REDDY took his mother West. It was a journey that he ===conducted with much ostentatious display, but the opportunities in this respect were far less extended than he could have wished. It was only when they were West of Chicago, however, that he felt perfectly at home; for out of Chicago the sleeper was crowded with men who talked tirelessly of cattle and mines, and who told how much they were worth, or any other little personal matter that might be accounted of general public interest, with simple candour and without shame. In their presence Reddy parted with the last vestige of suspicion that the conservative East had bred in him.

“These are the people!” he thought.

Mrs. Crittendon, a mild little woman who had not yet recovered from the shock of Reddy's reformation, and who regarded that redeemed young man with wordless awe, since it was all really too good to be true, bore him company with much inward trepidation. She was small and placid, with smooth grey hair neatly parted and plainly drawn back of her ears; she was not only small and slight, she was trim and graceful as well, with a youthful walk and sprightly carriage. The top of the small tight-fitting black bonnet that framed her face came just on a level with Reddy's broad shoulders. All her life had been spent in Benson, she had never been fifty miles away from there before; and she was the victim of a depressing fear that Reddy had made some fatal mistake in the train, and that they were speeding recklessly in the wrong direction; a circumstance it was impossible for her to conceive could end otherwise than tragically. Indeed the flippancy with which her son bought tickets and changed cars impressed her as bordering on a suicidal folly. Afterward she always said it was a mercy they reached the ranch; but Reddy never understood what she meant by this, and she never enlightened him. But reach the ranch they did—a trifling matter of forty miles from Carson, the nearest point on the railway—and in a cloud of dust, and behind a span of half-broken colts that were the apple of Reddy's eye. Here she began to adjust herself to the wide horizon, to the barrenness of the grey rolling plains, the distant fringe of mountain peaks.

Strangely enough she was not lonely; she hardly missed the gossiping friends she had parted from at Benson; she had Reddy, and there was the ranch foreman and the ranch foreman's wife who cooked for the boys, and the boys themselves, who spent their days either in idleness or on horseback. They had neighbours, too, whose ranches dotted a strip of territory that stretched away to the south a hundred miles, and to the north another hundred. With these, she discovered, Reddy maintained a sparse but cordial intimacy; many of them he saw as often as two or three times a year, but this was not true of all; there was Colonel Rogers, whose comfortable ranch house was distant a hard day's ride, and whose powerful patronage gave Reddy a position in that region he could not otherwise have had.

In due time the colonel and his wife drove over in a light buck-board for a stay of several days with Reddy and his mother, and while the ladies sat in the ranch parlour, which Reddy had furnished in hot and stuffy red plush, and exchanged confidences or gossiped; the two men, in their shirt-sleeves, sat on the top rail of the corral fence for the most part, smoked pipes, and talked cattle.

The colonel was a tall grizzled man, with a gentle kindly manner; no one would have supposed him a millionaire and a man of determined but quiet force of character, while Mrs. Rogers was a motherly woman, whose faith in the colonel—she always gave him this military title—had never experienced any shocks; and her reminiscences of the early days when as a young bride he had brought her into the country, impressed Mrs. Crittendon with a profound sense of that mild-mannered gentleman's capabilities. She was glad Reddy had such a friend.

But what impressed her most was that while they were on such intimate terms with her son, and though he was going to marry their daughter, they yet apparently knew nothing of him beyond such limited confidences as he had chosen to indulge in; indeed Reddy's standing in the community seemed to be a strictly personal matter, and it belonged to the present absolutely. He had come into the country, a stranger with a bunch of cattle, he had proven himself an excellent neighbour, and above all he had not shown any desire to put his brand on cattle he had not paid for. She discovered that beyond the fact that Reddy originally came from Ohio, nothing was known of his antecedents. This discovery she made one day at dinner, and she proceeded to enlighten their guests; since to her, Reddy belonged as much to Benson as did the soldiers' monument on the square. She was well into the family history when the colonel, who had been placidly listening, suddenly put aside his knife and fork.

“What was that you said about a town called Benson?” he asked.

Mrs. Crittendon had merely said that Reddy had been born in Benson—she had given the year, the day of the month, and hour of his birth.

“Your home!” cried Rogers, and he gave his wife a glance. “Well, that beats me. Benson—Benson, Ohio—they fit together; you'd hardly believe it, ma'am, that for forty years I been wondering off and on where Benson was. I reckon I could have found out easy enough, but I never did; and I had pretty good reasons for wanting to know, too. Benson, Ohio—that's what he told me,” he mused in silence for a moment, running his fingers through his grizzled beard.

“What do you want to know about Benson?” asked Reddy. “I guess I could have told you.”

“Never heard you mention it, Riley,” said the colonel. “And, well, I reckon you never heard me mention it either, but my folks were Benson folks, too.” He turned to Mrs. Crittendon. “How long did you live in Benson, ma'am?”

“Always, I was born and reared there.”

“Were you though—well, well! I wonder if you ever heard anything of a party that started West from there some time along about '49, as I reckon it?”

“The Landrays went,” said Mrs. Crittendon promptly.

“Landray—that's the name! Landray—I ain't forgotten that. Now, hold on again, there was Landray and his brother, and a man by the name of Walsh, a youngish fellow as I remember him, and an oldish grey-whiskered man named—Bingham.”

“He was my father's cousin,” said Mrs. Crittendon.

“Was he, ma'am? Well, I declare! And there was my father, of course, and myself. I always wished I could meet some one who could tell me something about him.”

“I have always heard it was a Rogers who brought the first news about the finding of gold in California,” said Mrs. Crittendon.

“That must have been my father. I reckon now, you never saw him,” said the colonel with regret.

“Not to remember him if I did.”

“Well, of course not, you were too young. I wish I could recall more about him, for I've always thought that fight left things a sort of blank with me. I only remember what happened back of it by fits and starts. What I'd like to know, though, is how those folks in Ohio learned about the outfit and what come of it—or did they ever learn?”

“Mr. Benson went West to find out. It's too bad I don't know more, but I've only heard the older people talk about it. Mr. Benson was the Landrays lawyer, and people say he was in love with Stephen Landray's wife.”

“Did she marry him?”

“No, she never married again, nor Mrs. Walsh either. She makes her home with Mrs. Landray mostly, though she's got a married daughter, Mrs. Norton.”

“I wish you'd tell me something about the Landrays,” said Rogers.

“Why, there is Mrs. Landray, and Stephen Landray, a young fellow just out of college,” said Reddy.

“Whose son is he, Riley?” asked the colonel.

“Why he's Mrs. Landray's nephew,” said Reddy.

“Her grand-nephew,” corrected his mother. “He is Captain Landray's son.”

“A soldier in the late war?”

“Yes.”

Rogers hit the table sharply with his open hand.

“I swear then he's the man I met at Appomattox! You've seen him, ma'am, of course? What's become of him?”

“He's dead; he died years ago out in Kansas.”

“And only Mrs. Landray and his son's left?”

“Yes, least I never heard of any others.”

“Sort of makes me feel like the last leaf on the bough,” the colonel stroked his grey beard reflectively. “This all fits into what I can call up. You know after the Indian fight, I was taken in and brought up by old man Raymond—Tom's father, Riley—you ain't forgot Tom?”

Reddy shook his head. Rogers chuckled.

“It takes all my influence to keep 'em from running Tom out of the country; Tom'll happen along here some day, ma'am, and you'll wonder why any one's prejudiced against Tom.” The colonel's lady made as if to interrupt the conversation, but the colonel restrained her by a gesture. “I don't indorse Tom, but his father was a mighty good friend to me when friends were scarce, and that gives Tom a sort of hold; I've kind of made myself responsible for him. There never was a better man than old Ephriam Raymond, Mormon or no Mormon! He brought me up, and gave me my start in life; I ain't forgot that, and I reckon I'll put up with considerable of Tom's cussedness yet for his sake.”

He was thoughtful for a moment. Ephriam Raymond had done all that he had said and more. That he had died while Rogers was still in the army, had always been a matter of keen regret to the latter; for Raymond's daughter had married years before, and had gone to the coast with her husband, an apostate Mormon, and there had only been Tom with him in his last sickness; Tom, who was always on the verge of trouble more or less serious. The colonel thought of all this, and regretted those vicissitudes which had left him with a vague and uncertain memory of his own father, and had separated him from his best friend at a time when he might have been of some comfort to him.

He turned with more questions to Mrs. Crittendon, but the Lan-drays and the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company, had long since taken their place among the traditions of the Ohio town. She had the sentiment of the tragedy rather than the details.

“Mr. Benson could tell you all you want to know; he must have known your father. He came West and brought back the news of the massacre; he could tell you all about the company, just who was in it, and everything.”

“Well, maybe some day I'll write him.”

“Why don't you do it to-night?” suggested Reddy.

“There's no such hurry,” said the colonel hastily. “Guess I'll wait until Margaret gets home. I'll have her write the letter for me.”

“You know you'll never write at all if you wait; do it now,” said Mrs. Rogers.

The colonel gave her a pleasant smile as he pushed back his chair and reached for his pipe.

“Just think of the jobs I've saved myself, mother, by putting them off. Half the things I make up my mind to do, I find by waiting ain't so urgent as I supposed; but I'm going to write that letter the first thing when Margaret gets back.”

The next day the colonel and Mrs. Rogers departed for home.

“Now bring your mother over soon,” urged Mrs. Rogers, as they prepared to drive away. “Don't wait for Margaret to finish her visit in Cheyenne.” Reddy blushed guiltily. This was exactly what he intended doing. “But just come whenever you can.”

The colonel added his voice to hers as they drove off, then he lapsed into silence at her side, and the silence endured for many miles. He was thinking of the conversation of the day before, and he was still groping vaguely among memories of the past. At last he turned to his wife, and began telling her of the trip across the plains, with the Landrays and his father. It was a confused narrative, for there seemed to be mingled with it incidents that belonged to another journey that had been made under different circumstances.

“Do you know, I'd like mightily to write to Mrs. Landray,” he said at last.

“Well, why don't you, colonel?”

“Well, maybe I will when Margaret gets back.”

It was dusk when they reached home, and as they drove up to the ranch house door, two men came out, hearing the sound of wheels, and to one of these the colonel surrendered his team. The other, a weazened swarthy man, touched him on the arm as he was about to enter the house.

“What is it?” he asked, turning back.

“Tom Raymond's here.”

The colonel groaned aloud. The speaker grinned. He was the ranch foreman, he had been with the colonel many years and he knew almost as much of Roger's affairs as Rogers did himself. He understood the nature of Raymond's hold on the colonel, and he regarded it as a conspicuous weakness on the part of an otherwise sane and rational man.

“What's the matter?” demanded Rogers.

“He's in trouble again, I reckon,” said the foreman.

“Well, was there ever a time when he wasn't?” asked Rogers with some show of temper.

“He wouldn't come up to the house, I happened on him out back of the corrals. He's hid in the old bunk-house he wants to see you the worst kind of a way.”

“Go tell my wife I've had to go down to the corrals. Tell her not to wait for me, but to eat,” said the colonel.

The old bunk-house was a small building of poles, now no longer used. It was remote from the house, and rarely visited; and toward it the colonel bent his steps in the gathering darkness. The bunk-house door was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open. The room was apparently empty, for he heard no sound. He struck a match, and in the momentary brightness he saw a man asleep in one of the bunks, a gaunt, loose-jointed man with long grey locks that fell to his shoulders. He had been sleeping with his head resting on his arm, and the light flashing full in his face roused him, he sprang up with a startled exclamation, and Rogers caught a sound which he understood perfectly.

“Put that up, Tom, it's only me,” he said composedly.

“Oh, it's you, Ben, old pardner? Didn't know who it was. When did you get back?”

“I just came. Buck told me you were here and wanted to see me.”

Tom had quitted the bunk, now he was sitting on the edge of it. Rogers could just distinguish his head with its thick unkempt thatch of grey hair, and his bulk of bone and muscle.

“Well, Ben,” he said in a drawling voice, “I reckon you're going to see the last of me; I reckon I'm going to quit the country this time. I've stayed mainly to be near you, old pardner, but I'm clean crowded out at last.”

The colonel was quite unmoved by the other's sentiment, he had heard the same thing before many times. Tom had come into a comfortable property on his father's death; this he had promptly squandered. He had gone from bad to worse—guide, scout, packer, and lastly buffalo hunter, who between debauches had done his part in the ruthless war of extermination which had been waged against the great herds of the plain; but the herds had disappeared, and this shiftless means of livelihood had gone with them. Sometimes he worked with Roger's forces, but most of the time he spent in and about Carson, subsisting by means it was not well to inquire too closely into. He was counted a dangerous man, not that he had ever risen to any very splendid villainies, but he was a man that the other men shunned unless they were of his own class.

“What is it, Tom?” said Rogers, “You're in trouble, I suppose, or you wouldn't be here hiding.”

“There was trouble in Carson,” said Tom in a meditative drawl. “Benny, these here cow towns is the God forsakenest places in all this God forsaken country. Who'd a thought that me at my time of life, when I've always done what I thought was right—”

The colonel moved impatiently.

“Get down to business, Tom,” he urged.

“Well, say Benny, can you stake me for a long jump? I reckon it'll be plumb to Texas this time.”

“What have you done, Tom?” asked Rogers.

“I've shot a man, Ben.”

“I reckoned so,” said the colonel in a hard voice.

“A man that said I sold beef that hadn't 'airy brand of mine on it. Now that was a hell of a thing to say of a man who's always tried to act right and square.”

“Who was it?”

“Which he knew it was a lie, and you know it was a lie, Benny.”

“Who was it?” repeated Rogers.

“Chesney.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I dunno. Hope so,” said Tom indifferently. “I didn't wait to see, I just pushed out for here.”

“And they'll be pushing after you.”

“I reckon that's so all right, as soon as they can get together a posse.”

“I can't have them find you here, Tom,” said the colonel. “You know there's a limit—”

“I didn't think you'd show me your back! I've been a good friend to you, Ben, and if I hadn't been, father was. Can you deny that—no, sir!”

“He was the best friend I ever had.”

“I'm glad you ain't forgot it, Ben Rogers! He gave you your start—you've always been man enough to own that.”

“Don't you think I've about squared that with you?” said the colonel again impatiently.

“I ain't here to ask no favours, Benny, you can rest easy on that; I'm here to make a fair trade.”

“Yes,” said Rogers wearily. He was familiar with the old buffalo hunter's idea of a fair trade.

“You're seeing the last of me, Benny, you'll be clean shut of me when I hit the trail this time.”

The colonel hoped so, though this hope did not find, expression in words.

“I'll want a good horse, for I played mine out getting here.”

“Yes,” said Rogers.

“And I want money—but hold on a minute, I got something I want to sell you, Ben. Yes, sir, I am going to make a fair trade; a thousand dollars.”

“That's more than I can lay my hands on to-night, Tom, so come down to reason.”

“Well, five hundred then,” said Raymond eagerly.

“What's your trade, Tom?”

“You know when father took you in you gave him a buckskin bag full of papers. Where do you reckon they are now?”

“I don't know, I never had any more than your word for it, but you always said when I asked about them, that they had either been lost or destroyed, at least they were not among your father's papers when you came to look them over, but perhaps you lied.”

“That's about the size of it, Benny,” said Raymond coolly. “I lied. I had my own reasons for wanting to keep them papers out of your hands.”

“But they were not yours! If I had been with your father at the time of his death he would have given them to me.”

“Maybe he would, he was mighty curious in them ways; but you wa'n'. there, so he did the next best thing, he gave them to me instead.”

“To give to me, I suppose.”

“That part of it's plumb slipped my mind. Anyhow I got the papers.”

“And you want to send them to me now?”

“That's the idea, Benny.”

“And if I gave you the money?”

“Five hundred dollars, Benny.”

“You'll clear out of here for Texas?”

“I bet I will,” said Raymond cheerfully.

“Where are the papers?” questioned Rogers.

“I got 'em by me;” but he made no move to produce them.

“I'll go to the house and get the money, and I'll have Buck get up a horse for you.”

“All right;” and Raymond stretched himself out in the bunk again. He felt certain that the posse would not arrive at the ranch until early in the morning, and by then he would have put many miles between it and himself.

He was alone but a few minutes, and then he was rejoined by Rogers, who carried a lantern.

“Did you fetch the money, Benny?” demanded the old buffalo hunter eagerly.

“Yes, I have it here. Now let me see those papers.”

Raymond produced a greasy pocket-book, and rescued from its depths a small flat parcel wrapped in several folds of oilskin. He surrendered it to Rogers, who undid the parcel and satisfied himself by a glance that the yellow papers he held in his hand were those for which he had bargained. Raymond watched him, a toothless smile relaxing his lean jaws.

“All right, Benny?”

“They seem to be—yes.”

“Then fork over, and I'll quit you here and now.”

The money Rogers gave him he hid about his person; then he gathered up his hat and weapons, and moved to the door. Rogers followed him, and in the shadow of the corral fence they saw Buck holding a horse. Raymond moved toward it with alacrity, and swung himself into the saddle.

“I don't know as I was so much run out of the country after all. I been wanting a change. Well, good-bye, Benny, take care of yourself, old pardner! So long, Buck!” and with that he put his horse to an easy canter.

Rogers watched him out of sight with a feeling of infinite relief. He had ceased to see him long before the clatter of his horse's hoofs died out in the distance; but at last there was neither sight nor sound of him. The colonel turned to Buck.

“I guess if any one asks about him, Buck, he ain't been here—just bear that in mind.”

“Do you think he'll get away all right?” asked Buck.

“Oh, I reckon he will. I find I'm sort of counting on his doing it. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I am—Hullo! What's that?” for his ear had caught the sound of a rapidly ridden horse, but coming in the opposite direction from that Raymond had just taken. Buck heard it, too.

“Tom hit the trail none too soon,” he said. “His luck always was the damndest,” by which he meant that it far exceeded his deserts.

“I can only make out one horse,” said Rogers at last. “It ain't the posse. We'll just walk up toward the house;” and they had scarcely reached it when the horseman galloped up and drew rein.

“Who's that?” called Rogers.

“It's me—Crittendon, colonel,” said the horseman.

“What's the matter, Riley?” his voice showed that he was immensely relieved. “Get down. Buck will take your horse;” but Riley had nothing to say until Buck had moved off out of hearing, then he turned to Rogers.

“Look here, colonel—Tom Raymond's in trouble again, and mighty serious trouble, too.”

“I know, Riley, he's been here; just gone, in fact.”

“I knew he'd come here the first thing. Just after you left this morning I got the word he'd shot Chesney, and that they were getting together at Carson to go after him; and I hustled out here to warn you that there was nothing you or any one could do for him, that they are bound to have him.”

“He'll have to take his chances. I've done all I could; given him a horse and money. He's started for Texas.”

“He'd better keep going—yes, he better had!” said Reddy.

“I reckon he knows that,” said Rogers significantly. “Well, I've done as much, and more than most honest men would do under similar circumstances, and it's up to Tom to do the rest. He's getting along in life, and I reckon his capers are about at an end.”

“Chesney's dead, you know,” said Reddy.

“No, you don't tell me!” Rogers fell back a step. “You don't mean it, Riley?”

“Died within an hour after he was shot,” said Reddy briefly.

“Well, I just had to help Tom,” said the colonel, after a momentary silence. “It was one of those things I couldn't get out of doing. I've always been doing things for Tom I wouldn't do for any other man alive—but come into the house, I got something I want to show you. Something Tom left with me.”

Rogers conducted Reddy into the dining-room where his own supper was still waiting for him. Mrs. Rogers wearied by the long drive had already eaten and had retired for the night.

“I reckon you're hungry after your ride, Riley,” said Rogers. “So am I. Getting Tom off sort of put me out of the notion of eating even if I'd had the time.”

The two men ate in silence, but when the rigours of their hearty appetites were satisfied, the colonel produced the papers Tom Raymond had left with him. He told their history, and then the two fell to examining them with much eagerness.

“Well,” said Rogers at last. “I can't see that there's anything here that concerns me. I reckon they ought to be passed along to Mrs. Landray, though I can't see that they are of any value. Still I ought to send 'em to her.”

“No doubt about that,” said Reddy.

“You know her, Riley?”

“Well, yes, I've met her, and she knows who I am well enough.”

“How'd you like to send 'em to her, Riley? You could tell her the way they first came into my hands just as I've told you; how Tom Raymond got hold of them, and how he'd always said they were lost. I'd like you to make it plain to her it wasn't me held 'em back, I wouldn't want her to think that.”

“No, of course not.”

“Mind writing her?” inquired Rogers. He was rather sensitive about his own penmanship—and Margaret was in Cheyenne.

“No, not exactly, but if it's all the same to you I'd rather send 'em to her lawyer. He could sort of explain things to her. I'd feel freer to write him. I was going to write him anyhow, he's an old friend of mine.”

“That's the best idea yet, Riley,” said the colonel, much pleased by the suggestion. “I reckon a little tact won't be out of place in bringing these papers to her notice, and her lawyer's the man for the job.” He folded up the papers as he spoke. “I'll leave the whole thing in your hands, Riley; take your time to it, and make it plain to your friend how I got the papers first, how they were lost, and how I got 'em again from Tom Raymond.”