James French Dorrance

“ If any human approached, the horse would give warning, by snort or by tug upon the rope by which he attached the horse to himself.
"Nothing like a real horse for an alarm clock," he murmured sleepily. "Hope that Flame had sense enough to ride home whatsoever!"
He was more tired than he had realized before throwing himself down upon his improvised couch of brush. Every muscle of his body from gun-belt up ached from the strain of that hemlock crossing. After covering himself with the slicker, carried rolled on the cantle of his saddle, he soon slept. ”

“ Around a sharp bend, she halted her horse in mid-trail, having thought of a subterfuge that might lessen his suspicion that she was laying in wait for him. Loosening the cinch on her cow-saddle, she waited with the patience of a feminine Job. And presently she was rewarded. The scrape of an iron shoe upon a rock came to her ears from beyond the pinnacle that hid her presence. At once she busied herself with the saddle straps, and so Jack Childress found her, engaged in a commonplace operation of the trail. ”

“ She knew by the ease with which he alighted that he had not been thrown actually, but used a trick of dismounting known to the most skilled "busters," usually resorted to when the rider is tired and the outlaw not yet unwound.
"Whatever else you may be, John Childress," she commented to herself, "you are certainly a past master of busting a bronc!"
She gave the restless pony rein and sat her with skill on a slide down the slanting face of the bluff. Cantering across the meadow toward the corral, she pulled up outside the canvas before Childress was aware of her approach. ”

“ Short as it was, the ride across and down into the gulch fringed with cottonwoods was not a pleasant one for the sergeant. He did not doubt that the foreman already had in mind a punishment—one probably that would be humiliating rather than life-taking, and one that would leave the perpetrators comparatively safe from penalty. His keen mind went over every possibility of escape, and found none that would answer. He was hopelessly bound, his revolver was empty and his mount under rope. As a last resort he might declare himself and his mission, threatening them with the wrath of the Scarlet. ”

“ She could not bring herself to believe that Jack—her Jack as she whispered to herself—was a man afraid to fight. Should he prove to be that sort, of course, her interest must end; but he would not! She knew he would not.
By this time he was upon her, pulling his mount to a halt in a state of surprise, the genuineness of which could not be doubted.
"Our trails do cross, Flame of Fire Weed!" he exclaimed gladly. "Although yesterday, when I did not find you in your own corral, I feared my luck was slipping." ”

“ At first glance Childress recognized one of the beasts. "The widow from Rafter A," he remarked and received a sharp, enquiring look for his display of knowledge.
"She never has frightened me," declared Flame. "Come on."
As a matter of fact, they already had been seen and retreat would have been impossible, even if the girl had desired to avoid a meeting with her stunning neighbor and to hide the presence of that other neighbor who was under suspicion.
Upon the porch, one on either side of the long, lean, dark-visaged ranchman, sat Ethel Andress and her ranch manager, Fitzrapp. ”

“ Noisily his horse rounded a bend in the trail and just in time to show the man ahead spring from his saddle and disappear into the thick cover of trail-side brush. Marking with his eye the spot of digression, Childress pushed on to it and pulled his own mount.
The growth he found there—a patch of vicious-looking devil's-clubs—would have convinced him that something was wrong even if no warning shot had been fired. No sane man, unless pressed for concealment, would submit himself to such a crown and robe of thorns. ”

“ There was no doubt that an affection existed between man and beast. Tears gushed into Fitzrapp's eyes, and as for Canada, had there been any question of original ownership, his behavior would have settled it in the manager's favor in the decision of any unbiased jury.
"Told you to wait until you'd seen the horse," said Childress with a chuckle. "This was my little surprise party. Now we can have an honest-to-goodness race according to agreement."
"How comes it that you bring up Mr. Fitzrapp's mount?" asked the most imposing of the race judges, giving Childress a look of open suspicion. ”

“ Can you keep a secret, Flame?"
"What woman can't?" she taunted.
"Have you any idea how they meant to brand me—I mean with what ensignia?"
She shook her head.
"The artist was inspired to decorate my forehead with a horseshoe surrounding a Lazy G. Neat idea, wasn't it?"
The girl flushed with indignation over the outrage which these men of the Gallegher outfit had contemplated. "I'm ashamed of them. You'd been branded as a horse thief for life, whether you are——"
"Whether guilty or not," he completed for her, playing his whimsical grin. ”

“ Neither the widow nor her uncle seemed anxious to try, although if they continued to feel disapproval of their ranch manager's action, their faces did not show it.
"That bonfire brat of Gallegher's from down on the range!" exclaimed Fitzrapp with effect.
"Bonfire brat, indeed!" cried Mrs. Andress, rising to the defence of her sex. "Shame on you, Tom Fitzrapp. It's true that the Gallegher outfit is something of a pest in the Fire Weed, but you needn't forget that Bernice has the instincts of a lady. I'll have an apology in behalf of Mother Eve's whole family." ”

“ If this rustler scare is going to depopulate the home ranch, one of two things is going to happen to Ethel. Either I get in on the fighting or I'll go up to Strathconna and visit somebody."
"Didn't run across any strangers on your rides?" he asked, and waited with no little concern for her answer. If she told him, even thus belatedly, of her visit to Childress' "hole in," his alarm on her account well might be unfounded, he argued. If she kept silent, then he was not alarmed enough.
"Strangers—out in this wilderness? What a chance!" she evaded easily. ”

“ Childress was riding a draw in the hills which gave from the States into the Fire Weed Country of Canada's marvelous West. He wore the scarlet-blue-gold uniform that knows no stain. The horse he rode, a gray stallion whose coat glistened like silver in the moonlight, might have looked white under sun-glare, but in any light he was somebody's horse. ”

“ A glance toward the field showed her that the other members of the Strathconna Hunt Club, assured of her safety, had resumed the chase. Turning to him, her eager eyes danced a mischievous acceptance of his offer. A word from him sent the well-named Silver on his way, probably wondering in his equine brain what was the meaning of the suddenly lightened burden.
For a moment he stood staring after her. "My Stetson's off to you, young woman. You're a blue ribbon for nerve, a rose for looks; you sure can ride and you've got the courage of one of our own. Here's hoping you gather a brush!" ”

“ Bernice drew up with scorn, her nose taking an increasingly impertinent tilt. "I can see that it's hopeless to treat with you, but I don't mind answering your question. It was plumb carelessness on our part, once we had enough money to buy it. We thought the Rafter A owned it. Reckon they thought we did. It takes a greener to come along and get at the truth of no-man's land. Now, then, Mr. Childress, will you tell me why you covet this particular gap in our glorious hills?"
Evidently a straight-shooter, this Flame of Fire Weed! ”

“ Pleasant as it was to tarry here on the safe side of "Medicine Line," studying emotions as portrayed on what was becoming to him the fairest face he had ever seen, regardless of freckles and flare of hair, Childress realized that he must ride on.
"Nothing's likely to happen to a branded man," he reassured her. "By night my forehead will wear what seems to the casual observer to be a real scar."
"But the Crow's Nest!" she cried. "I wish you weren't going into that brimming cup of iniquity alone. Suppose we ride back to the ranch and tell your plan to dad. ”

“ His revolver was out and a mercy-shot sounded. The steer was out of its misery.
"Thank you," breathed Flame who had turned away, her eyes searching the prairie. "If I could throw a sight on the brute who did that horror, there'd be a dead——"
"Let me take care of this, girl," said Childress, deeply aroused. "The skinning happened not long ago; the buck who did it can't have gone far. If you'll ride home and keep out of danger, I'll do my best to run down the Indian and bring him back alive. Then you can punish him under the cruelty to animals law." ”

“ The week before he had gone to Corn Cob Basin to look over the band of yearlings which had been wintered there under hired herders from the Indian reservation. He had become disgusted at their clumsy efforts to break an "outlaw," and, forgetting his years, had taken the beast in hand. Ethel knew his horror of "pulling leather," which is range argot for seizing any part of the saddle. From his remark about "squeezing Lizzie," she understood that he might have saved himself a fall and the sprained knee which at present disabled him by laying hold on the saddle horn. ”

“ As he approached the animal which, with association, was winning his increasing interest, he heard a whistling snort. The sergeant recognized in this not a sound of fright or defiance, but the beast's invitation to its kind. In the moonlight he saw that the horse's ears were pointing toward the upper rim of the cup in an attitude of eager listening, and that he pawed the prairie with an impatient forefoot. The possibility that strays, seeking a change of grass, had headed into his fertile basin was the first supposition. ”

“ He had not mistaken the point of disappearance, and his quarry, so anxious to avoid inspection, was equipped either with an ax or a skinning knife, probably the latter, in view of that horror back on the ranch.
He glanced at the abandoned cayuse, a scrawny, flea-bitten gray, who stood a few yards down the trail, cropping contentedly at some brush that evidently was not thorned. Its saddle was a cheap one and its cantle carried no pack. The skinner must have found some way of disposing of the hide farther back on the trail after the pursuit was under way. ”

“ POOR BRANDED MAN!
Flame's clock did not fail her. Next morning she was up with the cook who, at that season of the year, was not perpetrating any of the half-past-four roars. She slipped out of silken "nighterie" and into the rougher clothes of the range. Without disturbing her father in his quarters across the living-room, she crossed the quadrangle and entered the chuck-shack to the unblinking surprise of Chan. ”

“ This thing that had been done to Childress had been perpetrated after he had deposited the silver stallion and started back to his own little ranch. For just a second she was disappointed in him that he should have permitted a second attack to succeed. A man as upstanding as he seemed to be should not have been caught napping twice, should at least have left his mark upon the enemy. She had seen no trace of conflict upon any of the outfit about the home-ranch board the night before. They must have sprung some new-fangled surprise upon him. ”

“ The face of Ethel Andress still wore a puzzled expression. "Childress certainly manages to turn many a card in his favor," she said, gazing out through the open window over the range to the south, now gleaming like an emerald under the ministration of the setting sun. "I'll be glad when his exact standing is settled."
"I believed from the first that the scoundrel was bluffing about that race," asserted Fitzrapp, relieved that the main subject, his overconfidence in Duncan O'Hara, was sidetracked, at least temporarily. ”

“ Of course it wasn't possible that a hard-boiled sergeant of the Royal had developed a sentimental interest in a ranch or any other sort of girl.
Then he came to a gap in the ridge and upon a clearly blazed trail to the other side. He speeded his pace, one that was tireless from long mushing practice behind the dog teams of the Frozen North. An hour before the sun went out he was back at the starting point, where he found Silver and the skinner's cayuse on terms of grazing amity. ”

“ Fitzrapp thought he saw a chance. "Then perhaps there was something serious behind that offer to race my horse that you made over at Gallegher's the other day. Have you any money to say that the silver beast can't be made to take the dust?"
The major said nothing, merely looking his disapproval of this boast and counter-boast.
Into Childress's face came a shrewd look as he answered. "I staked my saddle on Silver a few years ago, and I'm still riding the same leather. Suppose I could scrape up a thousand to say that he hasn't forgotten how to run. You have a horse in mind, Fitzrapp?" ”

“ Then, with a mighty heave, he lifted her clear of the English saddle and swung her into his own seat, finding a perch for himself upon the cantle.
At the moment there were no complications. The sorrel thoroughbred, relieved of the rider's weight, broke her stride, veered to one side and slackened her pace. Silver eased down at command and slid to a stiff-legged stop. Only the coyote and the hounds, now led by Poison, the interloper, continued the mad dash across the prairie. ”

“ If they gave him the slightest chance, he would lay into them and inflict as much damage as he could. But if there was no opening, he felt sure he could endure the punishment without a whimper. In that belief lay his chief consolation. They never would have the fun of hearing him plead for mercy.
"Get him out of the saddle, boys, and put hobbles on him," ordered Murdock, when they had reached the bottom of the small canyon which nature had cut into the hillside at a sharp right angle. "We'll hold this court in style." ”