In the beginning Rudd Fleming sternly set himself against the interest Connie aroused in him. Four years ago he had come West to get away from a woman—from all women. He’d settled in Dutch Springs mainly because he felt safe there—after looking over the field and satisfying himself that none of the thick-calved ranch girls in their mannish clothes were likely to attract him.

  And he had been safe for four years—until Connie Dawson came along. He hadn’t worried about the advent of a new schoolteacher. There had been a succession of teachers since he’d been in Dutch Springs. Tall females of indeterminate age, with stringy hair and buck teeth and a simpering way of talking. Connie was different. She was like no Dutch Springs schoolteacher had ever been before. She wore clothes that had simple style, and she was poised and quiet and she didn’t giggle. She reminded Rudd Fleming painfully of his reason for coming West. Her uncle, too, seemed a cultured man.

  Fleming finished adding up a long row of figures in a ledger and glanced at the clock. It was five minutes of four. He closed the ledger and slid off his stool, yawning and stretching. He saw Mrs. Dodds turn from her grille to watch him out of the corners of her eyes. He had an idea she’d noticed his restlessness this past week, but today he didn’t care. He ostentatiously prolonged his yawn, reaching out to get his old leather jacket from a nail above his desk.

  He slipped his arms into it and buttoned the two bottom buttons, got down a wide-brimmed white Stetson and set it on his head at a rakish angle. He sauntered out past Mrs. Dodds, pausing to say, “You may as well lock up and go on. There’s nothing more to do today.”

  She said, “Yes, Mr. Fleming,” and pursed her lips. She was a large woman with a placid, fat face and not a great deal of intelligence. She watched him go into the lobby and stop in front of the wide glass windows looking out onto the street. It was just four o’clock. She knew, without rancor, that he was waiting for the pretty new schoolteacher to come by from school. She got up heavily and began closing up the bank.

  Fleming stood in the lobby until he heard the first of the school children coming down the street. Then he settled his wide Stetson more firmly on his head and at slightly less of an angle and went out the front door onto the boardwalk. The blood was pulsing pleasantly in his veins and a sense of excitement gripped him. It was a good feeling. It had been too long since he had felt this way. Four years.

  He saw Connie coming down the walk and his eyes narrowed hungrily. She had a red bandanna tied around her blond head and she wore a light wool coat with her hands thrust deep into the slanting pockets. She stepped gracefully along on the splintered and rotting boardwalk, and her face was flushed by the sharp autumnal air.

  Rudd Fleming waited for her in the doorway. Three or four of the larger girls, ten years or so of age, were walking with the teacher. He saw their eyes grow big and round and secretively interested when they saw him waiting there. He set his strong jaw against the sure knowledge that by nighttime everyone in Dutch Springs would know he had waited at the bank to walk home with the teacher.

  Connie didn’t seem to mind either. She looked him straight in the eyes and smiled as she came opposite him, and slowed her swinging pace to let the children go on ahead. They did so, skipping along gaily and turning to look back over their shoulders. Rudd Fleming lifted his hat and took two steps to Connie’s side, asking, “Do you mind if I accompany you?”

  She wasn’t coy about it. He liked that. She said, “I’d like it, Mr. Fleming.”

  He said, “I’ve watched you going by after school each evening. I’m in the bank, you know.”

  Connie nodded. She said, “Yes. I know,” and managed to convey by her tone that of course she knew because his importance in Dutch Springs was such that one couldn’t very well help being aware of him.

  “You’re from Denver, aren’t you?”

  Connie said, “Yes.” They reached the end of the business block and stepped down into the dust to cross the street. Rudd Fleming took her arm and held it until they were across. He said, “Denver must be a very cosmopolitan city.”

  “Haven’t you been there?” Connie looked at him in surprise and with some thankfulness.

  “Only to pass through on my way down here from the East. Did you teach school there?”

  Connie shook her bandannaed head and told him frankly, “This is my first experience.”

  Rudd Fleming was surprised. “You don’t seem so young,” he protested. “That is—I don’t mean you’re old, of course, but—”

  “I’m twenty-five.” She knocked only seven years off her true age, watching him covertly to see if he believed her. He seemed to.

  “I haven’t had to work before,” she explained. “Until father died this summer. He was interested in gold mines.” She made her voice sound vague.

  He said, “That’s too bad, Miss Dawson. Do you like teaching?”

  “I think I will,” she said with real warmth. “The children here are nice—though I’m forever being afraid one of them will know more than I do, for I’m really an awful ignoramus,” she ended ruefully.

  They were off the boardwalk now, following a sandy footpath between the road and the widely scattered houses.

  Rudd Fleming said, “I don’t believe that, Miss Dawson. You’re probably being very modest. I’m sure Dutch Springs is lucky to have you.”

  Connie liked his voice, and she liked the firm feel of his hand on her arm. She couldn’t remember any man who had ever treated her like a lady before. She was being desperately careful with her words and with her voice, and she hated herself because she was fooling him. He was a swell fellow, all right. Too swell to be taken in by a woman like her. She wondered again what he was doing in Powder Valley. He didn’t belong there any more than she did, but for an entirely different reason. He was a gentleman.

  She said, “This is where I’m boarding,” and turned in at the sagging gate in front of a two-story unpainted frame house.

  He went up the path with her onto the porch. He took off his hat and said, “It’s been a great pleasure. I wonder—could you go driving with me Sunday?”

  She said, “Thank you. I’ll be pleased to accept your invitation,” and made her voice sound very formal without meeting his eyes.

  He said, “I’ll call for you Sunday afternoon,” and put on his hat and went down the path.

  Connie went in listlessly and went up the uncarpeted stairs to her room. The door next to hers came open while she was turning her knob. Daniel Deever looked out at her with an unpleasant smile on his face. He was collarless and in his shirtsleeves. The smell of liquor came to her when he hiccoughed loudly.

  He said, “I was watching out the window when you walked up. I’d say the Lord is smiling on our mission, Connie. Judge Prink’ll be mighty pleased.”

  “The judge,” she said between her teeth, “can go to hell.” She started into her room.

  Daniel Deever’s face grew stern. He caught her wrist and pulled her back. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’d better not be,” he snarled. “Remember, the rest of us are interested in your banker too. We’re all in this together. Don’t be getting any ideas.”

  She said, “We’re going driving Sunday afternoon.”

  “Good.” He released her wrist. “There’s nothing like the Sabbath and a pretty girl to soften a man’s heart.” He hiccoughed again and smirked at her. “The judge certainly picked a lay for us this time. Like lambs to be led to the slaughter. I’m invited to dinner by Mrs. Jenkins after church. And you’ve got nothing to kick about.” His voice hardened. “Look what I’ve got to work on and consider yourself thrice-blessed.”

  She said viciously, “I wish Mr. Fleming was an old goat with snag teeth and a nasty mind.” She went into her room and slammed the door loudly while a look of blank astonishment spread over Daniel Deever’s face.

  6

  After the noon meal on Saturday, Pat Stevens pushed his plate aside and asked Sally, “Do you mind driving into town alone after the groceries this afternoon?”

  Sally looked up with a quick little frown when she heard his tone. He had been moody and silent all through the meal, and she knew that something important was bothering Pat when he was that way.

  She said, “Of course I don’t mind.” And after a moment’s hesitation added, “Are you going to be busy out on the range?”

  “Nope.” Pat’s bronzed face was set in hard lines. “Ezra’s taking care of the work all right.” Without looking directly at his wife he went on to explain with too much casualness, “Thought I’d best drop in at the K Bar an’ see what’s got into Dock that he’s spendin’ so much time over there.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry, Pat. He says Mr. Crane is awfully nice to him.”

  “I don’t mind him stopping by after school every day, but when he slips off from Saturday work and streaks over there it’s time he and I had a little talk.”

  “Did Dock do that—today?”

  Pat Stevens nodded glumly. “Without sayin’ a word to Ezra or me.” He got up from the table and squared his big shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with Crane anyhow. Thought I’d sort of feel him out on maybe gettin’ the ranch for Ezra to take over. If it’s money he wants—” He paused expressively.

  “Oh yes, Pat. I’m glad you’re going to see him.”

  “I’ll harness the team to the surrey for you, an’ I’ll ride over. Might be I’ll drop into town later on an’ see you there. I been wanting to have a little talk with Judge Prink too.”

  His mild tone did not deceive Sally. She said, “You’re not going to blame the judge for Mr. Crane getting the K Bar, are you?”

  Pat smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Might be we’d talk about that.” He bent over Sally and kissed her cheek. “Don’t be worryin’ your pretty head about such things.” He strode out rapidly to harness the team for Sally, and she watched him go with a look of dismay on her face. She had a strange feeling that trouble was brewing in Powder Valley. She could always tell by the way Pat acted.

  As he rode toward the K Bar ranch a short time later, Pat Stevens made an honest effort to sort out and analyze the reasons that were sending him there. Dock, of course, needed to be disciplined for slipping off without doing the work his father had laid out for him on Saturday. Pat wasn’t a particularly stern parent, but he did believe a boy of Dock’s age should be required to perform certain tasks on the ranch, and up to this time he’d always found Dock eager to do his part. It wasn’t like the boy to evade work.

  But the irritation went deeper than that. Without ever having met the man, Pat had already conceived a violent dislike for his new neighbor on the south. It had begun, he knew, when Gilbert Crane took over the ranch under Ezra’s nose with what appeared to be Judge Prink’s connivance. And it had grown stronger through the following days when Dock came home late from school each evening with some glowing story about Crane, or about one of his hands named Gut-Luck Lasher, or about the drunkard named Timothy O’Connor.

  On principle, Pat Stevens disapproved of gunmen taking up residence in the Valley. From Dock’s descriptions of Gut-Luck, he knew the man was more of a gunman than a ranch hand. Few men wore their .45’s anymore in the Valley. They were simply regarded as excess weight. As sheriff, it was Pat’s job to watch out for a rannie who wore his gun in a fancy swiveled holster with the bottom cut out of it. And he disapproved of drunkenness. That was something they didn’t have much of in the Valley. Oh, the young punchers would come to town of a pay night and get tanked up sometimes, but no one paid much attention to that. Young fellows had always done that on pay nights.

  But a confirmed drunkard was another matter, and Pat had a hunch that that’s exactly what Timothy O’Connor was. He hadn’t met the Denver man yet, but there was plenty of talk about him in Dutch Springs and a lot of people wondered why Gilbert Crane had brought an old fellow like him out to work on a horse ranch.

  All in all, Pat felt there were plenty of legitimate reasons for the sheriff to drop in on the K Bar for a look-see. What he hated to admit to himself was that Dock’s sudden and intense interest in the ranch of Gilbert Crane sort of rankled. He hated to think he was jealous of his own son, but a father just naturally hopes his boy will look up to him more than to any other man.

  And Dock had always idolized his father. Pat had come to sort of expect it, and it was a rude shock to him to have his son suddenly turn from him to an utter stranger as Dock had turned to Gilbert Crane.

  Back of it all, sort of hazily in the background, was the fat and somehow sinister figure of J. Worthington Prink. Pat didn’t think of him as being sinister. All he knew was that the fat judge had rubbed him the wrong way ever since he came to Dutch Springs. It was more of an instinctive feeling than anything else. Nothing he could put his finger on. Other people liked the affable fat man, but Pat mistrusted him. Maybe it was because he had gone out of his way to win the sheriff over. Pat always mistrusted a man who seemed too anxious to please. He always figured an honest man could afford to go straight along without bothering about whether people liked him or not—taking his chances on that.

  And for years Pat had been mistrusting all outsiders who came into the Valley. Maybe they were all right, but he always waited for them to prove themselves before he was ready to accept them.

  For, more than anything else, Pat Stevens was jealous of the security and the placid contentment of life in Powder Valley. They had fought for their valley, and men had died for it. They had built it up into what it was by their own efforts, and not a rancher in the Valley but had taken some part in those past struggles. People who came in now were sharing the security they had fought and died for, and it was natural to resent them.

  No, Pat couldn’t quite put his finger on the source of the uneasiness that had become a part of him during the past weeks, but he couldn’t rid himself of a strong feeling that the Valley faced another crisis. For one thing, there were too many newcomers drifting in all at once. It didn’t seem right. There was Gilbert Crane and his ill-assorted pair of ranch hands, and there was the new schoolteacher and her uncle. Pat hadn’t met Miss Dawson yet, but Deever had been pointed out to him on the street and he had heard the man was powerfully religious and sort of loud-mouthed about it. Pat had an idea that a man’s religion was something he ought to keep to himself and he didn’t particularly cotton to the looks of Daniel Deever. The man didn’t seem to have any business in the Valley, and that was enough to arouse suspicion of him.

  The K Bar ranch house was set down in the head of a small coulee where it ended abruptly against a steep slope. It was a small weatherbeaten frame house with a tangle of outhouses and corrals behind it.

  Pat didn’t see anybody about when he rode up in front of the house. He swung off and ground-tied his horse and went to the front door and knocked loudly. When he got no response, he went around toward the sheds and corrals in back.

  He heard Dock’s excited laughter before he saw anyone. Then he rounded the disused bunkhouse and saw a man seated on the top rail of a small horse pen. He knew the man was Gilbert Crane from Dock’s description of their new neighbor. He wore a flannel shirt with bright red and black checks, and a pair of trousers that were too tight in the hips for his girth, and spread out into wide legs at the bottom. He had leather cuffs on his wrists and a wide Stetson pushed back on his head, and he was chuckling at the antics of a black colt that Dock was trying to pet inside the railed enclosure.

  Pat strode up behind the rancher and put his foot on the bottom rail. He said mildly, “That’s a right nice lookin’ colt.”

  Startled by the unexpected voice, Crane turned to look down at him. Pat saw a florid, good-natured face and a pair of laughing gray eyes.

  Crane said, “Howdy, stranger,” and then he saw the silver star on Pat’s vest. His eyes narrowed for an instant, then he swung down from his perch and offered his hand.

  “You must be Sheriff Pat Stevens. Welcome to the K Bar, sheriff.”

  Pat took his hand and got a hearty grip from Crane. At the same moment he heard Dock gasp out, “Dad!” and then, in a more subdued tone, “Hiya, Dad.”

  Pat looked past Crane and said, “Hello, Dock.”

  Dock came toward him slowly, scuffing up the corral dust with his boots. When he was near the two men he began talking rapidly. “I’m sorry I slipped off over here this mornin’, Dad, but Gilbert had promised to let me pick out a colt for my own today an’ I didn’t want to miss out on it ’cause I’d a’ready seen this here black ’un an’ I knew I wanted him an’ if I didn’t get here maybe I’d be too late.” He drew in a long breath and lifted wretched eyes to his father’s stern face.

  Pat asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  Dock hesitated, then admitted manfully, “’Cause I was afraid you wouldn’t let me if I told you.” Pat said, “You were right. Get your hawse and start ridin’ back to the ranch.”

  Dock hesitated, kicking the corral dust with the toe of his boot. “Kin I—take Black Lightnin’ back with me?”

  Pat said, “No.”

  “Oh, see here, Mr. Stevens,” Crane interposed jovially. “I gave the colt to the lad fair and square. Belongs to him now. I’d say he can do what he pleases with it.”

  Pat said, “I’ll furnish my boy with his riding stock when I figure he needs it.” His voice was cold and inflexible. “Get to ridin’, Dock.”

  The lad swallowed hard at a lump in his throat. He turned his head miserably when the colt whinnied softly and sidled up toward him on its long legs. He put out his hand to touch the colt’s soft muzzle, and then turned away stiffly and went out the gate.

  “That’s a mighty fine colt, Stevens,” Crane told him. “Half Morgan out of a Mexican mare. Make a real piece of riding flesh for the boy when he grows up. Don’t pick up a colt with that blood in his veins every day.”