"Come and eat, man. You'll be under no obligations. I reckon you can hate us, just as thorough after a square meal as before. Besides, I was your guest for several days."

Fendrick looked at the young mistress of the ranch. He meant to decline once more, but unaccountably found himself accepting instead. Something in her face told him she would rather have it so.

Wherefore Ca.s.s found himself with his feet under the table of his foe discussing various topics that had nothing to do with sheep, homestead claims, abductions, or express robberies. He looked at Kate but rarely, yet he was aware of her all the time. At his ranch a Mexican did the cooking in haphazard fashion. The food was ill prepared and worse served.

He ate only because it was a necessity, and he made as short a business of it as he could. Here were cut roses on a snowy tablecloth, an air of leisure that implied the object of dinner to be something more than to devour a given quant.i.ty of food. Moreover, the food had a flavor that made it palatable. The rib roast was done to a turn, the mashed potatoes whipped to a flaky lightness. The vegetable salad was a triumph, and the rice custard melted in his mouth.

Presently a young man came into the dining room and sat down beside Kate.

He looked the least in the world surprised at sight of the sheepman.

"Mornin', Ca.s.s," he nodded

"Morning, Curly," answered Fendrick. "Didn't know you were riding for the Circle C."

"He's my foreman," Luck explained.

Ca.s.s observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.

If Ca.s.s had, in his bitter, sardonic fashion, been interested in Kate before he sat down, the feeling had quickened to something different before he rose. It was not only that she was competent to devise such a meal in the desert. There was something else. She had made a _home_ for her father and cousin at the Circle C. The place radiated love, domesticity, kindly good fellowship. The casual give and take of the friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living.

It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed that which was of far greater importance.

The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called up O'Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.

"Back again, Bucky," Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. "I hear I'm suspected of being a bad hold-up."

"There's a matter that needs explaining, Ca.s.s. According to Blackwell's story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with it?"

"Blackwell told you that, did he?"

"Yes."

"Don't doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking I'd like to hear him say so. I'll not round on him until I know he's given himself away."

The convict was sent for. He substantiated the ranger reluctantly. He was so hemmed in that he did not know how to play his cards so as to make the most of them. He hated Fendrick. But much as he desired to convict him, he could not escape an uneasy feeling that he was going to be made the victim. For Ca.s.s took it with that sarcastic smile of his that mocked them all in turn. The convict trusted none of them. Already he felt the penitentiary walls closing on him. He was like a trapped coyote, ready to snarl and bite at the first hand he could reach. Just now this happened to belong to Fendrick, who had cheated him out of the money he had stolen and had brought this upon him.

Ca.s.s heard him out with a lifted upper lip and his most somnolent tiger-cat expression. After Blackwell had finished and been withdrawn from circulation he rolled and lit a cigarette.

"By Mr. Blackwell's say-so I'm the goat. By the way, has it ever occurred to you gentlemen that one can't be convicted on the testimony of a single accomplice?" He asked it casually, his chair tipped back, smoke wreaths drifting lazily ceilingward.

"We've got a little circ.u.mstantial evidence to add, Ca.s.s." Bucky suggested pleasantly.

"Not enough--not nearly enough."

"That will be for a jury to decide," Cullison chipped in.

Fendrick shrugged. "I've a notion to let it go to that. But what's the use? Understand this. I wasn't going to give Blackwell away, but since he has talked, I may tell what I know. It's true enough what he says. I did relieve him of the plunder."

"Sorry to hear that, Ca.s.s," Bucky commented gravely. "What did you do with it?"

The sheep owner flicked his cigarette ash into the tray, and looked at the lieutenant out of half-shuttered, indolent eyes. "Gave it to you, Bucky."

O'Connor sat up. His blue Irish eyes were dancing. "You're a cool customer, Ca.s.s."

"Fact, just the same. Got that letter I handed you the other day?"

The officer produced it from his safe.

"Open it."

With a paper knife Bucky ripped the flap and took out a sheet of paper.

"There's something else in there," Fendrick suggested.

The something else proved to be a piece of paper folded tightly, which being opened disclosed a key.

O'Connor read aloud the letter:

To Nicholas Bolt, Sheriff, Or Bucky O'connor, Lieutenant of Rangers:

Having come into possession of a little valise which is not mine, I am getting rid of it in the following manner. I have rented a large safety-deposit box at the Cattlemen's National Bank, and have put into it the valise with the lock still unbroken. The key is inclosed herewith. Shaw, the cashier, will tell you that when this box was rented I gave explicit orders it should be opened only by the men whose names are given in an envelope left with him, not even excepting myself. The valise was deposited at exactly 10:30 A. M. the morning after the robbery, as Mr. Shaw will also testify. I am writing this the evening of the same day.

Ca.s.s Fendrick.

"Don't believe a word of it," Cullison exploded.

"Seeing is believing," the sheepman murmured. He was enjoying greatly the discomfiture of his foe.

"Makes a likely fairy tale. What for would you keep the money and not turn it back?"

"That's an easy one, Luck. He wanted to throw the burden of the robbery on you," Bucky explained.

"Well, I've got to be shown."

In the morning he was shown. Shaw confirmed exactly what Fendrick had said. He produced a sealed envelope. Within this was a sheet of paper, upon which were written two lines.

Box 2143 is to be opened only by Sheriff Bolt or Lieutenant Bucky O'Connor of the Rangers, and before witnesses.

Ca.s.s FENDRICK.

From the safety-deposit vault Bucky drew a large package wrapped in yellow paper. He cut the string, tore away the covering, and disclosed a leather satchel. Perry Hawley, the local manager of the Western & Southern Express Company, fitted to this a key and took out a sealed bundle. This he ripped open before them all. Inside was found the sum of twenty thousand dollars in crisp new bills.

CHAPTER XVI

A CLEAN UP

A slight accident occurred at the jail, one so unimportant that Scanlan the jailer did not think it worth reporting to his chief. Blackwell, while eating, knocked a gla.s.s from the table and broke it on the cement floor of his cell. There is a legend to the effect that for want of a nail a battle was lost. By reason of a bit of gla.s.s secreted in his bed something quite as important happened to the convict.