“But you and Hettie, and Marvie, too, make her think I’m a million times better than I am,” groaned Ben.

  “Say, how’n ‘ell could we do that?” flashed Nevada, showing, as often, how easy it was to strike fire from him.

  “I’ll bet you-all are driving Ina crazy about me — same as you’re driving me crazy about her.”

  “Nix. You, anyhow, was crazy before. Ben, what you an’ Ina need to do is to get off some lonesome place in the moonlight—”

  “Hold your tongue,” shouted Ben, frantically. “Can’t you understand it wouldn’t be square or honourable for me to disgrace Ina? I’m an outcast. And they’re liable to make me an outlaw yet.”

  “Shore. Same as your pard, huh?” exclaimed Nevada, bitterly.

  “Oh, say, my friend! Don’t misconstrue my words. That talk about you never influenced me. I don’t care a damn what you were, Nevada. It’s what you are to me — and that’s the finest and noblest of pards.”

  “Thanks,” replied Nevada, lifting his head. “Shore I take it I am your pard, though I shy on the noble stuff. An’ that’s why I gotta talk. I was sayin’ you an’ Ina need to get off in the moonshine somewhere, an’ run into each other’s arms, an’ stick there for some hours more or less — anyhow, till you discover you cain’t live without each other.”

  CHAPTER XI

  THE SECOND NIGHT after Nevada’s return, Ben, sitting up late watching the moon, yielding to dreams of hopeless fulfilment, heard a faint distant clip-clop of trotting horses on the hard trail down by the lake.

  Riders were approaching from the direction of the Blaine ranch. As the hour was not one to expect visitors or travellers, Ben rather anxiously picked up his rifle and hurried out through the trees to the edge of the bluff. The night was almost as light as day. A full moon soared high in the rich, dark sky; the vast basin appeared boundless, with glistening white bands of sand surrounding the silver lake.

  Two horsemen were approaching. They did not, however, keep to the trail that turned the corner of the bluff and climbed the west side to Ben’s cabin. Ben decided that he would intercept them, and gliding down the slope he soon reached the zone of huge rocks that had rolled from above. He stole cautiously along, keeping in the shadows, wonderingly curious. Who were these riders? Why did they leave the trail, apparently to approach his cabin from the rear? The sound of hoof-beats gave place to footsteps, light and pattering on the gravelly ground. Presently Ben saw a slight dark form come from out of shadow into the moonlight. A boy! It was no other than Marvie Blaine.

  Ben’s suppressed excitement changed to amaze and relief. He strode out into the moonlight.

  “Hands up!” he ordered, in a deep gruff voice.

  Marvie jumped like a startled jack rabbit, and his hands shot up above his head.

  “Aw — mister!” gasped Marvie. “I — I won’t hurt — you!”

  “Meet rustler Bill Hall. Money or your life!” replied Ben, fiercely.

  The lad made a grotesque figure, shaking now with horror, his face white in the moonlight.

  “Only got — two dollars,” he gulped hoarsely.

  Ben lowered the rifle. It would have been fun to continue the deception. But Ben was strung like a whipcord. Who was Marvie’s companion?

  “Son, you can keep your two dollars,” said Ben. “What’re you doing out here? Who is with you?”

  Marvie nearly collapsed. “Aw!... Aw!... It’s Ben! Omilord! how you — scared me!... You oughtn’t h’done that. I might have shot you.”

  “Who’s with you?” demanded Ben sternly ignoring Marvie’s remarkable exclamation.

  “Ina, of course,” replied the lad.

  “Your sister?” whispered Ben.

  “Sure. Who’d you think? Ketch me guidin’ any cowboys over here after night. An’ say, Ben, Ina hired me to fetch her. What you think of that? Sure I’d have fetched her for nothin’, but I saw what a chance I had. Gave me some things she had I wanted bad. An’ five dollars for new fishin’ tackle!”

  “You young scoundrel! Letting her come way out here, alone, in wild country like this!”

  “Lettin’ her? Say, you wake up,” retorted Marvie. “She made me come. Swore she’d come alone if I didn’t.”

  “But — what on earth for?” queried Ben, now in amaze and bewilderment.

  “She wanted to see you,” replied Marvie. “I’ve been tryin’ to coax her to come over. But, no, she wouldn’t. Somethin’ changed her mind, Ben. Mebbe ‘cause of the two strangers who rode in this mornin’. I didn’t like their looks, blusterin’ an’ pryin’ around.”

  “Where is Ina?” asked Ben.

  “Down here, sittin’ on a rock. She didn’t want to go up to your cabin an’ be seen by anybody else. So I picked out this place. It was like apple pie, gettin’ over here. Cowboys all away. Dad and Setter away. I got my pony an’ Ina’s horse an’ kept them in the corral. Soon as ma went to bed we sneaked off, round the ranch, an’ hit the trail below. Bet we made the trip in an hour.... There’s Ina. I’ll take the horses over here a ways. An’, Ben, you needn’t be in a hurry.”

  Ben espied the horses first and then the girl’s slender form, dark against the moon-blanched background. His pulses throbbed so violently that they pained him. She was sitting on a high flat rock, and as his step crunched on the ground she turned. Next moment he was gazing up into her face, meeting her outstretched hands. And that moment seemed the sweetest and most compelling of his life.

  “Good evening, Ben.... He found you quickly. I’m glad to see you.”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he returned, breathing deeply. “Oh, it was easy. Marvie’s a brick. You can ride home with us. Dad will never know. So what’s there to scold about?”

  “You might — be caught,” he replied, unsteadily aware that she was giving his face a scrutiny not in keeping with her light words. Did he read aright her wonderful penetrating eyes, black as the shadows and as mysteriously full?

  “I don’t think I’d care sc much if I were.... Ben, you’re thin, haggard.” She withdrew a hand from his and touched his cheek. “Are you quite well?”

  “Well? Of course I’m well. Except just now I feel I could drop at your feet.... I’ve had six weeks’ very hard work, Ina. I’ve lost weight.”

  “I don’t know whether or not to believe you,” she considered sweetly, gravely studying him.

  “Did that fool Nevada say I was sick?”

  She gave a slight start. “Then he told you he saw me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “No. Nevada didn’t say you were sick — exactly. He—”

  “I don’t want to know what he said,” interrupted Ben, hastily. He must keep his head. He must impress upon her the madness of risking her father’s anger, as well as the peril of such a lonely ride at night. But it was not easy to think of words. She sat bare-headed, her knees level with his shoulder, and she leaned a little down. The cool wind blew strands of her hair across her brow. She was lovely. She seemed different somehow. He felt something he could not understand.

  “I like Nevada,” she said. “And if you consent I’ll let him come to see Hettie when she visits me.”

  “You’re having Hettie? That’s good of you, Ina,” he replied, in a warmth of surprise and pleasure.

  “Don’t thank me. Hettie’s a dear girl. You couldn’t blame any man for loving her.”

  “So Nevada loves my sister. I suspected it, even though I thought his talk just cowboy rant. Ina, he has told you.”

  “Ben, I didn’t say so,” she replied archly.

  “You’re strange to me. You take my breath,” he returned. “What chance on earth have I against you, let alone Nevada and my sister and Marvie, all in league to — to — ?”

  “Make my dad and your dad and everybody see you as the man we know you to be,” she interposed, with soft directness.

  It dawned upon Ben that she was as she had been the last few moments when they were together at Hettie’s — only now more formidable by reason of a strange power of confidence, of knowledge that he could not share. He divined it. And she did not make the slightest move to release the hand he held. Whereupon he tried to release it himself, but as he tried, a slight clinging pressure of warm palm irresistibly drove him to grasp it again, closer, tighter.

  “Ben, listen,” she began, seriously. “I had a good reason to risk coming over here. And if I chose to lie to you I’d let you think that was my excuse. But even before I knew what I found out to-day I was going to come, anyway.”

  “Ina!”

  “Yes. Terrible of me. Wouldn’t dad rave? And Mr. Popeyes, as Marvie calls Setter. Oh, I shudder to contemplate his jealous rage! But listen, Ben.... This morning two strangers rode into the ranch and made themselves at home. I could have avoided them, of course, as our camp is located quite a little way from the ranch. But naturally I was curious, and in the absence of dad and Mr. Setter and the cowboys, I took advantage of the opportunity to find out who they were. So I went over to the ranch and asked them who they were and what they wanted. They were rather evasive and, well, smart-alec, at first. One was a big, heavy man, ruddy-faced and pretty loud. His name was Judd. The other was tall and lanky, with thin face and big nose. He wore a sombrero that hid his eyes, but he didn’t inspire me with confidence. His name was Walker. They hailed from Redlands. Well, I asked them the second time, bluntly, what their business was there. Then the big fellow exhibited a silver shield and said he was a sheriff from Redlands. Walker was his deputy. They had come at urgent call from Setter, who claimed to represent the Hammell Stock Association. They had come prepared to arrest certain persons against whom Setter would produce evidence and charges. That’s all I could get out of them. But it was enough to worry me sick. So I got Marvie to come over with me.”

  “Certain persons must mean Nevada and Modoc and myself,” muttered Ben, darkly, in response to the sudden shift of his emotions.

  “Of course it means you. But I don’t believe dad had a thing to do with their coming. I tell you, Ben, he has something to think about. He’s so deeply mixed up that he doesn’t know whether he is riding or walking, as Bill Sneed said.... Now, Ben, these officers can’t arrest you just on Setter’s say-so, can they?”

  “They wouldn’t if they’re straight. But the worst of it is that Setter may have hatched up some trick, or found some charge against Modoc, or particularly accused Nevada of something he’d done long ago, before he came here. They could twist it around to involve me. Frankly, Ina, I don’t like the looks of it.”

  “But, Ben, if you’re prepared? Forewarned is forearmed, you know,” said Ina, in anxious earnestness.

  “Ina, it was like you to hurry over here to warn me. Thanks—”

  “I told you I didn’t come for that reason,” she interrupted. “I was coming, anyway.”

  “Oh, you were — and why?” replied Ben, constrainedly. The change in the direction of his thoughts had helped him toward self-control. But he had not let go of her hand! It seemed that he stood trembling on the edge of a precipice.

  “One thing at a time, Benjamin,” she retorted. “Or business before — pleasure.” She laughed in a way that made him wonder if he heard aright. “What are you going to do?”

  “Why, Ina, we can’t do anything but go on with our work,” replied Ben, in perplexity. “Whatever is bound to happen will happen. I wouldn’t mind being arrested. They couldn’t prove me guilty of any wrong. But I’d hate the disgrace on account of mother and Hettie.”

  “And me!” she added, swiftly.

  Ben dared not let his consciousness face that extraordinary implication. His mind seemed about to fly to pieces.

  “For myself — I — I wouldn’t mind arrest,” he went on, hurriedly. “But these sheriffs can’t arrest Nevada. If they try it he’ll hold them up and escape — or he’ll kill them. Oh, he’s quicker than eyesight with a gun. Sometimes he throws a gun on me, just for fun. But, Ina, I don’t laugh. I grow cold all over. For I love that fellow and I feel that he’s been something terrible — somewhere.”

  “Nevada loves you, Ben,” returned Ina, softly. “He will do whatever you ask.”

  “Yes, he would, mostly. I’ll never forget when he rode in on me four years ago. He was wounded, starved, exhausted. I took him in and kept him — nursed him back to health. He stayed with me and we’ve grown like brothers. But he’s never told me who he is.”

  “It was a fine thing for you to do. And your friendship is beautiful. Surely you can keep him from spilling blood.”

  “I don’t know, but I feel I can’t. Not if these officers try to arrest me. And when Nevada finds out Setter got them here — —” Ben left off words to whistle.

  It was not possible for him to keep his eyes averted all the time. Involuntarily they came back to Ina’s face. How sweet — how lovely! She was gazing down upon him. Suddenly Ben had to fight a terrible longing to take her in his arms. He released that warm clinging hand — then instantly had a wild desire to take it back again.

  “Ben, did Marvie tell you how this man Setter has hounded me?” queried Ina, as if driven to speak.

  “What!” ejaculated Ben, flaring up. “Marvie talked a lot about Setter. But Marvie hates him, and he’s only a crazy kid. I didn’t take him seriously.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have let that slip out,” cried the girl, regretfully. “I’m so contrary these days. I don’t know myself, Ben. Never mind what I said about Setter.”

  “You tell me,” he rejoined, passionately, seizing her arms.

  The suddenness and violence of his action startled her. It was only his hold upon her that kept her from falling over in his arms. He realised this and seemed staggered. What avail were resolution and honour? Again the possibility that she might really love him waved over him.

  “Ben,” she whispered, “don’t look like that. I haven’t done anything I — you’d—”

  “You said Setter had hounded you,” interrupted Ben. “How? Tell me. What did you mean?”

  “Setter’s a bad man,” hurriedly answered Ina. “He made bold love to me. Ile hunted me out when I was alone. If I saw him in time I’d run. But when he waylaid me — I — I — Ben, I had to fight.”

  “My God!” cried Ben, furiously. “Your father let that snake in the house? Gave him opportunities to force himself upon you! That damned money-grubbing cow-hand! I’ll horsewhip him.”

  “Hush such talk!” exclaimed Ina, with emotion. “Can’t I tell you things without your flying off the handle? That was weeks ago. Setter has changed his tactics. Now it looks as if he meant to force dad to marry me to him.”

  “Ina Blaine!” burst out Ben, hoarsely, in fury and despair. “I’ll kill Setter myself!”

  “Ben!” she whispered. Her face grew ashen pale in the moonlight. Her eyes seemed to expand and fix in black staring horror. “Oh — what have — I done?” and freeing her arms she clasped them round his neck.

  “Ina! What do you mean?”

  “If you killed Setter — they — they would hang you. Then I’d die,” she cried, in anguish.

  “I won’t kill him. I won’t even meet him,” said Ben, in wild haste to relieve her terror. His heart seemed about to burst. “Promise me — then?” she begged.

  “I promise — anything,” he returned, weakening.

  She released him, very slowly withdrawing her arms from about his neck. Then as terrible realisation dawned upon Ben she smiled, and that was too much for him. Bowing his face upon her knees, he almost sobbed out:

  “I knew — I shouldn’t see you. What a fool I am! It’s all come out... I adore you — worship you.... And it’s killing me.”

  He felt her stroking his head with gentle caressing hand, under which he quivered.

  “Well, you needn’t let that kill you,” she said, with something sweetly deep and rich in her voice. “For I love you, Ben!”

  “No — no!” he whispered, in mingled despair and ecstasy. “Oh, but I do! Love you as I did when we were kid sweethearts.... And more — with the love of a woman who’ll stand by you through everything.”

  Ben lifted his head. His tears seemed burned away. Surrender was upon him. A perilously sweet and glorious joy consumed him like a flame.

  “You wonderful girl!” he whispered, huskily.

  “Why don’t you say, ‘my wonderful girl’?” she whispered in return, leaning to him.

  “Because I can’t believe — can’t accept this — this sacrifice of yours. Ina, think! I’m an outcast — about to be arrested. And you — the sweetest, noblest girl in all the world! I can’t disgrace you. I won’t.... Oh, what in Heaven’s name can I do?”

  “Well, if you’re needing advice, Bennie, I’d say meet me in Hammell to-morrow or next day.”

  “Hammell! Why? For people to see my worship of you — and my cowardice?”

  “No — your pride,” she flashed.

  “Ina, I can’t savvy you. I’m off my balance. My mind’s muddled.”

  “Yes, poor boy, you are pretty stupid — to let me do it all. But then I understand.... I meant you should meet me in Hammell — and then — then fetch me back here — to your cabin.... To take care of you and fight with you!”

  “Ina Blaine! You’d marry me?” he rang out, with incredulous passion.

  “I rather think I would, Ben Ide — if you’d ask me.”

  “You are mad. We’re both out of our heads.”

  “Speak for yourself, Ben. I’m quite sane — and happy. Happier than I’ve been since coming home.”

  “Happy! You’d marry me? My God! I never dreamed of such a thing! Hettie wrote me you hadn’t changed. Marvie said you were crazy about me. But I couldn’t believe. And now you tell me—”

  “It’s true. Marvie had it right. I do love you. And I glory in it.”

  “Then, Ina — will you marry me when—”

  “Yes, Ben, without whens or ifs,” she interposed, radiantly. “I don’t purpose to give you a loophole.”

  “Ina, you’ll consent to marry me when I’ve wiped out this stain upon my name? Your love — your promise will save me — make me rise to anything.,.. Darling, it must be this way.”