Twin Sombreros

(Magazine Abridgment)

by

Zane Grey

CHAPTER 1

The sun hung gold and red above the snow-tipped ramparts of the Colorado Rockies. On a high bluff across the Purgatory River a group of Indians sat their mustangs watching the slow, winding course of a railroad train climbing toward the foothills, fearful of this clattering, whistling monster on wheels that might spell doom to the red man. Had they not seen train after train loaded with buffalo hides steam eastward across the plains?

A lithe rider, dusty and worn, mounted on a superb bay horse, halted on the south side of the river to watch the Indians.

"Utes, I reckon," he said, answering to the habit of soliloquy that loneliness had fostered in him. "Like the Kiowas they shore die hard. Doggone me if I don't feel sorry for them! The beaver an' the buffalo aboot gone! The white man rangin' with his cattle wherever grass grows! Wal, Reddies, if yu air wise, yu'll go way back in some mountain valley an' stay there."

"Wal, come to think aboot it," mused the lone rider, "they're not so bad off as me--No money. No job. No home! Ridin' a grub line, an' half starved. Nothin' but a hawss an' a gun."

He put a slow hand inside his open vest to draw forth a thick letter, its fresh whiteness marred by fingerprints and soiled spots. He had wept over that letter. Marvelling again, with a ghost of the shock which had first attended sight of that beautiful handwriting, he reread the postmark and the address: Lincoln, New Mexico, May 3, 1880. Mr. Brazos Keene, Latimer, Colorado, c/o Two-bar X Ranch. The Latimer postmark read a day later.

"My Gawd, but this heah railroad can fetch a man trouble pronto," he complained, and he stuck the letter back. "What in the hell made me go into thet post office for? Old cowboy habit! Always lookin' for letters thet never come. I wish to Gawd this one had been like all the others. But aw no! Holly Ripple remembers me--has still the old faith in me--An' she named her boy Brazos--after me."

"Only five years!" mused the rider, with unseeing eyes on the west. "Five years since I rode along heah down the old trail from Don Carlos's Rancho--An' what have I done with my life?"

A savage shake of his head was Brazos's answer to that disturbing query, as also it was a passionate repudiation of memory. He rode on down the river trail toward Las Animas. He did not know how far it was in to town. His horse was lame and weary. This stretch along the Purgatory was not prolific of cow-camps; nevertheless, Brazos hoped to run into one before nightfall.

The trail worked up from the river to an intersection with a road. In the gathering darkness, Brazos's quick eye caught sight of three horsemen riding out from a clump of dead trees which only partly obscured a dark cabin. The riders wheeled back, apparently thinking Brazos had not seen them.

Brazos heard a sibilant hissing "hold thar!" and a sound that seemed like a gloved hand slapped on metal. A hoarse voice, thick-tongued from liquor, rasped low. Then came a young high-pitched answer: "But, Bard, I'm not risking--" The violent gloved hand cut that speech short. To Brazos the name that had been mentioned sounded like Bard, but it might have been Bart or even Brad.

"Hey, riders," called Brazos curtly, "I seen yu before yu seen me."

After a moment of silence, Brazos heard the word "Texan" whispered significantly. Then one of the three rode out.

"What if you did, stranger?" he asked.

"Nothin'. I just wanted yu to know all riders ain't blind and deaf."

Brazos's interrogator's features were indistinguishable. But Brazos registered the deep matured voice, the sloping shoulders, the bull neck.

"Thar's been some hold-ups along hyar lately," he said.

"Ahuh. An' thet's why you acted so queer?"

"Queer? Playin' safe, stranger."

"Yeah? Wal, if yu took me for a bandit yu're way off."

"Glad to hear thet--an' who might you be?"

"I'm a grub-line-ridin' cowboy. I'm tired an' hungry, an' my hawss is lame."

"An' whar you makin' for?"

"Mister, if I wasn't hungry, an' tired I wouldn't like yore pert questions. I'm not goin' anywhere in particular. How far to Las Animas?"

"All-night drill for a tired hoss."

"Any cow camp near?"

"Nope. Nearest ranch is Twin Sombreros, three miles from town."

"Excuse me for askin'," went on Brazos with sarcasm, "but do yu fellers belong to an ootfit that'll feed a hungry cow-puncher?"

"My boss hasn't any use for grubline riders."

"Yu don't say. Wal, I reckon I don't eat. But would yu tell me if there's any grass heah-aboots for my hawss?"

"Good grass right hyar, stranger. An' you can bunk in the old cabin thar."

"Thanks," returned Brazos dryly.

The burly rider turned to his silent companions. "Come on, men. If we're makin' Lamar to-night we got to rustle."

The couple joined him and they rode by Brazos too swiftly for him to distinguish anything. They took to the north, soon passing out of sight.

The cabin proved to be close at hand. Brazos peeped in the open door. It was pitch dark inside and smelled dry. He removed saddle and bridle from the bay and turned him loose. Brazos carried his paraphernalia inside and deposited it upon the floor. He felt in his pockets for matches. He had none. Then he groped around until he bumped into a bench made of boughs. This, with his saddle blankets, would furnish a better bed than many to which he had of late been accustomed.

Some time in the night he awoke. Usually a light sleeper he thought nothing of being aroused. But after a moment he felt that this was different. And he attended to outside sensations.

He heard a drip, drip, drip of rain on the floor. Evidently the roof leaked. A low moaning wind swept by under the cabin eaves. Drip--drip--drip--slowly the dropping sounds faded in his consciousness.

Dawn was at hand. Through the window he discerned a faint blue of sky. Apparently the weather had cleared. But all of a sudden--drip--drip-- drip! The drops of rain water were slow and heavy. They spattered on the earthen floor. It was now light enough in the cabin to make out a ladder leading up to a loft.

All at once a cold chill crept over his skin. That dank odour, dominating the pungent dry smell of the cabin, assailed his nostrils. Drip--drip--drip! Brazos was wide awake now. In a single action, he slid upright off the bench.

The drip came from the loft just about the centre of the cabin. Brazos could not see the drops, but by their sound, he located them--stretched out his upturned palm. Spat! Despite his steely nerve the heavy wet contact on his hand give him a shock. He strode to the light of the doorway.

"Blood! Cold an' thick--There's a daid man up in thet loft. Aha! Them three hombres last night! Brazos, I reckon yu better be rustlin' oot of heah pronto."

Hurrying back to the bench, Brazos wiped the blood on his saddle blankets, and carried these with his saddle to the door. Dawn had given way to daylight. And at that moment a clattering roar of hoofs swept up, and a group of riders pulled their horses to a sliding halt before the cabin.

"Ahuh. Jig aboot up! I savvy," muttered Brazos, and he flung down the saddle and blankets to stand at attention. He needed not to see the rifles to grasp that this was a posse.

"Hands up, cowboy!" came a harsh command.

"They're up," replied Brazos laconically, suiting action to words. The levelled guns and grim visages of this outfit showed that they meant business. Most of these riders had the cowboy stripe, but some of them, particularly the harsh-voiced, hard-faced leader, appeared to be matured men.

"Pile off, Stuke, an' you, Segel," ordered this leader. Whereupon two riders flung themselves out of their saddles to rush at Brazos from each side. "Grab his guns! Search him. Take everythin'."

Brazos was quick to recognise real peril. He surveyed the group of horsemen to ascertain that they were all strangers to him. In a moment, he made certain that not one of them had ever seen him. He had not been in that vicinity for six years, which was a long time on the range.

"Bodkin!" called a rider from within the cabin, his voice queer.

"What! You found him?" queried the leader sharply.

"Yes. Up in the loft. Send someone to help us let him down."

Brazos listened with strained ears to the sounds and husky voices inside the cabin. Presently three of the posse came out, carrying the body, which they deposited upon the grass. Brazos's startled gaze bent down upon a handsome youth barely twenty, evidently a cowboy from his garb, dark-haired and dark-skinned. He had been shot through the back. All his pockets were turned inside, out.

"Allen Neece!" burst out Bodkin.

"Shot in the back."

"Robbed!"

"Purty cold-blooded, I'd say."

"Bod, I reckon we might jest as wal string this hombre up."

These and other comments greeted Brazos's ears, and drew from Bodkin the harsh decree: "Cowboy, you're under arrest."

"Hell, I'm not blind or deaf," retorted Brazos. "May I ask who yu air?"

"I'm Deputy Sheriff Bodkin of Las Animas, actin' under Kiskadden's orders."

"An' what's yore charge?"

"Murder."

Brazos laughed outright. "My Gawd, man, air yu loco? Do I look like a hombre who'd shoot a boy in the back, rob him an' hang aboot waitin' for an ootfit to come get me?"

"You can't never tell what a cowboy will do from his looks."

"Aw, the hell yu cain't," replied Brazos, with a piercing glance of scorn flashing from Bodkin to his men. "What kind of Westerners air yu?"

Brazos's scornful stand, his cool-nerve, obviously impressed some of the riders.

"Bod, you cain't hang this Texan on such heahsay evidence," advised a slow-spoken member.

"Why not? Cause you're a Texan yourself?"

"Wal, as to thet, Texans, whether they're guilty of crime or not, ain't very often hanged. Personally, I reckon this cowboy is innocent as I am of this murder. An' mebbe I'm not the only one. If you hang him, Kiskadden will be sore. An' if by any chance he ain't guilty an' it comes oot--wal, it'd kind of heat up the stink thet hasn't died oot cold yet."

During that speech Brazos gauged both men--the sandy-haired, sallow-faced Texan whose looks and words were significant--and the swarthy Bodkin, dark-browed, shifty of gaze, chafing under the other's cool arraignment of the case, and intense with some feeling hardly justified by the facts presented.

"All right, Inskip," rejoined Bodkin, with suppressed anger. "We'll take him before Kiskadden. Prod him to his hoss, men. An' if he bolts, blow his tow-head off."

Brazos's captors shoved him forward. Bay had been found and saddled. Brazos mounted. The body of the boy Neece was lifted over, a saddle and covered with a slicker. The rider of this horse essayed to walk, which gave Brazos the impression that Las Animas was not far distant. Presently the cavalcade started toward the road, with Brazos riding in the centre.

They travelled on, and at length reached a site strangely familiar to Brazos. It was the head of the valley. A long, low, red-roofed, red-walled adobe ranch-house stood upon the north bank of the river, and below it, where cottonwoods trooped into the valley, spread barns and sheds, corrals and racks in picturesque confusion. The droves of horses in the pastures, the squares of alfalfa, and the herds of cattle dotting the valley and the adjacent slopes attested to the prosperity of some cattle baron.

"Doggone!" ejaculated Brazos. "Whose ootfit is thet?"

Inskip, the Texan, riding second on Brazos's left, book it upon himself to reply: "Twin Sombreros Ranch. Operated now by Raine Surface runnin' eighty thousand haid of the Twin Sombreros brand. Used to belong to Abe Neece, father of the daid boy we're packin' to town. Abe is livin' still, but a broken man over the loss of thet ranch."

It so happened that when the cavalcade reached the crossroad to the ranch a sextet of riders, some of them cowboys, rode down from above to halt their mounts at sight of the posse. Brazos espied two young women riders and he burned both inwardly and outwardly at the indignity Bodkin had forced upon him.

"What's this, Bodkin?" demanded the leader.

"Mornin', Mr. Surface," replied Bodkin. "We been out arrestin' a cowboy. Charged with murder. An' I've got the proofs on him."

"Murder! You don't say? Who?"

"No other than Abe Neece's boy--young Allen Neece."

For Brazos it was one of those instinctively potent, meetings of which his life on the ranges had been so full. He turned from his long glance at the two girls, the older of whom had hair as red as flame, a strikingly beautiful face, with blue-green eyes just now dilated in horror.

"Who are you?" demanded Surface with intense curiosity.

Brazos gave the rancher a long stare.

"Wal, who I am is share none of yore business," he replied coldly.

"Cowboy, I'm Raine Surface, an' I have a good deal to say with the business of this county," returned the rancher, plainly nettled.

"I reckon. Do you happen to be in cahoots with this four-flush, Deputy Bodkin?"

The sharp query disconcerted Surface and elicited a roar from Bodkin.

"I put Kiskadden in office," said the rancher stiffly. "I recommended to the Cattlemen's Association that we appoint deputies to help rid this range of desperadoes an' rustlers--an' rowdy cowboys."

"See heah, Surface," flashed Brazos, his piercing tenor stiffening his hearers. "I am a Texan an' one of the breed thet don't forget insult or injustice. You're a hell of a fine Westerner to act as an adviser to a Cattlemen's Association. A real Westerner--a big-hearted cattleman who was on the square--wouldn't condemn me without askin' for proofs. You take this Bodkin's word. If he hasn't got some queer reason to fasten this crime on me, it's a shore bet he itches to hang someone. Wal, I happen to be innocent an' I can prove it. I could choke up an' spit fire at the idee of my bein' taken for a low-down skunk who'd shoot a boy in the back to rob him. An' swallow this, Mister Raine Surface--you'll rue the day you insulted a ragamuffin of a cowboy who was only huntin' for a job."

The silence which followed Brazos's arraignment was broken by Inskip.

"Surface," he said caustically, "you're new to this range. All you Kansas cattlemen need to be reminded thet this is western Colorado. Which is to say, the border of New Mexico. An' mebbe yore years oot heah air too few for you to know what thet means. All the same, Bodkin an' you should have given this cowboy the benefit of a doubt."

At this juncture, when a strong argument seemed imminent, the red-headed girl moved her horse close to Surface and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Dad, don't say any more," she implored. "There must be a mistake. You stay out of it. That cowboy never murdered Allen Neece."

"Lura, don't interfere here," snapped her father impatiently.

"Mr. Surface we'll ride on in," said Bodkin, and gave his men a peremptory order to move on.

Before the riders closed in on Brazos, he gave the red-headed girl a smile of gratitude. Her big eyes, still wide and dark, appeared to engulf him. Then the cavalcade started.

Before they had ridden many paces a clatter of hoofs behind and a call for Bodkin again halted the riders. The rancher Surface followed.

"A word with you, Bodkin," he said, reining his mount.

"Sartinly, Mister Surface," returned the deputy, hastening to fall out of line.

"About that suit of mine against--" he began. But Brazos made quick note of the fact that that was ail he could hear, Bodkin and Surface walked their horses out of hearing.

He met Inskip's deep grey eyes; in which there flashed a bright, steely glint that could be interpreted in only one way. Brazos's blood took a hot leap, then receded to leave him cold. This halt boded ill to him. Sight of Bodkin's grim visage, as he came riding back from his short colloquy with Surface, warned Brazos of the unexpected and the worst.

But Bodkin took the lead of the cavalcade again without a word other than a command to ride. His tenseness seemed to be communicated to all. Inskip took off his heavy coat and laid it back across the cantle of his saddle--an action Bodkin might have taken as thought provoking had he noticed it. Brazos's reaction revolved around sight of the two big gun butts sticking out of Inskip's belt. They spoke a language to Brazos as clear as had been the grey lightning in Inskip's eyes.

The outskirts of Las Animas lay just ahead, beyond a bridge over a brook that brawled down to the Purgatory.

"Stop hyar, men," ordered Bodkin, wheeling his horse. "Inskip, you ride on in an' report."

The Texan made no reply nor any move to act upon the command.

"Segel, you an' Bill wait hyar with Reece," went on Bodkin. "The rest of you come with me."

He turned to ride off the road. "Inskip," he said, suddenly, halting again. "Are you takin' orders?"

"Not when it doesn't suit me," replied the Texan. "What you up to?"

"I'm goin' to finish this job right hyar," rejoined the deputy fiercely. "An' if you don't want your Texas pride hurt, you'd better not see what's comin' off."

"Wal, I ain't so sensitive as all thet," drawled Inskip.

Brazos realised the game now and what a slim chance he had for his life. That chance was vested in Inskip. An awful instant he fought the shuddering clutch on his vitals, the appalling check to his thought. It was succeeded by desperate will and nerve. There would be one chance for him and when it came he must grasp it with the speed of lightning.

Bodkin led down the west bank of the brook. The trees and rocks broke up the formation of the posse. Brazos's sharp eye caught the rider behind Bodkin bending forward to untie his lasso from his saddle. They entered a rocky glade dominated by an old cottonwood tree with spreading branches and a dead top.

"Open up," shouted. Bodkin. "Prod his hoss out hyar."

"Boss," spoke up one of the posse, "this deal is too raw for my stomach."

"Rustle, then. Git out if hyar," yelled the leader, livid with passion.

"I sure will. Come on, Ben. We didn't join this outfit to hang a cowboy thet ain't proved guilty."

The lean rider addressed detached himself from the group. "Bodkin," he said forcefully. "You're too damn keen on this necktie party. Frank an' me are slopin'."

"Yellow, huh?" shouted the deputy as the couple rode off "See heah, Bodkin," interposed Inskip, "did you ride all this way to have yore mind changed by surface?"

"Inskip, you go to hell," hissed Bodkin, enraged at the sarcastic implication.

Brazos read in Inskip's eyes what Bodkin failed to see, and it was that intelligence which sustained him. The Texan might have a trump card up his sleeve, but Brazos could only think of two desperate chances, one of which he was sure would be presented.

"Flip thet noose, Barsh," ordered Bodkin sardonically, addressing a lean rider whose hat shaded his face. He had a coiled rope in his left hand. He gave the coil a toss. The loop spread to fall over Brazos's head and lodge on his shoulders. Another flip and the noose closed around his neck.

The feel of the hard smooth hemp against Brazos's bare flesh liberated in him the devil that he had kept leashed. Barsh plainly quailed before Brazos's steady gaze.

"Pile off, all of you," shouted Bodkin stridently, dismounting to lean his rifle against the tree. "Barsh, throw the end of your rope over thet branch."

"Hold on!" This order issued from the Texan, whose hand obstructed Barsh's arm in his effort to toss up the rope.

"Wha--at?" bawled Bodkin.

Bodkin was the only rider besides Brazos who had not dismounted. The others had laid aside their rifles and shot-guns to crowd back of Barsh, nervously hurrying to get the gruesome job done.

Inskip deliberately rode between them and Brazos. "Bodkin, he might have a mother or sweetheart. An' he'll want to send some word."

"Aw, let him blab it pronto, then."

"Cowboy, do you want to tell me who you air an' send some message?" queried Inskip calmly.

"I shore do. But I don't want this skunk to heah it."

"Wal, you can tell me." Inskip pulled his horse toward Brazos.

"Hyah, Inskip--not so close!" shrieked Bodkin.

The Texan leaned toward Brazos to whisper soft and low, "Grab my guns, but don't kill onless you have to."

Brazos's claw-like hands swept out. As he jerked loose the two big guns Inskip spurred his horse to lunge away.

"Freeze! Damn yu!" pealed out Brazos, as he covered Bodkin and the startled posse.

CHAPTER 2

Brazos heard Inskip's horse pound over the rocks and plough the brook. The Texan was racing for town. Bodkin turned a ghastly hue. Barsh gasped and dropped the rope. The others stood stiff.

"Hands up! Turn yore backs!" ordered Brazos, his voice ice-edged. "Bodkin, tell yore men to fork their hawsses. One move for a gun means I'll kill you first."

"Fellers--he's got me--cold," rejoined the deputy. "Fer Gawd's sake --lay off your hardware--Climb on."

While they mounted stiffly, Brazos hauled the lasso in with his left hand and wound it around the pommel.

"Ride oot, you hombres. Yu go last, Bodkin. An' when we hit the road yell for Segel an' yore other man to go ahaid."

When the riders emerged from the grove Bodkin bawled to the couple on guard with the dead man.

"Ride on, you fellers--an' don't look back!"

The wide, long main street of Las Animas was familiar to Brazos, despite the many new buildings. The place had doubled its population in five years.

Brazos's roving gaze caught sight of a sign, 'Mexican Joe. Hot Tamales', and his heart leaped. If old Joe happened to come out now, there would be a recognition somewhat disconcerting to Bodkin and his posse. But Joe was not one of the many to see the strange procession ride down the street. Before half a block had been traversed, Brazos saw to his left a building and a sign that had not been there in his day. Both sheriff and jail had come to the cattle town.

"Turn in, yu-all, an' set tight," called Brazos.

Men were grouped about and out in front stood a tall bareheaded man in his shirt sleeves. He had a silver star on his black vest. He stood significantly sidewise toward the street, his right hand low. Brazos breasted the hitching-rail to see a broad, lined face, deep, piercing eyes, a thin-lipped, close-shut mouth, and bulging chin. Texas was written all over that visage.

"Air yu Kiskadden?" queried Brazos.

"That's me," came the curt reply.

"Did Inskip give yu a hunch aboot this?"

"He told me you'd be likely to ride in, but I'm bound to admit I didn't expect you."

"Sheriff, will yu give me a square deal?"

"You can rest assured of thet, cowboy, I'm the law heah."

"My Gawd, but it's a relief to pass these over. Heah!" burst out Brazos, and with a dexterous flip of the guns, he turned them in the air to catch them by the barrels and hand them to the sheriff. "Sheriff, I shore haven't had many deals where I was more justified in throwin' guns than in this one. But Inskip whispered for me not to shoot unless I had to. So I bluffed yore deputy an' his posse."

"Who air you, cowboy?" queried Kiskadden searchingly.

"Thet'll have to come oot, I reckon," returned Brazos. "I haven't been in Las Animas for six years. But there'll be men heah who'll vouch for me."

"Ail right. Get down. Bodkin, you look bustin' with yore side of this story. Mebbe you'd better hold in--"

"Aw, hell!" interrupted the deputy. "Wait till you hear my side. He's a slick-tongued feller. I'll gamble he turns out to be a range-ridin' desperado. An' it's a thousand to one thet he murdered young Neece."

"Neece! Not Abe Neece's boy?" exclaimed Kiskadden.

"Yes. Young Allen Neece."

"Aw, too bad--too bad!" rejoined the sheriff in profound regret. "As if poor Abe had not had enough trouble!"

"Boss, it'll sure go hard with Allen's twin sisters. Them gurls thought the world of him."

"Fetch Neece in," ended Kiskadden, and, taking Brazos's arm, he led him into the office.

"An' see here, Sheriff," spoke up Brazos. "Will yu have my hawss taken-good care of? An' Bodkin took my gun, watch, penknife--an' a personal letter."

"Cowboy, I'll be responsible for your hawss an' your belongs."

"Thanks. An' one thing more," said Brazos, lowering his voice. "I reckon thet letter will prove my innocence. I got it yesterday mawnin' at Latimer, which you shore know is a hell of a long day's ride. An' if I know anythin' aboot daid men, young Neece was killed durin' the day. Hold an inquest, sheriff, an' make shore what hour thet pore boy was murdered. 'Cause the whole deal has a look of murder."

A corridor opened from the office. Kiskadden unlocked the first door on the right, to disclose a small room with one barred window and a blanketed couch. Kiskadden escorted Brazos in.

"Cowboy, you don't seem to concern yourself aboot why I'm lockin' you up."

"Concern? Say, I'm tickled to death. You're a Texan an' a man. You'll see through my part in this deal. But when I get oot--Sheriff, I'm askin' yu --please get my letter an' don't let anyone but yu read it. I shore couldn't stand thet."

"We'll see." The sheriff went out to close and lock the heavy door.

Brazos lay down on the couch.

Next morning the guards brought his breakfast, and the necessary articles with which to wash and shave.

All morning he was left alone. The fact of the omission of his noon-day meal augured further for his release. At last a slow, clinking step in the corridor ended his wait.

The door opened to admit Kiskadden, who closed and locked It.

"Wal, Brazos," he drawled. "I'm missin' my dinner to have a confab with you."

"Yu know my name?"

"Shore. It's on the back of this letter. Brazos Keene. Wrote small an' pretty. I'm glad to tell you no one else has seen it. An' heah it is."

"My Gawd, Sheriff, but I could die for yu--savin' me the shame of disgracin' a girl once loved," replied Brazos in grateful emotion.

"Wal, we had two doctors make the inquest on young Neece," went on Kiskadden. "Our Doc Williamson an' a surgeon from Denver who was on a train. They found young Neece had been killed early in the evenin' of thet day you rode oot of Latimer. The bullet bole in his back was shot there after Neece was daid. Both doctors agreed that he had been roped--there were abrasions on his arms above his elbows--an' jerked off his hawss on his haid. Thet caused his death."

"Wal, my Gawd!" ejaculated Brazos. "I had no rope on my saddle."

"Brazos, I was convinced of yore innocence yestiddy, an now I know it. But for your good, you better stay for the hearin'. It'll show Bodkin up an' I'll discharge him pronto. Another angle, it leaked oot thet Surface would jest as lief see you hanged, along with all the grubline cowboys thet ride through."

"Hell, yu say?" queried Brazos. "I shore didn't take a shine to him."

"Surface is new heah. Claims to be from Nebraska. But he's from Kansas. Rich cattleman--an' has a lot of stock."

"Ahuh. How'd Surface get thet Twin Sombreros Ranch from Neece?"

"Wal, thet never was cleared up to suit me. Neece was operatin' big. He had five thousand haid comin' up from Texas for Surface. The cash for this herd was paid Neece at the Cattleman's Bank in Dodge. More than fifty thousand dollars. Neece was fetchin' thet sum over heah to our bank. But he got held up by three masked men an' robbed. Wal, the queer angle is thet the big herd jest vanished off the range. Neither hoof nor hair of them was ever found."

"But the cow ootfit!" exclaimed Brazos, aghast.

"Same as the herd. They vanished. Neece made a blunder at Dodge. He hired a foreman thet he didn't know, let him pick an ootfit, an' sent them south after the herd."

"That ootfit was bought off."

"Wal, there was no proof of anythin' except the longhorns were gone. Neece couldn't deliver, an' he had been robbed of the money. Twin Sombreros was mortgaged an' the banks wouldn't advance more. Neece lost all to Surface. He's a broken man now, livin' down the Purgatory. An' the twin gals, Neece's joy an' pride, air running a restaurant over by the railroad station."

"Twin girls?"

"Shore. Eighteen years old--the prettiest gurls in all the West. An' you cain't tell them apart--not to save yore life. June an' Janis, they're called. Neece sent them to Kansas City to go to school. Thet was ten years ago. An' he didn't see them often an' not at all of late years. He developed this Twin Sombreros Ranch for them. Thet was his brand. Two high--peaked sombreros."

"Kiskadden, what yu tellin' me all this for?" suddenly queried Brazos, sharp with suspicion.

"Aw, just range gossip, cowboy," drawled the Texan with a smile.

"Yeah? Wal, yu don't strike me as the gossip kind. I figure Inskip's a friend of yore's?"

"Yes. We're pardners in a cattle business, but I'm the silent one. Wal, to come back to yore hearin', which is set for two o'clock, I'd like you to read thet letter to me."

"Aw! Sheriff, what for?"

"Brazos, I really don't have hear it. But it'll strengthen my conviction, I'm shore. An' I may have to talk turkey to Surface an' some of his cattle association. All the same, I'll respect yore confidence."

"Shore. I--I'll read it to yu," replied Brazos. As he opened the letter his lean brown hands shook slightly.

"'Don Carlos's Rancho, Cimarron, N.M., May 2, 1880,'" he read, "'Dear Brazos: This is the third letter I have written you since you left us five years ago. I am sure the others never reached you else you would have written, This time, however, I know you will receive this one. We have a railroad mail service now, caballero mio; and this epistle should reach your post office in less than two days. So near yet so far, Brazos!

"'We heard that you had lately ridden down from Wyoming to a job with the Two-bar X outfit. A cattleman neighbour of ours, Calhoun, had just returned from Latimer, and he met Britt at the station. Calhoun told Britt a lot of range gossip, including your latest exploit at Casper, Wyoming (which I did not believe), and poor Britt came home like a man who had seen ghosts.

"'Since you and your outfit broke up the Slaughter gang and did away with Sewall McCoy, Clements and their tools, we have no rustling on a big scale. Strange to say, we were never drawn into the Lincoln County War. That terrible feud accounted for the lives of three hundred men, surely the bloodiest war the West ever knew. Billy the Kid came out of it alive. He and a few of his desperado allies still actively rustle cattle and find a ready market.

"'Well, the good, bad old days are over, at least for Don Carlos's Rancho. We are running over seventy thousand head. The railroad has simplified cattle-raising. The long, hard drives are a thing of the past in this territory.

"'Brazos, I am wonderfully happy. Renn is a big man on the New Mexico ranges and long ago has lived down that vague hard name that came with him from Dodge and Abilene. My father's traditions and work have been carried on. We have our darling little boy and--dare I confess it?--expect another little Frayne at no distant date. May it be a girl--Senorita Holly Ripple Frayne? I forgot to tell you that my riders have a share in our cattle business. In fact, Brazos, there is only one drop of bitterness to taint the sweet cup of Don Carlos's Rancho. And that is your loss, your wandering life, your bitter, fiery spirit, and your fate to throw a gun, your inevitable fall.

"'Brazos, in this letter you have come to the end of your rope. You will stop your wandering--your drinking. You must find a steady job--if you refuse to return to Don Carlos's Rancho--and you will be worthy of my faith and Renn's regard, and the love of these cowboys.

"'This is the last letter I shall ever write you, my friend. I hope and pray you take it as I have written it, and that you will consider my husband's proposition, which follows in a postscript. Adios, Senor. Ever yours faithfully, Holly Ripple Frayne.

"'P.S. Dear Cowboy Old-Timer: I am adding a few words to Holly's letter, which I have read. But she will not get to see what I write you.

"'Britt wants you to come back to Don Carlos's Rancho. So do I. So does the outfit. We are going to need you.

"'Brazos, Holly's letter might mislead you about affairs of the range out here. As a matter of fact, the rustling business is as good as the cattle business. There's a new outfit up in the hills, and Britt doesn't like the prospects one damn little bit.

"'The old game is kicking back, as we always expected it to. Not so long ago, the biggest herd of long-horns Britt ever saw drifted up the Cimarron--a gaunted bunch that had seen long and hard travel. The outfit worked them across the valley, avoiding the cow camps, taking scarce enough time to fatten up, and they split the herd and drove to the rail-road, shipping from Maxwell and Hebron to Kansas City.

"'Britt thought the drive had a queer look and took pains to get these details. They were all the facts obtainable. But somewhere along this trail to the railroad, the name Surface leaked out. It's a safe bet, Brazos, that this drive was a steal, as big a one as we ever saw come out of Texas. And naturally we're passing the buck with a hunch to you. Ride down this man Surface, and write to us, Brazos.

"'And while you're doing it, consider coming back to be my foreman of the outfit running the Ripple brand. On shares! Yours truly, Renn Frayne.'"

"Brazos," the sheriff declared finally, "I'm glad I trusted you. If I hadn't an' you'd sprung thet letter on me, I'd shore been ashamed. It's a wonderful letter! And now, it's aboot time for yore trial," he added, consulting his watch.

CHAPTER 3

The sheriff's office appeared rather cramped with the dozen or more occupants standing and sitting around. Outside, a considerable crowd had collected. With few exceptions, notably Surface and some close associates at his elbow, the assembly was composed of dusty-booted, roughly-clad cattlemen.

"Set there, Keene," said Kiskadden, indicating one of two chairs back of his desk. Brazos saw his gun and belt, his watch and penknife, lying on some papers. The desk drawer was half open, showing the dark butts of several Colts.

"Let everybody in, if there's room,", called the sheriff to the guard at the door. Presently Kiskadden pounded on his desk to stop the talking. "Fellow citizens," he said, "my mind aboot this case is made up. But I'll hold a hearin' so thet you all can get the facts."

Surface took a step out from the group of ranchmen evidently accompanying him. His mien was arrogant, suggestive of power. His bland face appeared to Brazos to be a mask.

"Sheriff, I move we try this man before twelve jurors. I will serve along with the members of the Cattlemen's Association. We can pick the others from the businessmen here."

"What's the idee of thet?" demanded Kiskadden.

"Your declaration that you had already come to a decision proves the consensus of opinion correct."

"An' what's thet opinion?" queried the sheriff sarcastically.

"You wouldn't hang a Texas cowboy. This murderer would already have swung but for Inskip, who's another of your Texas breed."

"Wal, Surface, thet Texas breed opened up this cattle empire. An' you seldom heah of one of them gettin' hanged. Thet might come from their gun-throwin' proclivity, an' then again it might be thet few Texans deserve to swing. In this case, I'm refusin' your offer of a jury. The law of this county is invested in me."

"Kiskadden, you may rest assured your authority will not last long," rejoined Surface heatedly.

"All right. The hearin' 's on," called out Kiskadden loudly. "Deputy Bodkin, step forward." Bodkin took the oath.

"Now proceed with yore testimony."

"Wal, sir, it was late after two o'clock, night before last," began Bodkin, glib with importance. "I'd been playin' cards an' had hardly got asleep when I was woke by somebody at my winder. I seen two men. They was strangers. One of them told me they'd watched a cowboy shoot another off his horse, search him, and drag him into the cabin. Thet was the old Hill cabin, six miles west of town.

"My informant told me the cowboy came out of the cabin, unsaddled the horses, an' turned them loose. Then he went back. It was rainin'. He'd likely stay in the cabin till daybreak. Then the two fellers rustled off in the dark. I heerd their horses. Wal, I got up, dressed, an' rustled out for a posse. At thet hour, it wasn't easy. It was near dawn when I'd collected ten men. Inskip come along on his own accord. I didn't want him.

"Wal, we rode out fast, an' arrived at the cabin, jest at daybreak. The prisoner thar had just stepped out the door. We held him up, took his gun an' what he had in his pockets. I seen blood on his hand. I sent men inside to search the cabin. They found the dead man an' fetched him out. It was Allen Neece. His pockets were turned inside out. I heerd to-day thet Neece won a hundred dollars at faro the afternoon before he rode out of town. He was goin' to see some girl.

"Wal, the prisoner hyar sure went white an' sick when the dead boy was carried out an' laid on the grass. A blind man could have seen thet he'd murdered him. We found one hoss, the prisoner's. An' Segel packed the dead boy in on his saddle. All the way in I was debatin' on hangin' the murderer. An' when I got to it, this side of Twin Sombreros Ranch, Inskip crowded in front of us an' gave the cowboy a chance to grab his two guns. We got held up pronto an' drove into town. An' I'm fer arrestin' Inskip--"

"When Surface called you back, what did he say?" interrupted Kiskadden.

"What?" queried Bodkin. "Surface halted you at his ranch, then followed you an' stopped you. He drew you out of hearin' of yore men. This court is powerful interested in what Surface said."

"Wal--sir," exploded the deputy, his visage turning yellow, "he advised hangin' the cowboy right then an' thar. Said he distrusted this office."

"Thet will do, Bodkin," said the sheriff. "Doctor Williamson, will you please step forward an' make yore report."

A stout middle-aged man approached the desk.

"Mister Sheriff," he began, "and gentlemen. My fellow practitioner and I find that young Neece came to his violent death not later than the middle of the afternoon of day before yesterday. Death was caused by a compound fracture of the skull with consequent concussion of the brain. The bullet hole in his back was made long after he was dead. He had been roped and jerked heavily to the ground, probably from a horse."

"Thank you, Doctor," replied the sheriff. "Now, gentlemen, let me read you a telegram received heah this mawnin'. It is dated Latimer, Colorado, an' it reads: 'Sheriff Steve Kiskadden, Las Animas. The letter addressed to Brazos Keene was delivered to him in person at eight-ten o'clock day before yesterday morning, May fifth. Signed, Postmaster John Hilton."

"Brazos Keene!" ejaculated Bodkin. A murmur ran through the standing crowd. But it was certain that Raine Surface had never heard the name.

"Yes, Brazos Keene," drawled the Texas sheriff. "Gentlemen, you all know thet Latimer is a long way from Las Animas. Much too far for the hardest of hard-ridin' cowboys to get to the Hill cabin in the afternoon--an' murder an' rob young Neece. The letter Keene has in his possession absolutely clears him of any implication whatever in this tragedy. It was physically impossible for Keene to be there!"

Kiskadden silenced the uproar that followed. "I'm returning your gun, Brazos," he drawled, "and offerin' my apologies." He turned toward his white-faced deputy. "As my last official act, Bodkin, I'm firin' yu! An' then I'm resignin' as sheriff of this county!"

Kiskadden took off his star and laid it on the desk, and then, arm in arm with Brazos, shouldered his way through the crowd.

Brazos saw a familiar face appear before him. "Hank Bilyen!"

The old man put out his hand enthusiastically. "Say, Brazos, but you're sure a sight for these old eyes! An' I've got somethin' to tell you that'll sure make you want to stay right here and get to work."

"Uh-huh. Well, suppose we go rob the bank first. Even a grub-line-ridin' cowboy's gotta have some money these days."

At the door they were accosted by a lithe young man in rider's garb much the worse for wear. He had a clean-cut, youthful face and fine eyes.

"I'd like to shake your hand, Keene," he said, with a winning smile.

"Shore. An' who're yu?" returned Brazos slowly, as he returned the smile.

"Jack Sain. I've been pretty friendly with the Neeces. Allen was my pard."

"Brazos, it was Jack's friendship for the Neeces thet cost him his job," Hank Bilyen offered. "He rode fer Surface."

"Wal, Jack, I'll be wantin' to hobnob with yu some," said Brazos thoughtfully. "Where yu workin' now?"

"Nowhere. I can't get a job. Surface is strong in the association an' he's queered me."

"Doggone!" mused Brazos. "Jack, where can I find yu later in the afternoon?"

"Meet me at the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. About supper-time."

They parted, and Bilyen led Brazos slowly up the wide street. "Fine lad, thet," Bilyen was saying. "I reckon he didn't tell you everythin'. Lura Surface was sweet on Jack. She throws herself at every feller who strikes her fancy. But when Jack met June Neece, he went loco. An' June leans to him a lot, though she's not a hell of a flirt at all like Janis."

"My Gawd! Hank, is this a story yu're readin' me? The next thing yu'll tell me these sisters will be pretty an' sweet an'--"

Bilyen halted in front of a bank and spoke low. "They've lost their brother. An' the beautiful home thet was built fer them. Their father is dyin' of grief. They've been cheated, robbed, ruined. An' last, young Allen Neece was givin' his time to ferretin' out the secret of thet ruin. An' thet's why he was murdered!"

"Shore, Hank, I savvy yu," he answered. "Let's go in an' rob the bank. Then yu can take me oot to meet Abe Neece. An' after thet, I'll see the twins."

A few minutes later, Brazos stood outside the bank again, feeling a compact bulge in his pocket not altogether made by his precious letter.

"Hank, I only wanted a little money," expostulated Brazos. "How'n hell will I ever pay it back?'"

"Holy mackerel, Brazos, ask me an easy one. But I know you will," rejoined Bilyen. "I can spare thet. Before I went to work fer Neece, I sold my herd to him, an' I've saved my money. I'm takin' care of the old man now an' I lent the twins enough to start their restaurant."

"Wal, you always was a good friend, Hank. Say, who's this gazabo comin'?"

"Thet's Sam Mannin'. Still has his store down the street."

A spare grey Westerner of venerable and kindly aspect came up to them, his lined face breaking into a smile.

"Hello, Brazos," he said heartily, extending his hand. "Glad to see you again. An' just about the same!"

"Howdy, Sam. I'm gonna run in pronto an' buy oot yore store. Have you any of those red silk scarfs Louise used to sell me?"

"Plenty, cowboy. My store an' business have grown with the years."

"Hank, let's duck down an alley. If I meet any more old friends I'll bust."

"Stand your ground, cowboy. I got to buy some grub. Haw! Haw! Look who's spotted you. Has she got eyes? Aw no--"

"Save me, Hank. Who'n hell? I'll bet it's thet Surface girl."

"Right, Brazos. I'll duck in the store. Hope some of you'll be left when I come out."

Brazos had attention only for the stunningly handsome and strikingly attired young woman who bore down upon him, eyes alight. She was taller than she had appeared astride a horse, beautifully-proportioned, and several years beyond her teens.

"I congratulate you, Mr. Brazos Keene," she said, graciously offering her hand. "I'm very glad indeed. It was a stupid blunder."

"Wal, thet's Shore nice of yu, Miss Surface," replied Brazos as he bowed bareheaded to take her hand. "Considerin' how keen yore father was to see me hanged, I'm more'n grateful to see yu wasn't."

"Oh, Dad is impossible," she declared. "He seems to suspect every cowboy who rides in from the West."

"Shore does seem hard on us Western riders," drawled Brazos, his gaze strong on her. "I was aboot to shake the dust of Las Animas. But now, I just reckon I'll hang around. Do yu think I might met to see yu again?"

"You might," she replied, blushing becomingly. "I'd like nothing better."

"But Mr. Surface wouldn't like it."

"There's Dad down the street," she returned coolly. "Meet me tomorrow afternoon about three in the grove on the east bank of the brook that runs into the Purgatory about a mile out of town. Can you remember all that?"

"I'll be there," promised Brazos.

She rewarded him with a dazzling smile and swept on down the street.

"Brimstone an' chain lightnin'," soliloquized Brazos, watching the superb form depart. "Turrible took with herself. Crazy aboot men. An' I cain't savvy what else. But doggone it! I like her."

Bilyen emerged from the store burdened with bags.

"You look kinda sheepish," he observed. "I'd be some worried if I didn't know you was goin' to meet' June Neece to-day."

Bilyen had a little ten-acre ranch on the Purgatory. A grey shack faced the rocky, swift-running stream, and the splendid vista of plains to the south and the noble slopes of foothills rising to the Rockies on the west.

"I reckon I'll buy this place from yu an' settle down," drawled Brazos dreamily.

He was leaning over the rocky bank, still dreaming, when Hank came out of the shack accompanied by a man whose lean grey visage denoted the havoc of trouble if not of years. Brazos leaped erect.

"Howdy, Brazos Keene," was the man's greeting. "Hank has told me about you."

"Shore happy to meet you, Mr. Neece." responded Brazos warmly.

"Cowboy, you've got the cut of my son Allen--only you're older--an' there's something proved about you. Allen was reckless, inexperienced."

"Let's set down on the bank heah. Nice view."

Neece sighed and gazed out to the open range. He was not old, nor feeble, but it appeared plain that the shock of disaster had broken him.

"Brazos, is what Bilyen tells me true?" he queried presently. "Hank says you're goin' to stay here an' look into the deal we Neeces have had."

"Wal, thet's easy to answer," declared Brazos coolly. "Bodkin arrested me because he needed to hang the crime on somebody. He thought I was a stranger--a cowboy down on his luck. Surface wanted me hanged. For reasons I'm gonna find oot. If thet wasn't enough to rile Brazos Keene--wal, this rotten deal handed to you an' yore kids shore would be. I don't want to brag, but the ootfit chalked up some bad marks for themselves."

"You insinuate Surface is in some way connected with Bodkin?"

"Insinuate nothin'. I'm tellin' you, Mr. Neece." Brazos took out Holly's letter; carefully opened and sorted the pages until he came to Renn Frayne's postscript. The passage that related to Surface he slowly and gravely read.

"No coincidence! That was my herd. It was last seen on the Canadian."

"Wal. I had thet hunch myself. My idee is thet Frayne has tipped me a hunch damn important to eastern Colorado. Neece, I've heahed yore story from Hank. Just now, I only want to put one question. How an' when did yu lose thet money of Surface's you got in Dodge?"

"Simple as A. B. C. I wanted cash. Got it, an' took it on the train in a satchel. The train didn't get into Las Animas till after midnight. Jerry, my stableboy, met me with the buckboard. We drove out toward the ranch. At the turn of the road, where the brook crosses, I was held up by three men an' robbed."

"Ahuh. An' they shore knew where you'd been an' what you had. Was there anythin' familiar aboot them?"

"No. Strangers. They wore masks. But I never forget a voice. One of the three had a young, nervous, high-pitched voice, almost womanish. He called the burly man what sounded like 'Brad,' an' got cussed for doin' it. They were tough range riders."

"Brad," echoed Brazos, with a wild leap of his pulse. "Was thet all you heahed?"

"Yes. One of them batted me on the head. Jerry is not well yet from the beatin' they gave him."

"Did yu ever tell thet you heahed the name Brad--spoke by a young, nervous, high-pitched voice?"

"Come to think of it, I don't believe I ever did, except maybe to Allen. It must have slipped my mind. You excite me so it all comes back clear."

"Well, thet's all I want to heah this time. Walk aboot a bit an' think. Then I'll ride back to town an' keep my appointment with Jack Sain. Hank, I'll be heah in the mawnin'. An' Mr. Neece, don't get het up overly aboot this. I might be loco, but I swear we're on as black an' bloody a trail as I ever took up. So it behooves us to use our haids. Adios."

CHAPTER 4

When Brazos Keene arrived at the railroad station it was near the supper hour. The restaurant he sought had been remodelled from an old adobe building. A second storey had been added and the whole given a coat of whitewash The building, the location, and the neat sign were all attractive. A hitching-rail ran along in front.

Brazos dismounted. Tying Bay to the rail, he stalked with his clinking step into the restaurant. But Jack Sain was not there. So far as he could see, the place was empty.

At this juncture, two things happened simultaneously--Brazos remembered the Neece twins, and a door opened to admit a girl. Brazos never figured out what gave him such a shock, but the fact was that never in his life before had any girl produced the effect this one had on him.

She was slight and graceful of form, fair-haired, but not blonde, and her face was white, sweet, sad. It struck Brazos she did not act like a waitress. She approached him, and, putting her hands on the counter, she leaned forward.

"Brazos Keene," she affirmed.

"Wal, I--I was when I come in heah," he said, fighting to smile, "but I cain't say now for shore."

"I am--June Neece," she returned, her low voice breaking a little. "We are sorry you were arrested and--"

"Thet was nothin' at all, Miss Neece," interrupted Brazos. "Shore I hardly ever ride into a town but somethin' like thet happens. I'm a marked man. As for the cause this time, wal, I oughtn't to remind you aboot--but I swear to Gawd I'm innocent--"

"Don't," she interposed earnestly. "If you had not been proved innocent, I would have known you were innocent." And she pressed a warm little hand in Brazos's upturned palm and left it there while she turned to call: "Jan, come here."

Then it appeared to the bewildered and thrilled cowboy that another June Neece walked into his heart.

"Jan, this is he," said the first tawny-eyed vision to the second, and then to him with a little, smile: "My sister, Janis."

There was absolutely no telling these twin sisters apart. The one called Janis blushed and a bright glow suddenly burned out the shadow in her eyes.

"Brazos Keene? Oh, I am glad to meet you!" she exclaimed, and, repeating her sister's action, she put her hand in his other as it lay on the counter.

The street door banged suddenly and Jack Sain came tramping in.

"Howdy, Brazos. I see you've got acquainted without my help," he remarked, as the girls withdrew their hands from Brazos's grip.

"Jack, this Brazos cowboy is not so slow," said Janis teasingly.

"Slow! Never in this world could you apply that word to Brazos Keene. I see he's perked you up already. Let's get our order in before the gang comes rollin' along."

"Boys, what will you have?" asked one of the twins. The other had turned to the vanguard of hungry visitors, now flocking from all directions.

While the restaurant rapidly filled and the young waitresses flitted to and fro, Brazos listened to his voluble friend and eagerly watched for June without any hope whatever of being able to tell which of the twins really was June.

When, however, Sam gave Brazos a dig in the ribs with his elbow, Brazos came out of his trance.

"Look behind you--at thet handsome dressed-up dude rancher," whispered Sam. "At the table."

"Ahuh. Wal--" replied Brazos, leisurely complying. "Kinda spick and span, at thet. But he's got a nice face. Who is he?"

"Henry Sisk, an' he has a nice face, I'm bound to admit. Too damn nice! Women like him a heap."

"How aboot June an' Janis heah?"

"June couldn't see him with a telescope. But I got a hunch Jan likes him. Anyway, it's Jan he 'pears to be courtin'."

"How'n hell does he know which one he's courtin'?"

"He doesn't, unless they tell him, you can bet your roll on thet."

"How do yu tell?" asked Brazos.

Sain reddened perceptibly. "I don't. Only the girls are decent enough to give me a hunch."

"Gosh! What'd yu do if they didn't steer yu?"

"Brazos, I'd be a plumb crazy cowboy, believe me. But don't get a wrong notion. Both June an' Janis have been friendly to me. Thet's all. I never even had nerve enough to hold June's hand. They're not the flirtin' kind."

"So I see. Wal, how aboot this Henry Sisk? Is he a decent hombre?"

"Yes. I'm jealous, I reckon. Henry is young, good-lookin', rich, an' a fine fellow."

"Wal, I'll see if I approve of him," drawled Brazos coolly, as he swung sidewise over the bench. "Jack, yu order apple pie an' milk for me."

He took several slow strides over to the table where young Sisk sat glowering at no one in particular. His frank face impressed Brazos favourably.

"Howdy, Sisk?" he said. "My pard heah told me who yu air. I'm Brazos Keene."

"How do," returned the young rancher awkwardly. He was surprised, but he put out a hand willingly enough.

"I'm wonderin' if yu need a rider," replied Brazos, after the grip.

"I always need a rider who can work."

"Doggone! Work isn't my long suit," drawled Brazos with his captivating smile. "I cain't rope very wal, an' I'm no good at all at most cowboy jobs, an' I'd just starve before I'd dig fence-post holes. But if I do say it myself, I'm pretty fair with guns."

"Brazos, you're that thing impossible to find--a modest cowboy," said Sisk, laughing. "If you're serious, ride out to see me."

"Thanks. I'll do thet some day," concluded Brazos, and returned to his seat beside young Sain. At this moment one of the girls brought a generous golden slice of apple pie and a large glass of creamy milk. Brazos stared from these to the charming waitress.

"Miss Janis, can I come in heah as often as I want an' get a gorgeous supper like I've had?" asked Brazos.

"Why, certainly--so long as you pay for it," she replied.

"But I'm broke a good deal. Money slips right through my fingers."

"This is strictly cash business, Mr. Keene," she said demurely,

"Mexican Joe trusts me," importuned Brazos. "Aw, Miss Janis, I shore wouldn't want to be exclooded from this heah lovely place just on account of bein' financially embarrassed now an' then."

"Have you any references as to--to good credit and character?" she asked mischievously. "If you will bring these, we shall be glad to trust you. And, by the way, I am not Janis, but June."

"June, I'll eat myself to death," he rejoined softly. "When can I see yu again?"

"We are off at ten. I'd like you to meet my aunt. She's Dad's sister, and lives with us upstairs."

A little before ten o'clock, Brazos wended a reluctant and yet impelled way toward the Twin Sombreros Restaurant. He could not have resisted the urge if he had wanted to. And he fought off the presage of calamity. When he arrived at the corner, he espied one of the twins talking to Henry Sisk. Indeed the two were arguing, from which fact Brazos deduced that this was Janis.

Brazos mounted the side stairway leading up to the second storey and knocked on the door, sure of the trepidation and another nameless. sensation obsessing him. The door opened as if someone had heard his step outside. June stood there, in a white dress that had never been made in Las Animas. This apparition smiled upon him and Brazos dated his abject enthrallment from that moment.

"Evenin', Miss June. I reckon I'm ahaid of time," he said.

"No. You are late. Come in."

She ushered Brazos into a cosy little sitting-room. "Auntie, this is our new-found friend, Mr. Brazos Keene," she said to a grey-haired woman, who sat beside the lamp table. "My Aunt Mattie, Miss Neece --Daddy's sister."

"For the land's sake! June, this nice-looking boy can't be your terrible Brazos Keene," exclaimed the aunt.

"Yes, he is, Auntie."

"Aw, Miss Neece, don't believe everythin' yu heah," implored Brazos. "I'm not turrible atall."

"I don't believe', you are. I'm glad to meet you. Janis filled my old head with nonsense. Said you were a black-browed giant--very fierce to see."

"Air yu shore it was Janis?"

"Yes, indeed. June has been telling me the--well, I'll not give her away. But your ears must have burned. Take his hat, June--and hadn't you better lay aside that cumbersome gun?"

"Wal, lady, I wouldn't feel dressed proper if I did thet. There, I'll slip it around so you caint see it."

"Thank you. I--I guess that's better," she replied, rising. "Mr. Keene, you met my brother Abraham?"

"I did an' I shore like him."

"Have you any ground to believe Abraham's loss can be retrieved?" she asked beseechingly.

"I cain't explain. It's what a cowboy calls a hunch. I've trailed up a good many of my hunches an' never lost oot on one yet."

"Only a hunch! Oh, I had prayed you might have really learned something."

"Miss Neece, I cain't talk aboot it now. All I can say is for yu to go on hopin' and prayin', too."

"Perhaps Abraham will tell me. Good night, Mr. Brazos Keene. Somehow, you inspire me strangely. June, I'll leave you young folks alone. Good night."

Brazos found himself alone with June Neece, and his five endless years of wandering for he knew not what were as it they had never been.

Her face was white and her big eyes shone up at him.

"Brazos Keene! To think I'm alone with him! Oh, I've heard who and what you are. It has been on the lips of everybody all day long."

"Wal, I hope it's gain' to be good for yu thet I am Brazos Keene," returned he mournfully. "But maybe if I was Henry Sisk or Jack Sain I would have more chance for you to like me."

"We are getting on," she replied demurely.

"Yu mean we're gettin' some place where I've no right to be?"

"Come sit here," she returned, and led him to a little sofa in the corner. They gazed at each other again. There was something vital, compelling, drawing, that made no allowance for short acquaintance.

"June, I'm gonna be honest. Meetin' yu has thrown me plumb oot of my saddle."

"It means much to me, Brazos--I don't know what."

"Girl, yu cain't be in love with Jack Sain?"

"Who said I was?" she answered, grinning. "I like Jack. We played together when we were kids."

"Wal, I was afraid--I reckon I thought you might care more'n thet. Jack is crazy aboot yu."

"I'm sorry, Brazos. But I didn't flirt with him as Jan did with Henry Sisk. I'm sorry for Jack. He has had one misfortune after another. And the last is too bad. He had just found a good job after being idle for months, then lost it."

"How'd he lose it?"

"Al said he was running after Lura Surface. Her father caught them meeting on the road one night. He raised Cain and had Jack discharged."

"Ahuh. June, I want to ask some questions aboot Allen. Were yu in his confidence?"

"Yes. Allen was afraid to tell Dad what he was doing. And he didn't even tell Jan."

"Ahuh. Wal, if I figure Allen correct, he was trackin' the ootfit thet ruined yore father."

"He was on the trail of the three men who held Dad up that night and robbed him."

"Did he tell yu anythin'?"

"Not much. Oh, let me recall it," she went on excitedly. "They did not belong around Las Animas. But they rode here often. He had nothing to go by except--except the night they robbed Dad, one of them--a boy with a girl's voice--called another of the three 'Brad'."

"Yes, June, your Dad told me. And here's the funny part of it. One of the three hombres who held me up that night called his pard Brad. By Gawd! Those men murdered Allen. He was on their trail. Did anyone else but yu know Allen was workin' on yore father's case?"

"Lura would have heard it, surely."

"Shore, she'd tell her father, June, can yu remember any more Allen told yu?"

"Let me think. Yes--the night before Allen was killed he had supper with me downstairs. He asked me if I'd seen a handsome, hard-faced cowgirl, small and slim with eyes like black diamonds. She looked the real thing in riders, he said. Then he said she had made up to him in the Happy Days saloon. He seemed curious, yet distrustful. But he didn't tell me any more."

"A cowgirl! Wal, now I wonder--An' thet's all, June?"

"It's all I can remember now. Perhaps when I see you again--"

"Thet'll be in the mawnin', I reckon. But don't worry aboot me. I'm takin' over Allen's job of huntin' for the three hombres who robbed yore dad--an' murdered Allen--an' held me up. An' shore as death, one of thet three was a girl with a high-keyed voice!"

CHAPTER 5

Brazos espied Lura Surface's white horse tied among the pine saplings before he turned in off the road. He found her most effectively placed in a green-shaded nook opening upon the bank of the brook. Bareheaded, her red hair flaming, her strange eyes alight, her lissome, full-breasted figure displayed to advantage in her riding-habit she made a picture that struck fire in Brazos; despite his cool preconception.

"Good afternoon, Miss Surface. I shore am sorry to be late," he drawled, and, throwing aside his sombrero, sat down and slid to his elbow beside her.

"Howdy, Brazos Keene," she said, with a smile.

"Wal, I do pretty good, considerin'," returned Brazos. "Cowboys don't often fall into such luck as this."

"I came early. But I thought you'd never get hare."

"Wild hawsses couldn't have kept me away from yu, Lura."

"Same old cowboy blarney."

"Ump-um. If you take me for any other cowboy, wal, we won't get nowhere atall."

"Where will we get if I take you as I did yesterday?"

"An' how was thet?"

"A lonely cowboy, down on his luck, unjustly jailed--and needing a friend."

"Thet's takin' me true, Lura. But I cain't say I'm without friends altogether."

"You could always get women friends, Brazos."

"Shore. Thet's my trouble. I almost didn't come to-day."

"Why?"

"Wal, yu shore took my eye. An' I knew if I saw yu again I'd go loco."

"Loco? What's that?"

"Loco is a weed hawsses eat sometimes an' go oot of their haids."

"Humph! I can just see you going loco!" she ejaculated. "Why, you're the coolest cow boy I ever met. And Lord knows I've met some cool ones?"

"Wal, suppose at thet--I did go loco?"

"I'd be delighted. You're different, Brazos. Oh, I was sorry when I thought they'd hang you! And what a thrill I had yesterday! Scared, too! Brazos Keene--the notorious Brazos Keene! But I'm not so scared now."

Brazos sat up, and with swift, strong arms he drew her back so that she lay almost flat with her head on his breast.

"Lura, yu shore oughtn't play at love with a hombre like me."

"Who says I'm playing?"

"Shore yu air. An' I've got sense enough to see it an' decency enough to spare yu what many a cowboy I've known would take."

"You think I'm a flirt?"

"Wal, I never call women names, unless they're nice names. Yu're powerful seductive, Lura, turrible appealin', an' pretty isn't the word. Yu've got a devastatin' kind of beauty. If I let go of myself now, an' fell, to kissin' yu, as I reckon I might do by force, I'd be a gone goslin'. I might fall stark ravin' mad in love with yu. An' where'd thet get me? I'm Brazos Keene, only a notch or two behind Billy the Kid in range standin'. Yu're daughter of Raine Surface, rich rancher, an' yu're the belle of this corner of Colorado. Suppose such a wild thing as yore fallin' in love with me. Yu couldn't never marry me."

"You are a queer one. What'd you meet me for, if not to make love? Who ever heard of a cowboy who didn't?"

"Wal, heah's one. Lura, could yu get me a job ridin' for yore dad?"

"Oh, I'd like that. In fact, I said to Father: 'Why not get this Keene cowboy to ride for us?' He flouted the idea. 'That gun-throwing desperado from New Mexico! I guess not!' And I said: 'But, Father, you never care how tough cowboys are coming from Dodge or Abilene.' And he shut me up."

"Ahuh. He's got a grudge against Western riders, I reckon."

"I can't understand it, Brazos," she replied as she straightened her dishevelled hair. "Riders like you are not tough or low-down. You may be wild, dangerous, and all that. But Father's excuse is queer. Why, he has hired rustlers and even outlaws when we ranched outside of Abilene. He had some bad outfits--bad in another sense. That's why he sold out and came to Colorado."

"Reckon I savvy thet. Bad ootfits sometimes hurt a cattleman's reputation," replied Brazos casually.

"Indeed they do. Father lost friends in Kansas. He had one serious lawsuit during which some pretty raw things were hinted against him. He shot a cattleman named Stearns."

"Kill him?"

"No. Stearns recovered."

"Wal, yore dad didn't strike me as the shootin' kind."

"He's not," the girl returned, with some note akin to contempt. "Unless he's got the edge on the other man. Why, he was scared to go into town for fear he'd run into Allen Neece."

"Neece? Did yu know him, Lura? Did yu know him very well?"

"Yes. I liked him better than any boy I knew."

"From all I heah, Neece was a nice chap. Did he ever ride for yu?"

"No. Father not only wouldn't have Allen but ran him out of the job he had."

"When did yu see Allen last?" asked Brazos, apparently growing interested.

"The very night he was murdered. I was in town: I met him coming out of the Show Down Saloon. He was half drunk. Allen took to drink after the Neeces lost Twin Sombreros. He didn't see me. And I didn't stop him for the good reason that he was with a little black-eyed wench in boy's pants. I had seen her once before somewhere, I think, in Dodge. Not the dance-hall type, but a pretty hard-faced hussy. I think she shad something to do with Allen's murder. If it hadn't been for that black-eyed girl my conscience would hurt me."

"Yore what?" drawled Brazos, with his slow smile.

"I daresay you think I have no conscience or any womanly virtues."

"Nope. But yu don't need anythin' with yore good looks Lura, yu've made me doggone interested in young Neece's case."

"I mustn't stay longer, Brazos," said the girl, consulting her watch. "Father watches me closely. Here we have spent an hour--the last part of which didn't keep the promise of the first. When shall we meet again?"

"I reckon never, Lura. But when I'm far away, I'll think I might have kissed yu, an' kick myself."

"Oh, don't go away. Why, I've only met you! Tell me when?"

"Wal, maybe some day I'll meet yu in town an' weaken. But, lady, yu've been warned."

Brazos watched her ride away with only one regret--that he liked her well enough to be sorry she was innocently involved in a sinister plot that dimly shadowed her father, and which she had unwittingly made clearer.

Brazos rode back to town. When he dismounted at the corral and turned Bay over to the stableboy, he suddenly had an inspiration:

"Pedro, did yu know Allen Neece?"

"Si, senor," replied the Mexican.

Further queries rewarded Brazos with some significant facts. Allen Neece had come to the stable on the night he was murdered. He was under the influence of drink, though not by any means drunk. He had to wake Pedro to get his horse. It was not until Neece had mounted and ridden off that Pedro had noted a companion--a boy on a black horse, waiting. This last information seemed of tremendous importance to Brazos. That boy was the girl in rider's garb that Lura Surface had seen with Allen.

That night Brazos haunted the main street and the saloons. The cowboys and cattlemen on the street, the drinkers and bar-tenders in the saloons, the gamblers at the tables and the loungers around, and more than one dark-garbed group who drank by themselves--all heard that Brazos Keene was hunting, for someone.

Brazos's stalk was no pose, yet he did it deliberately. Nevertheless he had little hope that he would encounter the trio who now loomed large in the mystery of Allen Neece's murder. They would be out on the range hidden in the hills, or back east in the gambling dens of Dodge or Abilene. They would be in close touch with the man or men who were back of this crime. It might well be that they would be summoned presently to do away with Brazos.

In the Happy Days Saloon he came unexpectedly upon Bodkin. The ex-deputy had just set down his glass on the bar. Sight of Brazos cut short words he was speaking to a companion.

"Hey, Bodkin, heah yu air," called Brazos, so ringingly that the inmates of the crowded saloon went silent. "Where yu been?"

"I've been around town as usual," replied Bodkin, turning white.

"Like hell yu have. I been lookin' for yu. Have yu been put back as deputy sheriff of this heah town?"

"No. Kiskadden fired me, an' then he resigned. The Cattlemen's Association haven't made no appointment yet. But I'm expectin' it."

"Yu're expectin' what?" drawled Brazos with scathing insolence.

"To be elected sheriff."

"Aw, hell! Elected? Who's electin' yu? Not the citizens of this heah town. They won't be asked. If they would be, yu'd never get a vote, onless from some of yore hired hands. An' who's yore Cattlemen's Association ootside of Raine Surface?

"Miller, Henderson, Sprague--all big cattlemen," returned Bodkin. "Inskip was one--but he quit."

"Ahuh. An' when does this ootflt aim to settle yore appointment--an' also yore--hash?"

"They meet to-morrow night."

"Wal, tell them I'll call an' cast one vote against yu. An' while yu're carryin' messages from me, take this for yourself. If yu're appointed sheriff I'm gonna see red. An' this for yore hired-hand, Barsh. He better keep oot of my way."

Backing through the swinging doors, Brazos left that saloon to break its silence with a subdued sound of excited voices, and then an angry protesting roar from Bodkin. Brazos had scarcely turned up the street when the doors banged behind him.

"Hold on, Brazos. It's Hank." And Bilyen, glinting of eye, joined him. "My Gawd, cowboy, but you burned Bodkin up! What's the deal?"

"Howdy, Hank. Aw, I was only bluffin' Bodkin, an' takin' thet chance to set the town talkin' about Surface an' his Cattlemen's Association."

"Brazos, you've got goin'," rejoined Bilyen shrewdly. "You never was one to talk wild. Mebbe you was throwin' a bluff, but you had somethin' behind it."

"Wal, enough to want to rile myself up. Hank, I was wantin' to see yu. Give me the lowdown on rustlin' in eastern Colorado."

"Got thet this very day. Kiskadden an' Inskip told me. They're shore interested. Brazos, there 'pears to be considerable cattle stealin' in small numbers, takin' in all the big brands on this range. Too slick an' bold to be the work of any gang but real rustlers under a smart leader. Kiskadden an' Inskip lost three hundred haid last month. The Star Brand not so many. Small ootfits down the Purgatory none at all. Henderson's ootflt rarin' about a big drive on their Circle Dot Brand. Miller has lost considerable haid. Sprague an' the big cattlemen up on the slopes hard hit for these times. All this last month, an' the herds driven over into Kansas an' shinned east."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Brazos mirthlessly.

"Say, what's so funny about thet?"

"Struck me funny, the way my hunches work oot," returned Brazos grimly. "But for some men it's aboot as funny as death. Hank, will yu meet me oot west of town at sunup in the mawnin'?"

"Yes, I will, cowboy. Where?" answered Bilyen soberly.

"At thet old cabin on the hill--where Allen Neece was murdered," said Brazos tersely, and abruptly strode away toward Mexican Joe's place, where he had a room.

Next morning found Brazos at the cabin, waiting far Hank Bilyen. The old cowman arrived in good time and greeted his young friend.

They searched the musty, dry cabin as hunters of treasure might have. "Well, nothin' heah," said Brazos. "Let's go up in the loft."

The loft had been built of peeled poles laid close together. It shook under their weight. The light was dull up there, but they could distinguish objects. Bilyen concluded that the murderers had climbed the ladder up to a point level with the loft and had shoved the body head-first back upon the poles. A dark smear of blood ran along one of them.

"What's thet in the corner?" asked Brazos. He found a rope, a lasso, that had evidently been hurriedly flung there without being coiled. He crawled back to Bilyen with it.

Brazos went over every inch of that loft without further discovery. When he got down he found Hank sitting in the door, studying the rope. Brazos knelt to scrutinise with him. They were tense and silent.

"Wal, what you make oot?" queried the Texan gruffly of Brazos.

"Lasso all right. Manilla, wal made. Same as any one of a hundred."

"Yes, an' what else, cowboy?"

"It shore never was used on a calf or a cow or a steer."

"Hell, no, Brazos, it ain't new. It's been tied on a saddle fer a long time. A cowboy riata never used by a cowboy! Does thet say anythin' to you?"

"Ump-umm. Don't talk so much, Hank. Let's go all over the ground."

It appeared to be a scraggy bit of dead and dying limber, extending back a considerable distance. Brazos directed Hank to search there, while he began at the farther end. At the farthest point, under the largest and thickest-foliaged of the trees, he found a bare spot of ground. At sight of hoof tracks and tiny boot tracks his blood leaped. Down he knelt.

"There! My hunch was true."

Bilyen made a careful inspection of the spot, and then faced Brazos with a curious fire in his eyes. "Cowboy, there's a girl mixed in this deal."

"Shore."

"She come way back heah to be far from thet cabin. An' she set her hawss for a while. An' she got off heah--an' heah she walked to and fro. Nervous! An' heah she stood still, her heels diggin' in. Rooted to the spot, heh? An' there she got on again, light-footed an' quick--Well, Brazos, I'll be damned!"

"So will I, Hank," rejoined Brazos ponderingly. "Get' me some little sticks so I can measure this track."

"How you figure her part in this?"

"Plain as print. She an' her two pards air from oot of town--she's a good-looker an' likely enticin' to cowboys. Allen Neece was easy took in by girls. He liked a drink, too. Wal, this gang of three was after him for reasons that bear strong in this deal. She got to Allen--an' the rest was easy."

"I figure aboot like thet, Hank," added Brazos thoughtfully. "Beside, I know more'n yu. The night Allen was killed he walked down to the barns to get his hawss. Pedro said there was a boy with him--a boy on a black hawse--an' they hung ootside. They rode away. Now what happened is this: If I remember correct, thet night was nice an' warm, with a moon an' the frogs peepin'--just the night for a rendezvous oot heah. But they never got heah. Thet Brad an' his other pard roped Allen an' dragged him off his hawse, The fall killed Allen, but they didn't know it. They packed him up heah, shot him--an' left him in the cabin."

"While the girl waited heah under this tree, nervous an' sick."

"Nervous, anyhow. Wal, she had--good reason to be nervous," declared Brazos darkly. "Just about then I rode into the deal."

"Brazos, who's behind all this?"

"Hank, yu're a curious cuss," drawled Brazos, carefully depositing in his pocket the little sticks with which he had measured the foot track. "Let's go back to town an' have breakfast."

That night Brazos had his supper at Mexican Joe's. Afterwards he began the gamut of the saloons, where he pretended to drink. And at nine o'clock, when he mounted the steps to the Odd Fellows Hall, he pounded on the door with the butt of his gun.

"Open up heah!" he shouted.

The door was promptly unlocked, allowing Brazos to enter, a little unsteady on his feet. But seldom had Brazos Keene been any more sober and cool than at this moment.

"Excuse me, gennelmen, for intrudin' heah. I'll leave it to yu whether what I say is important or not."

A dozen or perhaps fifteen men sat around a long table, upon which stood bottles and glasses and a box of cigars. Brazos recognised Henderson and Surface. He had never seen Sprague, but identified him from Bilyen's description. And lastly, to his surprise, he saw Inskip.

"It's that cowboy, Brazos Keene," spoke up one of the men.

"Drunk! Put him out," called. Surface, rising from his seat.

"Let him have his say, Surface," advised Henderson, intensely interested.

"Go ahaid, Brazos," interposed Inskip dryly..

"But the intrusion of a drunken cowboy!" protested Surface.

"Speak up, Keene," ordered Henderson. "Be brief and to the point."

Brazos sheathed his gun, though he left his hand on the butt.

"Gentlemen, I picked oot this meetin' as the proper place an' time to make a statement shore to be interestin' to all Colorado cattlemen," he began Swiftly. "It so happens thet events kinda gravitate to me. An honour I never cared for but was thrust on me! The cattle situation heah on this range is nothin' new to me. I recall five situations like it. Yu all know what caused the Lincoln County War in New Mexico. Yu-all shore have heahed of the Sewall McCoy combine with Russ Slaughter. On the one hand there was the educated, rich, smooth, cunnin' gentleman-rancher, an' on the other the dyed-in-the-wool rustler, hard as flint, an' leader of as bloody an ootfit of cattle thieves as ever forked hawsses. Yu-all may have heahed, too, what I had to do with trailin' an' breakin' thet double ootfit. I mention it hear, not to brag but to give some importance to what I'm aboot to tell yu."

Brazos let that sink in.

"Yu cattlemen face the same situation heah on' this range," he went on impressively. "An' if yu don't break it up there's no tellin' how powerful an' all-embracin' it'll grow.. Short an' sweet, then, gentlemen, there's a cattleman on this range who's workin' like Sewall McCoy. He's yore friend an' maybe pardner, I'm not insultin' any of yu heah or any citizen of Las Animas. 'Cause what I know cain't be proved at this tellin'. But it's the truth yu can gamble on. Thet's all, gentlemen. Take it for what it's worth."

Slowly Brazos backed to the door, limning on his mind's eye, the strangely contrasting visages there. Then with a leap he was out the door, to bound down the stairs.

CHAPTER 6

As the train whistled for Las Animas the conductor observed Brazos Keene buckling a heavy gun belt around his slim 'waist.

He picked up his bag and made for the platform. As the train slowed to a halt he espied Bilyen foremost of the waiting bystanders. Before Brazos stepped down he swept the platform with searching gaze.

"Howdy, Hank," drawled Brazos. "Kinda like old times to see yu packin' thet gun."

"Wal, you dressed-up son of a gun," ejaculated Hank, delighted. "Brazos, you shore look fine."

"How about things heah?"

"Not so good. I hope you had better luck than me."

"Hank, I shore learned a heap. But what good it'd do cain't say. Come with me. I've got somethin' to tell Neece."

Brazos had no more to say until he and Hank met Neece at the cabin. It pleased Brazos to see that Neece was a changed man. He had pulled out hopelessness. He had gained.

"Wal, Neece, I've news thet I shore hope yu'll find somethin' in," began Brazos. "My job at Kansas City, yu know, was to get track of the cattle people Surface ships to. I couldn't find oot. This may have been regular an' then again it may have been queer. Their interest is in buyin' an' sellin' beef an' not in where it comes from. A big per cent of cattle herds shipped there is shore rustled, An' nobody's tellin'.

"But I spent three days loafin' aboot the stockyards, an' I found oot from the yardmen aboot two big trainloads of longhorns thet was shipped in early spring. Longhorns an' mixed brands, from New Mexico. One trainload went into the stockyards an' was drove oot of there in small bunches. The other trainload went east. Yu cain't track unbranded cattle any more'n yu can cattle wearin' brands yu don't know. Shore them big trains carried yore herd. An' thet herd just faded.

"Wal, on the way back I stopped over at Abilene. I mixed with cowboys, cattlemen, gamblers, an' town folks. Naturally, yu know, yu never get anywhere askin' one Westerner aboot another. But I finally met a cowboy who once rode for Surface. He was mum as an oyster.

"Then I met a cattleman who spit fire when I asked aboot Surface. It 'peared this cattleman was kin to one who had been a pardner of Surface. Stokes, the pardner was. Wal, Stokes an' Surface operated in cattle. Surface bought an' Stokes sold. One day they quarrelled an' Surface shot Stokes. Nobody saw the fight. Surface claimed Stokes drew first. Some people said the trouble was over money, an' some said Stokes had been heahed to question Surface aboot where he got his cattle. Anyway, Surface left Abilene. Thet was over a year ago. An' thet's aboot all."

"I reckon it's significant," declared Neece soberly.

"Luca Surface has left Twin Sombreros, so I heah," put in Hank. "She's stayin' with, a friend, Delia Ross. An' lettin' that gambler Howard run around with her."

"Yu don't say? Wal!"

"Brazos, did Hank tell you Henderson called on me?" queried Neece. "Though he didn't mention Surface I took it as an expression of regret an' sympathy. Henderson is head of the bank that wouldn't lend me the money to save my ranch."

"Ahuh. Wal, thet is a hunch. Rustle my hawss, Hank. I'm ridin' to town."

Henderson received Brazos with veiled surprise.

"I called to ask a couple of questions, Mr. Henderson, an' maybe one is in the nature of a favour," said Brazos.

"Well, shoot, cowboy," replied the banker with an encouraging smile.

"Do yu know Jack Sain?"

"By sight only."

"Could yu give him a job ridin'? From all I heah yu need some riders. I'll stand for Jack."

"Very well. That is recommendation enough. Send him in."

"Thet's fine of yu, Mr. Henderson. My other question is kinda personal an' I hope yu excuse it. Air you for or against Raine Surface?"

"Is that any business of yours?"

"Not onless yu make it mine. But I'm against him. I'm on Abe Neece's side in this deal."

"So that is what Inskip meant?"

"Will yu respect my confidence?"

"Absolutely."

"Wal, I reckon Raine Surface is another Sewall McCoy."

"Aha! That was behind your little address to the Cattlemen's Association? Inskip told me that very thing."

"Yes, it was an' is."

"Ticklish business, even for a Brazos Keene. Surface has many interests, riders galore, and, according to range gossip, a tough outfit up in the hills."

"All powerful interestin' to me. If Surface didn't have them he wouldn't class with Sewall McCoy. At that I reckon McCoy had what Surface doesn't show to me: brains. McCoy lasted for years in New Mexico. An' if It hadn't been for my suspicion aboot a cowboy rider in my ootfit why, McCoy might be playin' a high hand yet. But Surface won't last the month oot. He just doesn't savvy us."

"Us? And who are us?"

"Wal, Kiskadden an' Inskip an' Neece an' Bilyen an' me an' yu, Mr. Henderson," drawled Brazos. "I'm obliged to yu for seein' me an' more especial for yore bolsterin' up of my hunch aboot Surface."

"See here, Keene, I didn't say--I didn't intimate--"

"All I needed was to talk to yu a little. I know what yu think. But yu didn't tell me an' yu can rest safe in thet assurance. Keep oot of Surface's way. He might try to bore yu to strengthen his stand."

That night after supper Brazos began his stalk, as stealthily as if he were deer hunting, though with the wary intensity which accompanied the blood pursuit of man.

Very late, Brazos presented himself at the door of the Neeces' apartment over the restaurant and knocked solidly. The door opened quickly, to disclose one of the twins in a dressing-gown, most bewitching in the dim lamplight.

"Sorry--but I gotta see June," announced Brazos with a deep breath.

"Come in. I've been waiting. I 'mew you'd come. Janis and Auntie have gone to bed," she replied.

June stood before him, turning up the lamp ever so little. She looked at him with dark, wide eyes.

"Brazos!" She came close to catch the lapels of his coat and look up anxiously. "What has happened? I never saw you look like this."

"Nothin' happened yet, June. But it's gonna happen--an' pronto. There air men in town--I don't know how many--come to kill me. An' I just been goin' the rounds to let them see I won't be so easy to kill."

"Oh, mercy! I feared--this," whispered June unsteadily, and leaned shaking against him.

"June, I reckoned yu'd better heah it from me," he said earnestly. "'Cause, no matter if I am Brazos Keene--somethin' might happen. But I've been in a heap tighter place--to come oot safe. An' so it'll be this time."

"And it's all because you want to help us," she said eloquently.

"Never mind thet," he rejoined hastily. "June, it's shore hard to say the rest. My chest's cavin' in. Yu remember the night I left for Kansas City--how I was mad enough to take them--them two kisses yu was mad enough to say yu owed me?"

She lifted her face, flushed and radiant. "Brazos," she whispered shyly, "I loved you from the very first minute you looked at me."

"Darlin' June, I'm turrible unworthy of yu. But, I love yu. An' I ask yu to--to be my wife."

"You have my promise," she said simply, and lifted her face from his shoulder, and then, blushing scarlet--her lips to his.

"There! Ah, no more! Brazos!" she whispered, and slipped shyly from his arms, to close the opened dressing-gown around her neck. "Go now. It's late. And here I am--forgetting my modesty! But you've made me happy. I'm not afraid NOW, Brazos. Adios, my cowboy!"

Next morning Brazos began patrolling Las Animas. It was Saturday, and the influx of cowboys and other ranch folk had noticeably begun. The railroad station platform showed the usual crowd and bustle incident to the arrival of a train.

Inside the station Brazos encountered Lura Surface just turning away from the ticket window. She carried a satchel and evidently the larger bag at her feet belonged to her.

"Mawnin', Lura Surface. Air yu runnin' away on me?" drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero.

"Brazos Keene!" She gave him a glance from superb green eyes that was not particularly flattering. "Yes, I am running away, and for good--if it's anything to you."

"Yu don't say. Aw, I'm sorry. I been wantin' to see yu powerful bad."

"Yes, you have," she rejoined with scorn. "Why didn't you, then? I wrote you. I wanted to ask you to--to help me. But you never wrote."

"Lura, thet's too bad. I never got yore letter. Fact is, I haven't been to the post office. An' I've been away for weeks."

"It's too late, Brazos," she said, a little bitterly. "I'm going to Denver to marry Hal Howard."

"Aw! Yu 'don't say? Wal, I'm shore congratulatin' thet hombre."

"But you don't congratulate me?"

"Hardly. I just cain't see yu throwin' yoreself away on a caird-sharp. Why, Lura, yu got all the girls oot heah skinned to a frazzle."

"If you thought so--so much of me why did you--" she asked, softening under his warm praise. Her hard green eyes misted over. Then she went on: "Was it because you'd heard things about my love affairs?"

"No, it shore wasn't," he replied bluntly, realising that he had met her at a singularly opportune moment.

"Brazos! You were afraid of Dad?"

"No. Not thet, Lura. I'm not afraid of any man. But it was because he was yore father." She met his piercing gaze with understanding, and a visible shudder.

The train whistled for the stop. Lura designated her bag, which Brazos took up. They went out on the platform. The train halted with squeak and jar. Brazos helped Lura on, found a seat for her, and, depositing her bag, he held out his hand.

"Good-bye an' good luck," he said. "Yu're game, Lura. I'm gonna risk a word of advice. Stop Howard's caird playin'."

"He will not need to gamble," she flashed, with a smile. "One last word, Brazos Keene." She put her cool lips to his ear, in what certainly was a caress as well as an act of secrecy. "For my sake, spare Dad the rope!"

Brazos could find no answer. He clasped her hand hard. The train was moving. One last glance he took at her eyes, brimming with tears, and dark with pain. Then he wheeled to run back to the platform and jump off. He stood till the train passed by, and then wended a pondering, watchful way down the street.

At the corner where the bank stood an idea struck him. He went in to see Henderson. Without any greeting, Brazos flung a query at the banker.

"Did this heah bank get held up yesterday or maybe day before?"

"By a bandit?" replied Henderson.

"I reckon one man might think thet. A bandit with green eyes an' red hair."

"Keene, you beat me all hollow."

"Wal, come oot with it, then. Didn't Raine Surface draw a big sum of money?"

"All he had in cash. Close to forty thousand dollars."

"Doggone! An' wasn't Howard with him?"

"Yes. Surface claimed it was a gambling debt."

"Gamblin' debt yore eye!" retorted Brazos scornfully. "Henderson, thet was the price of Howard's silence. The gambler sold oot cheap. But still he got the girl."

"Lura! Good heavens!" ejaculated the banker. "I begin to see light."

"Yu been wearin' blinkers long enough, Henderson."

"Wait, Keene," said the other, as Brazos turned to go. "That little matter of putting Bodkin in as sheriff has come up. What'll I do about it?"

"Air yu still in Surface's Cattle Association, Henderson?"

"I resigned."

"Wal, if I was yu, I'd say, pretty pert, thet I was for savin' the town Bodkin's burial expenses by not electin' him sheriff."

"That's certainly pert. I'll do it, Brazos. But let me give you a hunch. They'll make Bodkin sheriff."

"Shore they will--if he's crazy enough to accept it. I guess I better throw a scare into him."

Passing the open door of the largest store Las Animas could boast of, Brazos had a glimpse of Bodkin holding forth to a group of men. Brazos passed on and halted. What could he make out of an encounter with Bodkin? The man would not draw. But he could be made a target for speech that would sweep over town like fire in prairie grass.

Brazos turned back to enter the store. He assumed a swinging forward crouch and the sullen mien of a cowboy who had been tilting the bottle. The little group spread, leaving Bodkin in the centre and apart. The action was like clockwork.

Bodkin showed no marked effect. As the cowboy had let him off before, he would again. This time, however, the ex-deputy packed a gun at his hip.

"Bodkin, I been lookin' all over this heah town for yu," declared Brazos in a surly voice.

"Keene, I haven't been hidin'," complained Bodkin. "Wal, yu're damn hard to find, an yu shore got thet Barsh hombre hid somewhere."

"He's out of town."

"Can yu get word to him?"

"I could if I wanted to."

"Ahuh. Wal, yu better want to. Yu tell yore ropin' hombre thet he'd be wise to stay away from heah or else do some tall figgerin' how he's gonna keep me from borin' him."

"Keene, Barsh wouldn't dare 'meet you in an even break. He's only a boy. He never shot at a man. An' you wouldn't shoot him in cold blood."

"Hell I wouldn't! Hasn't there been a lot of shootin' in cold blood goin' on aboot heah? I'm sore, Bodkin. I'm spittin' 'fire."

"I'm not worryin' none," returned Bodkin, but the fading of his healthy tan attested to another state of mind. The interview had begun to be painful to him.

"Ahuh. I reckon yu got me figgered good. Wal, then, yu're so damn smart what's to keep me from shooting Raine Surface's laig off?"

Bodkin's start and expression were peculiar, and he did not reply. All the other men stood spellbound.

"Answer thet, Bodkin. Talk, damn yu! Wasn't yu loud-mouthed when I dropped in on yu?" shouted Brazos in a loud, rasping voice. "What's to keep me from shootin' Raine Surface's laig off?"

"Nothin', Keene--nothin'," ejaculated the other, harassed and impotent. "But you couldn't do it--any more than to Barsh. Mr. Surface is out of your reach. He's a big man on this range. You're loco Keene. You're drunk."

"Not so drunk as yu reckon, Bodkin. An' yu're defendin' Surface from a likker-soakin', fire-spittin', gun-throwin' cowboy?"

"I'm trying to talk sense. You might as well bust in on Henderson in the bank, or Mr. Jones, here, as Raine Surface. Why, it's outlandish! Mr. Surface is a big-hearted gentleman, a power in this' town, a fine citizen who has the best interests of the community--"

"Haw! Haw!" interrupted Brazos in harsh mockery. "Bodkin, yu must be a fool as wal as the other things yu air. I reckon next yu'll say Surface never did anythin' against me."

"Sure he--never did," panted Bodkin loyally, beginning to sweat.

"Yu lyin' tool of thet two-faced cattleman!" Brazos fairly hurled the epithet. "An' next yu'll be sayin' thet Surface didn't beat Abe Neece oot of Twin Sombreros Ranch--he didn't steal the herd of Texas longhorns thet Neece had comin' north. Aw, no--not atall! He didn't have his tools buy off or kill Neece's ootfit of riders an' drive thet herd west along the Cimarron, over the Dry Trail, across New Mexico to the railroad? Aw, no--not atall! Surface didn't have his tools--one of which you air, damn yore yellow skin! He didn't have them hold Neece up thet night late an' rob him of the money Neece was takin' to the bank next mawnin'. Aw, hell, no! Not atall! An' yore big-hearted, respectable, fine boss didn't have nothin' to do with Allen Neece's murder?"

Brazos ended that ringing denunciation in a silence which could be felt. Bodkin's terrified visage satisfied Brazos that he had driven his point home. The spectators equally satisfied Brazos that his incredible affront would fly swiftly as the wind on a thousand tongues to every corner of the range. Raine Surface would be a marked if not a ruined man.

For three days Brazos watched Bodkin unobtrusively. The ex-deputy went about with a bold front, but it was evident to Brazos that the man was feeling extreme perturbation. He never went near Twin Sombreros Ranch. Bodkin was waiting for the terrible news to reach Surface's ears.

On the third night Brazos frightened the proprietor of the hotel where Bodkin stayed into giving him the room next to Bodkin's. Brazos made sure Bodkin was out, then carefully cut a hole through the partition in a corner where it would not soon be discovered. This done, Brazos sat down to wait. Some time Bodkin would be cornered in that room by Surface, or would confer with the rancher's men. Brazos meant to hide there, going out only after nightfall, until the developments he expected reached their climax.

But, as Brazos's luck would always have it, his marvellous patience did not need to be exercised. At midnight, just after the eastbound train had arrived, Bodkin entered his room with two men. Brazos glued his ear to the little hole in the corner.

"Talk low, fellers," Bodkin said, "I'm scared even of the walls in this town. Keene hasn't been seen for three days."

"Sure as God made little apples he's trailin' you," whispered one of them.

"I feel it, Brad. Set down. Hyar's likker an' cigars. I sure got a lot on my chest thet I got to get rid of."

"Panhandle Ruckfall showed yellow clear to his gizzard," spoke up another voice, thin and low, somehow sibilant. "He turned the job down. I raised the ante to two thousand dollars. Ruckfall gave me the laugh. 'A hell of a lot of fun I'd get out of ten thousand after meeting Brazos Keene!' is what he said. He had too much sense to tackle such a deal. He might have killed Keene, but it's an even bet that Keene would kill him.

"We're stuck," whispered Bodkin thickly. "I've been keepin' out of the boss's way.

"But he corralled me to-day. Gawd Almighty! I reckoned he was goin' to shoot me."

"You're wrong, Bodkin," rejoined the one with the curt voice. "It's he who's stuck. Serves him right. He's gone too far. That Neece deal was too raw. I told him. Now, if Bard and his girl fail--"

An eloquent silence gave Brazos time to grasp this new connection--so there was a Bard as well as a Brad!

"Did you fetch them?" asked Bodkin.

"Yes. And Orcutt with them. They went to Hailey's."

"Now what?" asked the third man.

"We'll lay low till it's over, Brad."

"Listen," whispered this member of the trio. "It'll be over pronto. Brazos Keene will see through thet dodge. Bard's black-eyed wench is a slick one. But I'll bet she falls hyar."

"She's our best bet," returned Bodkin. "Keene is hot after women. The town is full of talk about him runnin' after Lura Surface an' the Neece twins. An' they're all good girls. Bess Syvertsen is bad--bad from her mother up. Add to thet, she's handsome as hell. Keene can't resist such a combination."

"The hell's fire he can't," retorted Brad. "Now here's what I think of your deal. I'm not beholdin' to any of you. An' to-morrow I'm lightin' out of this town an' ridin' far. If you've got an ounce of sense you'll do the same."

"Brad, I can't pull up stakes hyar. I'm goin' to be sheriff of this county."

"You're goin' to be a stiff!"

"Not so loud," put in the third man. "Bodkin, I'm afraid Brad has it figured. I'd say if we had plenty of time we'd have a sure thing with Bess on the job. She's the most fascinating girl I ever met. But the hell of it is, can we take time? It's got to be done right now."

"We'll have to give her time."

"Every hour adds to the doubt and suspicion already working."

"Even with Brazos Keene dead--which is sure a far-fetched conclusion, gentlemen--this town is going to think on. Henderson, Kiskadden, Inskip, Moore, Hadley, Stevens--all these men are getting their heads together. They are going to buck the Cattlemen's Association. They'll split it wide open. Most of them are honest cattlemen, you know. They've just been fooled. Cattlemen are the easiest of men to fool because they take a little irregularity for granted, even among themselves. But when it comes to being robbed by rustlers--they wake up."

"Fellers," said Brad, "I'm pullin' up stakes. An' I don't mind tellin' you I'd take that bag of gold with me, if I could find it."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Bodkin, sarcastically. Brad was not the only one who had had that ingenious idea.

"Where did he put it?" queried the unknown man. "He must have banked such a large sum."

"He couldn't bank it. An' it's too soon yet after Neece's holdup. But it runs in my mind that he'll keep it close so he'll be well heeled when he slopes."

"Does Bard know where that money is?"

"No more than do I. It's always stuck in his craw--that bag of gold. He an' Orcutt held Neece up. An' once I heard Orcutt say, 'Why did we let that gold get out of our hands?'"

"Same reason that applies to all of us. The stronger will of a crookeder man! Well, he's run his race. It's not in the nature of things for all the men he has used to stand around now, waiting to be hanged or shot. How about you, Bod?"

"I'll stick around," replied Bodkin.

"Every man for himself from now on, eh?"

"Let's drink to thet."

CHAPTER 7

On every Sunday the event of the day was the arrival and departure of the afternoon train. It was about as much of a social gathering as Las Animas saw except at dances and school entertainments. Brazos occupied his old stand against the wall of the station building.

Bess Syvertsen was there with some country folk. Brazos needed only one look to convince himself that none of the four men could be Bard Syvertsen or Orcutt. The fifth was a woman of rather bold and flashy appearance. Brazos studied them with interest.

The train arrived, and the woman, accompanied by the two best-dressed of the men, boarded it. Bess, with the other two, turned away to stroll along the station platform, following the crowd upstreet. Brazos, from under his sombrero brim, looked that trio over as if his eyes were magnifying glasses. The two men he had seen somewhere.

Monday brought back the bustle to the cattle town. Brazos felt that this day he would meet Bess Syvertsen and he was on edge for the event. Wherefore he was all primed and set for the momentous meeting when it came about at the post office.

Bess had dropped out of the sky, apparently, to follow him up to the window where Brazos was asking for mail. She pressed close to Brazos and asked the clerk for a stamp. What a hot gush ran along Brazos's veins at the sound of that young, high-pitched voice! For the stamp she tendered a hundred-dollar bill, which the clerk pushed back with a laugh.

"What will I do?" she complained.

"I'll trust you. Go to the bank and get change."

Brazos promptly produced some coins. "Heah, lady, I'll oblige yu," he drawled, handing her the money.

"Oh, thank you," she replied. She took two cents and paid for her stamp, but she had no letter upon which to put it. Then she turned to Brazos.

"Cowboy, how is it I haven't seen you?" she asked merrily.

Brazos took off his sombrero.

"Wal, I was just thinkin' the same about yu," he drawled, with his slow smile.

"I am Bess Syvertsen," she said.

Brazos made her a gallant bow. "I shore am happy to meet yu," he replied, but he did not mention his name.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Aw, I hate to tell yu."

"You needn't be afraid," she said, with a smile. "I can stand a shock."

"Wal, then, doggone it--I'm thet poor hombre, Brazos Keene."

"No!" she exclaimed. Despite her deceit she betrayed sincerity as well. "Not that hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-shooting cowboy?"

"You forget yore West, my girl," he drawled. "Range talk blames me for a lot thet I'm innocent of."

"You might be taking a risk. My father has no use for cowboys."

"Is he heah?"

"Yes. Bard Syvertsen. He's a cattle buyer. We travel all over. Father has a deal on with Surface and Miller."

"Wal, it's just too bad. Always my luck! I ride the ranges an' I meet girls. Reckon I'm hard to please. I don't care for town hussies or camp trulls. I caint stand these nice goody-goody spoony little girls, neither. Lura Surface was one to make a cowboy ride high an' handsome. But she was a flirt. An' heah I meet yu!"

"Brazos, I might be a flirt--or worse."

"I don't savvy yu, Bess. All the same I feel as if yu were fightin' somethin' yu didn't want me to know. Tell me or not, as yu like. But if I strike yu pretty pronto, yu know, an' bold--it's because I see no sense in holdin' back things. I've a bad reputation an' I'm liable to be shot any time. Life is too short for my kind not to live from day to day."

She clung to his arm during the walk to Hailey's, where she released it.

"Brazos, I thought I was glad to meet you--at first. But I'm not so sure now."

"Aw, thet's not kind. Is it good-bye then?"

"Where will you meet me tomorrow?"

"Heah. Anywhere--any time."

"Anywhere?" she asked, her eyes piercing him: "How about out of town?"

"Wal, I reckon it'd better be heah," returned Brazos. And when he said that it seemed a passion wrenched her.

"To-morrow, then. Here, at two o'clock. Adios."

Next day Bess Syvertsen was late. She came at length, betraying signs of anger, and vouchsafed no explanation. But Brazos did not need one. They spent the afternoon together, walking, sitting in the station.

On the fourth day of this strange relation Bess came an hour late. Her face was colourless and showed other signs of havoc. Behind her stalked two men, one tall, the other short. That they were without vests and gunbelts Brazos's sharp eye recorded before he paid attention to their features. The little man had a visage that was a map of frontier crime. This should be Orcutt. The tall man then was Bard Syvertsen, and he was a splendid specimen of Norwegian manhood, lofty of stature, fair-haired, with eyes like blue ice, and a handsome craggy face.

"Brazos," said Bess hurriedly, "meet my father, Bard Syvertsen, and Hen Orcutt."

"Howdy, gentlemen," drawled Brazos in his cool voice. At the moment he knew he risked no peril from them, and they had confronted him significantly unarmed. What their idea was, Brazos could not conjecture.

"Howdy, Keene. Glad to meet you," said Orcutt curtly.

Syvertsen returned Brazos's greeting in a voice Brazos would have recognised among a thousand voices. If Bard Syvertsen had been armed he would have been close to the death Brazos meant to mete out to him.

"My girl has been spending a good deal of time, with you, cowboy," he said. "I object to it."

"Yeah--an' on what grounds?"

"No insult intended. But it's common talk about town--you're a trifler with women. I told Bess, and that she must stop your attentions. She said I could tell you myself."

"Ahuh. Wal, I'm sorry to say I cain't take offence. But in this heah case I'm in daid earnest."

"Keene, I did not believe Bess," returned Syvertsen. "That accounts for this intrusion. You'll excuse us."

They turned into the hotel and Brazos's keen ear caught a remnant of a curse Orcutt was bestowing upon the other.

"Bess, what'n hell was all thet about?" queried Brazos. The girl seemed to be in distress:

"Come. People are staring," she answered hurriedly, and drew him away.

If Bess Syvertsen had been a fascinating creature on former days, she was on this occasion vastly more. Only late in the day did Brazos gather that the climax had come--that Bess had been driven by her accomplices to end the farce--or that she was a woman being torn apart by love and an evil power too strong for her. After supper, she leaned her elbows on the table, her face on her hands, and gazed at Brazos with eyes that hid much and expressed more.

"Let's go," she said suddenly, her eyes alight with new impulse too soft-to be crafty. They went out upon the street. There was no one in the lobby of Hailey's hotel.

"Come!" And she drew him with steel hands, and will as steely, up the stairs to the floor above. The corridor was shadowy. Brazos grew wary. Bess unlocked a door and opened it.

"Wal, sayin' good night early, eh, honey?" he drawled. "See yu to-morrow same time."

"Yes--but come in--now," she panted.

"Bess! Air yu loco--askin' me into yore bedroom?"

"Loco, indeed! Come--don't be a fool."

"I'm only human, Bess--an' I reckon I'd weaken if we was goin' to marry. But with all yore love talk I cain't see yu'd marry me."

"Brazos Keene! Would you marry me?" she whispered passionately.

"My Gawd! What yu take me for? I told yu I was a Texan an' had respect for a woman I loved."

She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him, quivering, appearing to stifle speech as well as sobs upon his breast. It was as if a new emotion had consumed a lesser fire within her. The paroxysm ended in a passionate embrace, in sudden wild kisses upon his cheek and lips. She tore at his hair. "Go--go--before I--"

She broke off huskily and, releasing him, shut the door in his face.

Brazos's morning habit of whipping and rolling his guns--at rare intervals he packed two guns--had infinitely more meaning next morning than the perfunctory practice indulged in by all gunmen. His instinct told him the day had come--the meeting with the murderers of Allen Neece was not far away.

He went down to breakfast, the thin skin on his thumb feeling raw. He was late for this meal, yet he lingered over it, brooding while he watched the street. When he saw Surface drive by in a buckboard he muttered, "Ah-huh. I reckon my hunch was aboot correct."

At length Brazos stalked out, tense for the climax. He met Kiskadden and Inskip on the street.

"What's Surface doin' in town?" he queried bluntly.

"Meetin' of the Cattlemen's Association," replied Inskip. "Surface looked black as a thundercloud."

"Either of yu know Syvertsen an' Orcutt when yu see them?"

"I do," returned Kiskadden. "They ducked in Hall's to avoid meetin' me. Somethin' on their minds, Brazos."

"Will yu fellers do me a favour? Cross the street heah an' walk up thet side an' down on this side. Don't miss seein' anybody, but be particular to locate Syvertsen an' Orcutt. I'll wait heah."

Brazos leaned against the wall and watched, while his friends reconnoitred. They seemed to take a long while. Hank Bilyen came along.

"Kiskadden told me you was heah. What's comin' off, Brazos?" he queried.

"Go into Hall's an' line up at the bar. If Syvertsen an' Orcutt come oot be shore where they go."

Bilyen's uncertainty ceased. Without another word he walked on to enter Hall's saloon. Inskip was the first of the other two men to get back.

He breathed hard; his grey eyes glinted.

"Brazos, I got a hunch there'll be hell a-poppin' pronto," he announced excitedly. "I seen Surface an' Bodkin in the doorway of the stairs leadin' up to the Odd Fellows. Surface was poundin' his fist in his hand, purple in the face. An' Bodkin was the colour of sheepskin."

"Ahuh aboot what time will thet cattlemen's meetin' be comin' off?"

"At two. But I reckon with Surface on the rampage it'll be late."

Kiskadden reached Brazos at exactly two o'clock, the time of Brazos's appointment with Bess. The Texan showed no exterior fire, but Brazos felt him burn.

"Surface just went into Hailey's. He stopped Bess Syvertsen, who was comin' oot. I couldn't heah what Surface said to the girl, but I shore heahed her answer."

"An' what was thet?"

"'No, damn you, Surface! I won't! Get someone else to do yore dirty work!'"

"Ahuh. Short an' sweet. I had Bess figured. Anythin' more?"

"I peeped into Hall's. Yore men air still there. Watchin' oot the window."

"Wal, thet'll be aboot all. Yu stay heah. An' when I get into Hall's yu follow pronto."

Brazos strode swiftly into the first store, traversed its length, hurried out into the alley, and ran to the side street. Here he slowed up, caught his breath, and went on to Hailey's hotel, which occupied the corner at its junction with the main street. Brazos stepped into the side entrance.

Surface stood near the door of the hall, his tall form bent over the girl, who was in the act of wrenching free from his clutch. His back was toward Brazos. Bess leaned against the wall as if for support. She looked a defiant, hounded creature, game to the finish.

"You can't, scare me, Raine Surface," she said, low and hard. "I wouldn't be in your boots for all your money."

Brazos entered the lobby.

CHAPTER 8

"Wal, Bess, air yu meanin' daid men's boots?" queried Brazos, as he stepped in between them.

"Oh--Brazos!" gasped the girl.

Surface's visage changed instantly, markedly in colour, monstrously in expression. Unquestionably for an instant he thought his death was imminent.

"What yu raggin' my girl for?" asked Brazos, with a pretence of jealousy.

"Your--girl?" ejaculated Surface huskily. "She's deceived you, Keene--same as all of us. She's Syvertsen's--"

"Daughter, yu mean?"

The rancher swerved. As his first shocking fear subsided he began to recover his nerve. "Daughter--hell! She's no more his daughter than mine."

"So yu say? wal, what is she, then?"

"What could she be, Keene? For a cowboy who's supposed to be so damned smart you're sure a fool."

"That'll do, Surface," cut in Bess. "I meant to tell him myself and leave Las Animas. Take care you don't drive me to tell him what you are!"

Brazos jerked as if stung. "What the hell!" he flashed. "Bess, I don't like this talk. But I trust yu. Surface, I always thought there was somethin' queer aboot yu." Dealing Surface a powerful left-handed blow, Brazos knocked him flat. The rancher, scrambling up, stuttering maledictions, lifted a bloody visage: "You'll pay for this outrage--you--"

"Come--Brazos," said Bess, low-voiced, and she touched his arm.

"Doggone it, Bess!" complained Brazos, going with her into the street. "I come pretty near gettin' sore."

"You well had reason," she replied. "I'm sorry you saw me with Surface. You might believe that influenced me--to tell you--what I must."

"Ump-umm, Bess. But yu don't have to tell me nothin'."

"I must--if it's the last honest thing I ever do."

"All right, if yu put it thet way."

"I was a cheat and a liar," she went on swiftly. "Whatever else I am you can guess. Surface told the truth. Bard Syvertsen is not my father. I never had any parents that I knew of. I was brought up in a home for--for illegitimates. Syvertsen did not ruin me--nor Orcutt. Don't hold that against them. They were hired to make away with you. I was to work on your well-known weakness for women--entice you to some secluded spot--or my room, where you'd be shot--supposedly by an angry father and lover for attempting to dishonour me. That was the plot. But I give you my word--never once since I met you have I kept faith with them. I double-crossed them. And to-day after I say good--good-bye to you--I'll tell them--"

"Ump-umm, sweetheart," returned Brazos enigmatically.

They had almost reached Hall's saloon. Inskip stood at his post across the street; Kiskadden remained where Brazos had left him; Bilyen had not come out. Brazos laid hold of Bess's arm with his left hand, so that she could not break away from him.

"Girl, when yu confessed all thet yu proved a lot. Yu won my respect--an' yu saved yoreself a term in prison, if not yore life!"

With that he swung 'her with him into the saloon, and sent her whirling, almost falling toward Syvertsen and Orcutt, who were backing away from the window. Brazos leaped back in front of the door, so that he could face them and all the big room.

"Everybody in heah freeze!" he yelled, his voice loud with strident ring.

An instant silence contrasted with the former clink and hum of the saloon. On the moment Kiskadden came sliding in behind Brazos, closely followed by Inskip. Then they backed slowly to Brazos's left step by step until the tables halted them.

"Yu hell-cat!" burst out Syvertsen. "What does this mean?".

The girl stiffened as her head swept up and back to the wall, knocking off her sombrero. Then she appeared a white-faced woman at bay.

"I told him!" she cried.

"You told him that--you told him who--" gasped Syvertsen.

"Stop!" thundered Brazos. "Yu're forgettin' I'm here. Yu ask me."

Both Bess's antagonists had actually forgotten the presence of Brazos Keene. They were rudely reminded of it and that the stiffness of the spectators, the silence, the strange position of the cowboy, bent a little, both brown, powerful hands extended a little low, and quivering--that all these constituted a tremendous menace. Then the significance of Brazos Keene dawned appallingly upon them. He confronted them. There was no escape. And the reputation of this fire-eyed cowboy might as well have been blazoned on the walls.

"You hombres murdered Allen Neece an' blamed thet job on me," went on Brazos relentlessly. "Yu murdered him because Surface wanted it done. An' yu schemed to put me oot of the way because Surface was afraid I'd take Allen Neece's trail. Wal, yu bet yore life I took it, an' it ends right heah. Surface beat Abe Neece oot of Twin Sombreros Ranch. Yu men held up Neece thet night an' robbed him. An' yu all sicked this girl on me 'cause none of yu had the nerve to meet me face to face--Wal, thet's my say. An' after all, yu're meetin' me face to face!"

As Brazos ended he read the desperate intent in Orcutt's eyes and beat him to a gun. Orcutt's heart was split even as he pulled trigger and his bullet hissed hotly by Brazos's ear.

Syvertsen, slow to realise and act, scarcely had his gun free when Brazos shot him through. The bull thudded into the wall. Syvertsen did not fall. He did not lose sight or intent. But his muscular co-ordination had been destroyed. Fire and smoke belched from his wavering gun. His frown of immense surprise, his pale lighted eyes, his incoherent ejaculations of hate were all appalling to see.

The smoke cleared away, disclosing Bess, back against the wall, her arms widespread, with her gaze fixed terribly upon the fallen men.

"He--killed--them?" she panted, as if dazed. "Brazos Keene!"

Suddenly she sprang out from the wall, formidable as a tigress.

"You fooled me--to kill them!"

"Don't draw, Bess--don't!" warned Brazos shrilly.

"I'll kill you!"

As she whipped out her gun Brazos had to be quick to save his life. He took a shot at her arm, high up. The heavy bullet spun her around like a top and sent the little gun flying. Shrieking wildly she collided with the wall, bounced out to fall beyond the two dead men.

As Brazos sheathed his gun and knelt to lift her head she ceased the cry of agony. She gazed up at Brazos, fascinated, suddenly bereft of all hate and passion.

"You've killed me--Brazos?"

"I'm terrible scared Bess," replied Brazos, and he did not lie. He saw that he had hit her in the breast or shoulder, instead of in the arm. Blood was pouring Out. He was afraid to open her blouse.

"Bess, if yu have to go--make it a clean job," said Brazos earnestly. "Confess. Tell the truth about this deal."

"The truth?" she whispered.

"Yes. Of Allen Neece's murder."

"All right," she said, smiling. "My right name is Bess Moore. I am not Syvertsen's wife. We belonged to Raine Surface's crooked outfit at Abilene. Surface is a man of two sides. One of them is black as hell. We were called here to put Allen Neece out of the way. I got him to drink--coaxed him to ride out of town with me. Orcutt roped him from behind bushes on the road--jerked him off his horse. As he lay on the ground Bard shot him--in the back. They carried him to the Hill cabin--left him in the loft--Then Brazos Keene rode up. Bard had a few words with Brazos--thought he deceived him. He rode back to town and fastened the crime upon Brazos. But our own plot miscarried--and lately--Surface called us again--to do the same job--over--"

"Thet'll do, Bess. Give me the paper, Kiskadden. Bess, can you sign yore name heah?" importuned Brazos.

Bess signed her name and then fell back fainting. Brazos, with shaking hands, tore open her blouse, shivering at the white, swelling breast. He pulled the blouse down over the blood-stained shoulder to feel for the wound, frantic in fear that it would be too low. But he found it high up, just where the arm met the shoulder, a bad, painful wound, but not in any sense dangerous to life.

"Aw!" Brazos burst out. "She's not bad hurt at all. She's only fainted. Hank, get somebody to help carry her to Bailey's. Call the doctor. I'll be back pronto."

Brazos snatched the paper from Bilyen and relinquished the girl to him. Then he stood up, tense and eager.

"It's aboot all, men, but not quite," he said as he carefully folded the confession. "Come with me. Yu, too, Kiskadden, an' fetch somebody with yu."

At the foot of the Odd Fellows stairway Brazos halted to load his gun.

"Brazos, is yore haid cool?" asked Kiskadden. "I ain't presumin' to advise yu. I'm just askin'."

"Speak oot, old-timer."

"It might look better to hold yore hand at Surface. Yu know the range--an' he has friends. Don't let them call this a gun-man's spree."

"Wal, unless he goes for his gun--which he won't. Only I hope to Gawd he does! Come on an' step easy."

Brazos went up the stairs three steps at a time, and his followers strung after him. The door of the hall stood open. Surface was holding forth with resonant voice.

"Gentlemen, all our fellow citizens were invited to participate here. Evidently those who stayed away were satisfied to leave important matters to us. We have all voted, and the result assures Bodkin's election as sheriff of Las Animas. Formerly he was appointed by the Cattlemen's Association. That is a distinction with a difference. There remains to invite undesirable loafers, gamblers, dissolute women, suspected cowmen, and at least one notorious cowboy, to leave Las Animas."

Brazos drew his gun and stepped into the hall. "Wal, Surface," he called ringingly, "heah's yore last-named undesirable--to talk for himself."

No noticeable change showed in the rancher's pale face. He had begun to weigh this intrusion. Kiskadden, Inskip, and others filed in with grave, grim visages.

"Gentlemen, you come too late to participate in this election," he rolled out sonorously.

"Ump-umm!" retorted Brazos. "Surface, did yu heah me? I said yore jig was up. I just shot yare ootflt, Bard Syvertsen--Hen Orcutt--an' Bess!".

"Dead!"

"Wal, the girl lived to sign her confess