McCalmont backed his team to the buckboard, lifted the waggon tongue to the ring of the yoke bar, and jumped to hitch on the traces, just as Buck reined all standing to report.

"There's a strong posse," says Buck, "coming out from the Mule Pass—maybe sixty riders, and they're shorely burning the trail straight for this ranche."

"Were you seen?"

"No, seh!"

"Bowlaigs, Johnny, Steve, yo're mounted, so you'll collect the herd, drive north, and keep wide of the trail! Crazy Hoss, hold this team! Doc, throw my saddle on that sorrel, and lead north; Buck, make the camp search, and follow, closing all signs 'cept the wheel-track! Jim, help the herders! Git a move on!"

McCalmont had got through with the harnessing while he slung his orders; now he went to work smooth and quiet, pulling on his shaps (leather leg-armour) and buckling his spurs while his cool eye searched the yard.

"Buck," he called, "let the water drain out of that hoss trough. That water wouldn't look natural on an empty ranche."

McCalmont brought Curly in his arms, bedded her down in the rig, drew the ground-sheet over to keep off the sun and dust, and passed a lashing across.

After that he locked the door of the cabin, and hung the key on its nail. It was just that thoughtfulness in little plays which made McCalmont loom up great in his business. Two minutes after the first alarm he grabbed the reins, jumped to his seat, and drove off slow from the yard, aiming to show by the tracks that Cocky Brown's old buckboard had not pulled out in a hurry. Buck and Crazy Hoss stayed to brush out a few spare tracks, put up the slip rails and follow. For all one could see at the little ranchita La Soledad, the owner, Cocky Brown, had trailed off for supplies to the city, then a couple of riders had happened along shortly after, and read the notice which was left for "Dere Bill" on the door.

McCalmont just poured his whip into the team as Buck came up abreast.

"All set?" he asked.

"All set, seh."

"Can we get behind them hills befo' we're seen by the posse?"

Buck looked back to the boys who were sweating the herd astern. "Yes," he shouted, "I reckon. You done right smart, seh, to get Curly out 'n that mess."

"You'll be pleased to know, Buck, that my Curly is engaged to be mar'ied to this du Chesnay colt."

Buck's face went white, but he just spurred along saying nothing. A fold of the ground shut out the ranche behind, a hill barred off the country to the left, and, if the posse could see the dust of the flying outfit, they might well mistake that for one of the whirlwinds which curve around the desert wherever the sun burns strong.

"Buck," says McCalmont, "reach back to the skyline, and see if that posse puts out on our trail from the ranche. At dusk I quit this Grave City road, and strike due east. If yo're delayed, jest roll yo' trail right east for Holy Crawss. In the mawning we round up all the stock we can find thar, and pull out for home. You understand?"

"I understand," says Buck, and swung off for the skyline.

The breaking out of evil passions between the cowboys and the Grave City citizens opened my eye to the fact that this city was getting a whole lot obsolete since the mines began to peter out. Its population of twelve thousand assorted criminals had shrunken away to mere survivals living to save the expense of funeral pomps. Counting in tramps, tourists, and quite a few dogs, expected visitors and the dear departed, these ruins claimed a population of one thousand persons, mostly escaped from penitentiary. It made me feel lonesome to think of such a tribe with its mean ways, distorted intellects, and narrow views about me.

On the other hand, there was Bisley, a sure live mining town in the Mule Pass, where the people were youthful, happy, and sympathetic. After that melancholy victory of mine at La Morita I came butting along to Bisley, where I reckoned I could have a glass of lager beer without being shot to any great extent. Besides that, United States Marshal Hawkins lives there, who's always been a white man and a good friend to me. I found his house away up the gulch, above Bisley City, and he being to home, just whirled right in, telling him how sick my heart was, and how my fur was all bristles.

He said he was disgusted with me for getting mixed up with local politics and robbers.

Naturally I explained how I'd only been acting as second in a duel between Balshannon and that Ryan.

He agreed I was modest in the way I put my case, and that I ought to be hanged some in the public interest.

"How about the robbers?" says he.

"Is there robbers about?" says I. "Is thar really now?"

He snapped out news of the La Morita raid that very morning, and I own up I was shocked all to pieces when he told me what had happened to those fragile guards.

"Why, man," says he, "it's all your doing, and I had to wire for the dog-gone cavalry."

"Cavalry?" says I. "Pore things; d'you reckon they'll get sore feet?"

"I opine," says the Marshal, "that you'll get a sore neck soon and sudden, you double-dealing, cattle-stealing, hoss thief. Whar do you think you'll go to when you're lynched?"

So he went on denouncing around until it was time to eat, then asked me to dinner. After that Mrs. Hawkins was plenty abusive, too, close-herding me until supper, when the Marshal came home. Hawkins, thoughtful to keep me out of mischief, made me bed down for the night in his barn; and I made no howl because here at Bisley, close to the boundary, I would get the first news of Jim and Curly. It made me sick to think how helpless I was to find them. In the morning a squadron of cavalry arrived by rail, had coffee in town, and trailed off in their harmless way to patrol the boundary for fear of somebody stealing Mexico. I lay low, but mended a sewing machine which had got the fan-tods, according to Mrs. Hawkins. I treated the poor thing for inflammation of the squeam until it got so dead I couldn't put it together any more. My mind was all set on my lost kids out yonder in the desert, but Mrs. Hawkins grieved for the dead machine, and chased me out of the house.

Just then came the Marshal swift back from Bisley town on a bicycle.

"Say, Chalkeye," he yelled, "I want you to saddle my mare, and get mounted yourself! Pronto!"

When I came out with the horses I found him fondling his shot-gun, so I buckled on my guns, and inquired for the name of my enemy.

"You know Cocky Brown?" he asked, as we rode down street.

"I know he makes a first-rate stranger," says I.

"His dog-gone son is here in Bisley drunk, and lets out that old Cocky is getting rent for La Soledad."

"Who is the locoed tenant—some poor tourist?"

"It's that dog-gone McCalmont and his robbers!"

"And yet, Mr. Hawkins, you laid the blame on me for raiding La Morita! It makes me sick!"

"For raiding La Morita? Why, of course—McCalmont's robbers—the same gang which shot up the 'Sepulchre' crowd at Grave City. That explains everything! Wall, I'm sure sorry, old friend, that I laid the blame on you."

"Mr. Hawkins," says I, "hadn't you better tell the pony-soldiers that they're barking up the wrong tree?"

"I will, and get their help in surprising that dog-gone McCalmont at La Soledad. A good idea."

That was his idea, not mine, and I disown it. Suppose that Jim and Curly were hid up there at La Soledad?

"We can get them or'nary hold-ups," says I indignant, "without being cluttered with a heap of military infants. Why, your half-fledged, moulting cavalry would just get right in our way by tumbling all over theirselves."

In the town we found the citizens surging around for encouraging liquors before they hit the trail. They were all bristling with pocket-flasks and artillery, some on mules, some on sore-back plugs from the livery stable. Besides that there were heroes in sulkies, and dog-traps, and buckboards, warriors on bicycles, and three on a pioneer motor-car, which blew up with a loud explosion in front of the Turkish Divan. Mixed in with that milling herd were seven of my La Morita raiders, howling for robbers' blood, and gassing about the disgracefulness of molesting frontier guards. Then they circled round a tenderfoot on a pinto horse, and told him how the robbers fed red-hot coals to a prisoner.

"Wall, I admire!" says the shorthorn.

"Oh, you needn't believe me," says Lying Ike, "ask Chalkeye here. He's truthful."

"Stranger," says I, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lying Ike. He has an impediment in his truth, but otherwise will survive until he's lynched. Now, seh, the Marshal over yonder says that he yearns for your advice."

That tenderfoot loped off joyful to teach the United States Marshal, while I spoke to my cowboys like a father.

"You moth-eaten bookworms," says I, "your stories is prehistoric, and your lies is relics. Now you want to encourage them pore toorists, 'cause we needs them. Toorists graze out slothful on the trail, they're noisy to warn their prey, and they flit like bats as soon as a robber shoots. Send all the toorists you can to tell good advice to Marshal Hawkins quick. As to the real folks who kin ride and shoot, beguile 'em to feed, lead 'em up against the fire-water, scatter 'em, delay! This Marshal needs our help, you blighted sufferers. Do you want the Marshal to get Jim and pore Curly McCalmont, you idiots?"

So we scattered to help the Marshal, sending him earnest talkers while his fighting-men went off and lost themselves.

Did I act mean? I wonder sometimes whether I done right for Jim, for Curly.

Dog-gone Hawkins was as mad as a wet hen, too hoarse for further comments when, after a couple of hours, he rode off alone to hunt robbers; so we had to follow to save the old man from being shot. I came up abreast as soon as I could, and in a voice all hushed into whispers, he just invoked black saints and little red angels to comfort me on a grid.

I reckon it was four o'clock when our circus, all hot and dusty after a ten-mile ride, charged down upon La Soledad. The place looked so blamed peaceful that the Marshal stared pop-eyed.

"Wall, I'll be dog-goned!" says he, and let us riders traffick around innocent, trampling out all the ground sign. When he saw Cocky's memorandum on the door of the shack he couldn't bear it any longer.

"Chalkeye," says he, "I'll be dog-goned if that ain't—'Gawn with the buckboard for grub.' If that ain't enough to scorch a yaller dawg!"

"And yet," says I, "you blamed us for hanging back!"

"Wall," he groaned, "the drinks is on me this time. Let's go home."

But I knew Jim's handwriting, I knew that he and Curly were with the buckboard, I knew that the brains of McCalmont himself were behind a play like this.

I looked up the Grave City trail, the way to my ranche, the way that the buckboard had gone with my kids.

"You may go home, sir," says I, "but I'm off to my home before you leads me any more astray, corrupting my pure morals."

Dog-gone Hawkins froze me with his eyes. "Ef your soul," he says, "were to stray out on to your dog-goned cheek it would get lost!"

I'm always getting misunderstood like that by people who ought to know better. You see, I had to shock old Hawkins, or he would notice at once that I aimed to follow the buckboard.

"Cyclists," says I, "dawg-traps, sulkies, buggies, waggons, sore-back horses, mules, tenderfoot—look at yo' circus and say if that ain't enough to corrupt a long-horn's mortals. Hello, look at that!"

A man was coming down from the north, lickety-split on a roan with a rangy stride. He wore sombrero, shirt, shaps with streaming fringes, a brace of guns to his belt. He rode with a cowboy swing to his broad shoulders, and his face was black with rage as he pulled up facing our crowd—guns drawn for war.

"Boys," he shouted, "whar's yo' sheriff?"

I followed Hawkins as he rode up to confront the stranger.

"I'm United States Marshal Hawkins. What's your dog-goned business that needs drawn guns?"

"I'm Buck Hennesy, segundo to the Robbers' Roost gang of outlaws, and my guns are to shoot if I see you flirt that smoothbore."

"Your business?"

"State's evidence—take it or leave it!"

"And who's your dog-goned evidence against?"

"Against Captain McCalmont, Curly his—his son, and six others, robbers, and that polecat Jim du Chesnay, of Holy Crawss."

"Wall, throw down your dog-goned guns, throw up your dog-goned hands, and say 'Sir' when you dare to address an honest man. Now you get off'n that horse!"

"Dog-goned Hawkins," says the robber, "I ain't no prisoner, I ain't yo' meat, I don't propose to hole up in yo' flea-trap calaboose, and I quit this hawss when I'm daid. Take my talk for State's evidence, or go without!"

"Chalkeye," says the Marshal aside, "is he covered?"

"Say the word, and I drop him."

"All right. Now, Hennesy, at the first break you die. You may talk."

"McCalmont's outfit," says Buck, "is breaking for Holy Crawss. To-morrow mawning they round up cattle, and then they drive right home to Robbers' Roost."

"You're going to guide us, Mr. dog-goned Robber, or get plugged as full of holes as a dog-goned sieve."

"Guide you?" says Buck, and spat at him. "Guide you? I wouldn't be seen daid with yo' tin-horn crowd of measly, bedridden toorists. I cayn't insult you worse than saying that yo' mother was a sport, yo' father hung, and their offspring a skunk. Now all you deck of cowards——"

He let drive with both his guns, but I shot first, and only just in time. One bullet grazed my ear, the other killed a horse; but my shot had done its work and spoiled his aim. His eyes rolled up white, his face went dead, he sat there a corpse in the saddle for maybe a minute, until I yelled, and the horse shied, and the body lurched forward, crashing to the ground, splashing a cloud of dust which was red with the sunset.