goodness sakes," exclaimed Mrs. Jim, "whose man is Dave Denver, anyhow?"
"Now, isn't it queer?—I have forgotten to ask him that."
Approval of this faint rebuke fairly exuded from the other women. But Mrs. Jim didn't know a rebuke from an invitation to dinner. The restless brightness of her glance skittered over Eve's boyish, half smiling countenance. And she plumped out an eager question.
"Would you marry him at the chance?"
Eve laughed outright. "I never answer direct questions on Tuesdays."
Mrs. Jim put away her knitting, seeing Coldfoot approaching with a buggy. "Well," she sighed, "you're a good actor anyhow. Though it ain't any of my business, I'll say I think you're crazy if you're not interested in him. But if you are interested in him there's enough between him and Lola Monterey to cause you many a sleepless night. Girls, I just had an elegant time." She smiled all around and turned to her husband, who waited in subdued silence.
"You're late," said she with some asperity.
"Yes, Mama," agreed Coldfoot and snapped one of his suspenders.
"Don't mumble at me with all that tobacco in your mouth. If you've got to spit, then spit." She climbed vigorously into the buggy and they went swaying out to the road. Mrs. Casper Flood collapsed in her rocker and laughed so hard she almost cried. Mrs. Roberts rose to end her visit. "After a scene like that," she remarked, "I always go home a better woman and cook something special for the men. Nellie, are you riding with me?"
The group broke up. More buggies came down the road to claim the errant housewives. Mrs. Casper Flood stepped to the saddle of a waiting pony and went out of the yard on the gallop; and as the last of them left a man rounded the bend of the ridge, sitting slack and indolent, and pointed for the yard. Eve waved an arm at which Debbie Lunt showed surprise.
"You've got awfully good eyes, Eve. Who is it?"
"Dave."
"Well, no wonder." She wrinkled her pert nose impatiently. "If Steve dawdled along like that when he knew I was waiting for him I most certainly would lecture him."
"Not if Steve were Dave," said Eve softly, "and not if you were me."
Dave cut across the yard and reined in beside the porch. He did not immediately get down, but lifted his hat and studied the two girls quizzically. "Now here is a picture worth travelin' to see," he drawled. "But, hold on, it ain't quite perfect. One of these fair damsels looks like she's too proud to scowl at me and too stubborn to smile. Debbie, I ain't stolen your Stevie boy."
Debbie flushed and tipped her chin defiantly. In her heart she was a little afraid of Denver and a little jealous. The fear, queerly enough, was the fear of a little girl facing a man whose explosive fighting qualities had been talked about in the country for years. Yet it was not altogether that; Debbie always instinctively tried to cover her feelings when his deep and direct and slightly ironic glance rested on her. She felt he was reading her, prying out her intrinsic worth, and finding her lacking. As for the jealousy, she hated the thought that anybody had the power of swaying Steve Steers's loyalty and affection; and she knew Denver had this power.
"You're making fun of me," said she, despising herself for going on the defensive.
"No, sir, not me, Debbie. I never laugh at pretty girls. And where is that human dynamo on wheels—in other words, Mister Stephen Burt Steers?"
"He's supposed to be here now, to take me home," said Debbie with a faint inflection of tartness. Dave looked lazily at Eve and understanding passed between. Eve crooked her finger at him.
"Get down and wait. I see a party coming off the prairie, and Dad's probably in it."
"What makes you think I didn't come to see you instead of your dad?" challenged Dave, stepping to the ground.
"I know you better."
"You don't know me at all," he grumbled and sat on the porch steps. Debbie frowned vainly at the empty road and walked into the house. Dave chuckled, and Eve winked at him. "No," pursued Dave, "you don't know me at all. I may not be so doggone brotherly. Maybe my intentions are honorable."
She had walked to a porch table. Her answer came over her shoulder, cool and skeptical. "I'm sure your intentions are honorable, Dave—whatever they may be and whichever way they may be directed."
"That remark sounds simple," he mused, "but there's a delayed punch in it."
"Never mind. Here's a cup of tea, stone cold but good for thirst, anyhow."
He took it, stirred the sugar absently, and drank. Eve sat down beside him. "I heard this afternoon why the Jessons named the baby after you."
He colored a little, self-contained man as he was. "That fool of a Steve—"
"Don't you know by now," she broke in quietly, "there's very little you do that escapes Yellow Hill? People wonder about you and talk about you—and they always will. I have heard other things concerning you—about Dann and about—well, many things."
"Mrs. Jim Coldfoot must have been here," said he.
"Yes."
"I reckon it's impossible to keep folks from trying to guess what they don't know," he muttered.
"No, Dave. But some of those guesses are kind." She drew a breath and added wistfully, "Mine are."
"It's possible they oughtn't be too kind, Eve. I say that to you—and never another soul—because I figure you ought to know. Don't consider me too bad. Don't consider me too good."
"Whatever you were, I doubt if it could change my opinion of you," said she, and turned from the subject. "There's Dad and some of the boys—and the Englishman."
The party trotted up. Leverage looked enormously grave and disturbed; something had shaken his usual carriage. He got heavily down and turned first to his daughter. "You see that some sort of chuck is put on the table right off, Eve. I've got to go out again. Dave, come over to the sheds with me. I want to speak with you."
They walked away from the house. "I came up to tell you my men have cut out about twenty of your drift," said Denver. "We're not too pressed for help, and if you are short-handed I'll just keep your stuff separate until the country's covered, then shoot it over."
"Thanks," grunted Leverage and stopped, casting a glance back. "Dave, I have feared this for a long while, and now it's come. An open break between them and us, nothin' less. They've called our challenge. They mean to make it a bloody mess. Lorn Rue was killed sometime last night over on the Henry trail, about three miles south of the Wells. We just found him an hour ago."
"He was one of your picked men?"
"He was. Somehow or other they knew he was and laid for him. It just means this—there's a leak already in the vigilantes. It means also that they've got the country so well honeycombed that they catch every move we make. Rue was placed carefully to watch the Wells; he went into the country after dead dark. And still they got him! That bothers me.
"You had him in there to watch what the outlaws were going to do?"
"I wanted to get a good fresh trail to follow," admitted Leverage. "That's their nest. They go from the Wells to rustle, and they come back to the Wells to carouse. It's the right place to begin our attack. But," and Leverage ran a hand over his harried cheeks, "my job is going to be plain useless if I can't keep things secret."
"Find any tracks around him?"
Leverage shook his head. "He was right in the trail. All sorts of old tracks and fresh tracks running up and down. Everything mixed up; no help there."
"He must have run into something," reflected Denver, "and they shot him to keep his mouth shut."
"We scouted the ground all ways from his body and didn't get a smell."
"Sure," replied Denver. "If he got too close to some choice spot of theirs they'd lug his body off a considerable distance and drop it."
"I