Mavericks by William MacLeod Raine

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"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.

"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?"
Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil
and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for
leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done
the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more
than talk.

"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about
it, and hear the particulars."

"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know,
she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his
feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.

"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully.
"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my
little spiel."

"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can
see. I'd rather they didn't know."

"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where
Buck is right now."

Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not
persuaded.

"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them
both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"

Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though
his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.

"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.

"No--I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.

The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll
close-herd both stories, then."

"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry.
Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."

But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but
mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so.
If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could
not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against
submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole
story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.

"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.

"Do you have to go down?"

"Have to get my horse, don't I?"

"I'll bring it to you."

"And say nothing about--what has happened?"

"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam."

"All right--I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed
tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.

Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of
Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be
depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse,
tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the
wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had
to come down and saddle the latter's mount.

He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before
he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks
the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others
in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat
stamp.

This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding
foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a
deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now
its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung
again to the saddle, and continued on his way.

The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming
as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand
something that clicked.

Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like
tempered steel.

"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I
reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."

Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked
up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from
him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun,
ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"

"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this
one, to save you trouble."

He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of
the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his
side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.

For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with
him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that
indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve
to pit himself against such a man as this.

"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're
trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.

"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is
between us two. It won't go any further."

Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen
out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked
its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a
leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the
hill and disappeared.

Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of
one who lives much alone.

"There's a _nice_ young man--yellow clear through. Queer thing she could
ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good
looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely
he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against
the acid test, then."

His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice
plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.

"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself
till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a
dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering.
Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind
hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is
headed for the pen mighty fast."

He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.

CHAPTER XIV

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him
pass the time.

This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect
something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed
prints on the walls--cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs
were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To
the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such
frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were
circumscribed by the purse limitation.

Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse
by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr
Song."

I know by the stir of the branches,
The way she went;
And at times I can see where a stem
Of the grass is bent.
She's the secret and light of my life,
She allures to elude;
But I follow the spell of her beauty,
Whatever the mood.

"Knows what he's talking about--some poet, that fellow," Buck cried
aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into
words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost
in his discovery.

It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a
gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It
was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke.
Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose
tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind.
From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.

"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No
risk at all, looks to me."

With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close
to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being
seen.

The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed,
and went back to reading.

The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was
upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on
another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco
into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again
puffing in pleasant serenity.

Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.

Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his
mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was
that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole
through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had
plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of
the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he
must have been up in a balloon.

The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his
pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray
cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat
had reached the powder.

By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along
the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob,
the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.

"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.

The fat was surely in the fire now.

Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door
was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.

Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old
Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher
known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.

"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.

"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil.

"That's right. I'm here, sure enough."

"How long you been here?"

"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a
watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I
drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by
accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room
looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate
to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done."

"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously.

But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more
menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son.

"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."

Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the
imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission
in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.

A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had
been running. It was Keller.

That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw
him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition,
and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for
him last night.

"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.

They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old
sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.

"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the
mantel.

He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had
already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on
themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to
another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil
were unusually tall men--as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of
shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men,
but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.

"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.

"Made up your mind, have you?"

"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus
Menendez."

"A bad break, that--and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been
out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your
trap."

"So much the worse for you."

"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect
there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to
punish the man that shot Menendez."

"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this
county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for
the killing of poor Jesus."

"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course----"

"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I
blame the guns they fired. _You_ did that killing."

"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles
away."

"That makes no difference."

"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first
time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not
give any specific orders in this case."

"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs.

"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged.

"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set
himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he
has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got
to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.

"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked.

"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.

Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they
were about to do seemed awful to him.

"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie.

"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?"

"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?"

"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally.

"No," spoke up Keller quickly.

The old man nodded agreement. "No--they didn't hang Menendez."

"Your sheep herder died--if he died at all, and we have no proof of
it--with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said.

"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him
a chance."

"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of
the boy.

"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle
this for good and all."

The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea
promptly.

"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has
killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on
even terms."

"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming.

"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted
promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood,
myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money
first, by gum."

"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be
settled with revolvers, or rifles?"

"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly.

There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range,
the cattleman might reach the hill canons in safety.

Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought
for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed
an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer.
Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the
cattleman would not.

Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight
by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and
brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered
little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung
to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly
down the road toward the schoolhouse.

Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the
scene in time, she might prevent the duel.

His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play.

Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on
either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full
of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to
start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but
this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as
was to be found might be used.

"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than
that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration
to some of your help, if you don't mind."

The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the
owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck
out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to
say.

"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this
thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver
drove the idea home.

The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "_Si,
senor_," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene.

Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty
repaired to the pasture.

"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new
proposition to me," the cattleman said.

"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground
and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but
this particular kind of gameness appealed to him.

Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired
immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over.

"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim.

"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted
calmly.

"Betcher."

Buck dropped another rooster.

"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned.
"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how
good you are on humans."

They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?"

"I reckon," came back the answer.

The father gave the signal--the explosion of a revolver. Even as it
flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter
of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at
the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second
intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not
stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots.

"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose
yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it."

He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all
were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not
fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had
caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it.
But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired--first at one
of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them
was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In
Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans."

Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot
could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that
would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in
the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a
huntress.

It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose--a picture long to be
remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from
the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal
to her people to cease firing.

"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then,
womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that
had been pent within her.

Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness.

"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored.

Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled
her sobs. "I must see my father," she said.

The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his
boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet
him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing.

"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her.

"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the
buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained.

"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit."

She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible--terrible! Why will you
do such things--you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful
grammar that becomes a schoolmarm.

Buck might have told her--but he did not--that he had carefully avoided
hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if
he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an
apologetic explanation, which explained nothing.

"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss
Phyl."

"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply.

"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly.

"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done
it."

"Anyhow, I haven't denied it."

Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the
shoulders, and shook her angrily.

"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl!
Are you stark mad?"

"No, but I think all you people are."

"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come."

"No, father."'

"Yes, I say!"

"I must see you--alone."

"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is
finished."

"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished--it can't," she moaned.

"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl."

"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came
here for me."

"For you-all?"

"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he--cared for me." A
tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so
cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover,
who had not declared himself explicitly.

"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!"

"At first, maybe--but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry?
Everything shows that."

"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!"

"No--he didn't know about that till I told him."

"Till _you_ told him?"

"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room."

"So you freed him--_and took him to your room?_" She had never heard her
father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous
horror.

"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see--can't you see----Oh,
why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against
the rock.

Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through
her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now--this instant!"

Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew
of the attack on the sheep camp--heard of it on the way home from
school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for
nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from
yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I
took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again."

"Slept with Anna, did you?"

She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes.
From the time of the shooting."

"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business."

"And let you do murder?"

"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson
fiercely.

"Because I love _you_. But you're too blind to see it."

"And him--do you love him? Answer me!"

"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't
take odds of five to one against an enemy."

Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me,
girl?"

Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect _I_ can answer that, Mr. Sanderson.
Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing
as God ever made."

But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for
that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and
speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into
words--quick, eager, full of passion.

"I take it all back then--every word of it!" she cried. "You are
braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people--more chivalrous.
You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you
to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me
grossly."

"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily.

Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time
as Phil and Slim.

"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys
there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through."

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