“You might send for Lane Griffith or Eddie Howe,” suggested Harriet, demurely.

  “My old schoolmate beaus!” And Lenta let out a peal of laughter. “No, I wouldn’t wish this awful West on Lane or Eddie, even if I hadn’t changed.”

  “Awful West? . . . I guess you are right. It does have some awful aspects.”

  “But Hallie, just think! I wouldn’t go back for worlds. Would you?”

  That was a query Harriet did not desire to confront. Surely something insidious and profound was imperceptibly coming between her and the old humdrum Upper Sandusky. She could only detect it by looking back.

  “Lenta, there’s no chance of our ever going back now,” went on Harriet, soberly. “We have to earn a living here. And now that father is out of danger we must go to work earnestly, with hope and enthusiasm.”

  “I’d like to know what the deuce we’ve been doing. Look at my hands, Hal Lindsay. Look at them! — Baby hands you used to pat and kiss. They look like a washerwoman’s. But I’m darned if I’m ashamed of them.”

  “No indeed. Did you notice the hands of those Lilley girls, who called on us last Sunday? Their father is a big rancher halfway between here and La Junta. They must do real work. . . . But to come back to our own troubles. We started out with the idea of making this ranch pay, at least a reasonable income on investment. But we haven’t made any start. We are poorer by some thousand cattle than when we arrived.”

  “Hal, I know more about the ranch than you and dad put together,” spoke up Lenta, spiritedly. “I’m glad you cared enough to broach the subject to me. I’ve learned a lot this last month. You seldom go down to the corrals and then only with Nelson. That shuts up the riders like mouse-traps. But I’ve hung around with Neale and alone, sitting on the high corral fences, watching and listening. And I’ve ridden ten thousand miles, it seems, with Lonesome, Chess Gaines, Slim Red, and others. I may be a madcap, as dad calls me, but I’m no fool. And I’ve seen a lot and heard a good deal more and made deductions of my own.”

  “Suppose you give me the benefit of all this, Lenta Lindsay,” suggested Harriet, not without humor.

  “Well, you can gamble on this. The Peak Dot outfit is a house divided against itself. Laramie, Lonesome and Ted line up here with us. That has caused no end of jealousy. But Laramie is liked by most of the riders and feared by all. Such tales they tell of Laramie’s fights! Why, Hallie, I hate to shock you, but Laramie Nelson has shot no end of men. Killed them! . . . To be sure maybe most of it is talk. Anyway Laramie’s respected. I’d like to hint to him that it’s struck me Luke Arlidge still runs this Peak Dot outfit. Only I wouldn’t dare. . . . Chess Gaines is riding for us, but he hates Laramie and he’s thick with Arlidge. Rides over there at night! Oh, I put two and two together. One reason I’ve flirted with Chess was to find out. But he’s deep and he’s cute. That made me want all the more to lead him along. Slim Red was a pard of Gaines’, but he has switched. Laramie did that. And Gaines is sore. This Slim Red — the one that was such a devil our first night here — he’s not a bad fellow at all. He’s the most bashful person I ever saw. He’ll run, hide, ride over a precipice to escape me. But I’ll have him coming around soon. Then Fork Mayhew, Clay Lee, and Dakota have also come over to Laramie. But the others, in my opinion, are taking wages from you, Hallie, and all the time in cahoots with Arlidge. This Luke Arlidge is a villain, Hallie. Lonesome told me, but I felt it that first Sunday he called here. The way he watched you! That man has terrible eyes, like those of some cruel bird of prey. Laramie’s eyes you just can’t look into, but not for the same reason. You feel when Laramie looks at you that he’s uncovering your soul. Look out for Mr. Arlidge, my handsome sister! . . . I like Wind River Charlie. He’s a big wonderful looking fellow, simple as a, b, c, but governed by Gaines. Same with Juan Mendez, the Mexican, and Nig Jackson, the Negro. That leaves Archie Hill, and I don’t know what to say about him. He’s got me buffaloed, as Lonesome says. You can’t keep your eyes off him. How that fellow can ride! Lonesome can’t hold a candle to him.”

  “Lenta, I’m downright surprised,” declared Harriet, humbly. “You’ve made use of your eyes other than making eyes, anyway. If what you claim is true, Nelson is not so badly off for riders who’ll stand by him. Counting Lonesome and Ted, he’d have six, and of course Neale, who swears by Laramie.”

  “Yes, Laramie has enough men, according to Lonesome, to beat the rustlers and run the ranch, if only you’d let him.”

  “I! What do you mean?” exclaimed Harriet, weakly. It was common gossip then — her hampering Laramie in his hard task.

  “Hallie, to me and to all of us you are the best ever,” declared Lenta, warmly. “But to these Westerners you are a joke. You can’t ride worth a cent. You’re afraid of a horse or a steer or even a cow. You wouldn’t watch the boys rope and hog-tie that mean old outlaw stallion. You wouldn’t watch the branding of calves. Smell made you sick, you said. Sight of blood makes you faint. The idea of a fist fight to you is horrible. You should have seen your face that night Lonesome hit Slim Red. You have the funniest frozen look when Laramie happens to bump into you with his gun. You won’t let him go after the rustlers, because you fear he might shoot or hang some of these nice, sweet, gentle, Christian robbers who are ruining us.”

  “Oh! . . . I am a tenderfoot, a poor soft-hearted female tenderfoot!” exclaimed Harriet, flayed by Lenta’s candor.

  “Hal, old girl! Why don’t you get your dander up?” went on Lenta, with affectionate persuasion. “Don’t you remember when the Curtis and Gibbons kids used to maltreat me — how you’d chase them and smack the stuffings out of them? . . . Why don’t you get mad now? We’re out West now and we’re stuck here for good. Dad will be raring to fight soon. I see signs of that. You’re the only Lindsay who’ll turn the other cheek when you get one slapped. That won’t do out here.”

  “I — I see it won’t,” replied Harriet, faintly.

  “What’d we do if Laramie happened to leave us?” queried Lenta.

  “Oh!” cried Harriet, aghast at the mere idea.

  “Or if he got shot!”

  Harriet stared mutely at her executioner.

  “There! That digs you,” flashed Lenta, passing from eloquent appeal to devilish glee. “Darned if I don’t believe you’re in love with Laramie!”

  “Lenta, you can — go — too far.”

  “Never mind, honey,” laughed Lenta. “But it’d shore be great for this heah outfit if you were.”

  CHAPTER IX

  IT WAS A night in late June, and Laramie, with his now inseparable comrades, sought an interview with their employer.

  All the members of the Lindsay family were assembled in Mrs. Lindsay’s sitting-room, the most spacious and pleasant in the house.

  “Laramie, I’m beset by wife, son, daughters to take them to La Junta for the Fourth of July races, cow-puncher contests, dance, and what not,” declared Lindsay.

  “John, we have not been out of this house since we moved in,” complained Mrs. Lindsay. “I want to see some people, if there are any in this blooming West.”

  “Tell you, dad, it’d be a sort of a family jubilee to celebrate your recovery,” said Neale, sagely.

  That statement was accepted by his sisters in marked contrast to the way most of his sallies were regarded.

  “I’d love to go, papa,” pleaded Florence, who never used that endearing filial term except in extreme situations.

  “And I tell you, dad, that I am going,” added Lenta, decisively. Then as an afterthought: “If I have to elope!”

  “Father, we are not getting acquainted very fast with our neighbors,” said Harriet. “And this will be an opportunity. All the countryside will be there, so I hear.”

  “Laramie, what do you think about it?” queried Lindsay, as he faced about to the three riders, standing, sombreros in hand, just inside the open door.

  “July Fourth cain’t be no wuss than any other day an’ it might be better,” drawled Laramie, his eye twinkling at the girls. “First-rate day for peanuts, pink lemonade, elopin’, an’ such. We shore don’t risk nothin’ leavin’ the ranch to the Mexicans. There ain’t much stock left to steal. Rustlers waitin’ for us to buy a few thousand more haid. All the cattlemen, riders, rustlers, gamblers, outlaws will be there. I reckon we-all better go.”

  “Whoopee!” yelled Neale, and tried to stand on his head.

  “Laramie, you dear!” screamed Lenta, and she hugged him.

  “Miss Lenta, I got him to say that,” declared Lonesome, boldly.

  “Dad, can Ted and I have one of the buckboards?” begged Florence.

  “Yes, to everything,” replied Lindsay, affected with the general rejoicing. “Laramie, you can drive Hallie and Lent, and Lonesome can drive me and Mom.”

  “Aw!” groaned Lonesome, sagging. “Boss, I’m the poorest driver in the outfit. Remember when I broke a wheel on the wagon comin’ out. The other boys will all go in — or throw up their jobs. An’ any one of them can beat me drivin’.”

  “Very well, Lonesome. I will relieve you of all responsibility. . . . It’s settled. We’re going. So, mom, plan what you’ll all need to ride in and dress in after we get there.”

  “It’s a day an’ a half drive,” said Laramie. “So yu better figger to leave early on the mawnin’ of July second, an’ drive till dark, stoppin’ at some ranch.”

  “Now there, I hope you’re satisfied,” declared Lindsay, to his beaming womenfolk. “I have a presentiment this trip will bring dire results. But go we will. . . . Now, Laramie, I’m ready for any serious confabs. Let’s get out where we can smoke.”

  Laramie conducted him, with the two boys following, to their quarters at the end of the court, but did not go inside.

  “Wal, boss, it’s serious, but it’ll be short,” announced Laramie. “I’m askin’ yu, whether yu consent or not to give me a free hand, to keep this confab under yore hat.”

  “Certainly, Laramie. I shall respect all you say as confidence,” replied Lindsay.

  “Wal, we’ve been heah nigh two months, an’ all the range knows we’re an easy outfit. Arlidge, who knows me, an’ Price, who knows Lonesome, were leary at first. But for thet we’d been cleaned oot long ago. As it stands we’ve got aboot five hundred haid of cows an’ calves left.”

  To Laramie’s satisfaction this statement fetched some good round profanity.

  “An’, wuss, from a rider’s standpoint, about all our hawses air gone. I’ve got Wingfoot yet, an’ reckon I can keep him, ‘cause nobody is damn fool enough to steal him. But Tracks’ two hawses air gone an’ Lonesome’s bay. An’ all told there ain’t a dozen hawses grazin’ about, outside of the bunch in the pastures. They air yore hawses, of course, but thet outfit Arlidge left heah looks on them as theirs. We had more’n two hundred haid of range hawses.”

  “Allen claimed there were five hundred, and that he threw these in with the bargain,” declared Lindsay.

  “Wal, Allen said a lot we’re findin’ out ain’t so. . . . Now, Lindsay, so far as me an’ my pards heah air concerned, rustlin’ is one thing an’ hawse-stealin’ is another. We cain’t abide a hawse-thief.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m seeing red myself.”

  “Thet’s good. Now what I want is a free hand to go about this business as I should have done in the first place. But right off I seen Miss Hallie was daid set against any violence. An’ to be honest, up to now I just couldn’t hurt her feelin’s.”

  Lindsay swallowed hard, and in the dusk his face could be seen to shade gray.

  “We needn’t waste words, Laramie. I think the more of you for your forbearance. And so would she. But we don’t know how to run a ranch. I’ll agree to any course you want to take and back you up. I feel a new man now. Perhaps I’ve shirked my duty too long, but it’s been so good just to loaf around getting well.”

  “Wal, boss, thets more’n enough from yu. It’s straight talk, plumb from the shoulder. An’ I’m shore obliged for yore trust in me.”

  “Then we start over right here?”

  “Thet’s it. Right heah.”

  “What’s the exact case, Laramie?”

  “Wal, we had it figgered for some time. But out heah in the West yu got to ketch a man red-handed. It ain’t enough to suspect. Yu’ve got to know, an’ then yu have to act quick. . . . Yu remember what Buff Jones told yu about the range, how rustlin’ had come in strong, an’ these bands of slick men rode from one range to another. Some of them ranch it, some of them buy cattle an’ sell, an’ the rest ride for somebody. But they air all in cahoots, thet is, a particular outfit. Arlidge is the crookedest, slickest kind of a cattleman. I ran into him over on the K Bar in Nebraskie. I should have shot him long ago. Allen is no doubt one of these shady cattlemen who never stay long in one place. He got this ranch from the Seward Company, an’ he never did a lick of improvin’. He’s now ranchin’ over heah forty miles on Sandstone Creek. We rode over to see what his place looked like. Fine range, but no ranch. A log cabin an’ some log corrals. Arlidge is purportin’ to be ranchin’ it at Castle Haid, with a man named Snook as foreman. All a lot of slick lyin’ work. Between them all they’ve sold half of yore cattle, after sellin’ it to yu, an’ presently they’ll do away with the rest. Then, if they see yu’re not goin’ to stock up soon they’ll hit the dust for other diggin’s some thirty thousand dollars, more or less ahaid.”

  “Good God! — Laramie, how is it done?”

  “Easy. There’s always some honest ranchers on every range, an’ they make the way easy for the crooked ones. ‘Cause nobody can tell a crooked cattleman right off. Some of them work for years withoot bein’ trailed. An’ some never get found out. But I happened to know Arlidge. Thet put the shady brand on Allen, an’ this heah outfit of riders.”

  “But you’re not telling me how all this robbery is done,” fumed Lindsay, impatiently.

  “Wal, boss, give me time,” drawled Laramie. “In the first place before we got heah Arlidge drove half yore herd way across the Sandstone, an’ sold it from there. Some of the riders yu’re payin’ now were in thet drive. An’ since then, at picked times, these crooked riders operated to run off more stock when the honest riders were asleep or somewhere else on the range. Yore brand was blotted into another brand on considerable stock. An’ a lot of it wasn’t branded atall. We couldn’t brand calves when we were buildin’ this house over. But we did do some little ridin’ about. Tracks heah tracked his first stolen hawse to thet Castle Haid corral. An’ I rode over with him another time. An’ I seen things. Then Lonesome has had his eye peeled on this Chess Gaines, an’ thet greaser Juan an’ the nigger rider Johnson. All this counted up, but didn’t amount to such proofs as yu got to have in this country. An’ these, I’m tickled to say, Lindsay, we got from no one else than yore lass, Miss Lenta.”

  “NO!” cried the rancher, apparently thrilled.

  “It’s true, Mr. Lindsay,” spoke up Ted, quietly. “We’ve all been making fun of Lenta or worrying ourselves about her escapades. But all the same these escapades of hers have made clear what all the three of us could not see.”

  “And what’s that?” demanded Lindsay, eagerly.

  Both Tracks and Lonesome tried to reply in unison, but Laramie checked them.

  “Let me talk, Lonesome, so it cain’t be held against yu. . . . Boss, I hate to double-cross yore daughter. It shore seems mean to me. But I’ve thought it all out. She’s takin’ too many long chances with these riders. She’s only a kid, an’ Colorado has gone to her haid. Lenta is flirtin’ too outrageous, if no wuss, an’ yu’ve got to stop her if yu have to lock her up.”

  “My Gawd, pard, if you’re lyin’ I’ll kill you for that,” burst out Lonesome, huskily.

  “Shet up!” ordered Laramie, tersely. “Yore feelin’s run away with yore haid, too.”

  “Nelson! You astonish me,” declared Lindsay, stiffly. “I was aware Lenta had taken rather — er — wildly to horses and riders, but I had no idea. . . . Hallie has been worried, and so has Mrs. Lindsay. . . . Lenta has been well brought up. Are you sure you’re not . . .”

  “Lindsay, I’m always shore before I shoot,” interrupted Laramie. “Lenta has got three riders, Gaines, Slim Red, Wind River Charlie, all of them, even my pard Lonesome heah, standin’ on their haids. Soon they’ll be hatin’ each other’s guts, an’ out heah thet means gun-play. I’m not so damn shore it’s not too late.”

  “That’s strong talk, Nelson,” replied Lindsay, certainly affronted. “You understand, of course, if you do my daughter an injustice — —”

  “Aw, hell!” ejaculated Laramie, shortly, losing his patience. He did not like this job. “I saw her spoonin’ with Chess Gaines, an’ he’s shore the least attractive of the lot. It just knocked me plumb west! An’ wuss, from my side the fence, I heahed some of these boys talkin’ damn free an’ plain about Lenta.”

  “I’ll fire the whole caboodle,” replied Lindsay, angrily.

  “Shore yu can, an’ me too,” went on Laramie, coolly. “But thet won’t help yu any. It’ll be jumpin’ out of the fryin’-pan into the fire. Maybe the next outfit yu hired wouldn’t have one single honest man in it. How’d yu know? An’ where’d yu be?”

  “I apologize, Nelson,” returned Lindsay, hurriedly. “It’s upset me.”

  “Wal, thet’s natural. Yu’ve been concerned about gettin’ wal. But it’s time now yu began showin’ yore hand. An’ to come back to this outfit of ours, just try to savvy thet yore daughter is more to blame than the riders. What could yu expect? A sweet, pretty, fresh wild-rose of a girl throwin’ herself into their arms! The boys on these ranges air as women hungry as the men. Yu’ll see thet in La Junta next week.”

  “All right, Nelson, I swallow it, and come up smiling,” rejoined the rancher, and he did smile, though at the cost of effort.