Part 22 (1/2)

Evans turned away and Morrow rejoined the two men he had left at the bar. Deane looked about him. Apparently no one had noticed the little by-play.

”Evans didn't exactly mean quite all of that,” Harris explained. ”Of course if Morrow does come up our way Lanky would prefer to see him first--but he would rather he'd keep away. He staged that little talk as a safeguard for me. If Morrow acquires the idea that several folks are anxious to see him up there, he's apt to be real cautious how he prowls round the Three Bar neighborhood looking for me.”

Deane looked again at Morrow and saw that Moore and Horne had drawn him aside from the rest. The two Three Bar men were grinning and Morrow's face was set and scowling.

”The boys must have framed it up among themselves,” Harris said.

”That's the third pair I've seen conversing with him. It's doubtful whether Morrow is deriving much pleasure out of the dance.”

Deane crossed over to Billie. The music started but she shook her head as he would have led her to the floor.

”Sit down. I want to talk with you. Long time no see 'um after to-night,” she said. ”It'll be daylight soon and I've a long tale to tell.”

As the others danced she gave him a dozen messages to impart to various friends.

”Tell Judge Colton that Three Bar stock is rising,” she said. ”And that as soon as things are all smoothed out, he can expect me for a boarder. I'm going to make him one nice long visit.”

Practically all of her time away from the Three Bar had been spent with Judge Colton's family and she was accepted as part of the household.

It was there she had met Deane and those others to whom her messages were sent.

Through an opening in the dancing throng Deane suddenly had a clear view of the open rear door--one brief glimpse before the crowd closed once more and shut off his view. He had an idea that he had seen a face, hazy and indistinct, a few feet outside the door. He wondered if it could be the friend for whom Harris had searched.

”Make the visit soon, Billie,” he urged. ”It's been a long month since we've had you with us. We thought maybe you'd deserted us back there.

How soon will this visit start--and how long will it last?”

”It will start as soon as the Three Bar doesn't need me,” she said.

”And last a long time.”

Again a lane opened through the crowd, affording a view of the door.

Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through.

The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions of a frontier gathering.

Old Rile Foster stood just inside, his gun half-raised before him.

Canfield and Lang stood together in the center of the floor, apart from the rest and with no others in line beyond them. Rile tossed a boot heel on to the floor and as it rolled toward the two men he shot Canfield through the chest. Lang's gun crashed almost with his own.

Rile's knees sagged under him and he pitched face down on the floor, his arms sprawled out before him.

The surge of the crowd, pressing back out of line, threw the albino on the edge of it, his big form towering alone.

The old man raised his head from the floor and crooked his wrist with the last of his ebbing strength.

”Four for Bangs,” he said, and shot Harper between the eyes.

XI

The two loggers had finished cutting their quota of timber for the homestead cabins and the white peeled logs lay piled and ready to be snaked down to the Three Bar on the first heavy snows of fall. The choppers had transferred their operations to the lower broken slopes which they scoured for the scattered cedars of the foothills, cutting them for fence posts and piling them in spots accessible to the wagons to be hauled whenever the mule teams could be spared.

The acreage of plowed ground increased day by day and would continue till frost claimed the ground. As soon as the brush was burnt the mule teams pulled heavy log drags across the field, pulverizing the lumps and leveling inequalities of the surface.

Evans had been sent out as foreman of the beef round-up while Harris remained behind to direct the operations at the ranch. The details of the new work were unfamiliar ones for the girl and she was entirely absorbed in learning the reasons for every move; so much engrossed, in fact, that she had not left the Three Bar during the month which had elapsed since the dance at Brill's. A few days before Evans was due with the beef herd she rode Papoose away from the ranch, intending to make a long-deferred visit to the Brandons.