to subsequent hostilities reserved.' An inner urge swept the mocking smile from her face and showed it for a moment young and warm. 'I can't tell you how grateful I am for your help to Frank. We both thank you.'
He waved a hand airily. 'Think nothing of it, Miss Lovell. I'm not a noble character. The idea came to me that I would enjoy stirring up the animals. So I used Frank as a prod.'
As she looked at this lean brown man with the compelling devil-may-care charm, a strange heat ran through her. For years she had hated him. Even now resentment boiled up in her that they should be under so great an obligation to their traditional enemy. She detested his cool, poised assurance, though she felt certain that back of the reckless confidence was the stark courage to justify it. He lived by no settled principle, and his wild youth had been a scandal in the valley. Yet some magnetized current reached out from him and drew her with a force that washed away the barriers her strong young will had built. He was intensely masculine. She felt it in his thick crisp reddish hair, in the bone conformation of his face, in the smooth rhythmic co-ordination of his muscular system.
Dale beat down the wave of emotion sweeping over her. She spoke with light sarcasm. 'I must thank you, too, for telling me off so candidly. I'm fortunate to have such a model character here to point out to me my duty. I'll pocket my silly pride, as you suggest, and start from scratch.'
Frank was delighted not to be put in the doghouse. He raised a question. 'What about the seventeen hundred I owe?'
'We'll have to pay it,' Dale said. 'You can't welsh.'
'Don't be silly,' Hal told them bluntly. 'They have been stealing your stock. The poker games were fixed for Frank to lose. He would be a chump to pay.' He passed to another point. 'It's not my business, maybe. But what are you going to do about Frawley?'
'He's in the raids as deep as any of them,' Frank said.
'We'll fire him, of course,' Dale replied. 'By the way, where is he? He should have been here before this. We were going to look over some beef stuff a Greeley man wants to buy.'
'Maybe he has ducked out,' Frank hazarded.
'No,' Hal differed. 'He'll try to bull it through. Jobs like his aren't a dime a dozen. If he loses out here, he will never get a chance to be foreman of another big outfit. But if you fire him, remember this. He's a vindictive fellow. No doubt he has been tipping off Black's gang where and when to raid your pastures. Yet, if you give him his time, he will become a bitter enemy.'
'Better that than a false friend who is selling us out.'
A heavy step sounded on the porch. Frawley's big form appeared in the doorway. At sight of Stevens there jumped to the light blue eyes in the beefy face a look so startled that it was akin to fear. The man he had been lying on the ridge to kill since before dawn was here to confront him.
Although Frawley must have known there was likely to be a blow-up between him and Dale, he took a bold, domineering line.
'What's that man doing in this house?' he demanded.
'Frank and I decide who comes here,' she answered. 'And you are one we won't have on the place any longer. You're through working for the Seven Up. Get your time and pack up your roll.'
'Why am I through?' he asked stormily.
'Because we no longer want you on the place.'
'That's no answer. I'm asking you why.'
'I'll tell you why.' Her face lost its soft contours. The eyes grew hard and bright with anger. 'You don't know what loyalty is. You have done your best to lead Frank astray — to ruin him with drink and gambling, in order to make money out of it. You are one of a gang of thieves, the lowest one of the lot, since you are selling out the employers who promoted you from a forty-dollar-a-month job to a responsible position.'
'It's a lie,' Frawley blustered. 'You can't prove it.' . 'If I could prove it, I would send you to the penitentiary. Maybe it will come to that yet. But at least I can have you kicked off the ranch as a lowdown scoundrel the decent boys in the bunkhouse won't want to associate with. You are leaving the Seven Up, and I'll tell you that it will be my business to see that you are never foreman again on any Arizona ranch.'
'You think you are God Almighty, don't you?' the ex-foreman sneered. 'I'll be tickled to leave an outfit bossed by a shrew who hasn't cow sense enough to tell a heifer from a steer.'
'I want you off the place as soon as you can pack,' she told the discharged man sharply.
'I'll go when I get good and ready,' he retorted. 'And that will be after your brother pays me five hundred dollars he owes.'
'I don't have to pay money lost in a crooked game,' Frank interposed.
'Who says the game was crooked? You'll pay. Or I'll take it out of your hide.'
Hal spoke, mildly. 'I say it was crooked. The rest of you had been taking Frank for a ride all spring.'
Frawley swung round on him. 'You're a hell of a fine witness, a fellow with a reputation like yours.' The ex- foreman turned back to the mistress of the ranch. 'Last night he barged in on our poker game, and after he had lost held us up with a gun. He and your fine brother robbed our bank. They both belong in the penitentiary, and that's where we aim to send them.'
'I'm not interested,' Dale said curtly. 'Clear out.'
'You claim for years that you hate this fellow. His father shot and 'most killed your dad. All your riders know how unfriendly you've been to the M K. Now all of a sudden you are as thick with him as three in a bed. You know what a bad egg he is, but when he cooks up these lies against me you side with him.' Frawley broke off from his harsh scolding to laugh raucously. 'I reckon the settlers in this valley will think there is a reason.'
Frank stepped forward, his face white with anger. 'Get out of here, you scoundrel, or I'll have you whipped from the ranch.'
'You will, eh?'
The bully had lost control of his temper completely. His heavy fist lifted to the point of Frank's jaw. The boy staggered back and went down to the carpet in a huddled heap.
Dale flew to help her unconscious brother.
In a quiet, cool voice Hal made a proposition to Frawley. 'Yesterday you wanted to tear me in two. How would you like to step outside and try it now?'
The infuriated ruffian sized up his opponent, a lithe, graceful man who weighed fifty pounds less than he, with smooth muscles that did not bulge. He had the reputation of being a good fighter for his weight, but Frawley did not believe there was a man alive who could give him fifty pounds and stand up against him. The foreman was a notorious brawler, and he was strong as an ox.
'You're on,' he said exultantly. 'Let's go.'
Three men were standing outside the bunkhouse waiting for orders. Frawley called to them. 'Come and see the show, boys. Somebody is going to get the licking of his life.'
He threw his coat to one of them and doubled his fists.
'Just a moment,' Hal said. 'We're both armed. Before we start this argument we'll give our guns to the boys.'
His big foe hesitated an instant before he said,' Suits me.' He handed his revolver to one of the men. 'Here, take this, Casey. I can knock the living daylights out of this buttinski with nothing but my fists.'
Hal turned over his weapon to the cowboy. He said, chuckling, 'You can get my last words later.'
Beside his huge opponent Hal seemed slight. There was not an ounce of unnecessary weight on him anywhere. Feet, hips, and hands were in perfect co-ordination, but the massive shoulders and body of Frawley looked overpowering. They packed tremendous force.
'Bet you a buck Stevens doesn't last five minutes, Bill,' Casey said to one of the other cowboys.
Bill shook his head. 'No dice. Stevens is a good man, but he hasn't the weight to beat Jim.'
Frawley came in flatfooted and heavy, swinging hard, with a piledriving force that might have felled a steer. Hal's head moved a few inches. As the big fist scraped over his shoulder his left pumped into the belly of the foreman. That first blow told Hal something he wanted to know. The bully had been a heavy drinker for years, and the midriff that had once been a tight band of steel was now paunchy and soft. The big man's grunt was evidence of its vulnerability.
Hal danced away, his footwork worth seeing as he circled his foe. The motions of arms, shoulders, and long slim body were as rhythmic as the pistons of well-oiled machinery. He had been the middleweight champion of his
