Finally the delivery was made at the local stock pens; the cattle crowded through the narrow defile, were counted and weighed and paid for. The purchasing agent looked at Howard curiously.

'You had higher grade stuff last time,' he said. 'This bunch isn't in the same cla.s.s with the other shipment.'

'Don't I know it?' Howard flared out at him, grown irritable here of late.

He took his cheque, banked it and left town, advancing his men a little money and telling them to cut their holiday short. Then he saddled his best horse and headed back for Desert Valley the shortest way. His expenses had been far heavier than they should have been; his receipts lower. He knew that look he would see in Sanchia's eyes when again they met; he prayed that the time might come when he could come close enough to Jim Courtot to read and answer his look. He thought of Kish Taka, and for the first time with anger; Kish Taka should keep his hands off.

Chapter XXIV

The Shadow

There was something awaiting Alan Howard at his ranch house that for a little at least made him forget Sanchia and Courtot and hard climbs ahead in the road he must travel. Tired as he was and dispirited when he got home late that night he went to bed glowing with content. At dawn he was in the saddle. The Longstreets, early risers as they had grown to be, had only finished breakfast when he came racing into Bear Valley, waving his hat to them and calling cheerily. A first frown came when he saw that Sanchia Murray was breakfasting with them, but the frown did not linger.

'Good morning, everybody,' he greeted them. Helen, sitting in the sun on the doorstep, got to her feet; her father came smiling out to shake hands; even Sanchia, pushing her plate back, rose. She looked at him searchingly, appearing to note and wonder at his gay mood.

'No, I won't light down and have coffee with you,' he laughed at the invitation. 'And I won't stop to eat, having devoured a day's rations before I hit the saddle. No, there's nothing you can do for me, Mr.

Longstreet; there's nothing in the world I want.' Helen had given him her hand; he held it a little before he would let it free and looked straight down into her eyes and kept on laughing gaily as he declared with certain unmistakable boldness: 'Right now I've got every blessed thing in the wide world I want.'

Sanchia said sharply: 'You must have been unusually successful in your latest deal?'

'It's the next deal I'm thinking of,' he told her lightly, letting her have the words to ponder on if she liked. But he had scant time for Sanchia and his eyes came back to Helen. 'I've got to ride into the new camp to see Roberts,' he told her. 'He's seen my mules and is buying. How would an early ride suit you? And I'll show you how easy it is to collect six hundred dollars before most folks have had breakfast!'

'My, what a lot of money,' laughed Helen. 'Of course I'll come. You know where I keep Danny. If you'll saddle for me I'll get ready and be out in two minutes.'

When they rode away down the trail together, Longstreet was smiling, and Sanchia frowning after them.

'She even eats with you?' queried Howard.

'I just thank Heaven she hasn't brought her bed in yet,' answered Helen. 'She is as transparent as a piece of gla.s.s, and yet dear old pops lets her pile the wool over his eyes as thick as she pleases. I'm just giving her plenty of rope,' she added philosophically. 'Do that, and people always get tangled up first and then hang themselves next, don't they?'

'Give me plenty of rope!' he said eagerly. 'I'll just tie myself up, hand and foot, and give you the end of the rope to hold.'

She laughed at him, touched Danny with her new spurs and shot ahead.

'You're nearly dying to tell me some good news,' she said when he had come up with her again. 'Aren't you?'

'I want to show you a letter I got when I came in last night. But I'd just as soon think of handing it over to a whirlwind as to you at the rate you are going.'

They drew their horses down to a walk. From his pocket Howard took an envelope; from the envelope brought forth a long blue slip of paper, torn in two, and with a few words penned across the fragments in a big running scrawl. He held the two pieces together for her to read; by now the horses had stopped and, being old friends, were rubbing noses.

Helen read:

'Dear old Al: It took me a few days to see straight. Instead of blocking your game, let me help whenever I can. Don't need this now; won't have it. Take your time, Al. Good luck and so long.

JOHN.'

'Turn it over!' cried Howard.

Helen obeyed, only then fully understanding. It was a cheque for twelve thousand five hundred dollars, signed by Alan Howard and payable to the order of John Carr. Again she looked at the brief note; it was dated, and the date was eight days old. Her face flushed suddenly; the colour deepened.

'He wrote that the day after I sent my telegram to him!' she cried breathlessly.

'Telegram?'

'Yes.' She hesitated, then ran on swiftly: 'When Mr. Carr left I let him think that maybe father and I would follow soon. I don't know that I had been exactly what you men call square with Mr. Carr. I wanted to be square with everyone. So I sent him a telegram, saying that we appreciated his generosity but that we would stay here.'

Howard studied the date on the fluttering paper and his mind ran back.

'You sent that wire the day after I came back last time!'

'And if I did?' She met his look serenely.

'You did so because you cared----'

But Helen laughed at him, and again Danny, touched with a sudden spur, shot ahead down the trail.

They clattered like runaway children into the crooked rocky street of Sanchia's Town. Had their thoughts been less busied with themselves and with a hint of a rosy future and with the bigness of the thing which John Carr had done for them, they would have marked long ago that here something was amiss. But it was only when they were fairly in the heart of the settlement that they stopped abruptly to stare at each other. Now there was no misunderstanding what had happened! Sanchia's Town, that had been a busy, humming human hive no longer ago than yesterday was this morning still, deserted, empty and dead. Those who had rushed hitherward seeking gold were gone; be the explanation where it might, shacks stood with doors flung wide; tents had been torn down, outworn articles discarded, dumped helter-skelter into the road. The atmosphere was like that of a circus grounds when the circus was moving on, only a few things left for the last crew to come for.

'It feels like a graveyard,' whispered Helen. 'What has happened?'

'The old story, I suppose.' He turned sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I've a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia's Town was born, has lived and died like old Solomon Gundy.'

Helen's face was that of one in deep study.

'Papa was saying only day before yesterday,' she said thoughtfully, 'that this was going to happen. He said that was why he hadn't taken the trouble to make a fight for his rights here. He said that Kemble had bought up all of the land that was worth anything; and that he, himself, had given Kemble the right tip. It begins to look as though papa knew, doesn't it?'

Howard nodded vigorously.

'He knows gold mines and he knows gold signs,' he said positively.

'I've felt that all along. But----'

'But,' she took the words out of his mouth, speaking hastily, 'he doesn't know the first thing about people; about a woman like Sanchia Murray. And now that he says he is going to locate his real mine and we are leaving him with her----'

'We mustn't be away too long,' he agreed.

'Look. There's some one down there at the lunch counter; at least there's a little smoke from the stovepipe. Shall we see who it is?'

It was love among the ruins. Or, in other words, Yellow Barbee leaning halfway across the lunch counter, toward the roguish-eyed, plump maid who leaned slowly toward him.

'h.e.l.lo, Barbee,' called Alan. And when Barbee greeted him without enthusiasm, he asked: 'What's happened to the town?'

'Hit the slide,' said Barbee carelessly. 'Bottom fell through, I guess, and at the same time somebody started a scare about gold being found down toward Big Run. The fools,' he scoffed, 'piled out like crazy sheep. You can find the way they went by a trail of old tin cups and socks and such stuff dropped on the run.'

'Roberts, the teamster, has gone, I suppose?'