The Hash-knife Outfit

by

Zane Grey

CHAPTER ONE

It was a rainy November night down on the Cottonwood. The wind complained in the pines outside the cabin and whispered under the eaves. A fine cold mist blew in the open chinks between the logs. But the ruddy cedar fire in the huge stone fireplace gave the interior of the cabin a comfortable aspect and shone brightly upon the inmates scattered around. A coffee-pot steamed on some coals; browned biscuits showed in an open iron oven; and thick slices of beef mingled a savoury odour with the smoke. The men, however, were busy on pipes and cigarettes, evidently having finished supper.

"Reckon this storm looks like an early winter," remarked Jed Stone, leader of the outfit. He stood to one side of the fire, a fine, lithe figure of a man, still a cowboy, despite his forty years and more of hard Arizona life. His profile, sharp in the fire glow, was strong and clean, in no way hinting of the evil repute that had long recorded him an outlaw. When he turned to pick up a burning ember for his pipe the bright blaze shone on light, rather scant hair, on light eyes, and a striking face devoid of beard.

"Wal, early or late, I never seen no bad weather down hyar," replied a man back in the shadow.

"Huh! Much you know about the Mogollans. I've seen a hell of a winter right here," spoke up another, in a deep chesty voice. "An' I'll be trackin' somethin' beside hoofs in a couple of days." This from the hunter Anderson, known to his comrades as Tracks, who had lived longer than any of the others in this wild section, seemed to strengthen Stone's intimation. Anderson was a serious man, long matured, as showed in the white in his black beard. He had big deep eyes which reflected the fire-light.

"I'll bet we don't get holed up yet awhile," interposed Carr, the gambler of the outfit. He was a grey-faced, grey-haired man of fifty. They called him Stoneface.

"What do you say, Pecos?" inquired the leader of a long-limbed, sandy-moustached Texan who sat propped against the wall, directly opposite the fire.

"Me? ...Shore I don't think nothin' aboot it," drawled Pecos.

"We might winter down in the Sierra Ancas," said Stone, reflectively.

"Boss, somethin's been eatin' you ever since we had thet fight over Traft's drift fence," spoke up Croak Malloy, from his seat against some packs. His voice had a peculiar croaking quality, but that was certainly not wholly the reason for his significant nickname. He was the deadliest of this notorious outfit, so long a thorn in the flesh of the cattlemen whose stock ranged the Mogollans.

"I ain't denyin' it," replied Stone.

"An' why for?" complained the croaker, his crooked evil face shining in the red light. "We got off without a couple of scratches, an' we crippled them two Diamond riders. Didn't we lay low the last nine miles of thet fence?"

"Croak, I happen to know old Jim Traft. I rode for him twenty years ago," answered Stone, seriously.

"Jed, as I see it, this drift fence of Traft's has split the range. An' there'll be hell to pay," snapped the other.

"Do you reckon it means another Pleasant Valley War? That was only seven years ago--thereabouts. An' the bad blood still rankles."

Croak Malloy's reply was rendered indistinguishable by hot arguments of Carr and Anderson. But the little rider's appearance seemed silently convincing. He was a small misshapen man of uncertain age, with pale eyes of fire set unevenly in a crooked face, and he looked the deadliness by which he had long been known to the range.

Just then the sodden beat of hoofs sounded outside.

"Ha! that will be Madden an' Sonora," said Stone, with satisfaction, and he strode to the door to call out. The answer was reassuring. He returned to the fire and held his palms to the heat. Then he turned and put his hands behind his back.

Presently a man entered the cabin, carrying a heavy pack, which he deposited against the wall, then approached the fire, to remove dripping sombrero and coat. This action disclosed the swarthy face and beady bright eyes of the Mexican whom Stone had called Sonora.

"Glad you're back, Sonora," said the leader, heartily. "How about things?"

"No good," replied Sonora, and when he shook his head drops of rain water sputtered in the fire.

"Ahuh!" ejaculated Stone, and he leaned against the stone chimney, back in the shadow.

The other rider came in, breathing heavily under another pack, which he let fall with a thud, and approached the fire, smelling of rain and horses and the woods. He appeared to be a nondescript sort of man. Water ran off him in little streams. He hung his coat on a peg in the chimney, but did not remove his battered black sombrero from which the rain drops dripped.

"Wal, boss, me an' Sonora got here," he said, cheerfully.

"So I see," returned Stone, quietly.

"Bad up on top. Snowin' hard, but reckon it won't last long. Too wet."

"What you want to bet it won't last?" queried Carr.

Madden laughed, and knelt before the fire, his huge spurs prodding his hips.

"Lemme eat," he said. "It'll be the first bite since yestiddy mornin'."

The youngest of the group, a cowboy in garb and gait, rose to put more wood on the fire. It blazed up brightly. He had a weak, handsome face, with viciousness written all over it, yet strangely out of place among these hardened visages. No one need have been told why he was there.

The returned members of the outfit did not desist from appeasing their appetites until all the drink, bread, and beef were gone.

"Cleaned the platter," ejaculated Madden. "Gosh! there's nothin' like a hunk of juicy salty meat when you're starved...An' here's a real cigar for everybody. Nice an' dry, too." He tossed them to eager hands, and taking up a blazing stick he lighted one for himself, his dark face and steaming sombrero bent over the fire. Then he sat back, puffed a huge cloud of white smoke, and exclaimed: "Aghh!...Now, boss, shoot."

Stone kicked a box nearer the fire and sat down upon it. Then from a shadowed corner limped a stalwart man, scarred of face and evil of eye, with a sheriff's badge glittering like a star on the front of his vest. Some of the others edged closer. All except Croak Malloy evinced keen eagerness. Nothing mattered to this little outlaw.

"Maddy, did you fetch all the supplies?" asked Stone.

"Yep. An' kept them dry, too. There's four more packs out in the shed. The tobacco, whisky, shells--all that particular stuffs is in the pack Sonora fetched in. An' I'm here to state I don't want to pack down Cottonwood any more in the snow an' rain. We couldn't see a hand before our eyes. An' just follered the horses."

"Any trouble at Flag?" went on Stone.

"Nary trouble," answered Madden, brightly. "All our worryin' was for nothin'."

"Ahuh. Then neither of those drift-fence cowboys we shot up died?"

"Nope. Frost was around with a crutch. An' Hump Stevens will live, so they told me."

"How did Jim Traft take the layin' down of nine miles of his drift fence?"

"Which Jim Traft do you mean?"

"The old man, you fool. Who'd ever count that tenderfoot of a nephew?"

"Wal, boss, I reckon you'll have to count him. For he's shore countin' in Flag...Of course I could only get round-about gossip in the saloons an' stores, you know. But we can gamble on it. That nine-mile drop of Traft's drift fence didn't make him bat an eye, though they told me it riled young Jim somethin' fierce. Jed, the old cattle king is goin' through with that drift fence, an' with more'n that, which I'll tell you presently. As I got it the drift fence is comin' more to favour with cattlemen as time goes on. Bambridge is the only big rancher against it, an' shore you know why he is. But the fence ain't the only thing talked about...Boss, the Cibeque outfit is busted."

"No!--You don't say?" ejaculated Stone.

"Shore is. Most owin' to that cowpuncher Hack Jocelyn who left the Diamond outfit an' throwed in with the Cibeque. That split the Cibeque. It seems Jocelyn lost his head over that little Dunn girl, Molly, sister to Slinger Dunn. You've seen her, Jed, at West Fork."

"Yes. Prettiest kid in the country."

"Wal, Jocelyn was after her hard, an' he double-crossed the Haverlys an' Slinger Dunn by tryin' to play both ends against the middle. He hatched a low-down deal, if I ever knowed one. But it fell through. He got away with the girl Molly, however, an' thet precipitated hell. Slinger quit the Cibeque, trailed them to a cabin in the woods. Back of Tobe's Well somewhere. Must have been the very cabin Anderson put up there years ago. Wal, Jocelyn an' the rest of the Cibeque had kidnapped young Jim Traft for ransom. But Jocelyn meant to collect the ransom an' then murder the boy. The Haverlys wasn't in on this, so the story goes. Anyway, things worked to a hot pitch at this cabin. Jocelyn had a drink too many, they say, an' wanted to drag the little girl Molly off 'n the woods. An' she, like what you'd expect of Slinger Dunn's sister, raised hell. Jocelyn tried to shoot young Jim. An' she fought him--bit him like a wildcat. Wal, Slinger bobbed up, Injun as he is, an' killed Jocelyn. Then he had it out with the Haverlys, killin' both of them. He was terrible shot up himself. They fetched him to Flag. But he'll live."

"I'm dod-blasted glad, though there ain't any love lost between me an' Slinger," said Stone, forcibly. "No wonder Flag wasn't excited over our little brush with Stevens an' Frost."

"Wal, thet's all of thet news," went on Madden, importantly. "Some more will interest you-all. Bambridge lost his case against Traft. He had no case at all, accordin' to the court. It seems Traft got this Yellow Jacket Ranch an' range from Blodgett, years ago. Bambridge didn't even know the deeds were on record in Flag. He was hoppin' mad, they said, an' he an' Traft had it hot an' heavy after the court proceedin's. Traft jest about accused Bambridge of shady cattle deals down here. Bambridge threw a gun, but somebody knocked it out of his hand. Wal, thet riled the old cattle king. What do you think he said, boss? I got it from a feller I know, who was in the courtroom."

"Maddy, I'll bet it was a heap," replied Stone, wagging his head.

"Heap! Reckon you hit it. Traft swore he'd run Bambridge off the Arizona ranges. What's more, he made a present of this Yellow Jacket Ranch, which Bambridge an' you reckoned you owned yourselves, to his nephew, young Jim, an'--but guess who?"

"I'm not guessin'. Out with it," rejoined Stone, hardily.

"No one less than Slinger Dunn," announced Madden, with the triumphant tone of the sensation-lover.

"What?" bellowed Stone.

"I told you, boss. Old Traft gave this ranch an' range to young Jim an' Slinger--half an' half. Providin' thet Slinger throwed in with the Diamond outfit an' helped them clean up Yellow Jacket."

"Haw! Haw!" croaked Malloy, with vicious humour.

"Slinger Dunn an' the Diamond!" exclaimed Stone, incredulously. Evidently it was a most astounding circumstance, and one fraught with bewildering possibilities.

"Thet's it, boss, an' they're ridin' down here after Thanksgivin'," ended Madden, and took a long pull on his cigar.

Stone once more leaned in the shadow, his dim profile bent toward the fire. Madden stretched himself, boots to the heat, and gave himself over to the enjoyment of his cigar. All except the leader puffed white clouds of smoke which rose to catch the draught and waft through the chinks between the logs.

"What do you make of it, boss?" finally queried Anderson.

Jed Stone vouchsafed no reply.

"Humph!" grunted the hunter. "Wal, Frank, you're the green hand in this outfit. What you make of Maddy's news?"

The cowboy stirred and sat up. "I reckon it can't be done," he replied.

"What can't?"

"Cleanin' up Yellow Jacket."

The hunter took a long draw at his cigar and expelled a volume of smoke, while he thoughtfully stroked his black beard.

"Whar you from, Frank?"

"Born in Arizonie."

"An' you say thet? Wal...Reckon it ain't no wonder you ended up with the Hash-Knife outfit," said Anderson, reflectively. Then he turned his attention to the Mexican, who sat nearest. "Sonora, you been herdin' sheep for years on this range?"

"Si, señor."

"You've seen a heap of men shot?"

"Many men, señor."

"Did you talk to sheep-herders in Flag?"

"Si. All say mucho malo. Old Traft bad medicine. If he start job he do job."

Whereupon Tracks Anderson, warming as to a trail, set upon the long-limbed, sandy-moustached Texan. "Pecos, what was you when you rode thet river you're named fer?"

"Me? Much the same as I am now," drawled the rustler, with an easy laugh. "Only I wasn't ridin' in such good safe company."

"Safe, huh? Wal, thet's a compliment to Jed an' the Hash-Knife. But is it sense? ...To my way of thinkin' this--drift fence has spelled a change fer Arizona ranges. There's a mind behind that idee. It's big. It throws the sunlight on trails thet have been dim."

Croak Malloy did not wait to be interrogated. He spat as he emitted a cloud of smoke, which hid his strange visage.

"If you ask me I'll tell you Maddy's talk is jest town talk," he croaked. "I've heard the same fer ten years. An' Yellow Jacket is wilder today than it ever was. There's more cattle runnin' than then. More rustlers in the woods. More crooked ranchers. An' one like Bambridge wasn't ever heard when I first rode into the Tonto...An' what's a bunch of slick-ridin' cowboys to us? I'll kill this young Traft, an' Sonora can do fer Slinger Dunn. Thet'll be the last of the Diamond."

"Very pretty, Croak. It might be done, easy enough, if we take the first step. I ain't aimin' to class thet wild Diamond outfit with the Hash-Knife. It ain't no fair fight. Boys ag'in' men. An' this is shore allowin' fer Slinger Dunn an' thet Prentiss fellar."

"Tracks," spoke up Pecos, dryly, "you're plumb fergettin' there's a Texan in the Diamond. Lonestar Holliday. An' you can bet the Texas I come from wouldn't be ashamed of him."

"Humph!--Lang, you swear you come honest by thet sheriff badge," went on the hunter, in a grim humour. "Let's hear from you."

"There ain't no law but might in the Mogollans an' never will be in our day," replied the ex-sheriff.

"Kirreck," snapped Anderson. "Thet's what I'm drivin' at. Our day may be damn good an' short."

"Aw, hell! Tracks, you need some licker," croaked Malloy. "Let's open the pack an' have some."

"No," came from Stone with sharp suddenness, showing how intent he was on the colloquy.

"Wal, it narrows down to Stoneface," continued Anderson, imperturbably. "But seein' he's a gambler, you can't ever get straight from him."

"Tracks, I'll bet you them gold wheels you'll be hibernatin' fer keeps when spring comes," said Carr, clinking gold coins in his palms.

"Quién sabe? But I won't bet you, Stoneface. You get hunches from the air, an' Gawd only knows you might be communicatin' with the dead."

A silence ensued, during which the hunter gazed with questioning eyes at the shadowed leader, but he did not voice his thought. He returned diligently to the cigar that appeared to be hard to smoke. The rain pattered on the roof; the wind moaned under the eaves; beyond the log wall horses munched their feed; the fire sputtered. And presently Jed Stone broke the silence.

"Men, I rode on the first Hash-Knife outfit, twenty years ago," he began. "An' Arizona never had a finer bunch of riders. Since then I've rode in all the outfits. Some had good men an' bad men at the same time. Thet Texas outfit in the early eighties gave the Hash-Knife its bad name. Daggs, Colter, an' the rest didn't live long, but their fame did. Yet they wasn't any worse than the cattlemen and sheepmen who fought thet war. I've never had a real honest job since."

Stone paused to take a long pull on his cigar.

"An' thet fetches me down to this day an' the Hash-Knife outfit here," he went on. "There's a heap of difference between fact and rumour. Old Jim Traft knows we're rustlin' his stock, but he can't prove it--yet. Bambridge knows we are stealin' cattle, but he can't prove it because he's crooked himself. An' same with lesser cattlemen hereabouts. If I do say it myself, I've run this outfit pretty slick. We've got a few thousand head of cattle wearin' our brand. Most of which we jest roped out on the range an' branded. We knowed the mothers of these calves had Traft's brand or some other than ours. But no posse or court can ever prove thet onless they ketch us in the act. We're shore too old hands now to be ketched, at least at the brandin' game. But ...an', men, here's the hell of it, we can't go on in the old comfortable way if Traft sends thet Diamond outfit down here. Yellow Jacket belongs to him. An' don't you overlook this Diamond bunch if Slinger Dunn is on it. Reckon thet'll have to be proved to me. Slinger is even more of an Indian than a backwoodsman. I know him well. We used to hunt together. He's run a lot in the woods with Apaches. An' no outfit would be safe while he prowled around with a rifle. I'm tellin' you if Slinger would ambush us--shoot us from cover like an Indian, he'd kill every damn one of us. But I'll gamble Slinger wouldn't never do thet kind of fightin'. An' we want to bear thet in mind if it comes to a clash between the Diamond an' the Hash-Knife."

"If," exploded Anderson, as the leader paused. "There ain't no ifs. Any kind of reasonin' would show you thet Traft has long had in mind workin' up this Yellow Jacket. It'll run ten thousand head, easy, an' shore will be a fine ranch."

"Wal, then, we got to figger close. Let me make a few more points an' then I'll put it to a vote. I wish I hadn't always done thet. For I reckon I see clear here...We've had more'n one string to our bow these five years. An' if we wasn't a wasteful outfit we'd all be heeled right now. Bambridge has been playin' a high hand lately. How many thousand unbranded calves an' yearlin's we've drove over to him I can't guess. But shore a lot. Anyway, he's figgerin' to leave Arizona. Thet's my hunch. An' he'll likely try to drive some big deals before he goes. If he does you can bet he'll leave the Hash-Knife to bear the brunt. Traft has come out in the open. He's on to Bambridge. There's no slicker cowman on the range than Traft's man, Ring Locke. They'll put the Diamond down here, not only to watch us, but Bambridge too. An' while we're at it let's give this young Jim Traft the benefit of a doubt. They say he's a chip off the old block. Wal, it'd jest be a hell of a mistake for Croak to kill thet young feller. Old Traft would rake Arizona from the Little Colorado to the Superstitions. It jest won't do. Slinger Dunn, yes, an' any of the rest of the outfit. But not young Jim...Wal, I reckon it'd be wise fer us to make one more drive, sell to Bambridge an' clear out pronto."

"My Gawd!" croaked Malloy, in utter amaze.

"Boss, do I understand you to hint you'd leave the range your Hash-Knife has run fer twenty years?" demanded Stoneface Carr.

"Men, I read the signs of the times," replied the leader, briefly and not without heat. "I'll put it up to you one by one...Anderson, shall we pull up stakes fer a new range?"

"I reckon so. It ain't the way of a Hash-Knife outfit. But I advise it fer thet very reason."

Sonora, the sheep-herder, leaned significantly and briefly to Stone's side. But the gambler was stone cold to the plan. Malloy only croaked a profane and scornful refusal. The others came out flat with derisive or affronted objections.

"Wal, you needn't blow my head off," declared Stone, in like tone. "If you do there shore won't be a hell of a lot of brains left in this outfit...It's settled. The Hash-Knife stays until we are run out or wiped out."

CHAPTER TWO

That same stormy night in early November, when the members of the Hash-Knife gang had their fateful colloquy in the old log cabin on the Yellow Jacket range, Jim Traft sat with his nephew in the spacious living-room of the big ranch-house on the edge of Flagerstown.

It was a bright warm room, doubly cosy owing to the whine of wind outside and the patter of sleet on the window panes. Old Traft had a fondness for lamps with rosy globes, and the roaring fire in the great stone fireplace attested to his years on the open range. A sleek wolf-hound lay on the rug. Traft occupied an armchair that looked as ancient as the hills, and he sat back with a contented smile on his fine weather-beaten face, occasionally to puff his pipe.

"Dog-gone-it, Jim, this is somethin' like home," he said. "You look so good to me these days. An' you've come through a Westerner...An' the old house isn't lonesome any more."

He nodded his grey head toward the far end of the room, where Molly Dunn curled in a big chair, her pretty golden-brown head bent over a book. Opposite Molly on the other side of the table sat Mrs. Dunn, with eager expectant look of enchantment, as one who wanted to keep on dreaming.

Young Jim laughed. It looked more than something like home to him, and seldom was there a moment his eyes did not return to that brown head of Molly Dunn.

"Shore is, Uncle," he drawled, in the lazy voice he affected on occasions. "You wouldn't think we're only a few weeks past that bloody fight...Gosh! when I think! ...Uncle, I've told you a hundred times how Molly saved my life. It seems like a dream...Well, I'm back home--for this is home, Uncle. No work for weeks! No bossing that terrible bunch of cowboys! You so pleased with me--though for the life of me I can't see why. Molly here for the winter to go to school--and then to be my wife next spring...And Slinger Dunn getting well of those awful bullet wounds so fast...It's just too good to be true."

"Ahuh. I savvy how you feel, son," replied the old rancher. "It does seem that out here in the West the hard knocks and trials make the softer side of life--home an' folks--an' the girl of your heart--so much dearer an' sweeter. It ought to make you keen as a whip to beat the West--to stack cunnin' an' nerve against the wild life of the range, an' come through alive. I did. An', Jim, if I'd been a drinkin', roarin' cowpuncher I'd never have lasted, an' you wouldn't be here tonight, stealin' looks at your little Western girl."

"Oh, Uncle, that's the--the hell of it!" exclaimed Jim. "I'm crucified when I realise. Those weeks building the drift fence were great. Such fun--such misery! Then that fight at the cabin! Oh, Lord! I could have torn Hack Jocelyn to pieces with my hands. Then when Molly was fighting him for possession of his gun--hanging to him like grim death--with her teeth, mind you--when he lifted and swung her and beat her--I was an abject grovelling wretch, paralysed with horror...Then when Slinger leaped past me round the cabin, as I sat there tied and helpless, and he yelled like an Indian at Jocelyn...I thrill and shiver now, and my heart stops...Only since I've been home do I realise what you mean about the West. It's wonderful, it's glorious, but terrible, too."

"You've had your eye teeth cut, son," said Traft, grimly. "Now you must face the thing--you must fight. I've fought for forty years. An' it will still be years more before the range is free of the outlaw, the rustler, the crooked cattleman, the thieving cowboy."

"Uncle Jim," called Molly, plaintively, "please hush up aboot the bad West. I want to study an' I cain't help heahin'."

"Wal, wal, Molly," laughed Traft, in mild surprise, "reckon I thought you was wrapped up in that school book."

"An', Jim--shore the West's not as wicked as Uncle makes out," went on Molly. "He wants you to be another Curly Prentiss--or even like Slinger."

"Ha, ha!" roared the rancher, rubbing his hands. "That's funny from Molly Dunn. My dear, if you hadn't had all the Western qualities I'm tryin' to inspire in Jim, where would he be now?"

Even across the room Jim saw her sweet face blanch and her big dark eyes dilate; and these evidences shot an exquisite pleasure and happiness through him.

"Uncle, I'll answer that," he said. "I'd be in the Garden of Eden, eating peaches."

"Maybe you would, Jim Traft," retorted Molly. "A little more bossin' the Diamond outfit an' your chances for the Garden of Eden are shore slim."

Later, when the ladies had retired, Ring Locke came in with his quiet step and his intent eye. Since Jim's return from the disastrous failure of the drift fence (so he considered it, in contrast to his uncle's opinion) and the fight at the cabin below Cottonwood, he had seemed to be in the good graces of this Westerner, Ring Locke, a fact he hugged with great satisfaction. Locke was a keen, strong, and efficient superintendent of the old cattleman's vast interests.

"Some mail an' some news," he announced, handing a packet of letters to Traft.

"How's the weather, Ring?" asked the rancher.

"Clearin', I reckon we won't see any green round Flag till spring."

"Early winter, eh? Wal, we got here first...Son, letter for you from home--two. An' in a lady's fancy hand. You better look out Molly doesn't see them...Ring, help yourself to a cigar an' set down."

Jim stared at the first letter. "By gosh! Gloriana has written me at last. It's coming Christmas, the little devil...And the other from Mother. Fine."

"Glory must be growed into quite a girl by now," remarked his uncle.

"Quite? Uncle, she's altogether," declaring Jim with force.

"Wal, I hardly remember her, 'cept as a pretty little kid with curls an' big eyes. Favoured your mother. She shore wasn't a Traft."

Locke lit a cigar. "Some of the Hash-Knife outfit been in town," he announced, calmly.

Jim forgot to open his letters. Old Traft bit at his cigar. "Nerve of 'em! Who was it, Ring?"

"Madden and a greaser whose name I've forgot, if I ever knowed it. Reckon there was another of the gang in town, but I couldn't find out who. They bought a lot of supplies an' left Thursday. I went around to all the stores an' saloons. Dug up what I could. It wasn't a lot, but then again it 'pears interestin'. One in particular. Curly Prentiss swears he saw Madden comin' out of Bambridge's, after dark Wednesday, he says. But Curly has had a ruction with his gurl, an' he's been drinkin', I'm sorry to say. That cowboy would be the grandest fellar, if he didn't drink. Still, drunk or no, Curly has an eye, an' I reckon he did see Madden."

"Funny, his comin' out of Bambridge's," growled Traft, and the bright blue eyes narrowed.

"Awful funny," agreed Locke, in a dry tone, which acquainted the listening Jim with the fact that the circumstance was most decidedly not funny. "Anyway, it started me off. An' the upshot of my nosin' around was to find out that the Hash-Knife crowd are at Yellow Jacket an' all of a sudden oncommon interested in you an' young Jim, an' the Diamond, an' Slinger Dunn."

"Ahuh. Wal, they'll be a heap more so by spring," replied Traft. "Funny about Bambridge."

"The Hash-Knife have friends in Flag, you bet, an' more'n we'd ever guess. Shore, nobody knows our business, onless the cowboys have talked. I'm afraid Bud an' Curly have bragged. They do when they get to town an' guzzle a bit. Madden did darn little drinkin' an' none 'cept when he was treated. Another funny thing. He bought all the forty-five calibre shells Babbitt's had in stock. An' a heap of the same kind, along with some forty-fours for rifles, at Davis's. He bought hardware, too. Some new guns. An' enough grub to feed an outfit for a year."

"Winter supplies, I reckon. An' mebbe the Hash-Knife are in for another war, like the one it started in eighty-two. Ha, ha! ...But it ain't so funny, after all."

"It shore doesn't look like peaceful ranchin'," drawled Locke.

"Damn these low-down outfits, anyway," growled the rancher. "I fought them when I rode the range years ago, an' now I'm fightin' them still. Locke, we'll be runnin' eighty thousand head of stock in a year or two."

"Eighty thousand!--Then you can afford to lose some," replied Locke.

"Humph. I couldn't lose a calf's ear to those thievin' outfits without gettin' sore. They've kept me poor."

"Uncle, we appear to have the necessities of life around the ranch. Nice warm fires, and some luxury," remarked Jim, humorously.

"Just you wait," retorted his uncle. "Just you wait! You'll be a darn sight worse than me, pronto."

"Locke, who is this Madden?" asked Jim, quietly, with change of tone.

"One of Jed Stone's gang. Hard ridin', hard drinkin' and shootin' hombre. Come up from the border a few years ago. The murder of Wilson, a rancher out of Holbrook, was laid to Madden. But that was only suspicion. In this country you have to catch a man at anythin' to prove it. Personally, though, I'd take a shot at Madden an' ask questions afterward."

"Tough outfit, Uncle tells me," went on Jim, reflectively.

"Boy, the Cibeque was a summer zephyr to thet Hash-Knife outfit. Stone used to be a square-shootin' cowboy. Rode fer your uncle once. That was before my day here. He's outlawed now, with crimes on his head. An intelligent, dangerous man. He's got a Texas gun-fighter in his outfit. Pecos something or other, an' I reckon he's 'most as bad as any of the killers out of Texas. Croak Malloy, though, is Stone's worst an' meanest hand. Then, there's Lang an' Anderson, who've been with him for years."

"Is Slinger Dunn the equal of any of these men?" queried Jim.

"Equal? I reckon. Yes, he's ahaid of them in some ways," replied Locke, thoughtfully. "Slinger could beat any one of them to a gun, unless mebbe this Pecos feller. But Slinger is young an' he has no crimes on his haid. That makes a difference. None of this Hash-Knife outfit could be arrested. They hang together an' you bet they'll die with their boots on."

"Then we're in for another fight?" mused Jim, and though he sustained a wonderful thrill--cold as a chill--he did not like the prospect.

"Traft," said Locke, turning to the rancher, "strikes me queer that Stone hangs on in this part of Arizona. He's no fool. He shore knows he can't last for ever. If the Diamond doesn't drive him out it'll break up his outfit. An' other riders will keep on his track."

"Wal, you know, Stone will never be run out of anywhere. But he's an Arizonian, an' this range is home, even if it has outlawed him. He's bitter an' hard, which is natural enough. Stone ought to be a rich cattleman now. I--I feel sorry for him, an' that's why I've let Yellow Jacket alone."

Jim thought his uncle spoke rather feelingly.

"Wouldn't it be better to drive off what stock's left there an' let the land go?" went on Locke.

"Better? Humph! It can't be done. We've got to organise against these rustlin' outlaws or they'll grow bolder an' ruin us. Take that case over in New Mexico when a big cattleman--crooked of course--hired Billy the Kid an' his outfit to steal cattle, an' he sold them to the Government. That deal lasted for years. Everybody knew it, except the Government officials. Wal, I'm inclined to think there's some ranchin' man backing' Stone."

"Ahuh. I know how you incline, Traft," returned Locke, dryly. "An' it's likely to get us into trouble."

"Wal, if Bambridge is buyin' in our stock we ought to find it out," said Traft, testily.

"Suppose your suspicions reach Bambridge's ear? He might be honest. In any case he's liable to shoot you. An' I say this Yellow Jacket isn't worth the risk."

"Ring, I don't like the man. I suspect him. We've clashed from the first. He was hoppin' mad when he found out I owned Yellow Jacket an' had the range rights there. It'll be interestin' to see what move he makes."

"Like watchin' a game of checkers," rejoined Locke, with a laugh. "All right, boss. I'm bound to admit you've made some sharp guesses in my days with you. Reckon I'll go to bed. Good-night."

In the silence that succeeded after he had gone, Jim slowly opened the letters he had been idly holding.

"Uncle, I'm afraid Locke is against this Yellow Jacket deal, especially the Bambridge angle."

"Locke is cautious. He hates this sort of thing as much as I do. But what can we do? I take it as my duty to rid Arizona of this particular outfit, an' I'm goin' to do it."

"Then it isn't a personal grudge against Bambridge?"

"Not at all. I shore hope we find out my suspicions are wrong. An' I'm relyin' on your Slinger Dunn to find out. He's the man we need, Jim. I shore appreciate your gettin' hold of him."

Jim spread out one of the letters on his knee and read it.

"Good heavens!" he ejaculated, blankly. "Son, I hope you've no bad news. Who's the letter from?"

"Mother," replied Jim, still blankly.

"Wal?"

"Uncle, what do you think? Mother is sending my sister, Gloriana, out here to stay with us a while...Doctor's orders. Says Gloriana has a weak lung and must live a year or more in a high dry climate...By gosh! Glory is on her way right now!"

"Wal, wal! I'm shore sorry, Jim. But Arizona will cure her."

"Cure!...Cure nothing!" snorted Jim. "Gloriana has no more lung trouble than I have. She's the healthiest girl alive. It's just a trick to get her out here."

"Wal, I reckon there ain't no need of tricks. We'll be darn glad to have her, won't we?"

"Uncle, you don't understand," replied Jim, in despair.

"Tell me, then."

"Gloriana will upset the ranch, and break the Diamond and drive me crazy."

"Haw, haw, haw!"

"It's no laughing matter."

"But, Jim, you've been away from home 'most a year. Your sister could have failed in health in much less time."

"That's so...Oh, I hope not...Of course, Uncle, I'll be glad to have her, if she's really sick. But..."

"Son, don't you care for this little sister?"

"Gosh, Uncle, I love her! That's the worst of it. I can't help but love her. Everybody loves her, in spite of the fact she's a perfect devil."

"Humph! How old is Gloriana?"

"She's eighteen. No, nearly nineteen."

"Wal, the Trafts were all good-lookin'. How does she stack up?"

"Glory is the prettiest girl you ever saw in all your life."

"Shore then it'll be fine to have her," replied the rancher. "An' I'll tell you what, Jim. When we once get her out heah we'll keep her."

"What?" queried Jim, weakly.

"We'll never let her go back again. We'll marry her to some fine Westerner."

Jim felt his turn to laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! ...Uncle, there's not enough men in Arizona to marry Glory. And I'm afraid not one she'd wipe her feet on."

"Sort of stuck up, eh? Thet ain't a Traft trait."

"I wouldn't say she was stuck up. But she's certainly no plain everyday Traft, like you and I, or Dad or Mother. She's not conceited, either. Glory is a puzzle. She changes each moon. I wonder what she's like now...Jerusalem! Suppose she doesn't take to Molly!"

"See heah, young man," spoke up Traft, gruffly. "Mebbe it'll be the other way round. Molly mightn't take to her."

"Molly? Why, Uncle, that adorable child would love anybody, if she had half a chance."

"Ahuh. Wal, that accounts fer her lovin' you...Jim, it'll work out all right. Remember your first tenderfoot days. Would you go back East now to live?"

"Gosh, no!"

"Wal, the West will do the same for Gloriana, if she has any red blood. It'll go tough, until she's broke in. An' if she's a high-steppin' Easterner, it'll be all the tougher. But she must have real stuff in her. She's a Traft, for all you say."

"Gloriana May takes after Mother's side of the family, and some of them are awful."

"She's got to have some Traft in her. An' we'll gamble on that. For my part, I'm glad she's comin'. I hope she burns up the ranch. I've been so long without fun and excitement and devilry around heah that I could stand a heap."

"Uncle Jim, you're going to get your desire," exploded Jim, dramatically. "You'll see these cowboys walk Spanish and perform like tame bears with rings in their noses. You'll see the work on the ranch go to smash. The round-ups will be a circus. As for dances--holy smoke! every one of them will be a war!"

"Wal, I'll be gol-darned if I wouldn't like the girl all the more," declared Traft, stoutly. "These cowpunchers make me awful sick with their love affairs. Any girl will upset them. An' if Glory is all you say my Gawd, but I'll enjoy it!...Goodnight, son."

Jim slid down in his chair and eyed the fire. "Gosh! It's a good bet Uncle Jim will be apple-pie for Glory. But if she really loves him, why, I reckon, I'll be glad. And I might get along with her, in a pinch--But there's Molly...Heigho! I'd better dig into Glory's letter."

He held it to the dying glow of the fire and read:

DEAR BROTHER JIM,

"Don't let Mother's letter worry you. I'm not very sick. I've planned to start west the day after I mail this letter, so you won't have time to wire me not to come. I'm just crazy about the West. Your letters have done it, Jim. I've devoured them. Dad is so proud of you he almost busts. But Mother thinks it's terrible. I'm sorry to spring this on you so sudden. I hope you will be glad to see me. It seems ages since you left. You'll never know your Gloriana May. Expect me on the Western Special, November 7th, and meet me with a bunch of cowboys, a string of horses, and one of those tally-ho things you call a chuck-wagon. I'm starved to death.

"Love.

"GLORIANA."

Jim read the letter twice and then stared into the fire. "Sounds like Glory, yet somehow it doesn't...I wonder if she is really ill...Or in any kind of trouble...It was Glory's affairs with boys that stuck in my craw...Well. November the seventh. By jinks! it's Monday! What shall I say to Molly?"

The difficulty, it seemed to Jim, would be serious. Glory was bright and clever. She had graduated from high school at seventeen. She could do 'most anything well, and had a genius for designing and making modish dresses and bonnets. Molly, on the other hand, was a shy little wood-mouse. She had never had any advantages. Two years at a backwoods school had been all the opportunity for education that had ever come to her. She was exceedingly sensitive about her lack of knowledge and her crudeness. The situation would be a delicate one, for Molly, in her way, was quite as proud as Gloriana was in hers.

"I'll trust to Molly's generous heart and the western bigness of her," soliloquised Jim. "In the end Glory will love her. That I'll gamble on."

CHAPTER THREE

Next morning as they went out to breakfast, Jim hugged Molly disgracefully in the dark, cold corridor. When Molly escaped into the dining-room a less keen eye than that of the old rancher, who stood back to the blazing-fire, could have made amusing deductions.

"Mawnin', Uncle Jim. I--I been chased by a bear," laughed Molly.

"Good mornin', lass. Shore I seen thet...Howdy, son! What do you think of Arizona weather?"

"Terrible. And you're sending me to camp out after Thanksgiving!" protested Jim. It seemed to him there was going to be good reason for him to stay in Flagerstown.

"Wal. Yellow Jacket is five or six thousand feet lower, an' if it snows it melts right off. Molly can vouch for thet. An' the valley of the Cibeque is higher than Yellow Jacket."

"I've seen snow every winter I can remember, most up on the Diamond. Down at my home it never lasted a day," replied Molly.

"That's some consolation."

"Jim, I think it's grand. I shore hope you won't go back on your promise," said Molly.

"What promise?"

"Aboot takin' me to town in a sleigh, with bells ringin'. An' snowballin' me. Oh! I'm shore I'll love this winter."

"Yes, I'll keep my praise, and I bet you beg for mercy."

Jim made good his promise, and when he had Molly bundled in the sleigh beside him, her cheeks like roses and her dark curls flying, he was as proud as she was delighted. Much to his satisfaction, all the young people of Flagerstown appeared to be out sleigh-riding also; and many a girl who had made Jim uncomfortable when he was a tenderfoot saw him now with Molly.

Jim drove around to the barn, having in mind the latter half of his promise to Molly, which surely she had forgotten. As they went by the big bunk-house Bud Chalfack poked his ruddy cherub face out of the door and yelled, "Hey, boss, thet ain't fair." Jim yelled back, "Get yourself a girl, you cowboy."

At the barn he handed the reins to a Mexican stable boy, and helped Molly out. Then he led her into the lane toward the ranchhouse. She was paddling along beside him through the deep snow and babbling merrily. When fully out of sight of the hawk-eyed cowboys Jim snatched up a big handful of snow, and seizing Molly he washed her rosy face with it.

"Jim Traft--you--you--" she sputtered, as he let her go. Then before she could recover her sight and breath he snatched up a double handful of snow and pitched that at her. His aim was true. It burst all over her in a white shower. She screamed, and bending quickly she squeezed a tight little snowball and threw it at Jim. He managed to save his eye, but it struck him on the head. Molly, it appeared, was no mean antagonist. Then fast and furious came the little snowballs. Never a one missed!

"Hey, you said--you'd never had a snowball fight," he panted.

"Shore never had. But I can lick you, Missouri," she replied, her high gay laugh pealing out.

Jim realised that she would make good her word unless he carried the battle to close range. Wherefore he rushed her, getting a snowball square on the nose for his pains. She dodged.

"Aw, Jim--stand up--an' fight square," she squealed.

But he caught her, tumbled her into the snow, rolled her over and over, and finally swept a great armful upon her. Then he ran for dear life, tinglingly aware the snowy cyclone at his heels.

Later Jim emerged from concealment and walked down to the bunk-house. He had not seen the boys for several days. He stamped on the porch.

"Hey; don't pack no snow in hyar," yelled a voice. "I gotta do the sweepin' fer this outfit."

Jim opened the door and went in. The big room was cheerful with its crackling fire, and amazingly clean, considering it harboured the hardest cowboy outfit in Arizona.

"Howdy, boys!" he sang out.

"You needn't come an' crow over us," answered Bud. "Sleigh-ridin' with Molly Dunn!"

Jackson Way looked askance at Jim's snowy boots, his lean young face puckered and resentful. "Boss, I reckon you had this snow come on purpose."

Hump Stevens spoke from his bunk, where he lay propped up, cheerful and smiling.

"How are you, Hump?"

"Rarin' to go, Boss. I been walkin' around this mornin'. An' I won all the money the boys had."

"Good work," said Jim, and turning to Uphill Frost, who sat before the fire in a rocking-chair, with a crutch significantly at hand. "And you, Up?"

"Boss, I ain't so damn good, far as disposition goes. But I could fork a horse if I had to."

"Great! Where's Cherry and Lonestar?" went on Jim.

"They hoofed it in town to see Slinger," replied Frost.

"I haven't been to the hospital for three days," said Jim. "How's Slinger coming around?"

"He was up, walkin' around, cussin' Doc fer not lettin' him smoke all he wants. Reckon time hangs heavy on Slinger. He can't read much, an' he says he wants to get back in the woods. Asked why you didn't come to see him. Didn't he, Bud?"

"Sure. Slinger complained like hell of your neglect, Boss. I seen him yestiddy. An' I told him thet no one never seen you no more. Then he cussed Molly fer not fetchin' you."

"I'm sorry. I'll see him tomorrow," replied Jim, contritely.

Curly Prentiss, the handsome blond young giant of the Diamond outfit, sat at a table, writing with absorbed violence. He alone had not appeared to note Jim's entrance.

"Curly, I've news for you."

But Curly gave no sign that he heard, whereupon Jim addressed Bud. "What ails Curly?"

"Same old sickness, Boss. I've seen Curly doubled up with that fer five years, about every few months. Mebbe it's a little wuss than usual, fer his girl chucked him an' married Wess Stebbins."

"No!"

"Sure's a fack. They run off to Winslow. You see, Curly come the high an' mighty once too often. Caroline bucked. An' they had it hot an' heavy. Curly told her to go where it was hot--so she says--an' he marched off with his haid up...Wal, Carrie took him at his word. Thet is--he'd unhooked her bridle. Wess always was loony over her, an' she married him, which we all reckon was a darned good thing. Now Curly is writin' his funeral letter, after which he aims to get turrible drunk."

"Curly," spoke up Jim, kindly.

"Cain't you leave me alone heah?" appealed the cowboy.

"Yes, in a minute. Sorry to disturb you, old man. But I've news about Yellow Jacket, Jed Stone, and his Hash-Knife outfit."

"To hell with them! I'm a ruined cowboy. Soon as I get this document written I'm goin' to town an' look at red licker."

"Nope," said Jim, laconically.

"Wal, I jest am. Who says I cain't?"

"I do, Curly."

"But you're not my boss. I've quit the Diamond. I'll never fork a hoss again."

"Curly, you wouldn't let us tackle that Hash-Knife gang without you?"

"Jim, I cain't care aboot nothin'. My heart's broke. I could see you all shot. I could see Bud Chalfack hung on a tree an' laugh."

"Curly, didn't you and I get to be good friends?"

"Shore. An' I was durn proud of it. But friendship's nuthin' to love. Aw, Boss, I'm ashamed to face you with it...Caroline has turned out to be false. Chucked me fer thet bowlegged Stebbins puncher! Who'd ever thought I'd come to sech disgrace?"

"Curly, it's no disgrace. Wess is a good chap. He'll make Caroline happy. You didn't really love her."

"Wha-at!" roared Curly. And when his hearers all greeted this with a laugh he sank back crestfallen.

"Curly, there's some good reasons why you can't throw down the Diamond at this stage," said Jim, seriously, and placed a kindly hand on the cowboy's shoulder.

"Jest you give me one, Jim Traft," blustered Curly, and he laid down his pencil.

Jim knew perfectly well that this wonderful young Westerner could not be untrue to anyone. "First, then, Curly. You've already got a few head of stock on the range. In a few years you'll be a rancher on your own account."

"No reason at all. I don't want thet stock. I'd have given it to Bud if he hadn't been so nasty aboot Caroline. Swore she'd finally come to her senses. Then I gave the cattle to Hump, heah."

"Well, Hump can give them back...Another reason is Uncle Jim is throwing us plumb against the Hash-Knife outfit. Now what would the Diamond amount to without Curly Prentiss?"

"I don't give a--a damn," rejoined Curly. But it was a weak assertion.

"See there, Boss," yelled Bud, red in the face. "He hates us all jest because thet red-headed Carrie Bambridge chucked him."

"Curly, it's just as well," went on Jim. "Listen, and all of you. This is a secret and not to be spoken of except among ourselves. Uncle Jim is sure Bambridge is crooked. Making deals with the Hash-Knife."

All the cowboys except Curly expressed themselves in different degrees of exclamation.

At length Curly spoke. "Even if Bainbridge was crooked--that'd make no difference to me."

"Did you ask Caroline to marry you?" queried Jim, kindly.

"Dog-gone-it, no," replied Curly, and here his fine, frank face flamed. "Boss, I never was sure I cared that much, till I lost her."

"Curly, it wasn't the real thing--your case on Caroline."

"Ahuh. Jim, you haven't given me any argument why I shouldn't go out an' drown my grief in the bottle--an' shoot up the town--an' kill somebody or get put in jail."

"No? All right. Here's another reason," replied Jim, and he drew a photograph out of his pocket and laid it on the table in front of Curly.

The cowboy started, bent over, and became absorbed in the picture.

Bud Chalfack started, too, but Jim waved him back.

"My Gawd! Boss, who is this?" asked Curly.

"My sister, Gloriana May Traft."

"Your sister?--Jim, I shore ought to have seen the resemblance, though she's ten million times better-lookin' than you...But how is she a reason for my not goin' to the bad?"

"Curly, it's as simple as pie," said Jim. "Gloriana is a sick girl. She's coming West for her health. She'll arrive on Monday, on the Western Special. Now, I ask you, have you the heart to bust up the Diamond--to get drunk and worry me to death--when I've got this new trouble on my hands?"

Curly took another long look at the photograph, and then he turned to Jim with all the clouds vanished from his eyes and face. To see Curly thus was to love him.

"Boss, I haven't got the heart to throw you down," he replied. "It's my great weakness--this heah heart of mine...I reckon I wasn't goin' to--anyhow...An' I'll go down to meet the Western Special with you."

Jim, if he had dared, could have yelled his mirth. How well he had known Curly.

"Lemme see thet pictoor?" demanded Bud, advancing.

Curly handed the photograph back to Jim, and said, blandly, "Bud, gulls of high degree shouldn't interest you."

"Boys, I want you all to see Glory's picture," said Jim, calmly, though he revelled in the moment. "Come, take a look."

Bud and Jackson Way leaped forward; Uphill Frost forgot his crutch, Hump Stevens hopped out of his bunk; and they all, with Curly irresistibly drawn, crowded around Jim.

The long silence that ensued attested to the beauty of Gloriana Traft.

Finally Bud exploded: "Lord! ain't she a looker?"

"Prettier even than Molly Dunn," added Way, as if that was the consummation of all beauty.

"I never seen no angel till this minnit," was Uphill Frost's encomium.

"Ef I jest wasn't a crippled cowpuncher an' had a million dollars!" exclaimed Hump Stevens, with a sigh. "Boss, her name fits her."

Curly Prentiss reacted peculiarly to all this. It seemed he resented the looks and sighs and fervid comments of his comrades, as if they had profaned a sacred face already enshrined in his impressionable heart.

"Wal, I'm informin' you gentlemen of the range thet I saw her first," he said, loftily.

Bud took that as an insult. Frost swore his surprise. Hump Stevens stared in silence. Jackson Way laughed at the superb and conceited cowboy. Then Curly addressed Jim. "Boss, it's shore plain the Diamond will be busted now."

CHAPTER FOUR

Jim did not see much of Molly on Sunday. She kept to her room except at meal hours. He found opportunity however, to ask her to go into town with him on Monday to meet his sister.

"I'd rather not, Jim," she replied, as if her mind had long been made up. "She'd rather you didn't fetch any girl, especially your girl, to meet her, thet's shore."

"But why, Molly?" he queried.

"It'll be a surprise to her--the way things are with you an' me. An' it oughtn't come the minute she gets heah."

"We don't need to tell her right away."

"She'd see it...Jim, you should have written home weeks ago--to tell your folks aboot me."

"I suppose I ought. Really I meant to. Only I just didn't write."

"Wal, I reckon it'd be better not to let her know right away. I could hide it. But I'm shore afraid you couldn't. Uncle Jim will blurt it out."

"Molly! The idea--not telling Gloriana we're engaged," he protested, mystified by her gravity.

"Jim, it'll be all right if only she takes to me, but if she's like you when you first struck Flag--she won't."

"I was pretty much of a snob," he admitted. "Molly, I'm the better for all I've gone through...You realise, don't you, how much I--"

The entrance of Molly's mother prohibited the rest of that tender speech. And Jim presently left the living-room perturbed in mind. He could not rid himself of a premonition that Gloriana's coming heralded disaster. No further opportunity to speak privately to Molly presented itself that day; and early Monday morning Molly trudged off to school like any country girl, wading through the snow. How serious she was about her studies!

In the afternoon Jim sent for Curly Prentiss, who appeared as if by magic, most gorgeously arrayed in the gayest and finest of cowboy habiliments.

"For goodness' sake? Why this togging up?" exclaimed Jim.

Curly appeared to be labouring under stress.

"Had hell with the outfit," he said. "Come near punchin' Bud. He swore I ought to wear a plain suit--which is somethin' I don't own--but I'm no business man, or even a rancher yet. An' I want to look what I am."

"Oh, you mean you want my sister Gloriana to see you're a real cowboy?"

"Shore do."

"Big hat, gun, spurs, and all?"

"I reckon."

"Well, Curly, she'll see you all right. She could see you a mile away."

"Jim, don't you give me any of your chin aboot how I look. I had enough from Bud an' Jack an' Uphill. An' my feelin's are hurt...They're goin' to meet thet train, all of them except Hump. He wanted us to carry him on a stretcher. Up is goin' on a crutch--the damn fool!"

"Fine. The sooner you all see Gloriana May the sooner you'll be miserable...I've ordered the buckboard to meet the train. Let's walk in, Curly, and stop to see Slinger."

"It's a good idea. A little movin' around might steady me. I'd shore hate to meet Jed Stone or thet Pecos gun-thrower."

Their long steps soon brought them to the edge of town and eventually the modest hospital, which, unpretentious as it was, had become the boast of cowboys.

They found Slinger Dunn the only inmate, besides an attendant or two, and he was limping up and down a warm and comfortable room. His dark face, bronze and smooth like an Indian's wreathed into a smile at sight of his visitors. He had gained since Jim had last seen him. His long hair, black as the wing of a crow, hung down over the collar of the loose woollen dressing-gown he wore, in which obviously he felt ill at ease. Jim always thrilled at sight of Slinger, and had reason to do so, beyond appreciation of his striking figure and piercing eyes. Anyone who had ever seen Molly Dunn would at once connect Slinger with her.

"Howdy, boys! It's aboot time you was comin'," he drawled. "Molly came in on her way to school, or I'd shore be daid now."

"Patience, Slinger. Why, you've made a marvellous recovery!" said Jim, cheerily.

"Slinger, you backwoods son-of-a-gun, only five weeks ago you was a sieve of bullet holes," declared Curly. "An' heah you can walk aboot."

"Wal, it's easy fer you fellars to talk, but I'd like to see you stand stayin' heah. Day after day--night after night. Thet damn Doc won't give me any more cigarettes an' only a nip of whisky. Set down, boys, an' tell me some news."

"Slinger, just as soon as you can ride we're off for Yellow Jacket," announced Jim.

"Wal, pack up fer tomorrow mawnin'."

"Not till after Thanksgiving. Three weeks yet. And now listen." Whereupon Jim related all the late news and rumours about the Hash-Knife outfit.

"Shore, I'd expect thet of Jed Stone," said Dunn. "An', Boss, if you want to know, I've long had a hunch Bambridge is back of the Hash-Knife."

"No!" ejaculated Jim, aghast at so definite a statement from this backwoodsman.

"Slinger, we reckon you mean Bambridge ain't above buyin' a few haid of stock from Stone now an' then?" queried Curly, slow and cool, but his blue eyes flashed fire.

"Hell no! Buyin' a few steers nuthin'," drawled Dunn, forcibly. "Bambridge's outlayin' ranch is across the divide from Yellow Jacket. Thirty miles around by road. But by the canyon--Doubtful we call it --there's less'n ten miles. An' Bambridge is gettin' stock through Doubtful an' drivin' it to Maricopa."

Curly whistled his amazement. Jim simply stared. This was getting down to hard pan. It did not occur to either of them to question Slinger Dunn.

"Shore, I can't prove it, Jim," he continued. "But it's what I reckon. An my hunch is fer us to keep our traps shet--an' go down to Yellow Jacket to make shore."

"Right, you bet," agreed Curly. "But if it's true, the Hash-Knife will stop operations until either they or the Diamond are settled."

"We've got to find out," interposed Jim emphatically. "Ring Locke advised against Uncle sending the Diamond on that job. Said we could do easier and more important work. He's afraid Bambridge might shoot Uncle."

"Wal, there's shore risk of thet," rejoined Dunn. "But Traft could keep out of the way. When we get the trick on these fellars we can do a little shootin' ourselves...You know, Boss, there ain't no other way oot of it."

"So Uncle says," assented Jim, gloomily. "Slinger, you don't think it'll be another Pleasant Valley War?"

"Lord, no," declared Dunn, showing his white teeth. "Thet war hed hundreds of sheepmen an' cattlemen behind it, with rustlers on the side of the sheep fellars. This heah deal is a matter of a little gunplay."

"Slinger, you've got a lot of time to think it over," said Jim. "Do so, and I'll come in after a few days. I'm a little upset just now. My sister is coming today. She's ill. They say the climate will agree with her."

"Thet's too bad, Boss. But mebbe it'll all turn oot right...Molly never told me you hed a sister. I reckon I know how you feel."

"Here's her picture, Slinger," said Jim, producing the photograph and handing it over.

"Wal, I never before seen any girl or a pictoor of one thet could beat Molly. But this heah shore does."

"Molly is totally unlike Gloriana. Just as pretty in her way, I think," he said, stoutly.

"Boss, you're loco. Molly is a slick, soft, pretty little woodmouse. But this sister of yourn is like the sun in the mawnin'."

Jim felt a surprise he did not betray. The compliment to Gloriana at Molly's expense did not find great favour with Jim. Receiving the picture back, he took a look at it, somehow seeing Glory differently, and then he returned it to his pocket.

"It was taken a year ago," he explained. "And if Gloriana has improved in looks since I've been gone as much as she did the year before--whew! but she'll be something to look at. I hardly expect improvement, though, since she has been ill."

"Huh! Thet gurl couldn't be ailin'," returned Dunn, positively.

Conversation reverted to other channels then--the Diamond, the incompleted drift fence, winter, horses--until finally Jim rose to go, with Curly following suit.

"Slinger, I'm awful glad you're doing so well," said Jim.

"Wal, you fellars have cheered me right pert. Come again soon...An', Jim, would you mind lettin' me borrow thet pictoor fer a spell? I get hells rattlin' lonesome--an' it'd be good to look at."

"Why, certainly, Slinger," declared Jim, hastily producing it. "I'm sure Glory will be flattered."

"Thanks, Boss," drawled Slinger. "Your havin' a sister too, kinda makes us closer, huh? Wal, adios."

For a cowboy who had been born on a horse and who had spent most of his life in a saddle, Curly Prentiss could certainly walk. He might have had on seven-league boots. In quick time they arrived at the station, to find Zeb there with the buckboard; but Jackson, Lonestar Holliday, Cherry Winters, and Uphill in a state of vast excitement, that seemed strange in their plain business suits, at least three of which were brand new.

The Western Special roared into the station, all ice and snow, with the steam hissing and the smoke obscuring the platform lights. It was almost dark. When the engine and mail and baggage cars passed the air cleared, and the bright lights shone again. In his excitement Jim quite forgot his comrades. The second coach stopped opposite his position and he was all eyes. A porter began sliding bags and suit-cases off the step. Then a slim form emerged from the car upon the vestibule. The furs proclaimed it feminine. But there was too much shadow. Then she stepped down and paused in the bright light. It was Gloriana, Jim said to himself, conscious of inward tumult. The tall slim shape, with its air of distinction, the cut of the long fur coat, the set of the stylish little hat, would have been enough. But Jim stared a moment longer, Gloriana's face shone like a white flower out of the black furs, and her great eyes, dark in that light, strained eagerly to and fro, and then fixed on him.

"Jim!" she cried in rapture. When had she ever called to him with a voice like that? He ran to the steps and lifted her down in a bearish hug. She did not appear as substantial and heavy as he remembered his sister.

"Glory!--Dog-gone, I'm glad to see you!" he said, and certainly returned the warm kiss she gave him, which struck him as even more unusual than the poignant tone of her voice. Something had changed Jim Traft's value in the eyes of his sister.

"Jim, you can't be--half as glad--as I am to see--you," she panted, gaily, clinging to him. "Is this the--North Pole? Who are these young men?...Jim, I thought Arizona was desert--sunny, hot--all golden ranges and pine trees."

"Hey, boys, grab the bags," ordered Jim, with a laugh. "Fetch them into the waiting-room." Then he led Gloriana into the station, where it was light and warm. "The rig will be here in a minute...Gosh!...I just don't know you, Glory. Your eyes, maybe."

"No one, not even a brother, would ever have been likely to forget Gloriana May's eyes. At this moment they were travelling over Jim, brilliant with amaze.

"I know you and I don't. You great big handsome man. Oh, Jim, you're so wonderfully different. Arizona has improved you...I'll bet you've fallen in love with some Western cow-girl."

Jim should have said she had guessed right the very first time, and he would have done so, but for the something familiar and disconcerting that was merely Gloriana. Then the cowboys came bustling in with bags and suit-cases. Even Uphill carried one with an air of importance. Curly disengaged himself from the excited group and strode forward. Sight of him filled Jim with glee, and a quick glance at Glory took in her eyes, fixed and beautiful. Now it was a natural function of Glory's eyes, even in her most casual glance, to shine and glow and give illusion of a thousand thoughts that were not in her head at all. They were so alive, so speaking, so eloquent, so treacherously lovely, that Jim sustained a second thrill at sight of them.

"A cowboy!" she whispered. "Jim, I believe you now."

It probably was a magnificent moment for Curly, but he did not betray that in the least.

"Boss, Zeb is heah with the buckboard," he announced in his cool, lazy way.

"Gloriana, this is Curly Prentiss, one of my cowboys--and quite a cattleman in his own right," introduced Jim. "Curly--my sister."

Curly doffed his sombrero and made a gallant bow that, though easy and slow like his voice, was as singularly pleasing.

"Miss Traft, I shore am glad to meet you-all," he said.

"How do you do, Mr. Prentiss. I'm pleased to meet you," she replied, with a dazzling smile. "You are my very first cowboy."

Gloriana May probably did not mean she had taken possession of Curly at first sight, but Jim saw that this identical circumstance had come to pass.

"Wal," drawled Curly, not in the least knocked off his balance, "I'm shore happy to be the first an' I'll see to it I'm the last."

"Oh," laughed Glory, merrily, and turned to Jim with her first appreciation of a cowboy.

The other boys lined up, with Uphill Frost hanging a little behind to hide his crutch. They presented a bright-eyed, shiny-faced coterie, at the moment devoid of any trace of devilment or horns and hoofs.

"Boys, this is my sister, Gloriana," announced Jim. "Glory, meet the rest of the Diamond, except two that are laid up for repairs...Bud Chalfack."

Bud took a step out and his smile was cherubic. "Miss Gloriana, I reckon there ain't no one any gladder to welcome you to Arizonie."

"Thank you, Mr. Chalfack. I'm happy to meet you," replied Gloriana.

"And this is Lonestar Holliday," went on Jim. Lonestar in his eager confusion stepped on Bud's foot and could not find words to answer Glory's bright acknowledgement.

"And Jackson Way...and Cherry Winters...and Uphill Frost...There, Glory, you've made the acquaintance of most of the Diamond, which, according to Uncle Jim, is the most terrible cowboy outfit in Arizona."

"Oh, I'm sure Uncle Jim is wrong," said Gloriana, sweetly.

"They look very nice and mild to me--except Mr. Prentiss--who is quite terrifying with his gun and those awful spurs."

Somehow Jim got the impression from Glory's speaking eyes that she meant Curly's handsome presence was something calculated to stop the heart of a girl fresh from the East.

Bud looked disgustedly at Curly, as if to say he had gone and done it again. If there was anything a cowboy hated it was to be thought nice and mild.

"Miss Glory," he spoke up, most winningly, and Jim made certain that the next time Bud addressed her it would be Glory minus the prefix, "there's some cowpunchers who pack hard-ware all the time an' sleep in their spurs. But they ain't the dangerous kind."

Thus Jim saw with delight a new species of men and life dawn upon his bewildered sister. Likewise he perceived with fiendish glee that he was going to get even with the Diamond.

"Carry the baggage out, boys," he said. "We'll go home to the ranch...Curly, you can ride with us, so in case we meet any desperadoes or Indians they won't get Glory."

CHAPTER FIVE

On the way out Jim did not say anything to Glory about the room he had fixed up for her. In fact, he did not have much chance to talk, for Glory addressed her curiosity to Curly. Jim drove fast, so the wind would pierce through his sister, furs and all. It did.

"F-f-fine f-for a g-girl with o-one lung," chattered Gloriana as Jim lifted her out of the buckboard. "G-good-n-night--Mr. Curly. If I don't--f-f-freeze to death I'll see you--to-tomorrow."

"I shore pray for a moderation of temperature," replied Curly, gallantly. "Goodnight, Miss Traft."

"Set the bags on the porch," said Jim, "and hurry those horses into the barn...Glory, I reckon you'll want to get warm before you see Uncle Jim."

Gloriana stood in the cold starlight, looking out at the spectral pine forest and the pure white peaks that notched the sky. "W-w-wonderful!"

Jim almost carried her to her room, which was in the west end of the rambling ranch-house. When he opened the door a blaze of light and warmth and colour greeted Gloriana's eyes. Jim had spent a whole day on making this room different from any Glory had ever seen, and one that would be livable, even for a sick girl in zero weather. It had an open fireplace where logs were snapping and blazing; Navajo rugs covered the floor; Indian ornaments of bead, basket, and silver work hung on the walls; a fine elk head, with massive horns, stood out over the mantel; the bed had a coverlet of deep, woolly, soft red, most inviting to the eye. Even the lamp had a shade painted with Indian designs.

Gloriana gasped with delight, threw off her furs and hat, and rushed to the fire, where she stretched her gloved hands.

"Pretty nifty, huh?" asked Jim.

"Just lovely. But wait a minute until I can see."

Jim went out to fetch in the luggage. He had to make three trips to the porch and back. "Glory, from the looks of this you've come to stay awhile."

"I've three trunks, too," rejoined Gloriana.

"Is that all? Gee! I didn't figure on trunks when I worked over this room. But there's a big closet...Turn round, Glory, so I can look at you."

"Well, how do I look?" she asked soberly.

"Prettier than ever, Glory, only different. I can't figure it yet," said Jim.

"Thanks. I didn't hope for compliment...Jim, you've been away almost a year."

"So long? Gee! time flies. Well sister, it has been a terrible and a wonderful year for me. I've sure got a story to tell you. But that can wait. Sit down. You look fagged. And tell me about yourself. Mother's letter scared me."

"Jim, you're my last bet," she said frankly.

"Glory!...I don't understand," exclaimed Jim, blankly. "You were a belle when I left home. You had so many friends that I never saw you. Then all that money Aunt Mary left you...And now I'm your last bet!"

"Funny, isn't it, Jim?...Retribution, I guess."

"For what?"

"I was never--a--a real sister."

Jim caressed the soft, thin little hand while he gazed into the fire and pondered. A chill of fear of he knew not what crept over him. Glory had always worried him. Her childish pranks then her girlish escapades--but now she seemed a woman!

"Perhaps that was my fault," he replied, regretfully.

"Jim--you're changed," said his sister, quickly.

"Sure. I'd not been much good if this Arizona hadn't changed me."

"I hope it does as well by me," she continued, wistfully.

"Glory...what're you driving at?" burst out Jim, no longer able to repress a mounting anxiety.

"Please--ask me questions."

That from Gloriana May was indeed a strange request. Jim felt an uncomfortable constriction of his throat.

"Glory, have you really lung trouble?" he queried, sharply.

"No. Mother and Dad think so because I got so white and thin. I coaxed Dr. Williamson to hint of that. I wanted to come West."

"Thank goodness!--But, you deceitful girl! Why such an extreme? And are you really ill?"

"Only run down, Jim."

"From what?"

"Worry--unhappiness."

Jim imagined his ears were deceiving him. Yet there his sister sat, slipping closer to him. She was now half off the arm of his chair and her head rested on his shoulder. A faint fragrance came from her hair. He let a long silence ensue. He could not ask just then what was forming in his mind.

"Love affair?" he finally asked, lightly.

"Affair--but not love," she replied, scornfully.

"So that's it?"

"No, that's not it. Still, it had a lot to do with it."

"Gloriana!" That was how he had used to address her when he was on his dignity or wished to reprove. She laughed a little, remembering it.

"Jim, I--I have disgraced the family," she admitted, with a catch in her breath, and suddenly she sat up.

"My God!...Oh, Glory--you can't be serious!" he exclaimed, distressed, yet uncertain.

"I wish to heaven I wasn't serious."

Jim tried to prepare himself for a blow. Contact with the rough and wholesome West had knocked pride and prejudice out of his head. Nevertheless, something of the former reared its hydra head. In his gathering apprehension and horror he sensed that he was on trial. He must react differently to this revelation. Glory had come to him in her trouble. If he repulsed or scorned her! If he showed any of the old outraged brotherly disfavour! Suddenly he happened to think of Curly Prentiss--that cool, easy, careless firebrand of a Texas cowboy. How would he take such a confession from a once-loved sister? Beloved still, he discovered, poignantly! But that thought of Curly was sustaining. Its content typified the West.

"Well, so little sister has kicked over the traces?" he queried, as coolly as ever Curly could have said it.

"Jim, don't misunderstand," she said, quickly. "I've been wild, crazy, out of my head. But I can still look you in the eyes."

"Shore, I never had any notion you couldn't," he replied, essaying Curly's drawl. Then he put his arm around her, which action brought Glory slipping into his lap. Her head went down with a suspicious haste. Her nervous hands tightened on his. "Tell me all about it."

"Jim, you remember when I was sixteen the Andersons took me up," began Glory, presently. "That began my gadding about, my desire for fine clothes--excitement, dancing--and so forth. Then Aunt Mary left me that money. And you remember the summer I graduated--how gay I was--what a wonderful time I had!...Even before you left I was travelling with a pretty fast set. But we younger girls hadn't really gotten into it yet. After you left home I was about ready for it, I guess. But something happened. I met a man named Darnell--from St. Louis. He was handsome--and all the girls were crazy over him. That tickled me. I--I thought I was in love with him. It might have been just as well--the way things turned out. I could have done worse. Mother wanted me to marry Mr. Hanford--you know him--the dry-goods merchant."

"Not Henry Hanford?" broke out Jim, incredulously.

"Yes, Henry Hanford. He was more than old enough to be my father. But Mother nagged me nearly to death. I dare say she wanted me to be--safe--Dad hated my running around--and he didn't like Ed Darnell. So we had a bad time for some months...I thought I was engaged to Ed. So did everybody else. All the same, I wasn't. He said he was mad about me, but he didn't ask me to marry him...He borrowed a lot of money from me. He was a gambler. Then he embezzled money from Dad. Oh, how wretched it was! He left town, without a word to me. The truth came out--and--and the Andersons, the Loyals, the Millers--all my old friends dropped me. Cut me dead!...That broke Mother's heart. And it went hard with Dad...Well, I had reached the end of my rope. You know what gossip is in a little town. And gossip made it a great deal worse than it actually was. I had been a fool over Ed Darnell. I had snubbed some of the boys because of him. I had been wild as a partridge--so far as parties, dancing, running around were concerned. But I wasn't as bad as I looked. Still that queered me at home, when the crash came...And, Jim, it knocked me out. I began to go down-hill. I realised I was done for there. I worried myself sick. Many and many a night I cried myself to sleep. I went downhill...And then I got thinking about the West--your West. I read all your letters to Mother. You never wrote me. And I thought, if I could get out West, far away, it'd be my salvation...and here I am."

"Well, is that all?" drawled Jim, true to his imitation of Curly. "You shore had me plumb scared."

"Jim!" she cried, and then she kissed his cheek in mute gratitude. By that Jim felt how hard it had been for Gloriana to confess to him--how little of a brother he had been in times past. Then before he could say more she burst into tears, which was another amazing thing, and Jim could do no more than hold her. Pity and tenderness welled up in his heart for his sister. Indeed, there had been cause for her to come West and throw herself upon his protection. The very idea was incredible, yet here she was, sobbing softly now, and gaining control of herself.

"Thank God I--I had the--courage to come," she said, speaking a thought aloud. "I--I never knew how--good Jim was!"

That established a character Jim regretted he hardly deserved, and one to which he felt he must live up.

"Glory, I've got a little confession to make, myself," he said, with a happy laugh. "Not that I've actually fallen by the wayside. But I've gone back on the East. And I'm--"

"Wait," she interrupted, sitting up to dry her eyes. "I haven't told all--and what seems the worst to me."

"Gosh!" ejaculated Jim, with a sinking sensation in his chest. "Perhaps you'd better not tell me more."

"Jim, I met Ed Darnell in the station at St. Louis," went on Glory, hastily, as if eager to impart what seemed important. "Quite by accident. I had to change trains there and wait five hours. And it was my bad luck to run into him first thing...Well, he raved. He made a thousand excuses...The liar! The thief!...I absolutely refused to have any more to do with him. Yet I was scared stiff at him. He had some queer power over me. But I had sense enough to realise I despised him. Then he threatened me--swore he'd follow me. And Jim--that's exactly what he'll do. He knew, of course, about Uncle Jim, the rich ranchman. Mother gabbed a lot. At first she was fascinated by Ed. I didn't tell him where I was going, but he could find out easily. And he'll come. I saw it in his eyes...And that'd be dreadful."

"Let him come," replied Jim, grimly. "I hope he does. It would be a bad move for Mr. Darnell."

"What would you do?" queried Gloriana, with all a woman's curiosity.

"Glory, you're out West now. It'll take you some time to realise it...I'd impress that fact upon Mr. Darnell pretty pronto. And if it wasn't enough, I'd tell Curly Prentiss."

"That wonderful-looking cowboy!" exclaimed Gloriana. "He seemed so kind and nice. He wouldn't hurt anyone."

Jim laughed outright. Gloriana would be the tenderfoot of all tenderfeet who ever struck Arizona.

"Glory, I'm engaged," he blurted out suddenly, with a gulp.

"Jim Traft! You've kept up that catty Sue Henderson," exclaimed Glory, incredulously.

At first Jim could not connect any of his Missouri attachments of bygone days with that particular name. When he did he laughed, not only at Glory's absurd guess, but at the actual realisation. Ten times ten months might have elapsed since he left home.

"No, Glory. My girl is a real Westerner," he replied.

"Real Westerner? What do you mean by that? Uncle Jim was born in the East. He couldn't be Western."

"He's pretty much so, as you will discover. Molly was born in Arizona. She's about eighteen. Twice in her life she has been to Flagerstown, and that is the extent of her travels. She lives down in the Cibeque, one of the wildest valleys in Arizona."

"Molly--Molly what?" queried Glory, her white smooth brow wrinkling, and her fine eyes dilating and changing, as she bent them upon Jim.

"Molly Dunn. Isn't it pretty?" rejoined Jim, warming to his subject. He had need to.

"Rather. But sort of common, like Jones or Brown. Is she pretty?"

"Glory, I reckon there's only one prettier girl in the world, and that's you."

It was a subtle and beautiful compliment, but somehow lost upon Gloriana May.

"You were always getting a case on some girl--back home. It never lasted long," said his sister, reflectively.

"This will last."

"How about her family?" came the inevitable interrogation.

"Arizona backwoods. And that's as blue-blooded as the skies out here," replied Jim, rising to the issue. "Her father was ruined by a range feud between cattlemen and sheepmen. Her mother has been a hardworking pioneer. You will learn what that means. Molly has one brother. Slinger Dunn. I don't know his first name. But the Slinger comes from his quickness and use with a gun. He has killed several men--and shot up I don't know how many."

"Desperado?" gasped Gloriana.

"Of course an Easterner would call him that. I did at first. But now he's just Slinger to me--and the very salt of the earth."

Dismay, consternation, and sincere regret succeeded one another on Gloriana's expressive face.

"Dad called me the black sheep of our family," she said. "But I'm afraid there are two...It'll kill Mother...Jim, they have no idea whatever of all this. Dad brags to his friends about you. How you are in charge of his brother's big cattle ranch. Nothing of this--this you tell me--ever crept into your letters. I know them by heart."

"That's true, Glory. I left out the real stuff which was making me over. And besides, it all sort of bunched just lately...Look here." Jim unbuttoned his flannel shirt at the neck, and pulled his collar back to expose a big angry scar at his breast.

"My heavens! what's that?" she queried, fearfully.

"My dear sister, that's a bullet hole," he replied, not without pride.

"You were shot?"

"I should smile."

"My God!--Jim, this is awful! You might have been killed."

"Shore I might. I darn near was. I lay in the woods two days with that wound. Alone!"

"And you can smile about it!" she ejaculated, her eyes dark with awe and fading terror.

"It helped make a man of me."

"Some desperado shot you?"

"Yes, one of the real bad ones."

"Oh, Jim," she cried. "I hope--I pray you--you didn't kill him."

"It turned out I didn't, Glory--which was darn lucky. But at the time I'd have shot him to bits with great pleasure."

"This terrible West has ruined you. Mother always said it would. And Dad would only laugh."

"Nope, Glory. You've got it wrong. I'm not ruined by a long shot. And I hope you've sense and intelligence enough left to see it."

"Jim. I've nothing left," she replied. "You're wild, strange to me--sort of cool and indifferent like that Prentiss fellow. I'm just terribly sorry this West has made you rough--crude. I know I'll hate it."

"Glory, you just misunderstand," rejoined Jim, patiently. "It'll jar you at first--more than it did me. You were always a sensitive, high-strung thing. And your trouble has only made you worse. But please give the West and me the benefit of a doubt, before you condemn. Wait, Glory. I swear you will gain by that. Not have any regrets! Not hurt any of these Westerners."

But he saw that he made no impression on her. He had shocked her, and it nettled him. She had quite forgotten already how kindly he had taken her dereliction.

"Where is this Molly Dunn?" asked Gloriana, curiosity strong.

"She's here."

"In this house?"

"Yes. She and her mother. I fetched them up from the Cibeque. Molly is going to school. It's great--and a little pathetic--the way she goes to study. Poor kid.--she had so little chance to learn...I expect to marry her in the spring, if I can persuade her."

"Persuade her!" echoed Gloriana, with a wonderful flash of eyes. "I dare say that will be extremely difficult."

"It probably will be," replied Jim, coolly. "Especially after she meets you. But Uncle Jim adores her and he's keen to see me married."

"Well, I deserve it," mused Gloriana. "What?"

"A dose of my own medicine."

"Glory, I don't want to lose patience with you," said Jim, slowly, trying to keep his temper. "I can understand you, for I felt a little like you do when I landed out here...Now listen. I'm glad you've come to me. I'm sorry you've made mistakes and suffered through them. But they are really nothing. I predict the West will cure them in less than a year. You won't know yourself. You could not be dragged back to Missouri."

Gloriana shook her beautiful head in doubt and sorrow.

"If you only hadn't engaged yourself to this backwoods girl!" she said, mournfully. "But she saved my life," declared Jim, hotly. "She fought a fellow--one of those desperadoes you mentioned--fought him like a wild cat--bit him--hung on him with her teeth to keep him from murdering me as I sat tied hand and foot...saved my life until her brother Slinger got there to kill Jocelyn."

"The wretch!" exclaimed Gloriana, in passion and horror. Her face was white as alabaster and her eyes great dark gulfs of changing brilliance. "Did this Slinger Dunn really kill him?"

"You bet he did. And two other desperadoes. They shot Slinger all up. He's in the hospital at Flag. I'll take you in to see him."

"Wonderful!" breathed Gloriana, for the moment thrilled out of her disgust and horror. "But, Jim, why all this bloody murdering? I thought you worked on a cattle range."

"I do. That's the trouble," said Jim, and forthwith launched into brief narrative of the drift fence and subsequent events which led up to his capture by the Cibeque gang, of Hack Jocelyn's arrival with Molly, who had consented to sacrifice herself to save Jim, of Jocelyn's treachery and how Molly fought to keep him from killing Jim until Slinger got there.

When Jim concluded, there was ample evidence that Gloriana did not lack heart and soul, though they were glossed over by restraint and sophistication. This reassured Jim in his stubborn hope that Gloriana was undeveloped and needed only the hard and wholesome contacts she was sure to get in Arizona.

"But, Jim, you can't marry a girl who bites like a little beast, no more than I could the brother who kills men," was Gloriana's grave reply.

"I can't--can't I?" retorted Jim, goaded at the regurgitation of a forgotten phase of the Traft boy he had once been. "Well, I am going to marry her, and I'll think myself the luckiest fellow on earth."

Plainly she thought he was out of his head or that Arizona had broken down his sense of values. But she did not voice either conviction.

"Gloriana, I think I'd better take you in to meet Uncle Jim--and the Dunns," concluded Jim.

"Yes, since it has to be," she replied, soberly. "Give me time to make myself presentable. Come back for me in fifteen minutes."

"Sure. I'm curious to see what you call presentable," said Jim, and went out whistling. Nevertheless, his heart was heavy as he proceeded down the hall toward the living-room.

CHAPTER SIX

Jim found his uncle alone in the living-room. "Hey!" he said, "when are you going to trot my niece in?"

"Pretty soon. She was tired and wants to clean up after the long ride."

"How is she, Jim?" he asked, anxiously.

"White and thin. Looks wonderful, though. You could have knocked me over with a feather, Uncle."

"Wal, I reckon I'm plumb ready for mine."

At this juncture Molly and her mother came in, and it was certain Jim had never seen Molly so pretty, so simply and becomingly attired. He did not see how Gloriana could help admiring her.

"Oh, Jim, did your sister come?" she asked, eagerly.

"You bet. Curly and the boys were there with me. It was a circus."

"I shore reckon," agreed Molly, her eyes round and bright. She was excited, trembling a little.

"I'll fetch Glory in pronto."

Jim went out and thoughtfully wended his way to the west wing of the huge ranch-house. In a certain sense this event was a thrilling and happy one, but in the main it was shadowed by misgivings. He tapped at Gloriana's door, and at her call he entered.

He stared. Was this lovely white creature Gloriana Traft? She wore a pale-blue dress, without sleeves, and cut somewhat low. She was slender, but there was not an ungraceful line about her. And she had a little colour in her cheeks, whether from excitement or from artificial means Jim could not tell.

"Glory, if you let the boys see you in that rig we can't go on ranching," he said, with grave admiration.

"Why not?" she asked, not knowing how to take him.

"Because this place would beat the Pleasant Valley War all hollow. You just look like--like some beautiful sweet flower."

His genuine praise brought more colour to her cheeks. "Thank you, Jim. It's nice to hear I look well. But this dress is nothing. I've some new ones and I'll have to wear them, even if your ranching can't go on...Guess I'd better put my coat around me. That hall was like Greenland's icy mountains."

"This house is a big old barn. But the living-room is comfortable," said Jim as he replaced the screen before the fire.

"Jim, if I catch cold again it'll be the end of little Glory."

"Don't talk nonsense. This is a beginning for you, Glory," he replied, warmly, and he kissed her. Gloriana caught his hand and clung to it. Her action and the sudden flash of her face toward him gave Jim a clue to something he had not before guessed. Glory might resemble a proud, cold, aloof young princess, but she really was unconsciously hungering for love, kindness, sympathy. By that Jim judged how she had been hurt, and through it he divined he could win her. Right there Jim decided on the attitude he would adopt with his sister.

"Jim, my failure and disgrace do not alter the fact that I represent your family out here," she said, as they went out.

The remark rather flustered Jim. He was not used to complexity, and he could find no words in which to reply. He hurried her down the hall to the living-room, and opened the door for her to enter. When he followed and closed it Gloriana had let her coat fall to the floor and was advancing quickly to meet the rancher.

"Oh, Uncle Jim, I know you," she said, happily as if she had expected not to.

"Wal--wal! So you're my niece Gloriana?" he replied, heartily, yet with incredulity. "I remember a big-eyed little girl back there in Missouri. But you can't be her."

"Yes, I am, Uncle. I've merely grown up...I'm so glad to see you again." She gave him her hands and kissed him.

"Wal, it can't be, but if you say so I'll have to believe," he said, quaintly. "I reckon I'm powerful pleased to have you come West...Gloriana, meet some friends of ours--Arizona folks from down country...Mrs. Dunn and her daughter Molly."

"Gloriana, I'm shore happy to welcome you heah," said Molly, with simple sweet warmth. She was tremendously impressed--Jim had never seen her so pale--but there was no confusion for her in this meeting. Her eyes had a shining, earnest light. Jim could not have asked more. She was true to Molly Dunn. She was Western. She had stuff in her. Never in her life had she been subject to such an intense and penetrating look as Gloriana gave her. Jim's heart leaped to his throat. Was Glory going to turn out a terrible snob?

"Molly Dunn! I'm glad to meet you," replied Gloriana, cordially, and she was quick to accept the shy advance of the Western girl. She met Molly's kiss halfway. Jim almost emitted audibly a repressed breath of relief. But he was not sanguine. Gloriana appeared the epitome of perfect breeding, and she was too fine to let the Western girl outdo her in being thoroughbred. Yet heart and soul were wanting. And Jim thought that if he felt it Molly must have, too.

Uncle Jim beamed upon Gloriana and then upon Molly, and lastly upon his constrained nephew.

"Jim, shore there's such a thing as luck," he said. "I reckon I didn't believe so once. But look there. An' think of your havin' a sister an' a sweetheart like them."

It was a simple warm tribute from a lonely old bachelor who had given his heart to Molly and now shared it with Gloriana. But the compliment brought a blush to Gloriana's pale cheek and broke Molly's composure.

"Wal, I don't know aboot it, as Curly would say," drawled Jim, far from feeling like Curly. "A man can have enough luck to kill him."

This unexpected sally from him made the girls laugh and eased the situation. All took seats except Molly, who stood beside Gloriana's chair, plainly fascinated. It gave Jim a pang to see that Molly had already fallen in love with his sister. If Gloriana would only give the Western girl the smallest kind of a chance!

Thereupon followed a half-hour of pleasant conversation, mostly for Gloriana's edification, and received by her with undisguised enthusiasm. Then she said she was very tired and begged to be excused.

"Jim, take me back to my Indian wigwam. I'd never find it," she begged, and bade the others good-night.

When back in Gloriana's room Jim stirred the fire and put on a few fresh sticks of wood.

"Well?" he queried, presently, rising to face his sister, and he was quite conscious of the gruffness of his voice.

To Jim's surprise she placed a hand on each of his shoulders.

"Jim, your Western girl is distractingly pretty, sweet as a wild flower, honest and good as gold--and far braver than I could have been. I saw what you couldn't see. Probably it was harder for her to meet me than that Hack fellow she--she bit to save your life. I'm your family, so to speak."

"Thanks, Glory," replied Jim, somewhat huskily. "I--I was afraid--"

"I'd not like her? Jim, I don't blame you for loving her. I did like her...But--and there's the rub--she is illiterate. She comes from an illiterate family. She's only a very common little person--and certainly not fit to be the wife of James Traft."

"That's your Eastern point of view," returned Jim. "It might--though I don't admit it--be right if we were back home. But we're out West. I love the West. It has made me a man. It is now my home. I worship this 'common little person', as you call her. I think she is farthest removed from that. She's strong and true and big, and crude like this great raw West. And as I've thrown in my fortunes here I consider myself lucky to win such a girl...All of which, Glory, dear, is aside from the fact that but for her I'd be dead...But for Molly you wouldn't have had any brother to come to!"

"Don't think me ungrateful," she rejoined, in hurried, shuddering earnestness. "I am...and indeed you talk like a man. I admire and respect you. But I had to tell you the ethics of it. I wouldn't be a Traft if I failed to tell you."

"Then--you're not against us?" queried Jim, hopefully.

"Jim, I disapprove. But it would be absurd for me to oppose. I have come to you for help--for a home--to find my chance in life, if there be one. Besides, I like Molly...The trouble will come not from me, but from her. Can't you see it? I don't think I ever was subjected to such study. Yet no trace of jealousy or bitterness! She was just being a woman seeing you, your family, your position through me. I saw fear in her eyes as she bade me good-night. That fear was not of me, or that I might come between you. It was a fear of realisation, of love. She ought not to marry you because she is Molly Dunn of the Cibeque! And, Jim, if she's really as strong and fine as it seems she is, she will not marry you."

"I've had the very same fear myself," admitted Jim. "But I always laughed myself out of it. Now you--"

"Make it worse," she interposed. "I'm sorry. I ought not to have come...I could go away somewhere, I suppose, and work...But, Jim, the damage is done."

"I wouldn't let you go. I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill. It'll sure come out all right, if you'll help."

"Jim, I promise. I'll do my utmost for you. I'll be nicer to that little girl than I ever was to anyone in my life. I can make people like me. But the worst of me is I'm cold. I've been frozen inside since Ed Darnell deceived me. I can't promise to love Molly, though it'd appear easy enough."

She seemed so eloquent, so moving, so beautiful that Jim could have decried aloud her intimation of her indifference.

"Glory, I couldn't ask any more," he concluded. "It's more than I had hoped for. You have made me feel--oh, sort of warm deep down--glad you've come West. We'll win out in the end. We've got the stuff...And now good-night. You're worn out. Be sure to put the screen in front of the fire."

"Good-night, brother Jim," she said, and kissed him. "I'm glad I came."

Jim left her with her kiss lingering on his lips. Gloriana had never been the kissing kind, and it was easy to tell now that she had not changed. She was older, deeper, more complex, with a hint of sadness about her which he wanted to eradicate. The cowboys would do that. They would change even the spots of a leopard. He went toward his room, and on the way tapped on Molly's door.

"Are you in bed?" he called.

"No, Jim--not quite," she replied, and presently opened the door a few inches to disclose a sweet, agitated face.

"I just wanted to ask...Do you like her?"

"Like--I shore fell in love powerful deep. She's--she's--" But Molly could find no adequate word to express herself.

Jim darted his head downward to give her a quick kiss. "Darling, I'd gamble my soul on you," he whispered, gratefully. Then louder, "Did your mother like Glory?"

"Shore. But she was aboot scared stiff...An', Jim, me too--a little."

"Well, now, you mustn't be. Glory said some mighty sweet things about you."

"Oh, Jim--tell me," she begged, breathlessly.

"Not much. I'll keep them until I want something special out of you, Ha, ha!--but they're awfully nice...Good-night, Molly."

Jim found his uncle dozing before the living-room fire. "Wake up and tell me what I'm to do?"

"Huh?" grunted Uncle Jim.

"Wake up and talk to me," replied Jim. "Did you like Glory? What on earth am I to do with two such girls on my hands? How can I keep the cowboys from murdering each other? Tell me what..."

"One at a time, you Missouri rooster...Wal, Glory is the most amazing girl I ever saw. Bright an' smart as beautiful! She's got a haid on her, Jim. An' only nineteen. I reckon she'll be a bitter pill for Molly. But Molly is true blue. She'll be Western. In the end she an' Glory will be sisters. Not soon, but you can bet on it. An' your part is goin' to be harder'n buildin' the drift fence. Shore, Glory will upset the cowboys. Because she's sweet, she's nice, she'll be interested in them--an' the poor dumbhaids will reckon they can win her. At that she could do worse than be won by Curly or Bud or Jackson Way."

"I've come somewhere near that conclusion myself," rejoined Jim, thoughtfully. "Confidentially, Uncle, I want to tell you Gloriana has come West for good."

"Fine!" ejaculated the rancher. "Is she thet sick? or what--"

"She's not so sick as it appeared. Only run down. She got involved in an unfortunate affair back home. Took up with some flashy fellow--thought she loved him when she didn't--and he turned out bad. Borrowed money from her and cheated money out of Dad. It hurt Glory with her crowd, which she was pretty sick of, anyhow, I guess. She's the proudest of the whole raft of Trafts...So she has turned to me, poor kid."

"Ahuh!--Wal, dog-gone!...Jim, you ain't implyin' some scoundrel ruined your sister?"

"No, thank God," returned Jim, fervently. "But he ruined her reputation, at least. Fellow named Ed Darnell. And Glory is sure he'll show up here."

"Wal, if he does I reckon it'll be aboot the last place he ever shows up," replied the cattleman, grimly.

"I said as much...So, Uncle, we've got the happiness and future of two wonderful girls to make. I swear I'm stumped. I'm scared. I'm stuck pretty deep."

"Wal, it's a problem, shore. But you're young an' you want results too quick."

"I can be patient. I'll do everything under the sun. But suppose Molly gets upset by Glory? Scared of my family, so to speak."

"Wal, in thet case I'd put Glory up against the real stuff out heah. An' have Molly with her. Thet'll square the balance. Then they'll learn from each other."

"It's a good idea," agreed Jim, almost with enthusiasm. "You mean put Glory up against rough outdoor life--horses, cowboys, camp, cold, heat, rain, dust, and hail? Hard beds, poor feed, privation--danger--and so on?"

"Shore, an' so on. Put her up against everythin' thet Molly knows."

"It's risky, Uncle. Glory is not strong. It might kill her."

"Wal, you'd have to go slow an' easy till she could just aboot stand it, an' thet's all."

"But, if it didn't kill her--" mused Jim, fascinated by the memory of how terrible and wonderful the raw West had been to him. It was that which had won him for Molly Dunn; and now he regarded the stronger and primitive in him more desirable than any development he might have had in the East. The thing had to be gone through to be understood. Gloriana would succumb to it sooner than he had done, despite or probably because of her sensitive, feminine nature. And during this transition of his sister he was going to have trouble holding on to his sweetheart. Jim regretted that he had not persuaded Molly to marry him before Gloriana had come out. Could he do it yet? His mind whirled and his blood leaped at the suggestion. But it would not do, because Molly might suspect the reason. All of a sudden he realised that his uncle was talking.

"Beg pardon, Uncle, I was lost."

"Wal, I was changin' the subject," replied the rancher. "Locke was in awhile ago an' he's got wind of Bambridge shippin' steers tomorrow from Winslow. He was figurin' thet it might be a good idea for you to run down there an' look 'em over."

"Gee! In this weather?"

"Wal, you forget we're up high heah on the mountain slope. Winslow is down in the desert. Reckon there won't be any snow. Anyway, weather never fazes this Bambridge cattleman, thet's shore."

"What's the idea, Uncle?" asked Jim, soberly.

"Bambridge doesn't know you, nor none of his outfit, so Locke reckons. An' you've never been in Winslow. You could look them steers over without bein' recognised. An' for thet matter it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference if you were...Whatever is comin' of this Bambridge deal is shore comin'."

"Uncle Jim, you expect trouble with him?"

"Son, I've seen a hundred Bambridges come an' go. I know the brand. I've been forty years raisin' steers...Ten years ago a fine-spoken, most damn likable fellow, named Stokes, drifted into Flag. Had money. Began to buy stock an' sell. Soon was operatin' big. Everybody his friend. But there was somethin' aboot Stokes thet stuck in my craw. An', Jim, I seen him hangin' to a cottonwood tree--by the neck."

"Queer business, this cattle-raising," mused Jim, darkly.

"Wal, so long's there are big open ranges there'll be rustlers. An' I reckon when the ranges are fenced the cattlemen of my type an' Bambridge, an' Jed Stone, too, all will have passed. It's a phase of the West."

"You regard Jed Stone as a cattleman?" queried Jim, in surprise.

"Shore do. He's a factor you've got to regard. Yellow Jacket belongs to you, legally, because I bought it, an' gave it to you. But Stone shore thinks it belongs to him," replied Traft, with a dry laugh.

"Humph! And for what reason?"

"He's just been ridin' it for years, thinkin' it free range, same as the rest. But it's a ranch, an' two sections of land, twelve hundred acres, have been surveyed. The best water--an' by the way, Jim, Yellow Jacket Spring is the wonderfullest in Arizona--an' level ground are in thet surveyed plot. The corners were hid pretty well by the man who first owned the ranch. I haven't been down there for years. But Locke has an' he's seen them. So we can prove our claim."

"Good heavens, Uncle!" exclaimed Jim. "Do you mean we may have to prove to an outlaw that we have a right to a piece of land you bought?"

"Not Stone. You'll have to prove it to him with guns. Haw, haw!...But Bambridge, an' mebbe thet cattleman who's in with him--I forget the name--may want to see our proofs. Of course, son, nothin' but a little fight may ever come of this. But I've a hunch Yellow Jacket will catch your eye. It did mine. It's the wildest an' most beautiful place to live I ever seen in Arizona. Yellow Jacket isn't a valley, exactly. Really it's a great wide canyon, with yellow walls. Protected from storms. Best place to hunt in Arizona. Bear, deer, turkey, just thick. An' very few hunters ever get in there, because it's a long way an' there's plenty good huntin' ranges closer. Lots of beaver left in Yellow Jacket, an' where there's beaver you bet it's wild."

"Well, I've set my heart on Yellow Jacket, Uncle Jim Traft," declared Jim, forcefully. "And Slinger Dunn has a half interest in the stock running there. That was the deal I made with him, you know, to get him into the Diamond."

"Shore, an' you don't know how good a deal it was. Wish Dunn could go to Winslow with you...An' come to think of it, Jim, you take Curly along."

"Fine. We'll hop the early train."

In the nipping frosty dawn, Jim and Curly went into the kitchen, shutting the door, and they warmed their palms over Jeff's fire until breakfast was ready. Curly was not his usual bright self, which might have been owing to the night before, of which he had hinted, but also it might have been the portent of Jim's early call. They had breakfast and hurried out into the snow. The morning was still, with the frost crackling, and the fence posts glittering with sunshine on the snow. Curly had little to say until they reached the station.

"Ring Locke was in last night," announced Curly, "an' he shore had bad news."

"Thought you were out late?" queried Jim, gruffly.

"Wal, I wasn't. Ring got wind of this herd Bambridge was shippin'. Dog-gone-it, Ring's always gettin' tipped off aboot things we don't want to heah. He has too many friends."

"Wait till we're on the train," replied Jim, tersely. The station-room and platform were not the places just then for indiscriminate speech. Cowboys, cattlemen, Mexican labourers, and other passengers for this early train, were noisily in evidence.

When they got into the train, to find a seat somewhere isolated from those occupied, Jim whispered, "What did Locke hear?"

"Some darn fool sent him word there were Diamond steers in thet bunch of stock Bambridge is shippin'."

"So that's it? Uncle didn't tell me Locke said that...The nerve of this Bambridge!...Curly, what're you growling about?"

"Locke ought to have kept his big mouth shet...We shore cussed him last night."

"And why?"

"'Cause we all knew what'd come off pronto. Old Traft would send you down there, an' if you saw any steers with our brand you'd go right to Bambridge an' tell him."

"I should smile I would."

Curly threw up his hands, an expressive gesture of his when he was helpless, which in truth was not often.

"Why shouldn't I tell him, cowboy?" queried Jim, somewhat nettled. How long it took to understand these queer cattlemen!

"Wal, we reckon Bambridge oughtn't know we're suspicious, till we've had a spell at Yellow Jacket."

"But, Curly, surely Locke and Uncle Jim know more what is best than you cowboys."

"Hell, yes. But they don't have to do the fightin'."

The way Curly spat out those words, as well as their content, gave Jim a breath-arresting moment. Indeed it was true--Locke was an aggressive superintendent, and the old rancher a stern and ruthless dealer with crooked cattlemen. No more was said then, and Jim gazed out at the speeding white and black landscape. The pines had given place to cedars and pinons, and these soon made way for sagebrush. The snow thinned out, and when the train got down on the open desert the white began to give way to the yellow of grass and occasional green tuft of sage and greasewood.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Hash-Knife were back from a drive, the nature of which showed in their begrimed, weary faces, their baggy eyes, and the ragged condition of their garb.

"Home!" croaked Malloy, flinging his crooked length down before the fire Stone was building.

"My Gawd!" ejaculated Stone, staring at the little gunman. And his men simulated his look if not his speech. The idea of Croak Malloy giving expression to such a word as home was so striking as to be incongruous, not to say funny.

"Did you ever have a home?" added the outlaw leader, more curious than scornful.

"Aw, you can't gibe me," replied Malloy, imperturbably. "What I mean is hyar's rest an' comfort--after a hell of a job."

"It shore was," agreed Pecos.

"An' ain't it good to be down out of the snow an' thet damn Tonto wind," said Madden. "Like spring down hyar at Yellow Jacket. It smells different."

"Wal, we'll sit tight till spring, you can gamble on thet," spoke up the gambler, Carr.

"Mebbe we will," interposed Jed Stone, sarcastically, yet not without pathos.

"Aw hell!" bit out Malloy. "Jed, don't begin your belly-achin', now we're home. We've got supplies till spring, plenty of drink an' money to gamble with. Let's forget it an' be happy."

Sonora came in dragging a pack, and young Frank Reed followed. Lang, the ex-sheriff, also appeared heavily laden. It was about midday, and outside the sun shone brightly warm. The air was cool and sweet with sage and cedar, and had a hint of spring, though the time was early December.

"Reckon Jed built thet fire 'cause he's so absent-minded," remarked someone.

"No, I want a cup of coffee. I'm soured on whisky...At that it ain't bad to be back in the old cabin...--Bambridge anyhow!"

"He shore pulled a rummy deal," said Pecos, his tone harmonising with Stone's.

"Wal, no one much ain't a-goin' to connect the Hash-Knife with thet winter shippin' of stock. So what the hell?" replied Malloy. "But it wasn't a slick trick to turn."

For Malloy to show disapproval of a cattle-steal seemed to prove it was the last word in bold and careless rustling.

"Bambridge will skip Arizona pronto," put in Anderson, wagging his shaggy head. "I'd have give my pipe to see thet young Traft call him."

"So would I--an' some more," said Stone, thoughtfully. "Nervy youngster...Frank, tell me about it again."

"Boss, I told you twice," complained Reed.

"Sure. But we was on the trail an' it was cold an' windy. You made it short an' sweet, too...Here's a cigar."

Thus importuned the young cowboy rustler lighted the cigar, smiling his satisfaction, and settled himself comfortably.

"I was in Chance's saloon after the shippin', an' I heard a man say 'Damn funny about thet Bambridge cattle-drive. I went by the railroad stockyards late last night, 'cause I live out thet way. There wasn't no cattle there. An' next mornin' at daylight the pen was full of bawlin' steers.'"

"Haw haw!" croaked Malloy, gleefully, rubbing his thin brown hands.

"Laugh, you frog!" exclaimed Stone, darkly. "Thet drive was another blunder. We ought to have left the cattle at Bambridge's ranch, which I wanted to do. But he got sore...An' well--Frank--"

"We drove the stock in at midnight, as you-all ain't forgettin'," resumed Reed, puffing his cigar. "It was a slick job fer any cow-punchin' outfit. An' next mornin' at ten o'clock them steers was all on a stock train, ready to move. Then I seen Curly Prentiss. Used to ride under him when he had charge of the U Bar. He had a young fellar with him thet turned out to be Jim Traft. They watched the cattle fer about two minutes. No more! An' young Traft jumped right up an' down. You could see Prentiss talkin' turkey to him. I made it my business to foller them back to the station. An' you bet your life Curly Prentiss seen me. There ain't much thet hombre doesn't see. But it was safe, I reckon, 'cause nobody knows I'm with the Hash-Knife. Prentiss an' Traft went in the freight office, an' I ducked in the station. As luck would have it, Bambridge came in with a darkcomplected fellar, sporty dressed, an' goodlookin'. I edged over an' heard Bambridge ask: 'Where you from?' The fellar said St. Louis. 'What do you know about cattle?' He said nuthin', but he happened to know a stock-buyer in Kansas City who told him to hunt up George Bambridge, if he was goin' to Arizona. 'An' who's this stockman?' asked Bambridge, quick like. He said 'Darnell'--I got thet name straight. 'Come to my office up town later in the day. I'm busy now with this cattle shipment.'...He was shore goin' to be damn busy in a minnit, only he didn't guess it. Just then Prentiss an' Traft come in. They was both packin' guns, which was funny only for Traft, I reckon. Prentiss sleeps in a gun. They looked kinda fire-eyed, an' Traft stopped Bambridge right in the middle of the station, an' he was in a hurry, too."

"Talk, an' come to the point," ordered Stone, in a cold, testy voice.

"Not much more," replied Reed, casually. "Traft asked, 'Are you George Bambridge?'--an' he got a short answer.

"'You're shippin' some of my steers,' snapped Traft.

"Bambridge turned red as a turkey gobbler's comb. 'The hell you say, my young cowpuncher! An' who may you be?'

"'My name is Traft,' said thet young cowpuncher, an' he said it loud.

"Bambridge went white now. 'Jim Traft's nephew?'

"'Yes, an' you're shippin' steers with my brand.'

"'What brand is thet?' jerked out Bambridge, sort of husky. He was madder'n hellsfire.

"'Diamond brand.'

"'Ahuhm, I see.'...Bambridge sort of pulled himself together. 'Sorry, Mr. Traft. Mistakes happen. This is a rush order. An' them Yellow Jacket steers of yours overrun my range. An' I'm runnin' some new cowhands. Send me a bill."

"'No, Mr. Bambridge, I'll not send you a bill now, but I'll send a telegram East to have a count made of the Diamond steers in this shipment,' said Traft, an' he shore looked a lot.

"'You call me a liar--an' a cattle thief?' busted out Bambridge, movin' a hand back.

"'No. An' don't pull a gun. This gentleman with me is Curly Prentiss...I didn't say you was a liar an' a thief. But this shipment has a queer look an' I'll not be satisfied till it's been counted over.'

"'I tell you if there's Diamond steers on that train it's only a mistake. Any rancher makes mistakes when he's rushed,' yelled Bambridge.

"'No, any rancher doesn't make such mistakes!'

"'Every cattleman drives stock sometimes thet ain't his.'

"'But not branded stock.'

"'Your uncle does it. An' fer that matter he's as much of a cattle thief as Blodgett, or Babbitt, or me--or any--'

"'Don't you call my uncle a thief,' broke in young Jim. An' he cracked Bambridge square on his ugly mug. You ought to have heard thet fist. Sounded like hittin' a beef with an axe. Bambridge fell all over himself--damn near knockin' down the stove, an' he didn't get up. It was a good thing he was knocked out, fellars, for when I looked at Traft again there he was waitin' with a gun, an' Prentiss was standin' far over to one side."

"Pretty," croaked Malloy, with relish.

"Is thet all?" asked Stone, tersely.

"Jest about. Some men got around Bambridge an' helped him up. I seen Prentiss eyein' me sort of sharp so I ducked back to Chance's an' hid there till early next mornin'."

"Bambridge is a damn fool," burst out Stone. "An' I was the same for dealin' with him."

"Looks like young Traft has done us a good turn," said Anderson, with satisfaction.

"It shore does, Boss," added Pecos, quietly. "He throwed the light on Bainbridge."

Others of the group attested to the same conviction.

"Well, yes, I reckon--mebbe," agreed the leader. "But it'll only make old Jim Traft sorer."

"Jed, the fact that you once rode fer Traft an' stood well with him sticks by you like a fish-bone in the throat," observed Anderson. "We've all seen better days. We was all different once--onless mebbe Croak there, who hasn't changed a damn iota since he was born."

"What's a iota?" inquired the subject of this remark. "Sounds somethin' like IOU, which you'll all be doin' pronto."

"Men," said Stone, "I'll split this money I got fer this last job, an' let myself out."

"Thet ain't fair," objected Malloy, who was strict in regard to shares of spoil. He had been a bandit at an earlier stage of his career. "You did thet last time."

"An' spoiled my settin' in for you an' Carr to fleece? It's jest as well. I'd be broke soon, anyhow."

"Reckon thet four-flush rancher owes you quite a wad?"

"Ten thousand."

"------------!" cursed Malloy, in consternation. "Jed, he's goin' to do you. Sure as shootin'!"

"He'd better not, or there'll be a little shootin'," declared the chief, grimly. "But I don't mind admittin' thet the Hash-Knife has struck a snag in this same hightalkin', crooked cattleman."

Stone left his men to their profanity and humour, both of which expended some force over the debt Bambridge owed him, and he went outside to walk around the familiar grounds.

Stone strolled under the great checker-barked junipers. Bear sign not yet old showed on the brown matted earth; and gave him peculiar satisfaction with its suggestion of the loneliness of this canyon. That feeling did not survive long. He had a premonition that the race of the long notorious Hash-Knife was about run. None of his men shared that with him, and not improbably the big ranchers of the Mogollans and the Little Colorado Range would have scouted the idea. But Stone knew better than any of them; and this homecoming, as he bitterly called it, back to Yellow Jacket, had made him pretty sick. He was weary with the toil, the devious crooked ways, the sweat and blood, and, yes, the ignominy of the Hash-Knife. He confessed it to himself for the first time, and realised it as a factor that would lead to something drastic.

Yellow Jacket possessed a very singular feature. High and isolated and enclosed as it was, it yet looked down, at least through that narrow gateway, upon the desert which sloped away into purple infinitude. For that country it had the right altitude, neither too high nor too low, and its walls held back the winds and reflected the sunlight.

Some years back Stone had indulged in the illusion that he was going to own Yellow Jacket. Bambridge had promised to give it to him. But Bambridge had failed to get possession, and Stone's dream of quitting the outlaw game and settling down to honest ranching had been dispelled. He hated Bambridge for that, though he blamed himself for indulging in dreams. Hunted man as he was, the plan could have been carried out. Arizona was quick to recognise a cattleman whose shady dealings were in the past.

From that hour Jed Stone was more than ever a preoccupied man, wandering around the canyon during sunny hours, sitting in favourite places, or smoking by the camp fire. Stone had something on his mind, and it was not only the slow disintegration of the once virile Hash-Knife outfit, and therefore the decline of his leadership, but a realisation that for the first time in his life he leaned toward betrayal of those who trusted him. And loyalty was the predominating trait of his personality. It was loyalty to a friend that had lost him his place among honest cattlemen.

One afternoon, Jed, returning from a walk up the brook, heard a shot. Rifle-shots were not rare around camp, but this came from a small gun of heavy calibre. It had a dull, ominous sound that echoed from the walls. Upon reaching the cabin he saw some of his men standing in a group--the kind of group he had seen so often and which suggested so much.

"Croak jest shot Carr," said Pecos, coolly and slowly; but there was a glint in his eyes.

"What for?" demanded Stone.

"Ask him."

Stone hesitated at the threshold of the cabin door. He did not trust Malloy, or was it that he did not trust himself? Then he entered. The little outlaw sat at the rude table, smoking a cigarette and shuffling a deck of cards. Carr lay humped over a bench, his head resting on the floor.

"Is he dead?" queried Stone, asking a superfluous question.

"Thet's funny," replied Malloy, with his little croaking laugh.

"Not so damn funny!" retorted the leader. "What'd you shoot him for?"

"Boss, he cheated at cards," returned Malloy, almost plaintively.

It was Stone's turn to laugh. Malloy's statement was preposterous, if not in fact, then certainly in significance.

"Sure he cheated. But you all turn a trick when you can. Carr was the slickest. You had no call to kill him for what you do yourself."

"Wal, he won all the money. Thet's the difference."

"Ahuh. I see. It's shore a big difference. An' where's all this money Carr won?"

"He was stuffin' his pockets an' laughin' at us," said Malloy, with heat. "Thet made me sore. An' I cussed him fer bein' a caird sharp. Then, Boss, he got mean an' personal. He swore I stacked the cairds, which you all know is a lie, 'cause I can't do it. The best trick I know is to slip an ace from the pack or hold out a hand. An' the damn gambler threw thet in my face."

Stone called the men in from outside. "Search Carr an' put what he has on the table. Then take him out an' bury him--an' make it a good long way from this cabin."

"Boss, what're you goin' to do with it?" asked Malloy, as the heaps of gold coins and rolls of greenbacks were thumped upon the table.

"Divide it, accordin' to what each of you lost."

Then arose an argument among the gamesters over what amounts Carr had won from them. Lang and Madden, and especially young Reed, lied about it. Malloy frankly admitted he did not know how much he had lost, but certainly all that he had. Stone finally adjusted the difficulty by giving each the exact sum he had portioned out to them as their share of the recent cattledrive. This caused some grumbling. And it turned out that Stone himself, with the aid of Pecos, had to carry Carr out into the woods and bury him.

"Much good his stone face done him," said the outlaw leader, wiping the sweat from his face.

"Shore not much," agreed the Texan. "Boss, I reckon Carr got his deserts. He was aimin' to slump with all thet money."

"You don't say? Who told you?" asked Stone, in surprise.

"Carr told me aboot it. Made no bones of braggin' he'd quit the outfit soon as he'd won our pile."

"Did he ever say thet before Croak?"

"Shore. We all heahed him."

"Then that was why Croak shot him."

"I reckon so myself."

"Pecos, do you hold this job as good or bad for the Hash-Knife?"

"Wal, both, I reckon, Carr riled the fellars, most of the time. He was a disorganiser. Bad hombre for a business like ours. On the other hand, the fact that he meant to double-cross us an' thet Croak killed him in cold blood shore is serious...Boss, the Hash-Knife is ailin' from dry rot."

"Ahuh...Money too easy--no hard work like we used to have--this two-faced Bambridge--"

Pecos nodded his lean hawklike head, acquiescing silently with the leader's unfinished speech.

Two mornings later, rather early, for Madden and Lang were cleaning up after breakfast, Stone was surprised by Sonora darting in the cabin door with his noiseless swift step.

"Boss, somebody comin'," he whispered.

"Who!"

"Cowboy--on foot."

"Sit tight, all of you," ordered Stone, and faced the door. Then Sonora told him that there was a camp somewhere down outside the gateway of the canyon. He had smelled smoke and had started to hunt for it when he had spied this lone cowboy approaching up the trail.

After a long wait a leisurely footfall was heard outside. A shadow fell across the sunny threshold. Then came a knock.

"Hello! Anybody home?" called a clear voice.

"Come in," replied Stone.

A tall, lithe-limbed, broad-shouldered young man stepped into sight. He was bareheaded, and the sun shone on a tanned open countenance.

"I'm looking for Jed Stone," he announced, frankly.

"Wal, you're lookin' at him," replied the outlaw, tersely. "An' who may you be, stranger?"

"Boss, it's young Jim Traft," spoke up Reed, excitedly.