“My Gawd! how a woman can rave!” He got up, and reaching out a long arm he clutched her coat and blouse at the throat. With one pull he swung her clear off her feet against him. Bending his tawny head, he stuck it close to her face. “You brag a lot about this puncher Mulhall. You must like him.”

  “I wish to Heaven I’d liked him more, instead of wasting my feelings on a lousy dog like you,” replied Lenta, in deliberate passion. He could neither intimidate nor frighten her. Fiercely he gave her a fling, sending her back to the wall, where she slowly slid down to sit as before.

  “Wal, you’re game an’ you got a sharp tongue,” he rasped. “I’ve wasted words on you. There’s only one way to tame you, Lent, an’ by Gawd! I’m goin’ to do it.”

  He ended with a malignant passion that rang through the cabin. Laramie quivered in his tension. Why did not the boys come to hold up this careless bunch? Pretty soon he would lose his patience to kill Gaines, and that might start an uncertain fight. Laramie got himself in hand. It was only the girl’s presence that disturbed him. Reason argued him to wait the limit.

  “So Nelson fired you an’ then Arlidge did the same?” queried Price. “You’re gettin’ in my class, Chess.”

  Gaines straddled the bench and almost tore his tawny hair out by the roots. He wrenched force from his desperation. It struck Laramie that Gaines could have coped with this situation if he kept cool. Truly the girl’s presence was like a red flag to a bull.

  “Price, you can’t deal me in your class,” he returned, icily. “The fact thet you double-cross Arlidge an’ me before this rancher’s daughter proves your class.”

  “Have it your own way. But I’ll gamble I couldn’t tell thet kid much she doesn’t know,” said Price, with a mildness which did not deceive Laramie. He turned to address Lenta. “Say, kid, sure you know Arlidge rustled your dad’s cattle?”

  “I sure do,” retorted Lenta.

  “An’ thet he burns your Peak Dot brand into the Triangle Bar brand?”

  Lenta regarded the speaker with quickening eyes.

  “An’ thet the rancher Lester Allen sells this brand in Denver an’ Nebraskie?”

  “There! That’s what I’ve wanted to find out,” shrilled the girl, clapping her hands. “Thanks, Rustler Price. I’ll bet Laramie Nelson will be tickled to hear that.”

  Gaines whipped out his gun and held it low on Price.

  “I reckon I’ll bore you for thet.”

  The offender’s face turned as white as his flour-covered hands. He had overstepped himself. Laramie could not gauge what the fool was driving at, unless for some incredible reason he wished to betray Arlidge and Allen to the daughter of Lindsay. The news was welcome to Laramie and verified his suspicions. As for the issue at hand, let Gaines make it one less for him to contend with — or two — or three.

  “Wal, all I’ll say more, Chess — is you’re sure achin’ to bore — somebody,” gulped Price.

  “Hold on, Gaines,” interrupted Beady, markedly the only cool one present. “Is thet a matter for throwin’ your gun? Price is windy, sure, an’ plumb irritatin’. But you’ve no call to kill him for tellin’ what we all knowed.”

  “Thet jack-rabbit-eared kid didn’t know,” rang out Gaines.

  “No, I see she didn’t. But what difference does thet make when she’ll never get a chance to tell it?” returned the imperturbable Beady.

  Laramie, watching and listening like a ferret, divined that he had gauged this stranger well. Neither Price nor Gaines knew what Laramie saw — that if Gaines pulled the trigger it would mean death for himself as well.

  “Huh?” croaked the rider.

  “Gaines, you know you’ll never let thet girl go now,” concluded Beady. “So what’s the sense of shootin’ him? We’ll all be in the same box an’ have to ride out of the country.”

  Gaines’ face turned a flaming red and he flipped the gun up to catch it by the handle, and sheath it.

  “You’re —— right I’ll never let her go!” he flared, passionately.

  At that Lenta got to her feet in an action which appeared to be a drawing taut of every muscle. “Chess Gaines, to — to think I — I once liked you! . . . You dirty monster!” she screamed at him, the very embodiment of horror and scorn. “Were you born of a woman? Hadn’t you a sister?”

  “So help me Gawd, I’m goin’ to have you, Lent Lindsay!” he shouted, stridently.

  “Never alive!” she cried, and leaped for the door. As quick as a cat she would have made it, too, but for something that checked her with a smothered scream.

  Then Gaines in a leap was on her like a tiger. He tossed her up and caught her kicking in the air. “Alive you bet!” he ground out in fierce exultance. She beat at him with flying fists, and supple and strong, she twisted out of his arms to thud against the wall. Here he pinned her and was crushing her tight in a mingled anger and passion when suddenly he stretched high as if galvanized by a burning current.

  “Aggh!” he bawled out, and with a spasmodic wrench he tore loose to wheel in the firelight. Blood squeezed out between the fingers with which he clutched his breast. She had bitten him.

  Laramie had his gun almost leveled. Another move of Gaines’ toward the girl would be his last. With visage distorted by pain and frenzy Gaines lifted high a quivering open hand.

  “You she-cat! Bite me — will you?” he hissed.

  “Howdy, Chess!” sang out a voice through the door. Its mirth had a deadly note.

  The hand Gaines held aloft froze in the air. Only his eyes moved — to stare — to pop wildly.

  “Hell’s fire, but I hate to kill you quick!” pealed that outside voice, terrible now in its certainty.

  Laramie’s blood leaped. A fraction more of pressure on his trigger was diverted. Lonesome! A red flame shot through the door — a puff of smoke. Then the cabin filled to bellowing thunder. Chess Gaines’ brains spattered the chimney and he went hurtling down as if propelled by a catapult.

  CHAPTER XV

  LARAMIE RAISED HIMSELF silently on his left arm, his gaze switching to Beady. Hardly had that booming report died away when Beady drew his gun and leaped off the bench in a single action. Another leap carried him to the cabin wall where in the shadow near the door he shoved out the gun to kill Lonesome when he entered. That was a signal for Laramie to shoot.

  Beady fell forward in a heap as the cabin reverberated to the heavy shot.

  “Hands up — yu men. Quick!” ordered Laramie, getting to his knees.

  “Reckon thet’ll be Laramie,” sang out a grim voice, and Lonesome entered over the dark huddled form inside the door. Then the opposite door crashed inward to admit Williams with rifle forward, and Wind River Charlie, who jumped to a position beside him.

  Three gun-barrels glinted darkly in the dimming firelight. Jude and Price knelt among the packs and utensils, hands rigidly aloft, their pallid faces gleaming. Lenta had collapsed apparently in the chimney corner.

  “Laramie!” called Lonesome.

  “Heah I am,” replied Laramie.

  “Where?”

  “Up in the loft.”

  “You been there all the time,” asserted Lonesome. “I might have knowed thet. . . . Come down an’ make a light.”

  Laramie descended the ladder, face to the fore, but after a glance at the stupefied prisoners he sheathed his gun, and threw pine needles and pine cones on the fire. It blazed up brightly.

  “Where’s Dakota?” demanded Laramie, sharply. “Johnson an’ Mendez air out there.”

  “I hear Dakota comin’,” replied Wind River Charlie.

  “Git in there with you, nigger,” ordered Dakota, from outside.

  “I’se a-gittin’, boss. Yu needn’t jab me n-n-no mo’ wid dat gun,” came the reply.

  “Stand aside, Ted. Let them in,” called Laramie.

  A yellow-faced rolling-eyed negro shambled in, trying to bend away from a rifle barrel shoved against his back by Dakota.

  “Heah’s Johnson,” announced the rider. “The greaser must have heard us an’ sneaked away.”

  “Where is he, nigger?” demanded Lonesome.

  “I dunno, sah. I was jus’ talkin’ to him out dere wid de hawses. He never sed nuffin’, an’ when I looked fer him sho he was gone.”

  “Saves us the trouble of hangin’ him,” went on Lonesome, who seemed to assume leadership here. “Charlie, get ropes somewhere.”

  “Saddles jest outside, Charlie,” added Laramie.

  The rider disappeared out in the darkness and presently could be heard tearing at saddles in the stalls. Soon he reappeared, carrying coiled lassoes.

  “Charlie, you an’ Dakota cut one of them in three pieces an’ tie these hombres’ hands behind their backs,” went on Lonesome.

  This order was soon complied with, whereupon Lonesome sheathed his gun and sat down upon the bench to throw his sombrero on the table. His face resembled an ashen mask.

  “Now drag these dead hombres back in the corner, so sight of them won’t spoil our supper.”

  Meanwhile Laramie knelt beside Lenta. She lay half propped between some firewood and the chimney. Her small face shone white and it wore an expression of torture. Her eyes were now vastly far from resembling those of a baby.

  “Wal, I shore reckoned yu was daid to the world, Lenta,” said Laramie, and it seemed that with sight of the pathetic torn little figure and her eyes all his affection for the wayward girl rushed back. She had what Laramie respected most — courage. He lifted her to a more comfortable posture and tried to smooth out her disheveled hair.

  “I — I didn’t faint,” she whispered, clinging to Laramie. “When I ran — I saw Lonesome out there. I knew then — I was saved. . . . But I’ve seen — heard it all. I’m sick, but glad. . . . Oh, Laramie, he hasn’t looked once — at me. What does he — think? . . . Tell him — I — I’m all right — that — —”

  “Shore yu’re all right,” interrupted Laramie, softly. “I heahed yu, Lent, an’ was plumb happy. Yu’re the gamest kid I ever met, an’ some day I shore got to beg yore forgiveness. Brace up now. Yore troubles air past.”

  “Maybe they are. . . . But tell him, Laramie — please,” whispered the girl.

  “Pard,” called Laramie, addressing Lonesome, who sat dark and grim at the table. “Lent’s all right. Weak an’ sick, shore, but unhurt. . . . An’ not harmed atall!”

  “Yeah? . . . Thank Gawd then fer her an’ Hallie,” responded Lonesome, without emotion, and without a glance in that direction.

  Lenta pulled Laramie down to whisper: “See! He doesn’t believe — or care. . . . And I — Oh — Laramie — —”

  “Hush, child. Yu’re upset. Don’t try to figger out anythin’ now. Keep on fightin’ off hysterics. Think of the facts. Yu’re neither hurt nor harmed. In the mawnin’ we’ll take yu back home — to Hallie an’ yore mother. That’s enough to think of now.”

  It was not easy to unclasp Lenta’s twining little hands or to turn from her big beseeching eyes.

  “Come heah, Laramie. You ain’t no nurse, an’ if the girl’s all right, why, let’s tend to the deal,” said Lonesome.

  “Reckon the rest can wait till mawnin’,” rejoined Laramie, crossing to Lonesome and speaking in a low tone of voice.

  “No. An’ I reckon you’d better let me boss the party.”

  “Shore, if yu want. But why?”

  “On account of Hallie,” returned Lonesome, speaking low. “In case the story of what happens ever leaks out. Savvy, pard?”

  “Wal, I don’t know as I do,” drawled Laramie. “This heah’s a funny time for yu to be dreamin’.”

  “Aw, hell! . . . Heah, I’ll take the responsibility an’ I’ll lie to Hallie. Only, you must coax Lent to keep quiet about this bloody mess.”

  “Shore. I reckon I can guarantee thet.”

  “Good. Now have you any suggestion?”

  “Only one. Daid men’s evidence isn’t so shore as thet of livin’ ones. I’ve heahed the truth about Arlidge an’ Allen. It’s what we reckoned, Lonesome, but couldn’t prove. I say scare the nigger half to death. Then agree to set him free if he squeals.”

  “Ahuh. Anythin’ you say, Laramie, though it galls me not to see him stretch hemp with the rest of them.”

  “Shore I reckon I feel thet way, too,” rejoined Laramie, ponderingly, not so certain of himself.

  Price watching the dialogue between Lonesome and Laramie, but unable to hear them, burst into shaky speech: “Mulhall, we had — nothin’ to do — with Gaines’ kidnappin’ thet kid.”

  Lonesome gave no sign that he had heard the appeal of his old enemy. He rolled a cigarette with steady fingers. His impassiveness struck even Laramie, and his stony visage might have been the mask of doom itself. Certain it was that Price realized this, for a second attempt at speech failed in his throat.

  “Aw, keep it out of your neck!” interrupted Jude, in harsh bitterness. “You got us into this. Now take your medicine.”

  “Dakota, we’ll want a blazin’ fire outside, so we can see,” spoke up Lonesome.

  “No, we won’t,” interposed Laramie. “Throw some more wood on heah. . . . I’ll pack the girl out.” Wherewith he stepped to Lenta’s side and bent to lift her.

  “What you want, Laramie?” she asked.

  “Wal, the fact is, lass, yu’ll be — it’s nicer outside — more air, an’ later I’ll fix yu a bed,” replied Laramie.

  “I can walk,” she said, and rose to prove her contention. Laramie led her out.

  “Set heah, Lent, where I can see yu,” concluded Laramie, and gently forced her to a sitting posture against the wall. Then he turned back and sat down in the door, facing those inside.

  “Laramie, what is Lonesome going to do — with them?” whispered the girl, fearfully.

  “Wal, yu never mind. It won’t be much, I reckon.”

  “But he won’t let that Price go scot-free, will he?” protested Lenta, with decided force. Laramie began to feel ashamed to deceive her, so did not have a ready answer. Whereupon the girl got up and peered into the cabin, her hands on Laramie’s shoulders. The renewed fire brightly lighted the forward end of the cabin.

  “Lonesome!” cried Lenta, shrilly. Every face inside turned toward her, gleaming darkly. The pine cones cracked. “That man Price is worse than Gaines. Today when he met us — he kept eyeing me. . . . Oh, I read his mind. And he waylaid us here to kill Gaines. He meant to get me.”

  “Yeah?” responded Lonesome, with a composure that sat so strangely upon him. “Much obliged, Miss Lindsay. We’re right glad to have our suspicions confirmed.”

  Lenta stared at him and then slowly turned away, muttering. Laramie told her to move along the wall, away from the door, out of hearing.

  Lonesome’s sharp order rang out:

  “Charlie, throw a noose over thet high rafter.”

  The lanky rider strode to the center of the cabin, rope in hand. This left the open door on that side unguarded. Quick as a flash Jude leaped toward it. “By Gawd! you’ll never hang me!” His leap carried him through but the crash of Dakota’s gun ended his flight. The rider went out, to return and close the door.

  “Reckon we’ll never have to,” he said, grimly.

  Wind River Charlie swung the coil of lasso dexterously through the small triangle between the rafter and the roof. The noose streaked down and dangled with a sinister action like the head of a snake.

  “Ted, keep yore gun on Price, an’ if he as much as winks, shoot him in the belly,” said Lonesome, in a low voice. “Charlie, gimme the rope an’ you an’ Dakota drag the nigger heah.”

  They did so and threw the noose over the negro’s head. Lonesome hauled on the lasso, stretching Johnson to his toes and held him there a moment.

  “How you like thet, nigger?” he whispered, slacking on the lasso.

  Johnson came down flat-footed, choking and writhing. Charlie loosened the noose. The negro gasped, his yellow face worked hideously, his eyes rolled with the whites startlingly prominent.

  “Yuse oughtto — kills me — decent,” he said, in a strangled whisper.

  “Thet all you gotta say, Johnson?” queried the imperturbable Mulhall.

  “Fer de Lud’s sake — don’ hang me. . . . I’se done nuthin’.”

  “You’re a hawse-thief.”

  “No, sah, I ain’t. Nebber.”

  “But you’re a cattle-thief.”

  “Yas, I is. But I nebber — wuz — till dat Arlidge man — made me,” protested the negro.

  “Wal, thet’s too bad, ‘cause we gotta string you up.”

  The negro presented a pathetic figure. But he was not without courage.

  “Nelson, yuse boss heah. . . . Cain’t yuse make him shoot me? . . . I sho hates — to have my neck — wrung.”

  “Sam, I reckon I might if — —”

  Lonesome slowly threw his weight on the lasso and pulled. “Heah, give me a hand, Charlie. . . . Easy now. Don’t break nothin’.” Together they slowly drew the negro up until his head and neck appeared to be those of a turtle. One foot left the ground, then the other. He swung free. His knees drew up spasmodically while a horrid sucking sound issued from his mouth. Suddenly he was dropped back to solid earth. This time he swayed and would have fallen but for the rope.

  Laramie took a glance at the livid face of Price. The rustler’s eyes were shut tight.

  Again Charlie loosened the noose. Johnson appeared almost strangled. He coughed, and the intake of breath was a wheeze.

  “How you like thet, nigger?” asked Lonesome.

  “I done — reckon — I’se gone — den.”

  “Sam, then you love life, huh?”

  “Lud, I nebber — knowed — how much.”

  “Wal, what’d you do to save yore life? Would you talk?”

  “Yas, sir. I’d tell — all — I knows,” replied the negro, in hoarse accents of hope.

  Here Laramie intervened: “Sam, tomorrow we’ll ride down to see Allen. Will yu talk in front of him?”

  “Yas, sah, I shore will.”

  “Is Allen a cattle-thief?”

  “I nebber seen him — rustle no stock, sah. But he sells burned brands — sah — he shore does.”