Outlaw Ranch. Frank C. Robertson

but the girl was putting nothing into it.

      They seemed to be having a spirited argument. The girl was pointing toward a satchel, which the outlaw finally investigated but apparently found little to his liking.

      Then, suddenly, the girl made a desperate lunge to get in front of her brother, but the outlaw caught her arm and swung her back. For a moment the fellow held her close, and Chet hurriedly moved a rod closer. He stopped as he clearly heard the girl’s agitated voice.

      “Let me go! If you touch my brother I’ll kill you.”

      Chet couldn’t hear what the outlaws were saying, but he didn’t need to hear to know what it was all about. The second man was threatening to harm the boy unless the girl surrendered what they wanted. Chet knew that it was probably all bluff, and that if the girl held out they would go away. But the girl didn’t know that.

      There was some more wrangling, and suddenly a pencil of yellow flame leaped out of the darkness from the unseen outlaw’s gun. At the sound of the shot Bud Harrison staggered and almost fell. He was caught by Nevada. The shot had blasted the heel off one of Bud’s new boots.

      “Don’t, don’t shoot again,” the girl screamed wildly. “I’ll give you all I’ve got.”

      “Don’t yuh do it, sis. Don’t yuh let ’em have it,” Bud cried out, but the girl had turned her back to the two outlaws, and Chet could see her reaching down into the front of her dress A moment later she turned back and handed something to the outlaw.

      The fellow hurriedly thumbed the packet he had received, and then thrust it carelessly into his inside pocket. He seemed in no hurry to depart. The girl had backed toward the buckboard, while the fellow seemed to be joking her about something. Then, apparently, his companion interfered and he desisted. But he moved over to where Nevada’s rifle was lying, took the weapon by the barrel and flung it far down the canyon. It struck with a crash against a rock.

      Chet hastily moved back to where the outlaws’ horses stood, and as they came back they were plainly visible against the firelight in the background. They were twenty feet distant when he spoke.

      “Git ’em up, hombres, an’ raise ’em fast,” he ordered.

      The outlaws stopped as if they had butted into a stone wall. For an instant there was the expected interval of hesitation while they debated whether to obey the startling command, or try to shoot it out. Chet had little fear as to what they would do. Given an instant to think they would know better than to try gunplay when they were already covered. And despite what he had just seen Chet didn’t figure the two to be real killers. They might kill if crowded, but they were more given to dare-deviltry than viciousness—or so he had sized them up that afternoon.

      After that momentary hesitation their hands went up.

      “That’s fine, boys,” Chet approved. “I don’t want a thing except what you took from those people there, but I can’t have you gummin’ up my game like that.”

      “Who the hell are you?” Al Biggers growled.

      “Just call me Nemesis,” Chet grinned. “Now just unbuckle your gun belts an’ let ’em drop. That’s the boy. Now step away from ’em. Fine. Now I’m gonna toss my hat on the ground, an’ I want yuh tuh put everything yuh got from those people in it. Don’t try holdin’ anything back, because I was watchin’ every move yuh made, an’ I know what yuh got.”

      “All right, Mr. Knee Measles, you got the high card, but yuh can’t buck the Wild Ones an’ git away with it,” Al Biggers said.

      Chet suspected that it was a teaser to find out if he was himself a member of the gang who didn’t know who they were.

      “Wild Ones, me eye,” he jeered. “Stacked against real badmen you lads would look like Sunday-school boys.”

      “Mebbe you wouldn’t be so hard yoreself, hombre, if yuh was stacked up against Kirk Holliday an’ Blackie Payne,” the man snarled. He had named the two chief leaders of the Wild Ones.

      “Come on, drop that stuff in the hat,” Chet ordered curtly. “I’m conductin’ this meetin’, an’ I aim tuh git a full collection.”

      The last article to be dropped was the packet which the girl had taken from the bosom of her dress, and Al Biggers had to be told the second time to let it go.

      “All right, boys,” Chet remarked cheerfully. “Back away now while I git the hat. Then stand where you are and count a hundred before you move. Don’t count too fast either if you don’t want tuh stop a bullet.”

      Hat in hand Chet withdrew silently into the shadows and waited. The two young outlaws had ample time to count several hundred before they moved. Then they picked up their weapons, mounted their horses, and rode away into the night. Chet grinned. He had but one worry concerning them; that was that they might hear his horse on their way back.

      A more immediate worry was how to return the loot to those it belonged to. It would have been easy to walk boldly in and pass the money over, but he had a natural aversion to heroics. Besides, he had other plans with which such a procedure would interfere.

      Then it occurred to him that he didn’t need to show himself to return the money. Right now Nevada was piling dry wood on the fire, and wavering lights were dancing far across the little park.

      “Hello!” he shouted presently.

      Immediately the three at the fire became rigid. Chet couldn’t blame them for being nervous.

      “Who—who—who is there?” Nevada quavered. His voice sounded so much like the hooting of an owl that Chet laughed.

      “I’m a friend,” Chet replied. “Listen: Those bandits lost the money they took from you. If you’ll come over here you’ll find it on the ground right where I am now.”

      He wasn’t answered at once. The three around the fire counseled together. Nevada apparently suspected a trick, but Bud seized a flaming torch and came forward. His sister followed.

      Chet hastily dumped the contents of his hat on the ground and withdrew to where he could watch in safety. By the light from Bud’s torch he saw them find the money and pick it up. Their pleasure and relief was a joy to watch.

      “Hey, won’t yuh come over to the camp? We want to thank you for giving our money back,” Bud called.

      Chet made no answer. He saw them vainly trying to pierce the darkness, and he had to throw himself flat to escape detection when the boy suddenly and unexpectedly extinguished the torch. They returned to the camp at last, and Kelvin made his way back to his horse.

      Mike was grazing undisturbed, and Chet rolled peacefully into his blankets.

      The next morning Chet was awakened by the rattling of wheels. It was only a little past daybreak, but the Harrison party was already on the move—anxious to get out of Penoloa canyon before other misadventures befell them. Sitting up in his blankets he watched them through a screen of bushes as they passed. They seemed happy. He smiled. This being a sort of modern Robin Hood made a man feel good.

      He could dismiss them from his mind for the present. His concern now was with the two young outlaws he had held up. He wondered if they would attempt to hold him up as they had surely planned, or if their experience of the night before had soured them on hold-ups for the time being.

      He built a fire and leisurely cooked breakfast. Mike had eaten all he wanted and was resting on three legs while his eyes curiously followed the movements of his master.

      At last Chet saddled the horse, tied the blanket-roll firmly in place, and rode up the canyon. He rode with seeming carelessness, and he had taken off his gun belt and hooked it over the saddle horn as men frequently do on long rides to avoid the drag at their waists. Yet he was alert, and his keen eyes missed no movement in the brush.

      He hadn’t decided what he would do if he were held up. He had a hundred and fifty dollars expense money on him, but he didn’t propose to get himself