Knights of the Range. Zane Grey

of most of the youngsters I’ve met along the Old Trail. Most boys of good families didn’t last long. The Englishmen—an’ there was a sight of them—an’ still comin’—petered out pronto. They didn’t adapt themselves. They got snuffed out. But Frayne had the stern stuff of the Texas cowboy. He lasted. An’ I’m glad to hear he done you a service.”

      “Is Frayne an ootlaw?”

      “I reckon so, back in Kansas. An’ probably Nebraska, Wyomin’, Colorado. But I wouldn’t call him an outlaw here in New Mexico. ’Cause there ain’t any law yet.”

      “Wal, last summer we inaugerated what hawse-thieves an’ rustlers fear wuss than a gun—the rope,” declared Britt, forcibly.

      “Cap, has it occurred to you thet Frayne would be a whole outfit in himself, if you could hire him?” asked Belmet, thoughtfully. “I reckon you couldn’t, though. Anyway, Miss Holly wouldn’t have a bad hombre like Frayne around the ranch.”

      “Wouldn’t I?” rejoined Holly, hiding her nervous embarrassment. “I thought of it first and asked him.”

      “Good! You are wakin’ up to the needs of the range,” declared the scout. “It takes bad men to cope with bad men on this frontier.”

      “We’ve got him, Buff,” added Britt, with satisfaction. “An’ since I seen you last summer I’ve added Brazos Keene, Cherokee Jack, Tex an’ Max Southard, an’ two or three other tough nuts to our outfit. Now with Frayne it shore beats any bunch I ever heahed of. I’ll be obliged if you’ll spread thet news all along the Old Trail.”

      “You bet I will,” replied Belmet, emphatically. “I’ll lay it on thick, too. . . . Miss Holly, I shore feel sorry for you. But it’s the way to tide over this rustler wave.”

      “Britt, I know you was a Texas Ranger, an’ a Trail Boss, but can you handle an outfit like thet?” asked the bearded man with Jones.

      “It’ll be the job of my life, but I’ll do it.”

      “They’ll fight among themselves over Miss Holly,” declared Jones, quizzically.

      “Wal, thet’s up to her,” laughed Britt.

      “Gentlemen, it may amuse you, but it’s not funny to me,” interposed Holly. “But thank you for the advice—and come up for supper. We shall want to hear the news.”

      “Miss Holly!” expostulated Belmet, aghast. “It’s awful good of you. . . . Look at us ragamuffins!”

      “Come as you are, Belmet. At six o’clock sharp.”

      “Wal, be it upon your bonny head, Miss Holly. . . . I almost forgot to tell you. There’s a man with us who claims to know you. He’s in the Texas crowd. I didn’t get his name. We heerd about him from the women folks in thet train. They gossiped. Handsome rich southerner—suitor of yours when you was in school in Orleans—comin’ to visit you, an’ all thet sort of talk.”

      “I have no personal friends or acquaintances in the south,” replied Holly, dubiously.

      “Wal, accordin’ to the caravan gossip this gentleman was more’n a personal acquaintance,” went on Belmet. “I didn’t take much stock in it. But rememberin’ how you’re run after by so many adventurers, I reckoned I’d better tell you.”

      “Indeed yes. Thank you, Belmet. . . . Come to supper, surely. I must go now.”

      When Holly was half-way home Britt caught up with her. “Wal, lass, you look fagged. Rest a couple of hours, an’ throw off all thet’s troublin’ you.”

      “I wish I could. Today seems to be a cloud on the horizon.”

      “Wal, thet cloud will come an’ go. . . . I see some of the cowboys ridin’ in. An’ there’s our new man pokin’ along. Holly, I’m glad Belmet gave Frayne a better rep than he gave himself.”

      “I was glad, too. Still, it was bad enough.”

      “Holly, you’re right. An’ at thet Buff had no line on Frayne these last few years. I take it Frayne finally went to the bad. It always happens thet way. But mebbe nothin’ will come of it. The West is awful big an’ in these times you cain’t separate bad from good. We can afford to be charitable.”

      “Will you please ask Frayne to supper?”

      “I was aboot to give you a hint. Let’s impress him powerful fine fust thing. . . . Shall I set him next to you?”

      “By all means. . . . Britt, I’ve worried about Brazos.”

      “Wal, you’re wastin’ yore feelin’. Thet boy will be ridin’ in pronto.”

      “But Stinger is dead or wounded!”

      “So we heahed. In either case Brazos will fetch him in. . . . Now, Holly lass, leave it all to me. If I cain’t pick up Brazos with the glass I’ll send some of the cowboys after him. . . . You go sleep a while an’ forget this mess, an’ then make yoreself prettier than ever before.”

      “Cappy!—Why so unusually—pretty?” inquired Holly, curiously, with a smile.

      “Wal, thet Frayne was as cold as a daid fish,” declared the Texan, resentfully. “He looked at you once an’ didn’t see you atall. An’ thet was all he looked.”

      “Indeed, he was not flattering,” observed Holly, conscious of a quickening of tired pulse. “But he had just shot two of his own comrades.”

      “Nothin’ atall to Renn Frayne. I reckoned thet he was a Westerner who had no use fer wimmen. You run into one now an’ then. I don’t recollect you ever bein’ so sweet to any man. An’ the damned hombre not only never seen it but insulted you to boot. It riled me.”

      “Cappy, it will be good for us. You have spoiled me,” she rejoined, thoughtfully, and rode on in silence to the corrals.

      * * * *

      Rest and sleep and the image Holly saw in her mirror gave her back her poise, but did not eliminate from her mind the sombre sense of that day’s catastrophe.

      The great dining-room was exactly as it had been in Colonel Ripple’s day, when red men and white men of high and low degree met at his table. Don Carlos’ rich and lavish hand showed in the heavy dark furniture, in the polished stone floor with its worn rugs, in the huge carved stone fireplace, and the stained adobe walls with their old Spanish weapons, the painted frieze, and the huge rough-hewn rafter that centered the ceiling all its length.

      Holly’s guests arose at her entrance. Every seat had an occupant except the one of honor to her right.

      “Be seated, friends,” said Holly, in the words of her father’s custom. “Eat, drink and be merry.”

      Belmet occupied the seat next to the one which Holly had intended for Frayne. His absence affected her as had his affront out on the range, despite the fact that her reason made excuse for the mood of a man who had just shed his fellow-men’s blood. Conchita Velasquez and the Mexican women of Holly’s household sat upon her left. Britt faced her at the end of the long table, and the seats between were occupied by the invited guests and by others who took advantage of the standing Ripple hospitality. Among the rough-garbed, bearded freighters and teamsters a young man, conspicuous because of the difference of his attire, at once caught Holly’s eye. She recognized him, and acknowledged his elaborate bow. Embarrassment, and something of anger, accompanied her recognition. This fair man, whose sharp, cold, handsome features proclaimed him about thirty years old, and whose black frock-coat and gaudy waist-coat and long hair characterized him as a gambler of the period, was no other than Malcolm Lascelles, a Louisianian, whom Holly had met in New Orleans, during the concluding year of her school. It was a shock to see him at her table, recalling her girlish indiscretion.

      She had met him by accident, and then, resenting her loneliness and longing for freedom, for adventure, for love, she had been so foolish as to steal out to meet