Echo walked hastily to Sage-brush's side. She felt her presence might help to avoid the outbreak which she saw could not long be avoided.

Peruna had lost control of tongue and discretion by this time.

"You'll never see him back in this section again. You all know where he is--across the line in Mexico--why, she's fixin' to make a clean-up now, an' sell out and join him!"

Sage-brush reached for his gun, but Echo restrained him.

"You--" he cried.

Buck turned angrily on Peruna. "You keep your mouth shet," he shouted.

Peruna subsided at his boss' command, mumbling: "There ain't no female can pull the forelock over my eyes."

"Take care," warningly called Buck.

Peruna fired up again, regardless of consequences. "Why, I see through her game. She's glad to get rid of him, so's she can play up to her ranch boss, Handsome Charley there."

Buck had to act instantly to preserve his supremacy over his men.

Before any of the Sweet.w.a.ter outfit could reach Peruna's side, or pull a gun to resent the insult, Buck was on top of him. With a blow full in the mouth, he knocked him sprawling. Echo had seized Sage-brush's hand, preventing him from firing. The other men moved as if to kick Peruna as he lay prostrate.

"Let him alone. He's goin' to ask the lady's pardon," snarled Buck, covering him with his gun.

Peruna raised himself on one arm.

"No, I'll be--" he began.

Buck bent over him, speaking in a low tone, tensely and quickly.

"Quick! I don't want to have to kill you. You d.a.m.n' fool, don't you see what I'm playin' fer?"

"He ain't fit to live!" shouted Show Low.

Buck turned on the cowboy. It was his fight, and he was going to handle it in his own fashion.

"Lem me handle this case," he interrupted. "Ther' ain't no man can travel in my outfit and insult a woman--you ask her pardon--right smart."

Peruna struggled to his feet. Buck commanded:

"On your knees."

A glance at Buck showed Peruna how deadly in earnest he was.

Reluctantly he sank to his knees.

"I didn't mean what I said. I hope you will excuse me--" he whined.

"That's enough. Now git up. Pull your freight," Buck ordered.

"By G.o.d, no!" interposed Sage-brush.

The cowboys seized Peruna.

Buck saw that his bluff at bossing the situation was called. He turned appealingly to Echo, and rapidly fabricated a moving tale about Peruna's heroic rescue of himself from drowning in the Gila River. "An I swore I would do as much fer him some day. Now I perpose that we all give him a kick, an' let him go; let him have two hours' start, after which the game-laws will be out on him."

Sage-brush cried out against the plan, but Echo was moved by McKee's appeal for his comrade, and, speaking low and beseechingly to Sage-brush, said: "It will save a range-war that we can't afford to have till Jack and Slim get back." Sage-brush finally a.s.sented.

"Two hours' start. Well, he'll have to go some, if he gets away. Kick him and let him go," he commanded.

Echo turned away.

The cowboys who held Peruna threw him to the ground, and every man of the Allen and Payson ranches gave him a vicious kick, Show Low putting in an extra one for his murdered bunkie. Last of all, McKee approached the prostrate man, and made the mistake which was to cost him his life by booting Peruna cruelly. The man was a stupid fellow by nature, and what wits he had were addled by the habit he had acquired of consuming patent-medicines containing alcohol, morphin, and other stimulating and stupefying drugs. He was as revengeful as stupid, and could have forgiven McKee's putting the rope around his neck more easily than Buck's joining in the humiliation which saved his life.

Rising from the ground and trembling with anger, Peruna turned on the half-breed, saying: "I'll square this deal, Buck McKee."

"Losin' vallyble time, Peruna. Git!" was all that his former boss deigned to answer.

Peruna limped over to his horse, which Parenthesis had been holding in custody, mounted it, and rode off at a lope for the river ford. He crossed it in sight of the Sweet.w.a.ter outfit, and disappeared behind the riverbank. Here he dismounted, and, picking a small branch of cactus, put it under his horse's tail. The poor beast clapped the tail against it, and, with a scream, set off on a wild gallop across the mesa. Peruna hobbled up the river a mile or so, half-waded, half-swam, to the other side, and entered an arroyo, whose course led back near the camp of the Sweet.w.a.ter outfit. He had been disarmed by the cowboys of his revolver, but not of his knife.

After Peruna had been visited with his punishment, Echo retraced her steps.

Bowing to her, hat in hand, Buck made his apologies. "Ma'am, I'm plumb sorry. My mother was a Cherokee squaw, but I'm white in some spots.

If you'll let your ranch boss come along with us, we'll settle this brandin'-business right now."

Sage-brush did not care to accept the offer, but Echo ordered him to go with the Lazy K outfit. Seeing it was useless to argue with her, he said: "Come on, boys."

Ere they had ridden out of sight, Echo sank, exhausted, on the seat by the fire. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Polly played the role of comforter.

"Don't mind 'em," she said. "Better come to the ranch with me. You're all tuckered out. You've been runnin' this ranch fer a month like a man."

"I'll take your advice, Polly, and ride home. Tell Dad I want him, will you?"

CHAPTER XVI

Death of McKee, Disappointed Desperado

Bud's conscience was not troubling him so much now. In fact, he was rather proud of his conduct of late. He had "shaken" Buck McKee, and he had forgiven Echo for all the hard thoughts he had against her--without considering that she would be more than woman if she failed to harbor resentment against the man who had prevented her from calling her husband back from the desert.

In the absence of Slim, both Bud and McKee attained a feeling of security in the matter of Terrill murder. McKee had already ventured to use some of his share of the robbery in gambling. Bud had not yet convinced himself either of the right or the advisability of spending his share. Both conscience and fear advised him to keep the blood-money intact. He carried it with him wherever he went, and became, in time, quite pleased with himself because of his compunctions in doing so. He was even pharisaical about McKee's gambling. No, when his mind had come clear about keeping it, he would make an honest use of it, such as investing it in a saloon in Florence. When, however, he suggested to Polly that dispensing liquors over a bar and running a faro-game on the side would be a congenial occupation, suited to their talents, she sat down forcibly upon his aspiration, and they finally compromised on Polly's proposition to conduct a livery-stable in Tucson, where, Polly felt, though she did not say so to Bud, that Sheriff Hoover, with whom she had been flirting too dangerously, would not be in evidence, as in Florence.

Polly, however, was greatly puzzled over Bud's confidence in his ability to raise the wind that would launch this delectable, but to her mind illusory, enterprise. In a moment of weakness he intimated that he already had the money in hand.

How had he got it? she demanded.

"Saved it," he said.