Hearing a sound close to the left in the trees, Blaze looked that way in time to see Shorty's loose pony, reins caught on the horn, trot deeper into the timber. The riderless Anchor horse had already worked the saddle down under his belly. Before long, if he stayed in the timber, he might catch the reins on a tree or bush or ruin the saddle. He was a good horse, a big-chested bay. Blaze, knowing the outfit might lose a good horse and saddle, reined off there. After a brief chase he caught up the loose animal, a little irritated at the thought of having to lead it all the way to Clark's where he could turn it loose in the open. Abruptly he had another thought. Joe needed a horse. It would cost him an extra hour at least to go up to the cave. But it would give him the chance to talk to Joe, and he was badly in need of talk with someone who could consider this new development rationally. Leading the dead Anchor man's pony, he turned up on the trail.

Plans.

So he's framed me with this, too," Joe said. He gave Blaze a long, level look. "In three days he's built up four counts against me. Murder, robbery, horse stealin', and now kidnappin' a woman. Can they hang a man more than once?"

"Not that I ever heard of. But it was me that brought the girl here. They can't saddle you with something I did," Blaze argued.

"You didn't leave that note in Acme's box."

"No," Blaze admitted, "he did. Who's he?"

Joe shrugged and hunkered down in the shade of a nearby pion. They were below the cave mouth, close to the spot where Blaze had two nights ago staked out Jean's horse on a patch of gra.s.s. Shorty's bay now grazed near the Diamond branded animal at the end of a picket rope twenty feet away.

Joe studied the animal, its st.u.r.dy clean legs, its big chest and high withers. "Shorty cut himself out a nice chunk of horseflesh this mornin'," he remarked.

"He's a little hard-mouthed. Shorty liked to ride the bit." Blaze picked up a pebble and flicked it into the narrow stream made from melted snow that foamed close by along the bed of the ordinarily dry caon. They'd had their brief words about Shorty, who had been too good a friend to both to occasion any more talk. "You're still seein' Saygar tonight?"

Joe nodded. "After I take care of something else."

"What?"

"How fast is this bay?" Joe asked in seeming irrelevance.

"Plenty o' legs," Blaze answered. "But what's that got to do with this other thing you're takin' care of, Joe?"

"We want to stop a shoot-out between Vanover's bunch and the old man's, don't we?"

"Sure. But how?"

"With Shorty's horse."

"All right," Blaze drawled bitingly, "let me in on it when you get good and set."

"Don't think I will," Joe told him. "What you don't know can't hurt you. Since you're goin' back down there, you might give it away. Can you be up here tonight right after dark to side me across to Saygar's camp?"

"I'll be here," Blaze said. "But what's this other about Shorty's jughead?"

Joe smiled meagerly and gave a slow shake of the head. The motion set up the throbbing ache again and he held his head in his hands until it had pa.s.sed. Then: "I'm going to send the girl on down."

"With what kind of a story?"

"That'll depend on what she has to say when I talk to her. Hadn't you better head for Clark's?"

"I should've a half hour ago." Blaze stood up. "Ain't you goin' to let me in on it, whatever it is?"

"No."

"You didn't make out so well the last time you were on your own. There's too many against you, Joe."

"That's one thing I'm countin' on."

"On too many bein' against you? I don't get it."

"I don't want you to get it. You'd better hightail."

Blaze showed his disappointment and a little anger as he picked up his reins and climbed into the saddle. But when he looked down at Joe, his expression softened. "Whatever it is, be careful, son," he finally drawled.

"I'll be careful."

Joe watched the redhead until he rode out of sight around a near bend in the caon. Back there a minute ago he had caught himself when on the verge of telling Blaze what he was about to do, deciding on impulse that his friend already had too much to worry about and that he might not approve anyway. Now he was filled with a nervous anxiety to put his idea into motion. But a look skyward at the sun at its zenith told him it was too early to start.

Last night Joe had slept fitfully after Blaze left. Waking at dawn, he had felt more like himself. He had tested his legs and found them weak. The throbbing in his head had eased off except when he moved too abruptly. He had spent a long time looking down at the sleeping girl, realizing what she had done for him. Then he had gathered some of the food stacked in the corner and crawled out of the cave as quietly as he could so as not to wake her. He'd built a breakfast fire of smokeless dry cedar on the shelf directly in front of the cave mouth. While waiting for his coffee to boil, he had walked upcaon and stripped and washed in the stream. The icy chill of the water had put new strength in him. He had relished his meal.

Twice before Blaze had ridden in, Joe had crawled back into the cave to see if Jean was awake. Each time he had found her sleeping soundly. She had moved only once during the night, a plain indication to him that she was exhausted and needed as much rest as she could get.

The clash between Anchor and Diamond seemed to be a part of a slowly emerging pattern Joe was beginning to recognize. The destruction of Singletree's and Anchor's herd and the note, pointing directly to him as being responsible for the girl's disappearance, were both pieces of that pattern. Mike Saygar was part of this puzzle, one of its key pieces, perhaps. But the outlaw was in no position to feel accurately the pulse of what was going on in town and on the mesa. No, someone was behind Saygar, a man shrewd enough to make the most of every chance, wise enough to stir up trouble between the cattle company and the mesa outfits to gain his own ends. What those ends were, Joe had no way of knowing. His hunch was that he would find out when he saw Saygar. But before Saygar came this other thing, the stopping of more of the killing that had already cost one loyal Anchor man his life.

Joe heard a sound above and looked up there to see Jean step into sight at the edge of the broad shelf fronting the cave mouth. Looking at her in that unguarded interval before she saw him, seeing her tall figure outlined against the sky, he was struck by something that had pa.s.sed unnoticed that early morning in the upstairs hall of the hotel and last night in the cave. The bright sunlight edged the girl's chestnut head with coppery highlights; her face held a startling quality of freshness and fragile beauty of which he was only now aware. And in this moment, for the first time since Blaze's outburst last night, Joe's thoughts turned briefly to Ruth Merrill. Then Ruth left his mind, obscured by the newly found loveliness of this girl.

Jean's glance came down to him and her look was momentarily startled before her face showed outright relief. As she hurried down the gravelly slope to him, he was keenly aware of her grace and poise and her swinging boyish stride.

She stood before him a little breathless, high color on her cheeks, giving him a glad smile. "You are better," she said. "I thought you'd gone." She seemed to realize only then how openly she was betraying her gladness at finding him. "Is the head better?"

His hand went up to the bandage and he felt of it gingerly, a wide smile on his lean face. "Lots," he said. "I had a good doctor." His smile was gone then as he added: "You got yourself in for something when you let Blaze drag you up here."

"I'm glad he did, Joe. Besides, I knew where he was taking me."

"You did?" Outright admiration came to his face. "One day I'll try and make this up to you."

"There's nothing to make up. You didn't deserve to just . . . just die."

Joe's grin was wry. "There's some that wouldn't agree with that."

"I know. And maybe I'm a little selfish in wanting to see you get well. You see, some of the things that have happened lately have . . . well, they've been things neither Dad nor I could understand. Blaze has told me enough to let me know you couldn't give the answers to all those things. I think you're the only one who can help us."

"And you're the girl who helped Keech get that gun on me," he drawled.

"I'm sorry for that, terribly sorry. You must believe me." There was no mistaking her sincerity. "If I had known what I know now, I would have warned you, hidden you there in the room. You could have seen Ruth. That's something else." She paused, studying him intently. "I'll go tell Ruth anything you want me to. Perhaps that will help make it up to you."

He tried to find something to say but couldn't.

She went on to cover his embarra.s.sment: "Ruth didn't like it at all. I don't suppose we're friends now."

"Let's forget her," he drawled. "What's more important . . . what will you tell your father?"

"The truth." Her head tilted up in a determined way. "When I tell him, he'll believe as I do, that you're innocent. Naturally I wouldn't let anyone know where to find you."

"There's been trouble this morning, trouble that may change that," Joe told her gravely. "Blaze was in on it. Last night someone pushed a herd into the gorge below Anchor. Staples lost heavily, Anchor, too. This morning Yace took a crew over to Diamond. They tangled with Harper and lost a man. They're gathering more men now to go back."

"Where was Dad?" Jean asked quickly. Her face had gone pale.

"Out somewhere with Bill Lyans, lookin' for you. If he'd been there, it wouldn't have happened."

"Why would this change what I think of you, Joe?" she asked.

"You'll have to take sides. They've got it that I'm the one that carried you off the other night. Someone left a note in Acme's mailbox and signed my name to it."

"But you didn't! I'll tell them it's a lie!" Her look became alarmed. "Who's behind this, Joe? Someone's doing everything they can to make trouble."

"I know. We can have a try at findin' out. You could help by tellin' your father to hold off until I see him."

"How will you find out? You're sick, weak."

"Not as bad as you think," he told her. "Let's get you some breakfast and then start down. I'll ride a ways with you."

"You can't, Joe. What if they see you?"

He drawled: "That's what they're supposed to do . . . see me." He told her why.

Vengeance Riders.

By 2:00 that afternoon thirty-one saddled ponies stood at Yoke's yard tie rails and along the near side of the holding corral by the barn. Down-headed and hip-shot, they drowsed in the sun, tails switching at the flies. Inside the house, the talk was muted and spa.r.s.e. John Merrill's death had done as much to sober these men as had the fight and the loss of Shorty Adams at Diamond this morning. Added to that was Staples's predicament. Singletree had been all but wiped out.

Clark had brought four men from Brush and sent out for six more who were gathering Merrill's s.h.i.+pping herd. Staple's crew was there in its entirety, angry and chastened over what they considered a betrayal of their owner-their having left the herd the night before in favor of their bunkhouse. The rest of the count was made up by Anchor and Yoke, with more Yoke men expected down out of the hills shortly.

They were waiting for the return of a man they had sent in to try and locate Bill Lyans. Yace Bonnyman had had no scruples about immediately returning to Diamond and settling matters any way that seemed best. But Slim Workman had said flatly: "d.a.m.ned if I want any hangovers when this winds up. We're law-abidin' citizens, always have been. I don't budge from here until we get the law to witness what we do."

So Yace and the rest had agreed to wait until Lyans was summoned. As Clark Dunne put it: "We can do all the better after dark anyway."

When Blaze rode in, Clark was talking to Charley Staples off in one corner of the plainly furnished main room of the house. Blaze came up to them, said-"Like to see you when you're finished, Clark."-and drifted over with some others. Clark was puzzled by Blaze's look and tone, which was urgent, but he had reached the crucial point in his talk with Staples and didn't want to leave it unfinished.

He went on now with the point he'd been making when Blaze interrupted: "I'll leave it up to you, Charley. It'll take some time for Ruth and me to get John's affairs settled. We may get away for a short honeymoon. A rest, I mean. This isn't any time to be talkin' a honeymoon, considerin' what's happened. But when we get back, I reckon Ruth and I can see our way clear to helpin'. Either by buyin' your spread outright or through a loan."

Staples's look was that of a man worried and hara.s.sed beyond endurance. "I'm through with this country," he said vehemently. "Clark, I saw six thousand dollars of mine layin' at the foot of that creek this mornin'! Six thousand! All I'll get out of it is a few hides."

"I know. But that's no reason to quit. What'll you do if you sell out?"

"Take what's left over and move to town. Olson's been after me for quite a spell to come in with him on that feed mill. It ain't much of a livin'. But it's better'n seein' half your life swept away in a flood."

Clark's look of sympathy revealed none of his inner excitement. The destruction wrought by Mike Saygar and his men last night was bringing more dividends than Clark's wildest imagining had hoped for. He had made some shrewd guesses, first about the thaw making the Troublesome impa.s.sable, second about Staples's shortness of money and what the loss of his s.h.i.+pping herd would mean. He had a.s.sumed that Staples would have to borrow to keep his head above water. But never had Clark dreamed that the man would be crowded into selling the Singletree, or that he would be in a position to buy it. He'd had some vague notion of handling a loan for Staples through his capacity as Acme's new president and maybe, years from now, taking over the loan himself. But old John Merrill's death last night had changed all that. The news of the Anchor-Diamond fight had caught him about to start for Lodgepole with Ruth; they had planned a simple wedding at the preacher's house. Now that she believed Joe was gone, Ruth seemed more than willing to follow what she understood to be her father's dying wish.

Clark found himself in a position hard to grasp. He was, in fact, already owner of Brush. Here was Staples ready to sell the Singletree, which adjoined Brush on the west. Across a triangular piece of Yoke range was his own layout; maybe Workman would one day sell him that piece, thus throwing together a vast stretch of land that would make Brush bigger by far than Anchor. And there was the basin that would eventually be his, with Saygar's men already homesteading it.

He was a little drunk with a feeling of power, with disdain for these men whom he now looked upon as p.a.w.ns to be used or pushed aside as he willed. Tonight it would be a finish fight. When it was over, Clark hoped Harper and his men would he dead, unable to betray him. Saygar was safe until he collected his share in this; there was time to deal with him. Vanover would be recalled by Middle Arizona.

Jean Vanover. There was something Clark didn't understand, something he had puzzled over in the hours after John Merrill's death this morning. At first he hadn't worried about the girl. But finally he saw her mysterious disappearance, along with that of Joe's body, as the only two factors bearing on the accomplishment of his plan that he didn't understand. He'd have to get up and see Saygar tonight and make sure the outlaw was the one who had found Joe. Perhaps Saygar also knew something of the girl.

Now Clark looked down at short-framed Charley Staples and put a friendly hand on the man's shoulder. "Just don't worry about it, Charley. It's done and can't be helped. Name a fair price on Singletree and I'll . . . we, Ruth and I . . . will pay it. I want to see you get another start."

Staples sighed wearily but with some relief. "Clark, you're sure white to do this. If it wasn't . . ."

A shout from the yard cut in on his words. They both turned toward the porch door and joined the men crowding out of it. By the time they joined the others, Fuzz Tonkin, one of the riders Workman had summoned from his roundup crew, was saying: ". . . on that white-stockinged bay of Shorty's. We thought it was Shorty at first and tried to come up on him. Then's when he spooked. He cut up into the timber east of Dunne's place. Jim was close enough to recognize him. So Jim and the others went after him."

"Who?" Staples asked.

"Joe Bonnyman!"

Color left Clark's face. His hand, thumb hooked in his sagging sh.e.l.l belt, began to tremble. His throat felt dry and he swallowed, trying to clear it. He heard himself saying: "But that couldn't be! He's . . ."

Blaze's look came around to him quickly. "He's what, Clark?" the Anchor foreman asked sharply.

"Left the country," Clark said haltingly. His glance, on Blaze, became angry. "I saw him two days ago, had a talk with him. I . . ."

"You saw him?" It was Yace Bonnyman whose explosive words cut him short. The men between Yace and Clark moved aside. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Clark had himself under control now. He smiled wryly. "And let you string him up when he wasn't guilty?" he drawled. "h.e.l.l, Yace, I don't treat my friends that way. I tried to help him leave, clear the country. He didn't want to. But I supposed he had. No one's come across him since we parted company."

Yace was undecided now where a moment ago his righteous indignation had made him almost threaten Clark. As he hesitated, Slim Workman's nasal tones drawled: "I reckon we know how you feel, Dunne. Well, what're we waitin' on? If they've sighted him, we got from now till dark to run him down. Plenty of time for this other."

They poured down off the porch, running for their horses. Someone shouted-"Better throw a saddle on a fresh horse, Tonkin!"-and the riders milled in the yard until the Yoke man who had brought the news had cut out a fresh horse from the half dozen in the corral.

Meantime, Staples reined over to the porch where Clark still stood. "Not comin', Clark?" he asked.

"No."

"Me, either." It was Blaze, approaching, who spoke.

"I'm sure sorry to have to do this," Staples said, and wheeled his pony out into the yard to join the others.

"You knew Joe hadn't left?" asked Clark as soon as Staples was out of hearing.

"He couldn't," Blaze answered. "Someone tried a bushwhack on him. He was out colder'n a side o' beef for near two days."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Haven't seen you so I could. What difference does it make?"