“This to the crowd-speak bitter, proud and high,
But simply to your friend-she loves you not!”
-Le Bret-who scolds.

The five pursuers rode swiftly, with inquiry at several farms about the man on the blue horse. Some had seen him; some had not. He had been riding slowly and he had kept the main road to Greenhorn. They took the Greenhorn Island ford and found good swimming. The quarry had passed through Donahue’s an hour and a half before, taking the road to Arrey. They pushed on furiously. See and Lull fell behind a little.

“Say, this is a rotten deal!” said Charlie. “That man ain’t running away. Not on your life. He no more killed Adam Forbes than I did. You know how long ago we met him. If he was the man that built that branding fire, how does it happen the ashes were still hot when these fellows found it? By their tell and our timing that was near three hours later. We met him about three; if he made that fire it couldn’t have been later than two o’clock, by the looks of his horse. And he’s keeping the same steady gait, and going straight for Hillsboro, just as he told us. We’re gaining on him right along. He’s not trying to get away. Either he’s innocent or he’s got the devil’s own nerve.”

“Innocent. Pete thinks so, too. This crowd tells a fishy story. Did you notice how prompt Caney was to explain why they was there, and why they went down Redgate, and why the stranger shot Adam, and how Adam gave him a chance to shoot him in the back? Always Caney! Say, Hob, that man was too willing by half!”

“And that excitement. I wasn’t surprised at Jody, and I don’t know this man Hales-but wouldn’t you think Ed Caney had seen enough men killed not to fight his head like that? He didn’t have much use for Adam, either. Adam backed him down once. It was kept quiet, but Anastacio told me, on the dead. It tickled Anastacio. No, sir-those three fellows acted like they might be wishin’ to start a stampede. I’m not satisfied a little bit.”

“A grudge? But if one of these ducks is in, they’re all in. This is something else. Or of course it may have been some other person altogether, and these people may have merely lost their heads. Do you reckon that placer hunt of Adam’s might have had anything to do with it? Poor old Adam! We’ll find time to grieve for him after we get the man that rubbed him out.”

“I can’t hardly realize it. It won’t come home to us till we’ve seen him, I expect. I keep saying it over to myself-’Adam’s dead’-but I don’t believe it. And only last night Edith sang that nightingale song after him-poor kid! Say-look at that, will you? You’d think Caney didn’t dare trust us to talk together.”

Caney dropped back to them.

“Can’t you two get any action out of them horses of yourn?” he snarled. “It’ll soon be dark on us. Your horses are enough sight fresher than ours.”

Charlie See jumped his horse up and reined him to his haunches beside Caney, eye to eye; he cocked his hat athwart.

“Now, Mr. Ed Caney,” he said sweetly, “any time you’re not just satisfied with the way I behave you know what you can do. This place is here and this time is now. Fly to it!”

“Why, what’s eating you, Charlie? This spitfire-wildcat-wolf-and-my-night-to-howl thing is a new lay, isn’t it? I always gave you credit for some sense.”

“Your mistake,” said Charlie. “You ride on. I don’t like deputy sheriffs much; especially deputies from Dona Ana; and most extra special and particular, tall deputies from Dona Ana with their faces pitted with smallpox, going by the name of Ed Caney, and butting into my private conversation. Me and old Stargazer will be in at the finish, and we don’t need anybody to tell us how fast to go or nothing like that at all. So what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to ride on-that’s what!” said Caney. “You can come along or you can go to hell-I don’t care.”

“It’s a cruel world,” said Charlie. “I’ve heard people call you a fool, but I know better, now. Don’t you worry about us not keeping up.”

Caney drove home the spurs and drew ahead.

They galloped into Arrey.

Yes, they had seen a man on a blue horse. “Filled his canteen here. Peart pair!... Which way? Oh, right up the big road to Hillsb’ro-him singin’ and the horse dancin’.... Oh, maybe half an hour ago. He stayed here quite some time-admirin’ the mountains, I judge, and fillin’ his canteen-him and Josie. Better stay to supper, you-all; looks mighty like rain over yonder.”

They turned squarely from the river valley and pushed up the staircase road. The track was clear and plain, three old shoes and a new one. They climbed the first bench-land step, and saw the long gray road blank before them in the last flame-red of sun. Swift dusk dropped like a curtain as they climbed the next step and saw a slow black speck far ahead in the dim loneliness.

“Got him!” said Jody. “Here, one can trail along behind, while two of us take the right and two go on the left, keeping cover in little draws and behind ridges. We’ll have him surrounded before he knows we’re after him. Way he’s riding, we can head him off long before he gets to the Percha.”

“Fine!” said Hobby Lull. “Fine! He rides into an ambush at dark. Guilty-he fights of course. Innocent-of course he fights! Any man with a bone in his spinal column would fight. First-rate scheme, except that Charlie See and me won’t have it. Innocent, it isn’t hospitable; guilty, we won’t have him shot. The man that killed Adam Forbes has got to hang.”

Leaping, Charlie See’s horse whirled on a pivot and faced the others.

“Speed up, Hobby, and tell that man we’re holding all strangers, him most of all. I’ll hold this bunch. Beat it!”

His voice was low and drawling; he barred the way with quiet steady eyes. The storm-drenched wind blew out his saddle strings, the fringed edges of his gauntlets, the kerchief at his neck, the long tapideros at his feet; it beat back his hat’s broad brim, Stargazer’s mane snapped loose and level; horse and man framed against coming night and coming storm in poised wild energy, centered, strong and tense.

“You darned little meddlesome whiffet!” snarled Jody Weir savagely, as Lull galloped away.

See’s gun hand lay at his thigh. “Talk all you like, but don’t get restless with your hands. I’m telling you! Meddlesome? That’s me. Matt is my middle name. Don’t let that worry you any. I’ve got three good reasons for meddling. I know two of you, and I don’t know the other one. I don’t like waylaying-and I don’t like you. Besides, I love to meddle. Always did. Everybody’s business is my business. You three birds keep still and look sulky. Be wise, now! Me and a rattlesnake has got the same motto: You touch the button and I’ll do the rest.”

Black above and furnace flame below, the tumbling clouds came rushing from the hills with a mutter of far-off thunder. A glimmer of twilight lingered, and sudden stars blazed across the half sky to eastward, unclouded yet.

Hobby Lull cupped his hands and shouted through the dusk: “Hoo-e-ee!”

Johnny Dines halted the blue horse and answered blithely: “E-ee-hoo!”

“Sorry,” said Lull as he rode up, “but I’ve got to put you under arrest.”

“Anything serious?”

“Yes, it is. A man was killed back there to-day.”

“So you want my gun, of course. Here it is. Don’t mention it. I’ve had to hold strangers before now, myself.”

“It isn’t quite so vague as that-and I’m sorry, too,” said Lull awkwardly. “This man was killed in Redgate Canyon and you came through there. I met you myself.”

“Not that big red-headed chap I saw there?”

“That’s the man.”

“Hell, that’s too bad. Acted like a good chap. He chinned with me a while-caught up with me and gave me a letter to mail. Where do we go-on or back? If you take me to the John Cross wagon to-morrow they’ll tell you I’m all right. Down on the river nobody seemed to know where the wagon was. I’m Johnny Dines, Phillipsburg way. T-Tumble-T brand.”

“I’ve heard of you-no bad report either. You live on one county line and I’m on the other. Well, here’s hoping you get safe out of the mess. It isn’t pretty. We’ll take you on to Hillsboro, I guess, now we’re this close. There’s a lot more of us behind, waiting. Let’s go back and get them. Then we’ll go on.”

“Look now-if you’re going on to Hillsboro, my horse has come a right smart step to-day, and every little bit helps. Why don’t you shoot a few lines? They’ll come a-snuffin’ then, and we won’t have to go back.”

Hobby nodded. He fired two shots.

“You ride a Bar Cross horse, I see.”

“Yes. I’m the last hand.” Johnny grinned. “Hark! I hear them coming. Sounds creepy, don’t it? They’re fussed. Them two shots have got ’em guessing-they’re sure burning the breeze! Say, I’m going to slip into my slicker. Storm is right on top of us. Getting mighty black overhead. Twilight lasts pretty quick in this country.”

Rain spattered in big drops. Wind-blown flare of stars and the last smoky dusk and flickers of lightning made a thin greenish light. Shadowy horsemen shaped furiously through the murk, became clear, and reined beside them. Dines took one look at them and directed a reproachful glance at his captor.

“I might not have handed over my gun so nice and easy if I had known who was with you,” he remarked pleasantly. A high spot of color flamed to his cheek. “Just for that, you are going to lose the beauties of my conversation from now on-by advice of counsel. While you are putting on your slickers I merely wish to make a plain brief statement and also to call attention to one of the many mercies which crowd about us, and for which we are so ungrateful. Mercies first: Did you ever notice how splendidly it has been arranged that one day follows directly after another, instead of in between? And that maybe we’re sometimes often quite sorry some day for what we did or didn’t do some other day, or the reverse, as the case may be, or perhaps the contrary? Now the statement: I know two of you men, and I don’t like those two; and for the others, I don’t like the company they keep. So now you can all go to hell, home or Hillsboro, and take me with you, but I’ll not entertain you, not if you was bored to death. I’m done and dumb-till I tell it to the judge.”