“Now yu’re talkin’,” flashed Laramie, as swift to change. Lindsay was aggravating, but he had the making of a solid Westerner. “Thet’s all about Lenta, except what she told me. It ‘pears Gaines was waitin’ for her to ride out to their meetin’-place, an’ Lenta forgot about it, or said so. I’ve a hunch she didn’t forget atall. Wal, she rode out with Slim Red. Thet’s the way these riders have been attendin’ to my orders. Shore riles me. Wal, they run plumb into Gaines, an’ when he an’ Red locked horns over the girl up comes two strange riders. An’ heah’s where Lenta showed how smart she is. Gaines didn’t seem to care a damn about them meetin’ him with the girl. It was Slim Red thet stuck in his craw. The two strange riders made no bones of the fact thet Gaines had agreed to meet them, an’ pay up. Thet led to a hot wrangle. Lenta got the hunch thet these strangers figgered Slim Red was still one of their outfit. She heahed Gaines cuss them an’ swear they’d have to kill him. Which they tried to do, Lindsay! But Slim smelled a rat an’ was on the go when they pulled guns. Slim told me he shore heahed bullets all about his haid. . . . Wal, Gaines sent the riders off, an’ fetched Lenta home. She was cute enough to act stupid an’ pretend not to savvy. Gaines hesitated in a moody an’ thoughtful way, she said. It scared her, an’ so she played up to the idee thet she hadn’t heahed much of the argument an’ reckoned Gaines took this opportunity to vent his jealousy of Red. She was cute enough to play it off sentimental, an’ so fooled him. When she got home she come straight to me.”

  “So help me Jehoshaphat!” ejaculated Lindsay. “My youngest child mixed up in shooting scrapes!”

  “Wal, it’s a bad mess. But we can thank our lucky stars yore youngest child has a haid on her shoulders. Now, what to do with Gaines. Any orders, boss?”

  “I’m all at sea. How — what to do?”

  “Wal, we can let Gaines go. An’ Mendez an’ Johnson will stick to him. Thet’d help, I reckon. If we wait till we ketch Gaines one of two things will happen. Either we’ll shoot him or hang him. Thet depends on how an’ where he’s ketched. Unless we surprise him, hold him up, he’ll shore show fight. Gaines is not so young, either, in range life or years. He’s a bad hombre. An’ if we’re to believe his brag an’ thet of his pards he’s been in a lot of shootin’ frays.”

  “Nelson, what’d you rather do about this?” queried Lindsay, nervously.

  “Wal, I’d like to go down, call Gaines out, an’ have it over with,” replied Laramie, tersely.

  “No — no! — That would scare my wife and distress Hallie. . . . Let’s discharge him. I suppose that other thing — that strange ruthless range law — will come, sooner or later. Sufficient to the day, Nelson. Anyway I’ll be better prepared.”

  “All right, boss. But from thet on I’ll have to act on my own judgment, ‘cept in cases where I’ve time to come to yu. One thing more. I’ve an idee of havin’ Lonesome do some slick work. An’ it’s got to look like he’s drinkin’ hard. But he’ll only be pretendin’. I want yu to know so yu can clear him with Mrs. Lindsay an’ the girls, in case they heahed of it.”

  “Very well, Nelson,” replied Lindsay, as he arose wearily. “Anything you say. I’ll do my damndest to bear up under all this.”

  Whereupon he walked slowly away as if burdened, and it was noticeable that he went out of the gateway, instead of back into the court. Ted Williams stood up.

  “Fine and dandy, Laramie. You are a wonder,” he cried. “The old boy is sagging, but he’s game. I feel sorry for the kid. Only she’s got to be hauled up. I have my doubts, pard. Never saw a girl like Lenta.”

  “Tracks, if you say one word — Aw hell!” burst out Lonesome, miserably. “I’ll be losin’ my pards soon — all for a — a — sassy little tenderfoot of a hussy. Only the hell of it is I can’t believe it.”

  “What’s eating you?” demanded Tracks, giving the prostrate Lonesome a kick. “If she is a little hussy — which I don’t believe — she has given you the inside track. Run the race out, you love-sick rider, if you want the girl. She’s going to need her friends.”

  Williams stalked away across the courtyard. His quick steps were drowned in the soft flow of running water. The night was still, with a smell of burning brush wafting up from the valley.

  “Pard, did you hear what Tracks said?” asked Lonesome, presently.

  “Shore I heahed. An’ I put a lot of store in him. He’s got more brains than you an’ me put together. I reckon he about sized up the deal for yu.”

  “Pard, I don’t see how. Thet you told Lindsay was the last straw. I wouldn’t see myself. An’ it’ll kill me, Laramie, sure as the Lord made little apples.”

  Laramie was silent for several minutes. All these things had slowly worked toward a climax. He sensed events. That old cold mood was hovering near again. Just what should he say to this lovable but rudderless boy, who long ago would have gone on the rocks but for him?

  “Pard, my — heart is — broke,” gasped Lonesome, almost with a sob.

  “Wal, if it is, maybe thet’ll make a man of yu.”

  “I just don’t care about nothin’. You won’t need to have me pretend to drink. I’m gonna swim in red likker an’ get drunk an’ stay drunk.”

  “Yu air like hell! Lonesome, some day I’m goin’ to beat the livin’ daylights out of yu. What’ve I loved yu for all these years?”

  “I never could savvy that, pard, ‘cause I’m no good on earth,” replied Lonesome, in a terrible despondency.

  “Shore yu air,” retorted Laramie, grasping that this was the crucial moment. “Yu heahed what Tracks said about Lenta shore needin’ her friends?”

  “Course I heerd him.”

  “Wal, she’s only got three, me an’ him an’ yu. We’re goin’ to save her, Lonesome.”

  “Bah! You cain’t save a rotten egg. If she let’s Gaines an’ Slim — Aw — faugh! Makes me sick.”

  “She let yu, didn’t she?”

  “What? Hug an’ kiss her? . . . No, I’ll be damned if she did. . . . Anyway, not till I wore her out. But that was different, pard.”

  “How was it? Yu never were no good. Yu were a rotten egg yoreself. Yu made a grab for every girl yu ever seen. Yu’re no better’n Lenta, if yu’re half as good.”

  “Hell, man!” exclaimed Lonesome, writhing and breathing hard. “Whatever I’d done this time I was different an’ that made it different. I asked her to marry me before I ever laid a hand on her.”

  “Wal, air yu goin’ back on thet now?” drawled Laramie, settling to the old task of compelling Lonesome.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “No, yu’re not. Lonesome, old pard, I’ve a hunch this heah is the time I’ve hoped an’ prayed for.”

  “What? To see me down in the dirt?”

  “Yes, an’ confessin’ it. . . . Boy, did Lenta say no when yu asked her to marry yu?”

  “She didn’t need to. But she didn’t. That always got me, somehow. Lord! how sweet she can be! . . . An’ to think — —”

  “So yu love her terrible?”

  “Pard, I do — honest. I love her so I’m — Oh! I can’t tell you.”

  “Then this triflin’ of hers won’t make no change in yu.”

  “Triflin’. What would you call serious, Laramie?”

  “She’s a child. She’s out of her haid. Shore she’ll go to the bad pronto if we don’t save her.”

  “Aw, who’d ever took Laramie Nelson for an old fool?”

  “Lonesome, yu’re disappointin’ me plumb deep. Yu’re hurt an’ yu’re thinkin’ only of yoreself. Come out of thet. It’s now or never. Whether yu make a real man of yoreself!”

  “Rave on, pard; you’re lickin’ me. You always do lick me. What you want? How’n’hell can I ever make a real man of myself?”

  “Just tell me yu’ll love Lenta the same — no! more, if she does go to the bad?”

  Lonesome’s tense frame jerked with the shock of that. He sat up. His face was gray in the gathering darkness.

  “Pard, why do you torture me this way?” he asked, hoarsely.

  “Pard, yu say? Wal, show me yu’re worthy of such a pard as I’ve been.”

  “All right, Laramie. You win. . . . The wuss Lenta gets the more I’ll love her. . . . It’s tearin’ me inside, but you’ve dug it out.”

  “Wal, now I’ll tell yu somethin’,” whispered Laramie. “Yu’re wuth confidin’ in. . . . I’m in a far more turrible fix than yu. Lenta’s only a child an’ I’ve a hunch she likes yu best. I feel it, Lonesome. . . . But my case is hopeless. If I ever had a lovesickness it was far back when I was sixteen. I don’t remember clear. There were two or three girls. But they’re ghosts. An’ this woman I love is the sun. It’s Lenta’s sister, Hallie. I reckon yu never guessed. But I’ve just lived an’ breathed thet girl since I found it out. Thet’s one reason why I’ve been such a failure runnin’ this ranch. Not thet I had any hope of her ever carin’ for me. God — no! But I couldn’t bear to sicken her with a sight of me. I just went on from day to day, with only one feelin’ — to see her — to be near her. It’s shore hell, Lonesome. But I wouldn’t have missed thet for anythin’ in the world. I never lived before. . . . I’ll go out now an’ clean up this ranch an’ call myself lucky.”

  “For Gawd’s sake!” gasped Lonesome, overcome. “Why didn’t you ever tell me before, pard? . . . So that’s what’s been wrong? . . . This Lindsay outfit of girls hasn’t done anythin’ to us atall? First Ted, then me, an’ now you! — Jumpin’ grasshoppers! . . . It’s set me wonderin’.”

  “Wal, keep yore wonderin’ to yoreself, Lonesome. I reckon I’ll go to bed,” replied Laramie, and he rose to go in, leaving his friend out there whispering to himself.

  Lonesome came in, however, before Laramie fell asleep.

  “Pard Laramie, I’ve a powerful good idee,” he announced.

  “Cain’t yu hold it till mawnin’?”

  “Nix. I’m makin’ a deal with you,” rejoined Lonesome, eagerly. “First off, pard, this pretendin’ to be on a drunk trick of yours didn’t tickle me to death. Lenta hates fellars who smell of the bottle an’ she made me swear I’d quit. An’ I have. But your plan is all right. We gotta find things out. An’ I’ll do it proper on one condition.”

  “Ahuh,” growled Laramie.

  “You gotta make Lenta believe you told me what you seen her do, an’ that I went to the bad pronto. All for her sake! Broke my heart — ruined my life — goin’ plumb to hell! . . . Will you promise to do it, pard?”

  “Shore. I reckon thet’s not such a pore idee — to come from yore haid, anyhow. If the girl’s got a conscience it may fetch her up short.”

  “Dog-gone, I must be dotty,” concluded Lonesome, ruefully.

  * * * * *

  Laramie awakened next morning with a zest he had not felt for long. Resolutely he set his thoughts on the details he had planned, and smothered the dreaming melancholy under which he had labored for weeks.

  “He’s not such a rotten actor,” remarked Tracks, as Lonesome slouched ahead of him and Laramie, on their way down to the ranch. Lonesome had stuck a black bottle in his hip pocket, some of the contents of which he had spilled on his shirt, and he had otherwise assisted nature in the simulation of a cow-puncher under the influence of rum.

  “Shore is a hard-lookin’ customer,” agreed Laramie. “I’m ‘most feared he’ll make the best of this job.”

  “Watch him! Laramie, when you told him to pick a fight with everybody, I saw an unholy glitter in his eye.”

  “Wal, we’re shore in for a spell of natural range happenin’s. An’ I’m glad, ‘cause I want to be my old self once more.”

  Laramie hardly believed that could ever be. He lagged behind his friends a little. The yellow road wound down to the green level valley floor, that owed its fertility and color to the never-failing brook. Part of his task had been to add to the natural beauty of the place. Riders with little riding to do had been set to cleaning up, planting, building fences, and other such tasks that they hated. Barns, sheds, corrals, cabins, all, in fact, of the valley adjuncts to the ranch, had been built and used by the cattle company preceding Allen. They were picturesquely located in a grove of cottonwoods, through the middle of which ran the brook. Beyond were the big pastures leading out to the open range. It was indeed a ranch to delight the heart of riders, wholly aside from the house above, with its fascinating Lindsay sisters.

  Half a dozen saddled horses stood bridles down under the big cottonwood tree in front of the yellow stable. Mexican boys were cleaning out the stalls. Neale Lindsay appeared, leading the bay horse Lonesome had taken a fancy to, after his own had been stolen. A group of riders lounged around in the shade, waiting. Laramie promised himself that they had not waited in vain this morning.

  Lonesome halted some paces in front of Tracks, who apparently remonstrated with him.

  “Hey, Lindsay, wot’n’hell you doin’ with my hawse?” yelled Lonesome.

  “Your horse? Say, cow-puncher, this horse is mine, I’ll have you know,” replied Neale, getting red through his sunburn. Two months of range life had toned him down considerably, but he was still a tenderfoot, still vain and pompous enough to be a thorn in the flesh of the riders. Innumerable tricks perpetrated upon him, and sundry hard falls and knocks, and a couple of minor scuffles, had not cured Neale to the extent desired by Laramie.

  “Ump-umm! Fade away, tenderfoot, before I blow on you.”

  Lonesome slouched over to snatch the bridle from Neale, whose face turned as red as a beet.

  “Mulhall, you’re drunk!” he burst out, angrily.

  “Who’s drunk?” roared Lonesome.

  “You are. If you weren’t I — I’d crack your ugly mug. . . . Laramie — —”

  He was interrupted by Lonesome slapping his face.

  “We can’t all be handsome — like you Lindsays,” snarled Lonesome. “Look out, young fellar. I’m easy riled. An’ I’m about through this with outfit.”

  “You bet you are! I’ll have you fired,” raged Neale, and he ran at Lonesome. That worthy stepped aside, to stick out his foot, over which the Easterner tripped and fell. But he leaped up, thoroughly aroused now, and plunged at the little rider, swinging his fists wildly. Lonesome had dropped the bridle of the horse, which moved away.

  “You won’t be so bootiful after I get a couple whacks at you,” said Lonesome, and forthwith met the boy’s onslaught with a blow on his nose. Neale staggered back as blood spouted from the rather prominent member.

  “Damn bow-leg rooster! I’ll kill you!” yelled Neale, and he rushed at Lonesome, raining blows upon the doughty little rider. Lonesome took a good many before he returned one, and that was a fairly rough tap in the region of Neale’s abdomen. It sent young Lindsay to his knees, gasping for breath, his face convulsed with pain and rage.

  “How you like ’em on your biscuit-basket, Neale?” shouted Lonesome, gleefully. He had forgotten the ugly contrariness of the part he was supposed to play. “Come on. I’ll give you the sneezel jab next on your kisser. Then I’ll give you the raspitas — —”

  “Nelson,” interrupted a sharp voice, “stop that puncher’s pickin’ on Neale, or I will.”

  Whereupon Chess Gaines strode down out of the stable, his light eyes full of fiery, ugly gleam, his full handsome lips curling. His heated face suggested a late intimacy with strong drink.

  “Wal, Gaines, suppose yu stop it,” drawled Laramie, tossing gloves and chaps aside.

  “You bet I will,” declared the rider, forcefully, as he stepped in front of the heaving Neale. “Stay out of this, kid, an’ you’ll see who your real friends are.”

  Like a flash Lonesome was transformed from his grinning self to the half-drunken leering rider.

  “Hell you shay, Gaines?”

  “You leave Neale alone or I’ll batter your face into a mud pie,” replied Gaines.

  “Say, Gaines, you’re terrible keen on Neale all sudden-like,” sneered Lonesome. “When you’ve been meaner’n any of us to him. Aw, I’m onto you. Makin’ a bid to stand in with his sisters, huh?”

  Gaines let out a furious imprecation and swung a violent side blow at Lonesome, as if to slap his leering face. But Lonesome ducked with a surprising quickness.

  “You’re a little late all around, Chess,” snapped Lonesome, viciously. Then as Gaines made at him, Lonesome danced from side to side and backwards, suddenly to charge at his antagonist like a bull. Lonesome’s stature had always led to deception. Laramie expected to see here a repetition of many former encounters. For Lonesome was a master at this game. His body blows sounded solidly. Under their impact Gaines staggered, lost his balance, when Lonesome came up with a tremendous swing to thump him on the jaw. The rider went toppling back to collide with the barn, where he sank to his knees. But he had been only upset, not stunned. His eyes flamed livid murder as he snatched at his gun.

  “Heah!” thundered Laramie, leaping in front of Lonesome, with his gun out. If Gaines’ hand had vibrated so much as the breath of a hair it would have been his last move.

  “No go — Nelson,” he rasped, as if half strangled. His face had turned a dirty white. “I savvy. . . . You put up a job — —”

  “Drop yore hand! . . . Now get up. . . . Stiff, damn yu! . . . Turn about. Now get yore pack an’ fork yore hawse. Yu’re shore through with the Peak Dot.”

  “Don’t be too — sure, Nelson,” hoarsely replied Gaines as he brushed the dust and dirt off his clothes.

  “Wal, I am shore. An’ I advise ya to shet up, unless yu have somethin’ to say to yore pards.”

  “Nig, you an’ Juan fetch your hawses an’ mine over to the cabin. We’re packin’ to leave this —— —— —— flathead tenderfoot outfit,” ordered Gaines. “Do we get robbed out of our wages?”

  “Wal, yu were paid Saturday,” drawled Laramie. “An’ considerin’ everythin’ I reckon yu’ll still be ahaid.”

  Gaines gave Laramie a piercing glance, as if recognizing in him now a character he had mistaken or had repudiated.

  “You bet your sweet life I will,” he hissed, with a passionate gesture.