"Business good these days? Beef's high enough in the city."

"It's fair in the main," answered Sandy. "Sometimes we seem right happy an' prosperous an' then ag'in," he added with a twinkle in his eyes, "we're jest a jump ahead of the sheriff."

"Boss," said the porter to the conductor, later, "Ah reckon that's a bad man fo' suah. Carryin' two of them six-guns. You figgah he's elopin' wiv that gal?"

The conductor surveyed his aide disdainfully.

"You've been seeing too many cheap picture-shows lately, Clem," he said.

"Eloping with that young girl? I wouldn't hint it to him if I were you.

Don't you know a he-man when you see one?"

CHAPTER X

SANDY RETURNS

Eight days pa.s.sed before Sandy came riding back on Goldie, leading the bay, reaching the Three Star at the end of sunset. Mormon was in his chair with the one letter that Sandy had written on his lap. It was almost too dark to read it. Mormon's eyes were beginning to fail him at anything short of long distance but he knew the contents by heart, yet he liked to keep the letter near him as a dog loves a favorite bone long after all the nourishment from it has been absorbed. Mormon was still penitent. He knew that the sheriff had just failed to make the train, but he did not cease to blame himself for submitting Sandy and Molly to so close a chance, neither did Sam forget occasionally to remind him of his lapse of tongue.

Sandy pulled in the mare beyond the corral. He could hear the sound of Sam's harmonica and pictured him with the instrument cuddled up under his great mustache. Sam was playing _The Girl I Left Behind Me_ and he managed to breathe a good deal of pathos into the primitive mouth organ.

"It's sure good to be home, Goldie," said Sandy. The mare whinnied. The bay nickered. Answers came back from the corral. p.r.o.nto, Sandy's first string horse, came trotting cross the corral, head up.

"h.e.l.lo, you ol' pie-eater!" said Sandy. "You sure look good to me.

C'udn't take you erlong this trip, son, but we'll be out ter-morrer together." Then he let out a mighty, "h.e.l.lo, the house!"

Sam's lilt ceased abruptly. The riders came hurrying. Sam appeared, with Mormon waddling after, too swiftly for his best ease or grace of motion, both grabbing at Sandy, swatting him on the back as he off-saddled.

"Lemme go," said Sandy. "I'm hungry as a spring b'ar. Where's Pedro?

Pedro, I'm hungry--_muy hambriento_. _Des.p.a.chese Vd. p.r.o.nto!

Huevos--seis huevos--fritos! Frijoles! Jamon! Cafe! Panecilos! Todo el rancho! p.r.o.nto!_"

"_Si, senor, inmediatamente._" And, with a yell for Joe the half-breed, Pedro hurried away, grinning, to prepare the six fried eggs, the ham, the coffee, the m.u.f.fins, everything in the larder!

His two partners watched him eat, plying him with food and then with question after question about the trip, about Barbara Redding and about Molly's going to school. Mormon made abject apology for talking too much and Sandy told how close a shave it had been.

"I don't cotton to playin' jack-rabbit to Plimsoll and Jordan's coyotes," said Sandy. "Speshully Plimsoll, who's at the bottom of the whole thing. Nex' time he may not have the law backin' him, an' I won't have to run. How's the sheriff?"

"Sort of tamed. They've been kiddin' him a mite. Seems he done some boastin' 'fore he started. His car's laid up fo' repairs. Jordan's layin' low. Miss Bailey, she's at the head of the Wimmen's League to gen'ally clean up politics an' the town, one to the same time. I figger the first thing their broom's goin' to locate'll be either Jordan or Plimsoll. They're sure goin' into all the dark corners an' under the furniture. She's a hustler an' she's thorough, is Mirandy Bailey."

"Where'd you learn all this, Mormon? Over to Herefo'd?"

"'Pears Miss Bailey's took a great interest--in Molly," said Sam, with a grin. "She's been over here twice to see if there was news. Mormon entertained her. He seems to be the fav'rite. Beats all how one man'll charm the fair sect, like honey'll bring flies, while another ain't ever bothered."

Mormon changed the trend of the conversation by demanding to know about the school.

"Molly's got an outfit Barbara Redding bought her," said Sandy. "Trunk an' leather grip, all kinds of do-dads. School costs fifteen hundred bucks a year. The rest of Molly's money is banked. Barbara picked out a school in Pennsylvania she said was the best. Here's an advertis.e.m.e.nt of it."

He handed the magazine leaf to Sam who read over the items with Mormon looking over his shoulder, forming the words with his lips. Sam read:

CORONA COLLEGE

"_Developing School for Girls. Development of well poised personality through intellectual, moral, social and physical trainin'._

"_Extensive Campus_--(whatever that is)--_Elective Academic_--(Sufferin' Cows!)--_Domestic Science, Household Economics, Expression, Supervised Athletics._

"_Horseback Riding_--(Huh, I never see an eastener yet who c'ud ride)--_Swimming, basketball, country tramping, dancing, military drill._"

Sam made heavy going of many of the words that left him in the dark as to their meaning. Sandy tried to elucidate, repeating the explanations Barbara Redding had given him.

"Campus is the College Field, Sam," he said.

"Then why in time don't they say so? Ain't they goin' to teach her to talk United States? I s'pose them things is all fine an' necessary fo'

the female eddication but, dern me, if I can see where she's goin' to find time to eat an' sleep."

"It's been all-fired lonely with both you an' her gone," said Mormon.

"An' the dawg ain't eat a mouthful, I don't believe. Mebbe you can coax him, Sandy. Set around an' howled like a sick coyote fo' fo'-five days--mostly nights. If the gel balks at all that line of stuff I'll stand back of her to quit an' come back to Three Star."

"An' have Jordan git her away an' put her under Plimsoll's guardeenship?"

"He c'udn't do that. Mirandy Bailey 'ud block him."

"He c'udn't do anything," said Sandy. "I got myse'f app'inted legal guardeen to Molly while we was in Santa Rosa, one day Barbara an' Molly was shoppin'. John Redding's lawyer fixed it up."

The months pa.s.sed without especial incident at the Three Star. Sandy purchased a Champion Hereford bull for the herd out of the ranch share of the faro winnings. Other improvements were added, and the three partners seemed on the fair way to prosperity. Sandy's theory that better bred and better fed beef, bringing better prices, would pay, began to demonstrate itself slowly, though it would take three years before the get of the thoroughbred stock was ready for marketing.

Occasional letters came from Molly. Homesickness and unhappiness showed between the lines of the first epistles, despite her evident efforts to conceal them. Her ways were not the ways of the other girls who were _developing a well poised personality through intellectual, moral, social and physical training_. She apparently formed no friendships and it seemed that none were invited from her.

"But I'm going to stick with it till I get same as the rest--on the outside, anyway," she wrote. "I don't know how some of them work inside. It ain't like me. But I've started this and you-all want me to go through so I will, though I get lonesome as a sick cat for the ranch. I don't swear any more--I got into awful trouble for spilling my language one time--and I can spell pretty good without hunting up every word in the dictionary. I reckon I'm a hard filly to break but then I was haltered late. I don't think it would be allowed for me to have Grit, so you'll have to look out for him and not let him forget me. I hope you won't do that yourselves. Some of the other girls are nice enough. It will be all right soon as we get to understand each other. Don't think I'm starting out to buck or that I'm unhappy, because I'm not."

"If she's happy, I'm a Gila lizard," said Mormon. "What's the sense of havin' her miserable fo' the sake of a li'l' book learnin'. She's gettin' to spell so I can't make out what she's writin' about."

At last Molly wrote that she had made the basketball team and won honors and favors. She gained laurels for Corona in swimming and tennis, and life went more merrily. Mormon looked up tennis outfits in his mail catalogue and sent for a book on the game, which he soon abandoned.

"You have to learn a foreign langwidge before you start to play," he said. "Leastwise a code. The langwidge ain't what you'd expect them to be handin' out in a young lady's college. All erbout deuce an' love. I'd a notion we'd fix up the game fo' her so she'd c'ud keep it up but I dunno. It sure ain't a fat man's game. It's a human gra.s.shopper's."

CHAPTER XI

PAY DIRT

In September there was a killing in the Good Luck Pool Room, the murder of a stranger whose friends made such an investigation, backed by the real law-and-order element of Hereford, that the exposure brought about forfeiture of all licenses and a strict shutting down on gambling and illicit liquor. Plimsoll left Hereford for his horse ranch, deprived of the sheriff's official countenance, and Jordan began to worry about election.

One evening in early October a little body of riders came to the Three Star, all strangers to the county, men whose faces were grim, who cracked no jokes, whose greetings were barely more than civil. They were well armed and they acted like men of a single purpose.