got to swallow the truth, sweet or bitter," granted Nickum.
Charterhouse spoke. "You have made an enemy for me."
"Buck?" grunted Nickum, astonished.
Charterhouse nodded. "Just so."
"Hell, that's a foolish idea," retorted Nickum. But Sherry caught Clint's eye and though he was no hand at reading unspoken thoughts, he knew she agreed with him. She put an arm to his elbow.
"Walk with me."
There was a shawl on a table by the door that she took up and whipped around her shoulders. They crossed the porch and strolled along the yard with the lights of the bunkhouses making yellow pathways across the earth. Water trickled near by, the trees were sighing with the wind and horses stamped patiently in the barn. The moon hung rakishly in a corner of the sky, pale against all the surrounding darkness; and memories kept returning to Clint.
"Like coming into shelter after a hard day outside," he mused aloud. "I never knew anything could be so peaceful or quiet. Reckon I have missed a great deal so far."
"I'm glad to know you've found that missing element here," said she quietly.
"Found it, and will lose it again."
"Why so? You sound so wistful, as if there never was any real happiness possible for you."
"Don't make me out a man with a sorrowful past," he warned her. "I've just wandered along, nothing much behind and nothing much ahead."
"Then I was right when I told Buck you never cared to look at a woman twice?"
"Up till now," said Clint and fell silent.
"Somewhere," she murmured, "you learned how to speak gallantly."
They turned, swinging along another row of trees, crossed a ditch with her body swaying lightly against him and lightly away. He saw the pale silhouette of her face, dim and beautiful against the velvet curtin of this prairie night and was troubled with the faint fragrance of her hair.
"I brought you out," she continued after a long while, "to say that I am truly sorry for my temper this morning. I was uncertain, and I can never find any kindness in my heart for those men who killed my brother. But—we'll not quarrel like that again, Clint Charterhouse. As long as you stay here I want you to regard this as home. I'll feel happy if you do."
"Let's scratch my remarks off the record, too," he drawled. "I'd rather have your good wishes—"
There was no need of finishing the sentence. He let it trail into the shadows. Part of his attention, so long trained to watchfulness that it never wholly slept, kept striking back to a blurred poplar trunk near the house. He thought he had seen a slight shifting there. After they went over the ditch and circled the barn he lost sight of the tree; when he picked up a view of it again, the outline of the trunk was distinctly slimmer.
"I wanted to say something else as well," said the girl, finding more difficulty with her words. "You spoke of having made an enemy. I hate to say it, but I think you have. Buck is a fine, straight man. I know him better than anybody else, I think, and I've never known a more thorough gentleman. Yet Dad hurt him, even if he didn't show it through his smile. Buck is proud of his strength and proud of everything he owns. You don't know that side of him. I do. Now and then I catch flashes of it that are startling."
"I understand," said Clint. "When he wants a thing he wants it pretty bad and is willing to scrap for it. I take him to be a pretty able scrapper."
"Then you do see what I mean. He has never revealed himself, but I have often thought he would like to rule Casabella for the sense of power it would give him. To be able to justify all that energy and ability that he can't find an outlet for now. What I wanted to say was that you must, whatever else you do, be straight, frank and shoulder to shoulder with him. Promise me you'll never permit yourself to get into an argument with him. Promise me that."
"A large order," mused Clint, surprised. "Who knows what will happen next? Why are you asking it?"
"Because," murmured Sherry just above a whisper, "because—I should hate to think of you two quarreling. You're both rather proud and strong-willed."
"I won't take a step out of my way to antagonize him," he promised. "And I will accept his advice and experience wherever possible."
She sighed. "I couldn't ask any more of you. It seems silly to think you'd ever have reason to cross swords. It won't happen, mustn't happen. But—"
They were at the porch. Nickum stood in the doorway, calling down to them. "Well, I don't need to sleep on it, after all. We'll battle this business out. No matter who gets hurt, we're going to clean up the dirty stables from corner to corner. In the morning, Charterhouse, I want you to go to the Bowlus place with me. We start our campaign in that stretch of country and it's wise to show you around."
The girl murmured "good night" and turned in. Charterhouse saw her face white and troubled as she passed the door; troubled and grieving over the bloodshed that inevitably marched nearer, because she was a woman. Nickum knocked the ashes from his pipe and silently followed her. Charterhouse swung along the porch to his own room, entered and pushed the door nearly shut. Through the small aperture remaining he watched the yard with a close attention. A man slipped from another dark angle and crossed quickly to the bunkhouses; instead of going into any of them, he disappeared somewhere beyond. A great deal later, when Charterhouse was in bed, he heard spaced shots come faintly off the prairie. His mouth tightened.
"There's a leak around here," he mused.
Meanwhile, Sherry Nickum stood in front of her mirror and studied the dark reflection thrown back. In the course of this eventful day she had discovered something that both stirred and depressed her. A struggle as old as the ages, yet as new as each life took hold of her heart. Until it was settled she would never walk without one certain picture in her mind—tall and exuberant Buck Manners standing so indolently sure of himself in front of Clint Charterhouse whose clean-chiseled features seemed wistfully pointed to the promise of happiness hiding beyond the elusive horizons. She too heard the spaced shots; and her eyes clouded.
CHAPTER VII
"Consider Charterhouse to speak for me on any occasion when I am not personally with you," said old John Nickum, facing the assembled Box M riders. "When he gives an order, you are to obey it without qualification. Is that clearly understood? I want no doubts on the subject. This applies to everybody, no exceptions. From now on he is my right-hand man."
In the hot morning's sun he looked grim and gray; overnight he had aged. But the fighting flare was in the chilly eyes and the boom of his voice was as aggressive as ever. The group of men—Charterhouse counted forty in that crowd—stood silent. Haggerty shifted, no light relieving the sour, stringy face.
"I'm to work with him?" demanded the foreman, pitching the question in a surly tone.
Nickum stared down at the man long enough to make the silence oppressive. "I thought I made myself plain, Haggerty. You work under him, and no debate about it."
"I thought I was foreman of this outfit, Nickum."
"You still are—unless the job don't satisfy you. In that case—''
"I said nothing about not being satisfied," retorted Haggerty. "But it's a funny pass when a foreman don't run the spread direct under the owner. Charterhouse ain't friendly to me, and it goes hard on a man to take orders thataway."
Nickum turned to Charterhouse. "Want to declare yourself on that point?"
"Yes," said Clint. "Haggerty's got nothing to fear if he'll play poker with me. We had a run-in on the prairie and I took exception to some of his remarks. I still do. But this is business, and I'll hold down my private opinions if he'll do the same."
"Hear that, Haggerty?" challenged