Gillette dropped the cigarette. Fine lines sprang along his face—a rugged face and handsome in a purely masculine fashion. There was a flash down in the deep wells of his eyes. And it took just such a shrewd observer as Christine Ballard to detect how he held back the upthrust of feeling; held it back so rigidly that his words were dry, almost bleak.
"He told me always to remember that a man's word was a piece of the man himself and never to betray it."
Of a sudden she rose. "I'm tired, Tommy. Do I sleep in front of the fire or up in the attic?"
"Doctor's already put your possibles in my room." He went over and opened the bedroom door. Passing through, she turned and hesitated. The perfume of her clothing clung to his nostrils, and for one long moment he was carried back to the days of his schooling. Her arm fell against his shoulder. He kissed her; and then as the door closed, her tinkling, elusive laugh escaped through. "Au 'voir, Tommy. Are you quite sure you've buried all the old bones?"
It was not for some time that he realized why she had brought up his father's remark about the word of a man. His fist struck the table resoundingly. "By God, I will not be stripped for torture again!"
The cabin became too small to hold Kit Ballard and himself at the same time; he passed out, glancing up to the full, lemon- silver surface of the moon. The bunkhouse light cut a clear path across the river. Quagmire stepped athwart that pathway, advancing.
"Hey, Tom. Yo' been ridin' to'rds that black butte to-day or yestidy?"
"No. Why?"
"Tracks," answered Quagmire succinctly. The tip of his cigarette made a crimson trail in the darkness. "Somebody's been havin' a look at our stuff. Question is, what for do they want to look?"
"There's a fight coming up, Quagmire. We'll be one man against ten."
Quagmire digested the remark. "Man is mortal. An' numbers don't mean nothin'. What yo' aimin' to do about it?"
"Why, I told Grist I wasn't selling out," said Tom. "Starting to-morrow we'll keep a man hidden on top of that butte. Just to see what he can see. No use in being played for a sucker."
"It was my idear, likewise," murmured Quagmire. "Then, of course, it might've been the tracks o' yo' friend."
"Blondy? Yes, it might. He circles the country quite a bit. I'd better ask him."
But Quagmire only brought up the supposition to introduce a new fact. "It mighta been him, but it wasn't Last three days runnin' he's travelled across the river." And after another long silence, he added an entirely unrelated and cryptic thought. "I hate a talebearer."
Tom divined that Quagmire possessed information he wished to divulge and that it troubled both his habit of secrecy and his sense of loyalty. He could have made it no plainer he stood willing to speak if pressed. Gillette watched a cloud sail across the face of the moon. "Well, Quagmire when the clothes are all washed the dirt will come up. Let it ride like that."
"Yeah," grunted Quagmire and turned toward the bunkhouse. Tom followed. Lispenard, he noted, already had rolled in.
Exercising her prerogative, Christine Ballard slept through breakfast. Gillette, having business over on a corner of his range, carefully instructed the cook to keep a hot meal simmering until she rose. On his way out he met Lispenard. "Tell Kit I'll be back within two or three hours and we'll go for a trip round the place."
"Good enough," agreed the man. He seemed extraordinarily quiet, on the borderland of one of his fits of sullen humour. Tom grinned. "What's the itch, Blondy? Dees she remind you of the fleshpots you have left behind?"
"Oh, go to the devil," grunted Lispenard. He was about to add that he was infernally sick of his former comrade's tolerant amusement, but he checked this churlishness and scowled at Gillette's back until the latter was out of sight. Turning into the main cabin he settled himself by the table, his heavy, bulging eyes staring at nothing in particular. When Christine came from her room he appeared to be unaware of her presence until she spoke.
"Claudie, why the sulks?"
He raised himself from the chair—a trace of politeness that remained from his former training—and fell quickly back. "It bores me," said he, in all frankness. "Bores me to extinction."
The cook arrived with the girl's belated breakfast, rolling his eyes at Lispenard as he retreated. "The king has been gracious enough to command me to inform you," grunted Lispenard, "that he would be back in a couple of hours and take you for a ride."
"How very nice of him—how unpleasant of you. Claude, you don't display your talents in such a temper. Why do you call him that?"
"I mean it quite literally, Kit. Don't for a moment doubt his power over this ranch and the yokels on it. It's a blessed feudal estate. He is the law. Oh, quite so! Quaint Western manner. He drives 'em like a pack of dogs. Why they stand it I don't understand. Observe, when you ride with him, how he'll stop on a ridge and look over the country. A king could do it no better. As much as to say, 'This is mine. I command.'"
She made a wry face at the coffee and observed the heavy slabs of bacon with evident resignation. "I must be a Spartan," she murmured, and then smiled at the man. "Well, Claudie, why not the grand manner if it is all his own?"
"Rot! It irks me. I detest self-sufficiency. They shout about equality out here—every man as good as another. More tosh. I've been an alien every blessed minute—made to feel like one. They dislike me as much as I dislike them."
She moved her hand slightly. "Do you know something about yourself, Claudie? You played the conquering hero once, and now you hate to see another go above you."
"Above me!" cried Lispenard. "Don't be ridiculous."
She put down her coffee cup and turned toward him, serious. "Let me tell you. Tom Gillette has grown head and shoulders above you. Unpleasant, isn't it, my dear boy? Then you shouldn't be discourteous to a woman before breakfast."
"So you come to be another herald at his court?" He rose. "What did you come here for, anyway?"
"I answer no direct questions before ten o'clock," said she, gay again.
"Work fast," he muttered, grimly amused, "or you'll lose him."
"Claude!"
"Oh, don't assume your airs with me, my dear Kit. I know you quite well. Much better, in fact, than friend Tom knows you."
Colour stained her cheeks. "Once that manner became you. It doesn't now."
He brushed it aside, bold eyes looking down at her. "In fact, you are much like I am. So much so that I can tell you what's below those fine gestures and that charming smile."
She bit her lip, anger glowing in her eyes. "You deserve to be whipped, Claude!"
He laughed at her; a high, mirthless laugh that rang against the poles and died. "Let anyone hereabouts try it. I'd welcome the exercise. Well, my dear Kit, wish me luck. I'm going to rid you of my unwelcome presence before the week is out. Fact. I imagine you'll feel easier to have me gone."
"Going back East to cadge off your friends again, Claudie?"
"Quite a cruel thrust. I said we were much alike, didn't I? No, I'm not going East. They'll never see me again back there. I'm going—God knows where." The fresh sun flamed through the window and struck his long yellow hair. The girl had a full view of his profile—its hard jaw bones, its over-heavy outline of eyes and forehead. He disappeared without a backward glance, and she heard him ride away.
"If I were a man," she murmured to herself, "I'd give him a fine whipping."
But all marks of anger were erased by the time Gillette returned. She had got into a riding habit, and when she trailed across the yard to the horse that was to be hers she was quite gay and beautiful. Together they cantered east, rising and falling with the swell of the earth; the sun was a blood disk beneath the threat of which the land quivered. The river, sucked into