for you in the bunkhouse tomorrow. Wash up and come to the main room."
"Not good business for a new hand like me to assume privileges over the crew," observed Charterhouse thoughtfully.
But Nickum, half down the porch, answered gruffly. "It's my pleasure to find guests worth having. I am beholden to you, which is sufficient for me and will be sufficient for all Box M. Allow me to be the judge in my own house."
Alone, Charterhouse surveyed the neat little bedroom with a strange revival of memories long slumbering. The clean plastered walls, the patchwork spread on the bed, the faint smell of lavender brought back a remote childhood. In such a room he once had lived, long, long ago. Here was the peace of family life, here was the impress of some gentle hand reminding him of his own hard, solitary life through all the intervening years. Pouring water into a china basin, he suddenly recalled Sherry Nickum.
Fire had flashed at their meeting; it might flash again. There was nothing flimsy about her. She was old John Nickum's daughter, owning the strong Nickum temper—a girl of the prairie and moulded by its influences. He recalled clearly the picture she made standing in the doorway of blind Bowlus' cabin, slim and stiff, the lazy eyes hot with anger, copper hair shining in the fresh sun.
A bell sounded over the quiet yard. Charterhouse shook the dust out of his coat and passed out to the porch. Men filed around the house with the murmur of their talk sounding peacefully in the dusk. Cigarette tips glittered, the soft wind brushed through the poplar tops. Charterhouse sighed and squared himself at the main door. Nickum waited inside for him and he saw Sherry in a dawn pink dress standing lithe and graceful by a chair; her arms and throat had an ivory beauty and the mass of auburn hair gave her a height and serenity that for the moment utterly destroyed his self-possession. He crossed the threshold and soberly met her glance. Nickum turned.
"Charterhouse—my daughter, Sherry. This is the boy, Sherry, to whom I owe an obligation."
She stepped forward and he felt the pressure of her firm palm in his own calloused fist. A deeper rose dyed her cheeks, the gray and lazy eyes lighted with an inner humor. "I am prepared to forgive—and be forgiven," she murmured. "Welcome to our home, Clint Charterhouse." "Met before?" queried Nickum, puzzled.
"At Bowlus'," said the girl, mouth curling into a smile. "I warned him to get off Box M."
"Nobody can say you ain't had ample warning, Charterhouse," chuckled Nickum. "We will try to be more friendly hereafter. Let's eat."
He went ahead into a small dining room. Sherry walked beside Charterhouse, looking up at him.
"Am I forgiven? You haven't said."
"I would be a presuming man," replied Charterhouse, "if I admitted you needed my forgiveness."
"Spoken gallantly," she said very gaily. "But you didn't feel that way about it this morning."
That made him grin, the fine lines crinkling about his eyes; and the bronzed, thoughtful features lightened tremendously. "I think we both had our Irish up then," he drawled. "You and I seem to have a temper."
"Yes," and she shot a quick look at him, "but I hope we are not going to fight any more."
"Never," said Clint so strongly that her color deepened again. He waited at her chair until she was seated, then went around to his own. A hum of talk came through from the crew's dining room. Heck Seastrom was arguing about something with his characteristic headlong vigor. "I like that chap," went on Clint.
"Seastrom?" grunted Nickum. "Oh, he's all right. Wastes a lot of energy and gets into more jackpots than all the rest of the bunch put together."
"That's why I like him. Used to ride with a partner built just about Seastrom's style. Always got into a lot of horseplay, but when trouble started he was Johnny on the spot. And when trouble finished he was still among those present. A long time ago."
"Now that sounded forlorn and sad," observed Sherry. "Has your life been so checkered?"
He chuckled. "Oh, I'm no tragic figure with a black past. But I sort of felt down when I rode up to your place. It got me to thinking about where I was born and raised and how long it had been since I last slept in a civilized room and ate at a table with a white cloth and silver. I weaned early and have been used to roundup fare ever since. This is a treat. I don't reckon you folks know just how much of a treat it is."
"I can guess," said Sherry. A shadow crossed her clear face. "It is nice to have someone sitting in your chair again. My brother sat there up until a few months ago. He—" very slowly, "was killed from ambush."
Nickum's ruddy cheeks grew tight. "At the same spot they tried to get me. Well, the day will come. No man can survive a hundred chances."
"Dad!"
But Nickum shook his head. "Got to be straight about it, Sherry. If they want me bad enough, they'll get me. I've felt it in my bones a long while. Only one way to beat that gang. Smash 'em before they get out of their tracks."
"That being the case," reflected Clint, "I don't believe I'd hesitate as to choice."
"First sensible opinion anybody's given me for a long time," said Nickum and looked more fully at Clint. "You're right. Buck Manners is wrong. This shilly-shally only gives Shander more time to tighten his lines and spread his poison. Buck's afraid to face the idea of a general war, afraid he won't sleep good at night for having helped bring one on. I'll admit it's hard and a cruel business. But Casabella's always been a hard and cruel county. Lawless, full of cutthroats, full of slippery politicians. I've battled 'em all my life. Now it's either a showdown—their blood or my blood. I don't propose to die, and I don't propose to see Box M pass into other hands. When that happens, Casabella won't be fit for hogs to root in."
"Buck is on your side, don't forget that," Sherry reminded him.
"Sure, sure. But he's trying to spread too much oil, spraddle too many fences. He thinks we can talk a way out of this trouble. If he was thirty years older, he'd know different. Right now Shander and Curly ain't touching his ranch. They want him to feel like everything's all right and that I'm too excitable. But once they get me, Buck Manners won't last half an hour. He don't realize he's playing into their hands that way. Charterhouse, where'd you learn to play Indian, anyhow? You took care of yourself pretty well in the last forty-eight hours."
"Matter of horse sense, I reckon," mused Clint.
"We need more horse sense in this country," growled Nickum. "You took the initiative and did something on your own account, which is more than any of my men would do. They'll follow well but they can't lead worth a damn. I can't be everywhere at once and I can't smell down tracks like I used to. Can't ride as long and as hard, either. You willing to be a lieutenant around here?"
"How about Haggerty?"
Sherry frowned. "I wish he was some place else," she broke in.
"He's a good prod for the men," countered Nickum. "I'd like him better if he controlled his temper. Never mind Haggerty. He will do what I tell him and if he doesn't like taking orders from you—which it will amount to—then he must go. I am offering you plenty of room and responsibility."
"You don't know much about me," reflected Clint.
"I'll stand on my judgment," declared Nickum.
Clint
