On the porch of the Cameron cottage, Endicott and Colston, absorbed in business, talked until the ends of their cigars made glowing red spots in the darkness. The deal by which Endicott became sole proprietor of the Y Bar outfit was consummated, and Colston's promise to have the papers drawn up in the morning was interrupted by a furious volley of shots from the direction of the Red Front. Colston smiled: "NL rodeo probably camped near here an' the boys run in to wake up the town!"

Endicott glanced swiftly about him: "But, my wife!" he exclaimed, "Where is she? She promised to return before dark, and--why, it must have been dark for an hour!"

Colston noting the look of genuine alarm on the man's face, sought to rea.s.sure him: "Oh, well, she probably got interested in the scenery and rode a little farther than she intended. She'll be along directly----"

"Something may have happened--an accident----"

"Not much chance of that. Powder Face is woman broke, an' gentle as any cayuse can get. About that lower range I was tellin' you--where the Wilson sheep are creepin' in--" With merely the barest pretence of listening, Endicott rose, opened the screen door, tossed his cigar into the yard, and began pacing up and down the porch. At each turn he paused and peered out into the darkness.

The older man got up and stood beside him: "There's nothin' to worry about, my boy. An' that's one of the first things you'll learn--not to worry. A dozen things can happen to delay anyone, an' they're hardly ever serious. If it'll ease your mind any, we'll ride down town, maybe she stopped to take in the excitement, an' if she ain't there we'll ride out on the trail a piece."

The scattering shots that followed the volley had ceased and as the two proceeded down the sandy street in silence, a light appeared suddenly in the Red Front, from whose doors issued a babble of voices as of many men talking at once. Dismounting, Colston and Endicott entered to see Barras standing upon the bar in the act of lighting the second of the two huge swinging lamps. "Looks like there'd been a battle," grinned Colston, eyeing the barricade of kegs, the splintered mirror, and the litter of broken gla.s.s.

"I'll tell a hand it was a battle!" vouchsafed a bystander. "That there Texian, onct he got a-goin', was some ructious! He made his brag that he was a wolf an' it was his night to howl. An', believe me! He was a curly wolf! An' he howled, an' by G.o.d, he prowled! An' he's prowlin' yet--him an' his woman, too."

"Texan!" cried Colston.

"Woman!" shouted Endicott. "What woman?"

"What woman d'ye s'pose?" growled Barras, glaring wrathfully from the bar. "I don't know what woman. His woman, I guess--anyways they got plumb away after we had him all _see_rounded, an' all over but the shoutin'--an' all on account of Timber City's got a marshal which his head's solid bone plumb through, like a rock; an' left the keg shoot wide open fer him to beat it!"

"If you're so d.a.m.n smart, why didn't you think of the keg shoot?"

retorted the representative of law and order. "You know'd it was there an' I didn't."

"You lie! Unless you've fergot a whole lot sence--" A crash of thunder drowned the irate bartender's voice.

"Hold on, Pete, don't git to runnin' off at the head an' say somethin'

yer sorry fer----"

"You'd be the one to be sorry, if folks know'd----"

"Talkin' don't git you nothin'. You listen here. We'll git this party yet. If the boys that took after him don't bring him in, I'll post a reward of a hundred dollars cash money out of my own pocket fer him----"

"Post it, then," snapped Barras, somewhat mollified, "git it on paper--"

Another, louder clap of thunder followed a vivid lightning flash and wild with apprehension, Endicott forced his way to the bar and interrupted the quarrel: "What did this woman look like? Where is she?"

A dozen men, all talking at once answered him: "Good looker--" "Wore bran' new ridin' outfit--" "Rode a blaze-face buckskin--" "Said she knowed him--" "Went right in--" "Tried to d.i.c.ker with Hod an' git him off--" The marshal pushed through the crowd to Endicott's side: "An'

what's more, when he come bustin' out of the alley an' rode off down the trail she follered right in behind so we didn't dast to shoot; er we'd of got him. If you want to know what I think, they're a couple of desperadoes that figgered on stickin' up the express box over to the hotel, bein' as the payroll fer the Rock Creek mine come in today, only he got drunk first an' queered the game. An' what I want to know," the man continued, thrusting his face close to Endicott's, "is who the h.e.l.l you be, an'----"

The hotel keeper interrupted importantly: "Him an' the woman come in on the stage an' wanted a couple rooms an' changed into them ridin'

outfits, an' slipped out an' didn't show up fer supper! I mistrusted they was somethin' suspicious--they wanted a bath--an' the old woman usin' the tubs----"

"An' bein' as we couldn't git you all," broke in the marshal, drawing his gun, and at the same time pulling back his coat and displaying a huge badge, "we'll jest take what we kin git. Yer under arrest, an' fer fear you might be as handy with yer guns as yer pardner, you kin stick up yer hands----"

"Hold on!" Colston's words boomed above the voices of the men who had surged forward to hold Endicott.

"It's Y Bar Colston!" someone cried, and all eyes turned to the speaker.

The marshal eyed him sullenly as the men made way for him.

The ranchman was smiling: "Don't go makin' any mistakes, Hod," he said, "let me make you acquainted with Mr. Endicott, of Cincinnati, Ohio, owner of the Y Bar."

"The Y Bar!"

"Yes. I sold out to him this evenin'--lock, stock, an' barrel."

The marshal dropped his gun into its holster and eyed Endicott shrewdly: "Sorry I got you wrong," he mumbled, extending his hand. "Blake's my name. Glad to meet you. I run the store here. Carry the biggest stock between Lewiston an' the Mizoo. Where do you figger on doin' yer tradin'?"

Endicott made a gesture of impatience: "I haven't figured at all. But this woman--my wife? How long has she been gone? Which way did she go?

And why----?"

"Be'n gone pretty clost to an' hour. Went down the trail to the Mizoo.

You kin search me fer why, onless it was to keep us from shootin' after that h.e.l.l-roarin' Texian. She said she know'd him. Who is he, an'

what's she so anxious he don't git shot fer?"

Before Endicott could reply, hoof-beats sounded on the trail, and in the doorway a man yelled "They're comin' back!" Disregarding the rain which fell in torrents the crowd surged into the street and surrounded the hors.e.m.e.n who drew up before the door.

"They didn't git 'em!" "Where'd they go?" Eager questions were hurled in volleys.

As the men dismounted the light from the windows glistened on wet slickers. Ike Stork acted as spokesman, and with white face and tight-pressed lips, Endicott hung on every word. "Got to the river," he explained, as he shook the water from his hat, "an' piled onto Long Bill's ferry, an' cut 'er loose. We didn't dast to shoot on account of the woman. We couldn't see nothin' then till the storm broke, an' by the lightnin' flashes we seen the boat in the middle of the river--an' boys, she's some river! I've be'n a residenter in these parts fer it's goin'

on twenty year, an' I never seen the like--bank-full an' trees an' bresh so thick you can't hardly see no water. Anyways, there they was an' all to onct there come a big flash, an' we seen a pine with its roots an'

branches ra'red up high as a house right on top of 'em. Then, the cable went slack--an' when the next flash come, they wasn't no boat--only timber an' bresh a-tearin' down stream, it looked like a mile a minute."

"And they were both on the boat?" Endicott's words came haltingly, and in the lamplight his face looked grey and drawn.

Ike Stork nodded: "Yes, both of 'em--an' the two horses."

"Isn't there a chance? Isn't it possible that they're--that the boat is still afloat?"

"We-ell," considered Ike, "I wouldn't say it's plumb onpossible. But it would be like ketchin' a straight-flush in the middle in a pot that had be'n boosted to the limit--with a full deck, an' nothin' wild."

Endicott turned away as the crowd broke into a babble of voices. Colston took him gently by the arm, but the younger man shook his head: "No, I--I want to think," he whispered, and with a nod of understanding the ranchman proceeded slowly toward the hotel. As Endicott pa.s.sed from the glare of light thrown by the windows of the Red Front, Ike Stork managed to pa.s.s close to him. "They're a-floatin'," he whispered, "I seen 'em a flash or two afterwards. But the others didn't, an' they ain't no use spittin' out all you know. If anyone kin make 'er, them two will--they're game plumb through."

"You mean--" cried Endicott--but Ike Stork had mingled with the crowd.

At the door of the Red Front, Barras was importuning the marshal: "Gwan over to the printin' office an' git out that reward. I'm a-goin' to git paid fer these here damages."

"I hain't a-goin' to pay out no reward fer no drownded man!"

Endicott shuddered, and paused as the bartender's next words reached his ears: "If he's drownded the river'll take him farther than what them hand bills will git to. An' if he hain't, I want them damages."

Endicott hurried toward the two who stood slightly apart from the crowd: "If you are offering a reward," he said, "I will add a thousand for information concerning my wife."

"A thousand!" exclaimed the marshal, "dead or alive?"

Endicott nodded: "Yes," he answered, "dead or alive," and turning abruptly, walked slowly up the street entirely unheeding the shadowy form that kept pace with him in the darkness.

The storm ceased as suddenly as it had broken, and at the outskirts of the town the man paused and sank onto a boulder with his head in his arms. Minutes pa.s.sed as he sat thus, too dazed to think. He was conscious of a dull pain in his heart, and his brain felt numb and pinched as though an iron band were being drawn tighter and tighter about his skull. Gradually his mind began to function. The words of Ike Stork recurred to him: "They're floatin'. If anyone kin make 'er through, them two will." Very possibly his wife was alive--but, where?

Why had she ridden after this Texan, and why was she on the river with him? Methodically, step by step, the man retraced the events of their year of married life. They had been wondrously happy together. They had often spoken of the Texan--had wondered what had become of him. They had both written to him, addressing their letters to Wolf River, but all the letters had come back stamped "Return to writer." He remembered that she had been disappointed, but so had he. Was it possible that _all_ the letters had not been returned? He remembered how eager she had been to spend their anniversary in Timber City. She had talked of it for months.