“I sent my boy with a note to Dillon. It’s a good thirty miles from here, and the old man won’t make it back till some time to-morrow. Course, you’re welcome at the house, but I judge it wouldn’t be best for you to be seen there. No knowing when some of Brandt’s deputies might butt in with a warrant. You can slip down again after dark and burrow in the haystack. Eh? What think?”
“I’m in your hands, but I don’t want to put you and your friends to so much trouble. Isn’t there some mountain trail off the beaten road that I could take to Dillon’s ranch, and so save him from the trip after me?”
Speed grinned. “Not in a thousand years, my friend. Dillon’s ranch ain’t to be found, except by them that know every pocket of these hills like their own back yard. I’ll guarantee you couldn’t find it in a month, unless you had a map locating it.”
“Must be in that Lost Valley, which some folks say is a fairy tale,” the ranger said carelessly, but with his eyes on the other.
The cattleman made no comment. It occurred to Fraser that his remark had stirred some suspicion of him. At least, it suggested caution.
“If you’re through with your breakfast, I’ll take back the dishes,” Speed said dryly.
The day wore to sunset. After dark had fallen the Texan slipped through the alfalfa field again and bedded in the stack. Before the morning was more than gray he returned to the underbrush of the ridge. His breakfast finished, and Speed gone, he lay down on a great flat, sun-dappled rock, and looked into the unflecked blue sky. The season was spring, and the earth seemed fairly palpitating with young life. The low, tireless hum of insects went on all about him. The air was vocal with the notes of nesting birds. Away across the valley he could see a mountain slope, with snow gulches glowing pink in the dawn. Little checkerboard squares along the river showed irrigated patches. In the pleasant warmth he grew drowsy. His eyes closed, opened, closed again.
He was conscious of no sound that awakened him, yet he was aware of a presence that drew him from drowsiness to an alert attention. Instinctively, his hand crept to his scabbarded weapon.
“Don’t shoot me,” a voice implored with laughter—a warm, vivid voice, that struck pleasantly on his memory.
The Texan turned lazily, and leaned on his elbow. She came smiling out of the brush, light as a roe, and with much of its slim, supple grace. Before, he had seen her veiled by night; the day disclosed her a dark, spirited young creature. The mass of blue-black hair coiled at the nape of the brown neck, the flash of dark eyes beneath straight, dark eyebrows, together with a certain deliberation of movement that was not languor, made it impossible to doubt that she was a Southerner by inheritance, if not by birth.
“I don’t reckon I will,” he greeted, smiling. “Down in Texas it ain’t counted right good manners to shoot up young ladies.”
“And in Wyoming you think it is.”
“I judge by appearances, ma’am.”
“Then you judge wrong. Those men did not know I was with dad that night. They thought I was another man. You see, they had just lost their suit for damages against dad and some more for the loss of six hundred sheep in a raid last year. They couldn’t prove who did it.” She flamed into a sudden passion of resentment. “I don’t defend them any. They are a lot of coyotes, or they wouldn’t have attacked two men, riding alone.”
He ventured a rapier thrust. “How about the Squaw Creek raid? Don’t your friends sometimes forget to fight fair, too?”
He had stamped the fire out of her in an instant. She drooped visibly. “Yes—yes, they do,” she faltered. “I don’t defend them, either. Dad had nothing to do with that. He doesn’t shoot in the back.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he retorted cheerfully. “And I’m glad to hear that your friends the enemy didn’t know it was a girl they were attacking. Fact is, I thought you were a boy myself when first I happened in and you fanned me with your welcome.”
“I didn’t know. I hadn’t time to think. So I let fly. But I was so excited I likely missed you a mile.”
He took off his felt hat and examined with interest a bullet hole through the rim. “If it was a mile, I’d hate to have you miss me a hundred yards,” he commented, with a little ripple of laughter.
“I didn’t! Did I? As near as that?” She caught her hands together in a sudden anguish for what might have been.
“Don’t you care, ma’am. A miss is as good as a mile. It ain’t the first time I’ve had my hat ventilated. I mentioned it, so you wouldn’t get discouraged at your shooting. It’s plenty good. Good enough to suit me. I wouldn’t want it any better.”
“What about the man I wounded.” she asked apprehensively. “Is he—is it all right?”
“Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?” He could see the terror in her eyes.
“How it all came out?”
He could not tell why he did it, any more than he could tell why he had attempted no denial to the sheriff of responsibility for the death of Faulkner, but as he looked at this girl he shifted the burden from her shoulders to his. “You got your man in the ankle. I had worse luck after you left. They buried mine.”
“Oh!” From her lips a little cry of pain forced itself. “It wasn’t your fault. It was for us you did it. Oh, why did they attack us?”
“I did what I had to do. There is no blame due either you or me for it,” he said, with quiet conviction.
“I know. But it seems so dreadful. And then they put you in jail—and you broke out! Wasn’t that it?”
“That was the way of it, Miss Arlie. How did you know?”
“Henry Speed’s note to father said you had broken jail. Dad wasn’t at home. You know, the round-up is on now and he has to be there. So I saddled, and came right away.”
“That was right good of you.”
“Wasn’t it?” There was a softened, almost tender, jeer in her voice. “Since you only saved our lives!”
“I ain’t claiming all that, Miss Arlie.”
“Then I’ll claim it for you. I suppose you gave yourself up to them and explained how it was after we left.”
“Not exactly that. I managed to slip away, through the sage. It was mo’ning before I found the road again. Soon as I did, a deputy tagged me, and said, ‘You’re mine.’ He spoke for me so prompt and seemed so sure about what he was saying, I didn’t argue the matter with him.” He laughed gayly.
“And then?”
“Then he herded me to town, and I was invited to be the county’s guest. Not liking the accommodations, I took the first chance and flew the coop. They missed a knife in my pocket when they searched me, and I chipped the cement away from the window bars, let myself down by the bed linen, and borrowed a cow-pony I found saddled at the edge of town. So, you see, I’m a hawss thief too, ma’am.”
She could not take it so lightly as he did, even though she did not know that he had barely escaped with his life. Something about his debonair, smiling hardihood touched her imagination, as did also the virile competence of the man. If the cool eyes in his weatherbeaten face could be hard as agates, they could also light up with sparkling imps of mischief. Certainly he was no boy, but the close-cut waves of crisp, reddish hair and the ready smile contributed to an impression of youth that came and went.
“Willie Speed is saddling you a horse. The one you came on has been turned loose to go back when it wants to. I’m going to take you home with me,” she told him.
“Well, I’m willing to be kidnapped.”
“I brought your horse Teddy. If you like, you may ride that, and I’ll