Most people, when they went to chasing outlaws, spent too much time wearing horses out. He found it much more simple to follow the trails from a chair, even though he'd spent the largest part of his life in a saddle. What had become of Jake Salter? That was the next problem, and just where was the money? Jake Salter was out of his skull over Maria, and Maria was Buck Rodd's girl. Jake Salter, trying to impress her with how big a man he was, might have mentioned carrying all that money. She would surely have told Buck Rodd. There is very little, after all, that is strange about human behavior. All the trails were blazed long, long ago.

Handy led his horse to the livery stable. Livery stables, he had discovered, were like barber shops. There was always a lot of talk around, and if a man listened he could pick up a good deal. He led the buckskin inside, bought it a night's keep for two bits, and began giving the surprised horse a rubdown. The buckskin was a little uncertain as to the proper reaction to such a procedure. Upon those past occasions when he had been rubbed down it was after a particularly gruelling time on the trail, but on this day he had done practically nothing. He was gratified by the rubdown, but felt it would only be in character to bite, kick, or act up somehow. However, even when preoccupied, as he was now, Handy rarely gave him opportunities. The buckskin relaxed, but the idea stayed with him.

For two days Handy had idled about the livery stable in Pagosa before coming here, so he knew that Salter owned a little spread over on the Seco. The brand was the Lazy S. A few minutes now sufficed to show there was no Lazy S horse in the stable, but he waited, and he listened. As night settled down he saddled the buckskin again and strolled outside. The night was softly dark, the stars hanging so low it seemed a tall man might knock them down with a stick.

Handy sat down on a bench against the stable wall. A lazy-fingered player plucked a haphazard tune from a piano in the saloon up the street. Occasionally the player sang a few bars, a plaintive cow country song born some centuries ago on the plains of Andalusia, in far-off Spain. Nothing stirred. Once there was a burst of laughter from the saloon, and occasionally he could hear the click of poker chips.

Down the street a door opened, letting a shaft of lamp-light into the darkness. A big man swaggered out. The door closed, and Handy could hear the jingle of spurs and boot heels on the boardwalk, and then, in the light from over the swinging doors of the Reiauda, Handy saw a big man enter. He wore a black hat and a black shirt, and his handle-bar mustache was sweeping and black.

Buck Rodd. Handy arose and rubbed a finger along the stubble of beard. It was no way in which to call on a lady. Still... he walked down the opposite side of the street from the saloon and turned in at the gate from which Rodd had emerged. Hesitating to step up on the porch, he walked around to the side, past the rose bushes that grew near the window. He could see the woman inside; no longer a girl, but all woman, Maria looked like someone who knew what she wanted and how to get it.

Handy Indian-toed it to the back door and tried the canvas covered outer door. It opened under his hand; It was warmer inside, and the air was close. There was a smell of food, and over it, of coffee. He moved toward the lighted door and stopped as Maria framed herself there. Her breath caught, but she made no other sound.

"Who are you?" she demanded. Maria, Handy saw, was not easily fl.u.s.tered.

"A driftin' cowhand who smelled fresh coffee and thought we might talk a little."

"We've nothing to talk about. Now rattle your hocks out of here before my man comes back."

"You mean Buck... or Salter?"

The beautiful eyes became less beautiful, but very cold and wary. "You'd better leave while you're able. If Buck should come back-"

"Maria," he said, "you re a beautiful woman. You re also a very smart one. By the time they've split that money so was the way she would be. He had no intention of using any kind of a gun unless it was forced on him. The money meant a lot to Bailey to say nothing of the others, and he meant to get it back if he could. As for a piece of Bailey's ranch, that was a dream and no more than a dream. When Bailey discovered he was Sonora Hack he would have no further use for him. He certainly would not want him as a partner.

Yet one thing he had established: Maria either had the money or knew where it was. He looked down at her. "Maria, you don't think I'd trust you, do you? You an' me, we ride the same trail. We both want money, and a lot of it. You don't trust me, and I don't trust you, but if we work together we both stand to win."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get the money now. Split in two halves. I'll take mine, and then you call Buck Rodd and tell him there's a man in your house. When he comes I'll be waiting." He could almost feel her thoughts. How could she lose? If she stayed with them her part of the split would be a thousand dollars or less. Go his way and she could keep half, and she could find a way to get his half also. If the worst happened, and Hack was killed, there was every chance Buck or some of his men would also be killed. Either way, her share would be larger.

Suddenly a new thought came to him. "What about Salter? Does he cut into this'" She shrugged. "He was a fool! He agreed to run off with the money if somebody took care of Leeds. Wing Mathy and Carrero did that. When Salter got to where he was to meet me, Buck was waiting for him. It was a smooth job."

He stared at her from the shadows. Smooth, all right, and deadly, as ruthless and deadly as she herself. "Good! Let's split the money now."

An instant she hesitated, then crossing the room she slipped back a portion of the base panel and got out a sack. "There it is, all of it."

A hinge creaked behind them and a cool young voice said, "I'll take that!"

Ann Bailey! Sonora felt a shock of cold go through him. This was the end. n.o.body would ever believe he intended to get the money and return it. She stepped into the room, her gun held steady, "Oh, you're contemptible! You promise to get our money back, and then you're here with this, this awful woman! You were planning to kill all those men! I heard it! I heard every word!"

Maria's eyes flashed at him. "I'll live to see you die, Sonora Hack!"

"Hack?" Ann's eyes flashed at him. "You?"

"That's right, and, although you'll never believe it, I intended to get that money back to you. I had first to find out where it was."

He could almost feel Maria's hatred. He saw Ann's left hand grasp the sack, saw her start backing toward the door. At that instant there was a heavy step on the front porch and a loud voice boomed out, "Maria? Where are you? The boys are comin' over!"

Ann stepped out the back door as the voice sounded, and in the startled instant of surprise at the voice, Maria grabbed for the shotgun. Sonora hit the back door running; the shotgun bellowed, but he was outside and to the left, wheeling around the house with but one thought, to get out of range of the shotgun. Ann had vanished as if she were a ghost. He vaulted the front fence just as three men stepped down off the boardwalk in front of the saloon. His horse was a block away in the livery stable, saddled, fortunately. Once he was on the buckskin... but Ann? What of Ann?

Behind him Rodd was shouting, and he saw the three outlaws start to run down the street toward him. He dove for an opening between two houses, heard a gun bark behind him, charged around the end of the house, and ran full-tilt into a woodpile and sprawled over it to the ground! Scrambling to his feet, his hands stinging with pain from the gravel, beyond the woodpile, he grabbed for his guns. He still had them. A running man rounded a corner and he snapped a shot from the hip. It was a near miss, and the man yelped with surprise and fired in return.

Sonora ducked into a crouch and ran, running from one building to another. At least he was keeping them occupied, and he hoped Ann was getting away with the money. Where had she gotten to so quickly? And how had she gotten there in the first place? She must have followed him! Then she had never trusted him at all; but then, why should she? His breath coming in racking gasps, he made the last building and rounded the corner. Behind him there was running and yelling.

He flattened against the building at the corner. A man was standing in front of the livery stable, staring up the street to see what was happening. A half-block up the street Gan Carrero, gun in hand, was surveying the street.

"Hsst!" Hack hissed. The livery man turned his head sharply toward the sound. "Get that saddled buckskin out, p.r.o.nto! Just turn him loose!"

The man ducked inside, and Sonora heard somebody blundering through the brush behind the building where he stood. Stepping into the street, he whistled shrilly for his horse. Carrero wheeled and his gun came up, and Sonora fired. The outlaw stepped back. Sonora fired again, and Carrero fell to his face as the buckskin lunged from the stable, stirrups flopping.

Sonora hit the saddle on the fly, and the buckskin left town on a dead run. A bullet whistled by; another smacked viciously into some obstruction on his right. The buckskin was off and running now, and how that buckskin loved it! Yet this was but the beginning; swinging into an opening under some cottonwoods, he began to circle back. What had become of Ann? They would want their money back, and they would want Ann dead, for she now knew of their guilt.

He walked the horse through the cottonwoods and up the slope toward a cut into the country beyond. The chaparral was thick, but there were plenty of openings, and he wove his way through. When he reached the cut he looked back. The lights of the town were plain, but he could see nothing else. Pursuit would be out there in the darkness, three deadly men and a woman, armed and prepared to kill. Where was Ann?

Scowling into the night, he tried to imagine what she would do, and how she would return to Pagosa. She knew the country much better than he for this was her home. Certainly, she would not keep to the trail, and if she had been shrewd enough to follow him she would be shrewd enough to think out an escape. Yet behind her would be Buck Rodd, Shorty Hazel, and Wing Mathy. They would follow her, not him. She not only had the money, but her word could hang them.

Skirting a bush Hack rode down through a clump of Joshua trees where the cut was narrow. Due to the dip in the ground he would probably be unseen, so, dismounting, he knelt close to the earth and struck a match. He found no recent tracks. Mounting, he started on through the cut. She should have a good start. His gunfight had delayed pursuit enough to give her a couple of miles start, which she could use to advantage. Her horse was probably a good one, and she would keep moving. Yet, her horse had been ridden the twenty miles from Pagosa, and perhaps the distance from her ranch to town. Her pursuers would be on fresh horses, and would know the country as well as she.

The trail dipped and followed the bank of a small stream, which must be the same that flowed near Pagosa, and if so might offer an easy approach to the town. He again checked the trail for tracks. Hoof prints! A horse had pa.s.sed this way, perhaps within the last few minutes, for even as the match flared he saw a tiny bit of sand fall into one of the tracks. A red-hot iron seemed to slash across his arm and, dropping the match, he dove off the trail, hearing a hard spang of a high-powered rifle.

He swung into the saddle, feeling the warm wetness of blood on his arm; yet he did not seem to have been badly hit, because his fingers were still working. Turning off the trail, he wove through the brush, keeping under cover. Pulling up for a moment, he felt carefully with the fingers of his other hand. The skin was only broken. With his bandana he made a crude bandage to stop the flow of blood, which was slight in any case. He was through in this country.

Ann would escape now, and would return to tell them what she had heard. She would also tell them he was Sonora Hack; and they would discover he had only recently been freed from prison. His chance of settling down in Pagosa and making a place for himself would be finished. Well, it had been a wild idea at best.

Remembering the conversation, he felt himself flushing to think that she would believe he was that kind of man. That he would plot with such a woman the cold-blooded murder of her confederates. In sullen despair he told himself to keep on riding. He was finished here. As if impelled by the thought, the buckskin started walking up the long roll of the pinon-tufted mountainside, and Sonora let him go. The buckskin quickened its pace and Hack, from old habit, slid his gun from its holster and removed the sh.e.l.ls fired back at Hondo, then reloaded the pistol. The buckskin, he realized, had found a trail, and now, of its own volition, was traveling at an easy canter.

Buck Rodd would not give up easily. That was more money than he was apt to see in a long time, and even if he had so wished, Maria would not permit it. He would follow Ann back to her ranch or to Pagosa. Who in Pagosa could stand against him? Or the three together? At this hour, there would be no one.

Alerted, they might get men together to greet them, but now there would be no time for that. All three were men with notches on their guns, men willing and ready to kill. That was their problem. He had made his bid and messed up. He should never have tried to get the money from Maria, yet he had been so close! Killing had been no part of his plan. He had hoped to get the money back, leave Maria tied up, and return to Pagosa.

Remembering Ann's flashing eyes and vitriolic tongue, he grinned despite himself. She was a terror, that one. The man who got her would have his work cut out for him. The thought of her belonging to some other man was a burr under the saddle-blanket of his thoughts. And he did not like to ride away leaving her with the opinion of him she now had. It would be an ugly picture.

With neither conscience nor the memories of a red- haired girl to afflict him, the buckskin cantered briskly along the trail, making good time. Hack rode along with the unconscious ease of a man long accustomed to the saddle, deep in his own thoughts. It was not until there was a sudden flash of light in the corner of his eyes that he came to with a start. He was on the edge of Pagosa! The buckskin had very naturally headed for the stable where he had been taking it easy these past few days.

Realization hit him with a rush of horses' hoofs, and he saw three hors.e.m.e.n come charging up to a fourth. A girl screamed and a man opened the door of a house. A rifle shot rang out, and a harsh voice ordered, "Get back in there or I'll kill vou! This is none of your affair!"

Another voice said, "Get the sack, Shorty. What about the girl? Do we take her along?"

"h.e.l.l, no! She'd be nothing but trouble. We'll find plenty of women below the border! We'll just leave her lay, to teach them a lesson!"

The buckskin felt the unexpected stab of the spurs and hit the trail running.

"Hey!" a voice yelled. "Look out!" A gun roared almost in his face, a black body loomed before him, and he fired. A lance of flame leaped at him and he was in the midst of a wild tangle of plunging horses and shouting, swearing men. He caught a glimpse of Ann, hat gone, hair flying in the wind, breaking from the crowd and leaping her horse for the shelter of the buildings. A head loomed near him and he slashed at it with his six-gun, seeing the man fall; then his horse swung around, and he was knocked from his horse but hit the ground staggering. A big man rushed at him and he had just time to steady himself.

He.threw a hard punch into a corded belly, ripped up and uppercut, and then, from behind him as the man staggered, he heard somebody yell, "Look out, Rodd! Let me have him!"

Hack let go everything and hit the dirt just as a gun roared behind him.

Rodd grunted, gasped and then yelled. "You fool! You b.l.o.o.d.y fool! You've hit me! You've killed -- !"

Shorty Hazel's voice shouted. "To h.e.l.l with it, Wing! Grab the bag and let's go!"

Hack rolled over and came to his knee shooting. Something hit him below the knee and he rolled over, coming up against the body of a man, who might be alive or dead. Something grated on gravel and the man lunged to his feet, sack in hand, and sprang for the nearest horse. He steadied himself, leaning on one elbow, and fired. The man dropped the sack and turned. Fire stabbed the darkness, and the body of the man beside him jerked,slightly. Sonora Hack was holding his left hand gun and he fired in return. The other man turned, fell against his horse, then swung into the saddle. Hack lifted his gun, then saw the sack lying in the road.

"The Devil with it! Let him go!" He tried to get to his feet, but one leg wouldn't function right. He crawled to the sack, felt the rustle of bills and the c.h.i.n.k of gold coins. He got a grip on the sack and whistled. The buckskin trotted to him and stood patiently while he caught hold of a stirrup and pulled himself up, then climbed into the saddle. He started the horse to the nearest house, gripping the sack in his right hand. He shouted and the door opened, then other doors began to open, lamps were lighted, and people emerged. One of them was Ann.

He thrust the sack at her. "Tryin all the time. I was try-" He felt himself falling, felt her hands catch him, then somebody else's hands.

"He's pa.s.sed out," somebody was saying. "He's-"

Something smelled like rain, rain and roses and coffee and other smells he could not place. Then he opened his eyes and he could hear the rain falling, and he stared out a curtained window at a pinon-clad hill beyond. Turning his head he saw his boots, wiped cleaner than they had been in months, and his gunbelt hanging near them, over the back of a chair. His clothes were folded neatly on the chair, and there was another chair, a rocking chair with a book lying face down on the seat.

The door opened and Ann Bailey came in. She was wearing an ap.r.o.n, and when her eyes met his, she smiled. 'You're actually awake!, You're not delirious!"

"What do you mean... delirious? Where am I? What's happened?"

"You're at home, on our ranch, and you were delirious. You talked," she blushed faintly, "an awful lot. You killed all those men."

"Not Rodd nor Hazel. Mathy killed Rodd by mistake. Hazel got away."

"He didn't get far. He fell off his horse about a mile down the road, and died before anyone found him."

"You got your money?"

"Of course." She looked down at him. "Half of this ranch is yours now."

"I won't take it. That isn't right."

"It is right. That was the deal, and we intend to stand by it. Anyway, Dad needs help. He's needed somebody who can handle cattle. He can't do it all himself. You get some rest now, and we can talk of that later."

"What's that I smell?"

"I'm making some doughnuts. Why?"

"All right. I'll stay. I always did like doughnuts!"

We Shaped the Land with Our Guns We moved into the place on South Fork just before the snow went off. We had a hundred head of cattle gathered from the canyons along the Goodnight Trail, stray stuff from cattle outfits moving north. Most of these cattle had been back in the breaks for a couple of years and rounding them up was man-killing labor, but we slapped our iron on them and headed west.

Gra.s.s was showing green through the snow when we got there and the cattle made themselves right at home. ountains to the east and north formed the base of a triangle of which the sides were shaped by creeks and the apex by the junction of those creeks. It was a good four miles from that apex to the spot we chose for our home place, so we had all natural boundaries with good gra.s.s and water. There were trees enough for fuel and shade.

The first two weeks we worked fourteen hours a day building a cabin, cleaning out springs and throwing up a stable, pole corrals, and a smokehouse. e had brought supplies with us and we pieced them out with what game we could shoot. By the time we had our building done, our stock had decided they were home and were fattening up in fine shape.

We had been riding together for more than six months, which isn't long to know a man you go partners with. Tap Henry was a shade over thirty while I had just turned twenty-two when he hit the South Fork. We had met working for the Gadsen outfit, which took me on just west of Mobeetie while Tap joined up a ways further north. oth of us were a might touchy but we hit it off right from the start.

Tap Henry showed me the kind of man he was before we had been together three days. Some no-account riders had braced us to cut the herd, and their papers didn't look good to me nor to Tap. e were riding point when these fellers came up, and Tap didn't wait for the boss. He just told them it was tough, but they weren't cutting this herd. That led to ^ws and one of these guys reached. Tap downed him and that was that.

He was a pusher, Tap was. When trouble showed up he didn't sidestep or wait for it. He walked right into the middle and kept crowding until the trouble either backed down or came through. 3 Tall and straight standing, he was a fine, upright sort of man except for maybe a might of hardness around the eyes and mouth.

My home country was the Big Bend of Texas but most of my life had been lived south of the border. After I was sixteen the climate sort of agreed with me better. Tap drifted toward me one night when we were riding herd up in Wyoming.

"Rye," he said, that being a nickname for Ryan Tyler, "an hombre could go down in those breaks along the Goodnight Trail and sweep together a nice herd. Every outfit that ever come over this trail has lost stock, and lots of it is still back there."

"Uh-huh," I said, "and I know just the right spot for a ranch. Good gra.s.s, plenty of water and game." Then I told him about this place under the Pelado and he liked the sound of it. Whether he had any reason for liking an ou-of-the-way place, I don't know. Me, I had plenty of reason, but I knew going back there might lead to trouble.

Two men can work together a long time without really knowing much about one another, and that was the way with me and Tap. We'd been in a couple of Comanche fights together and one with a Sioux war party. We worked together, both of us top hands and neither of us a shirker, and after a while we got a sort of mutual respect, although n.o.body could say we really liked each other.

Our first month was just ending when Jim Lucas showed up. We had been expecting him because we had seen a lot of Bar L cattle, and had run a couple of hundred head off our triangle of range when we first settled. He was not hunting us this day because his daughter was with him, and only one hand. ed, the puncher, had a lean face and a lantern jaw with cold gray eyes and two low, tied-down guns.

Lucas was a medium-built man who carried himself like he weighed a ton. He sat square and solid in the saddle, and you could see at a glance that he figured he was some shakes. Betty was eighteen that summer, slim but rounded, tan but lovely, with hair a golden web that tangled the sunlight. She had lips quick to laugh and the kind that looked easy to kiss. That morning she was wearing homespun jeans and a shirt like a boy, but no boy ever filled it out like she did.

Right off I spotted Red for a cold ticket to trouble. He stopped his horse off to one side, ready for disturbances.

"Howdy!" I straightened up from a dam I was building across a beginning wash. "Riding far?"

"That's my question." Lucas looked me over mighty cool. Maybe I looked like a sprout to him. While I'm nigh six feet tall I'm built slim and my curly hair makes me look younger than I am. "My outfit's the Bar L, and this is my graze."

Tap Henry had turned away from the corral and walked down toward us. His eyes went from Lucas to the redhead and back. Me, I was off to one side. Tap wore his gun tied down but I carried mine shoved into my waistband.

"We're not riding," Tap replied, "we're staying. We're claiming all the range from the creeks to the Pelado."

"Sorry, boys"-Lucas was still friendly although his voice had taken on a chill, "that's all my range and I wasn't planning on giving any of it up. Bess"-he never took his eyes off Tap Henry-"I notice a lot of vented brands on your cattle. All I saw, in fact."

"See any of yours?" Tap was quiet. Knowing how touchy he could be, I was worried and surprised at the same time. This was one fight he wasn't pushing and I was sure glad of it.

"No, I didn't," Lucas admitted, "but that's neither here nor there. We don't like outfits that stock vented brands."

"Meaning anything in particular?" Tap asked.

Quiet as he was, there was a veiled threat in his tone now and Jim Lucas seemed suddenly to realize that his daughter sat beside him. Also, for the first time he seemed to understand that he was dealing with a different kind of man than he had believed.

"Meaning only," he said carefully, "that we don't like careless brands on this range or small outfits that start that way."

Tap was reasonable. More so than I had expected. "We rounded those cattle up," he explained, "from the canyons along the Good-night. They are abandoned trail herd stock, and we got letters from three of the biggest outfits giving us t.i.tle to all of their stuff we can find. Most of the other brands are closed out or in Montana. We aim to run this stock and its increase."

"Maybe. But run it somewheres else. This is my range. Get off it."

"Maybe you take in too much territory?" Tap suggested. "My partner and I aren't hunting trouble, but I don't reckon you hold any deed to this land from the government, the people, or G.o.d. You just laid claim to it. We figure you got your hands full, and we lay claim to the triangle of range described."

"Boss," Red interrupted, "I've seen this hombre somewhere before."

Tap did not change expression but it seemed to me that his face went a shade whiter under the tan. etty was looking worried and several times she had started as if to interrupt.

"We can be neighbors," Tap persisted. uc1"We wanted our own outfit. Now we've got it and we intend to keep it."

Lucas was about to make a hot reply when Betty interrupted. She had been looking at me. Everybody else seemed to have forgotten me and that pleased me just as well. My old gray hat was ragged on the crown and my hair hung down to my shirt collar. My buckskin pullover shirt was unlaced at the neck, my jeans were patched, and my boots were weather-worn and scarred by horns.

Betty said quietly, "Why don't you and your friend come to the dance at Ventana Sat.u.r.day night? e would all enjoy having you."