been to the smoke when he spoke. While they watched the signal ceased and reappeared three more times, then faded out.
`Do yu reckon it might be West?' asked Larry.
`No tellin' an' it's too far away to investigate,' came the answer. `Yu seem sot on the idea that his meetin' up with us wasn't an accident.'
`I was studyin' him mighty careful. This may be all a dodge to get yu to the Y Z.'
`I'm agoin' to risk it anyway, but there's no call--' `We done settled that a'ready.'
They resumed their way, leisurely, for they had no desire to reach the ranch before dark. Slow, as they were, however, it was barely dusk when, hidden in the thick brush bordering the trail, they saw the ranch buildings a quarter of a mile distant. Larry tied his pony.
`Yu stay here,' he said. `I'll sneak up a-foot an' have a look-see.'
Green nodded, and rolling himself a cigarette, sat down to wait. Presently his quick ear caught the sound of hoof-beats and peering out he saw Noreen cantering down the trail. Evidently she had been for one of her afternoon rides and was returning home. He noted, with an ironical spasm of satisfaction, that Tarman was not with her and that she was riding Blue. After a moment of indecision, he stepped into view, removing his hat as he did so. The girl would have ridden past, but the horse, with a little whicker of pleasure, came straight to him. The cowpuncher smiled bitterly as he fondled the velvety muzzle.
`A feller was sayin' to me the other day that some hosses are pretty near human but I reckon he understand the facts,' he said.
The girl bit her lip and her face flushed, but she made no further attempt to resume her way.
`What are you doing here?' she asked angrily, and then, noting that he hesitated, she added, `Don't trouble to think up any lie; I know that you are waiting for my father, whom you believe to be one of the men you told me you were looking for, and you want to kill him for some fancied grievance. Oh, if only I had known.'
The man she lashed listened apparently unmoved, though her scorn and contempt were hard to bear.
`I reckon yu got me wrong,' he said patiently, while wondering how she knew. `I came intending to see yore--father, but I ain't goin' to hurt him.' He saw the question in her eyes. `He's got to apologise,' he finished.
`To you?' she asked stormily.
Green shook his head. `No,' he said solemnly. `To a dead man.'
`What do you mean?' the girl queried, impressed in spite of herself by his demeanour. `Is this one of your so-called jokes?' For an instant the steel-blue eyes flashed fire and muscles of his strong mouth corded in nhe effort to maintain his self-control. The girl shivered; she had had a glimpse of a strong man suddenly stirred to anger, and it frightened her. But in a moment the storm had passed and the man's face was set, passionless, immobile again.
`Won't you tell me?' she asked.
`Yore father must do the explainin',' he replied. `I'm givin' yu my word that he's safe, but I've gotta see him, an' I'm goin' to see him. I'm comin' in peace an' I'll go in peace, but if there's any trap laid, well, I guess graves'll be wanted to-morrow. Tell yore father that.'
His voice was harsh, rasping, implacable, and Noreen realised that he was not to be turned from his purpose, and that even did he walk straight into an ambush he would come to the ranch. She nodded dumbly, and the cowpuncher, having pushed the head of the unwilling roan back towards the trail, vanished into the bushes.
When the girl had gone, Green sat down, took out his guns and spun the cylinders to make sure the weapons were in perfect order. He had done his best to ensure that his meeting with Simon should be a peaceable one, but he was not going unprepared for the alternative. He had some black moments when he fell to considering what the girl must be thinking of him, and whether'it would oe better to have told her the whole story. With a shrug of his shoulders he dismissed the idea--she would not have believed him. Presently a twig crackled and Larry appeared.
`Yu make near as much noise as a herd stampeding,' was the greeting he received. `Got any news?'
`All is quiet around the old homestead--too quiet for my likin',' replied the youth, ignoring the insult to his trailing ability. `Didn't see hide nor hair of anyone 'cept the Pretty Lady. She come bustin' in on Vesuvius lookin' some flustered, pushed him in the corral an' hurried into the house. What yu been sayin' to her?'
The older man smiled at the boy's quick-wittedness and gave an account of the interview.
`Guess that makes it easier--lucky she came along,' Larry commented. `She was about our on'y chance o' seein' the Old Man without his goin' on the prod. I don't reckon there'll be any surprise party now.'
`Then yu better wait here for me--no use yu gettin' any deeper in this mess.'
'Skittles! I'm in to my ears now, an' I'm aimin' to stay in.
Yu ain't goin' alone, ol'-timer, an' yu can bet a stack on that.'
Green, having expected nothing else, raised no further objection. Leading their horses, and keeping under cover as much as possible, they started for the ranch-house.
Simon, alone and ill at ease, was sitting in his office, watching the window which opened on to the verandah. Yielding reluctantly to his daughter's plea that he should see the cowpuncher, he had stipulated that she must go to her room. This that she might be out of danger, for he did not believe that the outlaw's profession of peace was sincere. Nevertheless, being not lacking in courage, he meant to play fair. So intent was he on the window by which he expected his visitor to arrive that he did not hear the door, which was at the side of the room, open. Then a quiet voice said:
`Peterson!'
With a sudden start the rancher turned and saw that Green was in the room. Leaning nonchalantly against the wall, his thumbs hooked in his cartridge-belt, the outlaw was regarding him curiously. Here was the man whom for three long years he had wanted to kill. The grin on his face was not pleasant to see, and Simon's right hand instinctively moved nearer to the gun at his hip.
`Don't yu,' warned the visitor, and now there was a deadly chill in his tone. `I could kill yu before you got it out but I've gone back on Bill Evesham an' promised not to harm yu. What I've come for--'
The sentence was never finished, for at that moment a hand pushed open the window, and a triumphant voice cried, `He's here, boys; c'mon, we've got him this time.'
Green whirled savagely on the rancher, his gun flashing into his hand. `So yu laid a trap, did yu?' he snarled. `I oughtta to kill yu for that, yu skunk, but--'
He sent a bullet crashing into the window and a curse came out of the darkness. Almost at the same instant another shot rang out and Old Simon staggered and collapsed on the floor just as Noreen, aroused by the shooting, rushed down to find Tarman standing oy the door, a smoking revolver in his hand. `What has happened?' she cried. `Is Daddy--'
`Sudden has shot him,' Tarman said. `I heard he was comin' here but I arrived too late. I had a shot at him but missed. We'll get him; the place is surrounded.'
`Stand aside, please. I am going in to my father.'
Tarman shook his head. Too risky; there's hot lead flying in there an' some of it might get yu.'
`Which is why you are outside, I suppose,' the girl retorted, and pushing past him flung herself on her knees by her father's body.
Through the swirling smoke Green caught the one look she gave him--a look of horror and loathing. The men outside were firing at the wrecked window, and the outlaw realised that to remain longer in the room was to risk not only his life but that of the girl. To retreat by the way he had come was not possible, for he had seen Tarman at the door and guessed that he was not unaccompanied. Reloading both guns, he sent a hail of bullets ahead of him and sprang out of the window. From the darkness came spiteful flashes of flame and bullets hummed past his ears. A face, indistinguishable in the gloom, rose before him to vanish when he fired. Hands clutched at him and fell away before the hammer-like blows of his pistol-barrels for the weapons were empty now and he could not recharge them. Shrieks and oaths filled the air, and down towards the bunkhouse lights were moving and men were shouting.
Striking blindly right and left, the outlaw forced a way to the edge of the verandah, and leaping the rail, vanished into the night. He had not gone twenty yards when a guarded voice said: `This way, Don, to the right.'
Swerving, he almost staggered into Larry, waiting with the horses by the side of the trail. Gasping for breath,
