"Lonigan!" She burst out furiously. "All you talk about is Lonigan! Who is he? What is he? What difference can one man make?"

"Well, " Calkins said grimly, "your pappy made a sight of difference! If'n he was with this drive now, your fancy Hoey Ives would pack out of here so fast his dust would be bigger'n that raised by the herd! Or if Lonigan was. Fact is," he added grimly, "there ain't nary a cowhand down there wouldn't draw on Hoey tomorrow if'n he figured he had a chance. Hoey's killed ten men, all better'n him except with a gun."

"And yet you think Lonigan could beat him?" she asked wryly.

"Mebbe. I ain't sure, but I am sure of one thing. If Lonigan died you can bet your boots Hoey Ives would die with him! You say," he continued, "what difference can one man make? Well, he can make a sight of difference. Lonigan doesn't talk so much; he's a good worker, but he's got something in him, something more'n most men. He ain't so big, rightly he's not, but he seems big, and he rode for the brand, Lonigan did. He loved the Circle G. Loved it like it was his own."

"Then where is he now when we need him?" Ruth demanded bitterly. "This . . . this superman of yours. Where is he now? You say he never missed a trail drive, that he would drift off, but somehow like he knew the day and hour, he would show up and take his place with the herd. Where is he now?"

"Mebbe he's dead." Calkins was grim. "Wherever he is, he's with the Circle G, and we're with him."

They looked up at the sound of hoofs, and Lon Calkins's face tightened grimly. Abruptly, he reined his horse around. "I'll be ridin,' he said.

"You meant what you said about quitting?" she asked.

"If he stays," Calkins insisted, "I go."

"I'll be sorry to lose you, Lon. The Circle G won't be the same without you."

His old eyes met hers and he stared at her. "Believe me, it won't. Your father should have had a son."

He rode away then, and she stared after him, her body feeling empty as an old sack. The approaching hoofs drew nearer and slowed, and her eyes turned with relief toward those of Hoey Ives. He was a big young man with hard black eyes in which she had never seen the cruelty or calculation that lay in their depths. He rode magnificently and was a top hand.

On this trip he had been her mainstay, ramrodding it through, talking to lift her spirits, advising her and helping her in countless ways. It was he who had selected the trail they took, he who had ridden out alone to meet the rustlers that would have stopped them, and who talked them out of trouble.

"What's the matter with the old man?" he asked. "What's he growling about now?"

"Oh, he was talking about the old days on the Circle G," she said, "and about Lonigan."

"Lonigan?" Hoey's gaze sharpened, and for an instant she seemed to read apprehension in his eyes. "He hasn't heard from him?"

"n.o.body has. Yet he always made the drive."

"He's dead," Ives replied. "He must be. I knew he always made the drive, and that was why I waited before offering my services. We never got along, you see."

"What's he like?" she asked curiously. "Lonigan?"

Ives hesitated, while his bay stamped its foot restlessly. "He's a killer. Utterly vicious. "

"But the boys liked him, " Ruth protested.

"Sure. He was their pride and joy," Ives said bitterly. "He led the Circle G parade. No man, not even your father, had as much influence with the hands. He was loudmouthed and a braggart, but he appealed to them, and they found excuses for his killings."

"Yet he must have something . . . ?"

"Yes," Hoey Ives nodded reluctantly. "He had that. There was something about him, something that frightened men who didn't even know him."

Ives rejoined the herd, and Ruth Gurney rode on, lingering along the hillcrests away from the dust, watching the herd that meant everything to her. The sale of that herd could mean the ranch was out of debt, that it was hers, all hers. Yet she knew that what Calkins had said was true, bitterly true. Not half the herd would live to see Dodge, and she would be broke then, broke and finished.

She turned her horse and put him on up the slope to the very top of the long, low hill that ran beside the trail. On top there might be more breeze. And there was, although but little more. Yet she sat her horse there, looking over the brown, trampled-down gra.s.s that stretched on beyond it. There, too, the herds had been. The earlier herds that had started sooner.

The failure of Lonigan to appear had caused most of that delay. All along she had realized why Calkins was waiting, why the hands kept looking toward the trail, why they found excuses to ride into town, why they intercepted every drifting horseman to ask about him, but for the first time he had not appeared.

She pushed on across the ridge, riding due west. The sun was already far down toward the horizon but it was still unbearably hot. Heat waves danced and rippled against the sky along the ridges, and she slowed her horse to a walk and pushed on alone, lost now from the herd, with only the rising dust to mark its presence.

Half asleep, lulled by the heat and the even rhythm of the walking horse, she dozed in the saddle, and then the horse stopped and coolness touched her face. She was atop another ridge, and far toward the west she seemed to see a thin edge of green, and then her eyes dropped and she saw the tracks of a horse. The horse was shod and the tracks were fresh.

Without doubt the tracks were no more than an hour old, two hours at most. In that time the herd had moved less than three miles, so its dust cloud would have been within sight. Why had the strange rider avoided them? His horse had stopped here on this ridge, and from the tracks he must have watched the dust cloud. It was unusual for a rider to be so close and not to approach the herd. Unless- she frowned and bit her lip-unless he was an outlaw.

She realized instantly that she should ride to the herd and let Calkins know. Rather, let Hoey Ives know. It might be another raid, and rustlers had already hit them for over three hundred head of stock. Nevertheless, her curiosity aroused, she turned her horse and started backtracking the man. From time to time she paused to rise in her stirrups and look carefully around the prairie, yet nowhere could she see anything, not a sign of a rider beyond the tracks she followed.

Aware that it was time to turn back, she pushed on, aware that the terrain was changing and that she was riding into a broken country of exposed ledges and sharp upthrusts of rock. Topping a rise, she drew up, frowning. Before her lay a long green valley, several miles wide and gra.s.sy and well watered. This was the green, some of the gra.s.s showing from the hilltops, that she had seen from some distance east. What a waste to think their herd was pa.s.sing over that miserable brown and dusty plain when all this was going to waste! It was too bad Hoey did not know of this.

She pushed on to the bottom of the valley and toward a water hole, the tracks for the moment forgotten. And then at the water hole she saw them again. Here the rider had stopped, a tall man with rundown bootheels and Mexican spurs, judging by the tracks in the sand.

She was lying on her stomach drinking when her eyes lifted in response to the sudden falling of a shadow. She saw shabby boots and the Mexican spurs, dark leather chaps, and then a slim-waisted man wearing a faded red shirt and a black kerchief around his throat. His hat was gray, dusty, and battered.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, smiling at her. "You've got water on your chin."

She sprang to her feet irritably and dashed a quick hand across her mouth and chin. "Suppose I have? What business is it of yours?"

His face was browned from sun and wind, his eyes faintly whimsical. He wore, she noticed suddenly, two guns. He was rolling a cigarette, and now he placed it carefully in the corner of his mouth and struck a match left handed. For some idiotic reason she suddenly wished the wind would blow it out. It didn't.

His eyes slanted from her to her horse and the brand. "Circle G," he murmured thoughtfully, "I reckon that's a Texas outfit."

"If you were from Texas," she replied with asperity, "you would know. There wasn't a better known cattleman in Texas than Tom Gurney!"

"Relative of his?"

"His daughter. And my herd is just a few miles east of here."

"Yeah," his voice was suddenly sarcastic, "that's what comes of a woman ramroddin' a herd. You got your stock on dry gra.s.s with this valley offerin' shelter, graze, and plenty of water."

"For your information," she said coldly, "I'm not ramrodding the herd. My trail boss is. He evidently did not know of this valley."

"And evidently he didn't try very hard to find out about it. You got a lousy trail boss, ma'am."

"I didn't ask you! Mr. Ives is-"

She was startled by the way his head came up. "Did you say . . . Ives? You don't mean Hoey Ives?"

"I do. You . . . you know him?"

"I should smile. Your dad must be dead, then . . . for he'd never let an Ives ramrod a trail herd of his, else."

"Who are you?" she demanded. "You talk like you knew my father?"

He shrugged. "You know this country. Folks pa.s.s stories along from camp to camp. A man can know a lot about a country without ever being' there. I'm just from Wyoming."

Suddenly, he glanced up. "Cloudin' up for sure. You'll never make it back to the herd now before the rain comes. Mount up and we'll go down to the cabin."

She looked at him coldly, then cast an apprehensive glance at the sky. "I'll race the storm to the herd," she said coolly. "Thanks just the same."

"No," he said, "you'd never make it. I know these prairie thunderstorms. There may be hail, and sometimes the stones are big enough to beat your brains out. The cabin is closer."

Even as he spoke, there was a rumble of thunder and a few spattering drops landed near them. Worriedly, she glanced at the sky. It was dark and lowering. She had been so preoccupied by the tracks and then by the valley that she had not noticed the rising clouds. Now she saw that there was indeed a bad storm coming, and recalling some of the gullies she had traversed she knew that the trail back would be fraught with danger.

She glanced once at the strange rider, hesitated, then said swiftly, "All right, we'll go."

"We'd better make a run for it!" he said, swinging into the saddle. "She'll drop the bottom out of the bucket in a minute!"

Following his lead, she dashed off downstream at breakneck, reckless speed. Yet when they swept around the corner near the cabin his hand went up, and he turned toward her, his face dark and hard. With a gesture, he indicated several horses in the corral, and smoke rising from the ancient chimney. "This could be trouble!" he said grimly. "There was n.o.body here an hour ago, and n.o.body rides loose in this country right now who's honest!"

"Including yourself?" she asked quickly.

His grin was lopsided but not without humor. "Maybe even me," he agreed, "but you back me in whatever I say. Good or bad men, we need shelter!"

Swiftly they unsaddled their horses and led them to the stable. There was still room for two or three horses, indicating that some of the riders were less than particular about their mounts. Then the strange rider led the way toward the cabin.

Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, "Call me Danny!"

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, the girl right behind him. He had known they would be observed and that the men within the cabin would have worked out some sort of plan if they were not honest men, and his first glance told him they were not.

"How's for some grub?" he asked coolly. "We got caught in the rain!"

A big man standing with his back to the fireplace grinned. "Got caught in good company, I see! Ain't often a feller gets hisself caught out with a girl in these parts!"

"Especially," Danny said quietly, "when she's his boss!"

"Boss?" The big man's eyes sharpened. "Never heard tell of no woman cow boss!"

"You heard of one now."

There were four men in the room, and two of them Danny recognized at once. Neither Olin Short nor Elmo Shain were names unknown to the law of half a dozen states and territories. The big man he did not know, nor the lean saturnine man with the scarred face.

"This is Ruth Gurney, boss of the Circle G."

The big man stiffened and peered hard at her, then at Danny. "You don't look familiar to me," he said. "I figured I knowed the G riders."

"Then if you don't know me," Danny said quietly, "you ain't known em long."

Olin Short, who was neither short nor fat, glanced up.

"Here's coffee for the lady, " he said quietly. "You pick up a cup and rinse her under the rainspout . . . if'n you're particular."

Danny took the cup and without hesitation stepped to the door and rinsed the cup. When he stepped back inside his eyes sought Olin's face. The man was about thirty, not a bad-looking man with blue eyes and a stubble of beard. If there was one among them upon whom he might place some trust, it was Short.

"How far offs the G?" It was the scarred man who spoke.

Danny glanced at him. "Maybe six miles," he lied, "not over ten."

"Know where you are?" Danny nodded.

"Why not? Miss Gurney was riding an' when the storm started they sent me after her. I told 'em if we couldn't make it back we'd hole up here."

"How'd you know about this shack?"

Now it was the big man who spoke, and his voice was suddenly hard. Danny filled his cup before replying.

"I stopped here a week once, last winter," he said, "helped some boys drive some horses into New Mexico."

"Horses? Into New Mexico?" Shain laughed. "I thought Billy the Kid and his outfit had that sewed up."

"It was Billy's outfit." Danny spoke quietly and without seeming to notice the sudden shock on their faces. When they spoke again, however, there was new respect on their faces.

"Billy's outfit, huh? Who was with him?"

"Jesse Evans, Hendry Brown, and a couple of other hombres. They had the horses, and I was drifting toward Cimarron, but joined up with them and drove down to the Ruidoso instead."

The reply seemed to satisfy the men, for no more questions were asked. Ruth sipped her coffee slowly, soaking up the warmth of the room. She was sufficiently aware of the situation in west Texas to know these were hard, dangerous men. They were outlaws. And this man with her might be another of the same breed.

She had heard of Billy the Kid, the soft-voiced boy of not yet eighteen who already had won a name for deadly gun skill, and of his friend, the man who in time would be on the opposite side, Jesse Evans.

Danny had taken his cup and moved back near the wall. He placed it on the floor and rolled a smoke deftly.

"What happens," the scar-faced man said suddenly, "if you don't show up with the lady come daylight?"

"Why, I reckon there'd be eight or ten of the toughest hands in Texas riding thisaway to find out why," Danny said quietly. Then his eyes lifted, and they seemed to blaze with sudden fire. The quiet was gone from them, and from his voice, which carried an edge that was sharp and clean. "But don't worry . . . we'll ride into that camp come mornin'. n.o.body," he said, more quietly, "or nothing, will keep us from it."

Shain stared at him, sitting up from the wooden bunk where he had been reclining. "You talk plumb salty, stranger. Who are you? Maybe you are the Kid?" he sneered.

Danny smiled, suddenly. "Why, you boys been around here before, I take it," he said coolly. "If you were, maybe you'll recall the calling cards I left here. You see, I came back this way after that trip to Lincoln and the Ruidoso . . . and had occasion to leave some reminders."

Elmo Shain's sneer was wiped from his face as if by magic, and he shot a quick, horrified glance toward the big man by the fireplace. For some reason that comment electrified the group in the room. Ruth had the feeling that Short alone was pleased.

Conversation died again in the room, and Danny finished his coffee, then refilled both their cups. "Shain," he said suddenly, "when the lady finishes her coffee, how's for lettin' her have that bunk? She's some tired."

At the use of his name, Shain had glanced up sharply. For a slow minute he said nothing, and then he nodded. "Yeah," he said, "all right."

Danny finished his smoke and rubbed it out. His message had ruined whatever plans they had made, or had at least made them doubt their use. Now they knew either who he was or that he was somebody to be reckoned with. He would have small cause for worry until two of them excused themselves and went outside to talk things over. When they returned he would have to be even more watchful.

Although reluctant to lie down, Ruth suddenly found herself so exhausted that she began to doze almost as soon as she touched the bunk. Danny drew a blanket over her and squatted at the foot of the bunk, his back against the wall.

A slow hour paraded past. The scarred man got up and muttering something about wood for the fire, went out. Shain was asleep, sitting against the wall. The big man followed the scarred man after the wood, and Olin Short threw the last stick on the fire and leaning close to Danny, said quietly, "Watch yourself. The big hombre is Ca.s.selman. The mean one is the devil of the lot ... he's Papago Brown."

"Where do you stand?"

Short's face hardened. "Only to help that girl. I'll see no woman wronged. Least of all, any girl of Gurney's."