by B. M. Bower and Buck Connor

“ King Marshall flushed. It was Lisa, however, who answered Bill with a spiteful little smile and a barbed meaning that made the blood beat in the temples of the two men.
“You just want to take him from me!” she cried, her arms slipping around King’s neck. “You’re mad because—I know why—if I wanted to tell! You followed him here, and you want to get him away. Bah! I know how much the captain wants him! You can’t fool nobody—but yourself,” was what she said. ”

“ But there was dry wood piled in a corner where beating storms never reached, and King judged that whoever had camped there meant at some time to return, and had provided food and fire and a bed for himself when he did come.
Now, as it happened, while he had been riding at random through the hills, trying to fight off the black mood of vain regrets which the sight of Bill Gillis had brought him, he had met, just before dusk, a horseman riding on a narrow trail which led farther into the hills; a man bigger than the average, judging by the length of his stirrups and the breadth of his shoulders ”

“ He sat back on his haunches finally, and stared at King like a beaten animal in a cage—snarling, lustful to kill, but shaking with fear.
“Ironed to a dead man! Keep that in your mind, Bull, when you want to try something else. And there’s no grub in camp, remember, and no gun and no knife—nothing, you swine, but our two legs to get us out of here. And if you don’t help me get out, you’re here to stay—with a dead man hobbled to you. Help me up, Bull. My side’s a fright, and we’ve got to get to Chico to-night.” ”

“ Juan, his stableboy, was out there and would see to things, and if any one wanted the boss, why, Juan had but to lift his voice a little. King had fallen into a passive kind of devotion to his horses, and in the same ratio he had come to feel no interest whatever in men. If a man came to hire a horse, King would look at him, make a swift appraisement, and choose the horse according to his opinion of the man. ”

“ Five minutes to say good—by to Lisa—fiddlesticks! That wasn’t it; the captain had it in for him, and took this as an excuse to get rid of him. King understood that very well; and, without bawling out the captain or any one else, he meant to word that resignation so that the captain would read his real meaning between the lines.
Kicked out of the service—that was what it practically amounted to. A woman—even the sweetest little girl in the world, he made haste to pay mental tribute—surely does play hob with a man’s life. If she would marry him, he’d take her away. ”

“ Like the man without a country is the man in this story who was dismissed from the Texas Rangers after a love affair that blinded him to duty. To get back into the service becomes an obsession with him. There is a terrific fight between two men in the tale—one fighting for his life, and the other for what makes life worth while.
IN the gray of a windy afternoon, when the leaden clouds were more sand than vapor, Captain Oakes, of the Texas Ranger force, jerked open the door of his office and looked out just as Bill Gillis was passing. ”

“ King Marshall was suffering from the infatuation which sometimes seizes a strong man who does not know women very well; and the moment Lisa put the lie into speech, punctuated by little, caressing movements, King, who was in a highly abnormal condition, believed she spoke the truth.
“You keep your hands off my affairs, Bill,” he said harshly, forgetting how they two had been friends when Lisa was an untidy schoolgirl in short dresses and long braids. ”

“ If he knows of your frequenting this place, he has never hinted it to me. Your horse, out there, is plain-enough evidence to any one but a blind man.”
“ ‘Frequenting this place!’ ” Lisa repeated the phrase shrewishly. “You talk like this was a—saloon!”
“I’d rather find Marshall in a saloon than here! I’d have more hope of him!” snapped the captain. As though that placed the limit on his staying longer in the house, he pulled open the door. “I shall expect to receive your written resignation before dark,” he said to King, “so I can enter it on record and report a vacancy.” ”

“ He worked for the Tijana China outfit on their beef round-up, thrashed a man who had been so unwise as to refer banteringly to King as “the famous ex-Ranger,” and took his saddle and rifle and bedding roll elsewhere. King was extremely touchy on the subject of Texas Rangers.
He bought a horse and a burro and went down into the wilderness of Brewster County, wandering alone in the hills on the pretense that he was prospecting—not for gold, but for a piece of fertile land, where he could get water on the soil and build a ranch for Lisa and himself. ”

“ Bull Dawson smiled a great, gashlike smile, that parted his black stubble of beard unpleasantly. “Why, shore you kin trust me!” he cried eagerly.
“That’s what I bin tellin’ ye all along. Shore ye kin!”
“Over she goes,” King said cheerfully—too cheerfully, and flung his arm outward again melodramatically. “Didn’t need the darned thing—just so much weight to pack. I know I can bank on you.”
“Shore ye kin! Say what they will, they cain’t say Bull Dawson ain’t t’ be trusted.” His tone was fawningly friendly.
“Come on,” said King. “We’ll pike along, and get this over with.” ”

“ Trails he had taken with his fellow Rangers—nights when he had crouched on guard, straining his eyes into the blackness, not daring to move lest some little noise betray his presence there and bring a questing bullet that way; summer scenes, wherein laughter had mingled with the smoke of many cigarettes, and life had seemed clean and good and worth the living. ”

“ A six-shooter hidden inside the fellow’s shirt he sent after the knife. The other one, that had been fired at King from the cave mouth, was back there, somewhere on the shelf.
“Get up, Bull Dawson!” King commanded, with an exultant note in his voice. “I’m a Ranger—and you know the rest.”
“You’re a ——!” Several things which were the worst he could think of the prisoner spat out venomously.
“It’s a long way to camp, Bull,” King remarked cheerfully. “We better be starting—’cause we’ll have to walk.”
“I got a horse.” Bull whined, as he stumbled along. “That damn’ fall hurt my leg. ”

“ You go to bed. I’ll lock up,” King told him shortly, and stood in the doorway, rolling a cigarette, while he watched Juan disappear up the crooked street that lay quiet and dark under the starlight. He sat down on the bench and stared at the bluffs beyond the town. After a while he got up and went to the corner of the stable nearest the arroyo, and stood there, leaning one shoulder against the adobe wall, while he stared hard at the glow on the opposite bank from a camp fire. ”

“ King glanced at him carelessly, and caught the Ysleta postmark on the envelope which the Mexican—one Pancho Mazon—held face out in one hand while he read his letter. King glanced again, to make sure, for the envelope looked very much like the one he had stuffed in his own pocket. just then Pancho looked up, showing his teeth in a broad smile.
“Look, fellows!—what I gets for my birthday!” he cried jubilantly. “My little sweetheart, she sends.” He held up the gift for all to see—he seemed a jovial fellow who must share his joys and his griefs with all his world. ”

“ When daylight came, King left the trail and struck off on a short cut that was not quite passable for a horse because of one ledge along a cañon wall. A man going carefully afoot could negotiate it safely enough, and thereby save several miles of travel. King figured that if he took that short cut they might, with steady walking, reach Chico by sundown. ”

“ I rode a burro once for two hundred miles—since then I want to know that my feet aren’t going to drag on the ground every time I straighten my legs.”
“He’s a good horse,” King said simply, turning to pat the hard-muscled neck and to hide a sudden mistiness in his eyes. “He’l1 carry you all day and all night, and then some. I’ve named him Come Again. After you’ve rode—him, you’ll know why.”
“What’s the pedigree uh that there critter under my saddle?” Vaughan looked up from the skillet of sputtering eggs to demand. “What’s his name?” ”

“ The rest was inevitable, since Captain Oakes knew who lived there and what errand it was that took King there.
“Marshall, you needn’t trouble to make that trip to Tobin,” he said sternly, standing just within the room. “Ranger business is too important to trust to a lovesick calf like you. You may take your choice, here and now; you may resign from the service, or I shall dismiss you.” He looked at King with narrowed eyes, and added grimly: “It will look better for both of us on the records if you resign.”
“I reckon I can thank Bill Gillis for this,” King blurted hotly. ”

“ Also they were sleek from long brushing, and King was settling the saddle of Captain Oakes upon the back of Come Again. the best horse in the stable barring King’s own private horse, Noches. Whereupon Juan immediately became abjectly apologetic for being so late—though he really had come early.
When King himself led the horses out and swung into Vaughan’s saddle with the lead ropes of the other two in his hand, Juan felt that he trembled—literally—upon the brink of dismissal. Señor King must be very mad, indeed, when he would not let Juan take the horses to camp. ”

“ Captain Oakes grumbled, handing the telegram to King—so nearly had the gap between them been bridged. "I can’t call Gillis and Vaughan off their work, and I can’t go out after him myself, crippled like this. Bull’s the kind of man it takes a Gatlin gun to make any impression_on. He’s been shot so often he don’t think anything of a bullet or two under his skin. ”

“ Go upto Tobin and look into this horse stealing, that seems to be an epidemic in that country. Here are all the details that have been sent in. Get started as soon as you can—and try and make up the time that has been wasted in getting hold of you. ”