End Of the Drive

INVESTIGATION

By a vote of six to four, the Cattleman's Association voted to appoint Byrn Sonntag as range detective to investigate and deal with rustling activities. Abraham Mclnnis, popular cattleman of the Spur Ranch, was unable to be present. There has been considerable wonder about how the vote would have gone had Mclnnis not been confined to his bed due to the mysterious shooting in the canyon below Rimrock. Mclnnis, seriously wounded in a yet unexplained shooting, is believed by many of his friends to be opposed to any such action as the hiring of a notorious gunman.

Dan Taggart, foreman of the Spur, voted for Sonntag in Mclnnis's place. Had he voted against Sonntag the question would have been dropped for the time being.

"Looks kind of bad," Taggart admitted. "I wished that girl had spoke up before I voted. Minute she said that, I began seein' pictures in my head of all them brands."

"Yeah," Nick agreed. "Know how you feel."

"Well," Taggart said. "P Slash L's in the clear on that, even if Logan did vote for Sonntag. No brand in the valley can be made into a P Slash L."

"That's right," Nick James glanced off across the prairie. "It's too right."

Taggart looked up, scowling. "Huh? What did you say?"

"Dan," Nick said, "we lost some cows about a month ago. Maybe twenty head. I'd been workin' back in Sage Canyon up until the day before, then Pierce told me to start breakin' a couple of broncs we got."

"What about it?"

"Those broncs could have been broke any time, Dan."

Dan Taggart got into the saddle and watched Nick James riding away. The more he thought about it, the surer he was that his vote had been a bad thing. He wished that Mclnnis was conscious so he could talk to him. He was worried, and had no idea what course was best.

Clouds were bunching up over the Highbinders to the north. He dug his slicker out of his saddlebags and rode on with it lying conveniently across the saddle in front of him.

It was already pouring rain when Finn Mahone rode into Laird. On a hunch, he had returned to Crystal Valley and thrown a hackamore on the old steel-dust gelding and brought it with him down into town. If push came to shove in the trouble with Texas Dowd the steel-dust might, just might, get him a fair hearing. In the past his pride had kept him from asking for understanding from the man who once had been his friend. But the situation was now different. He had just saved Dowd's life, and they were both older and wiser. Heavy clouds loomed over the town and rain was falling in sheets. Not knowing what sort of reception he could expect, he avoided the livery stable and rode down a back street until he came to Doc Finerty's. He led the stallion and gelding inside the doctor's barn, rubbed them dry, and got feed from the bin.

Splashing through the gathering pools of rain, he-went to the back door of Lettie's place. Turning the knob, it gave under his hand and he stepped within, loosening the buttons on his slicker to have his guns available. He was standing there, dripping water in the light that reflected from over the stairway, when Lettie came into the hall.

"Finn!" she exclaimed. "Oh, it's good to see you."

She was a small woman, beautifully shaped, and Finn was always surprised to find her in such a business. She wore beautiful but conservative clothing, and always looked smart and attractive. He knew enough of her story to admire her for her determination and her fine independence of spirit. Nor could he blame her for choosing this business, for when left a widow there had been only the choice between running a gambling house or slowly falling into a pauper's life. She had not hesitated to make her decision, heedless of her reputation.

One of those unaccountable movements that swept the tide of drifting mankind into some of the farthest and most unusual backwaters had brought her to Laird.

"It's good to see you again, too, Lettie." He nodded toward the parlor. "Who's in?"

"Nobody, right now. I guess the rain's keeping them home. Finn, what's been happening? I hear Sonntag is gunning for you."

Mahone shrugged. "I haven't seen him. He in town?"

"No, but Ringer Cobb is. Be careful."

"Sure. Is Otis around?"

"No, he isn't. He's wanting to see you, though. He's been acting very strange. Stopped drinking all of a sudden, and seems to have something on his mind. You'd better see him."

"I will. Right now I want to look up Judge Collins." Lightning flashed almost without cessation, and the rain had risen to a thundering roar. "Hombre tried to kill Tex today," he told her. "Slim, wiry, dark fellow."

"Mexie Roberts. He comes and goes, Finn, always by himself."

"Know why he would want to kill Dowd?"

"For money. Roberts never killed anybody unless he got paid. If he tried to kill Texas, somebody was paying him."

Mahone looked down at her. "Who d'you think, Let-tie?"

She hesitated, then she looked up quickly. He could see doubt and worry in her eyes. "I don't know, Finn. I would be wrong if I said Sonntag or Salter ... it feels like someone is playing with everyone like they were puppets!"

"I agree, but that doesn't help me know who it is. Well, I'm going over to see Collins. Armstrong, too."

"Be careful of Cobb!" she warned.

He went out the front door, gathering his slicker about him but not fastening the buttons. At this time of night, Judge Collins might be in the Longhorn, as there was no light at Doc's. Or the judge might be at Ma Boyle's for coffee. At the thought of coffee, Finn suddenly realized he was hungry.

He slopped down the street in the pelting rain, and went on past the lights of the Longhorn. There was loud talk from within, and he hesitated while rain ran down his slicker and dribbled off on the walk. Otis might be in there. Collins, too. On the other hand, Ringer Cobb was almost sure to be. For an instant longer he hesitated, half in mind to go in and end it right then. But when he saw Ringer, if it ended in a fight he might have to get out of town, and he had things he needed to do. He* went on down the street.

There was a light burning at The Branding Iron. He hesitated, then pushed open the door and walked in. When he had the door closed, he looked around. "Hey, Dean?"

There was no answer. "Dean!" he called again, louder. When there was still no answer, he walked around the high counter toward the trays of type and the desk.

Dean Anderson was lying facedown on the floor, his head bloody. Quickly, Finn bent over him. He was alive. Hurrying to the back door he filled a wash pan from the water bucket, grabbed up the towel that Dean kept hanging there, and hurried back.

Lifting him, he cradled Dean's head on his arm while he put the cold towel on his head. Gently, he sponged away the blood. It was a cut, a very nasty cut.

There was another, higher and in his hair. He sponged that off, too, and then Armstrong began to stir and mutter. "Hold still!" Finn commanded.

When Armstrong's eyes opened, they stared about in confusion. At this moment, without his dignity, he looked strangely young. Then he looked up and saw Mahone.

"Finn!" he said. "Man, I'm glad to see you!"

"What happened?" Mahone demanded.

"Cobb pistol-whipped me. Came in here about six, just after the rain started. Started in half joking about what I'd said in the paper, then he hit me over the eye with a pistol barrel."

"You mean that item about Sonntag?"

Dean shook his head, then gasped and caught it with both hands. "No, the piece I had in today. I put out an extra edition." He looked up. "It's on the table there."

APPOINTMENT OF SONNTAG A MISTAKE The appointment of Byrn Sonntag, notorious gunman, to investigate the cattle rustling was a mistake. If the election was to be held again tomorrow, the result would be against him. Since arriving in the Laird Valley country, Sonntag has killed at least three men, and his associates at Rawhide can scarcely be classed as good citizens. There are those on the range who declare it is more than a coincidence that certain brands belonging to Rawhide ranchers are very easily developed from brands already on this range. If Byrn Sonntag is to investigate rustling, it might be a good idea to begin in his own home town.

Finn Mahone looked up, grinning. "Dean," he said, "it took guts to write that, but if I were you, I'd start packing a gun. Your paper gets around. Whoever is behind all this doesn't have a chance of making it work if the news gets outside of Laird Valley."

"That's what I thought, and that's what I wrote!" Dean said firmly. He crawled to his feet and clutched the desk for support. "What good is a newspaper unless it tells the truth and fights for the rights of the people?"

Mahone shrugged. "A lot of them should ask that question of themselves," he said dryly. "I'd better get Doc for you," he said. "You'll need some stitches in that head!"

"He's at Ma Boyle's," Dean said. "Or was starting for there just before Cobb showed up."

"What are you going to do now?" Mahone asked, curiously.

"Do?" Dean demanded. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do! I'm going to print what just happened, call it the cowardly attack it was, and tell who did it and why!"

"Then you'd better pack a gun," Finn advised. "This business is turning bad and I don't like it. I've already killed one man today."

"You have?" Armstrong stared at him. "Who?"

"Fellow named Roberts. He tried to dry-gulch Texas Dowd."

Finn pulled his slicker around him and walked outside. Rain was still pouring down, and the street was dark and empty. The blare of music came from the Long-* horn, and he heard shouts there, and once a yell. It sounded like Ringer Cobb.

He pushed open the door and stepped into Mother Boyle's in a gust of wind and water. When he had the door closed, he turned his back to it and stood there, looking at the room, a big, somber figure with his rain-soaked hat, his dark slicker, and his green eyes taking the room in with one measuring glance.

Ma Boyle was standing beside Doc Finerty with a pot of coffee, and Judge Collins had turned as he entered. Nick James was there, the first time Mahone had seen him since the day of the fight. James looked up, quickly and with interest. He had one of those young-old faces, merry and friendly at times, then grave and serious. He was scarcely more than a boy, but had been doing a man's work since he was eleven.

"Doc," Finn said, "better go have a look at Armstrong. Cobb pistol-whipped him."

"I was afraid of that!" Doc said. He got up and reached for his slicker. "Keep some coffee on, Ma!"

Finn sat down at the end of the table, between James and Collins. Collins was concerned. "When Sonntag came in, I knew trouble was coming!"

Finn had hung his slicker and hat near the stove. He dished up some food and poured the coffee. Briefly, and quickly, he outlined the trouble at the Lazy K, and the outcome.

"Roberts is a paid killer." Judge Collins was puzzled. "Doesn't seem like Sonntag would hire any killing done."

"He wouldn't," Mahone said, speaking past half a slice of bread and butter. "Not him."

Nick James stirred his coffee and looked from one to the other. "You ever think maybe something else was behind this?"

Judge Collins turned his head and looked at Nick. This man was shrewd, the Judge knew. James had ridden for him, and for Mclnnis. He was one of the best hands in the valley. "What are you thinking, Nick?"

The young puncher shrugged, and gulped a swallow of coffee. "Ain't made up my mind. Some things sure look funny, though."

Finn Mahone put his coffee down carefully. Suddenly he was remembering the tall, powerfully built man who was standing behind Remy that day he fought Leibman. "Any rustlin' out your way?" he asked, casually.

Nick nodded. "A little, here and there. Never when anybody's around." He stirred his coffee again. "I think I'll quit," he said suddenly.

"You can always have a job with me," Collins said. "You were the best hand I had, Nick."

"Or with me," Mahone suggested, looking up.

Their eyes met across the table. "Didn't know you hired any hands," Nick said. "Heard you played it alone."

"I have, but I've got some work ahead and could use help. I'd want a hand that would sling a gun if he had to ... but not unless he had to."

"I'll get my stuff tomorrow," James agreed. His face tightened. "An' collect my time." Then he glanced at Mahone again. "How do I get there? They tell me a man can't go through the Notch unless he knows the, way."

"That's right, and don't try it alone. You get your gear, an' if I don't see you, go up and camp in the Notch. There's good water, and plenty of grass. I'll be along."

The door slammed open then, and wind and rain swept into the room. The newcomer struggled to get the door closed, then turned. It was Ringer Cobb.

Finn knew at once the man had been drinking and was in a killing mood. He was not the type who staggered and floundered when drunk. Liquor brought out all the innate cruelty in the man, and if anything, steadied him and made him colder.

His eyes fastened on Mahone's and a light danced in them, an ugly, dangerous light. "You're Finn Mahone," he said, standing just inside the door, his slicker hanging around him, his hands dangling.

Nick James pushed back gently, out of the way. Finn lifted the coffeepot and calmly filled his cup. "That's right," Mahone replied. "An' you're Ringer Cobb. You're the man who walked into the newspaper office and slapped a defenseless man with a Colt. Makes you a pretty bad boy, doesn't it?" Cobb glared at Mahone, his teeth half bared. "What's the matter?" Mahone said. "Don't you like the sound of the truth?"

"You should be ashamed!" Ma Boyle glared at Cobb.

"I've heard about you." Cobb took a step nearer and tried to change the subject back to the one he had in mind. "Heard you're pretty fast with a gun. That right?"

"I do all right." Finn lifted the cup and sipped a little coffee. "Better sit down and have a cup of coffee. Do you good."

"Huh?" Ringer was puzzled. Then his eyes sharpened. "Scared, huh? Think yuh can talk me out of it."

"No," Mahone replied, and his voice hardened, "I'm just trying to talk you out of Boot Hill, because if you reach for that gun ... I'll kill you!"

Ringer Cobb took a long breath through his nose, and his fingers widened. Finn sat perfectly still, just looking at him, and Cobb's eyes wavered. He looked at Finn, and started to speak, but Mahone seemed to have lost interest, and he remarked to Collins, "Hand me that cup, Judge, and I'll pour this man some coffee." He looked over at Cobb. "If you're not going to shoot me you might as well have some coffee."

He took the cup and filled it. "Better have some of that cake Ma bakes, too, Ringer. She's plenty good."

Ringer Cobb swayed a little, staring around uncertainly. Then he slumped on the bench, and he was trembling with tension. He took the cup, and started to lift it, but some of the coffee slopped over.

Mahone turned back to Nick. "My place is some of the best range in the world," he said, "most of it sub irrigated by water off the Highbinders. Not much erosion in there, an' I don't run enough cattle to keep it fed down. I don't aim to get rich, just to make enough to get along pretty well."

"Sounds all right," Nick said.

None of them seemed to notice Cobb. Several times he started to say something, but Finn Mahone continued to talk, calmly, easily.

Suddenly, Ringer got up, jerking to his feet so hard he tipped over his almost empty cup. Then he wheeled and rammed through the door and was gone. Finn reached across the table and straightened the fallen cup.

Judge Collins looked at Nick James, and James mopped the sweat from his brow. "You backed him down!" Nick said. "Just out nerved him!"

"Better than a shootin', don't you think?"

"Awful close to a shooting, Finn," the judge said. "Awful close."

Finn filled a cup, took the cake, and, holding both under his slicker, went out the door and headed for the print shop.

Nick James looked at Collins. "Judge," he said, "how could anybody ever figger him for a rustler?" Then his eyes widened a little. "Suppose he an' Sonntag ... ?"

"Don't get anxious, son," the judge said. "I'm sure Finn's good, but you don't want to be out of a job, right?. If those two fight, very likely both of them will die!"

Dan Taggart was a slow-thinking man. He sat in the bunkhouse on the Spur and smoked his pipe. The other hands had turned in, but Dan sat there, all through the pounding rain. On his return he had gone in to see Abe, but Mclnnis was still unconscious, although better. Mrs. Mclnnis had her sister with her now. Her sister was Mrs. Harran, wife of the storekeeper.

Unable to ask the advice of his boss, the foreman had gone back to the bunkhouse and stayed there except for a few minutes to eat. He was vastly disturbed, afraid he had done wrong, and wanting desperately to repair the damage he had done.

That the fault was not his alone he did not see. Brewster had voted as he had, and so had Logan. When Logan's name came into his mind he remembered Nick's peculiar attitude. What was it Nick said? That they had lost some cows after he had been ordered out of Sage Canyon? That didn't make sense. Would Logan have his own cows rustled? Taggart stirred uneasily, afraid he was out of his depth, but worried and uncertain of what to do.

He glanced around at the sleeping hands, but there was none of them he could turn to, nor who would have been able to give the advice he wanted. Taggart felt the need of advice from a superior, of leadership. His job as foreman was still too new. Only one thing he knew: The voting-in of Sonntag as range detective had been a bad thing. It had put the rustlers in the saddle.

He got up and pulled off his shirt, his pipe still in his mouth. Then he stood for a moment, scratching his stomach. He would ride over to Kastelle's in the morning. Abe Mclnnis set powerful store by Texas Dowd's opinion, and that of Remy Kastelle.

Pierce Logan was sitting at his desk in a bright, rain-washed world when the door opened and Byrn Sonntag walked in.

He had seen the man fifty times, talked with him nearly as many, and yet the man always did something to him, something he didn't like. There was something in Sonntag's very physical presence, his enormous vitality, the brash, raw health of him, and his deep, somewhat overpowering voice that made Logan feel less than he liked to feel.

Sonntag was in rare form this morning. He stamped into the office and threw his big body into a chair. He tossed his hat to the wide, low windowsill, and stared across at Logan.

He was a big man, weighing all of two hundred and forty pounds, with a leonine head covered with thick, dull red hair. His sleeves were rolled up, and red hair curled on his brawny and powerful forearms.

"Heard the news?" he demanded. His voice was harsh and rang with authority.

Logan looked at him carefully. "What news?"

"Roberts is dead. Somebody killed him when he tried to git Dowd. It wasn't Dowd. Range folks figger it was Finn Mahone. Dowd ain't talkin'. Mahone must've spotted Roberts an' trailed him down. Anyway, he 'got two slugs through the heart."

Logan scowled. He had been depending on Roberts to do another job for him, too. A job on a man much closer, and eventually more dangerous than Texas Dowd.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, Cobb went over to that paper an' pistol-whipped Armstrong last night. That was my order. Then , he went into the eatin' house, an' Mahone was there."

"Mahone? In town?" Pierce Logan was incredulous. "Where were you?"

"I was busy. I can't be everywhere!" Sonntag growled. "Anyway, Ringer wanted him, an' he went after him."

"Yes?" Logan leaned forward, eagerly.

"An' nothin' happened. Mahone made a fool out of him. Bluffed him out of it. Told him to set down an' have some coffee, an' if he drew a gun he'd kill him. Ringer sat down an' drank the coffee!"

"The devil!" Logan got up angrily. "Only two men blocking this thing and your men muff both of them! I tell you, Sonntag, those men have to be out of this!"

"Don't get riled up," Sonntag replied deliberately. "We'll take care of them. Anyway," he added, "it's all in the open now, anyway. That girl of Kastelle's spilled the whole thing. Started people thinkin'. I knowed it was too plain you could fool 'em only so long as they didn't know there was any rustlin' goin' on."

"Get Dowd and Mahone out of the picture, and I don't care how wild you go," Logan said. "I mean that. You can run off every cow on the range!"

Sonntag sat up and his eyes gleamed suddenly. "Say! That's all right! The boys would like that!" He looked up at Logan who was pacing the floor. "By the way, Mahone was over to Rico. He promised Ed Wheeling a shipment of cattle."

"Good! That's the only good news you've given me! Get some altered brands among them, I don't care whose or how. Nobody will see them over here, anyway. All we want is the story of some funny brands!"

"Fine with me." Sonntag got up to go. "Got any money? I gave Roberts three hundred out of my own pocket."

Logan hesitated, then drew out a billfold and handed over several bills.

"Better make it four hundred," Sonntag said. "I can use it!"

Pierce Logan looked up, but Sonntag wasn't even looking at him. Logan's eyes were ugly when he counted out the other hundred.

Sonntag was getting too big for his boots, Logan decided. Yet, he needed the man. Only Sonntag could keep the Rawhide bunch in line. Ringer Cobb's failure irritated him, and he got to his feet and paced the length of the office. He would have to do some of these jobs himself.

What had frightened Cobb? The man was reputedly dangerous, and he could sling a gun, but he had backed down cold for Mahone. Roberts was dead. That meant something would have to be done about Dowd immediately. Too bad they couldn't all do their jobs as neatly as he did. He, Pierce Logan, would do the job on Dowd, if necessary.

He turned and walked out of his office and down the street toward the Longhorn. Judge Collins sat on his step, tilted back against the wall. He waved casually at Logan. "Old fool!" Logan muttered. "I'll have all that self-importance out of him in a few days!"

Impatience was driving him, and he realized its danger. Yet inefficiency always irritated him, and he wanted this over and done with.

He saw a roan horse at the hitching rail, and Logan stared at it. What was James doing in town? There was plenty for him to do out on the range.

Logan pushed open the door and strode into the Long-horn. Nick looked up when he came in, and shoved his hat back. "Howdy," he said briefly.

"How are you, James?" Logan said. "Got a message for me?"

"No," James said, "only that I'm quittin'."

"Quitting?" Pierce Logan turned his head to look at Nick again. "Why?"

"No partic'lar reason. I never stay on one job too long. Sort of get off my feed if I do."

"Sorry to lose you." Logan poured a drink from the bottle. "Going to work right away?"

"Uh-huh." Nick's voice was elaborately casual. "For Finn Mahone." Logan put the bottle back on the bar. There might be more in this than was immediately apparent. Nick James was smart. Maybe he was too smart. "I see," he lifted his drink, "but I didn't know Mahone used any hands?"

"Changed his mind, I guess."

The door pushed open and Texas Dowd walked into the room. With him was Van Brewster. "Where's Sonntag?"

Logan turned. "Haven't seen him. What's the trouble?"

"Plenty!" Dowd's eyes were chill. "Mex Roberts tried to dry-gulch me the other day. When I went through his pockets, I found nearly a hundred dollars. That's a lot of money for a range tramp. One o' the bills was stuck together with pink paper. Brewster here recognized it as one he lost in a poker game to Sonntag."

"Sonntag's the type who does his own killing," Logan suggested. "You're on the wrong track, Dowd."

"I'll make up my mind about that!" Dowd's voice was sharp. "If Sonntag hired Roberts to kill me, he did it on orders. I want to know whose orders!"

Logan almost asked him who he believed had given the orders when he caught himself. If he asked that question Dowd might give the right answer, and if he did, it would mean a shooting. This was neither the time nor the place for that.

"That's an angle I hadn't thought of. Sonntag's out on the range somewhere, and I imagine he'll be in town tonight."

"All right." Dowd turned abruptly. "Then tell him I want to see him. If he's got an explanation, I want it!"

Dowd strode out and Logan poured another drink. He was jumpy. That damned fool Sonntag! Why did he have to use a marked bill? This whole thing was going to bust wide open, and unless he was mistaken, Sonntag was down at Lettie Mason's right now.

Pierce Logan returned to his office and seated himself at his desk. Abe Mclnnis was down in bed and in no shape for anything. Van Brewster was a hotheaded fool. Remy Kastelle was a mere girl, and her father a lazy ex-gambler who would rather read books than work. Judge Collins was too old, and Finerty was not a gunfighter. Dean Armstrong could be taken care of at leisure.

It all boiled down to two men, and it always came back to them, to Dowd and Mahone. Dan Taggart, the foreman at the Spur, was rough and ready and a fighter if he ever made up his mind, but that was a process that ran as slow as molasses in January. There were only a few moves left; Logan just had to make those moves pay off.

It was time he rode out to the Lazy K and had a talk with Remy. Once they were married, he could have Dowd discharged, and the man would leave the range if Sonntag didn't kill him first. The time for waiting had passed, but definitely.

Pierce Logan went to his stable and threw a saddle on his horse. As he rode out of town, he saw a horseman far ahead. It was Nick James, on his way to the Notch.

Far ahead of Pierce Logan and already on Lazy K range, Banty Hull, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr rode side by side. They had their orders from Sonntag, and immediately they moved out. They were after a bunch of Lazy K cattle. At the same time, far to the north and east of them, Ike Hibby, Alcorn, Leibman, and Ringer Cobb were moving down on one of Brewster's small herds.

With two hundred head, they started for Rawhide. This was no matter of altering brands, it was an outright, daylight steal.

Montana Kerr saw the rider first, and jerked his head at him. "Who the hell is that?"

Hull rode up a little, peering under his pulled-down hat brim. "Looks like Dan Taggart. Headed for the Lazy K, I reckon."

"He's seen us."

"Yeah." Montana's voice was flat. "I never liked him anyway."

Taggart's route intersected theirs within two miles. He glanced from one to the other, and his heart began to pound. He had never seen Rawhide riders on this range before. Something in their eyes warned him, but Dan Taggart was not the man to back up, and even had he been, he would not have had a chance.

"Howdy, boys." His eyes shifted from one to the other. Their faces were all grim, hostile. Some sixth sense told him what was coming. "What's up?"

"Your number," Hull said.

"Huh?" Taggart knew he was no match for these men. If he could get some cover, with his rifle, he might ... but there was no chance of that. It was here and now. "You boys off your range, ain't you?"

"This is all our range," Salter said harshly. "Startin' t'day."

"I reckon other folks'll disagree," Taggart said. "Tex Dowd for instance."

"Dowd!" Salter spat the word. "I reckon I know him. I know him from Missouri, and I'd like t'hang his hide on a fence!"

Taggart shrugged. "Your business," he told them. "You boys go your way, an' I'll go mine. I reckon I'll be ridin' on."

He had his hand in his lap, only inches from his gun, but he knew Montana Kerr, knew the man was a killer, and knew that even leaving the others out, he wouldn't have a chance. He started his horse and rode on. For a moment, he thought he would get away with it. Then Kerr yelled at him.

Dan Taggart turned in his saddle and Kerr's hand flashed with incredible speed. Taggart grabbed for his gun, but two slugs hit him and he went down, hitting the ground in a heap, and dead before he hit it.

All three men emptied their guns into his body. "That'll be a lesson to 'em!" Salter's face was vicious as he spoke. "No use to botch the job like we did on Mcln-nis."

They swung wide and headed around the Lazy K, driving cattle ahead of them.

Behind them Dan Taggart lay sprawled in the thin prairie grass, his shirt darkly stained with blood, "and the grass beneath him red. His gun was still in its worn holster.

His horse, after running away when Taggart's body fell from it, watched the three riders trot their horses from the scene of the killing. Curious, and lonely without its master, the cow horse walked back.

Taggart lay on the ground and the horse drew nearer. , At the smell of blood, it shied violently, rolling its eyes, but impelled by a curiosity greater than its sense of danger, moved closer. The smell of blood was too much for it, and jerking its head away, it trotted off a little distance.

On the crest of a rise it stopped briefly, looking back. Then, turning away, it trotted toward home, pausing from time to time to crop a mouthful of grass.

Chapter 6

Remy Kastelle sat on the cowhide-covered settee in the great, high-ceilinged living room of the Lazy K ranch house. The room as always was cool and still, and for this very reason she had always loved it. There was something of a cathedral hush in the great room, and the longer she lived in the house, the more she understood why her father had built the room so large.

Kastelle had put his book aside and was idly riffling a deck of cards through his fingers. He had never cared for his onetime profession, and had no longing to return to it. Yet his life had taught him the uncertainty of things if no more, and he felt the necessity of retaining all his old skill.

The silence in the big room was unbroken save for the ripple and snap of the cards. Kastelle shuffled the deck quickly, ran his thumb over the edges, and in a few rapid, easy movements, all apparently part of his shuffling, he had selected the proper cards and run up a couple of good hands.

He in-jogged the top card, took off the bottom and shuffled off, then, locating the break with a finger, he shuffled off again and with a neat throw had his stack on top. Then he cut the deck, shifted the cut back, and dealt the hands, three fives showing up in his imaginary opponent's hand, three jacks in his own.

From time to time he glanced at Remy, but said nothing. Her beauty always came to him with something of a shock. The fact that he had seen her grow from a long-legged, coltish girl, who lived only to ride, into a beautiful woman did nothing to detract from her beauty. Her mother had been lovely, and his own mother had been a beautiful woman, but neither of them could compare to the vivid loveliness that was his daughter.

He had never worried about her. Growing up beside him she had grown up singularly independent, choosing her own way always, and if guided by him, the guiding was so slight that neither of them were ever conscious of it.

Their relationship had always been more than that of father and daughter. They understood each other as people. She knew her father's pride in his appearance, his love of horses, his sensitive response to beauty. She knew what his life had been before he bought the first ranch back in Texas. She had never been ashamed that her father was a professional gambler. She knew what had led to it, and knew how he felt.

The war with Mexico had ended, and Kastelle, a major in the cavalry, had found himself discharged in a foreign country with no prospects except an agile mind and a willingness to embrace the future. He had no possessions other than the horse he rode and the clothes he wore Gold had recently been discovered in the foothills of the California Sierras, and so like hundreds of other veterans he sold his horse and bought passage on a windjammer headed to San Francisco.

Within months the town was swarming with sailors, treasure seekers, merchants, mining speculators, and revolution plotters from Latin America. Many of them , had money. Kastelle, from then on known as Frenchy, became a habitue of the cafes and gambling houses.

A skillful horseman and an excellent shot, he possessed only one other skill. He knew how to handle cards. Swiftly, in the months that followed, he learned more by applying his skill. For a professional gambler he possessed perfect equipment. Cold nerve, an unreadable face, skillful fingers, and a shy, scholarly manner that was deceptive. Best of all, he possessed no gambling instinct. He played cards to win.

A few years before the nation tore itself apart with the war against the Confederate States, Frenchy was briefly married. An outbreak of cholera carried off his young wife, along with thousands of others, and left him with a baby daughter to care for.

With no other attachments in his life, he was with Remy much of the time. They talked a lot, and he made no attempt to spare her the details of his career. He told her of the men and women he met, sketching them coldly with words as an artist might with a brush. It was not long until all these people lived and breathed for her.

Remy's conception of what was right and wrong, or when men and women were at their best and worst, came entirely from these accounts of her father's.. His instinct for people was almost infallible, and she acquired much of it, growing up with a precocious knowledge of the world and the facts of life such as few children ever have.

No matter what her troubles, she always turned to him, and she had never found him lacking in understanding. He rarely reproved her. A suggestion from him, or his unspoken approval or disapproval, was all she needed. Gradually, as she grew older, she came more and more to handle her own problems.

On this day, Kastelle sensed that something was troubling her. Remy was restless, uneasy. Several times he thought he detected tears in her eyes, but he was not certain.

Remy had attracted men to her from the time she was fourteen. She was accustomed to their interest, and she knew how to handle them. The men she met had rarely attracted or interested her. Dowd seemed like an uncle or a friend, and it wasn't until she met Pierce Logan that love and marriage entered her mind.

Tall, handsome, and an interesting conversationalist, he had gone riding with her several times, and she had entertained him at home a bit more. Occasionally, when in town, she had eaten with him at Ma Boyle's. He was exciting and fascinating, but she had never discussed him with her father, nor he with her. Always, she had been a little hesitant about bringing the matter up.

Then had come the morning she walked into Ma Boyle's and asked about the black stallion. She had lifted her eyes and found herself looking at Finn Mahone.

She never forgot that moment. She remembered how imperiously she had swept into the room, her riding crop in her hand, so filled with the picture of that magnificent black stallion that she could think of nothing else.

His calm assurance nettled her, and she was actually pleased when she thought Leibman would whip him. Only Dowd had as much assurance as that, and knowing Dowd's abilities, she had never been put off by his manner.

The fight in the street, the ride across those awful slides, and the night in the cabin, all had served to increase her interest. Carried away by the excitement of the ride across the slate, and by the necessity for getting somewhere, Remy had not fully realized that she was trapped, that she must stay alone in the cabin with him.

She was not too disturbed by it. She carried a .41 derringer that her father had given her, and would not have hesitated to use it. She fully expected to have to warn him away, and then he hadn't even come near her door. She had never decided whether she was pleased or angry about that.

Texas Dowd's disclosure of his reason for hating Mahone shocked her. She wanted to know if the picture of the beautiful woman that she had seen in Finn's bedroom had been Dowd's sister, but his dour and forbidding reaction denied any possibility of further talk.

His statement seemed utterly at variance with every conception she had formed of the character of Finn Mahone. Murder of any kind seemed beyond him, and murder of a woman was unthinkable. Killing, yes. Childhood familiarity with war and sudden death allowed her to accept that. To kill in defense was one thing, however; murder was another. Yet the statement had been made, and there was something in the flat finality of it that had her believing, even while she refused to admit to herself that it was true.

Staring out the door where the shadow of the porch cut a sharp line across the brightness of the morning, Remy tried to analyze her feelings for Finn, and could find no answer. She was nineteen, a young lady by all the standards of her time, and her own mother had been married well before that age. Yet Remy had had no serious romantic dealings with boys or men. The idea of love, while always in her mind, had never become quite real to her.

Kastelle riffled his cards and waited. Sensitive to all the nuances of Remy's feelings, he knew she was going to talk to him, that she was troubled. It was the first time in almost two years that she had come to him with a problem, and the interval made the silence harder to break.

She picked up a book, then put it down. She got up and crossed to the fireplace and idly toed a stick back off the hearthstone. She looked out the door again, then back to him. "Did Dowd ever tell you about his sister being murdered?"

Kastelle nodded. "Why, yes, he did. It was a long time ago."

"Tell me about it."

He shrugged and put the cards aside. "There is very little I can tell you. Louisiana was in bad shape right then; the whole South was in a turmoil. Carpetbaggers were coming in, the freed slaves were wandering about, uncertain of what to do, and there were renegade soldiers from both armies on the loose.

"Riots and outbreaks were common in New Orleans, houses were burned on plantations, and there was a lot of looting going on. More than one man decided it was a good chance to get rich, and they weren't all carpetbaggers by a long shot. Renegade southerners were just as bad in many cases.

"Dowd was living with his sister, who was about as old as you are now, on a farm just out of New Orleans. It had belonged to his uncle, and wasn't a large place, at all.

"It was on a bayou, and was quite lovely. He didn't tell me much about it, but it seems there was a friend living there with him, a chap he had met in Mexico right^ before the war. They had both fought in revolutions down there, and had become friends.

"Dowd went to New Orleans on business, and while he was gone one of those riots broke out, and he was overdue in getting home. When he did get back, his sister had been murdered. From what he said it was pretty ugly.

"He found a button in her hand that had come off a coat this friend was wearing, and the friend was nowhere around. The house had been thoroughly looted. Three men who lived nearby swore they saw the friend riding away on a horse, and he was, they said, bloody as could be.

"Dowd started after his friend, and swore he would kill him on sight. The chase followed clear to Mexico, and Dowd lost him there, was nearly killed by some old enemies, and returned to Texas. That was when I met him."

"He told me the friend was Finn Mahone," she said.

Kastelle looked at her quickly. Her eyes were wide and she was staring out the door.

So that was it! He had noticed how different Remy had been acting of late, and had wondered about it. He recalled, then, how Remy had stood up for Mahone at the Cattleman's meeting.

"I didn't know." Remy had grown up, he realized that with a pang. He had known she would, and had known that when she did, she would fall in love. Now it had to be with this man ... a murderer.

"You've met Mahone?"

"Yes." Without taking her eyes from the door, she told all that had transpired. He listened attentively, and realized when she had finished that his pipe had gone out. He refilled and lit it.

Kastelle stared at the floor. He never knew what to say at a time like this because there simply wasn't anything he could say. He raised his eyes to look at Remy, and found she was gone. She had walked out of the room and he had not noticed.

He got up and walked to the door. Remy was walking dejectedly toward the corrals. Kastelle shook his head, unaware of any way he could help her except to listen and try to be a strong and stable presence.

Two cowhands were sitting on the steps of the bunkhouse, and one of them had a rifle across his knees. Kastelle walked down to them. They grinned as he came up.

"Howdy!" Jody Carson said. "Dowd told us to stick around today."

Kastelle nodded. He left the ranch business strictly up to the man from Texas. "Is he expecting trouble?"

"Yeah." Carson leaned his elbows on the top step. "Pete was crossin' the Laird trail yesterday an' run into Nick James. Nick's headin' for the Notch. He's goin' to work for Mahone."

"Mahone's hiring hands?"

"Uh-huh. Anyway, Nick said Mahone ran a blazer on Ringer Cobb in Ma Boyle's place an' made him back down. Story's all over town about Roberts tryin' to kill Dowd, too."

"Where's Marshal Miller?"

"Over to the Mclnnis place, waitin' for Abe to talk, I reckon." He sat up suddenly. "Hey! What's all this?"

They turned, and Kastelle's heart gave a leap. Texas Dowd was coming in with a body across a saddle. His face was hard. He reined in and swung down. "It's Dan Taggart," he said, "killed down on our south range."

Carson and Pete helped him remove the body from the saddle, and they looked at it. Kastelle's eyes hardened as he looked. He had known and liked Taggart, as these, men had. The man was literally riddled with holes.

Dowd's face was grim when he looked up. "This is the beginning," he said. "God knows where it'll end." He looked at Jody. "You an' Pete stick right here. Don't you get off this place on no account. An' watch for that Rawhide bunch!"

Jody Carson had his own opinion of the men from Rawhide. That opinion had been bolstered by what he'd heard from Nick James. His eyes found Dowd's. "Nick told Pete that Taggart was sorry he voted for Sonntag. He wanted to do something about it powerful bad."

"Maybe Sonntag done this?" Pete suggested.

Dowd shook his head. "No, this was more than one man. Sonntag wouldn't have wasted shots, either. I scouted around. There were three men, cutting north toward the Highbinders. Happened several hours ago, I reckon."

Dowd stared at the bloody, shot-up body, and his lips tightened. Yet he was thinking now of Finn. If only Mahone were riding with him! These men ... they meant well, and they would try, but in the end they were not hard enough, not fast enough. Byrn Sonntag was a bear with lightning in his hands, and he had men like Frank Salter and Montana Kerr riding with him.

Getting that bunch would be a job for men to do, not boys. He stood there, lonely and bitter, remembering the time in Mexico that he and Mahone had been informed by a soldier sent out from town that they must bring themselves to the commandant at once.

They were carrying ten thousand dollars in gold, their payment for fighting. They well knew what would happen to their ten thousand if it ever got in the clutches of that commandant. Mahone had looked up, and he had said in that easy, tough voice of his, "Tell the commandant that Finn Mahone an' Tex Dowd are ridin' down the main street of his town, an' if he wants us, or our gold, tell him to come an' get us!"

And an hour later, after a leisurely meal, they had mounted up and ridden through the little Mexican town ... and there was not a soul in sight.

Dowd knew he had to kill Mahone. Whenever he thought of that brutal murder, a tide of fierce anger rose within him. Yet somehow, something held him back. It was not only that he had not had the chance to meet Mahone since that time, nor was it that there was no way across the slides. Something in him refused to admit that what had happened had happened.

The dust of the same roads had pounded into their faces, and the powder smoke of the same battles had burned their nostrils. He shook his head, and looked up. He turned then and walked into the bunkhouse.

Resolutely, he put aside all thought of Mahone. There was planning to be done.

He had, as it was a slack time, just four hands on the ranch. With the Negro cook, and Kastelle and himself, there were seven. The cook was a tough man and loyal, but he was as old as Frenchy Kastelle and not in as good shape.

What was coming now was open warfare. He knew without further evidence that this was the beginning. Or rather, Roberts's shot at him had been the beginning. Had Mahone not killed Mexie Roberts, Dowd would be dead now. Abe Mclnnis was in bed, seriously wounded. Taggart killed. On top of that, if they had killed Dowd the range would have been open to do what they pleased.

He got up and paced the floor. Desperately, he needed someone to side him. This was no longer a lone-wolf job. He couldn't be everywhere, and there was still Sonntag. He was out on the range somewhere, and wherever he was, death would soon follow. Texas Dowd knew without doubt that Sonntag would be gunning for him, and that meant he had to kill Sonntag.

It would settle nothing. Someone else was behind this, someone who had ordered his death.

Mahone?

Dowd shook his head. Finn would do his own killing. Suddenly, he remembered he had two men out on the range. They were riding alone ... and the killers of Taggart had been headed north!

He lunged from the house and ran for his horse. "Stay here!" he yelled at the men by the bunkhouse. He hit the saddle and was gone.

Frenchy Kastelle walked back into the house. Coolly, he got down from their rack his new Winchester 73 and the Sharps .50. Then he checked their loads and put them within easy reach of his hand. He went into his bedroom and got his .44 and belted it on.

Kastelle snapped to with a start. Remy! Where was she? He turned and stepped to the door and saw Jody Carson staring out over the range. "Where's Remy?" he called.

Jody ran around the corner of the bunkhouse and stared at the corral. "Her mare's gone!" he yelled. "She must've headed out."

Kastelle stood an instant in indecision. Carson's face was a picture of worry. "Gosh, Boss! I never give her a thought, we're so used to her comin' an' goin'!"

"I know," he said. He held himself still and tried to think where she could have gone. Perhaps just for a ride, to ride away her own doubts and bitterness. If so, she might have gone in any direction. Kastelle stood there, his mind curiously alert. He tried to think of everything, tried to decide what was best to do. "We would be foolish to look for her," he said finally. "We'll have to wait."

"Well, nobody's goin' to come up to her on that mare. That Roxie can outrun anything on this range, unless it's that black of Mahone's."

"Dowd's out now," Carson said, "an' Bovetas an' Rifenbark are still out there. I reckon Dowd figgered they might run into them Rawhide hands that killed Taggart."

Kastelle sat down on the porch, his Winchester close at his hand. Carson stood for a minute, waiting, then walked back to the bunkhouse. Pete Goodale looked up. "The boss wears those guns like he could use 'em," he said. "Never seen him wear one before."

The day drew along slowly, and the sun reached the meridian, then started its long slide toward the distant Rimrock, a high red bulwark against the green range.

Texas Dowd kept his horse at a canter to save it, and headed back up range. He saw few cattle, and this area had been covered with them a fortnight ago. His face drew down in hard lines. He had waited too long. He should have gone to Rawhide and killed Sonntag. If Sonntag was gone, the rest of them would fall apart ... but again he recalled his belief that behind Sonntag was another, unknown person.

He was almost to the edge of the Highbinders when he heard a faint yell. He reined in his horse and shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun. Someone was waving a hat. He jacked a shell into the chamber of his Winchester and rode ahead, his eyes studying the ground. When he got a little closer, a man got up out of the grass. It was Rifenbark.

"What happened?" Rif's head was bloody and he was limping.

"Three of them Rawhide hands. I seen 'em drivin' some cattle ahead, so I started down range. I was a ways off. Bovetas, he seen 'em before I did, an' he rode down on 'em."

Rifenbark's eyes were bleak. "They never give him a chance. I seen it, an' I also seen I wasn't goin' to do much good agin' three of 'em on a hoss. I hit dirt, an' when they got close enough, I opened up with my rifle.

"Never did no good, though. Never even winged one. They just waved at me an' rode on, then two of 'em circled back, an' one got in this here shot that cut my scalp. I shot again, but didn't get neither one, although I burned 'em up some."

"Where's your horse?"

"Yonder in them trees. I seen him movin' there a minute ago."

Dowd wheeled his horse and started for the trees. He would get Rif mounted, and then they would cut along toward Brewster's. They might come up with the herd again.

Far away to the east, two separate riders were headed toward Brewster's as toward the apex of a triangle. One of these was Remy Kastelle; the other was Pierce Logan.

Pierce Logan rode rapidly. He was heading for Rawhide, and he had a few plans he wanted to put into execution, and he was looking for a man to replace Mex Roberts. Despite himself, he was worried. He could think of no particular reason why he should be, although he had planned to have Dowd out of the way before things came to a head.

He had chosen Roberts to kill Sonntag when the time came, and now that chance was gone. If Sonntag were to be killed, he must find someone else ... or do it himself. It might come to that.

A vast impatience lay upon him. Cool planning had been his best hand, but now movement had taken the place of thinking. He knew and approved of what the Rawhide crowd were doing today. Before nightfall, fear would be alive on the range. As long as he had the chance to place the blame on Mahone or his "gang" it would be all right ... but that was touch and go so far, because they had not had a chance to mix any altered brands into the cattle he was selling.

Pierce Logan had ridden out of town after his meeting with Dowd, and he had stayed the night in a line shack on Brewster's range. He would stay out of sight as much as possible. At all costs, he wished to avoid being forced to show his colors.

He reached the Brewster ranch to find the house in flames and the stock driven off. There was no sign of anyone around the place. Yet he had scarcely ridden into the yard when he heard a low moan. He swung his horse, and his pistol flashed into his hand.

The groan sounded again, and he swung down and walked toward the barn. It had been left standing due to the amount of feed stored there, and some valuable saddles. Logan had been cold-blooded about that. "Might as well keep it, Byrn," he said dryly. "We can use that stuff, and the feed will be good for our horses."

"Logan?" Pierce turned his head to the voice and saw a hand wave feebly from under a pile of sacking. "Help!" The voice was weak.

In two strides he was beside the sacking and jerked it back. Van Brewster, his shirt covered with blood, lay on the barn floor. His lids fluttered and he tried to speak again. Coolly, Logan lifted his pistol. They'd botched the job, but he might as well finish it.

Then he heard a horse's hooves. Wheeling, he saw Remy Kastelle ride into the ranch yard on her white mare. Thrusting his gun into the holster, he called to her. "Come here! Brewster's hurt!"

Remy dismounted and ran to him. He took her elbow and showed her the wounded man. Then, cursing under his breath, he picked up a bucket and went for water while she unfastened the man's rough shirt. Van Brewster was badly wounded, she could see that at a glance. If he lived it would be more luck than anything they could do. If only they had Doc Finerty!

"Logan ... started ..." Brewster's mutter faded, then his eyes opened again, "... shoot me," he ended.

The words made no sense. Obviously he was delirious, and she thought no more of what he had said. An hour later, with the wounds bathed and bandaged from some supplies she carried in her saddlebags, she stood facing Logan.

"He can't be moved, Pierce." Her voice was worried. "I'm going to stay here with him. Why don't you ride for Doc? That horse of yours will get to him faster than anyone else."

"Leave mA with him," Logan suggested. Your mare is fast and yotf'd be safer in town than here."

She hesitated. "No, I'll stay. Ever since this started I've been carrying a *ew things with me. If he should need help, I could give it to him. I'll be all right."

"Well . " He hesitated. She was here, alone. Why not now? In a few days ... ? Then he told himself not to be a fool. He wanted the Lazy K. He could get a clearer title by marriage and besides, she would be an asset. There was plenty of time. He told himself that coolly, while he avoided her glance. She was the loveliest girl he had ever seen- Only one had been nearly so beautiful.

"All right I'll go. Be careful," he advised, "and stay out of sight." This would prevent him from going on to Rawhide but that could wait. He would appear to be doing more g d this way. Finerty would remember it, and Brewster, if he lived. Had Brewster seen him lift that pistol? He doubted it. Mounting, he waved good-bye and started the horse at a fast canter.

Remy looked after him, wondering about him again as she often had in these last few days. He sat his horse splendidly. He was a man a woman could be proud of.

But ...

She walked back to the barn and gathered more sacks to make Brewster more comfortable. Time and again she walked to the door, but it would be hours before Logan could return, Pierce Logan was in no hurry. He was going for Finerty but he was hoping that Brewster would die before the doctor could reach him to help. Hurrying would only increase the chances for Brewster to live. Still, if he did live he would be ill for a long time, and by that time the whole trouble would be settled, one way or another.

Now that he was away from her, he was glad he had not molested Remy Kastelle. There was something about being alone with a woman like that that always fired him with some strange, burning desire. Yet, he could wait. All this, and her, would soon be his. Only three obstacles remained. Texas Dowd, the plan against Finn Mahone, and Byrn Sonntag.

The Rawhide gunman was his man, but he was too powerful a force for Logan to leave in the field. Sonntag had started changing Logan's policy when the Rawhide boys began their outright theft. Sonntag controlled the men doing the rustling. So Logan had no choice but to go along with it or be sidelined. As soon as the events in the Laird Valley came to a head, Logan and Sonntag were going to have to find out who was boss. Yet it was a simple choice ... only one would be alive.

North of him the clans were gathering in Rawhide. Byrn Sonntag had been sitting at a table waiting for them. Montana Kerr came in, dusty from his long ride Briefly, he reported. Sonntag fingered his glass. Dan Taggart was dead. That was good, for the man had fight in him. Bovetas was dead. That was unimportant, but it was another gun eliminated. Brewster was dead, or so the report came in. The Brewster and Mclnnis operations were out of the fight, and the bulk of their cattle were on the move. There remained only the Lazy K.

Logan was soft on hitting the Kastelle ranch. He had some plan of his own, for he had always told Sonntag to go easy. The reason he gave was the watchfulness of Texas Dowd, but Sonntag suspected it had more to do with the girl. The thought of Dowd irritated Sonntag. The man was good with a gun. But how good?

He knew Dowd slightly. Finn Mahone was still only a name to him, once or twice their trails had crossed, but always at a distance.

Ike Hibby, Ringer Cobb, Banty Hull, and the rest of them had ridden in from the range. The war was on, and the Rawhide riders had struck fast and hard.

He was not worried about Laird. Its citizens would have little effect outside the town. There would be resistance, but a resistance of spirit rather than physical power. Byrn Sonntag had nothing but contempt for resistance of the spirit. Such resistance is of avail only so long as one's enemy is aware of things of the spirit, and aware of public opinion. Sonntag knew that Logan wanted to keep the war bottled up in Laird Valley. Sonntag could see the advantage in that. Yet Pierce Logan disturbed him. Why, he couldn't say.

Logan, he was well aware, was in the clear. At no point was Logan obviously involved. His skirts were clean, and there was nothing for him to worry about if the plan failed. Sometimes Sonntag wondered if he needed Logan. Yet, he had to admit, he was better heeled now than any time in his life, fear of reprisals was almost nonexistent, and it looked like his men were riding to complete dominance of the valley.

Texas Dowd, sided by Rifenbark, made a wide sweep of the Lazy K range. Mile by mile, bitterness welled up within him. The range had been swept of cattle. Back in the brakes there would be some, of course, but all those in sight had been driven off. Open war had been declared, and the attack was all to the advantage of the enemy.

Distant smoke warned him of fire at Brewster's, so the two rode on. When still some distance away, he recognized Remy's mare and put his horse to a gallop.

Remy ran from the barn to greet him. "It was the Rawhide bunch! If Logan and I hadn't got here !"

Dowd's interruption was quick. "Logan here? Who got here first, you or him?"

"Why, he did ... why?"

Dowd's face was expressionless. "Just wondering. This is a long ways from P Slash L range, and a long way from Laird."

"Surely you don't suspect Pierce?" Remy was incredulous.

"I suspect everybody!" Dowd replied shortly. "Hell's broke loose! Taggart's been murdered, an' so's Bovetas!"

Remy's face went white. Dan Taggart she knew well, and Bovie ... why, he was one of their own boys! Tex went on to tell her about the missing cattle.

While Rif kept watch, Dowd swung down and went inside. Van Brewster was lying on the sacks, breathing hoarsely. His face was wet with sweat and he looked bad. Texas Dowd was familiar with the look of wounded men, and he wouldn't have given a plugged peso for the cattleman's chances.

Without saying anything further to Remy he walked-* outside. A study of the earth, where it wasn't packed too hard by sun and rain, showed him it was the same lot from Rawhide. The fact that Rawhide was not many miles away made him no happier. They were in no position to defend themselves if attacked. The barn was a flimsy structure, and outnumbered as they might be, there would be almost no chance for them.

That the Kastelle ranch was in the hands of few men was bad. Dowd was a practical fighting man, and he knew such a division of forces was often fatal. Now, when they lacked so much in strength and were encumbered by a dying man, it was infinitely worse. He made his decision quickly.

"Remy," he said, "get on your horse, and you and Rif head for the ranch. I'll stay with Brewster. There's nothing more you or anybody can do until the doctor comes."

Remy shook her head. "No, we'll stay. What if they come back?"

Dowd's face was like ice. "You'll do as I say, Remy. Never since you was a little girl have I given you an order. I'm givin' you one now! Your father's probably worried to death by now. He's alone with just the hands at the ranch, and that's the next place they'll hit. They've wrecked Mclnnis and Brewster. Believe me, if they tackle the ranch he'll need all the help he can get. You two start back, and don't loaf on the way."

An instant longer she hesitated, but there was a cold logic in what Dowd said. The ranch must not be lost, and their fighting power must be kept intact. "All right, I'll go-"

She walked out and swung into the saddle. Rifenbark hesitated, rubbing his grizzled jaw. "Gosh, Tex, I " "Get along," Dowd said. "I'll be all right." When they had ridden away he stood there in front of the barn. Brewster's house was a heap of charred ruins, still smoking. The barn was a crude building of logs, but most of them were mere poles. It was nothing for defense. Nor was there a good spot around. If he was tackled here ... well, he would have a damned slim chance. And Brewster could not be moved.

He hunted around until he found Brewster's rifle; luckily, it was in the scabbard on his saddle. With it was an ammunition belt. He brought it back into the barn, and then got some sacks and filled them with sand.

These he piled against the wall. There were some grain-filled sacks, and he added them.

Twilight came, and then night. He sat back against the sacks and listened to the hoarse breathing of the wounded man. Outside, little stars of red twinkled and sparked among the black of the dying fire.

Pierce Logan had been here. Why? The thought got into his mind and stuck there. This part of the range held nothing for Logan. He had made no practice of visiting surrounding ranches. There was no reason for his being here, and the thought nettled Dowd. He liked to have a reason for things. He stared into the night, and then let his eyes shift to the ruins of the house.

At that moment he heard the sound of horses' hooves. He sat still, listening.

They were drawing nearer, coming from the direction of Rawhide, and there were a good-sized bunch of them. Texas Dowd got to his feet and walked to the dpor of thje barn. He loosened his six-guns in their holsters and picked up a rifle. His gray eyes worked at the night, striving to see them when they first appeared.

They were talking. He distinguished a voice as the hard, nasal twang of Frank Salter. "You git that Brewster? Was he dead, Al?"

"You was here. Why didn't you look?" Alcorn demanded querulously. "Of course I killed him!"

Texas Dowd had no illusions, nor any compunctions when it came to fighting outlaws and killers. He lifted his rifle, leveled at the voice of Alcorn, and fired.

As though a bolt of lightning had struck among them, riders scattered in every direction, and several of them fired. Dowd saw the flame stab the night, but he was watching his target. Alcorn slid from his horse and fell loosely, heavily into the dust and lay still.

Tex dropped to the ground and lay quiet, listening to the shouting and swearing among the Rawhiders. Then several shots rang out and Dowd heard a bullet strike the log wall. He lay quiet, ignoring it. He had no intention of wasting ammunition on the night air.

He could hear their argument, for their voices carried in the clear, still air. "Like hell Brewster's dead! He got Al!"

"That wasn't him," Montana said. "Brewster might not of been dead, but he was far gone when I last seen him! Somebody else has moved in!"

The voices seemed to be centering around one group of trees, so Dowd lifted his rifle and fired four times, rapid fire. Curses rang out, then silence. He chuckled to himself. "That will make them more careful!" he said.

Texas Dowd settled down behind the sandbags. It was lighter out there, and he could see any movement if an attempt was made to cross the ranch yard. Beside him Brewster stirred, and when Dowd looked down he saw the man's face was gray and his breathing more labored. Van Brewster was going to die.

Dowd whispered to him, "Who shot you, Van?"

He was repeating the question a third time when Brewster's lips stirred. After a moment, the words came. "Bant ... y Hull, Alcorn ... an' them."

"I got Alcorn," Dowd told him. "I'll get Hull for you, too."

Brewster's eyes fought their way open and he caught at Dowd's shirtfront. "Watch ... Logan. He started to shoot me."

Pierce Logan? Dowd's mind accepted the thought and turned it over. Logan, the innocent bystander, the man on the sidelines. Why not him?

Over in the dark brush, Montana Kerr was growing irritable. "Let's rush the place! Let's dig him out of there, whoever he is!"

"Wait!" Hull suggested. "I have a better plan. We'll try fire!"

Chapter 7

It was Pierce Logan himself, coming for Doc Finerty, who brought the first word of the range war to Laird. As Doc threw a few necessary articles into his saddlebags, Logan gave a brief account of what he wanted them to know. Brewster was badly wounded, perhaps dead, and his ranch house had been burned.

The second bit of news came from Nick James. He was almost at the opposite side of the Lazy K range, heading for the Notch, when he heard the shots fired by the rustlers at Bovetas and Rifenbark. Leaving his packhorse, he turned back, riding warily. So it was that he arrived at the Lazy K just in time to meet Remy as she returned from Brewster's.

Nick James headed for Laird on a fresh horse. His news, added to that brought by Logan, had the town on its ear. The cattle had been driven off the Lazy K and Brewster's spread in one sweep. Bovetas was dead. Taggart was dead. Brewster was wounded. Rifenbark had recognized the Rawhide crowd.

While the streets filled with talking, excited men, Finn Mahone rolled off the bed in the back of Ma Boyle's and pulled on his boots. There were voices in the hall and a sudden pounding on his door. Springing to his feet, gun in hand, he opened it wide. Lettie Mason was standing there.

"Finn!" she cried. "Come quickly! I've just found Otis and he's badly wounded. He's been lying out in the brush where he was left for dead. He wants to see you."

On the way to her place, Lettie told him the news. Finn's mind leaped over the gaps and saw the situation just as it was. Dowd had stayed at Brewster's with the dying man, so he would be there alone. A dangerous position if the rustlers came back. Finn was prepared to find Texas and explain himself. If his plan worked ... At the thought of riding beside his old comrade again, his heart gave a leap.

Garfield Otis, his face gray and ghastly with the proximity of death, was fully conscious when they came in. A messenger from Lettie had caught Finerty as he was leaving town. Logan had not been with him, for Pierce had no intention of returning to Brewster's. If Finerty was killed, it would be one more out of the way.

"Don't talk long," Finerty warned, "but it will do him good to get it off his chest, whatever it is!"

Otis put out a hand to stop Finerty from leaving, and then he whispered hoarsely, "Logan shot me ... he's hand in glove with Sonntag. I've seen him talking with him, more than once. One time I was drunk an' seen ... Logan kill a ... man. He's ... he's ... buried on the hill back of the livery stable. It's Sam ... Hendry!"

"Hendry?" Finerty grabbed Finn's arm. "Logan must have bought the ranch from Hendry, then stole his money back. We figured Sam went off and blew it in, but he never got away! What do you know about that?"

"Old man Hendry was killed by a drygulcher Lettie suggested. "Probably it was Mex Roberts, so maybe we can guess who hired him?"

"Looks like Logan, all right," Mahone admitted. "I think I'll have a talk with him."

"Finn," Lettie interrupted, "there's something else I'd better tell you. Pierce Logan came from New Orleans. I recognized him and I've heard him talk about it. He used another name then, Cashman ... I don't remember the first name."

Mahone turned square around. "When did Logan first come into this country? About six months or so before I did?"

"Maybe a little less," Finerty said. He looked from Let-tie to Finn. "You know something?"

Finn Mahone ignored the question, his heart racing. Pierce Logan was in town, but what was suddenly more imperative was seeing Texas Dowd. After all these years Finn found himself choosing friendship over vengeance. Now, more than ever, he had to see Dowd. The past could wait!

"Let's go, Doc!" he said. "I'm riding with you. Lettie, you said Nick had come back into town? Tell him to keep an eye on Pierce Logan. Not to get into any fight, just keep watch. I'm coming back for him!"

He saddled the black, grabbed up the gelding, and . they headed out.

When they had come most of the way, Finn turned to Finerty. "Doc, I don't like the look of that glow in the sky! You come along as fast as you can."

The black stretched his legs. Finn, crouching forward,"" kept his attention focused tightly on riding, one hand on the reins, the other gripping the gelding's lead rope as lightly as he dared. He didn't want to lose the horse, especially now, but if it mis stepped he would have to let go before he was jerked from the saddle. Finn's eyes were riveted on the glow against the night sky. If they had fired that old pole barn, Dowd would be finished.

After the horses had covered a couple of miles, he slowed them for a breather, and then let them out again.

Now he could see the fire, and it was partly the glow from the burned house, and partly the flames from a huge haystack nearby, fired by the rustlers to give them a better shooting light.

Mahone slowed to a canter, and then to a walk. He unlimbered his rifle and moved closer, and when he did, he could see what the outlaws were about.

They had a hayrack piled high with hay, and they were shoving it toward the embattled defender of the barn, obviously planning to set it afire once it was against the pole side of the crude structure. Whether the barn burned or not and it would anyone inside would be baked by the awful heat.

Finn watched one of the dark figures moving, and then he lifted his rifle, took careful aim, and fired!

The man screamed and fell over on the ground, and the rustlers, shocked by the sudden attack, broke and ran for cover. Finn got in another shot as they ran, and saw a man stumble. Dowd must be alive, for a rifle barked from the barn as the attackers fled.

Riding swiftly, Mahone rounded the ranch yard, keeping out of the glow of the fire, and then emptied his Winchester into the grove of trees where the outlaws had gone. Swiftly, and still moving, he reloaded his rifle and checked his six-guns.

Yet even as he moved in for another attack, he heard the gallop of fast-moving horses, and saw the dark band of rustlers sweep off across country. They had abandoned the field for the moment, and were probably headed for an attack upon the Lazy K. Finn rode close, then swung to the ground.

"Tex!" he yelled. "I want to talk, Tex! Peace talk!" Dowd's voice rang loud over the fire lit yard. "I've nothing to say to you, Mahone!"

"Tex, you're a damned, bullheaded fool!" Finn roared back at him. "You got what you thought was evidence and jumped to conclusions. I wasn't anywhere near the plantation when it happened!"

Silence held for several minutes, and then Dowd yelled back. "Is Finerty comin'? Brewster's in a bad way!"

"Be here in a minute. I'm coming in, Tex! You hold your fire!"

Leaving the stallion standing ground-hitched, Finn walked out into the firelight. With quick, resolute steps he crossed the hard-packed earth toward the barn. Dowd, hatless, his face grimy, was waiting for him.

"The man who killed Honey is in Laird," Finn said, halting, "and I've got some proof."

Dowd's face did not change. Suspicion was still hard in every line of it. "Who?" he demanded.

"Pierce Logan."

"Logan?" Dowd took a step nearer. "What do you mean, Finn? How could that be?"

"I trailed him, Tex. I got home before you did, and I, found her. She was still alive then, and she grabbed me. That's how she got that button. She gave me the name of the man, for he had come by the place before. When the riots started and the country was full of fighting and burning, he came back. He went crazy ... Well, h trailed him. I lost him, finally, in Rico.

"Now I hear Pierce Logan hit Rico and killed a man there about that time, and then came on over here. Lettie Mason can tell you that he's from New Orleans and the name he was using back then."

"You said Honey knew his name what was it?"

"Cashman remember? He was a renegade southerner who tied up with the carpetbaggers and some of the tough crowd around New Orleans. He lived on the Vickers place a few miles west of you for a while."

Texas Dowd stared at Finn, his bitterness ebbing. This was the one man he had loved like a brother. "How do I know you're not lyin'?"

Finn whistled between pinched fingers. Fury trotted up into the firelight, the steel-dust gelding following. Dowd looked from the horses to Mahone, eyes narrowing.

"What's this?"

"Look closely. That's Vickers's gelding. You chased me quite a ways did I take two horses?"

"No."

"The only time I ever saw Cashman, it was off across a field, and he'd borrowed that horse to go into town. When he fled, he stole it from Vickers. He left the horse in Santa Fe. I bought him a couple of months later." Finn examined Dowd. "I figured that someday I might get the chance to show him to you."

"I never seen Cashman. Heard of him, though."

"I'm told he's a bad man with a gun, Dowd."

"I'll find out." Dowd's expression was grim. His wind-darkened face was tight and still. Then he turned to Mahone. "Thanks for getting Roberts. He would have killed me sure."

"Ask Lettie, Tex. She can tell you his name, too."

"I'd like to believe all this."

"Then believe it."

Doc Finerty rode up and swung down. Tex wheeled and guided him to Van Brewster. Finn stared after Texas, and then a slow grin swept his face and he followed them until Tex looked up. "Dowd, let's leave Doc and go to Rawhide. Let's burn that rat hole around their ears, just you and me."

Texas Dowd held himself thoughtfully for a moment, and then he grinned. "You always were one for raisin' hob," he said. "All right, let's go!"

The two riders covered the distance to Rawhide at a rapid gallop. Byrn Sonntag had ridden out a few minutes after the others had started back into Laird Valley, so except for a few of the followers of the Rawhide crowd, few people were around. As the two horsemen clattered down the street, a shot was fired from a window. Dowd wheeled, putting a bullet through it, and then sprang from his horse and went into the barroom. "Get out!" he said to the fat-faced bartender. "Get out and quick! I'm burnin' this place down!"

"Like hell!" The bartender swung and grabbed for his shotgun, but a bullet smashed his hand into a bloody wreck.

"Get out!" Dowd yelled. "You get the next one in your belly!"

The bartender scuttled for the door, and Dowd kicked a heap of papers together and broke an oil lamp in them, then dropped a match. Down the street there was shooting, and he rode out to find Finn Mahone standing in the street with his Winchester in his hand. Finn looked up, a dark streak of soot along his jaw, and an angry red burn. "Someone damn near checked me out."

"You get him?"

"Right between the eyes."

The flames inside the saloon were eating at the floor now, and creeping along the bar. The frame buildings, dry as ancient parchment, would go up like under in a high wind.

Both men swung into their saddles, and lighting some sacks, raced from door to door, scattering the fire. The wind caught the flames, and in a matter of minutes the IXUblLtK ROUNDUP / outlaw town was one great, roaring, crackling inferno. "That will kill a lot of rats!" Finn yelled above the sound of the flames. "Let's ride out of here!"

Away from the town, Finn glanced at the tall Texan. "It's like old times, Dowd!"

"Sure is." The Texan stared bleakly down the road. "I'm an awful fool, Finn."

"Forget it. How could you know any different? Honey had that button ... and it was Logan, all right. It checks too close not to be him. My trail petered out in Rico, but I never knew much about Logan, and never paid much attention to him until the day I saw him on the street with Remy Kastelle."

They rode on, heading toward Laird. Neither of them were much worried about the Lazy K. Jody Carson, Rifenbark, and Pete Goodale were there, and aside from them there was the cook and Kastelle himself. As for Remy, she could handle a rifle better than most men.

The two rode on, side by side, looking toward the town of Laird. Texas Dowd eased himself in the saddle. "I want Logan," he said carefully.

"He's yours."

Doc Finerty was standing beside the pole barn when they rode up, and there was already a graying light in the east. "Van's in a bad way, but he's got a chance," Doc said. He glanced from one to the other. "Where you been?"

"We burned Rawhide," Finn said. "Now we're scalp-hunting. Dowd wants Logan."

"Logan! Well, you look out for Sonntag. He's dangerous, Finn. He's the worst of them all."

Mahone gestured at Brewster. "Would he make it to Laird in a buckboard?"

"He might," Doc said dubiously. "I've been studying about it. He would have better care there. Lettie, she'll take him in, and she's a good nurse, the best around here."

Finn got the buckboard from behind the pole barn and they roped a couple of horses and got them hitched. The ride to town was slow and careful, and as daylight came, the buckboard creaked to a stop outside of Lettie Mason's. Finn rounded the stallion and faced down the street. There was no one in sight, for it was barely rising time for the people of Laird. Smoke was beginning to lift from a couple of chimneys.

When Brewster was inside in the care of Lettie, and Doc was sitting over coffee, Finn and Dowd walked outside. "Nick James was to keep an eye on him. Let's walk up to Ma Boyle's."

Laird was quiet in the early morning light, and the dusty street was very still. Somewhere a door slammed, and then a pump began to creak, and afterward they^ heard a heavy stream of water gushing into a wooden bucket.

The two men walked up the street, then stepped on the boardwalk. Suddenly, Finn saw that the saloon was open. He pushed through the doors. Red Eason looked up, his face growing suddenly still, watchful as he saw who his visitors were.

"Two, and make them both rye," Finn said.

Red poured the drinks and put the bottle on the bar. He glanced from one to the other, and he swallowed. He laid his hands on the bar in plain sight.

"Nice in California, Red," Mahone said suddenly. "You'll enjoy it there."

"Listen," Red Eason said quickly, "I never made any / trouble for you fellows. I can't leave. I ..." His voice dwindled away as they both looked at him.

"Red," Finn leaned his forearms on the bar, "I like this town. I feel at home here. Dowd likes it, too. We've some mighty fine folks around here, and we want to see the town clean and keep it a nice place for people to live. Not like that Rawhide. If this place got as bad as Rawhide, we might have to burn it, too."

"We don't want to do that," Dowd said gently, "so Finn and me, we sort of decided to weed out the undesirable elements, as they say. We sort of figure you come under that particular handle."

Eason's face was stiff. He was frightened, but there was still fight in him. "You can't get away with it!" His voice was thick. "Pierce won't stand for it!"

"Don't call him that, Red," Finn said. "Call him Cash-man. That's what Dowd's going to call him when he sees him. Cashman's the name of a murderer. The murderer of Tex's sister. He killed Sam Hendry, too. Had him drunk and then killed him and buried him out back of the livery stable. Otis saw it."

Both men tossed off their drinks, then turned toward the doors. At the doors, Finn looked back. "It's nice in California, Red. You should be able to get a lot of miles between you and here before sundown ... if you start now!"

Ma Boyle was bustling about, putting food on the table and pouring coffee when the two men walked in the door together. Judge Collins looked up, smiling. "How are you, Finn? Hello, Dowd!"

"We brought Brewster to town," Mahone said. "He may pull through. Logan started to kill him when he found him dying. Remy got there and scared Logan off."

Powis was at the table, staring at them, his eyes large.

"Logan, was it?" Collins avoided looking at Powis, and although he was disgusted with himself for it, he felt a little glow of satisfaction that Powis was there to hear it, for the man's abject worship of authority and the power of Pierce Logan had always irritated him.

"Seen the Rawhide bunch?"

"Alcorn's dead. So is Ike Hibby. They attacked Dowd at Brewster's place. The rest of them are off on the range, somewhere."

"You won't have to worry about Rawhide," Texas drawled. "It ain't there anymore."

The door pushed open suddenly, and Nick James came in. He glanced quickly from Dowd to Mahone. "Finn," he said quickly, "Pierce Logan's stayed close to his place all night. He's getting ready to come out."

"Thanks." Mahone glanced over at Texas Dowd. "All right," he said, "are you going to take him or am I?"

Dowd turned. "I am."

Powis put his cup down. It rattled nervously in his saucer. He pushed back in his chair and cleared his throat. "Well," he said, simulating heartiness, "time I got to work."

"Sit down, Powis." Gardner Collins looked less the judge and more the cowhand and cattleman at that moment. "You stay right here. Dowd will tell Logan he wants him."

Texas turned his eyes toward the barber, and the man's face paled. Finn lifted his cup. "He's a friend of Logan's?"

"Sort of," Collins agreed. "Seems to think he's king."

"Well," Finn said, "times are changing around here." He put his cup down. "Powis, Red Eason is headin' for California and expects to make a lot of distance before sundown. He might like a traveling companion."

The barber stared from one to the other. "But my business!" he protested. "Everything I've got is here!"

Finn Mahone looked at him levelly. "You. don't need anything you can't carry. Start traveling."

Nick James had been standing by the window, holding the cup of coffee he had poured. "Logan just came out," he said.

Dowd finished his cup, and got to his feet. "Ma," he said, "that sure is good coffee." The sound of his boot heels echoed on the floor.

They sat very still, and the slam of the screen door made them all jump a little.

Pierce Logan was crossing the street to Ma Boyle's when a door slammed, and he looked up. Texas Dowd, tall in his blue jeans and gray shirt, was standing on the step in front of Ma Boyle's. Instantly, Logan was apprehensive, for there was something in Dowd's whole appearance that warned him of trouble.

As he stood there on the step before his office, looking diagonally across the street at Texas Dowd, a peculiar awareness of life came over him. Somehow, he had never seemed to think of the sun's easy warmth, the gray dust in the street, the worn, sun-warped and wind-battered frame buildings. He had never thought much of the signs along the streets of Laird, their paint cracked and old. Now, he seemed aware of them all, but mostly he was aware of the tall, still figure standing over there, looking up the street at him.

Then, the feeling passed. After all, there was no way his part in all this could be known. He was simply getting jumpy, that was all. He was being foolish. After he had his morning coffee, he would feel better. Why should just the appearance of Dowd startle him so?

"Cashman!"

The voice rang like a great bell in the silent, empty street, and Logan jerked as though stabbed.

"Cashman! Start remembering before I kill you! Start remembering a girl on a plantation in Louisiana! That girl was my sister!"

Pierce Logan stood very still. This alone he had not expected. This past was over. It was gone. That girl ... Dowd's sister? He shook his head suddenly, remembering that awful, bloody afternoon. His lips tightened and a kind of panic came over him, but he stiffened suddenly. That finished it, then. It finished it all, unless he could kill Dowd. His hand flashed for a gun and he drew in a single, sweeping movement, and fired as his gun came level.

His face gray, he crouched in the street, knowing he had missed, and the tall Texan in the gray shirt walked toward him, his long lantern jaw and his face very still, only his cold gray eyes level and hard. In a surge of panic, Logan fired two quick shots. One of them kicked up dust at Dowd's feet, and the other plucked at his sleeve.

Texas Dowd stopped, no more than a dozen feet away) and fired. The sound of his gun was like the roll of a drum, and at each shot, Logan jerked as if struck by a fist. Then, slowly, he sank to the dust, the pistol dribbling from his fingers.

Feeding shells into his gun, Texas Dowd backed slowly away from the fallen man, then turned and walked back to Ma Boyle's. Judge Gardner Collins, cleared his throat as Dowd came in, and Finn Mahone poured a fresh cup of coffee. At no time had he risen from the table. He didn't have to. He knew Dowd.

Chapter 8

Finn Mahone and Texas Dowd reached the Lazy K, riding slowly for the last few miles. Both men rode with rifles ready, uncertain as to whether they would find the ranch safe, or besieged. As they drew near, the two men let a gap widen between them and rode warily up to the ranch. Jody Carson was the first person they saw.

"Howdy," he said, grinning at them. "You two missed the fun."

"We had some our own selves What happened here?"

"That Rawhide bunch bit off more'n they could chew. Montana Kerr, Ringer Cobb, Banty Hull, and Leibman rode in here this mornin' about sunup. They were loaded for bear an' looked plumb salty, an' I reckon they was."

"Was?"

"That's what I said." Jody put a hand on Finn's saddle horn. "You know, I never rightly had the boss figured. He lazed around up there to the house, takin' it easy, an' lettin' Texas here an' Remy run the whole shebang, but when we heard the place was liable to be attacked, he rared up on his hind legs, strapped on some guns, an' then he told us what was what.

"Well, sir! You should have seen them hard cases They rode in here big as life an' tough as all get-out. You could see it stickin' out all over them. They was just a-takin' this here spread over, an' right now. Dowd was gone, an' he was the salty one of the crowd, they reckoned. Well, I reckoned so, too.

"When they rode up they swung down and started for the house, but the boss, he stepped out on the porch. "Howdy, boys he says, big as life an' slick as a whistle, 'lookin' for something'?"

" "Well, I reckon!" Kerr tells him, 'we've come to take over this here place, an' if you don't want no trouble, you stay the hell out of the way!"

" "But s'posin' I want trouble?" the boss says, an' he says it so nice that they don't take him very serious.

JXUSlLbK ROUNDUP

" "Don't you be foolish Kerr says, 'you can come out of this alive if you're smart!"

" "That's what I was fixin' to tell you Kastelle says, 'you boys crawl back in those saddles an' light out of here, an' you can go your way. We'll just make like it never happened he says.

"Montana, he still can't figure Frenchy Kastelle makin' any fuss. Never guessed he was the fightin' type. He starts to say something' when Cobb opens his big face. "Let's get 'em, Monty. Why stand here palaverin'?" Then he went for his gun ...

"It was a bad thing to do, Tex. Too bad them boys couldn't have lived long enough to know their mistake. I tell you, we had our orders, an' we were a-layin' there all set with our rifles an' shotguns. There was Pete, Rif, Wash, an' me, with Remy up to the house. Cobb, he reached, but he was a mite slow. The boss shot him so fast I didn't even know what happened. He'd told us aforetime. He says, "If they ride off, let 'em go. If they fire one shot ... wipe 'em out!"

"Mister, we wiped 'em! When Cobb went for his gun, the boss drilled him, an' then the whole passel of ours cut loose on 'em an' I don't think they ever knowed what hit 'em. They must have figured we was either gone, or so skeered we wouldn't fight none.

"Pete, he and Rif are out back now, diggin' graves for the lot of them."

"Anybody hurt?"

Jody chuckled. "Nary a one! They never had a chance! Hell, if this don't scare all the outlaws out of Laird Valley, they just ain't the smart folks we figure 'em for."

He looked up at Finn, then at Tex. "What happened to you-all?" x Dowd explained briefly about the fight at the Brewster ranch, the killing of Alcorn and Hibby, and the subsequent raid upon Rawhide and how it had been left in flames. Mahone went on from there to tell about the killing of Pierce Logan, and how Eason and Powis had left town.

Carson chuckled. "Well, now! Ain't that something'? This will sure make believers out of those bad hombres! This will be a place to leave alone!" Suddenly, he frowned. "What about Sonntag?"

Mahone shrugged. "Neither Sonntag nor Frank Salter have shown up. Sonntag is plenty bad, and Salter is a fit partner for him. The two of them are poison, and while they may have left the range, I doubt it. They'll stick around."

Finn Mahone's eyes had been straying toward the ranch house. Finally, he shoved his hat back on his head, and his face flushed as he suggested, "I expect I'd better go up and tell Frenchy what happened."

Dowd chuckled. "Sure. You might tell Remy, too!"

As Finn trotted the stallion toward the house, he heard them both laughing at him, and he grinned in spite of himself.

Remy Kastelle came out the door as he mounted the steps. "Finn! Oh, it's you! And Tex is back! What happened?"

Frenchy had come into the doorway behind her, and Mahone explained the situation as quickly as possible.

It was Remy who repeated the question. "What about Sonntag?"

"Neither he nor Salter have been heard from, but they may show up yet. I've got to get back to my place and move some cattle. Ed Wheeling over at Rico wants to buy some stock from me."

Hours later, on the road back to Crystal Valley, Finn l\UbTLKK ROUNDUP /

Mahone rode swiftly. Nick James had left that morning and was to meet him at the Notch, and they would go on to the valley together. With James and Shoshone Charlie, he could manage the drive all right. Dowd had offered him a hand, but Mahone refused.

He said nothing to them of his worries, but he had his own ideas about what had become of Byrn Sonntag. The big redheaded gunman was probably in Rico. It would be like him to go there, for he knew the place and they knew him. Jim Hoff, the buyer of stolen cattle, was there; Sonntag would need money and he could sell some of the rustled cattle to Hoff.

The following day, Finn Mahone pushed his own herd of cattle through the upper canyon of the Laird. He had his sale to make, and he had the sense that the last act of the Laird Valley cattle war was going to play itself out in Rico.

Finn knew there would be rustling and robbery in the Laird Valley as long as Byrn Sonntag and Frank Salter were at large. Now that he was no longer being set up to be a scapegoat, the rustlers would have no compunction about taking his cattle along with those of everyone else. Texas Dowd had said little, but Mahone knew that he felt the same.

Nick James rode by. Mopping sweat and dust from his brow, he grinned at Mahone. The white-faced cattle moved briskly ahead, bawling and frisking, occasionally stopping to crop disinterestedly at the sparse desert growth. Soon they were mounting the trail to theA plateau on which Rico stood.

The scattered shacks that lay around Rico appeared, and then the stockyards. A couple of hands rode up and helped them to corral the stock. Finn left Shoshone Charlie and Nick James to drown their thirst, and headed for the Gold Spike to see Wheeling.

When the stock buyer saw him, he almost dropped his glass. "Mahone, you'd better be careful. Sonntag is in town selling cattle. If he sees you around, he'll think you've come after him."

"I wouldn't want to disappoint the man," Mahone commented, grimly.

"Well, that Salter is with him, and he's mean as a burro jack and that isn't all! Frenchy Kastelle hit town about noon, rode over from the ranch with his daughter and Texas Dowd. They're trying to figure out where their missing stock got to. Jim Hoff saw them, and I know he's said something to Sonntag."

Finn Mahone thought quickly. Byrn Sonntag would be trying to cash in on Logan's rustling scheme. He and Salter had hundreds, if not thousands, of stolen cattle to sell and that meant the stakes were high enough to kill for. If the Kastelle outfit was in town asking questions, there was a good chance they would run afoul of Sonntag and Salter. No doubt Remy's father was as fast as Carson had assured them, and surely Texas Dowd was as tough as they came, but in a match with a gunman of Sonntag's caliber anyone involved was bound to get hurt.

Mahone turned and walked swiftly to the door. He glanced sharply up and down the street, then pushed outside. Almost the first man he saw was Jim Hoff. The fat, sloppy buyer was coming up the boardwalk toward him, but when he saw Finn, he started to cross the street. "Hoff! Hold on a minute!"

Reluctantly, the man stopped, staring uneasily at Finn. "Where's Sonntag? Tell me, and quick!"

"I don't know," Hoff protested.

RUSTLER KOUNDUP / Z3S

Mahone did not wait. He slapped the buyer of stolen stock across the mouth, hard enough to rattle his teeth. "Next time you get a pistol barrel! Where is he?"

"Down to his shack! An' I hope he kills you!" Hoff pointed further down the street to a tarpaper cabin half concealed by brush.

Shoshone Charlie had come out of the saloon. "Charlie," Finn said, "keep your eye on this hombre. If he makes a move toward a gun or to communicate with anybody, skin him alive."

The Indian moved nearer Hoff, and the cattle buyer backed away. The Indian might not be young, but he was wiry and tough, and his knife was good steel.

Nick James moved up. "What is it, Boss?"

"Sonntag and me, when I find him!"

Door by door, Finn worked down the street. Sonntag might be at the shack, but he might not be. Mahone also went down the street, only a glance was needed to tell him who was in each place he visited. When he stopped at the stock corrals, and stared down the road, he could see the dark frame shack where Sonntag lived when in Rico. It was an ugly place to approach.

The square little house stood on a mesquite-dotted lot with nothing near it but the crowded corrals and a small stable, not unlike the flimsy structure at the Brewster ranch.

The road approaching it was flat and offered no cover. He could wait until Sonntag started for town, but Finn was in no mood for waiting now. If Kastelle and Remy were in town there was every chance of them getting hurt, for the town was small, and Sonntag was not about to be thwarted at the last minute.

Finn stepped out from the corrals and started down the path, walking fast.

Ed Wheeling walked to the door of the Gold Spike and stared after Mahone, then stepped out on the boardwalk. Slowly, the word had swept the town. Finn Mahone was going after Sonntag and Salter.

Remy was in the general store when she heard it, and she straightened, feeling the blood drain from her face. She turned and started for the door. Her father, seeing her go, was startled by her face. He followed swiftly down the road.

The door of the square house opened, and Byrn Sonntag stepped out.

He had pulled the door closed behind him before he saw Finn Mahone. He squared around, staring at him to make sure he saw aright. Then, stepping carefully, he started toward him. Neither man spoke.

Seventy feet apart, they halted, as at a signal. Finn Mahone felt a queer leaping excitement within him as he stared across the hot stretch of desert at Byrn Sonntag. Ever since he could recall wearing a gun, he seemed to have been hearing of Sonntag, and always his name had been spoken in awe.

Standing there, his features were frozen and hard now, and his eyes seemed to blaze with a white light.

Sweat trickled down Mahone's cheek. He could smell the sage, and the tarlike smell of creosote bush. The sun was very warm and the air was still. Somewhere, far off, a train whistled.

"Heard you're sellin' cattle, Sonntag."

"Just a few critters, here an' there."

"We may have to skin a few, check the brands."

"No, you're not. I'm goin' to kill you, Mahone."

Finn Mahone drew a deep breath. There was no way around this. "All right, when that train whistles again, Sonntag, you can have it."

They waited, and the silence hung heavy in the desert air. Salter was out there somewhere but Finn knew he couldn't fight both of them, so he put the old guerrilla out of his mind and focused on Sonntag. Sweat trickled down Mahone's brow, and he felt it along his body under his shirt, and then he saw the big gunman drop into a half crouch, his body tense with listening. When the whistle came, both men moved. In a blur of blinding speed, Finn Mahone saw Sonntag's gun sweeping up, saw flame stab toward him, and felt a hammer blow in his stomach, but his own gun was belching fire, and he was walking toward Sonntag, hammering bullets into the big redhead, one after another.

He went to his knees, and sweat came up into his face, and then his face was in the sand, and he looked up, still clutching his guns, then he dug his elbows into the sand, and dragged himself nearer.

Somewhere through the red haze before him he could hear the low bitter cursing of Sonntag, and he fired at the. sound. The voice caught, and gagged, and then Finn got his feet under him, and swayed erect only to have his knees crumple under him. In a sitting position, he could see Sonntag down, but the man was not finished. Mahone triggered his gun, but it clicked on an empty chamber.

Sonntag fired, and the bullet plucked at Finn's trouser leg. Finn dug shells from his belt and began to feed them into the chambers of his six-gun. Off to his left there was a rattle of pistol fire and the dull boom of the Spencer that Frank Salter carried. Someone was helping Mahone out.

Sonntag was getting up, his thick shirt heavy with blood, his face half shot away. What enormous vitality forced the man to his feet, Mahone could never imagine, but there he was, big as a barn, seemingly indestructible. Mahone got to his feet, and twenty feet apart they stared at each other. Finn brought his gun up slowly.

"You're a good ... man, Mahone," Sonntag said, "but I'll kill you an' live to spit on your grave!"

His own gun swung up swiftly, and blasted with flame, but the shot went wild, and Finn Mahone fired three times, slowly, methodically.

Sonntag staggered, and started to fall, then pitched over on his face. He squeezed off another shot, but it plowed a furrow in the sand.

It was awfully hot. Finn stared down at the fallen man, and felt his own gun slip from his fingers. He started to stoop to retrieve it, and the next thing he knew was the sound of singing in a low, lovely voice.

His lids fluttered back and he was lying on his back and Remy was bending over him. The singing stopped. "Oh, you're awake? Don't try to talk now, you must rest."

"How long have I been here?"

"A week tomorrow."

"A week? What happened to Sonntag?"

"He's dead ..."

"And Salter?"

"When you're better you can thank my father."

"I thought Sonntag was going to kill me," Finn said thoughtfully.

"Don't think about it now," Remy advised. "You'll be well soon."

He caught her hand. "I'll be going back to the valley, then. It's never been the same since that morning when you were waiting on the steps for me. I think you should come back, and stay."

"Why not?" Remy wrinkled her nose at him. "That's probably the only way I'll ever get that black stallion!"

He caught her with his good arm and pulled her close. "Wait! That's not the way a wounded man should act!" she protested.

Then their lips met, and she protested no longer.

*

THE SKULL AND THE ARROW

Heavy clouds hung above the iron-colored peaks, and lancets of lightning flashed and probed. Thunder rolled like a distant avalanche in the mountain valleys ... The man on the rocky slope was alone.

He stumbled, staggering beneath the driving rain, his face hammered and raw. Upon his skull a wound gaped wide, upon his cheek the white bone showed through. It was the end. He was finished, and so were they all ... they were through.

Far-off pines made a dark etching along the skyline, and that horizon marked a crossing. Beyond it was security, a life outside the reach of his enemies, who now believed him dead. Yet, in this storm, he knew he could go no further. Hail laid a volley of musketry against the rock where he leaned, so he started on, falling at times.

He had never been a man to quit, but now he had. They had beaten him, not man to man but a dozen to one. With fists and clubs and gun barrels they had beaten him .. and now he was through. Yes, he would quit. They had taught him how to quit.

The clouds hung like dark, blowing tapestries in the gaps of the hills. The man went on until he saw the dark opening of a cave. He turned to it for shelter then, as men have always done. Though there are tents and wickiups, halls and palaces, in his direst need man always returns to the cave. J

He was out of the rain but it was cold within. Shivering, he gathered sticks and ome blown leaves. Among the rags of his wet and muddy clothing, he found a match, and from the match, a flame. The leaves caught, the blaze stretched tentative, exploring fingers and found food to its liking.

He added fuel; the fire tjbok hold, crackled, and gave off heat. The man moved closer, feeling the warmth upon his hands, his body. Firelight played shadow games upon the blackened walls where the smoke from many' fires had etched their memories ... for how many generations of men?

This time he was finished. There was no use going back. His enemies were sure he was dead, and his friends would accept it as true. So he was free. He had done his best, so now a little rest, a little healing, and then over the pine-clad ridge and into the sunlight. Yet in freedom . there is not always contentment.

He found fuel again, and came upon a piece of ancient pottery. Dipping water from a pool, he rinsed the pot, then filled it and brought it back to heat. He squeezed rain from the folds of his garments, then huddled between the fire and the cave wall, holding tight against the cold.

There was no end to the rain ... gusts of wind whipped at the cave mouth and dimmed the fire. It was insanity to think of returning. He had been beaten beyond limit. When he was down they had taken turns kicking him. They had broken ribs ... he could feel them under the cold, a raw pain in his side.

Long after he had lain inert and helpless, they had bruised and battered and worried at him. Yet he was a tough man, and he could not even find the relief of unconsciousness. He felt every blow, every kick. When they were tired from beating him, they went away.

He had not moved for hours, and only the coming of night and the rain revived him. He moved, agony in every muscle, anguish in his side, a mighty throbbing inside his skull, but somehow he managed distance. He crawled, walked, staggered, fell. He fainted, then revived, lay for a time mouth open to the rain, eyes blank and empty.

By now his friends believed him dead ... Well, he was not dead, but he was not going back. After all, it was their fight, had always been their fight. Each of them fought for a home, perhaps for a wife, children, parents. He had fought for a principle, and because it was his nature to fight.

With the hot water he bathed his head and face, eased the pain of his bruises, washed the blood from his hair, bathed possible poison from his cuts. He felt better then, and the cave grew warmer. He leaned against the wall and relaxed. Peace came to his muscles. After a while he heated more water and drank some of it.

Lightning revealed the frayed trees outside the cave, revealed the gray rain before the cave mouth. He would need more fuel. He got up and rummaged in the further darkness of the cave. He found more sticks and carried them back to his fire. And then he found the skull.

He believed its whiteness to be a stick, imbedded as it was in the sandy floor. He tugged to get it loose, becoming more curious as its enormous size became obvious. It was the skull of a gigantic bear, without doubt from prehistoric times. From the size of the skull, the creature must have weighed well over a ton.

Crouching by the firelight he examined it. Wedged in an eye socket was a bit of flint. He broke it free, needing all his strength. It was a finely chipped arrowhead.

The arrow could not have killed the bear. Blinded him, yes, enraged him, but not killed him. Yet the bear had been killed. Probably by a blow from a stone ax, for there was a crack in the skull, and at another place, a spot near the ear where the bone was crushed.

Using a bit of stick he dug around, finding more bones. One was a shattered foreleg of the monster, the bone fractured by a blow. And then he found the head of a stone ax. But nowhere did he find the bones of the man. Despite the throbbing in his skull and the raw pain in his side, he was excited. Within the cave, thousands of years ago, a lone man fought a battle to the death against impossible odds ... and won.

Fought for what? Surely there was easier game? And with the bear half blinded the man could have escaped, for the cave mouth was wide. In the whirling fury of the fight there must have been opportunities. Yet he had not fled. He had fought on against the overwhelming strength of the wounded beast, pitting against it only his lesser strength, his primitive weapons, and his man-cunning.

Venturing outside the cave for more fuel, he dragged a log within, although the effort made him gasp with agony. He drew the log along the back edge of his fire so that it was at once fuel and reflector of heat.

Burrowing a little in the now warm sand of the cave floor, he was soon asleep.

For three weeks he lived in the cave, finding berries and nuts, snaring small game, always conscious of the presence of the pine-clad ridge, yet also aware of the skull and the arrowhead. In all that time he saw no man, either near or far ... there was, then, no search for him.

Finally it was time to move. Now he could go over the ridge to safety. Much of his natural strength had returned; he felt better. It was a relief to know that his fight was over.

At noon of the following day he stood in the middle of a heat-baked street and faced his enemies again. Behind him were silent ranks of simple men.

"We've come back," he said quietly. "We're going to stay. You had me beaten a few weeks ago. You may beat us today, but some of you will die. And we'll be back. We'll always be back."

There was silence in the dusty street, and then the line before them wavered, and from behind it a man was walking away, and then another, and their leader looked at him and said, "You're insane. Completely insane!" And then he, too, turned away and the street before them was empty.

And the quiet men stood in the street with the light of victory in their eyes, and the man with the battered face tossed something and caught it again, something that gleamed for a moment in the sun.

"What was that?" someone asked.

"An arrowhead," the man said. "Only an arrowhead."