That stung Britt as the lash of a whip.

  “Shore, you —— —— lyin’ schemer! You play both ends against the middle. Two chances of gettin’ rid of the man you hate—the man you fear! You egg on thet gun-slinger Rankin to call Frayne oot. An’ thet fails—as shore as death it will fail—you’ll throw yore hatched deal on the table. Accuse Frayne of stealin’ Holly Ripple’s cattle! … Gawd Almighty, man, I wouldn’t be in yore boots fer a million!”

  McCoy grew red and furious under the Texan’s piercing tirade.

  “Britt, you’re a hell of a talker. But this deal is up to Frayne. He has been given two choices. He can meet Rankin, who’s over there at the post waitin’, an’ if he kills him, he can face our proofs of his rustlin’. Or he can fork his hoss an’ leave the country.”

  “Renn Frayne will never leave heah,” replied Britt, white-faced with resigned finality, and he turned to Frayne.

  “Cap, I’ve known all along I’d have to meet Rankin,” said Frayne, calmly. “I’ll do it now. Afterwards….”

  Holly’s paralyzing emotions gave way to a terror that released her. She slipped through the poles of the fence. She ran up the slant. Ann’s scream and the cowboys’ excited shouts only lent wings to her feet. Frayne wheeled to see her. The marble relentlessness of his face changed to living color.

  “Renn!” cried Holly, wildly, and flung her arms around his neck. A madness possessed her. It was as if the agony of loss had fallen upon her even as she enveloped his flesh with all of mortal passion. “Renn! … You can’t go!—I love you! … I’d die if—if … Come…. Take me away—from this horrible West…. I’ll go to the end of the world—with you!”

  Frayne clasped her close, drawing her head to his breast, and bent over her. “You poor child!—Oh, Holly, I tried to spare you this.”

  His look, his sudden powerful embrace, the great lift of his heart against her bosom, his tender sorrowful words—these seemed to pierce and burn into the very core of Holly’s being. He was hers. He loved her. In a rapture that bordered upon loss of consciousness Holly quivered there in his arms. A tremendous storm seemed gathering within her—a whirling maelstrom of thought which love kept from bursting. Then she heard Frayne’s voice, as if far away.

  “Gentlemen, I shall not meet Rankin…. As for McCoy’s charge—I am innocent. I demand a fair trial.”

  Holly’s stunned faculties suddenly split like a cloud riven by lightning. Shame leaped with a bursting gush of hot blood. This was the crucial moment toward which she had been cruelly dragged through endless days and nights, cast into the depths and anon lifted up.

  “Oh, Renn,” she cried, drawing away, “what is it that I have done?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  BRITT broke out of his stupefaction to approach them. What indeed had Holly done? Saved or wrecked Frayne! But like the true wonderful girl of generous heart she was she had showed the range what Renn Frayne meant to her.

  “Holly, this heah is a man’s deal,” spoke up Britt, huskily, as he reached her. “You leave it to ——”

  She silenced him with a flash of her hand.

  “Forgive me, Renn,” she implored, gazing up at him entreatingly. “I was beside myself. I understand now…. I beg of you don’t let me—or my love—hamper you in the least. I trust you. I know you…. Meet these men—as if you had never seen me.”

  “Holly,” he choked, as the slackness, the softness passed out of him. For this girl he would have foresworn the hard manhood of the West, and have accepted a stigma without shame and without bitterness. But he could not speak a word of the passion that consumed him.

  Holly, still clinging to Frayne’s hand, turned to the gaping cattlemen. Britt stared spellbound. Her loveliness, her race had never shone as then. Out of her proud white face blazed eyes so great, so black, so magnificent that they appeared more than human, flames of a spirit stronger than terror or death.

  “Hayward, and all of you, listen…. Renn Frayne has been hounded for years by such men as this Rankin. It made him an outlaw. I doubt if he has ever been really bad. But that would not matter to me, since now he is honest. I love him and I am going to marry him. Weigh well your antagonism in this hour. We will never forgive more of your biased opinions. Don Carlos’ Rancho stands or falls by this man…. Sewall McCoy is a contemptible dog. He wanted to marry me. He threatened me with an alliance with Russ Slaughter if I refused him. This trumped-up charge against Frayne is not only prompted by jealousy and revenge, but by fear! He is afraid of Frayne. Because, gentlemen, McCoy is the dark horse in this range mystery. He is the rustler baron.”

  “You white-faced, half-breed slut,” burst out McCoy, in ungovernable rage.

  “Silence!” yelled Britt, leaping out to crouch. “Another word an’ I’ll kill you!—You dealt this deal. Now, by Gawd, you’ll play oot yore hand.”

  “Hold, Britt!—Steady now,” shouted Clements, plainly alive to an unexpected development in the situation. “We’ll all play out our hands in this game…. Miss Ripple, you use strong words. We can make allowance for your—your—for a most tryin’ ordeal. But unless you are beside yourself with fury—you will be called on to prove ——”

  “Clements,” interrupted Holly, “you are hopelessly in the toils of this rustler who hires poor cowboys to steal for him…. Do you think that I would lie? Mr. Clements, I have no doubt that in less than an hour you will be put to the painful ordeal of explaining your connection with Sewall McCoy.”

  “Thet’ll do, Holly,” spoke up Britt, on edge with the prolongation of this scene. “Go home…. Ann, take Holly home.”

  Ann came forward hastily while Holly turned to Frayne.

  “Renn, I’ll expect you up at the house soon,” she said, coolly, with dark proud eyes upon him. Frayne could not answer. Then as Ann led Holly out of the barn door they were confronted by a tall cowboy.

  “Brazos!” cried Holly, in amaze and gladness. “Where have you been?”

  “Heah,” he rang out.

  “Since when? Did you ——”

  Britt moved to get a good look at Brazos, and did not marvel that Holly faltered.

  “I rid in ahaid of the ootfit. Seen yu. An’ I follered yu. I been heah all the time.”

  “Oh, I’m so—so glad,” returned Holly, hurriedly, strangely faltering. Did she take Brazos’ white face and terrible eyes as indications of unutterable reproach? Britt did not so interpret Brazos’ mien. There had been hell to pay out there on the range and would be more here. Ann led Holly away with the other girls, who were Mexicans.

  “Renn, I’ll go with yu,” drawled Brazos. “I shore want to see you bore thet —— —— beady-eyed little cockroach!”

  “You stay heah, Brazos,” ordered Britt. “Don’t let a single man leave this barn.”

  “Britt, I’ll see to thet,” spoke up Clements, darkly. “Reckon I’d like to see Frayne come back. Otherwise we might never find out who this shady rustler is. Haw! Haw!”

  “Thet’ll do, Clements,” yelled Brazos. “Yu’ll hev hell swallerin’ what yu’ve said already. Yu’re on the wrong side, as yu’ll larn damn pronto.”

  Britt had to run to keep up with Frayne’s swift strides, and as he kept pace with the outlaw, he revolved in mind a few pertinent things to say.

  “Renn, put Holly oot of yore mind,” was the first one.

  “No, by God! Do you think any man could beat me to a gun when I remember how she looked—what she said?”

  “Wal, I reckon not…. Loosen yore belt a little…. An’ roll thet gun a few times…. Ah-huh. An’ stick it back sorta light, so it’ll come oot quicker’n greased lightnin’…. Will this Rankin expect you?”

  “Hardly. He’s got me wrong. I could have killed him back in Kansas, but I let him bluff me. He was half drunk. McCoy, of course, has his axe to grind and has helped Rankin along in his figuring me. McCoy has reason to know me. But he thinks Holly has made me a four-flush!”

  “Wal, I’m damn glad there’s goin’ to be some action. I’m shore seein’ red. An’ say, wasn’t Holly jest grand? Did she lay it into Clements an’ McCoy? Whew! … Renn, hev you been practicin’ lately?”

  “Day and night, Old Timer. I saw this coming.”

  “You’ll hev to marry Holly now.”

  “Heavens yes!” Frayne threw up his head in exultation. “She disgraced herself—ruined herself! Before them all!—For me! O God, if I could only have gone away!”

  “Shore, if you could hev,” agreed the wily Britt. “As it is, though, you’ve got to stay heah an’ prove Holly wasn’t lyin’…. An’ think, Renn, pretty pronto, when this mess is over you’ll be goin’ up to the house to see her. An’ Holly will be waitin’—all alone. Withoot any pryin’ eyes aboot. She was only a tortured girl, fust off, back there at the barn, an’ then when thet rotten ootfit made her mad, she was a queen. But, cowboy, this next time you meet her! All thet beauty! All thet blazin’ fire—thet sweet love which can never get enough of you—all in yore arms!—Gawd, boy, do you know yore good fortune?”

  “Yes, Cap, I know it. No man on earth could know so well!”

  “Renn, is this Rankin the real thing?”

  “Mean. A scaly rattlesnake. Dangerous if he gets the drop. That’s all.”

  They reached the village. Frayne slowed his stride and kept to the middle of the road. A Mexican in a big straw sombrero passed carrying two pails of water, suspended from a pole across his shoulders. Some Indians lounged in front of the post. Two dusty horses stood haltered to the hitching-rail opposite the entrance to the saloon. For the rest the wide street appeared deserted. Britt saw the crudely painted Mexican designs upon the white-washed adobe walls.

  Frayne squared himself before the stained wooden doors, then with a powerful thrust opened them to leap inside. Britt popped in as quickly and sheered to one side. The big saloon smelled of stale rum. Britt’s flashing eye gathered in four men before he came to the little man he knew was Rankin. Mean! A scaly rattlesnake! He stood with his back to the bar, his arms stretched along its edge, a position no great gunman would ever have risked while expecting a meeting with a foe.

  Britt saw him stiffen in that position. A sombrero shaded his eyes, and that was a circumstance against Frayne, if he needed to read his adversary’s intent. But Frayne did not require that. Britt knew that the instant either of Rankin’s outstretched hands moved Frayne would be drawing.

  The only movement in the saloon was a quick swerve of the bar-tender to dodge out of line and then run to the far end of the bar.

  “Rankin,” called Frayne, in cold expectation.

  “Howdy. Who air you?” rejoined the other, gruffly.

  “You know me. Frayne.”

  “Aho…. Frayne, eh?—Wal, I kind of give you up. Fact is I didn’t expect you much…. Wanta tip a bottle with me?”

  “No.”

  “I see. Heerd you’d sworn off drinkin’.—Air yu thinkin’ of ridin’ away from Don Carlos’ Rancho?”

  “No.”

  “Stayin’ on, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wal, didn’t Hayward invite you to leave the country?”

  “He did.”

  “An’ didn’t McCoy tell you thet I said fer you to get out?”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Frayne, I’ll give you till sundown to leave this range,” yelled Rankin, stridently. Anger had succeeded to surprise, but there was no sign of fear in the man. He had grown cunningly conservant of action, increasingly taut of frame. His right hand began to quiver.

  “Did I leave Dodge after I shot your stick-fingered pard?” taunted Frayne.

  Rankin was game, but he betrayed that he had gotten himself not only into a disadvantageous posture, but into the certainty that he had to meet Frayne alone. Nevertheless he accepted it. He actually bristled. Britt saw his sombrero rise slightly above his opaque formidable eyes. Swift as light then all his frame jerked in downward action.

  Frayne’s draw was too quick for Britt’s sight. But he saw the red spurt—the black burst—then heard the boom.

  Rankin’s terrific violence sustained a sudden shock. He sagged inward against the bar. His head dropped so that the wide sombrero hid his face. And his hand fell away from his half-drawn gun. A groan rumbled out of him. He lodged there, a shrunken figure, strangely bereft of his sinister menace.

  Britt was not loquacious on the march back to the barn. Nor did he allow either the raw gust of passion or the strong feeling of elation and relief to clog his thinking machine. The situation required more than he believed any one man could give it. Moreover he was not in a conciliatory mood. Brazos would run amuck. McCoy did not stand the slightest chance of getting away with his life. Obviously the thing to do was to establish proofs of Frayne’s innocence and McCoy’s guilt in front of those obsessed cattlemen, and then avoid a general pitched battle. This seemed unlikely. McCoy had a number of cowboys with him and there were half a dozen with the cattlemen. As Britt remembered it Holly’s four remaining cowboys were Jim, Skylark, Stinger and Gaines. What had become of Joe Doane and Rebel?

  “Frayne, do yu reckon it’ll ever get as far as McCoy’s charge against you?”

  “Never. His trump card is Russ Slaughter. And I’ve a hunch Slaughter will never get here.”

  “Brazos!”

  “Yes. He’s got something up his sleeve.”

  “Look!—Down the lane!—Frayne, there’s the ootfit. Shore thet must be what makes Brazos so cocky.”

  “It’s likely. Let’s rustle along. They’re coming at a trot, pack-horses an’ all. They might start a fight pronto.”

  Britt jogged along behind Frayne. They cut short across the field to the barn, coming through the fence near the door. The relative positions of the several groups had not altered much. McCoy sat sullenly aside from his cowboys. The cattlemen ceased a colloquy at Frayne’s sudden appearance on the runway. Britt whispered to Jim: “Get back an’ be ready fer anythin’.”

  “Heah yu air, pard!” rang out Brazos, in his lusty piercing tenor. “These heah conscientious cowmen never expected yu back atall. But I knowed yu’d come.”

  McCoy rose to his feet, livid of face, beginning to manifest a subtle change of front. Brazos would have been disconcerting even to an honest man.

  “Frayne, you backed out of meetin’ him?” he queried, harshly.

  The answer he got from Frayne was a piercing deadly stare. But Britt thought it well to launch a retort.

  “McCoy, is yore beady-eyed gun-slinger the best you can trot oot?”

  “Dead?” gasped McCoy.

  “Bored plumb center. Hell, he didn’t have a chance.”

  Brazos reacted to that with a ringing laugh. He dominated the several groups, even Britt and Frayne backing from his restless front. His gun swung low in its sheath. He had a second weapon stuck into his hip pocket of his jeans. Britt smelled gun-powder on him; then made the observation that his belt was half emptied of shells. All the characteristic red had faded from his face and his pallor enhanced the smear of blood under his clustering hair.

  Clements coughed nervously and advanced a step.

  “McCoy, press your charge now against Frayne, an’ produce your proofs. This deal will begin to look queer if you don’t.”

  “Queer eh?” sneered McCoy. “Look out how queer you make it. I told you Slaughter has the proofs.”

  “But you told us you knew them,” protested Clements, dubiously.

  “Will you stop raggin’ me an’ wait till Slaughter gets here?” yelled McCoy.

  Brazos leaped out in front of them all with a gun in each hand.

  “Wal, heah comes Slaughter…. Don’t nobody move a finger…. Yu McCoy hombres, I got eyes in the back of my haid. Somebody is gonna get bored.”

  Britt saw Brazos’ outfit turning from the lane into the barn-yard. Jackson was on foot leading a pack-animal with what looked like a man hanging face and feet downward from the saddle. Santone, Cherokee, Tex and Mex Southard, rode behind the little negro; and if ever Britt saw a quartet that had been in a fight he saw it then. Black, ragged, dusty, bloody-scarfed, they resembled a crew of pirates. Behind rode Bluegrass, his face like a white splotch, reeling in his saddle.

  When this procession neared the runway leading up to the barn door Britt’s startled gaze confirmed the first glances at that object over Jackson’s saddle. It was a dead man, whose blood dripped down upon the flopping hands that dragged in the dirt.

  “Pile off, fellars,” called Brazos. “An’ come heah…. Jack, lead thet cayuse up.”

  The negro complied. Britt stared in sickening excitement. He could not see the head of the dead man, for that hung on the other side of the horse. But he knew who it was.

  “Dump him off, Jack,” ordered Brazos.

  The negro laid hold of the man’s hips and boosted him up so that he slid out of the saddle, to flop suddenly upon the barn floor, spattering blood in all directions. When the horse got out of line Britt confirmed his suspicion as to the dead man. Russ Slaughter presented a hideous spectacle.

  “Look, all of yu,” pealed the ruthless showman. “But keep back. Take a good look, yu cowboys an’ cowmen, so yu’ll see what can happen to a cattle-thief…. See! He’s stretched hemp!—This rustlin’ gentleman was shot fust, an’ hanged alive, then pumped full of lead!”

  In the horrified silence that transfixed the onlookers Brazos leaped over the dead man to align the ghastly McCoy with his several wooden-faced cowboys.

  “Heah, McCoy, heah’s yore Russ Slaughter,” went on Brazos, his voice gaining the high-tensioned ring of cold steel. “He had proofs. Aw, he shore hed. But of yore rotten deals with him! Russ must hev been a hombre who didn’t trust yu or his memory. He jotted down every steer, every calf—every dollar. All in a little book. An’ I got thet book!”

  Brazos grew terrible in his cold-blooded fury. His young clear-cut face had the look of an avenging god.

  “Thet’ll be aboot all fer yu, McCoy,” he hissed. “Heah’s fer yore insult to Holly Ripple!” One gun crashed. McCoy, with an awful scream, spasmodically clapped his hands to his abdomen. “An’ heah’s fer yore old grudge an’ dirty deal to my pard, Renn Frayne!” The second gun crashed. McCoy sank behind the cloud of smoke. Brazos leaped through that to present his smoking guns at McCoy’s men. “Get a move on. Pronto! If yu ever meet a Ripple cow-hand again go fer yore guns!”