"We'll git right on," he declared authoritatively.

"Which way?" inquired Smallbones. He was angry, but looked depressed.

The doctor considered a moment, and the men stood round waiting.

"We'll head up-stream for the hills," he said at last. "Guess he'll make that way. We'll divide up on either side of the river. Guess you best take three men, Smallbones, an' cross over. You, Thorpe, 'll stop with me."

But Thorpe shook his head. He saw an opportunity to play a big hand for Eve, and, win or lose, he meant to play it. He would not have attempted it on a man less keen than the doctor.

"You're wrong, Doc," he said coolly, and all eyes were at once turned upon him. Every man in the party was at once agog with interest, for not one of them but shared Smallbones' suspicion in some degree, however little it might be.

"See here," Jim went on, with a great show of enthusiasm, "do you know this river? Well," as the doctor shook his head, "I do. That's why I came this trail. I guessed if any of the rustlers were liable to hit the trail, it 'ud be somewhere around this river. You figger he's gone up-stream. I'd gamble he's gone down. There's a heavy timber two miles or so down-stream, and that timber is a sheer cover right up to the hills farther north. D'you get me? Well, personally, I don't think he's gone up-stream--so I hunt down."

He was relying on the independence of his manner and the truth of his arguments for success, and he achieved it even beyond his hopes. Doc Crombie's eyes blazed.

"You'll hunt with me, Jim Thorpe," he cried sharply.

But Jim was ready. This was what he was looking for.

"See here, Doc, I'm not out for foolishness, neither are you. Oh, yes, I know I'm suspected, and there's folks, especially our friend Smallbones, would like to hang me right off. Well, get busy and do the hanging, I shan't resist, and you'll all live to regret it; that is, except Smallbones. However, this is my point. This suspicion is on me, and I've got to clear it. I'm a sight more interested than any of you fellows. I believe that fellow has headed down-stream, and I claim the right, in my own self-defense, to follow him as far as my horse will let me. I want to hit his trail, and I'll run him to earth if I have to do it on foot. And I tell you right here you've no authority to stop me. I'm not a vigilante, and you're not a sheriff, nor even a 'deputy.' I tell you you have neither moral nor legal right to prevent me clearing myself in my own way."

"Want to get rid of us," snarled Smallbones.

Jim turned on him like a knife.

"I've a score to settle with you, and, small as you are, you're going to get all that's coming to you--later."

"You'll have to get busy quick, or you won't have time," grinned the little man, making a hideous motion of hanging.

But further bickering was prevented by the doctor. At this moment he rose almost to the greatness which his a.s.sociates claimed for him.

Bitter as his feelings were at thus openly being defied and flouted, he refused to blind himself to the justness of the other's plea. He even acquiesced with a decent grace, although he refused--as Jim knew he would--to change his own opinions.

"Hit your trail, boy," he cried, in his large, harsh voice. "Guess you sure got the rights of a free citizen, an'--good luck."

He rode off; and Smallbones, with a venomous glance back at the triumphant Jim, started across the river. Jim remounted his horse and rode off down the river. He glanced back at the retreating party with the doctor, and sighed his relief. He felt as though he had been pa.s.sing through a lifetime of crime, and ahead lay safety.

He did not attempt to push his tired horse faster than a walk, but continued on until he came to the woods, where he knew Will had sought shelter; then he off-saddled. He had no intention of proceeding farther until sundown.

He thanked his stars that he had read Doc Crombie aright. He would never have dared to bluff a lesser man than he.

And then, having seated himself for rest under a bush, his last waking thoughts were black with the despair of an honest man who has finally and voluntarily made it impossible to prove his own innocence.

CHAPTER XXVII

ANNIE

Doc Crombie and his men had returned to Barnriff after a long and fruitless hunt. Two days and two nights they had spent on the trail.

They had found the haunt of the rustlers; they had seen the men--at least, they had had an excellent view of their backs; they had pursued--and they had lost them all four. But this was not all. One of the boys had been shot down in his tracks by the man they believed to be the leader of the gang. So it was easy enough to guess their temper.

The doctor said little, because that was his way when things went wrong. But the iron possessed his soul to a degree that suggested all sorts of possibilities. And Barnriff was a raging cauldron of fury and disappointment. So was the entire district, for the news was abroad, travelling with that rapidity which is ever the case with the news of disaster. Every rancher was, to use a local phrase, "up in the air, and tearing his sky-piece" (his hair), which surely meant that before long there would be trouble for some one, the nature of which would be quite easy to guess.

The "hanging committee," as the vigilantes were locally called, returned at sundown, and the evening was spent in spreading the news.

Thus it was that Annie Gay learned the public feeling, and the general drift of Barnriff's thought. Her husband dutifully gave her his own opinions first, that there might be no doubt in her own mind; then he proceeded to show her how Barnriff saw these things.

"Of course," he said. "What ken you expect wi' folk like Smallbones an' sech on a committee like this! Doc's to blame, sure. Ef he'd sed to me, 'Gay, you fix this yer racket. I leave it to you,' I'd sure 'a'

got _men_ in the gang, an' we'd 'a' cleared the country of all sech gophers as rustlers. But ther', guess I don't need to tell you 'bout Doc."

Annie's loyalty to him stood the test, and she waited for the rest. It came with his recounting of the details of their exploits. He told her of their journey, of the race. Then he pa.s.sed on to the story of the Little Bluff River, as he had been told it by Smallbones. He a.s.sured her that now everybody, urged on by Smallbones, wanted to hang somebody, and, as far as he could make out, unless they quickly laid hands on the real culprit, Jim Thorpe was likely violently to terminate his checkered career over the one-way trail.

He was convinced that the venom of Smallbones, added to the tongues of the women, which were beginning to wag loudly at what they believed was Jim's clandestine intimacy with Eve during her husband's absence, would finally overcome the scruples of Doc Crombie and force him to yield to the popular cry.

He gave her much detail, all of which she added to her own knowledge.

And, with her husband's approval, decided to go to Eve, and, in her own phraseology, "do what she could." Her husband really sent her, for he liked Jim Thorpe.

So, on the third morning, Annie set out on her errand of kindly warning. The position was difficult. But she realized that this was no time to let her feelings hinder her. She loved Eve, and, like her husband, she had a great friendliness for Jim.

Then she was convinced that there was nothing between these two yet, other than had always existed, a liking on the woman's part and a deep, wholesome, self-sacrificing love on the man's. She saw the danger for Eve well enough, since her husband had turned out so badly; but her sympathetic heart went out to her, and she would never have opened her mouth to say one word to her detriment, even if she knew the women's accusations to be true. In fact, in a wave of sentimental emotion, she rather hoped they were true. Eve deserved a little happiness, and, if it lay in her power to help her to any, she would certainly not hesitate to offer her services.

To Eve, fighting her lonely battle in the solitude of her small home, amidst the cloth and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of her trade, the sight of Annie's cheerful, friendly face always had a rousing effect. She lived from day to day in a world of grinding fear. Her mind was never clear of it now. And she clung to her work as being the only possible thing. She dared not go out more than she was actually obliged for fear of hearing the news she dreaded. There was nothing to be done but wait for the sword to fall.

But these last three days her fears had been divided, and she found herself torn in two different directions by them. Where before it had always been her husband, now, ever since the night of Jim Thorpe's going, he was rarely out of her thoughts. Now, even more than at the time when she first understood the sacrifice he was about to make for her. And the n.o.bleness of it appealed to her simple woman's mind as something sublime. He was a branded man before, but now, so long as he remained in Barnriff, or wherever he met a man who had lived in Barnriff at this time, so long as Will escaped capture, the pointing finger would be able to mark honest Jim Thorpe as a--cattle-thief. He was powerless to do more than deny it. The horror of it was dreadful.

He had done it for her. And her woman's heart told her why. Her thoughts flew back to those days, such a little way back, yet, to her, so far, far away, when his kind serious eyes used to look into hers in their gentle caressing fashion, when his unready tongue used to halt over speaking those nice things a woman, in her simple vanity, loves to hear from a man she likes. She thought of the little presents he used to make her so awkwardly, all prompted by his great, golden, loving heart.

And she had pa.s.sed him by for that other. The man with the ready, specious tongue, with the buoyant, self-satisfied air, with the bright, merry eyes of one who knows his power with women, who rarely fails to win, and, having won easily, no longer cares for his plaything. But she had loved Will then, and had Jim been an angel sent straight from heaven he could not then have taken her from him.

But now? Ah, well, now everything was different. She was older. She was, perhaps, sadly wiser. She was also married, and Jim was, could be, nothing to her. His n.o.bleness to her was the n.o.bleness which was not the result of a selfish love that looks and hopes for its reward, she told herself. It was part of the man. He would have acted that way whatever his feelings for her. He was a great, loyal friend, she told herself again and again, and her feeling for him was friendliness, a friendliness she thanked G.o.d for, and nothing more. She told herself all this, as many a woman has told herself before, and she fancied, as many another good and virtuous woman has fancied, that she believed it.

When Annie entered her workroom she looked up with a wistful smile of welcome, but the sight of the clouds obscuring the sunshine of the girl's face stopped her sewing-machine at once, and ready sympathy found prompt expression in her gentle voice.

"What is it, dear?" she inquired. "You look--you look as if you, too, were in trouble."

Annie tried to smile back in response. But it was a poor attempt. She had been thinking so hard on her way to Eve. She had been calculating and figuring so keenly in her woman's way. And curiously enough she had managed to make the addition of two and two into four. She felt that she must not hesitate now, or the courage to display the accuracy of her calculation, and at the same time help her friend, would evaporate.

"Trouble?" she echoed absently. "Trouble enough for sure, but not for me, Eve," she stepped round to the girl's side and laid a protecting arm about her shoulders. "You can quit those fears you once told me of. I--think he's safe away."

Had Annie needed confirmation of her deductive logic she had it. The look of absolute horror which suddenly leaped into Eve's drawn face was overwhelming. Annie's arm tightened round her shoulders, for she thought the distraught woman was about to faint.

"Don't say a word, Eve, dear. Don't you--now don't you," she cried.

"I'm going to do the talking. But first I'll just shut the door." She crossed to the door, speaking as she went. "You've just got to sit an'

listen, while I tell you all about it. An' when we've finished, dear,"

she said, coming back to her place beside her, "ther's just one thing, an' only one person we've got to think an' speak about. It's Jim Thorpe."

Annie's intuition must have been something approaching the abnormal, for she gave Eve no chance whatever to reply. She promptly sat down at the table, and, gazing straight into the stricken woman's face, told her all that her husband had told her, and all that she had gleaned for herself, elsewhere. She linked everything together in such a manner as to carry absolute conviction, showing the jeopardy in which Jim stood.