Her glance fastened more securely on him. "You have never hinted anything like this before, Buck. Did Dad ever know—"
He shook his head, and she thought he was regretting his confession. He went on doggedly. "It's been my hobby, a secret one. I have a great ranch, given to me without much work on my own part. But I have sweated and schemed and worked to establish some sort of underground supervision over Casabella. Those fools—Shander and the rest—don't know that I have their little tricky actions tagged and registered day by day. Frankly, Sherry, I have been content to collect information so far. For while your father lived I always regarded him as the boss of this county. But now, now that things have changed, I am moving into this struggle. I am going to boss Casabella, my dear girl. Before I get through they will jump through my hoop, or get out, or die!"
"Why, Buck, I never dreamed—"
He checked his swift eagerness. "Nor anybody else," he said more quietly. "I only tell you because I think you ought to let me do the fighting for you. I have tried to stand by and wait until this bitter business was gone from your heart. But I think we ought to be honest enough to look straight ahead. Sherry, I think you ought to marry me right away. I'd feel a thousand times easier, knowing that you were where I could keep a better watch on you and more protection around you. I could drive ahead without worry. This is going to be a bad fight."
"Buck, I'm sorry—"
He was darkly displeased, struggling with temper. "So you feel differently?"
A long silence. Her eyes fell away, a light in them slowly withdrawing. "Yes," said she quite softly. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
"Charterhouse?"
"I—I don't know, Buck."
"I do," he grunted. "Better if the man had never seen this country."
She had a swift answer for that. "Buck, you must not turn against him now! You're not a mean man, not small. You'll back him up—you must."
"Take my licking and grin, is that it? Sherry, you don't know me so well if you think it's that easy. I have waited a long time for you. I'd rip this country end to end to keep you. I fight for the things I've won. Let Charter-house show he's fit to have you."
"No, Buck. You don't mean that. You will be his friend. You've got to be."
The anger and the stiffness went out of him suddenly and after a long interval he nodded his blond head. "Yeah, I suppose. Grin and wish him luck. I have never taken a licking in my life but now I've got to take the worst of all. There never was a man who could match my muscle till he came along. He smiled when he did it, and I could have used the gun on him for that. Sherry, I've got my weaknesses. Some you've never seen. Pride, ambition. Here he comes and cuts the ground from under me without lifting his voice. Lord. I never thought any man on earth would do it to me."
"But you'll be his friend, Buck?"
"Yeah," he muttered dryly. "Much as it's possible to be."
She switched the subject. "You've heard about Haggerty?"
His interest flashed up sharply. "What about him?"
She seemed to debate something in her mind. "He—hasn't come back yet."
"That's all?" he demanded, studying her.
"No-o. Clint managed to get into Angels and overheard Haggerty talking with Shander and Studd and Curly. Haggerty's crooked, Buck."
"Crooked? I don't believe it! Well, hold on. It may be so at that. Haggerty's not an open-handed man. Funny streak in him. You're sure about it?"
"Clint heard too much to doubt it."
"That means there may be others about the ranch then," muttered Manners. "You'll have to be careful. Keep your crew on hand all the time. Don't let them go on any wild-goose chases. You weren't planning on any attack, were you?"
She stared at the fire thoughtfully; and committed her first deliberate evasion. "I don't know what Clint's plans are."
"You trust him too much," fretted Manners. "Where is he now?"
"He took a fresh horse—" admitting it reluctantly, "and rode toward Dead Man alone."
Manners rolled a cigarette. Silence came over the broad room; these two people, so long friends, so long without secrets, were slowly drifting apart. A heavy wall of constraint fell between them.
Manners spoke sadly. "See, you don't even trust me as you once did. When it comes to that pass, Sherry, the old times are gone. Yet you ask me to like Charterhouse and support him, even when I doubt his wisdom and know nothing of his past. And there's nothing for me to do but say I will. Whatever happens, any time, any place, you only have to call and I'll come. A sorry ending, after all I'd hoped. Let it be so. I'm riding home."
He strode for the door and was on the verge of passing out before her answer caught and stopped and turned him. "I had not meant to break off our engagement, Buck. Not tonight. I wasn't sure of myself. I couldn't decide. Yet in the past five minutes I know it best. Only—you won't think bad of me because of it, will you?"
"I'd be a putty man if I said it didn't hurt, if I didn't want to fight this thing out and make somebody suffer. But there will never be a time in my life when I don't consider you the sweetest, finest—"
He broke off. She saw him then as she was never to see him again. The lamplight reached out to touch his slim, symmetrical body. The corn-yellow hair was a little disheveled, and his clothes were dusty; but he stood there a man, vital instincts surging in him, eyes flashing, and all his features set in fighting lines. A gentleman of the land, every inch. The door closed and he was in the saddle and the drum of his pony's flying hoofs came rhythmically back, fading into the eastern edge of the world. Sherry's small hands gripped the arms of the chair as she listened, and her cheeks paled perceptibly. In that headlong tempo of a man and beast there was something ominous, something dreadfully disturbing.
CHAPTER XI
In the rolling mists that preceded dawn, Clint Charter-house woke from his short sleep and moved on to the east. Desert cold cut through his clothes, the stars glimmered frostily and the slim silver crescent of the moon began to fade slowly from the sky. Visibility increased by slow degrees as be traveled—still keeping to the arroyos that ran into one another all the way toward Dead Man's Range.
The range itself was a darkling, irregular bulk in the foreground, but Clint paid it scant attention; more immediately interesting was the nearing outline of Fort Carson, a deserted and empty relic of the Indian fighting days. It made a very good tenement for the lawless band troubling Casabella. Clint half suspected Curly's men to be hidden in those small frame buildings that ranked evenly all the way around a rectangular parade ground; yet he rose from the protection of the arroyo and came flanking in toward the fort for a closer view.
This last hour of the night was a time when almost all men slept, no matter what danger confronted them and no matter what devices they might be up to; it was the lax hour, the hour of low ebb in courage and vitality. So he drifted quietly along a lane of poplar trees leading to the parade ground and stopped in the convenient gloom created by one of them.
From his post he looked directly upon the buildings, the offset barns and sheds. To one side were the larger buildings—company barracks, he surmised—in a crumbling state of disrepair; to the other sat those smaller, neater houses meant for officers and their families. Some of these, too,