"I've quit the 'AZ's,'" he said, with a light laugh. "Or p'r'aps I'd best say McLagan's quit me. Say, I'm out on the war-path, chasing cattle-rustlers," he went on, with a smile. "That bunch of cattle coming in with my brand on 'em has set my name stinking some with Mac, and I guess it's up to me to--disinfect it. Eh?"

His final e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was made at Rocket. There were three gla.s.ses set out on the counter, and the saloon-keeper was handing him his change.

"Three drinks," that worthy was explaining. "The rest o' the boys don't guess they're thirsty."

Jim stiffened his back, and coldly glanced over the faces about him.

He counted ten men, without including himself and Rocket. Of these, only two, Jake and Gay, had accepted his invitation. Suddenly his eyes rested on the triumphant face of Smallbones. Without a word he strode across the room, and his hand fell heavily on the man's quaking shoulder. In a moment he had dragged him to the centre of the room.

"Guess you'll do, Smallbones," he began, as he released the man's coat collar. "No, don't move. You're going to stand right there and hand me out the story I see dodging behind those wicked eyes of yours. You've got it there, good and plenty, back of them, so get going, and--we'll all listen. Whatever I've got to say you'll get after."

Smallbones' eyes snapped fire. He was furious at the rough handling, and he longed more than ever to hurt this man.

"You're a strong man, an bein' strong, you're mighty free with your hands," he snarled. "But you're up agin it. Up agin it bad, Jim Thorpe." His face lit with a grin of venom. "Say, you don't need no story from me. You'll get it plenty from--everywhere! McLagan's quit you, because---- Wal, I'm a law-abidin' citizen, an' don't figger to drink with folks suspected of--cattle-rustlin'."

Smallbones' challenge held the whole room silent. Jake, watching and listening, was astonished at the man's moral courage. But the chief interest was in the ex-ranch-foreman. What would he do?

The question was swiftly answered. Jim's head went up, and a light laugh prefaced his words.

"So I'm up against it?" he said calmly. Then he gazed contemptuously round on those who had rejected his hospitality. "So that's why all you fellows refused to drink with me. Well, it's a nasty pill, and it's likely to hand me indigestion." Then he deliberately turned his back on Smallbones and glanced at the counter. The drinks he had bought were still there. He looked up with a frank smile into the faces of the two men who were willing to drink with him. "Gentlemen,"

he said, "it seems to me there are just two drinks between me and--the rope. Will you honor a suspected man by clinking gla.s.ses with him?"

He raised his own gla.s.s to them, and Jake and Gay nearly fell over each other in their frantic efforts to express their willingness, and their disapproval of Smallbones. They clumsily clinked their gla.s.ses, and drank to the last drop. Then, in silence, they set their gla.s.ses down.

"Thanks, Jake. Thanks, Gay," said Jim, after a moment. Then he turned to the saloon-keeper. "I'm sorry the order's so small," he said, with a laugh.

"You can make it one bigger," grinned Silas, and Promptly held out his hand.

The two men gripped.

"Thanks," murmured Jim. And at the same instant Smallbones' offensive voice broke in.

"A real elegant scene," he sneered. "Most touchin'. Sort o' mothers'

meetin'." But in a second his tone changed to a furious rasp. "But don't you mistake, Jim Thorpe; three drinks ain't buyin' you clear. If you're the honest man you say, you'll hev to prove it. There's the cattle with your brand on 'em. Whose hand set it on? Who keeps that brand? Who runs his stock in hidin' up in the hills? Them's the questions we're all astin', an' it's up to you to answer 'em right. Ef you don't, then----" he finished with a suggestive motion of hanging.

But Jim had had enough. A moment of blind fury seized upon him, and he swung round on his accuser. The heavy rawhide quirt hanging on his wrist was raised aloft threateningly, and his eyes were the eyes of a man at the limit of endurance.

"Another word from you and I'll flay you alive with this quirt," he cried. "You've had your say, and now, I guess, I'll have mine. You know just as much as all the rest of the folk here; no more and no less. No more and no less than I do. When you or anybody else gets definite proof that I'm a cattle-thief you are at liberty to talk, but, until then, if I hear you, or of you, publicly charging me with cattle stealing, I'll smash you, if I swing for it. Get right out, now. Get right out, quick!"

Smallbones stood for a moment glaring at the threatening man. His teeth were bared in a tigerish grin. He was the picture of ferocity, but, as Jim took a step toward him, his dark face white with pa.s.sion, he dropped back and finally made for the door.

But the turn of fortune's wheel was still against Jim. For Smallbones, the situation was saved by the advent of Doc Crombie. That redoubtable man pushed his way in through the swing doors and promptly hailed him back.

"Hold on, Smallbones," he cried, "I've a word for you fellows. How many are there here?" He glanced round the bar swiftly, and finally his eyes rested on Jim Thorpe.

"Ah!" He paused, while he mentally estimated the prevailing feeling.

Then he addressed himself to Silas behind the bar. "You'll help the boys to drinks," he said. Then, pointedly, "All of 'em." After that, he turned to Jim. "Jest in from the 'AZ's'?" he inquired casually.

"McLagan's quit me on account of those cattle," Jim admitted, frankly.

"Those wi' your brand on?"

"Sure."

Doc smiled. He could not well have failed to become the leader of this village. Power was written in every line of his hard, shrewd face.

The moment the drinks had been served and heartily consumed, he addressed himself to the company generally. And, at his first words, Smallbones flashed a wicked look of triumph into the face of Jim Thorpe.

"It's this cattle-rustlin'," he said, coming to the point at once.

"It's got to quit, an' it's right up to us to see it does quit. I ain't come here like a politician, nor a sky-pilot to talk the rights an' wrongs of things. It's not in my line ladlin' out psalms an'

things. Ther's folks paid fer that sort o' hogwash. It's jest been decided to run a gang o' vigilantes over this district, an' every feller called upon's expected to roll up prompt. I've been around an'

located twelve of the boys from the ranges. I want eight more. With me it'll make twenty-one. Smallbones," he proceeded, turning on the hardware merchant with an authority that would not be denied, "you'll make one. You two fellers, Jake, an' you, carpenter--that's three.

You, Rust--that's four. Long Pete an' you, Sam Purdy, an' Crook Wilson; you three ain't doin' a heap hangin' around this b.u.m canteen--that's seven." His eyes suddenly sought Jim's, and a cold command fell upon his victim even before his words came. "Guess, under the circ's," he remarked pointedly, "you'd best make the eighth."

But Jim shook his head. A light of determination, as keen as the doctor's own, shone in the smiling eyes that confronted the man of authority.

"Not for mine, Doc," he said deliberately. "Not on your life. Here, I don't want any mistake," he hastened on, as he watched the anger leap into the other's face, and beheld the sparkle of malice lighting the beady eyes of Smallbones. "Just listen to me. If you'll take a look around you'll see a number of fellers, mostly good fellers, more than half of 'em believing me to be the rustler they're all looking for.

Well, for one thing you can't put me on a vigilance committee with folks suspecting me. It isn't fair either way, to me or them. Then, in the second place, I've got a say. I tell you, Doc, straight up and down, as man to man, I don't hunt with hounds that are snapping at my shoulders in the run. I'm either a rustler or I'm not. I choose to say I'm not. That being so I guess I'm the most interested in running these gophers, who are, to their holes. Well, that's what I'm going to do. But I'm going to do it in my own way, and not under any man's command. I've got a few dollars by me and so long as they last, and my horse lasts out, I'm going to get busy. You're a man of intelligence, so I guess you'll see my point. Anyway, I hunt alone."

It was a lucky thing for Jim Thorpe that he was dealing with a really strong man, and a fearless one. One weak spot in the character of Doc Crombie, one trifling pettiness, which could have taken umbrage at the defiance of his authority, one atom of small-mindedness, whereby he could have been influenced by the curious evidence against this man, and the yelping hounds of Barnriff would have been let loose, and set raging at his heels. As it was, Doc Crombie, whatever may have been his faults, was before all things a man.

He turned from Jim with a shrug.

"Plain speakin's good med'cine," he said, glancing coldly over his shoulder. "You've spoke a heap plain. So will I. Hit your own trail, boy. But remember, this dogone rustler's got to be rounded up and finished off as neat as a rawhide rope'll do it. If he ain't found--wal, we're goin' to clear Barnriff of this trouble anyways. I don't guess you need a heap of extry-ordinary understandin' to get my meaning. You're gettin' a big chanct--why, take it. Gay," he said, turning abruptly to the butcher, "I guess you'll make the tally of the committee. We start out to-night."

CHAPTER XXIII

TERROR

Eve was alone. Never in all her life had she been so absolutely alone as now. She rocked herself to and fro beside her kitchen stove, her thoughts and fears rioting through body and mind, until she sat shivering with terror in the warmth of her own fireside.

It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening and the vigilantes were due back in the village before midnight. What would be their news?

What----? She paused, listening fearfully. But the sound she heard was only a creaking of the frame of her little home.

The suspense was nerve racking. Would it never end? Yes, she felt it would end--certainly, inevitably. And the conviction produced a fresh shudder in her slight body. Three hours ago she had seen Jim Thorpe and his jaded horse return to the village. She had longed to seek him out--he had gone to Peter Blunt's hut for the night--and question him.

But she had refrained. Whatever Jim's actual att.i.tude toward her, she must think of him in her calculations as the bitterest enemy. In her tense nervousness she laughed hysterically. Jim, her enemy? How ridiculous it seemed. And a year ago he had been her lover.

For a moment her terror eased. Thoughts of a year ago were far removed from the horror of her present. Jim could be n.o.body's enemy unless it were his own. Her enemy? Never. He was too kind, too honest, too much a man. And yet--the haunting of the moment broke out afresh--he must be. In self-defense he must be her enemy. He could not clear his own name otherwise.

She pondered. Her eyes grew less wild, less frightened, and a soft glow welled up in her heart as she thought of the man whom she declared must be her enemy. Just for a moment she thought how different things might have been had only her choice fallen otherwise.

Then she stifled her regrets, and, in an instant, was caught again in the toils of the horror that lay before her.

She tried to think out what she must do when the vigilantes returned.

What would be her best course? She wanted advice so badly. She wanted to talk it over with somebody, somebody who had clear judgment, somebody who could think with a man's cool courage. Yes, she wanted a man's advice. And there was no man to whom she could appeal. Jim?--no, she decided that she could not go to him. She felt that, for safety, she had seen too much of him already. Peter? Ah, yes! But the thought of him only recalled to her mind another trouble with which she was beset. It was one, which, amidst the horror of the matter of the cattle stealing, had, for the moment, been banished from her mind.

She remembered the note she had received from him that morning, and groped for it in the bosom of her dress. It had reached her by a special messenger, and its tone, for Peter, was urgent and serious.