Outside of a fixed determination to compel the restoration of the stolen cattle, Douglass had no specific plans in mind as they rode away in the gray dawn. His actions would be determined by the conditions that would confront him at Gunnison, and he left much to what he deemed his luck, but which in reality was rather his great capability and aptitude in moments of crisis.

Of course, he would incidentally kill Matlock if justifying circumstances permitted, but he was not a killer in cold blood and the provocation would have to be amply sufficient. He resolved to let Matlock make the first hostile demonstration, after which matters were a thing of evolution purely; of the ultimate result he had not the slightest apprehension.

Every fiber of him was tingling with resentment of what he deemed Grace's duplicity; she had begged for his friendship and then had maliciously exposed him to ridicule by showing that foolish poem to Abbie, and the Lord only knew who else besides. She had made of him a laughing stock of the whole community, a butt for the coarse witticisms of his fellows, and the deeply-driven barb in his vanity rankled sore. Of course, he opined, she had only been making a fool of Red, too, but despite the old time-honored saw about misery loving company, he took small comfort in the thought, being rather disposed to harsher judgment of her for so unscrupulously playing upon that ignorant cowpuncher's fatuous credulity. Red knew nothing of fine ladies and their heartless machinations and it was a shame to encourage him in his hopeless folly. No lady would take such cruel advantage of puerile innocence! It is possibly apparent to the reader by this time that Mr. Douglass was somewhat of an egotist, whose personal estimation of himself bulked large in his stock in trade. If it be true that a man's vanity is the real unit of the measure of his possibilities, then Ken Douglass, scaled by the miles of his self-containment, might logically have aspired beyond the stars. Not that he underestimated other men in the slightest; he was quick to recognize and commend courage, fortitude, honesty and skill in his compeers; indeed, he heartily despised anyone in whom these primal qualities were not ingrained; but the ego was first in his cosmos and when a man humbly urges that he is the equal of all other men it may be set down as an axiom that he really thinks himself immeasurably their superior. Now the world always accepts a man at his own valuation in absence of evidence to the contrary, and he had vindicated his position so far as his range work went; he was concededly the best rider, roper, pistol shot and poker player in his circumscribed little world, and had, besides, the enviable reputation of never "falling down" in anything he essayed. In the flush of his present successes he entirely overlooked his previous grievous failures, as is man's wont the world over; the world was his own succulent oyster, and he, himself, the proper blade for its opening. Therefore he arrogantly pitied Red's unsophistication; at which the gods laughed.

As they rode along he made a clean breast of his dilemma. "It will have to be largely a case of bluff," he confided, "and we must make it stick. We have no time for lawing, and if we did, the shysters would get it all. Bart isn't easily buffaloed and will put up a stiff fight. Of course we've got the age on him—those hides are a strong card—but we're not going to have a walk-over. I can't see my way clear just yet, but it will work out as we go along. It sure won't be a picnic, but one thing is certain; we'll either get those cattle or Matlock will have to rustle a new partner."

Red shifted his cud and spat unerringly on the crest of a loco weed in the trail. "D'yuh 'spose we'll meet up with Matlock there? Reckon 'tain't likely though." Through the labored indifference of his speech, Douglass detected a certain restrained hopefulness and his face grew serious.

"I want to talk to you about that, Red. We've got nothing that we can fasten on him securely as yet, and we've got to go slow. Of course, if we get him to rights, or if he makes any bad breaks"—the pause was ominous. "But we don't want to raise any hell that we can't lay again. I'm going to give him all the rope that the game will stand; I think, however, that he has quit."

"Them kind nevah quits," said McVey sententiously, "an' yuh don't want to take any fool chances, Ken. I seen a feller oncet thet was monkeying with a rattler an' ketched 'im by thu tail. He got bit! Thu best way with a pizen reptyle is to blow his damn haid off, 'specially one thet yuh've pulled thu rattles offen."

They both grinned reminiscently at the reference to the Alcazar incident, but Douglass winced at the thought that although he had stopped Matlock's rattling for the time being, he had not neutralized the venom of his silent bite. And it is hard to side-step an unheralded stroke from behind.

"Well," he said unemotionally, "it's his first move."

"Hes last, yuh mean," muttered Red sotto voce, "fer I am to be first if he bats hes eye." But aloud he merely said, "That's what," and took a fresh chew of plug.

Douglass's perplexity as how his coup was to be executed increased with every passing hour. He carefully formulated and as regretfully discarded at least a hundred schemes, each of which appealed less and less to his practical judgment as he critically reviewed them. Never in his experience had he faced anything so intangible as the problem which now confronted him. He was at a loss for a precedent, and what was still worse, was in total ignorance of the laws governing the unique conditions. Not that he cared a rap for the laws so far as they might affect him personally, and he had an inborn contempt for conditions; but he wanted that transfer of the brand to be legally absolute and without recourse, and he did not want to involve Mr. Carter in the slightest degree.

When they eventually reached Gunnison he went straight to the office of the best lawyer in the town, a life-long friend of old Bob Carter, and succinctly and forcibly laid all the facts before him. After listening attentively to his explicit elucidation of the law in the case, and his logical course of procedure in the premises, Douglass shook his head.

"That will take months of lawing and jawing and I want those stolen cattle returned at once. It's got to be settled before I leave town, and I won't consent to involving Carter in any long-drawn-out, expensive litigation. There must be some way of settling it man to man. Will the law protect a bill of sale made out to me or Red, here, if I win it in a card game or force it out of him with a gun? That's what I want to know."

The old practitioner chuckled at this ingenuous imputation of the law's plasticity; his eyes twinkled in anticipation of the laugh he would raise in chambers when he got a chance to spring that joke on his dignified confreres. But his manner was gravity personified as he earnestly assured this exceedingly straightforward young fellow that much to his regret he would have to answer negatively.

"Even if you did get a sufficient and properly-drawn bill of sale out of Coogan by either of the means you suggest, he could come back at you with the 'baby act' and nullify the transfer by pleading no real consideration and invoking the statute which declares gambling debts noncollectible, in the first instance; and in the second, by setting up the plea of unlawful stress and intimidation. In either case you would lose out if he brought action."

"Supposin' he was daid an' couldn't get no action on hisself?" interjected Red, softly.

The old lawyer, frontier-hardened as he was, started nervously. "You surely don't contemplate any such—?"

"Any such what?" Red's face was a study in mild curiosity. "I was only asking yuh a question."

The lawyer moistened his lips tentatively before replying. "That would complicate matters very much—to all parties concerned. I hope, gentlemen—"

"An' if thu bill o' sale was made out to me, an' I was to trade it off to Ken, an' he was to tuhn it inter coin an' cache thu dough, what then?" The drawling voice was a sinister purr and somehow the half-shut eyes took on a feline expression. The lawyer suddenly achieved a new interest in this inquisitive young man; he looked at him from under his grizzled brows with professional appreciation.

"Why, you're a pretty fair shyster, yourself, Red," said Douglass humorously; "that idea didn't occur to me. That could not possibly involve Carter, could it?"

"No. But I trust—." The old man's voice was hesitating and tremulous.

chanted Red, nasally; adding as an after-thought: "Thu C Bar pays cash."

"And it wants to retain you, Mr. Brewster, as counsel in event of my failure to accomplish the restitution of Mr. Carter's property," supplemented Douglass quickly. "You see, I've got to fight the devil with fire. If I lose out you have full authority to thrash it out in your own way. But I play my hand first."

"That's what," said Red laconically. "An' I'll keep cases on thu game."

At the request of Douglass the attorney drew up the correct form of a bill of sale with notorial attest; he refused the fee tendered him, saying: "I am glad to be of service to Bob Carter's boy. And if at any time you need my aid, professional or otherwise, command me without hesitation."

"Ken," said McVey oracularly, as they mounted their horses. "We're goin' to win out. We've seed a honest law-sharp an' our systems hev stood thu shock; an' we ain't been parted from our wealth none. I think thu Lawd took thet way o' breakin' thu news to us, gentle like, thet Fawtune is goin' to smile on us. Betcha we have pie an' ice cream feh suppah."

He was still more optimistic when he came in, an hour or so after supper was over, to where Douglass sat thoughtfully smoking a cigar. His manner was even jubilant as he struck a match and sucked vivaciously at the proffered weed. "Matlock will be in town to-morrow; he was here yiste'day an' him an' Bart has gone out huntin'; so they say; like as not up ter sum lowdown meanness er 'tother; an' they're aixpected back to-morrer evenin'. Luck is suttinly comin' ouah way.

"I thought I'd go projeckin' around a leetle so as to kinda size up thu layout," he explained, "an' get a line on thu fo'thcomin' festivities. So I nacherally draps in to thu Palace an' thu barkeep gits loquacious. Was yuh thinkin' o' drinkin' a sarsaperiller with me?"

Time hanging heavy on their hands, the two cowpunchers strolled up the street in the search of diversion; at the Shoo Fly dance-hall the revelry seemed most promising and they went in to investigate. The usual quota of frowsy, bedraggled women were in evidence, wearily swinging in the eccentric mazes of a putative waltz or plying their blowsy victims with the stuff that had already stolen their souls and later would steal away what besotted senses they still held in precarious possession. It was an old experience to both of them and they looked listlessly about with the disinterestedness of bored familiarity.

Time was when these young men would have entered into the orgies with a certain reckless aplomb; there were a few girls among the throng who had not yet lost all their pristine comeliness, who still retained some few pitiful shreds of the femininity that should have made of them the loving wives and good mothers that Nature's God creatively intended; but to-night none of them looked good to these two not usually over-discriminative animals, intrepidly fresh as they were from pasture.

The whole thing jarred unaccountably upon both of them; Douglass looking disgustedly at the tawdry surroundings, at the flushed faces and professionally displayed charms, felt a great irritation at himself for coming here. Unconsciously he was comparing this sickening meretriciousness with the delightful reserve and dignity of another environment, and he felt the quick shame of a schoolboy detected in his first illicit adventure.

Red grunted telepathically: "Gawd, Ken, this yeah's a punk layout. Let's go out wheah it's clean." They settled their score and were in the act of rising when, McVey touched Douglass on the arm. A woman had just entered by a side door and was looking at them with a strange intentness.

"That's Coogan's woman," said Red, in a low voice; "Stunner, ain't she! Wonder he stands fer her comin' here."

The woman came forward with a curious snake-like quickness and seated herself at the adjoining table. She was a very striking creature, evidently one of the higher class Mexicans occasionally still to be met with on the Colorado frontier. She was not more than twenty-four or five years old, with all the color and voluptuousness of the younger women of her race. Her hair and eyes were of a peculiar blue-black color, her complexion ordinarily very light olive with carmine cheek tints but now exhibiting a pallor that only intensified the gleam in her big eyes. She was neither painted nor powdered, as both men noted approvingly, and was finely gowned in a modest, though expensive style. The only inharmonious thing in her entourage was the blaze of the diamonds with which she was lavishly bedecked.

She ordered brandy, and when it was brought drank it with reckless haste and called for more. Twice was her glass refilled, and the fiery stimulant flushed her face. At the third serving she paid the waiter and shudderingly pushed the glass away with every evidence of disgust.

To Douglass, watching her out of the corner of his eye, for somehow, her manner did not invite the leer customary on such occasions, she turned suddenly:

"You are the SeÑor Douglass of Rancho C Bar?"

Her voice, though very musical and low-pitched, was tensely strained. As it was apparent that her English, though correct, was labored, he answered, hat in hand, in her own tongue:

"A las pies de usted, SeÑorita." (At your feet, Miss.)

She smiled gratefully, as much at his courteous consideration as in her relief at his knowledge of her tongue and its social ethics.

"Bese usted las manos, SeÑor." (My hands for your kisses, Sir.)

Red looked his appreciation of her favor; they were very pretty hands, and while he was not "up" in the flowery etiquette of sunny Spain, he understood its language indifferently well. "Ken's shore thu luckiest devil on yearth!" he muttered under his breath, enviously. It soon developed, however, that his hastily-formed conclusions were at fault. As he in duty bound slowly rose to his feet with a studious, "Well, I must be goin'—see you lateh," she protestingly laid her hand on his arm.

"But no, SeÑor. It is that I wish to have the speech wis you bot'—but not here." She looked around in sudden alarm. "Can you to my room graciously come? I live in the ho-tel." Her manner was pleading and eager.

The eyes of the men met inquiringly. Red unostentatiously flecked a speck of dust from a slight bulge in his coat under the left armpit. Douglass tentatively placed his hand in the side pocket of his reefer. Then as one man they both answered. "Why, certainly, SeÑorita."

"In an hour, then. Come carefully. Numero 9, the one mos' far in the hall. I go first, now." And without further look at them she went out as unobtrusively as she had entered. Red calmly confiscated her rejected glass of brandy.

"Shame to waste good likker, 'specially when it's paid fer. What's yuh ijea, Ken, a plant?"

"Damfino! She's all worked up over something, that's sure. Well, it's all in the game." Then, with an inscrutable and not altogether pleasant flicker in his eyes, "Not a bad looker, eh, Red?"

McVey emptied the glass. "Brandy's hell foh a woman," was his enigmatical reply.

An hour later they gained her apartments unobserved, the hotel corridors being deserted at that hour. She had changed her gown and received them in a charming half-negligÉ of some filmy white stuff that set off her dark beauty ravishingly. Her eyes were out-gleaming her diamonds but her manner was quiet and composed.

They sat down and respectfully awaited her pleasure; but every article in that room could have been accurately catalogued by either man. There was only one door in the room besides the one through which they had entered and that stood partly ajar, revealing beyond a luxuriously furnished bedroom. A large double window gave down on the main street; one-half of it was closely curtained, but the hangings of the other was looped aside, and for a time she stood beside it looking down into the squalid street. Suddenly she drew the curtains close and with a strength hardly to be looked for in that slender wrist, whirled a heavy Morris chair directly before them and seated herself.

For a full minute she regarded them intently through half-closed eyes and then, addressing herself to Douglass, but keeping her eyes for the greater part of the time on McVey, she said slowly in her soft mother tongue:

"Your friend understands Spanish?"

"Sufficiently, SeÑorita," assured Red, "to follow your conversation."

"It is well," she said quietly, "but your address flatters me. I am SeÑora, not SeÑorita." She held out her left hand with a curiously proud gesture; on the third finger was a heavy plain band of dull gold.

"I am desolated—madame," said Red, instantly. Douglass bowed his polite acceptance of the correction.

"Yes," she went on wearily, "I am a married woman, no matter what the world, what you may think. The ceremony was performed by the Jefe Politico of Ameca, my natal town, though not solemnized by the church. There was a witness, but he is dead now. It was Pedro Rodriguez, the man you killed the night he and SeÑor Matlock burned the hay on your rancho."

In the tense silence which followed, the ticking of Douglass's watch was distinctly audible. Red's hand, fumbling with his watch chain, went up swiftly to his armpit; but Douglass, interpreting her even intonation more correctly, never moved a muscle. She smiled reassuringly at McVey:

"Nay, SeÑor. There is nothing to—to regret. He was a dog—and I love you for it." The hand sank to his knee and he flushed slightly.

"I was only a young girl," she went on rapidly, "and he was as big and as fair as his words. My mother was dead, my father engrossed with business cares: he was owner of the 'San Christobal' mine. I met him at night, for my father liked him not and forbade me. It was my first affair, and I thought I loved him." She laughed, a mirthless sibilance that was marvelously like a snake's hissing, her eyes hard and dry.

"I had a brother, an only one, Rafael. He was very dear to me and loved me greatly. He was, of the mine—what do you name it, the one who holds and pays the monies? Ah, mil gracias! the 'treasurer.' He was of the lively the liveliest and played much at the cards. And Don Bartholomew was of his friends the most esteemed. We knew not then that he made his living so: he had come to buy lands, he said, and he had letters, many from great men; they were not written by those whose names they bore as I know now, but we of Mejico know little of such things and trusted him fully.

"Then, one night, mi padre discovered me in his arms and there was much sorrow. I was to the casa confined and to him was said that we should see him no more. But you know our adage: 'No ay cerradura si es de oro la ganzua' (there is no lock but that will open to a golden key), and Pedro Rodriguez, our servidor, was very poor. Like Eve, I listened to the serpent's voice; I was very young."

She covered her face with her hands and again the silence fell; Red licked his lips nervously: "The damned caterpillar!" he ejaculated. She roused at that and her manner changed. She seemed to speak mechanically and her words fell like drops of ice:

"One night he came in great haste and said that we must fly at once; a great trouble had come to him and his life was in peril. I had to marry him, you understand, and I had no other choice. We went to the magistrate—he swore that we would be remarried by a priest of my faith when we reached his land, and so I consented. My father was absent and my brother—Oh! Rafael!" She broke down and sobbed bitterly. Red cursed aloud.

Of a sudden she calmed; her eyes were hot but her voice was cold and emotionless. "Not until yesterday did I know that on that very night he had robbed my brother at cards and treacherously shot him dead when his guilt was discovered. My father, thinking I knew all—God, give me vengeance on this man—died two weeks ago, cursing me with his last breath. I had it from an old acquaintance whom I met here all unexpectedly yesterday morn. They never answered my letters you know, and I dared not return. The child was dead born.

"The life with him has been hell. I had to live, and he was liberal in his brutal way. Long ago I learned from Pedro that he was robbing you, but for that I cared nothing. The men of your race have given me blood and gall to drink, and the thought of your wrongs was bitterly sweet to me; it would have been sweeter had your lives gone with it."

They looked at her entirely without resentment; this was something they could understand. Douglass felt a great sympathy for her, but Red was revolving something in his mind that made his eyes gleam evilly.

"Yesterday I upbraided him with the truth. God knows what I said, for my heart was hot and I think I was mad. He was devil enough to admit all, and taunt me with my helplessness. We are of a passionate blood, we people of the South, and I tried—. Enough! He beat me—me, Dolores Ysobel de Tejada! May his soul writhe in hell until I lave his accursed lips!" Her venomous fury was not shrill and vociferous; instead, it was cold and low-voiced, but Douglass breathed hard and Red clenched his lips, watching it. She sprang impulsively to her feet and tore violently at her bodice. As the thin silk ripped away they saw that arms, neck and breasts were purple.

She came closer, thrusting her shame into their very faces. "See!" she hissed, "the chivalry of the American gringo! Do you Yanquis treat all your women so tenderly, caballeros?"

Douglass's face hardened resentfully. "We are not all Coogans, SeÑora. Be seated, please, and for God's sake, cover up that horror! And now—why do you tell us this?"

"So that you will kill him—for a price."

Red laughed harshly. "By Gawd! Madame Dolores Ysobel de Tajeda—or Coogan, whatever yuah name is, I'd giv' a better price ef yuh was able to tuhn yuhself into a man fer a couple o' minnits. What d'yuh take us fer, greasers?" But Douglass, his own face very white and hard set, asked quietly, with an eager interest in his calm voice:

"And the price, SeÑora?"

"I will give him into your hands," she said coolly, "I have letters, some from Matlock, which he thought destroyed, and two from him to Matlock which were missent and returned here. In his absence, I received and kept them. I have also one from Rodriguez asking me for money and threatening me with exposure if I denied him. They are enough to prove your case and give you justification for killing him."

Douglass rose quietly. "You do me much honor, SeÑora. But I think your acquaintance with American men is, after all, very inconsiderable." And with a stiff inclination he left the room.

She ran after him impulsively but at the threshold of the door she paused. Then she swiftly returned and gently pushed Red down into the seat from which he had arisen. "Wait—a single little moment, SeÑor, I beg of you. I will return immediately." She ran into the bedroom and he heard a swift rustling. In ten minutes she returned, bearing in her hands a packet of letters. She had in some marvelous way succeeded in rerobing herself and was now arrayed in an exquisite tea gown which made Red's eyes light up with admiration. Inwardly exulting at the success of her experiment, she sat down close beside him on the divan and rapidly opened the letters.

At her insistence he took them, though very reluctantly, and perfunctorily scanned their contents. Then he reread them with deliberate care, hesitated for a moment and then thrust them in his breast pocket.

"I reckon I'll keep these for a few days at least; they may come in handy."

"It is your right, SeÑor McVey. And now there is more that you must know. They have sworn the death of yourself and friend: his because he stands between them and their thefts and has brought to black shame the man Matlock; yours because you did slay the jackal of my husband. Do you know that in the hands of the sheriff there is a warrant for the arrest of you both, sworn out by my husband, charging you with murder, and the SeÑor Douglass with being accessory thereto? It is the plan to have you in the weak jail confined—one single night will serve their purpose—and when your friends come the next morning it will be too late. The sheriff is a weakling, as you know—worse, he is as wax in the hands of Bartholomew, who did win from him at cards much treasure that is to the county belonging, though why that should be cause to make him lick my husband's hand I can not understand. Maybe you, a man, do know? And while two unarmed men are striving with those who will do my husband's bidding—even now has he gone to summons them, your coming being known to him through a spy who rode faster than you—yet others will be sent to your rancho to burn and destroy."

McVey stifled a great oath. "You are givin' me straight dope?" His strong hand was crushing her soft arm.

"As Heaven is my witness, SeÑor. I swear it by the memory of my dead!"

"Do you know when thu warrant is ter be served?" The question was curt and imperative.

"At nightfall, as soon as Bartholomew arrives with his fellows."

For a while he deliberated in silence, but into the woman's eyes crept triumph at sight of the grimly compressed lips and wrinkled brow. Then as she watched it was commingled with another expression that boded ill for the honor as well as the fortunes of Big Bart Coogan.

"I reckon I'll say adios, SeÑora," he said finally. "I have things to attend to. When can I see you again?"

Her raven locks brushed his as she bent forward to look at the tiny jeweled chatelaine watch on her bodice.

"It is yet scarcely ten of the clock," she murmured, coyly dropping her eyes. "The night is young."

His veins ran fire. The woman was very beautiful.

Douglass nodded confirmation as Red told him her story five minutes later. "Just got a tip myself from Barton," he observed calmly. Barton was the clerk of the court from which the warrant had issued, and as it happened, was an old college mate of Douglass and his personal friend. He was not in sympathy with the ring of grafters dominating the county offices, and had hastened to Douglass's enlightenment as soon as he learned of his arrival.

"They don't aim to give you a chance to secure bail for at least one night," he said significantly, "and while that may not mean anything in particular, I thought you had better be put 'wise.' And I've taken the liberty of asking Strang to send up three or four fellows from the Lazy K to-morrow. Hope you won't think me officious, old man; I thought it best to be on the safe side." Strang was a particular friend of both men.

Douglass smashed his fist in silent gratitude. "Guess we'll manage to give them a run for their money. Have a cigar?"

"I've got those letters, Ken," said Red casually. "Better read 'em oveh; they shore are interestin' lit'rachure. Thu gettin' of 'em ain't obleegated yuh none, an' mahself hawdly enough ter talk about. Naw, I didn't promise ter cook hes goose," meeting the other's eyes squarely; "I'm engagin' in anotheh kind o' frenzied fee-nawnce' altogetheh. Yuh hunt yuh leetle baid an' gatheh strength fer to-morrer's stren-u-hossity. I'm goin' on night-herd mahself."

Douglass wheeled sharply. "Yuh are not going to—?"

Red fumbled in the pocket of his shirt. "I'm agoin' ter ask yuh ter keep suthin' fer me to-night." Without raising his eyes he laid in Douglass's hand a small parcel wrapped in his best silk handkerchief. "I want ter keep it clean!" he muttered.