pressed the point. "I've got no reason or desire to cause you trouble, Dave. And if that damned fool is figurin' to get on the prod I'll yank him back into the bushes."
"Let him have his fun," said Denver soberly. "He always has considered me to be his brand of poison, and it'd be just as well to let him try his hand. I don't like to watch men circle around me."
"He'll make no play against you," stated Redmain flatly. "In the first place, he's got to do what I tell him. In the second place, he's useful to me and I don't want him shot up."
"Yeah," mused Denver, "I always felt you regarded him as a right bower."
Redmain gathered his reins. "Got to be traveling. By the way, is that opera outfit in town?"
"Lola's there," said Denver quietly, "which is what you wanted to know."
For a moment a dark, wild flash of emotion flamed in Redmain's eyes, and the narrow face became taut and pale around the nostrils: here was a killer, a man without compassion or conscience emerging swiftly from a deceptive shell of manners. But with equal swiftness Redmain recovered himself and stared inscrutably down at Denver. Then he whirled and raced away from the river, pony hoofs making a rapid tattoo over the ground. Steve had mounted. Denver threw his saddle into the buggy, took the seat, and started off. Together the partners angled into the higher land. Purple crusted shadows folded about the ridges; the team's clatter rang far along the still ravines. Night settled down, bringing with it the pervading loneliness and mystery of a country yet untamed.
This was a busy season of the year, but Denver earlier in the day had given the crew leave to hit Sundown for the show and its pursuant revelry. So when he drew into the long avenue of poplars and came by the bunkhouse he found a strangely unnatural stillness pervading home quarters. The crew had eaten beforehand and departed, leaving behind only those recluse spirits who seemed to enjoy solitude. One of these stopped his fiddle in the dead center of a weird harmony and came out to take over the team. Lights winked from the main-house, water bubbled melodiously from a spring pipe, and the spiced scent of the hills swirled across the yard. Denver left an order with the hand.
"My saddle's back of the buggy. Slap it on that gray gelding, Shad."
Going to the house, Denver and Steve ate a quick snack; then Steve stretched himself in a front-room chair while Denver shaved and changed clothes. Rather facetiously the sandy-haired puncher hailed the transformation.
"Doggone it, Dave, yore beginnin' to drift out of my class. When a man barbecues his whiskers every day he ain't common folks no more."
"Fellow ought to show a clean face at the opera house, shouldn't he? You going?"
"Well, I'm driftin' back to Sundown," opined Steve, "but I ain't goin' to the show. Not by a jugful. Debbie would raise a ruckus if she heard."
Denver chuckled over a cigarette. "For an engaged man you sure take life serious. Why not wait until you get married before assumin' this pallbearin' atmosphere?"
Steve's lazy, quizzical features were puckered solemnly. "You don't know nothin' about it. When a man's married he knows where he stands. The judge has thrown the book at him, the knot's tied, and there ain't any question about it. Which I mean when a fellow's married he's plumb arrived somewhere. But this engagement business, what is it, anyhow? You ain't one thing and you ain't another. One minute yore hot as hell, and the next minute yore cold all over. You dunno what to say, what to do, or how to act. Dave, it's awful."
"When's the ceremony going to be?"
"Hah!" snorted the perplexed Steve. "There's another item. How in hell do I know? Listen, you got a great experience Comin' to yuh, Dave. Before you pop the question yore high card. Nothin's too good. You sit in the best parlor chair, the old man hands out his best cigars, and the lady leans on yore arm as if she couldn't do without yore big, handsome carcass. But afterward—then what? All of a sudden you ain't nothin' but a future husband. The girl gets a far-off cast to her eyes and considers clothes and etiquette and such stuff; the old man considers the expenses and don't pass out no more cigars. The parlor chair's sent back to the attic, and nobody's got time to talk to yuh atall. I don't know nothin' about it. I suppose I'll get a notice some day to appear at such and such a church for the event—and otherwise I'm just hangin' out on a limb waitin' to be sawed down."
Denver spoke rather gently at his partner. "I wouldn't want you to think I was casting any cold water on matrimony, and I think Debbie Lunt's a fine girl. But I recall when you and I used to ride fifty miles to a dance and have a pretty sizable time. Also I recall the occasion when you and I switched all the teams at Fee's barn raisin'. You seem to have lost some starch lately, Steve."
"I ain't had an idea of my own since I proposed," reflected Steve, weltering in gloom. "I thought that was sure a bright idea at the time. I ain't so sure any more."
"Then why get married?" grunted Denver.
"Well, I figgers it out this way. How will life be thirty years from now with Debbie? Terrible—awful. I shudders to think of it. A bath every week, no smokin' in the house, no liquor, no poker, no roamin'. No nothin'. It'll be, come here, Steve, and go there, Steve, and, Steve, mind the mud on yore shoes. Likewise, Steve, put a muffler on yore neck against the cold and, Steve, dear, I will take care of yore month's pay, so shell it over and don't bat them eyes on me like that. Oh, my Gawd!"
"If that's the way you feel," stated Denver, "why not bunch the proposition?"
"Well," sighed Steve, "I figgers that thisaway. How will life be thirty years from now if I ain't got her? Hell, Dave, there ain't any other woman who wants me. I'd be a single galoot. Batchin' in a shanty full of holes. Mendin' my own socks and cookin' my own beans. Nobody to talk to and nobody who gives a damn what happens to me. Bein' old and useless without a fambly is shore a sorrowful thing. So I considers. I shudders to think of bein' married to Debbie and I shudders to consider I'll lose her. Upon mature reflection I calculate I shudder hardest when I think of losin' her. Therefore, marriage is the ticket."
"Ought to be glad you got it fought to a standstill," offered Denver dryly.
"Yeah," muttered Steve and stared across the room. There was an enormous lack of enthusiasm in his answer, a kind of mortal weariness. "Oh, yeah. Uhuh."
"Let's go," said Denver, leading out. They got their horses and turned back on the trail. Beyond the poplars Denver stopped. "Listen, I sort of want to get a little information for my own personal use. Let's split here. You take the short way into town. I'll go round by the toe of Starlight."
Steve Steers was alert. "Lookin' for anybody in particular?"
"No, but I'd like to know if the population of Yellow Hill County is shiftin' across the Copperhead tonight. Stinger Dann has sort of put a bug in my bonnet."
"It's an idea," mused Steve, "and might bear fruit."
"Said fruit, if any, is for our own nourishment exclusively," warned Dave.
"I heard yuh the first time," stated Steve. "Let's slope. And better hurry, or yuh won't get to show that shave."
He spurred on down the trail. Denver cut around his ranch quarters, ascended a stiff pathway, and plunged into the sudden gloom of a pine belt. The lights from D Slash winked and were cut off; the pines spread away before an upland meadow swimming with fog, and this tilted into a narrow ravine that struck straight for leveler land to the south. Denver, with a comparatively free trail in front, urged a more rapid pace.
As he traveled he reviewed the affair at Copperhead crossing. Ever since that remote boyhood day when he became conscious for the first time that the placid world held a thousand threats he had been fighting savagely against the dominant elements. His whole life had been fashioned and tempered by these struggles and so now in manhood David Denver looked on the wild forces of nature as a pagan would, endowing these forces almost with living personalities. He had been fighting them too long to regard them any other way. Thus he felt a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that he had whipped the river and won another engagement in that everlasting skirmish with the earth. Yet when he considered that but for the swift accuracy of Lou Redmain's lariat he would now be nothing