They were up before sunrise following along a rock trail against the face of a mountain through the morning mists, when they turned a sharp crag and came suddenly on one of those flower slopes bevelled out of the forests by snow or ice. The slant sunlight met their faces, and the mists were lifting in a curtain, with a riffle of wind that ran through the grasses like the ripple of waves to the touch of unseen feet. The slope lay literally a field of gold, spikes and umbels of gold—the gold of yellow midsummer light dyed in the asters and sunflowers and great flowered gaillardias and golden rod, with an odor of dried grasses or mint or cloves.

"By George," cried Wayland, "you'd not believe it! Only seven weeks; look!"

Matthews looked but apparently did not see.

"Don't you see? It's the place where the snow slide slumped down!"

"But where in the name o' conscience is all yon snow; and where's th' bodies, Wayland?"

"Washed down to the bottom of the Lake Behind the Peak by this time; or you may find a great rock pile at the foot of the slope."

"A'm thinkin' they'll lie quiet till the crack o' doom, Wayland; but, but do y' no' see a tent back in yon larches across th' slide, man, where the thing knocked us both sprawlin'?"

"By George, yes, I do! Wonder if they're homesteading this next? It's off the N. F."

They put their ponies to an easy lope across the slope and came on a tepee tent with the flap laced tight and no sign of life, but a horse lazily floundering up beside a large fallen log, an empty whiskey bottle on the log, and a man's boot leg protruding from beneath the tent skirt.

"A'm wonderin' if there's a leg in that boot, Wayland."

"It's the sheriff's horse," said Wayland.

"It is, is it? And this is off y'r Forest Range; an' y'r not responsible for what A may be tempted to do?"

The old frontiersman literally avalanched off his broncho and made a dash at the tent flap, frapping it loudly with the flat of his hand.

"Here you—anybody inside?"

No response came from the owner of the leg.

"Here you, waken up." Matthews caught hold of the leg and pulled and pulled. There was a splutter of snorts, and, 'what in Hell's,' and the fat girth of an apple-shaped body ripped the tent pegging free and came out under the tepee skirt followed by another leg, and two oozy hands flabbily clawing at the grass roots to stop the unusual exit. One hand held a flat flask and the air became flavored with the second-hand fumes of a whiskey cask. The sheriff rolled over after the manner of apple-shaped bodies and sat up on the end of his spine rubbing his eyes. Then, he recollected the dignity of his office and got groggily to his feet, steadying himself by clutches at the tent flap. Then, he emitted a hiccough. "'Scuse m'," he said thickly. "I'm not well, thas ish not really well! Will one of y' pleash gimme a drink o' water? I been chasin' those damn-cow-boy-outlawsh seven weeks sclean 'cross Shate Sline, I'm dead beat out. Thas you, ain't it Wayland? Kindsh o' you both come after me! Saw y' pash tha' day y' called t' door! Wife tol' me to hide—not risk m' life, women 're all thas way; skeary; skeary. Well, I bin out ever shince y' pashed! I nearly got 'em, too! I caught 'em right in here day after shnow slide had 'em cornered! Gosh, bullets was pretty thick fur about half-an-hour; bu' I cud'nt chross Shtate Line." Something in the old frontiersman's widening eyes and glowering brows stopped the flow of valor; and Sheriff Flood dragged his exhausted virtue across to the log with some difficulty as to knees and elbows, got himself turned round and seated.

"Y' been out huntin' them seven weeks?"

"Yes, seven weeks!" His articulation had cleared a little. "Please gimme m' gun, Wayland!"

"Y' saw them? Y're sure y' saw them?"

"Saw them?" Sheriff Flood laughed in a thin little squeaking laugh. "Gosh A'mighty, I—I fought—them single handed for a whole half day; I think I got one! Least ways, there's a powerful smell som'pin dead comin' up below the Pass Trail. It's too steep to go down to see. I wish I knew."

"Ye wish ye knew? Ye do—do you? 'Tis a wish bone instead of a back bone the likes of you have; and it was too steep to see?" Matthews megaphoned a laugh that echoed loud and long and scornful from the rocks. "I saw a man who was no sheriff climb both up an' down that place too steep for the likes o' you to see; and he climbed to do more than see! 'Twas half an hour y' fought them th' first version? Now 'tis raised to half a day. A'm thinkin' y' be applyin' to th' pension bureau for a hero's triflin' remembrance! Hoh! An' y' saw us pass did y'? An' y'r frowsy dyed-haired slattern wife told us y' were away? An' 't will be a week y' fought 'em when y' tell it again; an' y' been huntin' them seven weeks lyin' sodden drunk in y'r tent wi' a whiskey keg from th' cellar o' y'r white-vested friend? Hoh?"

He caught the flabby body by the collar, spinning the dignity of the law round face down prone upon the log. "A'll not take my fist t' y' as A wud t' a Man! Ye dastard, drunken, poltroon, coward, whiskey sodden lout an' scum o' filth, an'," each word was emphasized by the thud of the empty whiskey bottle wielded as a flail.

"Look out, sir," warned Wayland, rolling from his horse in laughter, "you'll hurt something, with that bottle."

"Hurt something? N' danger on this wad of fat an' laziness an' lies." (Thud . . . thump . . . and a double tattoo.) He threw the instrument of castigation aside and spinning the hulk of flesh and sprawling legs erect, began applying the sole of his boot. "A'll no take m' fist t' y' as A wud t' a Man! A'll treat y' as A wud a dirty broth of a brat of a boy with the flat o' my hand an' sole leather; y' scum, y' runt, y' hoggish swinish whiskey soak o' bacon an' fat! 'Tis th' likes o' you are the curse o' this country, y' horse-thief sheriff, y' bribe-takin' blackguard guardian o' justice an' right! y' coward not doin' th' crime y' self, but shieldin' them that do."

The sheriff had uttered a splutter of filthy expletives at the first blow, then a yell; now he was bellowing aloud, chattering with terror, screaming to be, "let go, let go! I never done you no harm. I'll have y'r life for this."

"Y' will, will y'? Did y' ask for a drink? Wayland, wait for m' here!"

The Ranger saw the white-haired frontiersman seize one sprawling leg and the shirt front of the struggling limp thing in his hands. He heard him plunging down through the tangle of windfall and brush. There was a bellowing howl and a splash; and Wayland being altogether human flesh and blood doubled up on the ground with laughter.

"That'll cool him," remarked Matthews coming back very red of face and sober, "an' it's not deep enough to drown."

He tore open the tent flap and rolled out a small keg. There was a sound of dregs still rinsing round inside. They could hear the bellows from the brook. The majesty of the law had evidently crawled out on the far side.

"He's the kind o' brave man will slap children, an' call a boy a calf, an' bully timid women, an' knock down little Chinks and dagoes! Oh, A know his kind o' thunder-barrel bravery, that makes the more noise the emptier and bigger it is—they're thick as louse ticks under the slimy side of a dirty board in this world, Wayland; an' they're thick in the girth an' thicker in the skull." Matthews had taken one of the Forest axes from the saddle. He left the whiskey keg in kindling wood.

"He's camped dead beat on the State line, all right, Wayland," said the irate old frontiersman as they mounted their ponies. "He'll have at least some scars to prove his story, but A'm no thinkin' he'll boast round showin' them marks o' glory! 'Tis some satisfaction for my thirst back in the Desert."

"I thought it was about here, on our way out, that a law-loving Briton, I know, gave me a sermon about exceeding law, taking the law in our own hands?"

"Hoh!" said the old man.

And the Sheriff's tent was not the only one seen on the way back to the Ridge. Where the Pass widened to the Valley above the Sheriff's homestead, they came on a huge miner's tent boarded half way up as for winter residence, with eight tow-headed half-clad urchins thumb in mouth staring out from the open mosquito wire door. There was a smell of onions and frying pork.

"What! a homestead, here, Wayland? D' y'r homesteaders farm on th' perpendicular, or the level; an' what will they grow on these rocks?"

The Ranger had reined in his pony and was running his glance up the precipice face for the posts marking the bounds.

"What do they grow? Water-power, I guess! I'm looking for the lines. The fellow has his posts in for a wire fence; he couldn't get a hundred and sixty acres on the level; and the posts run up the face, by George he's blanketed a cool square mile, mostly on the up and down."

"Your territory, Wayland?"

The Ranger had turned looking back up the Pass.

"The trail marks the lower bounds of the N. F., but this fellow's line runs clear up above the trail. If you bunch this fellow's claim with the Sheriff's, they've got forty miles of the Pass corked up: no way to bring the timber above down but by the River; and they've got the River; and if possession is nine points in the law, they've got our Forest road besides. We'll have to give that fellow warning and if he doesn't move, break his fence down."

"Gutt dae." A big burly Swede came forward from the miner's tent.

"Are you one of the new settlers?" asked Wayland.

"Yaw! A gott pig—varm! Tra—vor—years mak' pig money liffin' y'ere!
Mae voman, Ae send her vork citie; Ae build mae house y're!"

"All these children yours?"

"Yaw!" The man smiled bigly, incredulous that any one could doubt.

"Have you filed for a homestead for each of them?"

"Yaw!" The man smiled more pleased than ever, indicating the numerous olive branches by a wave of his hand. "Gott gutt pig varm! Pat, Pat Prydges . . . he sae he pay mae voman, one-huntred; mae, two huntred; mae chil'en . . ." he smiled again, bigly and blandly, "mabbee, five, ten. Yaw—?"

"One hundred and sixty acres each: twelve hundred acres for the kids, not one of age, a quarter section to the man!" Then turning back from Matthews to the foreign settler.

"You've got a thundering big farm?"

"Yaw! Ae mak' a pig yob of itt!"

"By George, I should think you do make a big job of it! This is the way those two-thousand acres of coal lands were swiped! Are you the fellow I gave a permit to cut timber up on the Ridge? What did you change your homestead for?"

The Swede stood smiling showing all his white teeth and wrinkling his nose and absorbing the meaning of the Ranger's questions into his skull.

"Pat did utt," he said.

"Who? Oh, Bat!" He looked at Matthews. "Do you mind riding back over the Pass trail; so we can go to the Ridge by the Gully, the way the outlaws escaped? I want to see where this fellow's upper lines run."

They rode back in silence almost all the way, coming up to the top shoulder of the precipice where the outlaws had come tumbling down on Matthews' hiding place a few weeks before. Wayland followed the lines of the newly planted posts, where the wire had not yet been strung.

"There is not the slightest doubt," he burst out, "this has been done to force a test case! Well, they'll get it."

"Wayland, is there no way of letting the public know what is going on?
A bet the people of this State don't know!"

"It's against the rule to give out information any more," answered
Wayland.

"Man alive—is this Russia? Y' mind me of Indians in the conjurors' tent: they tie the medicine man hand and foot and throw him into a tent; and he's t' make the tent shake. Only the devil-Indians can do it. They tie y' hand an' foot, then they expect y' to serve the Nation."

"No," corrected Wayland, "they tie us hand and foot to keep us from serving the Nation."

And the Swede's tent was not the only one they saw, as the reader well knows. Coming along the Gully on the Ridge crest, Wayland looked for the pile of illegally-taken saw logs. They were gone. There was nothing left but a timber skid, and the dry slash and a pile of saw dust emitting the odor of imprisoned fragrance in the afternoon heat; but a few yards back from the pile of saw dust stood a tepee tent with the flap hooked up; and in the opening, a wide-eyed diminutive child with a very old face and a very small frame, that looked for all the world to Wayland like a clothes rack in a pawn shop covered with colored rags.

"Waz ye wantin' me faather?"

As the reader is aware this little person never lacked speech.

"H's away! H's gone t' th' citie for th' throuble that's comin' on about th' mine, y' onderstand? He's wan o' th' men t' be on hand if there's throuble."

"Are you one of the new settlers'?"

"Yes, sor! M' name's Meestress Leezie O'Finnigan! We're come upp t' live three years, mebba four, m' faather says we may fool 'em on less than five; an' we're goin' to be wal-thy, an' we won't hev' a thing t' do but sit toight an' whuttle an' sput an'," it was the same story, she had told Eleanor.

"What trouble in the mines?" asked Wayland.

"In the coal mines, sor! There's a gen'leman come from Waashington, an' soon as the Ranger's been found, there's been goin's on, sor, bad goin's ons, soon as th' Ranger's back, their expectin' throuble; un' m' faather's gone down for to be there, he saz."

"Well?" said Wayland, as they rode on towards the Cabin.

"They've been busy, Wayland! They've been busy, man! You're in the thick of it! More power t' y'r elbow! We've got the first licks in on th' sheriff's carcass."

"And six dead men to the good," added Wayland dryly, "only I guess they don't go into the reports, they are missing!"

As they approached the Cabin, a young man in gray flannels and sailor hat sat up in the hammock, looked twice at Wayland, got up and came forward.

"Are you Wayland?" he asked, with a contemptuous glance at the Ranger's disguised suit.

"That's my name."

The young fellow handed him a letter stamped from the head department at Washington. It stated that the bearer was a Federal attorney sent out to investigate the Smelter City Coal Claims and any other matters bearing on the contests of the Holy Cross. The letter was couched—Wayland thought—with peculiar frigidity, as though he and not the coal claimants were the guilty party to an undecided contest. Then he glanced back at the bearer: an incredibly young and inexperienced youth—not more than twenty-two or three, barely out of a law school.

"Glad to see you, sir," said Wayland, "Been waiting long?"

The young fellow gave him a side wise look.

"About a week."

"I'm sorry to have delayed you; but one of the most important cases we have ever had called me away. I had intended to go down to Washington and explain the whole situation."

The young man smiled very faintly, and was it, contemptuously? "A good deal needs explaining," he remarked.

"I hope you made yourself at home in the Cabin?"

"On the contrary, I'm with Moyese! I have arranged to have the coal cases examined this week. The claimants declare the coal is not worth a farthing, and this case is seriously disturbing the title to the land where the Smelter stands."

"You're a geologist, of course?" asked Wayland innocently.

"No, I'm from the law department. We considered this more a case of legality of title than coal values. The Company has kindly consented to let us examine the mine this week."

"Kindly consented? By George, I like that condescending kindness from pirates and thieves!"

"But there are two sides to this question, Mr. Ranger: what good does coal do locked up in the earth? The country wants coal developed."

"Exactly," answered Wayland, "and not stolen and locked up in a great trust and rings that jack the prices sky-high! The law was passed to keep these pirates from stealing coal with dummies, to let the individual who hadn't money to hire dummies go in and develop. If you'll walk along the Ridge here, you'll see another of the contested cases. The forests are open to homesteading wherever the land is agricultural; but you can hardly call land agricultural that's a sheer drop of 1,000 feet, though the big trees growing on it would each build a house of six rooms. If you'll walk along, you'll see where the 'dummy' business has begun the same game as in the Bitter Boot."

The young bureaucrat turned short on his heel and strolled down the Ridge Trail, with an air that only a bureaucrat, a very young bureaucrat, and a very cheap one could possibly wear.

"Well, A 'm—A 'm d—danged."

Wayland burst out laughing.

"Do you suppose that little kindergarten ass thought he had come and caught me off duty?"

The old man stood dumfounded. It was such a happy and triumphant home-coming for a Man on the Job, who had risked his life for seven successive weeks solely in the cause of Right. Matthews slammed his hat on the ground, and stamped upon it, and clenched his teeth to keep in the words that seemed to want to hiss out.

"Man alive. A'd like t' spank him!"

Wayland laughed.

"I guess he's staying with our white-vested friend," he said, as he pulled the saddles off the animals and gave them a slap heading down to the drinking trough; but when he turned, Calamity stood in the door of the Cabin holding out a letter. He forgot to greet her; for the handwriting was Eleanor's. He tore the envelope open devouring the words in his eagerness; then his face clouded.

"What in thunder does it all mean? Listen.

'Dear Dick: I don't know when you will come home, but as soon as you do, you will learn of something abominable that has been published. I'm going to send Calamity up with this every day so she will be sure to catch you first thing.' ("It's dated three weeks ago," interjected Wayland.) 'They have struck at you through me. Don't mind, Dick. They did it to make you stop. You will not stop, will you? It didn't hurt me.' (Oh, brave beautiful liar! Does the Angel Gabriel take note of such lies by women; and which side of the account does he put them on?) 'Father says a fact is a hard nut to crack. You're not to take any notice of this attack on me. You're not to flinch from the fight for my sake or deflect a hair's breadth on my account. You know what you said. Things have gone so far that crime is invading decent lives. Well, it has invaded yours and mine; and you're not to slack one jot. Dick, I command it. I command it in the name of that seal I gave you.'

'E. MacD.'"

"What in thunder does it all mean?" reiterated Wayland.

"What seal is that she speaks of? A'm thinkin' if you'll read that pile of mail in there on the table, you'll find out."

"Any ansher?" asked Calamity softly, by which, you may guess, dear reader, that an Indian woman has a heart under her ribs as well as you.

"Wait," said Wayland.

He tore a sheet from his field book. This is what he wrote:

I shall obey you implicitly, my Alder Liefest. I don't know what it is yet; but I'll not let it make any difference in the fight no matter what it is. I have thought of that seal every day and night since I left you, and all day and all night; and I couldn't have pulled through this trip if I hadn't had that well of memory to drink from. You saved my life, tho' you don't know it. Matthews will tell you: and you saved his too.

Dick. (nth.)

P. S. There's a funny little kid up here, been left by her father in one of the settlers' tents. She's the most pitiable little object I ever saw. I think her father is a drunken tough from Shanty Town. She oughtn't to be left up here alone near such a baby-eater as I am. I wish you'd come up and see about her. If you don't come alone, get Mrs. Williams, or my friend, Matthews.

Calamity went on down the Ridge and Wayland plunged at his mail. On the very top of the pile lay a newspaper in a folder marked with red "Important." Before the pole cat begins operations, he chooses his target. For myself, I think discretion is better than valor in such a case, and you would do well to retreat and let the little genus Mephitis Mephitica infect the air for his own benefit; but Wayland did not know what was coming and tore the paper open and read. Then he flung it from him and stood looking with blazing eyes at the thing on the floor.

"Read it," he said.

The old frontiersman got his glasses laboriously out of the case and began to read. The sun was behind the Holy Cross, and he stood in the door to get the light on the paper. When he had finished and looked round, he saw Wayland sitting crunched forward with his face in his hands.

"Wayland, man," he slapped him twice on the shoulder, "look up, look up at that picture on the wall above y'r bed."

Wayland took his hands from his eyes. The Alpine glow struck through the doorway against the picture on the wall, the picture she had had Calamity bring down surreptitiously and had sent back framed, the picture of the face above the Warrior.

"Man alive, why w'd y' care for the devil's dirt and skunk stench and snake venom, when y' have, when y' have That? She's a—a trump! She's a thoroughbred! Man, y'd know she had th' blood o' Scottish kings and queens in her veins. Y'll no go down to-night, Wayland, when y'r all undone! 'Twould hurt her. A intended tellin' her to-night why A came; but A'll not now! A'll not now! She must not run from this scandal. She must face it down before she goes, but A'll go an' see her father an' come back an' tell y'. Cheer up man! 'Tis part o'the fight."

And for the only time in the struggle, Wayland let go; or rather—his manhood got from under leash. You can be stoical all right when you get the blow. It's another thing to be stoical when the blow hits what you love. When the curtain-drop fell on Moyese, it fell on a man pounding the desk, kicking furniture, eating up the telephone, turning the air blue. It fell on the Ranger sitting crunched in his chair gazing through misty eyes at a picture painted by an artist, who was an idealist. Was he down and out? Was Right the sport of fools?