"Shut up!" Creet snarled at him. "Shut up or I'll brain you!"

"Think, Martaffwas Brett begged. "Please think! Marta ...!" His voice lifted as she drew near Creet. "Think--.the door!"

As if he had spoken his thought, Marta understood, andwith all her strength she hurled herself at the side of the gunman! Her weight hit him, and he staggered. His gun blasted a stab of flame, and a dish across the room crashed into bits as Joe Creet went staggering into the open doorway!

As he hit the doorpost with his shoulder he ripped his next shot out, and the lamp beside Brett shattered into bits, splashing him with oil, and then his own gun bellowed, and the dark figure in the doorway jerked spasmodically. Brett triggered the gun again, and the outlaw screamed ... hen broke his scream off in a choking, rattling sound, drowned by Brett Larane's last shot.

Joe Creet, hit three times, toppled forward and sprawled on his face outside the door. For a moment, in a deathly silence, they could hear the scratching of his fingers on the hard-packed earth beyond the step. Scratching, and then silence, a lonely shuddering silence in which Marta Malone clasped Brett Larane's head against her breast and sobbed brokenly in relief and shock.

There was sunlight in his face when he opened his eyes, sunlight, but he liked it, enjoyed it.

He looked around, remembering Marta's room, and seeing the sharp, bright, cleanliness of it, and the look of home about it.

The door opened as he lay there, enjoying the warmth and peace of it, and knowing it was early morning, and that he felt good.

The door opened, and Marta came in, her face bright when she saw he was awake. "Oh, Brett! You're up at la/! I thought you would never awaken! How do you feel?" She put her hand on his face. He caught it and held it, looking up at her. "Like I never wanted to leave!" he said, smiling. "But what happened?"

"Nothing, until the next morning. Then a man came out from Willow Springs to get some money I owed him, and he buried the bodies and then he went in and sent the doctor out. I found the money they had stolen in Joe Creet's saddlebags in the bunkhouse."

"Better not think about it," he said quietly.

"Tomorrow it will be an old story."

"Tomorrow, Brett? Why, it's already been more than two weeks! You've been awfully sick! Your side ... the doctor said if it hadn't had care right away, you would have died!"

"Well, I didn't. Now we've got work to do. I'll have to find a crew, and-"

"We've got a bunch of boys, Brett. The doctor hired them for me, four of them, Texas men who were heading back after a cattle drive. You'll have a crew to boss when you can get around again!"

"And I suppose they are all flirting with you!" he said darkly. "I reckon it is time I got around!"

"No, they haven't flirted-mch. The doctor told them we were going to be married."

"Oh, he did, did he? And what did you say?"

"Why, what could I say? He was such a nice man, and had been so helpful, I just couldn't have all those cowhands thinking he lied, could I?"

Brett Larane sank back against the pillow and grinned weakly. "You sure couldn't!" he said. uc1"You sure couldn't!"

Fork Your Own Broncs Mac Marcy turned in the saddle and, resting his left hand on the cantle, glanced back up the arroyo. His lean, brown face was troubled. There were cattle here, all right, but too few. At this time of day, late afternoon and very hot, there should have been a steady drift of cattle toward the waterhole. Ahead of him he heard a steer bawl and then another. Now what?

Above the bawling of the cattle he heard another sound, a sound that turned his face gray with worry. It was the sound of hammers. He needed nothing more to tell him what was happening. Jingle Bob Kenyon was fencing the waterhole!

As he rounded the bend in the wash, the sound of hammers ceased for an instant, but only for an instant. Then they continued with their work. Two strands of barbed wire had already been stretched tight and hard across the mouth of the wash. Several cowhands were stretching the third wire of what was obviously to be a fourwire fence. Already Marcy's cattle were bunching near the fence, bawling for water.

As he rode nearer, two men dropped their hammers and lounged up to the fence. Marcy's eyes narrowed and his gaze shifted to the big man on the roan horse. Jingle Bob Kenyon was watching him with grim humor. Marcy avoided the eyes of the two other men by the fence, Vin Ricker and John Soley, who could mean only one thing for him trouble, bad trouble.

Vin Ricker was a gunhand and a killer. John Soley was anything Vin told him to be.

"This is a rotten trick, Kenyon," Marcy declared angrily. "In this heat my herd will be wiped out."

Kenyon's eyes were unrelenting. "That's just tough," he stated flatly. "I warned yuh when yuh fust come in here to git out while the gittin' was good. Yuh stayed on. Yuh asked for it. Now yuh take it or git out."

Temper flaring within him like a burst of flame, Marcy glared. But deliberately he throttled his fury. He would have no chance here. Ricker and Soley were too much for him, let alone the other hands and Kenyon himself. "If you don't like it," Ricker sneered, "why don't yuh stop us? I hear tell yuh're a plumb salty hombre."

"You'd like me to give you a chance to kill me, wouldn't you?" Marcy asked harshly. "Someday I'll get you without your guns, Ricker an' I'll tear down your meat house."

Ricker laughed. "I don't want to dirty my hands on yuh, or I'd come over an' make yuh eat those words. If yuh ever catch me without these guns, yuh'll wish to old Harry I still had 'em."

Marcy turned his eyes away from the gunman and looked at Kenyon. "Kenyon, I didn't think this of you. Without water, my cows won't last three days, an' you know it. You'll bust me flat."

Kenyon was unrelenting. "This is a man's country, Marcy," he said drily. "Yuh fork your own broncs an' yuh git your own water. Don't come whinin' to me. Yuh moved in on me, an' if yuh git along, it'll be on your own."

Kenyon turned his horse and rode away. For an instant Marcy stared after him, seething with rage. Then, abruptly, he wheeled his grayish-black horse and started back up the arroyo. Even as he turned, he became aware that only six lean steers faced the barbed wire. He had ridden but a few yards beyond the bend when that thought struck him like a blow. Six head of all the hundreds he had herded in here! By rights they should all be at the waterhole or heading that way.

Puzzled, he started back up the trail. By rights, there should be a big herd here. Where could they be? As he rode back toward his claim shack, he stared about him. No cattle were in sight. His range was stripped. Rustlers? He scowled. But there had been no rustling activity of which he had heard. Ricker and Soley were certainly the type to rustle cattle, but Marcy knew Kenyon had been keeping them busy on the home range.

He rode back toward the shack, his heart heavy. He had saved for seven years, riding cattle trails to Dodge, Abilene, and Ellsworth to get the money to buy his herd. It was his big chance to have a spread of his own, a chance for some independence and a home. A home! He stared bitterly at the looming rimrock behind his outfit. A home meant a wife, and there was only one girl in the world for him. There would never be another who could make him feel as Sally Kenyon did.

But she would have to be old Jingle Bob's daughter! Not that she had ever noticed him. But in those first months before the fight with Jingle Bob became a dog-eat-dog fight, Marcy had seen her around, watched her, been in love with her from a distance. He had always hoped that when his place had proved up and he was settled, he might know her better. He might even ask her to marry him. It had been a foolish dream. Yet day by day it became even more absurd. He was not only in a fight with her father, but he was closer than ever to being broke.

Grimly, his mind fraught with worry, he cooked his meager supper, crouching before the fireplace. Again and again the thought kept recurring where were his cattle? If they had been stolen, they would have to be taken down past the waterhole and across Jingle Bob's range. There was no other route from Marcy's corner of range against the rim. For a horseman, yes. But not for cattle.

The sound of a walking horse startled him. He straightened and then stepped away from the fire and put the bacon upon the plate, listening to the horse as it drew nearer. Then he put down his food, and loosening his gun, he stepped to the door. The sun had set long since, but it was not yet dark. He watched a gray horse coming down from the trees leading up to the rim.

Suddenly he gulped in surprise. It was Sally Kenyon! He stepped outside and walked into the open. The girl saw him and waved a casual hand and then reined in. "Have you a drink of water?" she asked, smiling. "It's hot, riding."

"Sure," he said, trying to smile. "Coffee, if you want. I was just fixin' to eat a mite. Want to join me? Of course," he said sheepishly, "I ain't no hand with grub."

"I might take some coffee."

Sally swung down, drawing off her gantlets. She had always seemed a tall girl, but on the ground she came just to his shoulder. Her hair was honey colored, her eyes gray. He caught the quick glance of her eyes as she looked around. He saw them hesitate with surprise at the spectacle of flowers blooming near the door. She looked up, and their eyes met.

"Ain't much time to work around," he confessed. "I sort of been tryin' to make it look like a home."

"Did you plant the flowers?" she asked curiously.

"Yes ma'am. My mother was always a great lover of flowers."

"I've sure enough hearing about you," she said. "Pa and some others, Vin Ricker, for one. He hates you."

"Who else?"

"So" Mar'cy shook his head. "I don't place him."

"He's Chinese, our cook. He seems to know a great deal about you."

"I don't know any Chinese an' there ain't no Mullen gang around I know of." His eyes flashed.

"I was fixin' to, but I reckon your old man has stopped me by fencin' that waterhole. He's a hard man, your father."

"It's a hard country." She did not smile. "He's got ideas about it. He drove the Mescaleros out. He wiped out the rustlers; he took this range. He doesn't like the idea of any soft-going, second-run cowhand coming in and taking over."

His head jerked up. "Soft-going!" he flared. "Second-run? Why, that old billy goat!"

Sally turned toward her horse. "Don't tell me. Tell him. If you've nerve enough!"

He got up and took the bridle of her horse. His eyes were hard. "Ma'am," he said, striving to make his voice gentle, "I think you're a mighty fine person, an' sure enough purty, but that father of yours is a rough-ridin' old buzzard. If it wasn't for that Ricker hombre"

"Afraid?" she taunted, looking down at him.

"No, ma'am," he said quietly. "Only I ain't a killin' man. I was raised a Quaker. I don't aim to do no fightin'."

"You're in a fighting man's country," she warned him. "And you are cutting in on a fighting man's range." She turned her gray and started to ride away. Suddenly she reined in and looked back over her shoulder. "By the way," she said, "there's water up on the rim."

Water up on the rim? What did she mean? He turned his head and stared up at the top of the great cliff, which loomed high overhead into the night. It was fully a mile away, but it seemed almost behind his house. How could he get up to the rim? Sally had come from that direction. In the morning he would try. In the distance, carried by the still air of night, he heard a cow bawling. It was shut off from the waterhole.

His six head, starving for water! Marcy walked out to the corral and threw a saddle on the moros. He swung into the saddle and rode at a canter toward the waterhole. They heard him coming, and he saw a movement in the shadows by the cottonwoods.

"Hold it," a voice called. "What do you want?"

"Let that fence down and put them cows through!" Marcy yelled.

There was a harsh laugh. "Sorry, amigo. No can do. Only Kenyon cows drink here."

"All right," Marcy snapped. "They are Kenyon cows. I'm givin' 'em to him. Let the fence down an let 'em drink. I ain't seein' no animal die just to please an old plughead. Let 'em through."

Then he heard Sally's voice. He saw her sitting her horse beside old Joe Linger, who was her bodyguard, teacher, and friend. An old man who had taught her to ride and to shoot and who had been a scout for the Army at some time in the past. Sally was speaking, and he heard her say, "Let them through, Texas. If they are our cows, we don't want to have them die on us."

Marcy turned the moros and rode back toward his cabin, a sense of defeat heavy upon him. . . .

He rolled out of his blankets with the sun and after a quick breakfast, saddled the grayish-black horse and started back toward the rim. He kept remembering Sally's words, "There is water on the rim."...Why had she told him that? What good would water do him if it was way up on the rim? There must be a way up.

By backtracking the girl, he could find it. He was worried about the cattle. The problem of their disappearance kept working into his thoughts. That was another reason for his ride, the major reason. If the cattle were still on his ranch, they were back in the breaks at the foot of the rim. As he backtracked the girl's horse, he saw cow tracks, more and more of them. Obviously, some of his cattle had drifted this way. It puzzled him, yet he had to admit that he knew little of this country.

Scarcely a year before, he had come into this range, and when he arrived, the gra.s.s in the lower reaches of the valley was good, and there were mesquite beans. The cattle grew fat. With hotter and dryer weather, they had shown more and more of a tendency to keep to shady hillsides and to the canyons. The cow tracks scattered out and disappeared. He continued on the girl's trail.

He was growing more and more puzzled, for he was in the shadow of the great cliff now, and any trail that mounted it must be frightfully steep. Sally, of course, had grown up in this country on horseback. With her always had been Joe Linger. Old Joe had been one of the first white men to settle in the rim country.

Marcy skirted a clump of pinon and emerged on a little sandy level at the foot of the cliff. This, at one distant time, had been a stream bed, a steep stream that originated somewhere back up in the rimrock and flowed down here and deeper into his range. Then he saw the trail. It was a narrow catwalk of rock that clung to the cliff's edge in a way that made him swallow as he looked at it.

The catwalk led up the face of the cliff and back into a deep gash in the face of the rim, a gash invisible from below. The moros snorted a few times, but true to its mountain blood, it took the trail on dainty feet.

In an hour Marcy rode out on the rim itself. All was green here, green gra.s.s. The foliage on the trees was greener than below. There was every indication of water, but no sign of a cow. Not even a range-bred cow would go up such a trail as Marcy had just ridden.

Following the tracks of the gray, Marcy worked back through the cedar and pinon until he began to hear a m.u.f.fled roar. Then he rode through the trees and reined in at the edge of a pool that was some twenty feet across. Water flowed into it from a fair-sized stream, bubbling over rocks and falling into the pool. There were a number of springs here, and undoubtedly the supply of water was limitless. But where did it go?

Dismounting, Marcy walked down to the edge of the water and knelt on a flat rock and leaned far out. Brush hung far out over the water at the end of the pool, brush that grew on a rocky ledge no more than three feet above the surface of the water. But beneath that ledge was a black hole at least eight feet long. Water from the pool was pouring into that black hole.

Mac Marcy got up and walked around the pool to the ledge. The brush was very thick, and he had to force his way through. Clinging precariously to a clump of manzanita, he leaned out over the rim of the ledge and tried to peer into the hole. He could see nothing except a black slope of water and that the water fell steeply beyond that slope. He leaned further out, felt the manzanita give way slowly, and made a wild clutch at the neighboring brush.

Then he plunged into the icy waters of the pool. He felt himself going down, down, down! He struck out, trying to swim, but the current caught him and swept him into the gaping mouth of the wide black hole under the ledge. Darkness closed over his head, he felt himself shooting downward. He struck something and felt it give beneath him, and then something hit him a powerful blow on the head. Blackness and icy water closed over him.

Chattering teeth awakened him. He was chilled to the bone and soaking wet. For a moment he lay on hard, smooth rock in darkness, head throbbing, trying to realize what had happened. His feet felt cold. He pulled them up and turned over to a sitting position in a large cave. Only then did he realize his feet had been lying in a pool of water.

Far above he could see a faint glimmer of light, a glimmer feebly reflecting from the black, glistening roar of a fall. He tilted his head back and stared upward through the gloom. That dim light, the hole through which he had come, was at least sixty feet above him! In falling he had struck some obstruction in the narrow chimney of the water's course, some piece of driftwood or brush insecurely wedged across the hole. It had broken his descent and had saved him.

His matches would be useless. Feeling around the cave floor in the dark, he found some dry tinder that had been lying here for years. He still had his guns, since they had been tied in place with rawhide thongs. He drew one of them, extracted a cartridge, and went to work on it with his hunting knife. When it was open, he placed it carefully on the rock beside him. Then he cut shavings and crushed dried bark in his hand. Atop this he placed the powder from the open cartridge. Then he went to work to strike a spark from a rock with the steel back of his knife.

There was not the slightest wind here. Despite that, he worked for the better part of an hour before a spark sprang into the powder. There was a bright burst of flame and the shavings crackled. He added fuel and then straightened up and stepped back to look around. He stood on a wide ledge in the gloomy, closed cavern at the foot of the fall's first drop, down which he had fallen. The water struck the rock not ten feet away from him. Then it took another steep drop off to the left. He could see by the driftwood that had fallen clear that it was the usual thing for the rushing water to cast all waterborne objects onto this ledge. The ledge had at one time been deeply gouged and worn by running water.

Picking up a torch, Marcy turned and glanced away into the darkness. There lay the old dry channel, deeply worn and polished by former running water. At some time in the past, this had been the route of the stream underground. In an earthquake or some breakthrough of the rock, the water had taken the new course.

Thoughtfully, Marcy calculated his situation. He was fearful of his predicament. From the first moment of consciousness in that utter darkness, he had been so. There is no fear more universal than the fear of entombment alive, the fear of choking, strangling in utter darkness beyond the reach of help.

Mac Marcy was no fool. He was, he knew, beyond the reach of help. The moros was ground hitched in a spot where there was plenty of gra.s.s and water. The grayish-black horse would stay right there. No one, with the exception of Sally, ever went to the top of the rim. It was highly improbable that she would go again soon. In many cases, weeks would go by without anyone stopping by Marcy's lonely cabin. If he was going to get out of this hole, he would have to do it by his own efforts.

One glance up that fall showed him there was no chance of going back up the way he had come down. Working his way over to the next step downward of the fall, he held out his torch and peered below. All was utter blackness, with only the cold damp of falling water in the air. Fear was mounting within him now, but he fought it back, forcing himself to be calm and to think carefully. The old dry channel remained a vague hope. But to all appearances it went deeper and deeper into the stygian blackness of the earth.

He put more fuel on his fire and started exploring again. Fortunately, the wood he was burning was bone dry and made almost no smoke. Torch in hand he started down the old dry channel. This had been a watercourse for many, many years. The rock was worn and polished. He had gone no more than sixty feet when the channel divided. On the left was a black, forbidding hole, scarcely waist high. Down that route most of the water seemed to have gone, as it was worn the deepest. On the right was an opening almost like a doorway.

Marcy stepped over to it and held his torch out. It also was a black hole. He had a sensation of awful depth. Stepping back, he picked up a rock. Leaning out, he dropped it into the hole on the right. For a long time he listened. Then, somewhere far below, there was a splash. This hole was literally hundreds of feet deep. It would end far below the level of the land on which his cabin stood.

He drew back. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and when he put his hand to it, his brow felt cold and clammy. He looked at the black waist-high hole on the left and felt fear rise within him as he had never felt it before. He drew back and wet his lips. His torch was almost burned out. Turning with the last of its light, he retraced his steps to the ledge by the fall. How long he had been below ground, he didn't know. He looked up, and there was still a feeble light from above. But it seemed to have grown less. Had night almost come?

Slowly he built a new torch. This was his last chance of escape. It was a chance he had already begun to give up. Of them all, that black hole on the left was least promising, but he must explore it. He pulled his hat down a little tighter and started back to where the tunnel divided into two holes. His jaw was set grimly. He got down on his hands and knees and edged into the black hole on the left. Once inside, he found it fell away steeply in a ma.s.s of loose boulders.

Scrambling over them, he came to a straight, steep fall of at least ten feet. Glancing at the sheer drop, he knew one thing once down there, he would never get back up! Holding his torch high, he looked beyond. Nothing but darkness. Behind him there was no hope. He hesitated and then got down on his hands and knees, lowered himself over the edge, and dropped ten feet. This time he had to be right, for there was no going back. He walked down a slanting tunnel.

It seemed to be growing darker. Glancing up at his torch, he saw it was burning out. In a matter of minutes he would be in total darkness. He walked faster and faster. Then he broke into a stumbling run, fear rising within him. Something brought him up short, and for a moment he did not see what had caused him to halt in his blind rush. Then hope broke over him like a cold shower of rain. There on the sand beneath his feet were tiny tracks! He bent over them. A packrat or some other tiny creature.

Getting up, he hurried on, and seeing a faint glow ahead, he rushed around a bend. There before him was the feeble glow of the fading day. His torch guttered and went out. He walked on to the cave mouth, trembling in every limb. Mac Marcy was standing in an old watercourse that came out from behind some boulders not two miles from his cabin. He stumbled home and fell into his bunk, almost too tired to undress. . . .

Marcy awakened to a frantic pounding on his door. Staggering erect, he pulled on his boots, yelling out as he did so. Then he drew on his Levi's and shirt and opened the door, b.u.t.toning his shirt with one hand. Sally, her face deathly pale, was standing outside.

Beyond her gray mare stood Marcy's moros. At the sight of him the grayish-black horse lifted his head and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Oh," Sally gasped. "I thought you were dead drowned!"

He stepped over beside her. "No," he said, "I guess I'm still here. You're purty scared, ma'am. What's there for you to be scared about?"

"Why," she burst out impatiently, "if you" She caught herself and stopped abruptly. "After all," she continued coolly, "no one wants to find a friend drowned."

"Ma'am," he said sincerely, "if you get that wrought up, I'll get myself almost drowned every day."

She stared at him and then smiled. "I think you're a fool," she said. She mounted and turned. "But a nice fool."

Marcy stared after her thoughtfully. Well now, maybe He glanced down at his boots. Where they had lain in the pool, there was water stain on them. Also, there was a small green leaf clinging to the rough leather. He stooped and picked it off, wadded it up, and started to throw it away when he was struck by an idea. He unfolded the leaf and studied the veins.

Suddenly his face broke into a grin. "Boy," he said to the moros, "we got us a job to do, even if you do need a rest." He swung into the saddle and rode back toward the watercourse, still grinning.