"I got the job," Gates said.

"Good!" Cain nodded emphatically. "I'll tell the boss."

Bright sunlight lay across the Blue Hill when Lona left the house the following morning. Frank Mailer had gone out early, and her father was fussing over some accounts in his office. Yet the night had neither lessened her curiosity nor changed her mood, and she started for the corral to catch up a horse, believing the hands were all gone. The ranch lay between two peaks with its back to the low bench where Lona had seen the Black Rider on the previous night.

These peaks lifted five hundred feet or so above the ranch house, and it was from one of them that the ranch had taken its name. The ranch house faced northwest, and off to the right, also running toward the northwest, lay the Old Mormon Trail to Utah. Beyond the trail the cliffs lifted high, and at one point a crown of rock reached out to need no more than a half mile to join the twin peaks at Blue Hill. She had reached the corral when she heard a boot scuff stones and turned to face a strange, redheaded puncher who grinned at her in a friendly fashion.

"Can I help, ma'am? I'm Rusty Gates, a new hand."

"Oh, would you? I was going to saddle my horse. The black mare."

Gates nodded. "I been studyin' that mare, ma'am. She's sure all horse."

He shook out a loop and caught the black. As the rope settled, the mare stood still, and when she saw Lona she even walked toward the gate. Rusty led the horse outside and glanced at Lona. She was very young, very pretty, and had a trim, neat figure, auburn hair, and gray eyes.

She caught his glance and he grinned. "Your hair's 'most as red as mine, ma'am," he said. "I reckon that makes us partners." There was something so friendly in his manner that she warmed to him instantly. On impulse, she confided in him.

"Rusty," she said, "don't you tell a soul what I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to see the Black Rider!"

Rusty gave her a sidelong, cautious glance. "To see him? How do you figure to do that?"

"I'm going to ride out and look along the ridges for him, then if I see him, I'll leave it up to Zusa to do the rest. She'll run him down if anything can."

Gates was silent. After a while he asked, "You ever see the Rider?"

"I saw him last night, right back on the bench in the rain. I waved to him, and he waved back! Isn't it exciting?" She expected him to disapprove or to caution her, but strangely, he did not.

He merely nodded, then said, "Ma'am, if I wanted to see that Black Rider, you know what I'd do? I'd head across the valley for Monument Rock, an' then if I saw him, I wouldn't take after him none at all. I'd just sit still an' wait."

"Wait?" Lena's eyes widened doubtfully. "You mean he might come up to me?"

Rusty chuckled. "Ma'am, they do say that the Rider's a ghost, but flesh and blood or ghost, if anything that is male or was male saw you settin' a horse waitin' for him, he'd sure come a-runnin'!"

She laughed. "Rusty, you're just like all the cowhands! Full of the old blarney!"

"Sure I am. But, ma'am"-his voice dropped a note lower and the look in his eyes was not a teasing look- "you do what I say an' see if it don't work. But," he added, "don't you ever tell anybody on this ranch I suggested it. Don't you tell."

"Thanks, Rusty. I won't." She turned to go and he caught her bridle rein.

"Ma'am," he said, "before you go ... who's your best friend on this ranch? I mean, ma'am, somebody who really loves you." Surprised, she looked down at him, but he was in dead earnest. The question brought her up short, too, for it made her wonder. Who were her friends? Did she have any? Frank? She shuddered slightly. Her father? For a long time she hesitated. He had never been close to her, never since she returned from school. He had been strict and stern, had given her what she wanted, but allowed her little freedom. She realized suddenly that her father was almost a stranger to her. "I... I guess I haven't many friends, Rusty," she said, in a small voice. "I guess ... Dave, the cook, and Gordon."

Gates relaxed his grip. "Well, ma'am," he said, his voice thick, "I reckon you can count on another friend now. You can count on me. If ever you need a friend, I'd admire to have you call on me." He turned away, then stopped and turned, glancing up out of his bright blue eyes. "Maybe you've got more friends than you realize, ma'am."

Lona turned the mare up the trail to the bench, and drawing up, she looked carefully around. There were no tracks! A curious little thrill of fear went through her. Was it possible the stories were true? Had it been a ghost who waved at her? The rain could have wiped them out, of course, and there was much rock.

She rode on, cutting diagonally across toward the Old Mormon Trail, which would make for easier riding until she had to leave the trail and ride across the rough gra.s.s country toward the high cliffs at Monument Rock. North and east of her, the cliffs made a solid barrier that seemed to cut off the world from this valley, cliffs from four hundred to nine hundred feet high, a dark barrier of dull red now, with the sun just showing above them.

Yet that barrier was not as solid as it appeared, for there were a score of places where a horseman might find a way through, and there were, almost due east of the ranch, three canyons that branched like three spread fingers from a given point. The only one she knew was Salt Creek Wash, and only the first half mile of that.

Her father had never liked her to ride up into those rugged mountains alone. It was early spring, yet the air was warm and vibrant, clear as only desert air can be. The black mare felt good, and wanted to go, but Lona held her in, scanning the country ahead and around her, hoping to see the Black Rider. She had been wrong to come in the morning, especially when it was clear, for he was never seen but at dusk or in the rain.

Was there method in that? So that he would be impossible to follow for long? Dust arose from her horse's hooves and she rode on until the cliffs began to rise above her and the sun was not yet high enough to show above their serrated rim.

She reined in and looked up at their high battlement crest, then let her eye travel along it, but she saw no horseman, nothing but the rock itself. What she had expected, she did not know. If she had expected her presence to bring the Black Rider suddenly springing from the solid rock, she was mistaken. It was still here, and lonely. She had stopped with Zusa headed north, so she started on, walking her along the low slope that ended in the cliffs. Ahead of her she knew the cliffs took a bend eastward and through the gap flowed the occasional waters of Salt Creek, but there was, she knew, another wash beside Monument Rock, so she followed along and entered a narrow opening that had rock walls lifting six hundred feet and more on either side of her.

It was shadowy and cool and so still as to be almost unbelievable. She rode on, the canyon echoing to her horse's hooves. She drew up in a sort of amphitheater, the dark pinons cl.u.s.tering against the wall, and climbing it wherever a faint ledge gave precarious root hold. It was still here, and she drew up, her eyes wide and every sense alert. Even Zusa was on edge, for the mare's sensitive nostrils expanded and her eyes were wide and curious. No sound disturbed the still afternoon. From the stillness she might have been sitting in a mighty cathedral, yet there was no cathedral so splendid or so tall as this, no man-made temple as grand or magnificent.

And then Zusa's muscles twitched, and turning her head, Lona Markham looked straight into the eyes of the Black Rider! He was about fifty yards away, his horse standing on a tiny knoll, outlined sharply against the green of the pinons behind him. The horse was a buckskin, a long-legged, magnificent animal, and the rider was tall, broad in the shoulder, and clothed in black trousers, a dark gray shirt, and a black Mexican-style jacket. For an instant she might have turned and fled, so frightened was she, so startled by the horseman's unexpected appearance, but she sat her mare, her eyes wide and expectant, and then the buckskin started to walk down the knoll toward her.

Under the low flat brim of his black hat, the Rider's face was scarcely visible, and as he drew near she noticed that he wore two guns, tied down. He drew up suddenly and, to her relief, lifted a gloved hand and brushed his hat back. She saw first that he was handsome, with a strong, rugged face, brown from wind and sun, and green eyes that had the look of the desert at their corners.

"You are Lona?" he asked. His voice was strong, clear, friendly.

"Yes," she said, "how did you know my name?"

"I have known it for a long time," he said. "Why did you come here today?"

"Why, I ..." She hesitated. "I was curious!" she said. "Just plain curious."

He chuckled, and she liked the sound. There was droll humor in his eyes. "Don't blame you! From what I hear, a lot of folks are curious. How about Frank Mailer an' Poke Markham? Are they curious?"

"A little. I think Father is more curious than Frank."

At her use of the word father, he looked at her again. "You call him father?" he asked.

"Why, of course! He is my father. What else would I call him?"

"I could think of a number of things," he said grimly. "Want to talk awhile?" he suggested suddenly. "No use you coming clear out here to see the strange rider and not getting to talk with him."

She hesitated, but he swung down, and so she dismounted. He took the bridle of her horse and ground-hitched them both on a patch of gra.s.s in the lee of a cliff where subirrigation kept the gra.s.s green. Then he took off his hat and walked toward her. He had dark curly hair and a quizzical humor in his eyes.

"Don't worry about this," he said, smiling at her. "I know this is a mighty lonely place for a girl to be talkin' to a stranger, but later you'll understand."

"What will I understand?" she said evenly. She was frankly puzzled by him and by his att.i.tude. He had known her name, and he seemed to know something about her, but certainly there was nothing in his manner that would in any way offer a cause for resentment.

"Lots of things." He dug out the makings and dropped to a rock facing her. He was, she noticed, also facing the opening up which she had ridden. "How'd you happen to come here?"

"I heard you had been seen on the rims, and that I should come here and wait. Rusty, he's our new hand, told me that. Very mysterious, if you ask me!"

He grinned. "He's quite a guy, Rusty is. You can trust him."

"Oh, you know him?" She was startled.

"Rusty? If you ever need a friend, he's your man." He drew deep on the cigarette. "You were away to school quite awhile, weren't you? How old were you when you left?"

She looked at him seriously. "Oh, I was only five then. Father sent me away to the sisters' school, said a ranch was no place to raise a girl who had so far to go. I mean, so many years in which to grow up. I used to return for vacations after I was fifteen. Once in a while, that is."

"I don't remember a lot of things from when I was five," he said casually. "Do you? I mean, do you remember your father very well?"

"Some things about him, but it's all sort of funny and mixed up. He was awfully good to me, I remember that. He was sort of sweet, too. I remember riding in a wagon for ever so long, and how he used to tell me stories about my mother-she died a year before we started west-and about the ranch that was waiting for us out here. The place where he had hoped to take my mother. He said he had taken it in my name, and it would always be mine."

"Has your dad changed much?"

She nodded. "Quite a lot. But he's had trouble, I guess. He never says much anymore, not to me, at least, and sometimes he acts sort of strange. But he's all right," she added hurriedly. "I love him."

He turned his green eyes full upon her and there was something so searching in those eyes that she was disturbed. "Is that wrong?" she asked indignantly. "To love your father?"

"No, it isn't." He threw down his cigarette and rubbed it out with his toe. "In fact, that's the way it should be. On the other hand, maybe this particular gent doesn't deserve loving."

He looked over at her. "Lona, we've got to have more than one talk, I can see that. Some things I might want to tell you, you wouldn't want to believe now. Later you might.' But first off, I want to ask you to mention meeting me to no one. Rusty would be all right, if you could do it where n.o.body could hear. Remember this: I'm your friend and you've got to trust me. You're in a position right now where you'll need friends, and badly!"

"Why do you say that?" she demanded.

"Haven't they talked to you about marryin' Frank Mailer?"

She nodded. "Yes, of course. Father wants me to marry him."

"You want to marry him?"

Lona hesitated. Why was this stranger asking all these questions? Who was he? "No," she said honestly. "I don't."

"Then," he said, "you mustn't. No matter what they say or what they do," he insisted, "don't marry him! Don't refuse right out, just evade the issue. Find excuses . . . clothes you have to have, plans for the wedding, just anything. You won't have to delay it long, because I think there will be a lot happening and soon. If the worst comes to the worst, see Rusty. You can trust him, like I said." He walked to the horses. "And can you meet me here again? The day after tomorrow?"

Lona hesitated. "Why should I? I don't know what you are talking about! These are all riddles and I have no idea why you say I may need friends, or why I should trust this new puncher! Or why I should either trust or listen to you!"

The Rider took a breath. "I don't blame you for that, but you must listen. You don't know it yet, but you're in trouble. Your marriage to Frank Mailer was planned a long time ago, Lona, before you ever heard of him, and it's bad! Plumb bad! Something else I want you to do," he added. "I want you to think about the times when you were a youngster, before you ever went away to school. Every minute from now on I want you to think about that Wagon trip. The way it started, everything that happened. The more you try to remember, the more it will come back. It's very important to you." He hesitated. "You see, I knew your mother."

"What?" She turned on him, wide-eyed. "You knew... ? But why didn't you tell me?" Then suddenly she hesitated. Her eyes were suddenly frightened. "You ... what did you know about her?"

"That she was a mighty fine woman, Lona. You look a lot like her, too. Yes, she was mighty fine. One of the sweetest, finest women I ever knew. I knew your father in those days, and he was a fine man."

"Why don't you come to see him, then?" she said, frowning at him. He hesitated. "Lona, that man is not your father. He is no relation to you at all. There never was a 'Poke' Markham! Isiah Markham was your father. That man down there is Poke Dunning, a onetime gunfighter and outlaw from the Big Bend country. I don't know what it is he's doing here, but I aim to find out! Your father was once a friend to me when I needed him. That's why I, now, am a friend to you."

CHAPTER 2.

At the corral bars she slid from the saddle as if stunned, then stood for a long time, staring at the far blue line of the I cliffs from which she had just come. Poke Markham was not her father! The thought stood stark and clear in her mind, written across her consciousness in black, staring letters. After the first minutes of stunned disbelief had come the uneasy memories which she had put aside and tried to forget. They came flooding into her mind. Little things and haunting details that had made her unhappy and puzzled. The vague memories of her father before she went away to school had always been confused.

Somehow she'd never been able to sort them out, to shape them into any plain picture. She knew now the reason for that confusion; it was that the memories of two individuals, two separate men, had mingled in her mind. This was why whenever she looked back to those years, the face of her father was always blurred, never sharp and clear. The strange rider had said he was her real father's friend, that her mother had been a fine, sweet woman.

It was that last that flooded her mind with relief, for always when she had asked Poke Dunning about her mother, he had put her aside, evaded the issue, and so finally she had come to believe there was something shameful in her past, something in her story of which her father did not wish to be reminded. Lona had come to believe that her mother must have done something that had hurt and disgraced them both. Now she knew that was not true. She knew? Lona stopped at the thought, testing it, turning it over. Yes, she did know.

The Rider was a stranger to her, and yet his voice had in it the ring of truth, and it was not only because she wanted so much to believe that her mother had been a fine, splendid woman, but simply because she knew it was the truth. Now that the thought was there, a thousand minute details of the past came flooding back. Now she no longer had to fight the idea that she detested the man she had believed was her father. Always she had made excuses for him, avoided the question of his character and his little cruelties. Now she could face it, and she could wonder that she had ever believed him to be her father. She remembered how few his letters had been, how she had never had from him any of the love or affection she wanted or that other girls had, how she had returned home on her first vacations with eagerness and then with increasing reluctance.

Stripping the saddle from the mare, Lona turned her into the corral. It was already past mealtime, and the hands were gone again. Rusty Gates was nowhere around, nor did she see Poke or Frank. She walked to the house and looked into the kitchen. Old Dave Betts looked up and his red face wrinkled in a smile.

"You're late, ma'am, but come on in. I saved you something and kept it hot for you."

"Thanks, Dave."

He put out the food on the kitchen table. He was already preparing the evening meal, getting a few things ready in order to save time later. He glanced at Lona. "You aren't sick, are you?" he asked anxiously.

"No, Dave. Just thinking." She started to eat, but despite the long ride in the fresh, clear air, she was not hungry. "Dave," she asked suddenly, "how long have you worked for... Father?"

" If he noticed her hesitation, he gave no sign or it made no impression. "Most of six years, ma'am. I come up to this country from Silver City. Went to Cimarron first, worked in a eatin' place there, then went back to punchin' cows for the XIT, then drifted back west an' come here. Poke Markham needed a cook, so I hired on. I was gettin' too stove up for ridin' much."

"Was Frank with him then?"

"Mailer?" Betts's face became cautious. "Well, no. No, ma'am, he wasn't. Frank didn't show up until shortly before you come home from school. He rode in here one day with Socorro an' they both hired on. Mailer, though, he'd knowed your dad somewhere else. That's why he hired him on as foreman."

"Is he really a gunman?" Lona looked up at Dave.

Betts swallowed uneasily and, stepping to the door, peered into the dining room, then outside. "I reckon there's no mystery about that. He sure is. Mighty bad ... I mean, mighty good with a gun. So's Geslin." He looked at her quickly. "You better not ask many questions about him, ma'am. Mailer's right touchy about that. He don't like folks talkin' about him."

There was a sound of approaching horses and Lona glanced out the open door. Gordon Flynn and Rusty Gates had ridden into the yard and were swinging down. Flynn glanced toward the door, and when he saw her, he waved, then said something to Rusty and walked toward the house.

"Howdy, ma'am!" he said, his boyish face flushing a little. He had removed his hat and stood there, his wavy hair damp along his forehead where the hat had left a mark. The admiration in his eyes was obvious. "See you had been ridin' some. Why didn't you come over to the north range to see us?"

"Just riding," she said. "It was a pretty day for it and I wanted to think."

"I reckon there's no better way," he agreed. "It sort of just makes a body think, ridin' slow across the hills with lots of distance around you." He stepped into the room. "Dave, you got more of that coffee? Rusty an' me ... ?"

"It ain't grub time," Dave said testily, "but you pull up a chair. I reckon I can do that for you, but I doubt if the boss would like either of you being' here right now."

Rusty came into the room and took a quick, sharp look at Lona. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, and turned to Dave. "We have to go down to Yellow b.u.t.te after some cows and this was on our way. Drink up, Gord, and don't sit there looking calf-eyed at Miss Lona."

Flynn blushed magnificently. "Who's lookin' calf-eyed?" he demanded, bl.u.s.tering. "Can't a man speak to a girl without folks sayin' things like that?"

Gates turned a chair back to the table and straddled it, grinning from one to the other. "Don't know's I blame you," he said. "She's a right pretty girl, and believe you me, if I was as good-looking as you are and not so durned bowlegged, I'd sure say my piece, too!"

Flynn's face was grim. "You're new around here," he said. "Miss Lona is engaged to the foreman." Gates shrugged and looked pointedly at Lona. "When did a man ever let a thing like that stand between him and the girl he wanted? It sure wouldn't stop me!"

"Don't you be advisin' that sort of thing!" Betts turned irritably to Gates. "You don't know Frank Mailer! Anybody who steps on his toes or tries to move in on his girl had better be fast with a gun! He durned near killed one of the hands with his fists and boots just for talkin' to her!"'

"Then I'll be careful," Gates said. Gulping his coffee, he shoved back from his chair and got up. "I just wouldn't let him catch me. But if I wanted a girl, I wouldn't stand by and see her go to another man, unless I was right sure she wanted that other man." He turned on his heel and walked out, letting the door slam behind him.

The kitchen was silent. Flynn was staring into his cup, and Lona's heart was pounding, why she could not have said. Glancing up, she could see the stubborn, angry look on Flynn's face and the sharp disapproval on the face of Dave Betts. After a minute Flynn swallowed his coffee and ducked out without saying another word. Lona gathered the dishes and placed them on the drain board, stealing a glance at Betts's face from the corner of her eyes.

"You be careful," Dave said suddenly, without turning. "You don't know Frank Mailer like I do. Don't you let no fool puncher talk you into trouble."

Lona hesitated. "What's the matter, don't you think Gordon is a nice fellow?"