"Only that any horse is likely to act that way when it gets its back up.

I wouldn't ride a horse without any spirit."

"Think you can ride this one, mebbe?"

Without speaking Yeager slid down from the fence and approached the mustang. The animal backed away, muscles a-tremble and eyes full of fear. Steve's movements were slow, but not doubtful. He stroked the pony's neck and gentled it. His low voice murmured soft words into the alert ear c.o.c.ked back suspiciously. Then, without any haste or unevenness of motion, he swung up and dropped gently into the saddle.

For an instant the horse stood trembling. Yeager leaned forward and patted the neck of the colt softly. His soothing voice still comforted and rea.s.sured. Gradually its terror subsided.

"Open the gate," Steve called to Orman.

He rode out to the creosote flats and cantered down the road. A quarter of an hour later he swung from the saddle beside Threewit.

"Plumb gentle. You can make any horse a devil when you're one yourself."

They were standing in front of the stable. Threewit started to reply, but the words were taken out of his mouth. From out of the stable strode Harrison, a cold anger in his eyes.

"That's your opinion, is it?"

Yeager's light blue eyes met his steadily. "You've heard it."

"I've heard other things, too. You're taking boxing lessons. You're going to need them, my friend."

"The sooner the quicker," answered Steve evenly.

"You'll cut that out, both of you," ordered Threewit curtly. "I'll fire you both if you don't behave."

"I'm no school-kid, Threewit. I play my own hand. Sabe?" Harrison turned his cold eyes on the range-rider. "And I serve notice right here that next time my young rube friend and me mixes you'd better bring a basket to gather up the pieces."

Yeager brushed a fly languidly from his gauntlet. "That's twice he's used the word 'friend.' I reckon he don't know I'm some particular who calls me that."

"That'll be enough, Yeager. Don't start anything here. We're a moving-picture outfit, not a bunch of pugs." Briskly the director changed the subject. "I want you to choose a couple of the boys and go down to Yarnell's after a herd of cattle we're going to need in that Tapidero Jim picture. If you need more help the old man will let you have one or two of his riders."

Harrison had turned to leave, but he stopped to examine the conchas on a pair of leathers. Steve had a fleeting thought that the man was listening; also that he was covering the fact with a manner of elaborate carelessness.

"Want I should start right away?"

"Yep. Can you get back by to-morrow night?"

"I reckon. Has Yarnell got 'em rounded up?" asked Yeager.

"He telephoned me this morning they were ready."

"Then we'd ought to reach Los Robles late to-morrow night if we hit the trail steady."

"Good enough. Who do you want to take with you?"

"I'll take Shorty and Orman."

The details were arranged on the spot. Harrison was still giving his attention to the conchas on the chaps. They were made of 'dobe dollars.

He had seen Jackson wear them fifty times and had never before showed the least interest in them.

CHAPTER V

YEAGER ASKS ADVICE

Though Yeager had enjoyed immensely his month with the Lunar people, he tasted again the dust of the drag-driver with a keen pleasure. He had not yet been able to get it out of his mind that he was only playing at work with the film company. When he heard some of the others complain about long hours and dangerous stunts he wished they could have ridden on the roundup for the Lone Star outfit about a week. Arizona had tanned the complexions of the actors, but it had left most of them still soft of muscle and fiber. The flabbiness of Broadway cannot be washed out of the soul in a month.

But to-day he felt he had done a man's work. It had been like old times.

The white dust of the desert had enwrapped them in clouds. The untempered sun had beat down a palpitating heat upon dry sand wastes.

The hill cattle he was driving were as wild as deer. A dozen times some lean steer had bolted and gone racing down a precipitous hillside like a rabbit. As often Four Bits had wheeled in its tracks and pounded through clutching cholla and down breakneck inclines after the escaping three-year-old. Fierce cactus thorns had torn at the leather chaps as horse and rider had ripped through them, zigzagging across the steep mountain slope at a gallop, the pony now slithering down the shale with braced forelegs, now taking washes and inclines with the surefooted litheness of a cat.

Now stars by millions roofed the velvet night. A big moon had climbed out of a crotch of the purple hills and poured a silvery light into a valley green and beautiful with the magic touch of spring. A grove of suhuaro rose like ghostly candelabra from the hillside opposite. The mesquite carried a wealth of dainty foliage. Even the flat-leafed p.r.i.c.kly pear blended into the soft harmony of the mellow night.

Los Robles was still half a dozen miles away and the cattle were weary from the long drive. For an hour they had seemed to smell water and the leaders made a bee-line for it, bellowing with stretched necks as they hurried forward. It was late when at last they reached the water-hole.

"Time to throw off. We'll make camp in the cool of the morning," Yeager called to Shorty.

They built a fire of dead ironwood upon which they boiled coffee and fried bacon. Bread they had brought with them. After eating, they lay at ease and smoked.

There was little danger of the tired cattle straying, but Yeager divided his party so that they should take turn about night-herding. He took the first watch himself.

The stillness of the desert night was a thing to wonder at. The silence of the great outdoors, of vast empty s.p.a.ce, subdued the restlessness of the cattle. Many a time before the range-rider had felt the fascination of it creep into his blood as he had circled the sleeping herd murmuring softly a Spanish love-song. By day the desert was often a place of desolation and death, but under the mystic charm of night it was transformed to a panorama of soft loveliness.

He thought of many episodes in his short, turbid life. They flashed upon the screen of his memory as did the pictures of the Lunar Company upon the canvas. In his time he had mushed in Alaska, fought in Mexico, driven stage at the Nevada gold-fields, and wandered into many a lawless camp. Always he had answered the call of adventure regardless of where it led.

His thoughts were fugitive, inconsequent. Now they had to do with Daisy Ellington, the New York chorus girl whose mobile, piquant face was helping to make the Lunar reels popular. Steve was engaged in a whirlwind flirtation with her which both of them were enjoying extremely. He liked her slangy audacity, the frank good-fellowship with which she had met him. Daisy was a good sport. She might pretend to sigh for the lights of Manhattan, but she was having a tremendously good time in Arizona.

"Reach for the roof, friend. No, I wouldn't rock the boat if I was you.

Sit steady and don't move."

The words came to Yeager low but imperative. Automatically his hands went into the air even as he slewed his head to find out who was voicing the curt command. A rope dropped over his arms and was jerked tight just below the knees. Very cautiously a man emerged from behind a clump of cholla. The first thing he did was to remove the automatic revolver from the cowpuncher's chaps, the second to wind the rope tightly around his legs.

Steve made no comment, asked no questions. He knew that he would find out all about it in time. Just now he was not running the show.

"I expect your arms must be tired grabbin' at the stars. Drop 'em down clost to your sides. That's fine. Lucky you didn't start anything coa.r.s.e, my friend."

The man gave a low whistle, evidently a signal, then moved for the first time within range of his prisoner's eyes. He was masked and wore a soft black hat pulled well down over his forehead. A Mexican serape had been flung carelessly across his well-built shoulders.

Adroitly he bound Yeager's arms to his side by winding the rope round and round his body, after which he knotted it tightly several times at a point just between the shoulder blades.

The range-rider observed that he was a heavy-set, powerful man of about his own height. He wore plain shiny leather chaps and the usual high-heeled boots of a cowpuncher.

Presently three other men appeared out of the darkness, bringing with them Orman and Shorty, both of whom, wakened out of a sound sleep, were plainly surprised and disturbed.

Shorty was protesting plaintively. "This here ain't no way to treat a man. I ain't done nothin'. There ain't no occasion whatever for a gun play. What d'you want, anyhow? I'm no bad hombre. And me sleepin' so peaceable, too, when you shoved the hardware into my pantry, doggone it."