The rough doctor grinned and got to work. She had made him suddenly realize that he was dealing with a woman, and not one of the men of the village. He promptly waived what had, in the course of years, become a sort of prerogative of his: the right to bully. In half an hour he had finished and the three prepared to take their departure.

"Guess you'll be all right now," Crombie said, in his gruff but not unkindly way. Then, unable to check entirely his hectoring, he went on with a sarcastic grin. "An', say, ma'm, if you've a habit o' leanin'

so heavy over the coal box, I'd advise you to git the corners rounded some. When falls sech as you've jest bin takin' happen around they don't generly end with the first of 'em. I wish you good-night."

Peter also bade her good-night, and he and the doctor pa.s.sed out. Jim was about to follow when Eve stayed him. She waited to speak till the others had pa.s.sed out of ear-shot.

"Jim, you're real good," she said in a low voice. "And I can never thank you enough. No," as he made an attempt to stop her, "I must speak. I didn't want to, but--but I must. It isn't money we want--truth. Not yet. But maybe you can help me. I don't rightly know.

You do want to, don't you? Sure--sure?"

Jim nodded. His eyes told her. At that moment he would have done anything for her.

"Well, if you want to help me there's only one way. Help him. Oh, Jim, he needs it. I don't know how it's to be done, but--for my sake--help him. Jim, it's drink--drink and poker. They're ruining him. You can only help me--by helping him. No, don't promise anything. Good-night, Jim. G.o.d bless you!"

She held out her hand to him and, in a paroxysm of ardent feeling, he clutched it and kissed it pa.s.sionately. A moment later he was gone.

As the door closed Elia stepped into the light. The girl had forgotten all about him. Now she was startled.

"Eve, wot fer did you lie about that?" he said, pointing at her bandaged head.

The girl's head was aching so that it seemed it would split, and she closed her eyes. But the boy would not be denied.

"You lied, sis," he exclaimed vehemently, though his face and eyes were quite calm. "Will did that, 'cause you wouldn't give him thirty dollars. I see him throw you 'crost the room. I hate him."

Eve was wide-eyed now.

"You saw him?" she cried in alarm. Then she paused. Suddenly her tone changed. "Come here, Elia," she said gently.

The boy came toward her and she took one of his hands and fondled it.

"How did you see him?" she went on.

"Through the window. I was waitin' fer supper." In spite of her caress the boy was sulky.

"Well, promise me you won't tell anybody. You haven't, have you?"

The boy shook his head.

"I won't tell, sis, if you don't want me. But--but why don't you kill him?"

The three men were walking across the market-place.

"That's Will Henderson's work," exclaimed Crombie with a fierce oath, nodding his head back at Eve's house.

Jim and Peter offered no comment. Both had long since realized the fact.

"Gol durn him!" cried the fiery doctor. "He'll kill her--if he don't get killed instead."

Jim said nothing. Eve's pa.s.sionate appeal to him was still ringing in his ears. It was Peter who answered.

"You goin' to home, Doc? I'm goin' down to the saloon--to fetch Will."

"You are?" It was Jim's startled inquiry. "What for?"

"I'm going to yarn some--mebbe. You get right out to the ranch, boy.

An' don't get around here till I send you word."

The doctor stood for a moment.

"He needs hangin'," he declared. Then, in the cheery starlight, he looked into the two men's faces and grinned. He had a great knowledge of the men of his village. "Well, so long," he added, and abruptly strode away.

The moment he had gone Jim protested.

"Peter," he said, "we've got to help him; we've got to get him clear of that saloon. It's not because I like him or want----"

"Just so. But we got to help him. So, you get right out to the ranch, an'--leave him to me."

CHAPTER XVI

DEVIL DRIVEN

The saloon was full and Rocket was busy. His face glowed with funereal happiness. He was sombrely delighted at the rapidity with which the tide of dollars was flowing across his dingy counter. He was more than ordinarily interested, too, which was somewhat remarkable.

The fact was Barnriff's scandal had received a fillip in a fresh and unprecedented direction. McLagan had been in, bringing two of his cow-punchers with him. The hot-headed Irishman had crashed into the midst of Barnriff with such a splash that it set the store of public comment hissing and spluttering, and raised a perfect roar of astonishment and outraged rect.i.tude.

He had arrived late, after the usual evening game had started. His first inquiry was for Jim Thorpe, and he cursed liberally when told that n.o.body had seen him. Then he fired his angry story at the a.s.sembled company of villagers, and pa.s.sed on to make camp at a rival ranch five miles to the northwest.

It was a rapidly told story full of lurid tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and, judging by its force, came from his heart.

"It's duffing, boys," he cried, with an oath, and a thump on the bar which set the gla.s.ses, filled at his expense, rattling. "Dogone cattle-duffing! Can you beat it? The first in five year, since Curly Sanders got gay, and then spent a vacation treadin' air. We got first wind of it nigh a week back, Jim an' me. We missed a bunch o' backward calves. We let 'em run this spring round-up, guessin' we'd round 'em up come the fall. Well, say, Jim went to git a look at 'em--they was way back there by the foot-hills, in a low hollow--an' not a blame trace or track of 'em could he locate. We just guessed they was 'stray,' and started in to round 'em up. Well, the boys has been busy nigh on a week, an' here, this sundown, Nat Pauley an' Jim Beason come riding in, till their bronchos was nigh foundered, sayin' a bunch of twenty cows on the Bandy Creek station has gone too. D'you git that?

Those blamed calves was on the Bandy Creek range, too. It's darnation cattle-thievin', an' I'm hot on the trail."

And Barnriff was stirred. It was more. It was up in arms. There was no stronger appeal to its sympathies than the cry of "cattle-thief!" As a village it lived on the support of the surrounding ranches, and their ills became the scourge of this hornet's nest of sharp traders.

McLagan had raised the cry here knowing full well the hatred he would stir, and the support that would be accorded him should he need it.

He had come and gone a veritable firebrand, and the hot trail he had left behind him was smouldering in a manner unhealthy for the cattle-thieves.

When Peter Blunt entered the saloon it was to receive McLagan's tale from all sides. And while he listened to the story, now garbled out of all semblance of its original form by the whiskey-stimulated imaginations, he found himself wondering how it came that Jim Thorpe had given him no word of it. And he said so.

"Say, boys," he observed, when he got a chance to speak, "I only left Jim Thorpe a while back. He rode in to see me. He didn't give me word of this."

It was Abe Horsley who explained.