"How true! Fine old bird, Columbus--he saw America first. Great head he showed, too, getting himself named Christopher. Otherwise you might have said, 'the day Antony discovered Cleopatra'--or something like that. Wise old Chris!"

Stella's eyes narrowed reflectively.

"John Wesley, you've been reading! You never used to know anything about Mark Antony."

"I cribbed that remark from Billy Beebe and he swiped it from a magazine. I don't know much about Mark, even this very yet. Good old easy Mark!"

"That's the how of it. You've been absorbing knowledge from those pardners of yours. Your talk shows it. You're changed a lot--that way.

Every other way you're the same old Wes!"

"Now, that sounds better!" said Pringle in his most complacent tones.

"I want to talk about myself, always, Stella May Vorhis; we've come thirty miles and I've heard Christopher Foy, Foy, Foy, all the way!

It's exasperating! It's sickening!"

But Stella was not to be fl.u.s.tered. She held her head proudly.

"It's you that have been talking about him. I told you you'd like him, John Wesley."

"Yes, you did--and I do. He's a self-starter. He's a peppermist. He's a regular guy. It wasn't only the way he smashed those thugs--taken by surprise and all--but that he had judgment enough not to shoot when there was no need for it; that's what gets me! And then he went and spoiled it all."

"How?"

"Hiking on up to the ranch with the Major, without even waking you up.

Why, if it was me, do you s'pose I'd leave another man--no matter how old and safe he was--to tell such a story as that his own way and hog all the credit for himself? That Las Uvas push is a four-flush--he needn't stir a peg for them. No, sir! I'd have stayed right there till you got ready to come--and every time I'd narrate that tale about the sc.r.a.p it would get scarier and scarier."

"I know, without telling, what my Chris does is the brave thing, the best thing," said the girl, with softly shining eyes. "And he never brags--any more than you do, Wes. You're always making fun of yourself. And I'm afraid you don't know how serious a menace this Las Uvas gang is. It isn't what Chris may do or may not do. All they want is a pretext. Why, John, there are men down there who are really quite truthful--as men go--till they get on the witness stand. But the minute they're under oath they begin to lie. Force of habit, I guess.

The whole courthouse ring hates Chris and fears him--especially Matt Lisner, the sheriff. In the old trouble, whenever he was outwitted or outfought, Chris did it. Besides----" She paused; the color swept to her cheek.

"Besides--you. Yes, yes," grumbled Pringle. "Might have been expected.

These women! Does the Foy-boy know?"

"He knows that Lisner wanted to marry me," said Stella. Neck and cheek were crimson now; but it was characteristic that her level eyes met Pringle's fearlessly. "But before that--he--he persecuted me, John.

Chris must not know. He would kill him. But I wanted you to know in case anything happened to Chris. There is nothing they will stick at, these men. Lisner is the vilest; he hates Chris worst of all." She was in deep distress; there were tears in her eyes as she smiled at him.

"And I wish--oh, John Wesley, you don't know how I wish you were staying here--dear old friend!"

"As a dear and highly valuable old friend," said Pringle sedately, "let me point out how shrewd and sensible a plan it would be for you and your Chris to go on a honeymoon at once--and never come back."

"I am beginning to think so. Up to last night I had only my fears to go on."

"But now you know. We managed to make a joke of last night--but what that push had in mind was plain murder. I would dearly like," said John Wesley, "to visit Las Uvas--some dark night--in a Zeppelin."

At the corral gate the Major met them, with a face so troubled that Stella cried out in alarm:

"Father! What is it? Chris?"

"Stella--be brave! d.i.c.k Marr was killed at midnight--and they're swearing it off on Chris."

"But John Wesley was with him."

"That's just it. Applegate and Creagan tell it that they saw Chris leaving town at eleven o'clock, that he said he was coming up here, and that he made a war-talk about Marr. But not a word about Pringle or the fight at the hotel. Joe Espalin doesn't appear--no claim that he saw Foy at all."

"That looks ugly," observed Pringle.

"Ugly! Your testimony is to be thrown out as a lie made of whole cloth. Espalin and the barkeeper don't appear. They're afraid the Mexican will get tangled up, and Max will swear he didn't see Chris at all. It's cut and dried. You are to be canceled. Marr was found this morning at the first crossroad above town. His watch was stopped at ten minutes to twelve--mashed, it seemed, where it hit on a stone when he fell. If they had told about the mix-up with you and Chris last night, I might have thought they really believed Chris killed Marr--or suspected it. As it stands, we know the whole thing is a black, rotten conspiracy."

"But where's Chris?" demanded Stella, trembling.

"We have none of us seen Chris--you want to remember that. You won't have to lie, Stella--you didn't see him. Pringle, I bank on you."

"Sure! I can lie and stick to it, though I'm sadly out of practice,"

said Pringle. "But hadn't we better fix up the same history to tell?

And where's your man Hargis that stays here? Will he do?"

"Unsaddle and I'll tell you. We've only got a few minutes. I saw the dust of them coming down from the north as I drove in this bunch of saddle horses. Some of them went up by train to Upham, you know.

Hargis has gone to the round-up, and I'm just as well pleased. I'm not sure he can be trusted. We are to know not the first word of what has happened. We haven't seen Chris and haven't heard of the murder. Come in--we'll start dinner and be taken by surprise. Pringle, throw your gun over on the bunk. Stella, get that look off your face. After you hear the news you can look any old way and it'll be natural enough.

But you've got to be unconcerned and unsuspicious when they first come."

He started a fire. Stella set about preparing dinner.

"Who brought the news?" she asked.

"Joe Cowan--and a relay. Someone rode to Jeff Isaack's ranch as fast as ever a horse could go. Jeff came to Quartzite; Dodd pa.s.sed the word on to Goldenburg's and Cowan came here. At every ranch they drove all the fresh saddle horses out of the way, so a posse couldn't get a remount without losing time. Kitty Foy has got good friends, and they don't believe he'd shoot any man in the back."

"And Foy's drifted with Cowan?"

"He hadn't a chance to get clear," said the Major. "We had no fresh horses here. They've sworn in a small army of deputies. Nearly a hundred men are out hunting for him by this time. One posse was to go up the San Andres on the east, leaving a man at every waterhole. The sheriff wired for a special train, took a carload of saddle horses and dropped a couple of men off at every station. At Upham the rest of them were to unload and string out across the Jornado, so as to cut Chris off from the Bar Cross round-up at Alaman. It's some of that bunch I saw coming, I guess. And the others were to scatter out and come up the middle of the plain. They'll drag the Jornado with a fine-toothed comb."

"How's he to get away, then?"

"Cowan took Kit's horse and led his own, which was about give out. He turned back east, up a draw where he won't be seen unless somebody's right on top of him. Eight or ten miles out he'll turn Foy's horse loose; he'll carry the extra saddle on a ways and drop it in a washout. They'll find Foy's horse and think he's roped a fresh one.

Then Cowan will start up a fresh bunch of mares and raise big dust. He will ride straight to the first posse he sees, claiming he's run his horse down chasing the mares. That'll let him out--maybe."

"And Foy?"

"We rode my horse double to the edge of the hills, to where he could walk on a ledge and leave no tracks," said the Major. "Then I went on. I rounded up this bunch of saddle horses and brought them back. He went up on Little Thumb b.u.t.te. It's all bluffs and bowlders there. Up on the highest big cliff, at the very top, is a deep crack that winds up in a cave like a tunnel. You know the place, Stella?"

"Yes. But, dad, they'll hunt out the hills the first thing."

"They will not!" said the Major triumphantly. "They'll read our sign; they'll see where four shod horses came up the road. I'll claim one of them was a horse I was leading--that'll be that bald-faced roan out in the corral. We all want to stick to that."

"But he's bigger than any of our horses," objected Pringle. "They'll know better by the tracks."

"Exactly! So they'll find a fresh-shod track going east--a track matching the fourth track we left on the road. They'll reason that we're trying to keep them from following that track. So they'll follow it up; they'll find Kit's give-out horse and then they'll know they're right."

"It seems to me," said Pringle reflectively, "that friend Cowan may have an interesting time if they get him."