"Will you? an' let me put in whatever I want fer jokes on the boys?"

"Yep, everything goes."

"Oh, I'll give 'em somethin' to dream on, you can bet yer sweet life!

Soap fer Fresno's finger, clothes-pin fer Show Low's nose, bottle o'

anty-fat fer Slim. It's a swop, Miss Polly!"

"Well, out with yer great secret o' bread-makin'."

"Well, Miss Polly, I take flour, an' water, an' sourin's, an' a pinch o' salt--"

"Flour an' water, an' sourin's, an' a pinch o' salt," repeated Polly, totting the list off on her fingers. "Why, so do I, an' so does every one. It must lie in the workin'. How long do you work the dough, Parenthesis?"

"It must lie in the workin'," repeated Parenthesis solemnly. "Why, I work it, an' work it--" he continued, with exasperating slowness.

"How long do you work it?" asked Polly impatiently.

"Till my han's look purty clean like!" said Parenthesis, holding up his floury paws.

"Then you've got a day's work still before you!" snapped Polly, huffed at seeing herself the victim of a chaffing that she herself had begun.

"I won't bother you any longer. So long!"

Parenthesis, however, desired to continue the conversation. "When is this yere hitch between you and Bud comin' off?" he asked.

Polly drew herself up proudly, and, speaking a.s.sumed haughtiness, replied: "We're figurin' on sendin' out the cards next month."

The cowboy's eyes twinkled. "Well, I'm a-goin' to give up cigaroot-smokin'."

"What for?" asked Polly, in surprise.

"Goin' in trainin' to kiss the bride."

"That's nice!" said Polly, beaming.

"Yep, have to take up chawin', like Bud Lane."

Polly was saved from having to answer by Sage-brush galloping up to the wagon.

"Put on your gun!" he shouted to Parenthesis.

Asking no questions, the cow-puncher obeyed his foreman. Trouble was brewing, that he could plainly see. All he had to do was to obey orders, and shoot when any one tried to point a gun at him.

Turning to Polly, he cried: "Where's Mrs. Payson?"

"She came over with me, but stopped to look over the tally for those cows that are goin' with the drive."

More to himself than to Parenthesis or Polly, Sage-brush said: "I wish she'd stayed at the ranch. This range is no place for women now. Buck McKee and his outfit has tanked up with Gila whisky, an' they're just pawin' for trouble."

"What's come over people lately?" asked Polly.

"It's all along of Hoover goin' away like he did, and leavin' us without a sheriff, or n.o.body that is anybody makin' a bluff at law and order," cried Sage-brush.

"It's sot this section back twenty years," observed Parenthesis.

"That's what it has," agreed the foreman. "Fresno reports that he found that Peruna slappin' the Lazy K brand on one of our calves.

There ain't n.o.body can maverick no calves belongin' to this outfit.

Not so long as I'm ranch boss an' captain of the round-up. We've got to take the law in our own han's an' make an example of this bunch, right now."

Sage-brush meant what he said. He was gathering reenforcements from his own men. He knew that the boys of the Allen ranch would side with him, and he felt that there were enough lovers of law and order in the county to declare themselves against the high-handed methods of Buck McKee and his followers.

"Come on, you fellows!" shouted Show Low, as he rode past the wagon up the range.

"What is it now?" asked Sage-brush.

Over his shoulder Show Low shouted: "We all had a run in with that Buck McKee's bunch. Fresno's laid out with a hole in his shoulder. Billie Nicker's cashed in. I've got some of the Triangle boys, and we're goin' to make a clean-up."

"You ain't goin' to do nothin' unless I say so. We don't want no range-war--we'll git the man that did the killin'. Come on," commanded Sage-brush.

Polly galloped after the men, saying: "Gee, I'll miss something if I don't hurry up."

CHAPTER XV

Peruna Pulls His Freight

When Jack closed the door behind him to follow and find d.i.c.k Lane and bring him back to the woman who, the restorer believed, loved him, Echo Payson realized the supremacy over her soul--her pure ideals, her lofty sense of justice--of its tenement, the woman's body--that fair but fragile fabric which trembled responsive to the wild wind of emotional desire, and the seismic shock of the pa.s.sion of s.e.x. Ever since Jack had revealed to her his jealousy of d.i.c.k Lane, she knew that he was living on a lower moral and spiritual plane than herself, and that no longer could she look up to him as the strong protector, the n.o.bler being than herself that had been her girlish ideal of a husband.

Instead of this, another love sprang instantly into her heart, that of the stronger soul for the weaker, like to the feeling of the mother toward the child. The moral side of her desire toward Jack now became fixed in the purpose to lift him up to her own level.

Now that he had gone from her on a mission that was fulfilling this very purpose of regeneration, although she had not sent him upon it for his own sake, but her own--Echo knew that, after all, she was a woman.

She loved Jack Payson with the unreasoning and unrestrained pa.s.sion that sways even the highest of her s.e.x. By the balance of natural law she was lowering herself to meet him as he was coming up in the moral scale, and thus preparing for herself and her husband a happy union of a mutual understanding of weaknesses held in common. Were Echo to remain always on the heights and Jack in the valley, sooner or later a cloud would have separated them, a ghostly miasma rising from the grave of d.i.c.k Lane, whom Echo would have idealized as the n.o.bler man.

She very sensibly took refuge from these perplexing problems by jumping into the active life of the ranch.

Faithfully she tried to perform all that she thought Jack would have done. Her father and mother wanted her to come back to her old home until he returned. There she would have more company and fewer memories of Jack surrounding her. Each offer, each suggestion was kindly but firmly put aside. When Jack returned she must be the first to welcome him, the first to greet him at his threshold, whether it was broad daylight or in the silent watches of the night. From her lips he must learn he had been forgiven; she alone must tell him how much she loved him, and that together they must go through life until the last round-up.

Echo and her father, who was looking after his own cattle on the round-up, rode up to the chuck-wagon, after Parenthesis and Sage-brush crossed the valley to mete out justice to Peruna and fight out any attempts at a rescue.

Dismounting, Echo walked wearily to the fire and sat down on a box.

Bravely though she tried to conceal it, the strain was beginning to tell upon her. The tears would come at times, despite her efforts to fight them off. The burden was so heavy for her young shoulders to bear.

A note from Slim, written at Fort Grant, with a lead-pencil, on a sheet of manila paper, told her briefly that he was going into the Lava Beds with the troops--as the Apaches were out. d.i.c.k and Jack, he wrote, were somewhere in the Lava Beds, and he would bring them back with him.

She dared not let herself think of the Apaches and the horrors of their cruelties.

"Better let me get you somethin' to eat," said her father, returning from picketing the horses.

Echo smiled wanly at her father's solicitude. "I am not hungry, Dad."