'There ain't a new one--yet,' Raven told him, and lifting his glass added, 'The marshal.'
Pete grinned foolishly as he raised his glass with the rest, and said thickly, 'Here's hopin''--he paused a second and a man guffawed--'he comes back.'
'O' course, we're all wishin' that,' the saloon-keeper agreed, and smiled understandingly at the deputy.
The smile confirmed the little man's suspicions, and sent him back to his quarters in an unusually thoughtful frame of mind.
* * *
The marshal received an enthusiastic welcome at the Box B; in the eyes of its owner nothing was too good for the man who had rescued Tonia and punished her assailant. He had heard the details from the girl's own lips, and only her urgent entreaties had kept him from rounding up his outfit and going in search of the offender. He listened with amazement and growing anger to the marshal's account of Moraga's attempted vengeance.
'That Greaser's gettin' too brash whatever,' he said. ' 'Bout time he was abolished. Yu got that paper with yu? Mebbe I know the writin'.'
When the marshal produced it the young man stared in puzzled bewilderment.
'If it didn't seem ridic'lous I'd have said Potter wrote that,' he pronounced. 'But he wouldn't be agin yu or for the Greaser.'
'It ain't Raven's fist, I s'pose, or Leeson's?'
'Dunno 'bout Leeson--shouldn't think he could write so good, but it certainly ain't Raven. What's put them in yore mind?'
The marshal told of the 88 rider's attempt to bushwhack him, and the rancher's eyes widened.
'Yu think Seth put him up to it?'
'I dunno, Andy, an' that's a fact. I'm gropin' in the dark. Leeson is one o' Raven's men, an' unless he's been told different, he'd figure me the same, seein' that Raven made me marshal.'
Both were silent for a few moments, and then Green said, 'Don't think I'm hornin' in, Andy, but did yore dad owe Raven money?'
'Fifteen thousand, though I didn't know of it till I saw the note,' Bordene replied. 'I paid it off. Why?'
'When he drew out that five thousand the mornin' he was--got, he told Potter it was to square a debt, an' he went to the Red Ace,' the marshal said quietly. 'Raven was out--at the 88. Yu have the note?'
He studied the cancelled document carefully. 'That figure one could 'a' been put in after it was wrote,' he pointed out.
'Shore could,' Andy agreed. 'I reckon the Old Man was some careless, but yu got Seth sized up wrong, marshal; he wouldn't play it that low on me.'
Green laughed. 'Well, seein' as yu've paid, I s'pose it don't do no good to worry about it,' he said. 'Aimin' to try another drive?'
'Yeah, an' it's goin' through this time, yu bet vu,' Bordene said.
'Don't camp too near Shiverin' Sand,' Green warned.
'Seth was tellin' me the same thing yestiddy,' Andy smiled. 'I said I hadn't made no plans.'
'Let it be known yu expect to bed down in The Pocket again, an' then change yore mind,' the marshal advised.
'Yo're a suspicious jigger, but it ain't a bad notion,' the other agreed.
* * *
When his guests had departed on the following morning, Andy set out for the Double S to take Tonia riding. He soon noticed that Reuben Sarel was not his jovial self, and that there was a tiny crease between the girl's level eyebrows.
'What's troublin' Uncle this bright mornin'?' he asked as they trotted away. 'Not losin' weight, is he?'
'Losing cows, Andy,' she told him, 'and we don't know how. I think, too, he's worrying about that Mexican.'
The young man snorted. 'That fella's becomin' a menace to the country,' he said, and told of the guerrilla's latest exploit.
The girl shivered; she knew what the victim of it must have endured. 'Are the men around here going to stand for that?' she asked indignantly.
'They ain't,' Andy assured her. 'When I get my drive through something goin' to be done; but, for now, the marshal wants it kept quiet.'
'I shall be glad when you are back, Andy,' the girl said. 'I'm a bit scared, I think.'
'Of that dirty Greaser?' he asked.
'No--not altogether,' she said slowly. 'I can't explain it, but I've had a 'breakers ahead' sort of feeling, and that man Raven has begun visiting the Double S.'
Bordene laughed. 'Nothin' to that, Tonia,' he replied. 'I s'pose he had business with Reuben.'
'That's the excuse, of course, but if it weren't so absurd I'd say he came to see me,' Tonia told him. 'Yesterday he brought me a box of candy, and--he pays me compliments.'
Andy's eyebrows rose. 'Yu think he's courtin' yu?' he gasped incredulously. 'Why, he's a breed. Ain't Reuben showed him the door?'
'He sings praises; I think he's afraid of him in some way,' Tonia replied.
'My Gawd!' the young man exploded. 'Seth Raven shinin' up to yu--a Sarel? Well, if that ain't the frozen limit.' He looked at her closely. 'Yu still don't like the fella, Tonia?'
'I detest him,' was her emphatic reply. 'To me he always suggests what they call him, 'The Vulture,' rapacious, cruel, a bird of prey.'
For some time the rancher rode in moody silence; he was getting a new angle on the man he had hitherto regarded as a good sort. The seeds of doubt sown in his mind by the marshal were beginning to germinate, fed by this latest factor. Had the note been tampered with? Was the breaking up of his drive herd the word of the 88? He recalled the poker game, in which he had a shrewd suspicion that Green had saved him from being skinned--for he now knew that Pardoe was a not too scrupulous professional gambler. Were these all part of a plan to put a rival out of the running? The questions milled in his mind and he could find no satisfactory answers. It was the girl who spoke first:
'Too bad to bother you with my little troubles, Andy. Especially when you have bigger ones of your own.'
'Shucks! I hope yu'll allus come to me, Tonia, Yu know I'd do anythin'.'
There was an undercurrent of feeling in the voice and the girl steered from the subject. 'You drive to- morrow?' she asked.
'Yeah. I've got a good bunch--all hand-picked--an' if I lose 'em this time I'll be comin' to yu for a job, Tonia.'
For an instant she looked at him in startled surprise, but his grin reassured her, and she replied in the same vein: 'What sort of job would you like, Andy? But there, you'll make it this trip; bad luck, like lightning, never strikes twice in the same place.'
The soft, sweet voice and the heartening warm smile in her eyes were almost irresistible; he ached to take her in his arms and tell her that the job he wanted was to care for and shield her all the days of his life. But his man's pride kept him silent. When he came back, his ranch cleared of debt--
So the golden moment passed.
CHAPTER XVII
The marshal's return to Lawless excited a great deal of curiosity which had to remain unsatisfied. His own explanation was that he had been absent on business connected with his office, and he treated any suggestion that he had been kidnapped by El Diablo with a tolerant smile, an attitude which aroused Pete's personal wrath.
'What's the grand idea?' he enquired. 'Here's me workin' up a case agin the Greaser an' yu percolate in an' knock it flat. Makes me look a fool.'
'I can't see that yore appearance has altered the littlest bit,' the marshal told him, with that disarming grin of his. 'We gotta walk in the water, ol'-timer; yu watch Raven's face when I say my little piece.'
They had not long to wait, for the saloon-keeper came in soon afterwards.
''Lo, marshal, so yo're back again all safe an' sound,' he began, with a crooked smile. 'We've shore bin some worried 'bout yu. Barsay here, reckoned yu'd bin carried off by Moraga.'
