for many injuries received. Almost any of them would have shot him in the back on a dark night, but none had the cold nerve to meet him in the open. For even in a land which bred men there were few to match Emerson Crawford.
Shorty looked at Steelman. "I'm waitin', Brad," he said.
The sheepman nodded sullenly. "You done heard your orders, Shorty."
The ex-convict reached for his steeple hat, thrust his revolver back into its holster, and went jingling from the room. He looked insolently at Crawford as he passed.
"Different here. If it was my say-so I'd go through."
Hart administered first aid to his friend. "I'm servin' notice, Miller, that some day I'll bust you wide and handsome for this," he said, looking straight at the fat gambler. "You have give Dave a raw deal, and you'll not get away with it."
"I pack a gun. Come a-shootin' when you're ready," retorted Miller.
"Tha's liable to be right soon, you damn horsethief. We've rid 'most a hundred miles to have a li'l' talk with you and yore pardner there."
"Shoutin' about that race yet, are you? If I wasn't a better loser than you—"
"Don't bluff, Miller. You know why we trailed you."
Doble edged into the talk. He was still short of wind, but to his thick wits a denial seemed necessary. "We ain't got yore broncs."
"Who mentioned our broncs?" Hart demanded, swiftly.
"Called Ad a horsethief, didn't you?"
"So he is. You, too. You've got our ponies. Not in yore vest pockets, but hid out in the brush somewheres. I'm servin' notice right now that Dave and me have come to collect."
Dave opened his eyes upon a world which danced hazily before him. He had a splitting headache.
"Wha's the matter?" he asked.
"You had a run-in with a bunch of sheep wranglers," Bob told him. "They're going to be plumb sorry they got gay."
Presently Shorty returned. "That team's hooked up," he told the world at large.
"You'll drive us, Steelman," announced Crawford.
"Me!" screamed the leader of the other faction. "You got the most nerve I ever did see."
"Sure. Drive him home, Brad," advised Shorty with bitter sarcasm. "Black his boots. Wait on him good. Step lively when yore new boss whistles." He cackled with splenetic laughter.
"I dunno as I need to drive you home," Steelman said slowly, feeling his way to a decision. "You know the way better'n I do."
The eyes of the two leaders met.
"You'll drive," the cattleman repeated steadily.
The weak spot in Steelman's leadership was that he was personally not game. Crawford had a pungent personality. He was dynamic, strong, master of himself in any emergency. The sheepman's will melted before his insistence. He dared not face a showdown.
"Oh, well, what's it matter? We can talk things over on the way. Me, I'm not lookin' for trouble none," he said, his small black eyes moving restlessly to watch the effect of this on his men.
Bob helped his partner out of the house and into the surrey. The cattleman took the seat beside Steelman, across his knees the sawed-off shotgun. He had brought his enemy along for two reasons. One was to weaken his prestige with his own men. The other was to prevent them from shooting at the rig as they drove away.
Steelman drove in silence. His heart was filled with surging hatred. During that ride was born a determination to have nothing less than the life of his enemy when the time should be ripe.
At the door of his house Crawford dismissed him contemptuously. "Get out."
The man with the reins spoke softly, venomously, from a dry throat. "One o' these days you'll crawl on your hands and knees to me for this."
He whipped up the team and rattled away furiously into the night.
Chapter VIII
The D Bar Lazy R Boys Meet an Angel
Joyce came flying to her father's arms. The white lace of a nightgown showed beneath the dressing-robe she had hurriedly donned. A plait of dark hair hung across her shoulder far below the waist. She threw herself at Crawford with a moaning little sob.
"Oh Dad … Dad … Dad!" she cried, and her slender arms went round his neck.
"'T's all right, sweetheart. Yore old dad's not even powder-burnt. You been worryin' a heap, I reckon." His voice was full of rough tenderness.
She began to cry.
He patted her shoulder and caressed her dark head drawing it close to his shoulder. "Now—now—now sweetheart, don't you cry. It's all right, li'l' honey bug."
"You're not … hurt," she begged through her tears.
"Not none. Never was huskier. But I got a boy out here that's beat up some. Come in, Dave—and you, Bob. They're good boys, Joy. I want you to meet 'em both."
The girl had thought her father alone. She flung one startled glance into the night, clutched the dressing-gown closer round her throat, and fled her barefoot way into the darkness of the house. To the boys, hanging back awkwardly at the gate, the slim child-woman was a vision wonderful. Their starved eyes found in her white loveliness a glimpse of heaven.
Her father laughed. "Joy ain't dressed for callers. Come in, boys."
He lit a lamp and drew Dave to a lounge. "Lemme look at yore haid, son. Bob, you hot-foot it for Doc Green."
"It's nothin' a-tall to make a fuss about," Dave apologized. "Only a love tap, compliments of Shorty, and some kicks in the slats, kindness of Mr. Miller."
In spite of his debonair manner Dave still had a bad headache and was so sore around the body that he could scarcely move without groaning. He kept his teeth clamped on the pain because he had been brought up in the outdoor code of the West which demands of a man that he grin and stand the gaff.
While the doctor was attending to his injuries, Dave caught sight once or twice of Joyce at the door, clad now in a summer frock of white with a blue sash. She was busy supplying, in a brisk, competent way, the demands of the doctor for hot and cold water and clean linen.
Meanwhile Crawford told his story. "I was right close to the club when Doble met me. He pulled a story of how his brother Dug had had trouble with Steelman and got shot up. I swallowed it hook, bait, and sinker. Soon as I got into the house they swarmed over me like bees. I didn't even get my six-gun out. Brad wanted me to sign a relinquishment. I told him where he could head in at."
"What would have happened if the boys hadn't dropped along?" asked Dr. Green as he repacked his medicine case.
The cattleman looked at him, and his eyes were hard and bleak. "Why, Doc, yore guess is as good as mine." he said.
"Mine is, you'd have been among the missing, Em. Well, I'm leaving a sleeping-powder for the patient in case he needs it in an hour or two. In the morning I'll drop round again," the doctor said.
He did, and found Dave much improved. The clean outdoors of the rough-riding West builds blood that is red. A city man might have kept his bed a week, but Dave was up and ready to say good-bye within forty-eight hours. He was still a bit under par, a trifle washed-out, but he wanted to take the road in pursuit of Miller and Doble, who had again decamped in a hurry with the two horses they had stolen.
"They had the broncs hid up Frio Cañon way, I reckon," explained Hart. "But they didn't take no chances. When they left that 'dobe house they lit a-runnin' and clumb for the high hills on the jump. And they didn't leave no address neither. We'll be followin' a cold trail. We're not liable to find them after