It was midafternoon when he returned to the cabin and ate a leisurely lunch, still chuckling. Then he mounted again and started for the old waterhole that had been fenced by Jingle Bob Kenyon. When Marcy rounded the bend, he could see that something was wrong. A dozen men were gathered around the waterhole. Nearby and astride her gray was Sally.

The men were in serious conference, and they did not notice Marcy's approach. He rode up, leaning on the horn of the saddle, and watched them, smiling.

Suddenly Vin Ricker looked up. His face went hard. Mac Marcy swung down and strolled up to the fence, leaning casually on a post. "What's up?"

"The waterhole's gone dry," Kenyon exploded. "Not a drop o' water in it."

Smothering a grin, Marcy rolled a smoke. "Well," he said philosophically, "the Lord giveth an' He taketh away. No doubt it's the curse of the Lord for your greed, Jingle Bob."

Kenyon glared at him suspiciously. "Yuh know somethin' about this?" he demanded. "Man, in this hot weather my cattle will die by the hundreds. Somethin's got to be done."

"Seems to me," Marcy said drily, "I have heard them words before."

Sally was looking at him over her father's head, her face grave and questioning. But she said nothing, gave no sign of approval or disapproval. "This here's a man's country," Marcy said seriously. "Yuh fork your own broncs an' you get your own water."

Kenyon flushed. "Marcy, if you know anythin' about this, for goodness sake spill it. My cows will die. Maybe I was too stiff about this, but there's somethin' mighty funny goin' on here. This waterhole ain't failed in twenty years."

"Let me handle him," Ricker snarled. "I'm just achin' to git my hands on him."

"Don't ache too hard, or you'll git your wish," Marcy drawled, and he crawled through the fence. "All right Kenyon, we'll talk business," Marcy said to the rancher. "You had me stuck yesterday with my tail in a crack. Now you got yours in one. I cut off your water to teach you a lesson. You're a blamed old highbinder, an' it's high time you had some teeth pulled.

"n.o.body but me knows how that water's cut off and where. If I don't change it, n.o.body can. So listen to what I'm sayin.

"I'm goin' to have all the water I need after this on my own place, but this here hole stays open. No fences.

"This mornin' when I went up to cut your water off, I saw some cow tracks. I'm missin' a powerful lot of cows. I follered the tracks into a hidden draw an' found three hundred of my cattle an' about a hundred head of yours all nicely corraled an' ready to be herded across the border.

"While I was lookin' over the hideout, I spied Ricker there. John Soley then come ridin' up with about thirty head of your cattle, an' they run 'em in with the rest."

"You're a liar," Ricker burst out, his face tense, and he dropped into a crouch, his fingers spread.

Marcy was unmoved. "No, I ain't bluffing. You try to prove where you were about nine this mornin'. An' don't go tryin' to git me into a gunfight. I ain't a-goin' to draw, an' you don't dare shoot me down in front of witnesses. But you take off those guns, an' I'll"

Ricker's face was ugly. "Yuh bet I'll take 'em off! I allus did want a crack at that purty face o' yours." He stripped off his guns and swung them to Soley in one movement. Then he rushed. A wicked right swing caught Marcy before he dropped his gun belt and got his hands up, and it knocked him reeling into the dirt. Ricker charged, his face livid, trying to kick Marcy with his boots, but Marcy rolled over and got on his feet. He lunged and swung a right that clipped Ricker on the temple. Then Marcy stabbed the rustler with a long left.

They started to slug. Neither had any knowledge of science. Both were raw and tough and hard-bitten. Toe to toe, b.l.o.o.d.y and bitter, they slugged it out. Ricker, confident and the larger of the two men, rushed in swinging. One of his swings cut Marcy's eye; another started blood gushing from Marcy's nose. Ricker set himself and threw a hard right for Marcy's chin but the punch missed as Marcy swung one to the body that staggered Ricker.

They came in again, and Marcy's big fist pulped the rustler's lips, smashing him back on his heels. Then Marcy followed it in, swinging with both hands. His breath came in great gasps, but his eyes were blazing. He charged in, following Ricker relentlessly. Suddenly Marcy's right caught the gunman and knocked him to his knees. Marcy stepped back and let him get up and then knocked him sliding on his face in the sand. Ricker tried to get up, but he fell back, b.l.o.o.d.y and beaten.

Swiftly, before the slow-thinking Soley realized what was happening, Marcy spun and grabbed one of his own guns and turned it on this rustler. "Drop em," he snapped. "Unbuckle your belt an' step back!"

Jingle Bob Kenyon leaned on his saddle horn, chewing his pipestem thoughtfully. "What," he drawled, "would yuh of done if he drawed his gun?"

Marcy looked up, surprised. "Why, I'd have killed him, of course." He glanced over at Sally, and then looked back at Kenyon. "Afore we git off the subject," he said, "we finish our deal. I'll turn your water back into this hole I got it stopped up away back inside the mountain but as I said, the hole stays open to anybody. Also," Marcy's face colored a little "I'm marryin' Sally."

"You're what?" Kenyon glared and then jerked around to look at his daughter. Sally's eyes were bright.

"You heard him, Father," she replied coolly. "I'm taking back with me those six steers he gave you so he could get them to water."

Marcy was looking at Kenyon when suddenly Marcy grinned.

"I reckon," he said, "you had your lesson. Sally an' me have got a lot of talkin' to do."

Marcy swung aboard the moros, and he and Sally started off together.

Jingle Bob Kenyon stared after them, grim humor in his eyes. "I wonder,"he said, "what he would have done if Ricker had drawed?"

Old Joe Linger grinned and looked over at Kenyon from under his bushy brows. "Jest what he said. He'd of kilt him. That's Quaker John McMarcy, the hombre that wiped out the Mullen gang single-handed. He jest don't like to fight, that's all."

"It sure does beat all," Kenyon said thoughtfully. "The trouble a man has to go to git him a good son-in-law these days!"

PARDNER FROM THE RIO.

Tandy Thayer rode up the river trail in the late afternoon, a tall young man with sand-colored hair, astride a gray horse. He drew rein before he reached the water hole, and looked carefully around as though searching for something missing from the terrain.

Tandy Thayer was slightly stooped as a man often becomes after long hours and years in the saddle, and his eyes had that steady, slow look of a man who knows his own mind and his own strength.

Turning in the saddle he studied the bare, burned red rock with a little frown gathering between his eyes. Here was where old man Drew's ranch should be, right on this spot. There was the water hole, and to the right, and not far distant, was the roar of the river. High upon the mountain to his left was that jagged streak of white rock pointing like an arrow to this place. All the signs were right. The painstaking description had accounted for every foot of the trail until now. It had even accounted for every natural landmark here.

Only there was no barn, no corral, no ranch house, and no Jim Drew. Nor was there any evidence that any of those things had existed upon this spot. Tandy swung down from the saddle and trailed the bridle reins. The gray started purposefully but not too anxiously toward the water hole and sank his muzzle into the limpid pool. Thayer was thirsty himself, but his mind was occupied now with a puzzle.

He shoved his hat back from his homely, weather worn face with a quick, characteristic gesture and began to look around. He heard the horse approaching before it arrived, so he faced about, turning himself squarely toward the trail up which he had just ridden. Another rider. From where?

The man was burly, a big man astride a powerful sorrel with a blazed face and three white stockings. His face was flat and swarthy, his eyes blue steel. He rode lopsided in the saddle with a careless c.o.c.kiness that showed itself as well in the slant of his narrow-brimmed, flat crowned hat.

"Howdy," he said, and inspected Tandy with a wary, casual interest. "Ridin' through?"

"I reckon. Huntin' an hombre name of Jim Drew. Know him?"

"Guess not. Was he comin' through here?"

"He lived here. Right on this spot if I figure right."

"Here?" The rider's voice was incredulous, but then he chuckled with a dry sound and his eyes glinted with what might have been malice. "n.o.body ever lived here. You can see for yourself. Anyways, this here is Block T range, and they are mighty touchy folks. Me, I'd not ride it myself, only they know me."

He dug into his shirt pocket for the makings. "How'd you happen to pick this spot?"

"Drew gave me directions, and mighty near drew me a map. He mentioned the river, the water hole, that streak on the mountain, and a few other things."

"Yeah?" The rider touched his tongue to the edge of the paper. "Must have slipped up somewheres along the trail. n.o.body ever lived here in my time, and I've been around here more'n ten years. Closest house is the Block T, and that's six miles north of here. I live back down the country, myself."

He struck a match and lighted his cigarette. "I'll be riding on. Gettin' hungry."

"You ride for the Block T?"

"No, I'm Kleinback. I own the K Bar. If you're over thata way drop by and set a while. I'm headed to see Bill Hofer, the hombre who ramrods the Block T."

Tandy Thayer was a stubborn man, and it had been a long ride from Texas. Moreover, he had known Jim Drew long enough to know that Drew would never give wrong directions or invite him on a wild goose chase.

"That trail was plain as if he'd blazed it, " he muttered. "I'll just have a look around."

He had his look around, for his pains, and over his fire as dusk gathered, he considered the problem. His eyes had already told him there was nothing to see. The cabin, corrals, and stable so painstakingly described were nowhere to be seen, nor was there any stock. Hesitant as he was to pull out without finding Drew, he felt that his best bet would be to try to land a job as a rider for the Block T. He couldn't live on desert gra.s.s.

Thayer organized the shadow of a meal from what he carried in his saddlebags, then lighted a cigarette and leaned back against a boulder to study things out. Jim Drew was weather-beaten and cantankerous, but he was also sure moving and painstaking. Despite Kleinback's statement, Tandy was sure Drew must be around somewhere.

Picking up another piece of mesquite, he tossed it on the fire. In the morning he would take a last look around. If this was the place Drew had meant, there would be some sign, surely.

Tandy had put out his hand for a stick and started to toss it, when he caught the motion in midair. Along the underside of that stick, his fingers had found a row of notches. Holding the mesquite close to the fire, he studied it. Two notches, and then a s.p.a.ce followed by another notch. As he stared at those notches, with the cuts still unweathered, his mind skipped back to a camp alongside the Rio Grande below San Marcial where he once had sat across a campfire and watched Jim Drew cutting just such notches as he talked. It had been a habit of the old rancher's, just as some men whittle and others doodle with pen or pencil.

So, then. He was not wrong, and Jim Drew had been here. But if he had been here, where was he now? And where were the ranch buildings? Why had Kleinback not known about him? Or had he known?

Tandy got swiftly to his feet, recalling something he had observed as he had ridden up, but which had made no impression at the time. It was the position of three clumps of mesquite. He strode to the nearest one and, grasping a branch, gave it a jerk. It came loose so suddenly he all but fell. Bending over, he felt with his hand for the place from which the roots had come. There was loose dirt, but when he brushed it aside, his fingers found the round outline of a posthole! Grimly he got to his feet and replaced the mesquite, tamping the dirt around it.

There was something wrong here, mighty wrong. He picked up a few loose sticks and walked slowly back to the fire. He was feeding the sticks into the blaze when he heard another horse.

"Busy little place," he mentally commented, straightening up. He stepped back from the fire, then heard a hoof strike stone, and saddle leather creak as of someone dismounting.

"Come on up to the fire," he said. "We're all friends here."

A spur jingled, feet crunched on gravel, and then he was looking across the fire into the eyes of a girl, a tall girl with a slim, willowy body. She wore blue jeans and a man's battered hat. Her shirt, with a buckskin vest worn over it, was gray. She wore a gun, Tandy observed.

"By jiminy!' he exclaimed. "A woman! Sure never figured to see a woman in these hills, ma'am. Will you join me in some coffee?"

Her eyes showed no friendliness. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What do you want here?"

"Me?" Tandy shrugged. "Just a driftin' cowhand, ma'am. This water hole figgered to be a good camp for the night."

"Here?" Her voice was dry, skeptical. "When it is only six miles to the Block T?"

"Well, now. I'd started my camp before I knowed that, ma'am. Hombre name of Kleinback told me about the Block T."

Tandy was watching her when he said the name, Kleinback, and he saw her face stiffen a little.

"Oh?' she said. "So you've seen Roy? Are you working for him?"

"Huntin' work, ma'am. I'm a top hand. You know the Block T? Mebbe they could use me?"

"I'm Clarabel Jornal," she told him. "My uncle ramrods the Block T. He won't need you."

"Mebbe I'd better talk to him," Tandy said, smiling.

Her eyes blazed, and she took a step nearer the fire. "Listen, rider!" she said sharply. "You'd best keep right on drifting! There's nothing in this country for anybody as nosy as you! Get going! If you don't, I'll send Pipal down to see you in the morning!"

"Who's he? The local watchdog? Sorry, ma'am, but I don't scare easy, so maybe you'd better send him. I ain't a right tough hombre, but I get along. As for being nosy, if you think I'm nosy you must be right sort of nosy yourself, comin' down here advising me to move on. I like it here, ma'am. In fact"-he paused to give emphasis to his words-"I may set up a ranch right here."

"Here?" Consternation struggled with anger in her voice. "Why here, of all places? Anyway, this is Block T range."

"Not filed on by Block T. Just claimed." Thayer grinned. "Ma'am, you might's well have some coffee."

"No!" she flared. "You be out of here by daylight or I'll send Pipal after you! He's killed four men!"

Tandy Thayer smiled, but his lips were thin and his eyes cold. "Has he now? Suppose you just keep him at home in the mornin', ma'am. I'll come right up to the Block T, and if he's in a sweat to make it five, he can have his chance!"

When the girl swung into the saddle, her face angry, Thayer leaned back against the boulder once more. She was from the Block T, and the Block T claimed this range. Perhaps they had objected to Jim Drew's ranching here. And Pipal, whoever he was, might have done the objecting with lead. . . .

By daylight the setup looked no different than it had the previous night except that now Tandy Thayer studied the terrain with a new eye. Some changes, indicated by the mesquite bush planted in the posthole, had been made. With that in mind, he found the location of more postholes, found where the house had been and the barn. Whoever had removed the traces of Drew and his ranch, had removed them with extraordinary care. Evidently they had expected someone to come looking and had believed they could fool whoever it would be. Only they had not known of the painstaking care with which old Jim gave directions, nor his habit of doodling with a knife.

Saddling up, Tandy Thayer headed up the trail between the river and the mountains for the Block T. The place was nothing to look at: a long L-shaped adobe house shaded by giant cotton woods, three pole corrals, a combination stable and blacksmith shop, the corner of the shop shielded from the sun by still another huge cottonwood, and a long bunkhouse.

Two horses were standing near the corral when Tandy rode into the ranch yard, and a short, square man with a dark face and a thin mustache came to the bunkhouse door and shaded his eyes to look at him. At almost the same moment, a tall man in a faded checked shirt and vest came from the house.

Thayer reined in before him. "Howdy!" he said. "You Bill Hofer?"

"That's right. " The man had keen, slightly worried blue eyes with a guarded look in their depths. He wore a six-gun tied too high to be of much use.

"Hunting a riding job," Tandy said. "Top hand, and wrangler."

Hofer hesitated. "I can use you, all right," he said. "We're shorthanded here. Throw your gear in the bunkhouse and get some grub."

The man with the thin mustache was nowhere in sight when Tandy shoved through the bunkhouse door and dropped saddlebags on the first empty bunk he saw. He glanced around and a frown gathered between his eyes. The bunkhouse had been built to accommodate at least twenty men, but only four bunks gave signs of occupancy. As he was looking around, a red-headed hand came glancing at him.

"New, eh?" the redhead said. "Better throw your duffle bag on your horse and ramble, pardner. This ain't a healthy place noway."

Tandy turned, and his eyes swept the redhead. "That was being friendly, or not? Too many folks seem aimin' for me move on."

Red shrugged. "Plumb friendly." He waved a hand at empty bunks. "That look good? You ain't no pilgrim. What about a spread that ordinarily uses twenty hands, and could thirty, but only has four workin' hands and a cook? Does that look good?"

"What's the trouble?" asked Tandy.

"Maybe one thing, and maybe another. The trouble is, boss hires em and Pipal fires em."

"Who's Pipal?"

A foot grated in the doorway and Red turned, his face turning a shade lighter under the freckles. The man with thin mustache above cruel lips, and black eyes that bored into Thayer, stood there. He wore two guns, tied low, and was plainly a half-breed.

Warning signals sounded in Tandy's brain. Four men killed. Had one of them been Jim Drew? The thought stirred something deep within him, something primeval and ugly, something he had forgotten was there. He met the black eyes with his own steady, unblinking gaze.

"I am Pipal," the swarthy man said, his voice flat and level, "We do not need another hand. You will mount and ride."

Thayer smiled suddenly. This was trouble, and he wasn't backing away from it. He was no gunslinger, but he had put more than a few years fighting Comanches and rustlers.

"The boss hired me," he said coldly. "The boss can fire me."

"I said-go!" Pipal cracked the word like a man cracks a bullwhip, and as he spoke, he stepped nearer, his hand dropping to his gun. Tandy's left fist was at his belt where the thumb had been hooked a moment before. He drove it into the pit of Pipal's stomach with a snapping jolt, shooting it right from where was. Pipal's wind left him with a grunt, and he doubled up in agony.

Thayer promptly jerked his knee up into Pipal's face knocking the man's head back. With Pipal's chin wide open and blood streaming from a smashed nose, Tandy set himself and swung left and right from his hip. Pipal went down in heap. Coolly, Tandy stepped over to him, jerked his guns from their holsters and shucked the sh.e.l.ls into the palm of his hand. He dropped them into his pocket.

Pipal lay on the floor, blood dripping from his nose and his breath coming in wracking gasps.