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  "Guess who!" she ordered.

  "Quit yore foolishness," growled the cattleman. "Don't you-all see I'm talkin' business?" But the line-rider observed that his arm encircled the waist of the girl.

  With a flash of shy eyes the girl caught sight of Roberts, who had been half hidden from her behind the honeysuckle foliage.

  "Oh! I didn't know," she cried.

  The owner of the A T O introduced them. "This is Jack Roberts, one of my trail foremen. Roberts—my daughter Ramona. I reckon you can see for yoreself she's plumb spoiled."

  A soft laugh welled from the throat of the girl. She knew that for her at least her father was all bark and no bite.

  "It's you that is spoiled, Dad," she said in the slow, sweet voice of the South. "I've been away too long, but now I'm back I mean to bring you up right. Now I'll leave you to your business."

  The eyes of the girl rested for a moment on those of the line-rider as she nodded good-bye. Jack had never before seen Ramona Wadley, nor for that matter had he seen her brother Rutherford. Since he had been in the neighborhood, both of them had been a good deal of the time in Tennessee at school, and Jack did not come to the ranch-house once in three months. It was hard to believe that this dainty child was the daughter of such a battered hulk as Clint Wadley. He was what the wind and the sun and the tough Southwest had made him. And she—she was a daughter of the morning.

  But Wadley did not release Ramona. "Since you're here you might as well go through with it," he said. "What do you want?"

  "What does a woman always want?" she asked sweetly, and then answered her own question. "Clothes—and money to buy them—lots of it. I'm going to town to-morrow, you know."

  "H'm!" His grunt was half a chuckle, half a growl. "Do you call yoreself a woman—a little bit of a trick like you? Why, I could break you in two."

  She drew herself up very straight. "I'll be seventeen, coming grass. And it's much more likely, sir, that I'll break you—as you'll find out when the bills come in after I've been to town."

  With that she swung on her heel and vanished inside the house.

  The proud, fond eyes of the cattleman followed her. It was an easy guess that she was the apple of his eye.

  But when he turned to business again his manner was gruffer than usual. He was a trifle crisper to balance the effect of his new foreman having discovered that he was as putty in the hands of this slip of a girl.

  "Well, you know where you're at, Roberts. Deliver that herd without any loss for strays, fat, an' in good condition, an' you won't need to go back to line-ridin'. Fall down on the job, an' you'll never get another chance to drive A T O cows."

  "That's all I ask, Mr. Wadley," the cowboy answered. "An' much obliged for the chance."

  "Don't thank me. Thank York's busted laig," snapped his chief. "We'll make the gather for the drive to-morrow an' Friday."

  * * *

  CHAPTER III

  TEX TAKES AN INTEREST

  Jack Roberts was in two minds whether to stop at the Longhorn saloon. He needed a cook in his trail outfit, and the most likely employment agency in Texas during that decade was the barroom of a gambling-house. Every man out of a job naturally drifted to the only place of entertainment.

  The wandering eye of the foreman decided the matter for him. It fell upon a horse, and instantly ceased to rove. The cow-pony was tied to a hitching-rack worn shiny by thousands of reins. On the nose of the bronco was a splash of white. Stockings of the same color marked its legs. The left hind hoof was gashed and broken.

  The rider communed with himself. "I reckon we'll 'light and take an interest, Jack. Them that looks for, finds."

  He slid from the saddle and rolled a cigarette, after which he made friends with the sorrel and examined carefully the damaged foot.

  "It's a li'l bit of a world after all," he commented. "You never can tell who you're liable to meet up with." The foreman drew from its scabbard a revolver and slid it back into place to make sure that it lay easy in its case. "You can't guess for sure what's likely to happen. I'd a heap rather be too cautious than have flowers sent me."

  He sauntered through the open door into the gambling-house. It was a large hall, in the front part of which was the saloon. In the back the side wall to the next building had been ripped out to give more room. There was a space for dancing, as well as roulette, faro, chuckaluck, and poker tables. In one corner a raised stand for the musicians had been built.

  The Longhorn was practically deserted. Not even a game of draw was in progress. The dance-girls were making up for lost sleep, and the patrons of the place were either at work or still in bed.

  Three men were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one farthest from the door was a heavy-set, unwieldy man in jeans, slouchy as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen.

  The line-rider ordered a drink.

  "Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly.

  "Enforcin' that rule, are they?" asked Roberts casually as his eyes swept over the other men.

  "That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out our lights. No reflections, y'understand."

  The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths.

  "Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts.

  "For the A T O."

  The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy.

  "So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?"

  "Nine months."

  "Don't think I've seen you before."

  "I'm a line-rider—don't often get to the ranch-house."

  "What ground do you cover?"

  "From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Cañon."

  Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the palm of a hand.

  "Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured.

  "That's as how you take it. The country is filled with absentees," admitted Roberts.

  "Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands proposition, I've heard tell—country creased with arroyos, packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly."

  The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there except old man Wadley?"

  "Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day."

  "But you never see strangers."

  "Don't I?"

  "I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before.

  "Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider. "Once in a while I do—last Thursday, for instance."

  The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said.

  The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing the floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler."

  "How do you know?" The high voice of the questioner betrayed excitement.

  "I caught him brandin' a calf. He waved me round. I beat him to the Box Cañon and saw him ridin' through."

  "You saw him ridin' through? Where were you?" The startled eyes of the dark young man were fixed on him imperiously.

  "From the bluff above."

  "You don't say!" The voice of the heavy man cut in with jeering irony. The gleam of his jad
e eyes came through narrow-slitted lids. "Well, did you take him back to the ranch for a necktie party, or did you bury him in the gulch?"

  The dark young man interrupted irritably. "I'm askin' these questions, Dinsmore. Now you, young fellow—what's your name?"

  "Jack Roberts," answered the cowboy meekly.

  "About this rustler—would you know him again?"

  The line-rider smiled inscrutably. He did not intend to tell all that he did not know. "He was ridin' a sorrel with a white splash on its nose, white stockin's, an' a bad hoof, the rear one—"

  "You're a damn' liar." The words, flung out from some inner compulsion, as it were, served both as a confession and a challenge.

  There was a moment of silence, tense and ominous. This was fighting talk.

  The lank man leaned forward and whispered some remonstrance in the ear of the young fellow, but his suggestion was waved aside. "I'm runnin' this, Gurley."

  The rider for the A T O showed neither surprise nor anger. He made a business announcement without stress or accent. "I expect it's you or me one for a lickin'. Hop to it, Mr. Rustler!"

  Roberts did not wait for an acceptance of his invitation. He knew that the first two rules of battle are to strike first and to strike hard. His brown fist moved forward as though it had been shot from a gun. The other man crashed back against the wall and hung there dazed for a moment. The knuckles of that lean fist had caught him on the chin.

  "Give him hell, Ford. You can curry a li'l' shorthorn like this guy with no trouble a-tall," urged Dinsmore.

  The young man needed no urging. He gathered himself together and plunged forward. Always he had prided himself on being an athlete. He was the champion boxer of the small town where he had gone to school. Since he had returned to the West, he had put on flesh and muscle. But he had dissipated a good deal too, and no man not in the pink of condition had any right to stand up to tough Jack Roberts.

  While the fight lasted, there was rapid action. Roberts hit harder and cleaner, but the other was the better boxer. He lunged and sidestepped cleverly, showing good foot-work and a nice judgment of distance. For several minutes he peppered the line-rider with neat hits. Jack bored in for more. He drove a straight left home and closed one of his opponent's eyes. He smashed through the defense of his foe with a power that would not be denied.

  "Keep a-comin', Ford. You shore have got him goin' south," encouraged Gurley.

  But the man he called Ford knew it was not true. His breath was coming raggedly. His arms were heavy as though weighted with lead. The science upon which he had prided himself was of no use against this man of steel. Already his head was singing so that he saw hazily.

  The finish came quickly. The cowboy saw his chance, feinted with his left and sent a heavy body blow to the heart. The knees of the other sagged. He sank down and did not try to rise again.

  Presently his companions helped him to his feet. "He—he took me by surprise," explained the beaten man with a faint attempt at bluster.

  "I'll bet I did," assented Jack cheerfully. "An' I'm liable to surprise you again if you call me a liar a second time."

  "You've said about enough, my friend," snarled the man who had been spoken to as Dinsmore. "You get away with this because the fight was on the square, but don't push yore luck too far."

  The three men passed out of the front door. Roberts turned to the barkeeper.

  "I reckon the heavy-set one is Pete Dinsmore. The cock-eyed guy must be Steve Gurley. But who is the young fellow I had the mixup with?"

  The man behind the bar gave information promptly. "He's Rutherford Wadley—son of the man who signs yore pay-checks. Say, I heard Buck Nelson needs a mule-skinner, in case you're lookin' for a job."

  Jack felt a sudden sinking of the heart. He had as good as told the son of his boss that he was a rustler, and on top of that he had given him a first-class lacing. The air-castles he had been building came tumbling down with a crash. He had already dreamed himself from a trail foreman to the majordomo of the A T O ranch. Instead of which he was a line-rider out of a job.

  "Where can I find Nelson?" he asked with a grin that found no echo in his heart. "Lead me to him."

  * * *

  CHAPTER IV

  TEX GRANDSTANDS

  Clint Wadley, massive and powerful, slouched back in his chair with one leg thrown over an arm of it. He puffed at a corncob pipe, and through the smoke watched narrowly with keen eyes from under heavy grizzled brows a young man standing on the porch steps.

  "So now you know what I expect, young fellow," he said brusquely. "Take it or leave it; but if you take it, go through."

  Arthur Ridley smiled. "Thanks, I'll take it."

  The boy was not so much at ease as his manner suggested. He knew that the owner of the A T O was an exacting master. The old cattleman was game himself. Even now he would fight at the drop of the hat if necessary. In the phrase which he had just used, he would "go through" anything he undertook. Men who had bucked blizzards with him in the old days admitted that Clint would do to take along. But Ridley's awe of him was due less to his roughness and to the big place he filled in the life of the Panhandle than to the fact that he was the father of his daughter. It was essential to Arthur's plans that he stand well with the old-timer.

  Though he did not happen to know it, young Ridley was a favorite of the cattle king. He had been wished on him by an old friend, but there was something friendly and genial about the boy that won a place for him. His smile was modest and disarming, and his frank face was better than any letter of recommendation.

  But though Wadley was prepared to like him, his mind held its reservations. The boy had come from the East, and the standards of that section are not those of the West. The East asks of a man good family, pleasant manners, a decent reputation, and energy enough to carry a man to success along conventional lines. In those days the frontier West demanded first that a man be game, and second that he be one to tie to. He might be good or bad, but whichever he was, he, must be efficient to make any mark in the turbulent country of the border. Was there a hint of slackness in the jaw of this good-looking boy? Wadley was not sure, but he intended to find out.

  "You'll start Saturday. I'll meet you at Tascosa two weeks from to-day. Understand?" The cattleman knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose. The interview was at an end.

  Young Ridley nodded. "I'll be there, sir—with the six thousand dollars safe as if they were in a vault."

  "H'm! I see you carry a six-shooter. Can you shoot?" Wadley flung at him abruptly.

  Arthur Ridley had always fancied himself as a shot. He had belonged to a gun-club at home, and since coming to the Southwest he had practiced a good deal with the revolver.

  "Pretty well, sir."

  "Would you—if it was up to you?"

  The youngster looked into the steel-gray eyes roofed by the heavy thatch of brow. "I think so. I never have had to yet. In the East—"

  Wadley waved the East back to where it belonged. "Yes, I know. But we're talkin' about Texas. Still, I reckon you ought not to have any trouble on this trip. Don't let anybody know why you are at the fort. Don't gamble or drink. Get the money from Major Ponsford and melt away inconspicuous into the brush. Hit the trail hard. A day and a night ought to bring you to Tascosa."

  The cattleman was leading the way with long strides into an open space back of the house. A pile of empty cans, symbol of the arid lands, lay beside the path. He picked up one and put it on a post. Then he stepped off fifteen paces.

  "Ventilate it," he ordered.

  The boy drew his revolver, took a long, steady aim, and fired. The bullet whistled past across the prairie. His second shot scored a clean hit. With pardonable pride he turned to the cattleman.

  "Set up another can," commanded Wadley.

  From the pile of empties the young man picked another and put it on the post. Wadley, known in Texas as a two-gun man, flashed into sight a pair of revolvers almost quicker than the eye could follow. Both shots
came instantly and together. The cattleman had fired from the hips. Before the can had reached the ground the weapons barked again.

  Ridley ran forward and picked up the can. It was torn and twisted with jagged holes, but the evidence was written there that all four bullets had pierced the tin. The Easterner could hardly believe his eyes. Such shooting was almost beyond human skill.

  The owner of the A T O thrust into place his two forty-fives.

  "If you're goin' to wear six-shooters, learn to use 'em, son. If you don't, some bad-man is liable to bump you off for practice."

  As the two men stepped around the corner of the house a girl came down the steps of the porch. She was dressed in summer white, but she herself was spring. Slim and lissome, the dew of childhood was still on her lips, and the mist of it in her eyes. But when she slanted her long lashes toward Arthur Ridley, it was not the child that peeped shyly and eagerly out from beneath them. Her heart was answering the world-old call of youth to youth.

  "I'm going downtown, Dad," she announced.

  Ridley stepped forward and lifted his hat. "May I walk with you, Miss Ramona?"

  "Stop at the post-office and see if the buckboard driver is in with the mail, 'Mona," her father said.

  The boy and the girl made a couple to catch and hold the eye.

  They went down the street together chattering gayly. One of the things young Ridley knew how to do well was to make himself agreeable to girls. He could talk nonsense charmingly and could hold his own in the jolly give-and-take of repartee. His good looks were a help. So too was the little touch of affectionate deference he used. He had the gift of being bold without being too bold.

  It was a beautiful morning and life sang in the blood of Ramona. It seemed to her companion that the warm sun caressed the little curls at her temples as she moved down the street light as a deer. Little jets of laughter bubbled from her round, birdlike throat. In her freshly starched white dress, with its broad waistband of red and purple ribbon, the girl was sweet and lovely and full of mystery to Ridley.