"I sure can, Larkin. Ever since I seen Jimmie Welsh and his men fight, I ain't got anythin' against sheepmen."
"Jimmie Welsh!" cried Bud. "Tell me, did any of his party come through alive?"
"Jes' Jimmie himself; the boys couldn't kill him, so he's over at Billy Speaker's mendin' up. Heart's pretty near broke because he hasn't seen yuh to explain why he's still alive."
"Good old Jimmie!" said Bud, the tears leaping to his eyes. "Dearest," he added, turning to Julie, "there's one more stop on our honeymoon, and that's at Billy Speaker's to-morrow."
Bissell continued the conversation, and asked for the full story of how Bud had run down and captured the rustlers, saying that the whole cow country owed him a debt, and if they had only known of the capture in time would have let his sheep through without protest.
"I imagined as much," remarked Bud; "but I didn't care to get them through that way once I had started the other. I hope, Mr. Bissell, that we can be friends, although we have been enemies up to now. I'm sorry I had to sacrifice those cattle of the association, but there was no other way out of it."
"I'll tell yuh this, Larkin," returned Bissell. "Anybody that can beat me at anything is good enough to be my friend fer life, an' I'm here to state that yuh could count my friends of that type, before you came, on the hairs of a hairless dog!"
Bud laughed, they shook hands again, and peace was finally made between them; but not until Beef Bissell had signed away half of the interest in the Bar T to Julie as her dower.
That was a happy and hilarious dinner at the ranch. Some of the cowboys coming in at noon from near-by ranges heard of the marriage and cheered the bride lustily when she appeared on the veranda. Bud made himself solid with the disgruntled punchers by walking out to them and talking over the battle of Welsh's Butte, while he rolled cigarettes and smoked them one after another.
Shortly afterward, Bud and Lester found themselves in a room with Smithy Caldwell. The blackmailer, when he saw Lester, fell down in a faint, so great was the shock to his already wrecked nervous system. The man was really in a terrible condition both from physical fear and the tormenting by his comrades. He started at every slight sound, whirled about fearfully to meet any footfall that sounded near, and trembled with uncontrollable nervous spasms.
To both the Larkins he was a piteous sight, and Bud wondered that the miserable creature had not gone mad.
The wretch fell on his knees and pleaded with them for his life, so that when Bud put the proposition squarely up to him that he forswear everything in regard to the Larkin family, he could not accept it eagerly enough.
"But about the papers that you said were in Chicago?" asked Bud.
"I lied about them," replied Smithy. "They're sewed in the lining of my shirt. Give me your knife and I'll get 'em for you."
"Give me your shirt and I'll find them," countered Bud; and he presently did.
Together the brothers looked them over. Every bit of incriminating evidence was there, and as Bud slipped it all into his pocket he gave a great sigh: "Thank Heaven, that's over!"
He did not let Caldwell off, however, without securing from him the written and signed statement that he wanted. When all was done they let him go, and now his mind was almost as unbalanced by joy as it had formerly been by fear.
Bissell, knowing Caldwell's condition, had agreed to his being released on clearing his account with the Larkins, for he realized that the man, in fearing death, had suffered the penalty a thousand times, and that the memory would remain with him through life, and perhaps help keep him straight.
Shortly after Bud and Lester had joined the others on the veranda again, a sudden scream was heard from the bunk-house, followed by the sounds of a terrible struggle. All hands rushed around to the rear and, with drawn revolvers, forced an entrance among the sullen rustlers.
On the floor in the middle of the room lay Smithy Caldwell, white and contorted, while Mike Stelton was just rising from his prostrate body, making sounds in his throat like a wild animal. Smithy was dead.
"How'd it happen, boys?" asked Bissell.
"This here Caldwell come out an' 'lowed as how he wasn't goin' to swing like the rest of us, an' he began packin' up his truck. Stelton asked him about it, an' when Smithy repeated what he said before and got plumb cocky about it, Mike there smeared him plenty. Then he broke his neck. Smithy betrayed Stelton, yuh know."
There is not much more to tell, except that, three days later, the rustlers paid the penalty of their lawless daring. It was the biggest "hangin' bee" Wyoming had ever seen, and was largely attended by men of all sections who stood for right and justice, if not law and order.
Bud and Julie brought pride and sunlight to a slowly recuperating Jimmie Welsh on their way north, and from him and Billy Speaker heard again the details of the great fight. Now, if you go to Welsh's Butte, you will see a tall white shaft rising amid the tumbling of the wretched hogbacks. On one side are the names of the sheepmen who fell (including Jimmie, who is still alive), and on the other those of the cowmen. It is the humble offering of Bud and Julie Larkin.
Time has proven that Bud's prophecy in regard to sheep was right. Wyoming has far more sheep than cattle now, and one of the biggest of the ranches is the former Bar T, run under the Larkin name, in connection with the home ranch in Montana.
I hope it will not be a shock to some readers to know that the first Bud and Julie have another Bud and Julie, who are over twenty years of age, quite old enough to have romances of their own.
All their lives they have heard the story of the adventures that brought their parents together, but all four rather sadly admit that the Free Range, which Bud fought for so hard, is now almost a thing of the past, that the great drives have passed never to return, and that the cowboy himself is a dim figure against the prairie sunset.
THE END
THAT GIRL MONTANA
BY
MARAH ELLIS RYAN
PROLOGUE.
"That girl the murderer of a man--of Lee Holly! That pretty little girl? Bosh! I don't believe it."
"I did not say she killed him; I said she was suspected. And even though she was cleared, the death of that renegade adds one more to the mysteries of our new West. But I think the mere suspicion that she did it entitles her to a medal, or an ovation of some sort."
The speakers were two men in complete hunting costume. That they were strangers in the Northwest was evidenced by the very lively interest they took in each bit of local color in landscape or native humanity. Of the latter, there was a most picturesque variety. There were the Northern red men in their bright blankets, and women, too, with their beadwork and tanned skins for sale. A good market-place for these was this spot where the Kootenai River is touched by the iron road that drives from the lakes to the Pacific. The road runs along our Northern boundary so close that it is called the "Great Northern," and verily the land it touches is great in its wildness and its beauty.
The two men, with their trophies of elk-horn and beaver paws, with their scarred outfit and a general air of elation gained from a successful "outing," tramped down to the little station after a last lingering view toward far hunting grounds. While waiting for the train bound eastward, they employed their time in dickering with the Indian moccasin-makers, of whom they bought arrows and gaily painted bows of ash, with which to deck the wall of some far-away city home.
While thus engaged, a little fleet of canoes was sighted skimming down the river from that greater wilderness of the North, penetrated at that time only by the prospector, or a chance hunter; for the wealth of gold in those high valleys had not yet been more than hinted at, and the hint had not reached the ears of the world.
Even the Indians were aroused from their lethargy, and watched with keen curiosity the approaching canoes. When from the largest there stepped forth a young girl--a rather remarkable-looking