She came, holding the weird little creature on her palm. "Look at him, Ned! Isn't he cunning? He's the dearest thing I ever saw--except you."

"Oh, thanks; it's kind of you not to put me in the same cla.s.s. As a reward I'll tell you some news. Your little scheme for balking Lena's designs on Conrad has succeeded perfectly. Turner has just told me that she has suddenly decided she wants to go to Santa Barbara at once, and they're leaving this afternoon. I told him to go ahead, and I'd stay here a few days longer and finish things up with Curt."

"That's just splendid, Ned! We'll have some lovely rides, won't we? And it will be such a rest not to have to keep an eye on Lena. I felt sure last night that she was going to give up the game and pretend she hadn't been playing, because she suddenly lost all interest in the cattle business."

"Of course you know, Francisquita, that you have been behaving shamelessly; but I'll forgive you, because you've saved our model superintendent for us."

"Ned, you know very well that I didn't do a thing but just help Mr.

Conrad make it pleasant for all the people--except, perhaps, Lena. I'm afraid she'd have had a better time if I hadn't been here. But I've been thinking this morning, Ned, that maybe it wasn't necessary for me to help quite as hard as I did. What do you think about it?"

"I think I don't know what you're talking about. As the cowboys say, you've flung gravel along the road a little too fast for my gait."

"Ned, you're the blindest thing! What could I mean except that Mr.

Conrad didn't need to be distracted from Lena, especially as her methods are so broad?"

"Well, go on, dear. We'll get there after a while."

"Go on! Why, Ned, that's all! Isn't that enough? Why should a man want more than one pretty girl to protect him from the designs of a lady who--well--who wants to shave him? You never needed anybody but me."

"True, f.a.n.n.y! But you always were equal to an army in yourself, and now you are equal to two--which is only another way of saying that you grow more fascinating every day. And now I think you might be gracious enough to tell me what you're talking about."

"Why, Ned, I'm afraid Miss Bancroft didn't enjoy it any more than Lena.

I wasn't quite sure of it until this morning; but I really think, Ned, that Lena would have been left out in the cold just the same if I hadn't--hadn't helped Mr. Conrad entertain the people quite so much."

Castleton laughed. "Oh, I begin to see! You are feeling the pangs of remorse because you've been putting snags in the course of true love.

But you needn't worry, dear. Curt isn't the sort of man, if he cares anything about her, to let a little thing like that make any difference."

"But he'll be too busy with you to go over to Golden and see her again for a long time, won't he?"

"Oh, we can get through this week, I think."

"Good! Then we can leave on Sat.u.r.day, and on Sunday he can gallop over to Golden, and by that time she'll want awfully to see him and she'll be very sorry she flirted so outrageously with Don Homer. And next Fall we'll send them a wedding present, and they'll come to see us on their wedding journey,--she's a dear, sweet girl, Ned, and I like her,--and I'll explain to her why I--why I helped Mr. Conrad make things pleasant at the barbecue, and we'll have a jolly laugh over it. There he is now, Ned! Do go right along and begin your work, so we'll be sure to leave on Sat.u.r.day."

When Conrad bade the Castletons good-bye at the railway station at the end of the week, Francisquita said to him:

"When you see that pretty Miss Bancroft again--" here she gave him a significant glance and then demurely lowered her eyes--"please tell her that I hope to see her again, and that if she ever comes to San Francisco she must let me know--you can give her our address. We'd be delighted, Ned and I, to help her have a good time. She's a dear, lovely girl and I'd really like to know her better."

Curtis drove home, declaring to himself that Mrs. Ned was one of the most charming women he knew. He would ride over to Golden to-morrow afternoon and deliver her message. He lingered fondly over the image of Lucy's slender figure standing at the top of her veranda steps and smiling upon him a gay and gracious welcome, and a strong desire rose in his heart to know just how glad she really would be to see him. But the recollection of his plans for the ensuing week came crashing through his pleasant thoughts like a runaway horse through a flower garden. For a moment the purpose that held his life in thrall seemed strangely unworthy. But presently he jammed his hat down on his head and, with compressed lips, said savagely to himself:

"No; the Delafield affair is my first love, and I'll stay with it." As he thought over his plans and hopes for the immediate future his heart grew hot again with the old indignation over all that ruin and struggle, and the old purpose regained its accustomed vigor.

After a little, nevertheless, he decided that he would ride over to the Bancrofts' the next day and deliver Mrs. Castleton's message. It would do no harm for him to see Lucy occasionally, in the friendly way in which they had always met.

CHAPTER XX

NARROWING THE QUEST

That evening, while they sat and smoked on the little porch, Curtis Conrad told Homer of his lifelong quest. It was the younger man's first knowledge of the motive that had been so potent in his brother's life.

He listened in silence while his pipe went out, and sat quite still after the other ceased. "Well, Curt," he said at last, with a little tremor in his voice, "this yarn of yours knocks me silly. I can't say I'm pleased with it, at least at first view. It doesn't seem sensible."

Curtis laughed good-naturedly. "Very likely, Homer; I didn't expect it to appeal forcibly to a sensible, practical chap like you. I haven't told you before because there was no use bothering your young head with it when the round-up seemed so far away; but I'm mighty near the end of the trail now, and you've come to a man's age and ways of thinking; so I thought it best to tell you. There's a possibility, of course, that I'll get the worst of it when the mix-up does come; and in that case I'd like you to know what it was all about. But I'm not considering that sort of chance as likely to happen."

"But what do you expect to gain by it, Curt, and why do you want to kill the man?"

Curtis slowly lighted a fresh cigar. "Well, Homer, if you don't see why, it's no use for me to explain."

"I know there's a big difference between us temperamentally; but I don't believe that would keep me from appreciating your motive if it had any basis in right or expediency. Good G.o.d, Curt, look at the thing sensibly! Suppose you kill the man when you find him. What earthly good will that do you? You'd probably hang for it, or go to the penitentiary for years. And it seems to me the chance is all the other way. Whoever the man is, he must know you're after him; and you'll find him ready and loaded. If you're not killed you're likely to be badly wounded--perhaps lose an eye or a leg--and what can you gain by it? Bless me if I can see any use or sense or right in the whole business."

Curtis Conrad rose and walked slowly and with bent head the length of the porch and back, his hand resting for an instant on his brother's shoulder as he pa.s.sed. He stood regarding abstractedly the lightning that was playing among some low-lying clouds above the Hatchet Mountains, far to the southwest. "One night, soon after father and mother died," he began, in a tone so low that Homer could barely catch his words, "I lay awake almost all night, thinking. You were a little shaver barely out of kilts, the girls were young things with their dresses half way to their knees, and I was only fifteen. I had taken you into bed with me because I was afraid you'd wake up in the night and feel lonesome--and, perhaps, because I didn't want to feel quite so lonesome myself. I made plans for hours about how we could get along and the things I meant to do. You tossed in your sleep, and threw one of your hands against mine. My fingers closed over it, and you gripped one of them fast. Somehow, that grip went to my heart, and I promised myself and you that I would do all I could to make up to you the loss we had suffered. I thought of what father had planned for me; and I knew that I should have to give all that up. As I thought of the man who had robbed us of everything--money, opportunity, father and mother--I trembled with anger.

"I had never used an oath until that night. But I sat on the side of my bed, when I couldn't lie still any longer, and clenched my fists and cursed him, mildly at first and under my breath, then aloud and in the reddest language I could think of. As I d.a.m.ned his soul to the hottest corner of h.e.l.l it seemed to me that he ought to be made to suffer in this life, too, and I said aloud, 'I would like to kill you!' The words sounded so plain that they frightened me. But I said them over again, and the next moment the thought leaped up, 'And I will, too, if I live!'

That was how the idea was born in my mind. It struck root and grew, and I've held to it ever since."

Homer nodded. "Yes; I can understand how you would hold to a thing you'd made up your mind to do; I'd hold on just the same way. We've both got the bull-dog grip; it's one of the Conrad characteristics. But even a bull-dog can let go when he knows he shouldn't hold on any longer."

Curtis smiled grimly. "Not always; sometimes you have to pry his jaws loose. Nevertheless, I could let go if I wanted to. But I don't want to, and I don't propose to. The thing has become part of my life, of me, of my very blood."

"Have you been working at it all this time, Curt?"

"Oh, of course I couldn't do much while I was a boy except to think and brood over it. But during that time I learned all I could about Delafield, his schemes, and his personality. I read every newspaper I could lay hold of that had anything in it about him; I've got them all yet. But I didn't do much in the way of actually chasing him down until after the girls were married ten years ago. After that I earned and saved more money, and was free to go about as I wanted. Since then I've spent all the time and money I could spare in hunting him.

"I had a schoolmate named Littleton who became a detective when he grew up. We were good friends, and when he happened to find out that I was nosing around in my own way he offered to help me. I was to pay him what I could, and he would put in time on this when he had nothing else to do. Between us we tracked Delafield all over the West and into Canada, back and forth, and under nearly a dozen different names. I don't think he got as much money out of his Boston smash as he was charged with taking, but he got a good lot; and he's since made and lost two or three good-sized fortunes. Most of the time he has been a mining expert, and has owned and dealt in mines; the fact that he's stuck pretty close to that business has made it easier to follow him. Once, in Arizona, we lost the trail completely. It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed him; for a while we thought he must be dead. Later we discovered his tracks in Utah, under a new name. Since then there have been several gaps of that sort; but we've always managed to light on him again after a while.

"My last knowledge of him is that he is living somewhere in this Territory, a well-to-do and respected citizen, prominent in politics, and a supporter of Dellmey Baxter for Congress. The rest of it will be easy; there'll be a quick chase and an early show-down before there's time for another deal. I've got my eye on two men, both of whom fit that description. They live up North, and I'm going up to Albuquerque and Santa Fe next week to look up their records. If it's either one of them, Delafield will meet his deserts before he's many days older."

Silence fell upon them. Curtis leaned against a pillar of the porch and watched the clouds rising higher over the mountains. "It looks as if the rainy season is about to begin at last," he said in a matter-of-fact way. Homer rose and stood with a hand on his shoulder. They looked so much alike in the moonlight that at a little distance it would have been difficult to say which was the younger and which the elder brother.

"I don't need to tell you, Curt," he said in a tone rich with earnest feeling, "how grateful I am for all you've done for me, nor how well I know at what cost to yourself you've done it. You've been father and mother and brother and best friend to me all in one. If I ever do anything worth while the credit will be yours quite as much as mine. You know I'm not ungrateful or unappreciative, don't you, Curt? I can understand how this thing has come to obsess you, since you've explained how it took root in your mind before your ethical ideas were settled.

But I can't sympathize with you in this search after vengeance, and I can't approve of what you are planning to do. It seems to me you ought to be able to see things straight by this time and shake off your obsession. If you want to find the man and hand him over to the proper authorities--that's all right; I'd help you in that myself; it's right that he should be punished and made to give up what he has to his creditors. But to take revenge into your own hands, Curt, and to take it at the cost of everything desirable for yourself--why, the thing is so mad that it bewilders me to think it's you that's doing it. I wish I could persuade you to give it up."

Curtis shook his head emphatically. "You needn't waste your breath, Homer. I rather hoped you'd understand better how I feel about it, and see the whole affair a little more as it looks to me. But you're different; and if you can't, you can't, and that's all there is about it. But it's useless to try to persuade me to give up my plans. A thing that you've thought about and dreamt about and planned and worked for through fifteen years gets to be part of your very blood, my boy, and it's not so easily cast aside."

"Well," said Homer, "you are you; and if you've got to do this thing I suppose it can't be helped." He paused, thinking intently. "But when you go North next week--if one of those men proves to be Delafield--you won't--at once--" He stumbled over his words, unable to put his brother's purpose into plain speech.

Curtis took up his meaning. "No; not immediately. I've got to come home again first."

"Then you'll be back here before you do anything? That's sure, is it, Curt?" asked Homer, relief in his voice.

"Yes; sure. I've got some important business that I promised the Castletons I'd attend to the week after, and I'll take no chances till I get that fixed up for them."

The next morning there was a promise of rain in the air and the sky. A dome of pale, bright gray, resting on murky supports of cloud, had taken the place of the usual heaven of vivid blue. But the wind, blowing warm and strong from the west, bore little moisture upon its wings, and the air was laden with an electric tingle that stretched and jarred unaccustomed nerves.

Hank Peters and Jose Gonzalez were working in the corral when Curtis Conrad came across from the door of his room to give them some directions. Presently he asked if they or any of the boys had seen anything lately of the gray wolf that had skulked about the neighborhood earlier in the season. Nosey Ike, they said, had seen it only the day before in the second draw on the road toward Golden.

"He did?" exclaimed Curtis. "I'm going to Golden to-day, and perhaps I can get a crack at it. I'll be home by six o'clock, Peters, and I want to talk with you to-night about some work at Adobe Springs to-morrow.