. "I don't know if he's there or not," the girl went on. "I couldn't see. The ranch house is full of men."

"Men? What men?" Wade demanded sharply.

"Race Moran's crowd. They went out to arrest Santry. The Sheriff is with them. I heard part of it in town, and that's why I tried to find you." Wade groaned. "I peeped in at a window, and when I could see neither you nor Santry I slipped away without being seen and took the old trail back because it was shorter."

"Lord, what a mess!" Wade ground his teeth savagely. "Poor old Bill was all alone there and they must have surprised him. But I don't see why Barker didn't mention the posse when he told me of the shooting?"

"He didn't know of it, probably. They left town very quietly. I happened to be out back of the house and I heard one of them talking as they rode by."

"Good Lord!" Wade's head drooped. "I told Bill to stay at the ranch, and he promised me...."

"I don't believe he shot Jensen at all," Dorothy declared, with spirit. "Yes, it was Jensen himself and one of his herders. Both in the back—killed."

"Bill Santry never shot any man in the back," Wade declared, in a relieved tone. "If you're sure of the facts, Santry will come clear all right."

"It's just a devilish scheme of Moran's, that's all, to put it on you and Santry. I'm sure it is. He hates you both. Whoa, Gypsy!" She reined the little mare in again. "No, it's all right, Gordon. I can manage her," she remonstrated, as he reached for the bridle once more.

"So that's their game, eh? By Heaven, I more than half believe you're right." His face grew ugly with rage. "Dorothy," he continued grimly, "thanks are useless. You're a brick, that's all. Do one thing more for us, will you?"

"Anything," she replied simply, her eyes shining with devotion to him, but he was too overwrought to read them in the darkness.

"When you get back to town get word to some of the men for me. You may meet them on the way out, if not they'll be around the barn. Tell them to meet me at the big pine, on the old trail."

His horse had grown restless and now he allowed it to have its head; he was moving past her when she clutched his arm.

"Gordon!"

She loved him dearly, too dearly to let him know how well until he should speak, if he ever did speak; but above them was the starlit sky and over them hovered the wondrous spirit of the Western night. Her pulse was beating, too, to the call of danger, and despite the control which she had over her nerves, she was just a bit hysterical beneath the surface. She knew that ahead of him was a little army of hostile men, and already that day two men had been killed. So, tremulously, she held on to his sleeve, until she stopped him.

"What are you going to do? You can't do anything alone against so many. They may kill you."

Her sympathy was very sweet to him and he warmly squeezed the little hand which had held him back.

"Don't you be afraid, little girl," he said tenderly. "I shall not get hurt if I can help it."

"Wait until the others come, won't you?"

"Surely," he answered readily, touched by the anxiety in her voice. "I'm going to look around—just as you did—on the quiet. You wouldn't hold me back, where you went in, now would you?"

"No—!" She smiled a little into his face.

"That's the stuff! Then I'm coming back to the big pine, and you'll send the boys there. They'll not put Santry in jail if we can prevent them. They've played their last card to-night. It's war from now on."

"All right, Gordon, I'll go." Her voice was full of courage again; the moment of weakness had passed. "Remember now, take good care of yourself."

"You bet," he retorted cheerily, and as her mare moved ahead, he caught her arm as she had caught his. She went quite limp in her saddle and swayed toward him, but he merely added: "You're a wonder, Dorothy."

He released her then, and with a wave of her hand she disappeared into the night. Not until she was beyond recall did he realize that he might have kissed her; that she had wanted him to kiss her, for the first time since they had known each other. He sat in abstraction for several moments before he shook the reins in his hand and his horse sprang forward.

"I've kissed one girl to-day," he muttered aloud, "and I reckon that's enough."

CHAPTER VII

THE OLD TRAIL

For another mile Wade followed the main road and then diverged sharply to the left into what was known as the old, or upper, trail. This had formerly been the valley road until made dangerous by a wash-out a year or two previous. In the following spring the wash-out had been partially repaired, but the going was still so rough that the new road was widened, and had been used by preference ever since. The old trail, however, was nearly four miles the shorter of the two, and was still traveled in cases of emergency, although to do so at speed and in the dark was hazardous.

Wade's promise to Dorothy to take good care of himself had been made with mental reservation, for, obsessed by his anxiety over Santry, the young ranchman was in no mood to spare either himself or his horse. His going was marked by a constant shower of stones, sometimes behind him, as the wiry cayuse climbed like a mountain goat; but as often in front, as horse and rider coasted perilously down some declivity. The horse sweated and trembled with nervousness, as a frightened child might, but never refused to attempt what its master demanded of it. One might almost say that there existed a human understanding between man and beast as to the importance of their errand; a common impulse, which urged them onward.

When Wade reflected that Dorothy, too, had come over that trail by night in his interest, he thought her more than ever a wonderful girl. Even to one born and raised in the cattle country, the trip would have been difficult; but then he realized that Dorothy seemed much like a ranch-bred girl in her courage and frank womanliness, nor was she any less charming on that account. After all, he thought, women paid too highly for little accomplishments, if to gain them they had to sacrifice the vital points of character. He could not help but contrast Helen's insistence that she should be escorted back to the hotel with Dorothy's brave ride alone, and while he was too loyal to Helen Rexhill to blame her in this respect, the thing made a deep impression upon him.

The way was long, and he had time for many thoughts. It was natural, in the still night, with Dorothy only a little while gone, that he should think tenderly of her, for this cost Santry nothing. For Santry, Wade was reserving not thought but action. He was making up his mind that if Moran had taken the foreman into custody on a trumped up charge of murder, the agent should feel the power of a greater tribunal than any court in the locality—the law of the Strong Arm! Behind him in this, the ranchman knew, was the whole of the cattle faction, and since war had been thrust upon them he would not stop until the end came, whatever it might be. His conscience was clean, for he had exerted himself manfully in the cause of peace, even to the point where his own character had suffered, and now the hour of reprisal was at hand.

He rode, at last, over the top of the Divide and into the little draw that led up to the ranch buildings, in the windows of which lights gleamed. With an imprecation at sight of them, he tied his horse to a post, and, revolver in hand, crept toward the house as quietly as a Sioux.

Except for the light, there was no sign of life about the place, and Wade craftily advanced into the deeper shadows close to the wall of the house. Taking off his hat, so that the crown might not betray him, he peeped through a window. What he saw made him clinch his fingers and grit his teeth in rage.

Inside were half a dozen men, besides three of his own ranch hands who lay trussed up like turkeys in one corner of the room; doubtless they had been surprised by the posse before they had opportunity to run or put up a fight. Moran was there, stretched comfortably on Wade's own cot, smoking a cigar. Once, he looked directly toward the window at which the watcher had placed himself, but the latter did not move. Instead, he fingered his gun and waited; he was not sure that he really wanted to avoid detection; if it came, Moran would pay, and the rest, at the moment, did not seem to matter. He had forgotten Dorothy entirely.

But Santry was not there and this fact puzzled Wade. The Sheriff was not there either, and presently it occurred to the cattleman that a part of the posse, with Santry, might have returned to Crawling Water over the main trail. Probably Moran, with the rest, was waiting for him. The mere thought of Santry already on his way to jail filled Wade with a baffling sense of rage, and creeping from the house, he examined the surrounding turf by the faint rays of the moon. It was badly cut up by the feet of many horses, and several minutes passed before Wade was really sure that a number of mounted men had taken the trail back to town. Satisfied of this at length, he untied his horse and swung into the saddle.

Before riding away he considered the advisability of driving off the horses belonging to Moran's party, but there would still be others in the corral, and besides their absence, when discovered, would give warning of the impending attack. On second thought, however, he quietly made his way to the corral and caught a fresh horse of his own. When he had saddled it he set out over the old trail for the big pine.

When he reached the rendezvous his men were not there; but knowing that he must meet them if he followed the road from there on he did not stop. He came upon them in a few minutes, riding toward him at full speed, with Tim Sullivan in the van, too drunk to stand erect, but able to balance himself on a horse's back, drunk or sober.

"We come acrost Santry and the Sheriff a while back," explained Big Bob Lawson, one of Wade's own punchers. "They must be in town by now. We was aimin' to light into 'em, but Santry wouldn't hear of it. Course, we took our orders from him same as usual. He said to tell you that you wanted him to keep quiet, an' that's what he aimed to do."

"He said we wasn't to tell you that he didn't shoot them Swedes," put in another of the men.

"What?" Wade demanded sharply.

"He said—hic!" broke in Tim Sullivan, with drunken gravity. "He said—hic!—that if you didn't know that without—hic!—bein' told, you wasn't no friend of his'n, an'—hic!—you could go to hell."

"Shut up, you drunken fool!" Lawson snapped out.

"Jensen and his herder were shot in the back, they say. That clears Santry," Wade declared, and sat for some moments in deep thought, while the men waited as patiently as they could. "Lawson," he said, at last. "You're in charge for the present. Take the boys to the big pine and camp there quietly until I come back. I'm going into town."

"Hadn't you better take us with you, boss? We'll stick. We're for you an' Bill Santry an' ag'in' these—sheepherders, whenever you say the word."

"That's—hic—what we are!" Sullivan hiccoughed.

Wade shook his head.

"No. You wait for me at the pine. You'll have to rustle your grub the best way you can. I may not get back until to-morrow—until this evening—it's morning now. But wait until I come. There will be plenty for you to do later on and there is no use of you going back to town with me. It might get you into worse trouble than you're headed for already, and what I've got to do, I can do alone."

Wheeling his horse, he rode off toward Crawling Water.

That he could take his men with him, storm the jail and release Santry, Wade did not doubt, but to do so would be to bring each of the men into open conflict with the law, a responsibility which he was resolved to bear alone. Then, too, because his long ride had cooled him somewhat, he intended to make one more appeal to the Senator. Possibly, Moran had exceeded his instructions, and if this were so, it was no more than just that Rexhill, who had seemed to evince a willingness to be helpful, should have the opportunity to disown the act of his agent. Besides, if Santry could be peaceably released, he would be freed of the charge hanging over him, which would not be the case if he were taken from the jail by strategy or violence.

With haggard countenance and inflamed eyes, Wade bore little resemblance to his normal self when he again appeared before the Senator, who received him in his dressing-gown, being just out of bed. Rexhill listened with a show of sympathy to the cattleman's story, but evidently he was in a different mood from the day before.

"My boy, your friendship for your foreman is leading you astray. Your faith in him, which is natural and does you credit, is blinding you to an impartial view of the case. Why not let the law take its course? If Santry is innocent his trial will prove it. At any rate, what can I do?"

"Senator—" Wade spoke with intense weariness. "Only yesterday you offered to help us. The situation, as I explained it then, is unchanged now, except for the worse. Bill Santry is free of any complicity in Jensen's death. I am positive of it. He sent me word that he had not left the ranch, and he would not lie to save himself from hanging. Besides, the men were shot in the back, and that is absolute proof that Santry didn't do it."

"Mere sentiment, Gordon; mere sentiment. Proof? Pooh!"

Rexhill's slightly contemptuous tone worked upon Wade in his exhausted, overwrought condition, and stung him. A strange look of cunning appeared in his eyes, as he leaned across the table which separated them.

"Senator, Moran made me an offer the other day for my land. If—I accept that offer, will you exert your influence in Santry's behalf?"

Coming so swiftly upon his planning, the prospect of such signal success was so gratifying to Rexhill that only in halting speech could he maintain a show of decorous restraint. His countenance expressed exultant relief, as well it might, since he seemed to see himself snatched out of the jaws of ruin.

"Why, Gordon, I—Of course, my boy, if you were to show such a generous spirit as that, I—er—should feel bound...." The sense of his remarks was lost in the crash of Wade's fist upon the table.

"Damn you!" The cattleman was beyond himself with fatigue, rage, and a rankling sense of injustice. "They told me that was your game. I believed it of Moran, but I thought you were square. So you're that sort, too, eh? Well, may you rot in hell before you get my land, you robber! Now listen to me." He waved his hand in the direction of the street. "Out there's a hundred men—real men—who're waiting the word to run you out of this country, you and Moran, too, and by God we'll do it—we'll do it—and we'll begin right away!" Again his heavy fist crashed down on the table "Never mind Bill Santry"—the instinct of discretion was gaining in Wade.—"He can stay where he is for the present. First, we'll attend to you pirates—then we'll see."

He stopped suddenly at sight of Helen, who attracted by the noise, had entered the room, and stood before him in a filmy negligee.

"What is the matter, Gordon?" she demanded anxiously.

"I beg your pardon." Wade spoke awkwardly, unashamed of himself, except for her. "I'm worn out and I—I lost my temper."

"Will you—er—leave this room!" The Senator was beginning to pull himself together. It was the first time he had ever been ragged in such a way, and his composure had suffered; he spoke now with more than his usual pomposity.

"I will," Wade answered curtly, as he turned on his heel and departed.

The Senator, puffing slightly, fiddled with his glasses.

"Your young friend has seen fit to accuse me of—of—" For the life of him, he could not at once say of just what he had been accused, unless he allowed self-accusation to prompt his words. "Some sheepherders have been murdered, I believe," he went on, "and Wade seems to think that Moran and I are implicated."

"You!" his daughter exclaimed; evidently her amazement did not extend to Moran.

"Preposterous nonsense!"

"Yes, of course." Helen walked to the window and stood looking down into the street. "I'm afraid Gordon hasn't improved since we saw him last," she added, finally. "He seems quite a different person from the man I used to know. What are you going to do about it?"

"Crush him!" The Senator's lips set in a thin, white line, as his hand descended on the table on the spot where Wade's fist had fallen. "This, apparently, is his gratitude to me for my interest in him. Now I intend to show him the other side of me."

"Certainly, no one could blame you for punishing him. Oh, everything between him and me is quite over," said the girl, with a peculiar smile. "He's a perfect bear."

"I'm glad you feel that way about it, Helen." Her father's set lips relaxed into a responsive smile. "You couldn't be my daughter and not have some sense."

"Have I any?" Helen naïvely asked.

She was gazing out of the window again, and to her mind's eye the dusty, squalid street became a broad highway, with jewelers' shops on either side, and modistes, and other such charming things, just as they are found in New York, or—Paris!

CHAPTER VIII

HIGHER THAN STATUTE LAW

Wade descended the stairs of the hotel and went into the barroom, fuming with rage and chagrin because Helen had seen him in such a temper. Like most men of action, he took pride in his self-control, which seldom failed him, but the villainy of the Senator's attitude had momentarily mastered his patience.

Gathered about the bar were a number of men whom he knew, but beyond a nod here and there he took no notice of them, and went to sit down alone at a small table in the corner. His friends respected his desire to be left alone, although several eyed him curiously and exchanged significant remarks at his appearance. They seemed to be of the opinion that, at last, his fighting blood had been aroused, and now and then they shot approving glances in his direction.

"Whiskey," Wade called to the bartender, and a bottle and glass were placed on the table in front of him.

With a steady hand the ranchman poured out and quickly swallowed two stiff drinks of the fiery liquor, although he was not ordinarily a drinking man. The fact that he drank now showed his mental state more clearly than words could have expressed it. Searching in his pockets, he found tobacco and papers and rolled and lighted a cigarette. Nothing could be done for Santry until night, and meanwhile he intended to get something to eat and take the sleep that he needed to fit himself for the task ahead of him. He ordered a steak, which on top of the whiskey put new life into him.

The more he thought of his outburst of temper before Helen the more it annoyed him, for he realized that he had "bitten off a bigger wad than he could chew," as Bill Santry would have expressed it. Rascal though the Senator was, so far as he was concerned, Wade felt that his hands were tied on Helen's account. For her sake, he could not move against her father in a country where the average man thought of consequences after the act rather than before it. In a sense Wade felt that he stood sponsor for Crawling Water in the hospitality which it offered Helen, and he could not bring peril down on her head.

But as for Moran and his hirelings, that was a different matter! When the ranchman thought of Moran, no vengeance seemed too dire to fit his misdeeds. In that direction he would go to the limit, and he only hoped that he might get his hands on Moran in the mix-up. He still looked upon his final visit to Rexhill as a weakness, but it had been undertaken solely on Santry's account. It had failed, and no one now could expect tolerance of him except Helen. If the posse was still at the ranch, when he and Santry returned there at the head of their men, they would attack in force, and shoot to kill if necessary.

He learned from Lem Trowbridge, who presently joined him at the table, that the posse would probably still be there, for the report in town was that Moran had taken possession of the property and meant to stay there.

"He does, eh?" Wade muttered grimly. "Well, he may, but it will be with his toes up. I'm done, Lem. By Heaven, it's more than flesh and blood can stand!"

"It sure is! We're with you, Gordon. Your men were over at my place a few hours ago. We grubbed them and loaned them all the guns we could spare. I sent over my new Winchester and a belt of shells for you."

"Thanks."

"That's all right. You're more than welcome to all the help I can give you, not only against Moran and his gang, but against Rexhill. If you like, we'll run him out of town while you're putting the fear of God into Moran. Lord! I sure would like to go back to the ranch with you, but it's your own quarrel and I won't butt in."

Wade briefly explained his attitude toward the Rexhills and added that their cause would not be helped by violence toward the Senator, who was a big man at Washington, and might stir the authorities into action on his behalf if he could prove personal abuse. The noise that would be made by such a happening might drown out the justice of the cattlemen's claim.

"Well, that's true, too," Trowbridge admitted. "I can see the point all right. What we want to do is to get something 'on' the Senator. I mean something sure—something like this Jensen shooting."

Wade nodded slowly.

"That's the idea, but I'm afraid we can't do it, Lem. I haven't a doubt but that Moran is mixed up in the killing, but I hardly believe Rexhill is. Anyhow, they've probably covered their tracks so well that we'll never be able to connect them with it."

"Oh, I don't know. You can't always tell what time'll bring to light." Trowbridge lowered his voice. "What's your idea about Santry? Do you want help there?"

"No." Wade spoke with equal caution. "I believe I can manage all right alone. The Sheriff will probably be looking for us to rush the jail, but he won't expect me to come alone. Bat Lewis goes on duty as the relief, about nine o'clock. I mean to beat him to it, and if the Sheriff opens up for me I'll be away with Santry before Bat appears. But I must get some sleep, Lem."

The two men arose.

"Well, good luck to you, Gordon." Trowbridge slapped his friend on the shoulder, and they separated.

"Frank, can you let me have a bed?" Wade asked of the hotel proprietor, a freckled Irishman.

"Sure; as many as you want."

"One will do, Frank; and another thing," the ranchman said guardedly. "I'll need an extra horse to-night, and I don't want to be seen with him until I need him. Can you have him tied behind the school-house a little before nine o'clock?"

"You bet I can!" The Irishman slowly dropped an eyelid, for the school-house was close by the jail.

Wade tumbled into the bed provided for him and slept like a log, having that happy faculty of the healthy man, of being able to sleep when his body needed it, no matter what impended against the hour of awakening.

When he did wake up, the afternoon was well advanced, and after another hearty meal he walked over to the Purnells' to pass the time until it was late enough for him to get to work.

"Now, Gordon will tell you I'm right," Mrs. Purnell proclaimed triumphantly, when the young man entered the cottage. "I want Dorothy to go with me to call on Miss Rexhill, and she doesn't want to go. The idea! When Miss Rexhill was nice enough to call on us first."

Mrs. Purnell set much store upon her manners, as the little Michigan town where she was born understood good breeding, and she had not been at all annoyed by Helen Rexhill's patronage, which had so displeased Wade. To her mind the Rexhills were very great people, and great people were to be expected to bear themselves in lofty fashion. Dorothy had inherited her democracy from her father and not from her mother, who, indeed, would have been disappointed if Helen Rexhill appeared any less than the exalted personage she imagined herself to be.

"Oh, I'd like to meet her well enough, only...." Dorothy stopped, unwilling to say before Wade that she did not consider the Rexhills sufficiently good friends of his, in the light of recent developments, for them to be friends of hers.

"Of course, go," he broke in heartily. "She's not responsible for what her father does in the way of business, and I reckon she'd think it funny if you didn't call."

"There now!" Mrs. Purnell exclaimed triumphantly.

"All right, I'll go." In her heart Dorothy was curious to meet the other woman and gauge her powers of attraction. "We'll go to-morrow, mother."

Quite satisfied, Mrs. Purnell made some excuse to leave them together, as she usually did, for her mother heart had traveled farther along the Road to To-morrow than her daughter's fancy. She secretly hoped that the young cattleman would some day declare his love for Dorothy and ask for her hand in marriage.

In reply to the girl's anxious questions Wade told her of what had happened since their meeting on the trail, as they sat together on the porch of the little cottage. She was wearing a plain dress of green gingham, which, somehow, suggested to him the freshness of lettuce. She laughed a little when he told her of that and called him foolish, though the smile that showed a dimple in her chin belied her words.

"Then the posse is still at the ranch?" she asked.

"I think so. If they are, we are going to run them off to-morrow morning, or perhaps to-night. I've had enough of this nonsense and I mean to meet Moran halfway from now on."

"Yes, I suppose you must," she admitted reluctantly. "But do be careful, Gordon."

"As careful as I can be under the circumstances," he said cheerfully, and told her that his chief purpose in coming to see her was to thank her again for the service she had rendered him.

"Oh, you don't need to thank me for that. Do you know"—she puckered up her brows in a reflective way—"I've been thinking. It seems very strange to me that Senator Rexhill and Moran should be willing to go to such lengths merely to get hold of this land as a speculation. Doesn't it seem so to you?"

"Yes, it does, but that must be their reason."

"I'm not so sure of that, Gordon. There must be something more behind all this. That's what I have been thinking about. You remember that when Moran first came here he had an office just across the street from his present one?"

"Yes. Simon Barsdale had Moran's present office until he moved to Sheridan. You were his stenographer for a while, I remember." Wade looked at her curiously, wondering what she was driving at.

"Moran bought Mr. Barsdale's safe." Her voice sounded strange and unnatural. "I know the old combination. I wonder if it has been changed?"

"Lem Trowbridge was saying only this morning," said Wade thoughtfully, for he was beginning to catch her meaning, "that if we could only get proof of something crooked we might...."

"Well, I think we can," Dorothy interrupted.

They looked searchingly at each other in the gathering dusk, and he tried to read the light in her eyes, and being strangely affected himself by their close proximity, he misinterpreted it. He slipped his hand over hers and once more the desire to kiss her seized him. He let go of her hand and was just putting his arm around her shoulders when, to his surprise, she appeared suddenly indignant.

"Don't!"

He was abashed, and for a moment neither said a word.

"What is the combination?" he finally asked hoarsely.

"I promised Mr. Barsdale never to tell any one." Her lips wreathed into a little smile. "I'll do it myself."

"No, you won't." Wade shook his head positively. "Do you suppose I'm going to let you steal for me? It will be bad enough to do it myself; but necessity knows no law. Well, we'll let it go for the present then. Don't you think of doing it, Dorothy. Will you promise me?"

"I never promise," she said, smiling again, and ignoring her last words in womanly fashion, "but if you don't want me to...."

"Well, I don't," he declared firmly. "Let it rest at that. We'll probably find some other way anyhow."

She asked him then about Santry, but he evaded a direct answer beyond expressing the conviction that everything would end all right. They talked for a while of commonplaces, although nothing that he said seemed commonplace to her and nothing that she said seemed so to him. When it was fully dark he arose to go. Then she seemed a little sorry that she had not let him put his arm around her, and she leaned toward him as she had done on the trail; but he was not well versed in woman's subtleties, and he failed to guess her thoughts and walked away, leaving her, as Shakespeare put it, to

"Twice desire, ere it be day, That which with scorn she put away."

Having mounted his horse at the livery stable, he first made sure that the extra horse was behind the school-house, where he tied his own, and then walked around to the jail. On the outside, this building was a substantial log structure; within, it was divided into the Sheriff's office and sleeping room, the "bull pen," and a single narrow cell, in which Wade guessed that Santry would be locked. After examining his revolver, he slipped it into the side pocket of his coat and walked boldly up to the jail. Then, whistling merrily, for Bat Lewis, the deputy, was a confirmed human song-bird, he knocked sharply on the door with his knuckles.

"It's me—Bat," he called out, mimicking Lewis' voice, in answer to a question from within.

"You're early to-night. What's struck you?" Sheriff Thomas opened the door, and turning, left it so, for the "relief" to enter. He had half feared that an attempt might be made to liberate Santry, but had never dreamed that any one would try the thing alone. He was glad to be relieved, for a poker game at which he wanted to sit in would soon start at the Gulch Saloon.

He was the most surprised man in Wyoming, when he felt the cold muzzle of Wade's Colt boring into the nape of his neck and heard the ranchman's stern warning to keep quiet or take the consequences. Sheriff Thomas had earned his right to his "star" by more than one exhibition of nerve, but he was too familiar with gun ethics to argue with the business end of a "45."

"Not a sound!" Outwardly cold as ice, but inwardly afire, Wade shoved the weapon against his victim's neck and marched him to the middle of the room. "I've got the upper hand, Sheriff, and I intend to keep it."

"You're a damn fool, Wade." The Sheriff spoke without visible emotion and in a low tone. "You'll go up for this. Don't you realize that...."

"Can it!" snapped Wade, deftly disarming the officer with his free hand. "Never mind the majesty of the law and all that rot. I thought that all over before I came. Now that I've got you and drawn your teeth, you'll take orders from me. Get my foreman out of that cell and be quick about it!"

There was nothing to do but obey, which Thomas quietly did, although somewhat in fear of what Santry might do when at liberty. When the cell door was unlocked, the old plainsman, in a towering rage at the injustice of his incarceration, seemed inclined to choke his erstwhile jailer.

"None of that, Bill," Wade admonished curtly. "He's only been a tool in this business, although he ought to know better. We'll tie him up and gag him; that's all. Rip up one of those blankets."

"I knew you'd come, boy!" The foreman's joy was almost like that of a big dog at sight of his master. "By the great horned toad, I knew it!" With his sinewy hands he tore the blanket into strips as easily as though the wool had been paper. "Now for him, drat him!"

Wade stood guard while the helpless Sheriff was trussed up and his mouth stopped by Santry, and if the ranch owner felt any compunction at the sight, he had only to think of his own men as he had seen them the night before, lying on the floor of the ranch house.

"Make a good job of it, Bill," was his only comment.

"You bet!" Santry chuckled as he drew the last of the knots tight. "That'll hold him for a spell, I reckon. How you feel, Sheruff, purty comfortable?" The flowing end of the gag so hid the officer's features that he could express himself only with his eyes, which he batted furiously. "Course," Santry went on, in mock solicitude, "if I'd thought I mighta put a bit of sugar on that there gag, to remind you of your mammy like, but it ain't no great matter. You can put a double dose in your cawfee when you git loose."

"Come on, Bill!" Wade commanded.

"So long, Sheruff," Santry chuckled.

There was no time to waste in loitering, for at any moment Bat Lewis might arrive and give an alarm which would summon reënforcements from amongst Moran's following. Hurrying Santry ahead of him, Wade swung open the door and they looked out cautiously. No one was in sight, and a couple of minutes later the two men were mounted and on their way out of town.

"By the great horned toad!" Santry exulted, as they left the lights of Crawling Water behind them. "It sure feels good to be out of that there boardin'-house. It wasn't our fault, Gordon, and say, about this here shootin'...."

"I know all about that, Bill," Wade interposed. "The boys told me. They're waiting for us at the big pine. But your arrest, that's what I want to hear about."

"Well, it was this-a-way," the old man explained. "They sneaked up on the house in the dark and got the drop on us. Right here I rise to remark that never no more will I separate myself from my six-shooter. More'n one good man has got hisself killed just because his gun wasn't where it oughter be when he needed it. Of course, we put up the best scrap we could, but we didn't have no chance, Gordon. The first thing I knew, while I was tusslin' with one feller, somebody fetched me a rap on the head with a pistol-butt, an' I went down for the count. Any of the boys shot up?"

Wade described the appearance of the ranch house on the previous night, and Santry swore right manfully.

"What's on the cards now?" he demanded. "How much longer are we goin' to stand for...."

"No longer," Wade declared crisply. "That's why the boys are waiting for us at the pine. We're going to run Moran and his gang off the ranch as soon as we can get there, and then we're going to run them out of the country."

"Whoop-e-e-e-e-e!" The old plainsman's yell of exultation split the night like the yelp of a coyote, and he brought his hand down on Wade's back with a force which made the latter wince. "By the great horned toad, that's talkin! That's the finest news I've heard since my old mammy said to the parson, 'Call him Bill, for short.' Whoop-e-e-e-e!"

Wade's warning to keep still was lost on the wind, for Santry stuck his spurs into his horse's flanks and charged along the trail like an old-time knight. With a grim smile his employer put on speed and followed him.

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE AT THE RANCH

When Wade and Santry approached the big pine, the waiting men came out from its shadow and rode forward, with the borrowed rifles across their saddle horns.

"All right, boys?" the rancher asked, taking Trowbridge's new rifle, a beautiful weapon, which Lawson handed to him.

"All right, sir," answered Tim Sullivan, adding the "sir" in extenuation of his befuddled condition the night before, while each man gave Santry a silent hand-shake to welcome him home.

Grimly, silently, then, save for the dashing of their horses' hoofs against the loose stones, and an occasional muttered imprecation as a rider lurched in his saddle, the seven men rode rapidly toward the mountains. In numbers, their party was about evenly matched with the enemy, and Wade meant that the advantage of surprise, if possible, should rest with him in order to offset such advantage as Moran might find in the shelter of the house. But, however that might be, each man realized that the die had been cast and that the fight, once begun, would go to a finish.

"I only hope," Santry remarked, as a steep grade forced them to lessen their speed, "I can get my two hands on that cussed tin-horn, Moran. Him and me has a misunderstandin' to settle, for sure."

"You leave him to me, Bill." Wade spoke vindictively. "He's my meat."

"Well, since you ask it, I'll try, boy. But there's goin' to be some fightin' sure as taxes, and when I get to fightin', I'm liable to go plumb, hog wild. Say, I hope you don't get into no trouble over this here jail business o' mine. That 'ud make me feel bad, Gordon."

"We'll not worry about that now, Bill."

"That's right. Don't worry till you have to, and then shoot instead. That's been my motto all my born days, and it ain't such durn bad philosophy at that. I wonder"—the old man chuckled to himself—"I wonder if the Sheruff et up most of that there gag before Bat let him loose?"

Wade laughed out loud, and as though in response, an owl hooted somewhere in the timber to their right.

"There's a durned old hoot owl," growled Santry. "I never like to hear them things—they most always mean bad luck."

He rode to the head of the little column, and the rest of the way to the ranch was passed in ominous silence. When they finally arrived at the edge of the clearing and cautiously dismounted, everything seemed from the exterior, at least, just as it should be. The night being far gone, the lights were out, and there was no sign of life about the place. Wade wondered if the posse had gone.

"There ain't no use in speculatin'," declared Santry. "They may be asleep, and they may be layin' for us there in the dark. This will take a rise out of 'em anyhow."

At sight of the old fellow, pistol in hand, Wade called to him to wait, but as he spoke Santry fired two quick shots into the air.

There was an immediate commotion in the ranch house. A man inside was heard to curse loudly, while another showed his face for an instant where the moonlight fell across a window. He hastily ducked out of sight, however, when a rifle bullet splintered the glass just above his head. Presently a gun cracked inside the house and a splash on a rock behind the attackers told them where the shot had struck.

"Whoop-e-e-e-e!" Santry yelled, discharging the four remaining shots in his revolver at the window. "We've got 'em guessin'. They don't know how many we are."

"They were probably asleep," said Wade a bit sharply. "We might have sneaked in and captured the whole crowd without firing a shot. That's what I meant to do before you cut loose."

Santry shook his grizzled head as he loaded his revolver.

"Well, now, that would have been just a mite risky, boy. The way things stand we've still got the advantage, an'...." He broke off to take a snapshot at a man who showed himself at the window for an instant in an effort to get a glimpse of the attacking force. "One!" muttered the old plainsman to himself.

By this time Wade had thrown himself down on his stomach behind a bowlder to Santry's left and was shooting methodically at the door of the house, directly in front of him. He knew that door. It was built of inch lumber and was so located that a bullet, after passing through it, would rake the interior of the cabin from end to end. The only way the inmates could keep out of the line of his fire was by hugging the walls on either side, where they would be partially exposed to the leaden hail which Santry and the punchers were directing at the windows.

There was a grim, baleful look on the young man's usually pleasant face, and his eyes held a pitiless gleam. He was shooting straight, shooting to kill, and taking a fierce delight in the act. The blood lust was upon him, that primal, instinctive desire for combat in a righteous cause that lies hidden at the very bottom of every strong man's nature. And there came to his mind no possible question of the righteous nature of his cause. He was fighting to regain possession of his own home from the marauders who had invaded it. His enemies had crowded him to the wall, and now they were paying the penalty. Wade worked the lever of his Winchester as though he had no other business in life. A streak of yellow clay mingled with a bloody trickle from a bullet scratch on his cheek gave his set features a fairly ferocious expression.

Santry, glancing toward him, chuckled again, but without mirth. "The boy's woke up at last," he muttered to himself. "They've drove him to it, durn 'em. I knew almighty well that this law an' order stunt couldn't last forever. Wow!"

The latter exclamation was caused by a bullet which ricocheted from a rock near his head, driving a quantity of fine particles into his face.

"Whoop-e-e-e-e!" he howled a moment later. "We got 'em goin'. It's a cinch they can't stand this pace for more'n a week."

Indeed, it was a marvel that the defenders kept on fighting as long as they did. Already the door, beneath Wade's machine-like shooting, had been completely riddled; the windows were almost bare of glass; and great splinters of wood had been torn from the log walls by the heavy rifle bullets on their way through to the interior. Soon the door sagged and crashed inward, and into the gaping hole thus made Wade continued to empty his rifle.

At last, the fire of those within slackened and temporarily ceased. Did this mean surrender? Wade asked himself and ordered his men to stop shooting and await developments. For some moments all was still, and the advisability of rushing the house was being discussed when all at once the fire of the defenders began again. This time, however, there was something very odd about it. There was a loud banging of exploding cartridges, but only a few shots whistled around the heads of the cattlemen. Nevertheless, Wade told his men to resume shooting, and once more settled down to his own task.

"What'n hell they tryin' to do?" Santry demanded. "Sounds like a Fourth o' July barbecue to me."

"I don't know," Wade answered, charging the magazine of his rifle, "but whatever it is they'll have to stop mighty soon."

Then gradually, but none the less certainly, the fire from within slackened until all was still. This seemed more like a visitation of death, and again Wade ordered his men to stop shooting. They obeyed orders and lay still, keenly watching the house.

"Do you surrender?" Wade shouted; but there was no reply.

Santry sprang to his feet.

"By the great horned toad!" he cried. "I'm a-goin' in there! Anybody that wants to come along is welcome."

Not a man in the party would be dared in that way, so, taking advantage of such cover as offered, they advanced upon the cabin, stealthily at first and then more rapidly, as they met with no resistance—no sign whatever of life. A final rush carried them through the doorway into the house, where they expected to find a shambles.

Wade struck a light, and faced about with a start as a low groan came from a corner of the back room. A man lay at full length on the floor, tied hand and foot, and gagged. It was Ed Nelson, one of the Double Arrow hands who had been surprised and captured by the posse, and a little farther away in the shadow against the wall his two companions lay in a like condition. With his knife Wade was cutting them loose, and glancing about in a puzzled search for the wounded men he expected to find in the house, when Santry shouted something from the kitchen.

"What is it, Bill?" the ranch owner demanded.

Santry tramped back into the room, laughing in a shamefaced sort of way.

"They done us, Gordon!" he burst out. "By the great horned toad, they done us! They chucked a bunch of shells into the hot cook-stove, an' sneaked out the side door while we was shootin' into the front room. By cracky, that beats...."

"That's what they did," spoke up Nelson, as well as his cramped tongue would permit, being now freed of the gag. "They gagged us first, so's we couldn't sing out; then they filled up the stove an' beat it."

What had promised to be a tragedy had proved a fiasco, and Wade smiled a little foolishly.

"The joke's on us, I guess, boys," he admitted. "But we've got the ranch back, at any rate. How are you feeling, Ed, pretty stiff and sore?"

"My Gawd, yes—awful!"

"Me, too," declared Tom Parrish, the second of the victims; and the third man swore roundly that he would not regain the full use of his legs before Christmas.

"Well, you're lucky at that," was Santry's dry comment. "All that saved you from gettin' shot up some in the fight was layin' low down in that corner where you was." He let his eyes travel around the littered, blood-spattered room. "From the looks o' this shebang we musta stung some of 'em pretty deep; but nobody was killed, I reckon. I hope Moran was the worst hurt, durn him!"

"He'll keep," Wade said grimly. "We've not done with him yet, Bill. We've only just begun."

CHAPTER X

THE SENATOR GETS BUSY

It was daylight when the routed posse, with Race Moran in the lead, his left arm tied up in a blood-stained handkerchief, rode into Crawling Water. A bullet had pierced the fleshy part of the agent's wrist, a trifling wound, but one which gave him more pain than he might have suffered from a serious injury. None of the members of the posse had been dangerously wounded; indeed, they had suffered more in the spirit than in the flesh; but there had been a number of minor casualties amongst the men, which made a sufficiently bloody display to arouse the little town to active curiosity.

Under instructions from the leader, however, the fugitives kept grouchily silent, so that curiosity was able to feed only on speculations as to Wade's temper, and the fact that he had brought about Santry's release from jail. The story of that achievement had been bruited about Crawling Water since midnight, together with the probability that the Law would be invoked to punish the ranchman for his defiance of it. Popular sentiment was running high over the likelihood of such a step being taken, and the members of the posse were the targets of many hostile glances from the townspeople. At least two-thirds of the citizens were strongly in favor of Wade, but before they took active steps in his behalf they waited for the return of a horseman, who had hurried out to the ranch to learn at first hand exactly what had happened there.

Meanwhile Moran, in an ugly mood, had awakened the Senator from the troubled sleep which had come to him after much wakeful tossing. Rexhill, with tousled hair, wrapped in a bathrobe, from the bottom of which his bare ankles and slippered feet protruded, sat on the edge of his bed, impatiently chewing an unlighted cigar while he listened to Moran's account of the fracas.

"You went too far, Race,—you went too far," he burst out angrily at last. "You had no orders to jump the ranch. I told you...."

"We've been fooling around long enough, Senator," Moran interrupted sullenly, nursing his throbbing wrist. "It was high time somebody started something, and when I saw my chance I seized it. You seem to think"—his voice trailed into scorn—"that we are playing marbles with boys, but, I tell you, it's men we're up against. My experience has shown me that it's the first blow that counts in any fight."

"Well, who got in the hardest lick, eh?" Rexhill snorted sarcastically. "The first blow's all right, provided the second isn't a knockout from the other side. Why, confound it, Race, here we had Wade at our mercy. He'd broken into jail and set free a suspected murderer—a clear case of criminality. Then you had to spoil it all."

Moran smothered an imprecation.

"You seem to forget, Senator, that we had him at our mercy before, and you wouldn't hear of it. If you'd taken my advice in the first place, we'd have had Wade in jail instead of Santry and things might have been different."

"Your advice was worthless under the circumstances; that's why I didn't take it." Rexhill deliberately paused and lighted his cigar, from which he took several soothing puffs. To have been aroused from his bed with such news had flustered him somewhat; but he had never known anything worth while to come out of a heated discussion, and he sought now to calm himself. Finally, he spoke slowly. "What you proposed to me then was a frame-up, and all frame-ups are dangerous, particularly when they have little to rest upon. For that reason I refused to fall in with your ideas, Race. This release of Santry from jail is—or was—an entirely different thing, an overt criminal act, with Sheriff Thomas on our side as an unimpeachable witness."

Moran was suffering too keenly from his wound and smarting under his defeat too much to be altogether reasonable. His manner was fast losing the appearance of respect which he had previously shown his employer. His expression was becoming heated and contemptuous.

"You didn't base your refusal on logic at the time, Senator," he said. "It was sentiment, if I remember right. Wade had broken bread with you, and all that. I don't see but what that applies just as well now as it did then."

"It doesn't," the Senator argued smugly, still rankling from Wade's arraignment of him the day before, "because even hospitality has its limits of obligation. So long as I knew Wade to be innocent, I did not care to have him arrested; but I don't admit any sentiment of hospitality which compels me to save a known criminal from the hand of justice. Sheriff Thomas came in to see me last night and I agreed with him that Wade should be brought to account for his contempt of the law. Wade forced his way into the jail and released his foreman at the point of a gun. Even so, I feel sorry for Wade and I am a little apprehensive of the consequences that will probably develop from his foolhardiness."

"Well, by God, if there's any sympathy for him floating around this room, it all belongs to you, Senator." Moran tenderly fingered his aching wrist. "I'm not one of these 'turn the other cheek' guys; you can gamble on that!"

"But now where are we?" Rexhill ignored the other's remarks entirely. "We are but little better off than Wade is. He pulled Santry out of jail, and we tried to steal his ranch. The only difference is that so far he has succeeded, and we have failed. He has as much law on his side now as we have on ours."

Moran's head drooped a little before the force of this argument, although he was chiefly impressed by the fact that he had failed. His failures had been few, because Fortune had smiled upon him in the past; and doubtless for this reason he was the less able to treat failure philosophically. His plans at the ranch house had gone awry. He had counted on meeting Wade there in the daytime, in the open, and upon provoking him, before witnesses, into some hot-headed act which would justify a battle. The surprise attack had left the agent without this excuse for the hostilities which had occurred.

Rexhill arose and walked up and down the room in thought, his slippered feet shuffling over the floor, showing now and then a glimpse of his fat, hairy legs as the skirt of his bathrobe fluttered about. A cloud of fragrant smoke from his cigar trailed him as he walked, and from the way he chewed on the tobacco his confrères in the Senate could have guessed that he was leading up to one of his Czar-like pronouncements. Presently he stopped moving and twisted the cigar in his mouth so that its fumes would be out of his eyes, as his glance focused on Moran.

"There's just one way out of this mess, Race," he began. "Now heed what I say to you. I'm going to send a telegram to the Department of the Interior which will bring a troop of cavalry down here from Fort Mackenzie. You must go slow from now on, and let the authorities settle the whole matter."

The agent sat up alertly, as his employer, wagging a ponderous forefinger impressively, proceeded.

"You were not on the ranch for the purpose of jumping it at all. Mind that now! You and I stand for the majesty of the law in this lawless community." Moran's eyes began to twinkle at this, but he said nothing. "When you and Sheriff Thomas went out to the ranch, you carried two warrants with you, one for Santry, as the accessory, and one for Wade, as the principal, in the Jensen shooting. Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say; but I must save my own bacon now. Since Wade has proved himself to be a lawbreaker, I'm not going to protect him."

"Now, you're talking!" exclaimed Moran, delighted at the prospect of what such a course would start going.

"I'll have the matter of the warrants fixed up with Thomas," the Senator continued. "Now, follow me carefully. Thomas arrested Santry at the ranch, and then left you, as his deputy, to serve the other warrant on Wade when he came home. It was because of his knowledge of what was in store for him that Wade, after getting Santry out of jail, attacked you and your men, and it was in defense of the law that you returned their fire. It will all work out very smoothly, I think, and any further hostilities will come from the other side and be to our great advantage."

Moran looked at his employer in admiration, as the latter concluded and turned toward his writing table.

"Senator," the agent declared, as Rexhill took up his fountain pen and began to write on a telegraph form, "you never should have started in Denver. If you'd been born in little old New York, you'd be in the White House now. From this minute on you and I are going to carry this whole valley in our vest-pockets."

"You take this over and put it on the wire right away, Race. It's to the Secretary of the Interior and my signature on it should get immediate attention." Senator Rexhill handed over the telegraph form he had filled out.

"But what about State rights in this business?" Moran asked, anxiously. "Will they send Government troops in here on your say so?"

The Senator waved his hand in dismissal of the objection.

"I'll have Thomas wire the Governor that the situation is beyond control. This town is miles from nowhere, and there's no militia within easy reach. The State will be glad enough to be saved the expense, especially with the soldiers close by at Fort Mackenzie. Besides, you know, although Wade's ranch is inside the State, a good deal of his land is Government land, or was until he filed on it."

When Moran had left the room in a much easier frame of mind than he came into it, the Senator sat down heavily on the bed. He was puffing at his cigar and thinking intently, when he caught sight of the white, startled face of his daughter in the mirror of the bureau across the room. Whirling about, he found her standing in the doorway looking at him. Rexhill had never before been physically conscious of the fact that he had a spine, but in that moment of discovery a chill crept up and down his back, for her expression told him that she had heard a good deal of his conversation with Moran. The most precious thing to him in life was the respect of his child; more precious even, he knew, than the financial security for which he fought; and in her eyes now he saw that he was face to face with a greater battle than any he had ever waged.

"Father!"

"What, are you awake, my dear?"

He tried hard to make his tone cheery and natural, as he stood up and wrapped the bathrobe more closely around him.

"I heard what you said to Race Moran."

Helen came into the room, with only a dressing wrapper thrown over her thin night-dress, and dropped into a chair. She seemed to feel that her statement of the fact was accusation enough in itself, and waited for him to answer.

"You shouldn't have listened, Helen. Moran and I were discussing private business matters, and I thought that you were asleep. It was not proper...."

Her lips, which usually framed a smile for him, curled disdainfully and he winced in spite of himself. He avoided the keen appraisement of her gaze, which seemed now to size him up, as though to probe his most secret thoughts, whereas before she had always accepted him lovingly on faith.

"Certainly, they were not matters that you would want an outsider to hear," she said, in a hard voice, "but I am very glad that I listened, father. Glad"—her voice broke a little—"even though I shall never be able to think of you again as I...."

He went to her and put his heavy hands on her shoulders, which shrank under his touch.

"Now, don't say things that you'll regret, Helen. You're the only girl I have, and I'm the only father you have, so we ought to make the best of each other, oughtn't we, eh? You're prone to hasty judgments. Don't let them run away with you now."

"Don't touch me!" He made way for her as she got to her feet. "Father,"—she tremblingly faced him, leaning for support against a corner of the bureau,—"I heard all that you said to Mr. Moran. I don't want you to tell me what we've been to each other. Don't I know that? Haven't I felt it?"

The Senator swallowed hard, touched to the quick at the sight of her suffering.

"You want me to explain it—more fully?"

"If you can. Can you?" Her lips twitched spasmodically. "I want you to tell me something that will let me continue to believe that you are—that you are—Oh, you know what I want to say." Rexhill blushed a deep purple, despite his efforts at self-control. "But what can you say, father; what can you say, after what I've heard?"

"You mean as regards young Wade? You know, I told you last night about his attack on the Sheriff. You know, too"—the blush faded as the Senator caught his stride again—"that I said I meant to crush him. You even agreed with me that he should be taught a lesson."

"But you should fight fairly," Helen retorted, with a quick breath of aggression. "Do you believe that he killed Jensen? Of course you don't. The mere idea of such a thing is absurd."

"Perhaps he planned it."

"Father!" The scorn in her tone stung him like a whip-lash. "Did he plan the warrants, too? The warrant that hasn't been issued yet, although you are going to swear that it was issued yesterday. Did he plan that?"

Once in his political career, the Senator had faced an apparent impasse and had wormed out of it through tolerant laughter. He had laughed so long and so genially that the very naturalness of his artifice had won the day for him. Men thought that if he had had a guilty conscience, he could not have seemed so carefree. He tried the same trick now with his daughter; but it was a frightful attempt and he gave it up when he saw its ill-success.

"See here, Helen," he burst out, "it is ridiculous that you should arraign me in this way. It is true that no warrant was out yesterday for Wade, but it is also true that the Sheriff intended to issue one, and it was only through my influence that the warrant was not issued. Since then Wade, besides insulting me, has proved himself a lawbreaker. I have nothing to do with the consequences of his actions, which rest entirely with him. You have overheard something that you were not intended to hear, and as is usually the case, have drawn wrong conclusions. The best thing you can do now is to try to forget what you have heard and leave the matter in my hands, where it belongs."

He had spoken dominantly and expected her to yield to his will. He was totally unprepared, well as he knew her spirit, for what followed.

She faced him with glowing eyes and her trembling lips straightened into a thin, firm line of determination. He was her father, and she had always loved him for what she had felt to be his worth; she had given him the chance to explain, and he had not availed himself of it; he was content to remain convicted in her eyes, or else, which was more likely, he could not clear himself. She realized now that, despite what she had said in pique, only the night before, she really loved Wade, and he, at least, had done nothing, except free a friend, who, like himself, was unjustly accused. She could not condemn him for that, any more than she could forget her father's duplicity.

"I won't forget it!" she cried. "If necessary, I will go to Gordon and tell him what you've done. I'll tell it to every one in Crawling Water, if you force me to. I don't want to because, just think what that would mean to you! But you shall not sacrifice Gordon. Yes, I mean it—I'll sacrifice you first!"

"Don't talk so loud," the Senator warned her anxiously, going a little white. "Don't be a fool, Helen. Why, it was only a few hours ago that you said Wade should be punished."

She laughed hysterically.

"That was only because I wanted to get him away from this awful little town. I thought that if he were—punished—a little, if he was made a laughing stock, he might be ashamed, and not want to stay here. Now, I see that I was wrong. I don't blame him for fighting with every weapon he can find. I hope he wins!"

Rexhill, who had been really frightened at her hysterical threat of exposure, and assailed by it in his pride as well, felt his fear begin to leave him and his confidence in himself return. In the next minute or two, he thought rapidly and to considerable purpose. In the past he had resolutely refused to use his child in any way to further his own ends, but the present occasion was an emergency, and major surgery is often demanded in a crisis. If she were willing, as she said, to sacrifice him, he felt that he might properly make use of her and her moods to save himself and her as well. He realized that if she were to shout abroad through Crawling Water the conversation that had passed between him and Moran, the likelihood of either of the two men getting out of the county alive would be extremely remote.

"So that was it, eh? And I complimented you upon your good sense!" His laugh was less of an effort now. "Well, doesn't it hold good now as well as it did then? Come, my dear, sit down and we'll thresh this out quietly."

She shook her head stubbornly, but the woman in her responded to the new note of confidence in his voice, and she waited eagerly for what he had to say, hopeful that he might still clear himself.

"You tell me that I must fight fair. Well, I usually do fight that way. I'm doing so now. When I spoke yesterday of crushing Wade, I meant it and I still mean it. But there are limits to what I want to see happen to him; for one thing, I don't want to see him hung for this Jensen murder, even if he's guilty."

"You know he isn't guilty."

"I think he isn't." Her eyes lighted up at this admission. "But he must be tried for the crime, there's no dodging that. The jury will decide the point; we can't. But even if he should be convicted, I shouldn't want to see him hung. Why, we've been good friends, all of us. I—I like him, even though he did jump on to me yesterday. That was why"—he leaned forward, impelled to the falsehood that hung upon his tongue by the desperate necessity of saving himself his daughter's love and respect—"I arranged with Moran to have the boy arrested on such a warrant. He is bound to be arrested"—Rexhill struck the table with his fist—"and if he should need a basis for an appeal after conviction, he could hardly have a better one than the evidence of conspiracy, which a crooked warrant would afford. I wanted to give him that chance because I realized that he had enemies here and that his trial might not be a fair one. When the right moment came I was going to have that warrant looked into."

"Father!"

Helen dropped on her knees before him, her eyelashes moist with tears and her voice vibrant with happiness.

"Why didn't you explain all that before, Father? I knew that there must be some explanation. I felt that I couldn't have loved you all my life for nothing. But do you really believe that any jury would convict Gordon of such a thing?"

"I hope not."

Never had Senator Rexhill felt himself more hopelessly a scoundrel than now as he smoothed her hair from her forehead; but he told himself that the pain of this must be less than to be engulfed in bankruptcy, or exposure, which would submerge them all. Moreover, he promised himself that if future events bore too heavily against Wade, he should be saved at the eleventh hour. The thought of this made the Senator's position less hard.

"I hope not, Helen," he repeated. "Of course, the serving of the warrant at this time will help my own interests, but since a warrant must be served, anyway, I feel justified, under the circumstances, in availing myself of this advantage."

"Y-e-s, of course," Helen agreed doubtfully. "Oh, it is all too bad. I wish none of us had ever heard of Crawling Water."

"Well, maybe the Grand Jury will not indict him, feeling runs so strong here," her father continued, and she took fresh hope at this prospect. "But, anyway, he will feel the pressure before all is done with, and very likely he'll be only too glad to dispose of his ranch and say good-by to Wyoming when he is free to do as he pleases. Then you and he can make a fresh start, eh? All will be sunshine and roses then, maybe, forever and aye."

"That's what I want to do—get away from here; and that was all I meant when I said to punish Gordon."

The Senator patted her cheek tenderly and drew a deep breath of relief.

"By the way, father," Helen said casually, when she started back to her room, a little later, "I saw Miss Purnell on the street yesterday. You know, she was out when Gordon took me to see her."

"Well, is she dangerous?"

Helen looked at him in amusement, and shrugged her shoulders.

CHAPTER XI

TANGLED THREADS

Relieved though Helen was to some extent, by her father's assurances and by the explanation which he had given, she was far from being in a tranquil frame of mind.

She knew that whatever might be the outcome of the graver charge against Gordon, he would probably have to suffer for his release of Santry, and she found herself wishing more than ever that her lover had never seen the West. What little it had contributed to his character was not worth what it had cost already and would cost in the future. Surely, his manhood was alive enough not to have needed the development of such an environment, and if his lot had been cast in the East, she could have had him always with her. A long letter, which she had recently received from Maxwell Frayne, recounting the gayeties of New York and Washington, made her homesick. Although she could scarcely think of the two men at the same moment, still, as she sat in the crude little hotel, she would have welcomed a little of young Frayne's company for the sake of contrast. She was yearning for the flesh-pots of her own Egypt.

From the news of the fight at the ranch, which had been brought to town by the messenger, she gathered that Wade meant to intrench himself on the ranch and defy the law, which would probably embroil him in other criminal acts. Crawling Water, too, was rapidly filling up with armed cattlemen, who, she thought, would do Gordon's cause more harm than good. Toward afternoon, word came of a bloody skirmish on the Trowbridge range, between a number of his punchers and some of Moran's hired men, and that added to the tension among those crowding the main street.

From the parlor windows of the hotel she watched what was going on outside, not without alarm, so high did feeling seem to run. The threats of the ranch men, handed about amongst themselves but loud enough for her to catch a word now and then, made her wonder if the town was really safe for her father, or for herself. A storm was coming up, and the rising wind whipped the flimsy lace curtains of the windows and kept them fluttering like flags. The distant muttering of the thunder and an occasional sharp flash of lightning wore on her tired nerves until she could sit still no longer.

For the sake of something to do, she went up to her room, intending to write some letters there, but her bed had not been made up, so she returned to the parlor with her fountain pen and writing-pad. To Maxwell Frayne she wrote a brief note, which was not likely to cheer him much. She had become so in the habit of taking her moods out on Maxwell that to do so, even with a pen, was second nature to her. She despised him for his tolerance of her tyranny, never realizing that he reserved to himself the privilege of squaring their account, if she should ever become his wife.

Then to ease her mind of the strain it bore, she wrote at some length to her mother; not telling the whole truth but enough of it to calm her own nervousness. She said nothing of the conversation she had overheard, but went fully into the scene between her father and Gordon Wade. With a little smile hovering on her lips, she wrote dramatically of the Senator's threat to crush the ranchman. "That will please mother," she said to herself, as her pen raced over the paper. "Gordon felt, you see, that"—she turned a page—"father knew Santry had not killed Jensen, and...."

The hotel-keeper poked his head in at the doorway.

"Two ladies to see you, Miss," he announced. "Mrs. Purnell and daughter."

He gave Helen no chance to avoid the visit, for with the obviousness of the plains, he had brought the visitors upstairs with him, and so, blotting what she had written and weighing down her letter against the breeze, she arose to greet them.

"This is good of you, Mrs. Purnell, and I am so glad to meet your daughter. I've been lonely and blue all day and now you have taken pity on me."

Mrs. Purnell shot an "I told you so" glance at Dorothy, which made that young lady smile to herself.

"I was sorry not to have been at home when you called, Miss Rexhill."

The two girls looked at each other, each carefully veiling hostility, Dorothy beneath a natural sweetness of disposition, and Helen with the savoir faire of social experience. Each felt and was stung by a realization of the other's points of advantage. Dorothy saw a perfection of well-groomed poise, such as she could hardly hope to attain, and Helen was impressed with her rival's grace and natural beauty.

"Won't you sit down?"

"But aren't we disturbing you?" Mrs. Purnell asked, with a glance toward the writing materials.

"Indeed, you are not. I was writing some duty letters to kill time. I'm only too glad to stop because I'm really in no writing mood and I am most anxious to hear what is going on outside. Isn't it dreadful about Mr. Wade?"

"You mean his helping Santry?" Dorothy asked, with a little touch of pride which did not escape her hostess.

"Partly that; but more because he is sure to be arrested himself. I've been terribly worried."

Dorothy glanced at her keenly and smiled.

"I have an idea that they may find Gordon hard to arrest," she remarked.

"Yes," Mrs. Purnell put in. "He is so popular. Still, I agree with you that there is every cause for anxiety." The good lady did not have a chance every day to agree with the daughter of a United States Senator, and the opportunity was not to be overlooked.

"The people feel so strongly that Santry should never have been arrested that they are not likely to let Gordon be taken just for freeing him," Dorothy explained.

Helen shook her head with every indication of tremulous worry.

"But it isn't that alone," she insisted. "He's to be arrested for the Jensen shooting. That was why the posse waited at his ranch after Santry had been caught."

"For the Jensen shooting?" Dorothy showed her amazement very plainly. "Are you sure?" she demanded, and when Helen nodded, exclaimed: "Why, how utterly absurd! I understood that you were with him yourself when he received word of it?"

"I was," Helen admitted. "He is supposed only to have planned the crime, I believe. He's supposed to have been the principal, isn't that what they call it?" She appealed to Mrs. Purnell.

"Oh, but do you think he could do such a thing?" Mrs. Purnell asked, much shocked.

"I don't know. I hope not."

"I do know!" Dorothy burst out emphatically. "I know Gordon Wade too well to think for one minute that he did it; and every true friend of his ought to speak out at once and say the same thing."

The challenge in her voice was unmistakable, and Mrs. Purnell moved uneasily in her chair. She glanced anxiously at Helen and was relieved to see that the latter had lost none of her poise.

"I hope so as fully as you do," Helen said sweetly, "but things move so fast here in these mountains that I find it hard to keep up with them."

"Of course," Mrs. Purnell soothed, with a troubled look at her daughter.

"Who swore out the warrant, I wonder?" Dorothy asked, in a more tranquil tone, a bit ashamed of her outburst. "Was it Mr. Moran?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Helen answered. "I supposed it was the Sheriff. Why should Mr. Moran have anything to do with it?"

"Because he seems to have been concerned in all the trouble we have had," Dorothy replied calmly. "This was a peaceful little community until Mr. Moran moved into it."

Helen made no direct reply to this, and for awhile Dorothy allowed her mother to sustain the conversation. She had no doubt but that Moran was back of it all, and she was thinking of what Lem Trowbridge had said; that if they could only "get something on" Moran and the Senator, a solution of the whole problem would be at hand. She thought that she had detected a defensive note in Helen's voice, and she was wondering why it should have been there.

"But you haven't answered my question yet about Mr. Moran," Helen presently challenged her. "You seemed to have something more in mind than what you said. Would you mind telling me?"

Dorothy looked steadily but not offensively at her.

"Oh, it's nothing, Miss Rexhill. I was only thinking that he has gone rather far: been very zealous in your father's interests. Probably...."

"Why, Dorothy—!" her mother interposed, in a shocked tone.

"Miss Rexhill asked me, mother, and you know that I always speak frankly."

"Yes, do go on," Helen urged, with even an added touch of sweetness in her manner. "I really want to know. I am so out of touch with things here, so ill informed."

"Well, you can sit here at the windows and learn all you wish to know. There isn't a man in this town that would see Gordon arrested and not fight to free him. Feeling is running high here now. You know, it's something like a violin string. You can stretch it just so far and then it snaps. That's all."

"Dorothy, I'm really mortified that you...."

"Oh, you've no occasion to be, Mrs. Purnell," Helen interrupted, smiling. "I asked for the plain truth, you know."

Mrs. Purnell laughed feebly.

"Dorothy has known Mr. Wade so long and we both like him so well that she can't bear to hear a word against him," she explained. Her sense of lèse majesté was running away with her judgment, and Dorothy shot an irritated glance at her. "Not that I think he did it at all, you understand; but...."

"Oh, perfectly," declared Helen, with rising color and an equal feeling of annoyance. "Oh, dear me, do look at my poor letters!"

A gust of wind, stronger than any that had come before, had swept the weight to the floor and scattered letter paper, envelopes, and blotter about the room. Helen was just able to catch the writing-pad as it slid to the floor, while Dorothy and her mother laughingly salvaged the rest. The incident happily relieved the awkward drift of their conversation, and they all felt relieved.

"Well, now, did you ever?" Mrs. Purnell ejaculated, looking at the lithographed blotter, which she held in her hand. "I declare this picture of a little girl reminds me of Dorothy when she was that age."

"Oh, mother!"

"Really?" Helen broke in. "How interesting. I hadn't noticed the picture. Do let me see."

To be courteous, she agreed with Mrs. Purnell that there was a strong likeness, which Dorothy laughingly denied.

"I guess I know what you looked like when you were five better than you do," Mrs. Purnell declared. "It's the image of you as you were then, and as Miss Rexhill says, there is a facial resemblance even yet."

"Perhaps you would like to take it with you, then," Helen suggested, to Mrs. Purnell's delight, who explained that the only picture she had of Dorothy at that age had been lost.

"If it wouldn't deprive you?"

"No, indeed. You must take it. I have a large blotter in my writing-pad, so I really don't need that one at all. So many such things are sent to father that we always have more than we can use up."

When Dorothy and her mother left the hotel, urged homeward by the first big drops of the coming rain, Mrs. Purnell tucked the blotter in the bosom of her dress, happy to have the suggestion of the picture to recall the days when her husband's presence cheered them all. Her world had been a small one, and little things like this helped to make it bright.

Soon afterward the supper bell rang, and during the meal Helen told the Senator, who seemed somewhat morose and preoccupied, of the visit she had had.

"Sure tiresome people. Goodness! I was glad to see them at first because I thought they would help me to pass the afternoon, but instead I was bored to death. That little minx is crazy about Gordon, though. I could see that."

"Um!"

"And the worst of it is that she just fits into the scenery here, and I don't. You know, father, I never could wax enthusiastic over shooing the cows to roost and things like that."

"Um!"

"I feel like a deaf person at a concert, here in this town."

This remark brought a wry laugh from her father, and Helen smiled.

"Well, I've made you laugh, anyway," she said. "You're frightfully grouchy this evening."

"My dear, I'm busy, very busy, and I haven't time to think of trifles. I'll be at it most of the night."

"Oh, shall you? Goodness, that's cheerful. I wish I had never come to this awful little place. I suppose I must go back to my letters for something to do. And, father," she added, as he lingered with her for a moment in the hallway, "the Purnells seem to think that you and Mr. Moran had better not go too far. The people here are very much wrought up."

He patted her shoulder affectionately.

"You leave all that to me and go write to your mother."

There was nothing else for her to do, so she returned to the parlor. When she had finished her letters, she idly picked up a week-old copy of a Denver newspaper which lay on the table and glanced through the headlines. She was yawningly thinking of bed, when Moran came into the room.

"Oh, are you and father through at last?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling. "That is, we're through upstairs. I'm on my way over to the office to straighten up a few loose ends before I turn in. There's no rest for the weary, you know."

"Don't let me keep you, then," she said dryly, as he lingered. "I'm going to bed."

"You're not keeping me. I'm keeping myself." He quite understood her motive, but he was not thin-skinned, and he had learned that he had to make his opportunities with her. "Your father told me you were getting anxious."

"Not anxious, tired."

"Things are getting a little warm here, but before there's any real danger we expect to have the soldiers here to take charge."

He rather ostentatiously displayed his bandaged wrist, hoping to win her sympathy, but she professed none. Instead, she yawned and tapped her lips with her fingers, and her indifference piqued him.

"I was talking with Dorothy Purnell this afternoon," Helen finally remarked, eyeing him lazily, "and she seems to be of the opinion that you'll have hard work arresting Gordon Wade. I rather hope that you do."

"Well—" He teetered a little on his feet and stroked his mustache. "We may have, at that. Miss Purnell is popular and she can make a lot of trouble for us if she wants to. Being very fond of Wade, she's likely to do all that she can."

"Would she really have so much influence?" Helen asked, carefully guarding her tongue.

He laughed softly as though amused at the thought.

"Influence? Evidently you don't realize what a good looking girl means in a frontier town like this. She's part sister, part mother, sweetheart and a breath from Heaven to every man in Crawling Water. On that account, with one exception, I've had to import every last one of my men. The exception is Tug Bailey, who's beyond hope where women are concerned. To all the rest, Dorothy Purnell is 'Wade's girl,' and they wouldn't fight against her, or him, for all the money in Wyoming."

He was watching her keenly as he spoke, and was gratified to see spots of color spring to her cheeks.

"How interesting!" Helen could make her tone indifferent to the point of languor, but she could not keep the gleam of jealousy out of her eyes. "Gordon is a fortunate man to have such an able ally, isn't he?"

"The finish will decide that, I should say," Moran replied sneeringly. "She may stir up more trouble than all her friends can take care of."

For all of her social schooling, Helen was not proof against the sneer in his words, even though she fully saw through his purpose to wound her. She felt her temper rising, and with it came curiosity to learn how far the relationship between Wade and Dorothy Purnell had really gone. That Moran would exaggerate it, she felt sure, for he had his own ends to gain, but possibly from out of his exaggeration she could glean some truth. Yet she did not want to go so far in her anger as to gratify his malice, and this placed her in something of a dilemma.

"I don't believe that she is 'Wade's girl,' as you call her, at all," she said coldly. "They may be good friends, and if so, I'm glad; but they are nothing more than that. There is no 'understanding' between them."

Moran carelessly waved his hand in the direction of the rain-swept street, illuminated now and then by the lightning.

"Ask any one in Crawling Water."

"That sounds well, but it's impracticable, even if I wanted to do it. I prefer to draw my own conclusions."

The agent drew up a chair with his well hand, and sat down with that easy familiarity that came so natural to him. Helen watched him, lazily impertinent.

"I've been wanting to have a talk with you, Helen," he began, "and this looks like a good chance to me. You've been foolish about Wade. Yes, I know that you're thinking that I've got my own ends to further, which is true enough. I have. I admit it. But what I am going to tell you is true, also. Fortune's been playing into my hand here lately. Now, if you'll be reasonable, you'll probably be happier. Shall I go on?"

"Wild horses couldn't stop you," she answered, amused that he seemed flattered. "But if we were in Washington, I fancy I'd have you shown out."

"We're not in Washington, my dear girl." He wagged his finger at her, in the way her father had, to give emphasis to his words. "That's where you've made your mistake with Wade. We're all just plain men and women out here in the cattle country, and I'm talking its language, not the language of drawing-rooms." He was himself a little surprised at the swift dilation of her pupils, but his words had probed deeper than he knew, reminding her as they did of the truth which she had so fully realized that afternoon. "Wade liked you—loved you, maybe, in Chicago, but this ain't the East. He cares nothing for you here, and he'd never be happy away from here. You know that picture of yourself that you sent to him?" She nodded. "Well, we found it on the floor of his room, covered with dust. He hadn't even troubled to pick it up from where it must have fallen weeks ago."

She looked at him dumbly, unable to keep her lips from twitching. He knew that she believed him, and he was glad; that she had to believe him, because his story bore the impress of truth. It was not something that he could have made up.

"And while your picture was lying there, Wade and this Purnell girl were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Why, it was she that rode out to warn him that we were after Santry." Helen's lips curled. "I can't swear to that, but I heard it and I believe it myself. They must've met on the trail somewhere in the dark, and you can bet he was grateful. I don't imagine that they stopped at a hand-shake. I imagine they kissed, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm tired, worn out," Helen declared, forcing a smile so artificial that it could not deceive him. "Do go, please. I am going upstairs to bed."

"Wait one minute." He put out his injured arm, and, thinking that he reached for her hand, she brushed it aside, accidentally striking his wound.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said coldly, as he winced.

"Maybe I've hurt you worse," he persisted, with a tenderness that was intolerable to her, "but, if I have, your wound'll heal just as mine will." He gently pushed her back into her chair as she started to get up.

"Are you making love to me, Race?" Under the ridicule of her tone his face darkened. "If you are, it's insufferable in you."

"Go easy, now," he warned her. "I'll not be made a fool of."

She did not heed his warning. Glad to have him on the rack, where she had been, she laughed at him.

"Haven't you sense enough to know that, for that very reason, I'd refuse to believe anything you might say against Gordon Wade? I know how you hate him. Listen to me. Oh, this is absurd!" She laughed again at the picture he made. "You've pursued me for months with your attentions, although I've done everything but encourage you. Now I want you to know that I shall never again even listen to you. What Gordon is to Dorothy Purnell is for him, and her, and perhaps for me to be interested in, but not for you. Now I'm going to bed. Good night!"

He caught her by the arm as she stood up, but immediately released her, and stepped in front of her instead.

"Hold on," he begged, with a smile that meant wonderful mastery of himself. "I've got feelings, you know. You needn't walk on them. I love you, and I want you. What I want, I usually get. I mean to get you." She looked up at him with heavy-lidded insolence. "I may fail, but if I do, it'll be one more notch in my account against Wade. I know now where to strike him—to hurt."

"You be reasonable, and you'll be happier," she retorted. "May I go?"

"Certainly." He stepped out of her way. "Good night."

CHAPTER XII

DESPERATE MEASURES

If Moran or Helen, early in their conversation, had looked out of the window of the hotel, during one of those vivid lightning flashes, they might have seen a woman stealthily approaching the agent's office across the street. Taking advantage of the deeper shadows and of the darkness between lightning flashes, she stole to the rear of the building, where she found an unlatched window, through which she scrambled with the agility of a boy.

Within, the place was pitch dark, but like one amid familiar surroundings, she crossed the hall and found the room she sought; the office room now of Moran, but formerly occupied by Simon Barsdale. She bent over the big safe, and was twirling the combination knob in her slim, cold fingers, when she was startled by a noise in the hallway outside. With a gasp of fright, she stood motionless, listening acutely, but there was no further sound; reassured, she produced a bit of candle, which she lighted and placed to one side of the safe, so that the flame was shaded from the windows. She was in the act of manipulating the combination again when, her whole body rigid with fear, she stood erect once more, holding her breath and striving for self-control. There was no doubt about the noise this time. Some one had entered the adjoining room.

Hastily snuffing out the candle, she crouched into the darkness of a corner. She never doubted that the newcomer was Race Moran, or that he would almost immediately discover her. She tried to summon enough resolution to bluff things through when the moment of discovery should come.

But, as the seconds slipped by and the lights were not turned on, she began to regain her courage. Perhaps Moran was sitting in the dark of the other room, smoking and thinking, and perhaps she could complete her task without being caught, if she moved swiftly and silently. She bent again over the shining knob, at the same time watching in the direction of the door, which was still closed as she had left it. It was difficult to work the lock in the dark, and, as she became engrossed with her purpose, she ceased temporarily to listen acutely. She had just succeeded in effecting the combination, when something touched her side.

"Don't move!" a voice hissed behind her. "I'll shoot if you do!"

She wanted to cry out, "Please don't shoot!" but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, which had suddenly gone dry. She had fallen forward against the door of the safe, and was curiously conscious how cold it felt. She was on the point of fainting, when in a rush of relief it dawned upon her that she knew the voice; it was not Moran's.

"Gordon!" she cried joyously, finding the use of her tongue as quickly as she had lost it, and scrambling to her feet. "It's me—Dorothy!"

With an exclamation as joyous as her own and equally surprised, he seized her by the shoulders, peering through the darkness into her face.

"Dorothy! What the...?" A lightning flash revealed them clearly to each other. "I told you not to try this."

"But what are you doing in town?" She clutched his arms, overcome by a fear greater than that for her own safety. "Gordon, Gordon, you must not stay here. There's a warrant out for you—no, no, not for that—for the Jensen shooting. You'll be arrested on sight."

"What?" He stared at her, amazed, and she nodded. "So that's their game now, eh? They've stooped even to that. By God!" He struck a match.

"Be careful," she warned him instantly. "The light—put it out. They'll see it from the street. But, oh, Gordon, why did you come?"

He thrilled at the anxiety in her voice.

"To find out what Moran is hiding here; and you're after the same thing, of course."

"Yes."

Impulsively, he squeezed her fingers, until she could have cried out in pain but for the sweetness of it; there are some agonies which do not hurt. Her throat swelled with joy, her breast heaved, and her eyelids fluttered. She was grateful for the darkness, which hid these outward signs of love from him. She blushed; she could feel the warm tide pulsing in her temples; and she laughed brokenly from sheer happiness.

"You shouldn't have taken such a risk, Dorothy. I told you not to."

"You're taking that risk, Gordon, and more."

"That's different. It's so dark a night, I thought I'd chance it."

"There's not much risk for me," she declared. "I can reach home in five minutes. Isn't it odd, though, that we both should have thought of doing it at exactly the same time. But come, Gordon, we must hurry!"

Now that the safe was open, to remove its contents took only a moment, and they tossed all the papers they found into a corner. Then, when Wade had swung the safe around on its casters, they had a snug shelter behind it, where by shaded candle-light they ran rapidly through their loot. Most of the documents related to land purchases and development, but at the bottom of the pile Wade came upon a bundle of papers and blue-prints, held together by a rubber band, which he stripped off.

"Oh, if we should find nothing, after all," Dorothy whispered, bending with him over the blue-prints. "What are they, Gordon?"

"Maps of my own range, Dorothy!" His tone was tense with excitement, as he leaned nearer to the light. "Well, what do you know about that? By Heaven"—He fairly glared at the sheet before his eyes.—"It's all there!"

"What's all there? What is it?"

"Gold!" He looked at her in the flickering light, like a man gone mad.

"Gold? On your range? Oh, Gordon!"

"Yes; on my range. It's inconceivable, almost; but it seems to be true. See! Look here!" Their heads were almost touching, so that her soft hair caressed his face. "This is a map of the upper valley, and the description says these red crosses indicate the location of gold. One is near the head of Piah Creek, not half a mile from my buildings."

"Oh, Gordon, I am so glad!" Dorothy exclaimed. "How wonderful it all is. You'll be rich, won't you?" She was not too excited to remember that his wealth would probably be shared by another woman, but she was too generous to be any the less glad on that account.

"That remains to be seen," he replied. "It may not prove to amount to much, you know. At any rate, Moran won't get any of it. That's worth a whole lot."

She nodded vehemently.

"I thought it must be something like that, Gordon. They would never have done the things they have without some powerful reason."

"Yes, you were right, Dorothy. You're usually right." He caught her hand and squeezed it again, and in this moment of their triumph together she could not help returning the pressure. "You're a jewel, a brick, a trump—all those things and then some. The sweet...."

"Now, we haven't time for that sort of thing, Mr. Man. We...."

"Must get away while we can, yes," he finished for her. "But just the same I...."

Her cold fingers on his lips stopped him.

"Listen!"

She put out the candle and they crouched down beside the safe. Some one was coming up the stairs, not stealthily this time but boldly, as one who had a right there, whistling softly. Wade could feel the girl's shoulder tremble against his side, as he slipped his revolver out of its holster.

"Don't, Gordon! You—you mustn't shoot, no matter what happens." Her teeth were chattering, for she was far more frightened now than she had been for herself alone. "That's Moran. He mustn't see you here. Remember that warrant. Hide behind the safe. Please!"

"Never!" he muttered grimly. "He'd find us anyhow."

"Yes, yes. Please!" She was almost hysterical in her excitement. "I can bluff him till you can get away. He won't hurt me. If he does you can show yourself. Do it for me, for your friends. Please! Remember, he mustn't know that you've learned his secret."

It was Moran, for they heard him now in conversation with some passer-by in the hallway. Dorothy was grateful for the respite, for it gave them time to throw the loose papers back into the safe and close it. Wade then pushed the safe to its original position, the casters making little noise as they rolled. Then he crouched behind it.

"I don't like this stunt!" he protested; but yielded to her beseeching "Please." She was right, too, he knew. It would be far better if Moran could be kept in ignorance of his visit there.

The office now bore little sign of their invasion of it, and, drawing a deep breath, Dorothy schooled herself to calmness as she awaited Moran, who was walking down the hall toward the entrance to the room. A plan had flashed into her mind by means of which she might save both Wade and herself, if he and her heart would only be quiet. The unruly heart was beating so violently that it shook her thin dress, and that her voice must tremble, she knew.

Moran was almost at the threshold, when Dorothy opened the door for him.

"Good evening, Mr. Moran. Did I startle you?"

"Well, not exactly," he said, striking a match, after an instant's pause. "What are you doing here?"

Passing her, he lighted the large oil lamp, and swept the room with a quick, keen glance. Finding nothing apparently wrong, he turned again to his visitor with a puzzled expression in his face.

"Well?"

"I wanted to see you and I thought you'd be here. The door was unlocked so I just walked in. I've been here only a minute or two." Fortified by another deep breath, drawn while his back was turned, Dorothy found her voice steadier than she expected.

The agent looked at her keenly.

"That's strange," he commented. "I don't know what the door was doing unlocked. I always lock it when I leave."

"You must have forgotten to do so to-night."

"I surely must have, if you found it open."

Half convinced that she was telling the truth, Moran could see but one reason for her evident fright: she was afraid of him. The suggestion of that strengthened the impulse which her beauty stirred in him. If she thought so, why not?

"Say, you're a good-looking kid, all right," he leered. "What did you want to see me for?"

A slight sound from behind the safe, or perhaps she imagined it, caused Dorothy's heart to flutter wildly. She had not anticipated this attitude in Moran, and she instantly realized that it brought a fresh danger into the situation. She knew that Wade would not remain in concealment if the agent insulted her. She must avoid the chance of that, if possible; must get him out of the office so that Gordon might escape.

"This is no place to talk that way," she said bravely. "It isn't a good place for me to be anyway. If people knew I was here, there would be a terrible scandal. I've something important to tell you. Won't you come for a walk?"

"In this rain? Not much," he chuckled. "Come here!" She shook her head and tried to smile. "Well, if you won't, I'll have to go to you." She shrank back from him, as he approached her, with an evil smile. "Say, little one," he went on, "this is a damned funny game of yours, coming here at night. What's the idea, eh?"

"There isn't any, really." She snatched her hands away from him. "I've already tried to explain that I have important news for you; but I won't tell you what it is here."

"Why not? We're dry and cozy here. Go ahead."

"No."

"Oh, come on!" He had driven her to the wall, and now he slipped an arm about her waist and pulled her toward him. "Say, kiss me once, won't you?"

"Hands up, you low-lived hound!"

With an oath, Moran whirled around to find himself staring into the muzzle of Wade's revolver. The ranchman moved his weapon significantly.

"Up!"

As the agent's hands went above his head, Dorothy leaned against the wall for support. She had not made a sound, but she was the color of chalk, and her heart seemed to be trying to jump out of her mouth. She was no whiter than Wade, whose fury had driven every vestige of color from his face and fired his eyes with a murderous light.

"Shall I kill him?" he asked Dorothy, and at the frightful tone of his voice she found the power to shake her head, although her mouth was too dry for speech.

"Take his gun," said Wade sharply and the girl stepped forward.

She reeled toward Moran, who, to do him justice, showed little fear, and pulled his revolver from his hip pocket. She held it out to Wade, who broke it with his free hand by pressing the butt against the top of the safe, and spilled the cartridges on the floor.

"Now you can leave us, Dorothy," he said quietly.

"No. I'll stay, Gordon," she answered.

"Moran," Wade continued evenly, without paying any more attention to her, "the only reason why I shall not kill you is because Miss Purnell does not want your worthless life upon her conscience. A man like you ought to die. You're not fit to live."

"Can I put my hands down?"

"No; keep 'em where they are!" Wade gestured again with the gun. "I wish I had a string on each of your thumbs so I could hoist them higher. I've just been through this safe of yours." The agent started. "I've got those maps of my range in my pocket."

"Much good they'll do you."

"They'll do me more good alive than they will you dead, and you're going to die. So help me God, you are! We'll come together again some day."

"I hope so," Moran declared venomously, and even Dorothy was struck by the courage he showed.

"And then there won't be anybody to be held responsible but me." Wade grinned in a slow, horrible fashion. "It'll rest light on me, I promise you. And another thing. I'm going to leave you trussed up here in this office, like I left your friend the Sheriff a few days ago, and along about morning somebody'll find you and turn you loose. When you get loose, you want to forget that you saw Miss Purnell here to-night. I've meant to have her and her mother leave town for a bit until this mess blows over, but things aren't fixed right for that just now. Instead, I'm going to leave her in the personal care—the personal care, you understand me, of every decent man in Crawling Water. If anything happens to her, you'll toast over a slow fire before you die. Do you get that?"

"She's a good kid," said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under the tension of his grasp.

"I guess it's a good thing you stayed, Dorothy," the latter remarked grimly. "This fellow must be tied up. I wonder what we can find to do it with?"

"My cloak?" Dorothy suggested. "It's an old one."

He shook his head.

"It's hard to tear that rain-proof stuff, and besides you'd get wet going home. There's no sense in that. Isn't there something else?"

She blushed a little and turned away for a moment, during which she slipped off her underskirt. Then, as Moran watched her cynically, she tore it into strips. When she had thus made several stout bands, Wade spoke again.

"You take the first throw or two about him," he directed, "and when you have him partly tied you can take my gun and I'll finish the job. Start with his feet, that's right. Now draw it as tight as you can. Put your arms down back of you! Tie them now, Dorothy. That's fine! Here, you take the gun. You know how to use it, if he struggles."

Wade tightened up the linen bands, and kicked forward a straight-backed chair, into which he forced Moran and lashed him fast there, to all of which the agent made no great protest, knowing that to do so would be useless. He grunted and swore a bit under his breath, but that was all. When he was well trussed up, the ranchman made a gag out of what was left of the linen and his own handkerchief and strapped it into his prisoner's mouth with his belt.

When the job was done, and it was a good one, he grinned again in that slow, terrible way. A grin that bore no semblance to human mirth, but was a grimace of combined anger and hatred. Once before, during the fight at the ranch, Bill Santry had seen this expression on his employer's face, but not to the degree that Dorothy now saw it. It frightened her.

"Oh, Gordon, don't, please!" She closed her eyes to shut out the sight. "Come, we must hurry away."

"Good night," Wade said ironically, with a last look at Moran.

He let Dorothy draw him away then, and by the time they reached the street he was his old boyish self again. Aping Moran, he slipped his arm around her waist, but she did not shrink from his embrace, unexpected though it was.

"Say, kid," he laughed mockingly. "Kiss me once, won't you?"

CHAPTER XIII

INTO THE DEPTHS

"Good Lord, Race! What's happened?"

Senator Rexhill, on the next morning, surprised that Moran did not show up at the hotel, had gone in search of him, and was dumbfounded when he entered the office.

Moran, in his desperate efforts to free himself, had upset the chair into which he was tied, and being unable to right it again, had passed most of the night in a position of extreme discomfort. Toward morning, his confinement had become positive agony, and he had inwardly raved at Wade, the gag in his mouth making audible expression impossible, until he was black in the face.

"My God, Race!" the Senator exclaimed, when, having cut the lashings and withdrawn the gag, he saw his agent in a state bordering on collapse, "what has happened to you?" He helped the man to his feet and held him up.

"My throat—dry—whiskey!" Moran gasped, and groaned as he clutched at the desk, from which he slid into a chair, where he sat rubbing his legs, which ached with a thousand pains.

Rexhill found a bottle of whiskey and a glass on a shelf in the closet. He poured out a generous drink of the liquor and handed it to Moran, but the agent could not hold it in his swollen fingers. The Senator picked up the glass, which had not broken in its fall and, refilling it, held it to Moran's lips. It was a stiff drink, and by the time it was repeated, the agent was revived somewhat.

"Now, tell me," urged Rexhill.

Prepared though he was for an outburst of fury, he was amazed at the torrent of blasphemous oaths which Moran uttered. He caught Wade's name, but the rest was mere incoherence, so wildly mouthed and so foul that he began to wonder if torture had unbalanced the man's mind. The expression of Moran's eyes, which had become mere slits in his inflamed and puffy face, showed that for the time he was quite beyond himself. What with his blued skin and distended veins, his puffed lips and slurred speech, he seemed on the brink of an apoplectic seizure. Rexhill watched him anxiously.

"Come, come, man. Brace up," he burst out, at length. "You'll kill yourself, if you go on that way. Be a man."

The words seemed to have their effect, for the agent made a supreme effort at the self-control which was seldom lacking in him. He appeared to seize the reins of self-government and to force himself into a state of unnatural quiet, as one tames a frantic horse.

"The safe!" he muttered hoarsely, scrambling to his feet.

His stiffened legs still refused to function, however, and Rexhill, hastening to the safe, threw open the door. One glance at the disordered interior told him the whole story. Moran watched feverishly as he dragged the crumpled papers out on the floor and pawed through them.

"Gone?"

"Gone!"

They looked at each other, a thin tide of crimson brightening the congestion of Moran's visage, while Rexhill's face went ghastly white. With shaking fingers, the agent poured himself a third drink and tossed it down his throat.

"It was Wade who tied you up?"