“Clan Dillon, then, is Ed Richardson — haid of this Pine Tree outfit,” said Nevada, “an’ Ben Ide’s foreman.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Rose, bravely, with lips that trembled.

  “Good Lord!” ejaculated Marvie. “Ben swears by Dillon. He’s gone against Raidy, his oldest hand. . . . Gee! I wouldn’t want to be in Dillon’s boots when Ben finds out!”

  “Wal, Marvie, it’s likely that Dillon’s boots will be stickin’ out straight when Ben heahs the truth. . . . Rose, is there any particular reason why you’d like to go back home again? Clothes or anythin’ you care for?”

  “All the duds I own are on my back,” replied Rose, ruefully. “Cedar burned my pretty dance dress — that I bought to look nice for Marvie. My pony’s all I have. An’ he’s here.”

  “Marvie, get your horse an’ put Rose on hers an’ leave heah pronto for the Ide ranch. Look sharp an’ don’t run into any riders. When you reach home turn Rose over to Hettie, an’ both of you keep your mouth shut.”

  His compelling force wrung mute promises from both Marvie and the girl.

  “My horse is on top, an’ I cain’t get him down heah. Rustle now.”

  Marvie started to lead Rose away, when he espied Cedar Hatt’s gun lying on the brown pine needles.

  “Nevada — can I take it?” he queried, haltingly.

  “What? Oh, Cedar’s gun? Shore you take it.”

  The girl turned with lips parted. “Mister Jim — Nevada — we’ll see you again?”

  “I reckon. Remember, I trust you to keep mum. Look sharp now, an’ hurry along.”

  Nevada did not linger to watch them find and mount their horses; however, as he started up the slope he heard them, and felt that now all would be well with them. He climbed as one with wings. How strange that the rough gully presented no obstacles! Reaching his horse, he tightened the cinches, leaped astride, and rode up to the level, where he faced north with a grim smile.

  The afternoon had not far advanced. At a steady lope he covered the miles of forested ridge, downhill and easy going until he descended into the brakes. Here his horse toiled for an hour, at last to crash out into the trail. One glance at the bare ground showed him that Marvie and Rose had not yet come so far. He preferred to reach the Ide ranch before they did. His mind clamped round one thing and set there, cold and sure.

  Five miles of travel, now slow, now swift, and then a hard climb took Nevada out of the brakes into the beautiful stately forest, where the pines thinned and straggled to the desert sage. How sweet the fragrance! He had once viewed from afar the Ide ranch, with its slope of sage and cedar leading up to the black benches.

  The trail grew broad and sandy, so that his speeding horse thudded almost noiselessly on. Clumps of spruce and low branches of pines obscured the bends.

  Nevada rode around an abrupt green curve almost to run down a horse coming toward him. He pulled his mount to a sliding halt. He heard a cry. The rider was a woman. Hettie Ide!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “HETTIE,” SAID BEN Ide as he stood on the porch and spread his arms to the glorious beauty and color of the Arizona landscape, “I once thought Forlorn River in the fall was pretty close to heaven. But Cedar Springs Ranch has it beaten a mile.”

  “Ben Ide! You going back on Forlorn River!” exclaimed Hettie, in surprise.

  “Well, hasn’t it? Look around. What do you think, yourself?”

  “Long ago, before this wonderful autumn came, I was faithless to California,” murmured Hettie, regretfully.

  “Hettie, not faithless. I don’t love the old home country any the less because I’ve learned to love this more. Lord knows I’ve reason to hate Arizona. But I can’t. It grows on me. Here it’s way in September. Frost an’ ice every mornin’. Indian summer days. Look at the sage. It’s purple. Look at the foothills. Anyone would think they were painted. Look at the patches of gold an’ scarlet back up in the woods.”

  “It’s very beautiful,” replied Hettie, more dreamily.

  “Sister, we mustn’t forget that mother is to be taken to San Diego for the winter months.”

  “I’ve not forgotten, Ben. But there’s no hurry. This weather is perfect. Mr. Day claims it’ll last till Christmas.”

  “Well, if it does, I could ask no more,” said Ben. “Then I’ll send mother with you an’ Ina an’ the kid to San Diego till spring. But I’ll stay on here. I’d be afraid to leave.”

  “It wouldn’t be wise, Ben. Things have grown from bad to worse. I fear you are in for more shocks.”

  “Tom Day says they must grow worse before they get better. Heigho! . . . Well, I’m not lettin’ disappointment sour me, anyhow.”

  “Disappointment? You mean — about ranching in Arizona?”

  “Between you an’ me, Hettie, I wasn’t thinkin’ of cattle at all,” replied Ben, sadly.

  Hettie suffered a contraction of her heart. If Ben knew what she knew! She prayed that he never would. And she gave no sign that she divined the undercurrent of his words.

  Marvie Blaine sat on the porch step, morosely cleaning his rifle, which evidently he had used that day. The lad had grown taller, thinner, more of a man these last few weeks.

  “Marv, you don’t ride far away when you hunt, do you?” queried Ben.

  “Lots of turkey an’ deer right in our back yard,” answered Marvie, evasively.

  “Humph! Much good that does you. I’ve yet to eat the venison you killed.”

  “Ben, I’ve killed some turkeys,” insisted Marvie, stoutly. “An’ to-day I had a shot at a buck.”

  “Seems to me you take a lot of time off,” went on Ben, “an’ I’m supposed to pay you a cowboy’s salary.”

  “I do the work given me. Dillon sure slights me on every job he can.”

  “Weren’t you pretty smart-alec?” asked Ben.

  “I wasn’t until he got mean.”

  “An’ when was that? Are you sure you don’t imagine things? Dillon is the kindest of foremen.”

  Marvie looked up deliberately and fastened unfathomable eyes upon this friend of his boyhood.

  “Dillon used to like me. But he changed after the cowboys told him how I’d made up to little Rose Hatt at the dance in Winthrop.”

  “Rose Hatt! That child of Elam Hatt’s? I saw her once. What on earth could it be to Dillon if you did flirt with Rose? As a matter of fact, he was merely worried about you. Rose was no girl for you to get friendly with.”

  “Say, did Dillon tell you that?” queried Marvie, flushing.

  “Yes. An’ he advised me to put a stop to it. Said you might get in trouble.”

  Marvie jumped up as if he had been stung by a hornet.

  “Ha! Ha!” he burst out, striding away with his head back. “Ha! Ha! . . . Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  He kept it up until he went out of sight around the house.

  “Well, I’ll be doggoned,” ejaculated Ben, gazing at Hettie for confirmation of his fears. “Was that boy givin’ me the horse-laugh?”

  “He was surely giving you some kind of a laugh,” replied Hettie, striving to hide her own amusement.

  “Hettie, am I growin’ old, thick-headed, absent-minded?” inquired Ben, wistfully.

  “No, Ben,” returned his sister, dropping her head. “You’ve only the worry of the ranch on your mind.”

  “By George it is a worry,” he sighed. “But, old girl, you’ve not been so bright and happy as you were here at first. Neither is Ina. I’m afraid I’ve done bad by both of you.”

  “Ben, it will all come right,” spoke up Hettie, forcing a smile. “We must take our medicine. It’s Arizona medicine, which your friend, Tom Day, says is powerful strong.”

  “Hettie, do you still think of — of — him?” asked Ben, in lower tone.

  “Always,” she replied, quaking inwardly. If only she had the courage and the wit to keep her secret hidden!

  “I’m afraid I’ve given up hope,” went on Ben, somberly. “An’ it’s taken the sap out of me. Don’t tell Ina. But I’m fallin’ into the same rut as I was in last spring, over home on Tule Lake.”

  “Given up hope of what?” murmured Hettie.

  “Of ever findin’ Nevada,” he replied, simply, as if the name was not one he never mentioned. “That’s why I came to Arizona. Once at Forlorn River, when I asked Nevada what he’d do if anythin’ separated us, he said he’d go to Arizona an’ take to hard ridin’. I never forgot. . . . Well, I reckon every cowboy on these ranges has hit me for a job. But sure not one of them was Nevada, nor had they ever heard of him. I reckon he’s dead. Don’t you ever think that, Hettie?”

  “Yes. . . . Dead to us, surely,” she returned, with dry lips.

  “How could Nevada be dead to us if he were alive?” queried Ben, sharply. Then he lifted his head to some interruption of his thought. “I hear a horse . . . comin’ lickety cut! Hello! it’s Dillon! . . . Damn the luck! There’s somethin’ up!”

  Hettie sustained a sharp quickening of her pulse. A horse and rider bobbed up over the bench. At the moment Ina came out of the house, to begin some speech to Ben, which did not materialize. Ben strode off the porch to meet Dillon, who rode up like a whirlwind, scattering gravel all over the porch; and he leaped out of the saddle with the lithe grace of one to whom such action was a habit.

  “Mornin’, boss,” he said and tipped his sombrero to Hettie and Ina. “You’re late. So I rode up.”

  “Bad news?” asked Ben.

  “No, it ain’t bad, but it’s disturbin’. Cowboy just in from Tom Day’s range. Name’s Laskin. He rode a hoss to death gettin’ here. I gave him another hoss, an’ soon as he’d swallowed some drink an’ grub he rode off for Franklidge’s ranch.”

  “Yes. Well, what was he ridin’ so hard for?” queried Ben, as if prepared.

  “Yesterday he was in camp near Silver Meadows,” went on Dillon. “Another rider with him — whose name I didn’t get. Some men rode down on them. Laskin said they wasn’t drunk. Just keyed up over a big deal. They made no bones about the deal — at least their leader didn’t. An’ he was no other than Jim Lacy.”

  “Jim Lacy bobbed up again!” ejaculated Ben, with irritation. “Go on, Dillon.”

  “Lacy said he was goin’ to rustle the stock at Silver Meadows an’ sent you his compliments.”

  “Well, I’m a — !” broke out Ben, choking down the last of his utterance.

  “Pretty nervy, wasn’t it?” asked Dillon. He appeared excited, which was a striking exception to his usual genial and imperturbable mood. Hettie gazed spell-bound at him.

  “Nervy? Yes, if it’s true,” retorted Ben. “But I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s as straight as shootin’, boss,” rejoined Dillon. “I happen to know the rider who tipped us off.”

  “But Jim Lacy or anybody else would be a fool to tell such a plan, before pullin’ it off,” said Ben, incredulously.

  “Reckon that seems so,” replied the foreman, smoothly. “But sometimes these desperadoes like Lacy do queer things. It’s not braggin’. Such men don’t brag. It’s just sort of a cool defiance of law — an’ honest ranchin’. . . . Well, Lacy has twenty-four hours’ start. There was a big bunch of cattle at Silver, so Laskin said. The last of your stock, an’ some of Day’s an’ Franklidge’s. We were figgerin’ on a big roundup pronto. But we’re too late, boss.”

  “Too late! Why, man, if it is true, we can stop that drive before it gets down to the road,” declared Ben.

  “Stop nothin’. Lacy’s outfit won’t drive this way. They’ll drive up over the Rim, an’ I’ll gamble there’s a bunch of five thousand head on the way now.”

  Ben sat down as if suddenly weighted.

  “Boss, I’m sure kickin’ myself for not figgerin’ that very deal,” went on Dillon, and his smile was something to conjure with. Hettie caught it, but Ben saw nothing. “You see, the cattle were workin’ high up. An’ grass an’ water’s so good at Silver that they bunched thick. Laskin swears it’s only a half day’s drive up the canyon which opens into Silver. . . . An’ there you are.”

  A hoarse intolerant resentment rang in Dillon’s voice. To Ben Ide he must have seemed a masterful and experienced foreman, angry at this coup of the latest recruit to Arizona rustlers.

  “If it’s true I’ll — I’ll run down this Jim Lacy an’ jail him. I don’t care what it costs,” declared Ben. “But I reckon we’re gettin’ all r’iled up over cowboy guessin’.”

  “Give me a couple of days off, boss?” asked Dillon, in strange eagerness. “I’ll find out.”

  “You want to ride off alone?” queried Ben.

  “Sure. That’s the best way.”

  “No. Some of the rustlers will plug you, an’ then I would be out of luck,” replied Ben, decisively.

  “But I want to go,” declared Dillon, with the blood rising under the tan of his handsome face.

  “I appreciate the risk you’d take for me, Dillon. But, no, I’m gjvin’ you orders to take Raidy with six cowboys an’ go to Silver Meadows. Hurry back to report. Then we’ll see.”

  Dillon had difficulty in repressing some kind of agitation that did not owe its source to respect and regard for Ben Ide. What an intent, almost derisive glance he gave Ben! Then without another word he mounted and rode furiously down toward the corrals.

  “Girls, did you hear all he had to say?” asked Ben, appealing for sympathy.

  “We couldn’t very well help it,” replied Ina, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Dear, I — I haven’t confidence in this man Dillon.”

  “Huh! Nor in me, either,” retorted Ben, shaking her hand off.

  That action hurt Ina’s sensitive feelings and she drew away haughtily.

  “Very well, Ben Ide,” she declared. “But when the crash comes, don’t you look to me for sympathy.”

  With that she went back into the house. Ben gazed helplessly up at his sister.

  “There! Can you beat that? My own wife gone against me!”

  Hettie subdued her own impatience, not without effort, and then set herself the task of meeting her brother’s morbid irritation, and by agreeing with him and bidding him hope on and fight on forever, if need be, she made some little impression upon his mood.

  Then Marvie appeared again, this time black in the face. Alas for Hettie! Her heart sank.

  “Ben Ide, I’ve a bone to pick with you,” he burst out.

  “Pick away, you young rooster,” returned Ben, wearily; but he was interested. Marvie had never before bearded the lion in his den.

  “Did Dillon tell you a cowboy named Laskin rode in with news about a cattle drive?”

  “Sure he did.”

  “Ha! That’s what he told Raidy. He’s a damn liar!”

  “Marvie, take care! You’re no longer a kid. Would you say that to Dillon’s face?”

  “Would I? Huh! I did an’ I cussed him good,” rejoined Marvie, hotly.

  “Why did you? Marv, I’m losin’ patience.”

  “An, I’m losin’ patience with you, Ben Ide. Listen. I saw that cowboy. He wasn’t no rider named Laskin. He was Cedar Hatt!”

  “What?”

  “Cedar Hatt, I tell you. I know him.”

  “Marvie, you’re not only loco, but you’re ravin’ sore at Dillon. You’ll go too far. Take care.”

  “Care, hell!” shouted Marvie, beside himself with rage. “It’s you who’s loco.”

  “Marvie Blaine, you’re fired,” replied Ben, curtly. “You can’t ride for me any more.”

  Marvie underwent a sudden disastrous change of mood.

  “Fired?” he said, poignantly.

  “Yes, fired. Now get out of my house an’ go over to Hettie’s till I can decide what to do with you.”

  “Aw — Ben!” gasped Marvie.

  “Don’t aw — Ben me,” said Ben, furiously. “Get out of here now — you round-eyed, freckle-faced four-flush of a cowboy!”

  Marvie started as if he had been lashed.

  “Ben Ide, you’ll be sorry for that,” he declared, solemnly, and stamped away.

  Ben stared at the erect retreating figure of the lad.

  “Marvie, too!” he said, huskily.

  Hettie felt something of a sneak herself as she stole away, back to her own cabin and the seclusion of her room. Was she not betraying Ben by withholding facts she alone knew? Yet how impossible to crush him utterly! Jim Lacy was Nevada! She would never have the courage to tell him.

  As for herself, the last hope had fled, the last doubt, the last shred of stubborn faith. Nevada was a rustler. He had fallen so low that he could steal from the friend who had once succored him. The thing was so base that Hettie writhed under the shame of her seemingly indestructible love for this impostor Nevada — this fugitive horseman who had won her under another guise — this Jim Lacy, killer and thief. But though everything else seemed dead, hope, faith, interest in life, will to go on fighting, she knew her love survived. It was the very pulse of her heart.

  A long hour she lay there on her bed, until collapse and tears came to her relief. And when she again rose to face herself in the mirror she shrank aghast. But there was her mother to live for, and poor blind Ben, who had loved this traitor Nevada, even as she.

  Two days went by, with the Ide households under considerable strain of uncertainty.

  Raidy and Dillon, with their riders, returned about noon of the third day. The news reached Hettie while she was in the kitchen, with her sleeves rolled up and flour to her elbows, but she did not lose time on account of that.

  Ben was somber, nervous, silent, and he paced the living-room, oblivious to the importunities of little Blaine, who toddled here and there, as if he were playing a game.

  Presently Raidy entered the open door, sombrero in hand, dusty and unshaven.

  “Howdy, boss!” he said in greeting, and bowed quaintly to Hettie and Ina.

  “Took you long enough. Where’s Dillon?” replied Ben, gruffly.

  “Wal, you know Dillon always leaves the bad reports for me to make.”

  “Did he return with you?”

  “Not exactly. He left us at daybreak this mornin’ an’ beat us in.”