many, I couldn't say, for part of the bunch might have been Shander's own riders."
"Shander don't carry a big outfit. Only about twelve-fourteen hands."
"This Curly," went on Charterhouse, "is a fool for being proud of himself. If I was a brush jumper, I'd keep my face hid. He took the pains to introduce himself to me, saying he wanted me to know him next time we met."
"That's Curly's weakness, all right," grinned Manners. "He likes to grandstand. But don't figure him any the less wild for that trick. He's a white savage. Shoot you back or front, makes no difference to him."
"I judged that," mused Clint, whereat Manners studied him again through the smoke.
Sherry, standing so quietly by the fire, had observed all these silent interchanges with soberly pursed lips. Being thoroughly feminine, she had compared them from the moment they faced each other; a tall, laughing man with yellow hair and a reckless exuberance of spirit placed beside an equally tall man whose smile was slow and seldom and whose features were bronzed, almost gaunt. One found life a great game and pursued it with zest; the other had traveled a lonely trail. The sun and the rain, the burning heat and the knife slash of the blizzard had whipped him down to flat sinews and fashioned him so that even here in the room he could not drop the trick of appearing to look far across the horizons.
"Just wanted to tell you that for your own information, John," pursued Manners. "Any plans?"
"I will sleep on it," said Nickum. "If I feel in the morning as I feel now, the war is on. They have tried twice for me. I reckon that's excuse enough to tame Casabella. Ten years ago I wouldn't have needed the sleep. I'd be in the saddle now. When a man gets older, he seems to take longer stock."
"You've got my outfit to draw on any time you see fit," Manners told him.
"Thanks. My outfit is big enough. All I have been needing is one man able to plunge ahead and use his own head while he fights. I've got him now, I think. This boy here—" pointing to Charterhouse. "Consider him as a member of the family, Buck."
Manners lifted his head, plainly surprised. "Member of the family?"
Sherry flushed visibly. Nickum filled his pipe. "I mean that from now on you're to consider him second man around here. If he asks you for help or advice, I want you should consider it the same as if I personally asked it."
"Gladly," agreed Manners, the word sounding rather dry. "I'll say, however, that I have been offering myself for that sort of work a great many months before Charter-house came along. As a prospective member of the family—" grinning at Sherry, "what's wrong with my good right arm?"
Nickum chose his words very carefully, tamping down his tobacco. "I've known you since you were a kid, Buck. Life never was very hard on you. Everything come easy, go easy. You like to keep on even terms with folks, you like to play peacemaker. You never had to fight crooks on their own terms. I'm welcoming you as a son-in-law gladly. Don't doubt it. But you ain't a bloodhound. Take Charterhouse here. He fell into trouble the minute he hit Angels. I bit him in the ear. So did Haggerty. Had his horse stolen. Shander grabbed him and tried to keep him.
"He shoots his way out of that, puts two and two together and trails all over hell's half acre, climbs a tree, smells out that Mexican ambushed to get me and pots him cold. Then comes to Angels and accepts a ribbed fight and downs Graney. No uncomplimentary comparisons. Buck, but Charterhouse was born with a nose for trouble and seems to have been raised to all the bitter tricks. That's the man I need. He's had my sort of a life—the only kind of a life that will pay dividends in fighting Shander."
Manners rose, laughing shortly. "I know I was born with a gold spoon, John, but it hurts to have it put so plainly. I'm not grousing. I know the fellow's good. He muscled me down, and by Judas, that means he's blamed good. I'll cooperate with him any time. That goes, Charterhouse. But I still may be useful. When you get ready to crush 'em, let me join in."
"You're not going so soon," protested the girl.
"Really must get back," said Manners. He put out his hand to Charterhouse. "Good luck, old horse."
"Thanks," drawled Charterhouse. "Don't consider me as high as Nickum does."
"He seldom ever makes a mistake," replied Manners. "I hope he isn't making one now. Sherry, my love, good night and I wish you didn't look so blessed pretty with a handsome young fellow like Charterhouse around. I may lose all my advantage with you."
The color of her face deepened but she flashed a mischievous glance between them. "I doubt if you need worry Buck. It is my impression that Clint Charterhouse has never looked at a woman twice."
"I wish I could depend on it," retorted Manners, "but there's something wrong with his eyes if he doesn't look at you twice."
The two of them went to the porch. Charterhouse heard a low chuckle and a tinkling laugh and then the beat of hoofs traveling swiftly out. He stared into the fire somberly. There was nothing wrong with his eyes, he reflected, but it would save him heartbreak if he kept them away from Sherry Nickum.
She came back, sober and thoughtful. "Dad, I don't believe he relished your comparisons."
"Man's got to swallow the truth, sweet or bitter," granted Nickum.
Charterhouse spoke. "You have made an enemy for me."
"Buck?" grunted Nickum, astonished.
Charterhouse nodded. "Just so."
"Hell, that's a foolish idea," retorted Nickum. But Sherry caught Clint's eye and though he was no hand at reading unspoken thoughts, he knew she agreed with him. She put an arm to his elbow.
"Walk with me."
There was a shawl on a table by the door that she took up and whipped around her shoulders. They crossed the porch and strolled along the yard with the lights of the bunkhouses making yellow pathways across the earth. Water trickled near by, the trees were sighing with the wind and horses stamped patiently in the barn. The moon hung rakishly in a corner of the sky, pale against all the surrounding darkness; and memories kept returning to Clint.
"Like coming into shelter after a hard day outside," he mused aloud. "I never knew anything could be so peaceful or quiet. Reckon I have missed a great deal so far."
"I'm glad to know you've found that missing element here," said she quietly.
"Found it, and will lose it again."
"Why so? You sound so wistful, as if there never was any real happiness possible for you."
"Don't make me out a man with a sorrowful past," he warned her. "I've just wandered along, nothing much behind and nothing much ahead."
"Then I was right when I told Buck you never cared to look at a woman twice?"
"Up till now," said Clint and fell silent.
"Somewhere," she murmured, "you learned how to speak gallantly."
They turned, swinging along another row of trees, crossed a ditch with her body swaying lightly against him and lightly away. He saw the pale silhouette of her face, dim and beautiful against the velvet curtin of this prairie night and was troubled with the faint fragrance of her hair.
"I brought you out," she continued after a long while, "to say that I am truly sorry for my temper this morning. I was uncertain, and I can never find any kindness in my heart for those men who killed my brother. But—we'll not quarrel like that again, Clint Charterhouse. As long as you stay here I want you to regard this as home. I'll feel happy if you do."
"Let's scratch my remarks off the record, too," he drawled. "I'd rather have your good wishes—"
There was no need of finishing the sentence. He let it trail into the shadows. Part of his attention, so long trained to watchfulness that it never wholly slept, kept striking back to a blurred poplar trunk near the house. He thought he had seen a slight shifting there. After they went over the ditch and circled the barn he lost sight of the tree; when he picked up a view of it again, the outline of the trunk was distinctly slimmer.
"I