except Manuel, who was removing the used dishes.
'Tell me about it,' she said.
'Brick followed us down an alley,' Wall explained. 'And Hal got onto it. We trapped him back of the Tejon house. When he tried to get away over the wall, Hal was waiting there and knocked him out. We turned him over to Sheriff Elbert at Fair Play.'
'It's a pity you didn't kill him,' Helen said vindictively. 'That man oughtn't to be alive.'
'Right you are,' Wall agreed. 'But we couldn't kill a prisoner who had no gun.'
'I suppose not.' She made a gesture of protest. 'But we'll all live to be sorry for it.'
Hal and Tom both thought that might be true.
'Dale Lovell called me up at the house last night,' Helen said to Stevens. 'She knew that you were on your way to Casa Rita and wanted to make sure there had not been any trouble in town.'
'And you told her?' Hal asked.
'I told her Brick Fenwick had been here making trouble, but that as far as I knew you had not met him.'
'She worries too much about what that young ruffian and his friends will do. After all, they are only a few jumps ahead of the law. With Uncle Sam after them, they won't go far. But I'll phone her after I reach Casa Rita.'
Helen did not think she worried a bit too much and said so. There were probably a dozen outlaws implicated in these cattle raids. If they were caught, all of them would be given stiff terms in prison, except the ones who would be executed. They were desperate men, and as they saw it their safety lay in rubbing out the man who was drawing the net about them closer. If that was not reason enough to fear them, a more personal one could be added. They hated Stevens for the humiliating defeats he had put upon them, and they included his friends in this.
The red-headed girl looked pointedly at Wall as she finished her little harangue. The hot color was in her cheeks, for she did not want him to think her interest was too great.
His easy smile discounted her alarm. 'I'll treat you to a coke at the drugstore on the day these crooks are sent to Alcatraz in irons, and I'll bring Hal with me. That's a promise.' He put a rider on it. 'Unless Uncle Sam wants me before that time. I hear he is beginning to take cripples into the service.'
Tom had lost two fingers on his right hand when they got caught in a rope with a plunging four-year-old steer at the other end. But he did not regard himself as a cripple even if the draft board did. So far he did not seem to be wanted on land, sea, or in the air. But he still had hopes.
DALE LOVELL had spent a restless night, filled with dreams of sudden death to the man she loved. Helen had told her that Brick Fenwick was in town and that Tom Wall had escaped being shot down only by his presence of mind. Very guardedly Hal Stevens had mentioned over the telephone that he was leaving for Casa Rita to join Arnold. Since the line was a two-party one, it was possible that somebody connected with the Black gang had been listening. That would explain Brick's presence at Big Bridge. He might be there lying in wait for Hal.
She was up early, spurred by a sudden decision to go to town and make sure there had been no trouble there. With no breakfast except a cup of coffee, she drove down to the valley road and headed for town. The highway followed the course of the river, crossing the stream three times in the first four miles.
The second bridge was a narrow one, with just room enough for two cars to pass. Another automobile was approaching from the other direction, and she waited for it to go by. The driver of it, while still on the bridge, braked swiftly and stopped in the center of the road. He sat there for a moment glaring at her, then got out of the car and lumbered heavily toward her. Early in the morning though it was, Dale could see that Frawley had been drinking. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy.
The other man in the seat called to him, 'Hold on, Jim,' and scrambled out after him. He was Tick Black. Much as Dale disliked and distrusted him, she was glad of his presence.
'Please get out of the middle of the road and let me pass,' she said, her voice a sharp imperative.
'I'll move when I get ready,' Frawley answered. 'I haven't seen my little boss alone since she fired me. It will be nice to chin over old times.'
'I have nothing to say to you, sir,' the young woman told him stiffly, a touch of arrogance in tone and manner.
In spite of her fine-lined grace and vivid good looks, this girl reminded Tick Black of her father. Her mouth and chin were firm, and from the dark lovely eyes an indomitable resolution flashed.
'Don't get hoity-toity with me, you little devil,' her former foreman cried. 'I've got plenty to say to you.'
'Now — now, Jim, go slow,' cautioned Black. 'You're talking to a young lady, not to those killers Stevens and Wall.'
'I know who I'm talking to — an obstinate bossy shrew who thinks she can run this whole valley. I aim to show her about that.'
He flung open the car door, intending to drag her from the seat. His hand stopped halfway toward her, for she was holding quite steadily, pointed at his big bulging stomach, a small but businesslike revolver. The dark blood poured into his swollen face. The thought was in his mind to brush aside the gun and drag her out, so heady was his rage.
She read his urge and forestalled it. 'Don't!' she ordered, a low and deadly warning in the word.
The anger did not drain out of his face, but there was a whisper of doubt that reached his eyes. She was just vixen enough to shoot him, he thought. He was not drunk enough to risk that. Better talk her out of it before he went any further.
'You wouldn't dare shoot,' he blustered.
Dale did not answer that challenge in words. She let the hard cold glitter in her eyes deny it.
Black caught the arm of the infuriated man and tried to pull him back. 'Let's get outa here, Jim,' he begged. 'You're drunk.'
'Lemme go!' Frawley cried. 'I'm gonna show this wench she can't run over me.'
He tore away from Black's tight grip, and in doing so threw himself back toward the car. Dale had lowered the gun, thinking the danger of attack past, but as his huge body plunged forward, due to his effort to free himself, her finger tightened on the trigger. The gun was discharged. Frawley fell back a step or two, amazement stamped on his bloated face. A hand caught at his thigh.
'My God, the little devil has shot me!' he cried.
A car had rumbled over the bridge and stopped. From it a man descended and ran toward the group. He was Tom Wall. He pushed past the men to join Miss Lovell.
'I've shot him!' Dale cried, white to the lips. 'I thought—' She stopped, appalled at what she had done.
'Think nothing of it,' Tom told her coolly. 'He asked for it, didn't he?' Already his quick eyes had read the situation. The car stopped in the middle of the road, the glimpse of the actual shooting he had seen, told him the story. Frawley had been charging toward her when she fired. That would be enough for any court, if the affair ever came to a trial.
Like many men who have never been ill, the big ruffian was very much frightened.
'I'm bleeding to death!' he cried. 'Get me to a doctor.'
'Let's take a look at your wound,' Wall said, and to the girl added a word, 'Wait here, Miss Lovell.'
The two men supported Frawley to the car he had been driving. They put him in the back seat and examined the wound, which looked to Tom not a serious one.
'Just ripped a slice of flesh off,' he said. 'Hold a handkerchief over it and get to town. A doc will fix you up in two shakes of a cow's tail.'
'We don't want to compromise Miss Lovell,' Black suggested. 'Better give it out that Jim shot himself by accident.'
Tom looked at the thin-lipped mouth in the foxlike face of the old man. 'You're mighty particular to shield Miss Lovell, aren't you, Tick?' he said, with dry irony.
'We wouldn't want a story to get out that she is going around shooting folks she don't like.'
'That is not quite the story people would tell,' Tom answered. 'I saw the shooting. If Frawley had been killed,
