"You're goin' to take an awful big chance with one ex-horsethief. Lee, I'm the luckiest fellow on earth."

She nestled closer to him. Her lips trembled to his kiss.

"Billie, you're sure, aren't you?" she whispered. "It wasn't just pity for me."

He chose to rea.s.sure her after the fashion of a lover, in that wordless language which is as old as Eden.

His heart was full of her as he swung down the street buoyantly. He had known her saucy, scornful, and imperious. He had known her gay and gallant, had been the victim of her temper. Occasionally he had seen glimpses of tenderness toward Pauline and of motherliness toward Jim Clanton. But never until last night had he found her dependent and clinging. Her defense against him had been a manner of cool self-reliance. In the stress of her need that had been swept aside to show her flamy and yet shy, quick with innocent pa.s.sion. She wanted him for a mate, just as he wanted her, and she made no concealment of it. In the candor of her love he exulted.

Lee slept round the clock almost twice and appeared for a late breakfast.

Her aunt told her some news with which Live-Oaks was buzzing.

Go-Get-'Em Jim had ridden into town, stopped at the sheriff's office, and demanded cynically the thousand dollars offered by the Webb estate for his arrest.

"He'll come to no good end," prophesied Miss Snaith, senior.

"You don't quite understand him, aunt," protested Lee. "That's just his way. He likes to grand-stand, and he does it rather well. But he isn't half so bad as he makes out. He says he did not shoot Mr. Webb, and we feel sure he didn't."

"Of course he says so," replied the older woman indignantly. "Why wouldn't he say so? But Dad Wrayburn was there and saw it all. There has been a lot too much promiscuous killing and he's one of the worst of the lot, your Jim Clanton is. Jimmie-Go-Get-'Em, indeed! I hope the law goes and gets him now it has a chance."

The opinion of Lee's aunt was in accord with the general sentiment.

Washington County had within the past year suffered a change of heart. It had put behind its back the wild and reckless days of its youth when every man was a law to himself. Bar-room orators talked virtuously of law and order. They said it behooved the county to live down its evil reputation as the worst in the United States. Times had changed. The watchword now should be progress. It ought no longer to be a recommendation to a man that he could bend a six-gun surer and quicker than other folks. "Movers" in white-topped wagons were settling up the country. A railroad had pushed in to Live-Oaks. There was a lot of talk about Eastern capital becoming interested in irrigation and mining. It was high time to remember that Live-Oaks and Los Portales were not now frontier camps, but young cities.

Since Live-Oaks had been good for so short a time it wanted to prove by a shining example how it abhorred the lawlessness of its youth. At this inopportune moment Clanton gave himself up to be tried for the murder of Homer Webb.

When the news spread that Clanton had been given a change of venue and was to be tried at Santa Fe, the citizens of Live-Oaks were distinctly annoyed. It was known that the sheriff had always been a good friend of the accused man. The whisper pa.s.sed that if he ever took Go-Get-'Em Jim out of the county the killer would be given a chance to escape.

Into town from the chaparral drifted the enemies Clanton had made during his career as a gunman. Yankie and Albeen and Dumont and Banc.o.c.k moved to and fro in the crowds at the different gambling places and saloons. Even Roush, who in the past three years had never given young Clanton an opportunity to meet him face to face, stole furtively into the tendejons of the Mexican quarter and spent money freely in treating. Among the natives Go-Get-'Em Jim was in ill-repute for shooting a bad man named Juan Ortez who had attempted to terrorize the town while on a spree.

"We're spendin' a lot of good money on this job. We'd ought to pull it off," Dumont whispered to Albeen.

"Whose money?" asked the one-armed man cynically.

It struck him as an ironic jest that the money they had got from the sale of Homer Webb's cattle should be spent to bring about the lynching of the man who had killed him.

Both the sheriff and his deputy were out of town rounding up a half-breed Mexican who had stabbed another at a dance. They reached Live-Oaks with their prisoner about the middle of the afternoon. Lee was waiting for them impatiently at the court-house.

"They're planning to lynch Jim," she told Prince abruptly.

"Who's goin' to do all that?" he asked.

"The riff-raff of the county are back of it, but the worst of it is that they've got a lot of good people in with them. Some of the Flying V Y riders are in town too. I never saw so much drinking before."

"When is it to be?"

"I don't know."

"Who told you?"

"Bud Proctor. He says Yankie and Albeen and that crowd are spending hundreds of dollars at the bars."

"I knew there was somethin' on foot soon as we hit town--felt it in the air." The sheriff looked at his watch. "We can just catch the afternoon train, Jack. Take this bird downstairs an' lock him up. I'll join you in a minute."

"What are you going to do?" asked Lee as soon as they were alone.

"Goin' to slip Jim aboard the train an' take him to Santa Fe."

"Can you do it without being seen?"

"I'll tell you that later," he answered with a grim smile. "Much obliged, honey. I'm goin' to be right busy now, but I'll see you soon as I get back to town."

Lee nodded good-bye and wait out. She liked it in him that just now he had no time even for her. From the door she glanced back. Already he was busy getting his guns ready.

Prince got his keys and unlocked the room where Clanton was. Jim was on the bed reading an old newspaper.

"h.e.l.lo, Billie," he grinned.

"We're leaving on the afternoon train, Jim. Get a move on you an' hustle yore things together."

"Thought you weren't goin' till next week."

"Changed my mind. Jim, there's trouble afoot. Yore enemies are all in town. I want to get you away."

Clanton did not bat an eye. "Plannin' a necktie party, are they?"

"They've got notions. Mine are different." "Do I get a gun if it comes to a showdown, Billie?"

"You do. I'll appoint you a deputy."

Jim laughed. "That sounds reasonable."

Goodheart joined them. The three men left the back door of the court-house and cut across the square. The station was three blocks distant. Before they had covered a hundred yards a boy on the other side of the street stopped, stared at them, and disappeared into the nearest saloon.

The prisoner looked at his friend and grinned gayly. "Somethin' stirrin'

soon. We're liable to have a breeze in this neighborhood, looks like."

They reached the station without being molested, but down the street could be seen much bustle of men running to and fro. Prince looked at them anxiously.

"The clans are gathering," murmured Clanton nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. "Don't you reckon maybe you'll have to feed me to the wolves after all, Billie?"

A saddled horse blinked in the sun beside the depot, the bridle rein trailing on the ground. Its owner sat on a dry-goods box and whittled.

Jim glanced at the bronco casually. Jack Goodheart also observed the cowpony. He whispered to the sheriff.

Prince turned to his prisoner. "Jim, you can take that horse an' hit the dust, if you like."

"Meanin' that you can't protect me?"

The salient jaw of the sheriff tightened. He looked what he was, a man among ten thousand, quiet and forceful, strong as tested steel.