"Must be one of the boys," he decided. "But who the devil's been straying away off here? If it ain't that—"
Pungent odors told him he was not far behind the preceding rider. Another mile, and he caught a faint sound in the thickening fog. Reaching a high point, he had the wide mouth of Starlight Canyon looming beside him; and at the head of that long sweeping space were the blinking lights of his house. The sound of advance travel was more distinct; in fact, it seemed to approach him rather than follow ahead. Puzzled, he kept a steady pace, not wishing to draw too swiftly upon one of his own riders. In the darkness D Slash men were apt to be ticklish; he had taught them to be so.
The rider seemed to be having trouble with his stray. The lash of a quirt arrived distinctly, followed by a grunt of anger. Brush cracked; quite without warning, cow and rider were dead ahead. A horse whinnied.
"Who's that?" drawled Denver.
"What the hell—!"
A warning chill pricked at Denver's scalp. He announced his name abruptly and pulled off the trail, then called again: "Who are you?"
"THE SKY IS THE LIMIT"
For answer he had the smash of a gunshot and the flicker of muzzle light. The stray cow plunged deeper into the brush. A second shot cracked his ears; and the weaving outline of the unknown man came against him, striking him flank and flank. An arm reached out and slashed at his coat, and for a moment there was nothing but an aimless snarl of two horses bucking free of each other and two men coming to grips. Denver's gun was out; the unknown man pulled free and fired as Denver opened up. The man screamed, and Denver saw his form sprawl out of the saddle and strike ground, horse's feet plunging over him.
Denver jumped down and approached, hearing a mighty suction of breath. After that silence fell; when he lit a match he saw a dead man's face glaring up from the earth.
"Redmain rider," grunted Denver tonelessly. The trail quivered with men racing out from home quarters. He stepped back and waited until they were within hailing distance. Then called, "Hold on, boys."
"What's up?"
"Ran into a snag. One of the wild bunch is on the ground here. Look around the brush. He was driving a beef up the trail, and I overtook him. I want to look at that beef."
They rounded the stray from the underbrush. Somebody closed in and dropped a loop about the brute's neck. Denver went over and lit a match, looking for the brand. When the light went out he was swearing disgustedly at himself. "Why in the devil didn't I take a tumble to that half an hour ago? It's a plant. They've took one of Fee's critters and blotched my mark on it."
"Mighty awkward job," opined one of the men. "Too poor a switch to fool anybody. Who is that fella?"
"Some stranger," said Denver. "Redmain's got a whole bunch of new hands in his string this year. Pick him up and bring him to the house."
"Then what, Dave?"
Denver was racing for quarters, the power of speech lost to him. All that cool control which had carried him like a machine through the encounter was gone. The black devils of his temper clutched at his throat, poured fury through his veins, and made of him a mad conscienceless killer. It stripped him of every last kindly instinct, it tore away his sense of safety, it made the muscles of his body tremble as in a spasm of pain. So he flung himself off his horse and ran up the porch, not the David Denver of normal life, not the responsible ranchman, nor the drawling figure welcomed by men and loved by women. Not any of these now. Tonight the dominant, long repressed instincts rode him unmercifully. Tonight he was Black Dave Denver.
The blurred face of a hand appeared in his pathway. He swept the man aside, he ripped out an order—"Get my saddle on the gray gelding"—and tramped across the living room to where a rack of guns stood. He unbuckled his belt and threw it aside; and from a high peg he took down another belt and another gun. This he hooked around him, lifting the weapon from its seat, throwing out the cylinder and spinning it beneath the flare of those flame flecked violet eyes.
There was a spell in that smoothly whirling metal that checked the restlessness in him. For a long period of time he held the gun in his hand, absorbed by the sinister beauty of it, eyes running the barrel and touching the worn wood that had felt the grip of his father before him as well as his own. It was an instrument of last resort, that gun, and its muzzle had spoken sentence in more than one trial of wills. This night Black Dave Denver meant it to so speak again. With that thought he thumbed in six cartridges, snapped the cylinder home, and dropped the weapon lightly in its seat. Once or twice he lifted and settled it, then turned the belt somewhat farther around. After that he turned for the door. His foreman stood in the way, cautiously yet stubbornly.
"We'll ride too," said Lyle Bonnet.
"You will get out of my road and stay out of it," snapped Denver.
"Well, we'll foller."
"Stay behind."
"Listen, Dave—"
"I told you what to do," said Denver. The foreman dropped his glance and retreated. Denver strode to his horse, spurred up the slope and down the trail he had just used, dipping into the canyon and skirting the melody-making creek. At the road he swung up the grade, gelding bunching beneath him; somewhere beyond the summit of that particular ridge and in the utter darkness of the night he entered a dismal side path and tipped downward. This went west, clinging secretively to the pines and the remote holes. Sweet Creek curved out of the unfathomed mystery, paralleled Denver a mile, and then fell off, declining the upthrust of another ridge that seemed to cast a more impenetrable shadow into the world.
As he rode, going ever deeper into this wild land, he began to collect himself. The first wild burst of passion wore away, the fog of the night cut through and released his overwhelmed critical faculties. Thus in a measure he lost some of that savage desire to trample down and smash whoever was responsible for the attempt to plant a switched brand on him. Not that his desire to settle the matter was in anywise abated; but some of the urgency of that desire fell away. Rather critically he surveyed his course.
All roads led to the Wells, and all this night activity emanated from the mind of one man—Lou Redmain's. Yet it was conceivable that some other outlaw, working under the shadow of Redmain's reputation, might have tried to plant the cow. It was also conceivable that some far greater and hitherto unsuspected authority lay behind the act. Denver had nothing to substantiate the latter belief, but it had been working in his mind since the inception of the vigilantes. Impalpable, without a shadow of fact or incriminating deed, it was but another of those whispering hints running abreast the wind.
"Somebody, disliking me and knowing my temper," he reflected, "might have planted the cow. Figuring that if the vigilantes found it I'd be hooked, or figuring that if I discovered it first I'd make a play right square into Redmain. And that's what I'm about to do."
The factor upsetting this idea was that one of Redmain's men had been with the cow. Yet even Redmain could not count on the utter loyalty of all his followers. Intrigue undermined every faction, honest and dishonest.
Contradictory impressions came from all sides. There was no clear path out of the tangled web; and Denver, understanding this in his more logical state of mind, came to a decision.
"Whoever is behind it, Redmain or another, I reckon I won't be fool enough to bust into a set play. Better to unravel this business before swallowin' bait. That cow is just one small item in some damned sight bigger plan of things."
The trail reached a crest and a blank wall of trees. At right angles to it ran a broader