 Chapter 15 of the Duke of Chimney Butte, the Duke of Chimney Butte, by G. W. Ogden, Chapter 15 The Wolves of the Range Lambert left his horse at this loon-hitching-rack while he went to the store. Business was brisk in that place, also requiring a wait of half an hour before his turn came. In a short time thereafter, he completed his purchases, tied his packages to the saddle, and was ready to go home. The sound of revelry was going forward again in the saloon, the mechanical banjo plugging away on its tiresome tune. There was a gap here and there at the rack where horses had been taken away, but most of them seemed to be anchored there for the night, standing dejectedly with drooping heads. The tinkle of Alta's guitar sounded through the open window of the hotel parlor as he passed, indicating that Titterleg was still in that harbor. It would be selfish to call him, making the most as he was of a clear field. Lambert smiled as he recalled a three-cornered rivalry for Alta's bony hand. There was a lemon-rind slice of new moon, low in the southwest, giving a dusky light. The huddling sage clumps at the roadside blotches of deepest shadow. Lambert ruminated on the trouble that had been laid out for him that night as he rode away from town, going slowly in no hurry to put walls between him and the soft, pleasant night. He was confronted by the disadvantage of an unsought notoriety or reputation or whatever his local fame might be called. A man with a fighting name must live up to it, however distasteful the strife and turmoil, or move beyond the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could not, although it seemed a foolish thing, on reflection to hang on there in the lure of Grace Curr's dark eyes. What could a man reasonably expect of a girl with such people as Sim Hargis as her daily associates? Surely she had been schooled in their warped view of justice, as her act that day proved. No matter for Omaha or his refinements, she must be a savage under the skin. But gentle or savage, he had a tender regard for her, a feeling of romantic sympathy that had been groping out to find her as a plant in a pit strained toward the light. Now, in the sunshine of her presence, would it flourish and grow green or wither in its mistaken worship and die? Vesta had warned him, not knowing anything of the peculiar circumstances which brought him to that place or of his discovery, which seemed a revelation of fate. The conjunction of events shaped before his entry upon the stage, indeed. She had warned him, but in the face of things as they had taken shape. What would it availed a man to turn his back on the arrangements of destiny? As it was written, so it must be lived. It was not in his hand or his heart to change it. Turning these things in his mind, flavoring the bitter in the prospect with the sweet of romance, he was drawn out of his wanderings by the sudden starting of his horse. It was not a shying start, but a stiffening of attitude, a leap out of laxity into alertness, with a lifting of the head, a fixing of the ears, as if on some object ahead, of which it was at once curious and afraid. Lambert was all tension in a breath, ahead a little way the road branched at the point of the hills leading to the Philbrook House. His road lay to the right of the jutting plowshare of a hill, which seemed shaped for the mere purpose of splitting the highway. The other branch led to Kerr's Ranch and beyond. The horse was plainly sending something in this latter branch of the road, still hidden by the bushes, which grew as tall there as the head of a man on horseback. As the horse trotted on, Lambert made out something lying in the road which looked at the distance, like the body of a man. A closer approach proved this to be the case, indeed. Whether the man was alive or dead it was impossible to determine from the saddle, but he lay in a huddled heap as if he had been thrown from a horse, his hat in the road some feet beyond. Lambert stoned with not approach nearer than ten or twelve feet, there he stood, swelling his sides with long drawn breaths, thurning his warning. It seemed expressing his suspicion in the best manner that he could command. Lambert spoke to him, but could not quiet his fear. He could feel the sensitive creature tremble under him and took it as certain that the man must be dead. Dismounting, he led the horse and bent over the man in the road. He could see the fellow's shoulder moved as he breathed and straightened up with a creeping of apprehension that this might be a trap to draw him into just such a situation as he found himself that moment. The nervousness of his horse rather increased than quieted also, adding color to his fear. His foot was in the stirrup when a quick rush sounded behind him. He saw the man on the ground spring to his feet and quick on the consciousness of the fact there came a blow that stretched him as stiff as a dead man. Lambert came to himself with a half-drawn sense of suffocation. Water was falling on his head, pouring over his face, and there was the confused sound of human voices around him. As he cleared, he realized that somebody was standing over him pouring water on his head. He struggled to get from under the drowning stream. A man laughed, shook him, cursed him, violently close to his ear. Wake up, little fellow! Somebody's a-cutting your fence! said another, taking hold of him from the other side. Don't hurt him, boys! admonished a third voice, which he knew for Barry Curse. This is the young man who came to the Badlands with a mission. He's going to teach people to take off their hats to barbed wire fences. I wouldn't have him hurt for a keg of nails. He came near Lambert now, put a hand on his shoulder, and asked him with a gentle kindness how he felt. Lambert did not answer him, for he had no words adequate to describe his feelings at that moment to a friend, much less an enemy whose intentions were unknown. He sat, fallen forward in a limp and miserable heap, drenched with water, clustered of fire, gathering and breaking like showers of a rocket before his eyes. His head throbbed an ache in maddening pain. This was so great that it seemed to submerge every faculty save that of hearing, to paralyze him so entirely that he could not lift a hand that blow had all but killed him. Let him alone, he'll be all right in a minute, said Curse's voice, sounding close to his ear as if he stooped to examine him. One was standing behind Lambert, knees against his back, to prevent his entire collapse. The others drew off a little way. There followed the sound of horses as if they prepared to ride. It seemed as if the great pain in Lambert's head attended the return of consciousness as it attends the return of circulation. It soon began to grow easier, settling down to a throb with each heartbeat as if all his life-forces rushed to that spot and clambered against his skull to be released. He stiffened, sat straight. I guess you can stick on your horse now, said the man behind him. The fellow left him at that. Lambert could see the heads and shoulders of men, the heads of horses against the sky, as if they were below the river bank. He felt for his gun, no surprise, was in store for him there. It was gone. He was unable to mount when they brought his horse. He attempted it in confusion of senses that made it seem like the struggle of somebody whom he watched and wanted to help but could not. They lifted him, tied his feet under the horse, his hands to the saddle-horn. In this fashion, they started way with him. One riding ahead, one on either hand. He believed that one or more came following, but of this he was not sure. He knew it would be useless to make inquiry of their intentions. That would bring down on him this vision. After their savage way, stoddily as an Indian, he rode among them to what end he could not imagine but at worst he believed they would not go beyond some further torture of him to give him an initiation into what he must expect unless he accepted their decree that he quit the country forthwith. As his senses cleared, Lambert recognized the men beside him as Sim Hargis and the half-Indian Tom. Behind him he believed Nick Hargis rode, making it a family party. In such hands, with such preliminary usage, it began to look very grave for him. Even when they saw there was no danger of his collapse, they began to increase their pace. Bound as he was, every step of the horse was increased torture to Lambert. He appealed to Sim Hargis to release his hands. You can tie them behind me if you're afraid, he suggested. Hargis cursed him, refusing to ease his situation. Kerr turned on hearing this outburst and inquired what it meant. Hargis repeated the prisoner's request with obscene embellishment. They made no secret of each other's identities speaking familiarly, as if in the presence of one who would make no future charges. Kerr found the request reasonable. He ordered Hargis to tie Lambert's hands at his back. Guess you might as well take your last ride, comfortable kid, Hargis commented, as he shifted the bonds. They proceeded at a trot. Keeping it up for two hours or more, Lambert knew it was about ten o'clock when he stopped to investigate the man in the road. There was a feel in the air now that told him it was far past the turn of night. He knew about where they were in relation to the ranch by this time, for a man who lives in the open places develops his sense of direction until it serves him as a mole in its underground tunneling. There was no talking among his conductors, no sound but the tramp of the horses in unceasing trot, the scraping of the bushes in the stirrups, as they passed Lambert's legs were drawn close to his horse's belly. His feet not in the stirrups and tied so tightly that he rode in painful rigidity. The brush caught the loose stirrups and flung them against wet stone sides, treatment that he resented with all the indignation of a genuine range horse. The twisting and jumping made Lambert's situation doubly uncomfortable. He longed for the end of the journey, no matter what awaited him at its conclusion. For some time Lambert had noticed a glow as of a fire directly ahead of them. It grew and sank as if being fed irregularly, or as if smoke blew before it from time to time. Presently they rounded the base of a hill and came suddenly upon the fire, burning in a gulch. As it seemed, covering a large area, sending up a vast volume of smoke. Lambert had seen smoke in this direction many times while riding fence, but could not account for it then any more than he could now for a little while as he stood facing its origin. Then he understood that this was a burning vein of lignite, such as he had seen traces of in the gorgeously colored soil in other parts of the Badlands, where the fires had died out and cooled long ago. These fires are peculiar to the Badlands, and not uncommon there, owing their origin to forest or prairie blazes, which spread to the exposed veins of coal. As these broad deep deposits of lignite lie near the surface, the fire can be seen through crevasses and fallen sections of crust. Sometimes they burn for years. At the foot of the steep bank on which Lambert and his captors stood, the crust had caved, giving the fire air to hasten its ravages. The mass of slow-moving fire glowed red and intense, covered in places by its own ashes, now sending up sudden clouds of smoke as an indraft of air, livened the combustion, now smoldering in sullen dullness, throwing off a heat that made the horses draw back. Kerr drew aside on arriving at the fire, sat his horse looking at it, the light on his face. Sim Hargis pointed to the glowing pit. There's our little private hell. What do you think of it, kid? He said, with his grunting, insulting sneer. The fire was visible only in front of them in a jagged, irregular strip, marking the cave-in of the crust. It ranged from a yard to ten yards across and appeared to extend on either hand a long distance. The bank on which Lambert's horse stood formed one shore of this fiery stream, which he estimated to be four yards or more across at that point. On the other side, a recent settling of earth had exposed the coal which was burning brightly in a fringe of red flame. Rather the fire underlay the ground beyond that point, Lambert could not tell. Quite a sight by night, isn't it? Said Kerr. Covered several acres. He explained as if answering the speculation that Rose ill-relevantly in the face of his pain, humiliation, and anxiety in Lambert's mind. What did it matter to him how much ground it covered, or when it began? Or when it would die? When his own life was as uncertain that minute as a match flame in the wind? Why had they brought him there to show him that burning coal pit? Not out of any desire to display the natural wonders of the land. The answer was in the fact itself. Only the diabolism of the savage mind could contrive or countenance such barbarity as they had come to submit him to. I lost several head of stock down below here a little way last winter, said Kerr. They crowded out over the fire and the blizzard broke through. A man was to ride in there through ignorance. I doubt if he'd be able to get out. Kerr sat looking speculatively into the glowing pit below. The firelight red over him in strong contrast of gleam and shadow. Sim Hargis leaned to look Lambert in the face. You said I was to consider the two days I gave you was up, said he. You understood it right, Lambert told him. Hargis drew back his fist, Kerr in her pose, speaking sharply. You'll not hit a man with his arms tied while I'm around, Sim, you said? Let him loose, then. Put him down before me, von his feet. Leave the kid alone, said Kerr in his even provoking voice. I think he's the kind of a boy that will take friendly advice if you come up on the right side of him. Don't be all night about it, said Nick Hargis, from his place behind Lambert breaking silence in a sullen voice. Kerr rode up to Lambert and took hold of his reins, stroking all wetstone's neck as if he didn't harbor an unkind thought for either man or beast. Just wait, Duke, he said. You're a stranger here, the customs of this country are not the customs you're familiar with, and it's foolish, very foolish, and maybe dangerous for you to try to change things around single-handed and alone. We've used you a little rougher than I intended the boys to handle you, but you'll get over it in a little while, and we're going to let you go this time. But we're going to turn you loose with the warning once more to clear out of this country in as straight a line as you can draw, starting right now and keeping on till you're out of the state. You'll excuse us if we keep your gun. You can send me your address when you land, and I'll ship it to you. We'll have to start you off tight up too much as I hate to do it. You'll find some way to get loose in a little while, I guess, a man that's as resourceful and as original as you. Tom Hargis had not said a word since they left the river. Now he leaned over and peered into Lambert's face with an expression of excited malevolence, his eyes glittering in the firelight, his nostrils flaring, as if he drew exhilaration with every breath. He betrayed more of their intentions than Kerr had discovered in his words, so much indeed that Lambert's heart seemed to gush its blood and fall empty and cold. Lambert forgot his throbbing head and tortured feet and hands gorged with blood to the strain of bursting below his tight-drawn bonds. The realization of his hopeless situation rushed on him. He looked round to seize even the most doubtful openings that might lead him out of their hands. There's no chance. He could not wheel his horse without hand on rain no matter how well the willing beast obeyed the pressure of his knees while galloping in the open field. He believed they intended to kill him and throw his body in the fire. Old Nick Hargis and his son had it in their power at last to take satisfaction for the humiliation to which he had bent them. A thousand regrets for his simplicity in falling into their trap came prickling him with their momentary torture, succeeded by wild, groping, frantic seeking for some plan to get away. He had no thought of making an appeal to them no consideration of a surrender of his manhood by giving his promise to leave the country if they would set him free. He was afraid, as any healthy human is afraid, when he stands before a danger that he can neither defend against nor assail. Sweat burst out on him, his heart labored and heaved in heavy strokes. Whatever was passing in his mind, no trace of it was betrayed in his bearing. He sat stiff and erect, the red glow of the intense fire on his face. His headbrim was pressed back as the wind had held it in his ride, the scar of Jim Wilder's knife, a shadow adding to the grim strength of his lean face. His bound arms drew his shoulders back, giving him a defiant pose. Think about there and head in the right way, boys, Kerr directed. Tom Hargis rode ahead, leading Whetstone by the reins. Kerr was not following. At Lambert's last sight of him he was still looking into the fire, as if fascinated by the sight of it. A hundred yards or less from the fire they stopped, Tom Hargis turned Whetstone to face back the way they had come. Through the reins over the saddle-horn, rode up so close, Lambert could feel his breath in his face. You made me brush off a nigger's hat when you had to drop on me and carry a post five miles. That's a shoulder I carried it on. He drove his knife into Lambert's right shoulder with the words, the steel grated on bone. I brushed a nigger off under your gun one time, said old Nick Hargis. Spurring up on the other side? Now I'll brush you a little. Lambert felt the hot streak of a knife blade in the thick muscle of his back. Almost at the same moment his horse leaped forward so suddenly that wrenched every joint in his bound stiff body, squealing in pain. He knew that one of them had plunged a knife in the animal's haunch. There was loud laughter, the sudden rushing of hooves, gels and curses as they came after him, but no shots. For a moment Lambert hoped that they were to content themselves with the tortures already inflicted and let him go to find his way out to help or perish in his bonds as it might fall. For a moment only this hope. They came pressing after him, heading his horse directly toward the fire. He struggled to bring pressure to old Whetstone's ribs in the signal that he had answered a thousand times, but he was bound so rigidly that his muscles only twitched on the bone. Whetstone galloped on, mad in the pain of his wound, heading straight for the fire. Lambert believed, as those who urged him on towards it believed, that no horseman ever rode, could jump that fiery gorge. On the brink of it his pursuers would stop while he powerless to check or turn his horse would plunge over to perish in his bonds, smothered under his struggling beast pierced by the transcendent agonies of fire. This was the last thought that rose coherently out of the turmoil of his senses as the fire pit opened before his eyes. He heard his horse squeal again in the pain of another knife thrust to madden it to its destructive leap. The swirl of the confused senses as of released waters, the lift of his horse as it sprang the heat of the fire in his face. The healthy human mind recoils from death, and there is no agency among the destructive forces of nature which threatens with so much terror as fire. The senses disband and panic before it. Reason flees. The voice appeals in its distress with a note that vibrates horror in the threat of death by fire. Man descends to his primal levels. His tongue speaks again the universal language, its note lending its horrified thrill to the lowest thing that moves by the divine force of life. As Lambert hung over the fire in that mighty leap, his soul recoiled, his strength rushed into one great cry which still tore at his throat as his horse struck, racking him with a force that seemed to tear him from joint to joint. The shock of his landing gathered his dispersed faculties. There was fire around him, there was smoke in his nostrils, but he was alive. His horse was on its feet, struggling to scramble up the bank on which it had landed. The earth breaking under its hindre-hoofs, threatening to precipitate it back into the fire that its tremendous leap had cleared. CHAPTER XVI What Stone Comes Home Lambert saw the fire leaping around him, but felt no sting of its touch, keyed as he was, in that swift moment of adjustment. From a man as dead, he was transformed in a breath back to a living, panting, hoping, struggling being. Strong in the tenacious purpose of life. He leaned over his horse's neck, shouting encouragement, speaking endearments to it, as to a woman in travail. There was silence on the bank behind him, amazement over the leap that had carried what stone across the place which they had designed for the grave of both man and horse. Held the four scoundrels, breathless for a spell, fascinated by the heroic animal's fight to draw himself clear of the fire, which wrapped his hindre-quarters. They forgot to shoot. But he, a lurching struggle had grown, as if his heart burst in the terrific strain and whetstone, lunged up the bank, staggered from his knees, snorted the smoke out of his nostrils, gathered his feet under him, and was away like a bullet. The sound of shots broke from the bank across the fiery crevasse. Bullets came so close to Lambert that he lay flat against his horse's neck. As the gallant creature ran sensible of his responsibilities for his master life, it seemed Lambert spoke to him encouragingly, proud of the tremendous thing that he had done. There was no sound of pursuit, but the shooting had stopped. Lambert knew they would follow as quickly as they could ride round the field of fire. After going to this length, they could not allow him to escape. There would have been nothing to explain to any living man with him and all trace of him obliterated in the fire. But with him alive and fleeing, saved by the winged leap of his splendid horse, they would be called to answer, man by man. Whetstone did not appear to be badly hurt. He was stretching away like a hare, shaping his course toward the ranch as true as a pigeon. If they overtook him, they would have to ride harder than they ever rode in their profitless lives before. Lambert estimated the distance between the place where they had trapped him and the fire was fifteen miles. It must be nine or ten miles across to the Philbrook Ranch in the straightest line that a horse could follow, and from that point many miles more to the ranch house and release from his strifling ropes. The fence would be no security against his pursuing enemies, but it would look like the boundary of hope. Whether they lost so much time in getting around the fire that they missed him or whether they gave it up after a trial of speed against Whetstone Lambert never knew. He supposed that their belief was that neither man nor horse would live to come into the sight of men again. However, it fell. They did not approach within hearing. If they followed, they were not in sight as dawn broke and broadened into day. Whetstone made the fence without slacking his speed. There Lambert checked him with a word and looked back for his enemies. Finding that they were not near, he proceeded along the fence at Easier Gate, holding the animal's strength for the final heat if they should make a sudden appearance. Somewhere along that miserable ride after daylight had broken and the pieced wire that Grace Curridt cut had been passed, Lambert fell unconscious across the horn of his saddle from the drain of blood from his wounds and the indurable pain of his bonds. In this manner the horse came bearing him home at sunrise. Tater Lake was away on his beat. Not uneasy over Lambert's absence, it was the exception for him to spend a night in the bunkhouse in that summer weather. So old Whetstone jaded, scorched, bloody from his own and his master's wounds was obliged to stand at the gate and winnie for help when he arrived. It was hours afterward that the fence rider opened his eyes and saw Vesta Philbrook and closed him again believing it was a delirium of his pain. Then Tater Lake spoke on the other side of the bed and he knew that he had come through his perils into gentle hands. I feel an old sport, Tater Lake inquired with anxious tenderness. Lambert turned his head toward the voice and grinned a little, in the teeth bearing hard pulling way of a man who has withstood a great deal more than the human body and mind ever were designed to undergo. He thought he spoke to Tater Lake the words shaped on his tongue, his throat moved, but there was such a roaring in his ears like the sound of a train crossing a trestle that he could not hear his own voice. Sure, said Tater Lake, hopefully, you're all right, aren't you, old sport? Fine, said Lambert, hearing his voice small and dry, strange as the voice of a man to him unknown. Vesta put her arm under his head, lifted me in a little, gave him a swall of water, it helped, or something helped. Perhaps it was the sympathetic tenderness of her good, honest eyes. He paid her with another little grin, which hurt her more to see than him to give, wrenched even though it was from the bottom of his soul. How's old Wettstone, he asked, his voice coming clearer? He's all right, she told him. His tail burned off of him mostly, and he's cut in the hams in a couple of places, but he ain't hurt any as I can see, Tater Lake said, with more truth than diplomacy. Lambert struggled to his elbow, the consciousness of what seemed his ingratitude to his dumb savior of his life smiting him with shame. I must go and attend to him, he said. Vesta and Tater Lake laid hands on him at once. You'll bust them stitches I took on your back if you don't keep still, young feller, Tater Lake warned. Wettstone ain't as bad off as you, nor half as bad. Lambert noticed that his hands were wrapped in wet towels. Burned? He inquired, lifting his eyes to Vesta's face. No, just swollen and inflamed, he'll be all right in a little while. I blundered into their hands like a blind kitten, said he reproachfully. Literally, it led for it, said Tater Lake. It was Kerr and that gang, Lambert explained, not wanting to leave any doubt behind if he should have to go. You can tell us after a while, she said, with compassionate tenderness. Sure, said Tater Lake cheerfully, you lay back there and take it easy, I'll keep my eye on things. That evening when the pain had eased out of his head, Lambert told Vesta what he had gone through sparing nothing of the curiosity that had let him, like a calf into their hands. He passed briefly over their attempt to herd him into the fire except to give Wettstone the hero's part, as he so well deserved. Vesta sat beside him, hearing him to the end of the brief recital, that he made of it in silence. Her face white, her figure erect. When he finished, she laid her hand on his forehead, as if in tribute to the manhood that had borne him through such inhuman torture and the loyalty that had been the cause of its visitation. Then she went to the window, where she stood a long time, looking over the sad sweep of broken country, the fringe of twilight on it in sombre shadow. It was not so dark when she returned to her place at his bedside, but he could see that she had been weeping in the silent pain that rises like a poison, distillation from the heart. It draws a vest into it and breaks him. She said in great bitterness, speaking as to herself, it is worth the price. Never mind it, Vesta. He soothed, putting out his hand. She took it between her own and held it, and a great comfort came to him in her touch. Oh, sell that cattle as fast as I can and move them, and give it up, Duke. She said, calling him by that name with the easy unconsciousness of a familiar habit, although she never had addressed him so before. You're not going away from here with Vesta, he said, with firmness that gave new hope and courage to her sad heart. I'll be out of this in a day or two, then we'll see about it, about several things. You're not going to leave this country whipped. Neither am I. She sat in meditation, her face to the window, presenting the soft turn of her cheek and chin to Lambert's view. She was too fine and good for that country, he thought, too good for the best that it could ever offer or give. No matter how generously the future might detone for the hardships of the past. It would be better for her to leave it. He wanted her to leave it, but not with her handsome head bowed in defeat. I think if you were to sift the earth and screen out its menace, they wouldn't be a match for the people around here, she said. There wouldn't be a bit of use taking this outrage up with the authorities. Kearney's gang would say it was a joke, and get away with it, too. I wouldn't go squealing to the county authorities, Vesta, even if I knew I'd get results. This is something a man has to square for himself. Maybe they intended it for a joke, too, but it was a little rougher than I'm used to. No doubt what their intention was. You can understand my feelings towards them now, Duke. Maybe I'll not seem such a savage. I've got a case with you, against them all, Vesta. He made no mental reservation as he spoke. There was no pleading for exception in grace her dark eyes that he could grant, long as he had nestled the romance between them and his breast, long as he had looked into the West and sent his dream out after her. He could not, and this sore hour forgive her the taint of her blood. He felt that all the tenderness in him toward any of her name was dead. It had been a pretty fancy to hold that thought of finding her, but she was only swamp-fire that had lured him to the door of hell. Still the marvel of his meeting her, the violet scent of his old dream, lingered sweetly with him like a perfume that remains after a beautiful woman's whose presence has illuminated a room. So hard does romance die. I think I'll have to break my word to you and buckle on my gun again for a little while, she said. Mr. Wilson can't ride the fence alone, capable and willing as he is, and ready to go day and night. Leave it to him till I'm out again, Vesta. That will only be a day or two. A day or two? Three or four weeks? He'd do well. Not that long. Not anything like that long. He denied with certainty. It didn't hurt me very much. Well, if they didn't hurt you much, they'd damage you considerably. He grinned over the serious distinction that she made between the words. Then he thought pleasantly that Vesta's voice seemed fitted to her lips, like the tone of some beautiful instrument. It was even and soft, slow and soothing, as her manner was deliberate and well calculated, her presence a comfort to the eye and the mind alike. An exceptional combination of a girl, he reflected, speculating on what sort of man would marry her. Whoever he was, whatever he might be. He would be only secondary to her all through the compact. That chap would come walking a little way behind her all the time, with a contented eye and a certain pride in his situation. It was a diverting fancy as he lay there in the darkening broom. Vesta, coming down the years a strong, handsome, proud figure in the foreground, that a man just far enough behind her to give the impression, as he passed, that he belonged to her entourage, but never quite overtaking her. Even so, the world might well envy the man in his position. Still, if a man should happen along who could take the lead, but Vesta wouldn't have him, she wouldn't surrender. It might cost her pain to go her way with her pretty head up, her eyes on the road far beyond, but she would go alone and hide her pain rather than surrender. That would be Vesta Philbrook's way. Myrtle, the negro woman, came in with chicken broth. Vesta made a light for him to sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help himself, the spoon impalachable in his numb fingers, still swollen in purple from the long constriction of his bonds. Next morning Vesta came in a raid in her riding habit. Her sombrero on as she appeared the first time he saw her. Only she was so much lovelier now, with the light of friendship and tender concern in her face, that he was gladdened by her presence in the door. It was as of a sudden burst of music, or the voice of someone for whom the heart is sick. He was perfectly fine, he told her, although he was as sore as a burn. In about two days he would be in the saddle again. She didn't need to bother about riding fence. It would be all right now, he knew. His declaration didn't carry assurance. He could see that by changing cast of her face, as sensitive as still water to a breathing wind, she was wearing her pistol and appeared to be very competent with it on her hip, and very high bread and above that station of contention and strife. He was troubled, not a little, at sight of her thus prepared, to take up the battles which she had renounced and surrendered into his hands only yesterday. She must have read it in his eyes. I'm only going to watch the fence and repair it, to keep the cattle in if they cut it. She said, I'll not take the offensive, even if I see her, them cutting. I'll only act on the defensive, in any case. I promise you that, Duke." She left him with that promise before he could commend her on the wisdom of her resolution, or set her right on a matter of grace cur. From the way Vesta spoke, a man would think she believed he had some tender feeling for that wild girl, and the idea of it was so preprosperous that he felt his face grow hot. He was uneasy for Vesta that day, in spite of her promise to avoid trouble, and fretted a good deal over his incapacitated state, his shoulder burned where Tom Hargis' knife had scraped the bone, his wounded back was stiff. Without his body suffering, he would have been miserable, for he had the sweat of his humiliation to wallow in, the black cloud of his contemplated vengeance across his mind, an ever-deepening shadow. On his day of reckoning, he cogitated long, planning how he was to bring it about. The law would not justify him in going out to seek these men and shooting them down where overtaken. Time and circumstance must be ready through his hand before he could strike and wipe out that disgraceful score. It was not to be believed that they would allow the matter to stand where it was. That was a comforting thought. They would seek occasion to renew the trouble and push it to their desired conclusion. That was the day to which he looked forward in hot eagerness. Never again would he be taken like a rabbit in a trap. He felt that to stand clear before the law, he would have to wait for them to push their fight on him. But he vowed they never would find him unprepared asleep or awake under roof or under sky. He would get Tater Lake to oil up a pair of pistols from among the number around the bunkhouse and leave them with him that night. There was satisfaction in the anticipation of these preparations. Dwelling on them, he fell asleep. He woke late in the afternoon when the sun was yellow on the wall, the shadow of the cottonwood leaves quivering like dragonflies' wings. On the little table beside his bed, near his glass, a bit of white paper lay. He looked at it curiously at four writing in ink and marks as of a pin. Just to say hello, Duke. That was the message unsigned, folded as it had been pinned to the wire. Vesta had brought it and left it while he slept. He threw himself up with stiff carefulness and read it again, holding it in his fingers then and gazing an abstraction out of the window, through which he could pick up the landscape across the river, missing the brink of the mesa entirely. A softness as of the rebirth of his old romance swept him, submerging the bitter thoughts and vengeful plans which had been his but a few hours before, the leaves of which were still heavy in him. This little piece of writing proved that Grace was innocent of anything that had been fallen on him, in the friendly, goodwill of her heart, she thought him, as she doubtless wished him, unharmed and well. There was something in that girl better than her connections would seem to guarantee. She was not intractable. She was not beyond the influence of generosity nor depth to the argument of honour. It would be unfair to hold her birth and relationship against her. Nobility had sprung out of baseness many times in the painful history of human progress. If she was vengeful and vindictive, it was what the country had made her. She should not be judged for this in measure harsher than Vesta Philbrook, should be judged. The acts of both were controlled by what they believed to be the right. Perhaps in who knows and why not. So a train of dreams starting and blowing from him, like smoke from a censer, perfume smoke, purging the place of demons which confused the lines of men's and women's lives and set them counter, where they should go in amity. Warm hand in warm hand, side by side. CHAPTER XVII No sterner figure ever rode the Badlands than Jeremiah Lambert appeared eight days after his escape out of his enemy's hands. The last five days of his internment he had spent in his own quarters protesting to Vesta that he was no longer an invalid and that further receipt of her tender administrations would amount to obtaining a valuable consideration by false pretense. This morning as he rode about his duty the scar left by Jim Wilder's knife on his cheek never had appeared so prominent. It cast over all his face a shadow of grimness and imparted to it an aged and seasoned appearance, not warranted by either his experience or his years. Although he had not carried any superfluous flesh before his night torture, he was lighter now by many pounds. Not a handsome man that day, not much about him to recall the red-faced, full-blooded agent of the All-in-One who had pushed his bicycle into the syndicate camp that night, guided by Tater-Late Song. But there was a look of confidence in his eyes that had not been his in those days, which he considered now as far distant and embryonic. There was a certainty in his hand that made him a man in a man's place anywhere in the extreme exactations of that land. Vesta was firmer in her attentions of giving up the ranch and leaving the badlands as soon as she could sell the cattle. With that program ahead of him Lambert was going this morning to look over the herd and estimate the number of cattle ready for market that he might place his order for cars. He didn't question the wisdom of reducing a herd, for that was good business, but it hurt him to have Vesta leave there with drooping feathers acknowledging to the brutal forces which had opposed the ranch so long that she was beaten. He would have her go after victory over them, for it was no place for Vesta, but he would like for her to stay until he had broken their opposition and compelled them to take off their hats to her fence. He swore, as he rode this morning, that he would do it. Vesta should not clean out the cattle, lock the lonesome ranch house, abandon the barns, and that vast investment of money to the skulking wolves who waited, only such every treat, to sneak in and to spoil a place. He had fixed in his mind the intention firm as a rock in the desert, and defied storm and disintegration to bring every man of that gang up to the wire fence in his turn, and bend him before it or break him, if he would not bend. This accomplished the right of the fence established on such terms that it would be respected ever more. Vesta might go, if she desired. Surely it would be better for her, a pearl in these dark waters, where her beauty would corrode and her soul would suffer in the isolation too hard for one of her fine harmony to bear. Perhaps she would turn the ranch over to him to run, with a band of sheep which he could handle and increase on shares, after the customs of that business to the profit of both. He had speculated on this eventuality not a little during the days of his enforced idleness. This morning the thought was so strong in him that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there was a face in these calculations, a face illuminated by clear dark eyes which seemed to strain over the brink of the future and beckon him on. Blood might stand between them, and differences almost irreconcilable, but the face withdrew never. It was evening before he worked through the herd and made it round to the place where Grace Kerr had cut the fence. There was no message for him. Without foundation for his disappointment he was disappointed. He wondered if she had been there, and bent in his saddle to examine the ground across the fence. There were tracks of a horse, but whether old or new he was not educated enough yet in Rangecraft to tell. He looked toward the hill from which he had watched her ride to cut the fence, hoping she might appear. He knew that this hope was traitorous. As his employer he felt that his desire toward this girl was unworthy, but he wanted to see her and hear her speak. Foolish also to yield to that desire to let down the fence where he had hooked the wire and ride out to see if he could find her. While there was so little probability of seeing her, that he was not ashamed, only for the twinge of a disloyal act, as he rode toward the hill, his long shadow ambling beside him, a giant horseman on a mammoth's deed. He returned from this little sentimental excursion, feeling somewhat like a sneak. The country was empty of Grace Kerr. In going out to see Kerr in the folly of a romance too trivial for a man of his serious main, he was guilty of an indiscretion deserving Vesta Philbrook's deepest scorn. He burned with his own shame as he dismounted to adjust the wire, like one caught in a reprehensible deed, and rode home feeling foolishly small. Kerr. He should hate that name. But when he came to shaving by a lamp-light that night and lifted out his pied calf-skin vest to find his drop, the little handkerchief brought all the old remembrances, the old tenderness, back in a sentimental flood. He fancied there was still a fragrance of violet perfume about it, as he held it tenderly and pressed it to his cheek, after a fortif glance around. He folded it small, put it in a pocket of the garment, which hung on the foot of his bed. An inspiration directed the act. Tomorrow he would ride forth, closed in the calf-skin vest, with the bright handkerchief that he had worn on the Sunday at Misry, when he won Grace Kerr's centitrophy, for sentimental reasons only, purely sentimental reasons. No, he was not a handsome man any longer. He confessed, grinning at the admission, rather pleased to have it as it was. That scar gave him a cast of ferocity, which his heart did not warrant for inwardly, he said. He knew he was as gentle as a dove. But if there was any doubt in her mind, granted that he had changed a good deal since she first saw him, the calf-skin vest and the handkerchief would settle it. By those signs she would know him, if she had doubted before. Not that she had doubted, as her anger and fear of him had passed that morning, recognition had come, and with recognition confidence. He would take a look out that way in the morning, surely a man had a right to go into the enemy's country and get a line on what was going on against him. So, as he shaved he planned, arguing loudly for himself to drown the cry of treason that his conscience raised. Tomorrow he would take a further look through the herd and conclude his estimate. Then he'd have to go to Glendora and order cars for the first shipment. Vesta wouldn't be able to get all of them off for many weeks. It would mean several trips to Chicago for him with a crew of men to take care of the cattle along the road. It might be well along into the early fall before he had them thinned down to calves and cows, not ready for market. He shaved and smoothed his weathered face, turning his eyes now and again to his hairy vest with a feeling of affection in him for the garment that neither it's worth nor its beauty warranted. Sentimental reasons always upweigh sensible ones as long as a man is young. He rode along the fence next morning on his way to the herd, debating whether he should leave a note on the wire. He was not in such a soft and sentimental mood this morning. For sense had rallied to him and pointed out the impossibility of harmony between himself and one so nearly related to a man who had attempted to burn him alive. It seemed to him now that the recollection of those poignant moments would rise to stand between them no matter how gentle or far removed from the source of her being she might appear. These gloomy speculations rose and left him like a flock of somber birds as he lifted the slope. Grace Kerr herself was riding homeward, just nodding the hill over which she must pass in a moment and disappear. He unhooked the wire and rode after her. At the hilltop she stopped unaware of his coming and looked back. He waved his hat. She waited. Have you been sick, Duke? She inquired after greetings looking him over with concern. A horse bit me, said he, passing it off with that old stock pleasantry of the range which covered anything and everything the man didn't want to explain. I missed you along here, she said. She swept him again with that slow puzzled look of inquiry, her eyes coming back to his face in a frank, unembarrassed stare. Oh, I know what it is now. You're dressed like you were that day in misery. I couldn't make it out for a minute. She was not wearing her manish garb this morning. Divided skirts of corduroy and a white waist with a bit of bright color at the neck. Her white sombrero was the only masculine touch about her and that rather added to her quick, dark prettiness. You're wearing a white waist the first time I saw you, he said. This one? She replied, touching it with a simple motion of full identification. Neither of them mentioned the mutual recognition on the day she had been caught cutting the fence. They talked of commonplace things as youth is constrained to do when its heart and mind are centered on something else which burns within it. The flame of which it cannot cover from any eyes but its own. Life on the range, its social disadvantages, its rough diversions. Those they spoke of, Lambert's lips dry with his eagerness to tell her more. How quickly it had laid hold of him again at sight of her. This unreasonable longing, the perfume of his romance effused her, purging away all that was unworthy. I trembled every second that day for fear your horse would break through the platform and throw you. She said suddenly, coming back to the subject, that he wanted most to discuss. I didn't think of it till a good while afterward, he said in slow reflection. I didn't suppose I'd ever see you again and of course I never once thought you were the famous Duke of Jimney Butte I heard so much about when I got home. More notorious than famous, I'm afraid, Miss Kerr. Jim Wilder used to work for us, I knew him well. Lambert bit his head, a shadow of deepest gravity falling like a cloud over the animation which had brightened his features but a moment before. He sat in contemplative silence a little while in his voice low when he spoke. Even though he deserved it, I've always been sorry it happened. Well, if you're sorry, I guess you're the only one. Jim was a bad kid. Where's that horse you raced the train on? Rest him up a little. You had him out here the other day. Yes, cripple him up a little since then. I'd like to have that horse. Do you want to sell him, Duke? There's not money enough made to buy him. Lambert returned, lifting his head quickly, looking her in the eyes so directly that she colored and turned her head to cover her confusion. He must think a lot of him when you talk like that. He's done me more than one good turn, Miss Kerr. He explained, feeling that she must have read his harsh thoughts. He saved my life only a week ago, but that's likely to happen to any man. He had it quickly, making light of it. Saved your life. She said, turning her clear, inquiring eyes on him again in that expression of wonder that was so vast in them. How did he save your life, Duke? I guess I was just talking, said he, wishing he had kept a better hold on his tongue. You know, we have a full way of seeing man's life was saved in very trivial things. I've known people to declare that a drink of whiskey did that for them. She lifted her brows as she studied his face openly, and with such a directness that he flushed in confusion, then turned her eyes away slowly. I liked him that day he outran the flyer I've often thought of him since then. Lambert looked off over the wild landscape, the distant buttes softened in the haze that seemed to pre-sage the advance of autumn, considering much. When he looked into her face again it was with the harshness gone out of his eyes. I wouldn't sell that horse to any man, but I'd give it to you, Grace. She started a little when he pronounced her name, wondering perhaps how he knew it, her eyes growing great in the pleasure of his generous declaration. She urged her horse nearer with an impetuous movement and gave him her hand. I didn't mean for you to take it that way, Duke, but I appreciate it more than I can tell you. Her eyes were earnest and soft with a mist of gratitude that seemed to rise out of her heart. He held her hand a moment, feeling that he was being drawn nearer to her lips as if he must touch them and rise refreshed to face the labours of his life. I started out on him to look for you, expecting to ride him to the Pacific and maybe double back. I didn't know where I'd have to go, but I intended to go on till I found you. Seen by what was the joke, she said, that we were so near each other and you didn't know it. She laughed, not seeming to feel the seriousness of it as he felt it. It is the woman who laughs always in these little life comedies of ours. I'll give him to you, Grace, when he picks up again. Any other horse will do me now. He carried me to the end of my road, he brought me to you. She turned her head and he hadn't the courage in him to look and see whether it was to hide a smile. You don't know me, Duke. Maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you'll regret you ever started out to find me at all. His courage came up again. He leaned a little nearer, laying his hand on hers, where it rested on her saddle-horn. You wanted me to come, didn't you, Grace? I hoped you might come sometime, Duke. He rode with her when she set out to return home to the little valley where he had interposed to prevent a tragedy between her and Vesta Philbrode. Neither of them spoke of that encounter. It was avoided in silence as a thing of which both were ashamed. Will you be going over this way again, Grace? He asked, when he stopped the part. I expect I will, Duke. Tomorrow, do you think? Not tomorrow, shaking her head in a pretty way she had of doing it when she spoke in negation, like an earnest child. Maybe the next day. I expect I may come then, Duke, or what is your real name? Jeremiah. Jerry, if you like it better. She pursed her lips in comical seriousness, frowning a little as if considering it waitily. Then she looked at him in frank comradeship, her dark eyes serious, nodding her head. I'll just call you Duke. He left her with the feeling that he had known her many years. Blood between them? What was blood? Thicker than water? A... impalpable as smoke. End of Chapter 17 CHAPTER 18 The Rivalry of Cooks Tater Lake said that he would go to Glendor that night with Lambert. When the latter announced he was going down to order cars for the first shipment of cattle. I'd been laying off to go quite a while, Tater Lake said, but that scrape you run into kinda held me round nights. You know, that filler he put a letter in the post office for me, serving notice. I was to keep away from that girl. I guess he thinks he'd got me buffalored and on to run. Which one of them sent you a letter? Jedlik, Darn him. I'm going down there from now on every chance I get and set up to that girl like a Dutch uncle. What do you suppose Jedlik intends to do to you? I don't care what he aims to do. If he makes a break at me, I'll lay him on the board, if they can find one in the Badlands long enough to hold him. He's got a bad eye, regular mule eye. You'd better step easy round him and not stir him up too quick. Lambert had no faith in the valor of Jedlik at all, but Tater Lake would fight as he very well knew, but he doubted whether there was any great chance of the two coming together with Alta Wood on the watch between them. She'd pat one and she'd rub the other, soothing them and drawing them off until they forgot their wrath. Still, he did not want Tater Lake to be running any chance at all of making trouble. You'd better let me take your gun, he suggested as they approached the hotel. I'd take care of it. Tater Lake returned, a bit hurt by the suggestion, lofty and distant, in his declaration. No harm, Nintendo fella, I just didn't want you to go pepper an old Jedlik over a girl that's as fickle as you say Alta Wood is. I ain't going to pull a gun on no man till he gives me a good reason to do, but if he gives me a reason I want to be healed. I guess I was a little hard on Alta that time because I was a little sore. She's not so foolish fickle as some. When she's trying to hold three men in line at once, it looks to me she must be playing to them for suckers, but go to it. Go to it, old fella. Don't let me scare you off. I never had but one little fallin' out with Alta, and that was the time I was sore. She wanted me to cut off a moustache, and I told her I wouldn't do that for no girl that ever punched a pillar. What did she want you to do that for, do you reckon? Curiosity. Playing curiosity. She wanted an old Jedlik that way, but she wouldn't throw me. Wanted to see how to change me, she said. Well, I know without no experiment. I don't know that it'd hurt you too much to lose a tater leg. Hurt me. I'd look like one of them flat Christmas toys that make out of tin without that moustache, Duke. I'd be so sharp in the face I'd whistle in the wind every time my horse went out for a walk. I'm going to wear that moustache to my grave, and no woman that ever hung a stonkin' out of the winter to dry it. Gonna fool me into cuttin' it off. You know when you're comfortable, old fella. Stick to it, if that's the way you feel about it. They hitched at the hotel rack. Tater leg said he'd go on to the depot with Lambert. I'm lookin' for a package of express goods I sent to Chicago for, he explained. Package was on hand according to expectation. It proved to be a five-pound box of chewing gum. All kinds and all flavors, Tater leg said. You got enough here to stick you to her so tight that even death can't part you, Lambert told him. Tater leg winked as he worked undoing the cords. Only thing can beat it, Duke, money. Money can beat it, but a man's got to have a lick or two of common sense to go with it. Some good looks on the side. If he picks off a gal as wise as Alta, when Jed Lake was weak enough to cut off his mustache, he killed his chance. Is he in town tonight, do you reckon? I seen these horses in front of the saloon. Well, no girl can say I ever went to sit down by her smellin' like a bung-hole on a hot day. I don't travel that road. I'll go over there smellin' like a fruit store. And I'll put that box in her hand and tell her to chaw till she goes to sleep, and then I'll pull her head over my shoulder and pat them bangs. Hush, oh hush. It seemed that the effervescent fellow could not be wholly serious about anything. Lambert was not certain that he was serious in his attitude towards Jed Lake as he went away with his sweet-centered box under his arm. By the time Lambert had finished his arrangements for a special train to carry the first heavy shipment of the Philbrook herd to market, it was long after dark. He was in the post-office, when he heard the shot that he feared, opened hostilities between Tater Lake and Jed Lake. He hurried out with the rest of the customers, went toward the hotel. There was some commotion on the hotel porch, which it was too dark to follow. But he heard Alta scream after which there came another shot. The bullets struck the side of the store, high above Lambert's head. CHAPTER XIX The Sentinel There appeared in the light of the hotel door for a moment the figures of struggling men followed by the sound of feet in flight down the steps, and somebody mounting a horse in haste at the hotel hitching rack. Whoever this was rode away at a hard gallop. Lambert knew the battle was over, and as he came to the hitching rack he saw that Tater Lake's horse was still there, so he had not fled. Several voices sounded from the porch and excited talk among them, Tater Lake's, proving that he was sound and untouched. His uneasiness gone, Lambert stood a little while in front, well out in the dark, trying to pick up what was being said but with little result, for people were arriving with noise of heavy boots to learn the cause of the disturbance. Tater Lake held the floor for a little while, his voice severe as if he laid down the law. Alta replied in what appeared to be indignant protest, then fell to crying. There was a picture of her in the door, a moment being led inside by her mother, blubbering into her hands. The door slammed after them, and Tater Lake was heard to say in loud, firm voice. Don't approach me, I tell you. I'd hit a blind woman as quick as I would a one-armed man. Lambert felt that this was the place to interfere, he called Tater Lake. All right, Duke, I'm coming! Tater Lake answered. The door opened, revealing the one-armed proprietor entering the house, revealing a group of men and women, bare-headed, as they had rushed to the hotel at the sound of the shooting, revealing Tater Lake coming down in the steps, his box of chewing gum under his arm. Wood fastened the door back in its accustomed anchorage. His neighbors closed round, where he stood, explaining the affair, his stump of arm lifting and pointing, in the expressionless gestures common to a man thus maimed. Are you hurt, Lambert inquired? No, I ain't hurt none, Duke. Tater Lake got aboard of his horse, with nothing more asked of him or volunteered on his part. They had not proceeded far when his indignation broke bounds. I ain't hurt, but I'm swing like a full millermoth in a lamp chimney, he complained. Who was that shooting around so darn careless? Jedlick, during him. I was wondering if he didn't kill somebody upstairs somewhere. First shot, he hit a box of tobacco, back at Wood's counter. I don't know what he hit the second time, but it wasn't me. He hit the side of the store. Tater Lake rode along in silence a little way. Well, not pretty good for him, he said. Who was that to hop the horse, like he was going for a doctor and tore off? Jedlick, during him. Lambert allowed the matter to rest at that. Knowing that neither of them had been hurt, Tater Lake would come to telling it before long. Not being built so that he could hold a piece of news like that without suffering great discomfort. I'm through with that bunch down there, he said, in a tone of deep, disgustful renunciation. I never would let on and soak that way before my life. No, I ain't hurt, Duke. But it ain't no fault of that girl I ain't. She done all she could to kill me off. Who started it? Well, I'll give it to you straight, Duke. From the first word and you can judge for yourself what kind of a woman that girl is going to turn out to be. I never would have believed she'd have thrown a man that way. But you can't read him, Duke. No man can read him. I guess that's right, Lambert allowed, wondering how far he had read in a certain dark eyes which seemed as innocent as a child's. It's past the power of any man to do it. Well, you know, I went over there with my fresh box of gum, all the flavors you can name, and me and her we sat on the porch gabbing and sampling the gum. She never was so leaning and loving before, setting up so close to me you couldn't put a sheet of rotten paper between us. Shucks. Rubbing the paint off, Tater Ling, you oughta took the tip that she was about done with you. You're right. If I woulda, if I'da, had of as much brains as an ant, well, she told me Jedlik would lay in for me and beg me not to hurt him, for she didn't want to see me go to jail on account of a fellow like him. She talked to me like a Dutch uncle, and put her head so close I could feel them bang to tickle my ear. But that's done with. She can tickle all the ear she wants to tickle, but she'll never tickle mine no more. And all the time she was talking to me like that. Where do you reckon that Jedlik fellow was? In the saloon, I guess, firing up. No, it wasn't Duke. He was sitting right in that hotel with his old flat feet under the table, shoveling in pie. He came out, picking his teeth pretty soon, standing there by the door, during him like he owned a dump. Well, he made, for all I know, out as she inched away from me, and says to me him, Mr. Jedlik, come over here and shake hands with Mr. Wilson. Yes, he says, I'll shake insect powdering on his grave. I see you're doing it, I says, you long, hungry and half full. If you ever make a pass at me, you'll swallow wind so fast you'll bust. Well, he began to shuffle and prance and cut up like a boy making faces. And that's where Alta she ducked in through the parlor window. Don't hurt him, Mr. Jedlik. She said, please don't hurt him. I'll chew him up as fine as cat hair and blow him out through my teeth, Jedlik told her. And there's where I started after that fellow. He was standing in front of the door all the time, where he could duck inside if he saw me coming. I had to guess he would have ducked if Wood hadn't been there. When he saw Wood, old Jedlik pulled his gun. I slung down on him, timin' up to blow him in too, and pulled on my trigger. Not even to hurt the old schooner, only in a snap of bullet between his toes, but she wouldn't work. Old Jedlik, he was so rattled at the sight of that gun in my hand he banged loose, slapped through that window into the box of plug bag and a counter. I pulled on her and pulled on her, but she wouldn't snap. And I was yankin' on a hammer to cock her when he tore loose with that second shot. That's when I found out what the matter was with that old gun of mine. Tater Lake was so moved at this passage that he seemed to run out of words. He rode along in silence until they reached the top of the hill, and the house on the mesa stood before them, dark and lonesome. Then he pulled out his gun and handed it across to the Duke. Run your thumb over the hammer of that gun, Duke, he said. Well, what in the world it feels like chewing gum, Tater Lake? It is chewing gum, Duke. A wad of it as big as my fist, blowin' down the hammer of that gun. That girl put it there, Duke. She knew Jedlik wouldn't have no more show before me man to man than a rabbit. She done me that trick, Duke. She wanna kill me off. There wasn't no joke about that old feller. The Duke said seriously grateful that the girl's trick had not resulted in any greater damage to his friend than the shock to his dignity and simple heart. Yes, and it was my own gum. That's a worse part of a Duke she wasn't even usin' his gum. Dang her melts. She must have favored Jedlik pretty strong to go that far. Well, if she wants him after what she saw of him she can take him. I clenched him before he could waste any more ammunition and twisted his gun away from him. I jolted him a couple of jolts with my fist and he broke and run. You seen him hop his horse? What did you do with his gun? I walked over the window where that girl was lookin' out to see Jedlik wipe up the porch with me and handed her the gun. And I says, give this to Mr. Jedlik with my regards. I says, and tell him if he wants any more to send me word. Well, she come out and I called her on what she'd done to my gun. She swore she didn't mean it for nothing but a joke. I said if that was her idea of a joke the quicker we parted the sooner. She began to bawl and the old man, the old woman put in. And I slapped that fellow Duke if he'd had two arms on him but you can't slap a half a man. I guess that's right. I walked up to that girl and I says, you've chopped the last one of my gum. You'll ever plaster up again your old lean jawbone. You may be some figure in Glendora, I says. But anywhere else you wouldn't cut no more ice than a cracker. But he took it up again and that's when I come away. Looks like it's all off between you and Alton now. I spoke off, shot up to the handle, served a fellow riot for being a fool. I might have known when she wanted me to shave my mustache off she didn't have no more heart in her than a fish. That was asking a lot of a man, sure as the world. The old man could look two ways at once without somebody putting something down his bag, Duke. Referring to the lady in Wyoming, sure. In white she says, Mr. Wilson, I'll always think of you as a gentleman. Then was her last words, Duke. They were walking their horses past the house which was dark, careful not to wink Vesta. But their care went for nothing, she was not in bed. Around the turn of the long porch they saw her standing in the moonlight looking across the river into the lonely night. It seemed that if she stood in communion with distant places to which she sent her longing out of a bondage that she could not flee. She looks lonesome, Tater Lake said. Well, I ain't a gonna go and pet and console her. I'm done taking chances. Lambert understood as never before how melancholy that life must be for her. She turned as they passed, her face clear in the bright moonlight. Tater Lake swept off his hat with the grand air that took him so far with the ladies, Lambert saluting with less extravagance. Vesta waved her hand in acknowledgement, turning again to her watching over the vast empty land, as if she waited the coming of somebody who would quicken her life with the cheer that had wanted so sadly that calm summer night. Lambert felt an unusual restlessness that night. No mood over him for his bed. It seemed in truth that a man would be wasting valuable hours of life by locking his sense up in sleep. He put his horse away, sated with the comedy of Tater Lake's adventure, and not caring to pursue it further, to get away from the discussion of it that he knew Tater Lake would keep going as long as there was an ear open to hear him. He walked to the nearby hilltop to view the land under this translating spell. This was the hilltop from which he had ridden down to interfere between Vesta and Nick Hargis. With that adventure he had opened his account of trouble in the Badlands, an account that was growing day by day, the final balancing of which he could not foresee. From where he stood the house was dark and lonely as an abandoned habitation. It seemed indeed that bright and full of youthful light as Vesta Philbrook was. She was only one warm candle in the gloom of this great melancholy monument, of her father's misspent hopes before she could warm it into life and cheerfulness. It would encroach upon her with its chilling gloom, like an insidious cold drift of sand smothering her beauty, burying her quick heart away from the world for which it longed for evermore. It would need the noise of little feet across those broad empty lonesome porches to wake the old house. The shouting and laughter and gleam of merry eyes the childhood brings into the world's gloom to drive away the shadows that draped it like a mist. Perhaps Vesta stood there to-night, sending her soul out in a call to someone to whom she longed these comfortable, natural, womanly hopes in her own good heart. He sighed, wishing her well of such hope if she had it, and forgot her in a moment as his eyes picked up a light far across the hills. Now it twinkled brightly, now it wavered and died, as if its beam was all too weak to hold the continued effort of projecting itself so far. It would be the Kerr Ranch, nor the habitation lay in that direction. Perhaps in the light of that lamp somebody was sitting, bending a dark head in pensive tenderness with the thought of him. He stood with his pleasant fancy, his dream around him like a cloak. All the trouble that was in the world for him that hour was near the earth, like the precipitation of settling waters. Over it he gave, superior to its ugly murk. Careless of whether it might rise to befall the clear current of his hopes or sink, and settle to obscure his dreams no more. There was a sound of falling shale on the slope, following the disturbance of a quick foot. Vesta was coming, unseen and unheard through the insulation of his thoughts. She had approached within ten rods of him before he saw her. The moonlight on her fair face, glorious in her uncovered hair. Chapter 20 Business and more. You stand out like an Indian water monument up here, she said reprovingly, as she came scrambling up, taking the hand that he hastened forward to offer and boost her over the last sharp face of crumbling shale. I expect Hargis could pick me off from below there anywhere, but I didn't think of that, he said. Wouldn't be above him, seriously. Discounting the light way in which he spoke of it, he's done things just as cowardly and so have others you've met. I haven't got much opinion of the valor of men who unimpact Vesta. Some of them might be skulking around glad to take a shot at us. Would you think we'd better go down? We can sit up there and be off the skyline. It's always the same thing to do around here. She indicated a point where the inequity in the hill would be above their head sitting, and there they composed themselves, the sheltering swell of hilltop at her backs. Not a very complimentary reflection on a civilized community that one has to take such a precaution, but it's necessary, Duke. It's enough to make you want to leave it, Vesta. It's bad enough to have to dodge danger in a city, but out here, with all this lonesomeness around you, it's worse. Do you feel it lonesome here? She asked with a curious soft slowness of speculative detachment as if she only half thought of what she said. I'm never lonesome where I can see the sun rise and set. There's a lot of company in cattle more than in any amount of people. You don't know. I find it the same way, Duke. I never was so lonesome as when I was away from here at school. Everybody feels that way about home, I guess. But I thought maybe you'd like it better away among people, like yourself. No, if it wasn't for this endless straining and watching quarreling and contending, I wouldn't change this for any place in the world. On nights like this, when it whispers in a thousand inaudible voices and beckons and holds one close, I feel that I never can go away. There's a call in it that is so subtle and tender, so full of sympathy that I answer it with tears. I wish things could be cleared up so you could live here in peace and enjoy it, but I don't know how it's going to come out. Looks to me like I've made it worse. What's wrong of me to draw you into it, Duke? I should have let you go your way. No regrets on my side, Vesta. I guess it was planned for me to come this far and stop. They'll never rest till they've drawn you into a quarrel that will give them an excuse for killing you, Duke. They're doubly sure to do it since you got away from them that night. I shouldn't have stopped you. I should have let you go on that day. I had to stop somewhere, Vesta. Anyway, I've found here what I started out to find. This was the end of my road. What you started to find, Duke? A man-sized job, I guess. He laughed again, but with a colourless artificiality, sweating over the habit of solitude that leads a man into thinking aloud. You've found it all right, Duke, and you're filling it. That's some satisfaction to you, I know, but it's a man using job, a life-wasting job. She said sadly. I've only got myself to blame for anything that's happened to me here, Vesta. It's not the fault of the job. Well, if you'll stay with me till I sell a cattle, Duke, I'll think of you as the next best friend I ever had. Oh, I've got no intention of leaving you, Vesta. Thank you, Duke. Lambert sat turning over in his mind something that he wanted to say to her, but which he could not yet shape to his tongue. She was looking in the direction of the light that he had been watching, a gleam of which showed faintly now and then, as if between moving vows. I don't like the notion of you're leaving this country whip, Vesta, he said, coming to it at last. I don't like to leave it whip, Duke. That's the way they'll look at it if you go. Silence again, both watching the far distant twinkling light. I laid out the job for myself for bringing these outlaws around here up to your fence, with their hats in their hands, and I hate to give it up before I've made good on my word. Let it go, Duke. Isn't worth the fight. Man's word is either good for all he intends it to be, or worth no more than a lowest scoundrel's, Vesta. If I don't put up works to equal what I've promised, I'll have to sneak out of this country between two sons. I threw off too much on the shoulders of a willing and gallant stranger, she sighed. Let it go, Duke. I've made up my mind to sell out and leave. He made no immediate return to this declaration, but after a while he said, this will be a mighty bleak spot with the house abandoned and dark on winter nights and no stock around the barns. Yes, Duke. There's no place so lonesome as one where somebody's lived, and put his hopes and ambitions into it, and gone away and left it empty. I can hear the winter wind cutting around the house down yonder, mourning like a widow woman in the night. A sob broke for her, a sudden, sharp, struggling expression of her sorrow for the desolation that he pictured in his simple words. She bent her head into her hands and cried. Lambert was sorry for the pain that he had unwittingly stirred in her breast, but glad in a glowing tenderness to see that she had this human strain so near the surface that it could be touched by a sentiment so common and yet so precious as the love of home. He laid his hand on her head stroking her soft, wavy hair. Never mind Vesta. He petted as if comforting a child. Maybe we can fix things up here so there'll be somebody to take care of it. Never mind. Don't you grieve and cry. It's home, the only home I ever knew. There's no place in the world that can be to me what it's been and is. That's so, that's so I remember. I know the wind don't blow as soft. The sun don't shine as bright anywhere else as it does at home. It's been a good while since I had one, and it wasn't much to see, but I've got the recollection of it by me always. I can see every log in the walls. He felt her shiver with the sobs she struggled to repress as his hand rested on her hair. His heart went out to her in a surge of tenderness when he thought of all she had staked in that land, her youth and the promise of life, of all she had planned in hope, built in expectation, and all that lay buried now on the bleak mesa marked by two white stones. And he caressed her with gentle hand, looking away the while at the spark of light that came and went, came and went, as if through blowing leaves. So it flashed and fell, flashed and fell like a slow, slow pulse and died out, as a spark and tinder dies, leaving the far night blank. Vesta set up, pushing her hair back from her forehead, her white hand lingering there. He touched it, pressed it comfortably. I'll have to go, she said, calm and voice, to end this trouble and strife. I've been wondering since I'm kind of pledged to clean things up around here. Rather you'd consider a business proposal for me in regard to taking charge of the ranch for you while you're gone, Vesta. You looked up in a quick start of eagerness. You mean, hot to sell a cattle-duke? Yes, I think you ought to clean them out. The bulk of them are as high a condition as they'll ever be, and the market's better right now than it's been in years. Well, what sort of proposal were you going to make, Duke? Sheep. Father used to consider turning round to sheep. The country would come to it, he said. Coming to it more and more every day. The sheep business is the big future thing in here. Inside of five years everybody will be in the sheep business, and that will mean the end of these rustler camps that go under the name of cattle ranches. I'm willing to consider sheep, Duke. Go ahead with the plan. There's twice the money in them and not half the expense. One man can take care of two or three thousand, and you can get sheep herders any day. There can't be any possible objection to them inside your own fence, and you've got range for ten or fifteen thousand. I'd suggest about a thousand to begin with, though. I'll do it in a minute, Duke. I'll do whenever you say the word. Then I could leave Ananias and Myrtle here, and I could come back in the summer for a little while, maybe. She spoke with such eagerness, such appeal of loneliness, that he knew it would break her heart ever to go it all. So there on the hilltop they planned and agreed on the change from cattle to sheep. Lambert to have half the increase according to the custom, with herders' wages for two years. She would have been more generous in the matter of pay, but that was the basis upon which he had made his plans, and he would admit to no change. Vesta was as enthusiastic over it as a child, all eagerness to begin, seeing in the change a promise of the peace for which she had so ardently longed. She appeared to have come suddenly from under a cloud of oppression and to sparkle in the sun of this new hope. It was only when they came to parting at the porch that the ghost of her old trouble came to take its place at her side again. Did she cut the fence lately over there, Duke? She asked. Not since I caught her at it. I don't think she'll do it again. Did she promise you she wouldn't cut it, Duke? She did not look at him as she spoke, but stood with her face averted, as if she would avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her voice was low, a note of weary sadness in it that seemed a confession of the uselessness of turning her back upon the stripe that she would forget. No, she didn't promise. If she doesn't cut the fence, she'll plan to hurt me in some other way. It isn't in her to be honest. She couldn't be honest if she tried. I don't like to condemn anybody without a trial, Vesta. Maybe she's changed. You can't change a rattlesnake. You seem to forget that she's a cur. Even at that she might be different from the rest. She never has been. You've had a taste of the cur methods, but you're not satisfied yet that they're absolutely base and dishonorable on every thought indeed. You'll find out it to your cost, Duke. If you let that girl lead you, she's a will of the wisp sent to lure you from the trail. Lambert laughed a bit foolishly, as a man does when the intuition of a woman covers the thing that he prided himself was too skillfully concealed that mortal eyes could not find it. Vesta was reading through him like a piece of greased parchment before Lam. I guess it will all come out right, he said weekly. You'll meet Curr one of these days with your old score between you. And he'll kill you. Or you'll kill him. She knows it as well as I do. She can be sincere with you and keep this thing covered up in her heart. You seem to have forgotten that she remembers and plots on every minute of her life. I don't think she knows anything about what happened to me that night, Vesta. She knows all about it, she said Vesta coldly. I don't know very well, of course. I've only passed a few words with her, he excused. And a few notes hung on the fence. She said not able to hide her scorn. She's gone away laughing at you every time. I thought maybe peace and quiet could be established through her if she could be made to see things in a civilized way. Vesta made no rejoinder at once. She put her foot on the step as if to leave him, withdrew it, faced him gravely. It's nothing to me, Duke. Only I don't want to see her lead you into another fire. Keep your eyes open and your hand close to your gun when you're visiting with her. She left him with that advice, given so gravely and honestly that it amounted to more than a warning. He felt that there was something more for him to say to make his position clear, but could not marshal his words. Vesta entered the house without looking back to where he stood, had in hand the moonlight in his fair hair. End of chapter 20 Chapter 21 The Duke of Chimney Butte, this lever box recording is in the public domain. The Duke of Chimney Butte by G. W. Ogden Chapter 21 A Test of Loyalty Lambert rode to his rendezvous with Grace Kerr on the appointed day, believing that she would keep it, although her promise had been inconclusive. She had only expected she would be there, but he more than expected she would come. He was in a pleasant mood that morning, finally softened. To such extent, he believed he might even call accounts off with Sim Hargis, and the rest of them if Grace could arrange a peace. Vesta was a little rough on her, he believed. Grace was showing a spirit that seemed to prove she wanted only gentle guiding to abandon the practices of violence to which she had been bred. Certainly, compared to Vesta, she seemed of course aware, even though she was as handsome as her. This he admitted without prejudice, not being yet wholly blind, but there was no bond of romance between Vesta and him, there was no place for romance between a man and his boss. Romance bound him to Grace Kerr, sentiment enchained him. It was a sweet enslavement and one to be prolonged in his desire. Grace was not in sight when he reached their meeting place, he let down the wire and rode to meet her, troubled as before by that feeling of disloyalty to the Philbrook interests which caused him to stop more than once and debate whether he should turn back and wait inside the fence. The desire to hasten the meeting with Grace was stronger than this question of his loyalty. He went on, over the hill from which she used to spy on his passing into the valley, where he had interfered between the two girls on the day that he found Grace hidden away in this unexpected place. There he met her coming down the farther slope. Grace was quite a different figure that day from any she had presented before, wearing a perky little highland bonnet with an eagle feather in it and a skirt and blouse of the same plaid. His eyes announced his approval as they met, leaning to shake hands from the saddle. Immediately he brought himself to task for his late admission that she was inferior in the eyes of Vesta. That misappraisment was due disadvantage under which he had seen Grace here before. This morning she was as dainty as a fresh-blown pink and as delicately sweet. He swung from the saddle and stood off admiring her, with so much speaking from his eyes that she grew rosy in their fire. Well, you get down, Grace. I've never had a chance to see how tall you are. I couldn't tell that day on the train. The eagle feather came even with his ear when she stood beside him, slender and strong, health in her eyes, her womanhood ripening in her lips. Not as tall as Vesta, not as full of figure, he began in mental measurement, burning with self-reproof when he caught himself at it. Why should he always be drawing comparisons between her and Vesta, to her disadvantage in all things? It was unwarranted, it was absurd. They sat on the hillside, their horses nipping each other in introductory preliminaries, then settling down to immediate friendship. They were far beyond sight of the fence Lambert hoped with an uneasy return of that feeling of disloyalty and guilt that Vesta would not come riding up that way and find the open strands of wire. This thought passed away and troubled him no more as they sat talking of the strange way of their meeting on the run, as she said. There isn't a horse in a house that could have caught up with me that day. Not one in thousands, he amended with Duke's gratitude to Whetstone. I expected you'd be riding him today, Duke. He backed into a fire, he said uneasily, and burned off most his tail. He ain't no sight for a lady in his present shape. She laughed, looking at him shrewdly as if she believed it to be a joke to cover something that he didn't want her to know. But you promised to give him to me, Duke, when he rested up a little. I will, he declared earnestly, getting hold of her hand where it lay in the grass between them. I'll give you anything I've got, Grace, from the breath of my body to the blood in my heart. She bent her head, her face rosy with her mounting blood. Would you, Duke? Said she so softly that it was not much more than a flutterer of the wings of words. He leaned a little narrow, his heart climbing as if it meant to smother him and cut him short in the crowning moment of his dream. I'd have gone to the end of the world to find you, Grace. He said, his voice shaking as if he had a chill, his hands cold, his face hot, a tingling in his body, a sound in his ears like bells. I want to tell you how... Wait, Duke, I want to hear it all, but wait a minute, there's nothing to ask you to do for me. Will you do me a favor, Duke, a simple favor, but one that means all the world to me? Try me, said he, with boundless confidence. It's more than giving me your horse, Duke, a whole lot more than that, but it'll not hurt you. You can do it if you will. I know you wouldn't ask me to do anything that would reflect on my honesty or honor, he said, beginning to do a little thinking when a man cares. She stopped looking away a little constriction in her throat. What is it, Grace? Pressing her hand, encouraging me, master of the situation now, as he believed. Duke, she turned to him suddenly her eyes wide and luminous, her heart going so he could see the tremor of its vibrations in the lace at her throat. I want you to lend me to our morning for one day. That's all Duke's cattle. That's a funny thing to ask, Grace, he said uneasily. I want you to meet me over there where I cut the fence before sun-up in the morning, and have everybody out of the way so we can cut them out and drive them over here. You can manage it if you want to, Duke, you will if you care. If they were my cattle, Grace, I wouldn't hesitate a second. You'll do it anyhow, won't you, what in the world do you want them for, just for one day? I can't explain that to you now, Duke, but I pledge you, my honor, I pledge you everything that they'll be returned to you before night, not a head missing, nothing wrong. Does your father know, does he? It's for myself that I'm asking this of you, Duke, nobody else. It means, it means everything to me. If they were my cattle, Grace, if they were my cattle, he said aimlessly amazed by the request groping for the answer that lay behind it. What could a girl want to borrow five hundred head of cattle for? What in the world would she get out of holding them in her possession one day and then turning them back into the pasture? There was something back of it. She was the innocent emissary of a crafty hand that had a trick to play. We could run them over here, just you and I, and nobody would know anything about it. She tempted, the color back in her cheeks her eyes bright as in the pleasure of a request already granted. I don't like to refuse you even that, Grace. You'll do it, you'll do it, Duke. Her hand was on his arm and beguiling caresses her eyes repleting into his. I'm afraid not, Grace. Perhaps she felt a shading of coldness in his denial for distrust and suspicion were rising in his cautious mind. It did not seem to him a thing that could be asked with any honest purpose. But for what dishonest one he had, no conjecture to fit. Are you going to turn me down on the first request I ever made of you, Duke? She watched him keenly as she spoke, making her eyes small an inflection of sorrowful injury in her tone. There's anything of my own you want. If there's anything you can name personally, all you've got to do is hint at it once. It's easy to say that when there's nothing else I want. She said snapping at him as sharp as the crack of a little whip. If there was anything. There'll never be anything. She got up flashing him an indignant look. He stood beside her, despising the poverty of his condition which would not allow him to deliver over to her out of hand a small matter of 500 bees. She went to her horse, mightily put out an impatient with him, as he could see, through the rains over her pommel as if she intended to leave him at once. She delayed mounting, suddenly putting out her hands in supplication, tears springing in her eyes. Oh, Duke, if you knew how much it means to me, she said. Why don't you tell me, Grace? Even if you stayed back there on the hill somewhere and watched them, you wouldn't do it, Duke? She appealed, evading his request. He shook his head slowly while the thoughts with him ran like wildfire, seeking the thing that she covered. Can't be done. I'll give you my word, Duke, that if you'll do it, nobody will ever lift a hand against this ranch again. It's almost worth it, said he. She quick-ended this enlarging her guarantee. We'll drop all the old feud and let best alone I give you my word for all of them and I'll see that they carry it out. You can do Vesta as big a favour as you'll be doing me, Duke. It couldn't be done without her consent, Grace. If you want to go to her with this same proposal, putting it plainly like you have to me, I think she'll let you have the cattle. You can show her any good reason for it. Just as if I'd be fool enough to ask her. It's the only way. Duke, she said coaxingly, wouldn't it be worth something to you personally to have your trouble settled without a fight? I'll promise you nobody will ever lift a hand against you again if you'll do this for me. He started, looked at her sternly, approaching her a step. What do you know about anything that's happened to me? He demanded. Oh, I don't know anything about what happened. But I know what's due to happen if it isn't headed off. Lambert did some hard thinking for a little while so hard that it wretched him to the marrow. If he had suspicion of her entire innocence in the solicitation of this unusual favour before it had sprung in a moment into distrust. Such a quick reversion cannot take place in this sentiment without a shock. It seemed to Lambert that something valuable had been snatched away from him and that he stood in bewilderment, unable to reach out and retrieve his loss. Then there's no use in discussing it any more. He said, groping back, trying to answer her. You'd do it for her? Not for her any quicker than for you. I know it looks crooked to you, Duke. I don't blame you for your suspicions. She said with a frankness that seemed more like herself, he thought. She even seemed to be coming back to him in that approach and made him glad. Tell me all about it, Grace. He urged. She came close to him, put her arm about his neck, drew his head down as if to whisper her confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his cheek, his heart was afire in one foolish leap. She put her lips up as if to kiss him, and he, reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her radiant body, bent nearer to take what she seemed to offer. She drew back her hand interposed before his eager lips, shaking her head, denying him prettily. In the morning I'll tell you all in the morning when I meet you to drive the cattle over. She said, Don't say a word, I'll not take no for my answer. She turned quickly to her horse and swung lightly into the saddle. From this perch she leaned toward him her hand on his shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery lure again. In the morning, in the morning you can kiss me, Duke. With that word, that promise, she turned and galloped away. It was late afternoon, and Lambert had faced back toward the ranch house, troubled by all that he could not understand in that morning's meeting, thrilled and fired by all that was sweet to remember. When he met a man who came riding in the haste of one who had business ahead of him and could not wait, he was riding one of Vesta Philbrook's horses, a circumstance that sharpened Lambert's interest in him at once. As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand palm forward in the Indian side of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a narrow face, a mustache that crowded tater legs for the championship of buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his back. I didn't steal his horse. He explained with soft real grin as he drew up within arm's length I requisitioned it on the share. Yes, sir, said Lambert, not quite taking him for granted, no intention of letting him pass on with that explanation. Miss Philbrook said I'd run across you up this way. The officer produced his badge, his commission, his card, his letterhead, his credentials of undoubted strength. On the proof thus supplied, Lambert shook hands with him. I guess everybody else in the county knows me. This is my second term, never was taken for a horse-thief before. Sheriff said solemn as a crow as he put his papers away. I'm a stranger in this country. I don't know anybody. Nobody knows me. So you'll not take it as a slight that I didn't recognize you, Mr. Sheriff. No harm done, Duke. No harm done. Well, I guess you're a little wider known than you make out. I didn't bring a man along with me because I knew you were up here at Philbrook's. Hold up your hand to be sworn. What's the occasion? Lambert inquired, making no move to comply with the order. Got a warrant for this man, Kerr, over south of here, and I want you to go with me. Kerr's a bad egg and a nest of bad eggs. There's likely to be too much trouble for one man to handle alone. You do solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the... Well, Minimus, Sheriff Lambert demured. I don't know that I want to mix up in... It's not for you to say what you want to do. That's my business, the Sheriff said sharply. He forthwith deputized Lambert and gave him a duplicate of the warrant. You don't need it, but it'll clear your mind of all doubt of your power, he explained. Can we get through this fence? Up here, six or seven miles, just opposite Kerr's place. I'd like to go on to the house and change horses. I've rode this one over forty miles today already. The Sheriff agreed. Where's that outlaw you won from Jim Wilder? he inquired, turning his eyes on Lambert in friendly appreciation. I'll ride him. Lambert returned briefly. What's Kerr been up to? Mortgage to a bunch of cattle he's got over there to three different banks. He went down a couple of days ago trying to put through another loan. The investigation that the banker started laid him bare. He promised Kerr to come up tomorrow and look over his security and pass the word on to the accounting attorney. Kerr said he'd just bought five hundred head of stock. He wanted to raise the loan on them. Five hundred, said Lambert mechanically, repeating the Sheriff's word, doing some calculating of his own. He ain't got any that ain't blanketed with mortgage papers so thick already, they'd go through a blizzard, never know it. His scheme was to raise five or six thousand dollars more on that outfit, skip the country. And Grace Kerr had relied on his infatuation for her to work on him for the loan to carry cattle. Lambert could not believe that it was all her scheme but it seemed incredible that a man as shrewdly dishonest as Kerr would entertain a plan that promised so little outlook of success. They must have believed over at Kerr's that they had him pretty well on the line. But Kerr had figured too surely on having his neighbor's cattle to show the banker to stake all on the chance of Grace being able to wedle him into the scheme. If he couldn't get them by a seduction he meant to take them in a raid. Grace never intended to come to meet him in the morning alone. One crime more would amount to little in addition to what Kerr had done already. And it would be a trick on which he would pride himself and laugh over all the rest of his life. It seems certain now that Grace's friendliness all along had been laid on a false pretense with the one intention of beguiling him to his disgrace, his destruction. If disgrace could not be accomplished without it. As he rode Whetstone now quite recovered from his scorching save for the hair on his once fine tail beside the sheriff Lambert had some uneasy cogitations on his sentimental blindness of the past. On the good, honest advice that Vesta Philbrook had given him blood was blood after all. If the source of it was base it was too much to hope that a little removal, a little dilution would ennoble it. She had lived there all her life, the associate of thieves and rascals. Her way of looking on men and property must naturally be that of the depredator, the pillager, the thief. And yet thought he thumb in the pocket of his hairy vest where the little handkerchief lay and yet. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of the Duke of Chimney Butte the revox recording is in the public domain The Duke of Chimney Butte by G. W. Ogden Chapter 22 The Will of the Wisp The Kerr Ranch buildings were more than a mile away from the point where Lambert and the sheriff halted to look down on them. The ranch house was a structure of logs from which the bark had been stripped and which had weathered white as bones. Long and low suggesting spaciousness and comfort and is closed about by a white picket fence. A winding trace of trees and brushwood marked the course of the stream that ran behind it. On the brink of this little water where it flashed free of the tangled willows there was a corral and stables. But no sign of either animal or human life about the place. He may be out with a cattle, Lambert suggested. I will wait for him to come back if he is. He is sure to be home between now and tomorrow. So that was her home. That was the roof that had sheltered her while she grew up in her loveliness. The soft call of his romance came whispering to him again. Surely there was no a tender of blood to rise up against her and make her unclean. He would have sworn that moment if put to the test that she was innocent of any knowing attempt to involve him in his disgrace. The gate of the world stood open to them to go away from this harsh land and forget all that had gone before. As the gate of his heart was open for all the love that it contained to rush out and embrace her and purge her of the unfortunate accident of her birth. After this poor child she would need a friend as never before, with only her stepmother as she had told him in the world to befriend her, a man's hand, a man's heart. I'll take the front door, said the sheriff, you watch the back. Lambert came out of his softening dream down through the hard facts in the case before him with a jolt. They were in half a mile of the house approaching it from the front. He saw that it was built in the shape of an L, the base of the letter to the left of them cutting off a view of the angle. He may see us in time to duck, the sheriff said, and you can bank on it he's got a horse saddled around there at the back door. If he comes your way, don't fool with him. Let him have it where he lives. They had not closed up half the distance between them and the house when two horsemen rode suddenly around the corner of the L and through the wide gate in the picket fence. Outside the fence they separated with a suddenness of a pre-concerted plan starting away in opposite directions. Each wore a white hat and from that distance they appeared as much alike in size and bearing as a man in his reflection. The sheriff swore a surprised oath at sight of them and their cunning plan to confuse and divide the pursuing force. Which one of them curry, he shouted, as he leaned in his saddle, urging his horse on for all that it could do. I don't know, Lambert returned. I'll chance this one, said the sheriff pointing, take the other fellow. Lambert knew that one of them was Grace Kerr, that he could not tell which. He up-brided himself, not willing that she should be subjected to the indignity of pursuit. It was a clever trick, but the preparation for it and the readiness with which it was put into play seemed to reflect a doubt of her entire innocence in her father's dishonest transaction. Still, it was no more than natural that she should bend every faculty through the assistance of her father in escaping the penalty of his crimes. He would do it himself under alike conditions. The unnatural would be the other course. These things he thought as he rode into the setting sun in pursuit of the fugitive, designated by the sheriff, Whetstone was fresh and eager after his long rest in spite of the twelve or fifteen miles which he had covered already between the two ranches. Lambert held him in doubtful whether he would be able to overtake the fleeing rider before dark with distance and a fresh horse that he or she had. If Kerr rode ahead of him, then he must be overtaken before night gave him sanctuary. If Grace it was only necessary to come close enough to her to make sure, then let her go her way untroubled. He held the distance pretty well between them till sundown. When he felt the time had come to close in and settle the doubt, Whetstone still mainly reserved tireless deep-winded creature that he was. Lambert leaned over his neck, caressed him, spoke into the ear that tipped watchfully back. They were in fairly smooth country, stretches of thin grassland and broken barrens, but beyond them a few miles the hills rose treeless and done, offering refuge for the one who fled. Pursuit there would be difficult by day impossible by night. Whetstone quickened at his master's encouragement, pushing the race hard for the one who led, cutting down the distance so rapidly that it seemed to just be purposely delaying. Half an hour or more of daylight and it would be over. The rider in the lead had driven his or her horse too hard at the beginning, leaving no recovery of wind. Lambert remarked its weariness as he took the next hill, laboring on in short stiff jumps. At the top the rider held in, as if to let the animal blow. It stood with nose close to the ground, weariness in every line. The sky was bright beyond horse and the line of the hill. Against it the picture stood black as a shadow, but with an unmistakable pose and a rider that made Lambert's heart jump and grow glad. It was Grace. Chance had been kind to him again, leading him in the way his heart would have gone if it had been given choice. She looked back, turning with a hand on the cantilever saddle. He waved his hand to assure her, but she did not seem to read the friendly signal, for he rode on again, disappearing over the hill before he reached the crest. He plunged down after her, not sparing his horse where he should have spared him, urging him on when they struck the level again. There was no thought in him of what's done now, only of Grace. He must overtake her in the quickest possible time and convince her of his friendly sympathy. He must console and comfort her in this hour of need. Brave little thing to draw him off that way into the very edge of night, that wild country ahead of her, for fear he would come close enough to recognize her and turn back to help the sheriff on the true trail. That's what was in her mind. She thought he hadn't recognized her, and was still fleeing to draw him as far away as possible by dark. When he could come within shouting distance of her, he could make his intention plain. To that end he pushed on. Her horse had shown a fresh impulse of speed, a little further ahead. They were drawing close to the hills now with the growth of harsh and thorny brushwood in the low places along the runlets of dry streams. Poor little bird, fleeing from him, luring him on like a trembling quail that flutters before one's feet in the wheat to draw him away from her nest. She didn't know the compassion of his heart, the tenderness in which strained to her over the intervening space. He forgot all, he forgave all, in the soft pleading of romance, which came back to him like a well-loved melody. He fretted that dusk was falling so fast, in the little strips of valley growing narrower as he proceeded between the abrupt hills, it was so nearly dark already that she appeared only dimly ahead of him, urging her horse on with unsparing hand. It seemed that she must have some objective ahead of her, some refuge, but she strained to make some help that she hoped he wondered if it might be the cow-camp and felt a cold end-draft on the hot tenderness of his heart for a moment. But no, it could not be the cow-camp. There was no sign that grazing herds had been there lately. She was running because she was afraid to have him overtake her in the dusk, running to prolong the race until she could elude him in the dark, afraid of him, who loved her so. They were entering the desolation of the hills on the sides of the thin strip down which he pursued her. There were great dark rocks, as big as cottages along a village street. He shouted, calling her name, fearful that he would lose her in this broken country in the fast, deepening night. Although she was not more than two hundred yards ahead of him now, she did not seem to hear. In a moment she turned the base of a great rock, and there he lost her. The valley split a few rods beyond that point, broadening a little, still set with its fantastic black monuments of splintered rock. It was impossible to see among them in either direction as far as Grace had been in the lead. When she passed out of his sight, he pulled up and shouted again, an appeal of tender concern in her name. There was no reply, no sound of her fleeing horse. He leaned to look at the ground for tracks, no trace of her passing on the hard earth with its magy growth of grass, on a little way stopping to call her once more. His voice went echoing in that quiet place. There was no reply. He turned back, thinking she must have gone down the other branch of the valley. Whetstone came to a sudden stop, lifted his head with a jerk. His ears set forward, snorting an alarm. Quick, on his action, there came a shot. Close at hand. Whetstone started with a quavering bound, stumbled to his knees, struggled to rise, and floundered with piteous groans.