Larry looked at him critically. 'I don't like 'em,' he said. 'Don't like what, yu jackass?'
'Them alterations to yore face; it warn't nothin' to chuck a chest about afore, but yu ain't improved it any. It don't balance. Hi ! get off that hat, yu Siwash ! '
For the foreman, sitting down, had deliberately selected the chair on which Larry's Stetson reposed. He stood up and lifted the crushed headgear.
'Time yu had a new one,' he commented, and then, 'There, there, sick folk mustn't get all het up. How's the Princess treatin' yu these days?'
'She's a lady, Don,' the boy replied.
'Yu call me that again an' I'll--tell her yo're a friend o' mine,' Severn threatened.
'For the love o' Mike don't do that,' the invalid implored. 'I'm sorry, Jim, I forgot. Yu ain't told me the reason for the disguise yet.'
It ain't a disguise, yu chump. I had a triflin' argument with Mister Bartholomew last night, that's all.'
'I might 'a' knowed it,' Larry said disgustedly, when he had heard the details. 'The minute I ain't around to look after yu--' He chortled joyously. 'I'll bet he's feelin' sore this glad mornin'.'
'He's got company there,' the foreman reminded him. 'Gosh ! he ain't a man--he's a gorilla.' He rose to go. 'By the way, when yo're around again, if yu meet up with Snap in town, remember yu don't know him. Savvy?'
'Hi! what yu talkin' about?' queried the surprised youth. 'Where's yore blamed hurry? Why can't yu tell a fella--' But Severn had vanished, and Larry swore in vain.
Greatly to his satisfaction, the foreman managed to retreat without meeting the mistressofthe house. In truth, the girl was sitting in her bedroom, staring blankly at the window, and wondering whether she was awake or dreaming. About no pay her customary visit to the sick man, she had paused at the door on hearing Severn's voice, and, though she blushed now to thinkofit, had stayed there to listen. She had heard enough to convince her that the foreman was masquerading under an assumed name, and that her patient was an old friend. Helplessly she strove to fathom the meaningofit all, but had to give it up in despair. The one clear point seemed to be that Larry had deceived her, and at the thought of this she melted into angry tears; there seemed to be no one she could trust.
Larry's surmise as to the ownerofthe Bar B was correct--he was sore both in body and mind. Ashamed to show his damaged face, he sulked in the ranch-house, brooding over his defeat. Penton found him so engaged, and there was a flickerofcontempt in the foreman's expression as he listened.
'Cussin' ain't goin' to git us nowhere,' he said quietly. 'I think I got some news for yu--an' mebbe it ain't good news, neither.'
'There ain't no good news nowadays seemin'ly,' Bart growled. 'Spill it, an' don't take a week.'
'We got all the time there is, an' anyways, I ain't shore,' Penton returned calmly. 'Yu've allus been reckoned more than middlin' swift with a gun, Bart, ain't yu?'
'I never met up with a swifter,' the other admitted.
'Till last night, huh?' Penton proceeded. 'Severn made yu look slow. But yu wasn't--I never seen yu quicker, an' yet he beat yu to it--easy.'
'Well?' said the big man sourly, for he did not relish this rubbing inofhis discomfiture.
'Who cleaned up Tarman's gang over to Hatchett's Folly?' the foreman asked, and Bartholomew straightened up in his chair.
'Sudden,' he said. 'Yu tellin' me that Severn is--'
'I'm on'y guessin',' Penton broke in. 'It sticks in my mind that Sudden's front name turned out to be Donald, an' that young side-kicker o' Severn's called him `Don' that night in the `Come Again'.'
The Bar B owner's swarthy face went a shade paler. If his foreman was right, he himself must have stood on the very brinkofthe Valley of Shadows when he had tried to draw on Severn. After the utter destruction of Tarman's bandofrange thieves,* Sudden, the so-called outlaw, had vanished, merged in the personalityofa law-abiding cattleman, but his fame as a fighter was not forgotten.
Bart sat silent, his damaged lips pursed into an ugly pout. When at length he looked up there was dogged determination in his outthrust jaw.
'Sudden or no, he's human, an' I'll get him,' he snarled. 'If the yarns about him is true, he come mighty near bein' stretched once or twice, an' his luck can't last for ever. Now, see here, keep this notion behind yore teeth; if it gets known in Hope, some o' them cowardly coyotes'll eat outa his hand from sheer funk.'
'That's Gawspel truth,' Penton agreed. 'As for gettin' him, we gotta, or he'll get us. My medicine is a bullet in the back, but mebbe vu has other ideas.'
'I gotta card up my sleeve no one else knows f,' Bart said. 'When the time comes I'll play that same; it's a shore winner, an' will take the pot.'
Long after Penton had gone, the rancher sat there, chewing the buttofhis cigar, his forehead ridged in a heavy frown. Despite his boastfulness, his foreman's news had shaken him. But the Lazy M was a prize worth fighting for, and--he hungered for the girl. A curse broke from his lips as he recalled their last meeting.
'I'll have her, willing or unwilling,' he grated. 'An' as for that damned interloper--'
Big Boy, having zigzagged his pony up the steep, sandy sideofa gully and forced his way through the thick scrub at the top, suddenly pulled up with an oathofastonishment. Five or six hundred yards away on the open range, half a dozen men were leisurely gathering a herdofsteers which he knew to be the property of the Lazy M. He did not recognise the men, but the white handkerchiefs concealing the lower part of their faces told him all that was necessary. He tried to back into the brush unseen, but the vicious humofa bullet past his ear warned him that they had been on the watch. Snatching out his rifle, he dived from the saddle and gained the shelterofa tangled tussockofgrass. He had no sooner accomplished this than there came the thudofa striking slug, followed by the report, and his horse crashed down, quivered and lay still.
Thrusting the muzzleofhis Winchester through the grass, he fired three rapid rounds, and had the satisfaction of seeing oneofthe strangers lurch in his saddle.
'Yu got me, yu coyotes,' he snarled, 'but I'll shore make yu pay first.'
For he knew his situation was hopeless; they could surround and shoot him down at their leisure. To his surprise, however, they seemed more intent on getting the cattle outofrange, and though he fired several times without doing any more damage, no shots came in reply. As quickly as possible, the herd was rounded up and driven off by the horsemen. When the raiders had become a mere blot on the plain, the cowboy arose from his placeofconcealment.
'Well, if that don't beat ice in hell,' he ejaculated. He surveyed his dead mount ruefully. 'Yu warn't never a prizewinner, old fella, but I'd shore give a coupla months' pay for yu now,' he said. 'I must be near ten miles from the ranch, cuss the rotten luck ! '
To men who almost live on horseback, walking is an abomination, and the puncher shuddered at the prospectofa longtramp under the blazing sun in his tight high-heeled boots, and carrying a forty-pound saddle in addition to his rifle and other trappings. But it had to be done; the newsofthe robbery must be got to the Lazy M with all speed, and bestowing another hearty curse on those responsible, he set out.
The journey proved to be all he anticipated, and more. The first mile or two brought blisters on his feet, and every step became an agony. The saddle, which for convenience and as a protection from the sun, he carried on his head, seemed to weigh double what he knew it did, and the heavy wooden stirrups banged his body as he staggered over the stretchesofsand and bunch-grass, and every bump brought blasphemy until his parched throat could no longer form the phrases.
Plugging doggedly on, sometimes only at the pace a man could crawl, he estimated he had done half the trip. Then he came upon a little stream, fringed with willows and cottonwoods, and after drinking and refilling his canteen, he flung himself down to rest in the welcome shade. The approachofevening brought relief from the scorching sun, but none for the blistered extremitiesofthe traveller. Staggering, stumbling, and whispering strange oaths, he plodded on, and at last, through the gathering gloom, he glimpsed a light shining amidst the black bulk of buildings. He almost crawled the final few hundred yards, and lurching into the bunkhouse, flung the saddle on the floor and flopped into the nearest chair.
'What yu bin walkin' for?' Linley asked.
''Cause I ain't got no wings, yu lunkhead,' retorted the weary one. 'Gimme some grub an' fetch Jim.'
Severn heard the story in silence.
'White Masks again, huh?' he said. 'An' they took about fifty head?'
