Chapter V: Part 5

"You have taken the trouble to be something more than just a horse foreman," she told him quietly. "I don't know what your advantages have been; if you haven't gone through high school, then at least you have been ambitious enough to get books, to read, to educate yourself. You have developed further than Carson; you have broadened more than Tripp."

"Thanks," he offered dryly.

"Oh, I'm not seeking to intrude into your private affairs, Mr. Bud Lee!" she cried warmly at his tone. "I have no desire to do so, having no interest in them. First of all, I want one thing clear: You said when I first came that you'd stay a few days, long enough for me to get a man in your place. We have both been rather too busy to think of your leaving or my seeking a substitute. Now what? The job is yours as long as you want it--if you'll stay. I don't want you leaving me in the lurch. Do you want to go? Or do you want to stick?"

What did he want? He had anticipated an interference from the girl in his management of the duty allotted him and no such interference had come. She left him unhampered, even as she did Tripp and Carson. He had his interest in his horses. It was pleasant here. This cabin was a sort of home to him. Besides, he had the idea that Quinnion and Shorty might again be heard from--that if Trevors was backing their play, there would be other threats offered the Blue Lake outfit from which he had no desire to run. There was such a thing as loyalty to the home-range, and in the half-year he had worked here it had become a part of him.

"I'll stick," he said quietly.

"I'm glad of that," replied Judith. "Oh, you'll have your work cut out for you, Bud Lee, and, that you may be the better fitted to do it, I want you to know just what I am up against."

She paused a moment, stirring her coffee with one of Lee's tin spoons, gathering her thoughts. Then, speaking thoughtfully, she explained:

"It's a gamble, with us bucking the long odds. Dad left me a third interest, clear, valued, counting stock, at a good deal more than four hundred thousand dollars. He left me no cash. Dad never had any cash. Just so soon as he got his hands on it he put it to work. I knew he had planned taking over another one-third interest, and I went on with his plans. I mortgaged my share for two hundred thousand dollars, which I got at five per cent. That means I have to dig up each year, just interest, ten thousand dollars. That's a pretty big lump, you know."

"Yes," he admitted slowly. "That's big; mighty big."

"With the money I raised," Judith continued, "I bought out the third owner, Timothy Gray. He let his holding go for three hundred and fifty thousand. It was a bargain for me--if I can make a go of it. I still owe, on the principal, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I owe on my mortgage two hundred thousand. Total of my indebtedness, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that's bigger, Bud Lee."

"Yes. That's bigger figures than I can quite get the hang of."

No wonder she had been crying. Even if everything went smooth on the Blue Lake she, too, had her work cut out for her.

"Now," she ran on, her voice stirring him with the ringing note in it, "I can make a go of it--if they will just let me alone! I am playing close to the table, Lee, close! I have a little money in the bank, enough to run along for two or three months, that's all. I said that dad left no cash. I didn't mention his insurance." Her eyes grew suddenly wet but she did not avert them from Lee's face, going on quietly: "That was ten thousand dollars. Close to seven thousand had to go for his current obligations. I have about two thousand to run on."

"Close hauled," grunted Lee. And to himself, he remarked as he had remarked once before: "She's got her sand."

Quite naturally Bud Lee thought swiftly of his horses. He had told Trevors that he wanted to make no sale for at least six months. Given until then--if Judith could make a go of it without forcing a sale--he'd show her the way to at least seven or eight thousand, with a good percentage of clear profit.

"To begin with," Judith's voice interrupted his musings, "I am going to have trouble with Carson. I admit that he's an exceptionally good cattle foreman; I admit, too, that he has his limitations. He is of the old school, and has got to learn something! Already he has his weather-eye cocked for the lean season; he'll be coming to me in August or September, telling me I've got to begin selling. That's the way they all do! And the result is that beef cattle drop and the market clogs with them. What I am going to do is make Carson start in buying then. Oh, he'll buck like one of his own red bay steers but he'll buy!"

"We're pretty well stocked up," Lee offered gently. "Turning the hills over to the hogs makes a difference, too. We're going to be short of feed long before September is over."

"Short of range feed, yes," she retorted warmly. "But we're going to put our trust in our silos, Lee, and make them do such work for us as they have never done before. Then, when other folks are forced to sell off for what they can get, we'll hold on and buy. We won't sell before December or January, when the market is up."

He shook his head. Though not of the old school which had produced Carson, still he put little faith in those tall towers into which alfalfa and Indian corn were fed to make lush fodder.

"I don't know a whole lot about silos," he admitted.

"Neither does Carson," said Judith. "He looks at such things as silos and milking-machines and tractors and fences even as the old Indians must have looked at the inroads of the white men. But, do you know where he has been these last few days?"

"In San Francisco? Heard him say he was going to take a few days off."

Judith laughed.

"That's Carson for you! He wouldn't admit where he was going. I sent him down to Davis where the State experimental farm and laboratories are. He's going to see silo, study silo, think silo until he gets a new idea into his head. I have ordered a big extension in our irrigated area, I have begun the construction of two more silos. When Carson gets back he's going to look around for some more shorthorns at bargain prices. I have an idea it wouldn't do you any harm either, to look over what we are doing down at the Lower End."

Again she paused. Then, her eyes suddenly darkening, she told him what, after all, lay top-most in her mind.

"I have said that if I am given the chance, I can make a go of this. It's up to you, Bud Lee, to help see that I get that chance. An attempt was made to spread the lung-worm through my calves. Now it's the hogs. Do you know what the latest news is from the pens? There's cholera among them."

"Where did it come from?" he demanded. "Tripp's been keeping the health of our stock up right along."

"Where did it come from?" Judith repeated after him. "That's what I don't know. We've been so careful. But where did the calf sickness come from? Bayne Trevors imported it."

The inference was clear. He stared at her with frowning eyes.

"I don't see how he could have done it without Tripp's getting on to it. He hasn't bought any new hogs."

"But you understand now why I wanted to talk to you? If I win out in the thing I have taken on my shoulders, it is going to be by a close margin. I've thought it all out. We can't slip up in a single deal! But, it's up to you to give me a hand. To find out for yourself such things as where did the cholera come from! And to look out, that the next time they don't burn us out, when the range is dry. To see that nothing happens to your horses. To keep your two eyes wide open. To help me find the man, working with us right now, who is double-crossing us, who turned Shorty loose, who is watching a chance to do his knife act again somewhere else. Do you get me, Bud Lee?"

"I get you," replied Lee.

From without, gay voices, calling merrily, interrupted them. Lee went swiftly to the door while Judith finished her coffee and pulled her broad hat a little lower to throw its shadow in her eyes.

"Ahoy, there!" It was Pollock Hampton's voice. "We saw your horses and thought we'd catch you picnicking. Got a fire going, too! Say, that's bully. Come ahead, Marcia."

Marcia, a long riding-habit gathered in one hand, her cheeks flushed with her ride, her eyes bright as they rested upon the tall form in the doorway, came on behind Hampton. As the eyes of the two girls met, a sudden hot flush flooded Judith's cheeks. She hated herself for it; she wondered just how red her eyes were.

"Say, Judith," called Hampton, "I'm glad as the dickens we found you. Sawyer, the sheriff, telephoned just now. Said to tell you he'd located Quinnion. The funny part of it is that we made a mistake. It wasn't Quinnion at all that tried to shoot you and Bud up the other night."

"How's that?" demanded Lee. "Who says it wasn't?"

"Sawyer. Found Quinnion at a sheepman's place thirty or forty miles north of here. The sheepman swore Quinnion had been with him two weeks, was with him that night."

"A sheepman _can_ lie," grunted Lee.

Judith's brief moment of confusion passed, she ushered Marcia into the cabin. True to her promise, Miss Langworthy, though she flashed a quick look toward Lee, did not speak to him. He found himself flushing quite as hotly as Judith had done.

"We've just finished our lunch," Judith was saying. "And we've left you half of our coffee."

"I've been simply dying to see this place!" cried Marcia impetuously. "I told Pollock that it was a sure sign he didn't love me any more if he wouldn't bring me. And you and--and one of the men," her eyes on Judith's, "actually were in here, being shot at! Judith, dear, you are just the bravest girl in the world. If I'd been here I'd have simply died. I know I would."

Perhaps she would. At any rate she shuddered delightfully. She found a bullet-hole in the door and put a pink forefinger into it, giving a second little shiver. She managed to keep her back full upon Lee.

"Oh, by the way," said Hampton, busy opening the parcel of lunch they had brought with them, "Marcia's heard all about you, Bud. You said you wanted to meet Lee, Marcia. Well, here he is, tall and handsome in a devilish reckless way, looking at the dimple at the back of your neck. Miss Langworthy, Mr. Lee. Judith, that coffee smells good!"

"You are a naughty little boy, Pollock," said Miss Langworthy coolly. Nevertheless she turned smiling to Lee and put out her hand to him. "Mr. Hampton really makes quite a hero of you," she said composedly. "I think I have seen you--from a distance, you know."

The small whiteness of her hand was swallowed up in the lean brown of his.

"Hampton's a prevaricator," he said gravely, as he looked down into the merry blue eyes turned up to him. "But he's a gentleman I have to thank for the introduction. I am very happy to know you, Miss Langworthy."

"And now," cried Marcia, slipping her hand out of Lee's and going to a chair near the table, "do tell me all about that terrible, terrible night. But do you think we are quite safe here now, Mr. Lee?"

To herself Judith was saying: "Just the type to be Bud Lee's ideal lady!"

When they left the cabin, an hour later, Judith challenged Hampton to a ride and so left Marcia and Bud Lee to follow leisurely.

XVI

POKER FACE AND A WHITE PIGEON

Mrs. Simpson had made a discovery. It was epoch-marking! It was tremendous. Nothing short of that! So, at the very least, Mrs. Simpson was prepared to maintain stoutly in the face of possible ridicule.

Though, as Judith's housekeeper, she had sufficient household duties on her plump shoulders to send a less doughty woman creeping wearily to bed with the chickens, she found time before the dawn and long after nightfall to keep her eye upon that Black Spanish and his recruit and treacherous ally, Fujioki.

One morning, very early, Mrs. Simpson, from the thick curtains of the living-room, saw José "prowling around suspicious-like in the courtyard!" She thrilled at the sight. She always thrilled to José. The half-breed had gone silently, "sneaking-like," by Judith's outer door. He had paused there, listening. He had gone back to the courtyard, hesitating, pretending that he was looking at the roses! Such a ruse on the part of so black-hearted a villain inspired in the scarcely breathing Mrs. Simpson a vast disgust. As if he could fool _her_ like that, pottering around among the roses!

She, too, sought to move silently in his wake, though under her ample weight the veranda creaked audibly. Still, making less noise than usual, she peered through the lilacs. She saw José at the base of the knoll, going swiftly toward the stables. She saw another man who, evidently, was a third of the "gang," and who, of course, had risen early to creep out of the men's bunkhouse before the others were awake, to meet José. Screening herself behind the lilacs, her heart throbbing as it had not done for many a long year, she watched.

José and the other man did meet. José stopped. The two exchanged a few words, too low for Mrs. Simpson to hear at that distance. But she made out that the other man had something in his hand, something white. A pigeon! For, suddenly released, it fluttered out of the man's hands and, circling high above Mrs. Simpson's head, flew to join the other birds cooing on the housetop!

"A carrier-pigeon!" gasped Mrs. Simpson. "Taking a message to the other cutthroats!"

From that instant there was no doubt in her mind. This fitted in too well with her many suspicions not to be the clew she had sought long and unceasingly.

José went on, the man from the bunk-house went back into it, and Mrs. Simpson fled to the house and hastened excitedly to Judith's room. Judith, rudely awakened, came hurriedly to her door in her dressing-gown, her eyelids heavy with sleep. When she heard, she laughed.

"You dear old goose!" cried Judith joyously. "I just love you to death. You put fresh interest into life."

Despite Mrs. Simpson's earnest protests, Judith hugged her and pushed her out again, saying that since she was awake now she would want her breakfast just as soon as she could get it. The housekeeper shook her head and retreated heavily.

"You've got to show some folks a man cutting their throats," she muttered to herself, "before they'll believe it. It is a carrier-pigeon and I know it. And that Black Spanish--ugh! He makes my blood curdle, just to look at him!"

"Carrier-pigeons!" laughed Judith, as she began a hurried dressing. "The dear old goosie! And poor old José. She'll get something on him yet. I wonder why she----"

Suddenly Judith broke off. She was standing in front of a tall mirror, still only half-dressed. As she looked into the bright face of the smiling girl in the glass, a sudden change came. Pigeons! Doc Tripp had said that Trevors had got them; had remarked on the incongruity of a man like Trevors caring for little cooing birds. It was rather odd. Carrier-pigeons--carrier----

Judith whipped on her dressing-gown again and, slipperless, her warm, bare feet pat-patting upon the cold surfaces of the polished floors, she ran to the office.

"Send José to me," she called to Mrs. Simpson. "In the office. I want him immediately."

A warm glow came into Mrs. Simpson's breast. With a big kitchen poker behind her broad back, she hastened out to call José. Judith, at the telephone, called for Doc Tripp.

"Come up immediately," she commanded, "prepared to make a test for hog-cholera germs, Doc. No, I am not sure of anything, but I think I begin to see where it came from and how. Hurry, will you?"

To José she said abruptly:

"Go down to the men's quarters, José. Tell Carson and Lee to come right up." And as José turned to go, she added carelessly: "Seen any of the men yet?"

"_Si, señorita_," answered José. "Poky Face is up."

"Poker Face? All right, José. The others will be about, then."

José took little more time for his errand than for his elaborate bow. Carson and Lee came promptly, Carson a score of steps in advance, for Lee had tarried just long enough to wash his face and brush his hair; Carson had not.

"Tell me," demanded Judith, looking at her cattleman with intent eagerness, "what do you know about Poker Face?"

"One of the best men I've got," answered Carson heartily.

"Square, you think?"

"Yes. If I didn't think so he'd have been on his way a long time ago."

"How long has he been here? Who took him on?"

"Trevors hired him. About the same time he hired me."

Bud Lee, entering then, wondered what new thing was afoot. He glanced down and saw a bare foot peeping out from the hem of Judith's heavy red robe; he saw the hair tumbled in a glorious brown confusion over her shoulders. She was amazingly pretty this way.

"I want you two men to just stick around until I send for you again," said Judith, her eyes upon Carson alone, a little pink, naked foot suddenly withdrawn and tucked somewhere under her in her chair. "And keep your eyes on Poker Face. Keep him here, too, Carson. By the way, did any of you boys come in late last night? Or early this morning?"

"Why, no," answered Carson slowly. "An' yes. None of the reg'lar boys, but a man from down the river, looking for a job. Heard we was short-handed. Blew in early. Just got in a few moments ago, Poker Face said."

Quick new interest flew into Judith's eyes.

"Keep him here, too!" she cried. "And I'll give you something to do while you wait: bring me all the pigeons you can get your hands on--white ones. Shoot them if you have to. And be careful you don't rub the dust off their feet."

Carson's eyes went swiftly to Bud Lee's. In Carson's mind there was a quick suspicion: The strain of life on the ranch was proving too much for a girl, after all.

Judith, reading his thought, turned up her nose at him and, seeking to keep her feet hidden as she walked by sagging a little at the knees, went to the door. Turning there, she saw in Lee's eyes the hint of a smile, a very approving, admiring smile.

"Impudent!" she cried within herself. Looking very tiny, her knees bent so that her robe might sweep the floor, she continued with all possible dignity to the hallway. Once there, she ran for her room, her gown fluttering widely about her. In her room, though she dressed hurriedly, she still took time for a long and critical examination of two rows of little pink toes.

"Just the same," she said to the flushed Judith in the mirror, "they are very nice feet--Bud Lee, I'd just like to make you squirm one of these days. You're altogether too--too--oh, scat, Judy. What's the matter with you?"

In less than half an hour Doc Tripp, showing every sign of a hurried toilet, rode into the courtyard. He came swiftly into the office, bag in hand. Judith, waiting impatiently for him, lost no words in telling him her suspicions. And Doc Tripp, hearing her out, swore softly and fluently, briefly asking her pardon when he had done.

"I'm a jackass," he said fervently. "I always knew I was a fool, but I didn't know that I was an idiot! Why, Judy, those damned pigeons have been sailing all over the ranch, billing and cooing and picking up and toting cholera germs. Any fool can see it now. I might have known something was up when Trevors bought the infernal things. It's as simple as one, two, three. Now this other jasper, pretending to look for a job, brings on some more of them, so that the disease will spread the faster. Let me get my two hands on him, Judith. For the love of God, lead me to him."

But, instead, she led him to the dozen white pigeons which Carson brought in.

Tripp, all business again, improvised his laboratory, washed the pigeons' feet, made his test, with never another curse to tell of his progress. Judith left him and went into the courtyard, where, in a moment, Carson came to her.

"You better tell me what's up," he said sharply. "I know something is. That new guy that just come in is darned hard to keep. Just as quick as I grab a shotgun an' go to shooting pigeons he moseys out to the corrals an' starts saddling his horse."

"Don't let him go!"

Carson smiled a dry, mirthless smile.

"Bud is looking out for him right now," he explained. "Don't you worry none about his going before we say so. But I want to know what the play is."

Judith told him. Carson shook his head.

"Think of that?" he muttered. "Why, a man that would do a trick like that oughtn't to be let live two seconds. Only," and he wrinkled his brows at her, "where does Poker Face come in? We ain't got no call to suspicion he's in on it."

"You watch him, just the same, Carson. We know that somebody here has been working against us. Some one who turned Shorty loose. Maybe it isn't Poker Face, and maybe it is."

"He plays a crib game like a sport an' a gentleman," muttered Carson. "He beat me seven games out'n nine last night!" And, still with that puzzled frown in his eyes, he went to watch Poker Face and the new man. To have one of the men for whom he was responsible suspected hurt old Carson sorely. And Poker Face, the man with whom he delighted to play a game of cards--it was almost as though Carson himself had come under suspicion.

"You're going to stick around just a little while, stranger," Bud Lee was saying quietly to a shifty-eyed man in the corral. "Just why, I don't know. Orders, you know."

"Orders be damned," snarled the newcomer. "I go where I please and when I please."

He set a foot to his stirrups. A lean, muscular hand fell lightly upon his shoulder and he was jerked back promptly. Lee smiled at him. And the shifty-eyed man, though he protested sharply, remained where he was.

A thin, saturnine man whose lips never seemed to move, a man with dead-looking eyes into which no light of emotion ever came, watched them expressionlessly from where he stood with Carson. It was Poker Face.

"No," Poker Face answered, to a sharp question from the persistent Carson.

"Sure, are you?"

"Yes."

At last word came from Judith. Carson and Lee were to bring both of the suspected men to the house. Doc Tripp, wiping his hands on a towel, his sleeves up, bestowed upon the two of them a look of unutterable contempt and hatred.

"You low-lived skunks!" was his greeting to them.

"Easy, Doc," continued Judith from her desk. "That won't get us anywhere. Who are you?" she demanded of the man standing at Lee's side.

"Me?" demanded the man with an assumption of jauntiness. "I'm Donley, Dick Donley, that's who I am!"

"When did you get here?"

"'Bout an hour ago."

"What did you come for?"

"Lookin' for a job."

"Did Carson say he hadn't anything for you?"

"No, he didn't. You're askin' a lot of questions, if you want to know," he added with new surliness.

"Then why are you going in such a hurry? Don't you like to see any one shoot pigeons?"

Donley stared back at her insolently.

"Because I didn't fall for the crowd," he retorted bluntly. "An', if you want to know, because I didn't hanker for the job when I found out who was runnin' it."

"Meaning me? A girl? That it?"

"You guessed it."

"Who told you that I was running the outfit?" she demanded suddenly, her eyes hard on his. "You must have found that out pretty soon! Who told you?"

Donley hesitated, his eyes running from her to the other faces about him, resting longest upon the expressionless, dead-looking eyes of Poker Face.

"What difference does it make who told me?" he snapped.

"Answer me," she commanded. "Who told you?"

"Well," said Donley, "he did. Poker Face told me."

"Who told you that his name was Poker Face?" Judith shot the question at him.

Donley moved a scuffling foot back and forth, stirring uneasily. That he was lying, no one there doubted; that he was but a poor liar after all was equally evident.

"You ain't got no call to keep me here," he said at last. "I ain't goin' to answer questions all day."

"You'll answer my questions if you don't want me to turn you over to Emmet Sawyer in Rocky Bend!" she told him coolly. "How did you know this man was called Poker Face? Did you know him before?"

Donley's eyes went again, furtive and swift, to Poker Face. But so did all other eyes. Poker Face gave no sign.

"Yes," answered Donley then, taking refuge at last upon the solid basis of truth.

"Did you know this man?" Judith asked then of Poker Face, turning suddenly on him.

"No," said Poker Face.

Donley, having guessed wrong, flushed and dropped his head. Then he looked up defiantly and with a short, forced laugh.

"Suppose I know him or don't know him," he asked with his old insolence, "whose business is it?"

But Judith was giving her attention to Poker Face now.

"Where did you get that white pigeon you turned loose this morning?" she asked crisply.

"Caught it," was the quiet answer.

"How?"

"With my han's."

"Why?"

"Jus' for fun."

"Did you know that pigeons could carry hog-cholera on their feet?"

"No. But I wouldn't have been afraid, not bein' a hawg."

Donley tittered. Poker Face looked unconcerned.

"Take that man Donley into the hall," Judith said to Lee. "See if he has got any pigeon feathers sticking to him anywhere, inside his shirt, probably. If you need any help, say so."

Very gravely Bud Lee put a hand on Donley's shoulder.

"Come ahead, stranger," he said quietly.

"You go to hell!" cried Donley, springing away.

But Bud Lee's hand was on him, and though he struggled and cursed and threatened he went with Lee into the hallway. Tripp, watching through the open door, smiled. Donley was on his back, Lee's knees on his chest.

"I'll tell you one thing, stranger," Bud Lee was saying to him softly, as his hand tore open Donley's shirt, "you open your dirty mouth to cuss just once more in Miss Sanford's presence and I'll ruin the looks of your face for you. Now lie still, will you?"

"Connect me with the Bagley ranch," Judith directed the Rocky Mountain operator. "That's right, isn't it, Doc?"

"Yes," answered Tripp. "That's the nearest case of cholera."

"Hello," said Judith when the connection had been established. "Mr. Bagley? This is Judith Sanford, Blue Lake ranch. I've got a case of hog-cholera here, too. I want some information."

She asked her questions, got her answers. Triumphantly she turned to Tripp.

The Bagley ranch, though a hundred miles away, was the nearest cholera-infected place of which Tripp had any knowledge. Bagley did have a flock of pigeons; a man, a month or so ago, had bought two dozen from him; the man wasn't Trevors. Bagley didn't know who he was. The same man, however, had shown up three days ago and had asked for another half-dozen of the birds. There had been three white pigeons among them. He was a shifty-eyed chap, Bagley said, old brown suit, hat with a rattlesnake skin around the crown. That, point for point, spelled Donley.

Lee returned with the shirt which he had ripped from his prisoner's back. Adhering to the inside of it were little, downy feathers and three or four larger feathers from a pigeon's wing.

"I guess he rode mostly at night, at that," concluded Lee. "A great little fat man you must have looked, stranger, with six of those birdies in your shirt."

Donley's face was a violet red. But a glance from Lee shut his mouth for him. Poker Face, still looking on, gave no sign of interest.

"Put him in the grain-house," said Judith, her eyes bright with anger. "And see that he doesn't go Shorty's trail. Poker Face, have you anything else to say for yourself?"

"No," answered Poker Face.

"Then," cried Judith hotly, "you can have your time right now! Donley, here, I'll prosecute. He's going to pay for this morning's work. I've got nothing on you. It's up to you to see that I don't get it! And you can tell Shorty for me--yes, and Quinnion too, and Bayne Trevors, if you like--that I am ready and waiting for your next play! And don't forget that when San Quentin is full there's still room in Folsom."

Judith telephoned Emmet Sawyer that she had a man for him. Lee and Carson conducted an expostulating Donley to the grain-house and jailed him wordlessly. Then Carson put a man on guard at the door, daylight though it was. When all was done he filled his pipe slowly and turned troubled eyes after Poker Face.

"She made a mistake there, though," he said regretfully. "A better cow-hand I never ask to see, Bud. An' you ought to see the game of crib that man plays! Nope, Judy; you're wrong there."

But Bud Lee, the man who did not approve of the sort of woman who did man's work, said with unusual warmth:

"Don't you fool yourself, Carson! She hasn't made one little misplay yet!"

XVII

"ONCE A FOOL--ALWAYS A FOOL"

Though, under the surface, life upon Blue Lake ranch was sufficiently tense, the remaining days of June frivoled by as bright and bonny as the little meadow-blues flirting with the field-flowers.

Since from the very first the ranch had been short-handed, the hours from dawn to dusk were filled with activity. Carson, who, true to Judith's expectations, had brought back some new ideas from his few days at the experimental farm--ideas not to be admitted by Carson, however--bought a hundred young steers from a neighboring overstocked range. In the lower corrals the new milking-machines were working smoothly, only a few of the older cows refusing to have anything to do with them.

Tripp had succeeded in locating and getting back some of the men who had worked long under Luke Sanford and whom Trevors had discharged. It was a joy to see the familiar faces of Sunny Harper, Johnny Hodge, Bing Kelley, Tod Bruce. The alfalfa acreage was extended, a little more than doubled. Plans were made for an abundance of dry fodder to be fed with the lush silage during the coming lean months. Bud Lee broke his string of horses, and with Tommy Burkitt and one other dependable man began perfecting their education, with an eye turned toward a profitable sale in January.

Quinnion, perforce, was left undisturbed upon the sheep-ranch whither Emmet Sawyer had followed him. Against Bud Lee's word that he had had a hand at the trouble at the old cabin were the combined oaths of two of the sheepmen that he had been with them at the time.

Hampton's guests, who had planned for a month at the ranch, stayed on. But they would be leaving at the end of June. That is, Farris and Rogers positively; the Langworthys, perhaps. The major was content here, and to stay always and always, would be an unbounded joy--of course, with little runs to the city for the opera season and for shopping trips, and a great, jolly house-party now and then.

The only fly in Marcia's ointment was Hampton himself. She confessed as much to Judith. She liked him, oh, ever so much! But was that love? She yearned for a man who would thrill her through and through, and Hampton didn't always do that. Just after his heroic capture of the terrible Shorty, Marcia was thrilled to her heart's content. But there were other days when Hampton was just Pollock Hampton. If it could only be arranged so that she could stay on and on, with no day of reckoning to come, no matrimonial ventures on the horizon . . .

"That's simple, my dear," Judith smiled at her. "When you get through being Pollock Hampton's guest, you can be mine for a while."

Hampton was now a great puzzle to Mrs. Langworthy, and even an object of her secret displeasure. Not that that displeasure ever went to the limit of changing Mrs. Langworthy's plans. But she longed for the right to talk to him as a mother should. For, seeking to emulate those whom he so unstintedly admired, Bud Lee and Carson and the rest of the hard-handed, quick-eyed men in the service of the ranch, Hampton was no longer the careless, frankly inefficient youth who had escorted his guests here. He went for days at a time unshaven, having other matters to think of; he came to the table bringing with him the aroma of the stables. He wore a pair of trousers as cylindrical in the leg as a stove-pipe; over them he wore a pair of cheap blue overalls, with the proper six-inch turn-up at the bottom to show the stovepipe trousers underneath. The overalls got soiled, then dirty, then disgracefully blotched with wagon grease and picturesque stains, and Hampton made no apologies for them.

Twice he left the ranch, once to be gone overnight, intending that it should be a mystery where he went. But, since he rode the north trail which led to the Western Lumber camp, no one doubted that he had gone to see Bayne Trevors, in whom he still stoutly believed.

Between the 15th and the memorable 30th of June, Bud Lee saw little of Judith Sanford. She was here, there, everywhere; busy, preoccupied. Marcia he talked with twice; once when they rode together while Hampton, racing recklessly down a rocky slope for a shot at a deer got a fall, a sore shoulder and made his debut in certain new swear-words; once when all of the guests, with the exception of Farris, who was painting the portrait of the stallion, Nightshade, and the major, who had "letters to write," came out to watch the horse-breaking. This time, introduced to Mrs. Langworthy, Lee got for his bow a remarkably cold stare. Others might forget, here in the open, the distinction between people of the better class and their servants--not Mrs. Langworthy, if you please.

Having created his imaginary woman, Lee was ripe to fall in love with her when she came. He had thrilled to the touch of Judith's hand that night in the cabin; his thoughts, many and many a day, centred about the superbly alive beauty that was Judith's. The fact disturbed him vaguely. The thought that he was very deeply interested in her in the good old way between man and maid, never entered his stubborn head. She was as far removed from his ideal woman as the furthermost star in the infinite firmament. Perhaps it was this very disquiet within him, caused by Judith, which now turned his thoughts to Marcia.

"That's the sort of woman," he told himself stoutly. "A man's woman; his other self, not just a pardner; the necessary other side of him, not just the same side in a different way."

Marcia had little, feminine ways of helplessness which turned flatteringly to the strength of the other sex. Judith asked no man to aid her in mounting her horse; Marcia coquettishly slipped a daintily slippered foot into a man's palm, rising because of his strength.

Now, when his thoughts went to Judith, Bud Lee turned them dexterously to Marcia, making his comparisons, shaping them to fit into his pet theory. When, days passing, he did not see Judith, he told himself that he was going to miss Marcia when she left. When one day he came unexpectedly upon Judith and with lips and eyes she flashed her ready smile at him, he felt that odd stir in his blood. What a pity that a girl like her, who might have been anything, elected to do a man's work! When, again unexpectedly, he came another day upon Marcia riding with Hampton, there was no quick stirring of the pulses, and he contented himself with the thought: "Now, that is the sort of woman. A man's woman! His other self . . ." and so on.

When Judith planned a little party to mark the departure of Marcia on the 30th of June--it wasn't definitely decided that the Langworthys were leaving then, but at least Farris and Rogers were--the reasons actuating her were rather more complex than Judith herself fully realized or would have admitted. She liked Marcia; she wanted to do at least this much for her. Living-room, dining-room, music-room, library--they would all be cleared of the larger pieces of furniture, the double-doors thrown open. The string band from Rocky Bend would come. Judith would send out invitations to the nicer people there and to the ranches hereabout. She would have a barbecue, there would be races and the usual holiday games, then the dance. Marcia would know nothing of it until the last day, when her eager enthusiasm would send her a-flutter to her dressing-room.

Unanalyzed, it was simplicity itself, this giving a farewell party to Marcia. Under analysis, it was a different matter. The boys at the ranch would be invited, and of course most of them would come. Bud Lee would come. Judith would see to that, even if he should hesitate.

Bud Lee had always been so self-possessed, had so coolly found her lacking, that, piqued a little, Judith longed for the opportunity to place him in an atmosphere where a little of his calm self-possession might be snatched from him. If she could embarrass him, if she could see the red rise under his tanned skin, she would be giving Mr. Lee a lesson good for his soul.

"I've got powerful little use for an affair like that," said Lee coolly, when she told him. "Thank you, Miss Sanford, but I don't think I'll come."

Judith shrugged her shoulders as though it did not in the least matter to her.

"I'm giving it for Marcia," she said. "Do you think it would be quite nice to her to stay away? I am afraid that she will be hurt."

Not Judith's words, but the look in her eyes changed Lee's intentions.

"If it's for Miss Langworthy," he said quietly, "I'll come."

The day came and Bud Lee began to regret that he had given his promise to go to Marcia's dance. All day he was taciturn, aloof, avoiding not only the visitors from Rocky Bend and the other ranches, but his own fellows as well. He took no part in the races, was missing when the blazing trenches and smell of broiling meat told that the barbecue was in progress. He worked with his horses as he had worked yesterday, as he would work to-morrow. With the dusk he went, not to the men's quarters, but to the old cabin at the Upper End.

Again and again that day he had thought of that look in Judith's eyes when she had asked him to come for Marcia's sake. What the devil did she mean by it? He didn't know exactly, but he did know that in its own vague way it irritated him. Her eyes had laughed at him, they had teased, they had told him that Judith herself wasn't wasting a single thought upon Mr. Bud Lee, but that she had noticed his obvious interest in Miss Langworthy.

"Damn it," muttered Lee. "I won't go."

But he had said that he would go, and in little things as in big ones he was scrupulous. He would go, just to dance with Marcia and show Miss Judith a thing or two. He felt unreasonably like taking Miss Judith across his knee and spanking her. And he did have a curiosity to see just what Judith would look like in a real party-dress.

"Poor little wild Indian," he grumbled. "She's got the making of a wonder in her, and she doesn't even know it. What's worse, doesn't care."

He sat with a dead cigarette between his fingers, staring at the wind-blown flame of his coal-oil lamp. Judith was doing this as she did everything that she set her two hands on, thoroughly and with her whole heart and soul. In that lay the key to her character. There was no half-way with her. When she gave, it was open-handedly, with no reservation; where she loved or hated, it was unreservedly; if she gave a dance it would be a dance for the countryside to remember.

Yesterday Hampton had wondered, grinning, what he'd look like in a dress-suit again. Hadn't had a thing on here of late but his war togs. Whereby he called attention to his turned-up overalls, soft shirt, battered hat, and flapping vest with the tobacco-tag hanging out.

Bud Lee turned down the wick of his lamp, which had been smoking, and sat staring at it another five minutes.

"By thunder," he said softly to himself. "I'll do it."

He shoved the bunk away from its place in the corner, opened a trap-door in the floor and, lamp in hand, went down into the cabin's cellar. Here was a long pine box, hooped with tin bands for shipping, its lid securely nailed on. He set down his lamp and with shirt-sleeve wiped off some of the accumulation of dust and spider-web. A card with the words, "David Burrill Lee, Rocky Bend," tacked to it made its appearance. Lee shook his head and attacked the lid.

"It's like digging out a dead man," he muttered. "Well, we'll bury him again to-morrow."

It was a box of odds and ends. Clothing, a few books, a pack of photographs, an ornate bridle, a pair of gold-chased spurs, a couple of hats, gloves, no end of the varied articles which might have gone hastily into such a receptacle as this from the hurried packing in a bachelor's apartments.

Bud Lee, with a dress-suit and the articles it demands, even to tie and dancing-shoes, went back into the room above.

"Like Hampton," he mused, looking at the things in his hands, "I wonder what it'll feel like to get back into these! I'm a fool." He laughed shortly and set to work to improvise a flat-iron to take the worst wrinkles out of the cloth. "Once a fool, always a fool. You can't get away from it."

It was settled. He was going to Marcia's party. He insisted upon calling it in his mind, "Marcia's party." And he was wondering, as he shaved, how Judith was going to look.

XVIII

JUDITH TRIUMPHANT

As Bud Lee came through the lilacs into the courtyard, he heard the tinkle of a distant piano and the tremolo of a violin, so faint as hardly to be distinguished above the plash and gurgle of the fountains. The court, bathed in soft light, seemed a corner of fairyland, the music vanishing elfin strains of some mischievous troop putting sighs and love dreams into a sleeping maid's breast. The night was rich with stars, warm with summer, serene with the peace of the mountains. He was late. They were already dancing within.

He stood a moment, looking in at the outer edge of the flood of light which gushed through the wide doors. Behind him Japanese lanterns hanging from a vine-covered trellis; before him flowers, bright chandeliers, girls' dresses like fluttering, many-colored, diaphanous butterfly wings. He had been saying to himself: "I must hurry if I want to dance with Marcia." And something stirring restlessly within him shoved aside the thought of Marcia and put in its stead the old wonder: "What sort of a Judith would he see to-night?"

He found it difficult to form any picture of her here, among these gay, inconsequent merry-makers. Judith to him spelled a girl upon a horse, booted, spurred, with a scarf about her neck fluttering wildly behind her as she rode, the superb, splendid figure of a girl of the out-of-doors, alive with the hot pioneer blood which had been her rich inheritance, a sort of wonderful boy-girl. Remove her flapping hat, her boots, and spurs and riding-suit, and what was left of Judith?

Outside were half a dozen of the boys who had not mustered courage to set foot on the polished floors, Carson and Tommy Burkitt among them. Tommy stared at Bud Lee and his jaw dropped in amazement. Carson took swift stock of such clothes as he had never suspected a good horse foreman owned, and gasped faintly:

"The damn . . . lady-killer!"

But Lee had neither eyes nor thoughts for them, nor remembrance of his own change from working garb to that of polite society. The dance came to a lingering end, the couples throughout the big rooms strolled up and down, clapping their hands softly or vehemently as their natures or degree of enthusiasm dictated, and Lee forgot Marcia and sought eagerly for a glimpse of Judith.

Refused a second encore, the couples stood about chatting, the hum of lively voices bespeaking eager enjoyment. There was no early chill upon the assembly, to be dissipated as the dance wore on; the day of festivity outdoors had thawed the thin crust of icy strangeness which is so natural a part of such a function as this. Already it seemed that everybody was on the most cheerful terms with everybody else.

Suddenly Lee's eyes, still seeking Judith, found Marcia. Surrounded by a little knot of men, each of them plainly seeking to become her happy partner for the next dance, adorably helpless as usual, Miss Langworthy was allowing the men to fight it out among themselves. Lee moved a little nearer to see her better. In a pale-blue gown, fluffy as a summer cloud, her cheeks delicately flushed, a white rose like a snowdrop in the gold of her hair, she was flutteringly happy, reminding him of those little meadow blues that had flown palpitatingly about him that day in the fields. And she was obviously as much at her ease here, in an atmosphere of music and flattery, as the tiny butterflies in their own meadows.

Bud Lee came in, his tall form conspicuous, and went straight to Marcia. She saw him immediately; forget herself to stare almost as Carson had done; smiled at him brightly; waved her fan to him.

He took her hand and told her with his eyes how pretty she was. The delicate tint in Marcia's cheeks deepened and warmed, her eyes grew even brighter.

"Flatterer!" she chided him. "Are we to talk of the moth and the star again, Mr. Lee?"

The knot of men about her melted away. Lee stood looking down into her upturned eyes, measuring her gentle beauty. He had thought of her as a little blue butterfly--she was more like a wee white moth, fluttering, fluttering . . .

The music, again from a hidden distance, set feet to tapping. Marcia plainly hesitated, flashed a quick look from Lee to the others about them, then whispered hurriedly:

"It's terrible of me, but----"

And she slipped her hand into his arm, cast another searching glance over her shoulder for a partner who had been too tardy in finding her, and yielded to the temptation to have this first dance with "the most terribly fascinating man there"! Lee slipped his arm about her, felt her sway with him, and lightly they caught the beat of the dance and lost themselves in it. And still, again and again turning away from Marcia, he sought Judith.

The dance over, their talk was interrupted by an excited and rather overdignified youth with a hurt look in his young worshipping eyes, who stiffly reminded Miss Langworthy that she had cut his dance. She was so contrite and helpless about it that the youth's heart was touched; she blamed herself for her terribly stupid way of always getting things tangled up, gave him the promise of the next dance, which she had already given to some one else, disposed of him with charming skill, and sighed as she turned again to Lee.

"I haven't paid my respects to our hostess," he said quietly. "Where is Miss Sanford?"

"She sent her excuses," Marcia told him. "Aren't we in a draft, Mr. Lee?"

He moved with her away from the soft current of air, a distinct disappointment moving him to the verge of sudden anger. What business had Judith to stay away?

"You mean she isn't coming at all?" he asked quickly.

"Oh, no," she told him, busy with the rose in her hair, her eyes bright on his. "Just as the dance was beginning she had to go to the telephone. Some ranch business, I don't know what. But she sent word she would be here immediately--I believe," and Marcia made her remark teasingly, though she did want to know, "that a certain mysterious gentleman who masquerades as a horse-breaker is very much interested in Judith."

"What makes you say a thing like that?" he asked, startled a little.

Marcia laughed.

"A woman's intuition, Sir Mystery!" she informed him gayly.

"What does the woman's intuition find to be the mysterious gentleman's interest in a certain Miss Langworthy?" he asked lightly.

"It tells her that he likes her; that it would be fun for him to come and play with her; that he would be kind and courteous; but that he considers her very much as he would a foolish little butterfly!"

Again she startled him. He looked at her wonderingly. But before he could frame a bantering reply, Marcia had involuntarily gripped at his arm with a look upon her face that first was sheer bewildered astonishment, and was crying for him to look yonder.

Judith had come.

Across the floor, now nearly deserted, Bud Lee and Marcia stared at her. She was coming toward them, her dainty little slippers seeming to kiss their own reflections in the gleaming floor. It was Judith and not Judith. It was some strange, unknown Judith. A wonderfully gowned, transcendently lovely Judith. A Judith who had long hidden herself, masquerading, and who now stepped forth smiling and bright and vividly beautiful; a Judith of bare white arms, round and soft and rich in their tender curves; a Judith whose filmy gown floated about her like a sun-shot mist; a Judith whose skin above the low-cut corsage was like a baby's, whose tender mouth was a red flower, whose hair was a shimmering mass of bronze-brown, whose eyes were Aphrodite's own, glorious, dawn-gray; a Judith of rare maidenly charm; a glorious, palpitant, triumphant Judith.

It might have been just because it was fitting that they should greet their hostess so; it might have been because the men and women who saw this new Judith were caught suddenly in a compelling current of admiration, that above the hum of voices rose from everywhere a quick clapping of hands as she came through the room. The color of her cheeks deepened, her eyes flashed a joyous acknowledgment of the greeting, and bright and cool and self-possessed she came on to Marcia.

"Marcia, dear," she said, taking Marcia's two hands--and Bud Lee found that even Judith's voice had taken on a new note, deeper, richer, gladder, fraught with the quality of low music--"forgive me for being late. I wanted to be here every little second to see you enjoy yourself." She put her lips closer to Marcia's ear, whispering: "You are the prettiest thing to-night I ever saw!"

Marcia shook her head, her eyes filled with frank wonder.

"Don't fib, Judith, dear," she answered. And, for Marcia, she was very grave. "I know you have a glass in your room. You wonderful, wonderful Judith!"