That night before retiring Nellie stole softly into her brother's room and kissed him lightly on the forehead. That same night also Hollis rode up to the Circle Bar corral gate--singing. Norton and Potter were sitting on the gallery, waiting for him. While Hollis was removing the saddle from his pony Norton rose from his chair and smiled at Potter.

"Well," he said to the latter, "I'm goin' to bed." He moved a few steps toward the door and then turned and looked back at Potter, who had also risen. He laughed.

"Listen, Potter," he said. Then he quoted:

"Woman--she don't need no tooter Be she skule ma'am or biscuit shooter."

He hesitated and looked again at Potter. "Why," said the latter, puzzled, "that's from Ace's poem!"

"Sure," laughed Norton; "that's just what it is!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE RUSTLER

The following day Hollis rode to town over the Dry Bottom trail. Had he followed a perfectly natural inclination he would have taken the Coyote, for it would have brought him to the Hazelton cabin. But he succeeded in forcing himself to go the other way, arguing that Nellie and her brother might wish to be alone to consider the great good fortune that had come upon them.

And so they did, though had Hollis appeared to them this morning as they sat upon the porch he would have been a.s.sured of a royal welcome.

Indeed, during the early morning hours Nellie had cast many furtive, expectant glances down the Coyote trail. When eight o'clock came and Hollis did not appear she gave him up.

The dawn found her kneeling beside her brother's bed.

"Ed!" she said, leaning over him, waking him, her eyes alight with joy; "Ed, he says you can be cured!"

He struggled and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Gosh, sis!" he said in an awed voice. "Then it's true! I was afraid I'd been dreaming!"

"It is no dream," she returned ecstatically; "it is reality--beautiful reality! Wasn't it simply _great_ of him to take such an interest in us?"

"Us?" grinned Ed, noting her crimson, happy face. "Well, mebbe he did it for _us_," he added subtly, "but I take it I've got a right to have another opinion on that."

She fled from him without answering and a little later he heard her singing as she prepared breakfast. After the meal Ed made a short trip out into the basin to look after his cattle and then returned to the cabin. Sitting on the porch he and Nellie devoted several hours to a grave discussion of the situation. They discovered that it had a serious side.

In the first place there was the dangerous nature of the operation. Here Ed laughed away his sister's fears by a.s.suring her that he had an excellent const.i.tution and that since the fall from the pony had not killed him he was in no danger from the knife. If Nellie entertained any doubt of this she wisely remained silent, though Ed could see that she was not entirely rea.s.sured. He swept away her last objection to this forbidding feature when he told her that he preferred taking the risk to living in constant dread of a recurrence of an acute attack of his malady--such as he had experienced when he had attacked Hollis in Devil's Hollow.

There were many other things to be discussed--chiefly the care of the cattle and the cabin during his absence in Chicago. He would not listen to her suggestion to accompany him--he would prefer to have her remain at the cabin. Or he would try to arrange with Hollis for her to stay at the Circle Bar. There she would have Mrs. Norton for a companion, and she might ride each day to the cabin. He was certain that Hollis would arrange to have his men care for the cattle. He a.s.sured her that he would settle that question with Hollis when the latter pa.s.sed the cabin that night on his return to the Circle Bar. Of course Hollis would take the Coyote trail to-night, he insinuated, grinning hugely at the blushes that reached her face.

But Hollis did not pa.s.s the cabin that night. He had taken the Dry Bottom trail on his return to the Circle Bar.

He had accomplished very little that day on account of the heat--and a certain vision that had troubled him--taking his mind off his work and projecting it to a little cabin in a small basin, to a porch where sat a girl--the girl of his vision. She had voluntarily kissed him. Had it been all on account of grat.i.tude? Of course--though--Well, memory of the kiss still lingered and he was willing to forgive her the slight lapse of modesty because he had been the recipient.

There had been one interesting development in Dry Bottom during the day.

All day the town had swarmed with ranch owners who had come in to the court house to list their cattle for taxation and register their brands.

Shortly after noon Ben Allen had dropped into the _Kicker_ office with the news that every owner in the county with the exception of Dunlavey had responded to the law's demands.

To Hollis's inquiry regarding the course he would pursue in forcing Dunlavey to comply with the law, Allen remarked with a smile that there was "plenty of time." He had had much experience with men of the Dunlavey type.

Potter and Hollis exchanged few words during the ride to the Circle Bar.

The heat--the eternal, scorching, blighting heat--still continued; the dust had become an almost unbearable irritation. During the trip to the ranch the two men came upon an arroyo over which Hollis had pa.s.sed many times. At a water hole where he had often watered his horse they came upon several dead steers stretched p.r.o.ne in the green slime. The water had disappeared; the spring that had provided it had dried and there was nothing to tell of it except a small stretch of damp earth, baking in the sun. The steers were gaunt, lanky creatures, their hides stretched tight as drum-heads over their ribs, their tongues lolling out, black and swollen, telling mutely of their long search for water and their suffering. Coyotes had been at work on them; here lay a heap of bare bones; there a skull glistened in the white sunlight.

A few miles farther on they came upon one of the punchers from the Circle Y with a calf thrown over the saddle in front of him. He was driving several gaunt, drooping cattle toward the Rabbit-Ear. The calf bellowed piteously at sight of Hollis and Potter. The puncher hailed them.

"You're Hollis, of the Circle Bar, ain't you?" he said when the latter had spurred his pony close to him. At Hollis's nod he grinned ironically. "Hot!" he said, coming quickly to the universal topic of conversation; "I reckon this wouldn't be called hot in some places--in h.e.l.l, for instance. Say," he said as he saw Hollis's lips straighten, "to-morrow the ten days is up. Mebbe it'll be hotter then. The d.a.m.ned skunk!"

Of course he referred to Dunlavey--the latter's threat to drive all foreign cattle from the Rabbit-Ear had been carried far and wide by riders--the whole country knew of it. There had been much condemnation and some speculation, but there was nothing to be done until after the tenth day. Even then much depended upon Hollis's att.i.tude. Would he make war upon Dunlavey in defense of the men who had refused aid to his father in time of need?

Hollis was still of the opinion that Dunlavey would not attempt to carry out his threat. He smiled at the malevolent expression in the puncher's eyes.

"Somehow," he said quietly, "I have always been able to distinguish between empty boast and determination. Dunlavey has done some foolish things, no doubt, and is doing a foolish thing in defying the law, but I don't antic.i.p.ate that he will do anything quite so rash as to further antagonize the small owners."

The puncher sat erect and laughed harshly. "You don't?" he inquired in an over-gentle, polite voice. "Mister Hollis," he added, as the latter looked quickly at him, "you ain't heard nothin' from the Circle Bar to-day, I reckon?"

Hollis's answer was negative. The Circle Y man's face grew suddenly serious. "You ain't! Well, then, that's the reason you're talkin' so.

The last I heard from the Circle Bar was that Norton an' some of your men had captured one of Dunlavey's men--Greasy--rebrandin' some Circle Bar steers an' was gettin' ready to string him up. I reckon mebbe you'd call that doin' somethin'!"

Hollis straightened. He had suddenly forgotten the heat, the dust, and the problem of water.

"How long ago did you hear this?" he demanded sharply.

"'Bout an hour ago," returned the Circle Y man. "I was rustlin' up these strays down in the basin an' headin' them toward the crick when I runs plum into a man from the Three Bar outfit. He was plum excited over it.

Said they'd ketched Greasy down by the Narrows sometime after noon an'----"

But the Circle Y man finished to the empty air for Hollis's pony had leaped forward into a cloud of dust, running desperately.

The Circle Y man sat erect, startled. "Well, I'll be----" he began, speaking to Potter. But the printer was following his chief and was already out of hearing. "Now what do you suppose----" again began the Circle Y man, and then fell silent, suddenly smitten with the uselessness of speech. He yelled at his gaunt steers and shifted the calf in front of him to a more comfortable position. Then he proceeded on his way. But as he rode his lips curled, his eyes narrowed, and speech again returned to him. "Now why in h.e.l.l would a man get so d.a.m.ned excited over hearin' that someone was goin' to string up a measly rustler?"

The interrogation remained unanswered. The Circle Y man continued on his way, watching the fast disappearing dust clouds on the Circle Bar trail.

When Hollis reached the Circle Bar ranchhouse there was no one about. He rode up to the front gallery and dismounted, thinking that perhaps Norton would be in the house. But before he had crossed the gallery Mrs.

Norton came to the door. She was pale and laboring under great excitement, but instantly divined Hollis's errand.

"They've taken him down to the cottonwood" she told Hollis, pointing toward the grove in which Hollis had tried the six-shooter that Norton had given him the first day after his arrival at the ranch. "They are going to hang him! Hurry!"

Hollis was back in the saddle in an instant and racing his pony down past the bunk house at break-neck speed. He urged the little animal across an intervening stretch of plain, up a slight rise, down into a shallow valley, and into the cottonwood, riding recklessly through the trees and urging the pony at a headlong pace through the underbrush--crashing it down, scaring the rattlers from their concealment, and startling the birds from their lofty retreats.

For ten minutes he rode as he had never ridden before. And then he came upon them. They stood at the base of a fir-balsam, whose gnarled limbs spread flatly outward--three Circle Bar men, a half dozen from the various outfits whose herds grazed his range, and the rustler--Greasy--a rope knotted about his neck, standing directly under one of the out-spreading limbs of the tree, his head bowed, but his face wearing a mocking, defiant grin. The rope had been thrown over the limb and several men were holding it, preparatory to drawing it taut. Norton was standing near, his face pale, his lips straight and grim with determination. Apparently Hollis had arrived just in time.

None of the men moved from their places when Hollis dismounted, but all looked at him as though expecting him to express approval of what they were about to do. Several lowered their gaze with embarra.s.sment when they saw that he did not approve.

"What is all this about, Norton?" he asked, speaking to the latter, who had stepped forward and now stood beside Greasy. Whatever excitement had resulted from the sudden discovery that his men had captured a rustler and were about to hang him, together with the strain of his hard ride to the cottonwood, had disappeared, and Hollis's voice was quiet as he addressed his range boss.

Norton smiled grimly. "We were roundin' up a few strays just the other side of the Narrows this morning, and Ace and Weary were workin' down the river. In that little stretch of gully just the other side of the Narrows they came upon this sneak brandin' two of our beeves through a piece of wet blanket. He'd already done it an' so we ketched him with the goods. It's the first time we've ever been able to lay a hand on one of Dunlavey's pluguglies, an' we was figgerin' on makin' an example of him."

Hollis met Norton's grim gaze and smiled. "I want to thank you--all of you, for guarding my interests so zealously," he said. "There is no doubt that this man richly deserves hanging--that is, of course, according to your code of ethics. I understand that is the way things have been done heretofore. But I take it none of you want to make me appear ridiculous?"