by Unknown
Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling--the tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle.
Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red muy pronto, and tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?"
Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch.
The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily both pairs withdrew.
"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say.
"Yes--as far as Tryon's."
Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?"
"No."
Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then--why did you let him go so easily?"
He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?"
"Yes; but----" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, even at her request, he had disappointed her!
"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go."
"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you for giving way."
"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me to do."
"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked.
"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision.
Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, that he spoke.
"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand."
She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly.
"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care for me? Do you?"
Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I do, and then sometimes I think I don't--that way."
The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a woman's, lit his warm smile.
"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, Phyllis?"
"Ah! If I knew! But I don't--truly, I don't. I--I want to care," she confessed, with divine shyness.
"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, honey?"
"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No--give me time. I'm--I'm not sure--I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but----"
"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a joke, to lighten her objection.
Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was another man in the running--one not to be thrust aside easily.
Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and busied herself with a stirrup leather.
"Don't say anything more now--please. I'm such a little goose! I don't know--yet. Won't you wait and--forget it till--say, till next week?"
He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken sentence.
CHAPTER XVI
A WATERSPOUT
Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, rather as a guest than as a prisoner.
At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the Twin Star.
One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They intended that there should be no revival of it.
Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return.
He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a note from the ranch.
TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning.
DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the cooperation of
PESKY and the other boys.
With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys to start on the round-up?"
"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right now."
The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so.
"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a proposition that looks fair to me."
When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in a zigzag, twisting line.
"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in the hills and the parks."
Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been contending for!"
Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down."
Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the other hand, could increase their holdings.
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"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly.
Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for yourself."
"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?"
"That's what I mean. It's up to you."
Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep business," he said.
"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this trouble, Mr. Weaver."
The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables.
"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse.
Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the schoolhouse he came on one walking.
After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, so that the alfilaria covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks.
She followed the river into the cañon of the same name, a narrow gulch with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout.
She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to climb the rock face.
Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river.
Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred.
"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up.
In fact, he had come to an impasse. Even without the burden of her weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top.
He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass.
Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face.
"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?"
But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten face that looked down into hers.
"You have saved my life."
"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for all there was in him. Between us we got you up."
"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here----" She finished her sentence with a shudder.
She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump."
Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could not quite control herself. "It was awful--awful." And short staccato sobs shook her.
Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl."
"It was like some tremendous wild beast--a thousand times stronger and crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and----Oh, if you hadn't been here!"
She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands.
"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," Buck told her lightly.
She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely left her alone while he recoiled the rope.
Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken nose of the pony.
"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it without you. How can I ever pay you for it?"
Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service pension so far as the rough work goes."
Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it."
"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero."
"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small and weepy.
"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that."
Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she cried vehemently.
It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced him.
"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?"
"I--don't--understand."
"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?"
"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped.
"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?"
Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the male lover. She live
d in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those calm, unwinking eyes of his.
"I don't think so," she cried desperately.
"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else."
"Yes--yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me."
