In a flat tone, he said, “So Pete Trobridge is the feller you call Boss, huh?”

  “What reason you got for guessin’ that?”

  “When we rode to Bloody Gap you were mighty sot on gettin’ permission from the Boss ’fore we brought Doc Conroy back with us,” the Kid reminded him. “Then you talked to Trobridge, an’ right afterward you said it was awright, that they was bringin’ the doc’s buckboard around. That purty night cinches Trobridge for the Boss.”

  “All right. What of it? You’d be findin’ out soon enough anyhow … workin’ on the Bar L and all.”

  “Yeh,” the Kid agreed placidly, “I reckon I woulda found out anyhow.” He seated himself at the table opposite the unconscious Sam and thoughtfully rolled a cigarette. “Trobridge has been runnin’ stuff through Hidden Valley for three years, huh?”

  “This is the third season.” After a moment’s hesitation Jenkins pulled up a chair and sat down also. He boasted, “Come daylight you’ll look over the slickest herd ever gathered here. More’n four hunderd head this year.”

  The Kid was still at a total loss to understand what stock was being rustled by whom from where. Four hundred head of yearlings wearing unmarred Bar L brands. It didn’t make sense any way he looked at it. Yet he couldn’t reveal his ignorance by coming right out and questioning Jenkins. To do so would immediately prove that he wasn’t a Bar L rider and would cut off any possibility of receiving further information.

  Feeling that an impasse had been reached, he changed the conversation by mentioning casually, “Met a couple of riders from Chapparell when I took Conroy to the road.”

  “That so? Did they say how bad Edwards was hurt?”

  “Yeh. He’s daid.”

  “I swanny,” Jenkins ejaculated. “They got any idee who done it?”

  “They said ’twas a feller named Charlie Barnes.”

  “That so? I know Barnes … met him in Chapparell once or twict. That’s a funny thing,” Jenkins mused. “Charlie’s been sparkin’ a gal named Peggy Aiken … runs the Triangle A where old Hank works.”

  “What’s funny?” the Kid demanded.

  “I was jest thinkin’… Peggy’s brother killed Les Edwards’ father three years ago. Skipped the country an’ ain’t been heard of since. Now the Aiken gal’s sweetheart up an’ kills Les Edwards. Kinda funny any way you look at it.”

  “Yeh,” said the Kid somberly. “Damn funny.” He sucked on his cigarette and stared across the pine table at Jenkins with slitted eyes. “What’d you say if I told you I was that gal’s brother?”

  “You? Hugh Aiken? The … Rio Kid?” Jenkins laughed uncertainly. “Yo’re jest funnin’, I reckon.” But he wet dry lips with his tongue and stared half in disbelief and half in fear at the hard-faced young gunman who didn’t laugh as he suggested he might be the notorious Rio Kid.

  The Kid said, “Mebby I’m funnin’… mebby not, Jenkins.”

  “But good Lord, Hugh Aiken couldn’t come back here. He’d be strung up the minute he showed his face. There’s still a reward out for him.”

  “Would you like to collect that reward?” the Kid queried softly.

  “Me?” Jenkins paled. A hunted look came into his eyes. He tried to wet his lips again but there was no moisture on his tongue. “I ain’t … I shore ain’t worryin’ about no reward money. No siree. Not me, I ain’t.”

  “That’s good,” said the Rio Kid flatly. “If I was Hugh Aiken I’d shore wanta hear you say jest that.” His hard gray eyes stalked the unhappy Jenkins again. “An’ I wouldn’t want the news to get aroun’ neither. Not to Trobridge, f’rinstance. Pete Trobridge,” he went on calmly, “is the feller that claimed he seen Hugh Aiken runnin’ away that night Sheriff Edwards was shot in the back. I figger to prove him a liar on that, an’ I wouldn’t want him hornin’ in an’ causin’ trouble while I’m goin’ aboot provin’ it.”

  He stood up and stretched, opened his mouth in a wide yawn. “Reckon I’ll be moseyin’ along. Got a heap of things to ’tend to. Two Edwardses are daid, an’ the wrong man accused in both killin’s.”

  He sauntered toward the door and Jenkins stopped him with a worried question:

  “Ain’t you gonna … wait till daylight to look over the stuff here?”

  “Not tonight,” the Kid replied easily. “I’m headin’ back to the Bar L, an’ then on into Chapparell to start provin’ Pete Trobridge a liar aboot seein’ Hugh Aiken one night three years ago. Reckon mebby I’ll bust things hereabouts wide open ’fore I’m done. No need to worry now about this stuff that’s gathered here.”

  He paused in the doorway, glancing back at Hank Greenow. For a moment he had forgotten the old man, not realizing the danger in which he was placing him by making his casual revelations to Jenkins which he hoped would bear fruit before morning.

  Now he realized he couldn’t leave the wounded man here in the rustler hangout. Might kill Hank to move him, but Doc Conroy had said the old fellow was tough as whit-leather.

  He made a quick decision, turning back into the room. “Reckon I’ll take Hank ’long with me,” he announced placidly, as though it was an unimportant matter. “I want to ask him some questions soon’s he wakes up an’ starts talkin’.”

  He turned his back on Jenkins and stooped over the old man, listened to the slow steady beat of Hank’s heart and was reassured.

  He wrapped a dirty blanket around him and hoisted the limp figure up on his shoulder, strode out of the cabin, totally disregarding Jenkins who watched his movements with a sickly scowl.

  Outside, the Kid strapped Hank securely on the back of the Triangle A horse again, then mounted Thunderbolt. Through the open door of the cabin he could see Jenkins still sitting at the table as though in a stupor.

  Leading the Triangle A horse behind him, he rode away on the old familiar road, on the most dangerous mission he had ever attempted.

  16

  The Rio Kid stopped his horse on top of the pass leading out of Hidden Valley and glanced back at the cabin below him. Light no longer showed from the windows of the cabin. He shrewdly suspected that Jenkins had not turned it out and gone to bed, but was even now galloping to Bloody Gap to carry to Pete Trobridge his astounding information about the Rio Kid’s return. He grimly hoped Jenkins had taken the bait he dangled in front of him. A lot of things had to happen in a hurry during the next few hours. He figured he had just a few hours left before everything would be over—one way or another.

  He had no definite plan of action outlined. He would have to depend a lot on luck and a lot on the element of surprise. He knew only two things—that he and Charlie Barnes were innocent of killing Sheriff Edwards and Les. Everything else was chaotic and jumbled.

  He loosed Thunderbolt’s reins and rode down off the pass with the burdened lead horse trotting docilely behind him. He kept a keen watch for a trail leading off to the right, a little-known trail that swung north of the Bar L range directly into Triangle A territory.

  When he reached that turning-off point he found the old trail had completely vanished, obliterated by the weather and lack of use, but he turned to the right confidently, recognizing old landmarks as he drew closer to the Triangle A, feeling his heart beat faster as his course led him into the old familiar trails of his boyhood.

  He pulled the black stallion up sharply when the triangle of huge cottonwoods first showed before him in the fading moonlight. He sat very still in the saddle and set his teeth together hard. A tremor tightened his muscles convulsively and he wasn’t ashamed of a sharp stinging sensation behind his eyelids.

  Home! There it was. Those three sentinel cottonwoods he had seen in his dreams for three years. He hadn’t let himself realize how damned much it meant to him. The possibility of his return had always seemed so hopeless. Now, he was here.

  He knew it was a trick of his imagination, that his hot eyes couldn’t actually perceive the outline of the ranch building nestled beneath the trees; but he saw it plainly as he sat there groping back through the mirage of lost years.

  Peggy lay asleep there, behind those darkened windows. The bunkhouse was deserted tonight, with old Hank Greenow’s bunk waiting there to receive his wounded body.

  Until this moment the Kid had vaguely planned to try to make Hank comfortable in his own bed and ride away without arousing Peggy. During the ride down from the pass he had told himself sternly that he didn’t want to see Peggy, that she was somehow unworthy. He had a distinct feeling that she had sent Charlie into trouble tonight when she sent him away from her and agreed to marry Henry Pelham.

  Now, he knew he wanted to see Peggy more than any other person on earth. He knew he had no right to sit back like God and pass judgment on the girl. If she had changed so much during these past three years, wasn’t it as much his fault as hers?

  He touched a spur to Thunderbolt and sent the black stallion forward. Now the trees assumed form and substance in the moonlight. In the shadow beneath their guarding branches the house that his father had built emerged suddenly as he remembered it.

  He rode directly to the front door and leaped off lightly, strode up on the porch and pounded on the door with his hard knuckles.

  He heard immediate movement within, as though Peggy’s sleep had been troubled and she had been ready for this summons. A patch of light appeared at the rear, and a moment later Peggy’s voice came out to him through the door, clear and unafraid:

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Hugh.”

  He waited tensely, saying no more, wondering if she would believe him, whether she could accept the impossible.

  The knob rattled and the door came open. He saw the pale blur of Peggy’s white face—then she was in his arms, sobbing a little, but quietly, saying nothing at all, clinging to him with a fierce strength that told him everything he wanted to know.

  “Yeh. It’s me, Peg.” He was inside, standing in front of her in the full glare of a lighted lamp.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Hugh.” Her face was as pale as the white muslin nightgown that trailed the floor at her feet. Strained fingers gripped the table for support. “You can’t stay!” she cried desperately. “They’ll find you, and …”

  “I am stayin’,” he told her deliberately. He drew in a deep breath, then motioned out the door. “I’ve got old Hank outside. He’s shot bad … but Doc Conroy says he’ll pull through.”

  “Hank? And Doc Conroy? Oh, Hugh! what do you mean? I don’t understand …”

  “An’ there’s no time tonight for explanations,” he told her swiftly. “I can’t stay but a minute. I’ll put Hank in his bunk.…”

  “No. Bring him in here, Hugh. Where I can nurse him.” Peggy put a trembling hand to her forehead. “I’m all mixed up. I thought Hank was in his bed asleep.”

  “He’s asleep,” the Kid told her grimly. He strode out the door and removed Hank from the saddle. Peggy had snatched up a worn old bathrobe and had it about her shoulders when he returned bearing the foreman’s limp body.

  “I’m here, Hugh. In Mother’s and Dad’s room.” She was calm now, leading the way into the unused bedroom next to hers, turning back the covers with a steady hand.

  The Kid laid Hank down gently. “He’ll be all right,” he assured her. His eyes devoured his sister for a long moment. She was looking at the low-tied guns on his hips, the lines of hard recklessness on his young face that hadn’t been there when she saw him last.

  “I’m ridin’ to Chapparell,” he told her briefly. “I’m not runnin’ away this time, Peg. I’m gonna find some way of provin’ I didn’t kill Sheriff Edwards.”

  “I knew you didn’t, Hugh. As soon as I heard he was shot through the back, I knew it.”

  “Another sheriff got shot through the back tonight,” he told her roughly. “Les Edwards.”

  She closed her eyes a moment. Then opened them wide. “Les? How, Hugh? Oh, you didn’t …?”

  He shook his head grimly. “They’ve got Charlie Barnes locked up in jail for killin’ Les.”

  She swayed back, seemed to shrink inside the faded bathrobe under the impact of that news.

  The Kid watched her keenly, and was suddenly glad. She loved Charlie, all right. No matter what she had said or done, she still loved Charlie.

  “It happened on the Bar L,” he went on swiftly. “They say Charlie an’ Les got in a fight over a Mexican gal … after you give Charlie the cold shoulder tonight.”

  She opened her eyes wide and every freckle stood out distinctly against the whiteness of her face. “Charlie … fought over a Mexican girl with Les?” she faltered.

  “That’s what they’re sayin’.” The Rio Kid stepped close to her and cupped a hard palm beneath her chin. “How aboot it, Sis? Did you hand Charlie his walkin’ papers?”

  Her dilated eyes met his gaze squarely and without faltering. “I sort of did, Hugh. That is, he acted funny. He gave in to Henry Pelham like a weakling. He sided with Henry about cutting hay for winter feed … jumped at the chance of a job on the Bar L, a farmer’s job.”

  The Kid winced at the bitterness in Peggy’s voice. He was beginning to understand a lot of things that had been foggy a short time before.

  “You shouldn’t have blamed Charlie for that,” he told her roughly. “He was doin’ it for me, I reckon. He knowed I was ridin’ in to the Bar L not knowin’ it was bein’ ranched now. I’d writ Charlie from El Paso to meet me there. I’d say he took that job jest to be over there on the off-chance of catchin’ an’ warnin’ me ’fore I rode on into the middle of a mess of trouble. He was scared to tell you … scared to tell anybody till he seen how the land lay.”

  Peggy’s clear eyes became clouded. That was it then. That explained Charlie’s queer behavior this afternoon. Oh God! if she’d only known. He might have told her, she thought fiercely, then realized that he couldn’t. Not with Henry Pelham there. And she remembered that Charlie had seen her practically in Henry’s arms as he rode up.

  Hot shame flooded her thin cheeks with color. She lowered her eyelids against the Kid’s questioning gaze and said faintly, “I didn’t know … he didn’t tell me anything.”

  “How about this Henry Pelham? What sorta jasper is he. Are you serious aboot marryin’ him, Sis?”

  “I don’t know. I told him I would this afternoon. I was so mixed up, Hugh. Things are terrible here on the ranch. Everything has been going wrong. Henry is strong and sure of himself. He’s rich and getting richer all the time. Everything he touches turns into money.”

  “So my sister is sellin’ herse’f to a rich man?” The Kid bit off the words acidly.

  Trembling violently, Peggy faced his scornful gaze. “It was partly that, I guess. I’ve been hungry, Hugh. Actually hungry. Do you know what that means?”

  The Rio Kid’s expression softened. He nodded and said humbly, “Yeh … yeh, I know all right. It’s been my fault … stayin’ away so long.”

  “What’s to be done about Charlie?” Peggy asked wildly. “He didn’t … you don’t think he killed Les, do you?”

  “I know he didn’t. But provin’ what I know is somethin’ else again. Charlie’s in dang near the same spot I was in three years ago … only Charlie wasn’t give no chance to hit the trail acrost the Border like I did.”

  “What did happen that night, Hugh? No one seems to know.…”

  “No time to talk aboot that now,” he interrupted her. “I got a lot to do.” He stepped backward, glancing over at Hank’s still body stretched out on the bed.

  “You look after Hank, an’ I’ll get the doctor to come by soon’s he can make it. I don’t reckon there’s much you can do for the ol’ boy till he comes back to life again.”

  “What happened to him, Hugh? What was he doing tonight when I supposed he was asleep?”

  “Huntin’ down rustlers … an’ he got a bullet in his chest.”

  “Rustlers?” Peggy’s eyes opened wide with astonishment again. “We haven’t had trouble with rustlers for a long time.”

  “Mebby not. But there’s a gang workin’ hereaboots now, an’ old Hank got wise to ’em somehow. He went out by hisse’f, the danged old he-wolf, an’ that’s what he got for his trouble. I’m gonna clean that mess up too,” he added grimly, “if I can stay off the business end of a lynch rope long enough to nose aroun’ some.”

  “Be careful, Hugh. Promise me you’ll be careful.” Peggy’s eyes filled with tears suddenly. Her thin face was convulsed with fear. She flung herself forward in his arms and clung to him.

  He patted her shoulder awkwardly, comforted her as he had done when she was a stringy long-legged kid in pigtails and had stuck a mesquite thorn in her bare foot.

  “Don’t cry, Sis. Ever’thing’s gonna be jest fine. I swear it is. I’m stoppin’ by the Bar L fust to clear up a coupla things … then I’ll high-tail it to Chapparell and ’tend to gettin’ Charlie out of jail.”

  “I’m glad you’re going to the Bar L. I’m sure Henry will help. Oh, I forgot. He knows you, Hugh. He told me so tonight. About two years ago in Mexico … that must have been just before he came here and bought the Bar L. He said you and he were pretty good friends … that you knew you could never return home and that you’d sort of asked him to look after things here … the Triangle A … and me.”

  The Kid put both his hands on Peggy’s shoulders and stared over her head. He muttered, “Yeh. I’m beginnin’ to remember. Henry Pelham, huh? Name sounded familiar when I fust heard it.”

  “If you were friends in Mexico, he’ll surely help you now.”

  “Friends?” The Rio Kid laughed harshly. He held Peggy away from him to look into her eyes. “So that’s the way he talked you over … to jilt Charlie? By claimin’ he was a friend of mine, an’ hintin’, I reckon, that I’d want you to take up with him?”

  “Well … yes. I suppose I was influenced …”

  The Kid dropped his hands from her shoulders. There was an ugly scowl on his face. “I’ve got things to say to Henry Pelham, right enough. Things that won’t wait no longer.” He turned on his heel and strode away.