Snaky."
He grinned. "I'll wait right here till you cross the river. Friends again, ain't we?" And he extended his arm.
She took it, her hand slipping into his greater one and resting there a fleeting instant without pressure. The touch of it disturbed him, and he must have displayed it, for she drew away and turned to her horse. Five minutes later she rested on the opposite bank of the ford, her arm raised to him in salute; then the pony fled over the prairie, and Gillette walked to his own animal.
As for her, all the pent emotions of womanhood broke down the barriers she had so carefully preserved and gathered into one passionate cry. "Oh, if it were only so—if it only were! But it isn't! He doesn't see me that way! And I won't trick him! I hate that! He's got to see it with his own eyes—and he never will! Some dam' woman back East hurt him! I'd like to see her for a minute!"
She raced madly over the swelling earth, her teeth sunk into the nether lip.
After the girl had gone, Gillette swung away from the Nelson road and took the high ground along the ridge. He saw nothing to westward indicating the path of the ambusher. But, within five miles of town he found the dust rising off the main trail to the east and made out three horsemen and a buckboard travelling toward the ford. In town he went directly to the post office for his mail and then to the surveyor's. But before he reached that purveyor of gossip he came face to face with Barron Grist, the P.R.N. agent, and immediately that gentleman drew him aside.
"My proposition," Grist reminded him, "still holds."
"So does my answer," said Gillette. "I like Dakota."
"Man—there's plenty of Dakota left you. I'm offering a top price."
The foreman was so pleasant, so friendly that Tom betrayed himself more than he otherwise would have done. "The price isn't a consideration," he explained. "Grist—there's a Gillette buried on my range. Do you see?"
Grist nodded, thoughtfully impressed. "I admire you for it. Really I do. But here—my company wants that strip of ground. Damnably bad. I'll not mince with you. They want it. Here I stand with an offer. I'll raise the ante a clear three thousand, pay you for the beef on your own count—on your own count, mind—and give you your own estimate on the improvements. You stand to gain from every angle. You're free to prospect Dakota to the four walls. Anyhow, you've got a poor piece of range. The poorest on the south side of the river. I'm only buying you out of a bad bargain."
"Then why should the P.R.N. want it so badly?" questioned Gillette.
Grist smiled—an unimpressive, unrevealing smile. "Say, you can search me. I don't know. I only work for 'em. But they want it."
"Well, just you write and tell the gentleman back East I'm not selling."
"Persuasion and money won't do it, eh?"
Gillette marked the added sharpness. "It won't," he agreed.
"Listen to me," broke in Grist "I've got all the other five sewed up. Taking 'em over right down to the last can of beans. Eapley and Diggerts already gone. Rest going. Your nearest neighbour, Wyatt, will be gone before fall roundup."
"It will leave me the less crowded."
"There's where you are mistaken," said Grist emphatically. "I'm going to throw cows across the stream until the grass roots groan. You understand what that means?"
"I presume you're hinting that you'll overcrowd the range. All right, my boy. But remember, when it comes to starving out beef you'll lose more cows than I—because you've got more to lose."
"And can afford to lose 'em more than you," countered Grist. He had ceased to smile. "Maybe I'll lose ten to your one. All right. When you're out three thousand head you're ruined."
"Now you're talking war," said Gillette, taking a grip on his temper. "Talking war to a Texan. I'll call it. Don't ever think I won't."
"Up to your limit," agreed Grist. "Then you're wiped out. Listen, I like you and I hate to see you buck a corporation. Better take your profit. It's a big one."
"I reckon not."
"Why, damnation, but you're stubborn," muttered Grist, half in anger, half in surprise.
"Do you mean to make it war?" asked Gillette soberly.
Grist studied his man a long while. "It's got to be done," he finally replied. "I'll obey orders. Else I lose my job. There's the cards on the table. Yes, by George, it'll be war. You're foolish. Why force me?"
"I won't. I'll let you fire the first shot. And then, God pity you, Grist. You never have seen Texans fight. It's not a pleasant experience."
"I can muster a hundred men," snapped Grist, face muscles drawing tight.
"Eighty-five more than I've got. I'm repeating—you don't know a Texas crew. I'm sorry for you and your job."
"You needn't be." Grist stood a moment, an uncolourful figure who even at a moment like this could not achieve dignity. "Let it be so," he murmured, and walked away.
Tom watched the resident agent vanish into a saloon. Forgetting about the surveyor, he bought a sack of stuff at the store and started home, following the trail of the buckboard and the horsemen to the ford. Here, he skirted the high ground before going into the water. Once across it the buckboard tracks still kept ahead of him. And when he reached the yard of the Circle G houses he knew he had visitors.
Quagmire rose up from a corral and ambled toward him. Almost furtively he motioned toward the main cabin. "She's in there."
"Who?"
Quagmire stared dreamily at the sky. "Well, if it ain't an angel then my ideas o' heaven sure are scandalous wrong."
Tom ducked through the door, almost at the same time muttering. "Christine—Kit—my Lord!"
She was seated in a chair with her hands folded sedately in her lap and the shadows of the room adding to the soft allure of her face. As always, she seemed to have taken possession of her surroundings, to have put herself at ease. She smiled—that provocative, enigmatic smile that had haunted him for so many, many months on the trail, and her cool, half-humorous words, so gentle and yet so certain, reminded him that he was now what he had always been, an unsuccessful suitor ill at ease in the presence of a reigning beauty.
"Well, Tommy, here I am. And you shall pay for neglecting me so cruelly. No letters, no word. Oh, well, I have swallowed my pride..." A graceful gesture of a hand finished the sentence. How subtly she conveyed meaning with those small movements, how many shades of expression she could weave into the dullest word. He went forward, took the slim hand that stretched up to him. There was the slightest pressure in it; it drew him down. "Tommy, you are the same Western barbarian. But I like you in this setting. Indeed!"
Lispenard, upon fording the river, travelled in a direct line toward the most rugged piece of land within five miles as if making for a place well known to him. But once lost in the weblike tangle of pockets and ridges, he proceeded with an unusual amount of caution; and when the echo of a shot floated faintly over his shoulder from the rear he instinctively ducked. Then he turned about, reached a commanding summit, and dismounted. Flat on the ground he shaded his eyes against the earth's glare and waited.
He had not long to wait. Presently he
