"There, honeybug, now don't you--don't you," Clint comforted. "He cayn't do us any harm. Ellison's hot on his trail. I'll give him six months, an' then he's through. Don't you fret, sweetheart. Daddy will look out for you all right."

"I--I wasn't thinking about me," she whispered.

Both of them were thinking of the dead boy and the threat to blacken his memory, but neither of them confessed it to the other. Wadley cast about for something to divert her mind and found it in an unanswered question of his own.

"You was goin' to tell me how come you to know what he wanted to talk with me about," the father reminded her.

"You remember that day when Arthur Ridley brought me home?"

He nodded a.s.sent.

"One of the Dinsmore gang--the one they call Steve Gurley--met me on the street. He was drunk, an' he stopped me to tell me about--Ford. I tried to pa.s.s, an' he wouldn't let me. He frightened me. Then Arthur an' Mr.

Roberts came round the corner. Arthur came home with me, an'--you know what happened in front of McGuffey's store."

The face of the girl had flushed a sudden scarlet. Her father stared at her in an amazement that gave way to understanding. Through his veins there crashed a wave of emotion. If he had held any secret grudge against Tex Roberts, it vanished forever that moment. This was the kind of son he would have liked to have himself.

"By ginger, that was what he beat Gurley up for! n.o.body knows why, an'

Roberts kept the real reason under his hat. He's a prince, Jack Roberts is. I did that boy a wrong, 'Mona, an' guessed it all the time, just because he had a mixup with Ford. He wasn't to blame for that, anyhow, I've been told."

Ramona felt herself unaccountably trembling. There was a queer little lump in her throat, but she knew it was born of gladness.

"He's been good to me," she said, and told of the experience with the traveling salesman on the stage.

Clint Wadley laughed. "I never saw that boy's beat. He's got everything a fellow needs to win. I can tell you one thing; he's goin' to get a chance to run the A T O for me before he's forty-eight hours older.

He'll be a good buy, no matter what salary he sticks me for."

'Mona became aware that she was going to break down--and "make a little fool of herself," as she would have put it.

"I forgot to water my canary," she announced abruptly.

The girl jumped up, ran into the house and to her room. But if the canary was suffering from thirst, it remained neglected. Ramona's telltale face was buried in a pillow. She was not quite ready yet to look into her own eyes and read the message they told.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ON A COLD TRAIL

"Dog it, Jack, we got to go after the Dinsmores," said Ellison, pounding the table with his fist. "I've just had a letter from the old man wantin' to know why we don't get results. It's not the Ranger policy to wait for outlaws to come to us. We go after 'em."

Tex smiled cheerfully. "Suits me fine. What are your instructions, Captain? Want me to arrest Homer Dinsmore again?"

"What would I do with him if you got him?" snapped the old-timer.

"You could turn him loose again," suggested Roberts, not entirely without sarcasm.

"If you boys were worth the powder to blow you-all up--!" exploded the veteran.

"Instead of bein' a jackpot bunch of triflin' no-account scalawags,"

murmured Jack.

"--You'd hustle out an' get evidence against 'em."

"Sounds reasonable." The Ranger lifted his heels to the seat of a second chair and rolled him a cigarette.

"You'd find out where they're hidin' the cattle they rustle."

"Are you givin' me an a.s.signment, Captain?"

"You done said it, son. There's a bunch of rustled stock up in the rocks somewheres. You know it. Question is, can you find the cache?"

"I can try."

"Wasn't it you told me once about b.u.mpin' into a rustler doin' business whilst you was ridin' the line?"

"At the mouth of Box Canon--yes."

"Well, wha's the matter with you scoutin' up Box Canon an' seein' what you find?"

"They're roostin' up there somewheres. I'll bet a hat on that."

"How many boys you want with you?"

Jack considered. "One. I'll take Ridley if you don't mind."

"He's a tenderfoot," suggested Ellison doubtfully. "Won't be of any help to you a-tall in cutting sign. If you leave him he's liable to get lost.

Better take Moser, hadn't you?"

"Rather have Ridley. He doesn't claim to know it all. Besides, we've got to break him in sometime."

"Suits me if he does you. It's yore party."

"We'll start in the mo'nin'."

"The sooner the quicker," agreed the Captain. "I want the old man to know we're not spendin' our time settin' around a office. He's got no call to crawl my hump when you boys are doin' the best you can. Well, go to it, son. See if you-all can get evidence that will stand up so's we can collect that bunch of hawss-thieves."

Before daybreak the two Rangers were on their way. They drove a pack-horse, their supplies loaded on a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. Jack had been brought up in the Panhandle. He knew this country as a seventh-grade teacher does her geography. Therefore he cut across the desert to the cap-rock, thence to Dry Creek, and so by sunset to Box Canon. At the mouth of the gulch they slept under the stars. As soon as they had cooked their coffee and bacon Roberts stamped out the fire.

"We don't want to advertise we're here. I'm some particular about my health. I'd hate to get dry-gulched[7] on this job," said Jack.

"Would the Dinsmores shoot us if they found us?" asked Ridley, searching with his head for the softest spot in his saddle for a pillow.

"Would a calf milk its mother? They're sore as a toad at me, an' I expect that goes for any other Ranger too. Homer might give us an even break because we stayed with him on the island, but I'd hate to bet my head on that."

"If we get any evidence against them they can't afford to let us go,"

agreed Arthur.