He led the girl to her mother. “Mrs. Mackenzie, can you stand good news?”
She caught at the gate. “What news? Who is this lady?”
“Her name is Frances.”
“Frances what?”
“Frances Mackenzie. She is your daughter, returned, after all these years, to love and be loved.”
The mother gave a little throat cry, steadied herself, and fell into the arms of her daughter. “Oh, my baby! My baby! Found at last.”
Quietly Bucky slipped away to the stables with the ponies. As quietly Alice disappeared into the house. This was sacred ground, and not even their feet should rest on it just now.
When Bucky returned to the house, he found his sweetheart sitting between her father and mother, each of whom was holding one of her hands. Henderson had retired to clean himself up. Happy tears were coursing down the cheeks of the mother, and Webb found it necessary to blow his nose frequently. He jumped up at sight of the ranger.
“Young man, you're to blame for this. You've found my friend and you've found my daughter. Brought them both back to us on the same day. What do you want? Name it, and it's yours, if I can give it.”
Bucky looked at Frances with a smile in his eyes. He knew very well what he wanted, but he was under bonds not to name it yet.
“I'll set you up in the cattle business, sir. I'll buy you sheep, if you prefer. I'll get you an interest in a mine. Put a name to what you want.”
“I'm no robber. You paid the expenses of my trip. That's all I want right now.”
“It's not all you'll get. Do you think I'm a cheap piker? No, sir. You've got to let me grub-stake you.” Mackenzie thumped a clinched fist down on the table.
“All right, seh. You're the doctor. Give me an interest in that map and I'll prospect the mine this summer, if I can locate it.”
“Good enough, and I'll finance the proposition. You and Dave can take half-shares in the property. In the meantime, are you open to an engagement?”
“Depends what it is,” replied Bucky cautiously.
“My foreman's quit on me. Gone into business for himself. I'm looking for a good man. Will you be my major-domo?”
Bucky's heart leaped. He had been thinking of how he must report almost immediately to HurryUp Millikan, of the rangers. Now, he could resign from that body and stay near his love. Certainly things were coming his way.
“I'd like to try it, seh,” he answered. “I may not make good, but I sure would like to have a chance at it.”
“Make good! Of course you'll make good. You're the best man in Arizona, sir,” cried Webb extravagantly. He wheeled on his new-found daughter. “Don't you think so, Frankie?”
Frances blushed, but answered bravely: “Yes, sir. He makes everything right when he takes hold of it.”
“Good. We're not going to let him get away from us after making us so happy, are we, mother? This young man is going to stay right here. We never had but one son, and we are going to treat him as much like one as we can. Eh, mother?”
“If he will consent, Webb.” She went up to the ranger and kissed his tanned cheek. “You must pardon an old woman whom you've made very happy.”
Again Bucky's laughing blue eyes met the brown ones of his sweetheart.
“Oh, I'll consent, all right, and I reckon, ma'am, it's mighty good of you to treat me so white. I'll sure try to please you.”
Webb thumped him on the back. “Now, you're shouting. We want you to be one of us, young man.”
Once more that happy, wireless message of eyes followed by O'Connor's assent. “That's what I want myself, seh.”
Bucky found a surprise waiting for him at the stables. A heavy hand descended upon his shoulder. He whirled, and looked up into the face of Sheriff Collins.
“You here, Val?” he cried in surprise.
“That's what. Any luck, Bucky?”
They went out and sat down on the big rocks back of the corral. Here each told the other his story, with certain reservations. Collins had just got back from Epitaph, where he had been to get the fragments of paper which told the secret of the buried treasure. He was expecting to set out in the early morning to meet Leroy.
“I'll go with you,” said Bucky immediately.
Val shook his head. “No, I'm to go alone. That's the agreement.”
“Of course if that's the agreement.” Nevertheless, the ranger formed a private intention not to be far from the scene of action.
Chapter 21.
The Wolf Pack
“Good evening, gentlemen. Hope I don't intrude on the festivities.”
Leroy smiled down ironically on the four flushed, startled faces that looked up at him. Suspicion was alive in every rustle of the men's clothes. It breathed from the lowering countenances. It itched at the fingers longing for the trigger. The unending terror of a bandit's life is that no man trusts his fellow. Hence one betrays another for fear of betrayal, or stabs him in the back to avoid it.
The outlaw chief had slipped into the room so silently that the first inkling they had of his presence was that gentle, insulting voice. Now, as he lounged easily before them, leg thrown over the back of a chair and thumbs sagging from his trouser pockets, they looked the picture of schoolboys caught by their master in a conspiracy. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Full of suspicion and bad whisky as they were, his confident contempt still cowed the very men who were planning his destruction. A minute before they had been full of loud threats and boastings; now they could only search each other's faces sullenly for a cue.
“Celebrating Chaves' return from manana land, I reckon. That's the proper ticket. I wonder if we couldn't afford to kill another of Collins' fatted calves.”
Mr. Hardman, not enjoying the derisive raillery, took a hand in the game. “I expect the boys hadn't better touch the sheriff's calves, now you and him are so thick.”
“We're thick, are we?” Leroy's indolent eyes narrowed slightly as they rested on him.
“Ain't you? It sure seemed that way to me when I looked out of that mesquit wash just above Eldorado Springs and seen you and him eating together like brothers and laughing to beat the band. You was so clost to him I couldn't draw a bead on him without risking its hitting you.”
“Spying, eh?”
“If that's the word you want to use, cap. And you were enjoying yourselves proper.”
“Laughing, were we? That must have been when he told me how funny you looked in the 'altogether' shedding false teeth and information about hidden treasure.”
“Told you that, did he?” Mr. Hardman incontinently dropped repartee as a weapon too subtle, and fell back on profanity.
“That's right pat to the minute, cap, what you say about the information he leaks,” put in Neil. “How about that information? I'll be plumb tickled to death to know you're carrying it in you vest pocket.”
“And if I'm not?”
“Then ye are a bigger fool than I had expected sorr, to come back here at all,” said the Irishman truculently.
“I begin to think so myself, Mr. Reilly. Why keep faith with a set of swine like you?”
“Are