the Texan.
“All right, five minutes. But you want to remember that it’s all off with you if you don’t give up. Billy Faulkner’s dead, and we’ll sure come a-shooting.”
Fraser waited till his five minutes was nearly up, then plunged across the road into the sagebrush growing thick there. A shot or two rang out, without stopping him. Suddenly a man rose out of the sage in front of him, a revolver in his hand.
For a fraction of a second, the two men faced each other before either spoke.
“Who are you?”
Fraser’s answer was to dive for the man’s knees, just as a football tackle does. They went down together, but it was the Texan got up first. A second man was running toward him.
“Hands up, there!” the newcomer ordered.
Fraser’s hand went up, but with his forty-five in it. The man pitched forward into the sage. The Southerner twisted forward again, slid down into the dry creek, and ran along its winding bed for a hundred yards. Then he left it, cutting back toward the spot where he had lain behind the dead horse. Hiding in the sage, he heard the pursuit pouring down the creek, waited till it was past, and quickly recrossed the road. Here, among the cow-backed hills, he knew he was as safe as a needle in a haystack.
“I had to get that anxious guy, but it might have been a whole lot worse. I only plugged his laig for him,” he reflected comfortably. “Wonder why they wanted to collect the old man’s scalp, anyhow? The little girl sure was game. Just like a woman, though, the way she broke down because she hit that fellow.”
Within five minutes he was lost again among the thousand hills that rose like waves of the sea, one after another. It was not till nearly morning that he again struck a road.
He was halted abruptly by a crisp command from behind a bowlder:
“Up with your hands—quick!”
“Who are you, my friend?” the Texan asked mildly.
“Deputy sheriff,” was the prompt response. “Now, reach for the sky, and prompt, too.”
“Just as you say. You’ve ce’tainly got the crawl on me.”
The deputy disarmed his captive, and drove him into town before him. When morning dawned, Fraser found himself behind the bars. He was arrested for the murder of Faulkner.
Chapter II.
A Compact
After the jailer had brought his breakfast, Fraser was honored by a visit from the sheriff, a big, rawboned Westerner, with the creases of fifty outdoor years stamped on his brown, leathery face.
He greeted his prisoner pleasantly enough, and sat down on the bed.
“Treating you right, are they?” he asked, glancing around. “Breakfast up to the mark?”
“I’ve got no kick coming, thank you,” said Fraser.
“Good!”
The sheriff relapsed into sombre silence. There was a troubled look in the keen eyes that the Texan did not understand. Fraser waited for the officer to develop the object of his visit, and it was set down to his credit. A weaker man would have rushed at once into excuses and explanations. But in the prisoner’s quiet, steely eyes, in the close-shut mouth and salient jaw, in the set of his well-knit figure, Sheriff Brandt found small room for weakness. Whoever he was, this man was one who could hold his own in the strenuous game of life.
“My friend,” said the sheriff abruptly, “you and I are up against it. There is going to be trouble in town to-night.”
The level, gray eyes looked questioningly at the sheriff.
“You butted into grief a-plenty when you lined up with the cattlemen in this sheep war. Who do you ride for?”
“I’m not riding for anybody,” responded Fraser. “I just arrived from Texas. Didn’t even know there was a feud on.”
Brandt laughed incredulously. “That will sound good to a jury, if your case ever comes to that stage. How do you expect to explain Billy Faulkner’s death?”
“Is there any proof I killed him?”
“Some. You were recognized by two men last night while you were trying to escape. You carried a rifle that uses the same weight bullet as the one we dug out of Billy. When you attacked Tom Peake you dropped that rifle, and in your getaway hadn’t time to pick it up again. That is evidence enough for a Wyoming jury, in the present state of public opinion.”
“What do you mean by ‘in the present state of public opinion’?”
“I mean that this whole country is pretty nearly solid against the Cedar Mountain cattlemen, since they killed Campeau and Jennings in that raid on their camp. You know what I mean as well as I do.”
Fraser did not argue the point. He remembered now having seen an account of the Squaw Creek raid on a sheep camp, ending in a battle that had resulted in the death of two men and the wounding of three others. He had been sitting in a hotel at San Antonio, Texas, when he had read the story over his after-dinner cigar. The item had not seemed even remotely connected with himself. Now he was in prison at Gimlet Butte, charged with murder, and unless he was very much mistaken the sheriff was hinting at a lynching. The Squaw Creek raid had come very near to him, for he knew the fight he had interrupted last night had grown out of it.
“What do you mean by trouble to-night?” he asked, in an even, conversational tone.
The sheriff looked directly at him. “You’re a man, I reckon. That calls for the truth. Men are riding up and down this country to-day, stirring up sentiment against your outfit. To-night the people will gather in town, and the jail will be attacked.”
“And you?”
“I’ll uphold the law as long as I can.”
Fraser nodded. He knew Brandt spoke the simple truth. What he had sworn to do he would do to the best of his ability. But the Texan knew, too, that the ramshackle jail would be torn to pieces and the sheriff overpowered.
From his coat pocket he drew a letter, and presented it to the other. “I didn’t expect to give this to you under these circumstances, Mr. Brandt, but I’d like you to know that I’m on the level when I say I don’t know any of the Squaw Creek cattlemen and have never ridden for any outfit in this State.”
Brandt tore open the letter, and glanced hurriedly through it. “Why, it’s from old Sam Slauson! We used to ride herd together when we were boys.” And he real aloud:
“Introducing Steve Fraser, lieutenant in the Texas Rangers.”
He glanced up quickly. “You’re not the Fraser that ran down Chacon and his gang of murderers?”
“Yes, I was on that job.”
Brandt shook hands heartily. “They say it was a dandy piece of work. I read that story in a magazine. You delivered the goods proper.”
The ranger was embarrassed. “Oh, it wasn’t much of a job. The man that wrote it put in the fancy touches, to make his story sell, I expect.”
“Yes, he did! I know all about that!” the sheriff derided. “I’ve got to get you out of this hole somehow. Do you mind if I send for Hilliard, the prosecuting attorney? He’s a bright young fellow, loaded to the guards with ideas. What I want is to get at a legal way of fixing this thing up, you understand. I’ll call him up on the phone, and have him run over.”
Hilliard was shortly on the spot—a short, fat little fellow with eyeglasses. He did not at first show any enthusiasm in the prisoner’s behalf.
“I don’t doubt