Everybody's Magazine/The Road to Palo Alto

by J. E. Grinstead

 

The Road to

Palo Alto

By J. E. Grinstead

A complete novelette of that strange section of Texas, the prickly pear country, where, in the impenetrable thickets, lurk men who seek inviolable refuge from the law

CHAPTER I

In the big thicket

IN THE southern point of Texas there used to be a thicket of mesquite, catclaw, prickly-pear cactus and other thorny shrubs that was as big as an ordinary state. It is still there, but has been trimmed some around the edges, like a soldier's hair.

Palo Alto was a cowtown. The cowtown, in fact, for it had no competitor for many miles around. A waggish cowboy said they called the place Palo Alto—literally, Timbered Hill—because it was a live-oak mot, and by climbing the tallest tree, one could see over the nearest pear thicket. There wasn't much hill about it, still it was higher ground than the endless miles of coastal plain that surrounded it. The old 'dobe town was five miles from the Rio Grande. Far enough that there was no danger that a banco de rio would change the course of the stream and throw the town into Mexico, yet near enough to receive all manner of contraband. In a word, Palo Alto was a Mexican town in Texas. There was little but homemade law in that part of the country, so each citizen carried a copy of Judge Colt's digest of the statutes on his hip. Nice place, yes!

Mid-afternoon of a late fall day saw a dozen riders come storming into the sandy street of Palo Alto. They were cowboys all, guns, spurs, chaps and so forth, and a hard-bitted mob at that.

“I'll bet four bits, and put up half the money,” said Chub Riley, the bartender at the Green Tree saloon, as he stood in the door watching them, “that Old Notey Beney has gone to the state for something.”

“I ain't takin' the bet,” replied the monte dealer, who was standing near. “Old Notey Beney would have to have a whole lot of business back in the state, before he'd wear out the grease on the axles of his old buckboard by making a trip like that. More likely—dang his stingy Scotch soul!—he has sent the whole outfit to head off one doggy yearling that he's afraid will swim the river and get into Mexico. I wouldn't bet on Notey Beney if I had a cinch. If I knowed what he was going to do he'd be apt to do something else.”

“Huh! That's true, too. Anyway, we got one more sweet day's business ahead of us,” and Chub stepped behind his bar to get ready for the rush.

That Green Tree saloon was a sweet and lovely place. The front of this only two-story building in the town was adorned with an alleged picture of a tree. It was at least green. A shade of green to which no tree ever attained, no matter what was the matter with it! In addition to the tree, there were two legends: Arbol de Fresco, and plain, Green Tree. The idea was that those who could read either English or Spanish could find the place by reading the signs, those who could read neither might find it by the tree. The blind could easily find it by the noise and smell—it was that rank.

The cowboys dismounted in front of the Green Tree, ready and anxious for what they called a day of pleasure. What that mob would look like when night came, how many of them would be alive, and what wild things they would do, was a problem that only the passing hours could solve. They were all white men—of a sort. In the whole gang there were but four outstanding characters. The rest were just the mill-run of the ranges. One of these four was Page Cothran, who seemed to be the tentative leader of the expedition. He was a wonderfully handsome, dark-skinned, heavy-set young fellow, with flashing brown eyes and long dark mustache. Cothran was better clad and better mounted than any of the others. His clothes were fine, the conchas on his chaperejos were Mexican half dollars. The silver-mounted gun at his belt had a pearl handle. All in all, Mr. Cothran was the typical range dandy. Another of the four was Cliff Lea. He was tall, angular, gray-eyed, good enough features but not handsome, and almost saturnine of countenance. He rarely spoke unless spoken to. His collar was too large, and his sleeves too short. His chaps hung low at the waist, and yet were halfway to his boot tops. He was so quiet and reticent that it never occurred to anyone that the reason his clothes fitted him in that manner was that he was very much of a man. Lea seemed to be playing a poor second fiddle to Cothran, as leader of the gang. The fact was that the gang had an invisible rift in it, and Lea was leader of the minority—except when he wanted to lead the whole works,

The other two men were one piece. They were inseparable side-partners, and recognized no authority save that of Cliff Lea. The only names anyone knew for them, in the pear country, were Red and Coley. Coley had the features of a Greek god, and was so dark one might have taken him for an Indian. Red had the facial expression of a scrambled egg, and was so red that one might have taken him for—why, anything red, except perhaps a rose.

THE gang filed into the Green Tree, lined up at the bar, and ordered drinks. There had never been any ice in Palo Alto, even in the winter time. The beer was foamy suds, and the whisky was terrible. Two things happened while the bartender was serving the drinks. One was that Cliff looked straight at him with those level gray eyes, and the barkeep reached back and got a different bottle for the lank puncher. The other was that as they stood together, Red said to his partner:

“Yo' time, Coley. Go as far as you like,” and then to the man behind the bar, “Gimme a bottle of plain soda for a chaser, Chub.”

The partners were carrying out an inviolate rule that was fixed between them. Never did they both get drunk at the same time. They didn't consider it safe, in that country. No one ever suspected this, for the one who stayed sober was usually the wildest, most hilarious of the two, and made the greatest show of drinking.

The orgy began with a few rounds of drinks at the bar. Then Page Cothran made for the stair leading to the dance hall.

“Nobody up there but the Professor,” offered Chub. “He's tuning his piano,

“Better get somebody up there,” snapped Cothran. “We aim to have a little dance.”

“Don't have dances in the daytime,” protested Chub.

“All right. Well stop up the windows and make it all the same like night. If anybody tries to stop us, we'll make it all night, for them, muy pronto!”

Page, followed by his faction, clumped up the stair to the dance hall, and the sweet day's business was begun. Dance-hall girls were roused from somewhere, a mixed lot of white girls and Mexican señoritas. A few bullets through the roof decided the “Professor” to suspend operations on his piano and furnish music for a dance. Mexican boys scuttled up and down the stair with drinks from the bar—and the revel was begun.

Red and Coley had gone into the gambling room back of the barroom, and were bucking the monte game. Cliff Lea was with them, sweating the game. Cliff had plenty of sporting blood, but just now his mind was too busy with other problems, so he said he was broke. He settled down to watch the luck of the partners, apparently, but his face was toward the door leading to the barroom.

Pandemonium reigned about the Green Tree until far into the afternoon. Then Page Cothran called the gang all down into the barroom, and lined them up at the bar.

Cliff Lea rose, stretched his lean body, and said, “Come on boys, it's time to ride.”

The three passed into the barroom and lined up with the others, who were preparing to take a drink.

“Get in here fellers,” called Page. “This is little recess. We're going back to hard lessons, hilarity and hell, after we take a few real drinks.”

Cliff Lea had taken a position right by the side of Page, who was already pretty well loaded. Page looked down and saw that Cliff had poured his drink, out of deference to the house, but was not taking it.

“Lap up yo' poison. Cliff,” commanded Page.

“I don't want it,” replied Cliff.

“Hell you don't! It ain't what you want that does you good, it's what you get. Mean you won't drink with the rest of the outfit?”

“I mean I won't drink with anybody, now.”

“You just think you won't,” and Page's ornate gun flashed from the holster, and was trained on Cliff Lea, “lap her up, and don't take no chaser.”

Cliff didn't offer to draw his gun. There was no chance. Instead, he simply put out his hand and pushed the weapon to one side, just as Page pulled the trigger. The bullet cut a mark across the top of the bar, and went on into the big mirror behind it.

“Put that gun up, Page,” said Cliff, calmly. “We got to get back to the ranch. Mr. Brannum is likely to get back tonight, and——”

“Yes,” snarled Page, holstering his gun, “I reck'n you know a helluva lot about what Old Notey Beney's apt to do.”

“I know what he's apt to do if he comes home and finds the whole outfit off on a drunk,” said Cliff, “and so do you. Get the boys out of here, and let's get going.”

“All right, fellows,” called Page, as if it were his own idea, “Lap up another round to keep you warm on the road, and let's ride.”

Five minutes later the mob was riding out of town with Indian yells, and a fusillade of shots. Chub, the barkeep, and his monte dealer stood in the door watching them. Red and Coley were helping bring up the rear, but behind them all rode the tall, grim-faced Cliff Lea.

“Page Cothran is going to put that gun stuff over once too often, someday,” commented the monte dealer.

“Aw, hell! You're worse'n a old woman,” sneered Chub. “Page was drinking some, and——”

“And started to do something that he'd like to do when he's sober. That Cliff Lea has got more cold nerve than any hombre I ever saw, and I seen some cold ones. I seen Cliff's eyes, too, when he pushed that gun away. Can't make out why he didn't drill Page, right then. I seen plenty men killed, right here in the Green Tree, for a whole lot less than Page done. First thing Old Notey Beney knows, he won't have no handsome little pet left.”

“Old Notey Beney do sorty pet Page,” mused Chub. “I wonder why. He never did pet nobody else in his life, I reck'n.”

“Yes, he pets him. I don't know what for, and I don't care. I can tell the world one thing. There's a fine mess of hell brewing, right in the middle of the Notey Beney outfit, and——”

“Let her brew,” laughed Chub. “It ain't my funeral. I ain't crazy about Mister Cliff Lea. If he'd let them boys alone I'd a got a real piece of money out of 'em before morning. I don't give a hoot how much hell they raise among themselves, so they don't start the war in my place and bust up my bar bottles and the like.”

“How long has Cliff been with the Notey Beney outfit?”

“Year or two,” replied Chub.

“Red and Coley's been there longer than that, ain't they?”

“Hell, yes! They been there since before the last big rain, and don't nobody recollect when that was.”

THE gang of riders galloped on along the worn trail. At times this trail ran straight for a few hundred yards, across some open glade. At other places it wound through groves of wonderful mesquite, all festooned with the long yellow bean pods that were such rich food for cattle. Again, the trail would wind through a mile of pear and catclaw chaparral, tortuous as a snake with the cramps. The horses galloped steadily on. Their riders might be a bit hazy in their minds, but the ponies knew they were going to the ranch.

That ranch, the headquarters of which was in a grove of immense, moss-hung live-oaks, a little way from the Big Bend of the Nueces River, had several names. It had been originally christened El Rancho de la Floresta, the Ranch of the Forest. This name had been given it by Neil Brannum's wife, when she was young. Before the great thicket had choked the romance from her soul and finally killed her. American cowboys had dubbed the name Floresty. Sometimes it was called the N B ranch, just as any other ranch would be called by its brand. The favorite name for it, however, was the Notey Beney. This name was originated by a cowboy who happened to have enough education to know what N. B. stood for. He had coupled this with one of Brannum's characteristics. Neil Brannum's idea of being square was to put the other fellow on notice, and then do as he pleased. If he meant to kill a man, he gave him fair warning, then went for his gun. So, in the passing years the old ranchman had become known throughout the Big Thicket as Notey Beney. Not that anybody ever called him that to his face. They called him Mister Brannum.

The cowboys reached the ranch without mishap, just before sunset, and turning their horses loose went to the bunkhouse. The drunker ones sought their bunks. Those who were sober enough, including Red, Coley, and Cliff Lea, sat about talking. Page Cothran went to the cookshack to get some strong coffee. He wasn't expecting the boss to return, but there was no telling what Old Notey Beney might do. Page wasn't foreman of the ranch, but he was a sort of vecero, and Old Neil Brannum's pet. Page knew that but for Cliff Lea they would have all still been at Palo Alto. He knew, too, that it would have been bad for them if the boss came home and found them all away on a carouse. Still, he resented Cliff's treating him as if he were a boy, and he had a good right. There was the makings of trouble in the Notey Beney outfit.

Chub was right. Brannum had been “back in the state,” as the people of the pear country said when any one went back into the more populous part of Texas. The monte dealer was right also, when he said “Brannum would have to have a heap of business back in the state,” to make such a trip. He had. That business was no less than going to San Antonio to meet his granddaughter, Ruth Brannum, and bring her home to the ranch. She had spent the summer with a classmate, because it didn't suit Brannum to meet her sooner.

So, as the cowboys rode back to the ranch, a jangling old buckboard was approaching it from the opposite direction. Old Neil Brannum sat bolt upright on the seat, getting the utmost atom of speed out of the two half-wild mustangs that he drove. He didn't talk. Neil Brannum rarely spoke, except to tell someone what he could or could not, or what he must or must not do.

By Brannum's side sat a young girl, apparently in her late teens. From time to time she gripped the iron rod at the end of the seat in fear, as they took a short curve around a pear thicket. An old Mexican, recognizing the gruff, heavy-handed old ranchman as they came meeting him, spurred his horse into a pocket in a clump of pear, and swept his sombrero from his bead. The team flashed by, and Brannum didn't even so much as turn his head toward the lone rider by the wayside. The Mexican caught a glimpse of two great, pleading blue eyes, in the face of an angel, and thinking he had seen the Madonna, crossed himself devoutly and rode on. Surely El Capitan Brannum had stolen this angel, he thought. No lovely woman like that would go to El Rancho de la Floresta of her own accord. He knew the place, and he knew Old Neil Brannum—too well to understand a lovely woman going to live there.

The buckboard jangled on, following the winding road. Across the Nueces and on through the thicket it went. Ruth Brannum was not going to the old ranch for the first time. She had spent her childhood there, but it had been different then. Her father was living, and she was always with him. For six years now, ever since her father's death, she had been away at school without once returning. Now, she was going home. Home? Yes, it was the only home she knew, and so far as she knew, Old Neil Brannum was the only relative she had on earth.

It was late dusk, almost dark, when she saw what seemed to be miles of whitewashed walls, gleaming through the openings in the big grove. The glimpses of white through the interstices in the green trees suggested the monuments in a cemetery. Ruth shuddered at the thought. She was going to be literally buried alive, here in the heart of the great thicket. This thought was still in her mind when the conveyance stopped at a broad entrance in the south wall of the sepulchral old house.

A Mexican boy materialized from nowhere, and caught the team by the bridles. Brannum climbed stiffly from the seat, but made no offer to assist Ruth. As he turned in through the passage, which led to a great patio, a wrinkled old Mexican woman ran to the side of the vehicle, holding out her hands and chattering all sorts of greetings and endearments. Rosita had been Ruth's nurse until she had gone away to school. She had been faithful, and would continue faithful unto death. If anyone thought he could wean Rosita from her mistress, he would be mistaken. The old duenna fussed about, ordering a crippled Mexican man and buxom Mexican woman to carry the two trunks in. Then she literally bore her mistress to her own old room, which had been kept swept, garnished and ready for her return, all these years.

Old Neil Brannum went to the dining-room and ate alone. He gave no sign that he expected to see Ruth at table. Afterward, he went back to the bare old living-room, its ceiling beams browned by the smoke of many winters. The evening was chilly, and a fire burned in the wide fireplace. Lighting his pipe, Brannum sat before the fire, the ruddy light falling on his grim face. He was a big man. A scant five foot ten in height, but broad and thick, with a bull neck, and great hairy arms. His face was rugged. His thick, bushy brows came together and turned down in a point over his prominent, bony nose. This gave the appearance of a perpetual frown, while his deep-set, cold gray eyes seemed darting daggers at the world. He was tired, now, and ached in every joint from the long return journey, which had taken the better part of three days. He was sixty-five. There were but a few more of his allotted three-score-and-ten years left. He must set his affairs in order for the end. He was thinking of those things as he sat smoking, and staring into the fire.

NEIL BRANNUM'S life had been an eventful one, but there had been little comedy to relieve the tragedy of it. He had no sense of humor, and had been lost from the start on the mazy trail of life. He didn't know how to laugh, or even smile. He had never had time to learn. He had been one of a large family, reared in painful poverty in the Scottish Highlands. At eighteen he had left that country, penniless. He had made his way to Liverpool, and from there sailed as a stowaway on a ship bound for America. A few days out, he was discovered and made to work his passage. Thus he began a life that was rougher than anything he had known.

That ship was bound for America, all right, but not for New York or Boston, of which he had heard. It finally landed at Indianola, on the coast of Texas. Neil went ashore and began casting about for some means of keeping soul and body together. He discovered that apparently all the land and all the sheep in the world were in Texas. The first great boom of the sheep industry in Texas was at its high spot. There was limitless unfenced range, grass for the grazing, and nothing to pay. Old Jack Ricks owned uncounted thousands of sheep. He gave the immigrant boy a job as herder. Pretty soon, Ricks discovered that this young Scot was a wizard with sheep, so he said to him:

“Neil, you're too good to waste your time with one little flock. If you'll take 'em back up the country a ways, I'll stake you to two thousand sheep, and let you pick 'em. I'll give you half the wool and half the increase.”

“Up the country a ways,” in those days, meant on the upper Nueces. Neil Brannum took the two thousand sheep and drove them to a country that no one knew much about. After four years, he sold his interest for more money than he had ever dreamed of seeing. During those years, Brannum had dreamed a lot, while following his flocks, but he had done more than dream. He had acquired ten sections of land, which he bought very cheap, and which gave him ten miles frontage on the Nueces river. Also, he had discovered that it was the cowmen who were the kings and barons in Texas. He'd be a cowman. He'd establish a baronial estate here in the wilds of Texas, and would own more land than there was in all the Scottish Highlands. So, with that thought in his mind, he married a wife at Indianola. She was an orphan, and had no connections. Neil was a thrifty soul, and wanted no hangers-on.

To the first 'dobe house, the great room where he now sat, he had taken his bride. Since then the house had been extended around the patio. Brannum had prospered. His herds had increased until he had no idea how many cattle he owned. He now had twenty miles frontage on the river, and his land extended out almost to Palo Alto, but his dreams had not come true. There would be no house of Brannum in America. His wife had borne him one son, and then died. Choked to death by the pear thickets, and Brannum never even suspected it. The son had grown to manhood, a frail, narrow-shouldered, flat-chested young fellow. He had no love for the ranch, though be lived there what time he was not in school. The son's wife had been a lovely young thing, who died when Ruth was born. The son had stayed on there at the ranch, with his little daughter, until Ruth was twelve, and then he had died.

Still meaning to be fair, Old Neil had sent his granddaughter to school, and given her every advantage, except love, and he didn't know how to give that. Now, he had brought her home—for a purpose of his own. A purpose that none but a man who had led such a life as Neil Brannum's had been could ever have conceived.

As Brannum sat staring into the fire, he ran ever all these things in his mind. He had established a house in the wilds of the great thicket. It was about time for him to go and leave it. It wouldn't be called the house of Brannum, when he was gone, but he meant to have a hand in the ordering of it. Ruth would inherit all his wealth, but he had picked her a man and was preparing to mate them with no more sentiment than he mated the horses and cattle on his ranch. He had so long said, do this or do that, had so domineered those about him, that he had no thought that this lovely granddaughter of his might refuse to love where he bade her. That she might have a little of the Brannum iron in her own character.

The fire died out. Old Neil Brannum knocked the ashes from his pipe, laid it on the mantel and went to bed. He hadn't given Ruth notice of his purpose, yet, but he would do it, in good time. Gentle breezes sighed over the big thicket, and the world knew nothing of what was happening, or might happen, down there in the heart of the pear country.

CHAPTER II

First blood

RUTH slept soundly and late, after her long journey. Rosita, bearing a cup of coffee, peeped into her room at sunrise, but seeing that the girl was still asleep, she stole silently away. Ruth woke a few minutes later, stared at the whitewashed walls a moment, then remembered where she was. She had not been accustomed to a servant waiting at her bedside with a cup of coffee when she woke, so she didn't miss Rosita.

A few minutes later, clad for the morning, Ruth stepped out into the old patio, then stopped and caught her breath. She had forgotten the place, in her six years exile. She had been accustomed to trimly kept lawns, box hedges and a few flowers, where she had been at school, but had forgotten that there was anything on earth like this. A fountain played in the middle of the great court, the water falling into a square pool that had walls of rough masonry. Near the pool stood an orange tree, laden with fruit and blossoms. The air was fragrant with the odor of the sweet resada and other semitropical flowering shrubs, while dewdrops hung from the petals of wonderful roses.

“Surely grandfather can't be as gruff and unloving as he seems,” she said to herself, “or he wouldn't keep the place like this.”

What Ruth didn't know was that this wonderful garden was a monument to the woman who had planted the first flower in it, and to the one son that she had borne, both long since dead. Old Neil Brannum never looked upon it as a thing of beauty. It was merely his idea of being fair to the memory of his wife and son, just as any one else would have kept up a cemetery lot. To him, it was that, and also it was a constant reminder of the death of all his dreams. Anyone supposing that there was, or ever had been, a soft spot in Brannum's heart, made a dreadful mistake.

Ruth stole across the court to the old dining-room. She saw no one but Rosita, who slipped noiselessly in at the same moment, and set Ruth's breakfast. Ruth had not forgotten the Spanish of her childhood, and she began questioning Rosita in her native tongue.

“Is there no one else in the house but me?” she asked.

“Teresa the cook, and Old Andreas, who keeps the yard and makes the fires, are here,” replied Rosita.

“But where is grandfather?”

“He went away with the men, at daylight, and didn't say when he would be back.”

Thus began the first part of Old Neil Brannum's hideous plan. He was going to let his granddaughter get good and lonesome, and then provide company of his own choosing for her. He had known what it was to go for months without hearing the sound of any human voice save his own, and no sound but the bleating of sheep, except the rattle of snakes and the howling of wolves. He recalled how soul-hungry he had got in the first days of his exile. He remembered that the veriest bum would have seemed to him a prince, and the commonest drab almost an angel. He couldn't subject Ruth to such an acid test as that, but a few days in the silent old house, with three equally silent Mexican servants, would answer his purpose very well.

No one had seen Ruth upon her arrival, except the Mexican boy who took the team, and the three house servants, so there was no chance for gossip among the men about her. They didn't know she was on earth. They were not surprised when Old Notey Beney routed them before daylight and took the whole outfit to an outlying ranch cabin and pens. Neither were they surprised that he kept them there three days, doing work that was apparently unnecessary. Those who knew him were never surprised at anything he might do, no matter how crazy it was.

By afternoon of the third day, Ruth could bear the house and the patio no longer. The beautiful flowers had lost their charm, and their fragrance had become sickening. As she remembered the ranch, there had always been men working stock about the place. She'd take a walk. Anything, anywhere, rather than stay in this whitewashed tomb, with the three silent servants. Even old Rosita, who had been a mother to her when she was a child, spoke now only when spoken to, and in as few words as possible. Ruth passed out through the entrance passage, and walked about the grove. She saw no one except two Mexican boys, who removed their hats and became dumb when she spoke to them. There was no sound of galloping horses and the cries of men driving cattle. A great stillness was over the place. It was a tomb! She was buried alive. At the thought Ruth fled back to the flower-scented patio.

IT WAS on that same evening that the outfit moved back to headquarters. Cliff Lea, Red, and Coley brought in a band of saddle horses. Brannum and Page Cothran rode on, an hour ahead of the outfit, while the other hands had scattered to different tasks that would bring them to the ranch after nightfall.

“What do you think we been doin' the last three days, Coley?” asked Red.

“Earning our forty a month and grub, I guess,” growled Coley.

“Hell we have! The whole outfit ain't earned four bits. Notey Beney's gone crazy. How does it look to you, Cliff?”

“Well,” drawled Cliff, “it looks to me like the beginning of something else, but nobody can tell what it is. Best thing we can do is go ahead and do what we're told, whether it looks right to us or not.”

“Mebbe it is, but I'm about fed up on working for a crazy man. They's plenty of things I won't do for pay. If Coley was like me, we'd ride from here. Don't see why Notey Beney don't put a foreman with the men, and——”

“Like Page,” suggested Cliff, with a sardonic grin.

“Hell no! If he was foreman——”

A doe and two fawns jumped out of a thicket, the band of horses scattered, and the three riders separated to get them back in the trail.

Far ahead of the outfit rode Brannum and Page Cothran. The Old Man hadn't spoken a word since they started. He reined his horse back by the side of Page now and said:

“Page, you been with me five year. You're a good worker, and I ain't never caught you at anything crooked.” Old Neil Brannum bored to the cowboy's very marrow with his cold gray eyes. Page colored slightly, but said nothing. “I never had a foreman of the whole ranch. Just some wagon bosses and the like, but—I'm getting old, and I got to have one. Think you can handle the Old Floresty?”

“Why, I—I don't know, sir,” stammered Page, taken by surprise.

“You'd be willin' to try, I reck'n,” and there was a frosty smile on Brannum's hard lips.

“Yes, sir. If you wanted me to.”

“I do want you to, and I don't mind telling you it will be to your advantage if you make good on the job.”

That was all that was said at the time. Brannum spurred ahead, and Page Cothran followed, respectfully, as he had always done, but his mind was busy, now.

The first thought that flashed to Page's mind was whether or not this new job of foreman would give him authority to hire and fire men. At the same instant, there appeared before his mind's eye the lanky form of Cliff Lea. Cliff had been on the ranch two years. He was far and away the best cowhand in the outfit, but by Page's standards there was something wrong with him. In the two years Cliff had never been away from the ranch, except to go to Palo Alto occasionally. There, he would take a few drinks and buck the Monte game. That was the extent of the man's dissipation. Page had seen Cliff in gun-fights, and he was the coolest man in a pinch that he had ever known. At first, Page had thought he was just a say-nothing freak, but as time passed, he knew there was more than that. Of late, Page had tried to quarrel with Cliff, but had been treated as if he were a boy. That enraged him more than anything. Page didn't know it, perhaps, but he was afraid of Cliff. If he had been sober, Page never would have done the thing he had done in the Green Tree that day. Drunk as he was, he had seen that in Cliff's gray eyes that warned him not to try anything of the kind again. If being foreman gave him the authority, he determined that Cliff should go pretty soon. There were many strange things hidden in the big pear thicket. Men who never left it, for reasons of their own. Page was still pondering these things, when they reached the ranch at dusk.

“Give your horse to the boy and come on to the house,” growled Brannum. “I want you to eat supper with me.”

This seemed to Page evidence that his new job was raising him a bit socially. He had been to the ranch-house but few times in his five years there, and had never eaten a meal there in his life. A little while later they entered the dining-room by one door, just as Ruth entered by another.

“My granddaughter, Miss Brannum, Mr. Cothran,” growled Old Neil, and they sat down to the table.

Old Neil Brannum spoke no more words than were necessary. For a few minutes, Page was stupefied, and paid close attention to his knife and fork. He had heard that Brannum had a granddaughter somewhere, but he had never heard it hinted that she was an angel. Ruth had met many young men. Under strict chaperonage, it is true, but she knew how to talk to them. Starving for human conversation, she talked to Page, and he got over his diffidence before the meal was finished.

There was no parlor at the Floresty. It was a strictly utilitarian house. There was a room that Ruth's father had used as a library, but it was nothing but a jumble of dusty books now and was rarely opened. They went to Old Neil's big living-room. Ruth had no notion of going back to her own room. At any rate, the young man would talk to her, and she'd go crazy if she didn't talk to someone.

Old Neil lit his pipe and ignored them. Page's idea of talking to a pretty girl was not sitting in the most somber room in the world, with a death's head for a third party. He couldn't find anything to say. At last, he asked Ruth if she rode horseback.

“Why, I used to ride, but I haven't been on a horse for six years, and——”

“Oh, you ain't forgot!” said Page. “Riding a braunk's like swimming. Once you know how, you can't forget. I'll pick you out a good saddler, if you'll go with me sometime.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Cothran. That'll be splendid.”

“When?”

“Anytime. I wish I was on a horse right now. There's a freedom about riding a good horse that——”

“Reck'n I could get off a while tomorrow morning, to give Miss Brannum a riding lesson?” Page asked Old Neil.

“Humph! You're foreman. Looks like you could do pretty much as you please,” growled Brannum. “Riding would be good for Ruth, if she don't get lost in the pear thickets. Better keep an eye on her.”

That was the only time Old Neil Brannum spoke and then neither of the young people knew just what he meant. Page knew the old man kept early hours, so he said good-night and went to the bunkshack. He was walking on air. He was now foreman and the rich old ranchman had put him on a basis of equality. More than that, he had introduced him to Ruth. She was the prettiest woman he had ever seen, and—strangely, at that moment—it came to him that Ruth was Neil Brannum's heir.

After the young people were gone, Old Neil Brannum refilled his pipe and chuckled to himself. It had been so long since he had tried to laugh that his throat rasped and crackled horribly.

“Fell right into the trap,” he said to himself. “Knowed they would. Ruth's starved already to be noticed, and Page would be a damn fool if he didn't notice her. Once I get 'em hooked, I'll make a little trip and see a lawyer. Page'll think he's getting the Old Floresty with her. I'll fix it so their grandchildren'll get it. All he'll get will be the proceeds from it, and he'll have to work like hell to get that, same as I've done. Goin' riding! He, he, he! Her crazy for a man, and him crazy for a woman or a ranch, either one, and thinking he's got a chance to get both. They won't delay the game long. Hope not. Want it settled. Won't be here much longer. Don't want some money-spending, Eastern fool wasting what I worked for. She's got one back there, I reck'n, but Page'll make her forget him. Page is my kind of man. Got whiskers on his chest.”

Still cackling over the shrewd trap he had set for his granddaughter, Old Neil Brannum went off to bed.

EARLY next morning, Old Neil mounted his horse and rode away from the ranch alone. Whether he did it to see what would happen, or what his purpose was, no one would ever know. He didn't talk. Page made it plain to the men that he was foreman of the ranch. Cliff was looking at him, with a faint smile on his face, at the time. This aggravated Page. He was not going out with the men that day, and he would have put Cliff in charge of them, knowing he was the most capable of the lot, but for that smile. Instead, he appointed a man that he knew couldn't handle the outfit, thinking to humiliate Cliff, and again Cliff smiled in his face.

As the men saddled up, Page roped out two horses, one of which was his own “Sunday” horse and a fine saddler. He put his own saddle on the other and rode off toward the ranch-house. Up to that time, none of the men knew there was a girl on the ranch.

“Jacks up!” grinned Red. “The new foreman aims to ride two braunks.”

“He's so heavy, he'll kill 'em both 'fore night,” replied Coley.

The man Page had appointed foreman for the day was slow about getting the men off on their respective jobs.

“Guess I'm appointed to ride up to Twin Wells this morning,” said Cliff Lea, and without waiting for a reply, mounted and rode away.

The pens were three hundred yards from the ranch-house, and a thick grove cut off the view. Cliff wasn't spying on Page. He just wanted to get away from the crowd and do some thinking that had stacked up on him. Just as he came out in view of the ranch-house, and not more than a hundred and fifty yards from it, he saw something that stopped him dead.

Page assisted a woman to mount that Sunday horse. The animal stood perfectly still until Page had mounted his own horse. But that Sunday horse had never known so light a load on its back, nor so light a hand on its bridle. It bolted, straight toward where Cliff sat his horse, looking at the girl in astonishment. The main point was, he didn't know there was a white woman in that part of the country. That thought flashed into his mind. Then it flashed out, as he saw the horse put its head down and go into a wild spasm of “fence-row” bucking. The woman went off, struck the ground, and lay still, while Page came galloping behind her. Cliff spurred his horse to where she lay, dismounted, and picked her up in his arms.

“Here! What do you mean? Don't do that!” commanded Page.

Cliff merely looked at him as if he had been a loose horse, and strode on to the house, with Ruth in his arms. Old Rosita met him and showed him the way to Ruth's room. He laid her on a bed, and removing his gauntlet gloves, took the basin of cold water Rosita brought, and wetting a towel, bathed the girl's face. Then he calmly examined a small cut in her temple, from which blood flowed. Deciding it wasn't serious, he went on bathing it until she opened her eyes.

“Oh, I—I'm all right now,” said Ruth, sitting up on the side of the bed. “Thank you very much for—for your kindness.”

“You're entirely welcome, ma'am,” replied Cliff, “but you'd better stay off that horse.” He turned to leave the room, and saw Page Cothran standing uneasily just inside the door. Their eyes met, neither of them spoke, but the gage of battle had been thrown. Cliff mounted his horse and rode on to the Twin Wells, to see if the windmills were working. Page, boiling with rage, yet with nothing definite to complain of, went on to catch the runaway horse and unsaddle it, since Ruth said she wouldn't be able to ride now.

So began war, and the first blood was Ruth Brannum's. True it was from a tiny cut that Rosita stopped with a bit of plaster, but it was blood, and the war was on.

Old Neil Brannum knew nothing about all this. He had been in plenty of wars. He had killed men. At least, three lay in unmarked graves, a little way from the ranch-house, who had crossed Old Neil and thought they could beat him to the draw. Then, too, there were several others, scattered about the big pear thicket. Two of them owned small holdings near good water-holes. Brannum afterwards came into possession of their lands. People said things—but not to Neil Brannum. Anyway, that was a long time ago. Still, Brannum knew what a fight was. He knew what a range war was, but he had no idea of what the war he had started, right in his own house, with a beautiful girl as the prize, was going to be like.

When Ruth got over her jolting up and got her breath back, she said:

“Rosita, who was that tall man with such soft, cool fingers, who brought me to the house in his arms, and bathed my face so gently?”

“That was Señor Cliff Lea,” replied Rosita, with misgivings.

“But who is he?”

“Un vaquero. Just a cowboy, señorita.”

“Just a cowboy,” murmured Ruth, and closed her eyes, in order to think more clearly, perhaps, and try to understand how just a rough cowboy could do what that man had done, and do it so deftly and gently.

Out at the Twin Wells, all alone, Cliff Lea was cursing himself for a fool. He had been at the Floresty two years. He was a man who saw things and didn't talk about them. He was convinced that since Page was made foreman, there was danger of trouble with him, and it was time to quit the Floresty and seek other fields. But now . . . Curse himself for a fool as he would, that look that passed between him and Page Cothran, as he left Ruth's room, would hold him right there, until it came to a showdown. No man could say he dodged a challenge, and that was what it amounted to. Cliff didn't know who the girl was, but he had heard of Old Neil's granddaughter. Brannum had been “back in the state,” and he could put two and two together as well as anyone. There was nothing about being the old ranch man's granddaughter to make the girl happy, and Cliff thought he could see rough sledding ahead for her. In fact, he thought it had already begun.

“I wonder what that crazy old devil thinks he's trying to do,” grated Cliff, as he spurred his horse into the trail and started back toward the ranch.

CHAPTER III

“You can kill him, can't you?”

IT WAS that same evening, at late dusk, that Page went to the ranch-house, ostensibly to ask after Ruth, but there was another matter in his mind that had troubled him all day. Cliff Lea had come in that evening, more saturnine, if possible, and even less talkative than usual. As foreman, Page had asked him where he had been.

“I rode to the Twin Wells, first,” Cliff had replied, “and afterward I rode the range.”

“Did you have orders to go to the Twin Wells?”

“No.”

“Hereafter, do what you're told to do, and——”

“I always do that,” Cliff had replied, “and when there's nobody to tell me what to do, I do what I think ought to be done.”

Page wanted to say more, but he couldn't trust himself. There was something in Cliff's tone and his very expression that set Page raging, but to save his life he couldn't put his finger on anything definite. He was still thinking of this when he went to the ranch-house, and Old Rosita, assuring him that her young mistress was quite recovered from her fall of the morning, showed him into the grim old living-room. Old Neil Brannum was there smoking his pipe.

“Come in, Page, and take a seat,” he growled. “I'll send for Ruth after a bit. Glad you come. I want to talk to you. Did you have any other business, except to see Ruth?”

“Why, yes, sir. I—I wanted——”

“Out with it. Don't stammer like a schoolboy.”

“Why, it's about Cliff Lea.”

“What about him?”

“I think we ought to let him go.”

“Let him go? Hell's blazes! He's the best cowhand on the ranch, and——”

“I know that, but there's something wrong with him. He acts like——”

“Yes, I've noticed he did,” interrupted Brannum, with a grim twist of his lips. “Not many such men as Lea in the pear thickets. They wouldn't be here if they hadn't come from somewhere else, and—had a pretty good reason for coming. If you fired all the men off this ranch right now that was wanted somewhere else, you'd be pretty short-handed.”

“I know, but I can't handle Cliff.”

“Can't handle him? What do you mean? I've run this ranch forty years, and I've never fired a man because I couldn't work him. Tell him what you want done, and if he won't take orders, he'll quit of his own accord.”

“But Cliff won't quit.”

“Oh, he won't. Then if he gets troublesome, you can kill him, can't you? Running a ranch in the pear country is no parlor game. It's a man's job, and I expect you to run it.”

“All right, sir,” but there was little assurance in Page's tone. His idea of killing Cliff Lea in any sort of fair fight, was that it was a game of chance, with the odds all on one side.

Old Neil dismissed the matter as of no consequence, failing to notice Page's uncertain tone. He had a matter in his own mind. It had been there some time.

“We tallied five hundred young she cattle short, last year,” he said. “I didn't pay much attention to it, for them many cattle could easy enough be left in the thickets at the roundup, on a big range like ours. But this year, it's worse. We're a thousand short. That's too many.”

“Where do you think they went?” asked Page, for want of something else to say.

“I'm not thinking. It's a case where just thinking won't do any good. You have to know and then do something.”

“Maybe we'd better ask Cliff about it,” and a demon was stirring in Page's mind. If he could make Old Notey Beney even think Cliff had something to do with the disappearance of N B cattle, the rest would be easy.

“Ask hell! You don't think he'd be fool enough to tell you he was a rustler, do you? He may be doing it, but if he is he could prove a clean alibi by anybody on the ranch. Whoever it is, he's got to be caught red-handed in the act, and shot or hung. It's your job to catch him, and I wonder if you know why.”

“I—I don't know whether I do or not.”

“Then, I'll tell you. I aim for you to marry Ruth. She inherits the ranch. If you do marry her, you'll want all the cattle you can get, with her. Personally, I don't care a damn whether the cattle increase or not. I'm about through. Of course, if you don't want Ruth, and the Old Floresty and what's on it, why then I don't reck'n it would be very hard to find a man that would take a deal like that. Possibly Cliff Lea could be persuaded, and then if you're right about him, the rustling would stop itself.”

Old Neil Brannum had unerringly picked the raw spot, and was nagging it for a purpose. He didn't think Page would ever be able to handle the outfit until he showed he was game. He had seen Page in a few little gun quarrels, but it would take a showdown with some cold proposition like Cliff Lea to give him confidence in himself and to win the fear and respect of the other men.

“Why— why— Mr. Brannum,” said Page, squirming in his chair, “it's gratifying to know that I start in with your approval, but Miss Brannum may have a good deal to say——”

“All she'll have to say will be 'yes' to you, and 'I will' to the preacher. I'll attend to that part of it. Want to see her now?”

“I—I'd like to, but she got a pretty hard fall from a horse this morning, and——”

“Oh, she did? Hurt pretty bad by it, was she?”

“No, sir. Just shaken up a bit, but I reckon that——”

“All right. You can see her tomorrow, but you'd better see her. Sooner it's over, the more you can put your mind on them lost cattle, and—Cliff Lea.”

Page took his leave, with a whole nest of things to ponder over. There was enough sense of decency in his make-up to cause repugnance to Old Brannum's idea of a courtship. On the other hand, there was too much avarice in his soul to overlook such an opportunity. With the sanction of Ruth's grandfather, the battle was half won. Another of the fledglings in his nest was the manner in which Old Neil had suggested getting rid of Cliff. Page had no idea of meeting the lanky puncher in a fair fight, but then, nobody thought of giving a rustler a fair chance, and it would be easy enough to handle the matter. So, if one could be literally torn with emotions, Page would have been in shreds before be reached the bunkhouse that night.

TO DO Old Neil Brannum justice, he had no idea that he was going about the matter in a brutal way. He was merely exercising his will with what he felt belonged to him, as he had always done. He had never known anything about sentiment in his early life. It had been hard, grim reality. The pear country was a poor place for sentiment to thrive, so he had none. He had merely cut a young man from his bunch of cowpunchers for his granddaughter, very much as he would have cut a young bull or stallion from his herds of cattle and horses. Brutal, yes, from some viewpoints, yet there was, when all is said, a sort of higher eugenics in his idea. He felt that he had selected a real man. He didn't know where Page went, nor what he did, when he took occasional trips away from the ranch. That was Page's business. A man that was worth a whoop was likely to do a good many things that he wouldn't want published. Most young men did, especially when they had money in their pockets, and he had purposely given Page a chance to have money.

After smoking a few minutes, to catalogue his thoughts and get his line of talk arranged, Old Neil went to the door and called Rosita. Presently, she slipped into the room like an old, much wrinkled, and very brown ghost, with exceedingly bright, youthful eyes.

“Is your mistress abed?” asked Brannum.

“No, señor.”

“Tell her to come here.”

“Si, señor,” and Rosita dissolved like the ghost she was.

A few minutes later, Ruth entered the room, and the old martinet motioned her to a chair.

“Got a fall, didn't you?” he said.

“Yes, sir, but I wasn't hurt much. I'll——”

“Forgot how to ride, after all.”

“Why—I thought the horse would be gentle.”

“Humph! No gentle horses on the ranch. How do you like Page Cothran?”

“He seems to be respectful, and nice. His language is rather coarse, and——”

“Oh, it is! I reck'n you learned a lot of fool stuff like that at school. The pear country's a good place to forget it. Better get used to Page's coarse language as soon as you can, and learn to understand him.”

“Why, I don't see——”

“I do. You're going to marry him.”

“Marry him! When?”

“As soon as he asks you, and I got an idea that that won't be very long.”

A hundred questions sprang to Ruth's lips, but she couldn't ask a one of them. She sat in a sort of stunned silence for a full minute, and then Old Neil Brannum said:

“That's all. Thought I better tell you, so you wouldn't be surprised when Page asked you, and would know what to say. Wanted you to know that the match suits me. Go to bed.”

Ruth got up and left the room, without even saying good-night, so great had been the shock. Brannum didn't even look at her. She went back to her room and found Rosita there.

“Rosita,” said Ruth, after a long silence, “when I was a little child you loved me and was a mother to me, but now——”

“Oh, querida mia! I still love you.” And the old woman looked toward the door with terror in her eyes. “I can never cease to love the baby that I nursed, after the angel mother had gone.”

“Then why, since I came back, have you been so cold and unfriendly? You do not speak to me, except when you are spoken to.”

“It is late and you should be in bed, querida mia,” evaded the girl's old nurse,

“No, it is not very late. If it were, I'm not sleepy. I don't think I'll sleep tonight. I want to know a good many things. Tell me, first, why you won't talk to me like you used to do.”

Old Neil Brannum knew men, and could figure what they would do under given circumstances, but he couldn't conceive the feeling of a woman who had nursed a helpless baby, saw it develop into a lovely thing like Ruth Brannum, and then was appealed to by it. Such things were beyond the old ranchman's reckoning. The little, pleading note in Ruth's voice broke the lock that Brannum had put on the old woman's lips, and fanned the embers that had slumbered in her heart all these years into a flame of love and loyalty to her mistress that no fear could ever quench again.

“El maestro!” she whispered, glancing toward tbe door. “He is so strange. He bade me speak little to you. I do not understand, but said it would be best for you, and—and terrible for me if I did not obey."

Ruth pondered this for a moment. She didn't want to get her faithful old nurse into trouble. She could remember the result of her grandfather's wrath on some of his servants. Old Andreas, the yard man, still limped as a result of a slight disobedience. At last she said:

“I would not get you into trouble, Rosita, but there are things that I must know, or I shall go mad. We'll whisper. If grandfather comes, I'll tell him I'm nervous after my fall today, and bade you stay in my room tonight.”

“I'd die for you!” whispered Rosita, “but what will happen to you, if——”

“It is what is about to happen to me that I want to talk about. Would you like to see me given in marriage to a man that I have seen but twice, and I know nothing at all about? A man that I do not love.”

“Ah, no quiera Dios! Surely God would not let a thing like that happen to a lovely girl like you.”

There was a wan smile on Ruth's twisted lips. Rosita's faith was great. For herself, she doubted that God's mercy could follow the intricate trails of the pear country. At least, she feared that it would arrive too late to save her. Somewhere, she had heard or read, “God helps those who help themselves.”

“What do you know about Page Cothran?" she asked suddenly.

“Why, he is the master's friend and companion. For a long time he has been vecero to el capitan, and now they say he is generalissimo of the whole ranch. He is the handsomest man on the ranch, as you can see for yourself. Could you not love Señor Page?”

“I—I might come to love him, in time, but—I refuse——”

“Ah, querida! Refuse is a frail word to pit against the will of Señor Brannum. Did he command you to marry Page Cothran?”

“Yes.” And Ruth repeated what Brannum had said to her.

“Then the die is cast. You will marry him, but it is cruel that he didn't give you time to love before marriage. It is best. It is all—to a woman. And yet, with great riches——”

“I will not marry a man I do not love!” declared Ruth, and there was a hint of Old Neil Brannum's obstinacy in her tones. “What do you know about Cliff Lea?”

“But, my dear,” protested Rosita, “he is only a cowhand, a common vaquero, and——”

“Tell me what you know about him.”

“No one knows much about Señor Lea. He is a cold man. A strange man, and he talks not about himself. He is wonderful with the reata, he is wonderful with the cattle and the horses. He talks little, but men fear him. They say he is quick and wonderful with his gun, but he rarely shoots. His cold word or two, and the glance of his eyes, is enough for most men.”

“Would he not be a good friend?”

“Such men are good friends only to men. They do not like women. They have what you call a cold heart. I heard him speak gruffly to you this morning about the horse, and——”

“Yes, he spoke gruffly, but he bathed my face as gently as any woman could have done it. Can you talk to him?”

“No! I never spoke to him in my life. He would not listen to me, or even notice me.”

“Has he friends among the men?”

“Two that I know of. They are called Red and Coley. But, querida, you must not——”

“I must and will. You shall get a note to Cliff Lea for me.”

“But I cannot speak to him, I tell you.”

“Give it to one of his two friends, and tell him to deliver it. That will be as well.”

“But the master! He will kill me if he learns of it. No, no, no! It can't be done.”

“Which do you love most, the master or me?”

“Ah, querida mia! You know that I love no one on earth as I love you. It has broken my heart that I couldn't talk to you, as I used to do.”

“Then you will show your love for me.”

IT WAS the following morning. The men rode away to the day's work. Cliff Lea was given the partners to help him, with instructions to round up the cattle that ranged about the Twin Wells and count the young she cattle. Old Neil Brannum and Page took the other men, and went to another part of the range. Brannum wanted to talk to his new foreman, and he didn't want the wise Cliff Lea, and his two satellites, to catch a word that he said. In spite of his statement that he cared nothing about the cattle, he was very much interested to know where they were going. He wanted Page to catch the rustlers red-handed, and see how he would handle the matter. If Cliff Lea was the head of the rustlers, Red and Coley were in with him, for they were his shadows. By letting those three work to themselves, and giving them ample opportunity, they would be easily caught.

Never was there a more peaceful expression on the face of the grim old pear country. That a storm was about to break, there was not the slightest indication, but storms rise quickly in the pear country, sometimes, and the most unusual things start them.

Cliff and the partners were just out of sight of the ranch, when Red purred his horse to Cliff's side, and said:

“Wait a minute, Cliff. You're always ketchin' bugs and butterflies and lookin' at 'em. Here's a new kind for you.”

Red had done that same thing a hundred times, so Cliff held out his hand.

“Don't let it get away,” grinned Red, and placing his closed fist over Cliff's palm he opened his hand, then spurred away to catch up with Coley, who had ridden on ahead.

Cliff felt a folded piece of paper in his hand, and opening it he read:

I didn't thank you as I'd like to, for your kindness. Can't you bring a gentle horse, and take me for a ride this morning?

Ruth Brannum.

Cliff's gray eyes smouldered as he read that little note. This girl wanted to talk to him for some reason. What was it? He had no idea, but she should have the chance. He galloped on and caught up with the partners:

“You boys ride on to Twin Wells and go to work. I have to go back to the ranch. I'll get back as soon as I can,” and turning about, Cliff rode thoughtfully back through the pear thicket.

Half an hour later, he and Ruth rode away from the ranch-house together. Old Rosita was wringing her hands in the patio. There was no one about the place but herself, Teresa, Andreas, and the two Mexican boys. All these she could bind to silence, had already bound, for they feared her as if she were the fiend incarnate because she was, next to the master, the head of the house. The thing she feared was that Old Neil Brannum might return any moment. So, Rosita possessed her tortured soul in what peace she could, for what seemed to her an eternity. It was really less than an hour.

Meantime, Ruth Brannum and Cliff Lea rode half a mile through the tortuous ways of the pear thicket, and stopped in a little pocket. Of all the places on earth to hide, none ever equaled the pear country. Rarely could one see quarter of a mile distant, and usually not a hundred feet. Brannum had said that five hundred cattle might easily be missed in rounding up that range. One familiar with the country, its crooked trails and water-holes, could stay there indefinitely, and never be seen.

“You must be wondering why I sought this chance to talk to you, Mr. Lea, and I'm anxious to tell you. I don't want you to misunderstand, and I do want you to be my friend. I have not one in this terrible, choking, pear country, except poor old Rosita, and she is beside herself with fear."

“Why, particularly, do you need a friend just now?” asked Cliff.

“To protect me.”

“From what?”

“The brutal will of my grandfather, and the equally brutal advances of—another man.” And then she told him frankly what Old Neil Brannum's plans were for her.

Cliff's face flushed darkly, and there was an odd light in his eyes. Ruth noticed it, and knew it was not the light of desire, that she had seen in Cothran's eyes, nor yet the light of anger, altogether. It was undefinable something that she had never seen in any man's eyes before.

“Miss Brannum,” said Cliff, slowly, “any man should feel honored to be your friend, at any time. He wouldn't be worthy the name of man, if he refused to serve you in a situation like that. Still, I don't see anything that I can do.”

Ruth stared at him. His language was not that of a common cowhand, and there was that note of deference to a lady, that she could understand.

“But, please, Mr. Lea, something must be done. I can't——”

“What in the world is such a woman as you doing in this godforsaken pear thicket, anyway?” asked Cliff, impatiently. “It is bad enough any time, but there is danger in every bend of the trails now.”

“It is all the home I have, and—I didn't know it had changed so much, or I'd have died before I would have come here. If nothing else can be done, I'll run away.”

“No!” and there was alarm in Cliff's voice. “Don't ever try that. You'd be hopelessly lost before you went a mile. It's a hundred miles to any sort of civilized community, and——”

“But, I'd rather die than to do what grandfather intends for me to do. I can die but once, and he would sentence me to a living death. I can't——”

“I can understand how you feel. I'm willing to befriend you in any way that I can. Methods are rough and brutal in the pear country. A man gets in the way and is put out, but to kill Cothran, which would be easy enough, would only delay your fate. Your grandfather would find another, and perhaps worse——”

“No, no, no! I don't want anyone killed on account of me. I only want to be saved from worse than death, myself.”

“I understand, but this is a primitive country. There is quite likely to be more than one man killed on account of your coming here. More than that, I'm quite likely to be one of them, if it becomes known that you appealed to me. I'm——”

“You mean that you, a man, are afraid to give your friendly aid to a girl who——”

“A moment please,” and Cliff's lips twisted into a cold, hard smile. “No one has ever accused me of being afraid of anything. I was just going to say—I'm sure that if I am to befriend you long, it must not be known that we have talked together. The shorter time you stay away from the house, the less likely it is to be known. I'll have to think it over, before I know what I can do. Meantime, I suppose a message can pass between us in the same way that yours came to me, if you think it safe.”

“There are only two people,” said Ruth. “Rosita and your friend. I can vouch for Rosita.”

“Then it is safe enough. You must go back, now. Every moment adds to your danger.”

A few minutes later Cliff sat on his horse, watching her ride away toward the ranch-house. It was less than half a mile, and he had told her to let the horse have its head and it would take her home. The animal was his own private mount, and so far as he knew was the only horse on the ranch that a woman could ride with any degree of safety.

When Ruth was out of sight around a bend in the trail. Cliff Lea rode on toward Twin Wells. There was an odd smile on his lips, and it was reflected in his level gray eyes. He was thinking that of all men on earth, he was the last that anyone would expect to take up the duties of knighthood. Here was a strange man, in a strange situation. Oh, well. His life wasn't worth very much, he thought. It would be worth far less, or rather it would last a much shorter time, if Old Neil Brannum and Page Cothran learned what had happened that morning. Pondering these things, Cliff rode on to the wells, found the partners, and set about carrying out his orders for the day.

CHAPTER IV

Cliff Lea knows his pears

THE little squad of riders that stayed regularly at the ranch occupied about the same position toward the rest of the outfit that a headquarters company would bear toward a regiment. They worked the immediate home range, but the principal part of the work on the ranch was done by Mexican vaqueros. These were scattered over the range at different ranch cabins, where there were pens for stock, and a sort of shelter for the men. Each of these small outfits had a boss who was a white man. A sort of petty sub-foreman. The bosses were a rough lot, quick with their guns, and dangerous men to cross. They had to be, or they couldn't hold their jobs. Each of them had two or three old vaqueros, who were their slaves, and could be relied upon to the last drop of their blood. The rest were drifting Mexican riders, good enough cowhands, but including every kind of criminal known to the border. Many of them could be hired for a few dollars to commit the foulest sort of murder.

One of these petty foremen, whose gun wouldn't have held the notches to which it was entitled, was Bud Rolfe. The ranch cabin where he held sway was called Loma Rojo, or Red Ridge. It was a slight elevation of red soil, cut by erosion where the draws broke toward the Rio Grande, at the extreme southwest of Brannum's holdings, and less than ten miles from the Mexican border. Rolfe was said to have a dash of Spanish or Indian blood, and a very light regard for any human life except his own.

As vecero, Page Cothran's duty had been to ride from headquarters to these cabins, carrying instructions to the bosses. In that way he had become acquainted with all these petty foremen, and with many of their men. Page was twenty-eight, thoroughly familiar with the affairs of the ranch, a good cowman, and fully competent for his new position of foreman. Old Neil Brannum had trained him particularly for the job, and thought he knew him.

That same morning, as Cliff and the partners rode for Twin Wells, Brannum and Page visited three of these outlying ranches. Brannum took pains to tell the bosses that Page was foreman of the whole ranch, now, and he sent men to tell other bosses, so they would all have notice to take orders from Page. That was Brannum's way. Nota Bene. He had put them on notice. Now, if Page had to kill one or two of them before they understood the new regime, that was their lookout. He had done the like himself a few times. At the first of the three places they visited, Page called practically all the men by name, and spent some time talking to first one and then another of them. It was drawing on toward night when Brannum and the new foreman reached the ranch.

“Better come up to the house tonight,” said Brannum, as they parted at the corral, after unsaddling. “You got things in hand, now. Take a little time and get your family business settled.” The old rascal was not pushing the matter so much because he was in any hurry as to the wedding of the young people, but because he had sensed opposition to his plans, in Ruth's manner the night before, and he was anxious to show his power.

Page was willing enough. He had had time to do a good deal of thinking. Not many young men were given opportunity such as his. Aside from the ranch and stock, which would belong to Ruth in a few more years, the girl herself was a prize. Ruth Brannum, just turned eighteen, with her blue eyes and golden hair, was not only a beauty that set the dark-skinned Cothran wild with desire, which was, so far, his only knowledge of love, but she was steady and sensible, and Page knew she would make a proper wife for a rich ranchman. So, he went to the bunkshack, shaved, and made himself presentable, intending to begin pressing his conquest that very night.

THE Twin Wells were about five miles northwest from the headquarters ranch, but when Cliff and the partners started home that evening, Cliff led the way due east from the wells, and approached the ranch finally from the north east. They reached the ranch a few minutes after Brannum and Page got in. The partners had wondered why Cliff led them that roundabout way, but had asked no questions. They were soon to get an idea, and say nothing about it, either. The three had just reached the bunkhouse, and were washing up for supper, when two men came galloping up and dismounted:

“Where's your foreman?” asked one of the strangers.

“Here I am,” called Page, who had come to the door. “What can I do for you?”

“Give us some men to help bring in our partner, and——”

“Your partner? What's the matter with him?”

“Nothing much. He's just tar'ble dead. The three of us was riding the trail, coming in from them Twin Wells, and aiming to make here by night. Somebody opens from a pear thicket and picks him off just like he was ripe. 'Cause he was in front, and tallest, maybe. We shells the thicket, and then rides for help. It ain't more'n a mile from here.”

A quick look passed between Red and Coley. In another minute they, with Cliff and two others, were saddling their horses to go back with the strangers. The two men said they were from a ranch a hundred miles up the country and were on their way to the lower Nueces to get a band of saddle horses. The dead man was found in the trail, with a bullet through his head.

“Where's that thicket you shelled?” asked Cliff.

“Right there,” and one of the men pointed to a dense pear and catclaw thicket.

Cliff rode around the thicket, and peered into it. It was dusk, but presently he said, “You did a pretty good job of shelling that thicket.” There lay a dead man.

A few minutes later they were riding toward the house, with the two bodies lashed on horses.

“Cliff shore knows his pear thickets,” whispered Red to Coley, as they dropped a little behind the others. “If we had come this way, at least one of us would be taking music lessons on a harp now.”

Coley made no comment. Arrived at the ranch the two dead men were laid out in a shack a little way from the bunkhouse. One of the strangers held a lantern to the face of the man who had done the killing, and said: “Any of you fellows know him?”

No one answered, and finally Page Cothran said: “Stranger to this outfit.”

“Well, I reck'n it don't make no difference, now, who he is. He's had his trial. You fellows can bury the varmint, if you want to. We won't bury him.”

Nothing more could be done that night, so the door of the cabin was closed, and the men went on to the cookshack and had supper. Page went with them, and showed the strangers the usual cow-camp courtesies, but there was little talking during the meal. There was considerable thinking being done, though. Some of it was being done by Page Cothran and a good deal of it by Cliff Lea.

After supper the men returned to the bunkhouse. Page excused himself and went up to the old house in the grove. Old Man Brannum hadn't been told of the killings. No use to bother him with a little thing like that. A few minutes after Page left, Cliff got up, looked at each of the partners, and walked out. Red and Coley followed him. When they reached the big corral, which was empty, they squatted down in the middle of it.

“Do you know that killer, Red?” asked Cliff.

“Shore I do. Coley knows him, too.”

“Who is he?”

“Manuel Rubio. Works over to the Resaca Dorado outfit. Been there about a year, and would kill his grandmother for four bits—half cash.”

“Why do you suppose he killed that stranger?”

“By mistake, I reck'n, don't you?”

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to quit the old Notey Beney,” said Cliff, by way of reply. “This pear country is getting too unhealthy.”

“Not for a gent that knows his pears like you do,” growled Coley, speaking now for the first time.

“I was pretty sure that was Manuel,” Cliff went on, “but I wanted to be positive. They look pretty much alike when they're dead. Better try to forget you knew him, as soon as you can.”

They smoked in silence a few minutes and then Cliff said:

“Boys, you know as well as I do that Rubio thought he was killing me. Somebody wants me gone from the Floresty, suddenly and for good. A man can get lost in this pear thicket, and nobody would ever know what became of him. It's getting too unhealthy for me.”

“Maybe you could take something for it,” grinned Red, and his white teeth showed in the gloom.

“I mean to. I'm going to take my leave in the morning. We drew our pay a week ago. I'll give Old Notey Beney what's coming to me. I mean to just ride off, and not come back. I don't think I'd ever get off the range, if it was known that I was leaving.”

“We'll go with you,” said Red, “won't we, Coley?”

“Suits me,” muttered Coley. “I ain't sure Rubio wouldn't have got you and me if he could.”

“That's mighty fine of you boys,” said Cliff, “but I don't want your friendship for me to cause you to lose your jobs, and probably get you into trouble.”

“Rather get into trouble account of friendship for you than to wear diamonds and eat ham and aigs three times a day, with an outfit like this has got to be, and—it's apt to get worse from here on.”

The compact was made in silence. The cold, seemingly heartless Cliff Lea wanted these two men. He knew they worshipped him for his nerve, his speed with the lariat, and above all, for his uncanny speed and accuracy with the gun that he rarely used. He knew they'd follow him blindly. What his purpose was, none might know. Many a band of desperate men had grown from a poorer nucleus, right there in the pear country.

“All right,” said Cliff, after a long silence. “We'll leave in the morning. I don't know yet where we'll go. We'll have to decide that later. The main thing is to get away from here alive. I have enough money to keep us up for a while and I'll split anything that comes our way, with you.”

“That's fair,” said Red.

“Good, Now there's just one more thing. Do you know where you got that butterfly you gave me this morning?”

“Shore!”

“Could you go back to the place?”

“Shore could. In the dark, and blindfolded.”

“All right. I'll want you to do that, after a bit.”

They went back to the bunkhouse, and sat around talking with the other men. No one could have suspected what they had in mind. Cliff would gladly have ridden that night, but he thought the bunkhouse was a safer place. Manuel Rubio had not been the only man in the pear country who would kill his grandmother for four bits—half cash and the balance when he could get it.

MEANTIME, Page Cothran had gone on to the ranch-house to begin his swift siege and capture of Ruth Brannum. He walked boldly through the wide entrance, and on through the flower-scented patio. Already, he was feeling a sense of proprietorship about the place. When he was married to Ruth, of course he'd live there instead of living at the dirty old bunkhouse with the men. No one was stirring about the place. Not even the servants. Page went on and knocked at the door of the big living-room.

“Come in!” called Brannum. “Oh, it's you. Time you got on the job and begin to show signs you're alive.”

“I know, but—I—I can't very well talk to Ruth here in the room with you. A girl don't like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, she don't! Well, talk to her in her own room.”

“I don't think she'd—she'd like that, either.”

“Huh! If you start out worrying about what she'd like, you ain't apt to get very far. There's the whole patio out there, with plenty seats in it. I'll call her in here, and you can take her out there and talk your head off. I don't see that there is much talk needed.”

Brannum went to the door and called in a voice that rasped like a file on the edge of glass. A door opened somewhere and Old Rosita materialized a moment later.

“Tell Ruth to come in here,” commanded Brannum.

Rosita, who had got a glimpse of Page Cothran, stole back through the shrubbery, instead of following the walk that led around the wall inside the court. She was gone a long time. Page grew nervous, and the old man cursed under his breath. Finally, Rosita came back and said her mistress was ill in bed, with a severe headache, and a violent rigor. Unsuspecting that he was merely matching wits with two women, Brannum dismissed her.

When she was gone, he turned to Page. “Take tomorrow to settle this business. She'll ride a horse, and give you a chance to talk. If you can't find one that's gentle enough, dope one and make it gentle.”

Page promised to do his best, and went back through the silent patio, and on to the bunkhouse.

“Now what the hell's the matter with that fellow,” mused Old Neil Brannum, when Page was gone. “He's finniky as a boy. He's a grown man, and I happen to know he takes on the wildest girls in the dance halls, yet he's as afraid of a timid schoolgirl as if she were a panther. Damn if I can understand him. Acts like he had something else on his mind all the time. Wonder if he's got another wife somewhere and— If he has, I'll kill him, damn him! He's got a right to have a wife if he wants one, but he ain't got no right to go this far in this thing, without telling me about her.”

IN SPITE of Ruth's critical condition, she was sitting in a chair, fully clad, when Rosita slipped into her room an hour after Page Cothran left the house.

“Ah, querida mia,” she panted. “This intrigue will be the death of me. I could not deliver the note you gave me, so here it is.”

She handed Ruth a note which she hid written an hour earlier, and which read:

I am determined to escape from this prison and what threatens me, if I die in the attempt. Won't you let me have the horse I rode this morning, and one other that is gentle. I'll be forever grateful if you'll aid me that much in my terror.

Ruth glanced at it, saw that it was indeed her own note, and sank back helplessly in her chair. She was cudgeling her brain for some other means of communicating with the cold-blooded puncher, when Rosita, having recovered her breath and her wits, said:

“While I was waiting for the red one to come, after I had sent for him, a strange Mexican man that I had never seen stood almost touching me before I knew it. I all but screamed with the fright, but in good Spanish he cautioned me, and said: 'For your mistress,' then thrusting this into my hand, he disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him,” and she handed Ruth a small, closely folded paper.

Ruth unfolded it and read:

My life is in danger and I am leaving. Any message for me can be delivered to the same Spaniard, at the same place this was delivered to you, and at the same hour of the evening.

Thinking that Cliff Lea who, cold as he was, seemed to be her only chance for a friend, was already gone from the ranch, Ruth gave up in despair. She had bravely determined to get horses from the cowboy, which she felt sure was as far as he would go in the matter of helping her. With these, she had meant to take Rosita, and try to win her way out of the big thicket. Now, even that hope was gone. So broken-spirited was she that she didn't stop to wonder how messages could reach a man who had gone out of the country, in time to help her in an emergency.

At last she said: “Rosita, you say this man you call Red is Cliff Lea's friend? Seek him the first thing in the morning and arrange some way for me to talk to him. I'll get horses from him. I won't——”

“But, querida! If the master should learn that you——”

“The master can do nothing worse than be is planning to do. Go the first thing in the morning.”

Unconsciously, Ruth was developing a bit of the iron of the pear country, and a considerable trace of Old Neil Brannum's stubborn fighting spirit. Had she been a boy, there would have yet been considerable hope of a house of Brannum in America.

“CLIFF, you take Red and Coley with you, and ride at once for Loma Rojo. Tell Bud Rolfe that I am now foreman of the whole ranch. Tell him to go right ahead, the same as he has always done, except that I want him to round up his range and count the young she cattle. Tell him, also, that you three are to stay and help him with the work, as long as he wants you to stay.”

Thus ordered Page Cothran, foreman of the Old Floresty, next morning, soon after daylight. Cliff took the order without the quiver of an eyelash. Immediately afterward, the three mounted and took the trail that led to Palo Alto. That was the route to Loma Rojo, until a left-hand trail was reached ten miles from the ranch. So, when Rosita sought Red, at sunrise, she learned that he, too, had gone somewhere.

Five miles from the grim old Floresty ranch-house, there was an immense thicket to the right or north of the Palo Alto trail, which bent far to the south in order to get around it. That thicket was an impenetrable green wall, mounted with forbidding spines. The only relief in the green monotony was an occasional white spot, where a colony of cochinilla had settled on the broad pear leaves. A broad, flat-bottomed draw came out of the thicket about midway, but it was so thickly grown up with pear and chaparral that no one could follow it.

Just before reaching the big thicket, Cliff left the trail and turned due north, Red and Coley following. There had been no talking since they left the ranch, but the partners knew Cliff Lea was not going to take them to Loma Rojo. They had ridden half a mile, and had come out in a little glade where some cattle were grazing, and about due east from the middle of the great thicket. There was a fat young calf with the cattle. Cliff uncoiled his reata. A moment later the calf was on the ground. Cliff dismounted, tied its feet, and passed it up to Red, who laid it across his saddle. Mounting again. Cliff led the way into what seemed to be a deep pocket in the edge of the thicket, saying: “Better keep pretty close to me.” At the same time he made a sharp turn and disappeared.

After going a short distance, the partners began seeing marks slashed with a knife, on the broad leaves of the pear. They were the letter L or letter R, indicating left and right turns in the winding trail. They followed every point of the compass in going half a mile, and finally came out in an open mesquite glade of twenty acres or more, in the very heart of the thicket. On the bank of a deep arroyo stood a cabin of palisades with a sound roof. In the arroyo was a shallow well with plenty of good water.

“How come this cabin in here?” asked Red, when they drew up and stopped near it.

“I don't know,” replied Cliff. “I found it about a year ago. Got a glimpse of it from a windmill tower at the Twin Wells, and hunted until I found it. Whoever built it knew how to hide.”

“I'll say he did. The devil couldn't find this place with a good lantern,” grinned Red.

“Butcher the calf,” directed Cliff. “Cut the meat into strips and hang it in the trees to dry. Then wait here until I come back. You couldn't find your way out of here in a week, if you tried.” Crossing the arroyo he disappeared into the thicket on the west side.

“Huh! Two ways out of here, anyway,” grunted Red. “Wonder how that cabin got here, and how long it aims to be our happy home. Been built a long time, but it's in pretty good shape. Camp kit and bunks in there, and everything. Even a fireplace. Looks kinder seldom to me. Funny about Cliff. We don't know anything about him. Wonder what his idea is. Wonder where he's gone to now.”

“Don't know where he's gone,” said Coley. “Don't know what his idea is, but it's a cinch it's a good one. I ain't worrying none a-tall. Cliff knows his pears.” And he went on skinning the calf, and preparing to carry out Cliff's orders, which were law enough for him.

“Yep. He shore do know his pears, and his pear country. I don't know what he aims to lead us into, but I aim to foller him.”

That ended all spoken speculation on the part of the partners. It was late in the afternoon when Cliff came riding across the arroyo. He had been openly to Palo Alto, and had brought back a heavy pack of supplies for the camp, indicating that he might intend to stay there some time. Each of them had his own blanket-roll, and they were now prepared to be quite comfortable.

“Less'n five miles from Old Floresty and the devil couldn't find us with his pet dog in a year,” muttered Red, as he lugged the supplies into the cabin.

Cliff said nothing. They made a little fire, cooked and ate a hearty meal, and then sat around smoking. The sun was low in the west by this time, and the shadows of the tall pear made grotesque markings on the glade. Just after sunset, Cliff roused from a period of silence and deep thought.

“Guess we better saddle and ride, fellows,” he said.

CHAPTER V

Old Neil Brannum is bereaved

AFTER Ruth's instruction of the night before, Rosita set out early next morning to carry them out. She had been frightened half out of her wits the night before by the strange Spaniard. She need not have been, for he was none other than Coley, a plain Texas cow-puncher who, with his dark face and classic features could have passed for a grandee. Part of his perfect Spanish he had learned in school, and the rest from living on the border. Rosita had her misgivings and moments of remorse about what she was doing. That is, she was glad enough to do it, but she'd hate like the devil to get caught at it. These moments were principally due to her fear of Old Neil Brannum, but largely to the fact that it all seemed so useless. If Ruth had an accepted lover and was trying to communicate with him, trying to escape the arms of a man she didn't love, it would be a different matter. But such was not the case. Ruth was trying to escape a man that Rosita considered the handsomest man she had ever seen in her life, and one that seemed to her altogether desirable as a husband. But Rosita was now well between two fires, and quite likely to roast if she didn't watch her step. Intrigue was natural to her, and she had already gone too far in the matter to turn back. If she obeyed Ruth, Brannum might never find it out. If she disobeyed the girl, she was likely to be caught between the wrath of the two of them.

Since Rosita was the recognized head of the servants, and they were all loyal to her, she could do almost anything without creating suspicion. Teresa, the cook, and Old Andreas, would do anything for her. The two Mexican boys, who were the only others about the place, were Rosita's grandsons, and would cheerfully die before they told anything. So, it was no grave thing to have one of them go early in the morning, and seek Red. What the result of such an interview might have been was not to be known. Rosita came into Ruth's room a little after sunrise, with defeat written large on her wrinkled countenance.

“The Señor Cliff Lea didn't leave last night,” she said, in a tone that indicated that she considered Cliff a falsifier. “He left this morning, and the Señors Red and Coley went with him, to another part of the ranch. So, they are not leaving after all. Sylvestre heard El Capitan Page instruct them where to go, and they will not be back for several days.”

“You should have sent Sylvestre earlier, but it can do no good to complain now.”

“Tonight, querida, we can send a message to the Señor Cliff.”

“Yes, tonight, but much else can happen before tonight. Tonight, as soon as it is dark, we should leave this hateful place. Are there any of the men about the place?”

“Sylvestre says they all went different ways, early this morning.”

“Then I'll dress and get some breakfast and think over what can be done. If I can't escape otherwise, I'll walk, before I'll——”

The thought was too much for Ruth and she left the sentence unfinished.

Thinking she had the day before her in which to mature her plans, Ruth went into the patio after breakfast, and sat down on a rustic seat to meditate. She was in the midst of puzzling over the unreasonable attitude of her grandfather, when she heard a heavy step, and looking up saw Page Cothran. He was standing, hat in hand, within a few feet of her, and wearing his best smile on his dark, handsome face. So, Sylvestre had been mistaken. All the men had not left the ranch.

“How do you do this morning?” smiled Page, and then without waiting for a reply, “I was shore worried last night. Thought maybe that fall had made you kinda sick.”

“No, I don't think the fall had anything to do with it. I'm quite all right now, thank you.”

“Mighty glad to hear that. I've brought a plumb tame braunk this time, if you'll go riding with me.”

Ruth considered a moment. Her grandfather had said she was to marry this man as soon as he asked her. He could propose quite as readily there in the patio as he could on horseback. Certainly it would be more difficult for him to attempt any liberties on horseback. So she accepted the invitation, and a few minutes later they rode away. As they rode, Ruth was thinking that she might, as a last resort, go riding with Page, suddenly ride away from him and get lost in the pear, then make her escape out of the country. That might be done, but certainly not on the horse she was riding. The poor beast had been doped until its feet were leaden.

Page lost no time. He was really becoming enamored of this beautiful girl. Besides that, the idea that she was heir to the wealth of Old Neil Brannum was all the time in the back of his head, egging him on. He began to make personal insinuations about himself and Ruth, but it was bludgeon against rapier, and her quick wit turned every thrust he made. They rode about for two hours, at the plodding gait that Ruth's poor drugged beast could make. By the time they reached the ranch-house Page was growing desperate. As he assisted her from her horse, he caught her hand and blurted:

“Ruth, I've tried to tell you—tell you all the morning that I wanted you to marry me. Your grandfather said—said you'd marry me when I asked you, and——”

“Oh, he did say that!”

“Yes, and I hoped you'd set the day, soon. Won't you?”

“I think we had better let grandfather set it,” she said, demurely, and leaving the impression that what her grandfather did about the matter would meet her approval.

“Then I'm sure it will be soon,” said Page, releasing her hand with no attempt to kiss her, or otherwise caress her. “I'll see you again tonight,” and mounting he rode away.

PAGE COTHRAN was by no means the first man on earth who was a bold cavalier in a dance hall and a tongue-tied boob in the presence of a pure young girl. It was rather to his credit that he was such. He had no compunction at desecrating the bridal altar by taking this innocent girl to wife. He felt sure that he would know how to behave as a husband, but as a lover for a girl of that sort, he was a failure and knew it. Still, he promised himself that now the ice was broken he'd do better for the short time until they were wed. There was little doubt that the time would be short. It didn't occur to him that Ruth had not said “yes” to him, as her grandfather had predicted.

Page had other matters of importance on his mind just then. He was now virtually the owner of the Old Floresty, and as such he must bestir himself about its business. Rich, and with a beautiful wife, he didn't intend to spend all his time in the great thicket. So, he galloped away toward the ranch-cabin at Resaca Dorado. There were some things there that needed his attention. He could easily get back by night, and then he would go to see Ruth again, and talk things over with Brannum.

Ruth Brannum stood watching Page until he went out of sight. So that clod was the man her grandfather would give her to, very much as he would give any other chattel. Possessed of a wonderful body, no mind, except the gift of greed, and no soul at all, yet a good enough husband for her. Two red spots came on her cheeks. They were the blushes of anger, and not of shame. Never would she submit to slavery like that. Hurrying to her room, she changed from her riding habit, and summoned Rosita. The old woman's eyes went wide with fright, as she saw the face of her mistress.

“Rosita, do you love me?” asked Ruth.

“Ah, querida mia! I do love you.”

“Then you are the only creature on earth that does love me, and sometimes I almost think God has forgotten me.”

“No, no, querida! Don't say that. God is all good.”

“Anyway, he is not likely to do for me what must be done now. I'm going to leave the hacienda at once. Tonight, as soon as it is dark. I go, if I have to walk, and alone.”

“But no, querida! You cannot do that. You must not. There is no place near that you can go to. The great thicket is full of wild animals and bad men. You would surely be in danger.”

“I'm not afraid of wild animals, and there are no worse men elsewhere, than there are here. There is no worse man on earth than my grandfather.”

“No, no, no! Don't say that. Señor Brannum just does not understand. It is his way, and——”

“Then you want to stay with him and leave me go alone on foot, into the great thicket?”

Poor Old Rosita! She was torn now with conflicting emotions. She really loved Ruth, as she loved no other person on earth. In the end, she would cleave to her against all odds, but this thing was impossible. She begged and pleaded, but Ruth was adamant. She spent the remainder of the day making up into two small parcels the things she would take into the wilderness with her. When Rosita would protest, Ruth would say, “Find horses, if you can. If you can't, I go on foot, as soon as night falls.”

Rosita held many conferences with Sylvestre and his brother. Yes, they could get horses and saddles, when night came, and the men were asleep, but with morning they would be missed. El Capitan would trail them and overtake them. Rosita knew the fate of horse-thieves in the big thicket. So the hours dragged on in feverish excitement, for Rosita, and in calm, cold, relentless purpose for Ruth. The day before she had hoped much from Cliff Lea, cold and unresponsive to her plea as he had seemed. Now, that hope was gone. Be he never so willing, he couldn't help when he wasn't there. True, he had said that a message could be sent to him, but there was no time for the passing of messages now. Rosita had hinted that she would much rather undertake to place a knife in Page Cothran's heart, than to go into the great thicket on foot, but Ruth had silenced her. She would have no murder done on her account, at least she would be a party to none. She didn't know that murder had already been done on her account. That when Manuel Rubio shot the stranger he had thought he was killing Cliff Lea, to get him out of Page's way.

IT WAS almost night when Page returned from Resaca Dorado. He ate his supper hurriedly and went on to the house to tell Brannum the news, and to see Ruth, as he had promised. He might break his promises to her, some day, but not now. Old Neil had eaten his supper, waited on by Rosita as usual, but with no idea that the poor old creature was ready to drop in her tracks from fright. Ruth, he had not seen, and didn't ask about.

“Well, what have you done today?” growled Brannum, as Page came in and took a seat.

“I went riding with Ruth, today, and——”

“Well, out with it! What did you do? Stop that damned simpering and stammering, like a boy caught in mischief, and talk like a human.”

“We're going to be married.”

“That's better! When?”

“When you set the date.”

“When I set it! Ho-ho! I told you so. Coming around nicely. I'll set it fast enough. It'll be tomorrow. As soon as a man can ride into Palo Alto and get a license and a justice of the peace. I'll have no damned preacher mouthing around my house. I'll call her in, and we'll talk the matter over, now.”

Old Neil Brannum had no more idea what he was going to do then, than Sampson had when he pulled at the pillars. He was on the point of doing something for the house of Brannum in America, he thought, and he was—but not by any manner of means what he thought he was going to do. He stepped to the door and called Rosita, in his cracked, grating voice. There was no answer. He called her again, and cursed her soundly, but the result was the same. Then he trudged back to the kitchen. Andreas and Teresa, who were man and wife, were crouched over a little fire in the kitchen fireplace. No, señor, they had no idea where Rosita might be. Perhaps she was in the señorita's room. He went to Ruth's room, hammered on the door and called savagely. There was no reply. He opened the door and made a light. There was no one there. He routed Sylvestre and his brother. They knew less than nothing.

Then Old Neil Brannum went mad. In his rage he was frightful. He cursed everybody. Less than an hour before that, his old serving-woman had waited on him at table, as she had done every meal when he was at home, for more than thirty years. Now, she, and also his granddaughter, had vanished from the face of the earth. He sent Page flying to the bunkhouse to rout out the men, while he, with Andreas and Teresa, made a thorough search of the house.

Page came back and reported that none of the horses or saddles were gone. Several of the men had mounted, and were scouring the thickets immediately about the ranch-house.

The search went on. Old Neil Brannum was well nigh frantic. His home had been desecrated. He would have given Ruth, as a chattel, to the man he had selected for her. That, he considered was his right. But, for someone to take her from his house, under his very eyes, that was another matter altogether. There was another phase to the mysterious thing that was even worse. If she had become frightened and run away, her situation was hopeless. She'd never find her way out of the great thicket alive. A faint flash of humanity flickered in the old man's calloused soul. After all, Ruth was his granddaughter. The last of the line having his blood. The last of the Brannums in America, of which he had dreamed so much. For a little while he was dazed.

It was only for a little while, and then the old fighting spirit woke in him. He was old, but he was good for one fight and was going to have it, though he had no idea who it was to be with. Who would want to steal a woman? he asked himself. A man, of course. She knew no men in that part of the country except Page Cothran. He had seen to that, and Page was there. The only answer that he could think of was that she had known some man outside. That he had followed her there and stolen her. He almost choked with rage at the thought. Why, he'd take the trail, and when he caught the fellow he'd slit his ears, maim him for life, and leave him for the kiotys and peccaries to harry to death. He was on the point of ordering his horse for the trail, when Page Cothran came into the old living-room where he sat raging. With Page were two of the men who had ridden in a circle around the ranch, and returned.

“What is it?” demanded Brannum. “Don't stand gowking there like a damned dummy!”

“These fellows say they didn't see anybody, but they heard horses running.”

“Which way did they go?”

“They couldn't tell. Seemed to go into the Palo Alto trail.”

“Couldn't tell! Why in the hell didn't they follow 'em?”

“They were afraid the party was too big for them, and came back for help.”

“Too big!” stormed Brannum. “This whole damned outfit couldn't whip a crippled woman! Get to hell out of here, all of you. Sleep some, if you want to. We'll hit the trail as soon as it is light enough to follow it. Couldn't see anything now. I'll show that damned woman-rustler how we handle such cattle in the pear country!”

When the men were gone, and the house-servants had slunk off to their places, knowing much more than they told, and yet not knowing the truth, Old Neil Brannum slumped into his chair. So this was the end of his dream. No! He'd be damned if it was. He was almost spent, but there was one more good fight in him. No stranger knew the pear country well enough to get away, even with a whole night's ride the start of the Floresty's wild riders. He'd lead the chase himself, at daylight. No man living could interfere with his family affairs and get away with it. Thus the half-crazed old ranchman sat on through the night in his chair. He didn't want to sleep. What he wanted was his great hairy hands at the throat of the man who had despoiled his home.

MEANTIME, what really had become of Ruth and Old Rosita? They had slipped through a small door on the opposite side of the old house from the main entrance, immediately after Page went into Brannum's room. Each of them carried a small bundle. Rosita protested the danger of going into the big thicket on foot, with tears in her eyes. Ruth calmly told her to go back if she was afraid. Rosita clung to her, and they stole into the darkness and stopped just where the grove of big trees connected with the pear thicket, to get their bearings and set their course. They had barely stopped, when a man spoke, almost at their elbows.

“Who are you?” demanded Ruth, in low, startled tones.

“I come from Señor Cliff Lea,” replied the man in Spanish.

“Where is he?”

“Not far away.”

“Then tell him I must have two horses, and someone to show me the way out of this terrible country.”

She had scarcely finished speaking when the man was gone. While the two women stood together there in the black darkness, they heard Old Neil Brannum start the uproar at the house. They could plainly hear his bull voice, storming and swearing.

“Oh, queredita,” quavered Old Rosita, “the end is near. He will find us, and he will murder us.”

It seemed to Ruth that they stood for ages, crouching there in terror. Lights were flashing about the house, and men were calling the names of the two women.

Ruth started violently, when the same voice said, in perfect Spanish, “This way, señorita. Follow me quickly.”

They were led to a point not more than two hundred yards northwest of the house. Two men were standing on the ground, holding three horses.

“I'm Cliff Lea,” said one of the men, whom Ruth couldn't recognize in the darkness. “I'm sorry, but we have no spare horses. The best we can do——”

“But my very life is in danger now,” protested Ruth, “and I must have horses, to——”

“So are our lives in danger,” said Cliff, in his cold, unhurried tones. “As I was about to tell you, the best we can do for you now is to take you with us, and try to find horses for you later.”

“Then let's go,” said Ruth, impatiently.

“All right. You'll have to ride with me, and your woman with one of the others.”

“Anything is better than being discovered here and——”

There was a fresh outburst of yelling and calling all about the house. Ruth felt herself lifted bodily to the saddle. Cliff mounted behind her, and they followed the western edge of the grove, going south to where the Palo Alto trail off through the thicket. Red followed, with Old Rosita behind him and clinging on for life, while Coley brought up the rear. Neither of the partners had any idea they were being let in for a deal like this. Stealing women was out of their line, but if Cliff said to do it, they were game.

As they turned west into the trail, with the lights of the house blinking through the trees, they heard two horsemen calling within fifty yards of them. Cliff was reaching around Ruth with his long arms, his hands on the saddle-horn. She felt his arms stiffen against her, on either side, and the horse whirled into the trail and shot away in the darkness. When they had ridden for half an hour, Ruth felt the horse turn sharp to the right and pick its way slowly through the brush. Presently, it stopped and Cliff called back, softly, to the others. They answered and he said:

“Keep close, now.” Then to the girl, “Keep your head down, Miss Brannum,” and headed his horse into a solid black wall.

Half an hour later, Ruth and Rosita were comfortably housed in the little cabin that stood in the midst of the pear thicket. A little way from the cabin, a small fire burnt, and Cliff Lea sat on the ground staring into it. Red and Coley had unsaddled the horses, turned them loose, and were squatting on the ground, talking in low tones, a hundred feet away.

INSIDE the cabin, Ruth Brannum sat on one of the bunks, which was covered with clean, new blankets. Old Rosita squatted over a tiny fire in the fireplace, and pattered prayers for deliverance. Ruth had much to think about. She didn't know where she was, but she had always known there were hidden places in the big thicket. She knew nothing about the gaunt, cold man, who had brought her there. He had said he would try to get horses for her, but his voice was cold and hard as ice. He had not spoken to her on the wild ride from the ranch, except the one time, when he told her to keep her head down.

Ruth peered through a crack in the cabin wall, and could see him now, the red light of the fire bringing his rugged, tanned face into relief against the night. Rosita had said he was a common cowhand. Instinctively, she knew he was more than that. She thought of how deftly and gently he had bathed her face. He might be an outlaw. He might be anything, for she knew there were all sorts of men in the big thicket, but she would never believe he could be anything but gentle, with a woman. Still, she wanted to know what her position was. Cliff had said his life was in danger. If she was in the hands of a man upon whose head there was a price, she wanted to know what he meant to do with her. In spite of her situation, she felt a strange quickening of her heart, as she pushed aside the blanket that served as a door shutter and stepped outside. Cliff Lea was on his feet instantly, and standing, hat in hand.

“Sit down, Mr. Lea,” said Ruth, compelling herself to speak calmly. “I want to talk to you.”

“I'm honored,” said Cliff, gravely, resuming his seat only after Ruth had seated herself on the ground.

“Where are we, Mr. Lea?”

“Where no one can find you, in a month of searching, unless you want to be found, and I want you to be found.”

“Do—do you mean I'm a prisoner?”

“No, ma'am. I brought you here at your own request. I'll take you back to where I found you, tonight if you wish, but I would be placing myself, and you, in great danger.”

“No, no, no! I don't want to go back there, but—but I can't stay hidden here in the big thicket indefinitely.”

“No,” said Cliff, slowly, “not indefinitely. Just now, though, I think it the safest for you to be. I take it that you ran away, to keep from marrying Page Cothran before you—got acquainted with him.”

“I ran away because I loathe the thought of such a thing, at any time. No matter where I go, or what happens, I don't think I'll find any worse men than my grandfather.”

“You might find a great many worse men, and few that are better, in the pear country. It is just a matter of viewpoint that——”

“Then if you agree with grandfather giving me away, as if I were a chattel, a slave, why have you helped me even this much?”

“I agree with Mr. Brannum in many things, but not in the matter of marrying his daughter to Page Cothran, unless——”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you should come to love him.”

“Which I shall never do.”

“Then I don't think he should insist upon your marrying the young man.”

“Tell me, then, where I am, and what you mean to do with me, now that I'm here?”

“I can't answer either of those questions. I'm going to do the best I can, when the time comes for action. I make no promises what that best will be.”

The firelight turned Ruth's hair to a golden halo, and her blue eyes looked almost black. In spite of his apparent coldness, Cliff Lea was intensely human. When he had held Ruth in his arms that morning, and again when he had bathed her face so gently, a feeling had been awakened in him that he had supposed was dead. When she had told him of Brannum's purpose to marry her to Page Cothran, without consulting her wishes, it had roused hot rage in his heart. Now, as he sat looking at her, with somber, smouldering eyes, he knew that he loved this woman. He had nothing to offer her, but his life. He was standing that moment at a crisis in his life. This girl had the ordering of what his life would be, from then on. He wanted to tell her that, but knew he must not. So, when——

“Don't you think——” began Ruth.

“I think, Miss Brannum, that you should go to bed, and try to get some sleep. I assure you there is no place in the world where you would be safer from harm. Perhaps, tomorrow will decide many things.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth, and rose to obey the suggestion. He had virtually told her that he didn't want her to talk further and that she should go to bed. Still, there was such a note of gentleness in his tone that she couldn't be offended. At the cabin door, she turned. He was standing by the fire. She hadn't noticed before how tall he was, and how broad his shoulders. “Good night,” she said, and passing inside, dropped the curtain.

Long after the rest of the camp was wrapped in slumber, Cliff Lea sat staring into the whitening embers of the little fire. He was thinking of what life was, as he knew it; and of what it would be. He was also wondering what would take place in another twenty-four hours, and whether he would be living at that time. He knew that death might lurk in any pear thicket he passed, as he was going to pass some. At last, he stretched his gaunt body on the ground, pillowed his head on his arm, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER VI

Chub sees nice business again

WHEN Ruth pulled the blanket aside and peeped out next morning, Cliff Lea was not in sight. Red and Coley, sleeves rolled to elbows, were cooking breakfast over the campfire. They both looked up, just as she was about to drop the curtain.

“Coley, did you know we got ary angel in that drag last night?” Red asked, in an awed tone.

Neither of the partners had ever seen Ruth before, except as a blurred form in the night.

“No, I didn't,” replied Coley, “and I don't know it yet. A woman as pretty as that can start a heap of hell in this little old world.”

“She don't look rough to me,” whispered Red. “I don't blame Cliff for bustin' into her game, whatever it is.”

Coley made no reply, but went on broiling veal steak, and stacking it on a platter. He was reserving his opinion of the situation. A pleasing odor came from an oven, as Red lifted the lid to observe a browning loaf. This, blended with the aroma of boiling coffee, reached the cabin.

“Come and get it!” yelled Red.

“Did someone call?” asked Ruth, stepping out the door a moment later.

“No'm. I just said chuck's ready for them that wants it.”

“And I want it,” smiled Ruth and called to Rosita. “Where's Mr. Lea?”

“I don't know, ma'am. He was here last night, but it looks like he sorty got misplaced in his sleep, and——”

Red broke off suddenly, for Cliff Lea was galloping across the glade toward them. He dismounted, greeted Ruth, then ate breakfast with the others in silence.

As soon as the meal was over, Cliff rose and picking up a bucket, said, “Everybody works here. Miss Brannum, will you help me bring a bucket of water from the well.”

Ruth smiled, thought of the clumsy manner in which Page Cothran would have tried to get her out of the crowd, and walked away with him. The well in the arroyo was scarcely out of earshot of the camp. When they reached it, Cliff set the bucket down, and said:

“I might have been able to carry two gallons of water that distance, alone,” and there was a fine light of humor in his gray eyes. “The fact is, Miss Brannum, I have to tell you something. We will ride away from here in a few minutes. I'm going to trust you with the key to this place, and ask you not to use it until necessity drives you to it.”

“How long would that be?”

“Say three days. If none of us are back in that time, we'll never be back. There is plenty of food to last that long, and Rosita can cook it.”

“I'll promise to wait that long, but where are you going.”

“To hunt some horses for you and Rosita,” and there was an odd smile in Cliff's eyes.

“You're going into danger, Mr. Lea.”

“Every pear thicket I pass is a potential danger, but I'm used to that. I only hope it doesn't happen until you have no further need of my services. I——”

Cliff bit off what he was about to say, and Ruth held back what was on her own tongue.

“And the key,” she said, instead, “in the event I should need it.”

“It is this. About midway the east side of this glade there is a deep pocket in the pear. To the left of the entrance you will see a broad leaf on which has been cut the word 'out'. Standing by that sign and looking straight into the pocket, you will see another leaf, marked L. Go to that and turn to the left. Straight ahead of you will be another, marked R. Turn here to the right, and you will be in sight of the next sign. There may be two right turns, or two left turns, but follow them, and they'll take you out. I wouldn't tell you this, but I believe you'll wait here three days before you try it. If I'm not back by that time, Ill never be.”

“Mr. Lea, you're going into danger for me.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. There is a peculiar thrill to a woman the first time she knows, or thinks a man is endangering his life for her.

“Yes,” said Cliff, “I may as well be frank. At the same time, I may as well I tell the whole truth. My life is in danger anyway, anywhere in the pear country.”

“But you might win your way out, were it not for serving me.”

“That is not open to discussion,” said Cliff. “I'd hate for you to think I valued my life that much.” Picking up the bucket, he led the way back to camp.

Ten minutes later, when Cliff was about to mount his horse, Ruth put out her hand and he took it.

“I don't know what risks you are going to take on my account,” she said, “but in the event—in the event you shouldn't come back, I want you to feel that I appreciate your kindness.”

Their eyes met. Swift as the dart of a swallow, Cliff raised her hand to his lips, and without a word, swung to his saddle and was gone. She watched him and the partners cross the arroyo to the west, and disappear in the thicket. Cliff didn't look back. She looked down at her hand, seeming to still feel that hot kiss on the back of it, then sighed, and turned toward the cabin.

Ruth had plenty to think about now, and nothing to do but think. Naturally, she was thinking just now about Cliff Lea. What was he, anyway? No common cowhand, she was sure. In her childhood she had heard strange tales of hunted men, who hid for years in that great wilderness of pear cactus and thorny shrubs. Men who had come to know every intricate turn in the maze of trails, every glade and water-hole. Men upon whose heads there was a price. Could Cliff Lea be one of these? True, he had been a cowhand at the old ranch, as had been the two men with him, but might he not, at the same time, be the head of a band of outlaws? Such things had happened. Here was no ordinary man. He rarely spoke to the men called Red and Coley, and yet they seemed to obey his every wish, and follow him without question. Whatever else he might be, here was a leader of men. Here, too, was one who could break a woman's heart. The sort of grim, silent man, who could be wonderfully gentle and tender, that a woman could worship. When would she see him again, and would there come a time when she would wish she had never seen him. And so her thoughts ran on.

CLIFF LEA had ridden out at the east side of the thicket before daylight. When he returned and ate breakfast, there was nothing in his grim face to indicate that he had seen something that disturbed him. What he had seen, as he watched by the trailside at dawn, was the entire Notey Beney outfit, with Old Neil Brannum at their head, go galloping toward Palo Alto. They had struck his trail, and having no idea that he had turned into the thicket the night before, they were heading for the old cowtown, without knowing who it was they were following. So, when Cliff and his two followers rode west from the cabin in the thicket, they, too, were heading for the old cowtown, with its battle-scarred, bullet-torn 'dobe walls. There was promise that Chub, the barkeep, would have another “sweet day's business,” but with little music and dancing.

When the three riders were out of the big thicket, Cliff stopped until the others came up to him.

“Boys,” he said, “I'm going to Palo Alto, and there's a good chance that I'll stay there. You boys have seen me gamble a little. Today, I'm going to put everything on earth on the table. If I don't win, I don't want to come out of it. It's likely to be rough. You don't have to go into the game if you don't want to. A man has a right to say how high the stakes are, in any game he plays.”

“If you aim to roll 'em that high, you're apt to need some sweaters,” said Red.

“The understanding was that we three throw in together and you lead the deal,” Coley said. “I don't aim to quit when it gets a little rough.”

“All right, boys. I expected you'd be like that. We're pretty apt to get into a quarrel if we run into the Notey Beney outfit, for they don't know we've quit. All I ask of you is to stay with me until I'm down. If I go out, take my horse, and do your best to get back to the cabin in the thicket. When you get there, do whatever Miss Brannum wants you to do. If she wants to get out of the country, get her out the quickest and safest way you can.”

Cliff didn't tell them any more. He didn't wait for an answer. It wasn't a request, it was a command. They turned into the trail and jogged on toward Palo Alto.

Brannum and his men reached the old town fully an hour ahead of the three riders. As they rode in, Chub looked at the monte dealer.

“There's hell again,” he said. “Old Notey Beney and that gang of killers of his'n is after somebody.”

“Yes,” replied the dealer, “and they'll have some right good help. Bud Rolfe and that halfbreed shadow of his are in town and seem to be waiting for something.”

Bud Rolfe was leaning against a hitch-rack. Page dismounted and went directly to him.

“Well, have you done it?” asked Page, in a low tone.

“Done what?”

“Didn't you get my message?”

“Nope. I got no message.”

“Didn't Cliff tell you?”

“Ain't saw Cliff.”

“What! Didn't Cliff and Red and Coley come to Loma Roja yesterday 1”

“Shore didn't.”

Page spoke rapidly to Bud Rolfe for a few minutes and Bud nodded understandingly. Then Page called to Old Man Brannum. When he came up, Page said:

“I reck'n we got the right dope the first rattle out'n the box, Mr. Brannum. Finding out everything at one time. I give Cliff and Red and Coley orders to go to Loma Roja yesterday morning. Bud says they ain't been there. That makes it pretty plain they all three been mixed up with the driving of them N B heifers and——”

“Damn the cattle!” snapped Neil Brannum. “What I'm after is the outfit that's taken two women away from my house last night.”

“Well, it looks reasonable that they done that, too. They've broke with the Floresty outfit. They was the only ones that knew Miss Ruth was at the ranch, and Cliff Lea has got the nerve to do anything. I been knowing all along he was bad. He could make Red and Coley jump through a hoop, too.”

“Huh! I'll ask Chub about 'em.” And Old Neil stalked into the Green Tree. “Chub, have you seen Cliff Lea in town, yesterday or this morning?”

“Seen him yesterday 'bout noon. He rides in, buys a 'roll of stuff, and packs it out of town. Looked like he might be goin' to some cow outfit.”

“Which way did he ride?”

“Back to'ds the Floresty.”

“Red or Coley, ary one with him?”

“Nope. By himself.”

“Got a bunch of cattle on the drive, I guess,” offered Page Cothran.

“I—told—you—damn them cattle!” shouted Old Man Neil. “We ain't lookin' for cattle rustlers, right now. We're lookin' for woman rustlers. Chub, have you seen ary outfit in town last night or this morning, that had a couple of stray women with 'em?”

“Not nary thing like that, this morning nor this month.”

Old Neil went on questioning. He didn't know what else to do. The tracks of the marauders led toward Palo Alto. He knew Chub would lie all day for a dollar and he was trying to catch him. Meantime, Page edged away to where Bud Rolfe stood just outside the door.

“Bud, hell's goin' to pop. If Cliff Lea rides in here, get him first and explain afterward.”

“For why?”

“Because he knows too much. That's why I sent him to you, and sent you a message that you'd understand. I wanted him got.”

“How come you sending me orders?”

“Because I'm foreman of the whole outfit now. Old Notey Beney would have told you himself, if he hadn't been all riled up about this other business.”

“What is this other business?”

“Just listen to the Old Man rave, and you'll find out. Main thing is, get Cliff Lea as soon as you see him.”

“Yep. Ever see anybody get Cliff? Why don't you get him?” And Bud Rolfe showed his even teeth in a tantalizing grin.

Before Page could reply, Brannum called them into the saloon and bought drinks for the crowd. Brannum went on asking Chub questions in an effort to catch him in a lie. At last he gave it up and said:

“You boys stay here and take some more drinks if you want to, but keep together. I aim to look around a bit, and when I get a lead, we'll ride and ride hard.”

HALF a block up the street, and on the same side, was the one big general store of the town. Here was the post-office, banking business, and practically all the heavy commerce.

As Brannum entered the door of this place Mel Woodson, the grim, grizzled old merchant who had himself been a sheep-herder in the old days, said, “Just looking for you, Neil. Man back in the office wants to see you.”

“Who is he?” asked Neil Brannum.

“One of your men, I think,” evaded the merchant.

By this time they had entered the little private office at the back of the store, and there stood Cliff Lea!

“What the hell are you doing here?” snapped Brannum. “Didn't you have orders to go to Loma Roja?”

“Yes, but I didn't go.” There was a cold, compelling note in Cliff's voice, as he went on, “It'll pay you to behave yourself for once in your life and listen to me.”

“Hell it will! Why?”

“Because I'm the only one that can help you out of the hole you're in. I've been wanting to tell you some things for a year, but I couldn't do it without you taking a shot at me. Now you can shoot and be damned. I'm going to tell you where your cattle are going and——”

“There you go about them damned cattle! Page has been trying to tell me about the cattle. He says the cattle rustler is like enough to be the woman rustler that got my granddaughter away from home, and he says you rustled the cattle.”

“He's a liar and he isn't guessing. You'll never find your granddaughter until you get the men that got your cattle. Send for John Raney, Bud Rolfe's halfbreed shadow, and get him in here. He can tell——”

“See here, Cliff, are you running this thing?” asked Brannum in amazement. He couldn't believe that he was letting one of his cowhands talk to him in that manner.

“I mean to run my part of it. If you don't do as I tell you, you'll be sorry for it within an hour.”

“Do you know where Ruth is?” countered Brannum.

“Yes.”

“Tell me, or——”

“I'll see you damned first! Get Raney in here and I'll help you find her. Otherwise——”

A few minutes later the breed walked square into the trap. He had his hands in the air and was looking into Cliff's gun before he realized what was happening. When he was disarmed and seated, Cliff began:

“Now, John, you have a chance to save your own skin. I know all about how and when Page Cothran and Bud Rolfe stole a thousand N B heifers and drove them across the Rio Grande. You didn't get anything out of it but a little extra pay, and if you'll just tell Mr. Brannum the truth, you'll go free.”

Brannum almost choked with astonishment, but managed to keep quiet and listen. Raney, with death staring him in the face from the cold, hard eyes of Cliff Lea, told the whole story. How Page, as vecero, had kept Bud informed when the way was clear, and where the other outfits were working. How two other bosses were in league with Page and Bud, one of them being the boss at Resaca Dorado.

“All right,” said Cliff, when the man had finished his story. “Now, you listen to me. You're free, but you'll have to take care of yourself. If you go back to Page and Bud, I'm going to kill you. If they find out that you have told, they'll kill you. Pay your money and take your choice, but get out of here before I change my mind.”

Cliff gave the fellow his gun, over Brannum's protest, and he sneaked out. Cliff had an idea he would get his horse and beat it out of town as quick as he could.

“Now what are you going to do?” asked Cliff.

“Ain't but one thing to do, as far as I can see,” Brannum said. “That's to go down to the Green Tree and call 'em on it. Trouble is, I don't know, now, whether any of my men will stay with me.”

“I'll stay with you!”

“All right, let's go.”

There was no yellow streak in Old Neil Brannum, whatever his other sins. There was still one more fight in him and he was on the way to it at that moment.

JOHN RANEY had stopped just outside the door of the Green Tree, to consider his next move, and looking up toward the store he saw something that decided him. As Cliff and Brannum passed toward the front of the store, Red and Coley came out of a wareroom and joined them. Raney now saw the four heading for the Green Tree, Cliff had said he would kill the breed if he returned to Page and Bud. Raney decided that his only chance was to get in his own crowd. If Brannum and Cliff were killed, Bud would never know that he had betrayed him. The breed sprang into the door, and sought Bud and Page, who were at the back end of the bar.

Brannum and Cliff stepped through the saloon door together, with Red and Coley at their heels. Two guns roared inside, as if at a signal. A bullet sheared away one side of Cliff's hat brim. For once, Page Cothran was caught where he had to fight, and he fought like a demon. Remembering Manuel Rubio's attempt on his life, and feeling sure that Page had instigated it, Cliff set coolly and methodically to work. He worked fast, and he didn't miss.

In thirty seconds after they entered the door, Old Neil Brannum was on the floor. One bullet had broken the bone in his left thigh, and another had passed within an inch of his liver. One of Coley's arms was hanging limply by his side, and he was trying to reload his gun with one hand. Red was on the floor, untouched, and grinning like a possum. He had merely squatted down for the convenience of the bullets that wanted to pass that way. Cliff Lea had stepped to the side of the door and was calmly reloading. That half minute had seen one of the most terrific battles that the Green Tree had ever known, and it had known many. Page Cothran was out, his body fairly riddled with bullets. Raney was down, and Bud Rolfe, the terror of the old town, was leaning against the end of the bar, his face already gray, tugging at cartridges in his belt as he reloaded an empty gun. The loyal N B men had been so taken by surprise that they didn't know what to do. They couldn't understand Old Notey Beney's foreman and some of his men opening on him like that. Most of them merely got out of the line of fire and watched the fight. Every gun was empty at the end of that half minute, and as Cliff shoved the last cartridge into his gun, he called out to Rolfe:

“Put up your hands, Bud. I don't want to kill you.”

“You won't!” snapped Rolfe, with an oath, as his gun roared, and a bullet seared a mark across the side of Cliff's neck. At the same instant, Red's gun blazed from the floor, and the bullet tore away half of Rolfe's head.

That ended the battle, but the Green Tree was in a mess. The back end of the bar, where Page and Rolfe had stood together as Raney gave them warning, was riddled with bullets, and the mirror behind it was a wreck. The front door would need reglazing and other repairs. The wounded were taken to the hotel, and a doctor got to work on Old Neil Brannum. He found that both bullets had gone through, and on about their business, so there was no probing to do.

“I got to get home, doc,” growled the old ranchman. “Hell's to pay there.”

“Better get a hack and go right away, then. You can stand the trip better now than you will a few hours later.”

While a hack was being got ready, Brannum had Cliff called in. He looked the lanky puncher up and down.

“Cliff, it is shore a pity for as good a fighter as you are to be the sorty man you are. A cattle rustler is bad enough, but a woman rustler is lower than the belly of a swaybacked snake. You got me where you can use me, now, but if you're any sort of man, you'll tell me where Ruth is, so I can send somebody after her, if you won't go.”

“I don't think I'll tell you, now, where she is. I will tell you that she's safe and comfortable, and I'll bring her to you tomorrow.”

“You'll bring her? Have you had her all the time?”

“No, only part of the time.”

The old ranchman flew into a rage, and the doctor cautioned him to keep quiet. The hack drove up and they loaded him in, still telling the world how low a woman rustler was in his estimation. The procession started for the ranch. Old Neil Brannum lay on a bed in the body of the hack. Coley, one arm in a sling, sat on the seat with the driver. The only thing Cliff said to him as he was about to start was, “let me do the talking,” and nothing could have been got from him with rack and thumbscrews. The unwounded of the Notey Beney outfit acted as escort and led the vacant horses.

Cliff and Red rode out of town together, leading Coley's horse. It was so late that it would be after dark when they reached the cabin in the thicket. Chub, the barkeep, and his monte dealer stood in the door of the Green Tree again.

“Told you they was the makin's of a mess in that Notey Beney outfit,” said the monte dealer.

“Yes,” snapped Chub, “and I wish you'd pull yo' prophesying somewhere else if it's all going to turn out like this. Three of the best spenders on this part of the range gets planted in the morning. This orta been a good day's business and—it wasn't. I'm going to put up a sign: 'Drink inside, and go out doors to die.' Tired of having my place messed up.”

“Might be a good idea, but them two gangs ain't going to fight no more. They ain't but one side of the fight left, and——”

“Long as Cliff Lea's left, that's enough. Wonder where Old Notey Beney's gal is.”

“Huh! They been raising so much hell, I forgot all about the gal. I—wonder—where—she—is—myself!”

CHAPTER VII

A night beneath the stars

THAT bright, sunny October day was the longest of Ruth Brannum's life. Every hour of the day some thought came to her of the cold, hard, unsmiling face of Cliff Lea. Time and again she wondered if he was passing some dangerous pear thicket at that moment. As the hours dragged on and the shadow turned to the east side of the cabin there in that vast solitude, Ruth realized that no man before had ever affected her as this grim rider had done. She had a glimpse of his feeling, too, in that swift kiss on the back of her hand. It seemed that she could still feel it. It was such a quaint, old world expression of his feeling of humility before her, she thought. Many another man would have boldly kissed her lips, since she was in his power and had come of her own accord. She debated in her mind what she would do or say, if Cliff came back alive. Her inherent Scotch caution was pulling one way, with suggestions of what the man's character might be; while the human woman of her was pulling equally hard the other. And so the battle went on as she watched the shadow of the cabin lengthen.

Ruth became so restless at last that she could keep quietly to the cabin no longer. She left Rosita to keep house, while she walked across to the east side of the glade. She found the big pear leaf, with its mark of the exit from her prison. The door was open, and she could go when she pleased. No, she had promised to wait three days. Three more days like this would be an eternity, but she would wait. Yes, she'd wait longer than that. She'd wait as long as there was hope, and a hot flush came to her face at the thought.

She turned back, and when she reached the cabin she saw that the giant cactus on the west side of the glade was casting long shadows and peopling silent glade with grotesquely deformed gnomes of immense stature. Night would come soon, now, and there must be a fire and light. That was another matter. She called Rosita to help her and set feverishly to work gathering up dead branches and stacking them in a great heap near the little pile of white ashes that had been the campfire.

The sun went down, and the tall giants, having marched on across the glade, dissolved and disappeared. Ruth broke small sticks and raked in the ashes for fire. There were no live coals! Oh, well, there would be matches in the cabin, but she searched in vain. The lantern couldn't be lit. They couldn't cook food. She'd have to break her word to Cliff Lea and leave before the three days were up. Why, she would have to go at once. They couldn't stay there through the night, in total darkness. No, she could never find the way out in darkness. She wouldn't go, anyway. She'd eat raw food before she'd break her word.

Night fell over the silent place as if some great sable bird had spread its wings over the world, and a few dim stars showed high in the dark blue sky. A great gray wolf, whose cry was like that of a woman in terror, had entered the glade, attracted there by the smell of the fresh meat. The brute gave a terrifying scream. Ruth's scalp prickled with fright and Rosita pattered prayers. They sat in the door of the cabin, because it was even darker inside and there was only a blanket for a door, which would keep nothing out.

After a few minutes silence, they heard footfalls. Would the wolf attack them? Louder and nearer they came, and then a horse snorted. Would that be one of the three riders who had brought them there or did someone else know the way to the cabin? Ruth could hear the blood pounding in her ears as two riders stopped a little way from the cabin. There should be three of them, she thought.

“Is—is that you, Cliff—mean, Mr. Lea?” she called.

“Yes, ma'am,” replied Cliff's familiar, drawling voice. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“The fire went out and we had no matches.” Ruth's voice was trembling, now, and it was not altogether on account of fright.

“They're in a little baking powder can on the shelf in the corner,” Cliff said. “Store them there to keep the chipmunks from them. Sorry I didn't think to tell you.”

A moment later a tiny blaze flickered at the campfire. Ruth saw Cliff's face, as if chiseled in red bronze on a ground of ebony. Never had a human face meant so much to her. Without design on anyone's part she had been given a little of the acid test of loneliness that Old Neil Brannum was unable to give her, and she was unconsciously reacting to it.

Supper was prepared and eaten in silence. Soon afterward Red took his blankets to a considerable distance from the cabin and lay down. He was ready to call it a day. Old Rosita took the lantern and discreetly retired to the cabin. The two young people, sitting there in the dim red glow of the campfire, seemed carrying on a contest of silent meditation.

At last, Ruth said, “You brought only one horse.”

“That's Coley's horse.”

“Was he—was he——”

“No. Only his arm was broken. They took him to the ranch.” And then Cliff told her simply of the battle at the Green Tree and of Brannum's wounds. He told her that the ranchman had been taken home, along with Coley.

“Poor grandfather!” sighed Ruth. “He'll need me, now.”

“Do you want to go tonight?”

“No, I—I——”

“When you wish.” And Cliff went on staring into the fire.

After another long silence, while Cliff supposed Ruth was trying to decide whether she wanted to go back to the ranch immediately, she spoke again, and it wasn't about going anywhere.

“Mr. Lea, you are not like the other men here in the pear country. How did you come here?”

“I made a great mistake—once.”

“Was it—was it a really great mistake. The kind that causes men to come to the pear country and—and hide?”

“It caused me to do that.”

“What was it?” she almost whispered.

Cliff looked at her and there was a twisted smile on his grim lips.

“I believed a woman loved me and—that I loved her. When she learned that I had nothing but a university degree and some good intentions, she decided that she didn't love me, and I—I came to the pear country.”

“But that wasn't a crime!”

“She didn't seem to think so.” There was cold irony in his words. “At least, she was never tried for it.”

“I mean you didn't commit any crime.”

“No, I never committed a crime in my life. I was never charged with one until today.”

“Today! Who charged you with a crime? Not I.”

“No, it was your grandfather.”

“Grandfather! After all you did for him. What did he accuse you of?”

“I'm afraid I wasn't doing all that for him,” said Cliff gravely. “He said I was the lowest thing in human form—a woman rustler.”

“But you are not, really?”

“I don't know. There is many a thief born in the world who never steals anything—because he lacks the courage. I may have been born a thief, but a woman's love is one thing that I don't think I could ever steal, or even beg. It seems to me——”

“You would never have to beg or steal if——”

Cliff looked into her blue eyes, saw his message there, and extended his arms in silence.

“Querida mia!” called Rosita from the cabin door. “It is very late and the night is getting cool.”

“Good night!” said Ruth, and entering the cabin dropped the curtain over the door.

All the grimness was gone from Cliff Lea's face. Joy had been snatched from him by the watchful old duenna, but he knew now that it was only a temporary loss. So, spreading his blankets he, too, called it a day. Not perfect, perhaps, but with an almost perfect ending. One at least that he meant to perfect.

SOON after sunrise next morning they took their way out of the great thicket. With Ruth and Rosita on Colt's horse, Cliff led the way through the winding, hidden trail, while Red brought up the rear. When they came in sight of El Rancho de la Florestra, Ruth was surprised to see how the place had changed. It no longer reminded her of a cemetery. The white patches of wall showing through the green grove seemed to be smiling a welcome to her. The doctor, who had been there all night, was just leaving. To their inquiry as to the condition of his testy patient, he said:

“Pretty weak, but he'll pull through. He's yelling for you, Cliff, and the sooner you get to him, the sooner he'll be quiet and behave himself.”

“Hasn't he asked for me at all?” said Ruth.

“No, ma'am. I guess he thought you'd be together,” replied the doctor, bluntly. Ruth's face blushed, and the doctor went on to his horse, apparently without noticing it.

When they entered the room where Old Neil Brannum was in bed, propped up with pillows. He looked up at them, his face ashen with pain, and his eyes unduly bright. Certainly not the man who had driven Ruth to the ranch, so long ago.

“Why'n't you wait until the resurrection?” he snapped, and then a grim smile bent his hard lips, as he read their faces and he went on. “Cliff, I won't be able to ride for a month or two—maybe never again. You're foreman of the Floresty, and I want you to get on the job.” Then he turned his eyes to Ruth, and said: “I want to apologize to you, Ruth. I ain't got as much man-pickin' sense as a javelina hog. That's all. I want to go to sleep, now.”

They turned away, and had reached the door, when Old Neil Brannum called in his cracked voice. “Come back here a minute, Cliff.” Then when Cliff returned and bent over him, he went on in a hoarse whisper that easily reached Ruth at the door. “I take back what I said about you being a woman rustler. I think she rustled you and done a damned good job of it. I won't be here long. The Old Floresty and what's on it is for you two. All I ask is that you name the first boy Neil.”

As they stepped out into the patio, which now seemed a paradise, they stopped under the orange tree. Ruth's face was still flaming scarlet, so what should she do but hide it against Cliff's shoulder, as he took her to his arms.