THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT - EMILIE BAKER LORING (ereader for comics TXT) 📗

stared incredulously. "Peggy! Peggy!" she was out of the car in a flash and had her sister in her arms. Steve heard one more muffled "Peggy!" before the two entered the house. The surprise following so close upon her night's vigil might be too much for Jerry, he feared. When Peg had written him and begged him to keep her coming a surprise he had weakly consented. He had intended to meet her train but had had to delegate Tommy to take his place.

Jerry had quite recovered her poise when she appeared for breakfast in the court. If there was a trace of vibrato in her voice only Courtlandt noticed it. She and Peg had stopped talking long enough to get two hours' sleep. Overhead the sky spread like a Della Robbia glaze, the atmosphere was so clear that the snow-tipped mountains seemed reachable. A tractor in a distant field sounded but a few feet away. The air was sweet with the fragrance of roses, the fountain tinkled musically. Benito, yellow eyes blinking, his gay plumage ruffled till he looked like an animated feather-duster, sidled round and round the rim of the basin.

Peggy regarded her sister with elfish, hazel eyes as she took her seat at the table.

"Ye gods, Jerry, but I'm glad to see you clothed and in your right mind. That green skirt and sweater is a little bit of all right and I'm crazy about your frills; they make me think of the soap-suds you see in the demonstration electric washers, they're so--so fleecy. When you drove up in that vampish gold gown this morning I thought it must be the custom of the country to breakfast in evening clothes and I could have wept. I'd been disillusioned enough. I thought that every honest-to-goodness he-man on a ranch wore chaps and tore about with his six-shooter 'spittin' death and damnation,' but the man who brought out my trunks evidently has a passion for overalls, and Mr. Benson met me at the train looking like a model of the Well-Dressed Man."

Her sister laughed.

"You've been reading Zane Gray et als. Please understand that we are ultra civilized on this ranch after six o'clock."

"Then you'll eat up my news. That smitten salesman of yours at Tiffany's told me before I left New York that he was on the trail of the Alexandrite ring you'd been wanting. It belonged to one of the late royalties. He says that it is a wonder, beautifully set and only two thousand dollars! You'd better write him about it. Of course he can't hold it indefinitely."

"Two thousand dollars!" Jerry regretted the shocked exclamation as soon as it left her lips. She glanced furtively at Steve. His eyes, clear and clean and shining from his out-of-door life, disconcertingly direct, met hers. She looked away hastily. "I'm--I'm not buying jewels now, Peg."

"You're not! Growing miserly in your old age, Geraldine?" with patronizing surprise. "You've been talking of that Alexandrite for----"

"Will you ride the range with your ancient brother-in-law this morning, Peg-o'-my-heart?" broke in Courtlandt. "We'll have lunch at Upper Farm."

"I'll say I'd love it. Will you come, Jerry?"

"No, I have work to do. Behold your erstwhile humble sister the private secretary of the owner of Double O ranch," with laughing empressement.

"Don't work. Sleep, or ride with Peg," cut in Steve sharply. "Remember you were out all night."

"O King Live Forever!" mocked Geraldine gayly. "Just as though I hadn't danced all night many a time and ridden in the park all morning. I shall----"

"Pete Glellish tlell you dat Ranlett make bad pidgin in Lower Flield," interrupted Ming Soy's soft voice at Courtlandt's elbow. "He say, 'Hully--hully--hully!'"

Steve sprang from his chair and caromed into Tommy Benson who had just entered the court and stood beaming upon Peggy Glamorgan.

"What, down already, Miss Peg? Methinks

"'This morning, like the spirit of a youth That means to be of note, begins betimes.'

Why the glassy-eye and furrowed-brow effect, Steve? I hope that you've left me a taste of the honey, Miss Glamorgan?" he reproached as he took his place at the table beside the girl.

"As soon as you've had a bite, Tommy, join me at Lower Field. Bring Peg along. Jerry," Steve Courtlandt's voice was peremptory, "remember, no work in the office and if you don't go with Peg and Tommy stay in sight of the ranch-house if you ride. Don't expect me until you see me. I may not be at home to-night."

He didn't wait for her answer. In his own room he picked up a Colt 45, spun the cylinder, slipped a box of cartridges into his pocket and hurried to the side door. Gerrish, mounted on the big sorrel, held Blue Devil by the bridle. Both horses were prancing nervously, for the parrot, who had climbed to the gutter under the roof, was clucking and calling:

"Gid-dap! Go-long!"

"That bird ought to be shot," Steve growled as with some difficulty he mounted. "What's to pay now, Pete, Ranlett?"

"You've got your rope on the right pair of horns this time, Chief. The fences of Lower Field have been cut."

"Toward the railroad?"

"By cripes, no. Toward the mountains. If 't been the railroad side we might have stood a chance of corralling the Shorthorns, but if they once get into the mountains--Lord-ee, I believe yer uncle'll rise out of his grave an' go after 'em. Them critters was the pride of his life. Ranlett was a low-down dawg to turn a trick like this. Say, do you know anything about thet range-rider at Bear Creek?"

"Why--why--I've spoken to him. You don't suspect him of being in this deal, do you?"

"I ain't suspectin' nothin', but after I'd saw him twice talkin' to Ranlett I sort of got his number."

"You've got it wrong, then, Pete. I happen to know that the man is white clear through."

"Well, I ain't shootin' off my mouth careless when I say that the range-rider's got somethin' up his sleeve. It's my best bet there's going to be fifty-seven varieties of hell blowin' up round this ranch before we get through. If you ask me, I'll say that the crime-wave that's been lappin' the coast has swashed out here in a flood."

"But, Pete, it's impossible for rustlers to get away with their old stuff now."

"You're shoutin', Chief, it sure is, but--they'll find some new ways. I got it doped out your way too, but if it ain't rustlin', what fool thing is that coyote Ranlett up to?"

"Giving us a run for our cattle, I guess. Spite. How many boys can we spare to round up the Shorthorns?"

"I've sent fer the bunch. There's somethin' else phoney that I haven't told yer. It's been open and shut in my mind whether I'd better."

"Shoot, old-timer!" commanded Courtlandt curtly.

"Well, since you fed Ranlett his time he's been moseyin' round Slippy Bend. The other day when I rode over there to see Baldy Jennings, 'bout shippin' them steer, I just naturally dropped into the Lazy Wolf. Our late manager was settin' at a table with two girls and a man. It wasn't my butt-in and I wouldn't have specially noticed the stranger if he hadn't been makin' goo-goo eyes at one of the females out of all proportion to her good looks. She hed----"

"Let's pass up what she looked like. Who was the man?"

"I didn't know then, but Saturday you brought the ol' son-of-a-gun of a lady-killer to the bunk-house yourself. Savvy?"

"You don't mean Beechy?"

"Sorry, Chief, but he's the same. An' unless I'm locoed Ranlett's got the feller's hide nailed to his stable door; he's got him an' he's got him tight."

CHAPTER XIII

Bubbles the roan, own brother to Patches, and Peggy Glamorgan on his back were radiant youth incarnate. The horse arched his graceful head as though proudly conscious of the loveliness of his burden; the corded muscles of shoulder, flank and leg flexed sensitively under his satin skin with every move of his pliant body. The girl's sombrero had the true ranchero tilt. Her khaki riding costume was as perfect a thing as the cinema-fed imagination of a fashionable habit-maker could conceive; it was only by exercising superhuman restraint that he had refrained from adding buckskin fringe and a six-shooter. Tommy Benson regarded her as though hypnotized. He caught a quizzical expression in Jerry's eyes as she stood on the porch, and colored hotly. He swallowed hard and sprang to the saddle. With obvious effort to regain his poise, he touched his horse with his heels and with a theatrical sweep of his right arm declaimed:

"Let's go! 'Once more into the breach dear friends, once more.'"

Peggy lingered.

"You are sure that you won't come with us, Jerry?" Her sister smilingly shook her head.

"No, I must finish some work. Come back, Goober!" to the dog who had been jumping up to lick the noses of the horses, and who with short joyous barks was preparing to follow them. He threw her a glance replete with injured dignity and flopped down on the porch with head on his outstretched paws. Peggy threw a hasty "I'm sorry!" over her shoulder and urged Bubbles to a gallop. Tommy bore down upon her as she reached the ranch road. He seized the bridle of her horse and pulled him down.

"Where's the fire?" he demanded. "What's the big idea in burning up the road? I want to make this ride last."

"I thought you wanted to get to Lower Field to help Steve," reproachfully.

"Sure thing, but if I break my neck getting there it won't prove much, will it? I wonder why your sister didn't come."

The horses stepped daintily side by side, their glossy coats shining in the sunlight. Peggy's brows met in a suspicion of a frown.

"Tommy--you don't mind if I call you Tommy, do you?" with just the right suggestion of hesitation and a glance from under curling lashes which fanned a spark in the man's eyes to fire.

"I'll say that I don't," fervently. "Formality is silly in a great, God's-own-country like this. What's on your mind?"

"Jerry. I was wondering. There is something queer about Steve and Jerry, Tommy. They don't seem a bit like married lovers; have you noticed it?"

Benson bent far forward to examine the bit in his horse's mouth. When he settled back in the saddle his face was flushed.

"'I never knew so young a lady with so old a head,'" he quoted gayly. "What does a child like you, just out of the nursery, know about lovers?" he teased.

She regarded him with lofty condescension.

"I shall be nineteen my next birthday and I'll have you understand that boys have been plentiful in my career, Mr. Benson. Of course if you don't care to talk with me----"

"I do--I do, Peg-o'-my-heart!" Courtlandt's name for her slipped unconsciously from Tommy's lips. He looked at her apologetically but the girl was too engrossed in her troubled thoughts to notice what he called her. Reassured he answered her question. "I think that Steve and Jerry are bully pals."

"Pals! Ye gods, and that's all. Honest now, Tommy, have you ever seen Steve catch Jerry's hand as though he just couldn't help it?" Benson met her triumphant glance with a sternly accusing eye.

"Oh, the precocity and sophistication of twentieth century youth! Look here, young woman, what have you been reading?"

"Reading! Tommy, you're overdoing it.