Jeff lifted his brows. "_We?_ And who's _we_? You two? I should have thought this was a post-office lay."

"We are investigating the affair," explained Hobart.

"I see! As private individuals. Yes, yes. Does Lake pay you by the day or by the job?"

Stratton, blazing with anger, smote his palm heavily with his fist.

"Young man! Young man! Your insolence is unbearable! We are trying to spare you--as you had no direct interest in the matter and doubtless concealed your guilty knowledge through a mistaken and distorted sense of honor. But you tempt us--you tempt us! You don't seem to realize the precarious situation in which you stand."

"What I don't see," said Jeff, in puzzled tones, "is why you bother to spare me at all. If you can prove this, why don't you cinch me and Felix both? Why do you want me to tell you what you already know? And if you can't prove it--who the h.e.l.l cares what you suspect?"

"We will arrest you," said Stratton thickly, "just as soon as we can make out the papers!"

"Turn your wolf loose, you four-flushers! You may make me trouble, but you can't prove anything. Speaking of trouble--how about you, Mr.

Stratton?" As a spring leaps, released from highest tension, face and body and voice flashed from pa.s.sive indolence to sudden, startling attack. His arm lashed swiftly out as if to deliver the swordsman's stabbing thrust; the poised body followed up to push the stroke home.

"You think your secret safe, don't you? It's been some time ago."

Words only--yet it might have been a very sword's point past Stratton's guard. For the Register flinched, staggered, his arrogant face grew mottled, his arm went up. He fell back a step, silent, quivering, leaning heavily on a chair. The Marshal gave him a questioning glance.

Jeff kept on.

"You're prominent in politics, business, society, the church. You've a family to think of. It's up to you, Mr. Stratton. Is it worth while? Had we better drop it with a dull, sickening thud?"

Stratton collapsed into the chair, a shapeless bundle, turning a shriveled, feeble face to the Marshal in voiceless imploring.

Unhesitating, Hobart put a hand on his shoulder. "That's all right, old man! We won't give you away. Brace up!" He nodded Jeff to the door. "You win!" he said. Leo followed on tiptoe.

"Why, the poor old duck!" said Jeff remorsefully, in the pa.s.sage. "Wish I hadn't come down on him so hard. I overdid it that time. Still, if I hadn't----"

At the Hondo Bridge Jeff looked back and waved a hand. "Good-by, old town! Now we go, gallopy-trot, gallopy, gallopy-trot!" He sang, and the ringing hoofs kept time and tune,

"Florence Mehitabel Genevieve Jane, She came home in the wind an' the rain, She came home in the rain an' the snow; 'Ain't a-goin' to leave my home any mo'!'"

"Jeff," said the mystified Ballinger, spurring up beside him, "what has the gray-haired Register done? Has murder stained his hands with gore?"

Jeff raised his bridle hand.

"Gee! Leo, I don't know! I just taken a chance!"

CHAPTER I

THE PITCHER THAT WENT TO THE WELL

"When I bend my head low and listen at the ground, I can hear vague voices that I used to know, Stirring in dim places, faint and restless sound; I remember how it was when the gra.s.s began to grow."

--_Song of The Wandering Dust_, ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH.

The pines thinned as she neared Rainbow Rim, the turfy glades grew wider; she had glimpses of open country beyond--until, at last, crossing a little spit of high ground, she came to the fairest spot in all her voyage of exploration and discovery. She sank down on a fallen log with a little sigh of delight.

The steep bank of a little canon broke away at her feet--a canon which here marked the frontier of the pines, its farther side overgrown with mahogany bush and chaparral--a canon that fell in long, sinuous curves from the silent mystery of forest on Rainbow Crest behind her, to widen just below into a rolling land, parked with green-black powderpuffs of juniper and cedar; and so pa.s.sed on to mystery again, twisting away through the folds of the low and bare gray hills to the westward, ere the last stupendous plunge over the Rim to the low desert, a mile toward the level of the waiting sea.

Facing the explorer, across the little canon, a clear spring bubbled from the hillside and fell with pleasant murmur and tinkle to a pool below, fringed with lush emerald--a spring ma.s.sed about with wild grapevine, shining reeds of arrow-weed; a tangle of grateful greenery, jostling eagerly for the life-giving water. Draped in clinging vines, slim acacias struggled up through the jungle; the exquisite fragrance of their purple bells gave a final charm to the fairy chasm.

But the larger vision! The nearer elfin beauty dwindled, was lost, forgotten. Afar, through a narrow cleft in the gray westward hills, the explorer's eye leaped out over a bottomless gulf to a glimpse of shining leagues midway of the desert greatness--an ever-widening triangle that rose against the peaceful west to long foothill reaches, to a misty mountain parapet, far-beckoning, whispering of secrets, things dreamed of, unseen, beyond the framed and slender arc of vision. A land of enchantment and mystery, decked with strong barbaric colors, blue and red and yellow, brown and green and gray; whose changing ebb and flow, by some potent sorcery of atmosphere, distance and angle, altered, daily, hourly; deepening, fading, combining into new and fantastic lines and shapes, to melt again as swiftly to others yet more bewildering.

The explorer? It may be mentioned in pa.s.sing that any other would have found that fairest prospect even more wonderful than did the explorer, Miss Ellinor Hoffman. We will attempt no clear description of Miss Ellinor Hoffman. Dusky-beautiful she was; crisp, fresh and sparkling; tall, vigorous, active, strong. Yet she was more than merely beautiful--warm and frank and young; brave and kind and true. Perhaps, even more than soft curves, lips, glory of hair or bewildering eyes, or all together, her chiefest charm was her manner, her frank friendliness.

Earth was sweet to her, sweeter for her.

This by way of aside and all to no manner of good. You have no picture of her in your mind. Remember only that she was young--

"The stars to drink from and the sky to dance on"

--young and happy, and therefore beautiful; that the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the south wind sweet and fresh, buds in the willow.

The peace was rent and shivered by strange sounds, as of a giant falling downstairs. There was a crash of breaking boughs beyond the canon, a glint of color, a swift black body hurtling madly through the shrubbery. The girl shrank back. There was no time for thought, hardly for alarm. On the farther verge the bushes parted; an apparition hurled arching through the sunshine, down the sheer hill--a glorious and acrobatic horse, his black head low between his flashing feet; red nostrils wide with rage and fear; foam flecks white on the black shoulders; a tossing mane; a rider, straight and tall, superb--to all seeming an integral part of the horse, pitch he never so wildly.

The girl held her breath through the splintered seconds. She thrilled at the shock and storm of them, straining muscles and white hoofs, lurching, stumbling, sliding, lunging, careening in perilous arcs. She saw stones that rolled with them or bounded after; a sombrero whirled above the dust and tumult like a dilatory parachute; a six-shooter jolted up into the air. Through the dust-clouds there were glimpses of a watchful face, hair blown back above it; a broken rein snapped beside it, saddle-strings streamed out behind; a supple body that swung from curve to easy curve against shock and plunge, that swayed and poised and clung, and held its desperate dominion still. The saddle slipped forward; with a motion incredibly swift, as a hat is whipped off in a gust of wind, it whisked over withers and neck and was under the furious feet. Swifter, the rider! Cat-quick, he swerved, lit on his feet, leaped aside.

Alas, oh, rider beyond compare, undefeated champion, Pride of Rainbow!

Alas, that such thing should be recorded! He leaped aside to shun the black frantic death at his shoulder; his feet were in the treacherous vines: he toppled, grasped vainly at an acacia, catapulted out and down, head first; so lit, crumpled and fell with a prodigious splash into the waters of the pool! _Ay di mi, Alhama!_

The blankets lay strewn along the hill; but observe that the long lead rope of the hackamore (a "hackamore," properly _jaquima_, is, for your better understanding, merely a rope halter) was coiled at the saddle-horn, held there by a stout hornstring. As the black reached the level the saddle was at his heels. To kick was obvious, to go away not less so; but this new terror clung to the maddened creature in his frenzied flight--between his legs, in the air, at his heels, his hip, his neck. A low tree leaned from the hillside; the aerial saddle caught in the forks of it, the bronco's head was jerked round, he was pulled to his haunches, overthrown; but the tough hornstring broke, the freed coil snapped out at him; he scrambled up and bunched his glorious muscles in a vain and furious effort to outrun the rope that dragged at his heels, and so pa.s.sed from sight beyond the next curve.

Waist-deep in the pool sat the hatless horseman, or perhaps horseless horseman were the juster term, steeped in a profound calm. That last phrase has a familiar sound; Mark Twain's, doubtless--but, all things considered, steeped is decidedly the word. One gloved hand was in the water, the other in the muddy margin of the pool: he watched the final evolution of his late mount with meditative interest. The saddle was freed at last, but its ex-occupant still sat there, lost in thought.

Blood trickled, unnoted, down his forehead.

The last stone followed him into the pool; the echoes died on the hills.

The spring resumed its pleasant murmur, but the tinkle of its fall was broken by the mimic waves of the pool. Save for this troubled sloshing against the banks, the slow-settling dust and the contemplative bust of the one-time centaur, no trace was left to mark the late disastrous invasion.

The invader's dreamy and speculative gaze followed the dust of the trailing rope. He opened his lips twice or thrice, and spoke, after several futile attempts, in a voice mild, but clearly earnest:

"Oh, you little eohippus!"

The spellbound girl rose. Her hand was at her throat; her eyes were big and round, and her astonished lips were drawn to a round, red O.

Sharp ears heard the rustle of her skirts, her soft gasp of amazement.

The merman turned his head briskly, his eye met hers. One gloved hand brushed his brow; a broad streak of mud appeared there, over which the blood meandered uncertainly. He looked up at the maid in silence: in silence the maid looked down at him. He nodded, with a pleasant smile.

"Good-morning!" he said casually.

At this cheerful greeting, the astounded maid was near to tumbling after, like Jill of the song.

"Er--good-morning!" she gasped.