Find the Maverick

by Honoré Willsie

Find the Maverick

 

The Author of "Desert Justice" and "The Pinto Stallion" Introduces Us to a New West, as Far as Fiction is Concerned. And, by the Way, What is a Maverick?

 

By Honoré Willsie

JUST at present, Gregory Alvord lives in a sheep-herder's wagon. But in spite of this fact he is a cowman as his father was before him. To locate his cattle-ranch, you must know the cow country of the northern Rockies and you must know the remote upper valleys of the Indian Fire range and you must know old Coyote Mountain and John's Mountain and Death Peak with the Ash Creek ranches crawling at their gigantic feet.

You must know, too, the black clump of cedars that clings to the lowest hump of John's Mountain and you must ride a horse broken to the leaping of buried ditches and to the breasting of great snows; an Ash Creek horse, deep-skilled in the following of vicious trails. Thus informed and equipped, Greg's home would not be difficult for you to find.

The log cabin burned just before old man Alvord's death, about two years before Greg returned from France. When Greg rode into Ash Creek with his gas-mask and his steel hat dangling from Two-bits' pommel, there was not a relative left to greet him. However, Ash Creek turned out in a body and gave him a dance at the school-house on the evening of his return and Greg accepted the welcome with unembarrassed pleasure. It was four o'clock in the morning when the party ended.

"Where's dad's sheep wagon?" Greg asked the postmaster.

"In the cedars, near the ruins of the old place," replied the older man.

A gunny sack of food across his knees, Greg rode away under the stars. It was late in the afternoon of the same day when he appeared at the post-office. And he was very easy to look at! He stood six-feet-one or so in his riding-boots; his eyes were clear and brown, his skin red, his teeth were white and perfect He was slender and very quick in his movements. He wore a new outfit that was correct in every detail. Certainly there was none better in the upper country except, perhaps, Artie Young's. On his curly black hair he wore a brown Stetson sombrero with a pile as deep as moleskin. A crimson silk neckerchief was knotted under his chin. His short leather coat was brown and as soft as a suède glove. His brown-leather chaps were studded with silver button-heads that were pointed up with blue enamel. His black riding-boots were elaborately stitched on the front of the legs. From his wide rider's belt depended rings and clasps that tinkled pleasantly as did his silver spurs. Dangling below the rider's belt was a gun-belt from which hung Greg's old six-shooters.

There was a group of riders, dingy replicas of Greg, standing around the rusty heater. The stove-lid was off, for there was no cuspidor, and the postmaster, who was the only man in Ash Creek who did not chew, was careful with the mail-sacks.

"Where you going, Greg?" asked the postmaster. "After wolverenes?"

[Illustration: When Newt and the postmaster and half a dozen others crowded into the cabin two hours later, the baby was asleep on Greg's knee. The hand that supported the baby's head still held the six-shooter.]

"No; just going ovethe sights a little," replied Greg, as he squinted along the barrel of his saddle gun.

"Where'd you get your outfit?" asked Willy Archer, a heavy blond rider, five years Greg's senior.

"Denver. Say, Willy, how's my herd done since my father died? He left you in charge of them, the lawyers wrote me."

"Not so good, Greg. This is the worst winter ever known in these parts. We've all lost lots of cattle, you with the rest."

"It wouldn't be so bad if the drought last summer hadn't sure burned up the grass. Dust blew from my ditches all summer." Dick Benton renewed his supply of plug sadly. "I found ten yearlings buried in a drift after last week's blizzard. That makes a hundred head even to date for me."

"I've lost forty head of cattle and five horses that I know of," said Artie Young. "My old woman lost the bull she'd raised by hand and she's made more fuss over it than I have over everything else."

"I been cutting down quiverin' asp for my herd," volunteered Willy.

"Sure it wasn't to bile raisin-jack with?" asked the postmaster, grinning, and then adding soberly, "Willy, does that tramp trapper that come in a month ago board at your place?"

"He does so. He's got a mess of beaver skins now that he's afraid to take out to Indian Arrow."

"Newt Jonas, he was drunk last night and he told me he'd seen my cattle all over the place; down at the Ames ranch, and at Benton's and running wild," said Greg.

"Newt Jonas is a nut when he's sober and plumb locoed when he's drunk!" exclaimed Dick Benton. "I ain't seen any of your brand lately except on Willy's place."

"Same here!" agreed the others.

"I thought that was about what you'd say," nodded Greg. "I'm willing to have suffered as much winter-killing as the rest of you, but I don't aim to suffer more. And while I didn't have a chance to study brands in France, I don't think I've lost what I knew when I left home. That's what I aim to do now—go out and prove I ain't lost my skill in that line. Any new women in the upper country since I left?"

"Nobody but the schoolma'am. You saw her last night," replied the postmaster. "Do you still aim to be the chief woman-crook in Ash Creek County, Greg?"

Greg whirled to look at the postmaster. The little man was sorting second-class mail, and did not falter under the younger man's fierce gaze.

"Better take back the crocked part of it, Uncle Sam," said Greg quietly.

"Humph!" grunted the postmaster. "I ain't afraid of you, Greg Alvord, any more now than when you were a kid. I've always noted that a cowman that was crooked with women was never so almighty fierce as the women believed."

"What's eating you, Uncle Sam?" demanded Greg belligerently.

The old man threw a mail-order catalog against a package of eggs. "Nothing's eating me. I'm just getting a warning off my chest. I knowed Clarissa Hackett's mother. I'd have married her if she hadn't thought Hackett was a better man than me. And if she'd lived, I believe Clarissa'd be alive and decent to-day. At least as decent as man, woman or child can be a hundred miles from civilization."

The group about the stove spat and was silent. The postmaster, little, vitriolic with a mysterious past, said what he wished in Ash Creek.

Finally Greg jerked his handsome head.

"Well, what about Clarissa?"

"You know what about her and you know what she told me before she died in childbed a few months after you went away."

Greg strode over to the postmaster and wrenched another catalog out of the old man's hands. "What are you trying to start, you snarling little wolverene, you?"

The postmaster tapped Greg on the chest

"You run along and hunt cattle, Greg. I know you. I got a sixteen-year-old niece that's coming to live with me in the spring. Some day, I hope to God your heart will be broke by having a daughter of your own come to Clarissa's pass. In the mean time, you keep away from my niece."

Few a moment the old man and the young man glared at each other. Then, with an oath, Greg slammed out of the building.

 

THUS more or less inauspiciously began Greg's hunt for his herd. Greg always had been a prime favorite in the lonely little valley. Easy-going, care-free, generous, his morals only a shade more lax than those of his neighbors, the only enemy Greg had possessed before the war had been Willy Archer. Willy had money, which he hoarded like a miser, had good looks and a way with women. The two men had fought over Mary Smith, and Willy had won her. Neither would ever forgive the things said and done during that rival courtship. Ash Creek had looked on with eager interest, popular sympathy all with young daredevil Greg.

 

BUT the Great War had changed Greg. The boyishness that had made much of his charm had given way to hardness. He went about his cattle-hunting with a cold directness that set the valley by the ears. No one's herd was exempt from suspicion and inspection. Even Newt Jonas was moved to resentful wrath.

"You get off'n my ranch and you stay off, Greg!" he said one bitter February morning when he had found Greg riding slowly through his tiny herd. "I don't conject to stand for it"

"I'm looking for a maverick bull of mine that Willy should have branded for me. He is about two years old, out of that little Jersey heifer of mine and that old bull, Commodore, who Willy claims froze early in December. The maverick was born about two months after dad died, according to Aunty Ames."

"I ain't got him. Ain't a bull in this herd. You caruse off'n this ranch, Greg Alvord."

"Didn't you know the maverick, Newt? Come now; don't you go on lying to me like the rest of 'em! Why, man, I've only been able to collect five hundred of my herd so far. I tell you, I'm going to shoot this valley up if somebody don't loosen up pretty soon."

"Yes, I know him. He was a deciduous big brute for a two-year-old. Willy had lots of trouble with him. Last time I seen him was in November after a blizzard. He come blowing into my corral and fit a long battle with a hide I had hanging on the fence. I peppered him with my .22 and I ain't saw him since. Now you get out, Greg!"

Newt was riding bareback, with a rough rope halter. He not stopped to put on a coat and he shivered violently as the wind pierced his ragged flannel shirt and dirty blue overalls. Newt's ranch lay just at the foot of Coyote Mountain. Below the two men all of Ash Creek Valley stretched, deep in blue snow, with the far, rose-etched line of quivering aspens outlining hidden Ash Creek. Peak after peak, half concealed by the wind-driven snow, lifted abruptly from the edges of the valley. Greg drew a long breath of the rarified air. One must breathe deep at seven thousand feet or starve for oxygen.

"Funny how I've lost all my friends," he said. "I'll go up to Burton's now. I hear he's thick with that tramp trapper Willy's chumming up with. Whoever's hiding that maverick bull is going to regret it."

"That trapper ain't wasting any time on mavericks," said Newt. "I ain't made up my mind yet just what is reversing him, but when I finish dehorning I'm going to look into it."

"He don't interest me. What I'm interested in is a bull maverick."

"Maybe he ain't a maverick any more," suggested Newt.

"Was there a brand onto him when you saw him?" demanded Greg.

"I was too mad to look. Lord; what's come to Willy?"

A horseman was careering madly up the scarce-broken trail that led to Archer's ranch on Coyote Mountain. He turned into Newt's place, leaped the hidden irrigation ditch and brought his frothing horse to its haunches before Two-bits, who promptly thrust his head forward and bit the panting mare on the cheek.

"Somebody shot Dick Benton last night!" cried Willy. "He was riding back of the corral, his head on a stone. The posse's forming now. I'm going home for a fresh horse."

"Must have been rebranding somebody's cattle besides mine!" grunted Greg. "Where'd they hit him?"

"In the heart. You folks better come on and help." Willy's teeth were chattering. "But he wasn't very bloody. I'm glad of that, anyhow."

His two hearers looked at Willy curiously. Willy wheeled his horse and was off, chaps flapping, spurs ringing.

"Get a coat and come on, Newt," said Greg.

The little man gave him a strange look out of his wistful, half-dazed blue eyes.

"I ain't going to be seen with you," and he trotted his horse toward the cabin.

Greg gave an enigmatic grunt and headed Two-bits toward Benton's. What he reached the dead man's house, Maggie Benton met him at the door.

"You needn't come in here, Greg Alvord!" she cried shrilly. "It was only yesterday you was accusing him of cattle-stealing. It's too late to make up for it now!"

Greg looked at Maggie keenly. She stood in her dirty calico wrapper surrotmded by the snow-covered débris of the dooryard, her hair uncombed her face tear-stained. Greg wondered what he had seen in her to feed an affair that had lasted for six months before her marriage. But under his young hardness he felt a stirring of pity.

"I'm sure sorry for you, Maggie," he said. "Which way did the posse go?"

"They scattered. You needn't pity me now. Save your pity for yourself or for some other woman you plan to treat like you did me."

"You didn't need pity then. You had your eye-teeth cut. An you fixed for grub and such?"

Maggie's answer was to slam the door in his face. Greg shrugged his shoulders and jingled out of the courtyard. An hour later he came upon the postmaster and Willy Archer who thought they had detected a snow-blown trail in Ash Creek cañon. The three drew up in the shelter of a blue spruce to confer. Willy took a nervous bite of plug.

"Did you and Dick have a fight yesterday, Greg?" he asked.

"We sure did. We didn't come to blows, but we might have if Dick hadn't retracted. I know he rebranded two of my old milch cows. And I put that and my maverick bull up to him. He was the meanest cuss in Ash Creek Valley next to you, Willy."

Willy scowled heavily. Greg paused, struck by the look in the postmaster's eyes. Then he laughed. "Oh, I can give an alibi! I scrapped with Benton yesterday morning and I spent the rest of the day down studying Ames' herd with old Ames raising the devil with me every minute."

"The postmaster nodded. "I see Benton at noon."

"He was a Mormon," said Willy. "Who is the worst Mormon-hater round here?"

"Oh, he was just a Jack-Mormon!" exclaimed Greg. "He hadn't paid his tithes since he was married."

"He and Artie Young was heading up that bunch of Mormons that was talking of forming a sheep company," said the postmaster, blowing a speculative smoke ring.

"They both woe courting gun-play, then," grunted Greg.

"Well, let's move on," suggested Willy. "It's awful cold standing here."

"You better go home, Willy, to be with Mary," said the postmaster. "She ain't fit to be left alone up there five miles from a neighbor. Or have you loosened up to the extent of getting Aunty Ames?"

"I wish you'd mind your own business, Uncle Sam!" cried Willy angrily. "Mary's just a spoiled kid and you helped spoil her."

"Spoiled kid!" shouted the postmaster. "If the men in Ash Creek worked like Mary Archer does, this would be the richest spot in the Rockies. You fellows chase the women and fight for 'em and run 'em like they was something invaluable till you marry 'em. Then you drive 'em like they was draft-horses; You're just too stingy and ornery, Willy, to let your wife have Aunty Ames when the baby comes."

"Aw, all the men in Ash Creek aren't rough with their wives," protested Greg.

"Show me one that's more than half-way decent!" snapped the postmaster. Then without waiting for an answer, he lifted his reins and started at a trot toward home. Greg followed him.

 

THE killing of Dick Benton was of course the seven days' horror and wonder of Ash Creek. It almost submerged the interest in Greg Alvord's search for the herd. No trace was found of the murderer, and an ugly half-suspicion rested on Greg. But the dead man had made several bitter enemies in the valley by his attempts to bring sheep onto the range. There was much confusion of motive and evidence, and after a week or so the hunt rested.

Here, there and everywhere, Greg picked up his cattle. A little herd of a baker's dozen was running free in the shelter of Coyote cañon, lean and wild, but in fair trim. He frightened two coyotes away that were feasting on a fine three-year-old steer. The brute had fallen on the side of John's Mountain, head down-hill, and so, unable to rise, had frozen to death. He routed fifteen steers out of a hidden corral in a swamp on Benton's ranch, where Dick evidently had been making preparations to dispose of the animals. But the maverick bull he could not find.

He had no other young bull so promising in his herd. He felt sure that unless coyotes had finished the brute, he could be traced. Yet it was a large and lonely task to which the young rider had set himself. Ash Creek country was big country. Blue range lifting beyond blue range, snow-choked valley opening into drifted cañon. A man could maintain a secret coral for months at a time, and for many days Greg's search was fruitless.

One afternoon Greg and Two-bits were wallowing through the snow at the edge of the Forest Reserve below Death Peak. Greg had hoped to get into into the reserve, but had found it impossible to do so. Even the deer-trails were waist-deep. Greg was just considering returning to the sheep wagon when he saw a smudge of fire under a lone cedar. As he drew near it the tramp trapper was distinguishable thrusting something hurriedly into a gunny sack.

"Two-bits," murmured Greg, "I wonder just why he wants me to think he's hiding pelts. I'll bet you anything he's a revenue officer. Or, and also, he might be more interested in hides than pelts!"

By the time Two-bits had drawn up to the fire with a snort and a sigh, the trapper was sitting on the sack, smoking. He was a grizzled-haired man who kicked more like a trader than a trapper.

"Still looking for that bull?" he asked Greg pleasantly.

"I sure am! What luck are you having? Better'n mine, I hope!"

The trapper grinned, showing long yellow teeth, but he did not reply.

"Still boarding with Willy?" asked Greg.

"No. His wife ain't strong, and so I'm staying with Mrs. Benton for a while."

"How is Mary? I haven't seen her since I got back."

"If she was my wife I'd have had her up to Indian Arrow a month ago," replied the trapper.

Greg's mouth twisted. "I wish I could prove that Willy had rebranded that maverick," he said. "I reckon he'd have a good reason for neglecting Mary then. If ever I glom my hands on him——"

"Oh, Willy's not so bad, except I've heard he'd do most anything for money." The trapper watched Greg keenly. "But there is plenty of us will do the same. He's been good enough to me. His wife is an unusual sweet girl, though."

Both men stared thoughtfully at the fire, the trapper now and again stealing a cunning glance at Greg.

"I'm thinking," said the trapper, "that you cowmen ain't going to clean up as much this year as us trappers. Furs is worth their weight in gold."

"Range is getting scarce between the homesteaders and the sheep-men and there ain't the money there was in cattle," agreed Greg.

"The sheep-men make money," suggested the trapper.

"They won't in this valley. We'd have run Dick Benton out as sure as he ever put a flockin his corral."

"That's the way a good many folks feel, I guess," nodded the trapper.

"Cow business is still good enough for me," Greg went on. "When I get my herd together, I'll try to raise me enough money to build my cabin and I'll go in for all it's worth."

The trapper refilled his pipe. "I know a guy that has some money to invest. He might take a mortgage from you or even better."

Greg's face was expressionless. "Money is awful hard to raise now."

"I know that But this guy has big interests. Made his money in cattle and is always glad to help out a cattleman. And it's to the cattlemen's interests to stand together against the sheep-men."

"Well"—Greg tapped Two-bits with a spur—"come round to the sheep wagon some evening and we'll talk."

"I will do," said the trapper.

 

IT WAS not, however, at the sheep wagon that Greg was to discover what kind of proposition the tramp trapper had in mind. He wearied after a while of the long, bitter, lonely days in the saddle and of the cold glances of his old-time friends, and he decided to pacify Ash Creek by giving a dance at the schoolhouse. Ash Creek was jaded after a terrible winter. The murder of Dick Benton had strained everybody's nerves, though killings were not so unknown in the valley as to be severely shocking. Greg's search had been profoundly irritating and the valley was no means unsuspicious as to his relation to Benton's unhappy demise. The community of a dozen scattered families was in a mood to welcome the diversion of a dance given by any one but Greg Alvord. Coming from him, however, the invitation was for a time received coldly. However, when it became known that old Tim Watts was coming down from Indian Arrow with his fiddle and that there was to be "raisin-jack" for everybody, Ash Creek capitulated.

 

IT WAS twelve degrees below zero the night of the party, with a full moon sailing high. John Frisbie and his wife from nine miles up the creek appeared first, Mame with the baby in her arms and a five-year-old behind the saddle. John rode with a three-year-old in his lap. They rushed to the red-hot stove. The two little Tupper girls, aged ten and twelve, appeared next. They had come nine miles alone on a single horse. By nine o'clock the whole of Ash Creek had arrived and by ten o'clock every one but the babes in arms had warmed up with the raisin-jack.

Willy Archer attempted to monopolize the schoolma'am, who was a slender young person from Iowa. But after the first few dances, Greg cut him out and Willy sulked over the stove. Greg found the schoolma'am's ignorance of the cow country infinitely diverting. He danced on and on. Now and again some one opened the outer door and the brilliant moonlit landscape was to be seen, all iridescent blues, with mighty mountains swimming in silence and serenity. The bitter wind would roar in, puffing out the single oil-lamp, some one would slam the door and the dance would continue, sombrero and ribboned braids sliding steadily past the silvered window. Then the lamp would be lighted, a new batch would start for the keg of raisin-jack and a new hilarity would seize the crowd.

"Tell me, Mr. Alvord," said the schoolma'am, watching a little uneasily as Greg disposed of another drink, "what is a maverick? They all say all you do is to hunt for mavericks."

"A maverick," said Greg gravely, "is a calf who has lost its mamma and its papa has gone off with another cow."

A shout went up from the crowd around the keg. The schoolma'am blushed and Greg, laughing, seized her round the waist and whirled her into the ugly lilt of a jazz waltz.

"I don't believe I'll ever get used to the ways of the cattle country!" exclaimed the girl. "It's rougher than I ever thought it would be. In the movies the cowboys are always so chivalrous! But I haven't seen a bit of chivalry since I came."

"Why? Have they treated you rough?" demanded Greg.

"No; not really, but wives round here don't seem to be made for anything but the hardest kind of work. They work much harder than the men. Is all the cow country like that?"

Before Greg could reply to this somewhat difficult question, the door swung open and once more the lamp blew out. Newt Jonas stood in the square of moonlight.

"Another killing!" he shouted above the music. "They done disponed of Art Young!"

Silence for a moment; then the postmaster exclaimed, "Who found him?"

"I did," replied Newt. "I was late to the party because I had to take some beef up to Willy Archer's, and I tried to take a short cut through Parker's draw and my horse stepped on him and reared and throwed me. He was lying with his head lifted up on a stone, all rejus and quiet-like. Hit in the heart. I rid like the devil was after me down here. I left the beef up with Artie."

A baby sneezed.

"Close that door!" snapped Mame Frisbie.

"Any tracks?" asked the postmaster when the door had been shut and the crowd had packed around Newt, shivering over the stove.

"I didn't stop to make no disservations."

The schoolma'am laughed hysterically. Greg patted her hand. "Don't get excited, little girl! Well, folks, I guess the party's over. Out we go to find the guy that's getting the killing-habit."

The younger Tupper girl, whom the raisin-jack had made very ill, began to cry with deep-drawn sobs: "I'm afraid to go home! I'm afraid to go home!"

"No need of you family men going out," said the postmaster. "They's enough of us bachelors to gum all the tracks in Ash Creek."

"You Tuppper girls come home with me!" said the schoolma'am with sudden resumption of the authoritative manner.

There was a general whimpering of babies, a hushed preparation on the part of the elders and shortly the schoolhouse stood dark and alone while the out trails were dotted in the moonlight with swift-moving horses.

But the search was of no avail, and dark suspicion again hovered about Greg, who had fought bitterly and publicly with Artie over the matter of the maverick bull. Greg was away from home on the hunt for two days. When he came back to the sheep wagon, he started his fire going, then went to the corral to feed a fresh milch cow. She was lowing dismally and her two-weeks-old calf was not to be found.

Greg prowled about through the trampled snow for an hour, then he saw red, buckled on his guns again, put a rope round the bellowing mother's neck, saddled Two-bits, who had not been out on the man hunt, and said to the cow: "I can't locate her. Let's see if you can. And if you do, I'll shoot the thief on sight."

The cow started swiftly along the trail to Coyote Mountain, sniffing and bellowing as she went. She panted straight up the shoulder of the mountain to Archer's ranch, stopping only at the bars of the empty corral. The cow bellowed again and a calf bleated faintly. The cow went over the buck fence like a goat and began to horn savagely at a padlocked door in the stable. Greg broke the door open. Two calves were tied beside a cow which evidently was fresh. The calves looked enough alike to be sisters; but Greg's cow leaped to one of them and ceased her lowing to lick it ecstatically. It bore Willy's brand, as did the other, but to Greg the evidence was irrefutable.

"The dirty thief!" he exclaimed. "I've got him now!"

He pulled his six-shooter and rushed out of the corral to the house. Archer's cabin was a small log affair of two rooms, standing unsheltered near the corral. Greg threw open the door without ceremony. The kitchen with its one tiny window was bleak and empty. He strode into the inner room. Here he paused. It was a small room, unceiled, with bare floor, spotlessly clean, furnished with a plain wooden chair or two, a pine bureau, and a small center-table. In the comer was a bed and on the bed lay a woman whose long yellow hair covered the pillow. Her profile against the log wall was exquisite.

"Mary, I'm looking for Willy!" stammered Greg.

Mary did not look at him. She was murmuring to herself.

"Mary! Mary!" cried Greg in sudden agony.

She opened her eyes and cried, "Greg, my hour has come!"

"I'll go for Aunty Ames!" exclaimed Greg.

Mary screamed and sobbed together.

"There's no time! Greg, help me! Help me!"

"How can I, girl? How can I? Yes! Yes! I'll stay with you. Yes! Don't scream so. Where is Willy?"

But Mary was again muttering nonsense on her pillow.

 

FIVE hours later, Greg, with a blanketed bundle in his arms, slid from Two-bits' back and jerked open the door of Newt Jonas's cabin. Newt was frying beefsteak over a red-hot fire. He turned a surprised and hostile face toward Greg. Greg looked haggard in the lamplight and his eyes were wild.

"I want you to take care of this baby for me," he said, "while I go out and shoot up Willy Archer."

Newt dropped the pan of sizzling meat on the floor. "What baby?"

"Mary's! She's dead! Up there, all alone! I tried to help her. No time to go for Aunty Ames. I thought maybe Willy had. And she's dead! Here, take the baby till I get back. But listen! She's my baby from now on. Get me?"

"You mean you're going to kill Willy?" asked Newt, not offering to take the bundle. "Why?"

"For letting Mary die alone up there, you fool! Here, take her! But remember, she's mine."

"But I never touched a baby in my life," whimpered Newt. "Take her to Aunty Ames. She'll dispone of her."

"While Willy gets away from me? Here, you take her! Keep her warm and give her a glass of milk or something if she cries."

Newt backed away. "You keep her and I'll—I'll shoot Willy for you!"

Greg's drawn face twitched with impatience. He laid the bundle on the bed and rushed out of the house, and Two-bits grunted despondently as Greg turned him again toward Coyote Mountain. As he turned off the main trail, he met the postmaster jogging homeward.

"Have you seen Willy Archer?" demanded Greg.

"No. What's the matter, Greg?"

"You go down to Aunty Ames' house and send her up to Newt's as quick as she can get there. Don't ask me questions. Newt will tell you," and Greg dug his spurs into Two-bits' bloody flanks.

Greg waited long in the Archers' barren little kitchen, keeping a good cedar fire going and not allowing himself to glance at the closed door into the bedroom. It was after ten o'clock when a sound of hoofs brought him to his feet. But it was Aunty Ames who came in. She was a thin little old lady with a sweet, wrinkled nut-cracker face, framed in curly white hair.

Before she could speak, Greg cried, "Where's the baby?"

"Down at Newt's. You don't suppose I had her out on a night like this! My heavenly Gawd, Greg, what happened to Mary?"

Greg's face set in ugly lines. "Willy left her alone. I did what I could. I'm going to shoot Willy as soon as he comes in."

Aunty Ames pulled off her mackinaw and lumberman's cap. "Can't shoot Willy for that. He neglected her, but he did intend to have me for one day. They didn't look for it till next week. He gave in to Uncle Sam on that yesterday. And I'd told Mary to send for me anyhow. I didn't want a cent."

"How could she send for you when she was alone? What are you sticking up for him for?"

"I ain't sticking up for him. I loved Mary as much as anybody. He should never have left this dooryard except to come for me." The old lady suddenly began to cry.

"Do you know where Willy is?" urged Greg.

"He might be over at Young's. He and Artie was going to make raisin-jack, and Lucy told him the night Artie was shot to come and hide the still. She didn't want any revenue officer snooping round. She didn't know what Art's death might open up.

Greg wrapped his ears in a silk handkerchief, pulled his hat low, buttoned his leather coat and examined his six-shooter.

"Nothing is ever going to seem the same to me after what I saw Mary go through to-day," he said huskily. "A man that could leave a woman to suffer like——"

"Like Clarissa Hackett did!" snapped the old lady.

"There was more than me had to do with her and you know it!" shouted Greg, furiously. "Even at that if I'd known—most men don't know. But after to-day—" His voice broke and he strode to the door.

 

TWO-BITS nickered and started on a trot down the trail, then snorted with impatience as Greg turned him, eastward toward Young's ranch. Artie was not yet buried. The men of Ash Creek could not blast out a winter grave and at the same time act as a posse. There was a brilliant light in the cabin. Lucy's friends were sitting up with her. The dogs barked and a pack of coyotes answered from the alfalfa field beyond the stable. Greg knocked and entered. Half a dozen women were sitting round the kitchen stove with Lucy.

"Anybody seen Willy Archer?" demanded Greg, his handsome head thrown back, his eyes burning.

"Mary sick?" asked Lucy.

"Anybody seen Willy?" repeated Greg.

"He was here this morning. He said—" Lucy paused. "If Mary wants him— Did you want him for Mary, Greg?"

"Yes!" Greg's voice was grim. "I want him for Mary."

The widow rose and beckoned Greg into the only other room of the cabin which was dark and very silent.

"He's getting rid of the still and the raisin-jack," she whispered. "You won't inform on him if I tell you where to find him?"

"Inform on him? Do you suppose I care how much jack he's made?"

"Well, you go up Death Peak trail to where the three lone cedars is. Then you turn to the right and follow a coyote trail down into the little cañon. There's a cave in the mountain they've kind of fixed up there."

"All right, Lucy! Thanks! Let me out of this darkness, for God's sake!"

He followed her into the kitchen. "Can we help Mary?" asked one of the women.

"Aunty Ames is there," replied Greg as he slammed the door.

 

DEATH PEAK, except for its one clump of cedars, was entirely arid. In the summer its strange, barren orange ribs distinguished it from all the other mountains. Cattle never wandered there. Men avoided it; for it offered neither hunting nor range. The wind had swept the west slope clear of snow so there was no great delay in reaching the lone cedars. Greg left Two-hits here and followed the coyote trail down through the drifts to the south.

To any but a cowman of the mountains, the trip would have been hazardous in the extreme. The little cañon was in shadow, except where, far below, the moon shone on on bottomless cliffs. To the left was the wall of the mountain, icy and dim. The cold was intense. The silence, complete. Half an hour's careful descent and a dim light at the left shone through an old burlap curtain. Greg came to a full stop.

"You better get out of this country," he heard Willy say. "You ain't got everybody jaked to think you're a tramp trapper. And I ain't going to do any more gun-work for you either.

"Price wasn't high enough?" Greg recognized the tramp-trapper's voice.

"No, it ain't. And I can't keep suspicion all on Greg Alvord much longer. I'm through."

"Well, I guess we've finished the job, anyhow. Folks down at the post-office to-day seemed to realize finally that Mormons that talked sheep-raising hadn't any chance in this valley. Don't you worry about price. The bunch that's coming to drive sheep-herding out of the cattle country can pay the price, and if you are caught they'll never let you hang. I'm through here but for one thing. Folks has got to get the idea of what Benton and Young was killed for. If you've got cold feet, I guess I can put it over with Greg Alvord."

"I don't care anything about you or your ideas. I'm through!" repeated Willy. "I did it because I was desperate for money to pay my debts. I got it and I'm going to out and start over."

"You didn't do it, I suppose," said the trapper, "because you'd been selling Alvord's slicks through me, and I had you, eh? Want me to get word to him that that maverick bull of his had prize-winning points and sold for two thousand dollars at Indian Arrow?"

Greg drew his gun and pushed through the curtain. The cave was dim, with a candle flickering on an up-ended barrel. The two men were hugging a small blaze in a crude fireplace. The uncertain light gave Willy gigantic proportions. The trapper locked pigmy beside him.

"Up with 'em!" said Greg. Then, as both pairs of hands shot upward, he said casually, "What did you put stones under their heads for, Willy?"

"So's they wouldn't bleed at the mouth. Always made me sick."

"You blank blank fool!" shouted the trapper.

Willy looked startled; then a sickly white swept over his face.

"Willy," said Greg, "you tie your friend up so's he can't get away. Don't try any funny business. Toss yourn and his guns on the barrel first. That's right. Now truss him up good. I'll send for him later."

The trussing was done with vicious energy and the trapper was rolled close to the fire.

"Now, you march, Willy, not forgetting for a minute that my gun is located between your shoulder blades."

 

WILLY marched, and the perilous journey to the three cedars was made with expedition. Here Greg would not permit Willy to procure his horse which he said was cached near by. He pulled Two-bits' reins over his arm and the five-mile tramp to Willy's ranch was begun. Once of Death Peak the going was heavy. The snow was deep and the horse trail hard to follow. It was dawn when the familiar cabin was sighted.

For the first time since leaving the cedars, Willy spoke. "Better take me on down to Newt's. Mary, she might——"

Greg interrupted. "What a kind man! I want you to see Mary just for a minute; then I'm going to hold a little private session over you myself."

Aunty Ames opened the door. "Now, boys, you ain't going to start any of your ructions round here!"

"No, we ain't. I'll ruction down at Newt's, Aunty," said Greg gruffly. "I want Willy to see Mary."

The old lady flung out of the the way and the two men entered. Willy shuffled toward the bedroom and Aunty Ames turned back the sheet. Willy gasped as if he had been hit, stood for a long moment as if paralyzed, then burst into tears. Greg jerked him into the kitchen.

"Cut that!" he ordered. "A hound like you ain't got any right to tears. I come up yesterday and found my slick and I came in to get you and found her dying, alone. I did what I could. I! Do you get it? Stop crying, I tell you! Come on down to Newt's now! March!"

It was not a march by the time they reached Newt's place. It was a crawl, a lurching, cursing crawl, on feet that were icy clods. They could hear the baby crying as they reached the door-step. Newt jerked the door open. In one hand was a whisky-bottle full of milk, disporting a rubber nipple at the top.

"Willy wants to see his daughter before I settle him, Newt," panted Greg.

Newt jumped away from the door. The baby lay on the bed, screaming lustily. Willy stood shivering in the middle of the room.

Greg went on: "I just wanted you to see her, and because I know your kind heart I want to tell you not to worry. After I've lifted your head on a stone, she'll be my daughter."

"I thought some of keeping her myself, Greg," said Newt mildly. "I kind of like her, now I know her. She don't seem to squall except when she's hungry, and Aunty Ames has fixed up this life-saver. She's aright perifous little girl."

Willy continued to shiver, the tears running down his frosted cheeks. "A hell of a bad-man you are!" sneered Greg. "Newt, by his own confession this is the guy who killed Artie and Dick. So you see I got more than one right to kill him."

Newt held the bottle carefully to the baby's mouth. She gurgled, gulped and the screaming ceased. "I don't see why you want to shoot him. Let the law have its maligners. He'll suffer more."

"I can warp it to him worse than the law. Start for the corral where you shot Dick Benton, Willy," ordered Greg.

"Better have some breakfast first," suggested Newt hospitably. "Say, this baby's got blue eyes, like Mary's. Better let me keep her, Greg. She will be right dissocial with you when she's big enough to know you shot her daddy."

"Wait a minute, Willy," grunted Greg. He stood with his gun faithfully covering Willy while his eyes studied the little gurgling bundle on the bed. The alarm-clock on the table ticked off a full five minutes before he spoke.

"Newt, for a fool, you've got lots of sense. Willy, you go set down in that chair. Newt, you get my lariat and hog-tie and diamond hitch him and any other wild and fancy tie you know or have hard of. Then you feed us and beat it down to the post-office with the news. Stop on the way and send Mame Benton up to Aunty Ames."

When Newt and the postmaster and half a dozen others crowded into the cabin, two hours later, the baby was asleep on Greg's knee. His sunken eyes were bright and keen and the hand that supported the baby's back still held the six-shooter. He refused absolutely to give any details as to Mary's death, but retailed faithfully the story of his finding of Willy and the tramp trapper. When the posse had jingled off with Willy, Greg turned to Newt.

"I've got to go home and take care of my stock. You tell Aunty Ames to bring the baby's clothes up to my sheep wagon."

"Listen, Greg; you can't embroil a little baby round the world like that!"

"Like the devil I can't!" He rolled the child in a blanket, as carefully as a woman would have done it, and was gone.

 

ABOUT four o'clock that afternoon, Aunty Ames, indignation breathing from her nostrils, urged old Billy horse past the deserted Alvord corral, all blue velvet in the shadows thrown by the tumbling log sheds, past the clump of rose-tinted quivering aspens by the spring, along the lavender outcropping of John's Mountain, and came to pause before the sheep wagon.

"Greg Alvord!"

Greg jerked open the door. "Sh-sh-sh!"

"Sh-sh-sh my foot!" snorted Aunty Ames. "You hand that baby out and be quick about it!"

Greg eyed the old lady speculatively. Then he grinned. "Come in and have some dinner, Aunty. I know you haven't eaten a bite, by the time you've made getting over here."

"I'll come in and get that baby!" exclaimed Aunty Ames, throwing an emancipated leg over the pommel and sliding to the ground.

Greg gave her a hand into the sheep wagon. It was cozy and shipshape. At the right, beside the door was the diminutive cook-stove, and between it and the right-hand wall, lockers and shelves. At the end of the wagon was the bunk. Wide seats ran along either side. Greg had let down the tiny swinging table above the left-hand seat and a dinner of fried potatoes and steak was steaming on it.

"Take off your coat, Aunty. 'Food before talk' is my motto."

Aunty Ames sniffed hungrily, and after peeping under the blanket at the sleeping child, she jerked off her mackinaw and sank on the seat by the table.

"Of all the fools, Greg! You are worse than Newt Jonas! You'll be beefing your own steers yet. Pour me some coffee. I'm too old for such doings."

"Did you bring the baby's clothes, Aunty?" asked Greg as he complied.

The old lady eyed Greg keenly. It was a lovable face in spite of its recently acquired hardness. It was a haggard face now and heavily lined, with the jaw even more aggressive than when Greg was searching for the maverick bull.

"Folks would talk scandalous if you tried to keep that child, Greg," she said in a more conciliatory tone.

"How can they?" he asked. "Mary was as good a girl as ever lived."

"I know it and so does everybody else. But a bachelor like you can't bring up a little girl."

"A bachelor like me can do most anything he sets his mind to! You can boss the job; but she's going to stay right in this sheep wagon with me till I get our old cabin rebuilt. I'll get Newt to come up and spell me, till I can go regularly to housekeeping. And I'll bet she'll be brought up like no girl round here ever was. I'll bet she won't be running the hills with these Ash Creek dogy riders while I'm living, or going to dances, either. And if I can live ten years more she'll be trained so she won't want to run with 'em after I'm dead!"

"Sounds good coming from a——"

Greg interrupted: "I know what I've been and I know what women are. That's why I'm going to give this little girl a real chance."

The old lady, her chin set obstinately, eyed the young man with curiosity. She poured herself a second cup of coffee.

"Greg, was you really in love with Mary Archer?" she asked.

"That's my business!" replied the man.

"What I'm trying to find out," she insisted, "is why you want to keep this baby."

"My God, didn't I birth the child?" shouted Greg.

"Laws, do I keep every child I birth?"

"Yes; but you are a woman and an old woman at that! Can't you see the difference?"

"No, I can't!" snapped Aunty Ames. "I'm going to take that baby home with me till I can locate somebody."

"Her mother hadn't a relative and Willy has only that old dad of his at Indian Arrow."

Greg set down his coffee-cup and stared long and angrily at Aunty Ames. "Listen," he began again; "I've been hard-boiled, haven't I? I'd done everything but kill before I went to France, and there—" suddenly he crossed to the bench beside the old lady and clasped her hands tensely in his. "Aunty, I saw sights in France that must either drive a guy crazy or boil him harder than ever. And it seems like ever since I came home I didn't know what to do with myself. But since yesterday I've known! I lived through five hours that were worse than all the days in Belleau Wood and I learned what women pay. I want to keep that little baby, Aunty, and kind of straighten things up."

The old lady's lips quivered, but her chin still was obstinate. Greg turned to the bed and lifted the baby out of her blankets and held her tenderly across his chest.

"Look! Do you think any one will love her better than me?"

 

THE old lady looked from the baby's new-born, blurred resemblance to Mary Archer, to Greg's haggard, pleading eyes. She cleared her throat and shook out her apron.

"You get paper and pencil," she said, "and set down what I tell you about taking care of her."

Greg kissed the baby and laid her on the bunk and then kissed Aunty Ames' work-scarred, trembling hand. After a silent moment the two set to work on an outline concerning the care and feeding of infants.

And so the search for the maverick ended.