Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

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"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.

She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside
she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung
a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there
noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without
a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked.
This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing
supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to
another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or
nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole,
fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.

The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door
creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a
trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.

"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.

"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.

"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."

She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and
presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till
they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the
knots before she remembered a swifter way.

"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where
pocketknives were kept.

Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.

He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.

"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs.
Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute,
and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.

The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence
of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.

"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.

"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my
head. Now, go."

"Not till I know why you betrayed me."

"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you
are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this
afternoon. Why don't you go?"

"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"

"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."

"Did Yeager tell you that?"

"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is
still a chance."

"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I
said."

A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand
still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.

"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.

"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."

Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.

"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught
unexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.

"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he
went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't
forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a
clam till you say the word."

With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl
turned on Keller.

"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."

"Will you ask Yeager?"

"Yes, if you'll go."

"All right. I'll go."

Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from
his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers,
soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek
when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set
him trembling strangely.

"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.

He snatched himself away.

But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides.
Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in
his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing
of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes
by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.

"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her
in waves.

"Why are you saving me, girl?"

"I--don't know. I've told you why."

"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you
think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"

He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It
told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened
she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his
kiss tingling through her blood like wine.

She thrust him from her--and he was gone.

She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with
excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now
her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for
this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed
his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it
untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the
sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the
open road, the hills, and safety.

A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat of
running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly
become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her
face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination
conjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a
huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.

CHAPTER VI

A GOOD FRIEND

How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her
heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her
out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and
saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the
porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a
lantern one held in his hand.

"Did--did he get away?" the girl faltered.

The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the
slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner.

"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I
wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?"

Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar
door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough.
Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted
lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to
certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks.

"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen
cellar, Phyllie?" he asked.

"Ye-es."

He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys,
who Mr. Keller's friend in need is."

"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had
just come in and was listening.

Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill."

"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me
out to run him down."

"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?"

"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he
jeered.

Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't
need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the
kitchen."

"He was just going," she protested.

"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate."

"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she
flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her
hands.

"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at
the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.

"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly.

"And you think?"

Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't
right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape
twice."

"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.

"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.

"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no
better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."

The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir,"
she murmured with mock humility.

"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.

"He sure has--clean as a whistle."

"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more
a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an
innocent man."

"Prove it," cried Healy.

Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to
take my word for it."

"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his
father announced promptly.

Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager,
Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing
with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."

"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before
your indorsement," Healy sneered.

"That's your privilege, Brill."

"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with
intent to conciliate.

"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody
more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about
his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice.

The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had
been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival
leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their
rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.

"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill."

"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come
visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and
I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours?
I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you
didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your
reasons, though, not mine."

"You've said it. They're my reasons."

"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on
his friend?"

The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right
proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go
right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't
known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter.
They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow
that with the rest."

With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned
on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house.

"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?"

"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised.

"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said."

"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It
couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your
knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil
have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?"

"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you
quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?"

"He said so. I believe him."

She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The
reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame
on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it."

Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is
white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that."

The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're
a good friend, Jim."

"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl."

"Yes--yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart
just now was very warm to him.

"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good--something
else."

She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean----"

"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that."

"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that
way."

"Maybe you might some day."

She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will."

"Is there--someone else, Phyl?"

If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her
face.

"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl."

"It ain't Brill then?"

"No. It's--it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his
camp. "And I don't believe you care for me--that way. It's just a
fancy."

"One I've had two years, little girl."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I _do_ like you, better than any one else. You know
that, dear old Jim."

He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a
better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night."

Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she
added, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention
it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. _Buenos
noches, nina._"

He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse,
swung to the saddle, and rode into the night.

She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It
had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over
it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man,
game to the core.

The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and
debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected
villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was
something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and
tingling with her first experience of sex relations.

A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of
childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals
hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly
toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled
impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the
fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the
desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling
that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like
a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At
sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at
sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex.

CHAPTER VII

A SHOT FROM AMBUSH

From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the
rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy,
careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle
shot.

Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke,
followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch
of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size,
clambered to the bank--now one and then another firing into the mesquite
that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley.

"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The
band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning."

Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had
disappeared into the chaparral.

The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined
perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle
instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those
born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a
reason for taking an interest in it--an interest that was more than
casual.

Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily,
came at length to a canon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills,
and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope.

Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round
boulders in its swift fall.

"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone,"
the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the
precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion.

Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call
that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of
elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim,
brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the
world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes.

As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another
rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging
water at every step, and cantered up toward him.

Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not
until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the
cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had
been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering
him instantly.

"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he
drawled.

"The rustler!" she cried.

"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently.

"Let me past," she panted.

He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just
left.

"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested.

The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion
again, flying up the canon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's
hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat.

Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed
elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl:

"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you
ain't in such a hurry."

But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was
busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much
he knew at least.

He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the
canon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded
up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller
and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed
the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.

"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted
to know amiably.

The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm
bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large,
heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born
leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.

"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive,
he's ours." He gave crisp orders.

"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.

For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded
man had whipped up a rifle and fired.

Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too
many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail.
You see, it's loaded with buckshot."

One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such
audacity as this was new to him.

"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned
amusing," growled his leader.

"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful
guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."

"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets
through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice,
just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the
other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get
him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."

"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row
about?" the cornered man wanted to know.

"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you
didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make
your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."

"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a
stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"

"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.

"Douglas."

"What doing here?"

"Homesteading."

"Name?"

"Keller."

"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to
shoot me. That's what you are."

"No."

"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of
us. If you're not the man, where is he?"

"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."

"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."

"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so
as to know him."

"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.

"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.

"Well, then?"

"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from
us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out.

"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out
between set teeth.

"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin
added.

Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be
assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch,
riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in
before these pursuers--and that one was a woman on a roan. Her
frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried
flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was
difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan
creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her
father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels.

His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her
he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he
could have testified against his own mother.

"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it
may prove right expensive," he said quietly.

"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted.

By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind
rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the
flankers had not yet got into action.

"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I
tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure--he ain't
any hired killer. You can tie to that."

"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's
enough for me," the cattleman swore.

"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By
his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he
claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun.
Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying."

"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right."

"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder
business myself. I'm going to find out what's what."

The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his
revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him.

"Flag of truce!" he shouted.

"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller
called back.

Pesky waddled forward--a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps,
spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as
he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball.

"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he
rounded the rock barricade.

Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew
this type of man like a brother.

"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh."

"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you?
Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so
sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr.
Keller?"

"I thought I explained it was another party did that."

Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it.

"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun
of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that
kinder lets you out."

Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted
a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a
dozen buckshot.

"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go
back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender
on guarantee of a square deal?"

"Sure--that's all I ask. I never met your friend--didn't know who he was
from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I
meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail."

"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining
poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr.
Bushwhacker into the canon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his
heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here
or a hole in the ground swallowed him."

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