Mavericks Read online

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  THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTIONUPON POSSIBLE PURSUIT. _Frontispiece. Page 33_]

  MAVERICKS

  BY

  WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

  AUTHOR OF

  WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC.

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY

  CLARENCE ROWE

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

  1911 STREET & SMITH

  1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

  TO MY MOTHER

  "In vain men tell us time can alter Old loves, or make old memories falter."

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I. PHYLLIS 9

  II. THE NESTER 18

  III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED 28

  IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" 43

  V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR 53

  VI. A GOOD FRIEND 76

  VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH 84

  VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN 103

  IX. PUNISHMENT 117

  X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY 126

  XI. TOM DIXON 144

  XII. THE ESCAPE 157

  XIII. A MISTAKE 168

  XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 183

  XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER 200

  XVI. A WATERSPOUT 214

  XVII. THE HOLD-UP 226

  XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS 233

  XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS 241

  XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES 253

  XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI 263

  XXII. SURRENDER 276

  XXIII. AT THE RODEO 289

  XXIV. MISSING 296

  XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY 304

  XXVI. THE MAN HUNT 323

  XXVII. THE ROUND-UP 329

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

  The rider slewed in the saddle with his wholeattention upon possible pursuit. _Frontispiece_ 33

  She drew back as if he had struck her, all thesparkling eagerness driven from her face. 110

  "Drop that gun!" 205

  They grappled in silence save for the heavy pantingthat evidenced the tension of their efforts. 340

  MAVERICKS

  CHAPTER I

  PHYLLIS

  Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road whichwound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the landwaves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behindthe microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly asthe minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail fromthe Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in avoice young and glad.

  "My love has breath o' roses, O' roses, o' roses, And cheeks like summer posies All fresh with morning dew,"

  floated the words to her across the sunlit open.

  If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen,silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm inher eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit.They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front ofher and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.

  "Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling.

  Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.

  "Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon."

  "And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly.

  She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of herstraight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.

  "Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle heleaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.

  The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, stillcreeping antlike toward the hills.

  "My love has breath o' roses, O' roses, o' roses,"

  he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.

  It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky goodlooks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back arebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.

  "Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all infun, and in a game at that."

  "I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in theleast toward him.

  "Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower."

  "I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity.

  "Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kissain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl thatever was kissed."

  She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of hisboldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks ofthe boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a criticmight have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouthlacked firmness.

  "So I've been told," she answered tartly.

  "Jealous?"

  "No," she exploded.

  Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.

  "You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her.

  "What do you mean?" she flared.

  "You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's."

  "We were children then--or I was."

  "And you're not a kid now?"

  "No, I'm not."

  "Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish thingsand now you have become a woman."

  Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.

  "After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn'tit?" he bantered.

  "Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely.

  Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though shewas teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with whatdignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little thehome-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, stillslender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her wouldawaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing onthe mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapidrise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks,the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of herwords. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, thatstruck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, amasculine impulse he did not analyse.

  "So you won't be friends?"

  If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgivenesseasily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.

  "No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again.

  "Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," hesaid, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face towardhim.

  With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him fr
om her.

  Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgothis expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childishpetulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which hisvanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bareinsult.

  "How dare you!" she gasped.

  Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threwherself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him.Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillowswhere she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for thisinsult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eatdirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never solong as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southernblood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she didnot once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or toher brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And itwas in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interferewith her external duties.

  As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from thebed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with akerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers beganstreaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, hadalready cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel thewaiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the officialcage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Nocheson the stage.

  From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into thedining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing throughthe window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grownyoungster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing handsfrom the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery windowwas raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and thatof Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently tornfrom a notebook.

  "This here is for you, Phyl," he explained.

  She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it."

  "It's from Tom," he further volunteered.

  "Is it?"

  She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore itacross, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed thefragments through the window to the floor.

  "Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly askedthe next in line over the tow head of Bud.

  The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through theopen window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smotheredcurse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did notlook, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she hadseen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon,a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down themountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his returnjourney. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it,she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certainthey would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. Shepromised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to thecowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage stationfor their mail, to teach that young man his place.

  "I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."

  Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she hadinherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed thesheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint ofsardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.

  "Any mail for Buck Weaver?"

  "No," she answered promptly without looking.

  "Sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"

  Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her,for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He hadno business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of hisinsolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. Shehad her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation againstwrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionatelawlessness.

  "I know my business, sir."

  Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old JimSanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets ofextraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when hefelt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter,hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter andslipped an arm into that of her father.

  "This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It'sbeen quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin'you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."

  "Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That'sreason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously.

  "But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----"

  "I didn't come into your house."

  "Why--why----"

  "Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has aright here as long as he behaves."

  "H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr.Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."

  "Dad!" the girl begged.

  He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry,honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making.I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' downwhilst anybody tromples on me neither."

  "He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him.

  Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you forprotecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirton, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do Ireckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."

  With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious tothe last virile inch of him.