Chapter 15. The Brand Blotter

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_ CHAPTER XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER

Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur--one a man, brown and forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. They were the best of friends--good comrades, save when chance eyes said unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young body. She liked Larrabie Keller--oh, so much!--but her untutored heart could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and yet--and yet----

They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into the mountain park.

"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question.

"No. That leaves you one more guess."

"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader."

She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he now dropped it for the time.

He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his attention--a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of them.

"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be diverted from her.

"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!"

Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative "Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash.

There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the spring, quite motionless and silent--watching now the bushes that fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly from the embers of a fire.

Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered.

"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as he recognized her.

"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?"

His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, was concentrated on the thing before him.

"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly.

"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean up this rustling that has been going on for several years."

"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she commented.

"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose hind hoof left a trail like that."

He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks--like that--and that."

"That doesn't prove he has been rustling."

"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with a Twin Star calf."

"How long has he been gone?"

"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes."

"How do you know?"

He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist.

"Who is he?" she asked.

He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a second thorough examination of the whole ground.

"Come--if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to her. "But you must do just as I say--must be under my orders."

"I will," she promised.

Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk.

"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a voice that was a question.

"I guessed."

Presently, at the entrance to a little canon, Keller swung down and examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not afraid, but she was fearfully alive.

At the other entrance to the canon, Larrabie was down again for another examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure.

"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day."

They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats.

At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley below--a rider on horseback, driving a calf.

"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee."

"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and cut him off?"

[Illustration: "DROP THAT GUN!" _Page 205_]

"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the cottonwoods."

The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no sense of safety.

When the summons came to him to "Drop that gun!" it was only a confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the unexpected cut of a cane.

The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward.

"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and moved forward from her hiding place.

"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light."

"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. "Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!"

"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him sternly.

"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other doggedly.

"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the trail to Yeager's Spur."

"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: "It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell you I'm no rustler."

Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom.

Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance to the canon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that."

"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler."

"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered.

"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. "You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with Phyl. Think I don't _sabe_ your game?"

The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that kind of talk won't help buy you anything."

The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to dignify his spleen by replying to it.

There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had reacted against him, he tried whining.

"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it."

"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly.

"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth promised.

"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you."

"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves--mind, I don't say I did--but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry.

The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the wrong the cattleman had done his family.

"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?"

"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, in the same undertone.

"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly--as Buck Weaver did it.

"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs."

"But you don't know them."

"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out."

"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out."

Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been an older man to lead me into it, too."

"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply.

Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. "I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've done any particular wrong--no more than other young fellows."

Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I say, or you'll have to stand the gaff."

"What do you want to know?"

"How many pals had you in this rustling?"

"You said you would use against me anything I said."

"I say now I'll use it _for_ you if you tell the truth and meet my conditions."

"What are your conditions?"

"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?"

"One"--very sullenly.

"Red Hughes?"

"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I can't?"

"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?"

The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes from a bottle. "Nearly a year."

Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling--the tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle.

Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red _muy pronto_, and tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?"

Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch.

The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily both pairs withdrew.

"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say.

"Yes--as far as Tryon's."

Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?"

"No."

Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then--why did you let him go so easily?"

He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?"

"Yes; but----" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, even at her request, he had disappointed her!

"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go."

"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you for giving way."

"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me to do."

"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked.

"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision.

Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, that he spoke.

"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand."

She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly.

"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care for me? Do you?"

Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I do, and then sometimes I think I don't--that way."

The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a woman's, lit his warm smile.

"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, Phyllis?"

"Ah! If I knew! But I don't--truly, I don't. I--I want to care," she confessed, with divine shyness.

"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, honey?"

"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No--give me time. I'm--I'm not sure--I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but----"

"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a joke, to lighten her objection.

Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was another man in the running--one not to be thrust aside easily.

Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and busied herself with a stirrup leather.

"Don't say anything more now--please. I'm such a little goose! I don't know--yet. Won't you wait and--forget it till--say, till next week?"

He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken sentence. _

Read next: Chapter 16. A Waterspout

Read previous: Chapter 14. A Difference Of Opinion

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