"I wish I was sure—" began Wolfert, and was suppressed by a rough retort.
"Nobody's sure of anything till he's dead. Some of us may be dead by next sundown. Nobody knows. But I'm telling you all that this spread is the biggest prize in the west, once we lay hands on it. Make rich men of all of us. Because with Nickum gone the power in the county goes to us, and we take all the offices, levy toll on every other big rancher, and in general we will be in shape to have anything worth having in Casabella. Any objections to that?"
A sardonic answer emerged from a more distant part of the circle. "Sounds fine, providing some of us don't try to hog the prize entire. Such things happen."
"Wait till that time comes. Hang together or hang separate. We're in too deep to start quarreling now."
"Thieves always quarrel," said the sardonic one. "We will, too, when we get our fingers in the pie. But what of it? If we wasn't raising one kind of hell and deceit, we'd be doing it in another way. Casabella politics. Nobody's ever satisfied with nothing. We never get our belly full of scrapping and we never get enough plunder. Well, it don't matter. Let's go."
The ring dissolved and riders hurried off in different directions. Silence fell; the whispered treacheries of human kind faded into the great, ageless mystery of the shadow-cloaked earth and the dim, frosted stars looked down indifferently.
CHAPTER VI
Old John Nickum, bearing in mind the recent attacks made on him, took a wide swing over the desert with Clint Charterhouse to inspect a bunch of his cattle in the northwest; having done that, he discovered fresh hoof-prints along the trail and these he followed until they petered out in the hardpan bottom of an arroyo, driving east toward Dead Man's Range. Therefore, it was not until near dusk that Charterhouse got his first sight of Box M home quarters. The first landmark was a high windmill tower standing up between rows of trees; successively the party flanked corral wings, an ice house, several sodded storerooms, an enormous shed for haying implements and wagons, a still more enormous barn, three long bunkhouses built like boxcars, and finally the main house which was constructed in a fashion common to the southern cattle country.
One rambling wing was divided into rooms, each room letting out separately upon a covered porch running the whole length of the place. Lights gleamed pleasantly through an open door, and the fragrance of lilacs hung over the yard. Seastrom and Haggerty turned off and Charterhouse was about to follow them when Nickum interrupted. "You'll be one of the boys soon enough. Consider yourself a guest tonight." A queer, shrunken figure ambled up and took their horses as they dismounted and went up the porch. Nickum led Charterhouse along to a farther door, opened it and stepped through to light a lamp.
"Your room until we get a place for you in the bunkhouse tomorrow. Wash up and come to the main room."
"Not good business for a new hand like me to assume privileges over the crew," observed Charterhouse thoughtfully.
But Nickum, half down the porch, answered gruffly. "It's my pleasure to find guests worth having. I am beholden to you, which is sufficient for me and will be sufficient for all Box M. Allow me to be the judge in my own house."
Alone, Charterhouse surveyed the neat little bedroom with a strange revival of memories long slumbering. The clean plastered walls, the patchwork spread on the bed, the faint smell of lavender brought back a remote childhood. In such a room he once had lived, long, long ago. Here was the peace of family life, here was the impress of some gentle hand reminding him of his own hard, solitary life through all the intervening years. Pouring water into a china basin, he suddenly recalled Sherry Nickum.
Fire had flashed at their meeting; it might flash again. There was nothing flimsy about her. She was old John Nickum's daughter, owning the strong Nickum temper—a girl of the prairie and moulded by its influences. He recalled clearly the picture she made standing in the doorway of blind Bowlus' cabin, slim and stiff, the lazy eyes hot with anger, copper hair shining in the fresh sun.
A bell sounded over the quiet yard. Charterhouse shook the dust out of his coat and passed out to the porch. Men filed around the house with the murmur of their talk sounding peacefully in the dusk. Cigarette tips glittered, the soft wind brushed through the poplar tops. Charterhouse sighed and squared himself at the main door. Nickum waited inside for him and he saw Sherry in a dawn pink dress standing lithe and graceful by a chair; her arms and throat had an ivory beauty and the mass of auburn hair gave her a height and serenity that for the moment utterly destroyed his self-possession. He crossed the threshold and soberly met her glance. Nickum turned.
"Charterhouse—my daughter, Sherry. This is the boy, Sherry, to whom I owe an obligation."
She stepped forward and he felt the pressure of her firm palm in his own calloused fist. A deeper rose dyed her cheeks, the gray and lazy eyes lighted with an inner humor. "I am prepared to forgive—and be forgiven," she murmured. "Welcome to our home, Clint Charterhouse." "Met before?" queried Nickum, puzzled.
"At Bowlus'," said the girl, mouth curling into a smile. "I warned him to get off Box M."
"Nobody can say you ain't had ample warning, Charterhouse," chuckled Nickum. "We will try to be more friendly hereafter. Let's eat."
He went ahead into a small dining room. Sherry walked beside Charterhouse, looking up at him.
"Am I forgiven? You haven't said."
"I would be a presuming man," replied Charterhouse, "if I admitted you needed my forgiveness."
"Spoken gallantly," she said very gaily. "But you didn't feel that way about it this morning."
That made him grin, the fine lines crinkling about his eyes; and the bronzed, thoughtful features lightened tremendously. "I think we both had our Irish up then," he drawled. "You and I seem to have a temper."
"Yes," and she shot a quick look at him, "but I hope we are not going to fight any more."
"Never," said Clint so strongly that her color deepened again. He waited at her chair until she was seated, then went around to his own. A hum of talk came through from the crew's dining room. Heck Seastrom was arguing about something with his characteristic headlong vigor. "I like that chap," went on Clint.
"Seastrom?" grunted Nickum. "Oh, he's all right. Wastes a lot of energy and gets into more jackpots than all the rest of the bunch put together."
"That's why I like him. Used to ride with a partner built just about Seastrom's style. Always got into a lot of horseplay, but when trouble started he was Johnny on the spot. And when trouble finished he was still among those present. A long time ago."
"Now that sounded forlorn and sad," observed Sherry. "Has your life been so checkered?"
He chuckled. "Oh, I'm no tragic figure with a black past. But I sort of felt down when I rode up to your place. It got me to thinking about where I was born and raised and how long it had been since I last slept in a civilized room and ate at a table with a white cloth and silver. I weaned early and have been used to roundup fare ever since. This is a treat. I don't reckon you folks know just how much of a treat it is."
"I can guess," said Sherry. A shadow crossed her clear face. "It is nice to have someone sitting in your chair again. My brother sat there up until a few months ago. He—" very slowly, "was killed from ambush."
Nickum's ruddy cheeks grew tight. "At the same spot they tried to get me. Well, the day will come. No man can survive a hundred chances."
"Dad!"
But Nickum shook his head. "Got to be straight about it, Sherry. If they want me bad enough, they'll get me. I've felt it in my bones a long while. Only one way to beat that gang. Smash 'em before they get out of their tracks."
"That being the case," reflected Clint, "I don't believe I'd hesitate as to choice."
"First sensible opinion anybody's given