WAY OF THE LAWLESS

Max Brand

1921

Previous ed. Published under title: Free Range

WAY OF THE LAWLESS

CHAPTER 1

Beside the rear window of the blacksmith shop Jasper Lanning held hiswithered arms folded against his chest. With the dispassionate eye andthe aching heart of an artist he said to himself that his life work wasa failure. That life work was the young fellow who swung the sledge atthe forge, and truly it was a strange product for this seventy-year-oldveteran with his slant Oriental eyes and his narrow beard of white. Andrew Lanning was not even his son, but it came about in this way thatAndrew became the life work of Jasper. 

Fifteen years before, the father of Andy died, and Jasper rode out ofthe mountain desert like a hawk dropping out of the pale-blue sky. Heburied his brother without a tear, and then sat down and looked at theslender child who bore his name. Andy was a beautiful boy. He had theblack hair and eyes, the well-made jaw, and the bone of the Lannings, and if his mouth was rather soft and girlish he laid the failing to theweakness of childhood. Jasper had no sympathy for tenderness in men. Hisown life was as littered with hard deeds as the side of a mountain withboulders. But the black, bright eyes and the well-made jaw of littleAndy laid hold on him, and he said to himself: "I'm fifty-five. I'mabout through with my saddle days. I'll settle down and turn out onepiece of work that'll last after I'm gone, and last with my signatureon it!"

That was fifteen years ago. And for fifteen years he had labored to makeAndy a man according to a grim pattern which was known in the Lanningclan, and elsewhere in the mountain desert. His program was as simple asthe curriculum of a Persian youth. On the whole, it was even simpler, for Jasper concentrated on teaching the boy how to ride and shoot, andwas not at all particular that he should learn to speak the truth. Buton the first two and greatest articles of his creed, how Jasper labored!

For fifteen years he poured his heart without stint into his work! Hetaught Andy to know a horse from hock to teeth, and to ride anythingthat wore hair. He taught him to know a gun as if it were a sentientthing. He taught him all the draws of old and new pattern, and laboredto give him both precision and speed. That was the work of fifteenyears, and now at the end of this time the old man knew that his lifework was a failure, for he had made the hand of Andrew Lanning cunning, had given his muscles strength, but the heart beneath was wrong. 

It was hard to see Andy at the first glance. A film of smoke shifted andeddied through the shop, and Andy, working the bellows, was a black formagainst the square of the door, a square filled by the blinding white ofthe alkali dust in the road outside and the blinding white of the sunabove. Andy turned from the forge, bearing in his tongs a great bar ofiron black at the ends but white in the middle. The white place wassurrounded by a sparkling radiance. Andy caught up an eight-poundhammer, and it rose and fell lightly in his hand. The sparks rushedagainst the leather apron of the hammer wielder, and as the blows fellrapid waves of light were thrown against the face of Andrew. 

Looking at that face one wondered how the life work of Jasper was sucha failure. For Andy was a handsome fellow with his blue-black hair andhis black, rather slanting eyes, after the Lanning manner. Yet Jaspersaw, and his heart was sick. The face was a little too full; the squarebone of the chin was rounded with flesh; and, above all, the mouth hadnever changed. It was the mouth of the child, soft--too womanly soft. And Jasper blinked. 

When he opened his eyes again the white place on the iron had become adull red, and the face of the blacksmith was again in shadow. All Jaspercould see was the body of Andy, and that was much better. Red lightglinted on the sinewy arms and the swaying shoulders, and the hammerswayed and fell tirelessly. For fifteen years Jasper had consoledhimself with the strength of the boy, smooth as silk and as durable; thelight form which would not tire a horse, but swelled above the waistinto those formidable shoulders. 

Now the bar was lifted from the anvil and plunged, hissing, into thebucket beside the forge; above the bucket a cloud of steam rose andshowed clearly against the brilliant square of the door, and thepeculiar scent which came from the iron went sharply to the nostrils ofJasper. He got up as a horseman entered the shop. He came in a mannerthat pleased Jasper. There was a rush of hoofbeats, a form dartingthrough the door, and in the midst of the shop the rider leaped out ofthe saddle and the horse came to a halt with braced legs. 

"Hey, you!" called the rider as he tossed the reins over the head of hishorse. "Here's a hoss that needs iron on his feet. Fix him up. And lookhere"--he lifted a forefoot and showed the scales on the frog and soleof the hoof--"last time you shoed this hoss you done a sloppy job, son. You left all this stuff hangin' on here. I want it trimmed off nice an'neat. You hear?"

The blacksmith shrugged his shoulders. 

"Spoils the hoof to put the knife on the sole, Buck, " said the smith. "That peels off natural. "

"H'm, " said Buck Heath. "How old are you, son?"

"Oh, old enough, " answered Andy cheerily. "Old enough to know that thisexfoliation is entirely natural. "

The big word stuck in the craw of Buck Heath, who brought his thickeyebrows together. "I've rid horses off and on come twenty-five years, "he declared, "and I've rid 'em long enough to know how I want 'em shod. This is my hoss, son, and you do it my way. That straight?"

The eye of old Jasper in the rear of the shop grew dim with wistfulnessas he heard this talk. He knew Buck Heath; he knew his kind; in his dayhe would have eaten a dozen men of such rough words and such mild deedsas Buck. But searching the face of Andy, he saw no resentment. Merely aquiet resignation. 

"Another thing, " said Buck Heath, who seemed determined to press thething to a disagreeable point. "I hear you don't fit your shoes onhot. Well?"

"I never touch a hoof with hot iron, " replied Andy. "It's a rottenpractice. "

"Is it?" said Buck Heath coldly. "Well, son, you fit my hoss with hotshoes or I'll know the reason why. "

"I've got to do the work my own way, " protested Andy. 

A spark of hope burned in the slant eyes of Jasper. 

"Otherwise I can go find another gent to do my shoein'?" inquired Buck. 

"It looks that way, " replied the blacksmith with a nod. 

"Well, " said Buck, whose mildness of the last question had been merelythe cover for a bursting wrath that now sent his voice booming, "maybeyou know a whole pile, boy--I hear Jasper has give you consid'ableeducation--but what you know is plumb wasted on me. Understand? As forlookin' up another blacksmith, you ought to know they ain't another shopin ten miles. You'll do this job, and you'll do it my way. Maybe yougot another way of thinkin'?"

There was a little pause. 

"It's your horse, " repeated Andy. "I suppose I can do him your own way. "

Old Jasper closed his eyes in silent agony. Looking again, he saw BuckHeath grinning with contempt, and for a single moment Jasper touched hisgun. Then he remembered that he was seventy years old. "Well, Buck?" hesaid, coming forward. For he felt that if this scene continued he wouldgo mad with shame. 

There was a great change in Buck as he heard this voice, a markedrespect was in his manner as he turned to Jasper. "Hello, Jas, " he said. "I didn't know you was here. "

"Come over to the saloon, Buck, and have one on me, " said Jasper. "Iguess Andy'll have your hoss ready when we come back. "

"Speakin' personal, " said Buck Heath with much heartiness, "I don't passup no chances with no man, and particular if he's Jasper Lanning. " Hehooked his arm through Jasper's elbow. "Besides, that boy of yours hasgot me all heated up. Where'd he learn them man-sized words, Jas?"

All of which Andy heard, and he knew that Buck Heath intended him tohear them. It made Andy frown, and for an instant he thought of callingBuck back. But he did not call. Instead he imagined what would happen. Buck would turn on his heel and stand, towering, in the door. He wouldask what Andy wanted. Andy chose the careful insult which he would throwin Buck's face. He saw the blow given. He felt his own fist tingle as hereturned the effort with interest. He saw Buck tumble back over thebucket of water. 

By this time Andy was smiling gently to himself. His wrath haddissolved, and he was humming pleasantly to himself as he began to pulloff the worn shoes of Buck's horse. 

CHAPTER 2

Young Andrew Lanning lived in the small, hushed world of his ownthoughts. He neither loved nor hated the people around him. He simplydid not see them. His mother--it was from her that he inherited thesofter qualities of his mind and his face--had left him a little stockof books. And though Andy was by no means a reader, he had at leastpicked up that dangerous equipment of fiction which enables a man tododge reality and live in his dreams. Those dreams had as little aspossible to do with the daily routine of his life, and certainly thehandling of guns, which his uncle enforced upon him, was never a part ofthe future as Andy saw it. 

It was now the late afternoon; the alkali dust in the road was still ina white light, but the temperature in the shop had dropped severaldegrees. The horse of Buck Heath was shod, and Andy was laying his toolsaway for the day when he heard the noise of an automobile with openmuffler coming down the street. He stepped to the door to watch, and atthat moment a big blue car trundled into view around the bend of theroad. The rear wheels struck a slide of sand and dust, and skidded; agirl cried out; then the big machine gathered out of the cloud of dust, and came toward Andy with a crackling like musketry, and it was plainthat it would leap through Martindale and away into the country beyondat a bound. Andy could see now that it was a roadster, low-hung, ponderous, to keep the road. 

Pat Gregg was leaving the saloon; he was on his horse, but he sat thesaddle slanting, and his head was turned to give the farewell word toseveral figures who bulged through the door of the saloon. For thatreason, as well as because of the fumes in his brain, he did not hearthe coming of the automobile. His friends from the saloon yelled awarning, but he evidently thought it some jest, as he waved his handwith a grin of appreciation. The big car was coming, rocking with itsspeed; it was too late now to stop that flying mass of metal. 

But the driver made the effort. His brakes shrieked, and still the carshot on with scarcely abated speed, for the wheels could secure nopurchase in the thin sand of the roadway. Andy's heart stood still insympathy as he saw the face of the driver whiten and grow tense. CharlesMerchant, the son of rich John Merchant, was behind the wheel. DrunkenPat Gregg had taken the warning at last. He turned in the saddle anddrove home his spurs, but even that had been too late had not CharlesMerchant taken the big chance. At the risk of overturning the machine heveered it sharply to the left. It hung for a moment on two wheels. Andycould count a dozen heartbeats while the plunging car edged around thehorse and shoved between Pat and the wall of the house--inches on eitherside. Yet it must have taken not more than the split part of a second. 

There was a shout of applause from the saloon; Pat Gregg sat his horse, mouth open, his face pale, and then the heavy car rolled past theblacksmith shop. Andy, breathing freely and cold to his finger tips, sawyoung Charlie Merchant relax to a flickering smile as the girl besidehim caught his arm and spoke to him. 

And then Andy saw her for the first time. 

In the brief instant as the machine moved by, he printed the picture tobe seen again when she was gone. What was the hair? Red bronze, andfiery where the sun caught at it, and the eyes were gray, or blue, or agray-green. But colors did not matter. It was all in her smile and theturning of her eyes, which were very wide open. She spoke, and it was inthe sound of her voice. "Wait!" shouted Andy Lanning as he made a steptoward them. But the car went on, rocking over the bumps and the exhaustroaring. Andy became aware that his shout had been only a dry whisper. Besides, what would he say if they did stop?

And then the girl turned sharply about and looked back, not at the horsethey had so nearly struck, but at Andy standing in the door of his shop. He felt sure that she would remember his face; her smile had gone outwhile she stared, and now she turned her head suddenly to the front. Once more the sun flashed on her hair; then the machine disappeared. Ina moment even the roar of the engine was lost, but it came back again, flung in echoes from some hillside. 

Not until all was silent, and the boys from the saloon were shakinghands with Pat and laughing at him, did Andy turn back into theblacksmith shop. He sat down on the anvil with his heart beating, andbegan to recall the picture. Yes, it was all in the smile and the glintof the eyes. And something else--how should he say it?--of the lightshining through her. 

He stood up presently, closed the shop, and went home. Afterward hisuncle came in a fierce humor, slamming the door. He found Andy sittingin front of the table staring down at his hands. 

"Buck Heath has been talkin' about you, " said Jasper. 

Andy raised his head. "Look at 'em!" he said as he spread out his hands. "I been scrubbin' 'em with sand soap for half an hour, and the oil andthe iron dust won't come out. "

Uncle Jasper, who had a quiet voice and gentle manners, now stood rigid. "I wisht to God that some iron dust would work its way into yoursoul, " he said. 

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothin' you could understand; you need a mother to explain things toyou. "

The other got up, white about the mouth. "I think I do, " said Andy. "I'm sick inside. "

"Where's supper?" demanded Jasper. 

Andy sat down again, and began to consider his hands once more. "There'ssomething wrong--something dirty about this life. "

"Is there?" Uncle Jasper leaned across the table, and once again the oldghost of a hope was flickering behind his eyes. "Who's been talkin'to you?"

He thought of the grinning men of the saloon; the hidden words. Somebodymight have gone out and insulted Andy to his face for the first time. There had been plenty of insults in the past two years, since Andy couldpretend to manhood, but none that might not be overlooked. "Who's beentalkin' to you?" repeated Uncle Jasper. "Confound that Buck Heath! He'sthe cause of all the trouble!"

"Buck Heath! Who's he? Oh, I remember. What's he got to do with therotten life we lead here, Uncle Jas?"

"So?" said the old man slowly. "He ain't nothin'?"

"Bah!" remarked Andy. "You want me to go out and fight him? I won't. Igot no love for fighting. Makes me sort of sickish. "

"Heaven above!" the older man invoked. "Ain't you got shame? My blood inyou, too!"

"Don't talk like that, " said Andy with a certain amount of reserve whichwas not natural to him. "You bother me. I want a little silence and achance to think things out. There's something wrong in the way I'vebeen living. "

"You're the last to find it out. "

"If you keep this up I'm going to take a walk so I can have quiet. "

"You'll sit there, son, till I'm through with you. Now, Andrew, theseyears I've been savin' up for this moment when I was sure that--"

To his unutterable astonishment Andy rose and stepped between him andthe door. "Uncle Jas, " he said, "mostly I got a lot of respect for youand what you think. Tonight I don't care what you or anybody else has tosay. Just one thing matters. I feel I've been living in the dirt. I'mgoing out and see what's wrong. Good night. "

CHAPTER 3

Uncle Jas was completely bowled over. Over against the wall as the doorclosed he was saying to himself: "What's happened? What's happened?" Asfar as he could make out his nephew retained very little fear of theauthority of Jasper Lanning. 

One thing became clear to the old man. There had to be a decisionbetween his nephew and some full-grown man, otherwise Andy was very aptto grow up into a sneaking coward. And in the matter of a contest Jaspercould not imagine a better trial horse than Buck Heath. For Buck wasknown to be violent with his hands, but he was not likely to draw hisgun, and, more than this, he might even be bluffed down without making ashow of a fight. Uncle Jasper left his house supperless, and struck downthe street until he came to the saloon. 

He found Buck Heath warming to his work, resting both elbows on the bar. Bill Dozier was with him, Bill who was the black sheep in the fine oldDozier family. His brother, Hal Dozier, was by many odds the mostrespected and the most feared man in the region, but of all the goodDozier qualities Bill inherited only their fighting capacity. He fought;he loved trouble; and for that reason, and not because he needed themoney, he was now acting as a deputy sheriff. He was jesting with BuckHeath in a rather superior manner, half contemptuous, half amused byBuck's alcoholic swaggerings. And Buck was just sober enough toperceive that he was being held lightly. He hated Dozier for thattreatment, but he feared him too much to take open offense. It was atthis opportune moment that old man Lanning, apparently half out ofbreath, touched Buck on the elbow. 

As Buck turned with a surly "What the darnation?" the other whispered:"Be on your way, Buck. Get out of town, and get out of trouble. My boyhears you been talkin' about him, and he allows as how he'll get you. He's out for you now. "

The fumes cleared sufficiently from Buck Heath's mind to allow him toremember that Jasper Lanning's boy was no other than the milk-bloodedAndy. He told Jasper to lead his boy on. There was a reception committeewaiting for him there in the person of one Buck Heath. 

"Don't be a fool, Buck, " said Jasper, glancing over his shoulder. "Don'tyou know that Andy's a crazy, man-killin' fool when he gets started? Andhe's out for blood now. You just slide out of town and come back whenhis blood's cooled down. "

Buck Heath took another drink from the bottle in his pocket, and thenregarded Jasper moodily. "Partner, " he declared gloomily, putting hishand on the shoulder of Jasper, "maybe Andy's a man-eater, but I'm aregular Andy-eater, and here's the place where I go and get my feed. Lemme loose!"

He kicked open the door of the saloon. "Where is he?" demanded theroaring Andy-eater. Less savagely, he went on: "I'm lookin' formy meat!"

Jasper Lanning and Bill Dozier exchanged glances of understanding. "Partly drunk, but mostly yaller, " observed Bill Dozier. "Soon as theair cools him off outside he'll mount his hoss and get on his way. But, say, is your boy really out for his scalp?" "Looks that way, " declaredJasper with tolerable gravity. 

"I didn't know he was that kind, " said Bill Dozier. And Jasper flushed, for the imputation was clear. They went together to the window andlooked out. 

It appeared that Bill Dozier was right. After standing in the middle ofthe street in the twilight for a moment, Buck Heath turned and wentstraight for his horse. A low murmur passed around the saloon, for othermen were at the windows watching. They had heard Buck's talk earlier inthe day, and they growled as they saw him turn tail. 

Two moments more and Buck would have been on his horse, but in those twomoments luck took a hand. Around the corner came Andrew Lanning with hishead bowed in thought. At once a roar went up from every throat in thesaloon: "There's your man. Go to him!"

Buck Heath turned from his horse; Andrew lifted his head. They were faceto face, and it was hard to tell to which one of them the other was theleast welcome. But Andrew spoke first. A thick silence had fallen in thesaloon. Most of the onlookers wore careless smiles, for the caliber ofthese two was known, and no one expected violence; but Jasper Lanning, at the door, stood with a sick face. He was praying in the silence. 

Every one could hear Andrew say: "I hear you've been making a talk aboutme, Buck?"

It was a fair enough opening. The blood ran more freely in the veins ofJasper. Perhaps the quiet of his boy had not been altogether the quietof cowardice. 

"Aw, " answered Buck Heath, "don't you be takin' everything you hear forgospel. What kind of talk do you mean?"

"He's layin' down, " said Bill Dozier, and his voice was soft but audiblein the saloon. "The skunk!"

"I was about to say, " said Andrew, "that I think you had no cause fortalk. I've done you no harm, Buck. "

The hush in the saloon became thicker; eyes of pity turned on thatproved man, Jasper Lanning. He had bowed his head. And the words of theyounger man had an instant effect on Buck Heath. They seemed toinfuriate him. 

"You've done me no harm?" he echoed. He let his voice out; he evenglanced back and took pleasurable note of the crowded faces behind thedim windows of the saloon. Just then Geary, the saloon keeper, lightedone of the big lamps, and at once all the faces at the windows becameblack silhouettes. "You done me no harm?" repeated Buck Heath. "Ain'tyou been goin' about makin' a talk that you was after me? Well, son, here I am. Now let's see you eat!"

"I've said nothing about you, " declared Andy. There was a groan from thesaloon. Once more all eyes flashed across to Jasper Lanning. 

"Bah!" snorted Buck Heath, and raised his hand. To crown the horror, theother stepped back. A little puff of alkali dust attested the movement. 

"I'll tell you, " roared Buck, "you ain't fittin' for a man's hand totouch, you ain't. A hosswhip is more your style. "

From the pommel of his saddle he snatched his quirt. It whirled, hummedin the air, and then cracked on the shoulders of Andrew. In the dimnessof the saloon door a gun flashed in the hand of Jasper Lanning. It was aswift draw, but he was not in time to shoot, for Andy, with a cry, ducked in under the whip as it raised for the second blow and grappledwith Buck Heath. They swayed, then separated as though they had beentorn apart. But the instant of contact had told Andy a hundred things. He was much smaller than the other, but he knew that he was far and awaystronger after that grapple. It cleared his brain, and his nervesceased jumping. 

"Keep off, " he said. "I've no wish to harm you. "

"You houn' dog!" yelled Buck, and leaped in with a driving fist. 

It bounced off the shoulder of Andrew. At the same time he saw thosebanked heads at the windows of the saloon, and knew it was a trap forhim. All the scorn and the grief which had been piling up in him, allthe cold hurt went into the effort as he stepped in and snapped his fistinto the face of Buck Heath. He rose with the blow; all his energy, fromwrist to instep, was in that lifting drive. Then there was a jarringimpact that made his arm numb to the shoulder. Buck Heath looked blanklyat him, wavered, and pitched loosely forward on his face. And his headbounced back as it struck the ground. It was a horrible thing to see, but it brought one wild yell of joy from the saloon--the voice ofJasper Lanning. 

Andrew had dropped to his knees and turned the body upon its back. Thestone had been half buried in the dust, but it had cut a deep, raggedgash on the forehead of Buck. His eyes were open, glazed; his mouthsagged; and as the first panic seized Andy he fumbled at the heart ofthe senseless man and felt no beat. 

"Dead!" exclaimed Andy, starting to his feet. Men were running towardhim from the saloon, and their eagerness made him see a picture he hadonce seen before. A man standing in the middle of a courtroom; the placecrowded; the judge speaking from behind the desk: "--to be hanged by theneck until--"

A revolver came into the hand of Andrew. And when he found his voice, there was a snapping tension in it. 

"Stop!" he called. The scattering line stopped like horses thrown backon their haunches by jerked bridle reins. "And don't make no move, "continued Andy, gathering the reins of Buck's horse behind him. Ablanket of silence had dropped on the street. 

"The first gent that shows metal, " said Andy, "I'll drill him. Keepsteady!"

He turned and flashed into the saddle. Once more his gun covered them. He found his mind working swiftly, calmly. His knees pressed the longholster of an old-fashioned rifle. He knew that make of gun from toe toforesight; he could assemble it in the dark. 

"You, Perkins! Get your hands away from your hip. Higher, blast you!"

He was obeyed. His voice was thin, but it kept that line of hands highabove their heads. When he moved his gun the whole line winced; it wasas if his will were communicated to them on electric currents. He senthis horse into a walk; into a trot; then dropped along the saddle, andwas plunging at full speed down the street, leaving a trail of sharpalkali dust behind him and a long, tingling yell. 

CHAPTER 4

Only one man in the crowd was old enough to recognize that yell, and theone man was Jasper Lanning. A great, singing happiness filled his heartand his throat. But the shouting of the men as they tumbled into theirsaddles cleared his brain. He called to Deputy Bill Dozier, who waskneeling beside the prostrate form of Buck Heath: "Call 'em off, Bill. Call 'em off, or, by the Lord, I'll take a hand in this! He done it inself-defense. He didn't even pull a gun on Buck. Bill, call 'em off!"

And Bill did it most effectually. He straightened, and then got up. "Some of you fools get some sense, will you?" he called. "Buck ain'tdead; he's just knocked out!"

It brought them back, a shamefaced crew, laughing at each other. "Where's a doctor?" demanded Bill Dozier. 

Someone who had an inkling of how wounds should be cared for wasinstantly at work over Buck. "He's not dead, " pronounced this authority, "but he's danged close to it. Fractured skull, that's what he's got. And a fractured jaw, too, looks to me. Yep, you can hear thebone grate!"

Jasper Lanning was in the midst of a joyous monologue. "You seen it, boys? One punch done it. That's what the Lannings are--the one-punchkind. And you seen him get to his gun? Handy! Lord, but it done me goodto see him mosey that piece of iron off'n his hip. And see him take thatsaddle? Where was you with your gal, Joe? Nowhere! Looked to me like--"

The voice of Bill Dozier broke in: "I want a posse. Who'll ride withBill Dozier tonight?"

It sobered Jasper Lanning. "What d'you mean by that?" he asked. "Didn'tthe boy fight clean?"

"Maybe, " admitted Dozier. "But Buck may kick out. And if he dies they'sgot to be a judge talk to your boy. Come on. I want volunteers. "

"Dozier, what's all this fool talk?"

"Don't bother me, Lanning. I got a duty to perform, ain't I? Think I'mgoing to let 'em say later on that anybody done this and then got awayfrom Bill Dozier? Not me!"

"Bill, " said Jasper, "I read in your mind. You're lookin' for action, and you want to get it out of Andy. "

"I want nothin' but to get him back. "

"Think he'll let you come close enough to talk? He'll think you want himfor murder, that's what. Keep off of this boy, Bill. Let him hear thenews; then he'll come back well enough. "

"You waste my time, " said Bill, "and all the while a man that the lawwants is puttin' ground between him and Martindale. Now, boys, you hearme talk. Who's with Bill Dozier to bring back this milk-fed kid?"

It brought a snarl from Jasper Lanning. "Why don't you go after him byyourself, Dozier? I had your job once and I didn't ask no helperson it. "

But Bill Dozier apparently had no liking for a lonely ride. He made hisdemand once more, and the volunteers came out. In five minutes he hadselected five sturdy men, and every one of the five was a man whose namewas known. 

They went down the street of Martindale without shouting and at a steadylope which their horses could keep up indefinitely. Old Jasper followedthem to the end of the village and kept on watching through the duskuntil the six horsemen loomed on the hill beyond against the sky line. They were still cantering, and they rode close together like a tirelesspack of wolves. After this old Jasper went back to his house, and whenthe door closed behind him a lonely echo went through the place. 

"Bah!" said Jasper. "I'm getting soft!"

In the meantime the posse went on, regardless of direction. There wereonly two possible paths for a horseman out of Martindale; east and westthe mountains blocked the way, and young Lanning had started north. Straight ahead of them the mountains shot up on either side of Grant'sPass, and toward this natural landmark Bill Dozier led the way. Not thathe expected to have to travel as far as this. He felt fairly certainthat the fugitive would ride out his horse at full speed, and then hewould camp for the night and make a fire. 

Andrew Lanning was town bred and soft of skin from the work at theforge. When the biting night air got through his clothes he would needwarmth from a fire. 

Bill Dozier led on his men for three hours at a steady pace until theycame to Sullivan's ranch house in the valley. The place was dark, butthe deputy threw a loose circle of his men around the house, and thenknocked at the front door. Old man Sullivan answered in his bare feet. Did he know of the passing of young Lanning? Not only that, but he hadsold Andrew a horse. It seemed that Andrew was making a hurried trip;that Buck Heath had loaned him his horse for the first leg of it, andthat Buck would call later for the animal. It had sounded strange, butSullivan was not there to ask questions. He had led Andrew to the corraland told him to make his choice. 

"There was an old pinto in there, " said Sullivan, "all leather in thathoss. You know him, Joe. Well, the boy runs his eye over the bunch, andthen picks the pinto right off. I said he wasn't for sale, but hewouldn't take anything else. I figured a stiff price, and then added ahundred to it. Lanning didn't wink. He took the horse, but he didn't paycash. Told me I'd have to trust him. "

Bill Dozier bade Sullivan farewell, gathered his five before the house, and made them a speech. Bill had a long, lean face, a misty eye, and apair of drooping, sad mustaches. As Jasper Lanning once said: "BillDozier always looked like he was just away from a funeral or just goin'to one. " This night the dull eye of Bill was alight. 

"Gents, " he said, "maybe you-all is disappointed. I heard some talkcomin' up here that maybe the boy had laid over for the night inSullivan's house. Which he may be a fool, but he sure ain't a plumbfool. But, speakin' personal, this trail looks more and more interestin'to me. Here he's left Buck's hoss, so he ain't exactly a hossthief--yet. And he's promised to pay for the pinto, so that don't makehim a crook. But when the pinto gives out, Andy'll be in country wherehe mostly ain't known. He can't take things on trust, and he'll mostlytake 'em, anyway. Boys, looks to me like we was after the real article. Anybody weakenin'?"

It was suggested that the boy would be overtaken before the pinto gaveout; it was even suggested that this waiting for Andrew Lanning tocommit a crime was perilously like forcing him to become a criminal. Toall of this the deputy listened sadly, combing his mustaches. The hungerfor the manhunt is like the hunger for food, and Bill Dozier had beenstarved for many a day. 

"Partner, " said Bill to the last speaker, "ain't we makin' all thespeed we can? Ain't it what I want to come up to the fool kid and grabhim before he makes a hoss thief or somethin' out of himself? You gentsfeed your hosses the spur and leave the thinkin' to me. I got a pileof hunches. "

There was no questioning of such a known man as Bill Dozier. The sixwent rattling up the valley at a smart pace. Yet Andy's change of horsesat Sullivan's place changed the entire problem. He had ridden his firstmount to a stagger at full speed, and it was to be expected that, havingbuilt up a comfortable lead, he would settle his second horse to asteady pace and maintain it. 

All night the six went on, with Bill Dozier's long-striding chestnutsetting the pace. He made no effort toward a spurt now. Andrew Lanningled them by a full hour's riding on a comparatively fresh horse, and, unless he were foolish enough to indulge in another wild spurt, theycould not wear him down in this first stage of the journey. There wasonly the chance that he would build a fire recklessly near to the trail, but still they came to no sign of light, and then the dawn broke andBill Dozier found unmistakable signs of a trotting horse which wentstraight up the valley. There were no other fresh tracks pointing in thesame direction, and this must be Andy's horse. And the fact that he wastrotting told many things. He was certainly saving his mount for a longgrind. Bill Dozier looked about at his men in the gray morning. Theywere a hard-faced lot; he had not picked them for tenderness. They wereweary now, but the fugitive must be still wearier, for he had fear tokeep him company and burden his shoulders. 

And now they came to a surprising break in the trail. It twisted fromthe floor of the valley up a steep slope, crossed the low crest of thehills, and finally came out above a broad and open valley. 

"What does he mean, " said Bill Dozier aloud, "by breakin' for JackMerchant's house?"

CHAPTER 5

The yell with which Andrew Lanning had shot out of Martindale, and whichonly Jasper Lanning had recognized, was no more startling to the men ofthe village than it was to Andrew himself. Mingled in an ecstasy ofemotion, there was fear, hate, anger, grief, and the joy of freedom inthat cry; but it froze the marrow of Andy's bones to hear it. 

Fear, most of all, was driving him out of the village. Just as he rushedaround the bend of the street he looked back to the crowd of mentumbling upon their horses; every hand there would be against him. Heknew them. He ran over their names and faces. Thirty seconds before hewould rather have walked on the edge of a cliff than rouse the anger ofa single one among these men, and now, by one blow, he had started themall after him. 

Once, as he topped the rise, the folly of attempting to escape fromtheir long-proved cunning made him draw in on the rein a little; but thehorse only snorted and shook his head and burst into a greater effort ofspeed. After all, the horse was right, Andy decided. For the moment hethought of turning and facing that crowd, but he remembered storiesabout men who had killed the enemy in fair fight, but who had been triedby a mob jury and strung to the nearest tree. 

Any sane man might have told Andrew that those days were some distancein the past, but Andy made no distinction between periods. He knew themost exciting events which had happened around Martindale in the pastfifty years, and he saw no difference between one generation and thenext. Was not Uncle Jasper himself continually dinning into his earsthe terrible possibilities of trouble? Was not Uncle Jasper, even in hisold age, religiously exacting in his hour or more of gun exercise eachday? Did not Uncle Jasper force Andy to go through the same maneuversfor twice as long between sunset and sunrise? And why all these endlesspreparations if these men of Martindale were not killers?

It might seem strange that Andy could have lived so long among thesepeople without knowing them better, but he had taken from his mother alittle strain of shyness. He never opened his mind to other people, andthey really never opened themselves to Andy Lanning. The men ofMartindale wore guns, and the conclusion had always been apparent toAndy that they wore guns because, in a pinch, they were ready tokill men. 

To Andy Lanning, as fear whipped him north out of Martindale, thereseemed no pleasure or safety in the world except in the speed of hishorse and the whir of the air against his face. When that speed falteredhe went to the quirt. He spurred mercilessly. Yet he had ridden hishorse out to a stagger before he reached old Sullivan's place. Only whenthe forefeet of the mustang began to pound did he realize his folly inexhausting his horse when the race was hardly begun. He went into theranch house to get a new mount. 

When he was calmer, he realized that he had played his partwell--astonishingly well. His voice had not quivered. His eye had metthat of the old rancher every moment. His hand had been as steadyas iron. 

Something that Uncle Jasper had said recurred to him, something aboutiron dust. He felt now that there was indeed a strong, hard metal inhim; fear had put it there--or was it fear itself? Was it not fear thathad brought the gun into his hand so easily when the crowd rushed himfrom the door of the saloon? Was it not fear that had made his nervesso rocklike as he faced that crowd and made his get-away?

He was on one side now, and the world was on the other. He turned in thesaddle and probed the thick blackness with his eyes; then he sent thepinto on at an easy, ground-devouring lope. Sometimes, as the ravinenarrowed, the close walls made the creaking of the saddle leather loudin his ears, and the puffing of the pinto, who hated work; sometimes thehoofs scuffed noisily through gravel; but usually the soft sand muffledthe noise of hoofs, and there was a silence as dense as the night aroundAndy Lanning. 

Thinking back, he felt that it was all absurd and dreamlike. He hadnever hurt a man before in his life. Martindale knew it. Why could henot go back, face them, give up his gun, wait for the law to speak?

But when he thought of this he thought a moment later of a crowd rushingtheir horses through the night, leaning over their saddles to break thewind more easily, and all ready to kill on this man trail. 

All at once a great hate welled up in him, and he went on with grittingteeth. 

It was out of this anger, oddly enough, that the memory of the girl cameto him. She was like the falling of this starlight, pure, aloof, andstrange and gentle. It seemed to Andrew Lanning that the instant ofseeing her outweighed the rest of his life, but he would never see heragain. How could he see her, and if he saw her, what would he say toher? It would not be necessary to speak. One glance would be enough. 

But, sooner or later, Bill Dozier would reach him. Why not sooner? Whynot take the chance, ride to John Merchant's ranch, break a way to theroom where the girl slept this night, smash open the door, look at heronce, and then fight his way out?

He swung out of the ravine and headed across the hills. From the crestthe valley was broad and dark below him, and on the opposite side thehills were blacker still. He let the pinto go down the steep slope at awalk, for there is nothing like a fast pace downhill to tear the heartout of a horse. Besides, it came to him after he started, were not themen of Bill Dozier apt to miss this sudden swinging of the trail?

In the floor of the valley he sent the pinto again into the stretchingcanter, found the road, and went on with a thin cloud of the alkali dustabout him until the house rose suddenly out of the ground, a black masswhose gables seemed to look at him like so many heads above thetree-tops. 

CHAPTER 6

The house would have been more in place on the main street of a townthan here in the mountain desert; but when the first John Merchant hadmade his stake and could build his home as it pleased him to build, hisimagination harked back to a mid-Victorian model, built of wood, withhigh, pointed roofs, many carved balconies and windows, and severaltowers. Here the second John Merchant lived with his son Charles, whosetaste had quite outgrown the house. 

But to the uneducated eye of Andrew Lanning it was a great and dignifiedbuilding. He reined the pinto under the trees to look up at that tall, black mass. It was doubly dark against the sky, for now the firststreaks of gray light were pale along the eastern horizon, and the houseseemed to tower up into the center of the heavens. Andy sighed at thethought of stealing through the great halls within. Even if he couldfind an open window, or if the door were unlatched, how could hefind the girl?

Another thing troubled him. He kept canting his ear with eternalexpectation of hearing the chorus of many hoofs swinging toward him outof the darkness. After all, it was not a simple thing to put Bill Dozieroff the trail. When a horse neighed in one of the corrals, Andy startedviolently and laid his fingertips on his revolver butt. 

That false alarm determined him to make his attempt without furtherwaste of time. He swung from the stirrups and went lightly up the frontsteps. His footfall was a feathery thing that carried him like a shadowto the door. It yielded at once under his hand, and, stepping through, he found himself lost in utter blackness. 

He closed the door, taking care that the spring did not make the lockclick, and then stood perfectly motionless, listening, probing the dark. 

After a time the shadows gave way before his eyes, and he could make outthat he was in a hall with lofty ceiling. Something wound down fromabove at a little distance, and he made out that this was the stairway. Obviously the bedrooms would be in the second story. 

Andy began the ascent. 

He had occasion to bless the thick carpet before he was at the head ofthe stairs; he could have run up if he had wished, and never have made asound. At the edge of the second hall he paused again. The sense ofpeople surrounded him. Then directly behind him a man cleared histhroat. As though a great hand had seized his shoulder and wrenched himdown, Andy whirled and dropped to his knees, the revolver in his handpointing uneasily here and there like the head of a snake laboring tofind its enemy. 

But there was nothing in the hall. The voice became a murmur, and thenAndy knew that it had been some man speaking in his sleep. 

At least that room was not the room of the girl. Or was she, perhaps, married? Weak and sick, Andy rested his hand against the wall and waitedfor his brain to clear. "She won't be married, " he whispered to himselfin the darkness. 

But of all those doors up and down the hall, which would be hers? Therewas no reasoning which could help him in the midst of that puzzle. Hewalked to what he judged to be the middle of the hall, turned to hisright, and opened the first door. A hinge creaked, but it was no louderthan the rustle of silk against silk. 

There were two windows in that room, and each was gray with the dawn, but in the room itself the blackness was unrelieved. There was the onedim stretch of white, which was the covering of the bed; the furniture, the chairs, and the table were half merged with the shadows around them. Andy slipped across the floor, evaded a chair by instinct rather than bysight, and leaned over the bed. It was a man, as he could tell by theheavy breathing; yet he leaned closer in a vain effort to make surer bythe use of his eyes. 

Then something changed in the face of the man in the bed. It was anindescribable change, but Andrew knew that the man had opened his eyes. Before he could straighten or stir, hands were thrown up. One struck athis face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over hisshoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval--no more, say, than the space required for the lashof a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself--but in that interimthe hands of Andy were buried in the throat of his victim. 

His fingers, accustomed to the sway and quiver of eight-pound hammersand fourteen-pound sledges, sank through the flesh and found thewindpipe. And the hands of the other grappled at his wrists, smashedinto his face. Andy could have laughed at the effort. He jammed the shinof his right leg just above the knees of the other, and at once thewrithing body was quiet. With all of his blood turned to ice, Andyfound, what he had discovered when he faced the crowd in Martindale, that his nerves did not jump and that his heart, instead of trembling, merely beat with greater pulses. Fear cleared his brain; it sent atremendous nervous power thrilling in his wrists and elbows. All thewhile he was watching mercilessly for the cessation of the struggles. And when the wrenching at his forearms ceased he instantly relaxedhis grip. 

For a time there was a harsh sound filling the room, the rough intake ofthe man's breath; he was for the time being paralyzed and incapable ofany effort except the effort to fill his lungs. By the glint of themetal work about the bits Andy made out two bridles hanging on the wallnear the bed. Taking them down, he worked swiftly. As soon as the fellowon the bed would have his breath he would scream. Yet the time sufficedAndy; he had his knife out, flicked the blade open, and cut off the longreins of the bridles. Then he went back to the bed and shoved the coldmuzzle of his revolver into the throat of the other. 

There was a tremor through the whole body of the man, and Andy knew thatat that moment the senses of his victim had cleared. 

He leaned close to the ear of the man and whispered: "Don't make no loudtalk, partner. Keep cool and steady. I don't aim to hurt you unless youplay the fool. "

Instantly the man answered in a similar whisper, though it was brokenwith panting: "Get that coat of mine out the closet. There--the door isopen. You'll find my wallet in the inside pocket and about all you canwant will be in it. "

"That's the way, " reassured Andy. "Keep your head and use sense. But itisn't the coin I want. You've got a red-headed girl in this house. Where's her room?"

His hand which held the revolver was resting on the breast of the man, and he felt the heart of the other leap. Then there was a current ofcurses, a swift hissing of invective. And suddenly it came over Andythat since he had killed one man, as he thought, the penalty would be nogreater if he killed ten. All at once the life of this prostrate fellowon the bed was nothing to him. 

When he cut into that profanity he meant what he said. "Partner, I'vegot a pull on this trigger. There's a slug in this gun just trembling toget at you. And I tell you honest, friend, I'd as soon drill you as turnaround. Now tell me where that girl's room is?"

"Anne Withero?" Only his breathing was heard for a moment. Then: "Twodoors down, on this side of the hall. If you lay a hand on her I'lllive to--"

"Partner, so help me heaven, I wouldn't touch a lock of her hair. Nowlie easy while I make sure of you. "

And he promptly trussed the other in the bridle reins. Out of apillowcase folded hard he made a gag and tied it into the mouth of theman. Then he ran his hands over the straps; they were drawn taut. 

"If you make any noise, " he warned the other, "I'll come back to findout why. S'long. "

CHAPTER 7

Every moment was bringing on the dawn more swiftly, and the eyes of Andywere growing more accustomed to the gloom in the house. He found thedoor of the girl's room at once. When he entered he had only to pause amoment before he had all the details clearly in mind. Other senses thanthat of sight informed him in her room. There was in the gray gloom atouch of fragrance such as blows out of gardens across a road; yet herethe air was perfectly quiet and chill. The dawn advanced. But all thathe could make out was a faint touch of color againt the pillow--and thatwould be her hair. Then with astonishing clearness he saw her handresting against her breast. Andy stood for a moment with his eyesclosed, a great tenderness falling around him. The hush kept deepening, and the sense of the girl drew out to him as if a light were brighteningabout her. 

He stepped back to the table against the wall, took the chimney from thelamp, and flicked a match along his trousers, for in that way a matchwould make the least noise. Yet to the hair-trigger nerves of Andy thespurt and flare of the match was like the explosion of a gun. He lightedthe lamp, turned down the wick, and replaced the chimney. Then he turnedas though someone had shouted behind him. He whirled as he had whirledin the hall, crouching, and he found himself looking straight into theeyes of the girl as she sat up in bed. 

Truly he did not see her face at first, but only the fear in it, partingher lips and widening her eyes. She did not speak; her only movement wasto drag up the coverlet of the bed and hold it against the base ofher throat. 

Andy drew off his hat and stepped a little closer. "Do you know me?" heasked. 

He watched her as she strove to speak, but if her lips stirred they madeno sound. It tortured him to see her terror, and yet he would not havehad her change. This crystal pallor or a flushed joy--in one of the twoshe was most beautiful. 

"You saw me in Martindale, " he continued. "I am the blacksmith. Do youremember?"

She nodded, still watching him with those haunted eyes. 

"I saw you for the split part of a second, " said Andy, "and you stoppedmy heart. I've come to see you for two minutes; I swear I mean you noharm. Will you let me have those two minutes for talk?" Again shenodded. But he could see that the terror was being tempered a little inher face. She was beginning to think, to wonder. It seemed a naturalthing for Andy to go forward a pace closer to the bed, but, lest thatshould alarm her, it seemed also natural for him to drop upon one knee. It brought the muzzle of the revolver jarringly home against the floor. 

The girl heard that sound of metal and it shook her; but it requires avery vivid imagination to fear a man upon his knees. And now that shecould look directly into his face, she saw that he was only a boy, notmore than two or three years older than herself. For the first time sheremembered the sooty figure which had stood in the door of theblacksmith shop. The white face against the tawny smoke of the shop;that had attracted her eyes before. It was the same white face now, butsubtly changed. A force exuded from him; indeed, he seemed neitheryoung nor old. 

She heard him speaking in a voice not louder than a whisper, rapid, distinct. 

"When you came through the town you waked me up like a whiplash, " he wassaying. "When you left I kept thinking about you. Then along came atrouble. I killed a man. A posse started after me. It's on my heels, butI had to see you again. Do you understand?"

A ghost of color was going up her throat, staining her cheeks. 

"I had to see you, " he repeated. "It's my last chance. Tomorrow theymay get me. Two hours from now they may have me salted away with lead. But before I kick out I had to have one more look at you. So I swung outof my road and came straight to this house. I came up the stairs. I wentinto a room down the hall and made a man tell me where to find you. "

There was a flash in the eyes of the girl like the wink of sun on a bitof quartz on a far-away hillside, but it cut into the speech of AndrewLanning. "He told you where to find me?" she asked in a voice no louderthan the swift, low voice of Andy. But what a world of scorn!

"He had a gun shoved into the hollow of his throat, " said Andy. "He hadto tell--two doors down the hall--"

"It was Charlie!" said the girl softly. She seemed to forget her fear. Her head raised as she looked at Andy. "The other man--the oneyou--why--"

"The man I killed doesn't matter, " said Andy. "Nothing matters exceptthat I've got this minute here with you. "

"But where will you go? How will you escape?"

"I'll go to death, I guess, " said Andy quietly. "But I'll have a grinfor Satan when he lets me in. I've beat 'em, even if they catch me. "

The coverlet dropped from her breast; her hand was suspended with stifffingers. There had been a sound as of someone stumbling on the stairway, the unmistakable slip of a heel and the recovery; then no more sound. Andy was on his feet. She saw his face whiten, and then there was aglitter in his eyes, and she knew that the danger was nothing to him. But Anne Withero whipped out of her bed. 

"Did you hear?"

"I tied and gagged him, " said Andy, "but he's broken loose, and now he'sraising the house on the quiet. "

For an instant they stood listening, staring at each other. 

"They--they're coming up the hall, " whispered the girl. "Listen!"

It was no louder than a whisper from without--the creak of a board. Andrew Lanning slipped to the door and turned the key in the lock. Whenhe rejoined her in the middle of the room he gave her the key. 

"Let 'em in if you want to, " he said. 

But the girl caught his arm, whispering: "You can get out that windowonto the top of the roof below, then a drop to the ground. But hurrybefore they think to guard that way!" "Anne!" called a voice suddenlyfrom the hall. 

Andy threw up the window, and, turning toward the door, he laughed hisdefiance and his joy. 

"Hurry!" she was demanding. A great blow fell on the door of her room, and at once there was shouting in the hall: "Pete, run outside and watchthe window!"

"Will you go?" cried the girl desperately. 

He turned toward the window. He turned back like a flash and swept herclose to him. 

"Do you fear me?" he whispered. 

"No, " said the girl. 

"Will you remember me?"

"Forever!"

"God bless you, " said Andy as he leaped through the window. She saw himtake the slope of the roof with one stride; she heard the thud of hisfeet on the ground below. Then a yell from without, shrill and highand sharp. 

When the door fell with a crash, and three men were flung into the room, Charles Merchant saw her standing in her nightgown by the open window. Her head was flung back against the wall, her eyes closed, and one handwas pressed across her lips. 

"He's out the window. Down around the other way, " cried CharlesMerchant. 

The stampede swept out of the room. Charles was beside her. 

She knew that vaguely, and that he was speaking, but not until hetouched her shoulder did she hear the words: "Anne, are youunhurt--has--for heaven's sake speak, Anne. What's happened?"

She reached up and put his hand away. 

"Charles, " she said, "call them back. Don't let them follow him!"

"Are you mad, dear?" he asked. "That murdering--"

He found a tigress in front of him. "If they hurt a hair of his head, Charlie, I'm through with you. I'll swear that!"

It stunned Charles Merchant. And then he went stumbling from the room. 

His cow-punchers were out from the bunk house already; the guests andhis father were saddling or in the saddle. 

"Come back!" shouted Charles Merchant. "Don't follow him. Come back! Noguns. He's done no harm. "

Two men came around the corner of the house, dragging a limp figurebetween them. 

"Is this no harm?" they asked. "Look at Pete, and then talk. "

They lowered the tall, limp figure of the man in pajamas to the ground;his face was a crimson smear. 

"Is he dead?" asked Charles Merchant. 

"No move out of him, " they answered. 

Other people, most of them on horseback, were pouring back to learn themeaning of the strange call from Charles Merchant. 

"I can't tell you what I mean, " he was saying in explanation. "But you, dad, I'll be able to tell you. All I can say is that he mustn't befollowed--unless Pete here--"

The eyes of Pete opportunely opened. He looked hazily about him. 

"Is he gone?" asked Pete. 

"Yes. "

"Thank the Lord!"

"Did you see him? What's he like?"

"About seven feet tall. I saw him jump off the roof of the house. I wasright under him. Tried to get my gun on him, but he came up like a wildcat and went straight at me. Had his fist in my face before I could getmy finger on the trigger. And then the earth came up and slapped me inthe face. " "There he goes!" cried some one. 

The sky was now of a brightness not far from day, and, turning east, inthe direction pointed out, Charles Merchant saw a horseman ride over ahilltop, a black form against the coloring horizon. He was movingleisurely, keeping his horse at the cattle pony's lope. Presently hedipped away out of sight. 

John Merchant dropped his hand on the shoulder of his son. "What is it?"he asked. 

"Heaven knows! Not I!"

"Here are more people! What's this? A night of surprise parties?"

Six riders came through the trees, rushing their horses, and JohnMerchant saw Bill Dozier's well-known, lanky form in the lead. Hebrought his horse from a dead run to a halt in the space of a singlejump and a slide. The next moment he was demanding fresh mounts. 

"Can you give 'em to me, Merchant? But what's all this?"

"You make your little talk, " said Merchant, "and then I'll make mine. "

"I'm after Andy Lanning. He's left a gent more dead than alive back inMartindale, and I want him. Can you give me fresh horses for me and myboys, Merchant?"

"But the man wasn't dead? He wasn't dead?" cried the voice of a girl. The group opened; Bill Dozier found himself facing a bright-haired girlwrapped to the throat in a long coat, with slippers on her feet. 

"Not dead and not alive, " he answered. "Just betwixt and between. "

"Thank God!" whispered the girl. "Thank God!"

There was only one man in the group who should not have heard thatwhispered phrase, and that man was Charles Merchant. He was standingat her side. 

CHAPTER 8

It took less than five minutes for the deputy sheriff to mount his men;he himself had the pick of the corral, a dusty roan, and, as he drew thecinch taut, he turned to find Charles Merchant at his side. 

"Bill, " said the young fellow, "what sort of a man is this Lanning?"

"He's been a covered card, partner, " said Bill Dozier. "He's been acovered card that seemed pretty good. Now he's in the game, and he lookslike the rest of the Lannings--a good lump of daring and defiance. Whyd'you ask?"

"Are you keen to get him, Bill?" continued Charlie Merchant eagerly. 

"I could stand it. Again, why?"

"You'd like a little gun play with that fellow?"

"I wouldn't complain none. "

"Ah? One more thing. Could you use a bit of ready cash?"

"I ain't pressed, " said Bill Dozier. "On the other hand, I ain't of asavin' nature. "

Then he added: "Get it out, Charlie. I think I follow your drift. Andyou can go as far as you like. " He put out his jaw in an ugly way ashe said it. 

"It would be worth a lot to me to have this cur done for, Bill. Youunderstand?"

"My time's short. Talk terms, Charlie. "

"A thousand. "

"The price of a fair hoss. "

"Two thousand, old man. "

"Hoss and trimmin's. "

"Three thousand. " "Charlie, you seem to forget that we're talkin' abouta man and a gun. "

"Bill, it's worth five thousand to me. "

"That's turkey. Let me have your hand. "

They shook hands. 

"And if you kill the horses, " said Charles Merchant, "you won't hurt myfeelings. But get him!"

"I've got nothing much on him, " said Bill Dozier, "but some fools resistarrest. "

He smiled in a manner that made the other shudder. And a moment laterthe deputy led his men out on the trail. 

They were a weary lot by this time, but they had beneath the beltseveral shots of the Merchant whisky which Charles had distributed. Andthey had that still greater stimulus--fresh horses running smooth andstrong beneath them. Another thing had changed. They saw their leader, Bill Dozier, working at his revolver and his rifle as he rode, lookingto the charges, trying the pressure of the triggers, getting the balanceof the weapons with a peculiar anxiety, and they knew, without a wordbeing spoken, that there was small chance of that trail ending atanything short of a red mark in the dust. 

It made some of them shrug their shoulders, but here again it was provedthat Bill Dozier knew the men of Martindale, and had picked his possewell. They were the common, hard-working variety of cow-puncher, andpresently the word went among them from the man riding nearest to Billthat if young Lanning were taken it would be worth a hundred dollars toeach of them. Two months' pay for two days' work. That was fair enough. They also began to look to their guns. It was not that a single one ofthem could have been bought for a mankilling at that or any other price, perhaps, but this was simply a bonus to carry them along toward whatthey considered an honest duty. 

Nevertheless, it was a different crew that rode over the hills awayfrom the Merchant place. They had begun for the sake of the excitement. Now they were working carefully, riding with less abandon, jockeyingtheir horses, for each man was laboring to be in on the kill. 

They had against them a good horse and a stanch horseman. Never had thepinto dodged his share of honest running, and this day was no exception. He gave himself whole-heartedly to his task, and he stretched the legsof the ponies behind him. Yet he had a great handicap. He was tough, butthe ranch horses of John Merchant came out from a night of rest. Theirlegs were full of running. And the pinto, for all his courage, could notmeet that handicap and beat it. 

That truth slowly sank in upon the mind of the fugitive as he put thegame little cattle pony into his best stride. He tried the pinto in thelevel going. He tried him in the rough. And in both conditions the possegained slowly and steadily, until it became apparent to Andrew Lanningthat the deputy held him in the hollow of his hand, and in half an hourof stiff galloping could run his quarry into the ground wheneverhe chose. 

Andy turned in the saddle and grinned back at the followers. He coulddistinguish Bill Dozier most distinctly. The broad brim of Bill's hatwas blown up stiffly. And the sun glinted now and again on thosemelancholy mustaches of his. Andy was puzzled. Bill had horses whichcould outrun the fugitive, and why did he not use them?

Almost at once Andy received his answer. 

The deputy sheriff sent his horse into a hard run, and then brought himsuddenly to a standstill. Looking back, Andy saw a rifle pitch to theshoulder of the deputy. It was a flashing line of light which focusedsuddenly in a single, glinting dot. That instant something hummed evillybeside the ear of Andy. A moment later the report came barking andechoing in his ear with the little metallic ring in it which tells ofthe shiver of a gun barrel. 

That was the beginning of a running fusillade. Technically these wereshots fired to warn the fugitive that he was wanted by the law, and totell him that if he did not halt he would be shot at to be killed. Butthe deputy did not waste warnings. He began to shoot to kill. And so didthe rest of the posse. They saw the deputy's plan at once, and thengrinned at it. If they rode down in a mob the boy would no doubtsurrender. But if they goaded him in this manner from a distance hewould probably attempt to return the fire. And if he fired one shot inreply, unwritten law and strong public opinion would be on the side ofBill Dozier in killing this criminal without quarter. In a word, thewhisky and the little promise of money were each taking effect onthe posse. 

They spurted ahead in pairs, halted, and delivered their fire; then thenext pair spurted ahead and fired. Every moment or so two bullets wingedthrough the air nearer and nearer Andy. It was really a wonder that hewas not cleanly drilled by a bullet long before that fusillade hadcontinued for ten minutes. But it is no easy thing to hit a man on agalloping horse when one sits on the back of another horse, and thathorse heaving from a hard run. Moreover, Andy watched, and when thepairs halted he made the pinto weave. 

At the first bullet he felt his heart come into his throat. At thesecond he merely raised his head. At the next he smiled, and thereafterhe greeted each volley with a yell and with a wave of his hat. It waslike dancing, but greater fun. The cold, still terror was in his heartevery moment, but yet he felt like laughing, and when the posse heardhim their own hearts went cold. 

It disturbed their aim. They began to snarl at each other, and they alsopressed their horses closer and closer before they even attempted tofire. And the result was that Andy, waving his hat, felt it twitchsharply in his hand, and then he saw a neat little hole clipped out ofthe very edge of the brim. It was a pretty trick to see, until Andyremembered that the thing which had nicked that hole would also cut itsway through him, body and bone. He leaned over the saddle and spurredthe pinto into his racing gait. 

"I nicked him!" yelled the deputy. "Come on, boys! Close in!"

But within five minutes of racing, Andy drew the pinto to a sudden haltand raised his rifle. The posse laughed. They had been shooting for sometime, and always for a distance even less than Andy's; yet not one oftheir bullets had gone home. So they waved their hats recklessly andcontinued to ride to be in at the death. And every one knew that the endof the trail was not far off when the fugitive had once begun to turnat bay. 

Andy knew it as well as the rest, and his hand shook like a nervousgirl's, while the rifle barrel tilted up and up, the blue barrelshimmering wickedly. In a frenzy of eagerness he tried to line up thesights. It was in vain. The circle through which he squinted wobbledcrazily. He saw two of the pursuers spurt ahead, take their posts, raisetheir rifles for a fire which would at least disturb his. For the firsttime they had a stationary target. 

And then, by chance, the circle of Andy's sight embraced the body of ahorseman. Instantly the left arm, stretching out to support his rifle, became a rock; the forefinger of his right hand was as steady as thetrigger it pressed. It was like shooting at a target. He found himselfbreathing easily. 

It was very strange. Find a man with his sights? He could follow histarget as though a magnetic power attracted his rifle. The weapon seemedto have a volition of its own. It drifted along with the canter of BillDozier. With incredible precision the little finger of iron inside thecircle dwelt in turn on the hat of Bill Dozier, on his sandy mustaches, on his fluttering shirt. And Andy knew that he had the life of a manunder the command of his forefinger. 

And why not? He had killed one. Why not a hundred?

The punishment would be no greater. And to tempt him there was this newmystery, this knowledge that he could not miss. It had been vaguelypresent in his mind when he faced the crowd at Martindale, he rememberednow. And the same merciless coldness had been in his hand when hepressed his gun into the throat of Charles Merchant. 

He turned his eyes and looked down the guns of the two men who hadhalted. Then, hardly looking at his target, he snapped his rifle back tohis shoulder and fired. He saw Bill Dozier throw up his hands, saw hishead rock stupidly back and forth, and then the long figure toppled toone side. One of the posse rushed alongside to catch his leader, but hemissed, and Bill, slumping to the ground, was trampled underfoot. 

CHAPTER 9

At the same time the rifles of the two men of the posse rang, but theymust have seen the fall of their leader, for the shots went wild, andAndy Lanning took off his hat and waved to them. But he did not fleeagain. He sat in his saddle with the long rifle balanced across thepommel while two thoughts went through his mind. One was to stay thereand watch. The other was to slip the rifle back into the holster andwith drawn revolver charge the five remaining members of the posse. These were now gathering hastily about Bill Dozier. But Andy knew theirconcern was in vain. He knew where that bullet had driven home, and BillDozier would never ride again. 

One by one he picked up those five figures with his eyes, fightingtemptation. He knew that he could not miss if he fired again. In fiveshots he knew that he could drop as many men, and within him there was aperfect consciousness that they would not hit him when they returnedthe fire. 

He was not filled with exulting courage. He was cold with fear. But itwas the sort of fear which makes a man want to fling himself from agreat height. But, sitting there calmly in the saddle, he saw a strangething--the five men raising their dead leader and turning back towardthe direction from which they had come. Not once did they look towardthe form of Andy Lanning. They knew what he could not know, that thegate of the law had been open to this man as a retreat, but the bulletwhich struck down Bill Dozier had closed the gate and thrust him outfrom mercy. He was an outlaw, a leper now. Any one who shared hissociety from this moment on would fall under the heavy hand of the law. 

But as for running him into the ground, they had lost their appetite forsuch fighting. They had kept up a long running fight and gained nothing;but a single shot from the fugitive had produced this result. Theyturned now in silence and went back, very much as dogs turn and tucktheir tails between their legs when the wolf, which they have chasedaway from the precincts of the ranch house, feels himself once more safefrom the hand of man and whirls with a flash of teeth. The sun gleamedon the barrel of Andy Lanning's rifle, and these men rode back insilence, feeling that they had witnessed one of those prodigies whichwere becoming fewer and fewer around Martindale--the birth of adesperado. 

Andrew watched them skulking off with the body of Bill Dozier heldupright by a man on either side of the horse. He watched them draw offacross the hills, still with that nervous, almost irresistible impulseto raise one wild, long cry and spur after them, shooting swift andstraight over the head of the pinto. But he did not move, and now theydropped out of sight. And then, looking about him, Andrew Lanning felthow vast were those hills, how wide they stretched, and how small hestood among them. He was utterly alone. There was nothing but the hillsand a sky growing pale with heat and the patches of olive-gray sagebrushin the distance. 

A great melancholy dropped upon Andy. He felt a childish weakness;dropping his elbows upon the pommel of the saddle, he buried his face inhis hands. In that moment he needed desperately something to which hecould appeal for comfort. 

The weakness passed slowly. 

He dismounted and looked his horse over carefully. The pinto had manygood points. He had ample girth of chest at the cinches, where lungcapacity is best measured. He had rather short forelegs, which promisedweight-carrying power and some endurance, and he had a fine pair ofsloping shoulders. But his croup sloped down too much, and he had ashort neck. Andy knew perfectly well that no horse with a short neck canrun fast for any distance. He had chosen the pinto for endurance, andendurance he undoubtedly had; but he would need a horse which could puthim out of short-shooting distance, and do it quickly. 

There were no illusions in the mind of Andrew Lanning about what laybefore him. Uncle Jasper had told him too many tales of his ownexperiences on the trail in enemy country. 

"There's three things, " the old man had often said, "that a man needswhen he's in trouble: a gun that's smooth as silk, a hoss full ofrunning, and a friend. "

For the gun Andy had his Colt in the holster, and he knew it like hisown mind. There were newer models and trickier weapons, but none whichworked so smoothly under the touch of Andy. Thinking of this, heproduced it from the holster with a flick of his fingers. The sight hadbeen filed away. When he was a boy in short trousers he had learned fromUncle Jasper the two main articles of a gun fighter's creed--that arevolver must be fired by pointing, not sighting, and that there must benothing about it liable to hang in the holster to delay the draw. Thegreat idea was to get the gun on your man with lightning speed, and thenfire from the hip with merely a sense of direction to guide the bullet. 

He had a gun, therefore, and one necessity was his. Sorely he needed ahorse of quality as few men needed one. And he needed still more afriend, a haven in time of crisis, an adviser in difficulties. Andthough Andy knew that it was death to go among men, he knew also that itwas death to do without these two things. 

He believed that there was one chance left to him, and that was tooutdistance the news of the two killings by riding straight north. Therehe would stop at the first town, in some manner fill his pockets withmoney, and in some manner find both horse and friend. 

Andrew Lanning was both simple and credulous; but it must be rememberedthat he had led a sheltered life, comparatively speaking; he had beenbrought up between a blacksmith shop on the one hand and Uncle Jasper onthe other, and the gaps in his knowledge of men were many and huge. Theprime necessity now was speed to the northward. So Andy flung himselfinto the saddle and drove his horse north at the jogging, rocking lopeof the cattle pony. 

He was in a shallow basin which luckily pointed in the right directionfor him. The hills sloped down to it from either side in long fingers, with narrow gullies between, but as Andy passed the first of thesepointing fingers a new thought came to him. 

It might be--why not?--that the posse had made only a pretense ofwithdrawing at once with the body of the dead man. Perhaps they had onlywaited until they were out of sight and had then circled swiftly around, leaving one man with the body. They might be waiting now at the mouth ofany of these gullies. 

No sooner had the thought come to Andy than he whitened. The pinto hadbeen worked hard that morning and all the night before, but now Andysent the spurs home without mercy as he shot up the basin at full speed, with his revolver drawn, ready for a snap shot and a drop behind the farside of his horse. 

For half an hour he rode in this fashion with his heart beating at histeeth. And each canyon as he passed was empty, and each had some shrub, like a crouching man, to startle him and upraise the revolver. Atlength, with the pinto wheezing from this new effort, he drew back to aneasier gait. But still he had a companion ceaselessly following like theshadow of the horse he rode. It was fear, and it would never leave him. 

CHAPTER 10

After that forced and early rising, the rest of the house had remainedawake, but Anne Withero was gifted with an exceptionally strong set ofnerves. She had gone back to bed and fallen promptly into a pleasantsleep. And when she wakened all that happened in the night was filmedover and had become dreamlike. No one disturbed her rest; but when shewent down to a late breakfast she found Charles Merchant lingering inthe room. He had questioned her closely, and after a moment of thoughtshe told him exactly what had happened, because she was perfectly awarethat he would not believe a word of it. And she was right. He had satopposite her, drumming his fingers without noise on the table, with asmile now and then which was tinged, she thought, with insolence. 

Yet he seemed oddly undisturbed. She had expected some jealous outburst, some keen questioning of the motives which had made her beg them not topursue this man. But Charles Merchant was only interested in what thefellow had said and done when he talked with her. "He was just like aman out of a book, " said the girl in conclusion, "and I'll wager thathe's been raised on romances. He had the face for it, you know--and thewild look!"

"A blacksmith--in Martindale--raised on romances?" Charles had said ashe fingered his throat, which was patched with black and blue. 

"A blacksmith--in Martindale, " she had repeated slowly. And it brought anew view of the affair home to her. Now that they knew from Bill Dozierthat the victim in Martindale had been only injured, and not actuallykilled, the whole matter became rather a farce. It would be an amusingtale. But now, as Charles Merchant repeated the words, "blacksmith"--"Martindale, " the new idea shocked her, the new idea of Andrew Lanning, for Charles had told her the name. 

The new thought stayed with her when she went back to her room afterbreakfast, ostensibly to read, but really to think. Remembering AndrewLanning, she got past the white face and the brilliant black eyes; shefelt, looking back, that he had shown a restraint which was somethingmore than boyish. When he took her in his arms just before he fled hehad not kissed her, though, for that matter, she had been perfectlyready to let him do it. 

That moment kept recurring to her--the beating on the door, the voicesin the hall, the shouts, and the arms of Andrew Lanning around her, andhis tense, desperate face close to hers. It became less dreamlike thatmoment. She began to understand that if she lived to be a hundred, shewould never find that memory dimmer. 

A half-sad, half-happy smile was touching the corners of her mouth, whenCharles Merchant knocked at her door. She gave herself one moment inwhich to banish the queer pain of knowing that she would never see thiswild Andrew again, and then she told Charles to come in. 

In fact, he was already opening the door. He was calm of face, but sheguessed an excitement beneath the surface. 

"I've got something to show you, " he said. 

A great thought made her sit up in the chair; but she was afraid justthen to stand up. "I know. The posse has reached that silly boy andbrought him back. But I don't want to see him again. Handcuffed, andall that. "

"The posse is here, at least, " said Charles noncommittally. She wasfinding something new in him. The fact that he could think and hide histhoughts from her was indeed very new; for, when she first met him, hehad seemed all surface, all clean young manhood without a stain. 

"Do you want me to see the six brave men again?" she asked, smiling, butreally she was prying at his mind to get a clew of the truth. "Well, I'll come down. "

And she went down the stairs with Charles Merchant beside her; he keptlooking straight ahead, biting his lips, and this made her wonder. Shebegan to hum a gay little tune, and the first bar made the man start. Soshe kept on. She was bubbling with apparent good nature when Charles, all gravity, opened the door of the living room. 

The shades were drawn. The quiet in that room was a deadly, livingthing. And then she saw, on the sofa at one side of the place, a humanform under a sheet. 

"Charles!" whispered the girl. She put out her hand and touched hisshoulder, but she could not take her eyes off that ghastly dead thing. "They--they--he's dead--Andrew Lanning! Why did you bring me here?"

"Take the cloth from his face, " commanded Charles Merchant, and therewas something so hard in his voice that she obeyed. 

The sheet came away under her touch, and she was looking into the sallowface of Bill Dozier. She had remembered him because of the sadmustaches, that morning, and his big voice. 

"That's what your romantic boy out of a book has done, " said CharlesMerchant. "Look at his work!"

But she dropped the sheet and whirled on him. 

"And they left him--" she said. 

"Anne, " said he, "are you thinking about the safety of thatmurderer--now? He's safe, but they'll get him later on; he's as good asdead, if that's what you want to know. "

"God help him!" said the girl. 

And going back a pace, she stood in the thick shadow, leaning againstthe wall, with one hand across her lips. It reminded Charles of thepicture he had seen when he broke into her room after Andrew Lanning hadescaped. And she looked now, as, then, more beautiful, more wholly to bedesired than he had ever known her before. Yet he could neither move norspeak. He saw her go out of the room. Then, without stopping to replacethe sheet, he followed. 

He had hoped to wipe the last thought of that vagabond blacksmith out ofher mind with the shock of this horror. Instead, he knew now that he haddone quite another thing. And in addition he had probably made herdespise him for taking her to confront such a sight. 

All in all, Charles Merchant was exceedingly thoughtful as he closedthe door and stepped into the hall. He ran up the stairs to her room. The door was closed. There was no answer to his knock, and by trying theknob he found that she had locked herself in. And the next moment hecould hear her sobbing. He stood for a moment more, listening, andwishing Andrew Lanning dead with all his heart. 

Then he went down to the garage, climbed into his car, and burned up theroad between his place and that of Hal Dozier. There was very littlesimilarity between the two brothers. Bill had been tall and lean; Halwas compact and solid, and he had the fighting agility of a starvedcoyote. He had a smooth-shaven face as well, and a clear gray eye, whichwas known wherever men gathered in the mountain desert. There was nonews to give him. A telephone message had already told him of the deathof Bill Dozier. 

"But, " said Charles Merchant, "there's one thing I can do. I can set youfree to run down this Lanning. "

"How?"

"You're needed on your ranch, Hal; but I want you to let me stand theexpenses of this trip. Take your time, make sure of him, and run himinto the ground. "

"My friend, " said Hal Dozier, "you turn a pleasure into a real party. "

And Charles Merchant left, knowing that he had signed the death warrantof young Lanning. In all the history of the mountain desert there was atale of only one man who had escaped, once Hal Dozier took his trail, and that man had blown out his own brains. 

CHAPTER 11

Far away in the western sky Andy Lanning saw a black dot that moved inwide circles and came up across the heavens slowly, and he knew it was abuzzard that scented carrion and was coming up the wind toward thatscent. He had seen them many a time before on their gruesome trails, andthe picture which he carried was not a pleasant one. 

But now the picture that drifted through his mind was still morehorrible. It was a human body lying face downward in the sand with thewind ruffling in the hair and the hat rolled a few paces off and the gunclose to the outstretched hand. He knew from Uncle Jasper that no matterhow far the trail led, or how many years it was ridden, the end of theoutlaw was always the same--death and the body left to the buzzards. Orelse, in some barroom, a footfall from behind and a bullet throughthe back. 

The flesh of Andy crawled. It was not possible for him to relax invigilance for a moment, lest danger come upon him when he least expectedit. Perhaps, in some open space like this. He went on until the sun waslow in the west and all the sky was rimmed with color. 

Dusk had come over the hills in a rush, when he saw a house half lost inthe shadows. It was a narrow-fronted, two-storied, unpainted, lonelyplace, without sign of a porch. Here, where there was no vestige of atown near, and where there was no telephone, the news of the deaths ofBill Dozier and Buck Heath could not have come. Andy accepted the houseas a blessing and went straight toward it. 

But the days of carelessness were over for Andy, and he would neveragain approach a house without searching it like a human face. Hestudied this shack as he came closer. If there were people in thebuilding they did not choose to show a light. 

Andy went around to the rear of the house, where there was a low shedbeside the corral, half tumbled down; but in the corral were five or sixfine horses--wild fellows with bright eyes and the long necks of speed. Andy looked upon them wistfully. Not one of them but was worth the priceof three of the pinto; but as for money there was not twenty dollars inthe pocket of Andy. 

Stripping the saddle from the pinto, he put it under the shed and leftthe mustang to feed and find water in the small pasture. Then he wentwith the bridle, that immemorial sign of one who seeks hospitality inthe West, toward the house. He was met halfway by a tall, strong man ofmiddle age or more. There was no hat on his head, which was covered witha shock of brown hair much younger than the face beneath it. He beheldAndy without enthusiasm. 

"You figure on layin' over here for the night, stranger?" he asked. 

"That's it, " said Andy. 

"I'll tell you how it is, " said the big man in the tone of one who iswilling to argue a point. "We ain't got a very big house--you seeit--and it's pretty well filled right now. If you was to slope over thehills there, you'd find Gainorville inside of ten miles. "

Andy explained that he was at the end of a hard ride. "Ten more mileswould kill the pinto, " he said. "But if you don't mind, I'll have a bitof chow and then turn in out there in the shed. That won't crowd you inyour sleeping quarters, and it'll be fine for me. "

The big man opened his mouth to say something more, then turned on hisheel. 

"I guess we can fix you up, " he said. "Come on along. "

At another time Andy would have lost a hand rather than accept suchchurlish hospitality, but he was in no position to choose. The pain ofhunger was like a voice speaking in him. 

It was a four-room house; the rooms on the ground floor were thekitchen, where Andy cooked his own supper of bacon and coffee andflapjacks, and the combination living room, dining room, and, from thebunk covered with blankets on one side, bedroom. Upstairs there musthave been two more rooms of the same size. 

Seated about a little kitchen table in the front room, Andy found threemen playing an interrupted game of blackjack, which was resumed when thebig fellow took his place before his hand. The three gave Andy a lookand a grunt, but otherwise they paid no attention to him. And if theyhad consulted him he could have asked for no greater favor. Yet he hadan odd hunger about seeing them. They were the last men in many a month, perhaps, whom he could permit to see him without a fear. He brought hissupper into the living room and put his cup of coffee on the floorbeside him. While he ate he watched them. 

They were, all in all, the least prepossessing group he had ever seen. The man who had brought him in was far from well favored, but he washandsome compared with the others. Opposite him sat a tall fellow veryerect and stiff in his chair. A candle had recently been lighted, and itstood on the table near this man. It showed a wan face of excessiveleanness. His eyes were deep under bony brows, and they alone of thefeatures showed any expression as the game progressed, turning now andagain to the other faces with glances that burned; he was winningsteadily. A red-headed man was on his left, with his back to Andy; butnow and again he turned, and Andy saw a heavy jowl and a skin blotchedwith great, rusty freckles. His shoulders over-flowed the back of hischair, which creaked whenever he moved. The man who faced the redheadwas as light as his companion was ponderous. His voice was gentle, hiseyes large and soft, and his profile was exceedingly handsome. But inthe full view Andy saw nothing except a grisly, purple scar that twisteddown beneath the right eye of the man. It drew down the lower lid ofthat eye, and it pulled the mouth of the man a bit awry, so that heseemed to be smiling in a smug, half-apologetic manner. In spite of hisyouth he was unquestionably the dominant spirit here. Once or twice theothers lifted their voices in argument, and a single word from him cutthem short. And when he raised his head, now and again, to look at Andy, it gave the latter a feeling that his secret was read and all hispast known. 

These strange fellows had not asked his name, and neither had theyintroduced themselves, but from their table talk he gathered that theredhead was named Jeff, the funereal man with the bony face was Larry, the brown-haired one was Joe, and he of the scar and the smile wasHenry. It occurred to Andy as odd that such rough boon companions hadnot shortened that name for convenience. 

They played with the most intense concentration. As the night deepenedand the windows became black slabs Joe brought another candle andreenforced this light by hanging a lantern from a nail on the wall. Thisilluminated the entire room, but in a partial and dismal manner. Thegame went on. They were playing for high stakes; Andrew Lanning hadnever seen so much cash assembled at one time. They had stacks ofunmistakable yellow gold before them--actually stacks. The winner wasLarry. That skull-faced gentleman was fairly barricaded behind heaps ofmoney. Andy estimated swiftly that there must be well over two thousanddollars in those stacks. 

He finished his supper, and, having taken the tin cup and plate out intothe next room and cleaned them, he had no sooner come back to the door, on the verge of bidding them good night, then Henry invited him to sitdown and take a hand. 

CHAPTER 12

He had never studied any men as he was watching these men at cards. Andrew Lanning had spent most of his life quite indifferent to thepeople around him, but now it was necessary to make quick and surejudgments. He had to read unreadable faces. He had to guess motives. Hehad to sense the coming of danger before it showed its face. And, watching them with close intentness, he understood that at least threeof them were cheating at every opportunity. Henry, alone, was playing asquare game; as for the heavy winner, Larry, Andrew had reason tobelieve that he was adroitly palming an ace now and then--luck ran tooconsistently his way. For his own part, he was no card expert, and hesmiled as Henry made his offer. 

"I've got eleven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket, " Andrew saidfrankly. "I won't sit in at that game. "

"Then the game is three-handed, " said Henry as he got up from his chair. "I've fed you boys enough, " he continued in his soft voice. "I know athree-handed game is no good, but I'm through. Unless you'll try a roundor two with 'em, stranger? They've made enough money. Maybe they'll playfor silver for the fun of it, eh, boys?"

There was no enthusiastic assent. The three looked gravely at a victimwith eleven dollars and fifty cents, the chair of Big Jeff creakingnoisily as he turned. "Sit in, " said Jeff. He made a brief gesture, likeone wiping an obstacle out of the way. "Alright, " nodded Andy, for thething began to excite him. He turned to Henry. "Suppose you dealfor us?"

The scar on Henry's face changed color, and his habitual smilebroadened. "Well!" exclaimed Larry. "Maybe the gent don't like the waywe been runnin' this game in other ways. Maybe he's got a few moresuggestions to make, sittin' in? I like to be obligin'. "

He grinned, and the effect was ghastly. 

"Thanks, " said Andy. "That lets me out as far as suggestions go. " Hepaused with his hand on the back of the chair, and something told himthat Larry would as soon run a knife into him as take a drink of water. The eyes burned up at him out of the shadow of the brows, but Andy, though his heart leaped, made himself meet the stare. Suddenly itwavered, and only then would Andy sit down. Henry had drawn upanother chair. 

"That idea looks good to me, " he said. "I think I shall deal. " Andforthwith, as one who may not be resisted, he swept up the cards andbegan to shuffle. 

The others at once lost interest. Each of them nonchalantly producedsilver, and they began to play negligently, careless of their stakes. 

But to Andy, who had only played for money half a dozen times before, this was desperately earnest. He kept to a conservative game, and slowlybut surely he saw his silver being converted into gold. Only Larrynoticed his gains--the others were indifferent to it, but theskull-faced man tightened his lips as he saw. Suddenly he began bettingin gold, ten dollars for each card he drew. The others were out of thathand. Andy, breathless, for he had an ace down, saw a three and a twofall--took the long chance, and, with the luck behind him, watched afive-spot flutter down to join his draw. Yet Larry, taking the samedraw, was not busted. He had a pair of deuces and a four. There hestuck, and it stood to reason that he could not win. Yet he betrecklessly, raising Andy twice, until the latter had no more money onthe table to call a higher bet. The showdown revealed an ace under coverfor Larry also. Now he leaned across the table, smiling at Andrew. 

"I like the hand you show, " said Larry, "but I don't like your facebehind it, my friend. "

His smile went out; his hand jerked back; and then the lean, small handof Henry shot out and fastened on the tall man's wrist. "You skunk!"said Henry. "D'you want to get the kid for that beggarly mess? Bah!"

Andy, colorless, his blood cold, brushed aside the arm of theintercessor. 

"Partner, " he said, leaning a little forward in turn, and thereby makinghis holster swing clear of the seat of his chair, "partner, I don't mindyour words, but I don't like the way you say 'em. "

When he began to speak his voice was shaken; before he had finished, histones rang, and he felt once more that overwhelming desire which waslike the impulse to fling himself from a height. He had felt it before, when he watched the posse retreat with the body of Bill Dozier. He feltit now, a vast hunger, an almost blinding eagerness to see Larry make anincriminating move with his bony, hovering right hand. The bright eyesburned at him for a moment longer out of the shadow. Then, again, theywavered, and turned away. 

Andy knew that the fellow had no more stomach for a fight. Shame mighthave made him go through with the thing he started, however, had notHenry cut in again and given Larry a chance to withdraw gracefully. 

"The kid's called your bluff, Larry, " he said. "And the rest of us don'tneed to see you pull any target practice. Shake hands with the kid, willyou, and tell him you were joking!"

Larry settled back in his chair with a grunt, and Henry, without aword, tipped back in his chair and kicked the table. Andy, beside him, saw the move start, and he had just time to scoop his own winnings, including that last rich bet, off the table top and into his pocket. Asfor the rest of the coin, it slid with a noisy jangle to the floor, andit turned the other three men into scrambling madmen. They scratched andclawed at the money, cursing volubly, and Andy, stepping back out of thefracas, saw the scar-faced man watching with a smile of contempt. Therewas a snarl; Jeff had Joe by the throat, and Joe was reaching for hisgun. Henry moved forward to interfere once more, but this time he wasnot needed. A clear whistling sounded outside the house, and a momentlater the door was kicked open. A man came in with his saddle onhis hip. 

His appearance converted the threatening fight into a scene of jovialgood nature. The money was swept up at random, as though none of themhad the slightest care what became of it. 

"Havin' one of your little parties, eh?" said the stranger. "Whatstarted it?"

"He did, Scottie, " answered Larry, and, stretching out an arm ofenormous length, he pointed at Andrew. 

Again it required the intervention of Henry to explain matters, andScottie, with his hands on his hips, turned and surveyed Andrew withconsidering eyes. He was much different from the rest. Whereas, they hadone and all a peculiarly unhealthy effect upon Andy, this newcomer was acheery fellow, with an eye as clear as crystal, and color in his tannedcheeks. He had one of those long faces which invariably implyshrewdness, and he canted his head to one side while he watched Andy. "You're him that put the pinto in the corral, I guess?" he said. 

Andy nodded. 

There was no further mention of the troubles of that card game. Jeff andJoe and Larry were instantly busied about the kitchen and in arrangingthe table, while Scottie, after the manner of a guest, bustled about andaccomplished little. 

But the eye of Andy, then and thereafter, whenever he was near the five, kept steadily upon the scar-faced man. Henry had tilted his chair backagainst the wall. The night had come on chill, with a rising wind thathummed through the cracks of the ill-built wall and tossed the flame inthe throat of the chimney; Henry draped a coat like a cloak around hisshoulders and buried his chin in his hands, separated from the others bya vast gulf. Presently Scottie was sitting at the table. The others weregathered around him in expectant attitudes. 

"What's new?" they exclaimed in one voice. 

"Oh, about a million things. Let me get some of this ham into my face, and then I'll talk. I've got a batch of newspapers yonder. There's agold rush on up to Tolliver's Creek. "

Andy blinked, for that news was at least four weeks old. But now came atide of other news, and almost all of it was stale stuff to him. But themen drank it in--all except Henry, silent in his corner. He was relaxed, as if he slept. "But the most news is about the killing of Bill Dozier. "

CHAPTER 13

"Ol' Bill!" grunted red-headed Jeff. "Well, I'll be hung! There's onegood deed done. He was overdue, anyways. "

Andy, waiting breathlessly, watched lest the eye of the narrator shouldswing toward him for the least part of a second. But Scottie seemedutterly oblivious of the fact that he sat in the same room with themurderer. "Well, he got it, " said Scottie. "And he didn't get it frombehind. Seems there was a young gent in Martindale--all you boys knowold Jasper Lanning?" There was an answering chorus. "Well, he's got anephew, Andrew Lanning. This kid was sort of a bashful kind, they say. But yesterday he up and bashed a fellow in the jaw, and the man wentdown. Whacked his head on a rock, and young Lanning thought his man wasdead. So he holds off the crowd with a gun, hops a horse, and beats it. "

"Pretty, pretty!" murmured Larry. "But what's that got to do with thathyena, Bill Dozier?"

"I don't get it all hitched up straight. Most of the news come fromMartindale to town by telephone. Seems this young Lanning was folleredby Bill Dozier. He was always a hound for a job like that, eh?"

There was a growl of assent. 

"He hand-picked five rough ones and went after Lanning. Chased him allnight. Landed at John Merchant's place. The kid had dropped in there tocall on a girl. Can you beat that for cold nerve, him figuring that he'dkilled a man, and Bill Dozier and five more on his trail to bring himback to wait and see whether the buck he dropped lived or died--and thento slide over and call on a lady? No, you can't raise that!"

But the tidings were gradually breaking in upon the mind of AndrewLanning. Buck Heath had not been dead; the pursuit was simply to bringhim back on some charge of assault; and now--Bill Dozier--the head ofAndrew swam. 

"Seems he didn't know her, either. Just paid a call round about dawn andthen rode on. Bill comes along a little later on the trail, gets newhorses from Merchant, and runs down Lanning early this morning. Runs himdown, and then Lanning turns in the saddle and drills Bill through thehead at five hundred yards. " Henry came to life. "How far?" he said. 

"That's what they got over the telephone, " said Scottie apologetically. 

"Then the news got to Hal Dozier from Merchant's house. Hal hops on thewire and gets in touch with the governor, and in about ten seconds theymake this Lanning kid an outlaw and stick a price on his head--fivethousand, I think, and they say Merchant is behind it. The telephone wasbuzzing with it when I left town, and most of the boys were oiling uptheir gats and getting ready to make a play. Pretty easy money, eh, forputting the rollers under a kid?"

Andrew Lanning muttered aloud: "An outlaw!"

"Not the first time Bill Dozier has done it, " said Henry calmly. "That'san old maneuver of his--to hound a man from a little crime to abig one. "

The throat of Andrew was dry. "Did you get a description of youngLanning?" he asked. 

"Sure, " nodded Scottie. "Twenty-three years old, about five feet ten, black hair and black eyes, good looking, big shoulders, quiet spoken. "

Andrew made a gesture and looked carelessly out the back window, but, from the corner of his eyes, he was noting the five men. Not a line oftheir expressions escaped him. He was seeing, literally, with eyes inthe back of his head; and if, by the interchange of one knowing glance, or by a significant silence, even, these fellows had indicated that theyremotely guessed his identity, he would have been on his feet like atiger, gun in hand, and backing for the door. Five thousand dollars!What would not one of these men do for that sum?

Andy had been keyed to the breaking point before; but his alertness wasnow trebled, and, like a sensitive barometer, he felt the danger ofLarry, the brute strength of Jeff, the cunning of Henry, the grave poiseof Joe, to say nothing of Scottie--an unknown force. But Scottie wasrunning on in his talk; he was telling of how he met the storekeeper intown; he was naming everything he saw; these fellows seemed to hungerfor the minutest news of men. They broke into admiring laughter whenScottie told of his victorious tilt of jesting with the storekeeper'sdaughter; even Henry came out of his patient gloom long enough to smileat this, and the rest were like children. Larry was laughing so heartilythat his eyes began to twinkle. He even invited Andrew in on the mirth. 

At this point Andy stood up and stretched elaborately--but in stretchinghe put his arms behind him, and stretched them down rather than up, sothat his hands were never far from his hips. 

"I'll be turning in, " said Andy, and stepping back to the door so thathis face would be toward them until the last instant of his exit, hewaved good night. 

There was a brief shifting of eyes toward him, and a grunt from Jeff;that was all. Then the eye of every one reverted to Scottie. But thelatter broke off his narrative. 

"Ain't you sleepin' in?" he asked. "We could fix you a bunk upstairs, Iguess. "

Once more the glance of Andrew flashed from face to face, and then hesaw the first suspicious thing. Scottie was looking straight at Henry, in the corner, as though waiting for a direction, and, from the cornerof his eye, Andrew was aware that Henry had nodded ever so slightly. 

"Here's something you might be interested to know, " said Scottie. "Thisyoung Lanning was riding a pinto hoss. " He added, while Andrew stoodrooted to the spot: "You seemed sort of interested in the description. Iallowed maybe you'd try your hand at findin' him. "

Andy understood perfectly that he was known, and, with his left handfrozen against the knob of the door, he flattened his shoulders againstthe wall and stood ready for the draw. In the crisis, at the firsthostile move, he decided that he would dive straight for the table, low. It would tumble the room into darkness as the candles fell--asemidarkness, for there would be a sputtering lantern still. 

Then he would fight for his life. And looking at the others, he saw thatthey were changed, indeed. They were all facing him, and their faceswere alive with interest; yet they made no hostile move. No doubt theyawaited the signal of Henry; there was the greatest danger; and nowHenry stood up. 

His first word was a throwing down of disguises. "Mr. Lanning, " he said, "I think this is a time for introductions. "

That cold exultation, that wild impulse to throw himself into the armsof danger, was sweeping over Andrew. He made no gesture toward his gun, though his fingers were curling, but he said: "Friends, I've got you allin my eye. I'm going to open this door and go out. No harm to any ofyou. But if you try to stop me, it means trouble, a lot oftrouble--quick!"

Just a split second of suspense. If a foot stirred, or a hand raised, Andrew's curling hand would jerk up and bring out a revolver, and everyman in the room knew it. Then the voice of Henry, "You'd plan onfighting us all?"

"Take my bridle off the wall, " said Andrew, looking straight before himat no face, and thereby enabled to see everything, just as a boxer looksin the eye of his opponent and thereby sees every move of his gloves. "Take my bridle off the wall, you, Jeff, and throw it at my feet. "

The bridle rattled at his feet. 

"This has gone far enough, " said Henry. "Lanning, you've got the wrongidea. I'm going ahead with the introductions. The red-headed fellow wecall Jeff is better known to the public as Jeff Rankin. Does that meananything to you?" Jeff Rankin acknowledged the introduction with a broadgrin, the corners of his mouth being lost in the heavy fold of hisjowls. "I see it doesn't, " went on Henry. "Very well. Joe's name is JoeClune. Yonder sits Scottie Macdougal. There is Larry la Roche. And I amHenry Allister. "

The edge of Andrew's alertness was suddenly dulled. The last name sweptinto his brain a wave of meaning, for of all words on the mountaindesert there was none more familiar than Henry Allister. Scar-facedAllister, they called him. Of those deadly men who figured in the talesof Uncle Jasper, Henry Allister was the last and the most grim. Athousand stories clustered about him: of how he killed Watkins; of howLangley, the famous Federal marshal, trailed him for five years and wasfinally killed in the duel which left Allister with that scar; of how hebroke jail at Garrisonville and again at St. Luke City. In theimagination of Andrew he had loomed like a giant, some seven-footprodigy, whiskered, savage of eye, terrible of voice. And, turningtoward him, Andrew saw him in profile with the scar obscured--and hisface was of almost feminine refinement. 

Five thousand dollars?

A dozen rich men in the mountain desert would each pay more than thatfor the apprehension of Allister, dead or alive. And bitterly it cameover Andrew that this genius of crime, this heartless murderer as storydepicted him, was no danger to him but almost a friend. And the otherfour ruffians of Allister's band were smiling cordially at him, enjoyinghis astonishment. The day before his hair would have turned white insuch a place among such men; tonight they were his friends. 

CHAPTER 14

After that things happened to Andrew in a swirl. They were shaking handswith him. They were congratulating him on the killing of Bill Dozier. They were patting him on the back. Larry la Roche, who had been sohostile, now stood up to the full of his ungainly height and proposedhis health. And the other men drank it standing. Andy received a tin cuphalf full of whisky, and he drank the burning stuff in acknowledgment. The unaccustomed drink went to his head, his muscles began to relax, hiseyes swam. Voices boomed at him out of a haze. "Why, he's only a youngkid. One shot put him under the weather. "

"Shut up, Larry. He'll learn fast enough. "

"Ah, yes, " said Larry to himself, "he'll learn fast enough!"

Presently he was lifted and carried by strong arms up a creaking stairs. He looked up, and he saw the red hair of the mighty Jeff, who carriedhim as if he had been a child, and deposited him among some blankets. 

"I didn't know, " Larry la Roche was saying. "How could I tell aman-killer like him couldn't stand no more than a girl?"

"Shut up and get out, " said another voice. Heavy footsteps retreated, then Andrew heard them once more grumbling and booming below him. 

After that his head cleared rapidly. Two windows were open in thishigher room, and a sharp current of the night wind blew across him, clearing his mind as rapidly as wind blows away a fog. Now he made outthat one man had not left him; the dark outline of him was by thebed, waiting. 

"Who's there?" asked Andrew. "Allister. Take it easy. "

"I'm all right. I'll go down again to the boys. "

"That's what I'm here to talk to you about, kid. Are you sure yourhead's clear?"

"Yep. Sure thing. "

"Then listen to me, Lanning, while I talk. It's important. Stay heretill the morning, then ride on. "

"Where?"

"Oh, away from Martindale, that's all. "

"Out of the desert? Out of the mountains?"

"Of course. They'll hunt for you here. " Allister paused, then went on. "And when you get away what'll you do? Go straight?"

"God willing, " said Andrew fervently. "It--it was only luck, bad luck, that put me where I am. "

The outlaw scratched a match and lighted a candle; then he dropped alittle of the melted tallow on a box, and by that light he peeredearnestly into Andrew's face. He appeared to need this light to read theexpression on it. It also enabled Andrew to see the face of Allister. Sometimes the play of shadows made that face unreal as a dream, sometimes the face was filled with poetic beauty, sometimes the lightgleamed on the scar and the sardonic smile, and then it was a faceout of hell. 

"You're going to get away from the mountain desert and go straight, "said Allister. 

"That's it. " He saw that the outlaw was staring with a smile, half grimand half sad, into the shadows and far away. 

"Lanning, let me tell you. You'll never get away. "

"You don't understand, " said Andrew. "I don't like fighting. It--itmakes me sick inside. I'm not a brave man!"

He waited to see the contempt come on the face of the famous leader, butthere was nothing but grave attention. 

"Why, " Andy went on in a rush of confidence, "everybody in Martindaleknows that I'm not a fighter. Those fellows downstairs think that I'm asort of bad hombre. I'm not. Why, Allister, when I turned over BuckHeath and saw his face, I nearly fainted, and then--"

"Wait, " cut in the other. "That was your first man. You didn't kill him, but you thought you had. You nearly fainted, then. But as I gather it, after you shot Bill Dozier you simply sat on your horse and waited. Didyou feel like fainting then?"

"No, " explained Andrew hastily. "I wanted to go after them and shoot'emall. They could have rushed me and taken me prisoner easily, but theywanted to shoot me from a distance--and it made me mad to see them workit. I--I hated them all, and I had a reason for it. Curse them!"

He added hurriedly: "But I've no grudge against anybody. All I want is achance to live quiet and clean. "

There was a faint sigh from Allister. 

"Lanning, " he murmured, "the minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you wereone of my kind. In all my life I've known only one other with that samechilly effect in his eyes--that was Marshal Langley--only he happened tobe on the side of the law. No matter. He had the iron dust in him. Hewas cut out to be a man-killer. You say you want to get away: Lanning, you can't do it. Because you can't get away from yourself. I'm making along talk to you, but you're worth it. I tell you I read your mind. Youplan on riding north and getting out of the mountain desert before thecountryside there is raised against you, the way it's raised to thesouth. In the first place, I don't think you'll get away. Hal Dozier ison your trail, and he'll get to the north and raise the whole districtand stop you before you hit the towns. You'll have to go back to themountain desert. You'll have to do it eventually, why not do it now?Lanning, if I had you at my back I could laugh at the law the rest ofour lives! Stay with me. I can tell a man when I see him. I saw you callLarry la Roche. And I've never wanted a man the way I want you. Not tofollow me, but as a partner. Shake and say you will!"

The slender hand was stretched out through the shadows, the light fromthe candle flashed on it. And a power outside his own will made Andrewmove his hand to meet it. He stopped the gesture with a violent effort. 

The swift voice of the outlaw, with a fiber of earnest persuasion in it, went on: "You see what I risk to get you. Hal Dozier is on your trail. He's the only man in the world I'd think twice about before I met himface to face. But if I join to you, I'll have to meet him sooner orlater. Well, Lanning, I'll take that risk. I know he's more devil thanman when it comes to gun play, but we'll meet him together. Give meyour hand!"

There was a riot in the brain of Andrew Lanning. The words of the outlawhad struck something in him that was like metal chiming on metal. Irondust? That was it! The call of one blood to another, and he realized thetruth of what Allister said. If he touched the hand of this man, therewould be a bond between them which only death could break. In oneblinding rush he sensed the strength and the faith of Allister. 

But another voice was at his ear, and he saw Anne Withero, as she hadstood for that moment in his arms in her room. It came over him with achill like cold moonlight. 

"Do you fear me?" he had whispered. 

"No. "

"Will you remember me?"

"Forever!"

And with that ghost of a voice in his ear Andrew Lanning groaned to theman beside him: "Partner, I know you're nine-tenths man, and I thank youout of the bottom of my heart. But there's some one else has a claim tome--I don't belong to myself. "

There was a breathless pause. Anger contracted the face of HenryAllister; he nodded gravely. 

"It's the girl you went back to see, " he said. 

"Yes. "

"Well, then, go ahead and try to win through. I wish you luck. But ifyou fail, remember what I've said. Now, or ten years from now, what I'vesaid goes for you. Now roll over and sleep. Good-by, Lanning, or, rather, au revoir!"

CHAPTER 15

The excitement kept Andrew awake for a little time, but then the hum ofthe wind, the roll of voices below him, and the weariness of the longride rushed on him like a wave and washed him out into an ebb of sleep. 

When he wakened the aches were gone from his limbs, and his mind was ahappy blank. Only when he started up from his blankets and rapped hishead against the slanting rafters just above him, he was brought to apainful realization of where he was. He turned, scowling, and the firstthing he saw was a piece of brown wrapping paper held down by a shoe andcovered with a clumsy scrawl. 

 These blankets are yours and the slicker along with them and heres wishin you luck while youre beatin it back to civlizashun. Your friend, JEFF RANKIN. 

Andy glanced swiftly about the room and saw that the other bunks hadbeen removed. He swept up the blankets and went down the stairs to thefirst floor. The house reeked of emptiness; broken bottles, a twistedtin plate in which some one had set his heel, were the last signs of theoutlaws of Henry Allister's gang. A bundle stood on the table withanother piece of the wrapping paper near it. The name of Andrew Lanningwas on the outside. He unfolded the sheet and read in a precise, ratherfeminine writing:

 Dear Lanning: We are, in a manner, sneaking off. I've already said good-by, and I don't want to tempt you again. Now you're by yourself and you've got your own way to fight. The boys agree with me. We all want to see you make good. We'll all be sorry if you come back to us. But once you've found out that it's no go trying to beat back to good society, we'll be mighty happy to have you with us. In the meantime, we want to do our bit to help Andrew Lanning make up for his bad luck. 

 For my part, I've put a chamois sack on top of the leather coat with the fur lining. You'll find a little money in that purse. Don't be foolish. Take the money I leave you, and, when you're back on your feet, I know that you'll repay it at your own leisure. 

 And here's best luck to you and the girl. 

 HENRY ALLISTER. 

Andrew lifted the chamois sack carelessly, and out of its mouth tumbleda stream of gold. One by one he picked up the pieces and replaced them;he hesitated, and then put the sack in his pocket. How could he refuse agift so delicately made?

A broken kitchen knife had been thrust through a bit of the paper on thebox. He read this next:

 Your hoss is known. So I'm leaving you one in place of the pinto. He goes good and he dont need no spurring but when you come behind him keep watching your step. Your pal, LARRY LA ROCHE. 

Blankets and slicker, money, horse. A flask of whisky stood on anotherslip of the paper. And the writing on this was much more legible. 

 Here's a friend in need. When you come to a pinch, use it. And when you come to a bigger pinch send word to your friend, SCOTTIE MACDOUGAL. 

Andrew picked it up, set it down again, and smiled. On the fur coatthere was a fifth tag. Not one of the five, then, had forgotten him. 

 Its comin on cold, partner. Take this coat and welcome. When the snows get on the mountains if you aint out of the desert put on this coat and think of your partner, JOE CLUNE. 

 P. S. --I seen you first, and I have first call on you over the rest of these gents and you can figure that you have first call on me. J. C. 

When he had read all these little letters, when he had gathered his lootbefore him, Andrew lifted his head and could have burst into song. Thismuch thieves and murderers had done for him; what would the good men ofthe world do? How would they meet him halfway?

He went into the kitchen. They had forgotten nothing. There was aquantity of "chuck, " flour, bacon, salt, coffee, a frying pan, a cup, a canteen. 

It brought a lump in his throat. He cast open the back door, and, standing in the little pasture, he saw only one horse remaining. It wasa fine, young chestnut gelding with a Roman nose and long, mulish ears. His head was not beautiful to see from any angle, but every detail ofthe body spelled speed, and speed meant safety. 

What wonder, then, that Andrew began to see the world through a brightmist? What wonder that when he had finished his breakfast he sang whilehe roped the chestnut, built the pack behind the saddle, and filled thesaddlebags. When he was in the saddle, the gelding took at once thecattle path with a long and easy canter. 

With his head cleared by sleep, his muscles and nerves relaxed, Andrewbegan to plan his escape with more calm deliberation than before. 

The first goal was the big blue cloud on the northern horizon--a goodweek's journey ahead of him--the Little Canover Mountains. Among thefoothills lay the cordon of small towns which it would be his chiefdifficulty to pass. For, if the printed notices describing him werecirculated among them, the countryside would be up in arms, prepared tointercept his flight. Otherwise, there would be nothing but telephonedand telegraphed descriptions of him, which, at best, could only come tothe ears of a few, and these few would be necessarily put out by theslightest difference between him and the description. Such a vitaldifference, for instance, as the fact that he now rode a chestnut, whilethe instructions called for a man on a pinto. 

Moreover, it was by no means certain that Hal Dozier, great trailerthough he was, would know that the fugitive was making for the northernmountains. With all these things in mind, in spite of the pessimism ofHenry Allister, Andrew felt that he had far more than a fighting chanceto break out of the mountain desert and into the comparative safety ofthe crowded country beyond. 

He made one mistake in the beginning. He pushed the chestnut too hardthe first and second days, so that on the third day he was forced togive the gelding his head and go at a jarring trot most of the day. Onthe fourth and fifth days, however, he had the reward for his caution. The chestnut's ribs were beginning to show painfully, but he keptdoggedly at his work with no sign of faltering. The sixth day broughtAndrew Lanning in close view of the lower hills. And on the seventh dayhe put his fortune boldly to the touch and jogged into the first littletown before him. 

CHAPTER 16

It was just after the hot hour of the afternoon. The shadows from thehills to the west were beginning to drop across the village; people whohad kept to their houses during the early afternoon now appeared ontheir porches. Small boys and girls, returning from school, werebeginning to play. Their mothers were at the open doors exchangingshouted pieces of news and greetings, and Andrew picked his way withcare along the street. It was a town flung down in the throat of aravine without care or pattern. There was not even one street, butrather a collection of straggling paths which met about a sort of opensquare, on the sides of which were the stores and the inevitable saloonsand hotel. 

But the narrow path along which Andrew rode was a gantlet to him. Forall he knew, the placards might be already out, one of the least ofthose he passed might have recognized him. He noticed that one or twowomen, in their front door, stopped in the midst of a word to watch himcuriously. It seemed to Andrew that a buzz of comment and warningpreceded him and closed behind him. He felt sure that the children stoodand gaped at him from behind, but he dared not turn in his saddle tolook back. 

And he kept on, reining in the gelding, and probing every face with oneswift, resistless glance that went to the heart. He found himselfliterally taking the brains and hearts of men into the palm of his handand weighing them. Yonder old man, so quiet, with the bony fingersclasped around the bowl of his corncob, sitting under the awning by thewatering trough--that would be an ill man to cross in a pinch--that handwould be steady as a rock on the barrel of a gun. But the big, squareman with the big, square face who talked so loudly on the porch ofyonder store--there was a bag of wind that could be punctured by onethreat and turned into a figure of tallow by the sight of a gun. 

Andrew went on with his lightning summary of the things he passed. Butwhen he came to the main square, the heart of the town, it was quiteempty. He went across to the hotel, tied the gelding at the rack, andsat down on the veranda. He wanted with all his might to go inside, toget a room, to be alone and away from this battery of searching eyes. But he dared not. He must mingle with these people and learn whatthey knew. 

He went in and sought the bar. It should be there, if anywhere, theposter with the announcement of Andrew Lanning's outlawry and thepicture of him. What picture would they take? The old snapshot of theyear before, which Jasper had taken? No doubt that would be the one. Butmuch as he yearned to do so, he dared not search the wall. He stood upto the bar and faced the bartender. The latter favored him with onesearching glance, and then pushed across the whisky bottle. 

"Do you know me?" asked Andrew with surprise. And then he could havecursed his careless tongue. 

"I know you need a drink, " said the bartender, looking at Andrew again. Suddenly he grinned. "When a man's been dry that long he gets a hungrylook around the eyes that I know. Hit her hard, boy. "

Andrew brimmed his glass and tossed off the drink. And to hisastonishment there was none of the shocking effect of his first drinkof whisky. It was like a drop of water tossed on a huge blotter. To histired nerves the alcohol was a mere nothing. Besides, he dared not letit affect him. He filled a second glass, pushing across the bar one ofthe gold pieces of Henry Allister. Then, turning casually, he glancedalong the wall. There were other notices up--many written ones--but nota single face looked back at him. All at once he grew weak with relief. But in the meantime he must talk to this fellow. 

"What's the news?"

"What kind of news?"

"Any kind. I've been talkin' more to coyotes than to men for a longspell. "

Should he have said that? Was not that a suspicious speech? Did it notexpose him utterly?

"Nothin' to talk about here much more excitin' than a coyote's yap. Nota damn thing. Which way you come from?"

"South. The last I heard of excitin' news was this stuff about Lanning, the outlaw. "

It was out, and he was glad of it. He had taken the bull by the horns. 

"Lanning? Lanning? Never heard of him. Oh, yes, the gent that bumped offBill Dozier. Between you and me, they won't be any sobbin' for that. Bill had it comin'. But they've outlawed Lanning, have they?"

"That's what I hear. "

But sweet beyond words had been this speech from the bartender. They hadbarely heard of Andrew Lanning in this town; they did not even know thathe was outlawed. Andrew felt hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat. Now for one long sleep; then he would make the ride across the mountainsand into safety. 

He went out of the barroom, put the gelding away in the stables behindthe hotel, and got a room. In ten minutes, pausing only to tear theboots from his feet, he was sound asleep under the very gatesof freedom. 

And while he slept the gates were closing and barring the way. If he hadwakened even an hour sooner, all would have been well and, though hemight have dusted the skirts of danger, they could never have blockedhis way. But, with seven days of exhausting travel behind him, he sleptlike one drugged, the clock around and more. It was morning, mid-morning, when he wakened. 

Even then he was too late, but he wasted priceless minutes eating hisbreakfast, for it was delightful beyond words to have food served to himwhich he had not cooked with his own hands. And so, sauntering out ontothe veranda of the hotel, he saw a compact crowd on the other side ofthe square and the crowd focused on a man who was tacking up a sign. Andrew, still sauntering, joined the crowd, and looking over theirheads, he found his own face staring back at him; and, under the pictureof that lean, serious face, in huge black type, five thousand dollarsreward for the capture, dead or alive--

The rest of the notice blurred before his eyes. 

Some one was speaking. "You made a quick trip, Mr. Dozier, and I expectif you send word up to Hallowell in the mountains they can--"

So Hal Dozier had brought the notices himself. 

Andrew, in that moment, became perfectly calm. He went back to thehotel, and, resting one elbow on the desk, he looked calmly into theface of the clerk and the proprietor. Instantly he saw that the men didnot suspect--as yet. 

"I hear Mr. Dozier's here?" he asked. 

"Room seventeen, " said the clerk. "Hold on. He's out in the square now. "

"'S all right. I'll wait in his room. " He went to room seventeen. Thedoor was unlocked. And drawing a chair into the farthest corner, Andrewsat down, rolled a cigarette, drew his revolver, and waited. 

CHAPTER 17

He waited an eternity; in actual time it was exactly ten minutes. Then acavalcade tramped down the hall. He heard their voices, and Hal Dozierwas among them. About him flowed a babble of questions as the menstruggled for the honor of a word from the great man. Perhaps he wascoming to his room to form the posse and issue general instructions forthe chase. 

The door opened. Dozier entered, jerked his head squarely to one side, and found himself gazing into the muzzle of a revolver. The astonishmentand the swift hardening of his face had begun and ended in a fractionof a second. 

"It's you, eh?" he said, still holding the door. 

"Right, " said Andrew. "I'm here for a little chat about this Lanningyou're after. "

Hal Dozier paused another heartbreaking second, then he saw that cautionwas the better way. "I'll have to shut you out for a minute or two, boys. Go down to the bar and have a few on me. " He turned, laughing andwaving to them. Then the door closed, and Dozier turned slowly to facehis hunted man. Into Andrew's mind came back the words of the greatoutlaw, Allister: "There's one man I'd think twice about meeting, and that--"

"Sit down, " said Andrew. "And you can take off your belt if you want to. Easy! That's it. Thank you. "

The belt and the guns were tossed onto the bed, and Hal Dozier satdown. He reminded Andrew of a terrier, not heavy, but all compact nerveand fighting force. 

"I'll not frisk you for another gun, " said Andrew. 

"Thanks; I have one, but I'll let it lie. "

He made a movement. "If you don't mind, " said Andrew, "I'd rather thatyou don't reach into your pockets. Use my tobacco and papers, if youwish. " He tossed them onto the table, and Hal Dozier rolled his smoke insilence. Then he tilted back in his chair a little. His hand with thecigarette was as steady as a vise, and Andrew, shrugging forward his ownponderous shoulders, dropped his elbows on his knees and trained the gunfull on his companion. 

"I've come to make a bargain, Dozier, " he said. 

The other made no comment, and the two continued that silent struggle ofthe eyes that was making Andrew's throat dry and his heart leap. 

"Here's the bargain: Drop off this trail. Let the law take its owncourse through other hands, but you give me your word to keep off thetrail. If you'll do that I'll leave this country and stay away. Exceptfor one thing, I'll never come back here. You're a proud man; you'venever quit a trail yet before the end of it. But this time I only askyou to let it go with running me out of the country. "

"What's the one thing for which you'd come back?"

"I'll come back--once--because of a girl. "

He saw the eyes of Dozier widen and then contract again. "You're notexactly what I expected to find, " he said. "But go on. If I don't takethe bargain you pull that trigger?"

"Exactly. "

"H'm! You may have heard the voices of the men who came up the hall withme?"

"Yes. "

"The moment a report of a gun is heard they'll swarm up to this room andget you. "

"They made too much noise. Barking dogs don't bite. Besides, the momentI've dropped you I go out that window. "

"It's a good bluff, Lanning, " said the other. "I'll tell you what, ifyou were what I expected you to be, a hysterical kid, who had a bit ofbad luck and good rolled together, I'd take that offer. But you'redifferent--you're a man. All in all, Lanning, I think you're about asmuch of a man as I've ever crossed before. No, you won't pull thattrigger, because there isn't one deliberate murder packed away in yoursystem. It's a good bluff, as I said before, and I admire the way youworked it. But it won't do. I call it. I won't leave your trail, Lanning. Now pull your trigger. "

He smiled straight into the eye of the younger man. A flush jumped intothe cheeks of Andrew, and, fading, left him by contrast paler than ever. "You were one-quarter of an inch from death, Dozier, " he replied. 

"Lanning, with men like you--and like myself, I hope--there's noquestion of distance. It's either a miss or a hit. Here's a betterproposition: Let me put my belt on again. Then put your own gun back inthe holster. We'll turn and face the wall. And when the clock downstairsstrikes ten--that'll be within a few minutes--we'll turn and blaze atthe first sound. "

He watched his companion eagerly, and he saw the face of Andrew work. "Ican't do it, Dozier, " said Andrew. "I'd like to. But I can't!"

"Why not?" The voice of Hal Dozier was sharp with a new suspicion. "Getme out of the way, and you're free to get across the mountains, and, once there, your trail will never be found. I know that; every one knowsthat. That's why I hit up here after you. "

"I'll tell you why, " said Andrew slowly. "I've got the blood of one manon my hands already, but, so help me God, I'm not going to have anotherstain. I had to shoot once, because I was hounded into it. And, if thisthing keeps on, I'm going to shoot again--and again. But as long as Ican I'm fighting to keep clean, you understand?"

His voice became thin and rose as he spoke; his breath was a series ofgasps, and Hal Dozier changed color. 

"I think, " said Andrew, regaining his self-control, "that I'd kill you. I think I'm just a split second surer and faster than you are with agun. But don't you see, Dozier?"

He cast out his left hand, but his right hand held the revolver like arock. 

"Don't you see? I've got the taint in me. I've killed my man. If I killanother I'll go bad. I know it. Life will mean nothing to me. I can feelit in me. "

His voice fell and became deeper. 

"Dozier, give me my chance. It's up to you. Stand aside now, and I'llget across those mountains and become a decent man. Keep me here, andI'll be a killer. I know it; you know it. Why are you after me? Becauseyour brother was killed by me. Dozier, think of your brother and thenlook at me. Was his life worth my life? You're a cool-headed man. Youknew him, and you knew what he was worth. His killings were as long asthe worst bad man that ever stepped, except that he had the law behindhim. When he got on my trail he knew that I was just a scared kid whothought he'd killed a man. Why didn't he let me run until I found outthat I hadn't killed Buck Heath? Then he knew, and you know, that I'dhave come back. But he wouldn't give me the chance. He ran me into theground, and I shot him down. And that minute he turned me from a scaredkid into an outlaw--a killer. Tell me, man to man, Dozier, if Billhasn't already done me more wrong than I've done him!"

As he finished that strange appeal he noted that the famous fighter waswhite about the mouth and shaken. He added with a burst of appeal: "Hal, you know I'm straight. You know I'm worth a chance. "

The older man lifted his head at last. "Andy, I can't leave the trail. "

At that sentence every muscle of Andrew's body relaxed, and he sat likeone in a state of collapse, except that the right hand and the gun in itwere steady as rocks. 

"Here's something between you and me that I'd swear I never said if Iwas called in a court, " went on Hal Dozier in a solemn murmur. "I'lltell you that I know Bill was no good. I've known it for years, and I'vetold him so. It's Bill that bled me, and bled me until I've had to soaka mortgage on the ranch. It's Bill that's spent the money on his cussedbooze and gambling. Until now there's a man that can squeeze and ruin meany day, and that's Merchant. He sent me hot along this trail. He sentme, but my pride sent me also. No, son, I wasn't bought altogether. Andif I'd known as much about you then as I know now, I'd never havestarted to hound you. But now I've started. Everybody in the mountains, every puncher on the range knows that Hal Dozier has started on a newtrail, and every man of them knows that I've never failed before. Andy, I can't give it up. You see, I've got no shame before you. I tell youthe straight of it. I tell you that I'm a bought man. But I can't leavethis trail to go back and face the boys. If one of them was to shake hishead and say on the side that I'm no longer the man I used to be, I'dshoot him dead as sure as there's a reckoning that I'm bound for. Itisn't you, Andy; it's my reputation that makes me go on. "

He stopped, and the two men looked sadly at each other. 

"Andy, boy, " said Hal Dozier, "I've no more bad feeling toward you thanif you was my own boy. " Then he added with a little ring to his voice:"But I'm going to stay on your trail till I kill you. You write thatdown in red. "

And the outlaw dropped his gun suddenly into the holster. "That endsit, then, " he said slowly. "The next time we meet we won't sit down andchin friendly like. We'll let our guns do our talking for us. And, firstof all, I'm going to get across these mountains, Hal, in spite of youand your friends. "

"You can't do it, Andy. Try it. I've sent the word up. The wholemountains will be alive watchin' for you. Every trail will be alivewith guns. "

But Andrew stood up, and, using always his left hand while the right armhung with apparent carelessness at his side, he arranged his hat so thatit came forward at a jaunty angle, and then hitched his belt around sothat the holster hung a little more to the rear. The position for a gunwhen one is sitting is quite different from the proper position when oneis standing. All these things Uncle Jasper had taught Andrew long andlong before. He was remembering them in chunks. 

"Give me three minutes to get my saddle on my horse and out of town, "said Andrew. "Is that fair?"

"Considering that you could have filled me full of lead here, " said HalDozier, with a wry smile, "I think that's fair enough. "

CHAPTER 18

As Andrew went down the stairs and through the entrance hall he noticedit was filled with armed men. At the door he paused for the leastfraction of a second, and during that breathing space he had seen everyface in the room. Then he walked carelessly across to the desk and askedfor his bill. 

Someone, as he crossed the room, whirled to follow him with a glance. Andy heard, for his ears were sharpened: "I thought for a minute--But itdoes look like him!"

"Aw, Mike, I seen that gent in the barroom the other day. Besides, he'sjust a kid. "

"So's this Lanning. I'm going out to look at the poster again. You holdthis gent here. "

"All right. I'll talk to him while you're gone. But be quick. I'll beholdin' a laugh for you, Mike. "

Andrew paid his bill, but as he reached the door a short man with legsbowed by a life in the saddle waddled out to him and said: "Just aminute, partner. Are you one of us?"

"One of who?" asked Andrew. 

"One of the posse Hal is getting together? Well, come to think of it, Iguess you're a stranger around here, ain't you?"

"Me?" asked Andrew. "Why, I've just been talking to Hal. "

"About young Lanning?"

"Yes. "

"By the way, if you're out of Hal's country, maybe you know Lanning, too?"

"Sure. I've stood as close to him as I am to you. "

"You don't say so! What sort of a looking fellow is he?"

"Well, I'll tell you, " said Andrew, and he smiled in an embarrassedmanner. "They say he's a ringer for me. Not much of a compliment, is it?"

The other gasped, and then laughed heartily. "No, it ain't, at that, " hereplied. "Say, I got a pal that wants to talk to you. Sort of a job onhim, at that. "

"I'll tell you what, " said Andy calmly. "Take him in to the bar, andI'll come in and have a drink with him and you in about twominutes. S'long. "

He was gone through the door while the other half reached a hand towardhim. But that was all. 

In the stables he had the saddle on the chestnut in twenty seconds, andbrought him to the watering trough before the barroom. 

He found his short, bow-legged friend in the barroom in the midst ofexcited talk with a big, blond man. He looked a German, with his partedbeard and his imposing front and he had the stern blue eye of a fighter. "Is this your friend?" asked Andrew, and walked straight up to them. Hewatched the eyes of the big man expand and then narrow; his hand evenfumbled at his hip, but then he shook his head. He was too bewilderedto act. 

At that moment there was an uproar from the upper part of the hotel. With a casual wave of his hand, Andy wandered out of the barroom andthen raced for the street. He heard men shouting in the lobby. 

A fighting mass jammed its way into the open, and there, in the middleof the square, sat Hal Dozier on his gray stallion. He was giving ordersin a voice that rang above the crowd, and made voices hush in whispersas they heard him. Under his direction the crowd split into groups offour and five and six and rode at full speed in three directions out ofthe town. In the meantime there were two trusted friends of Hal Dozierbusy at telephones in the hotel. They were calling little towns amongthe mountains. The red alarm was spreading like wildfire, and fasterthan the fastest horse could gallop. 

But Andrew, with the chestnut running like a red flash beneath him, hadvanished. 

Buried away in the mountains, one stiff day's march, was a trapper whomUncle Jasper had once befriended. That was many a day long since, butUncle Jasper had saved the man's life, and he had often told Andrewthat, sooner or later, he must come to that trapper's cabin to talk ofthe old times. 

He was bound there now. For, if he could get shelter for three days, thehue and cry would subside. When the mountaineers were certain that hemust have gone past them to other places and slipped through theirgreedy fingers he could ride on in comparative safety. It was anexcellent plan. It gave Andrew such a sense of safety, as he trotted thechestnut up a steep grade, that he did not hear another horse, coming inthe opposite direction, until the latter was almost upon him. Then, coming about a sharp shoulder of the hill, he almost ran upon abare-legged boy, who rode without saddle upon the back of a bay mare. The mare leaped catlike to one side, and her little rider clung like apiece of her hide. "You might holler, comin' around a turn, " shrilledthe boy. And he brought the mare to a halt by jerking the rope aroundher neck. He had no other means of guiding her, no sign of a bridle. 

But Andrew looked with hungry eyes. He knew something of horses, andthis bay fitted into his dreams of an ideal perfectly. She wasbeautiful, quite heavily built in the body, with a great spread ofbreast that surely told of an honest heart beneath a glorious head, legsthat fairly shouted to Andrew of good blood, and, above all, she hadthat indescribable thing which is to a horse what personality is to aman. She did not win admiration, she commanded it. And she stood alertat the side of the road, looking at Andrew like a queen. Horse stealingis the cardinal sin in the mountain desert, but Andrew felt the momenthe saw her that she must be his. At least he would first try to buy herhonorably. 

"Son, " he said to the urchin, "how much for that horse?"

"Why, " said the boy, "anything you'll give. "

"Don't laugh at me, " said Andrew sternly. "I like her looks and I'll buyher. I'll trade this chestnut--and he's a fine traveler--with a goodprice to boot. If your father lives up the road and not down, turn backwith me and I'll see if I can't make a trade. "

"You don't have to see him, " said the boy. "I can tell you that he'llsell her. You throw in the chestnut and you won't have to give anyboot. " And he grinned. 

"But there's the house. " He pointed across the ravine at a littlegreen-roofed shack buried in the rocks. "You can come over if youwant to. "

"Is there something wrong with her?"

"Nothin' much. Pop says she's the best hoss that ever run in theseparts. And he knows, I'll tell a man!"

"Son, I've got to have that horse!"

"Mister, " said the boy suddenly, "I know how you feel. Lots feel thesame way. You want her bad, but she ain't worth her feed. A skunk put abur under the saddle when she was bein' broke, and since then anybodycan ride her bareback, but nothin' in the mountains can sit a saddleon her. "

Andrew cast one more long, sad look at the horse. He had never seen ahorse that went so straight to his heart, and then he straightened thechestnut up the road and went ahead. 

CHAPTER 19

He had to be guided by what Uncle Jasper had often described--a mountainwhose crest was split like the crown of a hat divided sharply by aknife, and the twin peaks were like the ears of a mule, except that theycame together at the base. By the position of those distant summits heknew that he was in the ravine leading to the cabin of Hank Rainer, the trapper. 

Presently the sun flashed on a white cliff, a definite landmark by whichUncle Jasper had directed him, so Andrew turned out of his path on theeastern side of the gully and rode across the ravine. The slope wassteep on either side, covered with rocks, thick with slides of loosepebbles and sand. His horse, accustomed to a more open country, wascontinually at fault. He did not like his work, and kept tossing hisugly head and champing the bit as they went down to the river bottom. 

It was not a real river, but only an angry creek that went fuming andcrashing through the canyon with a voice as loud as some great stream. Andrew had to watch with care for a ford, for though the bed was notdeep the water ran like a rifle bullet over smooth places and was tornto a white froth when it struck projecting rocks. He found, at length, aplace where it was backed up into a shallow pool, and here he rodeacross, hardly wetting the belly of the gelding. Then up the far slopehe was lost at once in a host of trees. They cut him off from hislandmark, the white cliff, but he kept on with a feel for the rightdirection, until he came to a sudden clearing, and in the clearing was acabin. It was apparently just a one-room shanty with a shed leaningagainst it from the rear. No doubt the shed was for the trapper's horse. 

He had no time for further thought. In the open door of the cabinappeared a man so huge that he had to bend his head to look out, andAndrew's heart fell. It was not the slender, rawboned youth of whomUncle Jasper had told him, but a hulking giant. And then he rememberedthat twenty years had passed since Uncle Jasper rode that way, and intwenty years the gaunt body might have filled out, the shock ofbright-red hair of which Jasper spoke might well have been the originalof the red flood which now covered the face and throat of the big man. 

"Hello!" called the trapper. "Are you one of the boys on the trail?Well, I ain't seen anything. Been about six others here already. "

The blood leaped in Andrew, and then ran coldly back to his heart. Could they have outridden the gelding to such an extent as that?

"From Tomo?" he asked. 

"Tomo? No. They come down from Gunter City, up yonder, and Twin Falls. "

And Andrew understood. Well indeed had Hal Dozier fulfilled his threatof rousing the mountains against this quarry. He glanced westward. Itwas yet an hour lacking of sundown, but since mid-morning Dozier hadbeen able to send his messages so far and so wide. Andrew set his teeth. What did cunning of head and speed of horse count against the law whenthe law had electricity for its agent?

"Well, " said Andrew, slipping from his saddle, "if he hasn't been bythis way I may as well stay over for the night. If they've hunted thewoods around here all day, no use in me doing it by night. Can youput me up?"

"Can I put you up? I'll tell a man. Glad to have you, stranger. Gimmeyour hoss. I'll take care of him. Looks like he was kind of ganted up, don't it? Well, I'll give him a feed of oats that'll thicken his ribs. "

Still talking, he led the gelding into his shed. Andrew followed, tookoff the saddle, and, having led the chestnut out and down to the creekfor a drink, he returned and tied him to a manger which the trapper hadfilled with a liberal supply of hay, to say nothing of a feed boxstuffed with oats. 

A man who was kind to a horse could not be treacherous to a man, Andrewdecided. 

"You're Hank Rainer, aren't you?" he asked. 

"That's me. And you?"

"I'm the unwelcome guest, I'm afraid, " said Andrew. "I'm the nephew ofJasper Lanning. I guess you'll be remembering him?"

"I'll forget my right hand sooner, " said the big, red man calmly. But hekept on looking steadily at Andrew. 

"Well, " said Andrew, encouraged and at the same time repulsed by thiscalm silence, "my name is one you've heard. I am--"

The other broke in hastily. "You are Jasper Lanning's nephew. That's allI know. What's a name to me? I don't want to know names!"

It puzzled Andrew, but the big man ran on smoothly enough: "Lanningain't a popular name around here, you see? Suppose somebody was to comearound and say, 'Seen Lanning?' What could I say, if you was here? 'I'vegot a Lanning here. I dunno but he's the one you want. ' But suppose Idon't know anything except you're Jasper's nephew? Maybe you're relatedon the mother's side. Eh?" He winked at Andrew. "You come along anddon't talk too much about names. "

He led the way into the house and picked up one of the posters, whichlay on the floor. 

"They've sent those through the mountains already?" asked Andrewgloomily. 

"Sure! These come down from Twin Falls. Now, a gent with special fineeyes might find that you looked like the gent on this poster. But myeyes are terrible bad mostly. Besides, I need to quicken up that fire. "

He crumpled the poster and inserted it beneath the lid of his ironstove. There was a rush and faint roar of the flame up the chimney asthe cardboard burned. "And now, " said Hank Rainer, turning with a broadsmile, "I guess they ain't any reason why I should recognize you. You'rejust a plain stranger comin' along and you stop over here for the night. That all?"

Andrew had followed this involved reasoning with a rather bewilderedmind, but he smiled faintly in return. He was bothered, in a way, by theextreme mental caution of this fellow. It was as if the keen-eyedtrapper were more interested in his own foolish little subterfuge thanin preserving Andrew. "Now, tell me, how is Jasper?"

"I've got to tell you one thing first. Dozier has raised the mountains, and I could never cross 'em now. "

"Going to turn back into the plains?"

"No. The ranges are wide enough, but they're a prison just the same. I've got to get out of 'em now or stay a prisoner the rest of my life, only to be trailed down in the end. No, I want to stay right here inyour cabin until the men are quieted down again and think I've slippedaway from 'em. Then I'll sneak over the summit and get away unnoticed. "

"Man, man! Stay here? Why, they'll find you right off. I wonder you gotthe nerve to sit there now with maybe ten men trailin' you to thiscabin. But that's up to you. "

There was a certain careless calm about this that shook Andrew to hiscenter again. But he countered: "No, they won't look specially inhouses. Because they won't figure that any man would toss up thatreward. Five thousand is a pile of money. "

"It sure is, " agreed the other. He parted his red beard and looked up tothe ceiling. "Five thousand is a considerable pile, all in hard cash. But mostly they hunt for this Andrew Lanning a dozen at a time. Well, you divide five thousand by ten, and you've got only five hundred left. That ain't enough to tempt a man to give up Lanning--so bad asall that. "

"Ah, " smiled Andrew, "but you don't understand what a stake you couldmake out of me. If you were to give information about me being here, andyou brought a posse to get me, you'd come in for at least half of thereward. Besides, the five thousand isn't all. There's at least one richgent that'll contribute maybe that much more. And you'd get a good halfof that. You see, Hal Dozier knows all that, and he knows there's hardlya man in the mountains who would be able to keep away from selling me. So that's why he won't search the houses. "

"Not you, " corrected the trapper sharply. "Andy Lanning is the manDozier wants. "

"Well, Andrew Lanning, then, " smiled the guest. "It was just a slip ofthe tongue. "

"Sometimes slips like that break a man's neck, " observed the trapper, and he fell into a gloomy meditation. 

And after that they talked of other things, until supper was cooked andeaten and the tin dishes washed and put away. Then they lay in theirbunks and watched the last color in the west through the open door. 

If a member of a posse had come to the door, the first thing his eyesfell upon would have been Andrew Lanning lying on the floor on one sideof the room and the red-bearded man on the other. But, though his hostsuggested this, Andrew refused to move his blankets. And he was right. The hunters were roving the open, and even Hal Dozier was at fault. 

"Because, " said Andrew, "he doesn't dream that I could have a friend sofar from home. Not five thousand dollars' worth of friend, anyway. "

And the trapper grunted heavily. 

CHAPTER 20

It was a truth long after wondered at, when the story of Andrew Lanningwas told and retold, that he had lain in perfect security within asix-hour ride from Tomo, while Hal Dozier himself combed the mountainsand hundreds more were out hunting fame and fortune. To be sure, when astranger approached, Andrew always withdrew into the horse shed; but, beyond keeping up a steady watch during the day, he had little to do andlittle to fear. 

Indeed, at night he made no pretense toward concealment, but slept quiteopenly on the floor on the bed of hay and blankets, just as Hank Rainerslept on the farther side of the room. And the great size of the rewardwas the very thing that kept him safe. For when men passed the cabin, asthey often did, they were riding hard to get away from Tomo and into thehigher mountains, where the outlaw might be, or else they were comingback to rest up, and their destination in such a case was always Tomo. The cabin of the trapper was just near enough to the town to escapebeing used as a shelter for the night by stray travelers. If they gotthat close, they went on to the hotel. 

But often they paused long enough to pass a word with Hank, and Andrew, from his place behind the door of the horse shed, could hear it all. Hecould even look through a crack and see the faces of the strangers. Theytold how Tomo was wrought to a pitch of frenzied interest by thismanhunt. Well-to-do citizens, feeling that the outlaw had insulted thetown by so boldly venturing into it, had raised a considerablecontribution toward the reward. Other prominent miners and cattlemen ofthe district had come forward with similar offers, and every day theprice on the head of Andrew mounted to a more tempting figure. 

It was a careless time for Andrew. After that escape from Tomo he wasnot apt to be perturbed by his present situation, but the suspenseseemed to weigh more and more heavily upon the trapper. Hank Rainer wasso troubled, indeed, that Andrew sometimes surprised a half-guilty, half-sly expression in the eyes of his host. He decided that Hank wasanxious for the day to come when Andrew would ride off and take hisperilous company elsewhere. He even broached the subject to Hank, butthe mountaineer flushed and discarded the suggestion with a wave of hishand. "But if a gang of 'em should ever hunt me down, even in yourcabin, Hank, " said Andrew one day--it was the third day of hisstay--"I'll never forget what you've done for me, and one of these daysI'll see that Uncle Jasper finds out about it. "

The little, pale-blue eyes of the trapper went swiftly to and fro, as ifhe sought escape from this embarrassing gratitude. 

"Well, " said he, "I've been thinkin' that the man that gets you, Andy, won't be so sure with his money, after all. He'll have your Uncle Jasperon his trail pronto, and Jasper used to be a killer with a gun in theold days. "

"No more, " smiled Andrew. "He's still steady as a rock, but he hasn'tthe speed any more. He's over seventy, you see. His joints sort of creakwhen he tries to move with a snap. "

"Ah, " muttered the trapper, and again, as he started through the opendoor, "Ah!"

Then he added: "Well, son, you don't need Jasper. If half what they sayis true, you're a handy lad with the guns. I suppose Jasper showed youhis tricks?"

"Yes, and we worked out some new ones together. Uncle Jasper raised mewith a gun in my hand, you might say. "

"H'm!" said Hank Rainer. 

When they were sitting at the door in the semidusk, he reverted to theidea. "You been seein' that squirrel that's been runnin' across theclearin'?"

"Yes. "

"I'd like to see you work your gun, Andy. It was a sight to talk aboutto watch Jasper, and I'm thinkin' you could go him one better. S'poseyou stand up there in the door with your back to the clearin'. The nexttime that squirrel comes scootin' across I'll say, 'Now!' and you try toturn and get your gun on him before he's out of sight. Will youtry that?"

"Suppose some one hears it?" "Oh, they're used to me pluggin' away forfun over here. Besides, they ain't anybody lives in hearin'. "

And Andrew, falling into the spirit of the contest, stood up in thedoor, and the old tingle of nerves, which never failed to come over himin the crisis, was thrilling through his body again. Then Hank barkedthe word, "Now!" and Andrew whirled on his heel. The word had served toalarm the squirrel as well. As he heard it, he twisted about like thesnapping lash of a whip and darted back for cover, three yards away. Hecovered that distance like a little gray streak in the shadow, butbefore he reached it the gun spoke, and the forty-five-caliber slugstruck him in the middle and tore him in two. Andrew, hearing a sharpcrackling, looked down at his host and observed that the trapper hadbitten clean through the stem of his corncob. 

"That, " said the red man huskily, "is some shootin'. "

But he did not look up, and he did not smile. And it troubled Andrew tohear this rather grudging praise. 

In the meantime, three days had put the gelding in very fair condition. He was enough mustang to recuperate swiftly, and that morning he hadtried with hungry eagerness to kick the head from Andrew's shoulders. This had decided the outlaw. Besides, in the last day there had beenfewer and fewer riders up and down the ravine, and apparently the huntfor Andrew Lanning had journeyed to another part of the mountains. Itseemed an excellent time to begin his journey again, and he told thetrapper his decision to start on at dusk the next day. 

The announcement brought with it a long and thoughtful pause. 

"I wisht I could send you on your way with somethin' worthwhile, " saidHank Rainer at length. "But I ain't rich. I've lived plain and workedhard, but I ain't rich. So what I can give you, Andy, won't be much. "

Andrew protested that the hospitality had been more than a generousgift, but Hank Rainer, looking straight out the door, continued: "Well, I'm goin' down the road to get you my little gift, Andy. Be back in anhour maybe. "

"I'd rather have you here to keep me from being lonely, " said Andrew. "I've money enough to buy what I want, but money will never buy me thetalk of an honest man, Hank. "

The other started. "Honest enough, maybe, " he said bitterly. "Buthonesty don't get you bread or bacon, not in this world!"

And presently he stamped into the shed, saddled his pony, and after amoment was scattering the pebbles on the way down the ravine. The darkand silence gathered over Andrew Lanning. He had little warmth offeeling for Hank Rainer, to be sure, but the hush of the cabin he lookedforward to many a long evening and many a long day in a silence likethis, with no man near him. For the man who rides outside the lawrides alone. 

He could have embraced the big man, therefore, when Hank finally cameback, and Andrew could hear the pony panting in the shed, a sure signthat it had been ridden hard. 

"It ain't much, " said Hank, "but it's yours, and I hope you get a chanceto use it in a pinch. " And he dumped down a case of . 45 cartridges. 

After all, there could have been no gift more to the point, but it gaveAndrew a little chill of distaste, this reminder of the life that layahead of him. And in spite of himself he could not break the silencethat began to settle over the cabin again. Finally Hank announced thatit was bedtime for him, and, preparing himself by the simple expedientof kicking off his boots and then drawing off his trousers, he slippedinto his blankets, twisted them tightly around his broad shoulders witha single turn of his body, and was instantly snoring. Andrew followedthat example more slowly. Not since he left Martindale, however, had heslept soundly. Take a tame dog into the wilderness and he learns tosleep like a wolf quickly enough; and Andrew, with mind and nerveconstantly set for action like a cocked revolver, had learned to sleeplike a wild thing in turn. And accordingly, when he wakened in themiddle of the night, he was alert on the instant. He had a singularfeeling that someone had been looking at him while he slept. 

CHAPTER 21

First of all, naturally, he looked at the door. It was now a brightrectangle filled with moonlight and quite empty. There must have been asound, and he glanced over to the trapper for an explanation. But HankRainer lay twisted closely in his blankets. 

Andrew raised upon one elbow and thought. It troubled him--the insistentfeeling of the eyes which had been upon him. They had burned their wayinto his dreams with a bright insistence. 

He looked again, and, having formed the habit of photographing thingswith one glance, he compared what he saw now with what he had last seenwhen he fell asleep. It tallied in every detail except one. The trouserswhich had lain on the floor beside Hank's bed were no longer there. 

It was a little thing, of course, but Andrew closed his eyes to makesure. Yes, he could even remember the gesture with which the trapper hadtossed down the trousers to the floor. Andrew sat up in bed noiselessly. He slipped to the door and flashed one glance up and down. Below him thehillside was bright beneath the moon. The far side of the ravine wasdoubly black in shadow. But nothing lived, nothing moved. And thenagain he felt the eye upon him. He whirled. "Hank!" he called softly. And he saw the slightest start as he spoke. "Hank!" he repeated in thesame tone, and the trapper stretched his arms, yawned heavily, andturned. "Well, lad?" he inquired. 

But Andrew knew that he had been heard the first time, and he felt thatthis pretended slow awakening was too elaborate to be true. He went backto his own bed and began to dress rapidly. In the meantime the trapperwas staring stupidly at him and asking what was wrong. 

"Something mighty queer, " said Andrew. "Must have been a coyote in herethat sneaked off with your trousers, unless you have 'em on. "

Just a touch of pause, then the other replied through a yawn: "Sure, Igot 'em on. Had to get up in the night, and I was too plumb sleepy totake 'em off again when I come back. "

"Ah, " said Andrew, "I see. "

He stepped to the door into the horse shed and paused; there was nosound. He opened the door and stepped in quickly. Both horses were onthe ground, asleep, but he took the gelding by the nose, to muffle agrunt as he rose, and brought him to his feet. Then, still softly andswiftly, he lifted the saddle from its peg and put it on its back. Onelong draw made the cinches taut. He fastened the straps, and then wentto the little window behind the horse, through which had come the vagueand glimmering light by which he did the saddling. Now he scanned thetrees on the edge of the clearing with painful anxiety. Once he thoughtthat he heard a voice, but it was only the moan of one branch againstanother as the wind bent some tree. He stepped back from the window andrubbed his knuckles across his forehead, obviously puzzled. It might bethat, after all, he was wrong. So he turned back once more toward themain room of the cabin to make sure. Instead of opening the door softly, as a suspicious man will, he cast it open with a sudden push of hisfoot; the hulk of Hank Rainer turned at the opposite door, and the bigman staggered as though he had been struck. 

It might have been caused by his swift right-about face, throwing himoff his balance, but it was more probably the shock that came fromfacing a revolver in the hand of Andrew. The gun was at his hip. It hadcome into his hand with a nervous flip of the fingers as rapid as thegesture of the card expert. 

"Come back, " said Andrew. "Talk soft, step soft. Now, Hank, what madeyou do it?"

The red hair of the other was burning faintly in the moonlight, and itwent out as he stepped from the door into the middle of the room, hisfinger tips brushing the ceiling above him. And Andrew, peering throughthat shadow, saw two little, bright eyes, like the eyes of a beast, twinkling out at him from the mass of hair. 

"When you went after the shells for me, Hank, " he stated, "you gave theword that I was here. Then you told the gent that took the message tospread it around--to get it to Hal Dozier, if possible--to have the mencome back here. You'd go out, when I was sound asleep, and tell themwhen they could rush me. Is that straight?"

There was no answer. 

"Speak out! I feel like shovin' this gun down your throat, Hank, but Iwon't if you speak out and tell me the truth. "

Whatever other failings might be his, there was no great cowardice inHank Rainer. His arms remained above his head and his little eyesburned. That was all. 

"Well, " said Andrew, "I think you've got me, Hank. I suppose I ought tosend you to death before me, but, to tell you the straight of it, I'mnot going to, because I'm sort of sick. Sick, you understand? Tell meone thing--are the boys here yet? Are they scattered around the edge ofthe clearing, or are they on the way? Hank, was it worth five thousandto double-cross a gent that's your guest--a fellow that's busted breadwith you, bunked in the same room with you? And even when they'vedrilled me clean, and you've got the reward, don't you know that you'llbe a skunk among real men from this time on? Did you figure on that whenyou sold me?"

The hands of Hank Rainer fell suddenly, but now lower than his beard. The fingers thrust at his throat--he seemed to be tearing his own flesh. 

"Pull the trigger, Andy, " he said. "Go on. I ain't fit to live. "

"Why did you do it, Hank?"

"I wanted a new set of traps, Andy; that was what I wanted. I'd beenfigurin' and schemin' all autumn how to get my traps before the wintercomes on. My own wasn't any good. Then I seen that fur coat of yours. Itset me thinking about what I could do if I had some honest-to-goodnesstraps with springs in 'em that would hold--and--I stood it as long asI could. "

While he spoke, Andrew looked past him, through the door. All the worldwas silver beyond. The snow had been falling, and on the first greatpeak there was a glint of the white, very pure and chill against thesky. The very air was keen and sweet. Ah, it was a world to live in, andhe was not ready to die!

He looked back to Hank Rainer. "Hank, my time was sure to come sooner orlater, but I'm not ready to die. I'm--I'm too young, Hank. Well, good-by!"

He found gigantic arms spreading before him. 

"Andy, " insisted the big man, "it ain't too late for me to double-cross'em. Let me go out first and you come straight behind me. They won'tfire; they'll think I've got a new plan for givin' you up. When we getto the circle of 'em, because they're all round the cabin, we'll driveat 'em together. Come on!"

"Wait a minute. Is Hal Dozier out there?"

"Yes. Oh, go on and curse me, Andy. I'm cursin' myself!"

"If he's there, it's no use. But there's no use two dyin' when I try toget through. Only one thing, Hank; if you want to keep your self-respectdon't take the reward money. "

"I'll see it burn first, and I'm goin' with you, Andy!"

"You stay where you are; this is my party. Before the finish of thedance I'm going to see if some of those sneaks out yonder, lyin' sosnug, won't like to step right out and do a caper with me!"

And before the trapper could make a protest he had drawn back into thehorse shed. 

There he led the chestnut to the door, and, looking through the crack, he scanned the surface of the ground. It was sadly broken and choppedwith rocks, but the gelding might make headway fast enough. It was ashort distance to the trees--twenty-five to forty yards, perhaps. And ifhe burst out of that shed on the back of the horse, spurred to fullspeed, he might take the watchers, who perhaps expected a signal fromthe trapper before they acted, quite unawares, and he would be among thesheltering shadows of the forest while the posse was getting upits guns. 

There was an equally good chance that he would ride straight into a nestof the waiting men, and, even if he reached the forest, he would beriddled with bullets. 

Now, all these thoughts and all this weighing of the chances occupiedperhaps half a second, while Andrew stood looking through the crack. Then he swung into the saddle, leaning far over to the side so that hewould have clearance under the doorway, kicked open the swinging door, and sent the chestnut leaping into the night. 

CHAPTER 22

If only the night had been dark, if the gelding had had a fair start;but the moon was bright, and in the thin mountain air it made a radiancealmost as keen as day and just sufficiently treacherous to delude ahorse, which had been sent unexpectedly out among rocks by a cruel pairof spurs. At the end of the first leap the gelding stumbled to his kneeswith a crash and snort among the stones. The shock hurled Andrewforward, but he clung with spurs and hand, and as he twisted back intothe saddle the gelding rose valiantly and lurched ahead again. 

Yet that double sound might have roused an army, and for the keen-earedwatchers around the clearing it was more than an ample warning. Therewas a crash of musketry so instant and so close together that it waslike a volley delivered by a line of soldiers at command. Bullets sangshrill and small around Andrew, but that first discharge had been aburst of snap-shooting, and by moonlight it takes a rare man indeed tomake an accurate snapshot. The first discharge left both Andrew and thehorse untouched, and for the moment the wild hope of unexpected successwas raised in his heart. And he had noted one all-important fact--theflashes, widely scattered as they were, did not extend across the exactcourse of his flight toward the trees. Therefore, none of the possewould have a point-blank shot at him. For those in the rear and on thesides the weaving course of the gelding, running like a deer andswerving agilely among the rocks, as if to make up for his firstblunder, offered the most difficult of all targets. 

All this in only the space of a breath, yet the ground was alreadycrossed and the trees were before him when Andrew saw a ray ofmoonlight flash on the long barrel of rifle to his right, and he knewthat one man at least was taking a deliberate aim. He had his revolveron the fellow in the instant, and yet he held his fire. God willing, hewould come back to Anne Withero with no more stains on his hands!

And that noble, boyish impulse killed the chestnut, for a moment later astream of fire spouted out, long and thin, from the muzzle of the rifle, and the gelding struck at the end of a stride, like a ship going down inthe sea; his limbs seemed to turn to tallow under him, and he crumpledon the ground. 

The fall flung Andrew clean out of the saddle; he landed on his kneesand leaped for the woods, but now there was a steady roar of guns behindhim. He was struck heavily behind the left shoulder, staggered. Something gashed his neck like the edge of a red-hot knife, his wholeleft side was numb. 

And then the merciful dark of the trees closed around him. 

For fifty yards he raced through an opening in the trees, while ayelling like wild Indians rose behind him; then he leaped into cover andwaited. One thing favored him still. They had not brought horses, or atleast they had left their mounts at some distance, for fear of thechance noises they might make when the cabin was stalked. And now, looking down the lane among the trees, he saw men surge into it. 

All his left side was covered with a hot bath, but, balancing hisrevolver in his right hand, he felt a queer touch of joy and pride atfinding his nerve still unshaken. He raised the weapon, covered theirbodies, and then something like an invisible hand forced down the muzzleof his gun. He could not shoot to kill!

He did what was perhaps better; he fired at that mass of legs, and evena child could not have failed to strike the target. Once, twice, andagain; then the crowd melted to either side of the path, and there was ashrieking and forms twisting and writhing on the ground. 

Some one was shouting orders from the side; he was ordering them to theright and left to surround the fugitive; he was calling out that Lanningwas hit. At least, they would go with caution down his trail after thatfirst check. He left his sheltering tree and ran again down the ravine. 

By this time the first shock of the wounds and the numbness were leavinghim, but the pain was terrible. Yet he knew that he was not fatallyinjured if he could stop that mortal drain of his wounds. 

He heard the pursuit in the distance more and more. Every now and thenthere was a spasmodic outburst of shooting, and Andrew grinned in spiteof his pain. They were closing around the place where they thought hewas making his last stand, shooting at shadows which might be the manthey wanted. 

Then he stopped, tore off his shirt, and ripped it with his right handand his teeth into strips. He tied one around his neck, knotting ituntil he could only draw his breath with difficulty. Several more stripshe tied together, and then wound the long bandage around his shoulderand pulled. The pain brought him close to a swoon, but when his sensescleared he found that the flow from his wounds had eased. 

But not entirely. There was still some of that deadly trickling down hisside, and, with the chill of the night biting into him, he knew that itwas life or death to him if he could reach some friendly house withinthe next two miles. There was only one dwelling straight before him, andthat was the house of the owner of the bay mare. They would doubtlessturn him over to the posse instantly. But there was one chance in ahundred that they would not break the immemorial rule of mountainhospitality. For Andrew there was no hope except that tenuous one. 

The rest of that walk became a nightmare. He was not sure whether heheard the yell of rage and disappointment behind him as the possediscovered that the bird had flown or whether the sound existed only inhis own ringing head. But one thing was certain--they would not trailAndrew Lanning recklessly in the night, not even with the moon tohelp them. 

So he plodded steadily on. If it had not been for that ceaseless drip hewould have taken the long chance and broken for the mountains above him, trying through many a long day ahead to cure the wounds and in somemanner sustain his life. But the drain continued. It was hardly morethan drop by drop, but all the time a telltale weakness was growing inhis legs. In spite of the agony he was sleepy, and he would have likedto drop on the first mat of leaves that he found. 

That crazy temptation he brushed away, and went on until surely, like astar of hope, he saw the light winking feebly through the trees, andthen came out on the cabin. 

He remembered afterward that even in his dazed condition he wasdisappointed because of the neat, crisp, appearance of the house. Theremust be women there, and women meant screams, horror, betrayal. 

But there was no other hope for him now. Twice, as he crossed theclearing before he reached the door of the cabin, his foot struck a rockand he pitched weakly forward, with only the crumbling strength of hisright arm to keep him from striking on his face. Then there was afurious clamor and a huge dog rushed at him. 

He heeded it only with a glance from the corner of his eye. And then, his dull brain clearing, he realized that the dog no longer howled athim or showed his teeth, but was walking beside him, licking his handand whining with sympathy. He dropped again, and this time he couldnever have regained his feet had not his right arm flopped helplesslyacross the back of the big dog, and the beast cowered and growled, butit did not attempt to slide from under his weight. 

He managed to get erect again, but when he reached the low flight ofsteps to the front door he was reeling drunkenly from side to side. Hefumbled for the knob, and it turned with a grating sound. 

"Hold on! Keep out!" shrilled a voice inside. "We got guns here. Keepout, you dirty bum!"

The door fell open, and he found himself confronted by what seemed tohim a dazzling torrent of light and a host of human faces. He drewhimself up beside the doorway. 

"Gentlemen, " said Andrew, "I am not a bum. I am worth five thousanddollars to the man who turns me over, dead or alive, to the sheriff. Myname is Andrew Lanning. "

At that the faces became a terrible rushing and circling flare, and thelights went out with equal suddenness. He was left in total darkness, falling through space; but, at his last moment of consciousness, he feltarms going about him, arms through which his bulk kept slipping down, and below him was a black abyss. 

CHAPTER 23

It was a very old man who held, or tried to hold, Andrew from falling tothe floor. His shoulders shook under the burden of the outlaw, and theburden, indeed, would have slumped brutally to the floor, had not thesmall ten-year-old boy, whom Andrew had seen on the bay mare, comerunning in under the arms of the old man. With his meager strength heassisted, and the two managed to lower the body gently. 

The boy was frightened. He was white at the sight of the wounds, and thefreckles stood out in copper patches from his pallor. 

Now he clung to the old man. 

"Granddad, it's the gent that tried to buy Sally!"

The old man had produced a murderous jackknife with a blade that hadbeen ground away to the disappearing point by years of steady grinding. 

"Get some wood in the stove, " he commanded. "Fire her up, quick. Put onsome water. Easy, lad!"

The room became a place of turmoil with the clatter of the stove lidsbeing raised, the clangor of the kettle being filled and put in place. By the time the fire was roaring and the boy had turned, he found thebandages had been taken from the body of the stranger and hisgrandfather was studying the smeared naked torso with a sort ofdetached, philosophic interest. With the thumb and forefinger of hisleft hand he was pressing deeply into the left shoulder of Andrew. 

"Now, there's an arm for you, Jud, " said the old man. "See them long, stringy muscles in the forearm? If you grow up and have muscles likethem, you can call yourself a man. And you see the way his stomach cavesin? Aye, that's a sign! And the way his ribs sticks out--and just feelthem muscles on the point of his shoulder--Oh, Jud, he would of made aprime wrestler, this fine bird of ours!"

"It's like touchin' somethin' dead, granddad, " said the boy. "I don'tdast to do it!"

"Jud, they's some times when I just about want to give you up! Dead? Heain't nowheres near dead. Just bled a bit, that's all. Two as prettylittle wounds as was ever drilled clean by a powerful rifle at shortrange. Dead? Why, inside two weeks he'll be fit as a fiddle, and insidea month he'll be his own self! Dead! Jud, you make me tired! Gimmethat water. "

He went to work busily. Out of a sort of first-aid chest he tookhomemade bandages and, after cleansing the wounds, he began to dressthem carefully. 

He talked with every movement. 

"So this here is the lion, is it?" nodded granddad. "This here is theravenin', tearin', screechin' man-eater? Why, he looks mostly plainkid to me. "

"He--he's been shot, ain't he, granddad?" asked the child in a whisper. 

"Well, boy, I'd say that the lion had been chawed up considerable--bydogs. "

He pointed. "See them holes? The big one in front? That means theysneaked up behind him and shot him while his back was turned. "

"He's wakin' up, granddad, " said Jud, more frightened than before. 

The eyes of Andrew were indeed opening. 

He smiled up at them. "Uncle Jas, " he said, "I don't like to fight. Itmakes me sick inside, to fight. " He closed his eyes again. 

"Now, now, now!" murmured Pop. "This boy has a way with him. And hekilled Bill Dozier, did he? Son, gimme the whisky. "

He poured a little down the throat of the wounded man, and Andrewfrowned and opened his eyes again: He was conscious at last. 

"I think I've seen you before, " he said calmly. "Are you one of theposse?"

The old man stiffened a little. A spot of red glowed on his witheredcheek and went out like a snuffed light. 

"Young feller, " said the old man, "when I go huntin' I go alone. Youwrite that down in red, and don't forget it. I ain't ever been a memberof no posse. Look around and see yourself to home. "

Andrew raised his head a little and made out the neat room. It showed, as even his fading senses had perceived when he saw the house first, atouch of almost feminine care. The floor was scrubbed to whiteness, thevery stove was burnished. 

"I remember, " said Andrew faintly. 

"You did see me before, " said the other, "when you rode into Tomo. Iseen you and you seen me. We changed looks, so to speak. And now you'vedropped in to call on me. I'm goin' to put you up in the attic. Gimme ahand to straighten him up, Jud. "

With Jud's help and the last remnant of Andrew's strength they managedto get him to his feet, and then he partly climbed, partly was pushed byJud, and partly was dragged by the old man up a ladder to the loft. Itwas quite cool there, very dark, and the air came in throughtwo windows. 

"Ain't very sociable to put a guest in the attic, " said Pop, between hispanting breaths. "But a public character like you, Lanning, will have aconsid'able pile of callers askin' after you. Terrible jarrin' to thenerves when folks come in and call on a sick man. You lie here andrest easy. "

He went down the ladder and came back dragging a mattress. There, by thelight of a lantern, he and Jud made Andrew as comfortable as possible. 

"You mean to keep me here?" asked the outlaw. 

"Long as you feel like restin', " answered the old man. 

"You can make about--"

"Stop that fool talk about what I can make out of you. How come it youstayed so close to Tomo? Where was you lyin' low? In the hills?"

"Not far away. " "And they smelled you out?"

"A man I thought was my friend--" Andrew clicked his teeth shut. 

"You was sold, eh?"

"I made a mistake. "

"H'm, " was the other's comment. "Well, you forget about that and go tosleep. I got a few little attentions to pay to that posse. It'll be herer'arin' before tomorrer. Sleep tight, partner. "

He climbed down the ladder and looked around the room. Jud, his frecklesstill looking like spots of mud or rust, his eyes popping, stood silent. 

"I'm glad of that, " said the old man, with a sigh. 

"What, granddad?"

"You're like a girl, Jud. Takes a sight to make you reasonable quiet. But look yonder. Them spots look tolerable like red paint, don't they?Well, we got to get 'em off. "

"I'll heat some more water, " suggested Jud. 

"You do nothing of the kind. You get them two butcher knives out of thetable drawer and we'll scrape off the wood, because you can't wash thatstain out'n a floor. " He looked suddenly at Jud with a glint in hiseyes. "I know, because I've tried it. "

For several minutes they scraped hard at the floor until the lastvestige of the fresh stains was gone. Then the old man went outside and, coming back with a handful of sand, rubbed it in carefully over thescraped places. When this was swept away the floor presented nosuspicious traces. 

"But, " he exclaimed suddenly, "I forgot. I plumb forgot. He's beenleakin' all the way here, and when the sun comes up they'll foller himthat easy by the sign. Jud, we're beat!"

They dropped, as at a signal, into two opposite chairs, and sat staringgloomily at each other. The old man looked simply sad and weary, but thecolor came and went in the face of Jud. And then, like a light, an ideadawned in the face of the child. He got up from his chair, lighted alantern, and went outside. His grandfather observed this without commentor suggestion, but, when Jud was gone, he observed to himself: "Judtakes after me. He's got thoughts. And them was things his ma and pa wasnever bothered with. "

CHAPTER 24

The thought of Jud now took him up the back trail of Andrew Lanning. Heleaned far over with the lantern, studying with intense interest everyplace where the wounds of the injured man might have left telltalestains on the rocks or the grass. When he had apparently satisfiedhimself of this, he turned and ran at full speed back to the house andwent up the ladder to Andrew. There he took the boots--they wereterribly stained, he saw--and drew them on. 

The loose boots and the unaccustomed weights tangled his feet sadly, ashe went on down the ladder, but he said not a word to his grandfather, who was far too dignified to make a comment on the borrowed footgear. 

Again outside with his lantern, the boy took out his pocket-knife andfelt the small blade. It was of a razor keenness. Then he went throughthe yard behind the house to the big henhouse, where the chickens satperched in dense rows. He raised his lantern; at once scores of tiny, bright eyes flashed back at him. 

But Jud, with a twisted face of determination, kept on with his surveyuntil he saw the red comb and the arched tail plumes of a large PlymouthRock rooster. 

It was a familiar sight to Jud. Of all the chickens on the place thiswas his peculiar property. And now he had determined to sacrifice thisdearest of pets. 

The old rooster was so accustomed to his master, indeed, that he allowedhimself to be taken from the perch without a single squawk, and the boytook his captive beyond the pen. Once, when the big rooster canted hishead and looked into his face, the boy had to wink away the tears; buthe thought of the man so near death in the attic, he felt the clumsyboots on his feet, and his heart grew strong again. 

He went around to the front of the house and by the steps he fastened onthe long neck of his prisoner a grasp strong enough to keep him silentfor a moment. Then he cut the rooster's breast deeply, shuddering as hefelt the knife take hold. 

Something trickled warmly over his hands. Dropping his knife in hispocket, Jud started, walked with steps as long as he could make them. Hewent, with the spurs chinking to keep time for each stride, straighttoward a cliff some hundreds of yards from the house. The blood ranfreely. The old rooster, feeling himself sicken, sank weakly against thebreast of the boy, and Jud thought that his heart would break. Hereached the sharp edge of the cliff and heard the rush of the littleriver far below him. At the same time his captive gave one final flutterof the wings, one feeble crow, and was dead. 

Jud waited until the tears had cleared from his eyes. Then he took offthe boots, and, in bare feet that would leave no trace on the rocks, heskirted swiftly back to the house, put the dead body back in the chickenyard, and returned to his grandfather. 

There was one great satisfaction for him that evening, one reward forthe great sacrifice, and it came immediately. While the old man stoodtrembling before him, Jud told his story. 

It was a rich feast indeed to see the relief, the astonishment, thepride come in swift turns upon that grim old face. 

And yet in the end Pop was able to muster a fairly good imitation of afrown. 

"And here you come back with a shirt and a pair of trousers plumbspoiled by all your gallivantin', " he said, "not speakin' of a perfectlygood chicken killed. Ain't you never goin' to get grown up, Jud?"

"He was mine, the chicken I killed, " said Jud, choking. 

It brought a pause upon the talk. The other was forced to wink both eyesat once and sigh. 

"The big speckled feller?" he asked more gently. 

"The Plymouth Rock, " said Jud fiercely. "He wasn't no speckled feller!He was the finest rooster and the gamest--"

"Have it your own way, " said the old man. "You got your grandma's tonguewhen it comes to arguin' fine points. Now go and skin out of themclothes and come back and see that you've got all that--that stuff of'nyour face and hands. "

Jud obeyed, and presently reappeared in a ragged outfit, his face andhands red from scrubbing. 

"I guess maybe it's all right, " declared the old man. "Only, they'srisks in it. Know what's apt to happen if they was to find that you'dhelped to get a outlaw off free?"

"What would it be?" asked the boy. 

"Oh, nothin' much. Maybe they'd try you and maybe they wouldn't. Anyways, they'd sure wind up by hangin' you by the neck till you was asdead as the speckled rooster. "

"The Plymouth Rock, " insisted Jud hotly. 

"All right, I don't argue none. But you just done a dangerous thing, Jud. And there'll be a consid'able pile of men here in the mornin', mostlike, to ask you how and why. "

He was astonished to hear Jud break into laughter. 

"Hush up, " said Pop. "You'll be wakin' him up with all that noise. Besides, what d'you mean by laughin' at the law?" "Why, granddad, " saidJud, "don't I know you wouldn't never let no posse take me from you?Don't I know maybe you'd clean 'em all up?"

"Pshaw!" said Pop, and flushed with delight. "You was always a fool kid, Jud. Now you run along to bed. "

CHAPTER 25

In Hal Dozier there was a belief that the end justified the means. WhenHank Rainer sent word to Tomo that the outlaw was in his cabin, and, ifthe posse would gather, he, Hank, would come out of his cabin that nightand let the posse rush the sleeping man who remained, Hal Dozier waswilling and eager to take advantage of the opportunity. A man of actionby nature and inclination, Dozier had built a great repute as a hunterof criminals, and he had been known to take single-handed chancesagainst the most desperate; but when it was possible Hal Dozier played asafe game. Though the people of the mountain desert considered himinvincible, because he had run down some dozen notorious fighters, Halhimself felt that this simply increased the chances that the thirteenthman, by luck or by cunning, would strike him down. 

Therefore he played safe always. On this occasion he made surety doublysure. He could have taken two or three known men, and they would havebeen ample to do the work. Instead, he picked out half a dozen. For justas Henry Allister had recognized that indescribable element of danger inthe new outlaw, so the manhunter himself had felt it. Hal Dozierdetermined that he would not tempt Providence. He had his commission asa deputy marshal, and as such he swore in his men and started for thecabin of Hank Rainer. 

When the news had spread, others came to join him, and he could notrefuse. Before the cavalcade entered the mouth of the canyon he had somethirty men about him. They were all good men, but in a fight, particularly a fight at night, Hal Dozier knew that numbers to excessare apt to simply clog the working parts of the machine. All that hefeared came to pass. There was one breathless moment of joy when thehorse of Andrew was shot down and the fugitive himself staggered underthe fire of the posse. At that moment Hal had poised his rifle for ashot that would end this long trail, but at that moment a yelling memberof his own group had come between him and his target, and the chance wasgone. When he leaped to one side to make the shot, Andrew was alreadyamong the trees. 

Afterward he had sent his men in a circle to close in on the spot fromwhich the outlaw made his stand, but they had closed on emptyshadows--the fugitive had escaped, leaving a trail of blood. However, itwas hardly safe to take that trail in the night, and practicallyimpossible until the sunlight came to follow the sign. So Hal Dozier hadthe three wounded men taken back to the cabin of Hank Rainer. 

The stove was piled with wood until the top was white hot, and then theposse sat about on the floor, crowding the room and waiting for thedawn. The three wounded men were made as comfortable as possible. Onehad been shot through the hip, a terrible wound that would probablystiffen his leg for life; another had gone down with a wound along theshin bone which kept him in a constant torture. The third man was hitcleanly through the thigh, and, though he had bled profusely for sometime, he was now only weak, and in a few weeks he would be perfectlysound again. The hard breathing of the three was the only sound in thatdim room during the rest of the night. The story of Hank Rainer had beentold in half a dozen words. Lanning had suspected him, stuck him up atthe point of a gun, and then-refused to kill him, in spite of the factthat he knew he was betrayed. After his explanation Hank withdrew to thedarkest corner of the room and was silent. From time to time looks wenttoward that corner, and one thought was in every mind. This fellow, whohad offered to take money for a guest, was damned for life and branded. Thereafter no one would trust him, no one would change words with him;he was an outcast, a social leper. And Hank Rainer knew it as wellas any man. 

A cloud of tobacco smoke became dense in the room, and a halo surroundedthe lantern on the wall. Then one by one men got up and mutteredsomething about being done with the party, or having to be at work inthe morning, and stamped out of the room and went down the ravine to theplace where the horses had been tethered. The first thrill of excitementwas gone. Moreover, it was no particular pleasure to close in on awounded man who lay somewhere among the rocks, without a horse to carryhim far, and too badly wounded to shift his position. Yet he could liein his shelter, whatever clump of boulders he chose, and would make ithot for the men who tried to rout him out. The heavy breathing of thethree wounded men gave point to these thoughts, and the men of familyand the men of little heart got up and left the posse. 

The sheriff made no attempt to keep them. He retained his firsthand-picked group. In the gray of the morning he rallied these menagain. They went first to the dead, stiff body of the chestnut geldingand stripped it of the saddle and the pack of Lanning. This, by silentconsent, was to be the reward of the trapper. This was his in lieu ofthe money which he would have earned if they had killed Lanning on thespot. Hal Dozier stiffly invited Hank to join them in the manhunt; hewas met by a solemn silence, and the request was not repeated. Dozierhad done a disagreeable duty, and the whole posse was glad to be free ofthe traitor. In the meantime the morning was brightening rapidly, andDozier led out his men. 

They went to their horses, and, coming back to the place where Andrewhad made his halt and fired his three shots, they took up the trail. 

It was as easy to read as a book. The sign was never wanting for morethan three steps at a time, and Hal Dozier, reading skillfully, watchedthe decreasing distance between heel indentations, a sure sign that thefugitive was growing weak from the loss of the blood that spotted thetrail. Straight on to the doorstep of Pop's cabin went the trail. Dozierrapped at the door, and the old man himself appeared. The bony fingersof one hand were wrapped around the corncob, which was his inseparablecompanion, and in the other he held the cloth with which he had beendrying dishes. Jud turned from his pan of dishwater to cast a frightenedglance over his shoulder. Pop did not wait for explanations. 

"Come in, Dozier, " he invited. "Come in, boys. Glad to see you. Ain'tparticular comfortable for an oldster like me when they's a full-grown, man-eatin' outlaw layin' about the grounds. This Lanning come to my doorlast night. Me and Jud was sittin' by the stove. He wanted to get us tobandage him up, but I yanked my gun off'n the wall and orderedhim away. "

"You got your gun on Lanning--off the wall--before he had you covered?"asked Hal Dozier with a singular smile. 

"Oh, I ain't so slow with my hands, " declared Pop. "I ain't half so oldas I look, son! Besides, he was bleedin' to death and crazy in the head. I don't figure he even thought about his gun just then. " "Why didn'tyou shoot him down, Pop? Or take him? There's money in him. "

"Don't I know it? Ain't I seen the posters? But I wasn't for pressin'things too hard. Not me at my age, with Jud along. I ordered him awayand let him go. He went down yonder. Oh, you won't have far to go. Hewas about all in when he left. But I ain't been out lookin' around yetthis morning. I know the feel of a forty-five slug in your inwards. "

He placed a hand upon his stomach, and a growl of amusement went throughthe posse. After all, Pop was a known man. In the meantime someone hadpicked up the trail to the cliff, and Dozier followed it. They wentalong the heel marks to a place where blood had spurted liberally overthe ground. "Must have had a hemorrhage here, " said Dozier. "No, wewon't have far to go. Poor devil!"

And then they came to the edge of the cliff, where the heel marks ended. "He walked straight over, " said one of the men. "Think o' that!"

"No, " exclaimed Dozier, who was on his knees examining the marks, "hestood here a minute or so. First he shifted to one foot, and then heshifted his weight to the other. And his boots were turning in. Queer. Isuppose his knees were buckling. He saw he was due to bleed to death andhe took a shorter way! Plain suicide. Look down, boys! See anything?"

There was a jumble of sharp rocks at the base of the cliff, and thewater of the stream very close. Nothing showed on the rocks, nothingshowed on the face of the cliff. They found a place a short distance tothe right and lowered a man down with the aid of a rope. He looked aboutamong the rocks. Then he ran down the stream for some distance. He cameback with a glum face. 

There was no sign of the body of Andrew Lanning among the rocks. Lookingup to the top of the cliff, from the place where he stood, he figuredthat a man could have jumped clear of the rocks by a powerful leap andmight have struck in the swift current of the stream. There was no traceof the body in the waters, no drop of blood on the rocks. But then thewater ran here at a terrific rate; the scout had watched a heavy bouldermoved while he stood there. He went down the bank and came at once to adeep pool, over which the water was swirling. He sounded that pool witha long branch and found no bottom. 

"And that makes it clear, " he said, "that the body went down the water, came to that pool, was sucked down, and got lodged in the rocks. Anybodydiffer? No, gents, Andrew Lanning is food for the trout. And I say it'sthe best way out of the job for all of us. "

But Hal Dozier was a man full of doubts. "There's only one other thingpossible, " he said. "He might have turned aside at the house of Pop. Hemay be there now. "

"But don't the trail come here? And is there any back trail to thehouse?" one of the men protested. 

"It doesn't look possible, " nodded Hal Dozier, "but queer things are aptto happen. Let's go back and have a look. "

CHAPTER 26

He dismounted and gave his horse to one of the others, telling them thathe would do the scouting himself this time, and he went back on foot tothe house of Pop. He made his steps noiseless as he came closer, notthat he expected to surprise Pop to any purpose, but the naturalinstinct of the trailer made him advance with caution, and, when he wasclose enough to the door he heard: "Oh, he's a clever gent, wellenough, but they ain't any of 'em so clever that they can't learnsomethin' new. " Hal Dozier paused with his hand raised to rap at thedoor and he heard Pop say in continuation: "You write this down in red, sonny, and don't you never forget it: The wisest gent is the gent thatdon't take nothin' for granted. "

It came to Hal Dozier that, if he delayed his entrance for anothermoment, he might hear something distinctly to his advantage; but hisrole of eavesdropper did not fit with his broad shoulders, and, afterknocking on the door, he stepped in. Pop was putting away the dishes, and Jud was scrubbing out the sink. 

"The boys are working up the trail, " said Hal Dozier, "but they can doit by themselves. I know that the trail ends at the cliff. I'll tell youthat poor kid walked to the edge of the cliff, stopped there a minute;made up his mind that he was bleeding to death, and then cut it short. He jumped, missed the rocks underneath, and was carried off by theriver. " Dozier followed up his statement with some curse words. 

He watched the face of the other keenly, but the old man was busyfilling his pipe. His eyebrows, to be sure, flicked up as he heard thistragedy announced, and there was a breath from Jud. "I'll tell you, Dozier, " said the other, lighting his pipe and then tamping the red-hotcoals with his calloused forefinger, "I'm kind of particular about theway people cusses around Jud. He's kind of young, and they ain't anykind of use of him litterin' up his mind with useless words. Don't meanno offense to you, Dozier. "

The deputy officer took a chair and tipped it back against the wall. Hefelt that he had been thoroughly checkmated in his first move; and yethe sensed an atmosphere of suspicion in this little house. It lingeredin the air. Also, he noted that Jud was watching him with rather wideeyes and a face of unhealthy pallor; but that might very well be becauseof the awe which the youngster felt in beholding Hal Dozier, themanhunter, at close range. All these things were decidedly small clews, but the marshal was accustomed to acting on hints. 

In the meantime, Pop, having put away the last of the dishes in acupboard, whose shelves were lined with fresh white paper, offeredDozier a cup of coffee. While he sipped it, the marshal complimented hishost on the precision with which he maintained his house. 

"It looks like a woman's hand had been at work, " concluded the marshal. 

"Something better'n that, " declared the other. "A man's hand, Dozier. People has an idea that because women mostly do housework men are out ofplace in a kitchen. It ain't so. Men just got somethin' more importanton their hands most of the time. " His eyes glanced sadly toward his gunrack. "Women is a pile overpraised, Dozier. I ask you, man to man, didyou ever see a cleaner floor than that in a woman's kitchen?"

The marshal admitted that he never had. "But you're a rare man, " hesaid. 

Pop shook his head. "When I was a boy like you, " he said, "I wasn'tnothin' to be passed up too quick. But a man's young only once, andthat's a short time--and he's old for years and years and years, Dozier. " He added, for fear that he might have depressed his guest, "Butme and Jud team it, you see. I'm extra old and Jud's extra young--so wekind of hit an average. "

He touched the shoulder of the boy and there was a flash of eyes betweenthem, the flicker of a smile. Hal Dozier drew a breath. "I got no kidsof my own, " he declared. "You're lucky, friend. And you're lucky to havethis neat little house. "

"No, I ain't. They's no luck to it, because I made every sliver of itwith my own hands. " An idea came to the deputy marshal. 

"There's a place up in the hills behind my house, a day's ride, " hesaid, "where I go hunting now and then, and I've an idea a little houselike this would be just the thing for me. Mind if I look it over?"

Pop tamped his pipe. 

"Sure thing, " he said. "Look as much as you like. "

He stepped to a corner of the room and by a ring he raised a trapdoor. "I got a cellar 'n' everything. Take a look at it below. "

He lighted the lantern, and Hal Dozier went down the steep steps, humming. "Look at the way that foundation's put in, " said the old man ina loud voice. "I done all that, too, with my own hands. "

His voice was so unnecessarily loud, indeed, just as if the deputy werealready under ground, that it occurred to Dozier that if a man werelying in that cellar he would be amply warned. And going down he walkedwith the lantern held to one side, to keep the light off his own body asmuch as possible; his hand kept at his hip. 

But, when he reached the cellar, he found only some boxes and cannedprovisions in a rack at one side, and a various litter all kept in closeorder. Big stones had been chiseled roughly into shape to build thewalls, and the flooring was as dry as the floor of the house. It was, onthe whole, a very solid bit of work. A good place to imprison a man, forinstance. At this thought Dozier glanced up sharply and saw the otherholding the trapdoor ajar. Something about that implacable, bony facemade Dozier turn and hurry back up the stairs to the main floor ofthe house. 

"Nice bit of work down there, " he said. "I can use that idea very well. Well, " he added carelessly, "I wonder when my fool posse will getthrough hunting for the remains of poor Lanning? Come to think ofit"--for it occurred to him that if the old man were indeed concealingthe outlaw he might not know the price which was on his head--"there'sa pretty little bit of coin connected with Lanning. Too bad you didn'tdrop him when he came to your door. "

"Drop a helpless man--for money?" asked the old man. "Never, Dozier!"

"He hadn't long to live, anyway, " answered the marshal in someconfusion. Those old, straight eyes of Pop troubled him. 

He fenced with a new stroke for a confession. 

"For my part, I've never had much heart in this work of mine. "

"He killed your brother, didn't he?" asked Pop with considerabledryness. 

"Bill made the wrong move, " replied Hal instantly. "He never should haveridden Lanning down in the first place. Should have let the fool kid gountil he found out that Buck Heath wasn't killed. Then he would havecome back of his own accord. "

"That's a good idea, " remarked the other, "but sort of late, it strikesme. Did you tell that to the sheriff?"

"Late it is, " remarked Dozier, not following the question. "Now the poorkid is outlawed. Well, between you and me, I wish he'd gotten awayclean-handed. But too late now. 

"By the way, " he went on, "I'd like to take a squint at your attic, too. That ladder goes up to it, I guess. "

"Go ahead, " said Pop. And once more he tamped his pipe. 

There was a sharp, shrill cry from the boy, and Dozier whirled on him. He saw a pale, scared face. 

"What's the matter?" he asked sharply. "What's the matter with you, Jud?" And he fastened his keen glance on the boy. 

Vaguely, from the corner of his eye, he felt that Pop had taken the pipefrom his mouth. There was a sort of breathless touch in the air of theroom. "Nothin', " said Jud. "Only--you know the rungs of that ladderain't fit to be walked on, grandad!"

"Jud, " said the old man with a strained tone, "It ain't my business togive warnin's to an officer of the law--not mine. He'll find out littlethings like that for himself. "

For one moment Dozier remained looking from one face to the other. Thenhe shrugged his shoulders and went slowly up the ladder. It squeakedunder his weight, he felt the rungs bow and tremble. Halfway up heturned suddenly, but Pop was sitting as old men will, humming a tune andkeeping time to it by patting the bowl of his pipe with a forefinger. 

And Dozier made up his mind. 

He turned and came down the ladder. "I guess there's no use looking inthe attic, " he said. "Same as any other attic, I suppose, Pop?"

"The same?" asked Pop, taking the pipe from his mouth. "I should tell aman it ain't. It's my work, that attic is, and it's different. I handledthe joinin' of them joists pretty slick, but you better go and see foryourself. "

And he smiled at the deputy from under his bushy brows. Hal Doziergrinned broadly back at him. 

"I've seen your work in the cellar, Pop, " he said. "I don't want to riskmy neck on that ladder. No, I'll have to let it go. Besides, I'll haveto round up the boys. "

He waved farewell, stepped through the door, and closed it behind him. 

"Grandad, " exclaimed Jud in a gasp. 

The old man silenced him with a raised finger and a sudden frown. Heslipped to the door in turn with a step so noiseless that even Judwondered. Years seemed to have fallen from the shoulders of hisgrandfather. He opened the door quickly, and there stood the deputy. Hisback, to be sure, was turned to the door, but he hadn't moved. 

"Think I see your gang over yonder, " said Pop. "They seem to be sort ofwaitin' for you, Dozier. "

The other turned and twisted one glance up at the old man. 

"Thanks, " he said shortly and strode away. 

Pop closed the door and sank into a chair. He seemed suddenly to haveaged again. 

"Oh, grandad, " said Jud, "how'd you guess he was there all the time?"

"I dunno, " said Pop. "Don't bother me. "

"But why'd you beg him to look into the attic? Didn't you know he'd seehim right off?"

"Because he goes by contraries, Jud. He wouldn't of started for theladder at all, if you hadn't told him he'd probably break his neck onit. Only when he seen I didn't care, he made up his mind he didn't wantto see that attic. "

"And if he'd gone up?" whispered Jud. 

"Don't ask me what would of happened, " said Pop. 

All his bony frame was shaken by a shiver. 

"Is he such a fine fighter?" asked Jud. 

"Fighter?" echoed Pop. "Oh, lad, he's the greatest hand with a gun thatever shoved foot into stirrup. He--he was like a bulldog on a trail--andall I had for a rope to hold him was just a little spider thread ofthinking. Gimme some coffee, Jud. I've done a day's work. "

CHAPTER 27

The bullets of the posse had neither torn a tendon nor broken a bone. Striking at close range and driven by highpower rifles, the slugs hadwhipped cleanly through the flesh of Andrew Lanning, and the fleshclosed again, almost as swiftly as ice freezes firm behind the wire thatcuts it. In a very few days he could sit up, and finally came down theladder with Pop beneath him and Jud steadying his shoulders from above. That was a gala day in the house. Indeed, they had lived well ever sincethe coming of Andrew, for he had insisted that he bear the householdexpense while he remained there, since they would not allow himto depart. 

"And I'll let you pay for things, Andrew, " Pop had said, "if you won'tsay nothing about it, ever, to Jud. He's a proud kid, is Jud, and he'dbust his heart if he thought I was lettin' you spend a cent here. "

But this day they had a fine steak, brought out from Tomo by Pop theevening before, and they had beans with plenty of pork and molasses inthem, cream biscuits, which Pop could make delicious beyond belief, tosay nothing of canned tomatoes with bits of dried bread in them, andcoffee as black as night. Such was the celebration when Andrew came downto join his hosts, and so high did all spirits rise that even Jud, theresolute and the alert, forgot his watch. Every day from dawn to dark hewas up to the door or to the rear window, keeping the landscape under asweeping observance every few moments, lest some chance traveler--allsearch for Andrew Lanning had, of course, ceased with the moment of hisdisappearance--should happen by and see the stranger in the householdof Pop. But during these festivities all else was forgotten, and in themidst of things a decided, rapid knock was heard at the door. 

Speech was cut off at the root by that sound. For whoever the strangermight be, he must certainly have heard three voices raised in that room. It was Andrew who spoke. And he spoke in only a whisper. "Whoever it maybe, let him in, " said Andrew, "and, if there's any danger about him, hewon't leave till I'm able to leave. Open the door, Jud. "

And Jud, with a stricken look, crossed the floor with trailing feet. Theknock was repeated; it had a metallic clang, as though the man outsidewere rapping with the butt of a gun in his impatience, and Andrew, setting his teeth, laid his hand on the handle of his revolver. Here Judcast open the door, and, standing close to it with her forefeet on thetop step, was the bay mare. She instantly thrust in her head and snortedin the direction of the stranger. 

"Thank heaven!" said Andrew. "I thought it was the guns again!" And Jud, shouting with delight and relief, threw his arms around the neck of thehorse. "It's Sally!" he said. "Sally, you rascal!"

"That good-for-nothing hoss Sally, " complained the old man. "Shoo heraway, Jud. "

But Andrew protested at that, and Jud cast him a glance of gratitude. Andrew himself got up from the table and went across the room with halfof an apple in his hand. He sliced it into bits, and she took themdaintily from between his fingers. And when Jud reluctantly ordered heraway she did not blunder down the steps, but threw her weight back onher haunches and swerved lightly away. It fascinated Andrew; he hadnever seen so much of feline control in the muscles of a horse. When heturned back to the table he announced: "Pop, I've got to ride thathorse. I've got to have her. How does she sell?"

"She ain't mine, " said Pop. "You better ask Jud. "

Jud was at once white and red. He looked at his hero, and then he lookedinto his mind and saw the picture of Sally. A way out occurred to him. "You can have her when you can ride her, " he said. "She ain't much useexcept to look at. But if you can saddle her and ride her before youleave--well, you can leave on her, Andy. "

It was the beginning of busy days for Andrew. The cold weather wascoming on rapidly. Now the higher mountains above them were swiftlywhitening, while the line of the snow was creeping nearer and nearer. The sight of it alarmed Andrew, and, with the thought of beingsnow-bound in these hills, his blood turned cold. What he yearned forwere the open spaces of the mountain desert, where he could see theenemy approach. But every day in the cabin the terror grew that someonewould pass, some one, unnoticed, would observe the stranger. The whisperwould reach Tomo--the posse would come again, and the second time thetrap was sure to work. He must get away, but no ordinary horse would dofor him. If he had had a fine animal under him Bill Dozier would neverhave run him down, and he would still be within the border of the law. Afine horse--such a horse as Sally, say!

If he had been strong he would have attempted to break her at once, buthe was not strong. He could barely support his own weight during thefirst couple of days after he left the bunk, and he had to use his mind. He began, then, at the point where Jud had left off. 

Jud could ride Sally with a scrap of cloth beneath him; Andrew startedto increase the size of that cloth. To keep it in place he made a longstrip of sacking to serve as a cinch, and before the first day was goneshe was thoroughly used to it. With this great step accomplished, Andrewincreased the burden each time he changed the pad. He got a bigtarpaulin and folded it many times; the third day she was accepting itcalmly and had ceased to turn her head and nose it. Then he carried up asmall sack of flour and put that in place upon the tarpaulin. She wincedunder the dead-weight burden; there followed a full half hour of franticbucking which would have pitched the best rider in the world out of asaddle, but the sack of flour was tied on, and Sally could not dislodgeit. When she was tired of bucking she stood still, and then discoveredthat the sack of flour was not only harmless but that it was good toeat. Andrew was barely in time to save the contents of the sack fromher teeth. 

It was another long step forward in the education of Sally. Next hefashioned clumsy imitations of stirrups, and there was a long fightbetween Sally and stirrups, but the stirrups, being inanimate, won, andSally submitted to the bouncing wooden things at her sides. And still, day after day, Andrew built his imitation saddle closer and closer tothe real thing, until he had taken a real pair of cinches off one ofPop's saddles and had taught her to stand the pressure withoutflinching. 

There was another great return from Andrew's long and steady intimacywith the mare. She came to accept him absolutely. She knew his voice;she would come to his whistle; and finally, when every vestige ofunsoundness had left his wounds, he climbed into that improvised saddleand put his feet in the stirrups. Sally winced down in her catlike wayand shuddered, but he began to talk to her, and the familiar voicedecided Sally. She merely turned her head and rubbed his knee with hernose. The battle was over and won. Ten minutes later Andrew had cincheda real saddle in place, and she bore the weight of the leather without astir. The memory of that first saddle and the biting of the bur beneathit had been gradually wiped from her mind, and the new saddle wasconnected indisolubly with the voice and the hand of the man. At the endof that day's work Andrew carried the saddle back into the house with ahappy heart. 

And the next day he took his first real ride on the back of the mare. Henoted how easily she answered the play of his wrist, how little her headmoved in and out, so that he seldom had to sift the reins through hisfingers to keep in touch with the bit. He could start her from a standinto a full gallop with a touch of his knees, and he could bring her toa sliding halt with the least pressure on the reins. He could tell, indeed, that she was one of those rare possessions, a horse with awise mouth. 

And yet he had small occasion to keep up on the bit as he rode her. Shewas no colt which hardly knew its own paces. She was a stanchfive-year-old, and she had roamed the mountains about Pop's place atwill. She went like a wild thing over the broken going. That catlikeagility with which she wound among the rocks, hardly impaired her speedas she swerved. Andrew found her a book whose pages he could turnforever and always find something new. 

He forgot where he was going. He only knew that the wind was clippinghis face and that Sally was eating up the ground, and he came to himselfwith a start, after a moment, realizing that his dream had carried himperilously out of the mouth of the ravine. He had even allowed the mareto reach a bit of winding road, rough indeed, but cut by many wheels andmaking a white streak across the country. Andrew drew in his breathanxiously and turned her back for the canyon. 

CHAPTER 28

It was, indeed, a grave moment, yet the chances were large that even ifhe met someone on the road he would not be recognized, for it had beenmany days since the death of Andrew Lanning was announced through thecountryside. He gritted his teeth when he thought that this single burstof childish carelessness might have imperiled all that he and Jud andPop had worked for so long and so earnestly--the time when he could takethe bay mare and start the ride across the mountains to the comparativesafety on the other side. 

That time, he made up his mind, would be the next evening. He was well;Sally was thoroughly mastered; and, with a horse beneath him which, hefelt, could give even the gray stallion of Hal Dozier hard work, andtherefore show her heels to any other animal on the mountain desert, helooked forward to the crossing of the mountains as an accomplished fact. Always supposing that he could pass Twin Falls and the fringe of townsin the hills, without being recognized and the alarm sent out. 

Going back up the road toward the ravine at a brisk canter, he pursuedthe illuminating comparison between Sally and Dozier's famous GrayPeter. Of course, nothing but a downright test of speed andweight-carrying power, horse to horse, could decide which was thesuperior, but Andrew had ridden Gray Peter many times when he and UncleJasper went out to the Dozier place, and he felt that he could sum upthe differences between the two beautiful animals. Sally was the smallerof the two, for instance. She could not stand more than fifteen hands, or fifteen-one at the most. Gray Peter was a full sixteen hands ofstrong bone and fine muscle, a big animal--almost too big for somepurposes. Among these rocks, now, he would stand no chance with Sally. Gray Peter was a picture horse. When one looked at him one felt that hewas a standard by which other animals should be measured. He carried hishead loftily, and there was a lordly flaunt to his tail. On the otherhand, Sally was rather long and low. Furthermore, her neck, which was byno means the heavy neck of the gray stallion, she was apt to carrystretched rather straight out and not curled proudly up as Gray Petercarried his. Neither did she bear her tail so proudly. Some of this, ofcourse, was due to the difference between a mare and a stallion, butstill more came from the differing natures of the two animals. In thehead lay the greatest variation. The head of Gray Peter was close toperfection, light, compact, heavy of jowl; his eye at all times wasfilled with an intolerable brightness, a keen flame of courage andeagerness. But one could find a fault with Sally's head. In general, itwas very well shaped, with the wide forehead and all the other goodpoints which invariably go with that feature; but her face was just atrifle dished. Moreover, her eye was apt to be a bit dull. She had beena pet all her life, and, like most pets, her eye partook of the humanquality. It had a conversational way of brightening and growing dull. Onthe whole, the head of Sally had a whimsical, inquisitive expression, and by her whole carriage she seemed to be perpetually putting her noseinto other business than her own. 

But the gait was the main difference. Riding Gray Peter, one felt anenormous force urging at the bit and ready and willing to expend itselfto the very last ounce, with tremendous courage and good heart; therewas always a touch of fear that Gray Peter, plunging unabated over roughand smooth, might be running himself out. But Sally would not maintainone pace. She was apt to shorten her stride for choppy going, and shewould lengthen it like a witch on the level. She kept changing theelevation of her head. She ran freely, looking about her and taking noteof what she saw, so that she gave an indescribable effect of enjoyingthe gallop just as much as her rider, but in a different way. All inall, Gray Peter was a glorious machine; Sally was a tricky intelligence. Gray Peter's heart was never in doubt, but what would Sally's courage bein a pinch?

Full of these comparisons, studying Sally as one would study a friend, Andrew forgot again all around him, and so he came suddenly, around abend in the road, upon a buckboard with two men in it. He went by thebuckboard with a wave of greeting and a side glance, and it was notuntil he was quite around the elbow turn that he remembered that one ofthe men in the wagon had looked at him with a strange intentness. It wasa big man with a great blond beard, parted as though with a comb bythe wind. 

He rode back around the bend, and there, down the road, he saw thebuckboard bouncing, with the two horses pulling it at a dead gallop andthe driver leaning back in the seat. 

But the other man, the big man with the beard, had picked a rifle out ofthe bed of the wagon, and now he sat turned in the seat, with his blondbeard blown sidewise as he looked back. Beyond a doubt Andrew had beenrecognized, and now the two were speeding to Tomo to give their reportand raise the alarm a second time. Andrew, with a groan, shot his handto the long holster of the rifle which Pop had insisted that he takewith him if he rode out. There was still plenty of time for a long shot. He saw the rifle jerk up to the shoulder of the big man; somethinghummed by him, and then the report came barking up the ravine. 

But Andrew turned Sally and went around the bend; that old desire torush on the men and shoot them down, that same cold tingling of thenerves, which he had felt when he faced the posse after the fall of BillDozier, was on him again, and he had to fight it down. He mastered it, and galloped with a heavy heart up the ravine and to the house of Pop. The old man saw him; he called to Jud, and the two stood in front of thedoor to admire the horseman and his horse. But Andrew flung himself outof the saddle and came to them sadly. He told them what had happened, the meeting, the recognition. There was only one thing to do--make upthe pack as soon as possible and leave the place. For they would knowwhere he had been hiding. Sally was famous all through the mountains;she was known as Pop's outlaw horse, and the searchers would comestraight to his house. 

Pop took the news philosophically, but Jud became a pitiful figure ofstone in his grief. He came to life again to help in the packing. Theyworked swiftly, and Andrew began to ask the final questions about thebest and least-known trails over the mountains. Pop discouragedthe attempt. 

"You seen what happened before, " he said. "They'll have learned theirlesson from Hal Dozier. They'll take the telephone and rouse the townsall along the mountains. In two hours, Andy, two hundred men will beblocking every trail and closin' in on you. "

And Andrew reluctantly admitted the truth of what he said. He resignedhimself gloomily to turning back onto the mountain desert, and now heremembered the warning of failure which Henry Allister had given him. Hefelt, indeed, that the great outlaw had simply allowed him to run on along rope, knowing that he must travel in a circle and eventually comeback to the band. 

Now the pack was made--he saw Jud covertly tuck some little mementoesinto it--and he drew Pop aside and dropped a weight of gold coins intohis pocket. 

"You tarnation scoundrel!" began Pop huskily. 

"Hush, " said Andrew, "or Jud will hear you and know that I've tried toleave some money. You don't want to ruin me with Jud, do you?"

Pop was uneasy and uncertain. 

"I've had your food these weeks and your care, Pop, " said Andrew, "andnow I walk off with a saddle and a horse and an outfit all yours. It'stoo much. I can't take charity. But suppose I accept it as a gift; Ileave you an exchange--a present for Jud that you can give him later on. Is that fair?"

"Andy, " said the old man, "you've double-crossed me, and you've got mewhere I can't talk out before Jud. But I'll get even yet. Good-by, lad, and put this one thing under your hat: It's the loneliness that's goin'to be the hardest thing to fight, Andy. You'll get so tired of bein' byyourself that you'll risk murder for the sake of a talk. But then holdhard. Stay by yourself. Don't trust to nobody. And keep clear of towns. Will you do that?"

"That's plain common sense, Pop. "

"Aye, lad, and the plain things are always the hardest things to do. "

Next came Jud. He was very white, but he approached Andrew with acareless swagger and shook hands firmly. 

"When you bump into that Dozier, Andy, " he said, "get him, will you?S'long!"

He turned sharply and sauntered toward the open door of the house. Butbefore he was halfway to it they heard a choking sound; Jud broke into arun, and, once past the door, slammed it behind him. 

"Don't mind him, " said Pop, clearing his throat violently. "He'll crythe sick feelin' out of his insides. God bless you, Andy! And rememberwhat I say: The loneliness is the hard thing to fight, but keep clear ofmen, and after a time they'll forget about you. You can settle down andnobody'll rake up old scores. I know. "

"D'you think it can be done?"

There was a faint, cold twinkle in the eyes of Pop. "I'll tell a man itcan be done, " he said slowly. "When you come back here I may be able totell you a little story, Andy. Now climb on Sally and don't hit nothin'but the high spots. "

CHAPTER 29

Even in his own lifetime a man in the mountain desert passes swiftlyfrom the fact of history into the dream of legend. The telephone and thenewspaper cannot bring that lonely region into the domain of cold truth. In the time that followed people seized on the story of Andrew Lanningand embroidered it with rare trimmings. It was told over and over againin saloons and around family firesides and in the bunk houses of manyranches. For Andrew had done what many men failed to do in spite of ascore of killings--he struck the public fancy. People realized, howevervaguely, that here was a unique story of the making of a desperado, andthey gathered the story of Andrew Lanning to their hearts. 

On the whole, it was not an unkindly interest. In reality the sympathywas with the outlaw. For everyone knew that Hal Dozier was on the trailagain, and everyone felt that in the end he would run down his man, andthere was a general hope that the chase might be a long one. For onething, the end of that chase would have removed one of the few vitalcurrent bits of news. Men could no longer open conversations by askingthe last tidings of Andrew. Such questions were always a signal for anunlocking of tongues around the circle. 

Many untruths were told. For instance, the blowing of the safe inAllertown was falsely attributed to Andrew, while in reality he knewnothing about "soup" and its uses. And the running of the cows off theCircle O Bar range toward the border was another exploit which waswrongly checked to his credit or discredit. Also the brutal butchery inthe night at Buffalo Head was sometimes said to be Andrew's work, but ingeneral the men of the mountain desert came to know that the outlaw wasnot a red-handed murderer, but simply a man who fought for his own life. 

The truths in themselves were enough to bear telling and retelling. Andrew's Thanksgiving dinner at William Foster's house, with a revolveron the table and a smile on his lips, was a pleasant tale and athrilling one as well, for Foster had been able to go to the telephoneand warn the nearest officer of the law. There was the incident of thejammed rifle at The Crossing; the tale of how a youngster at Tomodecided that he would rival the career of the great man--how he got afine bay mare and started a blossoming career of crime by sticking upthree men on the road and committing several depredations which were allattributed to Andrew, until Andrew himself ran down the foolish fellow, shot the gun out of his hand, gave him a talking that recalled hislost senses. 

But all details fell into insignificance compared with the generaltheme, which was the mighty duel between Andrew and Hal Dozier--theunescapable manhunter and the trapwise outlaw. Hal did not lose anyreputation because he failed to take Andrew Lanning at once. The veryfact that he was able to keep close enough to make out the trail at allincreased his fame. He did not even lose his high standing because hewould not hunt Andrew alone. He always kept a group with him, and peoplesaid that he was wise to do it. Not because he was not a match forAndrew Lanning singlehanded, but because it was folly to risk life whenthere were odds which might be used against the desperado. But everyonefelt that eventually Lanning would draw the deputy marshal away from hisposse, and then the outlaw would turn, and there would follow a battleof the giants. The whole mountain desert waited for that time to comeand bated its breath in hope and fear of it. 

But if the men of the mountain desert considered Hal Dozier the greatestenemy of Andrew, he himself had quite another point of view. It was theloneliness, as Pop had promised him. There were days when he hardlytouched food such was his distaste for the ugly messes which he had tocook with his own hands; there were days when he would have risked hislife to eat a meal served by the hands of another and cooked by anotherman. That was the secret of that Thanksgiving dinner at the Fosterhouse, though others put it down to sheer, reckless mischief. And today, as he made his fire between two stones--a smoldering, evil-smellingfire of sagebrush--the smoke kept running up his clothes and choking hislungs with its pungency. And the fat bacon which he cut turned hisstomach. At last he sat down, forgetting the bacon in the pan, forgetting the long fast and the hard ride which had preceded this meal, and stared at the fire. 

Rather, the fire was the thing which he kept chiefly in the center ofhis vision, but his glances went everywhere, to all sides, up, and down. Hal Dozier had hunted him hotly down the valley of the Little SilverRiver, but near the village of Los Toros the fagged posse and Halhimself had dropped back and once more given up the chase. No doubt theywould rest for a few hours in the town, change horses, and then comeafter him again. 

It was a new Andrew Lanning that sat there by the fire. He had leftMartindale a clear-faced boy; the months that followed had changed himto a man; the boyhood had been literally burned out of him. The skin ofhis face, indeed, refused to tan, but now, instead of a healthy andcrisp white it was a colorless sallow. The rounded cheeks were nowstraight and sank in sharply beneath his cheek bones, with a sharplyincised line beside the mouth. And his expression at all times was oneof quivering alertness--the mouth a little compressed and straight, thenostrils seeming a trifle distended, and the eyes as restless as theeyes of a hungry wolf. 

Moreover, all of Andrew's actions had come to bear out this sameexpression of his face. If he sat down his legs were gathered, and heseemed about to stand up. If he walked he went with a nervous step, rising a little on his toes as though he were about to break into a runor as though he were poising himself to whirl at any alarm. He sat inthis manner even now, under that dead gray sky of sheeted clouds, and inthe middle of that great rolling plain, lifeless and colorless--lifelessexcept for the wind that hummed across it, pointed with cold. Andrew, looking from the dull glimmer of his fire to that dead waste, sighed. Hewhistled, and Sally came instantly to the call and dropped her headbeside his own. She, at least, had not changed in the long pursuits andthe hard life. It had made her gaunt. It had hardened and matured hermuscles, but her head was the same, and her changeable, human eyes, theeyes of a pet, had not altered. 

She stood there with her head down, silently; and Andrew, his handslocked around his knees, neither spoke to her nor stirred. But bydegrees the pain and the hunger went out of his face, and, as though sheknew that she was no longer needed, Sally tipped his sombrero over hiseyes with a toss of her head, and, having given this signal of disgustat being called without a purpose, she went back to her work of croppingthe gramma grass, which of all grasses a horse loves best. Andrewstraightened his hat and cast one glance after her. 

A shade of thought passed over his face as he looked at her. But thistime the posse was probably once more starting on out of Los Toros andtaking his trail. It would mean another test; he did not fear for her, but he pitied her for the hard work that was coming, and he lookedalmost with regret over the long racing lines of her body. And it wasthen, coming out of the sight of Sally, the thought of the posse, andthe disgust for the greasy bacon in the pan, that Andrew received aquite new idea. It was to stop his flight, turn about, and double like afox straight back toward Los Toros, making a detour to the left. Theposse would plunge ahead, and he could cut in toward Los Toros. For hehad determined to eat once again, at least, at a table covered with awhite cloth, food prepared by the hand of another. Sally was known; hewould leave her in the grove beside the Little Silver River. Forhimself, weeks had passed since any man had seen him, and certainly noone in Los Toros had met him face to face. He would be unknown exceptfor a general description. And to disarm suspicion entirely he wouldleave his cartridge belt and his revolver with Sally in the woods. Forwhat human being, no matter how imaginative, would possibly dream ofAndrew Lanning going unarmed into a town and sitting calmly at a tableto order a meal?

CHAPTER 30

Retrospection made Andrew Lanning's coming to Los Toros a mad freak, whereas it was in reality a very clever stroke. Hal Dozier would havebeen on the road five hours before if he had not been held up in thematter of horses, but this is to tell the story out of turn. 

Andrew saddled the mare and sent her back swiftly out of the plain, overthe hills, and then dropped her down into the valley of the LittleSilver River until he reached the grove of trees just outside LosToros--some four hundred yards, say, from the little group of houses. Hethen took off his belt, hung it over the pommel, fastened the reins tothe belt, and turned away. Sally would stay where he left her--unlesssomeone else tried to get to her head, and then she would fight like awildcat. He knew that, and he therefore started for Los Toros with hisline of communications sufficiently guarded. 

He instinctively thought first of drawing his hat low over his eyes andwalking swiftly; a moment of calm figuring told him that the better waywas to push the hat to the back of his head, put his hands in hispockets, and go whistling through the streets of the town. It was themiddle of the gray afternoon; there were few people about, and the twoor three whom Andrew passed nodded a greeting. Each time they raisedtheir hands the fingers of Andrew twitched, but he made himself smileback at them and waved in return. 

He went on until he came to the restaurant. It was a long, narrow roomwith a row of tables down each side, and a little counter and cashregister beside the door, some gaudy posters on the wall, a screen atthe rear to hide the entrance to the kitchen, and a ragged strip oflinoleum on the narrow passage between the tables. 

These things Andrew saw with the first flick of his eyes as he camethrough the door; as for people, there was a fat old man sitting behindthe cash register in a dirty white apron and two men in greasy overallsand black shirts, perhaps from the railroad. There was one other thingwhich immediately blotted out all the rest; it was a big poster, abouthalfway down the wall, on which appeared in staring letters: "Tenthousand dollars reward for the apprehension, dead or alive, of AndrewLanning. " Above this caption was a picture of him, and below the bigprint appeared the body of smaller type which named his particularfeatures. Straight to this sign Andrew walked and sat down at the tablebeneath it. 

It was no hypnotic attraction that took him there. He knew perfectlywell that if a man noticed that sign he would never dream of connectingthe man for whom, dead or alive, ten thousand dollars was to be paid, with the man who sat underneath the picture calmly eating his lunch inthe middle of a town. Even if some supercurious person should make acomparison, he would not proceed far with it, Andrew was sure, for thepicture represented the round, young face of a person who hardly existednow; the hardened features of Andrew were now only a skinny caricatureof what they had been. 

At any rate, Andrew sat down beneath the picture, and, instead ofresting one elbow on the table and partially veiling his face with hishand, as he might most naturally have done, he tilted back easily in hischair and looked up at the poster. The fat man from behind the registerhad come to take his order. He noted the direction of Andrew's eyeswhile he jotted down the items. 

"You ain't the first, " he said, "that's looked at that. Think of thegent that'll get ten thousand dollars out of a single slug?"

"I can name the man who'll get it, " said Andrew, "and his name is HalDozier. "

"I guess you ain't far wrong, " replied the other. "For that matter, thefolks around here would mostly make the same guess. But maybe Hal's luckwill take a turn. "

"Well, " said Andrew, "if he gets the money I'll say that he's earned it. And rush in some bread first, captain. I'm two-thirds starved. "

It was a historic meal in more than one way. The size of it was onenotable feature, and even Andrew had to loosen his belt when he came toattack the main feature, which was a vast steak with fried eggsscattered over the top of it. 

The steak had been reduced to a meager rim before Andrew had anyattention to pay to the paper which had been placed on his table. It wasan eight-page sheet entitled _The Granville Bugle_, and a subheadannounced that it was "the greatest paper on the ranges and thecattleman's guide. " Andrew found a picture on the first page, a pictureof Hal Dozier, and over the picture the following caption: "Watch thiscolumn for news of the Andrew Lanning hunt. "

The article in this week's issue contained few facts. It announced anumber of generalities: "Marshal Hal Dozier, when interviewed, said--"and a great many innocuous things which he was sure that grim huntercould not have spoken. He passed over the rest of the column in carelesscontempt. On the second page, in a muddle of short notices, oneheadline caught his eye and held it: "Charles Merchant to WedSociety Belle. "

The editor had spread his talents for the public eye in doing justice toit:

On the fifteenth of the month will be consummated a romance which beganlast year, when Charles Merchant, son of the well-known cattle king, John Merchant, went East and met Miss Anne Withero. It is Miss Withero'ssecond visit in the West, and it is now announced that the marriage--

Andrew crumpled the paper and let it fall. He glanced at a calender onthe wall opposite him. There remained six days before the wedding. 

And he was still so stunned by that announcement that, raising his headslowly, his thoughts spinning, he looked up and encountered the eyes ofHal Dozier as the latter sank into a chair. 

He did not complete the act, but was arrested in midair, one handgrasping the back of the chair, the other hand at his hip. Andrew, inthe space of an instant, thought of three things--to kick the table fromhim and try to get to the side door of the place, to catch up the heavysugar bowl and attempt to bowl over his man with a well-directed blow, or to simply sit and look Hal Dozier in the eye. 

He had thought of the three things in the space that it would take a dogto snap at a fly and look away. He dismissed the first alternatives asabsurd, and, picking up his cup of coffee, he raised his eyes slowlytoward the ceiling, after the time-honored fashion of a man draining aglass, let his glance move gradually up and catch on the face of Dozier, and then, without haste, lowered the cup again to its saucer. The flushof his own heavy meal kept his pallor from showing. As for Dozier, therewas a succession of changes in his features, and then he concluded bylowering himself heavily the rest of the way into his chair. He gave hisorder to the proprietor in a dazed fashion, looking straight at Andrew, and the latter knew perfectly that the deputy marshal felt that he wasin a dream. He was seeing what was not possible to see; his eyes weretelling his brain in definite terms: "There sits Andrew Lanning and tenthousand dollars. " But the reason of Dozier was speaking no lessdecidedly: "There sits a man without a weapon at his hip and actuallybeneath the poster which offers a reward for the capture of the personhe resembles. Also, he is in a restaurant in the middle of a town. Ihave only to raise my voice in order to surround him. "

And reason gained the upper hand, though Dozier continued to look atAndrew in a fascinated manner. 

Suddenly the outlaw knew that it would not do to disregard that glanceso long continued. To disregard it would be to start the suspicions ofDozier as soon as his brain cleared. 

"Hello, stranger, " said Andrew, and he merely made his voice a triflehusky and deep. "D'you know me?"

The eyes of Dozier widened, there was a convulsive motion of his arm, and then his glance wandered slowly away. 

"Excuse me, " he said. "I thought I remembered your face. "

Should he let it rest at that? No, better risk a finishing touch. "Noharm done, " he said in the same loud voice. "Hey, captain, another cupof coffee, will you? And a cigar. "

He tilted back in his chair and began to hum. And all the time hisnerves were jumping, and that old frenzy was taking him by the throat, that bulldog eagerness for the fight. But fight emptyhanded--and againstHal Dozier? The restaurant owner brought Dozier's order, and then thecoffee and the cigar to Andrew, and while the deputy continued to lookwith dumb fascination at Andrew with swift side glances, Andrew finishedhis second cup. He bit off the end of his cigar, asked for his check, and paid it, and then felt his nerves crumble and go to pieces. 

It was not Hal Dozier who sat there, but death itself that looked him inthe face. One false move, one wrong gesture, would betray him. How couldhe tell? That very moment his expression might have altered intosomething which the marshal could not fail to recognize, and the momentthat final touch came there would be a gun play swifter than the eyecould follow--simply a flash of steel and a simultaneous explosion. 

Even now, with the cigar between his teeth, he knew that if he lighted amatch, the match would tremble between his fingers, and that tremblingwould betray him to Dozier. Yet he must not sit there, either, with thecigar between his teeth, unlighted. It was a little thing, but theweight of a feather would turn the balance and loose on him thethunderbolt of Hal Dozier in action. 

But what could he do?

He found a thing in the very deeps of his despair. He got up from hischair, pushed his hat calmly upon his head and walked straight to thedeputy. He dropped both hands upon the edge of Hal's table and leanedacross it. 

"Got a light, partner?" he asked. 

And standing there over the table, he knew that Dozier had at lengthfinally and definitely recognized him; but that the numbed brain of themarshal refused to permit him to act. He believed and yet he dared notbelieve his belief. Andrew saw the glance of Dozier go to his hip--hiship which the holster had rubbed until it gleamed. But no matter--thegun was not there--and stunned again by that impossible fact Dozierreached back and brought up his hand bearing a match box. He took out amatch. He lighted it, his brows drawing together and slackening all thetime, and then he looked up, his eyes rising with the lighted match, andstared full into the eyes of Andrew. 

It was discovery undoubtedly--and how long would that mental paralysislast?

Andrew looked straight back into those eyes. His cigar took the fire andsucked in the flame. A cloud of smoke puffed out and rolled toward HalDozier, and Andrew turned leisurely and walked toward the door. 

He was a yard from it. 

"Lanning!" came a voice behind him, terrible, like a scream of pain. 

As he leaped forward a gun spoke heavily in the room. He heard thebullet crunch into the frame of the door; the door itself was split bythe second shot as Andrew slammed it shut. Then he raced around thecorner of the restaurant and made for the grove. 

There was not a sound behind him for a moment. Then a roar rose from thevillage and rushed after him. It gave him wings. And, looking back, hesaw that Hal Dozier was not among the pursuers. No, half a dozen menwere running, and firing as they ran, but there was not a rifle in thelot, and it takes a good man to land a bullet on the run where he isfiring at a dodging target. The pursuers lost ground; they stopped andyelled for horses. 

But that was what Hal Dozier was doing now. He was jerking a saddle onthe back of Gray Peter, and in sixty seconds he would be tearing out ofLos Toros. In the same space Andrew was in his own saddle with a flyingleap and spurring out of the trees. 

CHAPTER 31

By one thing he knew the utter desperation of Hal Dozier. For the manhad fired while Andrew's back was turned. The bullet had followed thewarning cry as swiftly as the strike of a snake follows its rattle. Luckand his sudden leap forward had unbalanced the nice aim of Dozier, andperhaps his mental agitation had contributed to it. But, at any rate, Andrew was troubled as he cleared the edge of the trees and canteredSally not too swiftly along the Little Silver River toward Las Casasmountains, a little east of south. 

He did not hurry her, partly because he wished to stay close and makesure of the number and force of his pursuers, and partly because healready had a lead sufficient to keep out of any but chance rifle shots. 

He had not long to wait. Men boiled out of the village like hornets outof a shaken nest. He could see them buckling on belts while they wereriding with the reins in their teeth. And they came like the wind, yelling at the sight of their quarry. Who would not kill a horse for thesake of saying that he had been within pistol range of the great outlaw?But, fast as their horses ran, Dozier, on Gray Peter, was able to keepup with them and also to range easily from group to group. Truly, GrayPeter was a glorious animal! If he were allowed to stretch out after themare, what would the result be?

The pursuers, under the direction of Dozier, spread across the riverbottom and, having formed so that no tricky doubling could leave them inthe lurch on a blind trail, they began to use a new set of tactics. 

Dozier kept Gray Peter at a steady pace, never varying his gait. But, on either side of him groups of his followers urged their horses forwardat breakneck speed. Three or four would send home the spurs and rush upthe river bottom after Andrew. If he did not hurry on they opened firewith their rifles from a short distance and sent a hail of randombullets, but Andrew knew that a random bullet carries just as much forceas a well-aimed one, and chance might be on the side of one of thoseshots. He dared not allow them to come too close. Yet his heart rejoicedas he watched the manner in which Sally accepted these challenges. Shenever once had to lurch into her racing gait; she took the rushes of thecow ponies behind her by merely lengthening her stride until the horsesbehind her were winded and had to fall back. 

If Andrew had let out Sally she would have walked away from them all, but he dared not do that. For, after he had run the heart out of thecommoner ones, there remained Gray Peter in reserve, never changing hispace, never hurrying, falling often far back, as the groups one afteranother pushed close to Sally and made her spurt, gaining again when thespurts ended one by one. 

There were two hours of daylight; there was one hour of dusk; and allthat time the crowd kept thrusting out its small groups, one after theother, reaching after Sally like different arms, and each time sheanswered the spurt, and always slipped away into a greater lead at theend of it. And then, while the twilight was turning into dark, Andrewlooked back and saw the whole crowd rein in their horses and turn back. There remained a single figure following him, and that figure was easilyseen, because it was a man on a gray horse. And then Andrew grasped theplan fully. The posse had played its part; the thing for which themountain desert had waited was come at last, and Hal Dozier was going onto find his man single-handed and pull him down. Twice, before completedarkness set in, Andrew had been on the verge of turning and going backto accept the challenge of Hal Dozier. Always two things stopped him. There was first the fear of the man which he frankly admitted, and morethan that was the feeling that one thing lay before him to be donebefore he could meet Dozier and end the long trail. He must see AnneWithero. She was about to be married and be drawn out of his world andinto a new one. He felt it was more important than life or death to seeher before that transformation took place. They would go East, no doubt. Two thousand miles, the law and the mountains would fence him away fromher after that. 

During the last months he accepted her as he accepted thestars--something far away from him. Now, by some pretext, by some wile, he must live to see her once more. After that let Hal Dozier meet himwhen he would. 

But with this in mind, as soon as the utter dark shut down, he swervedSally to the right and worked slowly up through the mountains, headingdue southwest and out of the valley of the Little Silver. He kept at it, through a district where the mare could not even trot a great deal ofthe time, for two or more hours. Then he found a little plateau thickwith good grazing for Sally and with a spring near it. There he campedfor the night, without food, without fire. 

And not once during the hours before morning did he close his eyes. Whenthe first gray touched the sky he was in the saddle again; before thesun was up he had crossed the Las Casas and was going down the greatshallow basin of the Roydon River. A fine, drizzling rain was falling, and Sally, tired from her hard work of the day before and the long duelswith the horses of the posse, went even more down-heartedly moody thanusual, shuffling wearily, but recovering herself with her usual catlikeadroitness whenever her footing failed on the steep downslope. 

For all her dullness, it was a signal from Sally that saved Andrew. Shejerked up her head and turned; he looked in the same direction and saw aform like a gray ghost coming over the hills to his left, a dim shapethrough the rain. Gloomily Andrew watched Hal Dozier come. Gray Peterhad been fresher than Sally at the end of the run of the day before. Hewas fresher now. Andrew could tell that easily by the stretch of hisgallop and the evenness of his pace as he rushed across the slope. Hegave the word to Sally. She tossed up her head in mute rebellion at thisnew call for a race, and then broke into a canter whose first fewstrides, by way of showing her anger, were as choppy and lifeless as thestride of a plow horse. 

That was the beginning of the famous ride from the Las Casas mountainsto the Roydon range, and all the distance across the Roydon valley. Itstarted with a five-mile sprint--literally five miles of hot racing inwhich each horse did its best. And in that five miles Gray Peter wouldmost unquestionably have won had not one bit of luck fallen the mare. Ahedge of young evergreen streaked before Sally, and Andrew put her atthe mark; she cleared it like a bird, jumping easily and landing in herstride. It was not the first time she had jumped with Andrew. 

But Gray Peter was not a steeplechaser. He had not been trained to it, and he refused. His rider had to whirl and go up the line of shrubsuntil he found a place to break through. Then he was after Sally again. But the moment that Andrew saw the marshal had been stopped he did notuse the interim to push the mare and increase her lead. Very wisely hedrew her back to the long, rocking canter which was her natural gait, and Sally got the breath which Gray Peter had run out of her. She alsoregained priceless lost ground, and when the gray came in view of thequarry again his work was all to do over again. Hal Dozier tried againin straightaway running. It had been his boast that nothing under thesaddle in the mountain desert could keep away from him in a stretch ofany distance, and he rode Gray Peter desperately to make his boast good. He failed. If that first stretch had been unbroken--but there his chancewas gone, and, starting the second spurt, Andrew came to realize onegreatly important truth--Sally could not sprint for any distance, but upto a certain pace she ran easily and without labor. He made it his pointto see that she was never urged beyond that pace. He found anotherthing, that she took a hill in far better style than Peter, and she didfar better in the rough, but on the level going he ate up herhandicap swiftly. 

With a strength of his own found and a weakness in his pursuer, Andrewplayed remorselessly to that weakness with his strength. He sought thechoppy ground as a preference and led the stallion through it whereverhe could; he swung to the right, where there was a stretch of rollinghills, and once more Gray Peter had a losing space before him. 

So they came to the river itself, with Gray Peter comfortably in therear, but running well within his strength. Andrew paused in theshallows to allow Sally one swallow; then he went on. But Dozier did notpause for even this. It was a grave mistake. 

And so the miles wore on. Sally was still running like a swallow forlightness, but Andrew knew by her breathing that she was giving vitalstrength to the effort. He talked to her constantly. He told her howGray Peter ran behind them. He encouraged her with pet words. And Sallyseemed to understand, for she flicked one ear back to listen, and thenshe pricked them both and kept at her work. 

It was a heart-tearing thing to see her run to the point of lather andthen keep on. 

They were in low hills, and Gray Peter was losing steadily. They reacheda broad flat, and the stallion gained with terrible insistence. Lookingback, Andrew could see that the marshal had stripped away every vestigeof his pack. He followed that example with a groan. And still GrayPeter gained. 

It was the last great effort for the stallion. Before them rose thefoothills of the Roydon mountains; behind them the Las Casas range waslost in mist. It seemed that they had been galloping like this for aninfinity of time, and Andrew was numb from the shoulders down. If hereached those hills Gray Peter was beaten. He knew it; Hal Dozier knewit; and the two great horses gave all their strength to the last duelof the race. 

The ears of Sally no longer pricked. They lay flat on her neck. Theamazing lift was gone from her gait, and she pounded heavily with theforelegs. And still she struggled on. He looked back, and Gray Peterstill gained, an inch at a time, and his stride did not seem to haveabated. The one bitter question now was whether Sally would not collapseunder the effort. With every lurch of her feet, Andrew expected to feelher crumble beneath him. And yet she went on. She was all heart, allnerve, and running on it. Behind her came Gray Peter, and he also ranwith his head stretched out. 

He was within rifle range now. Why did not Dozier fire? Perhaps he hadset his heart on actually running Sally down, not dropping his prey witha distant shot. 

And still they flew across the flat. The hills were close now, andsometimes, when the drizzling rain lifted, it seemed that the Roydonmountains were exactly above them, leaning out over him like a shadow. He called on Sally again and again. He touched her for the first time inher life with spurs, and she found something in the depths of her heartand her courage to answer with. She ran again with a ghost of her formerbuoyancy, and Gray Peter was held even. Not an inch could he gain afterthat. Andrew saw his pursuer raise his quirt and flog. It was useless. Each horse was running itself out, and no power could get more speed outof the pounding limbs. 

And with his head still turned, Andrew felt a shock and flounder. Sallyhad almost fallen. He jerked sharply up on the reins, and she broke intoa staggering trot. Then Andrew saw that they had struck the slope of thefirst hill, a long, smooth rise which she would have taken at full speedin the beginning of the race, but now though she labored bitterly, shecould not raise a gallop. The trot was her best effort. 

There was a shrill yelling behind, and Andrew saw Dozier, a handbrandished above his head. He had seen Sally break down; Gray Peterwould catch her; his horse would win that famous duel of speed andcourage. Rifle? He had forgotten his rifle. He would go in, he wouldoverhaul Sally, and then finish the chase with a play of revolvers. Andin expectation of that end, Andrew drew his revolver. It hung the lengthof his arm; he found that his muscles were numb from the cold and thecramped position from the elbow down. Shoot? He was as helpless asthough he had no gun at all. He beat his hands together to bring backthe blood. He thrashed his arms against the pommel of the saddle. Therewas only a dull pain; it would take long minutes to bring those handsback to the point of service, and in the meantime Gray Peter gallopedupon him from behind!

Well, he would let Sally do her best. For the last time he called onher; for the last time she struggled to respond, and Andrew looked backand grimly watched the stallion sweeping across the last portion of theflat ground, closer, closer, and then, at the very base of the slope, Gray Peter tossed up his head, floundered, and went down, hurling hisrider over his head. Andrew, fascinated, let Sally fall into a walk, while he watched the singular, convulsive struggles of Gray Peter togain his feet. Hal Dozier was up again; he ran to his horse, caught hishead, and at the same moment the stallion grew suddenly limp. The weightof his head dragged the marshal down, and then Andrew saw that Doziermade no effort to rise again. 

He sat with the head of the horse in his lap, his own head buried in hishands, and Andrew knew then that Gray Peter was dead. 

CHAPTER 32

The mare herself was in a far from safe condition. And if the marshalhad roused himself from his grief and hurried up the slope on foot hewould have found the fugitive out of the saddle and walking by the sideof the played-out Sally, forcing her with slaps on the hip to keep inmotion. She went on, stumbling, her head down, and the sound of herbreathing was a horrible thing to hear. But she must keep in motion, for, if she stopped in this condition, Sally would never run again. 

Andrew forced her relentlessly on. At length her head came up a littleand her breathing was easier and easier. Before dark that night he cameon a deserted shanty, and there he took Sally under the shelter, and, tearing up the floor, he built a fire which dried them both. Thefollowing day he walked again, with Sally following like a dog at hisheels. One day later he was in the saddle again, and Sally was herselfonce more. Give her one feed of grain, and she would have run again thatfamous race from beginning to end. But Andrew, stealing out of theRoydon mountains into the lower ground, had no thought of another race. He was among a district of many houses, many men, and, for the finalstage of his journey, he waited until after dusk had come and thensaddled Sally and cantered into the valley. 

It was late on the fourth night after he left Los Toros that Andrew cameagain to the house of John Merchant and left Sally in the very placeamong the trees where the pinto had stood before. There was no danger ofdiscovery on his approach, for it was a wild night of wind and rain. Thedrizzling mists of the last three days had turned into a steadydownpour, and rivers of water had been running from his slicker on theway to the ranch house. Now he put the slicker behind the saddle, andfrom the shelter of the trees surveyed the house. 

It was bursting with music and light; sometimes the front door wasopened and voices stole out to him; sometimes even through the closeddoor he heard the ghostly tinkling of some girl's laughter. 

And that was to Andrew the most melancholy sound in the world. 

The rain, trickling even through the foliage of the evergreen, decidedhim to act at once. It might be that all the noise and light were, afterall, an advantage to him, and, running close to the ground, he skulkedacross the dangerous open stretch and came into the safe shadow of thewall of the house. 

Once there, it was easy to go up to the roof by one of the rain pipes, the same low roof from which he had escaped on the time of his lastvisit. On the roof the rush and drumming of the rain quite covered anysound he made, but he was drenched before he reached the window ofAnne's room. Could he be sure that on her second visit she would havethe same room? He settled that by a single glance. The curtain was notdrawn, and a lamp, turned low, burned on the table beside the bed. Theroom was quite empty. 

The window was fastened, but he worked back the fastening iron with theblade of his knife and raised himself into the room. He closed thewindow behind him. At once the noise of rain and the shouting of thewind faded off into a distance, and the voices of the house came moreclearly to him. But he dared not stay to listen, for the water wasdripping around him; he must move before a large dark spot showed on thecarpet, and he saw, moreover, exactly where he could best hide. Therewas a heavily curtained alcove at one end of the room, and behind thisshelter he hid himself. 

And here he waited. How would she come? Would there be someone with her?Would she come laughing, with all the triumph of the dance bright inher face?

Vaguely he heard the shrill droning of the violins die away beneath him, and the slipping of many dancing feet on a smooth floor fell to awhisper and then ceased. Voices sounded in the hall, but he gave no heedto the meaning of all this. Not even the squawking of horns, asautomobiles drove away, conveyed any thought to him; he wished that thismoment could be suspended to an eternity. 

Parties of people were going down the hall; he heard soft flights oflaughter and many young voices. People were calling gaily to one anotherand then by an inner sense rather than by a sound he knew that the doorwas opened into the room. He leaned and looked, and he saw Anne Witheroclose the door behind her and lean against it. In the joy of her triumphthat evening?

No, her head was fallen, and he saw the gleam of her hand at her breast. He could not see her face clearly, but the bent head spoke eloquently ofdefeat. She came forward at length. Thinking of her as the reigningpower in that dance and all the merriment below him, Andrew had beenimagining her tall, strong, with compelling eyes commanding admiration. He found all at once that she was small, very small; and her hair wasnot that keen fire which he had pictured. It was simply a coppery glow, marvelously delicate, molding her face. She went to a great full-lengthmirror. She raised her head for one instant to look at her image, andthen she bowed her head again and placed her hand against the edge ofthe mirror for support. Little by little, through the half light, he wasmaking her out and now the curve of this arm, from wrist to shoulder, went through Andrew like a phrase of music. He stepped out from behindthe curtain, and, at the sound of the cloth swishing back into place, she whirled on him. 

She was speechless; her raised hand did not fall; it was as if she werefrozen where she stood. 

"I shall leave you at once, " said Andrew quietly, "if you arefrightened. You have only to tell me. "

He had come closer. Now he was astonished to see her turn swiftly towardthe door and touch his arm with her hand. "Hush!" she said. "Hush! Theymay hear you!"

She glided to the door into the hall and turned the lock softly and cameto him again. 

It made Andrew weak to see her so close, and he searched her face with ahungry and jealous fear, lest she should be different from his dream ofher. "You are the same, " he said with a sigh of relief. "And you are notafraid of me?"

"Hush! Hush!" she repeated. "Afraid of you? Don't you see that I'mhappy, happy, happy to see you again?"

She drew him forward a little, and her hand touched his as she did so. She turned up the lamp, and a flood of strong yellow light went over theroom. "But you have changed, " said Anne Withero with a little cry. "Oh, you have changed! They've been hounding you--the cowards!"

"Does it make no difference to you--that I have killed a man. "

"Ah, it was that brother to the Dozier man. But I've learned about him. He was a bloodhound like his brother, but treacherous. Besides, it wasin fair fight. Fair fight? It was one against six!"

"Don't, " said Andrew, breathing hard, "don't say that! You make me feelthat it's almost right to have done what I've done. But besides him--allthe rest--do they make no difference?"

"All of what?"

"People say things about me. They even print them. " He winced as hespoke. 

But she was fierce again; her passion made her tremble. 

"When I think of it!" she murmured. "When I think of it, the rotteninjustice makes me want to choke 'em all! Why, today I heard--I can'trepeat it. It makes me sick--sick! Why, they've hounded you and bulliedyou until they've made you think you are bad, Andrew. They've even madeyou a little bit proud of the hard things people say about you. Isn'tthat true?"

Was it any wonder that Andrew could not answer? He felt all at once sosupple that he was hot tallow which those small fingers would mold andbend to suit themselves. 

"Sit down here!" she commanded. 

Meekly he obeyed. He sat on the edge of his chair, with his hat heldwith both hands, and his eyes widened as he stared at her--like a personcoming out of a great darkness into a great light. 

And tears came into the eyes of the girl. 

"You're as thin as a starved--wolf, " she said, and closed her eyes andshuddered. "And all the time I've been thinking of you as you were whenI saw you here before--the same clear, steady eyes and the same directsmile. But they've made you older--they've burned the boy out of youwith pain! And I've been thinking about you just cantering through wild, gay adventures. Are you ill now?"

He had leaned back in the chair and gathered his hat close to hisbreast, crushing it. 

"I'm not ill, " said Andrew. His voice was hoarse and thick. "I'm justlistening to you. Go on and talk. "

"About you?" asked the girl. 

"I don't hear your words--hardly; I just hear the sound you make. " Heleaned forward again and cast out his arm so that the palm of his handwas turned up beneath her eyes. She could see the long, lean fingers. Itsuddenly came home to her that every strong man in the mountain desertwas in deadly terror of that hand. Anne Withero was shaken for thefirst time. 

"Listen to me, " he was saying in that tense whisper which was oddly likethe tremor of his hand, "I've been hungry for that voice all theseweeks--and months. "

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do, " said the girl, very grave. "I'mgoing to break up this cowardly conspiracy against you. I've written tomy father to get the finest lawyer in the land and send him out here tomake you--legal--again. "

He began to smile, and shook his head. 

"It's no use, " he said. "Perhaps your lawyer could help me on account ofBill's death, but he couldn't help me from Hal. "

"Are you--do you mean you're going to fight the other man, too?"

"He killed his horse chasing me, " said Andrew. "I couldn't stop to fighthim because I was comin' down here to see you. But when I go away I'vegot to find him and give him a chance back at me. It's only fair. "

"Because he killed a horse trying to get you, you're going to give him achance to shoot you?"

Her voice had become shrill. She lowered it instinctively toward the endand cast a glance of apprehension toward the door. 

"You are quite mad, " said the girl. 

"You don't understand, " said Andrew. "His horse was Gray Peter--thestallion. And I would rather have killed a man than have seen Gray Peterdie. Hal had Peter's head in his arms, " he added softly. "And he'llnever give up the trail until he's had it out with me. He wouldn't behalf a man if he let things drop now. "

"So you have to fight Hal Dozier?"

"Yes. "

"But when that's done--"

"When that's done one of us will be dead. If it's me, of course, there'sno use worryin'; if it's Hal, of course, I'm done in the eyes of thelaw. Two--murders!"

His eyes glinted and his fingers quivered. It sent a cold thrill throughthe girl. 

"But they say he's a terrible man, Andrew. You wouldn't let him catchyou?"

"I won't stand and wait for him, " said Andrew gravely. "But if we fightI think I'll kill him. "

"What makes you think that?" She was more curious than shocked. 

"It's just a sort of feeling that you get when you look at a man; eitheryou're his master or you aren't. You see it in a flash. "

"Have you ever seen your master?" asked the girl slowly. 

"I'll want to die when I see that, " he said simply. 

Suddenly she clenched her hands and sat straight up. 

"It's got to be stopped, " she said hotly. "It's all nonsense, and I'mgoing to see that you're both stopped. " "Four days ago, " he said, "youcould have taken me in the hollow of your hand. I would have come to youand gone from you at a nod. That time is about to end. "

He paused a little, and looked at her in such a manner that she wasfrightened, but it was a pleasant fear. It made her interlace herfingers with nervous anxiety, but it set a fire in her eyes. 

"That time is ending, " said Andrew. "You are about to be married. "

"And after that you will never look at me again, never think of meagain?"

"I hope not, " he answered. "I strongly hope not. "

"But why? Is a marriage a blot or a stain?"

"It is a barrier, " he answered. 

"Even to thoughts? Even to friendship?"

"Yes. "

A very strange thing happened in the excited mind of Anne Withero. Itseemed to her that Charles Merchant sat, a filmy ghost, beside thistattered fugitive. He was speaking the same words that Andrew spoke, buthis voice and his manner were to Andrew Lanning what moonshine is tosunlight. She had been thinking of Charles Merchant as a social asset;she began to think of him now as a possessing force. Anne Witheropossessed by Charlie Merchant!

"What you have told me, " she said, "means more than you may think to me. Have you come all this distance to tell me?"

"All this distance to talk?" he said. He seemed to sit back and wonder. "Have I traveled four days?" he went on. "Has Gray Peter died, and haveI been under Hal Dozier's rifle only to speak to you?" He suddenlyrecalled himself. 

"No, no! I have come to give you a wedding present. "

He watched her color change. 

"Are you angry? Is it wrong to give you a present?"

"No, " she answered in a singular, stifled voice. "It is this watch. " Itwas a large gold watch and a chain of very old make that he put into herhand. "It is for your son, " said Andrew. 

She stood up; he rose instinctively. 

"When I look at it I'm to remember that you are forgetting me?"

A little hush fell upon them. 

"Are you laughing at me, Anne?"

He had never called her by her name before, and yet it came naturallyupon his lips. 

She stood, indeed, with the same smile upon her lips, but her eyes werefixed and looked straight past him. And presently he saw a tear passslowly down her face. Her hand remained without moving, with the watchin it exactly as he had placed it there. 

She had not stirred when he slipped without a noise through the windowand was instantly swallowed in the rushing of the wind and rain. 

CHAPTER 33

There was, as Andrew had understood for a long time, a sort ofunderground world of criminals even here on the mountain desert. Otherwise the criminals could not have existed for even a moment in theface of the organized strength of lawful society. Several times in thecourse of his wanderings Andrew had come in contact with links of theunderground chain, and he learned what every fugitive learns--the safestopping points in the great circuit of his flight. 

Three elements went into the making of that hidden society. There wasfirst of all the circulating and active part, and this was composed ofmen actually known to be under the ban of the law and openly defying it. Beneath this active group lay a stratum much larger which served as abase for the operating criminals. This stratum was built entirely of menwho had at one time been incriminated in shady dealings of one sort andanother. It included lawbreakers from every part of the world, men whohad fled first of all to the shelter of the mountain desert and who hadlived there until their past was even forgotten in the lands from whichthey came. But they had never lost the inevitable sympathy for theirmore active fellows, and in this class there was included a meanerelement--men who had in the past committed crimes in the mountain desertitself and who, from time to time, when they saw an absolutely safeopportunity, were perfectly ready and willing to sin again. 

The third and largest of all the elements in the criminal world of thedesert was a shifting and changing class of men who might be called thepaid adherents of the active order. The "long riders, " acting in groupsor singly, fled after the commission of a crime and were forced to findplaces of rest and concealment along their journey. Under this gravenecessity they quickly learned what people on their way could be hiredas hosts and whose silence and passive aid could be bought. Such menwere secured in the first place by handsome bribes. And very often theyjoined the ranks unwillingly. But when some peaceful householder wasconfronted by a desperate man, armed, on a weary horse--perhaps stainedfrom a wound--the householder was by no means ready to challenge theman's right to hospitality. He never knew when the stranger would takeby force what was refused to him freely, and, if the lawbreaker took byforce, he was apt to cover his trail by a fresh killing. 

Of course, such killings took place only when the "long rider" was adesperate brute rather than a man, but enough of them had occurred tocall up vivid examples to every householder who was accosted. As a rulehe submitted to receive the unwelcome guest. Also, as a rule, he wasweak enough to accept a gift when the stranger parted. Once such a giftwas taken, he was lost. His name was instantly passed on by the fugitiveto his fellows as a "safe" man. Before long he became, against or withhis will, a depository of secrets--banned faces became known to him. Andif he suddenly decided to withdraw from that criminal world his case wasmost precarious. 

The "long riders" admitted no neutrals. If a man had once been with themhe could only leave them to become an enemy. He became open prey. Hisname was published abroad. Then his cattle were apt to disappear. Hisstacks of hay might catch fire unexpectedly at night. His house itselfmight be plundered, and, in not infrequent cases, the man himself wasbrutally murdered. It was part of a code no less binding because it wasunwritten. 

All of this Andrew was more or less aware of, and scores of names hadbeen mentioned to him by chance acquaintances of the road. Such names hestored away, for he had always felt that time impending of which HenryAllister had warned him, the time when he must openly forget hisscruples and take to a career of crime. That time, he now knew, wascome upon him. 

It would be misrepresenting Andrew to say that he shrank from thefuture. Rather he accepted everything that lay before himwholeheartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scruples, there was aninstant lightening of the heart, a fierce keenness of mind, a contemptfor society, a disregard for life beginning with his own. One could havenoted it in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope awayfrom the ranch house this night. 

He had made up his mind immediately to hunt out a "safe" man, recentlymentioned to him by that unconscionable scapegrace Harry Woods, crookedgambler, thief of small and large, and whilom murderer. The man's namewas Garry Baldwin, a small rancher, some half day's ride aboveSullivan's place in the valley. He was recommended as a man of silence. In that direction Andrew took his way, but, coming in the hills to adished-out place on a hillside, where there was a natural shelter fromboth wind and rain, he stopped there for the rest of the night, cooked ameal, rolled himself in his blankets, and slept into the gray ofthe morning. 

No sooner was the first light streaking the horizon to the east thanAndrew wakened. He saddled Sally and, after a leisurely breakfast, started at a jog trot through the hills, taking the upslope with theutmost care. For nothing so ruins a horse as hard work uphill at thevery beginning of the day. He gave Sally her head, and by letting her goas she pleased she topped the divide, breathing as easily as if she hadbeen walking on the flat. She gave one toss of her head as she saw thelong, smooth slope ahead of her, and then, without a word from Andrew ora touch of his heels, she gave herself up to the long, rocking canterwhich she could maintain so tirelessly for hour on hour. 

A clear, cold morning came on. Indeed, it was rarely chill for themountain desert, with a feel of coming snow in the wind. Sally prickedone ear as she looked into the north, and Andrew knew that that was asign of trouble coming. 

He came in the middle of the morning to the house of Garry Baldwin. Itwas a wretched shack, the roof sagged in the middle, and the buildinghad been held from literally falling apart by bolting an iron rodthrough the length of it. 

A woman who fitted well into such a background kicked open the door andlooked up to Andrew with the dishwater still dripping from her redhands. He asked for her husband. He was gone from the house. Where, shedid not know. Somewhere yonder, and her gesture included half the widthof the horizon to the west. There was his trail, if Andrew wished tofollow it. For her part, she was busy and could not spare time togossip. At that she stepped back and kicked the door shut with a slamthat set the whole side of the shack shivering. 

At that moment Andrew wondered what he would have done when he lived inMartindale if he had been treated in such a manner. He would havecrimsoned to the eyes, no doubt, and fled from the virago. But now hefelt neither embarrassment nor fear nor anger. He drew his revolver, andwith the heavy butt banged loudly on the door. It left three deep dentsin the wood, and the door was kicked open again. But this time he sawonly the foot of the woman clad in a man's boot. The door remained open, but the hostess kept out of view. 

"You be ridin' on, friend, " she called in her harsh voice. "Bud, keepout'n the kitchen. Stranger, you be ridin' on. I don't know you and Idon't want to know you. A man that beats on doors with his gun!"

Andrew laughed, and the sound brought her into view, a furious face, buta curious face as well. She carried a long rifle slung easily under herstout arm. 

"What d'you want with Garry?" she asked. 

And he replied with a voice equally hard: "I want direction for findingScar-faced Allister. "

He watched that shot shake her. 

"You do? You got a hell of a nerve askin' around here for Allister!Slope, kid, slope. You're on a cold trail. "

"Wait a minute, " protested Andrew. "You need another look at me. "

"I can see all there is to you the first glance, " said the woman calmly. "Why should I look again?"

"To see the reward, " said Andrew bitterly. He laughed again. "I'm AndrewLanning. Ever hear of me?"

It was obvious that she had. She blinked and winced as though the namestunned her. "Lanning!" she said. "Why, you ain't much more'n a kid. Lanning! And you're him?"

All at once she melted. 

"Slide off your hoss and come in, Andy, " she said. "Dogged if I knew youat all!"

"Thanks. I want to find Allister and I'm in a hurry. "

"So you and him are goin' to team it? That'll be high times! Come here, Bud. Look at Andy Lanning. That's him on the horse right before you. "

A scared, round face peered out at Andrew from behind his mother. "Allright, partner. I'll tell you where to find him pretty close. He'll beup the gulch along about now. You know the old shack up there? You canget to him inside three hours--with that hoss. " She stopped and eyedSally. "Is that the one that run Gray Peter to death? She don't look thepart, but them long, low hosses is deceivin'. Can't you stay, Andy?Well, s'long. And give Allister a good word from Bess Baldwin. Luck!"

He waved, and was gone at a brisk gallop. 

CHAPTER 34

It was not yet noon when he entered the gulch, he was part way up theravine when something moved at the top of the high wall to his right. Heguessed at once that it was a lookout signaling the main party of theapproach of a stranger, so Andrew stopped Sally with a word and held hishand high above his head, facing the point from which he had seen themovement. There was a considerable pause; then a man showed on the topof the cliff, and Andrew recognized Jeff Rankin by his red hair. Yetthey were at too great a distance for conversation, and after waving agreeting, Rankin merely beckoned Andrew on his way up the valley. Around the very next bend of the ravine he found the camp. It was of themost impromptu character, and the warning of Rankin had caused them tobreak it up precipitately, as Andrew could see by one length oftarpaulin tossed, without folding, over a saddle. Each of the four wasready, beside his horse, for flight or for attack, as their outlook onthe cliff should give signal. But at sight of Andrew and the bay mare amurmur, then a growl of interest went among them. Even Larry la Rochegrinned a skull-like welcome, and Henry Allister actually ran forward toreceive the newcomer. Andrew dropped out of the saddle and shookhands with him. 

"I've done as you said I would, " said Andrew. "I've run in a circle, Allister, and now I'm back to make one of you, if you still want me. "

Allister, laughing joyously, turned to the other three and repeated thequestion to them. There was only one voice in answer. 

"Want you?" said Allister, and his smile made Andrew almost forget thescar which twisted the otherwise handsome face. "Want you? Why, man, ifwe've been beyond the law up to this time, we can laugh at the law now. Sit down. Hey, Scottie, shake up the fire and put on some coffee, willyou? We'll take an hour off. "

Larry la Roche was observed to make a dour face. 

"Who'll tell me it's lucky, " he said, "to have a gent that starts out bymakin' us all stop on the trail? Is that a good sign?"

But Scottie, with laughter, hushed him. Yet Larry la Roche remained ofall the rest quite silent during the making of the coffee and thedrinking of it. The others kept up a running fire of comments andquestions, but Larry la Roche, as though he had never forgiven Andrewfor their first quarrel, remained with his long, bony chin dropped uponhis breast and followed the movements of Andrew Lanning withrestless eyes. 

The others were glad to see him, as Andrew could tell at a glance, butalso they were a bit troubled, and by degrees he made out the reason. Strange as it seemed, they regretted that he had not been able to makehis break across the mountains. His presence made them more impregnablethan they had ever been under the indomitable Allister, and yet, morethan the aid of his fighting hand, they would have welcomed the tidingsof a man who had broken away from the shadow of the law and made good. For each of the fallen wishes to feel that his exile is self-terminable. 

And therefore Andrew, telling his story to them in brief, found thatthey were not by any means filled with unmixed pleasure. Joe Clune, withhis bright brown hair of youth and his lined, haggard face of wornmiddle age, summed up their sentiments at the end of Andrew's story:"You're what we need with us, Lanning. You and Allister will beat theworld, and it means high times for the rest of us, but God pityyou--that's all!"

The pause that followed this solemn speech was to Andrew like an amen. He glanced from face to face, and each stern eye met his ingloomy sympathy. 

Then something shot through him which was to his mind what red is to theeye; it was a searing touch of reckless indifference, defiance. 

"Forget this prayer-meeting talk, " said Andrew. "I came up here foraction, not mourning. I want something to do with my hands, notsomething to think about with my head!"

Something to think about! It was like a terror behind him. If he shouldhave long quiet it would steal on him and look at him over his shoulderlike a face. A little of this showed in his face; enough to make thecircle flash significant glances at one another. 

"You got something behind you, Andy, " said Scottie. "Come out with it. It ain't too bad for us to hear. "

"There's something behind me, " said Andrew. "It's the one really decentpart of my life. And I don't want to think about it. Allister, they sayyou never let the grass grow under you. What's on your hands now?"

"Somebody has been flattering me, " said the leader quietly, and all thetime he kept studying the face of Andrew. "We have a little game ahead, if you want to come in on it. We're shorthanded, but I'd try it withyou. That makes us six all told. Six enough, boys?"

"Count me half of one, " said Larry la Roche. "I don't feel lucky aboutthis little party. "

"We'll count you two times two, " replied the leader. He added: "You boysplay a game; I'm going to break in Lanning to our job. "

Taking his horse, he and Andrew rode at a walk up the ravine. On the waythe leader explained his system briefly and clearly. Told in short, heworked somewhat as follows: Instead of raiding blindly right and left, he only moved when he had planned every inch of ground for the advanceand the blow and the retreat. To make sure of success and the size ofhis stakes he was willing to invest heavily. 

"Big business men sink half a year's income in their advertising. I dothe same. "

It was not public advertising; it was money cunningly expended where itwould do most good. Fifty per cent of the money the gang earned was laidaway to make future returns surer. In twenty places Allister had hispaid men who, working from behind the scenes, gained pricelessinformation and sent word of it to the outlaw. Trusted officials ingreat companies were in communication with him. When large shipments ofgold were to be made, for instance, he was often warned beforehand. Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the date of itsshipment, its route, and the hands to which it was supposed to fall. Or, again, in many a bank and prosperous mercantile firm in the mountaindesert he had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the safewas crammed with cash and by what means the treasure was guarded. 

Not until he had secured such information did the leader move. And hestill delayed until every possible point of friction had been noted, every danger considered, and a check appointed for it, every method ofadvance and retreat gone over. 

"A good general, " Allister was fond of saying, "plans in two ways: foran absolute victory and for an absolute defeat. The one enables him tosqueeze the last ounce of success out of a triumph; the other keeps afailure from turning into a catastrophe. "

With everything arranged for the stroke, he usually posted himself withthe band as far as possible from the place where the actual work was tobe done. Then he made a feint in the opposite direction--he showedhimself or a part of his gang recklessly. The moment the alarm wasgiven--even at the risk of having an entire hostile countryside aroundhim--he started a whirlwind course in the opposite direction from whichhe was generally supposed to be traveling. If possible, at the ranchesof adherents, or at out-of-the-way places where confederates could act, he secured fresh horses and dashed on at full speed all the way. 

Then, at the very verge of the place for attack, he gathered his men, rehearsed in detail what each man was to do, delivered the blow, securedthe spoils, and each man of the party split away from the others andfled in scattering directions, to assemble again at a distant point on acomparatively distant date. There they sat down around a council table, and there they divided the spoils. No matter how many were employed, nomatter how vast a proportion of the danger and scheming had been borneby the leader, he took no more than two shares. Then fifty per cent ofthe prize was set aside. The rest was divided with an exact care amongthe remaining members of the gang. The people who had supplied therequisite information for the coup were always given their share. 

From this general talk Allister descended to particulars. He talked ofthe gang itself. They were quite a fixed quantity. In the last halfdozen years there had not been three casualties. For one thing, he chosehis men with infinite care; in the second place, he saw to it that theyremained in harmony, and to that end he was careful never to be temptedinto forming an unwieldy crew, no matter how large the prize. Of thepresent organization each was an expert. Larry la Roche had been acounterfeiter and was a consummate penman. His forgeries were works ofart. "Have you noticed his hands?"

Scottie Macdougal was an eminent advance agent, whose smooth tongue wasthe thing for the very dangerous and extremely important work of tryingout new sources of information, noting the dependability of thosesources, and understanding just how far and in what line the tools couldbe used. Joe Clune was a past expert in the blowing of safes; not onlydid he know everything that was to be known about means of guardingmoney and how to circumvent them, but he was an artist with the "soup, "as Allister called nitroglycerin. 

Jeff Rankin, without a mental equipment to compare with his companions, was often invaluable on account of his prodigious strength. Under thestrain of his muscles, iron bars bent like hot wax. In addition he hadmore than his share of an ability which all the members of the gangpossessed--an infinite cunning in the use of weapons and astar-storming courage and self-confidence. 

"And where, " said Andrew at the end of this long recital, "do I fit in?"

"You begin, " said Allister, "as the least valuable of my men; before sixmonths you will be worth the whole set of 'em. You'll start as mylieutenant, Lanning. The boys expect it. You've built up a reputationthat counts. They admit your superiority without question. Larry laRoche squirms under the weight of it, but he admits it like the rest of'em. In a pinch they would obey you nearly as well as they obey me. Itmeans that, having you to take charge, I can do what I've always wantedto do--I can give the main body the slip and go off for advance-guardand rear-guard duty. I don't dare to do it now. 

"Do you know why? Those fellows yonder, who seem so chummy, would be ateach other's throats in ten seconds if I weren't around to keep them inorder. I know why you're here, Lanning. It isn't the money. It's thecursed fear of loneliness and the fear of having time to think. You wantaction, action to fill your mind and blind you. That's what I offer you. You're the keeper of the four wildcats you see over there. You start inwith their respect. Let them lose their fear of you for a moment andthey'll go for you. Treat them like men; think of them as wild beasts. That's what they are. The minute they know you're without your whip theygo for you like tigers at a wounded trainer. One taste of meat is allthey need to madden them. It's different with me. I'm wild, too. "

His eyes gleamed at Andrew. 

"And, if they raise you, I think they'll find you've more iron hiddenaway in you than I have. But the way they'll find it out will be in anexplosion that will wipe them out. You've got to handle them withoutthat explosion, Lanning. Can you do it?"

The younger man moistened his lips. "I think this job is going to proveworth while, " he returned. 

"Very well, then. But there are penalties in your new position. In apinch you've got to do what I do--see that they have food enough--gowithout sleep if one of them needs your blankets--if any of 'em gets introuble, even into a jail, you've got to get him out. "

"Better still, " smiled Andrew. 

"And now, " said the leader, "I'll tell you about our next job as we goback to the boys. "

CHAPTER 35

It was ten days later when the band dropped out of the mountains intothe Murchison Pass--a singular place for a train robbery, Andrew couldnot help thinking. They were at the southwestern end of the pass, wherethe mountains gave back in a broad gap. Below them, not five miles away, was the city of Gidding Creek; they could see its buildings and parkstumbled over a big area, for there was a full twenty-five thousand ofinhabitants in Gidding Creek. Indeed, the whole country was dotted withvillages and towns, for it was no longer a cattle region, but asemifarming district cut up into small tracts. One was almost never outof sight of at least one house. 

It worried Andrew, this closely built country, and he knew that itworried the other men as well; yet there had not been a single murmurfrom among them as they jogged their horses on behind Allister. Each ofthem was swathed from head to heels in a vast slicker that spreadbehind, when the wind caught it, as far as the tail of the horse. Andthe rubber creaked and rustled softly. Whatever they might have beeninclined to think of this daring raid into the heart of a comparativelythickly populated country, they were too accustomed to let the leader dotheir thinking for them to argue the point with him. And Andrew followedblindly enough. He saw, indeed, one strong point in their favor. Thevery fact that the train was coming out of the heart of the mountains, through ravines which afforded a thousand places for assault, would makethe guards relax their attention as they approached Gidding Creek. And, though there were many people in the region, they were a fat andinactive populace, not comparable with the lean fellows of the north. 

There was bitter work behind them. Ten days before they had made a feintto the north of Martindale that was certain to bring out Hal Dozier;then they doubled about and had plodded steadily south, choosing alwaysthe most desolate ground for their travel. There had been two changes ofhorses for the others, but Andrew kept to Sally. To her that journey wasplay after the labor she had passed through before; the iron dust ofdanger and labor was in her even as it was in Andrew. Three in all thatparty were fresh at the end of the long trail. They were Allister, Sally, and Andrew. The others were poisoned with weariness, and theirtempers were on edge; they kept an ugly silence, and if one of themhappened to jostle the horse of the other, there was a flash of teethand eyes--a silent warning. The sixth man was Scottie, who had longsince been detached from the party. His task was one which, if he failedin it, would make all that long ride go for nothing. He was to take thetrain far up, ride down as blind baggage to the Murchison Pass, and thenclimb over the tender into the cab, stick up the fireman and theengineer, and make them bring the engine to a halt at the mouth of thepass, with Gidding Creek and safety for all that train only five minutesaway. There was a touch of the Satanic in this that pleased Andrew andmade Allister show his teeth in self-appreciation. 

So perfectly had their journey been timed that the train was due in avery few minutes. They disposed their horses in the thicket, and thenwent back to take up their position in the ambush. The plan of work wascarefully divided. To Jeff Rankin, that nicely accurate shot and bulldogfighter, fell what seemed to be a full half of the total risk and labor. He was to go to the blind side of the job. In other words, he was toguard the opposite side of the train to that on which the main bodyadvanced. It was always possible that when a train was held up thepassengers--at least the unarmed portion, and perhaps even some of thearmed men--would break away on the least threatened side. Jeff Rankin onthat blind side was to turn them back with a hurricane of bullets fromhis magazine rifle. Firing from ambush and moving from place to place, he would seem more than one man. Probably three or four shots would turnback the mob. In the meantime, having made the engineer and fireman stopthe train, Scottie would be making them continue to flood the fire box. This would delay the start of the engine on its way and gain preciousmoments for the fugitives. Two of the band would be thus employed whileLarry la Roche went through the train and turned out the passengers. There was no one like Larry for facing a crowd and cowing it. Hisspectral form, his eyes burning through the holes in his mask, strippedthem of any idea of resistance. 

While the crowd turned out, Andrew, standing opposite the middle of thetrain, rifle in hand, would line them up, while Allister and Joe Cluneattended to overpowering the guards of the safe, and Larry la Roche cameout and went through the line of passengers for personal valuables, andClune and Allister fixed the soup to blow the safe. Last of all, therewas the explosion, the carrying off of the coin in its canvas sacks tothe horses. Each man was to turn his horse in a direction carefullyspecified, and, riding in a roundabout manner, which was also named, hewas to keep on until he came, five days later, to a deserted, ruinousshack far up in the mountains on the side of the Twin Eagles peaks. 

These were the instructions which Allister went over carefully with eachmember of his crew before they went to their posts. There had beentwenty rehearsals before, and each man was letter perfect. They tooktheir posts, and Allister came to the side of Andrew among the trees. 

"How are you?" he asked. 

"Scared to death, " said Andrew truthfully. "I'd give a thousand dollars, if I had it, to be free of this job. "

Andrew saw that hard glint come in the eyes of the leader. 

"You'll do--later, " nodded Allister. "But keep back from the crowd. Don't let them see you get nervous when they turn out of the coaches. Ifyou show a sign of wavering they might start something. Once they make asurge, shooting won't stop 'em. "

Andrew nodded. There was more practical advice on the heels of this. Then they stood quietly and waited. 

For days and days a northeaster had been blowing; it had whipped littledrifts of rain and mist that stung the face and sent a chill to thebone, and, though there had been no actual downpour, the cold and thewet had never broken since the journey started. Now the wind came like awolf down the Murchison Pass, howling and moaning. Andrew, closing hiseyes, felt that the whole thing was dreamlike. Presently he would openhis eyes and find himself back beside the fire in the house of UncleJasper, with the old man prodding his shoulder and telling him that itwas bedtime. When he opened his eyes, in fact, they fell upon asolitary pine high up on the opposite slope, above the thicket whereJeff Rankin was hiding. It was a sickly tree, half naked of branches, and it shivered like a wretched animal in the wind. Then a new soundcame down the pass, wolflike, indeed; it was repeated more clearly--thewhistle of a train. 

It was the signal arranged among them for putting on the masks, andAndrew hastily adjusted his. 

"Did you hear that?" asked Allister as the train hooted in the distanceagain. 

Andrew turned and started at the ghostly thing which had been the faceof the outlaw a moment before; he himself must look like that, he knew. 

"What?" he asked. 

"That voicelike whistle, " said Allister. "There's no luck in thisday--for me. "

"You've listened to Larry la Roche too much, " said Andrew. "He's beengrowling ever since we started on this trail. "

"No, no!" returned Allister. "It's another thing, an older thing thanLarry la Roche. My mother--"

He stopped. Whatever it was that he was about to say, Andrew was neverto hear it. The train had turned the long bend above, and now the roarof its wheels filled the canyon and covered the sound of the wind. 

It looked vast as a mountain as it came, rocking perceptibly on theuneven roadbed. It rounded the curve, the tail of the train flickedaround, and it shot at full speed straight for the mouth of the pass. How could one man stop it? How could five men attack it after it wasstopped? It was like trying to storm a medieval fortress with a popgun. 

The great black front of the engine came rocking toward them, gatheringimpetus on the sharp grade. Had Scottie missed his trick? But when thethunder of the iron on iron was deafening Andrew, and the engine seemedalmost upon them, there was a cloud of white vapor that burst out oneither side of it and the brakes were jumped on; the wheels skidded, screaming on the tracks. The engine lurched past; Andrew caught aglimpse of Scottie, a crouched, masked form in the cab of the engine, with a gun in either hand. For Scottie was one of the few naturaltwo-gun men that Andrew was ever to know. The engineer and the firemanhe saw only as two shades before they were whisked out of his view. Thetrain rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerkthat brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there wasthe successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack. 

Andrew, stepping out with his rifle balanced in his hands, saw Larry laRoche whip into the rear car. Then he himself swept the windows of thetrain, blurred by the mist, with the muzzle of his gun, keeping the buttclose to his shoulder, ready for a swift snapshot in any direction. Infact, his was that very important post, the reserve force, which was tocome instantly to the aid of any overpowered section of the activeworkers. He had rebelled against this minor task, but Allister hadassured him that, in former times, it was the place which he tookhimself to meet crises in the attack. 

The leader had gone with Joe Clune straight for the front car. How wouldthey storm it? Two guards, armed to the teeth, would be in it, and thedoor was closed. 

But the guards had no intention to remain like rats in a trap, while therest of the train was overpowered and they themselves were blasted intosmall bits with a small charge of soup. The door jerked open, thebarrels of two guns protruded. Andrew, thrilling with horror, recognizedone as a sawed-off shotgun. He saw now the meaning of the manner inwhich Allister and Clune made their attack. For Allister had run slowlystraight for the door, while Clune skirted in close to the cars, goingmore swiftly. As the gun barrels went up Allister plunged headlong tothe ground, and the volley of shot missed him cleanly; but Clune thenext moment leaped out from the side of the car, and, thereby gettinghimself to an angle from which he could deliver a cross fire, pumped twobullets through the door. Andrew saw a figure throw up its arms, ashadow form in the interior of the car, and then a man pitched outheadlong through the doorway and flopped with horrible limpness on theroadbed. While this went on Allister had snapped a shot, while he stilllay prone, and his single bullet brought a scream. The guards weredone for. 

Two deaths, Andrew supposed. But presently a man was sent out of the carat the point of Clune's revolver. He climbed down with difficulty, clutching one hand with the other. He had been shot in the most painfulplace in the body--the palm of the hand. Allister turned over the otherform with a brutal carelessness that sickened Andrew. But the man hadbeen only stunned by a bullet that plowed its way across the top of hisskull. He sat up now with a trickle running down his face. A gesturefrom Andrew's rifle made him and his companion realize that they werecovered, and, without attempting any further resistance, they sat sideby side on the ground and tended to each other's wounds--a ludicrousgroup for all their suffering. 

In the meantime, Clune and Allister were at work in the car; the waterwas hissing in the fire box as a vast cloud of steam came rushing outaround the engine; the passengers were pouring out of the cars. Theyacted like a group of actors, carefully rehearsed for the piece. Notonce did Andrew have to speak to them, while they ranged in a solidline, shoulder to shoulder, men, women, children. And then Larry laRoche went down the line with a saddlebag and took up the collection. "Passin' the hat so often has give me a religious touch, ladies andgents, " Andrew heard the ruffian say. "Any little contributions I'm suregrateful for, and, if anything's held back, I'm apt to frisk the gentthat don't fork over. Hey, you, what's that lump inside your coat? Lady, don't lie. I seen you drop it inside your dress. Why, it's a nice littleset o' sparklers. That ain't nothin' to be ashamed of. Come on, please;a little more speed. Easy there, partner; don't take both them handsdown at once. You can peel the stuff out of your pockets with one hand, I figure. Conductor, just lemme see your wallet. Thanks! Hate to botheryou, ma'am, but you sure ain't traveling on this train with onlyeighty-five cents in your pocketbook. Just lemme have a look at therest. See if you can't find it in your stocking. No, they ain't anythinghere to make you blush. You're among friends, lady; a plumb friendlycrowd. Your poor old pa give you this to go to school on, did he? Son, you're gettin' a pile more education out of this than you would incollege. No, honey, you just keep your locket. It ain't worth fivedollars. Did you? That jeweler ought to have my job, 'cause he surerobbed you! You call that watch an heirloom? Heirloom is my middle name, miss. Just get them danglers out'n your ears, lady. Thanks! Don't hurry, mister; you'll bust the chain. "

His monologue was endless; he had a comment for every person in theline, and he seemed to have a seventh sense for concealed articles. Thesaddlebag was bulging before he was through. At the same time Allisterand Clune jumped from the car and ran. Larry la Roche gave the warning. Every one crouched or lay down. The soup exploded. The top of the carlifted. It made Andrew think, foolishly enough, of someone tipping ahat. It fell slowly, with a crash that was like a faint echo of theexplosion. Clune ran back, and they could hear his shrill yell ofdelight: "It ain't a safe!" he exclaimed. "It's a baby mint!"

And a baby mint it was! It was a gold shipment. Gold coin runs aboutninety pounds to ten thousand dollars, and there was close to a hundredpounds apiece for each of the bandits. It was the largest haulAllister's gang had ever made. Larry la Roche left the pilfering of thepassengers and went to help carry the loot. They brought it out inlittle loose canvas bags and went on the run with it to the horses. 

Someone was speaking. It was the gray-headed man with the glasses andthe kindly look about the eyes. "Boys, it's the worst little game you'veever worked. I promise you we'll keep on your trail until we've run youall into the ground. That's really something to remember. I speak forGregg and Sons. "

"Partner, " said Scottie Macdougal from the cab, where he still kept theengineer and fireman covered, "a little hunt is like an after-dinnerdrink to me. "

To the utter amazement of Andrew the whole crowd--the crowd which hadjust been carefully and systematically robbed--burst into laughter. Butthis was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran aroundfrom the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into thethicket. Andrew, as the rear guard--his most ticklish moment--backedslowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such asprecedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his riflefroze the waverers in their tracks. 

Once inside the thicket a yell came from the crowd, but Andrew hadwhirled and was running at full speed. He could hear the others crashingaway. Sally, as he had taught her, broke into a trot as he approached, and the moment he struck the saddle she was in full gallop. Guns wererattling behind him; random shots cut the air sometimes close to him, but not one of the whole crowd dared venture beyond that unknownscreen of trees. 

CHAPTER 36

To Andrew the last danger of the holdup had been assigned as the rearguard, and he was the last man to pass Allister. The leader had drawnhis horse to one side a couple of miles down the valley, and, as each ofhis band passed him, he raised his hand in silent greeting. It was thelast Andrew saw of him, a ghostly figure sitting his horse with his handabove his head. After that his mind was busied by his ride, for, havingthe finest mount in the crowd, to him had been assigned the longest andthe most roundabout route to reach the Twin Eagles. 

Yet he covered so much ground with Sally that, instead of needing thefull five days to make the rendezvous, he could afford to loaf the laststage of the journey. Even at that, he camped in sight of the cabin onthe fourth night, and on the morning of the fifth he was the first manat the shack. 

Jeff Rankin came in next. To Jeff, on account of his unwieldy bulk, hadbeen assigned the shortest route; yet even so he dismounted, staggeringand limping from his horse, and collapsed on the pile of boughs whichAndrew had spent the morning cutting for a bed. As he dropped he tossedhis bag of coins to the floor. It fell with a melodious jingling thatwas immediately drowned by Jeff's groans; the saddle was torture to him, and now he was aching in every joint of his enormous body. "A nicehaul--nothin' to kick about, " was Jeff's opinion. "But Caesar'sghost--what a ride! The chief makes this thing too hard on a gent thatlikes to go easy, Andy. "

Andrew said nothing; silence had been his cue ever since he began actingas lieutenant to the chief. It had seemed to baffle the others; itbaffled the big man now. Later on Joe Clune and Scottie came intogether. That was about noon--they had met each other an hour before. But Allister had not come in, although he was usually the first at arendezvous. Neither did Larry la Roche come. The day wore on; thesilence grew on the group. When Andrew, proportioning the work forsupper, sent Joe to get wood, Jeff for water, and began himself to workwith Scottie on the cooking, he was met with ugly looks and hesitationbefore they obeyed. Something, he felt most decidedly, was in the air. And when Joe and Rankin came back slowly, walking side by side andtalking in soft voices, his suspicions were given an edge. 

They wanted to eat together; but he forced Scottie to take post on thehigh hill to their right to keep lookout, and for this he receivedanother scowl. Then, when supper was half over, Larry la Roche came into camp. News came with him, an atmosphere of tidings around his gloomyfigure, but he cast himself down by the fire and ate and drank insilence, until his hunger was gone. Then he tossed his tin dishes awayand they fell clattering on the rocks. 

"Pick 'em up, " said Andrew quietly. "We'll have no litter around thiscamp. " Larry la Roche stared at him in hushed malevolence. "Stand up andget 'em, " repeated Andrew. As he saw the big hands of Larry twitching hesmiled across the fire at the tall, bony figure. "I'll give you twoseconds to get 'em, " he said. 

One deadly second pulsed away, then Larry crumpled. He caught up his tincup and the plate. "We'll talk later about you, " he said ominously. 

"We'll talk about something else first, " said Andrew. "You've seenAllister?"

At first it seemed that La Roche would not speak; then his wide, thinlips writhed back from his teeth. "Yes. "

"Where is he?" "Gone to the happy hunting grounds. "

The silence came and the pulse in it. One by one, by a natural instinct, the men looked about them sharply into the night and made sure of theirweapons. It was the only tribute to the memory of Allister from his men, but tears and praise could not have been more eloquent. He had madethese men fearless of the whole world. Now were they ready to jump atthe passage of a shadow. They looked at each other with strange eyes. 

"Who? How many?" asked Jeff Rankin. 

"One man done it. "

"Hal Dozier?" said Andrew. 

"Him, " said Larry la Roche. He went on, looking gloomily down at thefire. "He got me first. The chief must of seen him get me by surprise, while I was down off my hoss, lying flat and drinking out of a creek!"He closed his great, bony fist in unspeakable agony at the thought. "Dozier come behind and took me. Frisked me. Took my guns, not the coin. We went down through the hills. Then the chief slid out of a shadow andcome at us like a tiger. I sloped. "

"You left Allister to fight alone?" said Scottie Macdougal quietly, forhe had come from his lookout to listen. 

"I had no gun, " said Larry, without raising his eyes from the fire. "Isloped. I looked back and seen Allister sitting on his hoss, dead still. Hal Dozier was sittin' on his hoss, dead still. Five seconds, maybe. Then they went for their guns together. They was two bangs like one. ButAllister slid out of his saddle and Dozier stayed in his. I comeon here. "

The quiet covered them. Joe Clune, with a shudder and another glanceover his shoulder, cast a branch on the fire, and the flames leaped. 

"Dozier knows you're with us, " added Larry la Roche, and he cast a longglance of hatred at Andrew. "He knows you're with us, and he knows ourluck left us when you come. "

Andrew looked about the circle; not an eye met his. 

The talk of Larry la Roche during the days of the ride was showing itseffect now. The gage had been thrown down to Andrew, and he dared notpick it up. 

"Boys, " he said, "I'll say this: Are we going to bust up and each man gohis way?"

There was no answer. 

"If we do, we can split the profits over again. I'll take no money outof a thing that cost Allister's death. There's my sack on the floor ofthe shack. Divvy it up among you. You fitted me out when I was broke. That'll pay you back. Do we split up?"

"They's no reason why we should--and be run down like rabbits, " said JoeClune, with another of those terrible glances over his shoulder intothe night. 

The others assented with so many growls. 

"All right, " said Andrew, "we stick together. And, if we stick together, I run this camp. "

"You?" asked Larry la Roche. "Who picked you? Who 'lected you, son? Why, you unlucky--"

"Ease up, " said Andrew softly. 

The eyes of La Roche flicked across the circle and picked up the glancesof the others, but they were not yet ready to tackle Andrew Lanning. 

"The last thing Allister did, " said Andrew, "was to make me hislieutenant. It's the last thing he did, and I'm going to push itthrough. Not because I like the job. " He raised his head, but not hisvoice. "They may run down the rest of you. They won't run down me. Theycan't. They've tried, and they can't. And I might be able to keep therest of you clear. I'm going to try. But I won't follow the lead of anyof you. If there'd been one that could keep the rest of you together, d'you think Allister wouldn't have seen it? Don't you think he would ofmade that one leader? Why, look at you! Jeff, you'd follow Clune. Butwould Larry or Scottie follow Clune? Look at 'em and see!"

All eyes went to Clune, and then the glances of Scottie and La Rochedropped. 

"Nobody here would follow La Roche. He's the best man we've got for someof the hardest work, but you're too flighty with your temper, Larry, andyou know it. We respect you just as much, but not to plan things for therest of us. Is that straight?

"And you, Scottie, " said Andrew, "you're the only one I'd follow. I saythat freely. But who else would follow you? You're the best of us all atheadwork and planning, but you don't swing your gun as fast, and youdon't shoot as straight as Jeff or Larry or Joe. Is that straight?"

"What's leading the gang got to do with fighting?" asked Scottieharshly. "And who's got the right to the head of things but me?"

"Ask Allister what fighting had to do with the running of things, " saidAndrew calmly. 

The moon was sliding up out of the east; it changed the faces of the menand made them oddly animallike; they stared, fascinated, at Andrew. 

"There's two reasons why I'm going to run this job, if we sticktogether. Allister named them once. I can take advice from any one ofyou; I know what each of you can do; I can plan a job for you; I canlead you clear of the law--and there's not one of you that can bully meor make me give an inch--no, nor all of you together--La Roche!Macdougal! Clune! Rankin!"

It was like a roll call, and at each name a head was jerked up inanswer, and two glittering eyes flashed at Andrew--flashed, sparkled, and then became dull. The moonlight had made his pale skin a deadlywhite, and it was a demoniac face they saw. The silence was his answer. 

"Jeff, " he commanded, "take the hill. You'll stand the watch tonight. And look sharp. If Dozier got Allister he's apt to come at us. Stepon it!"

And Jeff Rankin rose without a word and lumbered to the top of the hill. Larry la Roche suddenly filled his cup with boiling hot coffee, regardless of the heat, regardless of the dirt in the cup. His handshook when he raised it to his lips. 

CHAPTER 37

There was no further attempt at challenging his authority. When heordered Clune and La Roche to bring in boughs for bedding--since theywere to stop in the shack overnight--they went silently. But it was sucha silence as comes when the wind falls at the end of a day and in asilent sky the clouds pile heavily, higher and higher. Andrew took theopportunity to speak to Scottie Macdougal. He told Scottie simply thathe needed him, and with him at his back he could handle the others, andmore, too. He was surprised to see a twinkle in the eye of theScotchman. 

"Why, Andy, " said the canny fellow, "didn't you see me pass you thewink? I was with you all the time!"

Andrew thanked him and went into the cabin to arrange for lights. He hadno intention of shirking a share in the actual work of the camp; eventhough Allister had set that example for his following. He took somelengths of pitchy pine sticks and arranged them for torches. One of themalone would send a flare of yellow light through the cabin; two made acomfortable illumination. But he worked cheerlessly. The excitement ofthe robbery and the chase was over, and then the conflict with the menwas passing. He began to see things truly by the drab light ofretrospection. The bullets of Allister and Clune might have gone home--they were intended to kill, not to wound. And if there had been twodeaths he, Andrew Lanning, would have been equally guilty with the menwho handled the guns, for he had been one of the forces which made thatshooting possible. 

It was an ugly way to look at it--very ugly. It kept a frown on Andrew'sface, while he arranged the torches in the main room of the shack andthen put one for future reference in the little shed which leanedagainst the rear of the main structure. He arranged his own bed in thissecond room, where the saddles and other accouterments were piled. Itwas easily explained, since there was hardly room for five men in thefirst room. But he had another purpose. He wanted to separate himselffrom the others, just as Allister always did. Even in a crowded roomAllister would seem aloof, and Andrew determined to make the famousleader his guide. 

Above all he was troubled by what Scottie had said. He would have felteasy at heart if the Scotchman had met him with an argument or with afrown or honest opposition or with a hearty handshake, to say that allwas well between them. But this cunning lie--this cunning protestationthat he had been with the new leader from the first, put Andrew on hisguard. For he knew perfectly well that Scottie had not been on his sideduring the crisis with La Roche. Macdougal sat before the door, hismetal flask of whisky beside him. It was a fault of Allister, thispermitting of whisky at all times and in all places, after a job wasfinished. And while it made the other men savage beasts, it turnedScottie Macdougal into a wily, smiling snake. He had bit the heel ofmore than one man in his drinking bouts. 

Presently La Roche and Clune came in. They had been talking togetheragain. Andrew could tell by the manner in which they separated, as soonas they entered the room, and by their voices, which they made loud andcheerful; and, also, by the fact that they avoided looking at eachother. They were striving patently to prove that there was nothingbetween them; and if Andrew had been on guard, now he becametinglingly so. 

They arranged their bunks; Larry la Roche took from his vest a pipe witha small bowl and a long stem and sat down cross-legged to smoke. Andrewsuggested that Larry produce the contents of his saddlebag and share thespoils of war. 

He brought it out willingly enough and spilled it out on the improvisedtable, a glittering mass of gold trinkets, watches, jewels. He pickedout of the mass a chain of diamonds and spread it out on his snakyfingers so that the light could play on it. Andrew knew nothing aboutgems, but he knew that the chain must be worth a great deal of money. 

"This, " said Larry, "is my share. You gents can have the rest and splitit up. "

"A nice set of sparklers, " nodded Clune, "but there's plenty left tosatisfy me. "

"What you think, " declared Scottie, "ain't of any importance, Joe. It'swhat the chief thinks that counts. Is it square, Lanning?"

Andrew flushed at the appeal and the ugly looks which La Roche and Clunecast toward him. He could have stifled Scottie for that appeal, and yetScottie was smiling in the greatest apparent good nature and belief intheir leader. His face was flushed, but his lips were bloodless. Alcoholalways affected him in that manner. 

"I don't know the value of the stones, " said Andrew. 

"Don't you?" murmured Scottie. "I forgot. Thought maybe you would. Thatwas something that Allister did know. " The new leader saw a flash ofglances toward Scottie, but the latter continued to eye the captain witha steady and innocent look. 

"Scottie, " decided Andrew instantly, "is my chief enemy. "

If he could detach one man to his side all would be well. Two againstthree would be a simple thing, as long as he was one of the two. Butfour against one--and such a four as these--was hopeless odds. Thereseemed little chance of getting Joe Clune. There remained only JeffRankin as his possibly ally, and already he had stepped on Jeff's toessorely, by making the tired giant stand guard. He thought of all thesethings, of course, in a flash. And then in answer to his thoughts JeffRankin appeared. His heavy footfall crashed inside the door. He stopped, panting, and, in spite of his news, paused to blink at the flashof jewels. 

"It's comin', " said Jeff. "Boys, get your guns and scatter out of thecabin. Duck that light! Hal Dozier is comin' up the valley. "

There was not a single exclamation, but the lights went out as if bymagic; there were a couple of light, hissing sounds, such as iron makeswhen it is whipped swiftly across leather. 

"How'd you know him by this light?" asked Larry la Roche, as they wentout of the door. Outside they found everything brilliant with the whitemoonshine of the mountains. 

"Nobody but Hal Dozier rides twistin' that way in the saddle. I'd tellhim in a thousand. It's old wounds that makes him ride like that. We gotten minutes. He's takin' the long way up the canyon. And they ain'tanybody with him. "

"If he's come alone, " said Andrew, "he's come for me and not for therest of you. "

No one spoke. Then Larry la Roche: "He wants to make it man to man. That's clear. That's why he pulled up his hoss and waited for Allisterto make the first move for his gun. It's a clean challenge to someone of us. "

Andrew saw his chance and used it mercilessly. 

"Which one of you is willing to take the challenge?" he asked. "Whichone of you is willing to ride down the canyon and meet him alone? LaRoche, I've heard you curse Dozier. "

But Larry la Roche answered: "What's this fool talk about takin' achallenge? I say, string out behind the hills and pot him with rifles. "

"One man, and we're five, " said Jeff Rankin. "It ain't sportin', Larry. I hate to hear you say that. We'd be despised all over the mountains ifwe done it. He's makin' his play with a lone hand, and we've got to meethim the same way. Eh, chief?"

It was sweet to Andrew to hear that appeal. And he saw them turn one byone toward him in the moonlight and wait. It was his first greattribute. He looked over those four wolfish figures and felt hisheart swelling. 

"Wish me luck, boys, " he said, and without another word he turned andwent down the hillside. 

The others watched him with amazement. He felt it rather than saw it, and it kept a tingle in his blood. He felt, also, that they werespreading out to either side to get a clear view of the fight that wasto follow, and it occurred to him that, even if Hal Dozier killed him, there would not be one chance in a thousand of Hal's getting away. Fourdeadly rifles would be covering him. 

It must be that a sort of madness had come on Dozier, advancing in thismanner, unsupported by a posse. Or, perhaps, he had no idea that theoutlaws could be so close. He expected a daylight encounter high up themountains. 

But Andrew went swiftly down the ravine. 

Broken cliffs, granite boulders jumped up on either side of him, andthe rocks were pale and glimmering under the moon. This one valleyseemed to receive the light; the loftier mountains rolling away on eachside were black as jet, with sharp, ragged outlines against the sky. Itwas a cold light, and the chill of it went through Andrew. He wasafraid, afraid as he had been when Buck Heath faced him in Martindale, or when Bill Dozier ran him down, or when the famous Sandy cornered him. His fingers felt brittle, and his breath came and went in short gasps, drawn into the upper part of his lungs only. 

Behind him, like an electric force pushing him on, the outlaws watchedhis steps. They, also, were shuddering with fear, and he knew it. 

Dozier was coming, fresh from another kill. 

"Only one man I'd think twice about meeting, " Allister had said in theold days, and he had been right. Yet there were thousands who had swornthat Allister was invincible--that he would never fall before asingle man. 

He thought, too, of the lean face and the peculiar, set eye of Dozier. The man had no fear, he had no nerves; he was a machine, and death washis business. 

And was he, Andrew Lanning, unknown until the past few months, now goingdown to face destruction, as full of fear as a girl trembling at thedark? What was it that drew them together, so unfairly matched?

He could still see only the white haze of the moonshine before him, butnow there was the clicking of hoofs on the rock. Dozier was coming. Andrew walked squarely out into the middle of the ravine and waited. Hehad set his teeth. The nerves on the bottom of his feet were twitching. Something freezing cold was beginning at the tips of his fingers. Howlong would it take Dozier to come?

An interminable time. The hoofbeats actually seemed to fade out and drawaway at one time. Then they began again very near him, and now theystopped. Had Dozier seen him around the elbow curve? That heartbreakinginstant passed, and the clicking began again. Then the rider came slowlyin view. First there was the nodding head of the cow pony, then the footin the stirrup, then Hal Dozier riding a little twisted in the saddle--afamous characteristic of his. 

He came on closer and closer. He began to seem huge on the horse. Was heblind not to see the figure that waited for him?

A voice that was not his, that he did not recognize, leaped out frombetween his teeth and tore his throat: "Dozier!"

The cow pony halted with a start; the rider jerked straight in hissaddle; the echo of the call barked back from some angling cliff facedown the ravine. All that before Dozier made his move. He had droppedthe reins, and Andrew, with a mad intention of proving that he himselfdid not make the first move toward his weapon, had folded his arms. 

He did not move through the freezing instant that followed. Not untilthere was a convulsive jerk of Dozier's elbow did he stir his foldedarms. Then his right arm loosened, and the hand flashed down tohis holster. 

Was Dozier moving with clogged slowness, or was it that he had ceased tobe a body, that he was all brain and hair-trigger nerves making everythousandth part of a second seem a unit of time? It seemed to Andrewthat the marshal's hand dragged through its work; to those who watchedfrom the sides of the ravine, there was a flash of fire from his gunbefore they saw even the flash of the steel out of the holster. The gunspat in the hand of Dozier, and something jerked at the shirt of Andrewbeside his neck. He himself had fired only once, and he knew that theshot had been too high and to the right of his central target; yet hedid not fire again. Something strange was happening to Hal Dozier. Hishead had nodded forward as though in mockery of the bullet; hisextended right hand fell slowly, slowly; his whole body began to swayand lean toward the right. Not until that moment did Andrew know that hehad shot the marshal through the body. 

He raced to the side of the cattle pony, and, as the horse veered away, Hal Dozier dropped limply into his arms. He lay with his limbs sprawlingat odd angles beside him. His muscles seemed paralyzed, but his eyeswere bright and wide, and his face perfectly composed. 

"There's luck for you, " said Hal Dozier calmly. "I pulled it two inchesto the right, or I would have broken your neck with the slug--anyway, Ispoiled your shirt. "

The cold was gone from Andrew, and he felt his heart thundering andshaking his body. He was repeating like a frightened child, "For God'ssake, Hal, don't die--don't die. "

The paralyzed body did not move, but the calm voice answered him: "Youfool! Finish me before your gang comes and does it for you!"

CHAPTER 38

There was a rush of footsteps behind and around him, a jangle of voices, and there were the four huddled over Hal Dozier. Andrew had risen andstepped back, silently thanking God that it was not a death. He heardthe voices of the four like voices in a dream. 

"A clean one. " "A nice bit of work. " "Dozier, are you thinkin' ofAllister, curse you?" "D'you remember Hugh Wiley now?" "D'you mayberecollect my pal, Bud Swain? Think about 'em, Dozier, while you'redyin'!" The calm eyes traveled without hurry from face to face. Andcuriosity came to Andrew, a cool, deadly curiosity. He stepped amongthe gang. 

"He's not fatally hurt, " he said. "What d'you intend to do with him?"

"You're all wrong, chief, " said Larry la Roche, and he grinned atAndrew. His submission now was perfect and complete. There was even asort of worship in the bright eyes that looked at the new leader. "Ihate to say it, but right as you mos' gener'ly are, you're wrong thistime. He's done. He don't need no more lookin' to. Leave him be for anhour and he'll be finished. Also, that'll give him a chance to think. Heneeds a chance. Old Curley had a chance to think--took him four hours tokick out after Dozier plugged him. I heard what he had to say, and itwasn't pretty. I think maybe it'd be sort of interestin' to hear whatDozier has to say. Long about the time he gets thirsty. Eh, boys?"

There was a snarl from the other three as they looked down at thewounded man, who did not speak a word. And Andrew knew that he wasindeed alone with that crew, for the man whom he had just shot down wasnearer to him than the members of Allister's gang. 

He spoke suddenly: "Jeff, take his head; Clune, take his feet. Carry himup to the cabin. "

They only stared at him. 

"Look here, captain, " said Scottie in a soft voice, just a triflethickened by whiskey, "are you thinking of taking him up there and tyinghim up so that he'll live through this?"

And again the other three snarled softly. 

"You murdering hounds!" said Andrew. 

That was all. They looked at each other; they looked at the new leader. And the sight of his white face and his nervous right hand was too muchfor them. They took up the marshal and carried him to the cabin, hispony following like a dog behind. They brought him, without asking fordirections, straight into the little rear room--Andrew's room. It was asufficiently intelligible way of saying that this was his work and noneof theirs. And not a hand lifted to aid him while he went to work withthe bandaging. He knew little about such work, but the marshal himself, in a rather faint, but perfectly steady voice, gave directions. And inthe painful cleaning of the wound he did not murmur once. Neither did heexpress the slightest gratitude. He kept following Andrew about the roomwith coldly curious eyes. 

In the next room the voices of the four were a steady, rumbling murmur. Now and then the glance of the marshal wandered to the door. When thebandaging was completed, he asked, "Do you know you've started a job youcan't finish?"

"Ah?" murmured Andrew. 

"Those four, " said the marshal, "won't let you. "

Andrew smiled. 

"Are you easier now?"

"Don't bother about me. I'll tell you what--I wish you'd get me a drinkof water. "

"I'll send one of the boys. "

"No, get it yourself. I want to say something to them while you'regone. "

Andrew had risen up from his knees. He now studied the face of themarshal steadily. 

"You want 'em to come in here and drill you, eh?" he said. "Why?"

The other nodded. 

"I've given up hope once; I've gone through the hardest part of dying;let them finish the job now. "

"Tomorrow you'll feel differently. "

"Will I?" asked the marshal. All at once his eyes went yellow with hate. "I go back to the desert--I go to Martindale--people I pass on thestreet whisper as I go by. They'll tell over and over how I went down. And a kid did it--a raw kid!"

He closed his eyes in silent agony. Then he looked up more keenly thanbefore. "How'll they know that it was luck--that my gun stuck in theholster--and that you jumped me on the draw?"

"You lie, " said Andrew calmly. "Your gun came out clean as a whistle, and I waited for you, Dozier. You know I did. "

The pain in the marshal's face became a ghastly thing to see. At last hecould speak. 

"A sneak always lies well, " he replied, as he sneered at Lanning. 

He went on, while Andrew sat shivering with passion. "And any fool canget in a lucky shot now and then. But, when I'm out of this, I'll huntyou down again and I'll plant you full of lead, my son! You can layto that!"

The hard breathing of Andrew gradually subsided. 

"It won't work, Dozier, " he said quietly. "You can't make me mad enoughto shoot a man who's down. You can't make me murder you. "

The marshal closed his eyes again, while his breathing was beginning togrow fainter, and there was an unpleasant rattle in the hollow of histhroat. Andrew went into the next room. 

"Scottie, " he said, "will you let me have your flask?"

Scottie smiled at him. 

"Not for what you'd use it for, Lanning, " he said. 

Andrew picked up a cup and shoved it across the table. 

"Pour a little whisky in that, please, " he said. 

Scottie looked up and studied him. Then he tipped his flask and poured athin stream into the cup until it was half full. Andrew went back towardthe door, the cup in his left hand. He backed up, keeping his facesteadily toward the four, and kicked open the door behind him. 

War, he knew, had been declared. Then he raised the marshal's head andgave him a sip of the fiery stuff. It cleared the face of thewounded man. 

Then Andrew rolled down his blankets before the door, braced a smallstick against it, so that the sound would be sure to waken him if anyonetried to enter, and laid down for the night. He was almost asleep whenthe marshal said: "Are you really going to stick it out, Andy?"

"Yes. "

"In spite of what I've said?"

"I suppose you meant it all? You'd hunt me down and kill me like a dogafter you get back on your feet?"

"Like a dog. "

"If you think it over and see things clearly, " replied Andrew, "you'llsee that what I've done I've done for my own sake, and not for yours. "

"How do you make that out--with four men in the next room ready to sticka knife in your back--if I know anything about 'em?"

"I'll tell you: I owe nothing to you, but a man owes a lot to himself, and I'm going to pay myself in full. "

CHAPTER 39

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but, though he came to the vergeof oblivion, the voices from the other room finally waked him. They hadbeen changing subtly during the past hours and now they rose, and therewas a ring to them that troubled Andrew. 

He could make out their talk part of the time; and then again theylowered their voices to rumbling growls. At such times he knew thatthey were speaking of him, and the hum of the undertone was more ominousthan open threats. When they talked aloud there was a confused clamor;when they were more hushed there was always the oily murmur of Scottie'svoice, taking the lead and directing the current of the talk. 

The liquor was going the rounds fast, now. Before they left for theMurchison Pass they had laid in a comfortable supply, but apparentlyAllister had cached a quantity of the stuff at the Twin Eagles shack. Ofone thing Andrew was certain, that four such practiced whisky drinkerswould never let their party degenerate into a drunken rout; and anotherthing was even more sure--that Scottie Macdougal would keep his headbetter than the best of the others. But what the alcohol would do wouldbe to cut the leash of constraint and dig up every strong passion amongthem. For instance, Jeff Rankin was by far the most equable of the lot, but, given a little whisky, Jeff became a conscienceless devil. 

He knew his own weakness, and Andrew, crawling to the door and puttinghis ear to the crack under it, found that the sounds of the voicesbecame instantly clearer; the others were plying Jeff with the liquor, and Jeff, knowing that he had had enough, was persistently refusing, butwith less and less energy. 

There must be a very definite reason for this urging of Rankin towardthe whisky, and Andrew was not hard pressed to find out that reason. Thebig, rather good-natured giant was leaning toward the side of the newleader, just as steadily as the others were leaning away from him. Whisky alone would stop his scruples. Larry la Roche, his voice aguarded, hissing whisper, was speaking to Jeff as Andrew began listeningfrom his new position. 

"What I ask you, " said La Roche, "is this: Have we had any luck sincethe kid joined us?" "We've got a pile of the coin, " said Jeffobstinately. 

"D'you stack a little coin against the loss of Allister?" asked Larry laRoche. 

"Easy, " cautioned Scottie. "Not so loud, Larry. "

"He's asleep, " said Larry la Roche. "I heard him lie down after he'd putsomething agin' the door. No fear of him. "

"Don't be so sure. He might make a noise lying down and make not a soundgetting up. And, even when he's asleep, he's got one eye open likea wolf. "

"Well, " repeated Larry insistently, and now his voice was so faint thatAndrew had to guess at half the syllables, "answer my question, Jeff:Have we had good luck or bad luck, takin' it all in all, since hejoined us?"

"How do I know it's his fault?" asked Jeff. "We all knew it would be aclose pinch if Allister ever jumped Hal Dozier. We thought Allister wasa little bit faster than Dozier. Everybody else said that Dozier was thebest man that ever pulled a gun out of leather. It wasn't luck that beatAllister--it was a better man. "

There was a thud as his fist hit the rickety, squeaking table in thecenter of the room. 

"I say, let's play fair and square. How do I know that the kid won'tmake a good leader?"

Scottie broke in smoothly: "Makes me grin when you say that, Jeff. Tellyou what the trouble is with you, old man: you're too modest. A fellowthat's done what you've done, following a kid that ain't twenty-five!"

There was a bearlike grunt from Jeff. He was not altogether displeasedby this gracious tribute. But he answered: "You're too slippery withyour tongue, Scottie. I never know when you mean what you say!"

It must have been a bitter pill for Scottie to swallow, but he was notparticularly formidable with his weapons, compared with straight-eyedJeff Rankin, and he answered: "Maybe there's some I jolly along a bit, but, when I talk to old Jeff Rankin, I talk straight. Look at me now, Jeff. Do I look as if I was joking with you?"

"I ain't any hand at readin' minds, " grumbled Jeff. 

He added suddenly: "I say it was the finest thing I ever see, the wayyoung Lanning stood out there in the valley. Did you watch? Did you seehim let Dozier get the jump on his gun? Pretty, pretty, pretty! And thenhis own gat was out like a flash--one wink, and there was Hal Dozierdrilled clean! I tell you, boys, you got this young Lanning wrong. Isort of cotton to the kid. I always did. I liked him the first time Iever laid eyes on him. So did you all, except Larry, yonder. And it wasLarry that turned you agin' him after he come and joined us. Who askedhim to join us? We did!"

"Who asked him to be captain?" said Scottie. 

It seemed to stagger Jeff Rankin. 

"Allister used him for a sort of second man; seemed like he meant him tolead us in case anything happened to him. "

"While Allister was living, " said Scottie, "you know I would of followedhim anywhere. Wasn't I his advance agent? Didn't I do his planning withhim? But now Allister's dead--worse luck--but dead he is. "

He paused here cunningly, and, no doubt, during that pause each of theoutlaws conjured up a picture of the scar-faced man with the bright, steady eyes, who had led them so long and quelled them so often and heldthem together through thick and thin. 

"Allister's dead, " repeated Scottie, "and what he did while he was alivedon't hold us now. We chose him for captain out of our own free will. Now that he's dead we have the right to elect another captain. What'sLanning done that he has a right to fill Allister's place with us? Whatjob did he have at the holdup? When we stuck up the train didn't he havethe easiest job? Did he give one good piece of advice while we wereplannin' the job? Did he show any ability to lead us, then?"

The answer came unhesitatingly from Rankin: "It wasn't his place to leadwhile Allister was with us. And I'll tell you what he done afterAllister died. When I seen Dozier comin', who was it that stepped out tomeet him? Was it you, Scottie? No, it wasn't. It wasn't you, La Roche, neither, nor you, Clune, and it wasn't me. Made me sick inside, thethought of facin' Dozier. Why? Because I knew he'd never been beat. Because I knew he was a better man than Allister, and that Allister hadbeen a better man than me. And it ain't no braggin' to say I'm a handiergent with my guns than any of you. Well, I was sick, and you all weresick. I seen your faces. But who steps out and takes the lead? It wasthe kid you grin at, Scottie; it was Andy Lanning, and I say it was afine thing to do!"

It was undoubtedly a facer; but Scottie came back in his usual calmmanner. 

"I know it was Lanning, and it was a fine thing. I don't deny, either, that he's a fine gent in lots of ways--and in his place--but is hisplace at the head of the gang? Are we going to be bullied into havinghim there?"

"Then let him follow, and somebody else lead. "

"You make me laugh, Jeff. He's not the sort that will follow anybody. "

Plainly Scottie was working on Jeff from a distance. He would bring himslowly around to the place where he would agree to the attack on Andrewfor the sake of getting at the wounded marshal. 

"Have another drink, Jeff, and then let's get back to the main point, and that has nothin' to do with Andy. It is: Is Hal Dozier going tolive or die?"

The time had come, Andrew saw, to make his final play. A little more ofthis talk and the big, good-hearted, strong-handed Rankin would becompletely on the side of the others. And that meant the impossible oddsof four to one. Andrew knew it. He would attack any two of them withoutfear. But three became a desperate, a grim battle; and four to one madethe thing suicide. 

He slipped silently to his feet from beside the door and picked up thecanvas bag which represented his share of the robbery. Then he knockedat the door. 

"Boys, " he called, "there's been some hard thoughts between the lot ofyou and me. It looks like we're on opposite sides of a fence. I want tocome in and talk to you. "

Instantly Scottie answered: "Why, come on in, captain; not such hardwords as you think--not on my side, anyways!"

It was a cunning enough lure, no doubt, and Andrew had his hand on thelatch of the door before a second thought reached him. If he exposedhimself, would not the three of them pull their guns? They would be ableto account for it to Jeff Rankin later on. 

"I'll come in, " said Andrew, "when I hear you give me surety that I'llbe safe. I don't trust you, Scottie. "

"Thanks for that. What surety do you want?"

"I want the word of Jeff Rankin that he'll see me through till I've mademy talk to you and my proposition. "

It was an excellent counterthrust, but Larry la Roche saw through theattempt to win Jeff immediately. 

"You skunk!" he said. "If you don't trust us we don't trust you. Staywhere you be. We don't want to hear your talk!"

"Jeff, what do you say?" continued Andrew calmly. 

There was a clamor of three voices and then the louder voice of Jeff, like a lion shaking itself clear of wolves: "Andy, come in, and I'll seeyou get a square deal--if you'll trust me!" Instantly Andrew threw openthe door and stepped in, his revolver in one hand, the heavy sack overhis other arm, a dragging weight and also a protection. 

"I'll trust you, Jeff, " he said. "Trust you? Why, man, with you at myback I'd laugh at twenty fellows like these. They simply don't count. "

It was another well-placed shot, and he saw Rankin flush heavily withpleasure. Scottie tilted his box back against the wall and delivered hiscounterstroke: "He said the same thing to me earlier on in the evening, "he remarked casually. "But I told him where to go. I told him that I waswith the bunch first and last and all the time. That's why he hates me!"

CHAPTER 40

While he searched desperately for an answer, Andrew found none. Then hesaw the stupid, big eyes of Jeff wander from his face to the face ofScottie, and he knew that his previous advantage had been completelyneutralized. 

"Boys, " he said, and he surveyed the restless, savage figures of Cluneand La Roche, "I've come for a little plain talk. There's no morequestion about me leadin' the gang. None at all. I wouldn't lead you, LaRoche, nor you, Clune, nor you, Scottie. There's only one man herethat's clean--and he's Jeff Rankin. "

He waited for that point to sink home; as Scottie opened his lips tostrike back, he went ahead deliberately. By retaining his own calm hesaw that he kept a great advantage. Rankin began fumbling at his cup;Scottie instantly filled it half full with whisky. "Don't drink that, "said Andrew sharply. "Don't drink it, Jeff. Scottie's doin' that onpurpose to get you sap headed!"

"Do what he says, " said Scottie calmly. "Throw the dirty stuff away, Jeff. Do what your daddy tells you. You ain't old enough to know yourown mind, are you?"

Big Jeff flushed, cast a glance of defiance that included both Andrewand Scottie, and tossed off the whisky. It was a blow over the heart forAndrew; he had to finish his talking now, before Jeff Rankin was turnedmad by the whisky. And if he worked it well, Jeff would be on his side. The madness would fight for Andrew. 

He said: "There's no more question about me being a leader for you. Personally, I'd like to have Jeff--not to follow me, but to be palswith me. "

Jeff cleared his throat and looked about with foolish importance. Not aneye wavered to meet his glance; every look was fixed with a hungry hateupon Andrew. 

"There's only one thing up between the lot of us: Do I keep Hal Dozier, or do you get him--to murder him? Do you fellows ride on your way freeand easy, to do what you please, or do you tackle me in that room, eatmy lead, and then, if you finish me, get a chance to kill a man that'snearly dead now? How does it look to you, boys? Think it over. Think sharp!"

He knew while he spoke that there was one exquisitely simple way to endboth his life and the life of Dozier--let them touch a match to thebuilding and shoot him while he ran from the flames. But he could onlypray that they would not see it. 

"And besides, I'll do more. You think you have a claim on Dozier. I'llbuy him from you. Here's half his weight in gold. Will you take themoney and clear out? Or are you going to make the play at me? If you do, you'll buy whatever you get at a high price!" "You forget--" put inScottie, but Andrew interrupted. 

"I don't want to hear from you, Scottie. I know you're a snake. I wantto hear from Jeff Rankin. Speak up, Jeff. Everything's in your hands, and I trust you!"

The giant rose from his chair. His face was white with the effect of thewhisky, and one spot of color burned in each cheek. He lookedgloweringly upon his companions. 

"Andy, " he said, "I--"

"Wait a minute, " said Scottie swiftly, seeing that the scales werebalancing toward a defeat. 

"Let him talk. You don't have to tell him what to say, " said Andrew. 

"I've got a right to put our side up to him--for the sake of the thingswe've been through together. Jeff, have I?"

Jeff Rankin cleared his throat importantly. Scottie faced him; theothers kept their unchanging eyes rivetted upon Andrew, ready for thegun play at the first flicker of an eyelid. The first sign of unwarinesswould begin and end the battle. 

"Don't forget this, " went on Scottie, having Jeff's attention. "Andy isworkin' to keep Dozier alive. Why? Dozier's the law, isn't he? Then Andywants to make up with the law. He wants to sneak out. He wants to turnstate's evidence!"

The deadly phrase shocked Jeff Rankin a pace back toward soberness. 

"I never thought, " he began. 

"You're too straight to think of it. Take another look at Lanning. Is heone of us? Has he ever been one of us? No! Look again! Dozier has huntedLanning all over the mountain desert. Now he wants to save Dozier. Wantsto risk his life for him. Wants to buy him from us! Why? Because he'sturned crooked. He's turned soft. He wants to get under the wing ofthe law. "

But Jeff Rankin swept all argument away with a movement of his big paws. "Too much talk, " he said. "I want to think. "

His stupid, animal eyes went laboriously around the room. "I wishAllister was here, " he said. "He always knew. "

"For my part, " said Scottie, "I can't be bought. Not me!" He suddenlyleaned to the big man, and, before Andrew could speak, he had said:"Jeff, you know why I want to get Dozier. Because he ran down mybrother. And are you going to let him go clear, Jeff? Are you going tohave Allister haunt you?"

It was the decisive stroke. The big head of Jeff twitched back, heopened his lips to speak--and in that moment, knowing that the battlewas over and lost to him, Andrew, who had moved back, made one leap andwas through the door and into the little shed again. The gun had gleamedin the hand of Larry la Roche as he sprang, but Andrew had been tooquick for the outlaw to plant his shot. 

He heard Jeff Rankin still speaking: "I dunno, quite. But I see you'reright, Scottie. They ain't any reason for Lanning to be so chummy withDozier. And so they must be somethin' crooked about it. Boys, I'm withyou to the limit! Go as far as you like. I'm behind you!"

No room for argument now; and the blind, animal hate which Scottie andLa Roche and Clune felt for Dozier was sure to drive them toextremities. Andrew sat in the dark, hurriedly going over his rifle andhis revolver. Once he was about to throw open the door and try theeffect of a surprise attack. He might plant two shots before there was areturn; he let the idea slip away from him. There would remain two more, and one of them was certain to kill him. 

Moving across the room he heard a whisper from the floor: "I've heardthem, Lanning. Don't be a fool. Give me up to 'em!"

He made no answer. In the other room the voices were no longerrestrained; Jeff Rankin's in particular boomed and rang and filled theshed. Once bent on action he was all for the attack; whisky had removedthe last human scruple. And Andrew heard them openly cast their ballotsfor a new leader; heard Scottie acclaimed; heard the Scotchman say:"Boys, I'm going to show you a way to clean up on Dozier and Lanning, without any man risking a single shot from him in return. "

They clamored for the suggestion, but he told them that he was firstgoing out into the open to think it over. In the meantime they hadnothing to fear. Sit fast and have another drink around. He had to bealone to figure it out. 

It was very plain. The wily rascal would let them go one step farthertoward an insanity of drink, and then, his own brain cold and collected, he would come back to turn the shack into a shambles. He had said hecould do it without risk to them. There was only one possible meaning;he intended to use fire. 

Andrew sat with the butt of his rifle ground into his forehead. It wasstill easy to escape; the insistent whisper from the floor was pointingout the way: "Beat it out that back window, lad. Slope, Andy; they's nouse. You can't help me. They mean fire; they'll pot you like a pig, fromthe dark. Give me up!"

It was the advice to use the window that decided Andrew. It was a wildchance indeed, this leaving of Dozier helpless on the floor; but herisked it. He whispered to the marshal that he would return, and slippedthrough the window. He was not halfway around the house before he hearda voice that chilled him with horror. It was the marshal calling to themthat Andrew was gone and inviting them in to finish him. But theysuspected, naturally enough, that the invitation was a trap, and theycontented themselves with abusing him for thinking them such fools. 

Andrew went on; fifty feet from the house and just aside from the shaftof light that fell from the open door, stood Scottie. His head wasbare, his face was turned up to catch the wind, and no doubt he wasdreaming of the future which lay before him as the new captain ofAllister's band. The whisper of Andrew behind him cut his dream short. He whirled to receive the muzzle of a revolver in his stomach. His handswent up, and he stood gasping faintly in the moonlight. 

"I've got you, Scottie, " he said, "and so help me heaven, you're thefirst man that I've wanted to kill. "

It would have taken a man of supernerve to outface that situation. Andthe nerve of Scottie cracked. 

He began to whisper with a horrible break and sob in his breath:"Andy--Andy, gimme a chance. I'm not fit to go--this way. Andy, remember--"

"I'm going to give you a chance. You're pretty low, Scottie; I checkwhat you've done to the way you hate Dozier, and I won't hold a grudge. And I'll tell you the chance you've got. You see these rocks, here? I'mgoin' to lie down behind them. I'm going to keep you covered with myrifle. Scottie, did you ever see me shoot with a rifle?"

Scottie shuddered--a very sufficient reply. 

"I'm going to keep you covered. Then you'll turn around and walkstraight back to the shack. You'll stand there--always in clean sightof the doorway--and you'll persuade that crowd of drunks to leave thehouse and ride away with you. Understand, when you get inside the house, there'll be a big temptation to jump to one side and get behind thewall--just one twitch of your muscles, and you'd be safe. But, fast asyou could move, Scottie, powder drives lead a lot faster. And I'll haveyou centered every minute. You'll make a pretty little target againstthe light, besides. You understand?

"The moment you even start to move fast, I pull the trigger. Rememberit, Scottie. For as sure as there's a hell, I'll send you into it headfirst, if you don't. " "So help me heaven, " said Scottie, "I'll do whatI can. I think I can talk 'em into it. But if I don't?"

"If you don't, you're dead. That's short, and that's sweet. Keep it inyour head. Go back and tell them it would take too great a risk to tryto fix me. 

"And there's another thing to remember. If you should be able to getbehind the wall without being shot, you're not safe. Not by a long way, Scottie. I'd still be alive. And, though you'd have Hal Dozier there tocut up as you pleased, I'd be here outside the cabin watching it--withmy rifle. And I'd tag some of you when you tried to get out. And if Ididn't get you all I'd start on your trail. Scottie, you fellows, evenwhen you had Allister to lead you, couldn't get off scot-free fromDozier. Scottie, I give you my solemn word of honor, you'll find me aharder man to get free from than Hal Dozier. 

"Here's the last thing: If you do what I tell you--if you get that crowdof drunken brutes out of the cabin and away without harming Dozier, I'llwipe out the score between us. No matter what you told the rest of them, you know I've never broken a promise, and that I never shall. "

He stopped and, stepping back to the rocks, sank slowly down behindthem. Only the muzzle of his rifle showed, no more than the glint of atiny bit of quartz; his left hand was raised, and, at its gesture, Scottie turned and walked slowly toward the cabin doorway. Once, stumbling over something, he reeled almost out of the shaft of light, but stopped on the edge of safety with a terrible trembling. There hestood for a moment, and Andrew knew that he was gathering his nerve. Hewent on; he stood in the doorway, leaning with one arm against it. 

What followed Andrew could not hear, except an occasional roar fromRankin. Once Larry la Roche came and stood before the new leader, gesturing frantically, and the ring of his voice came clearly to Andrew. The Scotchman negligently stood to one side; the way between Andrew andLarry was cleared, and Andrew could not help smiling at the fiendishmalevolence of Scottie. But he was apparently able to convince evenLarry la Roche by means of words. At length there was a bustling in thecabin, a loud confusion, and finally the whole troop went out. Somebodybrought Scottie his saddle; Jeff Rankin came out reeling. 

But Scottie stirred last from the doorway; there he stood in the shaftof light until some one, cursing, brought him his horse. He mounted itin full view. Then the cavalcade started down the ravine. 

Certainly it was not an auspicious beginning for Scottie Macdougal. 

CHAPTER 41

The first ten days of the following time were the hardest; it was duringthat period that Scottie and the rest were most apt to return and make abackstroke at Dozier and Andrew. For Andrew knew well enough that thiswas the argument--the promise of a surprise attack--with which Scottiehad lured his men away from the shack. 

During that ten days, and later, he adopted a systematic plan of work. During the nights he paid two visits to the sick man. On one occasion hedressed the wound; on the next he did the cooking and put food and waterbeside the marshal, to last him through the day. 

After that he went out and took up his post. As a rule he waited on thetop of the hill in the clump of pines. From this position he commandedwith his rifle the sweep of hillside all around the cabin. The greatesttime of danger for Dozier was when Andrew had to scout through theadjacent hills for food--their supply of meat ran out on thefourth day. 

But the ten days passed; and after that, in spite of the poor care hehad received--or perhaps aided by the absolute quiet--the marshal's ironconstitution asserted itself more and more strongly. He began to mendrapidly. Eventually he could sit up, and, when that time came, the greatperiod of anxiety was over. For Dozier could sit with his rifle acrosshis knees, or, leaning against the chair which Andrew had improvised, command a fairly good outlook. 

Only once--it was at the close of the fourth week--did Andrew findsuspicious signs in the vicinity of the cabin--the telltale tramplingon a place where four horses had milled in an impatient circle. But nodoubt the gang had thought caution to be the better part of hate. Theyremembered the rifle of Andrew and had gone on without making a sign. Afterward Andrew learned why they had not returned sooner. Three hoursafter they left the shack a posse had picked them up in the moonlight, and there had followed a forty-mile chase. 

But all through the time until the marshal could actually stand andwalk, and finally sit his saddle with little danger of injuring thewound, Andrew, knowing nothing of what took place outside, wasceaselessly on the watch. Literally, during all that period, he neverclosed his eyes for more than a few minutes of solid sleep. And, beforethe danger line had been crossed, he was worn to a shadow. When heturned his head the cords leaped out on his neck. His mouth had thatlook, at once savage and nervous, which goes always with the hunted man. 

And it was not until he was himself convinced that Dozier could takecare of himself that he wrapped himself in his blankets and fell into atwenty-four-hour sleep. He awoke finally with a start, out of a dream inwhich he had found himself, in imagination, wakened by Scottie stoopingover him. He had reached for his revolver at his side, in the dream, and had found nothing. Now, waking, his hand was working nervouslyacross the floor of the shack. That part of the dream was come true, but, instead of Scottie leaning over him, it was the marshal, who sat inhis chair with his rifle across his knees. Andrew sat up. His weaponshad been indeed removed, and the marshal was looking at him withbeady eyes. 

"Have you seen 'em?" asked Andrew. "Have the boys shown themselves?"

He started to get up, but the marshal's crisp voice cut in on him. "Sitdown there. "

There had been--was it possible to believe it?--a motion of the gun inthe hands of the marshal to point this last remark. 

"Partner, " said Andrew, stunned, "what are you drivin' at?"

"I've been thinking, " said Hal Dozier. "You sit tight till I tell youwhat about. "

"It's just driftin' into my head, sort of misty, " murmured Andrew, "thatyou've been thinkin' about double-crossin' me. "

"Suppose, " said the marshal, "I was to ride into Martindale with you infront of me. That'd make a pretty good picture, Andy. Allister dead, andyou taken alive. Not to speak of ten thousand I dollars as a background. That would sort of round off my work. I could retire and live happy everafter, eh?"

Andrew peered into the grim face of the older man; there was not aflicker of a smile in it. 

"Go on, " he said, "but think twice, Hal. If I was you, I'd think tentimes!"

The marshal met those terrible, blazing eyes without a quiver of hisown. 

"I began with thinking about that picture, " he said. "Later on I hadsome other thoughts--about you. Andy, d'you see that you don't fitaround here? You're neither a man-killer nor a law-abidin' citizen. Youwouldn't fit in Martindale any more, and you certainly won't fit withany gang of crooks that ever wore guns. Look at the way you split withAllister's outfit! Same thing would happen again. So, as far as I cansee, it doesn't make much difference whether I trot you into town andcollect the ten thousand, or whether some of the crooks who hate you runyou down--or some posse corners you one of these days and does its job. How do you see it?"

Andrew said nothing, but his face spoke for him. 

"How d'you see the future yourself?" said the marshal. His voice changedsuddenly: "Talk to me, Andy. "

Andrew looked carefully at him; then he spoke. 

"I'll tell you short and quick, Hal. I want action. That's all. I wantsomething to keep my mind and my hands busy. Doing nothing is the thingI'm afraid of. "

"I gather you're not very happy, Andy?"

Lanning smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see. 

"I'm empty, Hal, " he answered. "Does that answer you? The crooks areagainst me, the law is against me. Well, they'll work together to keepme busy. I don't want any man's help. I'm a bad man, Hal. I know it. Idon't deny it. I don't ask any quarter. "

It was rather a desperate speech--rather a boyish one. At any rate themarshal smiled, and a curious flush came in Andrew's face. 

"Will you let me tell you a story, Andrew? It's a story about yourself. "

He went on: "You were a kid in Martindale. Husky, good-natured, a littlesleepy, with touchy nerves, not very confident in yourself. I've knownother kids like you, but none just the same type. 

"You weren't waked up. You see? The pinch was bound to come in a townwhere every man wore his gun. You were bound to face a show-down. Therewere equal chances. Either you'd back down or else you'd give the man abeating. If the first thing happened, you'd have been a coward the restof your life. But the other thing was what happened, and it gave you atouch of the iron that a man needs in his blood. Iron dust, Andy, iron dust!

"You had bad luck, you think. You thought you'd killed a man; it madeyou think you were a born murderer. You began to look back to the oldstories about the Lannings--a wild crew of men. You thought that bloodwas what was a-showing in you. 

"Partly you were right, partly you were wrong. There was a new strengthin you. You thought it was the strength of a desperado. Do you know whatthe change was? It was the change from boyhood to manhood. That wasall--a sort of chemical change, Andy. 

"See what happened: You had your first fight and you saw your firstgirl, all about the same time. But here's what puzzles me: according tothe way I figure it, you must have seen the girl first. But it seemsthat you didn't. Will you tell me?"

"We won't talk about the girl, " said Andrew in a heavy voice. 

"Tut, tut! Won't we? Boy, we're going to do more talking about her thanabout anything else. Well, anyway, you saw the girl, fell in love withher, went away. Met up with a posse which my brother happened to lead. Killed your man. Went on. Rode like the wind. Went through about ahundred adventures in as many days. And little by little you were fixingin your ways. You were changing from boyhood into manhood, and you werechanging without any authority over you. Most youngsters have theirfathers over them when that change comes. All of 'em have the law. Butyou didn't have either. And the result was that you changed from a boyinto a man, and a free man. You hear me? You found that you could dowhat you wanted to do; nothing could hold you back except onething--the girl!"

Andrew caught his breath, but the marshal would not let him speak. 

"I've seen other free men--most people called them desperadoes. What's adesperado in the real sense? A man who won't submit to the law. That'sall he is. But, because he won't submit, he usually runs foul of othermen. He kills one. Then he kills another. Finally he gets the bloodlust. Well, Andy, that's what you never got. You killed one man--hebrought it on himself. But look back over the rest of your career. Mostpeople think you've killed twenty. That's because they've heard a packof lies. You're a desperado--a free man--but you're not a man-killer. And there's the whole point. 

"And this was what turned you loose as a criminal--you thought the girlhad cut loose from you. Otherwise to this day you'd have been trying toget away across the mountains and be a good, quiet member of society. But you thought the girl had cut loose from you, and it hurt you. Man-killer? Bah! You're simply lovesick, my boy!"

"Talk slow, " whispered Andrew. "My--my head's whirling. "

"It'll whirl more, pretty soon. Andy, do you know that the girl nevermarried Charles Merchant?"

There was a wild yell; Andrew was stopped in mid-air by a rifle thrustinto his stomach. 

"She broke off her engagement. She came to me because she knew I wasrunning the manhunt. She begged me to let you have a chance. She triedto buy me. She told me everything that had gone between you. Andy, sheput her head on my desk and cried while she was begging for you!"

"Stop!" whispered Andrew. 

"But I wouldn't lay off your trail, Andy. Why? Because I'm as proud asa devil. I'd started to get you and I'd lost Gray Peter trying. And evenafter you saved me from Allister's men I was still figuring how I couldget you. And then, little by little, I saw that the girl had seen thetruth. You weren't really a crook. You weren't really a man-killer. Youwere simply a kid that turned into a man in a day--and turned into afree man! You were too strong for the law. 

"Now, Andrew, here's my point: As long as you stay here in the mountaindesert you've no chance. You'll be among men who know you. Even if thegovernor pardons you--as he might do if a certain deputy marshal were tostart pulling strings--you'd run some day into a man who had an oldgrudge against you, and there'd be another explosion. Because there'snitroglycerin inside you, son!

"Well, the thing for you to do is to get where men don't wear guns. Thething for you to do is to find a girl you love a lot more than you doyour freedom, even. If that's possible--"

"Where is she?" broke in Andy. "Hal, for pity's sake, tell me where sheis!"

"I've got her address all written out. She forgot nothing. She left itwith me, she said, so she could keep in touch with me. "

"It's no good, " said Andy suddenly. "I could never get through themountains. People know me too well. They know Sally too well. "

"Of course they do. So you're not going to go with Sally. You're notgoing to ride a horse. You're going in another way. Everybody's seenyour picture. But who'd recognize the dashing young man-killer, theoriginal wild Andrew Lanning, in the shape of a greasy, dirty tramp, with a ten-days-old beard on his face, with a dirty felt hat pulled overone eye, and riding the brake beams on the way East? And before you gotoff the beams, Andrew, the governor of this State will have signed apardon for you. Well, lad, what do you say?"

But Andrew, walking like one dazed, had crossed the room slowly. Themarshal saw him go across to the place where Sally stood; she met himhalfway, and, in her impudent way, tipped his hat half off his head witha toss of her nose. He put his arm around her neck and they walkedslowly off together. 

"Well, " said Hal Dozier faintly, "what can you do with a man who don'tknow how to choose between a horse and a girl?"