and gripped his hand, all the usually loquacious Californian could find to say was: `I'm thankin' yu, partner.'
`S'pose we call it square,' suggested the sick man.
West shook his head. `Not yet,' he said, and then, `I'm stayin' here.'
`I'm right pleased,' Green replied. `I was hopin' yu would.'
Then came Old Simon, who had nearly recovered, and with him Job Leeming. The Frying Pan owner, having regained his cattle, and as he put it, `cleaned up the country,' was in the best of humours. He grinned at the occupant of the bed.
`Humph!' he remarked. `I shall certainly know where to come for a nurse when I get shot up.'
`Miss Noreen has been wonderful; I reckon I wouldn't 'a'made the grade but for her,' Green replied, and the girl flushed at the warmth in his tone and the look which accompanied the words. Job's eyes went from one to the other. Then, with a chuckle, he said :
`I've been havin' an argument with Simon here, an' I'd like yore opinion, Green. Three o' my best punchers, who came to me after bein' given their time at the Y Z, want to renig an' come back, an' Simon is encouragin' them revolutionary notions. I say it ain't fair.'
Green looked at the twinkling eyes and his own crinkled at the corners as he replied :
`Mebbe it ain't, but it's cold common sense all the same. We shore can't get along without Ginger, Dirty, an' Simple.' `We can't, eh?' queried the other.
`He's the new foreman o' the Y Z, on shares,' explained Old Simon. `I figure I owe him that.'
`Yu shore do an' then some,' returned his friend bluntly. `But durn me if I ever see such a feller as yu for grabbin' everythin' in sight. Here's me short-handed, an' wantin' a housekeeper--' He looked quizzically at the girl, who laughed and shook her head at him.
`As I said, grabbin' ' everythin',' he repeated, and then, more soberly, `Say, yu ain't forgettin' that our friend here is totin' a past, are yu?'
The abrupt reminder swept the merriment from their faces, but before anyone could speak, the door opened and in walked Tonk. Close on his heels came Larry.
`The marshal insisted on comin' up an' not wantin' to start a ruckus, I let him,' announced the puncher. `If yu say the word, boss, I'll be pleased to throw him out on his ear.'
`It's all right, Larry,' replied the ranch-owner quietly, and when the puncher had regretfully withdrawn, `What do you want, Tonk?'
`That,' replied the marshal, pointing to the sick man, his pig-like eyes gloating over the ravages illness had left behind. `He is still too weak to be moved,' Noreen said, her face almost as white as that of her charge.
`Oh, I reckon not; yu don't have to be fit an' well to be hanged, anyway.' The brutal retort brought Old Simon to his feet, one hand on his gun, and the marshal shrank back. `Now, see here, Simon,' he protested, `it ain't no use yu a-kickin' agin the law. That feller is wanted, an' I got a posse of a dozen outside a-waitin' to take him.'
The rancher sank back in his chair. `What yu aimin' to do with him?' he asked.
`Tote him to Big Rock, an' then by rail to the capital--they got a fine gaol there,' was the reply.
`Surely you can wait until he's fit to travel,' the girl said indignantly.
`An' give yu a chance to turn him loose agin?' sneered the officer. `No, he comes with me now.'
`He does not,' rasped Simon. `Get the boys together, Job: we'll call this feller's bluff:
The old man's eyes were blazing, and Leeming, whose touchy temper needed but a spark, was already on his feet when a calm voice from the bed interposed: `As the most interested party in this discussion, I reckon I oughtta have a say in it,' the invalid began. `There's no need to call the boys. If Miss Norry will hand me my vest...'
The marshal's hand flew to his pistol `Yu give him his gun an' he dies now,' he screamed at the girl.
`Don't be a fool, Tonk; I've had yu covered since yu came in,' retorted the puncher. `It don't need a gun to crush a toad like yu.'
Over the edge of the sheet peeped the muzzle of a Colt, and the marshal's hand came away from his gun- butt with laughable celerity. Green took the garment the girl passed to him, tore open the lining, and produced some papers and a shining metal star which he tossed on the bed cover.
`That's the badge of a deputy-sheriff, an' here's my authority to wear it, duly made out an' signed by Governor Bleke,' he said. `That gives me the power to arrest yu if I want to, marshal.'
With a shaking hand the officer picked up the document; it might be a bluff, but a glance showed him that it was genuine.
`But yo're Sudden, the outlaw,' he stammered. `I reckon the Governor don't know
`Let me tell yu a little story, marshal,' interrupted the man in the bed. `Some years ago there was a couple o' men I was anxious no meet up with.' He smiled at the rest of his audience. `Not knowin' where they'd drifted to, it meant p'raps a long search, an' I'd gotta live. Well, I heard that the Governor was lookin' for a feller to weed out certain gangs o' desperadoes who were gettin' too busy in the country, an' I reckoned the two jobs, mine an' his, would fit in, so I applied and was appointed. I didn't flash my star about as much as some folks, in fact, nobody knew I was a deputy, so I soon got a reputation as a bad man; every crime that couldn't be otherwise explained was plastered on me, though sometimes I was hundred o' miles from where it happened.
I talked it over with the Governor an' we figured it would help me in my work to let the cards go as they lay, but he gave orders that Sudden was to be taken alive an' sent to him; that was for my protection. So yu see, marshal, the Governor knows all about me, an' here's a letter from him in reply to one I sent a while ago from Big Rock, askin' me to come an' see him as soon as I've cleaned up here.'
He tossed another paper towards the pop-eyed, staggered officer, but that hitherto pompous person allowed it to flutter to the ground unheeded. His chicken-hearted body was waiting for the blow he knew was coming.
`P'raps yu don't know Governor Bleke,' resumed the puncher easily. `A mighty nice man, marshal, though lawbreakers, I've heard, find him pretty aptly named. I'm bettin' he'll want to see yu, 'specially when I show him certain papers we found on Tarman an' Poker Pete. They didn't pay yu any too well, did they, marshal, but I s'pose yu were to share in the plunder?'
At this direct charge the usually purplish face of the badgered bully turned to a bluish tinge. He tried to utter a denial but his shaking lips refused to do their office. All his bluster was gone and he resembled nothing so much as a pricked bladder. The cowpuncher surveyed him with disgust for a few moments, and then said reflectively: `Dunn as he'd thank me, after all--yu ain't a very pleasant sight. If I was yu, Tonk, I'd travel; they say it improves the mind an', Gawd knows, yores needs a lot o' that. So yu better take steps--long, quick ones--for another stamping-ground.' He suddenly dropped his sardonic, bantering tone, and pointing to the door, said harshly, `Get! an' remember this, if I find yu pollutin' the scenery when I'm around again, I'll--wipe--yuout.'
Utterly cowed and broken, the marshal lurched unsteadily from the room. As the door closed behind him the invalid said, `Well, that's the last of 'em. There's a few sots in Hatchett's that backed the marshal for the drink he bought 'em, but I'm gamblin' they'll be good now.'
`I allus reckoned Tonk wasn't straight, but I didn't guess Tarman bought him,' Simon said. `That feller was swingin' a wide loop for a rustler.'
`Tarman wasn't after cattle--he only wanted them to pay his men,' Green said. `He was aimin' for the land. His plan was to steal the Y Z an' starve the Frying Pan down to his figure, an' then pay for it with a bullet, like as not. Have yu ever thought what yore land would be worth if the railway extended the Big Rock to Hatchett's Folly?'
Leeming whistled. `So that was it, eh? But it ain't likely.'
`It's all that, an' Tarman knew,' Green assured him.
`Well, young feller, yu keep a-pilin' up the debt,' Simon said. `An' I don't see no way o' payin' it. Me an' Job was figurin' that Suddeh would want our influence with the Governor, but seems like yu got more than we have. I'm almighty glad of it too.'
Someone else was `almighty glad' and the soft eyes which rested on the sick man made no secret of it. While he smilingly protested that there was no debt, she noticed that one hand was fumbling at his throat in search of something.
`Is this what you are looking for?' she asked, holding up a narrow strip of rawhide upon which hung a flat little locket of gold, with a steer's head engraved on one side. `It was round your neck when you got hurt, the bullet had cut the thong almost through, and I feared it would get lost,' she explained.
`Where d'yu get that?'
With the words Old Simon almost snatched the trinket from the girl's grasp; his trembling fingers found a
