The younger man thought for a s.p.a.ce, and a woman's words directed his reply:

"I've thought of that, and I'd like to do it," he said earnestly. "But, pshaw, who will give me a try in this country?" he asked bitterly. Then he added softly: "And I won't leave these parts, not now."

"You won't have to leave the country," replied the sheriff. "Why not try Blake, of the Star C?" he asked. "Blake is a sh.o.r.e square man, and he's a good friend of mine, too."

"Yes, I reckon he is square," replied The Orphan. "But he won't take no stock in me, not a bit."

"Tell him that you're a friend of mine, and that I sent you to punch for him, and see," responded Shields, examining his cinch.

"Do you mean that, Sheriff?" the other cried in surprise.

"h.e.l.l, yes!" answered Shields gruffly. "I'll give you a note to him, and if you watch your business you'll be his right-hand man in a month. I ain't making any mistake."

"By G.o.d, I'll do it!" cried the outlaw. "You're all right, Sheriff!"

"Well, I don't know about that," replied Shields, grinning broadly. "Mebby I just can't see the use of us shooting each other up, and that is what it will come to if things go on as they are, you know. I'd a blamed sight rather have you behaving yourself with Blake than bothering me with your fool nonsense and raising the devil all the time. Why, it's got so that every place I go I sort of looks for flower pots!"

The Orphan laughed: "I sh.o.r.e had a fine time that night!"

When half way to the Limping Water the sheriff said good-by to Bill and wheeled, facing in the direction of the Cross Bar-8.

"Orphan, you wait for me at the ford," he said. "I'm going up to break the news to Sneed, and I'll get paper and pencil while I'm there, and write a note to Blake. I'll get back as quick as I can--so long."

"So long, and good luck," replied The Orphan, heartily shaking hands with his new friend.

Shields loped away and arrived at the ranch as Sneed was carrying water to the cook shack.

"Hullo, Sneed! Playing cook?" he said, pulling in to a stop.

"I'll play _on_ the cook if I ever get my hands on him," replied Sneed, setting the pail down. "Well, what's new? Seen Tex and the other three?

I'll play on _them_, too, when they gets home! Off playing hookey from work when we all of us aches from double shifts--oh, just wait till I sees 'em sneaking in to bed! Just wait!"

"You ought to give 'em all a good thrashing, they need it," replied the sheriff, and then he asked: "Got any paper, and a pencil?" He wanted his needs supplied before he broke the news, for then he might not get them.

"Sh.o.r.e as you live I have," answered the foreman, picking up the pail and starting toward the bunk-house. "Come in and wet the dust--it's hot out here."

"Let me have the paper first--I want to scrawl a note before I forget about it," the sheriff responded as he seated himself on a bunk and looked critically about him at the bullet-riddled walls and pictures.

Sneed handed him an ink bottle and placed a piece of wrapping paper and a corroded pen on the table.

"That paper ain't for love letters, the ink is mud, and the pen's a brush, but I reckon you can make tracks, all right," the host remarked as he pushed a bench up to the table for his guest. "And if them punchers don't make tracks for home purty lively, I'll salt their hides and peg 'em on the wall to cure," he grumbled, rummaging for a bottle and cup.

When he placed the tin cup on the table he grinned foolishly, for it was plugged with a cork. "D----d outlaw!" he grunted.

"There," remarked the sheriff, fanning the note in the air. "That's done, if it'll ever dry."

"Blow on it," suggested Sneed, and then smiled.

"Here, wait a minute," he said, stepping to the door, where he scooped up a handful of sand. "Throw this on it--it can't get no muddier, anyhow."

Shields carefully folded the missive and tucked it in his hip pocket, and then he looked up at the foreman.

"Sneed," he slowly began, "your punchers ain't never coming back."

"What!" yelled the foreman, leaping to his feet, and having visions of his men being cut up by outlaws and Indians.

"Nope," replied Shields with an air of finality. "Bill Howland gave them the most awful beating up that I ever saw men get, the whole four of them, too! When he got through with them I took a hand and ordered them to get out of the country, and I told them that if they ever came back I'd shoot on sight, and I will."

Sneed's rage was pathetic, and was not induced by the beating his men had received, nor by the sheriff's orders, but because it left him only three men to work a ranch which needed twelve. As he listened to the sheriff's story he paced back and forth in the small room and swore luridly, kicking at everything in sight, except the sheriff. Then he cooled down, spread his feet far apart and stared at Shields.

"Why didn't you kill 'em, the d----d fools?" he cried. "That's what they deserved!" Then he paused. "But what am I going to do?" he asked.

"Where'll I get men, and what'll I do 'til I do get 'em?"

"I'll send Charley and half a dozen of the boys out from town to stay with you 'til you get some others," replied the sheriff, walking toward the door. "And you might tell the three that are left that I'll kill the next man who tries that kind of work in this country. I'm getting good and tired of it. So long."

Sneed didn't hear him, but sat with his head in his hands for several minutes after the sheriff had gone, swearing fluently.

"Orphan h--l!" he yelled as he picked up the water pail and stamped to the cook shack.

CHAPTER XIII

THE STAR C GIVES WELCOME

The Limping Water, within a mile after it pa.s.sed Ford's Station, turned abruptly and flowed almost due west for thirty miles, where it again proceeded southward. At the second bend stood the ranch houses and corrals of the Star C, in a country rich in gra.s.s and water. Its cows numbered far into the thousands and its horses were the best for miles around, while the whole ranch had an air of opulence and plenty. Its ranch house was a curiosity, for even now there were lace curtains in some of the windows, badly torn and soiled, but still lace curtains; and on the floors of several rooms were thick carpets, now covered with dust and riding paraphernalia. Oddly shaped and badly scratched chairs were piled high with acc.u.mulated trash, and the few gilt-framed paintings which graced the walls were hanging awry and were torn and scratched. At one time an Eastern woman had tried to live there, but that was when the owner of the ranch and his wife had been enthusiasts. New York regained and kept its own, and they now would rather receive quarterly reports by mail than daily reports in person. The foreman and his wolf hounds reigned supreme, not at all bothered by the stiff furniture and lace curtains, because he would rather be comfortable than stylish, and so lived in two rooms which he had fitted up to his ideas. Carpets and two-inch spurs cause profanity and ravelings, and as for pictures, they have a most annoying way of tilting when one hangs a six-shooter on one corner of the frame, and they are so inviting that one is constantly forgetting. So the unstable pictures, the dress-parade chairs, bothersome curtains and clutching carpets were left under the dust.

The Star C, being in a part of the country little traversed and crossed by no trails, was removed from the zone of The Orphan's activities and had no cause for animosity, save that induced by his reputation. Several of its punchers had seen him, and all were well versed in his exploits, for frequently Ford's Station shared its hospitality with one or more of them; and in Ford's Station at that time The Orphan was the chief topic of conversation and the bone of contention. But the foreman of the Star C would not know him if he should see him, unless by intuition.

Blake was a man much after the pattern of Shields in his ideas, and the two were warm friends and had roughed it together when Ford's Station had only been an adobe hut. Their affection for each other was of the stern, silent kind, which seldom betrayed itself directly in words, and they could ride together for hours in an understanding silence and never weary of the companionship; and when need was, deeds spoke for them. The Cross Bar-8 would have had more than Ford's Station to fight if it had declared war on the sheriff, which the Cross Bar-8 knew. The three cleverest manipulators of weapons in that section, in the order of their merit, were The Orphan, Shields and Blake, which also the Cross Bar-8 knew.

The foreman of the Star C rode at a walk toward a distant point of his dominions and cogitated as to whether he could ride over to Ford's Station that night to see the sheriff. It was a matter of sixty miles for the round trip, but it might have been sixty blocks, so far as the distance troubled him. He had just decided to make the trip and to spend a pleasant hour with his friend, and drink some of the delicious coffee which Mrs. Shields always made for him and eat one of her prize pies, or some of her light ginger bread, when he descried a horseman coming toward him at a lope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Orphan gives Blake Shields' note. (_See page_ 213.)]

The newcomer was a stranger to Blake and appeared to be a young man, which was of no consequence. But the thing which attracted more than a casual glance from the foreman was a certain jaunty, reckless air about the man which spoke well for the condition of his nerves and liver.

The stranger approached to within a rod of Blake before he spoke, and then he slowed down and nodded, but with wide-eyed alertness.

"Howdy," he said. "Are you the foreman of the Star C?"

"Howdy. I am," replied the foreman.

"Then I reckon this is yours," said the stranger, holding out a bit of straw-colored paper.

The foreman took it and slowly read it. When he had finished reading he turned it over to see if there was anything on the back, and then stuck it in his pocket and looked up casually.