Knights of the Range. Zane Grey

his voice losing its tremble for a gathering might of rage. “This hyar is the second time you’ve bucked agin me. I’ll allow you had some reason, leastways this time. But I was only tryin’ to scare the gurl.”

      “Liar!”

      “Well, at that I might have hugged an’ kissed her till she swallowed her high an’ mighty talk. . . . What was it to you, anyway? I’ve seen before you was kinda touchy about wimmen. Holly Ripple sort of got you, huh, the pretty black-eyed hussy of a half-breed?”

      “Shut up, you dirty foul-mouthed dog! Miss Ripple is a lady, which is something you can’t appreciate. Leave her out of this.”

      “Hellsfire! . . . Frayne, I’ll allow fer your stand, if you’re so testy over a gurl. But I let her off. An’ you’ll lay off more insultin’ talk—or we’re through.”

      “Heaver, you’re dense. When I called you we were through.”

      “Aha, we air, eh? All right. It’s damn good riddance,” fumed the leader.

      “You’re not rid of me yet.”

      Uncertainty ceased for Heaver. He changed again, not subtly, but with sudden hard realization that the breech was irremediable and something dire hung in the balance. Turning to Covell he cursed him roundly: “—— —— —— ——! This comes of your takin’ on men of his lone wolf stripe. I told you. . . . An’ now, —— —— you! Show yellow or come in!”

      Britt wrenched his gaze from the infuriated Heaver to the man who had opposed him so strangely. In a flash then he caught the drift of events. This Frayne loomed as inevitable as destiny. Seasoned as Britt was, he felt galvanized through with the man’s terrible presence. Among hordes of Westerners, desperadoes, outlaws, he would have been recognized then as one of the few. He epitomized the raw wild spirit of the frontier. His lips curled in a snarl, his white teeth gleamed, his eyes were slits of gray fire. All his features combined to express an appalling power. And Britt had seen that power expended by more than one implacable and unquenchable killer.

      “Frayne—I savvy,” choked out the raider chief, in hoarse passion. “But why you forcin’ me?”

      “I don’t trail with your kind,” replied Frayne, deliberately. “You lied, same as you lied on the other deal. . . . I didn’t like the way you worked on Dillon to make him betray his outfit. We rode out here to steal a bunch of unbranded horses. But that wasn’t enough. When chance threw Miss Ripple in your way, out bristled the dirty dog in you. . . . You insulted her, pawed her off her horse. . . . You would have carried her off . . . leaving your men to fight this Texan. You’d have made your men accomplices in a crime that Westerners never forgive. You’d have put that stigma on me. . . . Now, Bill Heaver, have I made myself perfectly clear?”

      “Per-fickly—clear—Frayne,” returned Heaver, haltingly. He drew a long deep breath that whistled with the intake. Then blood and arm and voice leaped simultaneously. “Covell! Bore him, men!”

      Britt’s sight was not swift enough to catch Frayne’s draw. But there the big blue guns were, spouting red behind puffs of smoke. Then followed the crashes, almost together. Covell’s gun was out and half up when it exploded. But his face was fiercely blank and he was swaying backward when his gun went off. Heaver sagged in the saddle as his horse lunged away, to unseat him and throw him heavily. Then Covell fell. Neither man moved a muscle. Both had been dead before they struck the ground.

      The other horses were hard to control. Iron arms dragged at their heads. Frayne had the riders covered. Perhaps the action of the horses favored Frayne in his intimidation of these men. None of them drew. As their mounts were pulled to a standstill Britt lined up beside Frayne with his two guns ready. The tension relaxed.

      “You fellars ride. Pronto!” called Britt, seizing the moment.

      Frayne’s left gun took a slight suggestive swerve toward the gate. As one man the raiders spurred their horses, almost running down the pale-faced Dillon, and galloped away toward San Marcos.

      “Fork yore hawse, Mugg,” called Britt. “This range won’t be healthy fer you heahafter. You shore got off easy. Take yore gun.”

      While Dillon hurried to leap astride Britt ran out the gate to where Holly hunched stiff over her pommel. The marble whiteness of her face, the dark fading horror of her dilated eyes, the palpitating of her heart attested to the strain she had come through.

      “Holly, it’s all over,” said Britt, fervently, as he grasped the gauntleted hand that shook on her knee. “Brace up. We’re shore lucky. Mebbe I won’t scold you good when we get home!”

      “He drove—the others away,” she panted, lifting her head to sweep the range with flashing glance.

      “Wal, I sort of snicker to say he did,” drawled Britt, talking to ease the contraction of his throat.

      “That devil—and the other man, Covell . . . dead?”

      “Daid?—I reckon they air.”

      “He killed them for me?”

      “Holly, lass, it shore wasn’t fer anyone else. . . . Come oot of it now. You had nerve. Don’t collapse now after it’s all over.”

      “He saved me—from God only knows what,” she whispered in awe.

      “Yes, he did, Holly. I cain’t gainsay thet. I’d had no show on earth if he had sided with Heaver. Shore I’d have killed Heaver, an’ then more of them. But I’d have got mine pronto. An’ thet’d left you at their mercy. . . . Holly, fer Gawd’s sake let this be a lesson to you.”

      “I must thank him—talk to him. . . . Go back, Britt. Give me a few moments. Then bring him to me.”

      Britt sometimes opposed Holly when she was serene and tractable, but never in her imperious moods, or when she was stirred by emotion. Naturally she had been poignantly upset. Still he did not quite like her request and he was in a quandary. As there seemed to be no help for it, however, he hid his dismay and hurried back inside the enclosure.

      He found Frayne leaning against the fence, one boot hooked on the lower pole. He was rolling a cigarette. Britt made note of the steady fingers. Frayne had shoved his sombrero back. His face was extraordinarily handsome, but that did not surprise Britt nearly so much as its utter absence of ashen hue, twitch, sweat, dark sombre cast, or anything else supposed to show in a man’s features immediately after dealing death. It was indeed a baffling face, smooth, unlined, like a stern image of bronze. Frayne had all the characteristics of the cowboy range-rider, even to the finest sombrero, belt, dress and boots, which but for their dark severity would have made him a dandy.

      “Got a match, Tex?” he inquired, civilly. His intonation was not that of a Southerner. Nor would Britt have accorded him western birth. Nevertheless the West had made him what he was. Britt had not seen his like.

      “Shore. Heah you air,” replied the Texan, producing a match.

      “Hardly needed you in that little set-to,” he said, as he lighted the cigarette. “But thanks all the same.”

      “You’re darn welcome,” grunted Britt, feelingly. “It was shore a bad mess. . . . Did you see me dancin’ aboot tryin’ to get a bead on Heaver?”

      “Yes, I was afraid you’d hit Miss Ripple. That made me run in sooner than I might have. I was curious to watch Heaver. Stranger to me where women are concerned.”

      “Wal, I seen thet, an’ I heahed you,” rejoined Britt. “But yore reasons don’t concern me. It was the result. Shore you saved me from gettin’ bored and Holly Ripple from wuss than death. . . . Seems sort of weak to thank you, Frayne.”

      “Don’t try. It was nothing.”

      “Wal, the girl wants to thank you. Come on oot.”

      “Thanks, Britt, but I’d rather not.”

      Holly, riding outside