The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine

off our cattle."

      "Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing."

      "Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; I hold you prisoner."

      "You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please us."

      "So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though they never guessed it.

      "Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man.

      "Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, revolver and all, to Yeager.

      "Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house."

      "Anything to oblige."

      "What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father.

      The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do you know about him?"

      As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he had rescued her from captivity.

      Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man.

      "Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us everlastingly in your debt."

      "Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to bring her home, anyhow."

      "The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly.

      "That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure do you a meanness."

      Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. You'll be strangers."

      "You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you bet heavy on that proposition, my friend."

      Chapter XI

       Tom Dixon

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      With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.

      The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells—to meet the eyes of a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that one meets daily.

      "Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.

      Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone—all but little Jimmie Tryon. He rides home with me."

      "Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," complained the man.

      "Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and direct as that of a boy.

      But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.

      "Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.

      "What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever since——"

      He broke off.

      A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"

      "You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."

      "And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid this. Must we thrash it out?"

      "You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with you."

      A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were just children."

      "Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"

      "We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she pleaded.

      "What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, and came toward her eagerly. "I love you—always have since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these days."

      She held up a hand to keep him back. "No—we're not. I know now that you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."

      "I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.

      She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.

      "No, Tom—let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me be just a friend."

      "I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got a right to know, and I'm going to know."

      "Yes, you have a right—but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."

      "It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.

      She was silent.

      "Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"

      "I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," she told him gently.

      "That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I shot Weaver?"

      "You shot him from ambush."

      "I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to shoot, and I shot before——"

      "I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, even if it was right to shoot at all—which, of course, it wasn't."

      "Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a mistake?"

      "It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than that. I can't tell you just what I mean."

      "Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.

      "Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."

      "You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame his eyes could not meet hers.

      "No—I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't possibly marry you after that."

      The