She approached Sidway, in so poignant a joy and surety of her power to bestow happiness, that his pale and working face did not deter her from prolonging his torture a little longer.

  “Lance, if I don’t put on my slippers I won’t be so tall, and I can look up to you better. See!” And dropping them she stepped closer, to look up into his eyes.

  He stood like a statue, his gaze somber and unbelieving. But her glance quickly descended to his vest, where her hands, quivering almost imperceptibly, touched the frayed edge, and a spot that lacked a button. She was not quite ready yet to let him read what her eyes would surely say.

  “Cowboy, you need someone to look after you,” she went on, sweetly. “Did you know I could make buttonholes and sew on buttons?”

  “No. I couldn’t imagine it,” he returned hoarsely. “Did you learn that in college?”

  “Mother taught me.... I can mend socks, too. And make my own clothes, and I know how to cook and bake, too.”

  “You’re — a — remarkably accomplished — young lady.”

  “Thank you. I wondered if you had found it out.... Are you interested in my waiting for you — in your room?”

  Evidently it was utterly impossible for Lance to answer that. He divined something his intelligence repudiated.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I forgot. You and Dad and Nels spoiled my plot. Let’s skip it.”

  She began to slide her gold-tan hands up the edges of his vest, and her eyes traveled with them. Then, in a flash, her arms encircled his neck, and she gave him her eyes, with all her heart and soul in them.

  “I have much to thank you for,” she said, eloquently. “But even more than for my very life. I want to thank you for what you told Dad just now.”

  “Madge, please — don’t,” he rejoined, unsteadily. “You’re excited again.... I don’t want thanks.”

  “Wrong again, darl... No, darling is out. I must find another word.... Lance, I’m not excited. Just in a transport,” and her hands slipped by one another, so that in another moment her arms were clasping his neck.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I might have fallen in love with you at first sight — that day at the campus in L. A.?”

  “It — certainly — didn’t!” he gasped.

  “Well, I did. And then wondering where you were, and if I could find you again, and then discovering you here where we have misunderstood each other and fought like cat and dog — all this while, Lance, it’s grown worse, until I’m dying more for you than you are for me.”

  “Madge — for God’s sake — for my sake... .”

  “It’s for all our sakes, but mine mostly. Lance, I need more than you need.... Aren’t you going to hug me? Can’t you see the real thing? Can’t you take it?”

  “No!... Gene — Nels, get her away,” he implored, hoarsely, his face the hue of ashes. “She is getting even with me. It’s her revenge.... She’s acting.”

  “Son, a moment or so ago you very chivalrously championed this girl,” declared Stewart, with a rare smile. “I’ve a hunch she’s serious.”

  “Wal, Lance, I reckon you better believe her — an’ take it — an’ hug her all to oncet,” drawled Nels, supremely nonchalant. “Com-mon, Gene.” The two walked out, but Madge was beyond noticing.

  “Listen, Lance,” she began again, lifting her lips until they were close to his. “If I should happen to throw another party — a wedding party, for instance — there would not be any punch. And....”

  “Wait! Give me — a break!” he panted, his arms encircling her, and almost crushing the breath out of her.

  “I’m giving you — a break,” she whispered. “Only — don’t break — my ribs.” She could no longer endure the beseeching incredulous love light in his eyes, and hastened to her surrender.

  She felt her willful spirit fading away in a deep and overpowering rapture, and the kiss she gave him almost prevented one last expression of her mischievous self.

  “Sweetheart. You know I swore I’d have Umpqua,” she said, softly, at his lips.

  He drew back startled, with questioning eyes. “Darling, you couldn’t be — so — so,” he replied, huskily... “just to make me give you Umpqua?”

  “But that oughtn’t be so hard — giving Umpqua — along with yourself,” she whispered, tremulously, and as she blindly sought his lips again, it seemed the end of their travail.

  “Majesty!... You can have him — and me forever,” he said, with incredulous bliss. “I adored you... my heart was broken. ... But I’d live it all over again — for this!”

  THE END

  Knights of the Range

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER I

  COLONEL LEE RIPPLE sat on the porch of his ranchhouse in astern New Mexico, facing that famous fan-shaped scene that lay between the great timbered escarpments stretching down over the green and grey terraces to the vast rolling plain below, through which the Old Trail followed the shining way of the Cimarron into the purple distance.

  It was the grandest scene in all New Mexico, and the sad due eyes of the cattle baron lingered long there before shifting round to the west, where a splendour of range empire unfolded to his gaze. A million acres swept and waved on all sides to the silver slopes, and these in turn sheered up to the black-belted mountains with their snowy peaks.

  “Wal, Kurnel, I heahed you, shore, but I’d like to get oot of takin’ you serious,” said Britt, the rancher’s foreman, who sat on the porch steps.

  “Cap, you must take me seriously,” replied Ripple, in slow, grave speech. “Another spell with my heart like this last one fill kill me.”

  “Aw, I cain’t believe it,” rejoined Britt, stubbornly, despite he something convincing in his employer’s tone and look.

  “I know, Cap. I thought this second attack would do for me. Ay heart has acted queer for a long time. But that spell in San Antonio was the first bad one. I consulted a doctor. He told ne to make my will and get ready. But scared as I was, I didn’t obey. I went on to New Orleans after Holly, and fetched her home without tellin’ her aboot it. I just couldn’t tell her.”

  “No wonder, boss. Thet would have been plumb hard on he lass,” replied Britt, wagging his lean, hawk-like head. “You sent her to thet school when she was eight years old. An’ you vent to see her half a dozen times in these nine years she’s been gone. An’ when you was fetchin’ her heah to Don Carlos’ Rancho, the only home she ever had — to tell her you was aboot o die — Aw! thet would have been cruel!”

  “You’re right,” agreed the Colonel, bitterly, as he spread his hands with a hopeless gesture. “That mawnin’ when I met ter and told her I had come to take her home she was so happy, so radiant. I couldn’t kill her joy....But now, Britt, she must be told at once.”

  “Why, boss? You know how onsartin life is. Quien sabe? You might live long yet.”

  “Yes. It’s possible. But not probable. And I want her to make her choice while I am living.”

  “Choice of what, Kurnel, if I may make bold to ask?”

  “Whether or not she will live heah or go to her mother’s people in Santone.”

  “Holly will never leave Don Carlos’ Rancho,” said Britt quickly.

  “Did she say so?” asked Ripple, eagerly, his grey eyes full of soft warm light.

  “No. But I’d gamble on it. These few days Holly has been here she’s been plumb loco aboot the ranch. Why, she has been wild with joy. Boss, she’s like a freed bird. An’ she loves it all, particular the hawses. She’s crazy aboot hawses. An’ she’s never been in a saddle yet. Think of thet, Lee Ripple. Heah’s a girl of sixteen, granddaughter of old Don Carlos, the greatest of all the old hawse-breedin’ dons — an’ she’s never straddled a hawse.”

  “I know — I know, Cap. Don’t rub it in. I always meant Holly to have all the West could offer. But first I wanted her to get an education. The years have slipped by.... So my lass loves horses! — What did she say?”

  “Wal, the lass has yore blood in her, same as thet of the Valverde. She asked me how many hawses we had. An’ when I told her aboot four hundred thet we knowed of she squealed with joy. Swore she’d ride every one of them.... Lord, I see my troubles. But I’ll teach Holly to ride. I shore won’t leave thet to these saddle rowdies.”

  “Britt, you make me hope,” returned the Colonel, feelingly, as he lay back in the great rocker. “I always wanted a son. But I never loved Holly the less for that.... If she lived on heah, and learned to run this ranch under your wise eye, and some day married one of these saddle rowdies — I could die happy.”

  “My Gawd, boss!” expostulated Britt, heatedly. “Why’d you ever send Holly away to make a fine lady oot of her if you wanted her to marry one of these firebrands?”

  “Cap, could Holly do better? I mean, if this lucky cowboy is one of the breed we know so well. Not a Texan! Holly is half Spanish, and you know Texans will be long forgettin’ the Alamo.... He must be of good family and have some little schoolin’. For the rest, I don’t care so much. Holly could make most any cowboy take his place in the makin’ of the West.... They are the salt of the earth, these wild range riders. Without them there would never have been this cattle business growin’ by leaps and bounds, destined to tame the frontier. You know, Britt, even better than I do. For five years you’ve handled these hard-ridin’, hard-drinkin’, hard-shootin’ devils of mine. And you have loved them.”

  “Wal, mebbe I haven’t loved them like I ought to have,” rejoined Britt, regretfully, surprised into feeling. “But, Kurnel, it just makes my blood run cold, to think of Holly alone on this big ranch.”

  “Cold! — Your blood should run swift and warm at the very thought. It will be wonderful. Holly looks Spanish, but she is American. She has her mother’s beauty. But my brains. I have no fear for her, Britt.... If she only chooses to stay!... With you to train Holly, teach her to run the ranch, watch over her — she would not be alone. I’m not afraid to risk it.”

  “But I am, Boss,” declared Britt, tragically. “I almost wish you hadn’t fetched her home.”

  “Nonsense, old timer. My girl has loved you all her life. It was you who nick-named her Holly. You danced her on your knee and helped teach her to walk. You can’t go back on her now. You must take my place as her Dad.”

  “Kurnel, I’ll do my damndest.... But lookin’ ahaid, in the light of this lovely lass growin’ up heah into a woman, I don’t like the times.”

  Colonel Ripple made a slight, violent gesture, as if a motive prompted by passion had been quenched by will.

  “Nor do I. That is somethin’ I have put off, and like this other must now be talked over. Yet the reason is simple.... Look there to the south, old timer. That is the grandest outlook in the West, if not in the whole world. Kit Carson sat right there and said so. Lucien Maxwell did the same, and you know his pride in his old Spanish grant and the beauty of his sixty square miles of ranch. St. Vrain tried to buy this ranch from Don Carlos. Chisum, Murphy, the Exersall Company, and that English outfit who bought the Three X’s — not one of these cattle kings has the West under his eye as I have. Not one of them has the protected grazing-lands.... Look down over the Old Trail and the Cimarron. Peaceful, lonely, eh. The Kiowas and Comanches are my friends. Look at the buffalo. All those black patches down there are buffalo.... And now look around to the west, Britt. No range like that in all this broad New Mexico. Look at the cattle. Do you remember when we drove in heah first? It seems long. But it’s only seven years. Seven years! They were heaven compared to the years of the war, and long before.... You know my story, Britt. How I came through heah in 1855 with a caravan on the way to Santa Fe. How I won Carlotta Valverde and took her back to Texas with me. How old Don Carlos cast her off and did not forgive her for many years.... Look at my herds of cattle dottin’ the range. Like the buffalo. Fifty thousand head, so you say, and half a thousand horses. I could sell ten thousand head — twenty thousand head and be rich.... What is wrong with the times, Britt?”

  “Wal, you ain’t told it all yet. Go on.”

  “Oh, I know what you’re driving at.... But listen, Cap. The war is long past. Texas has come through, and her cattle have built this empire. Just as the trappers did, the gold-seekers had their day, so had the freighters. The caravans are slowin’ up, Britt, and those that roll by down there on the Old Trail are loaded up with pioneers. A new day is dawnin’ — the day of the settled West.”

  “Shore. But a hell of a lot can happen in a day, Kurnel. Yore hope is father to yore belief.... This heah year of our Lawd seems fine an’ fair to you, Kurnel, ‘cause white men an’ red men alike, ootlaws an’ robbers, all the good an’ the bad of the plains air yore friends. As the house of Don Carlos was open to all, so has yore house been.... But I say, fer you if you live, an’ fer all of us who live heah, the hardest an’ bloodiest, the wust times air yet to come.”

  “Kit Carson said that years ago. But I never believed it. And his prophecy has not been verified.”

  “Yes, Kit swore thet, settin’ right heah where I set now.... Kurnel, I reckon men like you an’ Maxwell an’ Chisum know more aboot cows than anythin’ else. It’s men like me an’ Carson who have vision. We never was blinded by great possessions.”

  “Britt, I bow to that vision,” replied Ripple, solemnly. “I always feared, but I drove fear from my mind. Let us grant, then, that the worst times of the frontier are to come. Tell me what they are and how they will work.”

  “Wal, it’s as simple as when Carson seen through it. But only been long in comin’.... Fust, take the buffalo. The huntin’ of buffalo fer their hides has begun. We old Texans always feared this. It means such war with the Indians as has never been seen on this frontier. Yore friends the Utes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Pawnees, all the tribes will go on the war-path. Thet means tumble bloody times, for the settlers have come pourin’ oot West thick. Texas will see the wust of thet, because the buffalo on their rangin’ from south to north an’ back again air most on the Texas plains. The hide hunters will concentrate in the Pan Handle, or under the Llano Estacado or between the Brazos an’ the Rio Grande. An’ the plains Indians will fight to the death fer their meat. They live on buffalo. It will be a fight to the finish between the buffalo hunters an’ the Indian tribes. The Yankee army could not lick the red men. Not in a million years! Look at the Custer campaigns. I heahed thet Carson, an’ Buff Belmet, an’ other scouts have advised these army men to lay off the Indians. But they will blunder right on to be massacred.... The pioneers you talk aboot cain’t lick the Indians. An’ if the buffalo hunters don’t lick them this West will shore become unhealthy damn pronto.”

  “I gather that, Britt. All the same I’d say the hide-hunters will break the power of the allied tribes and drive them off the plains.”

  “My guess, too. When this hide-huntin’ movement gets goin’ strong there’ll be many thousands of hunters. An’ all keen, hard-fightin’ men, armed with heavy rifles an’ with wagon-loads of ammunition. They’ll do fer the Indians, I reckon. But it will be a hell of a fight with the chances not all agin the Indians.”

  “Agreed. We’ll pass, however, on to that future period when the red men’s power will be gone. What is the next catastrophe you predict?”

  “Wal, no less than the hey-day of the rustlers.”

  “Cattle thieves!” exclaimed the Colonel, contemptuously. “We’ve always had them, Britt. Texas before the Civil War had her cattle raids. Mexicans, Indians ran off cattle. And the white raider developed. You had him when you were trail drivin’ the herds up to Dodge an’ Abilene. But what did that ever amount to? Hardly any more than the beef every cattle outfit appropriates wherever it happens to camp. We lose some cattle heah, so the boys say, but not a tenth — not a hundredth of the yearly increase.”

  “Right, Kurnel, so far as you go,” drawled the foreman. “Listen, boss, an’ I’ll tell you how I figger. Durin’ the last year a lot of tight-lipped, cold-eyed strangers have rode into New Mexico. Mebbe you haven’t seen this much. But I have talked with men who have seen it an’ who didn’t like it. Jesse Chisum is one. Thet old Texan with his Jingle-bob brand has a far eye fer everythin’ aboot cattle. If you rode to San Marcos or Fort Union or Sumner, or over Pecos way to Roswell an’ Lincoln, you’d shore get a hunch. Wyomin’, Nebraska, West Kansas, East Colorado, an’ of course Texas, air sendin’ a good many riders oot our way. Riders thet don’t give names an’ don’t ask questions an’ don’t take kind to curious Westerners! Some of these may be what you called the cowboys — salt of the earth — but the most of them air bad. Thet is to say hawse-thieves, rustlers, bandits, desperadoes, the genuine bad men an’ genuine four-flushers, ootlaws, all of them, an’ thet ain’t countin’ the riff-raff from the East an’ the ruined rebels from the South.”

  “Britt, I’m not so blind as you think,” protested Colonel Ripple. “I’ve noticed somethin’ of what you say. However only what might be expected with this westward movement.”

  “It’s more than might be expected. New Mexico is as wild as Texas west of the Pecos. There is no law, except the law of the six-shooter. It has a bad reputation. Please observe, Kurnel, thet most of these pioneers keep right on travellin’. New Mexico will be the last of the states frontin’ on the Great Plains thet will be settled. This in spite of the finest grazin’ lands in the West.... Wal, heah is what’s goin’ to happen. Cattlemen like you an’ Chisum, followin’ in the footsteps of Maxwell an’ St. Vrain, air goin’ to grow powerful rich in cattle. In three years the Ripple brand will show on the sides of eighty thousand haid of cows. Think of thet! An’ thet ain’t countin’ what you sell. Wal, this will give rise to such rustlin’ of cattle as was never dreamed of before on the ranges. It inevitable. It will last ten years or more. You see this govern- ment buyin’ of beef fer Indians on the reservations, an’ thousands more thet must be counted in as time goes on, will furnish a market thet rustlers cain’t resist an’ cattlemen cain’t stop fer a long time. Then there’s the railroads. It ain’t no hell of a drive to Dodge from heah or Las Animas either. The longer the drive the shorer the market.... An’ there it is, Ripple, all in a nutshell.”