“Miller, Henderson, Sprague — all big cattlemen,” returned Bodkin. “Inskip was one — but he quit.”

  “Ahuh. An’ when does this ootflt aim to settle yore appointment — an’ also yore — hash?”

  “They meet to-morrow night.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Ha! Ha!” laughed Brazos mirthlessly.

  “Say, what’s so funny about thet?”

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

  “Yes, I will, cowboy. Where?” answered Bilyen soberly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Yes, an’ what else, cowboy?”

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

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

  “Ump-umm. Don’t talk so much, Hank. Let’s go all over the ground.”

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

  “There! My hunch was true.”

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

  “Shore.”

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

  “So will I, Hank,” rejoined Brazos ponderingly. “Get’ me some little sticks so I can measure this track.”

  “How you figure her part in this?”

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

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

  “While the girl waited heah under this tree, nervous an’ sick.”

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

  “Brazos, who’s behind all this?”

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

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

  “Open up heah!” he shouted.

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

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

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

  “It’s that cowboy, Brazos Keene,” spoke up one of the men.

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

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

  “Go ahaid, Brazos,” interposed Inskip dryly..

  “But the intrusion of a drunken cowboy!” protested Surface.

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

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

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

  Brazos let that sink in.

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

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

  CHAPTER 6

  AS THE TRAIN whistled for Las Animas the conductor observed Brazos Keene buckling a heavy gun belt around his slim ‘waist.

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

  “Howdy, Hank,” drawled Brazos. “Kinda like old times to see yu packin’ thet gun.”

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

  “How about things heah?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I reckon it’s significant,” declared Neece soberly.

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

  “Yu don’t say? Wal!”

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

  “Ahuh. Wal, thet is a hunch. Rustle my hawss, Hank. I’m ridin’ to town.”

  Henderson received Brazos with veiled surprise.

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

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

  “Do yu know Jack Sain?”

  “By sight only.”

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

  “Very well. That is recommendation enough. Send him in.”

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

  “Is that any business of yours?”

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

  “So that is what Inskip meant?”

  “Will yu respect my confidence?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Wal, I reckon Raine Surface is another Sewall McCoy.”

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

  “Yes, it was an’ is.”

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

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

  “Us? And who are us?”

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

  “See here, Keene, I didn’t say — I didn’t intimate—”

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

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

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

  “Sorry — but I gotta see June,” announced Brazos with a deep breath.

  “Come in. I’ve been waiting. I ‘mew you’d come. Janis and Auntie have gone to bed,” she replied.

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

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

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

  “Oh, mercy! I feared — this,” whispered June unsteadily, and leaned shaking against him.

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

  “And it’s all because you want to help us,” she said eloquently.

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

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

  “Darlin’ June, I’m turrible unworthy of yu. But, I love yu. An’ I ask yu to — to be my wife.”

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

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

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

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

  “Mawnin’, Lura Surface. Air yu runnin’ away on me?” drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero.

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

  “Yu don’t say. Aw, I’m sorry. I been wantin’ to see yu powerful bad.”

  “Yes, you have,” she rejoined with scorn. “Why didn’t you, then? I wrote you. I wanted to ask you to — to help me. But you never wrote.”

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