HE KILLER 
 
 STEWARPEDWAW) WHITE 
 
H 
 UBRAKT 
 
 or 
 
 WIL 
 BUCK- 
 
 LIE: 
 
 CAL:-.- r 
 SAIWT^ C3RLJZ 
 
THE KILLER 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE CLAIM JUMPERS 
 THE WESTERNERS 
 THE BLAZED TRAIL 
 
 ARIZONA NIGHTS 
 BLAZED TRAIL STORIES 
 THE CABIN 
 CAMP AND TRAIL 
 CONJUROR'S HOUSE 
 
 THE FOREST 
 
 THH SIGN AT SIX 
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME 
 
 THE GRAY DAWN 
 
 THERIVERMAN 
 
 THE SILENT PLACES 
 THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY ORDE 
 THE MOUNTAINS 
 THE PASS 
 
 THE MAGIC FOREST 
 THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 
 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 
 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 
 GOLD 
 STMBA 
 
 THE LEOPARD WOMAN 
 THE MYSTERY 
 (With Samuel Hopkins Adams 
 
He had been shot through the body and was dead. His rifle 
 lay across a rock trained carefully on the trail. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 BY 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 " 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1920 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 
 
 TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 
 
 INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY THE RED BOOK CORPORATION 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE KELLER 
 
 THE ROAD AGEHT 
 
 THE TIDE I57 
 
 CLIMBING FOR GOATS . 189 
 
 MOISTURE, A TRACSE . 211 
 
 TEE RANCH 229 
 
THE KILLER 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I want to state right at the start that I am writing this 
 story twenty years after it happened solely because my wife 
 and Senor Buck Johnson insist on it. Myself, I don't think 
 it a good yarn. It hasn't any love story in it; and there 
 isn't any plot. Things just happened, one thing after the 
 other. There ought to be a yarn in it somehow, and I sup- 
 pose if a fellow wanted to lie a little he could make a tail- 
 twister out of it. Anyway, here goes; and if you don't like 
 it, you know you can quit at any stage of the game. 
 
 It happened when I was a kid and didn't know any better 
 than to do such things. They dared me to go up to Hoop- 
 er's ranch and stay all night; and as I had no information 
 on either the ranch or its owner, I saddled up and went. 
 It was only twelve miles from our Box Springs ranch a nice 
 easy ride. I should explain that heretofore I had ridden the 
 Gila end of our range, which is so far away that only vague 
 rumours of Hooper had ever reached me at all. He was 
 reputed a tough old devil with horrid habits; but that meant 
 little to me. The tougher and horrider they came, the bet- 
 ter they suited me so I thought. Just to make every- 
 thing entirely clear I will add that this was in the year of 
 1897 and the Soda Springs valley in Arizona. 
 
 I 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 By these two facts you old timers will gather the setting 
 of my tale. Indian days over; "nester" days with frame 
 houses and vegetable patches not yet here. Still a few guns 
 packed for business purposes; Mexican border handy; no 
 railroad in to Tombstone yet; cattle rustlers lingering in the 
 Galiuros; train hold-ups and homicide yet prevalent but 
 frowned upon; favourite tipple whiskey toddy with sugar; 
 but the old fortified ranches all gone; longhorns crowded 
 out by shorthorn blaze-head Herefords or near-Herefords; 
 some indignation against Alfred Henry Lewis's Wolfmlle as 
 a base libel; and, also but, no gasoline wagons or pumps, 
 no white collars, no tourists pervading the desert, and the 
 Injins still wearing blankets and overalls at their reserva- 
 tions instead of bead work on the railway platforms when 
 the Overland goes through. In other words, we were wild 
 and wooly, but sincerely didn't know it. 
 
 While I was saddling up to go take my dare, old Jed Parker 
 came and leaned himself up against the snubbing post of 
 the corral. He watched me for a while, and I kept quiet, 
 knowing well enough that he had something to say. 
 
 "Know Hooper?" he asked. 
 
 "I've seen him driving by," said I. 
 
 I had: a little humped, insignificant figure with close-crop- 
 ped white hair beneath a huge hat. He drove all hunched 
 up. His buckboard was a rattletrap, old, insulting challenge 
 to every little stone in the road; but there was nothing the 
 matter with the horses or their harness. We never held 
 much with grooming in Arizona, but these beasts shone like 
 bronze. Good sizeable horses, clean built well, I better 
 not get started talking horse! They're the reason I had 
 
 4 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 never really sized up the old man the few times I'd passed 
 him. 
 
 " Well, he's a tough bird," said Jed. 
 
 "Looks like a harmless old cuss but mean," says I. 
 
 " About this trip," said Jed, after I'd saddled and coiled 
 my rope "don't, and say you did." 
 
 I didn't answer this, but led my horse to the gate. 
 
 "Well, don't say as how I didn't tell you all about it," 
 said Jed, going back to the bunk house. 
 
 Miserable old coot! I suppose he thought he had told 
 me all about it! Jed was always too loquacious! 
 
 But I hadn't racked along more than two miles before a 
 man cantered up who was perfectly able to express him- 
 self. He was one of our outfit and was known as Windy 
 Bill. Nuffsaid! 
 
 "Hear you're goin' up to stay the night at Hooper's/' 
 said he. "Know Hooper?" 
 
 "No, I don't," said I, "are you another of these Sunbirds 
 with glad news?" 
 ^"Know about Hooper's boomerang?" 
 
 "Boomerang!" I replied, "what's that?" 
 
 "That's what they call it. YOU know how of course we 
 all let each other's strays water at our troughs in this coun- 
 try, and send 'em back to their own range at round up." 
 
 "Brother, you interest me," said I, "and would you mind 
 informing me further how you tell the dear little cows 
 apart?" 
 
 "Well, old Hooper don't, that's all," went on Windy, with- 
 out paying me any attention. "He built him a chute lead- 
 ing to the water corrals, and half way down the chute he 
 
 5 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 built a gate that would swing across it and open a hole into 
 a dry corral. And he had a high platform with a handle 
 that ran the gate. When any cattle but those of his own 
 brands came along, he had a man swing the gate and they 
 landed up into the dry corral. By and by he let them out 
 on the range again." 
 
 "Without water?" 
 
 "Sure! And of course back they came into the chute. 
 And so on. Till they died, or we came along and drove 
 them back home." 
 
 "Windy," said I, "you're stuffing me full of tacks." 
 
 "Fve seen little calves lyin' in heaps against the fence like 
 drifts of tumbleweed," said Windy, soberly; and then added, 
 without apparent passion, "The old !" 
 
 Looking at Windy's face, I knew these words for truth. 
 
 "He's a bad hombre" resumed Windy Bill after a m<x 
 ment. "He never does no actual killing himself, but he's 
 got a bad lot of oilers* there, especially an old one named 
 Andreas and another one called Ramon, and all he has to do 
 is to lift one eye at a man he don't like and that man is as 
 good as dead one time or another." 
 
 This was going it pretty strong, and I grinned at Windy 
 Bill. 
 
 "All right," said Windy, "I'm just telling you." 
 
 " Well, what's the matter with you fellows down here?" I 
 challenged. "How is it he's lasted so long? Why hasn't 
 someone shot him? Are you all afraid of him or his Mexi- 
 cans?" 
 
 "No, it ain't that, exactly. I don't know. He drives by 
 
 *Oiler = Greaser = Mexican. 
 
 6 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 all alone, and he don't pack no gun ever, and he's sort of 
 runty and I do'no why he ain't been shot, but he ain't. 
 And if I was you, I'd stick home." 
 
 Windy amused but did not greatly persuade me. By this 
 time I was fairly conversant with the cowboy's sense of 
 humour. Nothing would have tickled them more than to 
 bluff me out of a harmless excursion by means of scareful 
 tales. Shortly Windy Bill turned off to examine a distant 
 bunch of cattle; and so I rode on alone. 
 
 It was coming on toward evening. Against the eastern 
 mountains were floating tinted mists; and the canons were 
 a deep purple. The cattle were moving slowly so that here 
 and there a nimbus of dust caught and reflected the late 
 sunlight into gamboge yellows and mauves. The magic 
 time was near when the fierce, implacable day-genius of the 
 desert would fall asleep and the soft, gentle, beautiful 
 star-eyed night-genius of the desert would arise and move 
 softly. My pony racked along in the desert. The mass 
 that represented Hooper's ranch drew imperceptibly nearer. 
 I made out the green of trees and the white of walls and 
 building. 
 
CHAPTER H 
 
 Hooper's ranch proved to be entirely enclosed by a wall 
 of adobe ten feet high and whitewashed. To the outside 
 it presented a blank face. Only corrals and an alfalfa 
 patch were not included. A wide, high gateway, that could 
 be closed by massive doors, let into a stable yard, and 
 seemed to be the only entrance. The buildings within 
 were all immaculate also : evidently Old Man Hooper loved 
 whitewash. Cottonwood trees showed their green heads; 
 and to the right I saw the sloped shingled roof of a larger 
 building. Not a living creature was in sight. I shook 
 myself, saying that the undoubted sinister feeling of utter 
 silence and lifelessness was compounded of my expectations 
 and the time of day. But that did not satisfy me. My 
 aroused mind, casting about, soon struck it: I was missing 
 the swarms of blackbirds, linnets, purple finches, and doves 
 that made our own ranch trees vocal. Here were no birds. 
 Laughing at this simple explanation of my eerie feeling, 
 I passed under the gate and entered the courtyard. 
 
 It, too, seemed empty. A stable occupied all one side; the 
 other three were formed by bunk houses and necessary out- 
 buildings. Here, too, dwelt absolute solitude and absolute 
 silence. It was uncanny, as though one walked in a vacuum. 
 Everything was neat and shut up and whitewashed and ap- 
 parently dead. There were no sounds or signs of occu- 
 
 8 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 pancy. I was as much alone as though I had been in the 
 middle of an ocean. My mind, by now abnormally sensi- 
 tive and alert, leaped on this idea. For the same reason, 
 it insisted lack of life: there were no birds here, not even 
 flies! Of course, said I, gone to bed in the cool of evening: 
 why should there be? I laughed aloud and hushed sud- 
 denly ; and then nearly jumped out of my skin. The thin blue 
 curl of smoke had caught my eye; and I became aware of 
 the figure of a man seated on the ground, in the shadow, 
 leaning against the building. The curl of smoke was from 
 his cigarette. He was wrapped in a serape which blended 
 well with the cool colour of shadow. My eyes were dazzled 
 with the whitewash natural enough yet the impression 
 of solitude had been so complete. It was uncanny, as 
 though he had materialized out of the shadow itself. Silly 
 idea ! I ranged my eye along the row of houses, and I saw 
 three other figures I had missed before, all broodingly im- 
 mobile, all merged in shadow, all watching me, all with the 
 insubstantial air of having as I looked taken body from thin 
 air. 
 
 This was too foolish ! I dismounted, dropped my horse's 
 reins over his head, and sauntered to the nearest figure. He 
 was lost in the dusk of the building and of his Mexican hat. 
 I saw only the gleam of eyes. 
 
 "Where will I find Mr. Hooper?" I asked. 
 
 The figure waved a long, slim hand toward a wicket gate 
 in one side of the enclosure. He said no word, nor made an- 
 other motion; and the other figures sat as though graved 
 from stone. 
 
 After a moment's hesitation I pushed open the wicket 
 
 9 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 gate, and so found myself in a smaller intimate courtyard 
 of most surprising character. Its centre was green grass, 
 and about its border grew tall, bright flowers. A wide ve- 
 randah ran about three sides. I could see that in the numer- 
 ous windows hung white lace curtains. Mind you, this was 
 in Arizona of the 'nineties! 
 
 I knocked at the nearest door, and after an interval it 
 opened and I stood face to face with Old Man Hooper himself. 
 
 He proved to be as small as I had thought, not taller than 
 my own shoulder, with a bent little figure dressed in wrink- 
 led and baggy store clothes of a snuff brown. His bullet 
 head had been cropped so that his hair stood up like a short- 
 bristled white brush. His rather round face was brown 
 and lined. His hands, which grasped the doorposts un- 
 compromisingly to bar the way, were lean and veined and 
 old. But all that I found in my recollections afterward 
 to be utterly unimportant. His eyes were his predominant, 
 his formidable, his compelling characteristic. They were 
 round, the pupils very small, the irises large and of a light 
 flecked blue. From the pupils radiated fine lines. The 
 blank, cold, inscrutable stare of them bored me through 
 to the back of the neck. I suppose the man winked oc- 
 casionally, but I never got that impression. I've noticed 
 that owls have this same intent, unwinking stare and wild- 
 cats. 
 
 "Mr. Hooper," said I, "can you keep me over night?" 
 
 It was a usual request in the old cattle country. He con- 
 tinued to stare at me for some moments. 
 
 "Where are you from?" he asked at length. His voice 
 was soft and low; rather purring. 
 
 10 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 I mentioned our headquarters on the Gila: it did not 
 seem worth while to say anything about Box Springs only 
 a dozen miles away. He stared at me for some time more. 
 
 "Come in," he said, abruptly; and stood aside. 
 
 This was a disconcerting surprise. All I had expected 
 was permission to stop, and a direction as to how to find 
 the bunk house. Then a more or less dull evening, and a 
 return the following day to collect on my "dare." I step- 
 ped into the dimness of the hallway; and immediately after 
 into a room beyond. 
 
 Again I must remind you that this was the Arizona of the 
 'nineties. All the ranch houses with which I was acquainted, 
 and I knew about all of them, were very crudely done. 
 They comprised generally a half dozen rooms with adobe 
 walls and rough board floors, with only such furnishings 
 as deal tables, benches, homemade chairs, perhaps a bat- 
 tered old washstand or so, and bunks filled with straw. We 
 had no such things as tablecloths and sheets, of course. 
 Everything was on a like scale of simple utility. 
 
 All right, get that in your mind. The interior into which 
 I now stepped, with my clanking spurs, my rattling chaps, 
 the dust of my sweat-stained garments, was a low-ceilinged, 
 dim abode with faint, musty aromas. Carpets covered the 
 floors; an old-fashioned hat rack flanked the door on one 
 side, a tall clock on the other. I saw in passing framed steel 
 engravings. The room beyond contained easy chairs, a 
 sofa upholstered with hair cloth, an upright piano, a marble 
 fireplace with a mantel, in a corner a triangular what- 
 not filled with objects. It, too, was dim and curtained and 
 faintly aromatic as had been the house of an old maiden 
 
 ii 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 aunt of my childhood, who used to give me cookies on the 
 Sabbath. I felt now too large, and too noisy, and altogether 
 mis-dressed and blundering and dirty. The little old man 
 moved without a sound, and the grandfather's clock outside 
 ticked deliberately in a hollow silence. 
 
 I sat down, rather gingerly, in the chair he indicated for 
 me. 
 
 "I shall be very glad to offer you hospitality for the 
 night," he said, as though there had been no interim. "I 
 feel honoured at the opportunity." 
 
 I murmured my thanks, and a suggestion that I should 
 look after my horse. 
 
 "Your horse, sir, has been attended to, and your cantinas* 
 are undoubtedly by now in your room, where, I am sure, 
 you are anxious to repair." 
 
 He gave no signal, nor uttered any command, but at his 
 last words a grave, elderly Mexican appeared noiselessly at 
 my elbow. As a matter of fact, he came through an un- 
 noticed door at the back, but he might as well have material- 
 ized from the thin air for the start that he gave me. Hooper 
 instantly arose. 
 
 "I trust, sir, you will find all to your liking. If anything 
 is lacking, I trust you will at once indicate the fact. We 
 shall dine in a half hour 
 
 He seized a small implement consisting of a bit of wire 
 screen attached to the end of a short stick, darted across the 
 room with the most extraordinary agility, thwacked a lone 
 house fly, and returned. 
 
 " and you will undoubtedly be ready for it," he finished 
 * Saddle pockets that fit on the pommel. 
 
 12 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 his speech, calmly, as though he had not moved from his 
 tracks. 
 
 I murmured my acknowledgments. My last impression 
 as I left the room was of the baleful, dead, challenging stare 
 of the man's wildcat eyes. 
 
 The Mexican glided before me. We emerged into the 
 court, walked along the verandah, and entered a bedroom. 
 My guide slipped by me and disappeared before I had the 
 chance of a word with him. He may have been dumb for 
 all I know. I sat down and tried to take stock. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The room was small, but it was papered, it was rugged, its 
 floor was painted and waxed, its window opening into the 
 court, by the way was hung with chintz and net curtains, 
 its bed was garnished with sheets and counterpane, its chairs 
 were upholstered and in perfect repair and polish. It was 
 not Arizona, emphatically not, but rather the sweet and 
 garnished and lavendered respectability of a Connecticut 
 village. My dirty old cantinas lay stacked against the 
 washstand. At sight of them I had to grin. Of course I 
 travelled cowboy fashion. They contained a toothbrush, 
 a comb, and a change of underwear. The latter item was 
 sheer, rank pride of caste. 
 
 It was all most incongruous and strange. But the strang- 
 est part, of course, was the fact that I found myself where I 
 was at that moment. Why was I thus received? Why 
 was I, an ordinary and rather dirty cowpuncher, not sent 
 as usual to the men's bunk house? It could not be possible 
 that Old Man Hooper extended this sort of hospitality to 
 every chance wayfarer. Arizona is a democratic country, 
 Lord knows: none more so! But owners are not likely to 
 invite in strange cowboys unless they themselves mess with 
 their own men. I gave it up, and tried unsuccessfully to 
 shrug it off my mind, and sought distraction in looking about 
 me. There was not much to see. The one door and one 
 
 14 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 window opened into the court. The other side was blank 
 except that near the ceiling ran a curious, long, narrow open- 
 ing closed by a transom-like sash. I had never seen any- 
 thing quite like it, but concluded that it must be a sort of 
 loop hole for musketry in the old days. Probably they had 
 some kind of scaffold to stand on. 
 
 I pulled off my shirt and took a good wash: shook the dust 
 out of my clothes as well as I could; removed my spurs and 
 chaps; knotted my silk handkerchief necktie fashion; slicked 
 down my wet hair, and tried to imagine myself decently 
 turned out for company. I took off my gun belt also; but 
 after some hesitation thrust the revolver inside the waist- 
 band of my drawers. Had no reason; simply the border 
 instinct to stick to one's weapon. 
 
 Then I sat down to wait. The friendly little noises of my 
 own movements left me. I give you my word, never be- 
 fore nor since have I experienced such stillness. In vain I 
 told myself that with adobe walls two feet thick, a windless 
 evening, and an hour after sunset, stillness was to be ex- 
 pected. That did not satisfy. Silence is made up of a 
 thousand little noises so accustomed that they pass over the 
 consciousness. Somehow these little noises seemed to lack. 
 I sat in an aural vacuum. This analysis has come to me 
 since. At that time I only knew that most uneasily I missed 
 something, and that my ears ached from vain listening. 
 
 At the end of the half hour I returned to the parlour. 
 Old Man Hooper was there waiting. A hanging lamp had 
 been lighted. Out of the shadows cast from it a slender 
 figure rose and came forward. 
 
 "My daughter, Mr. " he paused. 
 
 15 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Sanborn," I supplied. 
 
 "My dear, Mr. Sanborn has most kindly dropped in to 
 relieve the tedium of our evening with his company his 
 distinguished company. " He pronounced the words 
 suavely, without a trace of sarcastic emphasis, yet somehow I 
 felt my face flush. And all the time he was staring at me 
 blankly with his wide, unblinking, wildcat eyes. 
 
 The girl was very pale, with black hair and wide eyes 
 under a fair, wide brow. She was simply dressed in some sort 
 of white stuff. I thought she drooped a little. She did not 
 look at me, nor speak to me; only bowed slightly. 
 
 We went at once into a dining room at the end of the little 
 dark hall. It was lighted by a suspended lamp that threw 
 the illumination straight down on a table perfect in its 
 appointments of napery, silver, and glass. I felt very awk- 
 ward and dusty in my cowboy rig; and rather too large. 
 The same Mexican served us, deftly. We had delightful 
 food, well cooked. I do not remember what it was. My 
 attention was divided between the old man and his daugh- 
 ter. He talked, urbanely, of a wide range of topics, dis- 
 playing a cosmopolitan taste, employing a choice of words 
 and phrases that was astonishing. The girl, who turned 
 out to be very pretty in a dark, pale, sad way, never raised 
 her eyes from her plate. 
 
 It was the cool of the evening, and a light breeze from the 
 open window swung the curtains. From the blackness out- 
 side a single frog began to chirp. My host's flow of words 
 eddied, ceased. He raised his head uneasily; then, without 
 apology, slipped from his chair and glided from the room. 
 The Mexican remained, standing bolt upright in the dimness. 
 
 16 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 For the first time the girl spoke. Her voice was low and 
 sweet, but either I or my aroused imagination detected a 
 strained under quality. 
 
 " Ramon," she said in Spanish, "I am chilly. Close the 
 window." 
 
 The servant turned his back to obey. With a movement 
 rapid as a snake's dart the girl's hand came from beneath the 
 table, reached across, and thrust into mine a small, folded 
 paper. The next instant she was back in her place, staring 
 down as before in apparent apathy. So amazed was I 
 that I recovered barely soon enough to conceal the paper 
 before Ramon turned back from his errand. 
 
 The next five minutes were to me hours of strained and 
 bewildered waiting. I addressed one or two remarks to my 
 companion, but received always monosyllabic answers. 
 Twice I caught the flash of lanterns beyond the darkened 
 window; and a subdued, confused murmur as though several 
 people were walking about stealthily. Except for this the 
 night had again fallen deathly still. Even the cheerful 
 frog had hushed. 
 
 At the end of a period my host returned, and without 
 apology or explanation resumed his seat and took up his 
 remarks where he had left them. 
 
 The girl disappeared somewhere between the table and 
 the sitting room. Old Man Hooper offered me a cigar, and 
 sat down deliberately to entertain me. I had an uncom- 
 fortable feeling that he was also amusing himself, as though 
 I were being played with and covertly sneered at. Hoop- 
 er's politeness and suavity concealed, and well concealed, 
 a bitter irony. His manner was detached and a little pre- 
 17 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 cise. Every few moments he burst into a flurry of activity 
 with the fly whacker, darting here and there as his eyes fell 
 upon one of the insects; but returning always calmly to his 
 discourse with an air of never having moved from his chair. 
 He talked to me of Praxiteles, among other things. What 
 should an Arizona cowboy know of Praxiteles? and why 
 should any one talk to him of that worthy Greek save as a 
 subtle and hidden expression of contempt? That was my 
 feeling. My senses and mental apperceptions were by now 
 a little on the raw. 
 
 That, possibly, is why I noticed the very first chirp of 
 another frog outside. It continued, and I found myself 
 watching my host covertly. Sure enough, after a few 
 repetitions I saw subtle signs of uneasiness, of divided 
 attention; and soon, again without apology or explana- 
 tion, he glided from the room. And at the same instant the 
 old Mexican servitor came and pretended to fuss with the 
 lamps. 
 
 My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, but I could 
 guess no means of satisfying it. Like the bedroom, this 
 parlour gave out only on the interior court. The flash of 
 lanterns against the ceiling above reached me. All I could 
 do was to wander about looking at the objects in the cabinet 
 and the pictures on the walls. There was, I remember, a 
 set of carved ivory chessmen and an engraving of the legal 
 trial of some English worthy of the seventeenth century. 
 But my hearing was alert, and I thought to hear footsteps 
 outside. At any rate, the chirp of the frog came to an abrupt 
 end. 
 
 Shortly my host returned and took up his monologue. 
 
 18 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 It amounted to that. He seemed to delight in choosing 
 unusual subjects and then backing me into a corner with 
 an array of well-considered phrases that allowed me no 
 opening for reply nor even comment. In one of my des- 
 perate attempts to gain even a momentary initiative I asked 
 him, apropos of the piano, whether his daughter played. 
 
 "Do you like music?" he added, and without waiting for 
 a reply seated himself at the instrument. 
 
 He played to me for half an hour. I do not know much 
 about music; but I know he played well and that he played 
 good things. Also that, for the first time, he came out of 
 himself, abandoned himself to feeling. His close-cropped 
 head swayed from side to side; his staring, wildcat eyes half 
 closed 
 
 He slammed shut the piano and arose, more drily precise 
 than ever. 
 
 "I imagine all that is rather beyond your apperceptions," 
 he remarked, "and that you are ready for your bed. Here 
 is a short document I would have you take to your room for 
 perusal. Good-night." 
 
 He tendered me a small, folded paper which I thrust into 
 the breast pocket of my shirt along with the note handed me 
 earlier in the evening by the girl. Thus dismissed I was 
 only too delighted to repair to my bedroom. 
 
 There I first carefully drew together the curtains; then 
 examined the first of the papers I drew from my pocket. 
 It proved to be the one from the girl, and read as follows: 
 
 I am here against my will. I am not this man's daughter. 
 For God's sake if you can help me, do so. But be careful for 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 he is a dangerous man. My room is the last one on the left 
 wing of the court. I am constantly guarded. I do not know 
 what you can do. The case is hopeless. I cannot write more. 
 I am watched. 
 
 I unfolded the paper Hooper himself had given me. It 
 was similar in appearance to the other, and read: 
 
 I am held a prisoner. This man Hooper is not my father 
 but he is vindictive and cruel and dangerous. Beware for 
 yourself. I live in the last room in the left whig. I am 
 watched, so cannot write more. 
 
 The handwriting of the two documents was the same. 
 I stared at one paper and then at the other, and for a half 
 hour I thought all the thoughts appropriate to the occa- 
 sion. They led me nowhere, and would not interest you. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 After a time I went to bed, but not to sleep. I placed my 
 gun under my pillow, locked and bolted the door, and ar- 
 ranged a string cunningly across the open window so that 
 an intruder unless he had extraordinary luck could not 
 have failed to kick up a devil of a clatter. I was young, 
 bold, without nerves; so that I think I can truthfully say I 
 was not in the least frightened. But I cannot deny I was 
 nervous or rather the whole situation was on my nerves. 
 I lay on my back staring straight at the ceiling. I caught 
 myself gripping the sheets and listening. Only there was 
 nothing to listen to. The night was absolutely still. There 
 were no frogs, no owls, no crickets even. The firm old adobe 
 walls gave off no creak nor snap of timbers. The world 
 was mufHed I almost said smothered. The psychological 
 effect was that of blank darkness, the black darkness of far 
 underground, although the moon was sailing the heavens. 
 
 How long that lasted I could not tell you. But at last 
 the silence was broken by the cheerful chirp of a frog. 
 Never was sound more grateful to the ear! I lay drinking 
 it in as thirstily as water after a day on the desert. It seemed 
 that the world breathed again, was coming alive after syn- 
 cope. And then beneath that loud and cheerful singing I 
 became aware of duller half -heard movements; and a mo- 
 ment or so later yellow lights began to flicker through the 
 
 21 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 transom high at the blank wall of the room, and to reflect 
 in wavering patches on the ceiling. Evidently somebody 
 was afoot outside with a lantern. 
 
 I crept from the bed, moved the table beneath the tran- 
 som, and climbed atop. The opening was still a foot or so 
 above my head. Being young, strong, and active, I drew 
 myself up by the strength of my arms so I could look 
 until my muscles gave out! 
 
 I saw four men with lanterns moving here and there 
 among some willows that bordered what seemed to be an 
 irrigating ditch with water. They were armed with long 
 clubs. Old Man Hooper, in an overcoat, stood in a com- 
 manding position. They seemed to be searching. Sud- 
 denly from a clump of bushes one of the men uttered an 
 exclamation of triumph. I saw his long club rise and fall. 
 At that instant my tired fingers slipped from the ledge and 
 I had to let myself drop to the table. When a moment 
 later I regained my vantage point, I found that the whole 
 crew had disappeared. 
 
 Nothing more happened that night. At times I dozed 
 in a broken sort of fashion, but never actually fell into 
 sound sleep. The nearest I came to slumber was just at 
 dawn. I really lost all consciousness of my surroundings 
 and circumstances, and was only slowly brought to myself 
 by the sweet singing of innumerable birds in the willows 
 outside the blank wall. I lay in a half stupor enjoying 
 them. Abruptly their music ceased. I heard the soft, flat 
 spat of a miniature rifle. The sound was repeated. I 
 climbed back on my table and drew myself again to a posi- 
 tion of observation. 
 
 22 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Old Man Hooper, armed with a .22 calibre rifle, was prowl- 
 ing along the willows in which fluttered a small band of 
 migratory birds. He was just drawing bead on a robin. 
 At the report the bird fell. The old man darted forward 
 with the impetuosity of a boy, although the bird was dead. 
 An impulse of contempt curled my lips. The old man was 
 childish! Why should he find pleasure in hunting such 
 harmless creatures? and why should he take on triumph 
 over retrieving such petty game? But when he reached 
 the fallen bird he did not pick it up for a possible pot-pie as 
 I thought he would do. He ground it into the soft earth 
 with the heel c* his boot, stamping on the poor thing again 
 and again. And never have I seen on human countenance 
 such an expression of satisfied malignity! 
 
 I went to my door and looked out. You may be sure 
 that the message I had received from the unfortunate young 
 lady had not been forgotten; but Old Man Hooper's cynical 
 delivery of the second paper had rendered me too cautious 
 to undertake anything without proper reconnaissance. 
 The left wing about the courtyard seemed to contain two 
 apartments at least there were two doors, each with its 
 accompanying window. The window farthest out was 
 heavily barred. My thrill at this discovery was, however, 
 slightly dashed by the further observation that also- all the 
 other windows into the courtyard were barred. Still, 
 that was peculiar in itself, and not attributable as were 
 the walls and remarkable transoms to former necessities 
 of defence. My first thought was to stroll idly around the 
 courtyard, thus obtaining a closer inspection. But the 
 moment I stepped into the open a Mexican sauntered into 
 
 23 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 view and began to water the flowers. I can say no more 
 than that in his hands that watering pot looked fairly 
 silly. So I turned to the right and passed through the 
 wicket gate and into the stable yard. It was natural 
 enough that I should go to look after my own horse. 
 
 The stable yard was for the moment empty; but as I 
 walked across it one of its doors opened and a very little, 
 wizened old man emerged leading a horse. He tied the 
 animal to a ring in the wall and proceeded at once to curry- 
 ing. 
 
 I had been in Arizona for ten years. During that time 
 I had seen a great many very fine native horses, for the 
 stock of that country is directly descended from the barbs 
 of the conquistador es. But, though often well formed and 
 as tough and useful as horseflesh is made, they were small. 
 And no man thought of refinements in caring for any one 
 of his numerous mounts. They went shaggy or smooth 
 according to the season; and not one of them could have 
 called a curry comb or brush out of its name. 
 
 The beast from which the wizened old man stripped a 
 bonafide horse blanket was none of these. He stood a good 
 sixteen hands; his head was small and clean cut with large, 
 intelligent eyes and little, well-set ears; his long, muscular 
 shoulders sloped forward as shoulders should; his barrel 
 was long and deep and well ribbed up; his back was flat 
 and straight; his legs were clean and what was rarely 
 seen in the cow country well proportioned the cannon 
 bone shorter than the leg bone, the ankle sloping and long 
 and elastic in short, a magnificent creature whose points 
 of excellence appeared one by one under close scrutiny. 
 
 24 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 And the high lights of his glossy coat flashed in the sun like 
 water. 
 
 I walked from one side to the other of him marvelling. 
 Not a defect, not even a blemish could I discover. The 
 animal was fairly a perfect specimen of horseflesh. And I 
 could not help speculating as to its use. Old Man Hooper 
 had certainly never appeared with it in public; the fame of 
 such a beast would have spread the breadth of the country. 
 
 During my inspection the wizened little man continued 
 his work without even a glance in my direction. He had 
 on riding breeches and leather gaiters, a plaid waistcoat 
 and a peaked cap; which, when you think of it, was to 
 Arizona about as incongruous as the horse. I made 
 several conventional remarks of admiration, to which he 
 paid not the slightest attention. But I know a bait. 
 
 "I suppose you claim him as a Morgan," said I. 
 
 "Claim, is it!" grunted the little man, contemptuously. 
 
 "Well, the Morgan is not a real breed, anyway," I per- 
 sisted. "A sixty-fourth blood will get one registered. 
 What does that amount to ? " 
 
 The little man grunted again. 
 
 "Besides, though your animal is a good one, he is too 
 short and straight in the pasterns," said I, uttering sheer, 
 rank, wild heresy. 
 
 After that we talked; at first heatedly, then argumenta- 
 tively, then with entire, enthusiastic agreement. I saw to 
 that. Allowing yourself to be converted from an absurd 
 opinion is always a sure way to favour. We ended with an- 
 tiphonies of praise for this descendant of Justin Morgan. 
 
 "You're the only man in all this God-forsaken country 
 
 25 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 that has the sense of a Shanghai rooster!" cried the little 
 man in a glow. "They ride horses and they know naught 
 of them; and they laugh at a horseman! Your hand, sir!" 
 He shook it. "And is that your horse in number four? I 
 wondered! He's the first animal I've seen here properly 
 shod. They use the rasp, sir, on the outside the hoof, and 
 on the clinches, sir; and they burn a seat for the shoe; and 
 they pare out the sole and trim the frog bah! You shoe 
 your own horse, I take it. That's right and proper! Your 
 hand again, sir. Your horse has been fed this hour agone." 
 
 'Til water him, then," said I. 
 
 But when I led him forth I could find no trough or other 
 facilities until the little man led me to a corner of the corral 
 and showed me a contraption with a close-fitting lid to be 
 lifted. 
 
 " It's along of the flies," he explained to me. " They must 
 drink, and we starve them for water here, and they go 
 greedy for their poison yonder." He indicated flat dishes 
 full of liquid set on shelves here and about. " We keep them 
 pretty clear." 
 
 I walked over, curiously, to examine. About and in the 
 dishes were literally quarts of dead insects, not only flies, 
 but bees, hornets, and other sorts as well. I now understood 
 the deadly silence that had so impressed me the evening 
 before. This was certainly most ingenious; and I said so. 
 
 But at my first remark the old man became obstinately 
 silent, and fell again to grooming the Morgan horse. Then 
 I became aware that he was addressing me in low tones out 
 of the corner of his mouth. 
 
 "Go on; look at the horse; say something," he muttered, 
 
 26 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 busily polishing down the animal's hind legs. "You're a 
 man who saveys a horse the only man I've seen here who 
 does. Get out! Don't ask why. You're safe now. You're 
 not safe here another day. Water your horse; eat your 
 breakfast; then get out!" 
 
 And not another word did I extract. I watered my horse 
 at the covered trough, and rather thoughtfully returned 
 to the courtyard. 
 
 I found there Old Man Hooper waiting. He looked as 
 bland and innocent and harmless as the sunlight on his own 
 flagstones until he gazed up at me, and then I was as usual 
 disconcerted by the blank, veiled, unwinking stare of his eyes. 
 
 "Remarkably fine Morgan stallion you have, sir," I 
 greeted him. " I didn't know such a creature existed in this 
 part of the world." 
 
 But the little man displayed no gratification. 
 
 "He's well enough. I have him more to keep Tim happy 
 than anything else. We'll go in to breakfast." 
 
 I cast a cautious eye at the barred window in the left 
 wing. The curtains were still down. At the table I ven- 
 tured to ask after Miss Hooper. The old man stared at me 
 up to the point of embarrassment, then replied drily that 
 she always breakfasted in her room. The rest of our con- 
 versation was on general topics. I am bound to say it was 
 unexpectedly easy. The old man was a good talker, and 
 possessed social ease and a certain charm, which he seemed 
 to be trying to exert. Among other things, I remember, he 
 told me of the Indian councils he used to hold in the old 
 days. 
 
 "They were held on the willow flat, outside the east 
 
 27 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 wall," he said. "I never allowed any of them inside the 
 walls." The suavity of his manner broke fiercely and sud- 
 denly. " Every thing inside the walls is mine! " he declared 
 with heat. "Mine! mine! mine! Understand? I will 
 not tolerate in here anything that is not mine; that does 
 not obey my will ; that does not come when I say come ; go 
 when I say go; and fall silent when I say be still! " 
 
 A wild and fantastic idea suddenly illuminated my under- 
 standing. 
 
 "Even the crickets, the flies, the frogs, the birds," I said, 
 audaciously. 
 
 He fixed his wildcat eyes upon me without answering. 
 
 "And," I went on, deliberately, "who could deny your 
 perfect right to do what you will with your own? And if 
 they did deny that right what more natural than that they 
 should be made to perish or take their breakfasts in their 
 rooms? " 
 
 I was never more aware of the absolute stillness of the 
 house than when I uttered these foolish words. My hand 
 was on the gun in my trouser-band; but even as I spoke a 
 sickening realization came over me that if the old man op- 
 posite so willed, I would have no slightest chance to use it. 
 The air behind me seemed full of menace, and the hair 
 crawled on the back of my neck. Hooper stared at me 
 without sign for ten seconds; his right hand hovered above 
 the polished table. Then he let it fall without giving what 
 I am convinced would have been a signal. 
 
 "Will you have more coffee my guest?" he inquired. 
 And he stressed subtly the last word in a manner that some- 
 how made me just a trifle ashamed. 
 
 28 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 At the close of the meal the Mexican familiar glided into 
 the room. Hooper seemed to understand the man's pres- 
 ence, for he arose at once. 
 
 "Your horse is saddled and ready/' he told me, briskly. 
 "You will be wishing to start before the heat of the day. 
 Your cantinas are ready on the saddle." 
 
 He clapped on his hat and we walked together to the 
 corral. There awaited us not only my own horse, but an- 
 other. The equipment of the latter was magnificently remi- 
 niscent of the old California days gaily-coloured braided 
 hair bridle and reins; silver conchas; stock saddle of carved 
 leather with silver horn and can tie; silvered bit bars; gay 
 Navajo blanket as corona; silver corners to skirts, silver 
 conchas on the long tapaderos. Old Man Hooper, strangely 
 incongruous in his wrinkled "store clothes," swung aboard. 
 
 "I will ride with you for a distance," he said. 
 
 We jogged forth side by side at the slow Spanish trot. 
 Hooper called my attention to the buildings of Fort Shafter 
 glimmering part way up the slopes of the distant mountains, 
 and talked entertainingly of the Indian days, and how the 
 young officers used to ride down to his ranch for music. 
 
 After a half hour thus we came to the long string of wire 
 and the huge, awkward gate that marked the limit of 
 Hooper's "pasture." Of course the open range was his real 
 pasture; but every ranch enclosed a thousand acres or so 
 somewhere near the home station to be used for horses in 
 active service. Before I could anticipate him, he had sidled 
 his horse skillfully alongside the gate and was holding it 
 open for me to pass. I rode through the opening mur- 
 muring thanks and an apology. The old man followed me 
 
 29 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 through, and halted me by placing his horse square across 
 the path of mine. 
 
 "You are now, sir, outside my land and therefore no 
 longer my guest," he said, and the snap in his voice was like 
 the crackling of electricity. " Don't let me ever see you 
 here again. You are keen and intelligent. You spoke the 
 truth a short time since. You were right. I tolerate noth- 
 ing in my place that is not my own no man, no animal, no 
 bird, no insect nor reptile even that will not obey my 
 lightest order. And these creatures, great or small, who 
 will not or even cannot obey my orders must go or die. 
 Understand me clearly? 
 
 "You have come here, actuated, I believe, by idle curios- 
 ity, but without knowledge. You made yourself ignor- 
 antly my guest; and a guest is sacred. But now you know 
 my customs and ideas. I am telling you. Never again 
 can you come here in ignorance; therefore never again can 
 you come here as a guest; and never again will you pass 
 freely." 
 
 He delivered this drily, precisely, with frost in his tones, 
 staring balefully into my eyes. So taken aback was I by 
 this unleashed hostility that for a moment I had nothing 
 to say. 
 
 "Now, if you please, I will take both notes from that poor 
 idiot: the one I handed you and the one she handed you." 
 
 I realized suddenly that the two lay together in the breast 
 pocket of my shirt; that though alike in tenor, they differed 
 in phrasing; and that I had no means of telling one from 
 the other. 
 
 "The paper you gave me I read and threw away," I 
 
 30 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 stated, boldly. " It meant nothing to me. As to any other, 
 I do not know what you are talking about." 
 
 "You are lying/' he said, calmly, as merely stating a fact. 
 "It does not matter. It is my fancy to collect them. I 
 should have liked to add yours. Now get out of this, and 
 don't let me see your face again! " 
 
 "Mr. Hooper," said I, "I thank you for your hospitality, 
 which has been complete and generous. You have pointed 
 out the fact that I am no longer your guest. I can, therefore, 
 with propriety, tell you that your ideas and prejudices are 
 noted with interest; your wishes are placed on file for future 
 reference; I don't give a damn for your orders; and you can 
 go to hell!" 
 
 "Fine flow of language. Educated cowpuncher," said 
 the old man, drily. "You are warned. Keep off. Don't 
 meddle with what does not concern you. And if the rumour 
 gets back to me that you've been speculating or talking or 
 criticizing " 
 
 "Well? "I challenged. 
 
 "I'll have you killed," he said, simply; so simply that I 
 knew he meant it. 
 
 "You are foolish to make threats," I rejoined. "Two 
 can play at that game. You drive much alone." 
 
 "I do not work alone," he hinted, darkly. "The day 
 my body is found dead of violence, that day marks the doom 
 of a long list of men whom I consider inimical to me like, 
 perhaps, yourself." He stared me down with his un- 
 winking gaze. 
 
OIAPTER V 
 
 I returned to Box Springs at a slow jog trot, thinking 
 things over. Old Man Hooper's warning sobered, but 
 did not act as a deterrent of my intention to continue with 
 the adventure. But how? I could hardly storm the fort 
 single handed and carry off the damsel in distress. On the 
 evidence I possessed I could not even get together a storm- 
 ing party. The cowboy is chivalrous enough, but human. 
 He would not uprise spontaneously to the point of war on 
 the mere statement of incarcerated beauty especially as 
 ill-treatment was not apparent. I would hardly last long 
 enough to carry out the necessary proselyting campaign. 
 It never occurred to me to doubt that Hooper would 
 fulfill his threat of having me killed, or his ability to do 
 so. 
 
 So when the men drifted in two by two at dusk, I said 
 nothing of my real adventures, and answered their chaff 
 in kind. 
 
 "He played the piano for me," I told them the literal 
 truth, "and had me in to the parlour and dining room. He 
 gave me a room to myself with a bed and sheets; and he 
 rode out to his pasture gate with me to say good-bye," and 
 thereby I was branded a delicious liar. 
 
 "They took me into the bunk house and fed me, all 
 right," said Windy Bill, "and fed my horse. And next 
 
 32 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 morning that old Mexican Joe of his just nat'rally up and 
 kicked me off the premises." 
 
 "Wonder you didn't shoot him," I exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, he didn't use his foot. But he sort of let me know 
 that the place was unhealthy to visit more'n once. And 
 somehow I seen he meant it; and I ain't never had no call 
 to go back." 
 
 I mulled over the situation all day, and then could stand 
 it no longer. On the dark of the evening I rode to within a 
 couple of miles of Hooper's ranch, tied my horse, and 
 scouted carefully forward afoot. For one thing I wanted 
 to find out whether the system of high transoms extended 
 to all the rooms, including that in the left wing: for another 
 I wanted to determine the "lay of the land" on that blank 
 side of the hou-se. I found my surmise correct as to the 
 transoms. As to the blank side of the house, that looked 
 down on a wide, green, moist patch and the irrigating ditch 
 with its stunted willows. Then painstakingly I went over 
 every inch of the terrain about the ranch; and might just 
 as well have investigated the external economy of a mud 
 turtle. Realizing that nothing was to be gained in this 
 manner, I withdrew to my strategic base where I rolled 
 down and slept until daylight. Then I saddled and re- 
 turned toward the ranch. 
 
 I had not ridden two miles, however, before in the boul- 
 der-strewn wash of Arroyo Seco I met Jim Starr, one of our 
 men. 
 
 "Look here," he said to me. "Jed sent me up to look 
 at the Elder Springs, but my hoss has done cast a shoe. 
 Cain' t you ride up there? " 
 
 33 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "I cannot," said I, promptly. "I've been out all night 
 and had no breakfast. But you can have my horse." 
 
 So we traded horses and separated, each our own way. 
 They sent me out by Coyote Wells with two other men, and 
 we did not get back until the following evening. 
 
 The ranch was buzzing with excitement. Jim Starr had 
 not returned, although the ride to Elder Springs was only 
 a two-hour affair. After a night had elapsed, and still he 
 did not return, two men had been sent. They found him 
 half way to Elder Springs with a bullet hole in his back. 
 The bullet was that of a rifle. Being plainsmen they had 
 done good detective work of its kind, and had determined 
 by the direction of the bullet's flight as evidenced by the 
 wound that it had been fired from a point above. The 
 only point above was the low " rim " that ran for miles down 
 the Soda Springs Valley. It was of black lava and showed 
 no tracks. The men, with a true sense of values, had con- 
 tented themselves with covering Jim Starr with a blanket, 
 and then had ridden the rim for some miles in both direc- 
 tions looking for a trail. None could be discovered. By 
 this they deduced that the murder was not the result of 
 chance encounter, but had been so carefully planned that 
 no trace would be left of the murderer or murderers. 
 
 No theory could be imagined save the rather vague one 
 of personal enmity. Jim Starr was comparatively a new- 
 comer with us. Nobody knew anything much about him 
 or his relations. Nobody questioned the only man who 
 could have told anything; and that man did not volunteer 
 to tell what he knew. 
 
 I refer to myself. The thing was sickeningly clear to me. 
 
 34 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Jim Starr had nothing to do with it. I was the man for 
 whom that bullet from the rim had been intended. I was 
 the unthinking, shortsighted fool who had done Jim Starr 
 to his death. It had never occurred to me that my mid- 
 night reconnoitring would leave tracks, that Old Man 
 Hooper's suspicious vigilance would even look for tracks. 
 But given that vigilance, the rest followed plainly enough. 
 A skillful trailer would have found his way to where I had 
 mounted; he would have followed my horse to Arroyo Seco 
 where I had met with Jim Starr. There he would have 
 visualized a rider on a horse without one shoe coming as far 
 as the Arroyo, meeting me, and returning whence he had 
 come; and me at once turning off at right angles. His 
 natural conclusion would be that a messenger had brought 
 me orders and had returned. The fact that we had shifted 
 mounts he could not have read, for the reason as I only 
 too distinctly remembered that we had made the change 
 in the boulder and rock stream bed which would show no 
 clear traces. 
 
 The thought that poor Jim Starr, whom I had well liked, 
 had been sacrificed for me, rendered my ride home with the 
 convoy more deeply thoughtful than even the tragic circum- 
 stances warranted. We laid his body in the small office, 
 pending Buck Johnson's return from town, and ate our be- 
 lated meal in silence. Then we gathered around the corner 
 fireplace in the bunk house, lit our smokes, and talked it 
 over. Jed Parker joined us. Usually he sat with our owner 
 in the office. 
 
 Hardly had we settled ourselves to discussion when the 
 door opened and Buck Johnson came in. We had been so 
 
 35 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 absorbed that no one had heard him ride up. He leaned 
 his forearm against the doorway at the height of his head 
 and surveyed the silenced group rather ironically. 
 
 "Lucky I'm not nervous and jumpy by nature," he ob- 
 served. "I've seen dead men before. Still, next time you 
 want to leave one in my office after dark, I wish you'd put 
 a light with him, or tack up a sign, or even leave somebody 
 to tell me about it. I'm sorry it's Starr and not that thought- 
 ful old horned toad in the corner." 
 
 Jed looked foolish, but said nothing. Buck came in, 
 closed the door, and took a chair square in front of the fire- 
 place. The glow of the leaping flames was full upon him. 
 His strong face and bulky figure were revealed, while the 
 other men sat in half shadow. He at once took charge of 
 the discussion. 
 
 "How was he killed?" he inquired, "bucked off?" 
 
 "Shot," replied Jed Parker. 
 
 Buck's eyebrows came together. 
 
 "Who? "he asked. 
 
 He was told the circumstances as far as they were known, 
 but declined to listen to any of the various deductions and 
 surmises. 
 
 "Deliberate murder and not a chance quarrel," he con- 
 cluded. "He wasn't even within hollering distance of that 
 rim-rock. Anybody know anything about Starr? " 
 
 "He's been with us about five weeks," proffered Jed, as 
 foreman. " Said he came from Texas." 
 
 "He was a Texican," corroborated one of the other men. 
 "I rode with him considerable." 
 
 "What enemies did he have? " asked Buck. 
 
 36 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 But it developed that, as far as these men knew, Jim Starr 
 had had no enemies. He was a quiet sort of a fellow. He had 
 been to town once or twice. Of course he might have made 
 an enemy, but it was not likely; he had always behaved 
 himself. Somebody would have known of any trouble 
 
 " Maybe somebody followed him from Texas." 
 
 "More likely the usual local work," Buck interrupted. 
 "This man Starr ever met up with Old Man Hooper or 
 Hooper's men? " 
 
 But here was another impasse. Starr had been over on 
 the Slick Rock ever since his arrival. I could have thrown 
 some light on the matter, perhaps, but new thoughts were 
 coming to me and I kept silence. 
 
 Shortly Buck Johnson went out. His departure loosened 
 tongues, among them mine. 
 
 "I don't see why you stand for this old hombre if he's as 
 bad as you say," I broke in. "Why don't some of you brave 
 young warriors just naturally pot him?" 
 
 And that started a new line of discussion that left me even 
 more thoughtful than before. I knew these men intimately. 
 There was not a coward among them. They had been tried 
 and hardened and tempered in the fierceness of the desert. 
 Any one of them would have twisted the tail of the devil 
 himself; but they were off Old Man Hooper. They did not 
 make that admission in so many words ; far from it. And I 
 valued my hide enough to refrain from pointing the fact. But 
 that fact remained : they were off Old Man Hooper. Fur- 
 thermore, by the time they had finished recounting in inti- 
 mate detail some scores of anecdotes dealing with what 
 happened when Old Man Hooper winked his wildcat eye, I 
 
 37 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 began in spite of myself to share some of their sentiments. 
 For no matter how flagrant the killing, nor how certain 
 morally the origin, never had the most brilliant nor the most 
 painstaking effort been able to connect with the slayers nor 
 their instigator. He worked in the dark by hidden hands; 
 but the death from the hands was as certain as the rattle- 
 snake's. Certain of his victims, by luck or cleverness, 
 seemed to have escaped sometimes as many as three or four 
 attempts but in the end the old man's Killers got them. 
 
 A Jew drummer who had grossly insulted Hooper in the 
 Lone Star Emporium had, on learning the enormity of his 
 crime, fled to San Francisco. Three months later Soda 
 Springs awoke to find pasted by an unknown hand on the 
 window of the Emporium a newspaper account of that Jew 
 drummer's taking off. The newspaper could offer no theory 
 and merely recited the fact that the man suffered from a 
 heavy-calibred bullet. But always the talk turned back 
 at last to that crowning atrocity, the Boomerang, with its 
 windrows of little calves, starved for water, lying against 
 the fence. 
 
 "Yes," someone unexpectedly answered my first question 
 at last, " someone could just naturally pot him easy enough. 
 But I got a hunch that he couldn't get fur enough away to 
 feel safe afterward. The fellow with a hankering for a 
 good usefid kind of suicide could get it right there. Any 
 candidates? You-all been looking kinda mournful lately, 
 Windy; s'pose you be the human benefactor and rid the 
 world of this yere reptile." 
 
 "Me?" said Windy with vast surprise, "me mournful? 
 Why, I sing at my work like a little dicky bird. I'm so 
 
 38 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 plumb cheerful bull frogs ain't in it. You ain't talking to 
 me!" 
 
 But I wanted one more point of information before the 
 conversation veered. 
 
 " Does his daughter ever ride out? " I asked. 
 
 " Daughter?" they echoed in surprise. 
 
 "Or niece, or whoever she is," I supplemented impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "There's no woman there; not even a Mex," said one, 
 and "Did you see any sign of any woman?" keenly from 
 Windy BUI. 
 
 But I was not minded to be drawn. 
 
 " Somebody told me about a daughter, or niece, or some- 
 thing," I said, vaguely. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 I lay in my bunk and cast things up in my mind. The 
 patch of moonlight from the window moved slowly across 
 the floor. One of the men was snoring, but with regularity, 
 so he did not annoy me. The outside silence was softly 
 musical with all the little voices that at Hooper's had so dis- 
 concertingly lacked. There were crickets I had forgotten 
 about them and frogs, and a hoot owl, and various such 
 matters, beneath whose influence customarily my conscious- 
 ness merged into sleep so sweetly that I never knew when I 
 had lost them. But I was never wider awake than now, 
 and never had I done more concentrated thinking. 
 
 For the moment, and for the moment, only, I was safe. 
 Old Man Hooper thought he had put me out of the way. 
 How long would he continue to think so? How long before 
 his men would bring true word of the mistake that had been 
 made? Perhaps the following day would inform him that 
 Jim Starr and not myself had been reached by his killer's 
 bullet. Then, I had no doubt, a second attempt would be 
 made on my life. Therefore, whatever I was going to do 
 must be done quickly. 
 
 I had the choice of war or retreat. Would it do me any 
 good to retreat? There was the Jew drummer who was 
 killed in San Francisco; and others whose fates I have not 
 detailed. But why should he particularly desire my ex- 
 
 40 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 tinction? What had I done or what knowledge did I pos- 
 sess that had not been equally done and known by any 
 chance visitor to the ranch? I remembered the notes in my 
 shirt pocket; and, at the risk of awakening some of my com- 
 rades, I lit a candle and studied them. They were undoubt- 
 edly written by the same hand. To whom had the other 
 been smuggled? and by what means had it come into Old 
 Man Hooper's possession? The answer hit me so suddenly, 
 and seemed intrinsically so absurd, that I blew out the 
 candle and lay again on my back to study it. 
 
 And the more I studied it, the less absurd it seemed, not 
 by the light of reason, but by the feeling of pure intuition. 
 I knew it as sanely as I knew that the moon made that patch 
 of light through the window. The man to whom that other 
 note had been surreptitiously conveyed by the sad-eyed, 
 beautiful girl of the iron-barred chamber was dead; and he 
 was dead because Old Man Hooper had so willed. And 
 the former owners of the other notes of the "Collection" 
 concerning which the old man had spoken were dead, too 
 dead for the same reason and by the same hidden hands. 
 
 Why? Because they knew about the girl? Unlikely. 
 Without doubt Hooper had, as in my case, himself made 
 possible that knowledge. But I remembered many things; 
 and I knew that my flash of intuition, absurd as it might 
 seem at first sight, was true. I recalled the swift, darting 
 onslaughts with the fly whackers, the fierce, vindictive 
 slaughter of the frogs, his early-morning pursuit of the flock 
 of migrating birds. Especially came clear to my recollec- 
 tion the words spoken at breakfast: 
 
 "Everything inside the walls is mine! Mine! Mine! 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Understand? I will not tolerate anything that is not mine; 
 that does not obey my will; that does not come when I say 
 come; go when I say go; and fall silent when I say be still! " 
 
 My crime, the crime of these men from whose dead hands 
 the girl's appeals had been taken for the "Collection," was 
 that of curiosity! The old man would within his own do- 
 main reign supreme, in the mental as in the physical world. 
 The chance cowboy, genuinely desirous only of a resting 
 place for the night, rode away unscathed; but he whom the 
 old man convicted of a prying spirit committed a lese- 
 majesty that could not be forgiven. And I had made many 
 tracks during my night reconnaissance. 
 
 And the same flash of insight showed me that I would be 
 followed wherever I went; and the thing that convinced my 
 intuitions not my reason of this was the recollection of 
 the old man stamping the remains of the poor little bird into 
 the mud by the willows. I saw again the insane rage of his 
 face; and I felt cold fingers touching my spine. 
 
 On this I went abruptly and unexpectedly to sleep, after 
 the fashion of youth, and did not stir until Sing, the cook, 
 routed us out before dawn. We were not to ride the range 
 that day because of Jim Starr, but Sing was a person of 
 fixed habits. I plunged my head into the face of the dawn 
 with a new and light-hearted confidence. It was one of 
 those clear, nile-green sunrises whose lucent depths go back 
 a million miles or so ; and my spirit followed on wings. Gone 
 were at once my fine-spun theories and my forebodings of 
 the night. Life was clean and clear and simple. Jim Stan- 
 had probably some personal enemy. Old Man Hooper was 
 undoubtedly a mean old lunatic, and dangerous; very likely 
 
 42 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 he would attempt to do me harm, as he said, if I bothered 
 him again, but as for following me to the ends of the 
 
 earth 
 
 The girl was a different matter. She required thought. 
 So, as I was hungry and the day sparkling, I postponed her 
 and went in to breakfast. 
 
 43 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 By the time the coroner's inquest and the funeral in town 
 were over it was three o'clock of the afternoon. As I only 
 occasionally managed Soda Springs I felt no inclination to 
 hurry on the return journey. My intention was to watch 
 the Overland through, to make some small purchases at the 
 Lone Star Emporium, to hoist one or two at McGrue's, and 
 to dine sumptuously at the best and only hotel. A pro- 
 gramme simple in theme but susceptible to variations. 
 
 The latter began early. After posing kiddishly as a rough, 
 woolly, romantic cowboy before the passengers of the Over- 
 land, I found myself chaperoning a visitor to our midst. By 
 sheer accident the visitor had singled me out for an inquiry. 
 
 "Can you tell me how to get to Hooper's ranch?" he 
 asked. 
 
 So I annexed him promptly in hope of developments. 
 
 He was certainly no prize package, for he was small, pale, 
 nervous, shifty, and rat-like; and neither his hands nor his 
 eyes were still for an instant. Further to set him apart he 
 wore a hard-boiled hat, a flaming tie, a checked vest, a coat 
 cut too tight for even his emaciated little figure, and long 
 toothpick shoes of patent leather. A fairer mark for cow- 
 boy humour would be difficult to find ; but I had a personal 
 interest and a determined character so the gang took a look 
 at me and bided their time. 
 
 44 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 But immediately I discovered I was going to have my 
 hands full. It seemed that the little, shifty, rat-faced man 
 had been possessed of a small handbag which the negro 
 porter had failed to put off the train; and which was of tre- 
 mendous importance. At the discovery it was lacking my 
 new friend went into hysterics. He ran a few feet after the 
 disappearing train; he called upon high heaven to destroy 
 utterly the race of negro porters; he threatened terrible 
 reprisals against a delinquent railroad company; he seized 
 upon a bewildered station agent over whom he poured his 
 troubles in one gush; and he lifted up his voice and wept 
 literally wept! This to the vast enjoyment of my friends. 
 
 " What ails the small party? " asked Windy Bill coming up. 
 
 " He's lost the family jewels ! " l 'The papers are missing. ' ' 
 "Sandy here (meaning me) won't give him his bottle and 
 it's past feeding time." "Sandy's took away his stick of 
 candy and won't give it back." "The little son-of-a-gun's 
 just remembered that he give the nigger porter two bits," 
 were some of the replies he got. 
 
 On the general principle of "never start anything you 
 can't finish," I managed to quell the disturbance; I got a 
 description of the bag, and arranged to have it wired for at 
 the next station. On receiving the news that it could not 
 possibly be returned before the following morning, my pro- 
 tege showed signs of another outburst. To prevent it I 
 took him firmly by the arm and led him across to McGrue's. 
 He was shivering as though from a violent chill. 
 
 The multitude trailed interestedly after; but I took my 
 man into one of McGrue's private rooms and firmly closed 
 the door. 
 
 45 
 
TH KILLER 
 
 "Put that under your belt," I invited, pouring him a half 
 tumbler of McGrue's best, "and pull yourself together." 
 
 He smelled it. 
 
 "It's only whiskey," he observed, mournfully. "That 
 won't help much." 
 
 "You don't know this stuff," I encouraged. 
 
 He took off the half tumbler without a blink, shook his 
 head, and poured himself another. In spite of his scepti- 
 cism I thought his nervousness became less marked. 
 
 "Now," said I, "if you don't mind, why do you descend 
 on a peaceful community and stir it all up because of the 
 derelictions of an absent coon? And why do you set such 
 store by your travelling bag? And why do you weep in the 
 face of high heaven and outraged manhood? And why do 
 you want to find Hooper's ranch? And why are you and 
 your vaudeville make up?" 
 
 But he proved singularly embarrassed and nervous and 
 uncommunicative, darting his glance here and there about 
 him, twisting his hands, never by any chance meeting my 
 eye. I leaned back and surveyed him in considerable disgust. 
 
 "Look here, brother," I pointed out to him. "You don't 
 seem to realize. A man like you can't get away with him- 
 self in this country except behind footlights and there ain't 
 any footlights. All I got to do is to throw open yonder 
 door and withdraw my beneficent protection and you will 
 be set upon by a pack of ravening wolves with their own 
 ideas of humour, among whom I especially mention one 
 Windy Bill. I'm about the only thing that looks like a 
 friend you've got." 
 
 He caught at the last sentence only. 
 
 46 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "You my friend?" he said, breathlessly, "then tell me: 
 is there a doctor around here? " 
 
 "No," said I, looking at him closely, "not this side of 
 Tucson. Are you sick? " 
 
 "Is there a drug store in town, then? " 
 
 "Nary drug store." 
 
 He jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair as he did so. 
 
 "My God!" he cried in uncontrollable excitement, "I've 
 got to get my bag! How far is it to the next station where 
 they're going to put it off? Ain't there some way of getting 
 there? I got to get to my bag." 
 
 "It's near to forty miles," I replied, leaning back. 
 
 "And there's no drug store here? What kind of a bum 
 tank town is this, anyhow? " 
 
 "They keep a few patent medicines and such over at the 
 
 Lone Star Emporium " I started to tell him. I never 
 
 had a chance to finish my sentence. He darted around the 
 table, grabbed me by the arm, and urged me to my feet. 
 
 " Show me !" he panted. 
 
 We sailed through the bar room under full head of steam, 
 leaving the gang staring after us open-mouthed. I could feel 
 we were exciting considerable public interest. At the Lone 
 Star Emporium the little freak looked wildly about him until 
 his eyes fell on the bottle shelves. Then he rushed right in 
 behind the counter and began to paw them over. I headed 
 off Sol Levi, who was coming front making war medicine. 
 
 "Loco" says I to him. "If there's any damage, I'll 
 settle." 
 
 It looked like there was going to be damage all right, the 
 way he snatched up one bottle after the other, read the 
 
 47 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 labels, and thrust them one side. At last he uttered a crow 
 of delight, just like a kid. 
 
 "How many you got of these?" he demanded, holding 
 up a bottle of soothing syrup. 
 
 "You only take a tablespoon of that stuff " began Sol. 
 
 "How many you got how much are they?" interrupted 
 the stranger. 
 
 "Six three dollars a bottle," says Sol, boosting the price. 
 
 The little man peeled a twenty off a roll of bills and threw 
 it down. 
 
 "Keep the other five bottles for me!" he cried in a shaky 
 voice, and ran out, with me after him, forgetting his change 
 and to shut the door behind us. 
 
 Back through McGrue's bar we trailed like one of these 
 moving-picture chases and into the back room. 
 
 "Well, here we are home again," said I. 
 
 The stranger grabbed a glass and filled it half full of 
 soothing syrup. 
 
 "Here, you aren't going to drink that!" I yelled at him. 
 "Didn't you hear Sol tell you the dose is a spoonful? " 
 
 But he didn't pay me any attention. His hand was shak- 
 ing so he could hardly connect with his own mouth, and he 
 was panting as though he'd run a race. 
 
 "Well, no accounting for tastes," I said. "Where do 
 you want me to ship your remains? " 
 
 He drank her down, shut his eyes a few minutes, and held 
 still. He had quit his shaking, and he looked me square 
 in the face. 
 
 "What's it to you?" he demanded. "Huh? Ain't you 
 never seen a guy hit the hop before? " 
 
 48 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 He stared at me so truculently that I was moved to right- 
 eous wrath; and I answered him back. I told hirp what I 
 thought of him and his clothes and his conduct at quite some 
 length. When I had finished he seemed to have gained a 
 new attitude of aggravating wise superiority. 
 
 "That's all right, kid; that's all right," he assured me; 
 "keep your hair on. I ain't such a bad scout; but you gotta 
 get used to me. Give me my hop and I'm all right. Now 
 about this Hooper; you say you know him?" 
 
 "None better," I rejoined. "But what's that to you? 
 That's a fair question." 
 
 He bored me with his beady rat eyes for several seconds. 
 
 "Friend of yours? " he asked, briefly. 
 
 Something in the intonations of his voice induced me to 
 frankness. 
 
 "I have good cause to think he's trying to kill me," I 
 replied. 
 
 He produced a pocketbook, fumbled in it for a moment, 
 and laid before me a clipping. It was from the Want column 
 of a newspaper, and read as follows: 
 
 A.A.B. Will deal with you on your terms. H.H. 
 
 "A.A.B. that's me Artie Brower. And H.H. that's 
 him Henry Hooper," he explained. "And that lil' piece 
 of paper means that's he's caved, come off, war's over. 
 Means I'm rich, that I can have my own ponies if I want 
 to, 'stead of touting somebody else's old dogs. It means 
 that I got old H.H. Henry Hooper where the hair is 
 short, and he's got to come my way ! " 
 
 His eyes were glittering restlessly, and the pupils seemed 
 
 49 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 to be unduly dilated. The whiskey and opium together 
 probably an unaccustomed combination were too much 
 for his ill-balanced control. Every indication of his face 
 and his narrow eyes was for secrecy and craft; yet for the 
 moment he was opening up to me, a stranger, like an oyster. 
 Even my inexperience could see that much, and I eagerly 
 took advantage of my chance. 
 
 "You are a horseman, then?" I suggested. 
 
 "Me a horseman? Say, kid, you didn't get my name. 
 Brower Artie Brower. Why, I've ridden more winning 
 races than any other man on the Pacific Coast. That's how 
 I got onto old H.H. I rode for him. He knows a good 
 horse all right the old skunk. Used to have a pretty 
 string." 
 
 "He's got at least one good Morgan stallion now," said I. 
 " I've seen him at Hooper's ranch." 
 
 "I know the old crock trotter," scorned the true riding 
 jockey. "Probably old Tim Westmore is hanging around, 
 too. He's in love with that horse." 
 
 "Is he in love with Hooper, too?" I asked. 
 
 "Just like I am," said the jockey with a leer. 
 
 " So you're going to be rich," said I. "How's that? " 
 
 He leered at me again, going foxy. 
 
 "Don't you wish you knew! But I'll tell you this: old 
 H.H. is going to give me all I want just because I ask him 
 to." 
 
 I took another tack, affecting incredulity. 
 
 "The hell he is ! He'll hand you over to Ramon and that 
 will be the last of a certain jockey." 
 
 "No, he won't do no such trick. I've fixed that; and he 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 knows it. If he kills me, he'll lose all he's got 'stead of only 
 part." 
 
 " You're drunk or dreaming," said I. " If you bother him, 
 he'll just plain have you killed. That's a little way of his." 
 
 "And if he does a friend of mine will just go to a certain 
 place and get certain papers and give 'em to a certain lawyer 
 and then where's old H.H. ? And he knows it, damn well. 
 And he's going to be good to Artie and give him what he 
 wants. We'll get along fine. Took him a long time to 
 come to it; but I didn't take no chances while he was mak- 
 ing up his mind; you can bet on that." 
 
 "Blackmail, eh?" I said, with just enough of a sneer to 
 fire him. 
 
 "Blackmail nothing!" he shouted. "It ain't blackmail 
 to take away what don't belong to a man at all!" 
 
 "What don't belong to him?" 
 
 "Nothing. Not a damn thing except his money. This 
 ranch. The oil wells in California. The cattle. Not a 
 damn thing. That was the agreement with his pardner when 
 they split. And I've got the agreement! Now what you 
 got to say?" 
 
 "Say? Why its loco ! Why doesn't the pardner raise a 
 row?" 
 
 "He's dead." 
 
 "His heirs then?" 
 
 "He hasn't got but one heir his daughter." My 
 heart skipped a beat in the amazement of a half idea. 
 "And she knew nothing about the agreement. Nobody 
 knows but old H.H. and me." He sat back, visibly 
 gloating over me. But his mood was passing. His earlier 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 exhilaration had died, and with it was dying the expansive- 
 ness of his confidence. The triumph of his last speech 
 savoured he slipped again into his normal self. He looked 
 at me suspiciously, and raised his whiskey to cover his con- 
 fusion. 
 
 "What's it to yuh, anyway?" he muttered into his glass 
 darkly. His eyes were again shifting here and there; and 
 his lips were snarled back malevolently to show his teeth. 
 
 At this precise moment the lords of chance willed Windy 
 Bill and others to intrude on our privacy by opening the 
 door and hurling several whiskey-flavoured sarcasms at the 
 pair of us. The jockey seemed to explode after the fashion 
 of an over-inflated ball. He squeaked like a rat, leaped to 
 his feet, hurled the chair on which he had been sitting 
 crash against the door from which Windy Bill el al had 
 withdrawn hastily, and ended by producing a small wicked- 
 looking automatic then a new and strange weapon and 
 rushing out into the main saloon. There he announced 
 that he was known to the cognoscenti as Art the Blood and 
 was a city gunman in comparison with which these plain, 
 so-called bad men were as sucking doves to the untamed 
 eagle. Thence he glanced briefly at their ancestry as far 
 as known; and ended by rushing forth in the general direction 
 of McCloud's hotel. 
 
 "Suffering giraffes!" gasped Windy Bill after the whirl- 
 wind had passed. "Was that the scared little rabbit that 
 wept all them salt tears over at the depot? What brand 
 of licker did you feed him, Sandy?" 
 
 I silently handed him the bottle. 
 
 " Soothing syrup my God ! " said Windy in hushed tones. 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTER VHI 
 
 At that epoch I prided myself on being a man of resource; 
 and I proceeded to prove it in a fashion that even now fills 
 me with satisfaction. I annexed the remainder of that 
 bottle of soothing syrup; I went to Sol Levi and easily pro- 
 cured delivery of the other five. Then I strolled peacefully 
 to supper over at McCloud's hotel. Pathological knowl- 
 edge of dope fiends was outside my ken I could not guess 
 how soon my man would need another dose of his "hop," 
 but I was positively sure that another would be needed. 
 Inquiry of McCloud elicited the fact that the ex-jockey had 
 swallowed a hasty meal and had immediately retired to 
 Room 4. I found Room 4 unlocked, and Brower lying fully 
 clothed sound asleep across the bed. I did not disturb him, 
 except that I robbed him of his pistol. All looked safe for 
 awhile; but just to be certain I took Room 6, across the 
 narrow hall, and left both doors open. McCloud's hotel 
 never did much of a room business. By midnight the cow- 
 boys would be on their way for the ranches. Brower and 
 myself were the only occupants of the second floor. 
 
 For two hours I smoked and read. The ex-jockey did 
 not move a muscle. Then I went to bed and to a sound 
 sleep; but I set my mind like an alarm dock, so that the 
 slightest move from the other room would have fetched me 
 broad awake. City-bred people may not know that this 
 
 53 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 can be done by most outdoor men. I have listened sub- 
 consciously to horsebells for so many nights, for example, 
 that even on stormy nights the cessation of that faint twinkle 
 will awaken me, while the crash of the elements or even the 
 fall of a tree would not in the slightest disturb my tired 
 slumbers. So now, although the songs and stamping and 
 racket of the revellers below stairs in McCloud's bar did 
 not for one second prevent my falling into deep and dream- 
 less sleep, B rower's softest tread would have reached my 
 consciousness. 
 
 However, he slept right through the night, and was still 
 dead to the world when I slipped out at six o'clock to meet 
 the east-bound train. The bag a small black Gladstone- 
 was aboard in charge of the baggageman. I had no great 
 difficulty in getting it from my friend, the station agent. 
 Had he not seen me herding the locoed stranger? I secreted 
 the black bag with the five full bottles of soothing syrup, 
 slipped the half-emptied bottle in my pocket, and returned 
 to the hotel. There I ate breakfast, and sat down for a 
 comfortable chat with McCloud while awaiting results. 
 
 Got them very promptly. About eight o'clock Brower 
 came downstairs. He passed through the office, nodding 
 curtly to McCloud and me, and into the dining room 
 where he drank several cups of coffee. Thence he passed 
 down the street toward Sol Levi's. He emerged rather 
 hurriedly and slanted across to the station. 
 
 "In about two minutes," I observed to McCloud, "you're 
 going to observe yon butterfly turn into a stinging lizard. 
 He's going to head in this direction; and he'll probably aim 
 to climb my hump. Such being the case, and the affair 
 
 54 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 being private, you '11 do me a favour by supervising something 
 in some remote corner of the premises." 
 
 "Sure," said McCloud, "I'll go twist that Chink washee- 
 man. Been intending to for a week." And he stumped 
 out on his wooden foot. 
 
 The comet hit at precisely 7 142 by McCloud's big clock. 
 Its head was Brower at high speed and tension; and its tail 
 was the light alkali dust of Arizona mingled with the station 
 agent. No irresistible force and immovable body proposi- 
 tion in mine ; I gave to the impact. 
 
 "Why, sure, I got 'em for you/' I answered. "You left 
 your dope lying around loose so I took care of it for you. 
 As for your bag; you seemed to set such store by it that I 
 got that for you, too." 
 
 Which deflated that particular enterprise for the mo- 
 ment, anyway. The station agent, too mad to spit, de- 
 parted before he should be tempted beyond his strength 
 to resist homicide. 
 
 "I suppose you're taking care of my gun for me, too," 
 said Brower; but his irony was weak. He was evidently 
 off the boil. 
 
 "Your gun? " I echoed. "Have you lost your gun? " 
 
 He passed his hand across his eyes. His super-excite- 
 ment had passed, leaving him weak and nervous. Now was 
 the time for my counter-attack. 
 
 "Here's your gun," said I, "didn't want to collect any 
 lead while you were excited, and I've got your dope," I 
 repeated, "in a safe place." I added, "and you'll not see 
 any of it again until you answer me a few questions, and 
 answer them straight." 
 
 55 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "If you think you can roll me for blackmail," he came 
 back with some decision, "you're left a mile." 
 
 "I don't want a cent; but I do want a talk." 
 
 "Shoot," said he. 
 
 "How often do you have to have this dope for the best 
 results; and how much of it at a shot? ' 
 
 He stared at me for a moment, then laughed. 
 
 "What's it to yuh? " he repeated his formula. 
 
 "I want to know." 
 
 "I get to needing it about once a day. Three grains will 
 carry me by." 
 
 "All right; that's what I want to know. Now listen to 
 me. I'm custodian of this dope, and you'll get your regular 
 ration as long as you stick with me." 
 
 " I can always hop a train. This ain't the only hamlet on 
 the map," he reminded me. 
 
 "That's always what you can do if you find we can't 
 work together. That's where you've got me if my proposi- 
 tion doesn't sound good." 
 
 "What is your proposition?" he asked after a moment. 
 
 "Before I tell you, I'm going to give you a few pointers 
 on what you're up against. I don't know how much you 
 know about Old Man Hooper, but I'll bet there's plenty 
 you don't know about." 
 
 I proceeded to tell him something of the old man's 
 methods, from the "boomerang" to vicarious murder. 
 
 "And he gets away with it?" asked Brower when I had 
 finished. 
 
 "He certainly does," said I. "Now," I continued, 
 "you may be solid as a brick church, and your plans may 
 
 56 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 be water-tight, and old Hooper may kill the fatted four- 
 year-old, for all I know. But if I were you, I wouldn't go 
 sasshaying all alone out to Hooper's ranch. It's altogether 
 too blame confiding and innocent." 
 
 " If anything happens to me, I Ve left directions for those 
 contracts to be recorded," he pointed out. "Old Hooper 
 knows that." 
 
 " Oh, sure ! " I replied, "just like that ! But one day your 
 trustworthy friend back yonder will get a letter in your well- 
 known hand- write that will say that all is well and the goose 
 hangs high, that the old man is a prince and has come 
 through, and that in accordance with the nice, friendly 
 agreement you have reached he your friend will hand 
 over the contract to a very respectable lawyer herein named, 
 and so forth and so on, ending with your equally well-known 
 John Hancock." 
 
 "Well, that's all right." 
 
 "I hadn't finished the picture. In the meantime, you 
 will be getting out of it just one good swift kick, and that 
 is all." 
 
 "I shouldn't write any such letter. Not 'till I felt the 
 feel of the dough." 
 
 "Not at first you wouldn't," I said, softly. "Certainly 
 not at first. But after a while you would. These renegade 
 Mexicans like Hooper's Ramon, for example know a lot 
 of rotten little tricks. They drive pitch-pine splinters into 
 your legs and set fire to them, for one thing. Or make 
 small cuts in you with a knife, and load them up with powder 
 squibs in oiled paper so the blood won't wet them and 
 touch them off. And so on. When you've been shown 
 
 57 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 about ten per cent, of what old Ramon knows about such 
 things, you'll write most any kind of a letter." 
 
 "My God!" he muttered, thrusting the ridiculous derby 
 to the back of his head. 
 
 "So you see you'd look sweet walking trustfully into 
 Hooper's claws. That's what that newspaper ad was meant 
 for. And when the respectable lawyer wrote that the con- 
 tract had been delivered, do you know what would happen 
 to you?" 
 
 The ex-jockey shuddered. 
 
 "But you've only told me part of what I want to know," 
 I pursued. "You got me side-tracked. This daughter of 
 the dead pardner this girl, what about her? Where is she 
 now?" 
 
 "Europe, I believe." 
 
 "When did she go?" 
 
 ["About three months ago." 
 
 "Any other relatives? " 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "H'm," I pondered. "What does she look like?" 
 
 "She's about medium height, dark, good figure, good- 
 looking all right. She's got eyes wide apart and a wide 
 forehead. That's the best I can do. Why?" 
 
 "Anybody heard from her since she went to Europe?" 
 
 "How should I know?" rejoined Brower, impatiently. 
 "What you driving at? " 
 
 "I think I've seen her. I believe she's not in Europe 
 at all. I believe she's a prisoner at the ranch." 
 
 "My aunt!" ejaculated Brower. His nervousness was 
 increasing the symptoms I was to recognize so well. "Why 
 
 58 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 the hell don't you just shoot him from behind a bush? 
 I'll do it, if you won't." 
 
 "He's too smooth for that." And I told him what Hooper 
 had told me. "His hold on these Mexicans is remarkable. 
 I don't doubt that fifty of the best killers in the southwest 
 have lists of the men Old Man Hooper thinks might lay him 
 out. And every man on that list would get his within a 
 year without any doubt. I don't doubt that partner's 
 daughter would go first of all. You, too, of course." 
 
 "My aunt!" groaned the jockey again. 
 
 "He's a killer," I went on, "by nature, and by interest 
 a bad combination. He ought to be tramped out like a 
 rattlesnake. But this is a new country, and it's near the 
 border. I expect he's got me marked. If I have to I'll 
 kill him just like I would a rattlesnake; but that wouldn't 
 do me a whole lot of good and would probably get a bunch 
 assassinated. I'd like to figure something different. So 
 you see you'd better come on in while the coming is 
 good." 
 
 "I see," said the ex-jockey, very much subdued. " What's 
 your idea? What do you want me to do? " 
 
 That stumped me. To tell the truth I had no idea at 
 all what to do. 
 
 "I don't want you to go out to Hooper's ranch alone," 
 said I. 
 
 "Trust me!" he rejoined, fervently. 
 
 "I reckon the first best thing is to get along out of town," 
 I suggested. "That black bag all the plunder you got?" 
 
 "That's it." 
 
 "Then we'U go out a-horseback." 
 
 59 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 We had lunch and a smoke and settled up with McCloud. 
 About mid-afternoon we went on down to the livery corral. 
 I knew the keeper pretty well, of course, so I borrowed a 
 horse and saddle for Brower. The latter looked with ex- 
 treme disfavour on both. 
 
 " This is no race meet," I reminded him. " This is a means 
 of transportation." 
 
 "Sorry I ain't got nothing better," apologized Meigs, 
 to whom I had confided my companion's profession I had 
 to account for such a figure somehow. "All my saddle 
 bosses went off with a mine outfit yesterday." 
 
 "What's the matter with that chestnut in the shed?" 
 
 "He's all right; fine beast. Only it ain't mine. It be- 
 longs to Ramon." 
 
 "Ramon from Hooper's?" 
 
 "Yeah." 
 
 "I'd let you ride my horse and take Meigs's old skate 
 myself," I said to Brower, "but when you first get on 
 him this bronc of mine is a rip-humming tail twister. Ain't 
 he, Meigs?" 
 
 "He's a bad caballo" corroborated Meigs. 
 
 "Does he buck?" queried Brower, indifferently. 
 
 "Every known fashion. Bites, scratches, gouges, and 
 paws. Want to try him? " 
 
 "I got a headache," replied Brower, grouchily. "Bring 
 out your old dog." 
 
 When I came back from roping and blindfolding the 
 twisted dynamite I was engaged in "gentling," I found 
 that Brower was saddling the mournful creature with my 
 saddle. My expostulation found him very snappy and 
 
 60 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 very arbitrary. His opium-irritated nerves were beginning 
 to react. I realized that he was not far short of explosive 
 obstinacy. So I conceded the point; although, as every 
 rider knows, a cowboy's saddle and a cowboy's gun are 
 like unto a toothbrush when it comes to lending. Also it 
 involved changing the stirrup length on the livery saddle. 
 I needed things just right to ride Tiger through the first 
 five minutes. 
 
 When I had completed this latter operation, B rower had 
 just finished drawing tight the cinch. His horse stood de- 
 jectedly. When Brower had made fast the latigo, the 
 horse as such dispirited animals often do heaved a deep 
 sigh. Something snapped beneath the slight strain of the 
 indrawn breath. 
 
 "Dogged if your cinch ain't busted!" cried Meigs with a 
 loud laugh. "Lucky for you your friend did borrow your 
 saddle! If you'd dumb Tiger with that outfit you could 
 just naturally have begun pickin' out the likely-looking 
 she-angels." 
 
 I dropped the stirrup and went over to examine the dam- 
 age. Both of the quarter straps on the off side had given 
 way. I found that they had been cut nearly through with 
 a sharp knife. My eye strayed to Ramon's chestnut horse 
 standing under the shed. 
 
 61 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 We jogged out to Box Springs by way of the lower alkali 
 flats. It is about three miles farther that way; but one can 
 see for miles in every direction. I did not one bit fancy 
 the canons, the mesquite patches, and the open ground of 
 the usual route. 
 
 I beguiled the distance watching B rower. The animal 
 he rode was a hammer-headed, ewe-necked beast with a dis- 
 consolate eye and a half-shed winter coat. The ex-jockey 
 was not accustomed to a stock saddle. He had shortened 
 his stirrups beyond all reason so that his knees and his 
 pointed shoes and his elbows stuck out at all angles. He 
 had thrust his derby hat far down over his ears, and but- 
 toned his inadequate coat tightly. In addition, he was nour- 
 ishing a very considerable grouch, attributable, I suppose, 
 to the fact that his customary dose was just about due. 
 Tiger could not be blamed for dancing wide. Evening 
 was f ailing, the evening of the desert when mysterious things 
 seem to swell and draw imminent out of unguessed distances. 
 I could not help wondering what these gods of the desert 
 could be thinking of us. 
 
 However, as we drew imperceptibly nearer the tiny patch 
 of cottonwoods that marked Box Springs, I began to realize 
 that it would be more to the point to wonder what that gang 
 of hoodlums in the bunk house was going to think of us. 
 
 62 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 The matter had been fairly well carried off up to that mo- 
 ment, but I could not hope for a successful repetition. No 
 man could continue to lug around with him so delicious 
 a vaudeville sketch without some concession to curiosity. 
 Nor could any mortal for long wear such clothes in the face 
 of Arizona without being required to show cause. He had 
 got away with it last night, by surprise; but that would be 
 about all. 
 
 At my fiftieth attempt to enter into conversation with 
 him, I unexpectedly succeeded. I believe I was indicating 
 the points of interest. You can see farther in Arizona than 
 any place I know, so there was no difficulty about that. 
 I'd pointed out the range of the Chiracahuas, and Coch- 
 ise's Stronghold, and the peaks of the Galiuros and other 
 natural sceneries; I had showed him mesquite and yucca, 
 and mescal and soapweed, and sage, and sacatone and nig- 
 gerheads and all the other known vegetables of the region. 
 Also I'd indicated prairie dogs and squinch owls and Gam- 
 bel's quail and road runners and a couple of coyotes and 
 lizards and other miscellaneous fauna. Not to speak of 
 naming painstakingly the ranches indicated by the clumps 
 of trees that you could just make out as little spots in the 
 distance Box Springs, the O. T., the Double H, Fort 
 Shaf ter, and Hooper's. He waked up and paid a little atten- 
 tion at this; and I thought I might get a little friendly talk 
 out of him. A cowboy rides around alone so much he sort 
 of likes to josh when he has anybody with him. This 
 "strong silent" stuff doesn't go until you've used around 
 with a man quite some time. 
 
 I got the talk, all right, but it didn't have a thing to do 
 
 63 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 with topography or natural history. Unless you call the 
 skate he was riding natural history. That was the burden 
 of his song. He didn't like that horse, and he didn't care 
 who knew it. It was an uncomfortable horse to ride on, 
 it required exertion to keep in motion, and it hurt his feel- 
 ings. Especially the last. He was a horseman, a jockey, 
 he'd ridden the best blood in the equine world; and here he 
 was condemned through no fault of his own to straddle a 
 cross between a llama and a woolly toy sheep. It hurt his 
 pride. He felt bitterly about it. Indeed, he fairly harped 
 on the subject. 
 
 "Is that horse of yours through bucking for the day?" he 
 asked at last. 
 
 " Certain thing. Tiger never pitches but the once." 
 
 "Let me ride him a ways. I'd like to feel a real horse to 
 get the taste of this kangaroo out of my system." 
 
 I could see he was jumpy, so I thought I'd humour him. 
 
 "Swing on all at once and you're all right," I advised him. 
 "Tiger don't like fumbling in getting aboard." 
 
 He grunted scornfully. 
 
 "Those stirrups are longer than the ones you've been 
 using. Want to shorten them?" 
 
 He did not bother to answer, but mounted in a decisive 
 manner that proved he was indeed a horseman, and a good 
 one. I climbed old crow bait and let my legs hang. 
 
 The jockey gathered the reins and touched Tiger with his 
 heels. I kicked my animal with my stock spurs and man- 
 aged to extract a lumbering sort of gallop. 
 
 " Hey, slow up ! " I called after a few moments. " I can't 
 keep up with you." 
 
 64 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Brower did not turn his head, nor did Tiger slow up. 
 After twenty seconds I realized that he intended to do 
 neither. I ceased urging on my animal, there was no use 
 tiring us both; evidently the jockey was enjoying to the full 
 the exhilaration of a good horse, and we would catch up at 
 Box Springs. I only hoped the boys wouldn't do anything 
 drastic to him before my arrival. 
 
 So I jogged along at the little running walk possessed by 
 even the most humble cattle horse, and enjoyed the even- 
 ing. It was going on toward dusk and pools of twilight 
 were in the bottomlands. For the moment the world had 
 grown smaller, more intimate, as the skies expanded. The 
 dust from Brower's going did not so much recede as grow 
 littler, more toy-like. I watched idly his progress. 
 
 At a point perhaps a mile this side the Box Springs ranch 
 the road divides: the right-hand fork leading to the ranch 
 house, the left on up the valley. After a moment I noticed 
 that the dust was on the left-hand fork. I swore aloud. 
 
 "The damn fool has taken the wrong road!" and then 
 after a moment, with dismay: "He's headed straight for 
 Hooper's ranch!" 
 
 I envisaged the full joy and rapture of this thought for 
 perhaps half a minute. It sure complicated matters, what 
 with old Hooper gunning on my trail, and this partner's 
 daughter shut up behind bars. Me, I expected to last 
 about two days unless I did something mighty sudden. 
 Brower I expected might last approximately half that time, 
 depending on how soon Ramon et al got busy. The girl I 
 didrr*t know anything about, nor did I want to at that 
 moment. I was plenty worried about my own precious 
 
 65 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 hide just then. And if you think you are going to get a love 
 story out of this, I warn you again to quit right now; you 
 are not. 
 
 Brower was going to walk into that gray old spider's 
 web like a nice fat fly. And he was going to land without 
 even the aid and comfort of his own particular brand of 
 Dutch courage. For safety's sake, and because of Tiger's 
 playful tendencies when first mounted, we had tied the 
 famous black bag which now for convenience contained 
 also the soothing syrup behind the cantle of Meigs's old 
 nag. Which said nag I now possessed together with all 
 appurtenances and attachments thereunto appertaining I 
 tried to speculate on the reactions of Old Man Hooper, 
 Ramon, Brower and no dope, but it was too much for 
 me. My head was getting tired thinking about all these 
 complicated things, anyhow. I was accustomed to nice, 
 simple jobs with my head, like figuring on the shrinkage of 
 beef cattle, or the inner running of a two-card draw. All 
 this annoyed me. I began to get mad. When I got mad 
 enough I cussed and came to a decision: which was to go 
 after Old Man Hooper and all his works that very night. 
 Next day wouldn't do; I wanted action right off quick. 
 Naturally I had no plans, nor even a glimmering of what I 
 was going to do about it; but you bet you I was going to 
 do something! As soon as it was dark I was going right on 
 up there. Frontal attack, you understand. As to details, 
 those would take care of themselves as the affair developed. 
 Having come to which sapient decision I shoved the whole 
 irritating mess over the edge of my mind and rode on quite 
 happy. I told you at the start of this yarn that I was a kid. 
 
 66 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 My mind being now quite easy as to my future actions, I 
 gave thought to the first step. That was supper. There 
 seemed to me no adequate reason, with a fine, long night 
 before me, why I shouldn't use a little of the shank end of it 
 to stoke up for the rest. So I turned at the right-hand fork 
 and jogged slowly toward our own ranch. 
 
 Of course I had the rotten luck to find most of the boys 
 still at the water corral. When they saw who was the lone 
 horseman approaching through the dusk of the spring 
 twilight, and got a good fair look at the ensemble, they 
 dropped everything and came over to see about it, headed 
 naturally by those mournful blights, . Windy Bill and 
 Wooden. In solemn silence they examined my outfit, pay- 
 ing not the slightest attention to me. At the end of a full 
 minute they looked at each other. 
 
 "What do you think, Sam?" asked Windy. 
 
 " My opinion is not quite formed, suh," replied Wooden, 
 who was a Texican. "But my first examination inclines me 
 to the belief that it is a hoss." 
 
 "Yo're wrong, Sam/' denied Windy, sadly; "yo're judg- 
 ment is confused by the fact that the critter carries a saddle. 
 Look at the animile itself." 
 
 "I have done it," continued Sam Wooden; "at first glance 
 I should agree with you. Look carefully, Windy. Examine 
 the-<letails; never mind the toot enscrambk. It's got hoofs." 
 
 " So's a cow, a goat, a burro, a camel, a hippypottamus, 
 and the devil," pointed out Windy. 
 
 "Of course I may be wrong," acknowledged Wooden. 
 "On second examination I probably am wrong. But if it 
 ain't a hoss, then what is it? Do you know? " 
 
 67 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "It's a genuine royal gyasticutus," esserted Windy Bill, 
 positively. "I seen one once. It has one peculiarity that 
 you can't never fail to identify it by." 
 
 "What's that ?" 
 
 "It invariably travels around with a congenital idiot." 
 
 Wooden promptly conceded that, but claimed the iden- 
 tification not complete as he doubted whether, strictly 
 speaking, I could be classified as a congenital idiot. Windy 
 pointed out that evidently I had traded Tiger for the gyas- 
 ticutus. Wooden admitted that this proved me an idiot, 
 but not necessarily a congenital idiot. 
 
 This colloquy and more like it went on with entire 
 gravity. The other men were hanging about relishing the 
 situation, but without a symptom of mirth. I was unsad- 
 dling methodically, paying no attention to anybody, and 
 apparently deaf to all that was being said. If the two old 
 fools had succeeded in eliciting a word from me they would 
 have been entirely happy; but I knew that fact, and shut 
 my lips. 
 
 I hung my saddle on the rack and was just about to lead 
 the old skate to water when we all heard the sound of a horse 
 galloping on the road. 
 
 "It's a light hoss," said somebody after a moment, 
 meaning a horse without a burden. 
 
 We nodded and resumed our occupation. A stray horse 
 coming in to water was nothing strange or unusual. But 
 an instant later, stirrups swinging, reins flapping, up 
 dashed my own horse, Tiger. 
 
 68 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 All this being beyond me, and then some, I proceeded 
 methodically to carry out my complicated plan; which was, 
 it will be remembered, to eat supper and then to go and 
 see about it in person. I performed the first part of this 
 to my entire satisfaction but not to that of the rest. They 
 accused me of unbecoming secrecy; only they expressed it 
 differently. That did not worry me, and in due time I 
 made my escape. At the corral I picked out a good horse, 
 one that I had brought from the Gila, that would stay tied 
 indefinitely without impatience. Then I lighted me a 
 cigarette and jogged up the road. I carried with me a little 
 grub, my six-gun, the famous black bag, and an entirely 
 empty head. 
 
 The night was only moderately dark, for while there was 
 no moon there were plenty of those candle-like desert stars. 
 The little twinkling lights of the Box Springs dropped astern 
 like lamps on a shore. By and by I turned off the road and 
 made a wide detour down the sacatone bottoms, for I had 
 still some sense; and roads were a little too obvious. The 
 reception committee that had taken charge of my little 
 friend might be expecting another visitor me. This 
 brought my approach to the blank side of the ranch where 
 were the willow trees and the irrigating ditch. I rode up as 
 dose as I thought I ought to. Then I tied my horse to a 
 
 69 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 prominent lone Joshua-tree that would be easy to find, 
 unstrapped the black bag, and started off. The black bag, 
 however, bothered me; so after some thought I broke the 
 lock with a stone and investigated the contents, mainly by 
 feel. There were a lot of clothes and toilet articles and 
 such junk, and a number of undetermined hard things like 
 round wooden boxes. Finally I withdrew to the shelter of 
 a barranca where I could light matches. Then I had no dif- 
 ficulty in identifying a nice compact little hypodermic out- 
 fit, which I slipped into a pocket. I then deposited the 
 bag in a safe place where I could find it easily. 
 
 Leaving my horse I approached the ranch under cover 
 of the willows. Yes, I remembered this time that I left 
 tracks, but I did not care. My idea was to get some sort 
 of decisive action before morning. Once through the 
 willows I crept up close to the walls. They were twelve or 
 fifteen feet high, absolutely smooth; and with one exception 
 broken only by the long, narrow loopholes or transoms 
 I have mentioned before. The one exception was a small 
 wicket gate or door. I remembered the various sorties 
 with torches after the chirping frogs, and knew that by this 
 opening the hunting party had emerged. This and the 
 big main gate were the only entrances to the enclosure. 
 
 I retired to the vicinity of the willows and uttered the 
 cry of the barred owl. After ten seconds I repeated it, and 
 so continued. My only regret was that I could not chirp 
 convincingly like a frog. I saw a shadow shift suddenly 
 through one of the transoms, and at once glided to the wall 
 near the little door. After a moment or so it opened to 
 emit Old Man Hooper and another bulkier figure which 
 
 70 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 I imagined to be that of Ramon. Both were armed with 
 shotguns. Suddenly it came to me that I was lucky not 
 to have been able to chirp convincingly like a frog. They 
 hunted frogs with torches and in a crowd. Those two 
 carried no light and they were so intent on making a sneak 
 on the willows and the supposititious owl that I, flattened 
 in the shadow of the wall, easily escaped their notice. I 
 slipped inside the doorway. 
 
 This brought me into a narrow passage between two 
 buildings. The o&er end looked into the interior court. 
 A careful reconnaissance showed no one in sight, so I walked 
 boldly along the verandah in the direction of the girPs 
 room. Her note had said she was constantly guarded; but 
 I could see no one in sight, and I had to take a chance some- 
 where. Two seconds' talk would do me: I wanted to know 
 in which of the numerous rooms the old man slept. I had a 
 hunch it would be a good idea to share that room with him. 
 What to do then I left to the hunch. 
 
 But when I was half way down the verandah I heard the 
 wicket door slammed shut. The owl hunters had returned 
 more quickly than I had anticipated. Running as lightly 
 as possible I darted down the verandah and around the 
 corner of the left wing. This brought me into a narrow 
 little garden strip between the main house and the wall 
 dividing the court from the corrals and stable yards. 
 Footsteps followed me but stopped. A hand tried the door 
 knob to the corner room. 
 
 "Nothing," I heard Hooper 's voice replying to a question. 
 "Nothing at all. Go to sleep." 
 
 The fragrant smell of Mexican tobacco reached my nos- 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 trils. After a moment Ramon it was he resumed a 
 conversation in Spanish: 
 
 "I do not know, seiior, who the man was. I could but 
 listen; it was not well to inquire nor to show too much 
 
 interest. His name, yes; Jim Starr, but who he is " I 
 
 could imagine the shrug. "It is of no importance." 
 
 "It is of importance that the other man still lives," broke 
 in Hooper's harsher voice. "I will not have it, I say! Are 
 you sure of it?" 
 
 "I saw him. And I saw his horse at the Sefior Meigs. 
 It was the brown that bucks badly, so I cut the quarter 
 straps of his saddle. It might be that we have luck; I do 
 not count on it. But rest your mind easy, senor, it shall 
 be arranged." 
 
 "It better be." 
 
 "But there is more, senor. The seiior will remember a 
 man who rode in races for him many years ago, one named 
 Artie " 
 
 "Brower!" broke in Hooper. "What about him?" 
 
 "He is in town. He arrived yesterday afternoon." 
 
 Hooper ejaculated something. 
 
 "And more, he is all day and all night with this Sanborn." 
 
 Hooper swore fluently in English. 
 
 "Look, Ramon ! " he ordered, vehemently. " It is necessary 
 to finish this Sanborn at once, without delay." 
 
 "Bueno, senor." 
 
 "It must not go over a single day." 
 
 "Haste makes risk, seiior." 
 
 "The risk must be run." 
 
 senor. And also this Artie?" 
 72 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "No! no! no!" hastened Hooper. "Guard him as 
 your life! But send a trusty man for him to-morrow with 
 the buckboard. He comes to see me, in answer to my 
 invitation." 
 
 "And if he will not come, sefior?" inquired Ramon's 
 quiet voice. 
 
 "Why should he not come?" 
 
 "He has been much with Sanborn." 
 
 "It's necessary that he come," replied Hooper, emphasiz- 
 ing each word. 
 
 "Bueno, sefior." 
 
 "Who is to be on guard?" 
 
 "Cortinez, senor." 
 
 "I will send him at once. Do me the kindness to watch 
 for a moment until I send him. Here is the key; give it to 
 him. It shall be but a moment." 
 
 "Bueno, senor," replied Ramon. 
 
 He leaned against the corner of the house. I could see the 
 half of his figure against the sky and the dim white of the walls. 
 
 The night was very still, as always at this ranch. There 
 was not even a breeze to create a rustle in the leaves. I 
 was obliged to hold rigidly motionless, almost to hush my 
 breathing, while the figure bulked large against the white- 
 washed wall. But my eyes, wide to the dimness, took in 
 every detail of my surroundings. Near me stood a water 
 barrel. If I could get a spring from that water barrel I 
 could catch one of the heavy projecting beams of the roof. 
 
 After an apparently interminable interval the sound of 
 footsteps became audible, and a moment later Ramon 
 moved to meet his relief. I seized the opportunity of their 
 
 73 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 conversation and ascended to the roof. It proved to be 
 easy, although the dried-out old beam to which for a mo- 
 ment I swung creaked outrageously. Probably it sounded 
 louder to me than the actual fact. I took off my boots and 
 moved cautiously to where I could look down into the 
 court. Ramon and his companion were still talking under 
 the verandah, so I could not see them; but I waited until I 
 heard one of them move away. Then I went to seat myself 
 on the low parapet and think things over. 
 
 The man below me had the key to the girl's room. If I 
 could get the key I could accomplish the first step of my 
 plan indeed the only step I had determined upon. The 
 exact method of getting the key would have to develop. 
 In the meantime, I gave passing wonder to the fact, as 
 developed by the conversation between Hooper and Ramon, 
 that Brower was not at the ranch and had not been heard 
 of at the ranch. Where had Tiger dumped him, and where 
 now was he lying? I keenly regretted the loss of a possible 
 ally; and, much to my astonishment, I found within myself 
 a little regret for the man himself. 
 
 The thought of the transom occurred to me. I tiptoed 
 over to that side and looked down. The opening was about 
 five feet below the parapet. After a moment's thought I 
 tied a bit of stone from the coping in the end of my silk 
 bandana and lowered it at arm's length. By swinging it 
 gently back and forth I determined that the transom was 
 open. With the stub of the pencil every cowboy carried 
 to tally with I scribbled a few words on an envelope which I 
 wrapped about the bit of coping. Something to the effect 
 that I was there, and expected to gain entrance to her room 
 
 74 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 later, and to be prepared. Then I lowered my contraption, 
 caused it to tap gently a dozen times on the edge of the 
 transom, and finally swung it with a rather nice accuracy to 
 fly, bandana and all, through the opening. After a short 
 interval of suspense I saw the reflection of a light and so 
 knew my message had been received. 
 
 There was nothing to do now but return to a point of 
 observation. On my way I stubbed my stockinged foot 
 against a stone metate or mortar in which Indians and 
 Mexicans make their flour. The heavy pestle was there. 
 I annexed it. Dropped accurately from the height of the 
 roof it would make a very pretty weapon. The trouble, 
 of course, lay in that word " accurately." 
 
 But I soon found the fates playing into my hands. At 
 the end of a quarter hour the sentry emerged from under 
 the verandah, looked up at the sky, yawned, stretched, and 
 finally sat down with his back against the wall of the build- 
 ing opposite. Inside of ten minutes he was sound asleep 
 and snoring gently. 
 
 I wanted nothing better than that. The descent was a 
 little difficult to accomplish noiselessly, as I had to 
 drop some feet, but I managed it. After crouching for a 
 moment to see if the slight sounds had aroused him, I 
 crept along the wall to where he sat. The stone pestle of 
 the metate I had been forced to leave behind me, but I had 
 the heavy barrel of my gun, and I was going to take no 
 chances. I had no compunctions as to what I did to any 
 one of this pack of mad dogs. Cautiously I drew it from 
 its holster and poised it to strike. At that instant I was 
 seized and pinioned from behind. 
 
 75 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 I did not struggle. I would have done so if I had been 
 able, but I was caught in a grip so skillful that the smallest 
 move gave me the most exquisite pain. At that time I had 
 not even heard the words jiu jitsu, but I have looked them 
 up since. Cortinez, the sleepy sentry, without changing 
 his position, had opened his eyes and was grinning at me. 
 
 I was forced to my feet and marched to the open door of 
 the corner room. There I was released, and turned around 
 to face Hooper himself. The old man's face was twisted 
 in a sardonic half-snarl that might pass for a grin; but there 
 was no smile in his unblinking wildcat eyes. There seemed 
 to be trace neither of the girl nor the girl's occupation. 
 
 "Thank you for your warning of your intended visit," 
 said Hooper in silky tones, indicating my bandana which 
 lay on the table. "And now may I inquire to what I owe 
 the honour of this call? Or it may be that the visit was not 
 intended for me at all. Mistake in the rooms, perhaps. I 
 often shift and change my quarters, and those of my house- 
 hold; especially if I suspect I have some reason for doing so. 
 It adds interest to an otherwise uneventful life." 
 
 He was eying me sardonically, evidently gloating over the 
 situation as he found it. 
 
 "How did you get on that roof? Who let you inside the 
 walls? " he demanded, abruptly. 
 
 76 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 I merely smiled at him. 
 
 "That we can determine later," he observed, resuming 
 command of himself. 
 
 I measured my chances, and found them at present a 
 minus quantity. The old man was separated from me by 
 a table, and he held my own revolver ready for instant use. 
 So I stood tight and waited. 
 
 The room was an almost exact replica of the one in which 
 I had spent the night so short a time before; the same long 
 narrow transom near the ceiling, the same barred windows 
 opening on the court, the same closet against the blank 
 wall. Hooper had evidently inhabited it for some days, 
 for it was filled with his personal belongings. Indeed he 
 must have moved in en bloc when his ward had been moved 
 out, for none of the furnishings showed the feminine touch, 
 and several articles could have belonged only to the old man 
 personally. Of such was a small iron safe in one corner and 
 a tall old-fashioned desk crammed with papers. 
 
 But if I deckled overt action unwise at this moment, I 
 decidedly went into action the next. Hooper whistled and 
 four Mexicans appeared with ropes. Somehow I knew if 
 they once hog-tied me I would never get another chance. 
 Better dead now than helpless in the morning, for what that 
 old buzzard might want of me. 
 
 One of them tossed a loop at me. I struck it aside and 
 sailed in. 
 
 It had always been my profound and contemptuous belief 
 that I could lick any four Mexicans. Now I had to take 
 that back. I could not. But I gave the man argument, 
 and by the time they had my elbows lashed behind me and 
 
 77 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 my legs tied to the legs of one of those big solid chairs they 
 like to name as "Mission style," I had marked them up 
 and torn their pretty clothes and smashed a lot of junk 
 around the place and generally got them so mad they would 
 have knifed me in a holy second if it had not been for Old 
 Man Hooper. The latter held up the lamp where it wouldn't 
 get smashed and admonished them in no uncertain terms 
 that he wanted me alive and comparatively undamaged. 
 Oh, sure! they mussed me up, too. I wasn't very pretty, 
 either. 
 
 The bravos withdrew muttering curses, as the story books 
 say; and after Hooper had righted the table and stuck the 
 lamp on it, and taken a good look at my bonds, he withdrew 
 also. 
 
 Most of my time until the next thing occurred was oc- 
 cupied in figuring on all the things that might happen 
 to me. One thing I acknowledged to myself right off the 
 reel: the Mexicans had sure trussed me up for further or- 
 ders! I could move my hands, but I knew enough of 
 ropes and ties to realize that my chances of getting free were 
 exactly nothing. My plans had gone perfectly up to this 
 moment. I had schemed to get inside the ranch and into 
 Old Man Hooper's room; and here I was! What more 
 could a man ask? 
 
 The next thing occurred so soon, however, that I hadn't 
 had time to think of more than ten per cent, of the things 
 that might happen to me. The outside door opened to 
 admit Hooper, followed by the girl. He stood aside in the 
 most courtly fashion. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "here is Mr. Sanborn, who has come 
 
 78 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 to call on you. You remember Mr. Sanborn, I am sure. 
 You met him at dinner; and besides, I believe you had some 
 correspondence with him, did you not? He has taken so 
 much trouble, so very much trouble to see you that I think 
 it a great pity his wish should not be fulfilled. Won't you 
 sit down here, my dear? " 
 
 She was staring at me, her eyes gone wide with wonder 
 and horror. Half thinking she took her seat as indicated. 
 Instantly the old man had bound her elbows at the back 
 and had lashed her to the chair. After the first start of 
 surprise she made no resistance. 
 
 "There," said Hooper, straightening up after the ac- 
 complishment of this task; "now I'm going to leave you to 
 your visit. You can talk it all over. Tell him all you 
 please, my dear. And you, sir, tell her all you know. I 
 think I can arrange so your confidences will go no further." 
 
 For the first time I heard him laugh, a high, uncertain 
 cackle. The girl said nothing, but she stared at him with 
 level, blazing eyes. Also for the first time I began to take 
 an interest in her. 
 
 "Do you object to smoking?" I asked her, suddenly. 
 
 She blinked and recovered. 
 
 "Not at all," she answered. 
 
 "Well then, old man, be a sport. Give me the makings. 
 I can get my hands to my mouth." 
 
 The old man transferred his baleful eyes on me. Then 
 without saying a word he placed in my hands a box of 
 tailor-made cigarettes and a dozen matches. 
 
 "Until morning," he observed, his hand on the door knob. 
 He inclined in a most courteous fashion, first to the one of 
 
 79 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 us, then to the other, and went out. He did not lock the 
 door after him, and I could hear him addressing Cortinez 
 outside. The girl started to speak, but I waved my 
 shackled hand at her for silence. By straining my ears I 
 could just make out what was said. 
 
 "I am going to bed," Hooper said. "It is not necessary 
 to stand guard. You may get your blankets and sleep on 
 the verandah." 
 
 After the old man's footsteps had died, I turned back to 
 the girl opposite me and looked her over carefully. My 
 first impression of meekness I revised. She did not look 
 to be one bit meek. Her lips were compressed, her nostrils 
 wide, her level eyes unsubdued. A person of sense, I said 
 to myself, well balanced, who has learned when it is useless 
 to kick against the pricks, but who has not necessarily on 
 that account forever renounced all kicking. It occurred 
 to me that she must have had to be pretty thoroughly con- 
 vinced before she had come to this frame of mind. When 
 she saw that I had heard all I wanted of the movements 
 outside, she spoke hurriedly in her low, sweet voice: 
 
 " Oh, I am so distressed ! This is all my doing ! I should 
 have known better " 
 
 "Now," I interrupted her, decisively, "let's get down to 
 cases. You had nothing to do with this; nothing what- 
 ever. I visited this ranch the first time out of curiosity, 
 and to-night because I knew that I'd have to hit first to 
 save my own life. You had no influence on me in either case. ' ' 
 
 "You thought this was my room I wrote you it was," 
 she countered, swiftly. 
 
 "I wanted to see you solely and simply that I might find 
 
 80 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 out how to get at Hooper. This is all my fault; and we're 
 going to cut out the self-accusations and get down to cases." 
 
 I afterward realized that all this was somewhat incon- 
 siderate and ungallant and slightly humiliating; I should 
 have taken the part of the knight-errant rescuing the damsel 
 in distress, but at that moment only the direct essentials 
 entered my mind. 
 
 "Very well," she assented in her repressed tones. 
 
 " Do you think he is listening to what we say ; or has some- 
 body listening? " 
 
 "I am positive not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I lived in this room for two months, and I know every 
 inch of it." 
 
 "He might have some sort of a concealed listening hole 
 somewhere, just the same." 
 
 " I am certain he has not. The walls are two feet thick." 
 
 "All right; let it go at that. Now let's see where we 
 stand. In the first place, how do you dope this out?" 
 
 "What do you mean? " 
 
 "What does he intend to do with us?" 
 
 She looked at me straight, eye to eye. 
 
 "In the morning he will kill you unless you can con- 
 trive something." 
 
 "Cheering thought." 
 
 "There is no sense in not facing situations squarely. If 
 there is a way out, that is the only method by which it may 
 be found." 
 
 "True," I agreed, my admiration growing. "And your- 
 self; will he kill you, too? " 
 
 81 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "He will not. He does not dare!" she cried, proudly, 
 with a flash of the eyes. 
 
 I was not so sure of that, but there was no object in saying 
 so. 
 
 "Why has he tied you in that chair, then, along with the 
 condemned?" I asked. 
 
 "You will understand better if I tell you who I am." 
 
 "You are his deceased partner's daughter; and everybody 
 thinks you are in Europe," I stated. 
 
 "How in the world did you know that? But no matter; 
 it is true. I embarked three months ago on the Limited 
 for New York intending, as you say, to go on a long trip 
 to Europe. My father and I had been alone in the world. 
 We were very fond of each other. I took no companion, 
 nor did I intend to. I felt quite independent and able to 
 take care of myself. At the last moment Mr. Hooper 
 boarded the train. That was quite unexpected. He was 
 on his way to the ranch. He persuaded me to stop over 
 for a few days to decide some matters. You know, since 
 my father's death I am half owner." 
 
 "Whole owner," I murmured. 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Nothing. Go ahead. Sure you don't mind my smok- 
 ing? " I lit one of the tailor-mades and settled back. Even 
 my inexperienced youth recognized the necessity of relief 
 this long-continued stubborn repression must feel. My 
 companion had as yet told me nothing I did not already 
 know or guess; but I knew it would do her good to talk, 
 and I might learn something valuable. 
 
 "We came out to the ranch, and talked matters over 
 
 82 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 quite normally; but when it came time for my departure, 
 I was not permitted to leave. For some unexplained reason 
 I was a prisoner, confined absolutely to the four walls of 
 this enclosure. I was guarded night and day; and I soon 
 found I was to be permitted conversation with two men 
 only, Mexicans named Ramon and Andreas." 
 
 "They are his right and left hand," I commented. 
 
 " So I found. You may imagine I did not submit to this 
 until I found I had to. Then I made up my mind that the 
 only possible thing to do was to acquiesce, to observe, and 
 to wait my chance." 
 
 "You were right enough there. Why do you figure he 
 did this?" 
 
 "I don't know!" she cried with a flash of thwarted de- 
 spair. "I have racked my brains, but I can find no mo- 
 tive. He has not asked me for a thing; he has not even 
 asked me a question. Unless he's stark crazy, I cannot 
 make it out!" 
 
 "He may be that," I suggested. 
 
 "He may be; and yet I doubt it somehow. I don't know 
 why; but I feel that he is sane enough. He is inconceiv- 
 ably cruel and domineering. He will not tolerate a living 
 thing about the place that will not or cannot take orders 
 from him. He kills the flies, the bees, the birds, the frogs, 
 because they are not his. I believe he would kill a man as 
 quickly who stood out even for a second against him here. 
 To that extent I believe he is crazy: a sort of monomania. 
 But not otherwise. That is why I say he will kill you; I 
 really believe he would do it." 
 
 "So do I," I agreed, grimly. "However, let's drop that 
 
 83 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 for right now. Do you know a man named Brower, Artie 
 Brower?" 
 
 " I don't think I ever heard of him. Why? " 
 
 " Never mind for a minute. I've just had a great thought 
 strike me. Just let me alone a few moments while I work 
 it out." 
 
 I lighted a second cigarette from the butt of the first and 
 fell into a study. Cortinez breathed heavily outside. 
 Otherwise the silence was as dead as the blackness of the 
 night. The smoke from my cigarettes floated lazily until 
 it reached the influence of the hot air from the lamp; then 
 it shot upward toward the ceiling. The girl watched me 
 from under her level brows, always with that air of con- 
 trolled restraint I found so admirable. 
 
 "I've got it," I said at last, " or at least I think I have. 
 Now listen to me, and believe what I've got to say. Here 
 are the facts : first, your father and Hooper split partnership 
 a while back. Hooper took his share entirely in cash; your 
 father took his probably part in cash, but certainly all of 
 the ranch and cattle. Get that clear? Hooper owns no 
 part of the ranch and cattle. All right. Your father dies 
 before the papers relating to this agreement are recorded. 
 Nobody knew of those papers except your father and 
 Hooper. So if Hooper were to destroy those papers, he'd 
 still have the cash that had been paid him, and an equal 
 share in the property. That plain? " 
 
 "Perfectly," she replied, composedly. "Why didn't he 
 destroy them?" 
 
 "Because they had been stolen by this man Brower I 
 asked you about an ex-jockey of Hooper's. Brower held 
 
 84 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 them for blackmail. Unless Hooper came through Brower 
 would record the papers." 
 
 "Where do I come in?" 
 
 "Easy. I'm coming to that. But answer me this: 
 who would be your heir in case you died? " 
 
 "Why I don't know!" 
 
 " Have you any kin? " 
 
 "Not a soul!" 
 
 "Did you ever make a will?" 
 
 "I never thought of such a thing!" 
 
 "Well, I'll tell you. If you were to die your interest in 
 this property would go to Hooper." 
 
 "What makes you think so? I thought it would go 
 to the state." 
 
 "I'm guessing," I acknowledged, "but I believe I'm 
 guessing straight. A lot of these old Arizona partnerships 
 were made just that way. Life was uncertain out here. 
 I'll bet the old original partnership between your father 
 and Hooper provides that in case of the extinction of one 
 line, the other will inherit. It's a very common form of 
 partnership in a new country like this. You can see for 
 yourself it's a sensible thing to provide." 
 
 "You may be right," she commented. "Go on." 
 
 "You told me a while ago it was best to face any situa- 
 tion squarely. Now brace up and face this. You said a 
 while ago that Hooper would not dare kill you. That is 
 true for the moment. But there is no doubt in my mind 
 that he has intended from the first to kill you, because by 
 that he would get possession of the whole property." 
 
 "I cannot believe it!" she cried. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Isn't the incentive enough? Think carefully, and 
 answer honestly: don't you think him capable of it?" 
 
 "Yes I suppose so," she admitted, reluctantly, after a 
 moment. She gathered herself as after a shock. "Why 
 hasn't he done so? Why has he waited?" 
 
 I told her of the situation as it concerned Brower. While 
 the dissolution of partnership papers still existed and might 
 still be recorded, such a murder would be useless. For 
 naturally the dissolution abrogated the old partnership 
 agreement. The girl's share of the property would, at her 
 demise intestate, go to the state. That is, provided the 
 new papers were ever recorded. 
 
 "Then I am safe until ?" she began. 
 
 "Until he negotiates or otherwise settles with Brower. 
 Until he has destroyed all evidence." 
 
 "Then everything seems to depend on this Brower," 
 she said, knitting her brows anxiously. "Where is he?" 
 
 I did not answer this last question. My eyes were riveted 
 on the door knob which was slowly, almost imperceptibly, 
 turning. Cortinez continued to breathe heavily in sleep 
 outside. The intruder was evidently at great pains not to 
 awaken the guard. A fraction of an inch at a time the 
 door opened. A wild-haired, wild-eyed head inserted itself 
 cautiously through the crack. The girl's eyes widened 
 in surprise and, I imagine, a little in fear. I began to 
 laugh, silently, so as not to disturb Cortinez. Mirth over- 
 came me; the tears ran down my cheeks. 
 
 "It's so darn complete!" I gasped, answering the girl's 
 horrified look of inquiry. "Miss Emory, allow me to pre- 
 sent Mr. Artie Brower!" 
 
 86 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Brower entered the room quickly but very quietly, and at 
 once came to me. His eyes were staring, his eyelids 
 twitched, his hands shook. I recognized the symptoms. 
 
 "Have you got it? Have you got it with you? " he whis- 
 pered, feverishly. 
 
 "It's all right. I can fix you up. Untie me first," I 
 replied. 
 
 He began to fumble with the knots of my bonds too 
 hastily and impatiently for effectiveness. I was trying to 
 stoop over far enough to see what he was doing when my 
 eye caught the shadow of a moving figure outside. An 
 instant later Tim Westmore, the English groom attached to 
 the Morgan stallion, came cautiously through the door, 
 which he closed behind him. I attempted unobtrusively 
 to warn Brower, but he only looked up, nodded vaguely, 
 and continued his fumbling efforts to free me. Westmore 
 glanced at us all curiously, but went at once to the big win- 
 dows, which he proceeded to swing shut. Then he came 
 over to us, pushed Brower one side, and most expeditiously 
 untied the knots. I stood up stre telling in the luxury of 
 freedom, then turned to perform a like office for Miss 
 Emory. But Brower was by now frantic. He seized my 
 arm and fairly shook me, big as I was, in the urgence of his 
 desire. He was rapidly losing all control and caution. 
 
 87 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Let him have it, sir," urged Westmore in a whisper. 
 "I'll free the young lady." 
 
 I gave B rower the hypodermic case. He ran to the wash 
 bowl for water. During the process of preparation he 
 uttered little animal sounds under his breath. When the 
 needle had sunk home he lay back in a chair and closed his 
 eyes. 
 
 In the meantime, I had been holding a whispered colloquy 
 with Westmore. 
 
 "He sneaked in on me at dark, sir," he told me, "on 
 foot. I don't know how he got in without being seen. 
 They'd have found his tracks anyway in the morning. I 
 don't think he knew quite what he wanted to do. Him 
 and me were old pals, and he wanted to ask me about things. 
 He didn't expect to stay, I fancy. He told me he had left 
 his horse tied a mile or so down the road. Then a while 
 back orders came to close down, air tight. We're used to 
 such orders. Nobody can go out or come in, you under- 
 stand. And there are guards placed. That made him 
 uneasy. He told me then he was a hop fiend. I've seen 
 them before, and I got uneasy, too. If he came to the worst 
 I might have to tie and gag him. I know how they are." 
 
 "Go ahead," I urged. He had stopped to listen. 
 
 "I don't like that Cortinez being so handy like out there," 
 he confessed. 
 
 "Hooper told him he could sleep. He's not likely to pay 
 attention to us. Miss Emory and I have been talking aloud." 
 
 "I hope not. Well, then, Ramon came by and stopped to 
 tfllk to me for a minute. I had to hide Artie in a box-stall 
 and hope to God he kept quiet. He wasn't as bad as he is 
 
 88 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 now. Ramon told me about you being caught, and went 
 on. After that nothing must do but find you. He thought 
 you might have his dope. He'd have gone into the jaws of 
 hell after it. So I came along to keep him out of mischief." 
 
 "What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, who 
 had kicked off her slippers and had been walking a few 
 paces to and fro. 
 
 "I don't know, ma'am. We've got to get away." 
 
 "We?" 
 
 "You mean me, too? Yes, ma'am! I have stood with 
 the doings of this place as long as I can stand them. Artie 
 has told me some other things. Are you here of your free 
 will, ma'am?" he asked, abruptly. 
 
 "No," she replied. 
 
 "I suspected as much. I'm through with the whole lot 
 of them." 
 
 Brower opened his eyes. He was now quite calm. 
 
 "Hooper sold the Morgan stallion," he whispered, smiled 
 sardonically, and closed his eyes again. 
 
 "Without telling me a word of it!" added Tim with heat. 
 "He ain't delivered him yet." 
 
 "Well, I don't blame you. Now you'd better quietly 
 sneak back to your quarters. There is likely to be trouble 
 before we get through. You, too, Brower. Nobody knows 
 you are here." 
 
 Brower opened his eyes again. 
 
 "I can get out of this place now I've had me hop," said 
 he, decidedly. " Come on, let's go." 
 
 "We'll all go," I agreed; "but let's see what we can find 
 
 here first. There may be some paper or something " 
 
 89 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "What do you mean? What sort of papers? Hadn't 
 we better go at once?" 
 
 "It is supposed to be well known that the reason Hooper 
 isn't assassinated from behind a bush is because in that 
 case his killers are in turn to assassinate a long list of his 
 enemies. Only nobody is sure: just as nobody is really 
 sure that he has killers at all. You can't get action on an 
 uncertainty." 
 
 She nodded. "I can understand that." 
 
 "If we could get proof positive it would be no trick at all 
 to raise the country." 
 
 "What sort of proof?" 
 
 "Well, I mentioned a list. I don't doubt his head man- 
 Ramon, I suppose, the one he'd trust with carrying out 
 such a job must have a list of some sort. He wouldn't 
 trust to memory." 
 
 "And he wouldn't trust it to Ramon until after he was 
 dead!" said the girl with sudden intuition. "If it exists 
 we'll find it here." 
 
 She started toward the paper-stuffed desk, but I stopped 
 her. 
 
 "More likely the safe," said I. 
 
 Tim, who was standing near it, tried the handle. 
 
 "It's locked," he whispered. 
 
 I fell on my knees and began to fiddle with the dial, of 
 course in vain. Miss Emory, with more practical decision 
 of character, began to run through the innumerable bundles 
 and loose papers in the desk, tossing them aside as they 
 proved unimportant or not germane to the issue. I had 
 not the slightest knowledge of the constructions of safes 
 
 90 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 but whirled the knob hopelessly in one direction or another 
 trying to listen for clicks, as somewhere I had read was the 
 thing to do. As may be imagined, I arrived nowhere. 
 Nor did the girl. We looked at each other in chagrin at last. 
 
 "There is nothing here but ranch bills and accounts and 
 business letters," she confessed. 
 
 I merely shook my head. 
 
 At this moment Brower, whom I had supposed to be 
 sound asleep, opened his eyes. 
 
 "Want that safe open?" he asked, drowsily. 
 
 He arose, stretched, and took his place beside me on the 
 floor. His head cocked one side, he slowly turned the 
 dials with the tips of fingers I for the first time noticed 
 were long and slim and sensitive. Twice after extended, 
 delicate manipulations he whirled the knob impatiently 
 and took a fresh start. On the proverbial third trial he 
 turned the handle and the door swung open. He arose 
 rather stiffly from his knees, resumed his place in the arm- 
 chair, and again closed his eyes. 
 
 It was a small safe, with few pigeon holes. A number of 
 blue-covered contracts took small time for examination. 
 There were the usual number of mine certificates not valu- 
 able enough for a safe deposit, some confidential memoranda 
 and accounts having to do with the ranch. 
 
 "Ah, here is something!" I breathed to the eager audi- 
 ence over my shoulder. I held in my hands a heavy manila 
 envelope, sealed, inscribed "Ramon. (To be destroyed 
 unopened.)" 
 
 "Evidently we were right: Ramon has the combina- 
 tion and is to be executor," I commented. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 I tore open the envelope and extracted from it another 
 of the blue-covered documents. 
 
 "It's a copy, unsigned, of that last agreement with your 
 father," I said, after a disappointed glance. "It's worth 
 keeping," and I thrust it inside my shirt. 
 
 But this particular pigeon hole proved to be a mine. 
 In it were several more of the same sort of envelope, all 
 sealed, all addressed to Ramon. One was labelled as the 
 Last Will, one as Inventory, and one simply as Directions. 
 This last had a further warning that it was to be opened only 
 by the one addressed. I determined by hasty examination 
 that the first two were only what they purported to be, and 
 turned hopefully to a perusal of the last. It was in Spanish, 
 and dealt at great length with the disposition and manage- 
 ment of Hooper's extensive interests. I append a trans- 
 lation of the portion of this remarkable document, having 
 to do with our case. 
 
 "These are my directions," it began, "as to the matter 
 of which we have many times spoken together. I have 
 many enemies, and many who think they have cause to 
 wish my death. They are cowards and soft and I do not 
 think they will ever be sure enough to do me harm. I 
 do not fear them. But it may be that one or some of 
 them will find it in their souls to do a deed against me. In 
 that case I shall be content, for neither do I fear the devil. 
 But I shall be content only if you follow my orders. I add 
 here a list of my enemies and of those who have cause to 
 wish me ill. If I am killed, it is probable that some one of 
 these will have done the deed. Therefore they must all 
 die. You must see to it, following them if necessary to the 
 
 92 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ends of the earth. You will know how; and what means to 
 employ. When all these are gone, then go you to the highest 
 rock on the southerly pinnacle of Cochise's Stronghold. 
 Ten paces northwest is a gray, flat slab. If you lift this 
 slab there will be found a copper box. In the box is the 
 name of a man. You will go to this man and give him the 
 copper box and in return he will give to you one hundred 
 thousand dollars. I know well, my Ramon, that your hon- 
 esty would not permit you to seek the copper box before 
 the last of my enemies is dead. Nevertheless, that you 
 may admire my recourse, I have made an arrangement. 
 If the gray slab on Cochise's Stronghold is ever disturbed 
 before the whole toll is paid, you will die very suddenly and 
 unpleasantly. I know well that you, my Ramon, would 
 not disturb it; and I hope for your sake that nobody 
 else will do so. It is not likely. No one is fool enough to 
 climb Cochise's Stronghold for pleasure; and this gray slab 
 is one among many." 
 
 At this time I did not read carefully the above cheerful 
 document. My Spanish was good enough, but took time 
 in the translating. I dipped into it enough to determine 
 that it was what we wanted, and flipped the pages to come 
 to the list of prospective victims. It covered two sheets, and 
 a glance down the columns showed me that about every per- 
 manent inhabitant of the Soda Springs Valley was included. 
 I found my own name in quite fresh ink toward the last. 
 
 "This is what we want," I said in satisfaction, rising to my 
 feet. I sketched in a few words the purport of the document. 
 
 "Let me see it," said the girl. 
 
 I handed it to her. She began to examine carefully the 
 
 93 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 list of names, her face turning paler as she read. Tim 
 Westmore looked anxiously over her shoulder. Suddenly 
 I saw his face congest and his eyes bulge. 
 
 "Why! why!" he gasped, "I'm there! What've I ever 
 
 done, I ask you that? The old " he choked, at a loss 
 
 and groping. Then his anger flared up. "I've always 
 served him faithful and done what I was told," he mut- 
 tered, fiercely. " I'll do him in for this ! " 
 
 "I am here," observed Miss Emory. 
 
 "Yes, and that sot in the chair!" whispered Tim, fiercely. 
 
 Again Brower proved he was not asleep by opening one eye. 
 
 "Thanks for them kind words," said he. 
 
 "We've got to get out of here," stated Tim with con- 
 viction. 
 
 "That idea just got through your thick British skull?" 
 queried Artie, rousing again. 
 
 "I wish we had some way to carry the young lady 
 she can't walk," said Westmore, paying no attention. 
 
 "I have my horse tied out by the lone Joshua-tree," I 
 answered him. 
 
 "I'm going to take a look at that Cortinez," said the 
 little Englishman, nodding his satisfaction at my news as to 
 the horse. "I'm not easy about him." 
 
 "He'll sleep like a log until morning," Miss Emory 
 reassured me. "I've often stepped right over him where 
 he has been on guard and walked all around the garden." 
 
 "Just the same I'm going to take a look," persisted West- 
 more. 
 
 He tiptoed to the door, softly turned the knob and opened 
 it. He found himself face to face with Cortinez. 
 
 94 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I had not thought of the English groom as a man of re- 
 source, but his action in this emergency proved him. He 
 cast a fleeting glance over his shoulder. Artie Brower was 
 huddled down in his armchair practically out of sight; Miss 
 Emory and I had reseated ourselves in the only other two 
 chairs in the room, so that we were in the same relative posi- 
 tions as when we had been bound and left. Only the con- 
 fusion of the papers on the floor and the open safe would 
 have struck an observant eye. 
 
 "It is well that you come," said Tim to Cortinez in 
 Spanish. "The senor sent me to conduct these two to the 
 East Room and I like not the job alone. Enter." 
 
 He held the door with one hand and fairly dragged Cor- 
 tinez through with the other. Instantly he closed the door 
 and cast himself on Cortinez's back. I had already launched 
 myself at the Mexican's throat. 
 
 The struggle was violent but brief. Fortunately I had 
 not missed my spring at our enemy's windpipe, so he had 
 been unable to shout. The noise of our scuffle sounded 
 loud enough within the walls of the room; but those walls 
 were two feet thick, and the door and windows closed. 
 
 " Get something to gag him with, and the cords," panted 
 Tim to the girl. 
 
 Brower opened his eyes again. 
 
 95 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "I can beat that," he announced. 
 
 He produced his hypodermic and proceeded to mix a 
 gunful of the dope. 
 
 "This'll fix him," he observed, turning back the Mexican's 
 sleeve. "You can lay him outside and if anybody comes 
 along they'll think he's asleep as usual." 
 
 This we did when the dope had worked. 
 
 It was now high time to think of our next move. For 
 weapons we had the gun and knife taken from Cortinez and 
 the miserable little automatic belonging to B rower. That 
 was all. It was perfectly evident that we could not get out 
 through the regular doorways, as, by Tim's statement, they 
 were all closed and guarded. On my representation it was 
 decided to try the roof. 
 
 We therefore knotted together the cord that had bound 
 me and two sheets from the bed, and sneaked cautiously 
 out on the verandah, around the corner to the water barrel, 
 and so to the vantage point of the roof. 
 
 The chill of the night was come, and the stars hung cold 
 in the sky. It seemed that the air would snap and crackle 
 were some little resolving element to be dropped into its 
 suspended hush. Not a sound was to be heard except a slow 
 drip of water from somewhere in the courtyard. 
 
 It was agreed that I, as the heaviest, should descend first. 
 I landed easily enough and steadied the rope for Miss Emory 
 who came next. While I was waiting I distinctly heard, 
 from the direction of the willows, the hooting of an owl. 
 Furthermore, it was a great horned owl, and he seemed to 
 have a lot to say. You remember what I told you about 
 setting your mind so that only one sort of noise will arouse 
 
 96 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 it, but that one instantly? I knew perfectly well that Old 
 Man Hooper's mind was set to all these smaller harmless 
 noises that most people never notice at all, waking or sleep- 
 ing frogs, crickets, owls. And therefore I was convinced 
 that sooner or later that old man and his foolish ideas and 
 his shotgun would come projecting right across our well- 
 planned getaway. Which was just what happened, and 
 almost at once. Probably that great horned owl had 
 been hooting for some time, but we had been too busy to 
 notice. I heard the wicket door turning on its hinges, and 
 ventured a warning hiss to B rower and Tim Westmore, 
 who had not yet descended. An instant later I could make 
 out shadowy forms stealing toward the willows. Evidently 
 those who served Old Man Hooper were accustomed to 
 broken rest. 
 
 We kept very quiet, straining our eyes at the willows. 
 After an interval a long stab of light pierced the dusk and 
 the round detonation of old-fashioned black powder shook 
 the silence. There came to us the babbling of voices re- 
 leased. At the same instant the newly risen moon plas- 
 tered us against that whitewashed wall like insects pinned 
 in a cork-lined case. The moonlight must have been visibly 
 creeping down to us for some few minutes, but so absorbed 
 had I been in the doings of the party in the willows, and 
 so chuckleheaded were the two on the roof, that actually 
 none of us had noticed! 
 
 I dropped flat and dragged the girl down with me. But 
 there remained that ridiculous, plainly visible rope; and any- 
 way a shout relieved me of any doubt as to whether we had 
 been seen. Brower came tumbling down on us, and with 
 
 97 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 one accord we three doubled to the right around the walls 
 of the ranch. A revolver shot sang by us, but we were not 
 immediately pursued. Our antagonists were too few and 
 too uncertain of our numbers and arms. 
 
 It was up to us to utilize the few minutes before the ranch 
 should be aroused. We doubled back through the willows 
 and across the mesquite flat toward the lone Joshua-tree 
 where I had left my horse. I held the girl's hand to help 
 her when she stumbled, while B rower scuttled along with 
 surprising endurance for a dope wreck. Nobody said any- 
 thing, but saved their wind. 
 
 "Where's Tim?" I asked at a check when we had to 
 scramble across a barranca. 
 
 "He went back into the ranch the way we came," replied 
 Artie with some bitterness. 
 
 It was, nevertheless, the wisest thing he could have done. 
 He had not been identified with this outfit except by Cor- 
 tinez, and Cortinez was safe for twelve hours. 
 
 We found the Joshua-tree without difficulty. 
 
 "Now," said I, "here is the plan. You are to take these 
 papers to Senor Buck Johnson, at the Box Springs ranch. 
 That's the next ranch on the fork of the road. Do you re- 
 member it?" 
 
 "Yes," said Brower, who had waked up and seemed quite 
 sober and responsible. " I can get to it. " 
 
 "Wake him up. Show him these papers. Make him 
 read them. Tell him that Miss Emory and I are in the 
 Bat-eye Tunnel. Remember that? " 
 
 "The Bat-eye Tunnel," repeated Artie. 
 
 "Why don't you go?" inquired the girl, anxiously. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "I ride too heavy; and I know where the tunnel is," I 
 replied. "If anybody else was to go, it would be you. 
 But Artie rides light and sure, and he'll have to ride like hell. 
 Here, put these papers inside your shirt. Be off ! " 
 
 Lights were flickering at the ranch as men ran to and fro 
 with lanterns. It would not take these skilled vaqueros 
 long to catch their horses and saddle up. At any moment 
 I expected to see the massive doors swing open to let loose 
 the wolf pack. 
 
 Brower ran to my horse a fool proceeding, especially 
 for an experienced horseman and jerked loose the tie rope. 
 Badger is a good reliable cow horse, but he's not a million 
 years old, and he's got some natural equine suspicions. I 
 kind of lay a good deal of it to that fool hard-boiled hat. At 
 any rate, he snorted and sagged back on the rope, hit a 
 yucca point, whirled and made off. Artie was game. He 
 hung on until he was drug into a bunch of chollas, and then 
 he had to let go. Badger departed into the distance, tail 
 up and snorting. 
 
 "Well, you've done it now!" I observed to Brower, who, 
 crying with nervous rage and chagrin, and undoubtedly 
 considerably stuck up with cholla spines, was crawling 
 to his feet. 
 
 "Can't we catch him? Won't he stop?" asked Miss 
 Emory. " If he gets to the ranch, won't they look for you? " 
 
 "He's one of my range ponies: he won't stop short of the 
 Gila." 
 
 I cast over the chances in my mind, weighing my knowl- 
 edge of the country against the probabilities of search. 
 The proportion was small. Most of my riding experience 
 
 99 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 had been farther north and to the west. Such obvious hole- 
 ups as the one I had suggested the Bat-eye Tunnel were 
 of course familiar to our pursuers. My indecision must 
 have seemed long, for the girl broke in anxiously on my 
 meditations. 
 
 "Oughtn't we to be moving? " 
 
 "As well here as anywhere," I replied. "We are under 
 good cover; and afoot we could not much better ourselves 
 as against mounted men. We must hide." 
 
 "But they may find the trampled ground where your 
 horse has been tied." 
 
 "I hope they do." 
 
 "You hope they do!" 
 
 "Sure. They'll figure that we must sure have moved 
 away. They'll never guess we'd hide near at hand. At 
 least that's what I hope." 
 
 "How about tracks?" 
 
 " Not at night. By daylight maybe." 
 
 "But then to-morrow morning they can " 
 
 "To-morrow morning is a long way off." 
 
 "Look!" cried Brower. 
 
 The big gates of the ranch had been thrown open. The 
 glare of a light probably a locomotive headlight poured 
 out. Mounted figures galloped forth and swerved to right 
 or left, spreading in a circle about the enclosure. The horse- 
 men reined to a trot and began methodically to quarter the 
 ground, weaving back and forth. Four detached them- 
 selves and rode off at a swift gallop to the points of the com- 
 pass. The mounted men were working fast for fear, I sup- 
 pose, that we may have possessed horses. Another contin- 
 
 100 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 gent, afoot and with lanterns, followed more slowly, going 
 over the ground for indications. I could not but admire 
 the skill and thoroughness of the plan. 
 
 "Our only chance is in the shadow from the moon," I 
 told my companions. "If we can slip through the riders, 
 and get in their rear, we may be able to follow the barranca 
 down. Any of those big rocks will do. Lay low, and after 
 a rider has gone over a spot, try to get to that spot without 
 being seen." 
 
 We were not to be kept long in suspense. Out of all the 
 three hundred and sixty degrees of the circle one of the 
 swift outriders selected precisely our direction! Straight 
 as an arrow he came for us, at full gallop. I could see the 
 toss of his horse's mane against the light from the opened 
 door. There was no time to move. All we could do was 
 to cower beneath our rock, muscles tense, and hope to be 
 able to glide around the shadow as he passed. 
 
 But he did not pass. Down into the shallow barranca 
 he slid with a tinkle of shale, and drew rein within ten feet 
 of our lurking place. 
 
 We could hear the soft snorting of his mount above the 
 thumping of our hearts. I managed to get into a position 
 to steal a glimpse. It was difficult, but at length I made out 
 the statuesque lines of the horse, and the rider himself, 
 standing in his stirrups and leaning slightly forward, peer- 
 ing intently about him. The figures were in silhouette 
 against the sky, but nobody ever fooled me as to a horse. 
 It was the Morgan stallion, and the rider was Tim West- 
 more. Just as the realization came to me, Tim uttered a 
 low, impatient whistle. 
 
 101 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 It's always a good idea to take a chance. I arose into 
 view but I kept my gun handy. 
 
 "Thank God!" cried Tim, fervently, under his breath. 
 " I remembered you'd left your horse by this Joshua : it's the 
 only landmark in the dark. Saints!" he ejaculated in 
 dismay as he saw us all. " Where's your horse? " 
 
 "Gone." 
 
 "We can't all ride this stallion " 
 
 "Listen," I cut in, and I gave him the same directions I 
 had previously given Brower. He heard me attentively. 
 
 "I can beat that," he cut me off. He dismounted. 
 " Get on here, Artie. Ride down the barranca two hundred 
 yards and you'll come to an alkali flat. Get out on that 
 flat and ride like hell for Box Springs." 
 
 " Why don't you do it?" 
 
 " I'm going back and tell 'em how I was slugged and rob- 
 bed of my horse." 
 
 "They'll kill you if they suspect; dare you go back? " 
 
 "I've been back once," he pointed out. He was helping 
 Brower aboard. 
 
 "Where did you get that bag?" he asked. 
 
 "Found it by the rock where we were hiding: it's mine," 
 replied Brower. 
 
 Westmore tried to get him to leave it, but the little jockey 
 was obstinate. He kicked his horse and, bending low, rode 
 away. 
 
 "You're right: I beg your pardon," I answered West- 
 more's remark to me. "You don't look slugged." 
 
 "That's easy fixed," said Tim, calmly. He removed 
 his hat and hit his forehead a very solid blow against a pro- 
 
 102 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 jection of the conglomerate boulder. The girl screamed 
 slightly. 
 
 "Hush!" warned Tim in a fierce whisper. He raised his 
 hand toward the approaching horsemen, who were now very 
 near. Without attention to the blood streaming from 
 his brow he bent his head to listen to the faint clinking of 
 steel against rock that marked the stallion's progress 
 toward the alkali flat. The searchers were by now danger- 
 ously close, and Tim uttered a smothered oath of impatience. 
 But at last we distinctly heard the faint, soft thud of gallop- 
 ing hoofs. 
 
 The searchers heard it, too, and reined up to listen. Tim 
 thrust into my hand the 30-30 Winchester he was carrying 
 together with a box of cartridges. Then with a leap like 
 a tiger he gained the rim of the barranca. Once there, 
 however, his forces seemed to desert him. He staggered 
 forward calling in a weak voice. I could hear the volley 
 of rapid questions shot at him by the men who immediately 
 surrounded him; and his replies. Then somebody fired a 
 revolver thrice in rapid succession and the whole caval- 
 cade swept away with a mighty crackling of brush. 
 Immediately after Tim rejoined us. I had not expected 
 this. 
 
 Relieved for the moment we hurried Miss Emory rapidly 
 up the bed of the shallow wash. The tunnel mentioned was 
 part of an old mine operation, undertaken at some remote 
 period before the cattle days. It entered the base of one 
 of those isolated conical hills, lying like islands in the plain, 
 so common in Arizona. From where we had hidden it lay 
 about three miles to the northeast. It was a natural and 
 
 103 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 obvious hide out, and I had no expectation of remaining 
 unmolested. My hope lay in rescue. 
 
 We picked our way under cover of the ravine as long as 
 we could, then struck boldly across the plain. Nobody 
 seemed to be following us. A wild hope entered my heart 
 that perhaps they might believe we had all made our escape 
 to Box Springs. 
 
 As we proceeded the conviction was borne in on me that 
 the stratagem had at least saved us from immediate capture. 
 v Like most men who ride I had very sketchy ideas of what 
 three miles afoot is like at night in high heels. The 
 latter affliction was common to both Miss Emory and myself. 
 She had on a sort of bedroom slipper, and I wore the usual 
 cowboy boots. We began to go footsore about the same 
 tune, and the little rolling volcanic rocks among the bunches 
 of sacatone did not help us a bit. Tim made good time, 
 curse him. Or rather, bless him; for as I just said, if he had 
 not tolled away our mounted pursuit we would have been 
 caught as sure as-. God made little green apples. He seemed 
 as lively as a cricket, in spite of the dried blood across his face. 
 
 The moon was now sailing well above the horizon, throw- 
 ing the world into silver and black velvet. When we moved 
 hi the open we showed up like a train of cars; but, on the 
 other hand, the shadow was a cloak. It was by now nearly 
 one o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Miss Emory's nerve did not belie the clear, steadfast look 
 of her eye; but she was about all in when we reached the 
 foot of Bat-eye Butte. Tim and I had discussed the pro- 
 cedure as we walked. I was for lying in wait outside; but 
 Tim pointed out that the tunnel entrance was well down in 
 
 104 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 the boulders, that even the sharpest outlook could not be 
 sure of detecting an approach through the shadows, and 
 that from the shelter of the roof props and against the light 
 we should be able to hold off a large force almost indefinitely. 
 In any case, we would have to gamble on Brewer's winning 
 through, and having sense enough in his opium-saturated 
 mind to make a convincing yarn of it. So after a drink at 
 the tenaja below the mine we entered the black square of the 
 tunnel. 
 
 The work was old, but it had been well done. They must 
 have dragged the timbers down from the White Mountains. 
 Indeed a number of unused beams, both trunks of trees 
 and squared, still lay around outside. From time to time, 
 since the original operations, some locoed prospector comes 
 projecting along and does a little work in hopes he may find 
 something the other fellow had missed. So the passage 
 was crazy with props and supports, new and old, placed to 
 brace the ageing overhead timbers. Going in they were a 
 confounded nuisance against the bumped head; but looking 
 back toward the square of light they made fine protections 
 behind which to crouch. In this part of the country any 
 tunnel would be dry. It ran straight for about a hundred 
 and fifty feet. 
 
 We groped our way about seventy-five feet, which was as 
 far as we could make out the opening distinctly, and sat 
 down to wait. I still had the rest of the tailor-made cig- 
 arettes, which I shared with Tim. We did not talk, for we 
 wished to listen for sounds outside. To judge by her 
 breathing, I think Miss Emory dozed, or even went to 
 sleep. 
 
 105 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 About an hour later I thought to hear a single tinkle of 
 shale. Tun heard it, too, for he nudged me. Our straining 
 ears caught nothing further, however; and I, for one, had 
 relaxed from my tension when the square of light was 
 darkened by a figure. I was nearest, so I raised Cortinez's 
 gun and fired. The girl uttered a scream, and the figure 
 disappeared. I don't know yet whether I hit him or not; 
 we never found any blood. 
 
 We made Miss Emory lie down behind a little slide of 
 rock, and disposed ourselves under shelter. 
 
 "We can take them as fast as they come," exulted 
 Tim. 
 
 "I don't believe there are more than two or three of them," 
 I observed. "It would be only a scouting party. They 
 will go for help." 
 
 As there was no longer reason for concealment, we talked 
 aloud and freely. 
 
 Now ensued a long waiting interim. We could hear 
 various sounds outside as of moving to and fro. The enemy 
 had likewise no reason for further concealment. 
 
 ' Look ! ' ' suddenly cried Tim. ' ' Something crawling. " 
 
 He raised the 30-30 and fired. Before the flash and the 
 fumes had blinded me I, too, had seen indistinctly some- 
 thing low and prone gliding around the corner of the en- 
 trance. That was all we could make out of it, for as you 
 can imagine the light was almost non-existent. The thing 
 glided steadily, untouched or unmindful of the shots we 
 threw at it. When it came to the first of the crazy uprights 
 supporting the roof timbers it seemed to hesitate gropingly. 
 Then it drew slowly back a foot or so, and darted forward. 
 
 106 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 The ensuing thud enlightened us. The thing was one of 
 the long, squared timbers we had noted outside; and it was 
 being used as a battering ram. 
 
 "They'll bring the whole mountain down on us!" cried 
 Tim, springing forward. 
 
 But even as he spoke, and before he had moved two feet, 
 that catastrophe seemed at least to have begun. The prop 
 gave way: the light at the entrance was at once blotted 
 out; the air was filled with terrifying roaring echoes. There 
 followed a succession of crashes, the rolling of rocks -over 
 each other, the grinding slide of avalanches great and small. 
 We could scarcely breathe for the dust. Our danger was 
 that now the thing was started it would not stop: that the 
 antique and inadequate supports would all give way, one 
 bringing down the other in succession until we were buried. 
 Would the forces of equilibrium establish themselves through 
 the successive slight resistances of these rotted, worm- 
 eaten old timbers before the constricted space in which we 
 crouched should be entirely eaten away? 
 
 After the first great crash there ensued a moment's hesi- 
 tation. Then a second span succumbed. There followed 
 a series of minor chutes with short intervening silences. At 
 last so long an interval of calm ensued that we plucked up 
 courage to believe it all over. A single stone rolled a few 
 feet and hit the rock floor with a bang. Then, immediately 
 after, the first deafening thunder was repeated as evidently 
 another span gave way. It sounded as though the whole 
 mountain had moved. I was almost afraid to stretch out 
 my hand for fear it would encounter the wall of debris. The 
 roar ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Followed then a 
 
 107 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 long silence. Then a little cascading tinkle of shale. And 
 another dead silence. 
 
 "I believe it's over/' ventured Miss Emory, after a long 
 time. 
 
 "I'm going to find out how bad it is," I asserted. 
 
 I moved forward cautiously, my arms extended before 
 me, feeling my way with my feet. Foot after foot I went, 
 encountering nothing but the props. Expecting as I did 
 to meet an obstruction within a few paces at most, I soon 
 lost my sense of distance; after a few moments it seemed to 
 me that I must have gone much farther than the original 
 length of the tunnel. At last I stumbled over a frag- 
 ment, and so found my fingers against a rough mass of 
 debris. 
 
 "Why, this is fine!" I cried to the others, "I don't 
 believe more than a span or so has gone!" 
 
 I struck one of my few remaining matches to make sure. 
 While of course I had no very accurate mental image of the 
 original state of things, still it seemed to me there was an 
 awful lot of tunnel left. As the whole significance of our 
 situation came to me, I laughed aloud. 
 
 "Well," said I, cheerfully, "they couldn't have done 
 us a better favour! It's a half hour's job to dig us out, and 
 in the meantime we are safe as a covered bridge. We don't 
 even have to keep watch." 
 
 "Provided Brower gets through," the girl reminded us. 
 
 "He'll get through," assented Tim, positively. "There's 
 nothing on four legs can catch that Morgan stallion." 
 
 I opened my watch crystal and felt of the hands. Half- 
 past two. 
 
 108 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Four or five hours before they can get here," I an- 
 nounced. 
 
 "We'd better go to sleep, I think," said Miss Emory. 
 
 "Good idea," I approved. "Just pick your rocks and 
 go to it." 
 
 I sat down and leaned against one of the uprights, ex- 
 pecting fully to wait with what patience I might the march 
 of events. Sleep was the farthest thing from my thoughts. 
 When I came to I found myself doubled on my side with a 
 short piece of ore sticking in my ribs and eighteen or twenty 
 assorted cramp-pains in various parts of me. This was 
 all my consciousness had room to attend to for a few mo- 
 ments. Then I became dully aware of faint tinkling sounds 
 and muffled shoutings from the outer end of the tunnel. 
 I shouted in return and made my way as rapidly as possible 
 toward the late entrance. 
 
 A half hour later we crawled cautiously through a pre- 
 carious opening and stood blinking at the sunlight. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A group of about twenty men greeted our appearance 
 with a wild cowboy yell. Some of the men of our outfit 
 were there, but not all; and I recognized others from as far 
 south as the Chiracahuas. Windy Bill was there with Jed 
 Parker; but Senor Johnson's bulky figure was nowhere to 
 be seen. The other men were all riders nobody of any 
 particular standing or authority. The sun made it about 
 three o'clock of the afternoon. Our adventures had cer- 
 tainly brought us a good sleep! 
 
 After we had satisfied our thirst from a canteen we began 
 to ask and answer questions. Artie Brower had made the 
 ranch without mishap, had told his story, and had promptly 
 fallen asleep. Buck Johnson, in his usual deliberate man- 
 ner, read all the papers through twice; pondered for some 
 time while the more excited Jed and Windy fidgeted im- 
 patiently; and then, his mind made up, acted with his cus- 
 tomary decision. Three men he sent to reconnoitre in the 
 direction of the Bat-eye Tunnel with instructions to keep 
 out of trouble and to report promptly. His other riders 
 he dispatched with an insistent summons to all the leading 
 cattlemen as far south as the Chiracahua Range, as far 
 east as Grant's Pass, as far west as Madrona. Such was 
 Buck Johnson's reputation for level-headedness that with- 
 out hesitation these men saddled and rode at then: best 
 
 no 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 speed. By noon the weightiest of the Soda Spring Valley 
 had gathered in conclave. 
 
 "That's where we faded out," said Jed Parker. "They 
 sent us up to see about you-all. The scouts from up here 
 come back with their little Wild West story about knocking 
 down this yere mountain on top of you. We had to believe 
 them because they brought back a little proof with them. 
 Mex guns and spurs and such plunder looted off'n the de- 
 ceased on the field of battle. Bill here can tell you." 
 
 "They was only two of them," said Windy Bill, diffident 
 for the first time in his life, "and we managed to catch one 
 of 'em foul. We been digging here for too long. We ain't 
 no prairie dogs to go delving into the bosom of the earth. We 
 thought you must be plumb deceased anyhow: we couldn't 
 get a peep out of you. I was in favour of leavin' you lay 
 myself. This yere butte seemed like a first-rate imposing 
 tomb; and I was willing mysell to carve a few choice senti- 
 ments on some selected rock. Sure I can carve! But Jed 
 here allowed that you owed him ten dollars and maybe had 
 some money in your pocket " 
 
 "Shut up, Windy," I broke in. "Can't you see the young 
 lady " 
 
 Windy whirled all contrition and apologies. 
 
 "Don f t you mind me, ma'am," he begged. "They call 
 me Windy Bill, and I reckon that's about right. I don't 
 mean nothing. And we'd have dug all through this butte 
 before " 
 
 "I know that. It isn't your talk," interrupted Miss Emory, 
 "but the sun is hot and haven't you anything at all to 
 eat?" 
 
 in 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 " Suffering giraffes! " cried Windy above the chorus of dis- 
 may. " Lunkheads! chumps' Of all the idiot plays ever 
 made in this territory ! " He turned to the dismayed group. 
 "Ain't any one of you boys had sense enough to bring any 
 grub?" 
 
 But nobody had. The old-fashioned Arizona cowboy ate 
 only twice a day. It would never occur to him to carry a 
 lunch for noon. Still, they might have considered a rescue 
 party's probable needs. 
 
 We mounted and started for the Box Springs ranch. 
 They had at least known enough to bring extra horses. 
 
 "Old Hooper knows the cat is out of the bag now," I 
 suggested as we rode along. 
 
 "He sure does." 
 
 "Do you think he'll stick' or will he get out?" 
 
 "He'll stick." 
 
 "I don't know " I argued, doubtfully. 
 
 "I do," with great positiveness. 
 
 "Why are you so sure?" 
 
 "There are men in the brush all around his ranch to see 
 that he does." 
 
 "For heaven's sake how many have you got together?" I 
 cried, astonished. 
 
 "About three hundred," said Jed. 
 
 "What's the plan?" 
 
 "I don't know. They were chewing over it when I left 
 But I'll bet something's going to pop. There's a bunch of 
 'em on that sweet little list you-all dug up." 
 
 We rode slowly. It was near five o'clock when we pulled 
 down the lane toward the big corrals. The latter were full 
 
 112 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 of riding horses, and the fences were topped with neatly 
 arranged saddles. Men were everywhere, seated in rows 
 on top rails, gathered in groups, leaning idly against the 
 ranch buildings. There was a feeling of waiting. 
 
 We were discovered and acclaimed with a wild yell that 
 brought everybody running. Immediately we were sur- 
 rounded. Escorted by a clamouring multitude we moved 
 slowly down the lane and into the enclosure. 
 
 There awaited us a dozen men headed by Buck Johnson. 
 They emerged from the office as we drew up. At sight of 
 them the cowboys stopped, and we moved forward alone. 
 For here were the substantial men of this part of the terri- 
 tory, the old timers, who had come in the early days and 
 who had persisted through the Indian wars, .the border 
 forays, the cattle rustlings, through drought and enmity 
 and bad years. A grim, elderly, four-square, unsmiling little 
 band of granite-faced pioneers, their very appearance car- 
 ried a conviction of direct and, if necessary, ruthless action. 
 At sight of them my heart leaped. Twenty-four hours pre- 
 vious my case had seemed none too joyful. Now, mainly 
 by my own efforts, after all, I was no longer alone. 
 
 They did not waste time in vain congratulations or query. 
 The occasion was too grave for such side issues. Buck 
 Johnson said something very brief to the effect that he was 
 glad to see us safe. 
 
 "If this young lady will come in first," he suggested. 
 
 But I was emboldened to speak up. 
 
 "This young lady has not had a bite to eat since last 
 night/' I interposed. 
 
 The senor bent on me his grave look. 
 
 1*3 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Thank you," said he. "Sing!" he roared, and then to 
 the Chinaman who showed up in a nervous hover: "Give 
 this lady grub, savvy? If you'll go with him, ma'am, he'll 
 get you up something. Then we'd like to see you." 
 
 "I can perfectly well wait " she began. 
 
 "I'd rather not, ma'am," said Buck with such grave 
 finality that she merely bowed and followed the cook. 
 
 114 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 They had no tender feelings about me, however. No- 
 body cared whether I ever ate or not. I was led into the 
 little ranch office and catechized to a fare-ye-well. They 
 sat and roosted and squatted about, emitting solemn puffs 
 of smoke and speaking never a word; and the sun went 
 down in shafts of light through the murk, and the old 
 shadows of former days crept from the corners. When I 
 had finished my story it was dusk. 
 
 And on the heels of my recital came the sound of hoofs 
 in a hurry; and presently loomed in the doorway the gigan- 
 tic figure of Tom Thorne, the sheriff. He peered, seeing 
 nothing through the smoke and the twilight; and the old 
 timers sat tight and smoked. 
 
 "Buck Johnson here?" asked Thorne in his big voice. 
 
 "Here," replied the sefior. 
 
 "I am told," said Thorne, directly, "that there is here an 
 assembly for unlawful purposes. If so, I call on you in the 
 name of the law to keep the peace." 
 
 "Tom," rejoined Buck Johnson, "I want you to make me 
 your deputy." 
 
 "For what purpose?" 
 
 "There is a dispossession notice to be served hereabouts; 
 a trespasser who must be put off from property that is not 
 his." 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "You men are after Hooper, and I know it. Now you 
 can't run your neighbours' quarrels with a gun, not anymore. 
 This is a country of law now." 
 
 "Tom," repeated Buck in a reasoning tone, "come in. 
 Strike a light if you want to: and take a look around. 
 There's a lot of your friends here. There's Jim Carson over 
 in the corner, and Donald Macomber, and Marcus Malley, 
 and Dan Watkins." 
 
 At this slow telling of the most prominent names in the 
 southwest cattle industry Tom Thorne took a step into the 
 room and lighted a match. The little flame, held high above 
 his head, burned down to his fingers while he stared at the 
 impassive faces surrounding him. Probably he had thought 
 to interfere dutifully in a local affair of considerable serious- 
 ness; and there is no doubt that Tom Thorne was never 
 afraid of his duty. But here was Arizona itself gathered 
 for purposes of its own. He hardly noticed when the flame 
 scorched his fingers. 
 
 "Tom," said Buck Johnson after a moment, "I heerd tell 
 of a desperate criminal headed for Grant's Pass, and I figure 
 you can just about catch up with him if you start right now 
 and keep on riding. Only you'd better make me your 
 deputy first. It'll sort of leave things in good legal respon- 
 sible hands, as you can always easy point out if asked." 
 
 Tom gulped. 
 
 "Raise your right hand," he commanded, curtly, and ad- 
 ministered the oath. "Now I leave it in your hands to 
 preserve the peace," he concluded. "I call you all to wit- 
 ness." 
 
 "That's all right, Tom," said Buck, still in his crooning 
 
 116 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 tones, taking the big sheriff by the elbow and gently pro- 
 pelling him toward the door, "now as to this yere criminal 
 over toward Grant's Pass, he was a little bit of a runt about 
 six foot three tall; heavy set, weight about a hundred and 
 ten; light complected with black hair and eyes. You can't 
 help but find him. Tom's a good sort," he observed, coming 
 back, "but he's young. He don't realize yet that when 
 things get real serious this sheriff foolishness just nat'rally 
 bogs down. Now I reckon we'd better talk to the girl." 
 
 I made a beeline for the cook house while they did that 
 and filled up for three. By the time I had finished, the 
 conference was raised, and men were catching and saddling 
 their mounts. I did not intend to get left out, you may be 
 sure, so I rustled around and borrowed me a saddle and a 
 horse, and was ready to start with the rest. 
 
 We jogged up the road in a rough sort of column, the old 
 timers riding ahead in a group of their own. No injunction 
 had been laid as to keeping quiet; nevertheless, conversation 
 was sparse and low voiced. The men mostly rode in silence 
 smoking their cigarettes. About half way the leaders sum- 
 moned me, and I trotted up to join them. 
 
 They wanted to know about the situation of the ranch 
 as I had observed it. I could not encourage them much. 
 My recollection made of the place a thoroughly protected 
 walled fortress, capable of resisting a considerable assault. 
 
 "Of course with this gang we could sail right over them," 
 observed Buck, thoughtfully, "but we'd lose a considerable 
 of men doing it." 
 
 "Ain't no chance of sneaking somebody inside?" suggested 
 Watkins. 
 
 117 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 " Got to give Old Man Hooper credit for some sense," 
 replied the senor, shortly. 
 
 "We can starve 'em out," suggested somebody. 
 
 " Unless I miss the old man a mile he's already got a mes- 
 senger headed for the troops at Fort Huachuca," interposed 
 Macomber. " He ain't fool enough to take chances on a local 
 sheriff." 
 
 " You're tooting he ain't," approved Buck Johnson. " It's 
 got to be quick work." 
 
 " Burn him out," said Watkins. 
 
 "It's the young lady's property," hesitated my boss. "I 
 kind of hate to destroy it unless we have to." 
 
 At this moment the Morgan stallion, which I had not 
 noticed before, was reined back to join our little group. 
 Atop him rode the diminutive form of Artie Brower whom 
 I had thought down and out. He had evidently had his 
 evening's dose of hop and under the excitation of the first 
 effect had joined the party. His derby hat was flattened 
 down to his ears. Somehow it exasperated me. 
 
 " For heaven's sake why don't you get you a decent hat ! " 
 I muttered, but to myself. He was carrying that precious 
 black bag. 
 
 "Blow a hole in his old walls!" he suggested, cheerfully. 
 "That old fort was built against Injins. A man could sneak 
 up in the shadow and set her off. It wouldn't take but a 
 dash of soup to stick a hole you could ride through a-horse- 
 back." 
 
 "Soup? "echoed Buck. 
 
 "Nitroglycerine," explained Watkins, who had once been 
 a miner. 
 
 118 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Oh, sure!" agreed Buck, sarcastically. "And where'd 
 we get it?" 
 
 "I always carry a little with me just for emergencies/' 
 asserted Brower, calmly, and patted his black bag. 
 
 There was a sudden and unanimous edging away. 
 
 " For the love of Pete ! " I cried. " Was there some of that 
 stuff in there all the time Fve been carrying it around?" 
 
 "It's packed good: it can't go off," Artie reassured us. 
 " I know my biz." 
 
 "What in God's name do you want such stuff for!" cried 
 Judson. 
 
 "Oh, just emergencies," answered Brower, vaguely, but 
 I remembered his uncanny skill in opening the combination 
 of the safe. Possibly that contract between Emory and 
 Hooper had come into his hands through professional activ- 
 ities. However, that did not matter. 
 
 " I can make a drop of soup go farther than other men a 
 pint," boasted Artie. "I'll show you: and I'll show that 
 
 "You'll probably get shot," observed Buck, watching him 
 closely. 
 
 " W'at t'hell," observed Artie with an airy gesture. 
 
 "It's the dope he takes," I told Johnson aside. "It only 
 lasts about so long. Get him going before it dies on him." 
 
 " I see. Trot right along," Buck commanded. 
 
 Taking this as permission Brower clapped heels to the 
 stallion and shot away like an arrow. 
 
 "Hold on! Stop! Oh, damn!" ejaculated the senor. 
 " He'll gum the whole game ! " He spurred forward in pur- 
 suit, realized the hopelessness of trying to catch the Morgan, 
 
 119 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and reined down again to a brisk travelling canter. We sur- 
 mounted the long, slow rise this side of Hooper's in time to 
 see a man stand out in the brush, evidently for the purpose 
 of challenging the horseman. Artie paid him not the slight- 
 est attention, but swept by magnificently, the great stallion 
 leaping high in his restrained vitality. The outpost 
 promptly levelled his rifle. We saw the vivid flash in the 
 half light. B rower reeled in his saddle, half fell, caught 
 himself by the stallion's mane and clung, swinging to and 
 fro. The horse, freed of control, tossed his head, laid back 
 his ears, and ran straight as an arrow for the great doors 
 of the ranch. 
 
 We uttered a simultaneous groan of dismay. Then with 
 one accord we struck spurs and charged at full speed, grimly 
 and silently. Against the gathering hush of evening rose 
 only the drum-roll of our horses' hoofs and the dust cloud 
 of their going. Except that Buck Johnson, rising in his stir- 
 rups, let off three shots in the air; and at the signal from all 
 points around the beleagured ranch men arose from the 
 brush and mounted concealed horses, and rode out into the 
 open with rifles poised. 
 
 The stallion thundered on; and the little jockey managed 
 to cling to the saddle, though how he did it none of us could 
 tell. In the bottomland near the ranch he ran out of the 
 deeper dusk into a band of the strange, luminous after-glow 
 that follows erratically sunset in wide spaces. Then we 
 could see that he was not only holding his seat, but was 
 trying to do something, just what we could not make out. 
 The reins were flying free, so there was no question of re- 
 gaining control. 
 
 120 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 A shot flashed at him from the ranch; then a second; after 
 which, as though at command, the firing ceased. Prob- 
 ably the condition of affairs had been recognized. 
 
 All this we saw from a distance. The immensity of the 
 Arizona country, especially at dusk when the mountains 
 withdraw behind their veils and mystery flows into the 
 bottomlands, has always a panoramic quality that throws 
 small any human-sized activities. The ranch houses and 
 their attendant trees look like toys; the bands of cattle 
 and the men working them are as though viewed through 
 the reverse lenses of a glass; and the very details of mesquite 
 or sacatone flats, of alkali shallow or of oak grove are blended 
 into broad washes of tone. But now the distant, galloping 
 horse with its swaying mannikin charging on the ranch 
 seemed to fill our world. The great forces of portent that 
 hover aloof in the dusk of the desert stooped as with a rush 
 of wings. The peaceful, wide spaces and the veiled hills and 
 the brooding skies were swept clear. Crisis filled our souls : 
 crisis laid her hand on every living moving thing in the 
 world, stopping it in its tracks so that the very infinities 
 for a brief, wierd period seemed poised over the running 
 horse and the swaying, fumbling man. 
 
 At least that is the way it affected me; and subsequent 
 talk leads me to believe that that it is how it affected every 
 man jack of us. We all had different ways of expressing it. 
 Windy Bill subsequently remarked: "I felt like some old 
 Injun He- God had just told me to crawl in my hole and give 
 them that knew how a chanct." 
 
 But I know we all stopped short, frozen in our tracks, and 
 stared, and I don't believe man, or horse, drew a deep breath. 
 
 121 
 
TPIE KILLER 
 
 Nearer and nearer the stallion drew to the ranch. Now 
 he was within a few yards. In another moment he would 
 crash head on, at tremendous speed, into the closed mas- 
 sive doors. The rider seemed to have regained somewhat 
 of his strength. He was sitting straight in the saddle, was 
 no longer clinging. But apparently he was making no effort 
 to regain control. His head was bent and he was still 
 fumbling at something. The distance was too great for us 
 to make out what, but that much we could see. 
 
 On flew the stallion at undiminished speed. He was 
 running blind; and seemingly nothing could save him from 
 a crash. But at almost the last moment the great doors 
 swung back. Those within had indeed realized the situa- 
 tion and were meeting it. At the same instant Brower rose 
 in his stirrups and brought his arm forward in a wide, free 
 swing. A blinding glare flashed across the world. We felt 
 the thud and heave of a tremendous explosion. Dust oblit- 
 erated everything. 
 
 " Charge, you coyotes ! Charge ! " shrieked Buck Johnson. 
 
 And at full speed, shrieking like fiends, we swept across 
 flats. 
 
 122 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 There was no general resistance. We tumbled pell mell 
 through the breach into the courtyard, encountering only 
 terror-stricken wretches who cowered still dazed by the 
 unexpectedness and force of the explosion. In the excite- 
 ment order and command were temporarily lost. The men 
 swarmed through the ranch buildings like locusts. Senor 
 Buck Johnson and the other old timers let them go; but I 
 noticed they themselves scattered here and there keeping 
 a restraining eye on activities. There was to be no looting : 
 and that was early made plain. 
 
 But before matters had a chance to go very far we were 
 brought up all standing by the sound of shots outside. A 
 rush started in that direction: but immediately Buck John- 
 son asserted his authority and took command. He did 
 not intend to have his men shot unnecessarily. 
 
 By now it was pitch dark. A reconnaissance disclosed a 
 little battle going on down toward the water corrals. Two 
 of our men, straying in that direction, had bee* firad upon. 
 They had promptly gone down on their bellies and were 
 shooting back. 
 
 "I think they've got down behind the water troughs," 
 one of these men told me as I crawled up alongside. " Cain't 
 say how many there is. They shore do spit fire consider- 
 able. I'm just cuttin' loose where I see the flash. When 
 
 123 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 I shoot, you prepare to move and move lively. One of 
 those horned toads can sure shoot some; and it ain't healthy 
 to linger none behind your own flash." 
 
 The boys, when I crawled back with my report, were eager 
 to pile in and rush the enemy. 
 
 "Just put us a hoss-back, sefior," pleaded Windy Bill, 
 "and we'll run right over them like a Shanghai rooster over 
 a little green snake. They can't hit nothing moving fast 
 in the dark." 
 
 "You'll do just what I say," rejoined Buck Johnson, 
 fiercely. "Cow hands are scarce, and I don't aim to lose 
 one except in the line of business. If any man gets shot to- 
 night, he's out of luck. He'd better get shot good and dead ; 
 or he'll wish he had been. That goes! There can't be but 
 a few of those renegades out there, and we'll tend to them 
 in due order. Watkins," he addressed that old timer, 
 "you tend to this. Feel around cautious. Fill up the place 
 full of lead. Work your men around through the brush 
 until you get them surrounded, and then just squat and 
 shoot and wait for morning." 
 
 Watkins sent out a dozen of the nearest men to circle 
 the water troughs in order to cut off further retreat, if 
 that were projected. Then he went about methodically 
 selecting others to whom he assigned various stations. 
 
 "Now you get a-plenty of catteridges," he told them, 
 " and you lay low and shoot 'em off. And if any of you gets 
 shot I'll sure skin him alive!" 
 
 In the meantime, the locomotive lantern had been lit so 
 that the interior of the courtyard was thrown into brilliant 
 light. Needless to say the opening blown in the walls did 
 
 124 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 not face toward the water corrals. Of Artie Brower and 
 the Morgan stallion we found hardly a trace. They had 
 been literally blown to pieces. Not one of us who had 
 known him but felt in his heart a kindly sorrow for the 
 strange little man. The sentry who had fired at him and 
 who had thus, indirectly, precipitated the catastrophe, was 
 especially downcast. 
 
 "I told him to stop, and he kep' right on a-going, so I 
 shot at him," he explained. "What else was I to do? 
 How was I to know he didn't belong to that gang? He 
 acted like it." 
 
 But when you think of it how could it have come out 
 better? Poor, weak, vice-ridden, likeable little beggar, 
 what could the future have held for him? And it is prob- 
 able that his death saved many lives. 
 
 The prisoners were brought in some forty of them, for 
 Old Man Hooper maintained only the home ranch and all 
 his cow hands as well as his personal bravos were gathered 
 here. Buck Johnson separated apart seven of them, and 
 ordered the others into the stables under guard. 
 
 "Bad hombres, all of them," he observed to Jed Parker. 
 "We'll just nat'rally ship them across the line very pronto. 
 But these seven are worse than bad hombres. We'll have 
 to see about them." 
 
 But neither Andreas, Ramon, nor Old Man Hooper him- 
 self were among those present. 
 
 " Maybe they slipped out through our guards; but I doubt 
 it," said Buck. "I believe we've identified that peevish 
 lot by the water troughs." 
 
 The firing went on quite briskly for a while; then slack- 
 
 125 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ened, and finally died to an occasioned burst, mainly from 
 our own side. Under our leader's direction the men fed 
 their horses and made themselves comfortable. I was sum- 
 moned to the living quarters to explain on the spot the 
 events that had gone before. Here we examined more 
 carefully and in detail the various documents the extraor- 
 dinary directions to Ramon; the list of prospective vic- 
 tims to be offered at the tomb, so to speak, of Old Man 
 Hooper; and the copy of the agreement between Emory 
 and Hooper. The latter, as I had surmised, stated in so 
 many words that it superceded and nullified an old partner- 
 ship agreement. This started us on a further search which 
 was at last rewarded by the discovery of that original part- 
 nership. It contained, again as I had surmised, the not- 
 uncommon clause that in case of the death of one or the 
 other of the partners without direct heirs the common 
 property should revert to the other. I felt very stuck on 
 myself for a good guesser. The only trouble was that the 
 original of the second agreement was lacking: we had only 
 a copy, and of course without signatures. It will be re- 
 membered that Brower said he had deposited it with a 
 third party, and that third party was to us unknown. We 
 could not even guess in what city he lived. Of course we 
 could advertise. But Windy Bill who leaning his long 
 figure against the wall had been listening in silence a 
 pretty fair young miracle in itself had a good idea, which 
 v/as the real miracle, in my estimation. 
 
 "Look here," he broke in, "if I've been following the 
 plot of this yere dime novel correctly, it's plumb easy. Just 
 catch Jud Jud you know, the editor of the Cochise 
 
 126 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Branding Iron, and get him to telegraph a piece to the other 
 papers that Artie Brower, celebrated jockey et ceterer, has 
 met a violent death at Hooper's ranch, details as yet un- 
 known. That's the catch-word, as I savey it. When this 
 yere third party sees that, he goes and records the paper, 
 and there you are!" 
 
 Windy leaned back dramatically and looked exceedingly 
 pleased with himself. 
 
 "Yes, that's it," approved Buck, briefly, which disap- 
 pointed Windy, who was looking for high encomium. 
 
 At this moment a messenger came in from the firing 
 party to report that apparently all opposition had ceased. 
 At least there had been for some time no shooting from the 
 direction of the water troughs; a fact concealed from us by 
 the thickness of the ranch walls. Buck Johnson imme- 
 diately went out to confer with Watkins. 
 
 "I kind of think we've got 'em all," was the latter's 
 opinion. "We haven't had a sound out of 'em for a half 
 hour. It may be a trick, of course." 
 
 "Sure they haven't slipped by you?" suggested the 
 senor. 
 
 "Pretty certain. We've got a close circle." 
 
 "Well, I wouldn't take chances in the dark. Just lay 
 low 'till morning." 
 
 We returned to the ranch house where, after a little 
 further discussion, I bedded down and immediately fell 
 into a deep sleep. This was more and longer continued 
 excitement than I was used to. 
 
 I was afoot with the first stirrings of dawn, you may be 
 sure, and out to join the party that moved with infinite 
 
 127 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 precaution on the water troughs as soon as it was light 
 enough to see clearly. We found them riddled with bullets 
 and the water all run out. Gleaming brass cartridges scat- 
 tered, catching the first rays of the sun, attested the vigour 
 of the defence. Four bodies lay huddled on the ground 
 under the partial shelter of the troughs. I saw Ramon, 
 his face frowning and sinister even in death, his right hand 
 still grasping tenaciously the stock of his Winchester; and 
 Andreas flat on his face; and two others whom I did not 
 recognize. Ramon had been hit at least four times. But 
 of Hooper himself was no hide nor hair! So certain had we 
 been that he had escaped to this spot with his familiars 
 that we were completely taken aback at his absence. 
 
 "We got just about as much sense as a bunch of sheep- 
 men!" cried Buck Johnson, exasperated. "He's probably 
 been hiding out somewhere about the place. God knows 
 where he is by now!" 
 
 But just as we were about to return to the ranch house we 
 were arrested by a shout from one of the cowboys who had 
 been projecting around the neighbourhood. He came 
 running to us. In his hand he held a blade of sacatone on 
 which he pointed out a single dark spot about the size of 
 the head of a pin. Buck seized it and examined it closely. 
 
 "Blood, all right," he said at last. "Where did you get 
 this, son?" 
 
 The man, a Chiracahua hand named Curley something- 
 or-other, indicated a sacatone bottom a hundred yards to the 
 west. 
 
 "You got good eyes, son," Buck complimented him. 
 "Think you can make out the trail?" 
 
 128 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Do'no," said Curley. "Used to do a considerable of 
 tracking." 
 
 "Horses!" commanded Buck. 
 
 We followed Curley afoot while several men went to 
 saddle up. On the edge of the two-foot jump-off we grouped 
 ourselves waiting while Curley, his brows knit tensely, 
 quartered here and there like a setter dog. He was a good 
 trailer, you could see that in a minute. He went at it right. 
 After quite a spell he picked up a rock and came back to 
 show it. I should never have noticed anything merely 
 another tiny black spot among other spots but Buck 
 nodded instantly he saw it. 
 
 "It's about ten rods west of whar I found the grass/' 
 said Curley. "Looks like he's headed for that water in 
 Cockeye Basin. From thar he could easy make Cochise 
 when he got rested." 
 
 "Looks likely," agreed Buck. "Can't you find no foot- 
 prints?" 
 
 "Too much tramped up by cowboys and other jack- 
 asses," said Curley. "It'll come easier when we get out- 
 side this yere battlefield." 
 
 He stood erect, sizing up the situation through half- 
 squinted eyes. 
 
 "You-all wait here," he decided. "Chances are he kept 
 right on up the broad wash." 
 
 He mounted one of the horses that had now arrived and 
 rode at a lope to a point nearly half a mile west. There he 
 dismounted and tied his horse to the ground. After rather 
 a prolonged search he raised his hand over his head and 
 described several small horizontal circles in the air. 
 
 129 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Been in the army, have you?" muttered Buck; "well, I 
 will say you're a handy sort of leather-leg to have around. 
 He gave the soldier signal for 'assemble'," he answered Jed 
 Parker's question. 
 
 We rode over to join Curley. 
 
 "It's all right; he came this way," said the latter; but he 
 did not trouble to show us indications. I am a pretty fair 
 game trailer myself, but I could make out nothing. 
 
 We proceeded slowly, Curley afoot leading his horse. 
 The direction continued to be toward Cockeye. Sometimes 
 we could all see plain footprints; again the trail was, at 
 least as far as I was concerned, a total loss. Three times 
 we found blood, once in quite a splash. Occasionally even 
 Curley was at fault for a few moments; but in general he 
 moved forward at a rapid walk. 
 
 "This Curley person is all right," observed Windy Bill 
 after a while, "I was brung up to find my way about, and 
 I can puzzle out most anywhere a critter has gone and left 
 a sign; but this yere Curley can track a humming bird acrost 
 a granite boulder! " 
 
 After a little while Curley stopped for us to catch 
 up. 
 
 "Seems to me no manner of doubt but what he's headed 
 for Cockeye," he said. "There ain't no other place for him 
 to go out this way. I reckon I can pick up enough of this 
 trail just riding along. If we don't find no sign at Cockeye, 
 we can just naturally back track and pick up where he 
 turned off. We'll save time that-away, and he's had plenty 
 of time to get thar and back again." 
 
 So Curley mounted and we rode on at a walk on the horse 
 
 130 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 trail that led up the broad, shallow wash that came out of 
 Cockeye. 
 
 Curley led, of course. Then rode Buck Johnson and 
 Watkins and myself. I had horned in on general principles, 
 and nobody kicked. I suppose they thought my general en- 
 tanglement with this extraordinary series of events entitled 
 me to more than was coming to me as ordinary cow hand. 
 For a long time we proceeded in silence. Then, as we 
 neared the hills, Buck began to lay out his plan. 
 
 "When we come up on Cockeye," he was explaining, "I 
 want you to take a half dozen men or so and throw around 
 the other side on the Cochise trail 
 
 His speech was cut short by the sound of a rifle shot. 
 The country was still flat, unsuited for concealment or de- 
 fence. We were riding carelessly. A shivering shock ran 
 through my frame and my horse plunged wildly. For an 
 instant I thought I must be hit, then I saw that the bullet 
 had cut off cleanly the horn of my saddle within two 
 inches of my stomach! 
 
 Surprise paralyzed us for th fraction of a second. Then 
 we charged the rock pile from which the shot had come. 
 
 We found there Old Man Hooper seated in a pool of his 
 own blood. He had been shot through the body and was 
 dead. His rifle lay across a rock, trained carefully on the 
 trail. How long he had sat there nursing the vindictive 
 spark of his vitality nobody will ever know certainly for 
 some hours. And the shot delivered had taken from him 
 the last flicker of life. 
 
 "By God, he was sure game!" Buck Johnson pro- 
 nounced his epitaph. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 We cleaned up at the ranch and herded our prisoners 
 together and rode back to Box Springs. The seven men 
 who had been segregated from the rest by Buck Johnson 
 were not among them. I never found out what had become 
 of them nor who had executed whatever decrees had been 
 pronounced against them. There at the home ranch we 
 found Miss Emory very anxious, excited, and interested. 
 Buck and the others in authority left me to inform her of 
 what had taken place. 
 
 I told you some time back that this is no love story; but 
 I may as well let you in on the whole sequel to it, and get it 
 off my chest. Windy's scheme brought immediate results. 
 The partnership agreement was recorded, and after the usual 
 legal red-tape Miss Emory came into the property. She 
 had to have a foreman for the ranch, and hanged if she 
 didn't pick on me! Think of that; me an ordinary, forty- 
 dollar cow puncher! I tried to tell her that it was all plumb 
 foolishness, that running a big cattle ranch was a man-sized 
 job and took experience, but she wouldn't listen. Women 
 are like that. She'd seen me blunder in and out of a series 
 of adventures and she thought that settled it, that I was a 
 great man. After arguing with her quite some time about 
 it, I had to give in; so I spit on my hands and sailed in to 
 do my little darndest. I expected the men who realized 
 
 132 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 fully how little I knew about it all would call me a brash 
 damn fool or anyway give me the horse laugh; but I 
 fooled myself. They were mightily decent. Jed Parker 
 or Sam Wooden or Windy Bill were always just hap- 
 pening by and roosting on the corral rails. Then if I lis- 
 tened to them and I always did I learned a heap about 
 what I ought to do. Why, even Buck Johnson himself came 
 and stayed at the ranch with me for more than a week at the 
 time of the fall round-up: and he never went near the riding, 
 but just projected around here and there looking over my 
 works and ways. And in the evenings he would smoke and 
 utter grave words of executive wisdom which I treasured 
 and profited by. 
 
 If a man gives his whole mind to it, he learns practical 
 things fast. Even a dumb-head Wop gets his English 
 rapidly when he's where he has to talk that or nothing. 
 Inside of three years I had that ranch paying, and paying 
 big. It was due to my friends whom I had been afraid of, 
 and I'm not ashamed to say so. There's Herefords on our 
 range now instead of that lot of heady long-horns Old Man 
 Hooper used to run; and we're growing alfalfa and hay in 
 quantity for fattening when they come in off the ranges. 
 Got considerable hogs, too, and hogs are high nothing but 
 pure blood Poland. I figure I've added fully fifty per 
 cent., if not more, to the value of the ranch as it came to 
 me. No, I'm not bragging; I'm explaining how came it I 
 married my wife and figured to keep my self-respect. I'd 
 have married her anyhow. We've been together now fifteen 
 years, and I'm here to say that she's a humdinger of a girl, 
 game as a badger, better looking every day, knows cattle 
 
 133 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and alfalfa and sunsets and sonatas and Poland hogs but 
 I said this was no love story, and it isn't! 
 
 The day following the taking of the ranch and the death of 
 Old Man Hooper we put our prisoners on horses and started 
 along with them toward the Mexican border. Just out- 
 side of Soda Springs whom should we meet up with but big 
 Tom Thome, the sheriff. 
 
 "Evenin', Buck," said he. 
 
 "Evening " replied the senor. 
 
 "What you got here?" 
 
 "This is a little band of religious devotees fleein' per- 
 secution," said Buck. 
 
 "And what are you up to with them?" asked Thorne. 
 
 "We're protecting them out of Christian charity from the 
 dangers of the road until they reach the Promised Land." 
 
 "I see," said Thorne, reflectively. "Whereabouts lays 
 this Promised Land?" 
 
 "About sixty mile due south." 
 
 "You sure to get them all there safe and sound I sup- 
 pose you'd be willing to guarantee that nothing's going to 
 happen to them, Buck?" 
 
 "I give my word on that, Tom." 
 
 "All right," said Thorne, evidently relieved. He threw 
 his leg over the horn of his saddle. "How about that little 
 dispossession matter, deputy? You ain't reported on that." 
 
 "It's all done and finished." 
 
 "Have any trouble?" 
 
 "Nary trouble," said Senor Buck Johnson, blandly, "all 
 went off quiet and serene." 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Sierra Nevadas of California are very wide and very 
 high. Kingdoms could be lost among the denies of their 
 ranges. Kingdoms have been found there. One of them 
 was Bright's Cove. 
 
 It happened back in the seventies. Old Man Bright 
 was prospecting. He had come up from the foothills ac- 
 companied by a new but stolid Indian wife. After he had 
 grubbed around a while on old Italian bar and had succeeded 
 in washing out a little colour, she woke up and took a slight 
 interest in the proceedings. 
 
 "You like catch dat?" she grunted, contemptuously. 
 "Heap much over dere!" 
 
 She waved an arm. Old Man Bright girded his loins and 
 packed his jackass. After incredible scramblings the two 
 succeeded in surmounting the ranges and in dropping sheer 
 to the mile-wide round valley through which flowed the 
 river the broad, swift mountain river, with the snow-white 
 rapids and the swirling translucent green of very thick grass. 
 They were very glad to reach the grass at the bottom, but 
 a little doubtful on how to get out. The big mountains took 
 root at the very edge of the tiny round valley; the river 
 flowed out of a gorge at one end and into a gorge at the other. 
 
 155 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Guess the sun don't rise here 'til next morning/' com- 
 mented Old Man Bright. The squaw was too busy even to 
 grunt. 
 
 In six years Old Man Bright was worth six million dollars, 
 all taken from the ledges of Bright's Cove. Of this amount he 
 had been forced to let go of a small proportion for mill machin- 
 ery and labour. He had also invested twenty-five thousand 
 dollars in a road. It was a steep road, and a picturesque. 
 It wound in and out and around, by loops, lacets, and hair- 
 pins, dropping down the face of the mountain in unheard- 
 of grades and turns. Nothing was ever hauled up it, save 
 yellow bars of bullion so that did not matter. Down it, 
 with a shriek of brakes, a cloud of dust, a clank of harness 
 and a rumble of oaths, came divers matters, such as machin- 
 ery, glassware, whiskey, mirrors, ammunition, and pianos. 
 From any one of a dozen bold points on this road one could 
 see far down and far up its entire white, thread-like length. 
 The tiny crawling teams each with its puff of dust crawling 
 with it; the great tumbled peaks of the Sierras; the river so 
 far below as to resemble a little stream, the round Cove 
 with its toy houses and its distant ant-like industry 
 all these were plainly to be seized by a glance of whatever 
 eye cared to look. 
 
 As time went on a great many teams and pack trains and 
 saddle animals climbed up and down that road. Bright's 
 Cove became quite a town. Old Man Bright made six 
 millions; other men aggregated nearly four millions more; 
 still others acquired deep holes and a deficit. It might be 
 remarked in passing that the squaw acquired experience, a 
 calico dress or so, and a final honourable discharge. Being 
 
 136 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 an Indian she quite cheerfully went back to pounding acorns 
 in a metate. 
 
 In the fifth year of prosperity there drifted into camp 
 two men, possessed of innocence, three mules, and a thou- 
 sand dollars. They retained the mules; and, it is to be pre- 
 sumed, at least a portion of the innocence. 
 
 The thousand dollars went to the purchase of the Lost 
 Dog from Barney Fallan. The Lost Dog consisted quite 
 simply of a hole in the ground guarded by an excellent five 
 stamp-mill. The latter's existence could only be explained 
 by the incurable optimism of Barney Fallan certainly 
 not by the contents of the hole in the ground. To the older 
 men of the camp it seemed a shame, for the newcomers 
 were nice, fresh-cheeked, clear-eyed lads to whom every- 
 thing was new and strange and wonderful, their enthusiasm 
 was contagious, and their cheerful command of vernacular 
 exceedingly heart-warming. California John, then a man 
 in his forties, tried to head off the deal. 
 
 "Look here, son," said he to Gaynes. "Don't do it. 
 There's nothin' in it. Take my word." 
 
 "But Fallan's got a good stamp-mill all ready for busi- 
 ness, and the ledge " 
 
 "Son," said California John, "every once in a while the 
 Lord gets to experimentin' makin' brains for a new species 
 of jackass, and when he runs out of donkeys to put 'em 
 
 "Meaning me?" demanded Gaynes, his fair skin turning 
 a deep red. 
 
 "Not at all. Meanin' Barney Fallan." 
 Nevertheless the Babes, as the Gaynes brothers were 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 speedily nicknamed, paid over their good thousand for 
 Barney's worthless prospect with the imposing but ridicu- 
 lous stamp-mill. There they set cheerfully to work. After 
 a week's desperate and clanking experiment they got the 
 machinery under way and began to run rock through the 
 crushers. 
 
 "It ain't even ore!" expostulated California John. 
 "Why, son, it's only country rock. Go down on your shaft 
 until you strike a pan test, anyway! You're wasting time 
 and fuel and Oh, hell! " he broke off hopelessly at the sight 
 of the two cherubic faces upturned respectful but uncon- 
 vinced. 
 
 "But you never can tell where you will find gold," broke 
 in Jimmy, eagerly. "That's been proved over and over 
 again. I heard one fellow say once that they thought they'd 
 never find gold in hornblende. But they did." 
 
 California John stumped home in indignant disgust. 
 
 "Damn little ijits!" he exploded. "Pigheaded! Stub- 
 born as a pair of mules! " The recollection of the scrubbed 
 red cheeks, the clear, puppy-dog, frank brown eyes, the close- 
 curling brown hair, forced his lips to a wry grin. "Just like 
 I was at that age," he admitted. He sighed. "Well, 
 they'll drop their little pile, of course. The only ray of 
 hope's the experience that old Bible fellow had with them 
 turkey buzzards or was it ravens?" 
 
 The Babes pecked away for about a month, full of tribula- 
 tion and questions. They seemed to depend almost equally 
 on optimism and chance, in both of which they had supreme 
 faith. A huge horseshoe was tacked over the door of the 
 stamp-mill. Jimmy Gaynes always spat over his right 
 
 138 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 shoulder before doing a day's work. They never walked 
 under the short ladders leading to the hoppers. Neither 
 would they permit visitors to their shafts. To California 
 John and his friend Tibbetts they interposed scandalized 
 objections. 
 
 "It's bad luck to let another man in your shaft!" cried 
 George. "I'm no high-brow on this mining proposition, 
 but I know enough for that." 
 
 "Bad as playing opposite a cross-eyed man," said Jimmy. 
 
 "Or holding Jacks full on Eights," supplemented George, 
 conclusively. 
 
 "You're about as wise as a treeful of owls," said California 
 John, sarcastically. "But, Lord love you, I ain't cherishin' 
 any very burnin' ambition to crawl down your snake hole." 
 
 The Babes used up their provisions; they went about as 
 far as they could on credit; they harrowed the feelings of 
 the community and then, in a very mild way, they struck 
 it. Together they drifted down the single street of the 
 camp, arm in arm, an elaborate nonchalance steadying 
 their steps. Near the horse trough they paused. 
 
 " Gold, " said Jimmy, oracularly, to George, "is where you 
 find it." 
 
 "Likewise horse sense," quoth George. 
 
 Whereupon they whooped wildly and descended on the 
 astonished group. To it they exhibited yellow dust to the 
 value of an hundred dollars. "And more where that came 
 from," said they. 
 
 "What kind of rock did you find it in?" demanded Tib- 
 betts, after he had recovered his breath from the youngsters' 
 enthusiastic man-handling. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Oh, a kind of red, pasty-looking rock," said they. 
 
 "Show us," demanded the miners. 
 
 "What?" cried Jimmy, astounded, "and give Old Man 
 Luck the backhand slap just when he's decided to buy a 
 corner lot in the Gaynes Addition? Not on your saccharine 
 existence!" 
 
 "But well show you some more of this to-morrow Q. M.," 
 said George. 
 
 They bought drinks all round, and paid their various bills, 
 and departed again feverishly to the Lost Dog whence rose 
 smoke and clankings. And next day, sure enough, they 
 left their work just long enough to exhibit another respect- 
 able little clean-up of fifty dollars or so. 
 
 "And we're just getting into it!" said George, triumph- 
 antly. 
 
 California John and all the rest of his good friends rejoiced 
 exceedingly and genuinely. They liked the Babes. The 
 little strike of the Lost Dog quite overshadowed in import- 
 ance the fact that old man Bright's "Clarice" had run into 
 a fabulously rich pocket. 
 
 The end of the month drew near. The Lost Dog had 
 produced nearly eight hundred dollars. The Babes waxed 
 important and talked largely of their moneyed interests. 
 
 "I think," said Jimmy, importantly, "that we will decide 
 to keep three hundred dollars to boost the game; and nail 
 down the rest where moths won't corrupt. Where do you 
 fellows salt your surplus, anyway? " 
 
 "There's an express goes out pretty soon," someone ex- 
 plained, "with the clean-up of the Clarice. We send our 
 dust out with that; and I reckon you can fix it with Bright." 
 
 140 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 They saw Bright, but ran up against an unexpected 
 difficulty. Old Man Bright received them with considera- 
 ble surliness. He considered himself as the originator, dis- 
 coverer, inventor, and almost the proprietor of Bright's Cove 
 and all it contained. Therefore, when he first heard of the 
 new strike, he walked up to the Lost Dog to see what it 
 looked like. The Babes, panic stricken at the intended 
 affront to "Old Man Luck," headed him off. Bright had 
 not the least belief in the reason given. He surveyed them 
 with disfavour. 
 
 " I can't take your package/' he told them. " Send it out 
 yourself." 
 
 "And that old skunk has cleaned up a hundred thousand 
 this month!" complained Jimmy, pathetically, to the group 
 around the horse trough. "And he won't even take a pore 
 little five hundred package of dust out to some suffering 
 bank! I suppose I'll have to cache it in a tomato can for 
 Johnson's old billy goat to chew up." 
 
 "Bring it over and I'll shove it in with mine," suggested 
 California John. 
 
 So it was done. The express, carrying nearly four hundred 
 pounds of gold dust, set forth over the steep road. In two 
 hours ths driver and messenger sailed in, bung-eyed with 
 excitement. They had been held up by a single road agent. 
 
 "He come out right on that point of rocks where you can 
 see the whole valley," said the driver in answer to many 
 questions, "right where the heavy grade is and the thick 
 chaparral. We was busy climbing; and he had us before we 
 could wink. Made us drop off the dust and 'bout face. He 
 was a big, tall feller; and had a sawed-off Winchester. 
 
 141 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Once, when we stopped, he dropped a bullet right behind 
 us. He must have watched us all the way to camp." 
 
 The camp turned out. As the men passed the Lost Dog 
 someone yelled to the Babes. George, covered with mud, 
 came to the door of the mill. 
 
 " Gee! " said he. "Lucky we saved out that three hundred. 
 I'm powerful sorry for that suffering bank. I'll join you 
 as soon as I can get Jimmy up out of the shaft." Before 
 the party had gone a mile they were joined by the brothers 
 boyishly eager over this new excitement. 
 
 The men toiled up the road to where the robbery had 
 taken place. Plainly to be seen were the marks of the 
 man's boots. The tracks of a single horse, walking, followed 
 the man. 
 
 "He packed off the dust, and he had an almighty big 
 horse to carry it," pronounced someone. 
 
 They followed the trail. It led a half mile to a broad 
 sheet of rock. There it disappeared. On one side the bank 
 rose twenty or thirty feet. On the other it fell away 
 nearly a hundred. On the other side of the sheet of rock 
 stretched the dusty road unbroken by anything more re- 
 cent than the wheel-tracks of the day before. It was 
 as though man and horse had taken unto themselves 
 wings. 
 
 Immediately Bright took active charge of the posse. 
 
 "Stand here, on this rock," he commanded. "This 
 road's been tracked up too much already. You, John, and 
 Tibbetts and Simmins, there, come 'long with me to see 
 what you can make out." 
 
 The old mountaineers retraced their steps, examining 
 
 142 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 carefully every inch of the ground. They returned vastly 
 puzzled. 
 
 "No sabe," California John summed up their investiga- 
 tions. "There's the man's track leadin' his hoss. The 
 boss had on new shoes, and the robber did his own shoeing. 
 So we ain't got any blacksmiths to help us." 
 
 "How do you know he shod the horse himself?" asked 
 Jimmy Gaynes. 
 
 "Shoes just alike on front and back feet. Shows he 
 must just have tacked on ready-made shoes. A blacksmith 
 shapes 'em different. Those tracks leads right up to this 
 rock : and here they quit. If you can figger how a horse, a 
 man, and nigh four hundredweight of gold dust got off 
 this rock, I'll be obleeged." 
 
 The men looked up at the perpendicular cliff to their 
 right; over the sheer precipice at their left; and upon the 
 untracked deep, white dust ahead. 
 
 "Furthermore," California John went on, impressively, 
 after a moment, "where did that man and that hoss come 
 from in the beginning? Not from up this way. They's 
 no fresh tracks comin' down the road no more than they's 
 fresh tracks goin' up. Not from camp. They's no tracks 
 whatsomever on the road below, except our'n and the stage 
 outfit's." 
 
 "Are you sure of that?" asked Jimmy, his eyes shining 
 with interest. 
 
 "Sartin sure," replied California John, positively. "We 
 didn't take no chances on that." 
 
 "Then he must have come into the road from up the 
 mountain or down the mountain." 
 
 143 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Where?" demanded California John. "A man afoot 
 might scramble down in one or two places; but not a hoss. 
 They ain't no tracks either side the muss-up where the ex- 
 press was stopped. And at that p'int the mountain is 
 straight up and down, like it is here." 
 
 They talked it over, and argued it, and regxamined the 
 evidence, but without avail. The stubborn facts remained : 
 Between the hold-up and the sheet of rock was one set of 
 tracks going one way; elsewhere, nothing. 
 
 144 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Nearly a year passed. If it had not been for the very 
 tangible loss of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the 
 little community at Bright's Cove might almost have come 
 to doubt the evidence of their senses and the accuracy of 
 their memories, so fantastic on sober reflection did all the 
 circumstances become. Even the indisputable four hun- 
 dred pounds of gold could not quite avert an unconfessed 
 suspicion of the uncanny. Miners are superstitious folk. 
 Old Man Bright remembered the parting and involved 
 curses of his squaw before she went back to her acorns and 
 pine nuts. To Tibbetts alone he imparted a vague hint 
 of the imaginings into which he had fallen. But he brooded 
 much, seeking a plausible theory that would not force him 
 back on the powers of darkness. This he did not find. 
 
 Nor did any other man. It remained a mystery, a single 
 bizarre anomaly in the life of the camp. For some time 
 thereafter the express went heavily guarded. The road 
 was patrolled. Jimmy or George Gaynes in person ac- 
 companied each shipment of dust. Their pay streak held 
 out, increased steadily in value. They would hire no assist- 
 ance for the actual mining in the shaft, although they had 
 several hands to work at the mill. One month they cleaned 
 up twelve thousand dollars. 
 
 "You bet I'm going," said Jimmy, "I don't care if it is 
 
 145 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 only a little compared to what Bright and you fellows are 
 sending. It's a heap sight to us, and I'm going to see it 
 safe to the city. No more spooks in mine. I got my 
 fingers crossed. Allah skazallalum! I don't know what a 
 ghost would want with cash assets, but they seemed to use 
 George's and my little old five hundred, all right." 
 
 Twelve months went by. Two expresses a month toiled 
 up the road. Nothing happened. Finally Jimmy decided 
 that four good working days a month were a good deal to pay 
 for apparently useless supervision. Three men comprised 
 the shot-gun guard. They, with the driver, were considered 
 ample. 
 
 "You'll have to get on without me," said Jimmy to them 
 in farewell. "Be good boys. We've got the biggest 
 clean-up yet aboard you." 
 
 They started on the twenty-fifth trip since the hold-up. 
 After a time, far up the mountain was heard a single shot. 
 Inside of two hours the express drew sorrowfully into camp. 
 The driver appeared to be alone. In the bottom of the 
 wagon were the three guards weak and sick. The gold 
 sacks were very much absent. 
 
 "Done it again," said the driver. "Ain't more than got 
 started afore the whole outfit's down with the belly-ache. 
 Too much of that cursed salmon. Told 'em so. I didn't 
 eat none. That road agent hit her lucky this trip sure. 
 He was all organized for business. Never showed himself 
 at all. Just opened fire. Sent a bullet through the top 
 of my hat. He's either a damn good shot or a damn poor 
 one. I hung up both hands and yelled we was down and 
 out. What could I do? This outfit couldn't a fit a bumble 
 
 146 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 bee. And I couldn't git away, or git hold of no gun, or 
 see anything to shoot, if I did. He was behind that big 
 rock." 
 
 The men nodded. They were many of them hard hit, 
 but they had lived too long in the West not to recognize 
 the justice of the driver's implied contention that he had 
 done his best. 
 
 "He told me to throw out them sacks, and to be damn 
 quick about it, ' ' went on the driver. ' ' Then I drove home." 
 
 "What sort of a lookin' fellow was he?" asked someone. 
 "Same one as last year?" 
 
 "I never seen him/' said the driver. "He hung behind 
 his rock. He was organized for shoot, and if the messengers 
 hadn't happened to' a' been out of it, I believe he could 
 have killed us all." 
 
 "What did his hoss look like?" inquired California John. 
 
 "He didn't have no horse," stated the driver. "Least- 
 ways, not near him. There was no cover. He might have 
 been around a p'int. And I can sw'ar to this : there weren't 
 no tracks of no kind from there to camp." 
 
 They caught up horses and started out. When they came 
 to the Lost Dog, they stopped and looked at each other. 
 
 "Poor old Babes," said Simmins. "Biggest clean-up 
 yet; and first time one of 'em didn't go 'long." 
 
 "I'm glad they didn't," said Tibbetts. "That agent 
 would have killed 'em shore!" 
 
 They called out the Gaynes brothers and broke the news. 
 For once the jovial youngsters had no joke to make. 
 
 "This is getting serious," said Jimmy, seriously. "We 
 can't afford to lose that much." 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 George whistled dolefully, and went into the corral for 
 the mules. 
 
 The party toiled up the mountain. Plainly in the dust 
 could be made out the trail of the express ascending and 
 descending. Plain also were the signs where the driver 
 had dumped out the gold bags and turned around. From 
 that point the tracks of a man and a horse led to the sheet 
 of rock. Beyond that, nothing. 
 
 The men stared at each other a little frightened. Some- 
 body swore softly. 
 
 "Boys," said Bright in a strained voice, "do you know 
 how much was in that express? A half million! There's 
 nary earthly hoss can carry over half a ton ! And this one 
 treads as light as a saddler." 
 
 They looked at each other blankly. Several even glanced 
 in apprehension at the sky. 
 
 In a perfunctory manner, for the sake of doing something, 
 those skilled in trail-reading went back over the ground. 
 Nothing was added to the first experience. At the point 
 of robbery magically had appeared a man and if the stage 
 driver's solemn assertion that at the time of the hold-up 
 no animal was in sight could be believed subsequently, 
 when needed, a large horse. Whence had they come? 
 Not along the road in either direction: the unbroken, deep 
 dust assured that. Not down the mountain from above, 
 for the cliff rose sheer for at least three hundred feet. 
 Jimmy Gaynes, following unconsciously the general train 
 of conjecture, craned his neck over the edge of the road. 
 The broken jagged rock and shale dropped off an hundred 
 feet to a tangle of manzanita and snowbrush. 
 
 148 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 California John looked over, too. 
 
 "Couldn't even get sheep up that," said he, "let alone a 
 sixteen-hand horse." 
 
 Old Man Bright was sunk in a superstitious torpor. He 
 had lost hundreds of thousands where he would have hated 
 to spend pennies; yet the financial part of the loss hardly 
 touched him. He mumbled fearfully to himself, and took 
 not the slightest interest in the half-hearted attempts to 
 read the mystery. When the others moved, he moved with 
 them, because he was afraid to be left alone. 
 
 After the men had assured themselves again and again 
 that the horse and the man had apparently materialized 
 from thin air exactly at the point of robbery, they again 
 followed the tracks to the broad sheet of rock. Whither 
 had the robber gone? Back into the thin air whence he 
 had come. There was no other solution. No tracks ahead ; 
 an absolute and physical impossibility of anything without 
 wings getting up or down the flanking precipices these 
 were the incontestable facts. 
 
 After this second robbery a gloom descended on Bright's 
 Cove which lasted through many months. Old Man 
 Bright hunted out the squaw with whom he had first dis- 
 covered the diggings, and set her up in an establishment 
 with gay curtains, glass danglers and red doileys. Each 
 month he paid for her provisions and sent to her a sum of 
 money. In this manner, at least, the phantom road agent 
 had furthered the ends of justice. The sop to the powers 
 of darkness appeared to be effective in this respect: no more 
 hold-ups occurred; no more mysterious tracks appeared 
 in the dust; gradually men's minds swung back to the bal- 
 
 149 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 anced and normal, and the life of the camp went forward on 
 its appointed way. 
 
 Nevertheless, certain effects remained. Each express 
 went out heavily guarded, and preceded and followed by 
 men on horseback. Strangely enough the gamblers left camp. 
 In a little more than a year Old Man Bright fell into a settled 
 melancholia from which his millions never helped him to the 
 very day of his death a little more than a year later. 
 
 In the meantime, however varied the fortunes of the other 
 mines and prospects, the Lost Dog continued to work 
 toward a steadily increasing paying basis. It never reached 
 the proportions of the Clarice, but turned out an increasing 
 value of dust at each clean-up. The Gaynes boys two years 
 before had been in debt for their groceries. Now they were 
 said to have shipped out something like three or four hun- 
 dred thousand dollars' worth of gold. Their friends used 
 to wander down for the regular clean-up, just to rejoice over 
 the youngsters 7 deserved good luck. The little five stamp- 
 mill crunched away steadily; the water flowed; and in the 
 riffles the heavy gold dust accumulated. 
 
 "Why don't you-all put up a big mill, throw in a crew of 
 men, and get busy?" they were asked. 
 
 "I'll tell you," replied George, "it's because we know a 
 heap sight more about mining than we did when we came 
 here. We have just one claim, and from all indications 
 it's only a pocket. The Clarice is on a genuine lode; but 
 we're likely to run into a 'horse' or pinch out most any min- 
 ute. When we do, it's all over but a few faint cries of fraud. 
 And we can empty that pocket just as well with a little 
 jerkwater outfit like this as we could with a big crew and 
 
 150 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 a real mill. It'll take a little longer; but we're pulling it 
 and quick enough." 
 
 "Those Babes have more sense than we gave 'em credit 
 for," commented California John. "Their heads are level. 
 They're dead right about it's bein' a pocket. The stuff 
 they run through there is the darndest mixture 7 ever see 
 gold in." 
 
 Two months after this conversation the Babes drifted 
 into camp to announce that the expected pinch had 
 come. 
 
 "We're going," said Jimmy. "We have a heap plenty 
 dust salted away; and there's not a colour left in the Lost 
 Dog. The mill machinery is for sale cheap. Any one can 
 have the Lost Dog who wants it. We're going out to see 
 what makes the wheels go 'round. You boys have a first 
 claim on us wherever you find us. You've sure been good 
 to us. If you catch that spook, send us one of his tail 
 feathers. It would be worth just twelve thousand five 
 hundred to us." 
 
 They sold the stamp-mill for almost nothing; packed eight 
 animals with heavy things they had accumulated; and de- 
 parted up the steep white road, over the rim to the outer 
 world whence came no word of them more. The camp 
 went on prospering. Old Man Bright died. The heavily 
 guarded express continued to drag out yellow gold by the 
 hundredweight. 
 
 About six weeks after the departure of the Babes, Califor- 
 nia John saddled up his best horse, put on his best overalls, 
 strapped about him his shiny worn Colt's .45 and departed 
 for his semi-annual visit to the valleys and the towns. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 A week later he returned. It was about dusk. At the 
 water trough he dismounted. 
 
 "Boys," said he, quietly, "I've been held up." He eyed 
 them quizzically. "Up by the slide rock," he continued, 
 "and by the spook." 
 
 "Who was he?" "What was it?" they cried, starting 
 to their feet. 
 
 "It was Jimmy Gaynes," replied California John. 
 
 "The Babe?" someone broke the stunned silence at last. 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 "Well, I'll be damned!" cried Tibbetts. 
 
 "Did he get much off you?" asked a miner after another 
 pause. 
 
 "He never took a thing." 
 
 And on that, being much besieged, California John sat 
 him down and told of his experience. 
 
 152 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 California John was discursive and interested and dis- 
 inclined to be hurried. He crossed one leg over the other 
 and lit his pipe. 
 
 "I was driftin' down the road busy with my own idees 
 which ain't many," he began, "when I was woke up all to 
 once by someone givin' me advice. I took the advice. 
 Wasn't nothin' else to do. All I could see was a rock and 
 a gun barrel. That was enough. So I histed my hands as 
 per commands and waited for the next move." He chuck- 
 led. "I wasn't worryin'. Had to squeeze my dust bag to 
 pay my hotel bill when I left the city." 
 
 "' Drop yore gun in the road/ says the agent. 
 
 "I done so. 
 
 "'Now dismount.' 
 
 "I climbed down. And then Jimmy Gaynes rose up 
 rom behind that rock and laughed at me. 
 
 "'The joke's on me!' said I, and reached down for my 
 gun. 
 
 "'Better leave that!' said Jimmy pretty sharp. I know 
 that tone of voice, so I straightened up again. 
 
 "'Well, Jimmy,' said I, 'she lays if you say so. But 
 where'd you come from: and what for do you turn road 
 agent and hold up your old friends? ' 
 
 " 'I'm holdin' you up, ' Jimmy answered, 'because I want 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 to talk to you for ten minutes. As for where I come from, 
 that's neither here nor there. ' 
 
 " 'Of course/ said I, 'I'm one of these exclusive guys that 
 needs a gun throwed on him before he'll talk with the plain 
 people like you/ 
 
 " 'Now don't get mad/ says Jimmy. 'But light yore pipe, 
 and set down on that rock, and you'll see in a minute why 
 I preferred to corner the gatling market/ 
 
 "Well, I set down and lit up, and Jimmy done likewise, 
 about ten feet away. 
 
 "Tve come back a long ways to talk to one of you boys, 
 and I've shore hung around this road some few hours waitin' 
 for some of you terrapins to come along. Ever found out 
 who done those two hold-ups? ' 
 
 "'Nope,' said I, 'and don't expect to.' 
 
 "'Well, I done it/ says he. 
 
 "I looked him in the eye mighty severe. 
 
 '"You're one of the funniest little jokers ever hit this 
 trail,' I told him. 'If that's your general line of talkee-talkee 
 I don't wonder you don't want me to have no gun.' 
 
 "'Never/Mess/ he insists, 'I done it. And I'll tell you 
 just how it was done. Here's yore old express crawlin' up 
 the road. Here I am behind this little old rock. You know 
 what happened next I reckon from experience.' 
 
 "'I reckon I know that/ says I, 'but how did you get be- 
 hind that rock without leavin' no tracks?' 
 
 " 'I climbed up the cliff out of the canon, and I just walked 
 up the canon from the Lost Dog through the brush.' 
 
 "'Yes/ says I, 'that might be: a man could make out to 
 shinny up. But how ' 
 
 154 
 
THE ROAD AGENT 
 
 "'One thing to a time. Then I ordered them dust sacks 
 throwed out, and the driver to 'bout-face and retreat/ 
 
 " 'Sure,' says I, 'simple as a wart on a kid's nose. There 
 was you with a half ton of gold to fly off with ! Come again. ' 
 
 " 'I then dropped them sacks off the edge of the cliff where 
 they rolled into the brush. After a while I climbed down 
 after them, and was on hand when your posse started out. 
 Then I carried them home at leisure.' 
 
 "'What did you do with your hoss?' I asked him, mighty 
 sarcastic. 'Seems to me you overlook a few bets.' 
 
 "T didn't have no hoss,' says he. 
 
 "'But the real hold-up 
 
 " 'You mean them tracks. Well, just to amuse you fellows, 
 I walked in the dust up to that flat rock. Then I clamped 
 a big pair of horseshoes on hind-side before and walked 
 back again." 3 
 
 California John's audience had been listening intently. 
 Now it could no longer contain itself, but broke forth into 
 exclamations indicative of various emotions. 
 
 "That's why them front and back tracks was the same 
 size! " someone cried. 
 
 "Gee, you're bright!" said California John. "That's 
 what I told him. I also told him he was a wonder, but how 
 did he manage to slip out near a ton of dust up that road 
 without our knowing it? 
 
 "'You did know it,' says he. 'Did you fellows really 
 think there was any gold-bearing ore in the Lost Dog? We 
 just run that dust through the mill along with a lot of worth- 
 less rock, and shipped it out open and above board as our 
 own mill run. There never was an ounce of dust come out 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 of the Lost Dog, and there never will.' Then he give me 
 back my gun emptied we shook hands, and here I be." 
 
 After the next burst of astonishment had ebbed, and had 
 been succeeded by a rather general feeling of admiration, 
 somebody asked California John if Jimmy had come back 
 solely for the purpose of clearing up the mystery. Califor- 
 nia John had evidently been waiting for this question. He 
 arose and knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
 
 "Bring a candle," he requested the storekeeper, and led 
 the way to the abandoned Lost Dog. Into the tunnel he 
 led them, to the very end. There he paused, holding aloft 
 his light. At his feet was a canvas which, being removed, 
 was found to cover neatly a number of heavy sacks. 
 
 "Here's our dust," said California John, "every ounce of 
 it, he said. He kept about six hundred thousand or so that 
 belonged to Bright: but he didn't take none of ours. He 
 come back to tell me so." 
 
 The men crowded around for closer inspection. 
 
 "I wonder why he done that?" Tibbetts marvelled. 
 
 "I asked him that," replied California John, grimly. 
 "He said his conscience never would rest easy if he robbed 
 us babes." 
 
 Tibbetts broke the ensuing silence. 
 
 "Was 'babes' the word he used?" he asked, softly. 
 
 "'Babes' was the word," said California John. 
 
 156 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 A short story, say the writers of text books and the teach- 
 ers of sophomores, should deal with but a single episode. 
 That dictum is probably true; but it admits of wider inter- 
 pretation than is generally given it. The teller of tales > 
 anxious to escape from restriction but not avid of being cast 
 into the outer darkness of the taboo, can in self-justification 
 become as technical as any lawyer. The phrase "a single 
 episode" is loosely worded. The rule does not specify 
 an episode in one man's life; it might be in the life of a 
 family, or a state, or even of a whole people. In that case 
 the action might cover many lives. It is a way out for those 
 who have a story to tell, a limit to tell it within, but who 
 do not wish to embroil themselves too seriously with the 
 august Makers of the Rules. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The time was 1850, the place that long, soft, hot dry stretch 
 of blasted desolation known as the Humboldt Sink. The 
 sun stared, the heat rose in waves, the mirage shimmered, 
 the dust devils of choking alkali whirled aloft or sank in 
 suffocation on the hot earth. Thus it had been since in 
 remote ages the last drop of the inland sea had risen into a 
 brazen sky. But this year had brought something new. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 A track now led across the desert. It had sunk deep into 
 the alkali, and the soft edges had closed over it like snow, 
 so that the wheel marks and the hoof marks and the prints 
 of men's feet looked old. Almost in a straight line it led 
 to the west. Its perspective, dwindling to nothingness, 
 corrected the deceit of the clear air. Without it the cool, 
 tall mountains looked very near. But when the eye fol- 
 lowed the trail to its vanishing, then, as though by magic, 
 the Ranges drew back, and before them defiled dreadful 
 forces of toil, thirst, exhaustion, and despair. For the trail 
 was marked. If the wheel ruts had been obliterated, it 
 could still have been easily followed. Abandoned goods, 
 furniture, stores, broken-down wagons, bloated carcasses 
 of oxen or horses, bones bleached white, rattling mummies 
 of dried skin, and an almost unbroken line of marked and 
 unmarked graves like the rout of an army, like the spent 
 wash of a wave that had rolled westward these in double 
 rank defined the road. 
 
 The buzzards sailing aloft looked down on the Humboldt 
 Sink as we would look upon a relief map. Near the centre 
 of the map a tiny cloud of white dust crawled slowly for- 
 ward. The buzzards stooped to poise above it. 
 
 Two ox wagons plodded along. A squirrel were such 
 a creature possible would have stirred disproportionately 
 the light alkali dust; the two heavy wagons and the shuffling 
 feet of the beasts raised a cloud. The fitful furnace draught 
 carried this along at the slow pace of the caravan, which 
 could be seen only dimly, as through a dense fog. 
 
 The oxen were in distress. Evidently weakened by 
 starvation, they were proceeding only with the greatest 
 
 158 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 difficulty. Their tongues were out, their legs spread, 
 spasmodically their eyes rolled back to show the whites, 
 from time to time one or another of them uttered a 
 strangled, moaning bellow. They were white with the 
 powdery dust, as were their yokes, the wagons, and the 
 men who plodded doggedly alongside. Finally, they 
 stopped. The dust eddied by; and the blasting sun fell 
 upon them. 
 
 The driver of the leading team motioned to the other. 
 They huddled in the scanty shade alongside the first wagon. 
 Both men were so powdered and caked with alkali that their 
 features were indistinguishable. Their red-rimmed, inflamed 
 eyes looked out as though from masks. 
 
 The one who had been bringing up the rear looked de- 
 spairingly toward the mountains. 
 
 "We'll never get there!" he cried. 
 
 "Not the way we are now," replied the other. "But 
 I intend to get there." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Leave your wagon, Jim; it's the heaviest. Put your 
 team on here." 
 
 "But my wagon is all I've got in the world!" cried the 
 other, "and we've got near a keg of water yet! We can 
 make it! The oxen are pulling all right!" 
 
 His companion turned away with a shrug, then thought 
 better of it and turned back. 
 
 "We've thrown out all we owned except bare necessities/' 
 he explained, patiently. "Your wagon is too heavy. The 
 time to change is while the beasts can still pull." 
 
 "But I refuse!" cried the other. "I won't do it. Go 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ahead with your wagon. I'll get mine in. John Gates, 
 you can't bulldoze me." 
 
 Gates stared him in the eye. 
 
 "Get the pail," he requested, mildly. 
 
 He drew water from one of the kegs slung underneath 
 the wagon's body. The oxen, smelling it, strained weakly, 
 bellowing. Gates slowly and carefully swabbed out their 
 mouths, permitted them each a few swallows, rubbed them 
 pityingly between the horns. Then he proceeded to unyoke 
 the four beasts from the other man's wagon and yoked 
 them to his own. Jim started to say something. Gates 
 faced him. Nothing was said. 
 
 "Get your kit," Gates commanded, briefly, after a few 
 moments. He parted the hanging canvas and looked into 
 the wagon. Built to transport much freight it was nearly 
 empty. A young woman lay on a bed spread along the 
 wagon bottom. She seemed very weak. 
 
 "All right, honey?" asked Gates, gently. 
 
 She stirred, and achieved a faint smile. 
 
 "It's terribly hot. The sun strikes through," she replied. 
 "Can't we let some air in?" 
 
 "The dust would smother you." 
 
 "Are we nearly there?" 
 
 " Getting on farther every minute," he replied, cheerfully. 
 
 Again the smothering alkali rose and the dust cloud 
 crawled. 
 
 Four hours later the traveller called Jim collapsed face 
 downward. The oxen stopped. Gates lifted the man by 
 the shoulders. So exhausted was he that he had not the 
 strength nor energy to spit forth the alkali with which his 
 
 160 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 fall had caked his open mouth. Gates had recourse to 
 the water keg. After a little he hoisted his companion to 
 the front seat. 
 
 At intervals thereafter the lone human figure spoke the 
 single word that brought his team to an instantaneous dead 
 stop. His first care was then the woman, next the man 
 clinging to the front seat, then the oxen. Before starting 
 he clambered to the top of the wagon and cast a long, cal- 
 culating look across the desolation ahead. Twice he even 
 further reduced the meagre contents of the wagon, apprais- 
 ing each article long and doubtfully before discarding it. 
 About mid-afternoon he said abruptly: 
 
 "Jim, you've got to walk." 
 
 The man demurred weakly, with a touch of panic. 
 
 "Every ounce counts. It's going to be a close shave. 
 You can hang on to the tail of the wagon." 
 
 Yet an hour later Jim, for the fourth time, fell face down- 
 ward, but now did not rise. Gates, going to him, laid his 
 hand on his head, pushed back one of his eyelids, then knelt 
 for a full half minute, staring straight ahead. Once he 
 made a tentative motion toward the nearly empty water 
 keg, once he started to raise the man's shoulders. The 
 movements were inhibited. A brief agony cracked the 
 mask of alkali on his countenance. Then stolidly, wearily, 
 he arose. The wagon lurched fo ward. After it had gone 
 a hundred yards and was well under way in its painful for- 
 ward crawl, Gates, his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes fixed 
 and glazed, drew the revolver from its holster and went 
 back. 
 
 At sundown he began to use the gad. The oxen were 
 
 161 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 trying to lie down. If one of them succeeded, it would 
 never again arise. Gates knew this. He plied the long, 
 heavy whip in both hands. Where the lash fell it bit out 
 strips of hide. It was characteristic of the man that though 
 heretofore he had not in all this day inflicted a single blow 
 on the suffering animals, though his nostrils widened and 
 his terrible red eyes looked for pity toward the skies, yet 
 now he swung mercilessly with all his strength. 
 
 Dusk fell, but the hot earth still radiated, the powder 
 dust rose and choked. The desert dragged at their feet; 
 and in the twilight John Gates thought to hear mutterings 
 and the soft sound of wings overhead as the dread spirits 
 of the wastes stooped low. He had not stopped for nearly 
 two hours. This was the last push; he must go straight 
 through or fail. 
 
 And when the gleam of the river answered the gleam of 
 the starlight he had again to rouse his drained energies. By 
 the brake, by directing the wagon into an obstruction, by 
 voice and whip he fought the frantic beasts back to a moaning 
 standstill. Then pail by pail he fed them the water until 
 the danger of overdrinking was past. He parted the cur- 
 tains. In spite of the noise outside the woman, soothed 
 by the breath of cooler air, had fallen asleep. 
 
 Some time later he again parted the curtains. 
 
 "We're here, honey," he said, "good water, good grass, 
 shade. The desert is past. Wake up and take a little 
 coffee." 
 
 She smiled at him. 
 
 "I'm so tired." 
 
 "We're going to rest here a spell." 
 
 162 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 She drank the coffee, ate some of the food he brought her, 
 thrust back her hair, breathed deep of the cooling night. 
 "Where's Jim?" she asked at last. 
 " Jim got very tired/' he said, "Jim's asleep." 
 
 Three months later. The western slant of the Sierras 
 just where the canon clefts begin to spread into foothills. 
 On a flat near too near the stream-bed was a typical 
 placer-mining camp of the day. That is, three or four large, 
 rough buildings in a row, twenty or thirty log cabins scat- 
 tered without order, and as many tents. 
 
 The whole population was gathered interestedly in the 
 largest structure, which was primarily a dance hall. Ninety- 
 five per cent, were men, of whom the majority were young 
 men. A year ago the percentage would have been nearer 
 one hundred, but now a certain small coterie of women 
 had drifted in, most of them with a keen eye for prosperity. 
 The red or blue shirt, the nondescript hat, and the high, mud- 
 caked boots of the miner preponderated. Here and there 
 in the crowd, however, stood a man dressed in the height 
 of fashion. There seemed no middle ground. These latter 
 were either the professional gamblers, the lawyers, or the 
 promoters. 
 
 A trial was in progress, to which all paid deep attention. 
 Two men disputed the ownership of a certain claim. Their 
 causes were represented by ornate individuals whose evident 
 zest in the legal battle was not measured by prospective fees. 
 Nowhere in the domain and at no time in the history of the 
 law has technicality been so valued, has the game of the 
 courts possessed such intellectual interest, has substantial 
 
 163 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 justice been so uncertain as in the California of the early 
 'fifties. The lawyer could spread himself unhampered; 
 and these were so doing. 
 
 In the height of the proceedings a man entered from 
 outside and took his position leaning against the rail of 
 the jury box. That he was a stranger was evident from 
 the glances of curiosity cast in his direction. He was 
 tall, strong, young, bearded, with a roving, humorous bold 
 eye. 
 
 The last word was spoken. A rather bewildered-looking 
 jury filed out. Ensued a wait. The jury came back. It 
 could not agree; it wanted information. Both lawyers 
 supplied it in abundance. The foreman, who happened 
 to be next the rail against which the newcomer was leaning, 
 cast on him a quizzical eye. 
 
 "Stranger," said he, "mout you be able to make head er 
 tail of all that air?" 
 
 The other shook his head. 
 
 "I'm plumb distracted to know what to do; and dear 
 knows we all want to git shet of this fob. Thar's a badger 
 fight 
 
 "Where is this claim, anyway?" 
 
 "Right adown the road. Location notice is on the first 
 white oak you come to. Cain't miss her." 
 
 "If I were you," said the stranger after a pause, "I'd 
 just declare the claim vacant. Then neither side would 
 win." 
 
 At this moment the jury rose to retire again. The 
 stranger unobtrusively gained the attention of the clerk 
 and from him begged a sheet of paper. On this he wrote 
 
 164 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 rapidly, then folded it, and moved to the outer door, 
 against the jamb of which he took his position. After 
 another and shorter wait, the jury returned. 
 
 "Have you agreed on your verdict, gentlemen? " inquired 
 the judge. 
 
 "We have, " replied the lank foreman. "We award that 
 the claim belongs to neither and be declared vacant." 
 
 At the words the stranger in the doorway disappeared. 
 Two minutes later the advance guard of the rush that had 
 comprehended the true meaning of the verdict found the 
 white oak tree in possession of a competent individual with 
 a Colt's revolving pistol and a humorous eye. 
 
 "My location notice, gentlemen," he said, calling at- 
 tention to a paper freshly attached by wooden pegs. 
 
 "'Honey-bug claim'," they read, "'John Gates'," and 
 the usual phraseology. 
 
 "But this is a swindle, an outrage!" cried one of the 
 erstwhile owners. 
 
 "If so it was perpetrated by your own courts," said 
 Gates, crisply. "I am within my rights, and I propose to 
 defend them." 
 
 Thus John Gates and his wife, now strong and hearty, 
 became members of this community. His intention had been 
 to proceed to Sacramento. An incident stopped him here. 
 
 The Honey-bug claim might or might not be a good 
 placer miner-time would show but it was certainly a 
 wonderful location. Below the sloping bench on which 
 it stood the country fell away into the brown heat haze 
 of the lowlands, a curtain that could lift before a north 
 wind to reveal a landscape magnificent as a kingdom, 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Spreading white oaks gave shade, a spring sang from the 
 side hill on which grew lofty pines, and back to the east rose 
 the dark or glittering Sierras. The meadow at the back 
 was gay with mariposa lilies, melodious with bees and birds, 
 aromatic with the mingled essences of tarweed, lads-love, 
 and the pines. At this happy elevation the sun lay warm 
 and caressing, but the air tasted cool. 
 
 "I could love this/' said the woman. 
 
 "You'll have a chance," said John Gates, "for when 
 we've made our pile, well always keep this to come back to." 
 
 At first they lived in the wagon, which they drew up 
 under one of the trees, while the oxen recuperated and grew 
 fat on the abundant grasses. Then in spare moments 
 John Gates began the construction of a house. He was 
 a man of tremendous energy, but also of many activities. 
 The days were not long enough for him. In him was the 
 true ferment of constructive civilization. Instinctively 
 he reached out to modify his surroundings. A house, 
 then a picket fence, split from the living trees; an irrigation 
 ditch; a garden spot; fruit trees; vines over the porch; better 
 stables; more fences; the gradual shaping from the wilder- 
 ness of a home these absorbed his surplus. As a matter 
 of business he worked with pick and shovel until he had 
 proved the Honey-bug hopeless, then he started a store 
 on credit. Therein he sold everything from hats to 42 
 calibre whiskey. To it he brought the same overflowing 
 play-spirit that had fashioned his home. 
 
 " I'm making a very good living," he answered a question; 
 "that is, if I'm not particular on how well I live," and he 
 laughed his huge laugh. 
 
 166 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 He was very popular. Shortly they elected him sheriff. 
 He gained this high office fundamentally, of course, by reason 
 of his courage and decision of character; but the immediate 
 and visible causes were the Episode of the Frazzled Mule, 
 and the Episode of the Frying Pan. The one inspired re- 
 spect; the other amusement. 
 
 The freight company used many pack and draught ani- 
 mals. One day one of its mules died. The mozo in charge 
 of the corrals dragged the carcass to the superintendent's 
 office. That individual cursed twice; once at the mule 
 for dying, and once at the mozo for being a fool. At night- 
 fall another mule died. This time the mozo y mindful of his 
 berating, did not deliver the body, but conducted the super- 
 intendent to see the sad remains. 
 
 " Bury it, " ordered the superintendent, disgustedly. Two 
 mules at $350 quite a loss. 
 
 But next morning another had died; fairly an epidemic 
 among mules. This carcass also was ordered buried. And 
 at noon a fourth. The superintendent, on his way to view 
 the defunct, ran across John Gates. 
 
 "Look here, John," queried he, "do you know anything 
 about mules?" 
 
 "Considerable," admitted Gates. 
 
 "Well, come see if you can tell me what's killing ours 
 off." 
 
 They contemplated the latest victim of the epidemic. 
 
 "Seems to be something that swells them up," ventured 
 the superintendent after a while. 
 
 John Gates said nothing for some time. Then suddenly 
 he snatched his pistol and levelled it at the shrinking mozo. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Produce those three mules!" he roared, "miicho pronto, 
 too!" To the bewildered superintendent he explained. 
 "Don't you see? this is the same old original mule. He 
 ain't never been buried at all. They've been stealing your 
 animals pretending they died, and using this one over and 
 over as proof!" 
 
 This proved to be the case; but John Gates was clever 
 enough never to tell how he surmised the truth. 
 
 "That mule looked to me pretty frazzled," was all he 
 would say. 
 
 The frying-pan episode was the sequence of a quarrel. 
 Gates was bringing home a new frying pan. At the proper 
 point in the discussion he used his great strength to smash 
 the implement over his opponent's head so vigorously 
 that it came down around his neck like a jagged collar! 
 Gates clung to the handle, however, and by it led his man 
 all around camp, to the huge delight of the populace. 
 
 As sheriff he was effective, but at times peculiar in his 
 administration. No man could have been more zealous 
 in performing his duty; yet he never would mix in the affairs 
 of foreigners. Invariably in such cases he made out the 
 warrants in blank, swore in the complaining parties them- 
 selves as deputies, and told them blandly to do their own 
 arresting! Nor at times did he fail to temper his duty with 
 a little substantial justice of his own. Thus he was once 
 called upon to execute a judgment for $30 against a poor 
 family. Gates went down to the premises, looked over the 
 situation, talked to the man a poverty-stricken, discour- 
 aged, ague-shaken creature and marched back to the offices 
 of the plaintiffs in the case. 
 
 168 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 "Here," said he, calmly, laying a paper and a small bag 
 of gold dust on their table, "is $30 and a receipt in full." 
 
 The complainant reached for the sack. Gates placed 
 his hand over it. 
 
 "Sign the receipt," he commanded. "Now," he went on 
 after the ink had been sanded, "there's your $30. It's 
 yours legally; and you can take it if you want to. But I 
 want to warn you that a thousand-dollar licking goes with 
 it!" 
 
 The money from Gates's own pocket eventually found 
 its way to the poor family! 
 
 They had three children, two boys and a girl of which 
 one boy died. 
 
 In five years the placers began to play out. One by 
 one the more energetic of the miners dropped away. The 
 nature of the community changed. Small hill ranches or 
 fruit farms took the place of the mines. The camp became 
 a country village. Old time excitement calmed, the pace 
 of life slowed, the horizon narrowed. 
 
 John Gates, clear-eyed, energetic, keen brained, saw 
 this tendency before it became a fact. 
 
 "This camp is busted," he told himself. 
 
 It was the hour to fulfill the purpose of the long, terrible 
 journey across the plains, to carry out the original intention 
 to descend from the Sierras to the golden valleys, to follow 
 the struggle. 
 
 "Reckon it's time to be moving," he told his wife. 
 
 But now his own great labours asserted their claim. He 
 nad put four years of his life into making this farm out of 
 nothing, four years of incredible toil, energy, and young 
 
 169 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 enthusiasm. He had a good dwelling and spacious corrals, 
 an orchard started, a truck garden, a barley field, a pasture, 
 cattle, sheep, chickens, his horses all his creation from 
 nothing. One evening at sundown he found his wife in the 
 garden weeping softly. 
 
 "What is it, honey? " he asked. 
 
 "I was just thinking how we'd miss the garden," she 
 replied. 
 
 He looked about at the bright, cheerful flowers, the vine- 
 hung picket fence, the cool verandah, the shady fig tree 
 already of some size. Everything was neat and trim, just 
 as he liked it. And the tinkle of pleasant waters, the song 
 of a meadow lark, the distant mellow lowing of cows came 
 to his ears; the smell of tarweed and of pines mingled in 
 his nostrils. 
 
 "It's a good place for children," he said, vaguely. 
 
 Neither knew it, but that little speech marked the ebb 
 of the wave that had lifted him from his eastern home, 
 had urged him across the plains, had flung him in the almost 
 insolent triumph of his youth high toward the sun. Now 
 the wash receded. 
 
 170 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 It was indeed a good place for children. Charley and 
 Alice Gates grew tall and strong, big boned, magnificent, 
 typical California products. They went to the district 
 school, rode in the mountains, helped handle the wild cattle. 
 At the age of twelve Charley began to accompany the sum- 
 mer incursions into the High Sierras in search of feed. At 
 the age of sixteen he was entrusted with a bunch of cattle. 
 In these summers he learned the wonder of the high, glitter- 
 ing peaks, the blueness of the skies in high altitudes, the 
 multitude of the stars, the flower-gemmed secret meadows, 
 the dark, murmuring forests. He fished in the streams, and 
 hunted on the ridges. His camp was pitched within a 
 corral of heavy logs. It was very simple. Utensils de- 
 pending from trees, beds beneath canvas tarpaulins on 
 pine needles, saddlery, riatas, branding irons scattered 
 about. No shelter but the sky. A wonderful roving life. 
 
 It developed taciturnity and individualism. Charley 
 Gates felt no necessity for expression as yet; and as his 
 work required little cooperation from his fellow creatures 
 he acknowledged as little responsibility toward them. 
 Thus far he was the typical mountaineer. 
 
 But other influences came to him; as, indeed, they 
 come to all. But young Charley was more susceptible than 
 most, and this on the impulse of the next tide resurgent 
 
 171 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 saved him from his type. He liked to read; he did not 
 scorn utterly and boisterously the unfortunate young man 
 who taught the school; and, better than all, he possessed 
 just the questioning mind that refuses to accept on their 
 own asseveration only the conventions of life or the opin- 
 ions of neighbours. If he were to drink, it would be be- 
 cause he wanted to; not because his companions considered 
 it manly. If he were to enter the sheep war, it would be 
 because he really considered sheep harmful to the range; not 
 because of the overwhehning and contagious prejudice. 
 
 In one thing only did he follow blindly his sense of loy- 
 alty: He hated the Hydraulic Company. 
 
 Years after the placers failed someone discovered that 
 the wholesale use of hydraulic " giants" produced gold 
 in paying quantities. Huge streams of water under high 
 pressure were directed against the hills, which melted like 
 snow under the spring sun. The earth in suspension was 
 run over artificial riffles against which the heavier gold 
 collected. One such stream could accomplish in a few hours 
 what would have cost hand miners the better part of a 
 season. 
 
 But the debris must go somewhere. A rushing mud and 
 boulder-filled torrent tore down stream beds adapted to a 
 tenth of their volume. It wrecked much of the country 
 below, ripping out the good soil, covering the bottomlands 
 many feet deep with coarse rubble, clay, mud, and even 
 big rocks and boulders. The farmers situated below such 
 operations suffered cruelly. Even to this day the devastat- 
 ing results may be seen above Colfax or Sacramento. 
 
 John Gates suffered with the rest. His was not the 
 
 172 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 nature to submit tamely, nor to compromise. He had made 
 his farm with his own hands, and he did not propose to see 
 it destroyed. Much money he expended through the courts; 
 indeed the profits of his business were eaten by a never- 
 ending, inconclusive suit. The Hydraulic Company, securely 
 entrenched behind the barriers of especial privilege, could 
 laugh at his frontal attacks. It was useless to think of 
 force. The feud degenerated into a bitter legal battle 
 and much petty guerrilla warfare on both sides. 
 
 To this quarrel Charley had been bred up in a consuming 
 hate of the Hydraulic Company, all its works, officers, 
 bosses, and employees. Every human being in any way 
 connected with it wore horns, hoofs, and a tail. In com- 
 pany with the wild youths of the neighbourhood he per- 
 petrated many a raid on the Company's property. Be- 
 ginning with boyish openings of corrals to permit stock 
 to stray, these raids progressed with the years until they 
 had nearly arrived at the dignity of armed deputies and 
 bench warrants. 
 
 The next day of significance to our story was October 
 15, 1872. On that date fire started near Flour Gold 
 and swept upward. October is always a bad time of year 
 for fires in foothill California between the rains, the 
 heat of the year, everything crisp and brown and brittle. 
 This threatened the whole valley and water shed. The 
 Gateses turned out, and all their neighbours, with hoe, mat- 
 tock, axe, and sacking, trying to beat, cut, or scrape a "break" 
 wide enough to check the flames. It was cruel work. 
 The sun blazed overhead and the earth underfoot. The air 
 quivered as from a furnace. Men gasped at it with strain- 
 
 173 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ing lungs. The sweat pouring from their bodies combined 
 with the parching of the superheated air induced a raging 
 thirst. No water was to be had save what was brought 
 to them. Young boys and women rode along the line 
 carrying canteens, water bottles, and food. The fire fighters 
 snatched hastily at these, for the attack of the fire permitted 
 no respite. Twice they cut the wide swath across country; 
 but twice before it was completed the fire crept through 
 and roared into triumph behind them. The third time the 
 line held, and this was well into the second day. 
 
 Charley Gates had fought doggedly. He had summoned 
 the splendid resources of youth and heritage, and they had 
 responded. Next in line to his right had been a stranger. 
 This latter was a slender, clean-cut youth, at first glance 
 seemingly of delicate physique. Charley had looked upon 
 him with the pitying contempt of strong youth for weak 
 youth. He considered that the stranger's hands were soft 
 and effeminate, he disliked his little trimmed moustache, 
 and especially the cool, mocking, appraising glance of his 
 eyes. But as the day, and the night, and the day following 
 wore away, Charley raised his opinion. The slender body 
 possessed unexpected reserve, the long, lean hands plied 
 the tools unweariedly, the sensitive face had become 
 drawn and tired, but the spirit behind the mocking eyes 
 had not lost the flash of its defiance. In the heat of the 
 struggle was opportunity for only the briefest exchanges. 
 Once, when Charley despairingly shook his empty canteen, 
 the stranger offered him a swallow from his own. Next 
 time exigency crowded them together, Charley croaked: 
 
 " Reckon we'll hold her." 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 Toward evening of the second day the westerly breeze 
 died, and shortly there breathed a gentle air from the 
 mountains. The danger was past. 
 
 Charley and the stranger took long pulls from their 
 recently replenished canteens. Then they sank down where 
 they were, and fell instantly asleep. The projecting root 
 of a buckthorn stuck squarely into Charley's ribs, but he 
 did not know it; a column of marching ants, led by a non- 
 adaptable commander, climbed up and over the recumbent 
 form of the stranger, but he did not care. 
 
 They came to life in the shiver of gray dawn, wearied, 
 stiffened, their eyes swelled, their mouths dry. 
 
 "You're a sweet sight, stranger," observed Charley. 
 
 "Same to you and more of 'em," rejoined the other. 
 
 Charley arose painfully. 
 
 "There's a little water in my canteen yet," he proffered. 
 "What might you call yourself? I don't seem to know 
 you in these parts." 
 
 "Thanks," replied the other. "My name's Cathcart; 
 I'm from just above." 
 
 He drank, and lowered the canteen to look into the 
 flaming, bloodshot eyes of his companion. 
 
 "Are you the low-lived skunk that's running the Hydrau- 
 lic Company?" demanded Charley Gates. 
 
 The stranger laid down the canteen and scrambled pain 
 fully to his feet. 
 
 "I am employed by the Company," he replied, curtly, 
 "but please to understand I don't permit you to call me 
 ties." 
 : Permit!" sneered Charley. 
 
 175 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Permit," repeated Cathcart. 
 
 So, not having had enough exercise in the past two days, 
 these young game cocks went at each other. Charley was 
 much the stronger rough-and-tumble fighter; but Cathcart 
 possessed some boxing skill. Result was that, in their 
 weakened condition, they speedily fought themselves to a 
 standstill without serious damage to either side. 
 
 "Now perhaps you'll tell me who the hell you think you 
 are!" panted Cathcart, fiercely. 
 
 At just beyond arm's length they discussed the situation, 
 at first belligerently with much recrimination, then more 
 calmly, at last with a modicum of mutual understanding. 
 Neither seceded from his basic opinion. Charley Gates 
 maintained that the Company had no earthly business 
 ruining his property, but admitted that with all that good 
 gold lying there it was a pity not to get it out. Cathcart 
 stoutly defended a man's perfect right to do as he pleased 
 with his own belongings, but conceded that something really 
 ought to be done about overflow waters. 
 
 "What are you doing down here fighting fire, anyway?" 
 demanded Charley, suddenly. "It couldn't hurt your prop- 
 erty. You could turn the 'giants' on it, if it ever came up 
 your way." 
 
 "I don't know. I just thought I ought to help out 
 a little," said Cathcart, simply. 
 
 For three years more Charley ran his father's cattle 
 in the hills. Then he announced his intention of going 
 away. John Gates was thunderstruck. By now he was 
 stranded high and dry above the tide, fitting perfectly 
 his surroundings. Vaguely he had felt that his son would 
 
 176 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 stay with him always. But the wave was again surging 
 upward. Charley had talked with Cathcart. 
 
 "This is no country to draw a salary in," the latter had 
 told him, "nor to play with fanning or cows. It's too 
 big, too new, there are too many opportunities. I'll resign, 
 and you leave; and we'll make our fortunes." 
 
 "How?" asked Charley. 
 
 "Timber," said Cathcart. 
 
 They conferred on this point. Cathcart had the expe- 
 rience of business ways; Charley Gates the intimate knowl- 
 edge of the country; there only needed a third member 
 to furnish some money. Charley broke the news to his 
 family, packed his few belongings, and the two of them 
 went to San Francisco. 
 
 Charley had never seen a big city. He was very funny 
 about it, but not overwhelmed. While willing, even avid, 
 to go the rounds and meet the sporting element, he declined 
 to drink. When pressed and badgered by his new acquaint- 
 ances, he grinned amiably. 
 
 "I never play the other fellows' game," he said. "When 
 it gets to be my game, I'll join you." 
 
 The new partners had difficulty in getting even a 
 hearing. 
 
 "It's a small business," said capitalists, "and will be. 
 The demand for lumber here is limited, and it is well taken 
 care of by small concerns near at hand." 
 
 "The state will grow and I am counting on the outside 
 market," argued Cathcart. 
 
 But this was too absurd! The forests of Michigan, Wis- 
 consin, and Minnesota were inexhaustible! As for the 
 
 177 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 state growing to that extent; of course we all believe it, 
 but when it comes to investing good money in the belief 
 
 At length they came upon one of the new millionaires 
 created by the bonanzas of Virginia City. 
 
 "I don't know a damn thing about your timber, byes,'* 
 said he, "but I like your looks. I'll go in wid ye. Have 
 a seegar; they cost me a dollar apiece." 
 
 The sum invested was absurdly, inadequately small. 
 
 "It'll have to spread as thin as it can," said Cathcart. 
 
 They spent the entire season camping in the mountains. 
 By the end of the summer they knew what they wanted; and 
 immediately took steps to acquire it. Under the homestead 
 laws each was entitled to but a small tract of Government 
 land. However, they hired men to exercise their privileges 
 in this respect, to take up each his allotted portion, and 
 then to convey his rights to Cathcart and Gates. It was 
 slow business, for the show of compliance with Government 
 regulations had to be made. But in this manner the sum 
 of money at their disposal was indeed spread out very thin. 
 
 For many years the small, nibbling lumbering operations 
 their limited capital permitted supplied only a little more 
 than a bare living and the taxes. But every available 
 cent went back into the business. It grew. Band saws 
 replaced the old circulars; the new mills delivered their 
 product into flumes that carried it forty miles to the railroad. 
 The construction of this flume was a tremendous under- 
 taking, but by now the firm could borrow on its timber. 
 To get the water necessary to keep the flume in operation 
 the partners again by means of "dummies" filed on the 
 water rights of certain streams. To take up the water 
 
 178 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 directly was without the law; but a show of mineral stain 
 was held to justify a " mineral claim," so patents were 
 obtained under that ruling. Then Charley had a bright 
 idea. 
 
 "Look here, Cliff," he said to Cathcart. "I know some- 
 thing about farming; I was brought up on a farm. This 
 country will grow anything anywhere if it has water. 
 That lower country they call a desert, but that's only be- 
 cause it hasn't any rainfall. We're going to have a lot 
 of water at the end of that flume 
 
 They bought the desert land at fifty cents an acre; scraped 
 ditches and checks; planted a model orchard, and went into 
 the real estate business. In time a community grew up. 
 When hydro-electric power came into its own Cathcart & 
 Gates from their various water rights furnished light for 
 themselves, and gradually for the towns and villages round- 
 about. Thus their affairs spread and became complicated. 
 Before they knew it they were wealthy, very wealthy. 
 Their wives for in due course each had his romance 
 began to talk of San Francisco. 
 
 All this had not come about easily. At first they had 
 to fight tooth and nail. The conditions of the times were 
 crude, the code merciless. As soon as the firm showed 
 its head above the financial horizon, it was swooped upon. 
 Business was predatory. They had to fight for what they 
 got; had to fight harder to hold it. Cathcart was involved 
 continually in a maze of intricate banking transactions; 
 Gates resisted aggression within and without, often with 
 his own two fists. They learned to trust no man, but they 
 learned also to hate no man. It was all part of the game. 
 
 179 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 More sensitive temperaments would have failed; these 
 succeeded. Cathcart became shrewd, incisive, direct, cold, 
 a little hard; Charley Gates was burly, hearty, a trifle bully- 
 ing. Both were in all circumstances quite unruffled; and 
 in some circumstances ruthless. 
 
 About 1900 the entire holdings of the Company were 
 capitalized, and a stock company was formed. The actual 
 management of the lumbering, the conduct of the farms and 
 ranches, the running of the hydro-electric systems of light 
 and transportation, were placed in the hands of active young 
 men. Charley Gates and his partner exercised over these 
 activities only the slightest supervision; auditing accounts, 
 making an occasional trip of inspection. Affairs would 
 quite well have gone on without them; though they would 
 have disbelieved and resented that statement. 
 
 The great central offices in San Francisco were very 
 busy all but the inner rooms where stood the partners' 
 desks. One day Cathcart lit a fresh cigar, and slowly 
 wheeled his chair. 
 
 "Look here, Charley," he proposed, "we've got a big 
 surplus. There's no reason why we shouldn't make a killing 
 on the side." 
 
 "As how?" asked Gates, 
 
 Cathcart outlined his plan. It was simply stock manip- 
 ulation on a big scale; although the naked import was 
 somewhat obscured by the complications of the scheme. 
 After he had finished Gates smoked for some time in silence. 
 
 "All right, Cliff," said he, "let's do it." 
 
 And so by a sentence, as his father before him, he marked 
 the farthest throw of the wave that had borne him blindly 
 
 180 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 toward the shore. In the next ten years Cathcart and 
 Gates made forty million dollars. Charley seemed to 
 himself to be doing a tremendous business, but his real 
 work, his contribution to the episode in the life of the com- 
 monwealth, ceased there. Again the wave receded. 
 
 181 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The third generation of the Gates family consisted of 
 two girls and a boy. They were brought up as to their 
 early childhood in what may be called moderate circum- 
 stances. A small home near the little mill town, a single 
 Chinese servant, a setter dog, and plenty of horses formed 
 their entourage. When Charles, Jr., was eleven, and his 
 sisters six and eight, however, the family moved to a pre- 
 tentious "mansion" on Nob Hill in San Francisco. The 
 environment of childhood became a memory: the reality 
 of life was comprised in the super-luxurious existence on 
 Nob Hill. 
 
 It was not a particularly wise existence. Whims were 
 too easily realized, consequences too lightly avoided, dis- 
 cipline too capricious. The children were sent to private 
 schools where they met only their own kind; they were 
 specifically forbidden to mingle with the " hoodlums" in 
 the next street; they became accustomed to being sent 
 here and there in carriages with two servants, or later, 
 in motor cars; they had always spending money for the ask- 
 ing. 
 
 "I know what it is like to scrimp and save, and my 
 children are going to be spared that!" was Mrs. Gates's 
 creed in the matter. 
 
 The little girls were always dressed alike in elaborately 
 
 182 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 simple clothes, with frilly, starched underpinnies, silk stock- 
 ings, high boots buttoned up slim legs; and across their 
 shoulders, from beneath wonderful lingerie hats, hung shin- 
 ing curls. The latter were not natural, but had each day 
 to be elaborately constructed. They made a dainty and 
 charming picture. 
 
 "Did you ever see anything so sweet in all your life!" 
 was the invariable feminine exclamation. 
 
 Clara and Ethel-May always heard these remarks. They 
 conducted themselves with the poise and savoir faire of 
 grown women. Before they were twelve they could 
 "handle" servants, conduct polite conversations in a cor- 
 rectly artificial accent, and adapt their manners to another's 
 station in life. 
 
 Charley Junior's development was sharply divided into 
 two periods, with the second of which alone we have to 
 do. The first, briefly, was repressive. He was not 
 allowed to play with certain boys, he was not permitted 
 to stray beyond certain bounds, he was kept clean and 
 dressed-up, he was taught his manners. In short, Mrs. 
 Gates tried without knowing what she was doing to 
 use the ' same formula on him as she had on Ethel-May 
 and Clara. 
 
 In the second period, he was a grief to his family. Roughly 
 speaking, this period commenced about the time he began 
 to be known as " Chuck" instead of Charley. 
 
 There was no real harm in the boy. He was high spirited, 
 full of life, strong as a horse, and curious. Possessed of 
 the patrician haughty good looks we breed so easily from 
 shirtsleeves, free with his money, known as the son of his 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 powerful father, a good boxer, knowing no fear, he speedily 
 became a familiar popular figure around town. It delighted 
 him to play the prince, either incognito or in person; to 
 "blow off the crowd/' to battle joyously with longshoremen; 
 to "rough house " the semi-respectable restaurants. The 
 Barbary Coast knew him, Taits, Zinkands, the Poodle 
 Dog, the Cliff House, Franks, and many other resorts not 
 to be spoken of so openly. He even got into the police 
 courts once or twice; and nonchalantly paid a fine, with a 
 joke at the judge and a tip to the policeman who had ar- 
 rested him. There was too much drinking, too much 
 gambling, too loose a companionship, altogether too much 
 spending; but in this case the life was redeemed from its 
 usual significance by a fantastic spirit of play, a generosity 
 of soul, a regard for the unfortunate, a courtliness toward 
 all the world, a refusal to believe in meanness or sordidness 
 or cruelty. Chuck Gates was inbred with the spirit of 
 noblesse oblige. 
 
 As soon as motor cars came in Chuck had the raciest 
 possible. With it he managed to frighten a good many 
 people half out of their wits. He had no accidents, partly 
 because he was a very good heady driver, and partly be- 
 cause those whom he encountered were quick witted. One 
 day while touring in the south he came down grade around 
 a bend squarely upon a car ascending. Chuck's car was 
 going too fast to be stopped. He tried desperately to 
 wrench it from the road, but perceived at once that this 
 was impossible without a fatal skid. Fortunately the only 
 turnout for a half mile happened to be just at that spot. 
 The other man managed to jump his car out on this little 
 
 184 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 side ledge and to jam on his brakes at the very brink, just 
 as Chuck flashed by. His mud guards slipped under those 
 at the rear of the other car. 
 
 "Close," observed Chuck to Joe Merrill his companion, 
 "I was going a little too fast," and thought no more of it. 
 
 But the other man, being angry, turned around and 
 followed him into town. At the garage he sought Chuck 
 out. 
 
 "Didn't you pass me on the grade five miles back?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 "I may have done so," replied Chuck, courteously. 
 
 "Don't you realize that you were going altogether too 
 fast for a mountain grade? that you were completely out 
 of control?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I'll have to admit that that is so." 
 
 "Well," said the other man, with difficulty suppressing 
 his anger. "What do you suppose would have happened if 
 I hadn't just been able to pull out?" 
 
 "Why," replied Chuck, blandly, "I suppose I'd have 
 had to pay heavily; that's all." 
 
 "Pay!" cried the man, then checked himself with an 
 effort, "so you imagine you are privileged to the road, do 
 whatever damage you please and pay I I'll just take 
 your number." 
 
 "That is unnecessary. My name is Charles Gates," re- 
 plied Chuck, "of San Francisco." 
 
 The man appeared never to have heard of this potent 
 cognomen. A month later the trial came off. It was most 
 inconvenient. Chuck was in Oregon, hunting. He had 
 to travel many hundreds of miles, to pay an expensive 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 lawyer. In the end he was fined. The whole affair dis- 
 gusted him, but he went through with it well, testified 
 without attempt at evasion. It was a pity; but evidently 
 the other man was no gentleman. 
 
 "I acknowledged I was wrong," he told Joe Merrill. 
 He honestly felt that this would have been sufficient had 
 the cases been reversed. In answer to a question as to 
 whether he considered it fair to place the burden of safety 
 on the other man, he replied: 
 
 "Among motorists it is customary to exchange the cour- 
 tesies of the road and sometimes the discourtesies," he 
 added with a faint scorn. 
 
 The earthquake and fire of 1906 caught him in town. 
 During three days and nights he ran his car for the benefit 
 of the sufferers; going practically without food or sleep, 
 exercising the utmost audacity and ingenuity in getting 
 supplies, running fearlessly many dangers. 
 
 For the rest he played polo well, shot excellently at the 
 traps, was good at tennis, golf, bridge. Naturally he be- 
 longed to the best clubs both city and country. He sailed 
 a yacht expertly, was a keen fisherman, hunted. Also 
 he played poker a good deal and was noted for his accurate 
 taste in dress. 
 
 His mother firmly believed that he caused her much 
 sorrow; his sisters looked up to him with a little awe; his 
 father down on him with a fiercely tolerant contempt. 
 
 For Chuck had had his turn in the offices. His mind 
 was a good one; his education both formal and informal, 
 had trained it fairly well; yet he could not quite make good. 
 Energetic, ambitious, keen young men, clambering upward 
 
 1 86 
 
THE TIDE 
 
 from the ruck, gave him points at the game and then beat 
 him. It was humiliating to the old man. He could not 
 see the perfectly normal reason. These young men were 
 striving keenly for what they had never had. Chuck was 
 asked merely to add to what he already had more than 
 enough of by means of a game that itself did not interest 
 him. 
 
 Late one evening Chuck and some friends were dining 
 at the Cliff House. They had been cruising up toward 
 Tomales Bay, and had had themselves put ashore here. No 
 one knew of their whereabouts. Thus it was that Chuck 
 first learned of his father's death from apoplexy in the 
 scareheads of an evening paper handed him by the major- 
 domo. He read the article through carefully, then went 
 alone to the beach below. It had been the usual sensational 
 article; and but two sentences clung to Chuck's memory: 
 "This fortunate young man's income will actually amount 
 to about ten dollars a minute. What a significance have 
 now his days and nights!" 
 
 He looked out to sea whence the waves, in ordered rank, 
 cast themselves on the shore, seethed upward along the 
 sands, poised, and receded. His thoughts were many, but 
 they always returned to the same point. Ten dollars a 
 minute roughly speaking, seven thousand a day! What 
 would he do with it? "What a significance have now his 
 days and nights ! " 
 
 His best friend, Joe Merrill, came down the path to 
 him, and stood silently by his side. 
 
 "I'm sorry about your governor, old man," he ventured; 
 and then, after a long time : 
 
 187 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "You're the richest man in the West." 
 
 Chuck Gates arose. A wave larger than the rest thun- 
 dered and ran hissing up to their feet. 
 
 "I wonder if the tide is coming in or going out/' said 
 Chuck, vaguely. 
 
 188 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Near the point at which the great Continental Divide 
 of the Rocky Mountains crosses the Canadian border 
 another range edges in toward it from the south. Be- 
 tween these ranges lies a space of from twenty to forty 
 miles; and midway between them flows a clear, wonderful 
 river through dense forests. Into the river empty other, 
 tributary, rivers rising in the bleak and lofty fastnesses 
 of the mountains to right and left. Between them, in 
 turn, run spur systems of mountains only a little less lofty 
 than the parent ranges. Thus the ground plan of the 
 whole country is a good deal like that of a leaf: the main 
 stem representing the big river, the lateral veins its afflu- 
 ents; the tiny veins its torrents pouring from the sides of 
 its mountains and glaciers; and the edges of the leaf and all 
 spaces standing for mountains rising very sheer and abrupt 
 from the floor of the densely forested stream valleys. In 
 this country of forty miles by five hundred, then, are hun- 
 dreds of distinct ranges, thousands of peaks, and innumera- 
 ble valleys, pockets, and " parks." A wilder, lonelier, 
 grander country would be hard to find. Save for the Forest 
 Service and a handful of fur trappers, it is uninhabited. 
 Its streams abound in trout; its dense forests with elk 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and white-tailed deer; its balder hills with blacktail deer; 
 its upper basins with grizzly bears; its higher country 
 with sheep and that dizzy climber the Rocky Mountain 
 goat. 
 
 He who would enter this region descends at a little station 
 on the Great Northern, and thence proceeds by pack train 
 at least four days, preferably more, out into the wilderness. 
 The going is through forests, the tree trunks straight and 
 very close together, so that he will see very little of the open 
 sky and less of the landscape. By way of compensation 
 the forest itself is remarkably beautiful. Its undergrowth, 
 though dense, is very low and even, not more than a foot 
 or so off the ground; and in the Hunting Moon the leaves 
 of this undergrowth have turned to purest yellow, without 
 touch or trace of red, so that the sombre forest is carpeted 
 with gold. Here and there shows a birch or aspen, also 
 bright, pure light yellow, as though a brilliant sun were 
 striking down through painted windows. Groups of yellow- 
 leafed larches add to the splendour. And close to the 
 ground grow little flat plants decked out with red or blue 
 or white wax berries, Christmas fashion. 
 
 In this green-and-gold room one journeys for days. Oc- 
 casionally a chance opening affords a momentary glimpse 
 of hills or of the river sweeping below; but not for long. 
 It is a chilly room. The frost has hardened the mud in the 
 trail. One's feet and hands ache cruelly. At night camp is 
 made near the banks of the river, whence always one may 
 in a few moments catch as many trout as are needed, fine, 
 big, fighting trout. 
 
 By the end of three or four days the prospect opens out. 
 
 190 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 Tremendous cliffs rise sheer from the bottom of the valley; 
 up tributary canons one can see a dozen miles to distant 
 snow ranges glittering and wonderful. Nearer at hand the 
 mountains rise above timber line to great buttes and preci- 
 pices. 
 
 191 
 
CHAPTER H 
 
 THE FIRST CLIMB 
 
 Fisher, Frank, and I had been hunting for elk in the dense 
 forests along the foot of one of these mountains; and for a 
 half day, drenched with sweat, had toiled continuously up 
 and down steep slopes, trying to go quietly, trying to keep 
 our wind, trying to pierce the secrets of the leafy screen 
 always about us. We were tired of it. 
 
 "Let's go to the top and look for goats," suggested Frank. 
 "There are some goat cliffs on the other side of her. It 
 isn't very far." 
 
 It was not very far, as measured by the main ranges, but 
 it was a two hours' steady climb nearly straight up. We 
 would toil doggedly for a hundred feet, or until our wind gave 
 out and our hearts began to pound distressingly; then we 
 would rest a moment. After doing this a few hundred 
 times we would venture a look upward, confidently expect- 
 ing the summit to be close at hand. It seemed as far as 
 ever. We suffered a dozen or so of these disappointments, 
 and then learned not to look up. This was only after we 
 had risen above timber line to the smooth, rounded rock- 
 and-grass shoulder of the mountain. Then three times we 
 made what we thought was a last spurt, only to find our- 
 selves on a "false summit." After a while we grew resigned, 
 we realized that we were never going to get anywhere, but 
 
 192 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 were to go on forever, without ultimate purpose and without 
 hope, pushing with tired legs, gasping with inadequate 
 lungs. When we had fully made up our minds to that, 
 we arrived. This is typical of all high-mountain climbing 
 the dogged, hard, hopeless work that can never reach an 
 accomplishment; and then at last the sudden, unexpected 
 culmination. 
 
 We topped a gently rounding summit; took several deep 
 breaths into the uttermost cells of our distressed lungs; 
 walked forward a dozen steps and found ourselves looking 
 over the sheer brink of a precipice. So startlingly unfore- 
 seen was the swoop into blue space that I recoiled hastily, 
 feeling a little dizzy. Then I recovered and stepped for- 
 ward cautiously for another look. As with all sheer pre- 
 cipices, the lip on which we stood seemed slightly to over- 
 hang, so that in order to see one had apparently to crane 
 away over, quite off balance. Only by the strongest effort 
 of the will is one able to rid oneself of the notion that the 
 centre of gravity is about to plunge one off head first into 
 blue space. For it was fairly blue space below our precipice. 
 We could see birds wheeling below us; and then below them 
 again, very tiny, the fall away of talus, and the tops of 
 trees in the basin below. And opposite, and all around, 
 even down over the horizon, were other majestic peaks, 
 peers of our own, naked and rugged. From camp the great 
 forests had seemed to us the most important, most domi- 
 nant, most pervading feature of the wilderness. Now in 
 the high sisterhood of the peaks we saw they were as mantles 
 that had been dropped about the feet. 
 
 Across the face of the cliff below us ran irregular tiny 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ledges; buttresses ended in narrow peaks; "chimneys" ran 
 down irregularly to the talus. Here were supposed to dwell 
 the goats. 
 
 We proceeded along the crest, spying eagerly. We saw 
 tracks; but no animals. By now it was four o'clock, and 
 past time to turn campward. We struck down the moun- 
 tain on a diagonal that should take us home. For some 
 distance all went well enough. To be sure, it was very 
 steep, and we had to pay due attention to balance and slid- 
 ing. Then a rock wall barred our way. It was not a very 
 large rock wall. We went below it. After a hundred 
 yards we struck another. By now the first had risen until 
 it towered far above us, a sheer, gray cliff behind which the 
 sky was very blue. We skirted the base of the second and 
 lower cliff. It led us to another; and to still another. Each 
 of these we passed on the talus beneath it; but with increas- 
 ing difficulty, owing to the fact that the wide ledges were 
 pinching out. At last we found ourselves cut off from 
 farther progress. To our right rose tier after tier of great 
 cliffs, serenely and loftily unconscious of any little insects 
 like ourselves that might be puttering around their feet. 
 Straight ahead the ledge ceased to exist. To our left was 
 a hundred-foot drop to the talus that sloped down to the 
 canon. The canon did not look so very far away, and 
 we desired mightily to reach it. The only alternative 
 to getting straight down was to climb back the weary 
 way we had come; and that meant all night without 
 food, warm clothing, or shelter on a snow-and-ice 
 mountain. 
 
 Therefore, we scouted that hundred-foot drop to our left 
 
 194 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 very carefully. It seemed hopeless; but at last I found a 
 place where a point of the talus ran up to a level not much 
 below our own. The only difficulty was that between our- 
 selves and that point of talus extended a piece of sheer wall. 
 I slung my rifle over my back, and gave myself to a serious 
 consideration of that wall. Then I began to work out across 
 its face. 
 
 The principle of safe climbing is to maintain always three 
 points of suspension: that it to say, one should keep either 
 both footholds and one handhold, or both handholds and 
 one foothold. Failing that, one is taking long chances. 
 With this firmly in mind, I spidered out across the wall, test- 
 ing every projection and cranny before I trusted any weight 
 to it. One apparently solid projection as big as my head 
 came away at the first touch, and went bouncing off into 
 space. Finally I stood, or rather sprawled, almost within 
 arm's length of a tiny scrub pine growing solidly in a crevice 
 just over the talus. Once there, our troubles were over; 
 but there seemed no way of crossing. For the moment it 
 actually looked as though four feet only would be sufficient 
 to turn us back. 
 
 At last, however, I found a toehold half way across. It 
 was a very slight crevice, and not more than two inches deep. 
 The toe of a boot would just hold there without slipping. 
 Unfortunately, there were no handhoMs above it. After 
 thinking the matter over, however, I made up my mind to 
 violate, for this occasion only, the rules for climbing. I 
 inserted the toe, gathered myself, and with one smooth 
 swoop swung myself across and grabbed that tiny 
 pine! 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Fisher now worked his way out and crossed in the same 
 manner. But Frank was too heavy for such gymnastics. 
 Fisher therefore took a firm grip on the pine, inserted his 
 toe in the crevice, and hung on with all his strength while 
 Frank crossed on his shoulders! 
 
 196 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SECOND AND THIRD CLIMBS 
 
 Once more, lured by the promise of the tracks we had seen, 
 we climbed this same mountain, but again without results. 
 By now, you may be sure, we had found an easier way home! 
 This was a very hard day's work, but uneventful. 
 
 Now, four days later, I crossed the river and set off above 
 to explore in the direction of the Continental Divide. Of 
 course I had no intention of climbing for goats, or, indeed, 
 of hunting very hard for anything. My object was an idle 
 go-look-see. Equally, of course, after I had rammed around 
 most happily for a while up the wooded stream-bed of that 
 canon, I turned sharp to the right and began to climb the 
 slope of the spur, running out at right angles to the main 
 ranges that constituted one wall of my canon. It was 
 fifteen hundred nearly perpendicular feet of hard scrambling 
 through windfalls. Then when I had gained the ridge, I 
 thought I might as well keep along it a little distance. And 
 then, naturally, I saw the main peaks not so very far away; 
 and was in for it! 
 
 On either side of me the mountain dropped away abruptly. 
 I walked on a knife edge, steeply rising. Great cations 
 yawned close at either hand, and over across were leagues 
 of snow mountains. 
 
 In the cafion from which I had emerged a fine rain had 
 
 197 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 been falling. Here it had turned to wet sleet. As I 
 mounted, the slush underfoot grew firmer, froze, then 
 changed to dry, powdery snow. This change was interest- 
 ing and beautiful, but rather uncomfortable, for my boots, 
 soaked through by the slush, now froze solid and scraped 
 various patches of skin from my feet. It was interesting, 
 too, to trace the change in bird life as the altitude increased. 
 At snow line the species had narrowed down to a few ravens, 
 a Canada jay, a blue grouse or so, nuthatches, and brown 
 creepers. I saw one fresh elk track, innumerable marten, 
 and the pad of a very large grizzly. 
 
 The ridge mounted steadily. After I had gained to 2,300 
 feet above the canon I found that the ridge dipped to a 
 saddle 600 feet lower. It really grieved me to give up that 
 hard-earned six hundred, and then to buy it back again by 
 another hard, slow, toilsome climb. Again I found my way 
 barred by some unsuspected cliffs about sixty feet in height. 
 Fortunately, they were well broken; and I worked my way 
 to the top by means of ledges. 
 
 Atop this the snow suddenly grew deeper and the ascent 
 more precipitous. I fairly wallowed along. The timber 
 line fell below me. All animal life disappeared. My only 
 companions were now at spaced-out and mighty intervals 
 the big bare peaks that had lifted themselves mysteriously 
 from among their lesser neighbours, with which heretofore 
 they had been confused. In spite of very heavy exertions, 
 I began to feel the cold; so I unslung my rucksack and put 
 on my buckskin shirt. The snow had become very light 
 and feathery. The high, still buttes and crags of the main 
 divide were right before me. Light fog wreaths drifted 
 
 198 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 and eddied slowly, now concealing, now revealing the solemn 
 crags and buttresses. Over everything the rocks, the 
 few stunted and twisted small trees, the very surface of 
 the snow itself lay a heavy rime of frost. This rime stood 
 out in long, slender needles an inch to an inch and a half in 
 length, sparkling and fragile and beautiful. It seemed that 
 a breath of wind or even a loud sound would precipitate the 
 glittering panoply to ruin; but in all the really awesome 
 silence and hushed breathlessness of that strange upper 
 world there was nothing to disturb them. The only motion 
 was that of the idly-drifting fog wreaths; the only sound was 
 that made by the singing of the blood in my ears! I felt 
 as though I were in a world holding its breath. 
 
 It was piercing cold. I ate a biscuit and a few prunes, 
 tramping energetically back and forth to keep warm. I could 
 see in all directions now: an infinity of bare peaks, with 
 hardly a glimpse of forests or streams or places where things 
 might live. Goats are certainly either fools or great poets. 
 
 After a half hour of fruitless examination of the cliffs 
 I perforce had to descend. The trip back was long. It 
 had the added interest in that it was bringing me nearer 
 water. No thirst is quite so torturing as that which afflicts 
 one who climbs hard in cold, high altitudes. The throat 
 and mouth seem to shrivel and parch. Psychologically, it is 
 even worse than the desert thirst because in cold air it is 
 unreasonable. Finally it became so unendurable that I 
 turned down from the spur-ridge long before I should other- 
 wise have done so, and did a good deal of extra work merely 
 to reach a little sooner the stream at the bottom of the canon. 
 When I reached it, I found that here it flowed underground. 
 
 199 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 OTHER CLIMBS 
 
 For ten days we hunted and fished. When the oppor- 
 tunity offered, we made a goat-survey of a new place. 
 Finally, as time grew short, we realized that we must con- 
 centrate our energies in one effort if we were to get speci- 
 mens of this most desirable of all American big game. 
 Therefore Fisher, Frank, Harry, and I, leaving our other 
 two companions and the majority of the horses at the base 
 camp, packed a few days' provisions and started in for the 
 highest peaks of all. 
 
 We journeyed up an unknown canon eighteen miles 
 long, heavily wooded in the bottoms, with great mountains 
 overhanging, and with a beautiful clear trout stream singing 
 down its bed. The first day we travelled ten hours. One 
 man was always in front cutting out windfalls or other ob- 
 structions. I should be afraid to guess how many trees 
 we chopped through that day. Another man scouted 
 ahead for the best route amid difficulties. The other two 
 performed the soul-destroying task of getting the horses 
 to follow the appointed way. After three o'clock we began 
 to hope for horse feed. At dark we reluctantly gave it up. 
 The forest remained unbroken. We had to tie the poor, 
 unfed horses to trees, while we ourselves searched diligently 
 and with only partial success for tiny spots level enough 
 
 200 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 and clear enough for our beds. It was very cold that night; 
 and nobody was comfortable; the horses least of all. 
 
 Next morning we were out and away by daylight. If 
 we could not find horse feed inside of four hours, we would 
 be forced to retreat. Three hours of the four went by. 
 Then Harry and I held the horses while our companions 
 scouted ahead rapidly. We nearly froze, for in that deep 
 valley the sun did not rise until nearly noon. Through 
 an opening we could see back to a tremendous sheer butte 
 rising more than three thousand feet* by a series of very 
 narrow terraced ledges. We named it the Citadel, so Eke 
 was it to an ancient proud fortress. 
 
 Fisher reported first. He had climbed a tree, but had 
 seen no feed. Ten minutes later Frank returned. He had 
 found the track of an ancient avalanche close under the 
 mountain, and in that track grew coarse grasses. We 
 pushed on, and there made camp. 
 
 It was a queer enough camp. Our beds we spread in 
 the various little spots among the roots and hummocks we 
 imagined to look the most even. The fire we had to build 
 in quite another place. All around us the lodge-pole pines, 
 firs, and larches grew close and dark and damp. Only to 
 the west the snow ranges showed among the treetopa like 
 great, looming white clouds. 
 
 For two days we lived high among the glaciers and snow 
 crags, taking tremendous tramps, seeing wonderful peaks, 
 frozen lakes, sheer cliffs, the tracks of grizzlies in numbers, 
 the tiny sources of great streams, and the infinity of upper 
 spaces. But no goats; and no tracks of goats. Little by 
 
 *3,35, to ke esac t. We later measured it. 
 
 201 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 little we eliminated the possibilities of the country accessible 
 to us. Leagues in all directions, as far as the eye could 
 reach, was plenty of other country, all equally good for 
 goats; but it was not within reach of us from this canon; 
 and our time was up. Finally, we dropped back and made 
 camp at the last feed; a mile or so below the Citadel. Two 
 ranges at right angles here converged, and the Citadel rose 
 like a tower at the corner. Here was our last chance. 
 
 202 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 GOATS 
 
 As we were finishing breakfast my eye was attracted to a 
 snow speck on the mountainside some two thousand feet 
 above us and slightly westward that somehow looked to me 
 different from other snow specks. For nearly a minute I 
 stared at it through my glasses. At last the speck moved. 
 The game was in sight! 
 
 We drew straws for the shot, and Fisher won. Then 
 we began our climb. It was the same old story of pumping 
 lungs and pounding hearts; but with the incentive before us 
 we made excellent time. A shallow ravine and a fringe 
 of woods afforded us the cover we needed. At the end 
 of an hour and a half we crawled out of our ravine and 
 to the edge of the trees. There across a steep canon 
 and perhaps four hundred yards away were the goats, two 
 of them, lying on the edge of small cliffs. We could see 
 them very plainly, but they were too far for a sure shot. 
 After examining them to our satisfaction we wormed our 
 way back. 
 
 "The only sure way," I insisted, "is to climb clear to the 
 top of the ridge, go along it on the other side until we are 
 above and beyond the goats, and then to stalk them down 
 hill." 
 
 That meant a lot more hard work; but in the end the plan 
 
 203 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 was adopted. We resumed our interminable and toilsome 
 climbing. 
 
 The ridge proved to be of the knife-edge variety, and 
 covered with snow. From a deep, wide, walled-in basin on 
 the other side rose the howling of two brush wolves. We 
 descended a few feet to gain safe concealment; walked as 
 rapidly as possible to the point above the goats; and then 
 with the utmost caution began our descent. 
 
 In the last two hundred yards is the essence of big-game 
 stalking. The hunter must move noiselessly, he must keep 
 concealed; he must determine at each step just what the 
 effect of that step has been in the matters of noise and of 
 altering the point of view. It is necessary to spy sharply, 
 not only from the normal elevation of a man's shoulders, 
 but also stooping to the waist line, and even down to the 
 knees. An animal is just as suspicious of legs as of heads; 
 and much more likely to see them. 
 
 The shoulder of the mountain here consisted of a series 
 of steep grass curves ending in short cliff jump-offs. Scat- 
 tered and stunted trees and tree groups grew here and there. 
 In thirty minutes we had made our distance and recognized 
 the fact that our goats must be lying at the base of the next 
 ledge. Motioning Harry to the left and Fisher to the front, 
 I myself moved to the right to cut off the game should it 
 run in that direction. Ten seconds later I heard Fisher 
 shoot; then Harry opened up; and in a moment a goat ran 
 across the ledge fifty yards below me. With a thrill of the 
 greatest satisfaction I dropped the gold bead of my front 
 sight on his shoulder! 
 
 The buUet knocked him off the edge of the cliff. He fell, 
 
 204 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 struck the steep grass slope, and began to roll. Over and 
 over and over he went, gathering speed like a snowball, 
 getting smaller and smaller until he disappeared in the brush 
 far below, a tiny spot of white. 
 
 No one can appreciate the feeling of relaxed relief that 
 filled me. Hard and dangerous climbs, killing work, con- 
 siderable hardship and discomfort had at length their re- 
 ward. I could now take a rest. The day was young, and 
 I contemplated with something like rapture a return to 
 camp, and a good puttery day skinning out that goat. In 
 addition I was suffering now from a splitting headache, the 
 effects of incipient snow-blindness, and was generally pretty 
 wobbly. 
 
 And then my eye wandered to the left, whence that goat 
 had come. I saw a large splash of blood; at a spot before I 
 had fired! It was too evident that the goat had already 
 been wounded by Fisher; and therefore, by hunters law, 
 belonged to him! 
 
 I set my teeth and turned up the mountain to regain 
 the descent we had just made. At the knife-edge top I 
 stopped for a moment to get my breath and to survey the 
 country. Diagonally across the basin where the wolves 
 were howling, half way down the ridge running at right 
 angles to my own, I made out two goats. They were two 
 miles away from me on an air line. My course was obvious. 
 I must proceed along my ridge to the Citadel, keeping always 
 out of sight; surmount that fortress; descend to the second 
 ridge; walk along the other side of it until I was above those 
 goats, and then sneak down on them. 
 
 I accomplished the first two stages of my journey all 
 
 205 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 right, though with considerably more difficulty in spots than 
 I should have anticipated. The knife edge was so sharp 
 and the sides so treacherous that at times it was almost 
 impossible to travel anywhere but right on top. This 
 would not do. By a little planning, however, I managed 
 to reach the central "keep" of the Citadel: a high, bleak, 
 broken pile, flat on top, with snow in all the crevices, and 
 small cliffs on all sides. From this advantage I could cau- 
 tiously spy out the lay of the land. 
 
 Below me fifty feet dipped the second ridge, running 
 nearly at right angles. It sloped abruptly to the wolf basin, 
 but fell sheer on the other side to depths I could not at that 
 time guess.* A very few scattered, stunted, and twisted 
 trees huddled close down to the rock and snow. This 
 saddle was about fifty feet in width and perhaps five hun- 
 dred yards in length. It ended in another craggy butte 
 very much like the Citadel. 
 
 My first glance determined that my original plan would 
 not do. The goats had climbed from where I had first seen 
 them, and were now leisurely topping the saddle. To 
 attempt to descend would be to reveal myself. I was 
 forced to huddle just where I was. My hope was that the 
 goats would wander along the saddle toward me, and not 
 climb the other butte opposite. Also I wanted them to 
 hurry, please, as the snow in which I sat was cold, and the 
 wind piercing. 
 
 This apparently they were not inclined to do. They 
 paused, they nibbled at some scanty moss, they gazed at 
 the scenery, they scratched their ears. I shifted my posi- 
 
 *3,35 feet later measurement. 
 
 206 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 tion cautiously and saw below me,* lying on the snow at 
 the very edge of the cliff, a tremendous billy ! He had been 
 there all the time; and I had been looking over him! 
 
 At the crack of the Springfield he lurched forward and 
 toppled slowly out of sight over the edge of the cliff. The 
 two I had been stalking instantly disappeared. But on 
 the very top of the butte opposite appeared another. It was 
 a very long shot,f but I had to take chances, for I could not 
 tell whether or not the one I had just shot was accessible or 
 not. On a guess I held six inches over his back. The goat 
 gave one leap forward into space. For twenty feet he fell 
 spread-eagled and right side up as though flying. Then he 
 began to turn and whirl. As far as my personal testimony 
 could go, he is falling yet through that dizzy blue abyss. 
 
 "Good-bye, billy/' said I, sadly. It looked then as 
 though I had lost both. 
 
 I worked my way down the face of the Citadel until I 
 was just above the steep snow fields. Here was a drop 
 of six feet. If the snow was soft, all right. If it was frozen 
 underneath, I would be very likely to toboggan off into 
 space. I pried loose a small rock and dropped it, watching 
 with great interest how it lit. It sunk with a dull plunk. 
 Therefore I made my leap, and found myself waist deep in 
 feathery snow. 
 
 With what anxiety I peered over the edge of that preci- 
 pice the reader can guess. Thirty feet below was a four- 
 foot ledge. On the edge of that ledge grew two stunted 
 
 *35S Paces. 
 
 tSomewhere between 500 and 700 yards. I am very practised at pacing and grossing such 
 distances. 
 
 207 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 pines about three feet in height and only two. Against 
 those pines my goat had lodged! In my exultation I 
 straightened up and uttered a whoop. To my surprise it 
 was answered from behind me. Frank had followed my 
 trail. He had killed a nanny and was carrying the head. 
 Everybody had goats! 
 
 After a great deal of manoeuvring we worked our way 
 down to the ledge by means of a crevice and a ten-foot pole. 
 Then we tied the goat to the little trees, and set to work. 
 I held Frank while he skinned; and then he held me while 
 I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape 
 almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere 
 of distance. A solitary raven discovered us, and began to 
 circle and croak and flop. 
 
 "You'll get your meal later," we told him. 
 
 Far below us, like suspended leaves swirling in a wind, 
 a dense flock of snowbirds fluttered. 
 
 We got on well enough until it became necessary to sever 
 the backbone. Then, try as we would, we could not in the 
 general awkwardness reach a joint with a knife. At last 
 we had a bright idea. I held the head back while Frank 
 shot the vertebrae in two with his rifle! 
 
 Then we loosed the cords that held the body. It fell 
 six hundred feet, hit a ledge, bounded out, and so disap- 
 peared toward the hazy blue map below. The raven folded 
 his wings and dropped like a plummet, with a strange rush- 
 ing sound. We watched him until the increasing speed 
 of his swoop turned us a little dizzy, and we drew back. 
 When we looked a moment later he had disappeared into 
 the distance straight down! 
 
 208 
 
CLIMBING FOR GOATS 
 
 Now we had to win our way out. The trophy we tied 
 with a rope. I climbed up the pole, and along the crevice 
 as far as the rope would let me, hauled up the trophy, 
 jammed my feet and back against both sides of the "chim- 
 ney." Frank then clambered past me; and so repeat. 
 
 But once in the saddle we found we could not return the 
 way we had come. The drop-off into the feather snow 
 settled that. A short reconnaissance made it very evident 
 that we would have to go completely around the outside 
 of the Citadel, at the level of the saddle, until we had 
 gained the other ridge. This meant about three quarters 
 of a mile against the tremendous cliff. 
 
 We found a ledge and started. Our packs weighed 
 about sixty pounds apiece, and we were forced to crary 
 them rather high. The ledge proved to be from six to ten 
 feet wide, with a gentle slope outward. We could not 
 afford the false steps, nor the little slips, nor the overbal- 
 ancings so unimportant on level ground. Progress was 
 slow and cautious. We could not but remember the heart- 
 stopping drop of that goat after we had cut the rope; and 
 the swoop of the raven. Especially at the corners did we 
 hug close to the wall, for the wind there snatched at us 
 eagerly. 
 
 The ledge held out bravely. It had to; for there was no 
 possible way to get up or down from it. We rounded the 
 shoulder of the pile. Below us now was another landscape 
 into which to fall the valley of the stream, with its forests 
 and its high cliffs over the way. But already we could 
 see our ridge. Another quarter mile would land us in 
 safety. 
 
 209 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Without warning the ledge pinched out. A narrow 
 tongue of shale, on so steep a slope that it barely clung to the 
 mountain, ran twenty feet to a precipice. A touch sent 
 its surface rattling merrily down and into space. It was 
 only about eight feet across; and then the ledge began 
 again. 
 
 We eyed it. Three steps would take us across. Alter- 
 native: return along the ledge to attack the problem ab 
 initio. 
 
 "That shale is going to start," said Frank. "If you stop, 
 she'll sure carry you over the ledge. But if you keep 
 right on going, fast, I believe your weight will carry you 
 through." 
 
 We readjusted our packs so they could not slip and over- 
 balance us; we measured and re-measured with our eyes 
 just where those steps would fall; we took a deep breath 
 and we hustled. Behind us the fine shale slid sullenly in a 
 miniature avalanche that cascaded over the edge. Our 
 "weight had carried us through!" 
 
 In camp, we found that Harry's shooting had landed a 
 kid, so that we had a goat apiece. 
 
 We rejoined the main camp next day just ahead of a big 
 snowstorm that must have made travel all but impossible. 
 Then for five days we rode out, in snow, sleet, and hail. 
 But we were entirely happy, and indifferent to what the 
 weather could do to us now. 
 
 210 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 Last fall I revisited Arizona for the first time in many 
 years. My ultimate destination lay one hundred and 
 twenty-eight miles south of the railroad. As I stepped off 
 the Pullman I drew deep the crisp, thin air; I looked across 
 immeasurable distance to tiny, brittle, gilded buttes; I 
 glanced up and down a ramshackle row of wooden buildings 
 with crazy wooden awnings, and I sighed contentedly. 
 Same good old Arizona. 
 
 The Overland pulled out, flirting its tail at me contemptu- 
 ously. A small, battered-looking car, grayed and caked 
 with white alkali dust, glided alongside, and from under 
 its swaying and disreputable top emerged someone I knew. 
 Not individually. But by many campftres of the past I 
 had foregathered with him and his kind. Same old Arizona, 
 I repeated to myself. 
 
 This person bore down upon me and gently extracted my 
 bag from my grasp. He stood about six feet three; his face 
 was long and brown and grave; his figure was spare and 
 strong. Atop his head he wore the sacred Arizona high- 
 crowned hat, around his neck a bright bandana; no coat, 
 but an unbuttoned vest; skinny trousers, and boots. Save 
 for lack of spurs and chaps and revolver he might have been 
 
 211 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 a moving-picture cowboy. The spurs alone were lacking 
 from the picture of a real one. 
 
 He deposited my bag in the tonneau, urged me into a 
 front seat, and crowded himself behind the wheel. The 
 effect was that of a grown-up in a go-cart. This particular 
 brand of tin car had not been built for this particular size 
 of man. His knees were hunched up either side the steering 
 column; his huge, strong brown hands grasped most com- 
 petently that toy-like wheel. The peak of his sombrero 
 missed the wrinkled top only because he sat on his spine. 
 I reflected that he must have been drafted into this job, 
 and I admired his courage in undertaking to double up like 
 that even for a short journey. 
 
 "Roads good?" I asked the usual question as I slammed 
 shut the door. 
 
 "Fair, suh," he replied, soberly. 
 
 "What time should we get in? " I inquired. 
 
 "Long 'bout six o'clock, suh," he informed me. 
 
 It was then eight in the morning one hundred and 
 twenty-eight miles ten hours roads good, eh? hum. 
 
 He touched the starter. The motor exploded with a 
 bang. We moved. 
 
 I looked her over. On the running board were strapped 
 two big galvanized tanks of water. It was almost distress- 
 ingly evident that the muffler had either been lost or thrown 
 away. But she was hitting on all four. I glanced at the 
 speedometer dial. It registered the astonishing total of 
 29,250 miles. 
 
 We swung out the end of the main street and sailed 
 down a road that vanished in the endless gentle slope of a 
 
 212 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 "sink." Beyond the sink the bank rose again, gently, to 
 gain the height of the eyes at some mesas. Well I know 
 that sort of country. One journeyed for the whole day, 
 and the mesas stayed where they were; and in between 
 were successively vast stretches of mesquite^, or alkali, or 
 lava outcrops, or sacatone bottoms, each seeming, while 
 one was in it, to fill all the world forever, without end; and 
 the day's changes were of mirage and the shifting colours of 
 distant hills. 
 
 It was soon evident that my friend's ideas of driving 
 probably coincided with his ideas of going up a mountain. 
 When a mounted cowboy climbs a hill he does not believe in 
 fussing with such nonsense as grades; he goes straight up. 
 Similarly, this man evidently considered that, as roads were 
 made for travel and distance for annihilation, one should 
 turn on full speed and get there. Not one hair's breadth 
 did he deign to swerve for chuck-hole or stone; not one frac- 
 tional mile per hour did he check for gully or ditch. We 
 struck them head-on, bang! did they happen in our way. 
 Then my head hit the disreputable top. In the mysterious 
 fashion of those who drive freight wagons my companion 
 remained imperturbably glued to his seat. I had neither 
 breath nor leisure for the country or conversation. 
 
 Thus one half hour. The speedometer dial showed the 
 figures 29,260. I allowed myself to think of a possible late 
 lunch at my friend's ranch. 
 
 We slowed down. The driver advanced the hand throttle 
 the full sweep of the quadrant, steered with his knees, and 
 produced the "makings." The faithful little motor con- 
 tinued to hit on all four, but in slow and painful succession, 
 
 213 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 each explosion sounding like a pistol shot. We had passed 
 already the lowest point of the "sink," and were climbing 
 the slope on the other side. The country, as usual, looked 
 perfectly level, but the motor knew different. 
 
 "I like to hear her shoot," said the driver, after his first 
 cigarette. " That's why I chucked the muffler. Its plumb 
 lonesome out yere all by yourself. A hoss is different." 
 
 "Who you riding for?" 
 
 "Me? I'm riding for me. This outfit is mine." 
 
 It didn't sound reasonable; but that's what I heard. 
 
 "You mean you drive this car as a living " 
 
 "Correct." 
 
 "I should think you'd get cramped!" I burst out. 
 
 "Me? I'm used to it. I bet I ain't missed three days 
 since I got her and that's about a year ago." 
 
 He answered my questions briefly, volunteering nothing. 
 He had never had any trouble with the car; he had never 
 broken a spring; he'd overhauled her once or twice; he aver- 
 aged sixteen actual miles to the gallon. If I were to name 
 the car I should have to write advt. after this article to 
 keep within the law. I resolved to get one. We chugged 
 persistently along on high gear; though I believe second 
 would have been better. 
 
 Presently we stopped and gave her a drink. She 
 was boiling like a little tea kettle, and she was pretty 
 thirsty. 
 
 "They all do it," said Bill. Of course his name was 
 Bill. "Especially the big he-ones. High altitude. Going 
 slow with your throttle wide open. You're all right if you 
 got plenty water. If not, why then ketch a cow and use 
 
 214 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 the milk. Only go slow or you'll git all clogged up with 
 butter." 
 
 We clambered aboard and proceeded. That distant 
 dreamful mesa had drawn very near. It was scandalous. 
 The aloof desert whose terror, whose beauty, whose won- 
 der, whose allure was the awe of infinite space that could be 
 traversed only in toil and humbleness, had been contracted 
 by a thing that now said 29,265. 
 
 "At this rate we'll get there before six o'clock," I re- 
 marked, hopefully. 
 
 "Oh, this is County Highway!" said Bill. 
 
 As we crawled along, still on high gear that tin car 
 certainly pulled strongly a horseman emerged from a fold 
 in the hills. He was riding a sweat-covered, mettlesome 
 black with a rolling eye. His own eye was bitter, and like- 
 wise the other features of his face. After trying in vain to 
 get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our mitrailleuse, 
 he gave it up. 
 
 "Got anything for me?" he shrieked at Bill. 
 
 Bill leisurely turned off the switch, draped his long legs 
 over the side of the car, and produced his makings. 
 
 "Nothing, Jim. Expaicting of anything?" 
 
 "Sent for a new grass rope. How's feed down Mogal- 
 lon way?" 
 
 "Fair. That a bronco you're riding? " 
 
 "Just backed him three days ago." 
 
 "Amount to anything?" 
 
 "That," said Jim, with an extraordinary bitterness, "is 
 already a gaited hoss. He has fo' gaits now." 
 
 "Four gaits," repeated Bill, incredulously. "I'm in the 
 
 215 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 stink wagon business. I ain't aiming to buy no bosses. 
 What four gaits you claim he's got? " 
 
 "Start, stumble, fall down and git up," said Jim. 
 
 Shortly after this joyous rencontre we topped the rise, 
 and, looking back, could realize the grade we had been as- 
 cending. 
 
 The road led white and straight as an arrow to dwindle! 
 in perspective to a mere thread. The little car leaped for- 
 ward on the invisible down grade. Again I anchored my- 
 self to one of the top supports. A long, rangy fowl hap- 
 pened into the road just ahead of us, but immediately 
 flopped clumsily, half afoot, half a- wing, to one side in the 
 brush, like a stampeded hen. 
 
 "Road runner," said Bill, with a short laugh. "Remember 
 how they used to rack along in front of a hoss for miles, 
 keeping just ahead, lettin' out a link when you spurred up? 
 Aggravatin* fowl! They got over tryin' to keep ahead of 
 gasoline." 
 
 In the white alkaline road lay one lone, pyramidal rock. 
 It was about the size of one's two fists and all its edges and 
 corners were sharp. Probably twenty miles of dear space 
 lay on either flank of that rock. Nevertheless, our right 
 front wheel hit it square in the middle. The car leaped 
 straight up, the rock popped sidewise, and the tire went off 
 with a mighty bang. Bill put on the brakes, deliberately 
 uncoiled himself, and descended. 
 
 "Seems like tires don't last no time at all in this coun- 
 try," he remarked, sadly. He walked around the car and 
 began to examine the four wrecks he carried as spares. 
 After some inspection of their respective merits, he selected 
 
 216 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 one. "I just somehow kain't git over the notion she ought 
 to sidestep them little rocks and holes of her own accord," 
 he exclaimed. "A hoss is a plumb, narrow-minded critter, 
 but he knows enough for that." 
 
 While he changed the tire which incidentally involved 
 patching one of half a dozen over-worn tubes I looked 
 her over more in detail. The customary frame, strut rods, 
 and torsion rods had been supplemented by the most ex- 
 traordinary criss-cross of angle-iron braces it has ever been 
 my fortune to behold. They ran from anywhere to every- 
 where beneath that car. I began to comprehend her co- 
 hesiveness. 
 
 "Jim Coles, blacksmith at the O T, puts them braces in 
 all our cars," explained Bill. "He's got her down to a 
 system." 
 
 The repair finished and the radiator refilled we resumed 
 the journey. It was now just eleven o'clock. The odo- 
 meter reading was 29,276. The temperature was well 
 up toward 100 degrees. But beneath the disreputable top, 
 and while in motion, the heat was not noticeable. Never- 
 theless, the brief stop had brought back poignantly certain 
 old days choking dust, thirst, the heat of a heavy sun, 
 the long day that led one nowhere 
 
 The noon mirages were taking shape, throwing stately 
 and slow their vast illusions across the horizon. Lakes 
 glimmered; distant ranges took on the forms of phantasm, 
 rising higher, flattening, reaching across space the arches 
 of their spans, rendering unreal a world of beauty and 
 dread. That in the old days was the deliberate fashion 
 the desert had of searing men's souls with her majesty. 
 
 217 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Slowly, slowly, the changes melted one into the other; mas- 
 sively, deliberately the face of the world was altered; so 
 that at last the poor plodding human being, hot, dry, 
 blinded, thirsty, felt himself a nothing in the presence of 
 eternities. Well I knew that old spell of the desert. But 
 now! Honestly, after a few minutes I began to feel sorry 
 for the poor old desert! Its spells didn't work for the sim- 
 ple reason that we didn't give it time I We charged down on 
 its phantom lakes and disproved them and forgot them. 
 We broke right in on the dignified and deliberate scene shift- 
 ing of mountains and mesas, showed them up for the brittle, 
 dry hills they were, and left them behind. It was pitiful! 
 It was as though a revered tragedian should overnight find 
 that his vogue had departed; that he was no longer getting 
 over; that an irreverent upstart, breaking in on his most 
 sonorous periods, was getting laughs with slang. We had 
 lots of water; the dust we left behind; it wasn't even hot in 
 the wind of our going! 
 
 In the shallow crease of hills a shimmer of white soon 
 changed to evident houses. We drew into a straggling 
 desert town. 
 
 It was typical thirty miles from the railroad, a dis- 
 tributing point for the cattle country. Four broad build- 
 ings with peeled, sunburned faces, a wooden house or so, 
 and a dozen flat-roofed adobe huts hung pleasingly with 
 long strips of red peppers. Of course one of the wooden 
 buildings was labelled General Store; and another, smaller, 
 contained a barber shop and postofSce combined. The 
 third was barred and unoccupied. The fourth had been a 
 livery stable but was now a garage. Six saddle horses 
 
 218 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 and six Fords stood outside the General Store, which was a 
 fair division. 
 
 Bill slowed down. 
 
 "Have a drink," I observed, hospitably. 
 
 "Arizona's a dry state," Bill reminded me; but never- 
 theless stopped and uncoiled. That unbelievable phe- 
 nomenon had escaped my memory. In the old days I used 
 to shut my eyes and project my soul into what I imagined 
 was the future. I saw Arizona, embottled, dying in the 
 last-wet ditch, while all the rest of the world, even includ- 
 ing Milwaukee, bore down on her carrying the banners of 
 Prohibition. So much for prophecy. I voiced a thought. 
 
 "There must be an awful lot of old timers died this 
 spring. You can't cut them off short and hope to save 
 them." 
 
 Bill grunted. 
 
 We entered the store. It smelled good, as such stores 
 always do soap, leather, ground coffee, bacon, cheese 
 all sorts of things. On the right ran a counter and shelves 
 of dry goods and clothing; on the left groceries, cigars, and 
 provisions generally. Down the middle saddles, ropes, 
 spurs, pack outfits, harness, hardware. In the rear a 
 glass cubby-hole with a desk inside. All that was custom- 
 ary, right and proper. But I noticed also a glass case with 
 spark plugs and accessories; a rack full of tires; and a barrel 
 of lubricating oil. I did not notice any body polish. By 
 the front door stood a paper-basket whose purport I under- 
 stood not at all. 
 
 Bill led me at once past two or three lounging cow per- 
 sons to the cubbyhole, where arose a typical old timer. 
 
 219 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Mr. White, meet Mr. Billings," he said. 
 
 The old timer grasped me firmly by the right hand and 
 held tight while he demanded, as usual, "What name?" 
 We informed him together. He allowed he was pleased. 
 I allowed the same. 
 
 "I want to buy a yard of calico," said Bill. 
 
 The old timer reached beneath the counter and produced 
 a strip of cloth. It was already cut, and looked to be about 
 a yard long. Also it showed the marks of loving but brutal 
 and soiled hands. 
 
 "Wrap it up?" inquired Mr. Billings. 
 
 "Nope," said Bill, and handed out three silver dollars. 
 Evidently calico was high in these parts. We turned away. 
 
 "By the way, Bill," Mr. Billings called after us, "I got 
 a little present here for you. Some friends sent her in to me 
 the other day. Let me know what you think of it." 
 
 We turned. Mr. Billings held in his hand a sealed quart 
 bottle with a familiar and famous label. 
 
 "Why, that's kind of you," said Bill, gravely. He took 
 the proffered bottle, turned it upside down, glanced at the 
 bottom, and handed it back. "But I don't believe I'd 
 wish for none of that particular breed. It never did agree 
 with my stummick." 
 
 Without a nicker of the eye the storekeeper produced a 
 second sealed bottle, identical in appearance and label 
 with the first. 
 
 "Try it," he urged. "Here's one from a different case. 
 Some of these yere vintages is better than others." 
 
 " So I've noticed," replied Bill, dryly. He glanced at the 
 bottom and slipped it into his pocket. 
 
 220 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 We went out. As we passed the door Bill, unobserved, 
 dropped into the heretofore unexplained waste-basket the 
 yard of calico he had just purchased. 
 
 "Don't believe I like the pattern for my boudoir," he 
 told me, gravely. 
 
 We clambered aboard and shot our derisive exhaust at the 
 diminishing town. 
 
 "Thought Arizona was a dry state/ 7 I suggested. 
 
 " She is. You cain't sell a drop. But you can keep stuff 
 for personal use. There ain't nothing more personal than 
 givin' it away to your friends." 
 
 "The price of calico is high down here." 
 
 "And goin' up," agreed Bill, gloomily. He drove ten 
 miles in silence while I, knowing my type, waited. 
 
 "That old Billings ought to be drug out and buried," he 
 remarked at last. "We rode together on the Chiracahua 
 range. He ought to know better than to try to put it 
 onto me." 
 
 "You saw that first bottle? Just plain forty-rod dog 
 poison and me payin' three good round dollars!" 
 
 "For calico," I reminded. 
 
 "Shore. That's why he done it. He had me if I 
 hadn't called him." 
 
 "But that first bottle was identically the same as the 
 one you have in your pocket," I stated. 
 
 "Shore?" 
 
 "Why, yes at least that is, the bottle and label were 
 the same, and I particularly noticed the cork seal looked 
 intact." 
 
 221 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "It was," agreed Bill. "That cap hasn't never been dis- 
 turbed. You're right." 
 
 "Then what objection " 
 
 "It's one of them wonders of modern science that spoils 
 the simple life next to Nature's heart," said Bill, unex- 
 pectedly. "You hitch a big hollow needle onto an electric 
 light current. When she gets hot enough you punch a hole 
 with her in the bottom of the bottle. Then you throw the 
 switch and let the needle cool off. When she's cool you 
 pour out the real thing for your own use mebbe. Then 
 you stick in your forty-cent-a-gallon squirrel poison. Heat 
 up your needle again. Draw her out very slow so the glass 
 will close up behind her. Simple, neat, effective, honest 
 enough for down here. Cork still there, seal still there, 
 label still there. Bottle still there, except for a little 
 bit of a wart-lookin' bubble in the bottom." 
 
 It was now in the noon hour. Knowing cowboys of old 
 I expected no lunch. We racketed along, and our dust tried 
 to catch us, and sleepy, accustomed jack rabbits made two 
 perfunctory hops as we turned on them the battery of our 
 exhaust. 
 
 We dipped down into a carved bottomland, several miles 
 wide, filled with minarets, peaks, vermilion towers, and 
 strange striped labyrinths of many colours above which 
 the sky showed an unbelievable blue. The trunks of colos- 
 sal trees lay about in numbers. Apparently they had all 
 been cross-cut in sections like those sawed for shake bolts, 
 for each was many times clearly divided. The sections, 
 however, lay all in place; so the trunks of the trees were as 
 they had fallen. About the ground were scattered frag- 
 
 222 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 ments of rock of all sizes, like lava, but of all the colours 
 of the giddiest parrots . The tiniest piece had at least all 
 the tints of the spectrum; and the biggest seemed to go 
 the littlest several better. They looked to me like beautiful 
 jewels. Bill cast at them a contemptuous glance. 
 
 "Every towerist I take in yere makes me stop while 
 he sags down the car with this junk," he said. Whenever I 
 say "Bill said" or "I said," I imply that we shrieked, for 
 always through that great, still country we hustled enveloped 
 in a profanity of explosions, creaks, rattles, and hums. Just 
 now though, on a level, we travelled at a low gear. "Petri- 
 fied wood," BUI added. 
 
 I swallowed guiltily the request I was about to proffer. 
 
 The malpais defined itself. We came to a wide, dry 
 wash filled with white sand. Bill brought the little car to a 
 stop. 
 
 Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into 
 it on low gear; you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you 
 slow down, slow down; your driving wheels begin to spin 
 that finishes you. Every revolution digs a deeper hole. It 
 is useless to apply power. If you are wise you throw out 
 your clutch the instant she stalls, and thus save digging 
 yourself in unnecessarily. But if you are really wise 
 you don't get in that fix at all. The next stage is that 
 wherein you thrust beneath the hind wheels certain expedi- 
 ents such as robes, coats, and so forth. The wheels, 
 when set in motion, hurl these trivialities yards to the rear. 
 The car then settles down with a shrug. About the time 
 the axle is actually resting on the sand you proceed to seri- 
 ous digging, cutting brush, and laying causeways. Some 
 
 223 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 sand you can get out of by these methods, but not dry, 
 stream-bed sand in the Southwest. Finally you reach 
 the state of true wisdom. Either you sit peacefully in the 
 tonneau and smoke until someone comes along; or, if you are 
 doubtful of that miracle, you walk to the nearest team and 
 rope. And never, never, never are you caught again I 
 A detour of fifty miles is nothing after that! 
 
 While Bill manipulated the makings, I examined the 
 prospects. This was that kind of a wash; no doubt 
 of it! 
 
 "How feu* is the nearest crossing?" I asked, returning. 
 
 "About eight feet," said he. 
 
 My mind, panic-stricken, flew to several things that 
 bottle (I regret that I failed to record that by test its con- 
 tents had proved genuine), the cornered rock we tiad so 
 blithely charged, other evidences of Bill's casual nature. 
 My heart sank. 
 
 "You ain't going to tackle that wash!" I cried. 
 
 "I shore am," said Bill. 
 
 I examined Bill. He meant it. 
 
 "How far to the nearest ranch?" 
 
 "'Bout ten mile." 
 
 I went and sat on a rock. It was one of those rainbow 
 remnants of a bygone past; but my interest in curios had 
 waned. 
 
 Bill dove into the grimy mysteries of under the back seat 
 and produced two blocks of wood six or eight inches square 
 and two strong straps with buckles. He inserted a block 
 between the frame of the car and the rear axle; then he ran a 
 strap around the rear spring and cinched on it until the car 
 
 224 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 body, the block, and the axle made one solid mass. In 
 other words, the spring action was entirely eliminated. He 
 did the same thing on the other side. 
 
 "Climb in," said he. 
 
 We went into low and slid down the steep day bank into 
 the waiting sand. To me it was like a plunge into ice water. 
 Bill stepped on her. We ploughed out into trouble. The 
 steering wheel bucked and jerked vainly against Bill's 
 huge hands; we swayed like a moving-picture comic; but 
 we forged steadily ahead. Not once did we falter. Our 
 wheels gripped continuously. When we pulled out on 
 the other bank I exhaled as though I, too, had lost my 
 muffler. I believe I had held my breath the whok way 
 across. Bill removed the blocks and gave her more water. 
 Still in low we climbed out of the malpais. 
 
 It was now after two o'clock. We registered 29,328. 
 I was getting humble minded. Six o'clock looked good 
 enough to me now. 
 
 One thing was greatly encouraging. As we rose again to 
 the main level of the country I recognized over the horizon 
 a certain humped mountain. Often in the "good old days " 
 I had approached this mountain from the south. Beneath 
 its flanks lay my friend's ranch, our destination. Five 
 hours earlier in my experience its distance would have 
 appalled me ; but my standards had changed. Nevertheless, 
 it seemed far enough away. I was getting physically tired. 
 There is a heap of exercise in many occupations, such as 
 digging sewers and chopping wood and shopping with a 
 woman; but driving in small Arizona motor cars need 
 give none of these occupations any odds. And of late 
 
 225 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 years I have been accustoming myself to three meals a 
 day. 
 
 For this reason there seems no excuse for detailing the 
 next three hours. From three o'clock until sunset the mir- 
 ages slowly fade away into the many-tinted veils of evening. 
 I know that because I've seen it; but never would I know it 
 whilst an inmate of a gasoline madhouse. We carried our 
 own egg-shaped aura constantly with us, on the invisible 
 walls of which the subtle and austere influences of the desert 
 beat in vain. That aura was composed of speed, bumps, 
 dust, profane noise, and an extreme and exotic busyness. 
 It might be that in a docile, tame, expensive automobile, 
 garnished with a sane and biddable driver, one might 
 see the desert as it is. I don't know whether such a 
 combination exists. But me I couldn't get into the Offi- 
 cers' Training Camp because of my advanced years : I may 
 be an old fogy, but I cherish a sneaking idea that perhaps 
 you have to buy some of these things at the cost of the afore- 
 mentioned thirst, heat, weariness, and the slow passing of 
 long days. Still, an Assyrian brick in the British Museum 
 is inscribed by a father to his son away at school with a 
 lament over the passing of the "good old days!" 
 
 At any rate, we drew into Spring Creek at five o'clock, 
 shooting at every jump. My friend's ranch was only six 
 miles farther. This was home for Bill, and we were soon 
 surrounded by many acquaintances. He had letters 
 and packages for many of them; and detailed many items 
 of local news. To us shortly came a cowboy who had 
 evidently bought all the calico he could carry. This per- 
 son was also long and lean and brown; hard bitten; be- 
 
 226 
 
MOISTURE, A TRACE 
 
 decked with worn brown leather chaps, and wearing a gun. 
 The latter he unbuckled and cast from him with great 
 scorn. 
 
 "And I don't need no gun to do it, neither!" he stated, as 
 though concluding a long conversation. 
 
 "Shore not, Slim/' agreed one of the group, promptly 
 annexing the artillery. "What is it? " 
 
 "Kill that - - Beck," said Slim, owl- 
 
 ishly. "I can do it; and I can do it with my bare hands, 
 b' God!" 
 
 He walked sturdily enough in the direction of the General 
 Store across the dusty square. No one paid any further 
 attention to his movements. The man who had picked up 
 the gun belt buckled it around his own waist. Bill refilled 
 the ever-thirsty radiator, peered at his gasoline gauge, 
 leisurely turned down a few grease cups. Ten minutes 
 passed. We were about ready to start. 
 
 Back across the square drifted a strange figure. With 
 difficulty we recognized it as the erstwhile Slim. He had 
 no hat. His hair stuck out in all directions. One eye 
 was puffing shut, blood oozed from a cut in his forehead 
 and dripped from his damaged nose. One shirt sleeve had 
 been half torn from its parent at the shoulder. But, most 
 curious of all, Slim's face was evenly marked by a perpen- 
 dicular series of long, red scratches as though he had been 
 dragged from stem to stern along a particularly abrasive 
 gravel walk. Slim seemed quite calm. 
 
 His approach was made in a somewhat strained silence. 
 At length there spoke a dry, sardonic voice. 
 
 "Well," said it, "did you kill Beck?" 
 
 227 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Naw!" replied Slim's remains disgustedly, "the son of 
 a gun wouldn't fight ! " 
 
 We reached my friend's ranch just about dusk. He met 
 me at the yard gate. 
 
 " Well ! " he said, heartily. " I'm glad you're here ! Not 
 much like the old days, is it?" 
 
 I agreed with him. 
 
 " Journey out is dull and uninteresting now. But com- 
 pared to the way we used to do it, it is a cinch. Just sit still 
 and roll along." 
 
 I disagreed with him mentally. 
 
 "The old order has changed," said he. 
 
 "Yes," I agreed, "now it's one yard of calico." 
 
 228 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW AND THE OLD 
 
 The old ranching days of California are to all intents and 
 purposes past and gone. To be sure there remain many 
 large tracts supporting a single group of ranch buildings, 
 and over which the cattle wander "on a thousand hills." 
 There are even a few, a very few like the ranch of which 
 I am going to write that are still undivided, still game 
 haunted, still hospitable, still delightful. But in spite of 
 these apparent exceptions, my first statement must stand. 
 About the large tracts swarm real estate men, eager for 
 the chance to subdivide into small farms and the small 
 farmers pour in from the East at the rate of a thousand a 
 month. No matter how sternly the old land-lords set 
 their faces against the new order of things, the new order of 
 things will prevail; for sooner or late old land-lords must 
 die, and the heirs have not in them the spirit of the ancient 
 tradition. This is, of course, best for the country and for 
 progress; but something passes, and is no more. So the 
 Chino ranch and more recently Lucky Baldwin's broad 
 acres have yielded. 
 
 And even in the case of those that still remain intact, 
 
 229 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 whose wide hills and plains graze thousands of head of 
 cattle; whose pastures breed their own cowhorses; whose 
 cowmen, wearing still with a twist of pride the all-but- 
 vanished regalia of their all-but-vanished calling, refuse to 
 drop back to the humdrum status of "farm hands on a 
 cow ranch"; even here has entered a single element power- 
 ful enough to change the old to something new. The new 
 may be better it is certainly more convenient and per- 
 haps when all is said and done we would not want to go back 
 to the old. But the old is gone. One single modern insti- 
 tution has been sufficient to render it completely of the past. 
 That institution is the automobile. 
 
 In the old days and they are but yesterdays, after all 
 the ranch was perforce an isolated community. The 
 journey to town was not to be lightly undertaken; indeed, 
 as far as might be, it was obviated altogether. Blacksmith- 
 ing, carpentry, shoe cobbling, repairing, barbering, and 
 even mild doctoring were all to be done on the premises. 
 Nearly every item of food was raised at home, including 
 vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, fowl, butter, and honey. 
 Above all, the inhabitants of that ranch settled down com- 
 fortably into the realization that their only available 
 community was that immediately about them ; and so they 
 both made and were influenced by the individual atmos- 
 phere of the place. 
 
 In the latter years they have all purchased touring 
 cars, and now they run to town casually, on almost any ex- 
 cuse. They make shopping lists as does the city dweller; 
 they go back for things forgotten; and they return to the 
 ranch as one returns to his home on the side streets of a 
 
 230 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 great city. In place of the old wonderful and impressive 
 expeditions to visit in state the nearest neighbour (twelve 
 miles distant), they drop over of an afternoon for a ten- 
 minutes' chat. The ranch is no longer an environment in 
 which one finds the whole activity of his existence, but a 
 dwelling place from which one goes forth. 
 
 I will admit that this is probably a distinct gain; but 
 the fact is indubitable that, even in these cases where the 
 ranch life has not been materially changed otherwise, the 
 automobile has brought about a condition entirely new. 
 And as the automobile has fortunately come to stay, the old 
 will never return. It is of the old, and its charm and leisure, 
 that I wish to write. 
 
 231 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE OLD WEST 
 
 I went to the ranch many years ago, stepping from the 
 train somewhere near midnight into a cold, crisp air full of 
 stars. My knowledge of California was at that time con- 
 fined to several seasons spent on the coast, where the straw 
 hat retires only in deference to a tradition which none of the 
 flowers seem bound to respect. As my dress accorded with 
 this experience, I was very glad to be conducted across the 
 street to a little hotel. My guide was an elderly, very brown 
 man, with a white moustache, and the bearing of an army 
 regular. This latter surmise later proved correct. Manning 
 was one of the numerous old soldiers who had fought through 
 the General's Apache campaigns, and who now in his age 
 had drifted back to be near his old commander. He left 
 me, after many solicitations as to my comfort, and a promise 
 to be back with the team at seven o'clock sharp. 
 
 Promptly at that hour he drew up by the curb. My kit 
 bag was piled aboard, and I clambered in beside the driver. 
 Manning touched his team. We were off. 
 
 The rig was of the sort usual to the better California 
 ranches of the day, and so, perhaps, worth description. It 
 might best be defined as a rather wide, stiff buckboard set 
 on springs, and supported by stout running gear. The 
 single seat was set well forward, while the body of the rig 
 
 212 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 extended back to receive the light freight an errand to town 
 was sure to accumulate. An ample hood top of gray 
 canvas could be raised for protection against eitiier sun, 
 wind, or rain. Most powerful brakes could be manipulated 
 by a thrust of the driver's foot. You may be sure they were 
 outside brakes. Inside brakes were then considered the 
 weak expedients of a tourist driving mercenary. Generally 
 the tongue and moving gear were painted cream; and tke 
 body of the vehicle dark green. 
 
 This substantial, practical, and business-like vehicle 
 was drawn by a pair of mighty good bright bay horses, 
 straight backed, square rumped, deep shouldered, with fine 
 heads, small ears, and alert yet gentle eyes of high-bred 
 stock. When the word was given, they fell into a steady, 
 swinging trot. One felt instinctively the power of it, and 
 knew that they were capable of keeping up this same gait 
 all day. And that would mean many miles. Their har- 
 ness was of plain russet leather, neat and well oiled. 
 
 Concerning them I made some remark, trivial yet enough 
 to start Manning. He told me of them, and of their pe- 
 culiarities and virtues. He descanted at length on their 
 breeding, and whence came they and their fathers and their 
 fathers' fathers even unto the sixth generation. He left 
 me at last with the impression that this was probably the 
 best team in the valley, bar none. It was a good team, 
 strong, spirited, gentle, and enduring. 
 
 We swung out from the little town into a straight road. If 
 it has seemed that I have occupied you too exclusively with 
 objects near at hand, the matter could not be helped. There 
 was nothing more to occupy you. A fog held all the land. 
 
 233 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 It was a dense fog, and a very cold. Twenty feet ahead 
 of the horses showed only a wall of white. To right and 
 left dim, ghostly bushes or fence posts trooped by us at the 
 ordered pace of our trot. An occasional lone poplar tree 
 developed in the mist as an object on a dry plate develops. 
 We splashed into puddles, crossed culverts, went through 
 all the business of proceeding along a road and appar- 
 ently got nowhere. The mists opened grudgingly before us, 
 and closed in behind. As far as knowing what the country 
 was like I might as well have been blindfolded. 
 
 From Manning I elicited piecemeal some few and vague 
 ideas. This meagreness was not due to a disinclination on 
 Manning's part, but only to the fact that he never quite 
 grasped my interest in mere surroundings. Yes, said he, 
 it was a pretty flat country, and some brush. Yes, there 
 were mountains, some ways off, though. Not many trees, 
 but some what you might call a few. And so on, until I 
 gave it up. Mountains, trees, brush, and flat land! One 
 could construct any and all landscapes with such building 
 blocks as those. 
 
 Now, as has been hinted, I was dressed for southern 
 California; and the fog was very damp and chill. The 
 light overcoat I wore failed utterly to exclude it. At first 
 I had been comfortable enough, but as mile succeeded mile 
 the cold of that winter land fog penetrated to the bone. In 
 answer to my comment Manning replied cheerfully in the 
 words of an old saw: 
 
 " A winter's fog 
 
 Will freeze a dog" 
 said he. 
 
 234 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 I agreed with him. We continued to jog on. Manning 
 detailed what I then thought were hunting lies as to the 
 abundance of game; but which I afterward discovered were 
 only sober truths. When too far gone in the miseries of 
 abject cold I remembered his former calling, and glancing 
 sideways at his bronzed, soldierly face, wished I had gump- 
 tion enough left to start him going on some of his Indian 
 campaigns. It was too late; I had not the gumption; I 
 was too cold. 
 
 Now I believe I am fairly well qualified to know when I 
 really feel cold. I have slept out with the thermometer out 
 of sight somewhere down near the bulb; I once snowshoed 
 nine miles; and then overheated from that exertion, drove 
 thirty-five without additional clothing. On various other 
 occasions I have had experiences that might be called frigid. 
 But never have I been quite so deadly cold as on that 
 winter morning's drive through the land fog of semi-tropical 
 California. It struck through to the very heart. 
 
 I subsequently discovered that it takes two hours and 
 three quarters to drive to the ranch. That is a long time 
 when one has nothing to look at, and when one is cold. 
 In fact, it is so long that one loses track of time at all, and 
 gradually relapses into that queer condition of passive 
 endurance whereto is no end and no beginning. Therefore 
 the end always comes suddenly, and as a surprise. 
 
 So it was in this case. Out of the mists sprang suddenly 
 two tall fan palms, and then two others, and still others. 
 I realized dimly that we were in an avenue of palms. The 
 wheels grated strangely on gravel. We swung sharply to 
 the left between hedges. The mass of a building loomed 
 
 235 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 indistinctly. Manning applied the brakes. We stopped, 
 the steam from the horses' shining backs rising straight 
 up to mingle with the fog. 
 
 "Well, here we are!" said Manning. 
 
 So we were! I hadn't thought of that. We must be 
 here. After an appreciable moment it occurred to me that 
 perhaps I'd better climb down. I did so, very slowly and 
 stiffly, making the sad mistake of jumping down from the 
 height of the step. How that did injure my feelings ! The 
 only catastrophe I can remember comparable to it was when 
 a teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler after I had been 
 making snowballs bare handed. My benumbed faculties 
 next swung around to the proposition of proceeding up 
 an interminable gravel walk (it is twenty-five feet long!) 
 to a forbidding flight of stairs (porch steps five of them !) 
 I put this idea into execution. I reached the steps. And 
 then 
 
 The door was flung open from within, I could see the 
 sparkle and leap of a fine big grate fire. The Captain 
 stood in the doorway, a broad smile on his face; my hostess 
 smiled another welcome behind him; the General roared 
 still another from somewhere behind her. 
 
 Now I had never met the Captain. He held out both 
 hands in greeting. One of those hands was for me to 
 shake. The other held a huge glass of hot scotch. The 
 hot scotch was in the right hand ! 
 
 236 
 
CHAPTER HI 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE PLACE 
 
 They wanned me through, and then another old soldier 
 named Redmond took me up to show me where I lived. We 
 clambered up narrow boxed stairs that turned three ways; 
 we walked down a narrow passage; turned to the right; 
 walked down another narrow passage, climbed three steps 
 to open a door; promptly climbed three steps down again; 
 crossed a screened-in bridge to another wing; ducked 
 through a passageway, and so arrived. The ranch house 
 was like that. Parts of it were built out on stilts. Five or 
 six big cottonwood trees grew right up through the ve- 
 randahs, and spread out over the roof of the house. There 
 are all sorts of places where you hang coats, or stack guns, 
 or store shells, or find unexpected books; passageways lead- 
 ing to outdoor upstairs screened porches, cubby holes and the 
 like. And whenever you imagine the house must be quite 
 full of guests, they can always discover to you yet another 
 bedroom. It may, at the last, be a very tiny bedroom, with 
 space enough only for a singe bed and not much else; 
 and you may get to it only by way of out of doors; and it 
 may be already fairly well occupied by wooden decoys 
 and shotgun shells, but there it is, guests and guests after 
 you thought the house must be full. 
 
 Belonging and appertaining unto the house were several 
 
 237 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 fixtures. One of these was old Charley, the Chinese cook. 
 He had been there twenty-five years. In that time he 
 had learned perfect English, acquired our kind of a sense 
 of humour, come to a complete theoretical understand- 
 ing of how to run a ranch and all the people on it, and 
 taught Pollymckittrick what she knew. 
 
 Pollymckittrick was the bereaved widow of the noble 
 pair of yellow and green parrots Noah selected for his ark. 
 At least I think she was that old. She was certainly very 
 wise in both Oriental and Occidental wisdom. Her chief 
 accomplishments, other than those customary to parrots, 
 were the ability to spell, and to sing English songs. "After 
 the Ball" and " Daisy Bell" were her favourites, rendered 
 with occasional jungle variations. She considered Charley 
 her only real friend, though she tolerated some others. 
 Pollymckittrick was a product of artificial civilization. No 
 call of the wild in hers! She preferred her cage, gilded or 
 otherwise. Each afternoon the cage was placed out on the 
 lawn so Pollymckittrick could have her sun bath. One 
 day a big redtail hawk sailed by. Pollymckittrick fell 
 backward off her perch, flat on her back. The sorrowing 
 family gathered to observe this extraordinary case of heart 
 failure. After an interval Pollymckittrick unfilmed one 
 yellow eye. 
 
 "Po o or Pollymckittrick!" she remarked. 
 
 At the sight of that hawk Pollymckittrick had fainted! 
 
 The third institution having to do with the house was 
 undoubtedly Redmond. Redmond was another of the old 
 soldiers who had in their age sought out their beloved 
 General. Redmond was a sort of all-round man. He built 
 
 238 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 the fires very early in the morning; and he did your boots 
 and hunting clothes, got out the decoys, plucked the ducks, 
 saw to the shells, fed the dogs, and was always on hand at 
 arrival and departure to lend a helping hand. He dwelt 
 in a square room in the windmill tower together with a black 
 cat and all the newspapers in the world. The cat he alter- 
 nately allowed the most extraordinary liberties or disciplined 
 rigorously. On the latter occasions he invariably seized 
 the animal and hurled it bodily through the open window. 
 The cat took the long fall quite calmly, and immediately 
 clambered back up the outside stairway that led to the 
 room. The newspapers he read, and clipped therefrom 
 items of the most diverse nature to which he deprecatingly 
 invited attention. Once in so often a strange martial fer- 
 vour would obsess him. Then the family, awakened in the 
 early dawn, would groan and turn over, realizing that its 
 rest was for that morning permanently shattered. The 
 old man had hoisted his colours over the windmill tower, 
 and now in a frenzy of fervour was marching around and 
 around the tower beating the long roll on his drum. After 
 one such outbreak he would be his ordinary, humble, quiet, 
 obliging, almost deprecating self for another month or so. 
 The ranch people took it philosophically. 
 
 The fourth institution was Nobo. Nobo was a Japanese 
 woman who bossed the General. She was a square-built 
 person of forty or so who had also been with the family 
 unknown years. Her capabilities were undoubted; as 
 also her faith in them. The hostess depended on her a 
 good deal; and at the same time chafed mildly under her 
 calm assumption that she knew perfectly what the situation 
 
 239 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 demanded. The General took her domination amusedly. 
 To be sure nobody was likely to fool much with the General. 
 His vast good nature had way down beneath it something 
 that on occasion could be stern. Nobo could and would 
 tell the General what clothes to wear, and when to change 
 them, and such matters; but she never ventured to inhibit 
 the General's ideas as to going forth in rains, or driving 
 where he everlastingly dod-blistered pleased, or words to 
 that effect, across country in his magnificently rattletrap 
 surrey, although she often looked very anxious. For she 
 adored the General. But we all did that. 
 
 As though the heavy curtain of fog had been laid upon 
 the land expressly that I might get my first impressions 
 of the ranch in due order, about noon the weather cleared. 
 Even while we ate lunch, the sun came out. After the 
 meal we went forth to see what we could see. 
 
 The ranch was situated in the middle of a vast plain 
 around three sides of which rose a grand amphitheatre of 
 mountains. The nearest of them was some thirty miles 
 away, yet ordinarily, in this clear, dry, Western atmosphere 
 they were always imminent. Over their eastern ramparts 
 the sun rose to look upon a chill and frosty world; behind 
 their western barriers the sun withdrew, leaving soft air, 
 purple shadows, and the flight of dim, far wildfowl across a 
 saffron sky. To the north was only distance and the fading 
 of the blue of the heavens to the pearl gray of the horizon. 
 
 So much if one stepped immediately beyond the ranch 
 itself. The plains were broad. Here and there the flat- 
 ness broke in a long, low line of cottonwoods marking the 
 winding course of a slough or trace of subsoil water. Mes- 
 
 240 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 quite lay in dark patches; sagebrush; the green of pasture- 
 land periodically overflowed by the irrigation water. 
 Nearer at home were occasional great white oaks, or hay- 
 stacks bigger than a house, and shaped like one. 
 
 To the distant eye the ranch was a grove of trees. 
 Cottonwoods and eucalyptus had been planted and had 
 thriven mightily on the abundant artesian water. We 
 have already noticed the six or eight great trees growing 
 fairly up through the house. On the outskirts lay also a 
 fruit orchard of several hundred acres. Opposite the house, 
 and separated from it by a cedar hedge, was a commodious 
 and attractive bungalow for the foreman. Beyond him 
 were the bunk house, cook houses, blacksmith shops, and the 
 like. 
 
 We started our tour of inspection by exainining and 
 commenting gravely upon the dormant rose garden and 
 equally dormant grape arbour. Through this we came 
 to the big wire corrals in which were kept the dogs. Here 
 I met old Ben. 
 
 Old Ben was not very old; but he was different from young 
 Ben. He was a pointer of the old-fashioned, stocky-built, 
 enduring type common and serviceable before our 
 bench-show experts began to breed for speed, fineness, 
 small size and lack of stamina. Ben proved in the event 
 to be a good all-round dog. He combined the attributes 
 of pointer, cocker spaniel, and retriever. In other words, 
 he would hunt quail in the orthodox fashion; or he would 
 rustle into the mesquite thorns for the purpose of flushing 
 them out to us; or he would swim anywhere any number 
 of times to bring out ducks. To be sure he occasionally 
 
 241 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 got a little mixed. At times he might try to flush quail in 
 the open, instead of standing them; or would attempt to re- 
 trieve some perfectly lively specimens. Then Ben needed 
 a licking; and generally got it. He lacked in his work some 
 of the finish and style of the dogs we used after grouse in 
 Michigan, but he was a good all-round dog for the work. 
 Furthermore, he was most pleasant personally. 
 
 Next door to him lived the dachshunds. 
 
 The dachshunds were a marvel, a nuisance, a bone of 
 contention, an anomaly, an accident, and a farce. They 
 happened because somebody had once given the hostess a 
 pair of them. I do not believe she cared particularly for 
 them; but she is good natured, and the ranch is large, and 
 they are rather amusing. At the time of my first visit 
 the original pair had multiplied. Gazing on that yardful 
 of imbecile-looking canines, my admiration for Noah's 
 wisdom increased; he certainly needed no more than a pair 
 to restock the earth. Redmond claimed there were twenty- 
 two of them, though nobody else pretended to have been 
 able to disentangle them enough for a census. They were 
 all light brown in colour; and the aggregation reminded me 
 of a rather disentangled bunch of angle- worms. They lived 
 in a large enclosure; and emerged therefrom only under 
 supervision, for they considered chickens and young pigs 
 their especial prey. The Captain looked upon them with 
 exasperated tolerance; Redmond with affection; the hostess, 
 I think, with a good deal of the partisanship inspired not so 
 much by liking as by the necessity of defending them 
 against ridicule; and the rest of the world with amused ex- 
 pectation as to what they would do next. The Captain 
 
 242 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 was continually uttering half -serious threats as to the differ- 
 ent kinds of sudden death he was going to inflict on the 
 whole useless, bandylegged, snipe-nosed, waggle-eared 
 
 The best comment was offered last year by the chauffeur 
 of the automobile. After gazing on the phenomenon of their 
 extraordinary build for some moments he remarked thought- 
 fully: 
 
 "Those dogs have a mighty long wheel base!" 
 
 For some reason unknown two of the dachshunds have 
 been elevated from the ranks, and have house privileges. 
 Their names are respectively Pete and Pup. They hate 
 each other, and have sensitive dispositions. It took me 
 just four years to learn to tell them apart. I believe Pete 
 has a slightly projecting short rib on his left side or is it 
 Pup? It was fatal to mistake. 
 
 "Hullo, Pup!" I would cry to one jovially. 
 
 "G r r r !" would remark the dog, retiring under 
 the sofa. Thus I would know it was Pete. The worst of it 
 was that said Pete's feelings were thereby lacerated so 
 deeply that I was not forgiven all the rest of that day. 
 
 Beyond the dogs lay a noble enclosure so large that it 
 would have been subdivided into building lots had it been 
 anywhere else. It was inhabited by all sorts of fowl, hun- 
 dreds of them, of all varieties. There were chickens, 
 turkeys, geese, and a flock of ducks. The Captain 
 pointed out the Rouen ducks, almost exactly like the wild 
 mallards. 
 
 "Those are my live decoys," said he. 
 
 For the accommodation of this multitude were cities of 
 nest houses, roost houses, and the like. Huge structures 
 
 243 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 elevated on poles swarmed with doves. A duck pond even 
 had been provided for its proper denizens. 
 
 Thus we reached the southernmost outpost of our quad- 
 rangle, and turned to the west, where an ancient Chinaman 
 and an assistant cultivated minutely and painstakingly a 
 beautiful vegetable garden. Tiny irrigation streams ran 
 here and there, fitted with miniature water locks. Strange 
 and foreign bamboo mattings, withes, and poles performed 
 strange and foreign functions. The gardener, brown and 
 old and wrinkled, his cue wound neatly beneath his tremen- 
 dous, woven-straw umbrella of a hat, possessing no English, 
 no emotion, no single ray of the sort of intelligence required 
 to penetrate into our Occidental world, bent over his work. 
 When we passed, he did not look up. He dwelt in a shed. 
 At least, such it proved to be, when examined with the cold 
 eye of analysis. In impression it was ancient, exotic, Mon- 
 golian, the abode of one of a mysterious and venerable race, 
 a bit of foreign country. By what precise means this was 
 accomplished it would be difficult to say. It is a fact well 
 known to all CaJifornians that a Chinaman can with no 
 more extensive properties than a few pieces of red paper, a 
 partition, a dingy curtain, and a varnished duck transform 
 utterly an American tenement into a Chinese pagoda. 
 
 Thence we passed through a wicket and came to the abode 
 of hogs. They dotted the landscape into the far distance, 
 rooting about to find what they could; they lay in wallows; 
 they heaped themselves along fences; they snorted and 
 splashed in sundry shallow pools; a good half mile of mater- 
 nal hogs occupied a row of kennels from which the various 
 progeny issued forth between the bars. I cannot say I am 
 
 244 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 much interested in hogs, but even I could dimly comprehend 
 the Captain's attitude of swollen pride. They were clean, 
 and black, and more nearly approximated the absurd hog 
 advertisements than I had believed possible. You know 
 the kind I mean; an almost exact rectangle on four short 
 legs. 
 
 In the middle distance stood a long, narrow, thatched roof 
 supported on poles. Beneath this, the Captain told me, 
 were the beehives. They proved later to be in charge of a 
 mild-eyed religious fanatic who believed the world to be flat. 
 
 We took a cursory glance at a barn filled to the brim with 
 prunes; and the gushing, beautiful artesian well; at the men's 
 quarters; the blacksmith shop, and all the rest. So we 
 rounded the circle and came to the most important single 
 feature of the ranch the quarters for the horses. 
 
 A very long, deep shed, open on all sides, contained a 
 double row of mangers facing each other, and divided into 
 stalls. Here stood and were fed the working horses. By 
 that I mean not only the mule and horse teams, but also 
 the utility driving teams and the saddle horses used by the 
 cowboys. Between each two stalls was a heavy pillar 
 supporting the roof, and well supplied with facilities for 
 hanging up the harness and equipments. As is usual in 
 California, the sides and ends were open to the air; and the 
 floor was simply the earth well bedded. 
 
 But over against this shed stood a big barn of the Eastern 
 type. Here were the private equipments. 
 
 The Captain is a horseman. He breeds polo ponies after 
 a formula of his own ; and so successfully that many of them 
 cross the Atlantic. On the ranch are always several hun- 
 
 245 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 dred head of beautiful animals; and of these the best are 
 kept up for the use of the Captain and his friends. We 
 looked at them in their dean, commodious stalls; we in- 
 spected the harness and saddle room, glistening and satiny 
 with polished metal and well-oiled leather; we examined 
 the half dozen or so of vehicles of all descriptions. The 
 hostess told with relish of her one attempt to be stylish. 
 
 "We had such beautiful horses," said she, "that I thought 
 we ought to have something to go with them, so I sent up 
 to the city for my brougham. It made a very neat turnout; 
 and Tom was as proud of it as I was, but when it came to a 
 question of proper garb for Tom I ran up against a dead- 
 lock. Tom refused point blank to wear a livery or anything 
 approaching a livery. He was perfectly respectful about 
 it; but he refused. Well, I drove around all that winter, 
 when the weather was bad, in a well-appointed brougham 
 drawn by a good team in a proper harness; and on the box 
 sat a lean-faced cow puncher in sombrero, red handker- 
 chief, and blue jeans ! " 
 
 Tom led forth the horses one after the other Kingmaker, 
 the Fiddler, Pittapat, and the others. We spent a delightful 
 two hours. The sun dropped; the shadows lengthened. 
 From the fields the men began to come in. They drove the 
 wagons and hay ricks into the spacious enclosure, and set 
 leisurely about the task of caring for their animals. Chi- 
 nese and Japanese drifted from the orchards, and began to 
 manipulate the grindstone on their pruning knives. Pres- 
 ently a cowboy jogged in, his spurs and bit jingling. From 
 the cook house a bell began to clang. 
 
 We turned back to the house. Before going in I faced 
 
 246 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 the west. The sky had turned a light green full of lucence. 
 The minor sounds of the ranch near by seemed to be sur- 
 rounded by a sea of silence outside. Single sounds came 
 very clearly across it. And behind everything, after a few 
 moments, I made out a queer, monotonous background of 
 half-croaking calling. For some tune this puzzled me. 
 Then at last my groping recollection came to my assistance. 
 I was hearing the calling of myriads of snow geese. 
 
 247 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE EARLY BIRD 
 
 I was awakened rather early by Redmond, who silently 
 entered the room, lit a kerosene stove, closed the windows, 
 and departed. As I was now beneath two blankets and an 
 eiderdown quilt, and my nose was cold, I was duly grate- 
 ful. Mistaking the rite for a signal to arise, I did so; and 
 shortly descended. The three fireplaces were crackling 
 away merrily, but they had done little to mitigate the at- 
 mosphere as yet. Maids were dusting and sweeping. 
 The table was not yet set. Inquiry telling that breakfast 
 was more than an hour later, I took a gun from the rack, 
 pocketed the only five shells in sight, and departed to see 
 what I could see. 
 
 The outer world was crisp with frost. I clambered over 
 the corral fence, made my way through a hundred acres or so 
 of slumbering pigs, and so emerged into the open country. 
 
 In the middle distance and perhaps a mile away was a 
 low fringe of brush; to the left an equal distance a group 
 of willows; and almost behind me a clump of cotton woods. 
 I resolved to walk over to the brush, swing around to the 
 willows, turn to the cottonwoods, and so back to the ranch. 
 It looked like about four miles or so. Perhaps with my 
 five shells I might get something. At any rate, I would have 
 a good walk. 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 The mountains were turning from the rose pink of early 
 morning. I could hear again the bickering cries of the snow 
 geese and sandhill cranes away in an unknown distance, 
 the homelier calls of barnyard fowl nearer at hand. Cattle 
 trotted before me and to right and left, their heads high, 
 their gait swinging with the freedom of the half- wild animals 
 of the ranges. After a few steps they turned to stare at 
 me, eyes and nostrils wide, before making up their minds 
 whether or not it would be wise to put a greater distance 
 between me and them. The close sod was green and strong. 
 It covered the slightly rounding irrigation "checks" that 
 followed in many a curve and double the lines of contours 
 on the flat plain. 
 
 The fringe of brush did not amount to anything; it was 
 merely a convenient turning mark for my little walk. 
 Arrived there, I executed a sharp "column left 
 
 Seven ducks leaped into the air apparently from the bare, 
 open, and dry ground ! 
 
 Every sportsman knows the scattering effect on the wits 
 of the absolutely unexpected appearance of game. Every 
 sportsman knows also the instinctive reactions that long 
 habit will bring about. Thus, figuratively, I stood with 
 open mouth, heart beating slightly faster, and mind making 
 to itself such imbecile remarks as: "Well, what do you think 
 of that! Who in blazes would have expected ducks here?" 
 and other futile remarks. In the meantime, the trained 
 part of me had jerked the gun off my shoulder, pushed 
 forward the safety catch, and prepared for one hasty long 
 shot at the last and slowest of the ducks. Now the in- 
 stinctive part of one can do the preparations, but the actual 
 
 249 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 shooting requires a more ordered frame of mind. By 
 this time my wits had snapped back into place. I had the 
 satisfaction of seeing the duck's outstretched neck wilt; 
 of hearing him hit the ground with a thud somewhere 
 beyond. 
 
 Marking the line of his fall, I stepped confidently for- 
 ward, and without any warning whatever found myself 
 standing on the bank of an irrigation ditch. It was rilled 
 to the brim with placid water on which floated a few downy 
 feathers. On this side was dry sod; and on the other was 
 dry sod. Nothing indicated the presence of that straight 
 band of silvery water until one stood fairly at its brink. 
 To the right I could see its sides narrow to the point of a 
 remote perspective. To the left it ran for a few hundred 
 yards, then apparently came to an abrupt stop where it 
 turned at an angle. 
 
 In the meantime, my duck was on the other side; I was 
 in my citizen's clothes. 
 
 No solution offered in sight, so I made my way to the left 
 where I could look around the bend. Nearing the bend I 
 was seized with a bright idea. I dropped back below the 
 line of sight, sneaked quietly to the bank, and, my eye 
 almost level with the water, peered down the new vista. 
 Sure enough, not a hundred and fifty yards away floated 
 another band of ducks. 
 
 I watched them for a moment until I was sure, by 
 various small landmarks, of their exact location. Then I 
 dropped back far enough so that, even standing erect, 
 I would be below the line of vision of those ducks; strolled 
 along until opposite my landmarks; then, bolt upright, 
 
 250 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 walked directly forward, the gun at ready. When within 
 twenty yards the ducks arose. It was, of course, easy 
 shooting. Both fell across the ditch. That did not 
 worry me; if worst came to worst I could strip and wade. 
 This seemed to be an exceedingly unique and interesting 
 way to shoot ducks. To be sure, I had only two shells left; 
 but then, it must be almost breakfast time. I repeated the 
 feat a half mile farther on, discovered a flood gate over 
 which I could get to the other side, collected my five ducks, 
 and cut across country to the ranch. The sun was just 
 getting in its work on the frost. Long files of wagons and 
 men could be seen disappearing in the distance. I entered 
 proudly, only ten minutes late. 
 
 251 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 QUAIL 
 
 The family assembled took my statement with extraor- 
 dinary calm, contenting themselves with a general inquiry 
 as to the species. I was just a trifle crestfallen at this in- 
 difference. You see at this time I was not accustomed to 
 the casual duck. My shooting heretofore had been a very 
 strenuous matter. It had involved arising many hours 
 before sun-up, and venturing forth miles into wild marshes; 
 and much endurance of cold and discomfort. To make a 
 bag of any sort we were in the field before the folk knew the 
 night had passed. Upland shooting meant driving long 
 distances, and walking through the heavy hardwood swamps 
 and slashes from dusk to dusk. Therefore I had con- 
 sidered myself in great luck to have blundered upon my 
 ducks so casually; and, furthermore, from the family's 
 general air of leisure and unpreparedness, jumped to the 
 conclusion that no field sport was projected for that day. 
 
 Mrs. Kitty presided beside a copper coffee pot with a bell- 
 shaped glass top. As this was also an institution, it merits 
 attention. A small alcohol lamp beneath was lighted. 
 For a long time nothing happened. Then all at once the 
 glass dome clouded, was filled with frantic brown and racing 
 bubbling. Thereupon the hostess turned over a sand glass. 
 When the last grains had run through, the alcohol lamp was 
 
 252 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 turned off. Immediately the glass dome was empty again. 
 From a spigot one drew off coffee. 
 
 But if perchance the Captain and I wished to get up 
 before anybody else could be hired to get up, the Dingbat 
 could be so loaded as to give down an automatic breakfast. 
 The evening before the maid charged the affair as usual, 
 and at the last popped four eggs into the glass dome. 
 After the mysterious alchemical perturbations had ceased, 
 we fished out those eggs soft boiled to the second! 
 One day the maid mistook the gasoline bottle for the 
 alcohol bottle. That is a sad tale having to do with 
 running flames, and burned table pieces, not to speak of a 
 melted-down connection or so on the Dingbat. We did not 
 know what was the matter; and our attitude was not so 
 much that of alarm, as of grief and indignation that our 
 good old tried and trained Dingbat should in his old age cut 
 up any such didoes. Especially as there were new guests 
 present. 
 
 After breakfast we wandered out on the verandah. 
 Nobody seemed to be in any hurry to start anything. The 
 hostess made remarks to Pollymckittrick; the General 
 read a newspaper; the Captain sauntered about enjoying the 
 sun. After fifteen minutes, as though the notion had just 
 occurred, somebody suggested that we go shooting. 
 
 "How about it?" the Captain asked me. 
 
 " Surely," I agreed, and added with some surprise out of 
 my other experience, " Isn't it a little late?" 
 
 But the Captain misunderstood me. 
 
 "I don't mean blind shooting," said he, "just ram 
 around." 
 
 253 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 He seized a megaphone and bellowed through it at the 
 stables. 
 
 "Better get on your war paint," he suggested to me. 
 
 I changed hastily into my shooting clothes, and re- 
 turned to the verandah. After some few moments the 
 Captain joined me. After some few moments more a 
 tremendous rattling came from the stable. A fine bay 
 team swung into the driveway, rounded the circle, 
 and halted. It drew the source of the tremendous 
 rattling. 
 
 Thus I became acquainted with the Liver Invigorator. 
 The Invigorator was a buckboard high, wide, and long. 
 It had one wide seat. Aft of that seat was a cage with 
 bars, in which old Ben rode. Astern was a deep box 
 wherein one carried rubber boots, shells, decoys, lunch, 
 game, and the like. The Invigorator was very old, very 
 noisy, and very able. With it we drove cheerfully any- 
 where we pleased over plowed land, irrigation checks, 
 through brush thick enough to lif t our wheels right off the 
 ground, and down into and out of water ditches so steep 
 that we alternately stood the affair on its head and its tail, 
 and so deep that we had to hold all our belongings in our 
 arms, while old Ben stuck his nose out the top bars of his 
 cage for a breath of air. It could not be tipped over; at 
 least we never upset it. To offset these virtues it rattled 
 like a runaway milk wagon; and it certainly hit the high 
 spots and hit them hard. Nevertheless, in a long and 
 strenuous sporting career the Invigorator became endeared 
 through association to many friends. When the Captain 
 proposed a new vehicle with easier springs and less noise, a 
 
 254 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 wail of protest arose from many and distant places. The 
 Invigorator still fulfills its function. 
 
 Now there are three major topics on the Ranch: namely, 
 ducks, quail, and ponies. In addition to these are five of 
 minor interest: the mail, cattle, jackrabbits, coons, and 
 wildcats. 
 
 I was already familiar with the valley quail, for I had 
 hunted him since I was a small boy with the first sixteen- 
 gauge gun ever brought to the coast. I knew him for a very 
 speedy bird, much faster than our bob white, dwelling in 
 the rounded sagebrush hills, travelling in flocks of from 
 twenty to several thousand, exceedingly given to rapid leg 
 work. We had to climb hard after him, and shoot like 
 lightning from insecure footing. His idiosyncrasies were as 
 strongly impressed on me as the fact that human beings 
 walk upright. Here, however, I had to revise my 
 ideas. 
 
 We drove down the avenue of palms, pursued by four or 
 five yapping dachshunds, and so out into a long, narrow lane 
 between pasture fences. Herds of ponies, fuzzy in their 
 long winter coats, came gently to look at us. The sun was 
 high now, so the fur of their backs lay flat. Later, in the 
 chill of evening, the hair would stand out like the nap of 
 velvet, thus providing for additional warmth by the extra 
 air space between the outside of the coat and the skin. It 
 must be very handy to carry this invisible overcoat, ready 
 for the moment's need. Here, too, were cattle standing 
 about. On many of them I recognized the familiar J-I 
 brand of many of my Arizona experiences. Arizona bred 
 and raised them; California fattened them for market. 
 
 255 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 We met a cowboy jingling by at his fox trot; then came to 
 the country road. 
 
 Along this we drove for some miles. The country was 
 perfectly flat, but variegated by patches of greasewood, 
 of sagebrush, of Egyptian-corn fields, and occasionally by a 
 long, narrow fringe of trees. Here, too, were many examples 
 of that phenomenon so vigorously doubted by most Eastern- 
 ers: the long rows of trees grown from original cottonwood 
 or poplar fence posts. In the distance always were the 
 mountains. Overhead the sky was very blue. A number 
 of buzzards circled. 
 
 After a time we turned off the road and into a country 
 covered over with tumbleweed, a fine umber red growth six 
 or eight inches high, and scattered sagebrush. Inlets, 
 bays, and estuaries of bare ground ran everywhere. The 
 Captain stood up to drive, watching for the game to cross 
 these bare places. 
 
 I stood up, too. It is no idle feat to ride the Invigorator 
 thus over hummocky ground. It lurched and bumped and 
 dropped into and out of trouble; and in correspondence I 
 alternately rose up and sat down again, hard. The Cap- 
 tain rode the storm without difficulty. He was accustomed 
 to the Invigorator; and, too, he had the reins to hang on by. 
 
 " There they go ! " said he, suddenly, bringing the team to a 
 halt. 
 
 I looked ahead. Across a ten-foot barren ran the quail, 
 their crests cocked forward, their trim figures held close as a 
 sprinter goes, rank after rank, their heads high in the alert 
 manner of quail. 
 
 The Captain sat down, jerked off the brake, and spoke to 
 
 256 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 his horses. I sat down, too; mainly because I had to. The 
 Invigorator leaped from hump to hump. Before those quail 
 knew it we were among them. Right, left, all around us 
 they roared into the air. Some doubled back; some buzzed 
 low to right or left; others rose straight ahead to fly a 
 quarter mile, and then, wings set, to sail another quarter 
 until finally they pitched down into some bit of inviting 
 cover. 
 
 The Captain brought his horses to a stand with great 
 satisfaction. We congratulated each other gleefully; and 
 even old Ben, somewhat shaken up in his cage astern, 
 wagged his tail in appreciation of the situation. 
 
 For, you see, we had scattered the covey, and now they 
 would lie. If the band had flushed, flown, and lighted as 
 one body, immediately on hitting the ground they would 
 have put their exceedingly competent little legs into 
 action, and would have run so well and so far that, by the 
 time we had arrived on the spot, they would have been a 
 good half mile away. But now that the covey was broken, 
 the individuals and small bands would stay put. If 
 they ran at all, it would be for but a short distance. On this 
 preliminary scattering depends the success of a chase after 
 California quail. I have seen six or eight men empty both 
 barrels of their guns at a range of more than a hundred yards. 
 They were not insane enough to think they would get any- 
 thing. Merely they hoped that the racket and the drop- 
 ping of the spent shot would break the distant covey. 
 
 We hitched the horses to a tree, released old Ben, and 
 started forth. 
 
 For a half hour we had the most glorious sport, beating 
 
 257 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 back and forth over the ground again and again. The birds 
 lay well in the low cover, and the shooting was clean and 
 open. I soon found that the edges of the bare ground were 
 the most likely places. Apparently the birds worked slowly 
 through the cover ahead of us, but hesitated to cross the 
 open spots, and so bunched at the edge. By walking in a 
 zigzag along some of these borders, we gathered in many 
 scattered birds and small bunches. Why the zigzag? 
 Naturally it covers a trifle more ground than a straight 
 course, but principally it seems to confuse the game. If you 
 walk in a straight line, so the quail can foretell your course, 
 it is very apt either to flush wild or to hide so close that you 
 pass it by. The zigzag fools it. 
 
 Thus, with varying luck, we made a slow circle back to 
 the wagon. Here we found Mrs. Kitty and Carrie and the 
 lunch awaiting us with the ponies. 
 
 These robust little animals were not miniature horses, 
 but genuine ponies, with all the deviltry, endurance, and 
 speed of their kind. They were jet-black, about waist 
 high, and of great intelligence. They drew a neat little rig, 
 capable of accommodating two, at a persistent rapid 
 patter that somehow got over the road at a great gait. 
 And they could keep it up all day. Although perfectly 
 gentle, they were as alert as gamins for mischief, and 
 delighted hugely in adding to the general row and con- 
 fusion if anything happened to go wrong. Mrs. Kitty 
 drove them everywhere. One day she attempted to cross 
 an irrigation ditch that proved to be deeper than she had 
 thought it. The ponies disappeared utterly, leaving Mrs. 
 Kitty very much astonished. Horses would have drowned 
 
 258 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 in like circumstances, but the ponies, nothing daunted, 
 dug in their hoofs and scrambled out like a pair of dogs, 
 incidentally dipping their mistress on the way. 
 
 In the shade of a high greasewood we unpacked the pony 
 carriage. This was before the days of thermos bottles, 
 so we had a most elaborate wicker basket whose sides let 
 down to form a wind shield protecting an alcohol burner 
 and a kettle. When the water boiled, we made hot tea, 
 and so came to lunch. 
 
 Strangely enough this was my first experience at having 
 lunch brought out to the field. Ordinarily we had been 
 accustomed to carry a sandwich or so in the side pockets 
 of our shooting coats, which same we ate at any odd 
 moment that offered. Now was disclosed an astonishing 
 variety. There were sandwiches, of course, and a salad, 
 and the tea, but wonderful to contemplate was a deep dish 
 of potted quail, row after row of them, with delicious 
 white sauce. In place of the frugal bite or so that would 
 have left us alert and fit for an afternoon's work, we ate 
 until nothing remained. Then we lit pipes and lay on our 
 backs, and contemplated a cloudless sky. It was the warm 
 time of day. The horses snoozed, a hind leg tucked up; 
 old Ben lay outstretched in doggy content; Mrs. Kitty knit 
 or crocheted or something of that sort; and Carrie and the 
 Captain and I took cat naps. At length, the sun's rays no 
 longer striking warm from overhead, the Captain aroused 
 us sternly. 
 
 "You're a nice, energetic, able lot of sportsmen!" he 
 cried with indignation. "Have I got to wait until sunset 
 for you lazy chumps to get a full night's rest? " 
 
 259 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Don't mind him," Mrs. Kitty told me, placidly; "he 
 was sound asleep himself; and the only reason he waked is 
 because he snored and I punched him." 
 
 She folded up her fancy work, shook out her skirts, and 
 turned to the ponies. 
 
 It was now late in the afternoon. We had disgracefully 
 wasted our time, and enjoyed doing it. The Captain 
 decided it to be too late to hunt up a new covey, so we re- 
 versed to pick up some of those that had originally doubled 
 back. We flushed forty or fifty of them at the edge of the 
 road. They scattered ahead of us in a forty-acre plowed 
 field. 
 
 Until twilight, then, we walked leisurely back and forth, 
 which is the only way to walk in a plowed field, after all. 
 The birds had pitched down into the old furrows, and when- 
 ever a tuft of grass, a piece of tumbleweed, or a shallow 
 grassy ditch offered a handful of cover, there the game was 
 to be found. Mrs. Kitty followed at the Captain's elbow, 
 and Carrie at mine. Carrie made a first-rate dog, marking 
 down the birds unerringly. The quail flew low and hard, 
 offering in the gathering twilight and against the neutral- 
 coloured earth marks worthy of good shooting. At last 
 we turned back to our waiting team. The dusk was com- 
 ing over the land, and the "shadow of the earth" was 
 marking its strange blue arc in the east. As usual the 
 covey was now securely scattered. Of a thousand or so 
 birds we had bagged forty-odd; and yet of the remainder 
 we would have had difficulty in flushing another dozen. 
 It is the mystery of the quail, and one that the sportsman 
 can never completely comprehend. As we clambered into 
 
 260 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 the Invigorator we could hear from all directions the birds 
 signalling each other* Near, far, to right, to left, the call 
 sounded, repeating over and over again a parting, defiant 
 denial that the victory was ours. 
 
 "You can't shoot 1 You can't shoot! You can't shoot!" 
 And nearer at hand the contented chirping twitter as the 
 covey found itself. 
 
 261 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PONIES 
 
 Next morning the Captain decided that he had various 
 affairs to attend to, so we put on our riding clothes and went 
 down to the stables. 
 
 The Captain had always forty or fifty polo ponies in the 
 course of education, and he was delighted to have them 
 ridden, once he was convinced of your seat and hands. 
 They were beautiful ponies, generally iron gray in colour, 
 very friendly, very eager, and very lively. Riding them was 
 like flying through the air, for they sailed over rough ground, 
 irrigation checks, and the like without a break in their stride, 
 and without a jar. By the same token it was necessary to 
 ride them. At odd moments they were quite likely to give 
 a wide sidewise bound or a stiff-legged buck from sheer joy 
 of life. One got genuine "horse exercise" out of them. 
 
 The Captain, as perhaps I have said, invented these 
 ponies himself. From Chihuahua he brought in some of 
 the best mustang mares he could find; and, in case you have 
 Frederick Remington's pictures of starved winter-range 
 animals in mind, let me tell you a good mustang is a very 
 handsome animal indeed. These he bred to a thorough- 
 bred. The resulting half-breeds grew to the proper age. 
 Then he started to have them broken to the saddle. A 
 start was as far as he ever got, for nobody could ride them. 
 
 262 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 They combined the intelligence and vice of the mustang 
 with the endurance and nervous instability of the thorough- 
 bred. The Captain tried all sorts of men, even sending at 
 last to Arizona for a good bronco buster on the J-I. Only 
 one or two of the many could back the animals at all, 
 though many aspirants made a try at it. After a long 
 series of experiments, the Captain came to the reluctant 
 conclusion that the cross was no good. It seemed a pity, for 
 they were beautiful animals, up to full polo size, deep 
 chested, strong shouldered, close coupled, and speedy. 
 
 Then, by way of idleness, he bred some of the half-bred 
 mares. The three-quarter cross proved to be ideal. They 
 were gentle, easily broken, and to the eye differed in no 
 particular from their pure-blooded brothers. So, ever 
 since, the Captain has been raising these most excellent polo 
 ponies to his great honour and profit and the incidental 
 pleasure of his friends who like riding. 
 
 One of these ponies was known as the Merry Jest. He 
 had a terrifying but harmless trick. The moment the 
 saddle was cinched, down went his head and he began to 
 buck in the most vicious style. This he would keep up 
 until further orders. In order to put an end to the per- 
 formance all one had to do was to haul in on the rope, thrust 
 one's foot in the stirrup, and clamber aboard. For, mark 
 you this, Merry Jest in the course of a long and useful 
 life never failed to buck under the empty saddle and never 
 bucked under a rider ! 
 
 This, of course, constituted the Merry Jest. Its beauty 
 was that it was so safe. 
 
 "Want to ride?" asked the Captain. 
 
 263 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "Surely," replied the unsuspecting stranger. 
 
 The Merry Jest was saddled, brought forth, and exhibited 
 in action. 
 
 "There's your horse," remarked the Captain in a matter- 
 of-course tone. 
 
 We rode out the corral gate and directly into the open 
 country. The animals chafed to be away; and when we 
 loosened the reins, leaped forward in long bounds. Over the 
 rough country they skimned like swallows, their hoofs hardly 
 seeming to touch the ground, the powerful muscles playing 
 smoothly beneath us like engines. After a mile of this 
 we pulled up, and set about the serious business of the 
 day. 
 
 One after another we oversaw all the major activities of 
 such a ranch; outside, I mean, of the ranch enclosure 
 proper where were the fowls, the vegetable gardens, and the 
 like. Here an immense hay rick was being driven slowly 
 along while two men pitched off the hay to right and left. 
 After it followed a long line of cattle. This manner of 
 feeding obviated the crowding that would have taken place 
 had the hay not been thus scattered. The more aggressive 
 followed close after the rick, snatching mouthf uls of the hay 
 as it fell. The more peaceful, or subdued, or philosophical 
 strung out in a long, thin line, eating steadily at one spot. 
 They got more hay with less trouble, but the other fellows 
 had to maintain reputations for letting nobody get ahead 
 of them I 
 
 At another p*int am exceedingly rackety engine ran a hay 
 press, where the constituents of one of the enormous house- 
 like haystacks were fed into a hopper and came out neatly 
 
 264 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 baled. A dozen or so men oversaw the activities of this 
 noisy and dusty machine. 
 
 Down by the northerly cottonwoods two miles away we 
 found other men with scrapers throwing up the irrigation 
 checks along the predetermined contour lines. By means 
 of these irregular meandering earthworks the water, 
 admitted from the ditch to the upper end of the field, would 
 work its way slowly from level to level instead of running 
 off or making channels for itself. This job, too, was a 
 dusty one. We could see the smoke of it rising from a long 
 distance; and the horses and men were brown with it. 
 
 And again we rode softly for miles over greensward 
 through the cattle, at a gentle fox trot, so as not to disturb 
 them. At several points stood great blue herons, like 
 sentinels, decorative as a Japanese screen, absolutely 
 motionless. The Captain explained that they were "fish- 
 ing" for gophers; and blessed them deeply. Sometimes our 
 mounts splashed for a long distance through water five or 
 six inches shallow. Underneath the surface we could see 
 the short green grass of the turf that thus received its re- 
 freshment. Then somewhere near, silhouetted against the 
 sky or distant mountains, on the slight elevation of the 
 irrigation ditch bank, we were sure to see some of the ir- 
 rigation Chinamen. They were strange, exotic figures, 
 their skins sunburned and dark, their queues wound around 
 their heads; wearing always the same uniform of blue jeans 
 cut China-fashion, rubber boots, and the wide, inverted bowl 
 Chinese sun hat of straw. By means of shovels wherewith 
 to dig, and iron bars wherewith to raise and lower flood 
 gates, they controlled the artificial rainfall of the region. 
 
 265 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 So accustomed did the ducks become to these amphibious 
 people that they hardly troubled themselves to get out of 
 the way, and were utterly careless of how near they flew. 
 Uncle Jim once disguised himself as an irrigation Chinaman 
 and got all kinds of shooting until the ducks found him out. 
 Now they seem able to distinguish accurately between a 
 Chinaman with a long shovel and a white man with a shot- 
 gun, no matter how the latter is dressed. Ducks, tame 
 and wild, have a lot of sense. It must bore the former to 
 be forced to associate with chickens. 
 
 Over in the orchard, of a thousand acres or so, were many 
 more Orientals, and hundreds of wild doves. These 
 Chinese were all of the lower coolie orders, and primitive, 
 not to say drastic in their medical ideas. One evening 
 the Captain heard a fine caterwauling and drum beating 
 over in the quarters, and sallied forth to investigate. In 
 one of the huts he found four men sitting on the outspread 
 legs and arms of a fifth. The latter had been stripped 
 stark naked. A sixth was engaged in placing live coals on 
 the patient's belly, while assorted assistants furnished 
 appropriate music and lamentation. The Captain put a 
 stop to the proceedings and bundled the victim to a hospital 
 where he promptly died. It was considered among Chinese 
 circles that the Captain had killed him by ill-timed inter- 
 ference ! 
 
 Everywhere we went, and wherever a small clump of trees 
 or even large brush offered space, hung the carcasses of 
 coyotes, wildcats, and lynx. Some were quite new, while 
 others had completely mummified in the dry air of these 
 interior plains. These were the trophies of the professional 
 
 266 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 "varmint killer/' a man hired by the month. Of course it 
 would be only too easy for such an official to loaf on his job, 
 so this one had adopted the unique method of proving his 
 activity. Everywhere the Captain rode he could see that 
 his man had been busy. 
 
 All this time we had been working steadily away from the 
 ranch. Long zigzags and side trips carried us little for- 
 ward, and a constant leftward tendency swung us always 
 around, until we had completed a half circle of which the 
 ranch itself was the centre. The irrigated fields had given 
 place to open country of a semi-desert character grown high 
 with patches of greasewood, sagebrush, thorn-bush; with 
 wide patches of scattered bunch grass; and stretches of 
 alkali waste. Here, unexpectedly to me, we stumbled 
 on a strange but necessary industry incidental to so large an 
 estate. Our nostrils were assailed by a mighty stink. 
 We came around the corner of some high brush directly on a 
 small two-story affair with a factory smokestack. It was 
 fenced in, and the fence was covered with drying hides. 
 I will spare you details, but the function of the place was to 
 make glue, soap, and the like of those cattle whose term of 
 life was marked by misfortune rather than by the butcher's 
 knife. The sole workman at this economical and useful 
 occupation did not seem to mind it. The Captain claimed 
 he was as good as a buzzard at locating the newly demised. 
 
 Our ponies did not like the place either. They snorted 
 violently, and pricked their ears back and forth, and were 
 especially relieved and eager to obey when we turned their 
 heads away. 
 
 We rode on out into the desert, our ponies skipping ex- 
 
 267 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 pertly through the low brush and gingerly over the alkali 
 crust of the open spaces beneath which might be holes. 
 Jackrabbits by the thousand, literally, hopped away in 
 front of us, spreading in all directions as along the sticks 
 of a fan. They were not particularly afraid, so they loped 
 easily in high-bounding leaps, their ears erect. Many of 
 them sat bolt upright, looking at least two feet high. 
 Occasionally we managed really to scare one, and then it was 
 a grand sight to see him open the throttle and scud away, 
 his ears flat back, in the classical and correct attitude of the 
 constantly recurring phrase of the ancients: "belly to earth 
 he flew!" 
 
 Jackrabbits are a great nuisance. The Captain had to 
 enclose his precious alfalfa fields with rabbit-proof wire to 
 prevent utter destruction. There was a good deal of fence, 
 naturally, and occasionally the inquiring rabbit would 
 find a hole and crawl through. Then he was in alfalfa, 
 which is, as every Californian knows, much better than 
 being in clover. He ate at first greedily, then more daintily, 
 wandering always farther afield in search of dessert. 
 Never, however, did he forget the precise location of 
 the opening by which he had entered, as was wise of him. 
 For now, behold, enter the dogs. Ordinarily these dogs, 
 who were also wise beasts, passed by the jackrabbit in his 
 abundance with only inhibited longing. Their experience 
 had taught them that to chase Jackrabbits in the open with 
 any motive ulterior to that of healthful exercise and the 
 joy of seeing the blame things run was as vain and as 
 puppish as chasing one's tail. But in the alfalfa fields was 
 a chance, for it must be remembered that such fields were 
 
 268 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 surrounded by the rabbit-proof wire in which but a single 
 opening was known to the jack in question. Therefore, 
 with huge delight, the dogs gave chase. Mr. Rabbit bolted 
 back for his opening, his enemies fairly at his heels. Now 
 comes the curious part of the episode. The dogs knew 
 perfectly well that if the rabbit hit the hole in the fence he 
 was safe for all of them; and they had learned, further, that 
 if the rabbit missed his plunge for safety he would collide 
 strongly with that tight-strung wire. When within twenty 
 feet or so of the fence they stopped short in expectation. 
 Probably three times out of five the game made his plunge 
 in safety and scudded away over the open plain outside. 
 Then the dogs turned and trotted philosophically back 
 to the ranch. But the other two times the rabbit would 
 miss. At full speed he would hit the tight-strung mesh, 
 only to be hurled back by its resiliency fairly into the jaws 
 of his waiting pursuers. Though thousands may consider 
 this another nature-fake, I shall always have the comfort of 
 thinking that the Captain and the dogs know it for the 
 truth. 
 
 At times jackrabbits get some sort of a plague and die in 
 great numbers. Indeed some years at the ranch they 
 seemed almost to have disappeared. Their carcasses are 
 destroyed almost immediately by the carrion creatures, and 
 their delicate bones, scattered by the ravens, buzzards, and 
 coyotes, soon disintegrate and pass into the soil. One 
 does not find many evidences of the destruction that has 
 been at work; yet he will see tens instead of myriads. I 
 have been at the ranch when one was never out of sight of 
 jackrabbits, in droves, and again I have been there when 
 
 269 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 one would not see a half dozen in a morning's ride. They 
 recover their numbers fast enough, and the chances are 
 that this "narrow-gauge mule " will be always with us. The 
 ranchman would like nothing better than to bid him a last 
 fond but genuine farewell; but I should certainly miss him. 
 
 The greasewood and thorn-bush grew in long, narrow 
 patches. The ragweed grew everywhere it pleased, af- 
 fording grand cover for the quail. The sagebrush occurred 
 singly at spaced intervals, with tiny bare spaces between 
 across which the plumed little rascals scurried hurriedly. 
 The tumbleweed banked high wherever, in the mysterious 
 dispensations of Providence, a call for tumbleweed had made 
 itself heard. 
 
 The tumbleweed is a curious vegetable. It grows and 
 flourishes amain, and becomes great even as a sagebrush, 
 and puts forth its blossoms and seeds, and finally turns 
 brown and brittle. Just about as you would conclude it 
 has reached a respectable old age and should settle down 
 by its chimney corner, it decides to go travelling. The 
 first breath of wind that comes along snaps it off close to the 
 ground. The next turns it over. And then, inasmuch 
 as the tumbleweed is roughly globular in shape, some 
 three or four feet in diameter, and exceedingly light in 
 structure, over and over it rolls across the plain! If the 
 wind happens to increase, the whole flock migrates, bound- 
 ing merrily along at a good rate of speed. Nothing more 
 terrifying to the unaccustomed equine can be imagined 
 than thirty or forty of these formidable-looking monsters 
 charging down upon him, bouncing several feet from the 
 surface of the earth. The experienced horse treats them 
 
 270 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 with the contempt such light-minded senility deserves, and 
 wades through their phantom attack indifferent. After 
 the breeze has died the debauched old tumbleweeds are 
 everywhere to be seen, piled up against brush, choking 
 the ditches, filling the roads. Their beautiful spherical 
 shapes have been frayed out so that they look sodden and 
 weary and done up. But their seeds have been scattered 
 abroad over the land. 
 
 Wherever we found water, there we found ducks. The 
 irrigating ditches contained many bands of a dozen or 
 fifteen; the overflow ponds had each its little flock. The 
 sky, too, was rarely empty of them; and the cries of the 
 snow geese and the calls of sandhill cranes were rarely still. 
 I remarked on this abundance. 
 
 "Ducks!" replied the Captain, wonderingly. "Why, you 
 haven't begun to see ducks! Come with me." 
 
 Thereupon we turned sharp to the left. After ten 
 minutes I made out from a slight rise above the plain a 
 black patch lying across the distance. It seemed to cover 
 a hundred acres or so, and to represent a sort of growth 
 we had not before encountered. 
 
 "That," said the Captain, indicating, "is a pond covered 
 with ducks." 
 
 I did not believe it. We dropped below the line of sight 
 and rode steadily forward. 
 
 All at once a mighty roar burst on our ears, like the rush 
 of a heavy train over a high trestle; and immediately the air 
 ahead of us was filled with ducks towering. They mounted, 
 and wheeled, and circled back or darted away. The sky 
 became fairly obscured with them in the sense that it 
 
 271 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 seemed inconceivable that hither space could contain an- 
 other bird. Before the retina of the eye they swarmed 
 exactly as a nearer cloud of mosquitoes would appear. 
 
 Hardly had the shock of this first stupendous rise of wild- 
 fowl spent itself before another and larger flight roared up. 
 It seemed that all the ducks in the world must be a- wing; 
 and yet, even after that, a third body arose, its rush sound- 
 ing like the abrupt, overwhelming noise of a cataract in a 
 sudden shift of wind. I should be afraid to guess how many 
 ducks had been on that lake. Its surface was literally 
 covered, so that nowhere did a glint of water show. I 
 suppose it would be a simple matter to compute within a 
 few thousand how many ducks would occupy so much space ; 
 but of what avail? Mere numbers would convey no im- 
 pression of the effect. Rather fill the cup of heaven with 
 myriads thick as a swarm of gnats against the sun. They 
 swung and circled back and forth before making up their 
 minds to be off, crossing and recrossing the various lines of 
 flight. The first thrice-repeated roar of rising had given 
 place to the clear, sustained whistling of wings, low, pene- 
 trating, inspiring. In the last flight had been a band of 
 several hundred snow geese; and against the whiteness of 
 their plumage the sun shone. 
 
 "That," observed the Captain with conviction, "is what 
 you might call ducks." 
 
 By now it was the middle of the afternoon. We had not 
 thought of lunch. At the ranch lunch was either a major 
 or a minor consideration; there was no middle ground. If 
 possible, we ate largely of many most delicious things. If, 
 on the other hand, we happened to be out somewhere at 
 
 272 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 noon, we cheerfully omitted lunch. So, when we returned 
 to the ranch, the Captain, after glancing at his watch and 
 remarking that it was rather late to eat, proposed that we 
 try out two other ponies with the polo mallets. 
 
 This we proceeded to do. After an hour's pleasant 
 exercise on the flat in the "Enclosure," we jogged content- 
 edly back into the corral. 
 
 Around the corner of the barn sailed a distracted and 
 utterly stampeded hen. After her, yapping eagerly, came 
 five dachshunds. 
 
 Pause and consider the various elements of outrage the 
 situation presented. (A) Dachshunds are, as before 
 quoted, a bunch of useless, bandylegged, snip-nosed, 
 
 waggle-eared , anyway, and represent an amiable 
 
 good-natured weakness on the part of Mrs. Kitty. (B) 
 Dachshunds in general are not supposed to run wild all 
 over the place, but to remain in their perfectly good, 
 sufficiently large, entirely comfortable corral, Pete and Pup 
 excepted. (C) Chickens are valuable. (D) Confound 
 'em! This sort of a performance will be a bad example for 
 Young Ben. First thing we'll know, he'll be chasing 
 chickens, too! 
 
 JThe Captain dropped from his pony and joined the pro- 
 cession. The hen could run just a trifle faster than the 
 dachshunds; and the dachshunds just a trifle faster than 
 the Captain. I always claimed they circled the barn 
 three times, in the order named. The Captain insists with 
 dignity that I exaggerate three hundred per cent. At any 
 rate, the hen finally blundered, the dachshunds fell upon 
 her and the Captain swung his polo mallet. 
 
 273 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Five typical "sickening thuds" were heard; five dachs- 
 hunds literally sailed through the air to fall in quivering 
 heaps. The Captain, his anger cooled, came back, shaking 
 his head. 
 
 "I wouldn't have killed those dogs for anything in the 
 world!" he muttered half to me, half to himself as we took 
 the path to the house. "I don't know what Mrs. Kitty 
 will say to this! I certainly am sorry about it!" and 
 so on, at length. 
 
 We turned the corner of the hedge. There in a row on the 
 top step of the verandah sat five dachshunds, their mouths 
 open in a happy smile, six inches of pink tongue hanging, 
 their eyes half closed in good-humoured appreciation. 
 
 The Captain approached softly and looked them over 
 with great care. He felt of their ribs. He stared up at me 
 incredulously. 
 
 "Is this the same outfit?" he whispered. 
 
 "It is," said I, "I know the blaze-face brute." 
 
 "But but " 
 
 "They played 'possum on you, Captain." 
 
 The Captain arose and his wrath exploded. 
 
 "You miserable hounds!" he roared. 
 
 With a wise premonition they decamped. 
 
 "I'm going to clean out the whole bandylegged tribe!" 
 threatened the Captain for the fiftieth time in the month. 
 "I won't have them on the ranch!" 
 
 That was seven years ago. They are still there they 
 and numerous descendants.* 
 
 Ten years later sentence of death was passed and carried out after they kad killed one 
 wheelbarrow load of broilers! 
 
 274 
 
CHAPTER VH 
 
 DINNER 
 
 We washed up and came down stairs. All at once it 
 proved to be drowsy time. The dark had fallen and the 
 lamps were lit. A new fire crackled in the fireplace, antici- 
 pating the chill that was already descending. Carrie 
 played the piano in the other room. The General snorted 
 over something in his city paper. Mrs. Kitty had dis- 
 appeared on household business. Pete and Pup, having 
 been mistaken one for the other by some innocent bystander, 
 gloomed and glowered under chairs. 
 
 Both the Captain and myself made some sort of a pre- 
 tence of reading the papers. It was only a pretence. The 
 grateful warmth, the soothing crackling of the fire, the dis- 
 tant music and, possibly, our state of starvation 
 lulled us to a half doze. From this we were aroused by an 
 announcement of dinner. 
 
 We had soup and various affairs of that sort; and there 
 was brought on a huge and baronial 'roast, from which the 
 Captain promptly proceeded to slice generous allowances. 
 With it came vegetables. They were all cooked in cream; 
 not milk, but rich top cream thick enough to cut with a 
 knife. I began to see why all the house servants were 
 plump. Also there were jellies, and little fat hot rolls, 
 
 275 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and strange pickled products of the soil. I was good and 
 hungry; and I ate thereof. 
 
 The plates were removed. I settled back with a sigh of 
 repletion 
 
 The door opened to admit the waitress bearing a huge 
 platter on which reposed, side by side, five ducks. That 
 meant a whole one apiece ! To my feeble protest the family 
 turned indignantly. 
 
 "Of course you must eat your duck!" Mrs. Kitty settled 
 the whole question at last. 
 
 So I ate my duck. It was a very good duck; as indeed it 
 should have been, for it was fattened on Egyptian corn, 
 hung the exact number of days, and cooked by Charley. 
 It had a little spout of celery down which I could pour the 
 abundant juice from its inside ; and it was flanked right and 
 left respectively by a piece of lemon liberally sprinkled with 
 red pepper and sundry crisp slabs of fried hominy. Every 
 night of the shooting season each member of the household 
 had "his duck." Later I was shown the screened room 
 wherein hung the game, each dated by a little tag. 
 
 After I had made way with most of my duck, and other 
 things, and had had my coffee, and had lighted a cigar, I 
 was entirely willing to sink back to disgraceful ease. But 
 the Captain suddenly developed an inexcusable and 
 fiendish energy. 
 
 "No, you don't," said he. "You come with me and 
 Redmond and get out the decoys." 
 
 "What for?" I temporized, feebly. 
 
 "To keep the moths out of them, of course," replied the 
 Captain with fine sarcasm. "Do you mean to tell me that 
 
 276 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 you can sit still and do nothing after seeing all those ducks 
 this afternoon? You're a fine sportsman! Brace up!" 
 
 "Let me finish this excellent cigar," I pleaded. "You 
 gave it to me." 
 
 To this he assented. Carrie went back to the piano. 
 The lights were dim. Mrs. Kitty went on finishing her 
 crochet work or whatever it was. Nobody said anything 
 for a long time. The Captain was busy in the gun room 
 with one of the ranch foremen. 
 
 But this could not last, and at length I was haled forth to 
 work. 
 
 The crisp, sharp air beneath the frosty stars, after the 
 tepid air within, awakened me like the shock of cold water. 
 Redmond was awaiting us with a lantern. By the horse 
 block lay the mass of something indeterminate which I 
 presently saw to be sacks full of something knobby. 
 
 "I have six sacks of wooden decoys," said Redmond, 
 "with weights all on them." 
 
 The Captain nodded and passed on. We made our way 
 down past the grape arbour, opened the high door leading 
 into chickenville, and stopped at the border of the little 
 pond. On its surface floated a hundred or so tame ducks 
 of all descriptions. By means of clods of earth we woke 
 them up. They came ashore and waddled without ob- 
 jection to a little inclosure. We followed them and shut the 
 gate. 
 
 ' One after another the Captain indicated those he wished 
 to take with him on the morrow. Redmond caught them, 
 inserted them in gunny sacks, two to the sack. They made 
 no great objection to being caught. One or two youngsters 
 
 277 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 flopped and flapped about, and had to be chased into a 
 comer. In general, however, they accepted the situation 
 philosophically, and snuggled down contentedly in their 
 sacks. 
 
 "They are used to it," the Captain explained. "Most 
 of these Rouen ducks are old hands at the business; they 
 know what to expect." 
 
 He was very particular as to the colouring of the in- 
 dividuals he selected. A single white feather was sufficient 
 to cause the rejection of a female; and even when the colour 
 scheme was otherwise perfect, too light a shade proved 
 undesired. 
 
 "I don't know just why it is," said he, "but the wild 
 ducks are a lot more particular about the live decoys than 
 about the wooden. A wooden decoy can be all knocked to 
 pieces, faded and generally disreputable, but it does well 
 enough; but a live decoy must look the part absolutely. 
 That gives us six apiece; I think it will be enough." 
 
 Redmond took charge of our capture. We left him with 
 the lantern, stowing away the decoys, live and inanimate, in 
 the Invigorator. Within fifteen minutes thereafter I was 
 sleeping the sleep of the moderately tired and the fully fed. 
 
 278 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DUCKS 
 
 The Captain rapped on my door. It was pitch dark, and 
 the wind, which had arisen during the night, was sweeping 
 through the open windows, blowing the light curtains about. 
 Also it was very cold. 
 
 " All right," I answered, took my resolution in my hands, 
 and stepped forth. 
 
 Ten minutes later, by the light of a single candle, we 
 were manipulating the coffee-and-egg machine, and devour- 
 ing the tall pile of bread-and-butter sandwiches that had 
 been left for us over night. Then, stepping as softly as we 
 could in our clumping rubber boots, our arms burdened 
 with guns and wraps, we stole into the outer darkness. 
 
 It was almost black, but we could dimly make out the 
 treetops whipped about by the wind. Over by the stable 
 we caught the intermittent flashes of many lanterns 
 where the teamsters were feeding their stock. Presently a 
 merry and vigorous rattle rattle rattle arose and came 
 nearer. The Invigorator was ready and under way. 
 
 We put on all the coats and sweaters, and climbed aboard. 
 The Captain spoke to his horses, and we were off. 
 
 That morning I had my first experience of a phenomenon 
 I have never ceased admiring and wondering at. I 
 refer to the Captain's driving in the dark. 
 
 279 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 The night was absolutely black, so that I could hardly 
 make out the horses. In all the world were only two 
 elements, the sky full of stars and the mass of the earth. 
 The value of this latter, as a means of showing us where we 
 were, was nullified by the fact that the skyline consisted, 
 not of recognizable and serviceable landmarks, but of the 
 distant mountains. We went a certain length of time, 
 and bumped over a certain number of things. Then the 
 Captain pulled his team sharp around to the left. Why 
 he did so I could not tell you. We drove an hour over a 
 meandering course. 
 
 "Hang tight," remarked the Captain. 
 
 I did so. The front end of the Invigorator immediately 
 fell away from under me, so that if I had not been obeying 
 orders by hanging tight I should most certainly have 
 plunged forward against the horses. We seemed to slide 
 and slither down a steep declivity, then hit water with a 
 splash, and began to flounder forward. The water 
 rose high enough to cover the floor of the Invigorator, 
 causing the Captain to speculate on whether Redmond 
 had packed in the shells properly. Then the bow rose 
 with a mighty jerk and we scrambled out the other 
 side. 
 
 "That's the upper ford on the Slough," observed the 
 Captain, calmly. 
 
 Everywhere else along the Slough, as I subsequently 
 discovered, the banks fell off perpendicular, the water was 
 deep, and the bottom soft. The approach was down no 
 fenced lane, but across the open, with no other landmarks 
 even in daylight than the break of low willows and cotton- 
 
 280 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 woods exactly like a hundred others. Ten minutes later the 
 Captain drew rein. 
 
 "Here you are," said he, cautiously. "You can dump 
 your stuff off right here. I can't get through the fence 
 with the team; but it's only a short distance to carry." 
 
 Accordingly, in entire faith, I descended and unloaded 
 my three sacks of wooden decoys and my three sacks of 
 live ducks and my gun and shells. 
 
 " I'll drive on to another hole," said the Captain. " Good 
 luck!" 
 
 "Would you mind," I suggested, meekly, "telling me 
 in which direction this mythical fence is situated; what kind 
 of a fence it is; and where I carry to when I get through 
 it?" 
 
 The Captain chuckled. 
 
 "Why," he explained, "the fence is straight ahead of 
 you; and it's barbed wire; and as for where you're headed, 
 you'll find the pond where we saw ah 1 those ducks last night 
 about a hundred yards or so west." 
 
 Where we saw all those ducks! My blood increased 
 its pace through my veins. Now that I was afoot, I could 
 begin to make out things in the starlight the silhouettes 
 of bushes or brush, and even three or four posts of the 
 fence. 
 
 The Invigorator rattled into the distance. I got my 
 stuff the other side of the wires, and, shouldering a sack, 
 plodded away due west. 
 
 But now I made out the pond gleaming; and by this 
 and by the dun grayness of the earth immediately about me 
 knew that dawn was at last under way. The night had not 
 
 281 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 yet begun to withdraw, but its first strength was going. 
 Objects in the world about became, not visible, but existent. 
 By the time I had carried my last load the rather liberal 
 hundred yards to the shores of the pond the eastern sky had 
 banished its stars. 
 
 My movements had, of course, alarmed the ducks. 
 There were not many of them, as I could judge by the 
 whistling of their departing wings and by the silvery 
 furrows where they had left the water. It is curious how 
 strong the daylight must become before the eye can dis- 
 tinguish a duck in flight. The comparative paucity of 
 numbers, I reflected, was probably due to the fact that the 
 ducks used this pond merely as a loafing place during 
 the day. Therefore I should anticipate a good flight as soon 
 as feeding time should be over; especially as one end of the 
 pond proved to be fairly well sheltered from the high wind. 
 
 At once I set to work to build me a blind. This I 
 constructed of tumbleweed and willow shoots, with a lucky 
 sagebrush as a good basis. I made it thick below and thin 
 on top, so I could crouch hidden, and rise easily to shoot. 
 Also I made it hastily, working away with a concentration 
 that would prove very valuable could it be brought to a 
 useful line of work. There can nothing equal the bifsy- 
 ness of a man hastening to perfect his arrangements before 
 a flight of ducks is due to start. Every few moments I would 
 look anxiously up to see how things were going with the 
 morning. The light was indubitably increasing. That is 
 to say, I could make out the whole width of the pond, for 
 example, although the farther banks were still in silhouette, 
 and the sky was almost free of stars. Also the perpendicu- 
 
 282 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 lar plane of the mountains to the west, in some subtle 
 manner, was beginning to break. It was not yet daylight; 
 but the dawn was here. 
 
 I reached cautiously into one of the sacks and brought 
 forth one of the decoy ducks. Around his neck I buckled 
 a little leather collar to a ring in which had been attached 
 a cord and weight. Then I cautiously waded out and 
 anchored him. 
 
 He was delighted, and proceeded immediately to take 
 a bath, ducking his head under and out again, ruffling his 
 wings, and wagging his absurd little tail. Apparently the 
 whole experience was a matter of course to him; but he was 
 willing to show pleasure that this phase of it was over. I 
 anchored out his five companions, and then proceeded to ar- 
 range the wooden decoys artistically around the outskirts. 
 By now it was quite genuinely early daylight. Three tunes 
 the overhead whistle of wings had warned me to hurry; and 
 twice small flocks of ducks had actually swung down within 
 range only to discover me at the last moment and tower 
 away again. When younger, I used, at such junctures, 
 to rush for my gun. That is a puppy stage, for by 
 the time you get your gun those ducks are gone; and 
 by the time you have regained your abandoned task more 
 ducks are in. Therefore one early learns that when he goes 
 out from his blind to pick up ducks, or catch cripples, 
 or arrange decoys, he would better do so, paying no atten- 
 tion whatever to the game that will immediately appear. 
 So now the whistle of wings merely caused me to work the 
 faster. At length I was able to wade ashore and sink into 
 my blind. 
 
 283 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 Immediately, as usual, the flights ceased for the time 
 being. I had nothing to do but sit tight and wait. 
 
 This was no unpleasant task. The mountains to the 
 west had become lucent, and glowed pink in the dawn; those 
 to the east looked like silhouettes of very thin slate- 
 coloured cardboard stuck up on edge, across which a pearl 
 wash had been laid. The flatter world of the plains all 
 about me lay half revealed in an unearthly gray light. The 
 wind swooped and tore away at the brush, sending its fan- 
 shaped cat's-paws across the surface of the pond. My 
 ducks, having finished their ablutions, now gave a leisurely 
 attention to smoothing out their plumes ruffled by the 
 night in the gunnysack. They ran each feather separately 
 through then* bills, preening and smoothing. All the time 
 they conversed together in low tones of voice. Whenever 
 one made a rather clever remark, or smoothed to glossiness a 
 particularly rumpled feather, he wagged his short tail vig- 
 orously from side to side in satisfaction. 
 
 Suddenly the one farthest out in the pond stilled to at- 
 tention and craned forward his neck. 
 
 "Mark!" quoth he, loudly, and then again: "Mark! 
 quok quok quok !" 
 
 The other five looked in the same direction, and then 
 they, too, lifted up their voices. Cautiously I turned my 
 ?head. Low against the growing splendour of the sunrise, 
 wings rigidly set, came a flock of mallards. My ducks 
 fairly stood up on their tails the better to hurl invitations 
 and inducements at their wild brethren. The chorus 
 praising this particular spot was vociferous and unanimous. 
 I wonder what the mallards thought of the other fifty or 
 
 284 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 sixty in my flock, the wooden ones, that sat placidly aloof. 
 Did they consider these remarkably exclusive; or did they 
 perhaps look upon the live ones as the "boosters" com- 
 mittee for this particular piece of duck real estate? At 
 any rate, they dropped in without the slightest hesitation, 
 which shows the value of live decoys. The mallard is 
 ordinarily a wily bird and circles your pond a number of 
 times before deciding to come in to wooden decoys. At the 
 proper moment I got to my feet, and. by good fortune, 
 knocked down two fat green-heads. 
 
 They fell with a splash right among my ducks. Did 
 the latter exhibit alarm over either the double concussion 
 of the gun or this fall of defunct game from above? Not at 
 all! they were tickled to death. Each swam vigorously 
 around and around at the limit of his tether, ruffling his 
 plumage and waggling his tail with the utmost vigour. 
 
 "Well, I rather think we fooled that bunch!" said they, 
 one to another. "Did you ever see an easier lot? Came 
 right down without a look! If the Captain had been 
 here he'd have killed a half dozen of the chumps before they 
 got out of range!" and so on. For your experienced decoy 
 always seems to enjoy the game hugely, and to enter into it 
 with much enthusiasm and intelligence. And all the while 
 the flock of wooden decoys headed unanimously up wind, 
 and bobbed in the wavelets; and the sun went on gilding the 
 mountains to the west. 
 
 Next a flock of teal whirled down wind, stooped, and 
 were gone like a flash. I got in both barrels; and missed 
 both. The dissatisfaction of this was almost immediately 
 mitigated by a fine smash at a flock of sprig that went by 
 
 285 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 overhead at extreme long range, but from which I managed 
 to bring down a fine drake. When the shot hit him he 
 faltered, then, still flying, left the ranks at an acute angle, 
 sloping ever the quicker downward, until he fell on a long 
 slant, his wings set, his neck still outstretched. I marked 
 the direction as well as I could, and immediately went in 
 search of him. Fortunately he lay in the open, quite dead. 
 Looking back, I could see another good flock fairly hovering 
 over the decoys. 
 
 The sun came up, and grew warm. The wind died. I 
 took off my sweater. Between flights I basked deliciously. 
 The affair was outside of all precedent and reason. A duck 
 shooter ought to be out in a storm, a good cold storm. He 
 ought to break the scum ice when he puts out his decoys. 
 He ought to sit half frozen in a wintry blast, his 
 fingers numb, his nose blue, his body shivering. That 
 sort of discomfort goes with duck shooting. Yet here I was 
 sitting out in a warm, summerlike day in my shirt sleeves, 
 waiting comfortably and the ducks were coming in, 
 too! 
 
 After a time I heard the mighty rattle of the Invigorator, 
 and the Captain's voice shouting. Reluctantly I disen- 
 tangled myself from my blind and went over to see what 
 all the row was about. 
 
 "Had enough?' 7 he demanded, cheerily. 
 
 I saw that I was supposed to say yes; so I said it. The 
 ducks were still coming in fast. You see, I was not yet 
 free from the traditions to which I had been brought up. 
 Back in Michigan, when a man went for a day's shoot, he 
 stayed with it all day. It was serious business. I was not 
 
 286 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 yet accustomed to being so close to the game that the 
 casual expedition was after all the most fun. 
 
 So I pulled up my rubber boots, and waded out, gathering 
 in the game. To my immense surprise I found that I had 
 thirty-seven ducks down. It had not occurred to me that 
 I had shot half that number, which is perhaps commentary 
 on how fast ducks had been coming in. It was then only 
 about eight o'clock. After gathering them in, next we 
 performed the slow and very moist task of lifting the wooden 
 decoys and winding their anchor cords around their placid 
 necks. Lastly we gathered in the live ducks. They came, 
 towed at the end of their tethers, with manifest reluctance; 
 hanging back at their strings, flapping their wings, and hiss- 
 ing at us indignantly. I do not think they were frightened, 
 for once we had our hands on them, they resumed their 
 dignified calm. Only they enjoyed the fun outside; and 
 they did not fancy the bags inside; a choice eminently 
 creditable to their sense. 
 
 So back we drove to the ranch. The Captain, too, 
 had had good shooting. Redmond appeared with an 
 immense open hamper into which he dumped the birds 
 two by two, keeping tally in a loud voice. Redmond 
 thoroughly enjoyed all the small details. 
 
 287 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 UNCLE JIM 
 
 Each morning, while we still sat at breakfast, Uncle Jim 
 drove up from the General's in his two-wheeled cart to see 
 if there might be anything doing. Uncle Jim was a solidly 
 built elderly man, with the brown complexion and the 
 quizzical, good-humoured eye of the habitual sportsman. 
 He wore invariably an old shooting coat and a cap that had 
 seen younger, but perhaps not better, days. His vehicle was 
 a battered but serviceable two-wheeled cart drawn by a 
 placid though adequate horse. His weapon for all purposes 
 was a rather ponderous twelve-gauge. 
 
 If we projected some sporting expedition Uncle Jim 
 was our man; but if there proved to be nothing in the wind, 
 he disappeared promptly. He conducted various trapping 
 ventures for "varmints," at which he seemed to have 
 moderate success, for he often brought in a wildcat or 
 coyote. In fact, he maintained one of the former in a cage, 
 to what end nobody knew, for it was a harsh and un- 
 sociable character. Uncle Jim began to show signs of life 
 about July fifteenth when the dove season opened; he came 
 into his own from the middle of October until the first of 
 February, during which period one can shoot both ducks 
 and quail; he died down to the bare earth when the game 
 season was over, and only sent up a few green shoots of 
 
 288 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 interest in the matter of supplying his wildcat with that 
 innumerable agricultural pest, the blackbird. 
 
 Sometimes I accompanied Uncle Jim, occupying the 
 other side of the two-wheeled cart. We never had any 
 definite object in view; we just went forth for adventure. 
 The old horse jogged along very steadily, considering the 
 fact that he was as likely to be put at cross country as a road. 
 We humped up side by side in sociable silence, spying keenly 
 for what we could see. A covey of quail disappearing in 
 the brush caused us to pull up. We hunted them leisurely 
 for a half hour and gathered in a dozen birds. Always we 
 tried to sneak ducks, no matter how hopeless the situation 
 might seem. Once I went on one hand and my knees 
 through three inches of water for three hundred yards, 
 stalking a flock of sprig loafing in an irrigation puddle. 
 There was absolutely no cover; I was in plain sight; from a 
 serious hunting standpoint the affair was quixotic, not to 
 say imbecile. If I had been out with the Captain we should 
 probably not have looked twice at those sprig. Neverthe- 
 less, as the general atmosphere of Uncle Jim's expeditions 
 was always one of adventure and forlorn hopes and try-it- 
 anyway, I tried it on. Uncle Jim sat in the cart and 
 chuckled. Every moment I expected the flock to take 
 wing, but they lingered. Finally, when still sixty yards 
 distant, the leaders rose. I cut loose with both barrels for 
 general results. To my vast surprise three came down, one 
 dead, the other two wing-tipped. The two latter led me a 
 merry chase, wherein I managed to splatter the rest of 
 myself. Then I returned in triumph to the cart. The 
 forlorn hope had planted its banner on the walls of achieve- 
 
 289 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 ment. Uncle Jim laughed at me for my idiocy in crawling 
 through water after such a fool chance. I laughed at 
 Uncle Jim because I had three ducks. We drove on, and 
 the warm sun dried me off. 
 
 In this manner we made some astonishing bags; astonish- 
 ing not by their size, but by the manner of their accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 We were entirely open minded. Anything that came 
 along interested us. We investigated all the holes in all 
 the trees, in hopes of 'coons or honey or something or 
 other. We drove gloriously through every patch of brush. 
 Sometimes an unseen hummock would all but upset us; so 
 we had to scramble hastily to windward to restore our 
 equilibrium. 
 
 The country was gridironed with irrigation ditches. 
 They were eight to ten feet deep, twenty or thirty feet wide, 
 and with elevated, precipitous banks. One could cross 
 them almost anywhere except when they were brimful, of 
 course. The banks were so steep that, once started, the 
 vehicle had to go, but so short that it must soon reach bot- 
 tom. On the other side the horse could attain the top by a 
 rush; after which, having gained at least a front footing over 
 the bank, he could draw the light vehicle by dead weight the 
 rest of the distance. Naturally, the driver had to take the 
 course at exactly right angles, or he capsized ingloriously. 
 
 One day Uncle Jim and I started to cross one of these 
 ditches that had long been permitted to remain dry. Its 
 bottom was covered by weeds six inches high, and looked 
 to be about six feet down. We committed ourselves to the 
 slope. Then, when too late to reconsider, we discovered 
 
 290 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 that the apparent six-inch growth of weeds was in reality 
 one of four or five feet. The horse discovered it at the 
 same time. With true presence of mind, he immediately de- 
 termined that it was up to him to leap that ditch. Only the 
 fact that he was hitched to the cart prevented him from do- 
 ing so; but he made a praiseworthy effort. 
 
 The jerk threw me backward, and had I not grabbed 
 Uncle Jim I would most certainly have fallen out behind. 
 As for Uncle Jim, he would most certainly have fallen out 
 behind, too, if he had not clung like grim death to the 
 reins. And as for the horse, alarmed by the check and 
 consequent scramble, he just plain bolted, fortunately 
 straight ahead. We hit the opposite bank with a crash, 
 sailed over it, and headed across country. 
 
 Consider us as we went. Feet in air, I was poised on the 
 end of my backbone in a state of exact equilibrium. A 
 touch would tumble me out behind; an extra ounce would tip 
 me safely into the cart; my only salvation was my hold on 
 Uncle Jim. I could not apply that extra ounce for the 
 simple reason that Uncle Jim also, feet in air, was poised 
 exactly on the end of his backbone. If the reins slackened 
 an inch, over he went; if he could manage to pull up the 
 least bit in the world, in he came! So we tore across 
 country for several hundred yards, unable to recover and 
 most decidedly unwilling to fall off on the back of our heads. 
 It must have been a grand sight; and it seemed to endure an 
 hour. Finally, imperceptibly we overcame the opposing 
 forces. We were saved! 
 
 Uncle Jim cursed out " Henry" with great vigour. 
 Henry was the mare we drove. Uncle Jim, in his naming of 
 
 291 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 animals, always showed a stern disregard for the female sex. 
 Then, as usual, we looked about to see what we could see. 
 
 Over to the left grew a small white oak. About ten 
 or twelve feet from the ground was a hole. That was 
 enough; we drove over to investigate that hole. It was not 
 an easy matter, for we were too lazy to climb the tree unless 
 we had to. Finally we drove close enough so that, by 
 standing on extreme tip-toe atop the seat of the cart, I 
 could get a sort of sidewise, one-eyed squint at that hole. 
 
 "K," I warned Uncle Jim, "Henry leaves me suspended 
 in mid-air I'll bash her fool head in!" 
 
 "No, you won't," chuckled Uncle Jim, "it's too far 
 home." 
 
 It was a very dark hole, and for a moment I could see 
 nothing. Then, all at once, I made out two dull balls of 
 fire glowing steadily out of the blackness. That was as long 
 as I could stand stretching out my entire anatomy to look 
 down any hole. 
 
 On hearing my report, Uncle Jim phlegmatically thrust 
 the flexible whip down the hole. 
 
 " 'Coon," he pronounced, after listening to the resultant 
 remarks from within. 
 
 And then the same bright idea struck us both. 
 
 "Mrs. Kitty here makes good with those angleworms,* 
 Uncle Jim voiced the inspiration. 
 
 We blocked up the hole securely; and made rapid time 
 back to the ranch. 
 
 292 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE MEDIUM-SIZE GAME 
 
 Against many attacks and accusations of uselessness 
 cast at her dachshunds, Mrs. Kitty had always stoutly 
 opposed the legend of "medium-size game." The dachs- 
 hunds may look like bologna sausages on legs, ran the gist 
 of her argument; and they may progress like rather lively 
 measuring worms; and the usefulness of their structure may 
 seem to limit itself to a facility for getting under furniture 
 without stooping, but Mrs. Kitty's eloquence always 
 ended by convincing herself, and she became very serious 
 but that is not the dogs' fault. Rather it is the fault of 
 their environment to which they have been transplanted. 
 Back in their own native vaterland they were always used 
 for medium-sized game. And what is more they are good 
 at it! Come here, Pete, they shan't abuse you! 
 
 Coyotes and bobcats are medium-size game, someone 
 ventured to point out. 
 
 Not at all, medium-size game should live in holes, 
 like badgers. Dachshunds are evidently built for holes. 
 They are long and low, and they have spatulate feet for 
 digging, and their bandy legs enable them to throw the 
 dirt out behind them. Their long, sharp noses are like 
 tweezers to seize upon the medium-size game. In short, 
 by much repetition, a legend had grown up around the 
 
 293 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 dachshunds, a legend of fierceness inhibited only by cir- 
 cumstances, of pathetic deprivation of the sports of their 
 native land. If only we could have a badger, we could 
 almost hear them say to each other in dog language, a 
 strong, morose, savage badger! Alas! we are wasting our 
 days in idleness, our talents rust from disuse! Finally, 
 Uncle Jim Temained the only frankly skeptical member, 
 
 At this time there visited the ranch two keen sports- 
 men whom we shall call Charley and Tommy; as also several 
 girls. We burst on the assembled multitude with our news. 
 Immediately a council of war was called. After the 
 praetors and tribunes of the people had uttered their opin- 
 ions, Uncle Jim arose and spoke as follows: 
 
 "Here is your chance to make good," said he, address- 
 ing Mrs. Kitty. "Those badger hounds of yours, accord- 
 ing to you, have just been fretting for medium-size game. 
 Well, here's some. Bring out the whole flock, and let's 
 see them get busy." 
 
 The proposition was received with a shout of rapture 
 Uncle Jim smiled grimly. 
 
 "Well, they'll do it!" cried Mrs. Kitty, with spirit. 
 
 Preparations were immediately under way. In half 
 an hour the army debouched from the ranch and strung 
 out single file across the plain. 
 
 First came Uncle Jim and myself in the two-wheeled 
 cart as scouts and guides. 
 
 Followed the General in his surrey. The surrey had 
 originally been intended for idle dalliance along country 
 lanes. In the days of its glory it had been upholstered 
 right merrily, and around its flat top had dangled a blithe- 
 
 294 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 some fringe. Both the upholstery and fringe were still 
 somewhat there. Of the glory that was past no other 
 reminder had persisted. The General sat squarely in the 
 middle of the front seat, very large, erect, and imposing, 
 driving with a fine military disregard of hummocks or the 
 laws of equilibrium. In or near the back seat hovered a 
 tiny Japanese boy to whom the General occasionally issued 
 short, sharp, military comments or commands. 
 
 Then came Mrs. Kitty and the ponies with Carrie 
 beside her. Immediately astern of the pony cart followed a 
 three-seated carry-all with assorted guests. This was 
 flanked by the Captain and Charley as outriders. The 
 rear was closed by the Invigorator filled with dachshunds. 
 Their pointed noses poked busily through the slats of the 
 cage, and sniffed up over the edge of the wagon box. 
 
 The rear, did I say? I had forgotten Mithradates 
 Antikamia Briggs. The latter polysyllabic person was 
 a despised, apologetic, rangy, black-and-white mongrel 
 hound said to have belonged somewhere to a man named 
 Briggs. I think the rest of his name was intended as an 
 insult. Ordinarily Mithradates hung around the men's 
 quarters where he was liked. Never had he dared seek 
 either solace or sympathy at the doors of the great house; 
 and never, never had he remotely dreamed of following any 
 of the numerous hunting expeditions. That would have 
 been lese-majesty, high treason, sublime impudence, and 
 intolerable nuisance to be punished by banishment or death. 
 Mithradates realized this perfectly; and never did he 
 presume to raise his eyes to such high and shining affairs. 
 
 But to-day he followed. Nobody was subsequently 
 
 295 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 able to explain why Mithradates Antikamia should on this 
 one occasion so have plucked up heart. My private 
 opinion is that he saw the dachshunds being taken, and, 
 in his uncultivated manner, communed with himself as 
 follows: 
 
 "Well, will you gaze on that! I don't pretend to be in 
 the same class with Old Ben or Young Ben, or even of 
 the fox terriers; but if I'm not more of a dog than that lot of 
 splay-footed freaks, I'll go bite myself! If they're that 
 hard up for dogs, I'll be cornswizzled if I don't go myself!" 
 
 Which he did. We did not want him; this was distinctly 
 the dachshunds' party, and we did not care to have any one 
 messing in. The Captain tried to drive him back. Mith- 
 radates Antikamia would not go. The Captain dis- 
 mounted and tried force. Mithradates shut both eyes, 
 crouched to the ground, and immediately weighed] a half 
 ton. When punished he rolled over and held all four paws 
 in the air. The minute the Captain turned his back, after 
 stern admonitions to "go home!" and "down, charge!" 
 and the like, Mithradates crawled slowly forward to the 
 waiting line, ducking his head, wrinkling his upper lips in- 
 gratiatingly, and sneezing in the most apologetic tones. 
 Finally we gave it up. 
 
 "But," we "saved our face," "you'll have to behave 
 when we get there!" 
 
 So, as has been said, Mithradates Antikamia Briggs 
 brought up the rear. 
 
 Arrived at the tree the whole procession drew into 
 a half circle. We unblocked the opening, and the In- 
 vigorator was driven to a spot beneath it so each person 
 
 296 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 could take his turn at standing on the seat and peering down 
 the hole. The eyes still glowed like balls of fire. 
 
 Next the dachshunds were lifted up one by one and 
 given a chance to smell at the game. This was to make 
 them keen. Held up by means of a hand held either side 
 their chests, they curled up their hind legs and tails and 
 seemed to endure. Mrs. Kitty explained that they had 
 never been so far off the ground in their lives, and so were 
 naturally preoccupied by the new sensation. This sounded 
 reasonable, so we placed them on the ground. There they 
 sat in a circle looking up at our performances, a solemn and 
 mild interest expressing itself in their lugubrious counte- 
 nances. A dachshund has absolutely no sense of humour or 
 lightness of spirits. He never cavorts. 
 
 By sounding carefully with a carriage whip we deter- 
 mined the depth of the hole, and proceeded to cut through 
 to the bottom. This was quite a job, for the oak was 
 tough, and the position difficult. Tommy had ascended the 
 tree, and proclaimed loudly the first signs of daylight as 
 the axe bit through. Mine happened to be the axe work; 
 so when I had finished a neat little orifice, I swung up 
 beside Tommy, and the Invigorator drove out of the 
 way. 
 
 My elevated position was a good one; and as Tommy was 
 peering eagerly down the hole, I had nothing to do but 
 survey the scene. 
 
 The rigs were drawn up in a semi-circle twenty yards 
 away. Next the horses' heads stood the drivers of the 
 various vehicles, anxious to miss none of the fun. The 
 dachshunds sat on their haunches, looking up, and probably 
 
 297 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 wondering why their friend, Tommy, insisted on roosting up 
 a tree. The Captain and Charley were immediately below, 
 engaged in an earnest effort to poke the 'coon into ascending 
 the hole. Tommy was reporting the result of these efforts 
 from above. The General, his feet firmly planted, had 
 un limbered a huge ten-bore shotgun, so as to be ready for 
 anything. Uncle Jim stood by, smoking his pipe. Mith- 
 radates Antikamia Briggs sat sadly apart. 
 
 The poking efforts accomplished little. Occasionally 
 the 'coon made a little dash or scramble, but never went far. 
 There was a great deal of talking, shouting, and advice. 
 
 At last Uncle Jim, knocking the ashes from his pipe, 
 moved into action. He plucked a double handful of the tall, 
 dry grass, touched a match to it, and thrust it in the nick. 
 
 Without the slightest hesitation the 'coon shot out at the 
 top! 
 
 Now just at that moment Tommy happened to be 
 leaning over for a right good look down the hole. He re- 
 ceived thirty pounds or so of agitated 'coon square in the 
 chest. Thereupon he fell out of the tree incontinently, 
 with the 'coon on top of him. 
 
 We caught our breath in horror. Although we could 
 plainly see that Tommy was in no degree injured by his 
 short fall, yet we all realized that it was going to be serious to 
 be mixed up with a raging, snarling beast fight of twenty- 
 two members. When the dachshunds should pounce on 
 their natural prey, the medium-size game, poor Tommy 
 would be at the bottom of the heap. Several even started 
 forward to restrain the dogs, but stopped as they realized the 
 impossibilities. 
 
 298 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 Tommy and the 'coon hit with a thump. The dachs- 
 hunds took one horrified look; then with the precision of a 
 drilled manoeuvre they unanimously turned tail and plunged 
 into the tall grass. From my elevated perch I could see it 
 waving agitatedly as they made their way through it in the 
 direction of the distant ranch. 
 
 For a moment there was astounded silence. Then there 
 arose a shriek of delight. The Captain rolled over and over 
 and clutched handfuls of turf in his joy. The General 
 roared great salvos of laughter. Tommy, still seated 
 where he had fallen, leaned weakly against the tree, the tears 
 coursing down his cheeks. The rest of the populace lifted 
 up their voices and howled. Even Uncle Jim, who rarely 
 laughed aloud, although his eyes always smiled, emitted 
 great Ho! hoi's. Only Mrs. Kitty, dumb with indignation, 
 stared speechless after that wriggling mess of fugitives. 
 
 The occasion was too marvellous. We enjoyed it to the 
 full. Whenever the rapture sank somewhat, someone 
 would gasp out a half-remembered bit of Mrs. Kitty's 
 former defences. 
 
 "Their long, sharp noses are like tweezers to seize the 
 game!" declaimed Charley, weakly. [Spasm by the au- 
 dience.] 
 
 "Their spatulate feet are meant for digging," the Captain 
 took up the tale. [Another spasm.] 
 
 "Their bandy legs enabled them to throw the dirt out 
 behind them as they ran," suggested Tommy. 
 
 "If only they could have had a badger they'd have 
 beaten all records!" we chorused. 
 
 And then finally we wiped our eyes and remembered that 
 
 299 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 there used to be a 'coon. At the same time we became 
 conscious of a most unholy row in the offing: the voice of 
 Mithradates Antikamia. 
 
 "If you people want your 'coon," he was remarking 
 in a staccato and exasperated voice, "you'd better come and 
 lend a hand. / can't manage him alone ! The blame thing 
 has bitten me in three places already. Of course, I like to 
 see people have a good time, and I hope you won't curtail 
 your enjoyment on my account; but if you've had quite 
 enough of those made-in-Germany imitations, perhaps 
 you'll just stroll over and see what one good American- 
 built DOG can do!" 
 
 300 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Uncle Jim had friends everywhere. Continually we 
 were pulling up by one of the tiny two-roomed shacks 
 wherein dwelt the small settlers. The houses were always 
 of new boards, unpainted, perched on four-by-fours, in the 
 middle of bare ground, perhaps surrounded by young pop- 
 lars or cottonwoods, but more likely fully exposed to the 
 sun. A trifling open shed protected a battered buggy on 
 the thills and wheels of which perched numerous chickens. 
 A rough corral and windmill completed the arrangements. 
 Near the house was usually a small patch of alfalfa. Far- 
 ther out the owner was engaged in the strenuous occupation 
 of brushing and breaking a virgin country. 
 
 To greet us rushed forth a half-dozen mongrel dogs, and 
 appeared a swarm of children, followed by the woman of the 
 place. Uncle Jim knew them all by name, including even 
 the dogs. He carefully wound the reins around the whip, 
 leaned forward comfortably, and talked. Henry dozed; 
 and I listened with interest. Uncle Jim had the natural 
 gift of popularity. By either instinct or a wide experience 
 he knew just what problems and triumphs, disappointments 
 and perplexities these people were encountering; and he 
 plunged promptly into the discussion of them. Also, I 
 was never able to make out whether Uncle Jim was a con- 
 
 301 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 srious or unconscious diplomat; but certainly he knew how 
 judiciously to make use of the subtle principle, so weM 
 illustrated by Moliere, that it pleases people to confer 
 small favours. Thus occasionally he gravely "borrowed" 
 a trifle of axle grease, which we immediately applied, or a 
 cup of milk, or a piece of string to mend something. When 
 finally our leisurely roadside call was at an end, we rolled 
 away from unanimously hearty signals of farewell. 
 
 In accordance with our settled feeling of taking things 
 as they came, and trying for everything, we blundered 
 into varied experiences, none of which arrange themselves in 
 recollection with any pretence of logical order. Perhaps it 
 might not be a bad idea to copy our method, to set forth and 
 see where we land. 
 
 One of the most amusing happened when we were out with 
 my younger, but not smaller, brother. This youth was at 
 that time about eighteen years old, and six feet two in 
 height. His age plus his stature equalled a certain lanki- 
 ness. As we drove peacefully along the highway we ob- 
 served in the adjacent field a coyote. The animal was some 
 three or four hundred yards away, lying down, his head 
 between his paws, for all the world like a collie dog. Im- 
 mediately the lad was all excitement. We pointed out 
 the well-known facts that the coyote is no fool and is 
 difficult to stalk at best; that while he is apparently tame as 
 long as the wagon keeps moving, he decamps when con- 
 vinced that his existence is receiving undue attention; 
 that in the present instance the short grass would not 
 conceal a snake; and that, finally, a i6-gauge gun loaded 
 with number-six shot was not an encouraging coyote 
 
 302 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 weapon. He brushed them aside as mere details. So we 
 let him out. 
 
 He dropped into the grass and commenced his stalk. 
 This he accomplished on his elbows and knees. A short 
 review of the possibilities will convince you that the sight 
 was unique. Although the boy's head and shoulders were 
 thus admirably close to the ground, there followed an 
 extremely abrupt apex. Add the fact that the canvas 
 shooting coat soon fell forward over his shoulders. 
 
 The coyote at first paid no attention. As this strange 
 object worked nearer, he raised his head to take a look. 
 Then he sat up on his haunches to take a better look. 
 At this point we expected him to lope away instead of 
 which he trotted forward a few feet and stopped, his ears 
 pricked forward. There he sat, his shrewd brain alive with 
 conjecture until, at thirty-five yards, the kid emptied both 
 barrels. Thereupon he died, his curiosity as to what a 
 movable brown pyramid might be still unsatisfied. 
 
 Uncle Jim, the kid, and I had great fun cruising for 
 jackrabbits. Uncle Jim sat in the middle and drove 
 while the kid and I hung our feet over the sides and con- 
 stituted ourselves the port and starboard batteries. Bump- 
 ing and banging along at full speed over the uneven country, 
 we jumped the rabbits, and opened fire as they made off. 
 Each had to stick to his own side of the ship, of course. 
 Uncle Jim's bird dog, his head between our feet, his body 
 under the seat, watched the proceedings, whining. It 
 looked like good fun to him, but it was forbidden. A 
 jackrabbit arrested in full flight by a charge of shot turns 
 a very spectacular somersault. The dog would stand 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 about five rabbits. As the sixth turned over, he executed 
 a mad struggle, accomplished a flying leap over the front 
 wheel, was rolled over and over by the forward momentum 
 of the moving vehicle, scrambled to his feet, pounced on 
 that rabbit, and most everlastingly and savagely shook it 
 up! Then Uncle Jim descended and methodically and 
 dispassionately licked the dog. 
 
 Jackrabbits were good small-rifle game. They started 
 away on a slow lope, but generally stopped and sat up if 
 not too seriously alarmed. A whistle sometimes helped 
 bring them to a stand. After a moment's inspection they 
 went away, rapidly. With a .22 automatic one could turn 
 loose at all sorts of ranges at all speeds. It was a good 
 deal of fun, too, sneaking about afoot through the low brush, 
 making believe that the sage was a jungle, the tiny pellets 
 express bullets, the rabbits magnified I am sorry for the 
 fellow who cannot have fun sometimes "pretending!" 
 In the brush, too, dwelt little cottontails, very good to eat. 
 The jackrabbit was a pest, but the cottontail was worth 
 getting. We caught sight of him first in the bare open 
 spaces between the bushes, whereupon he proceeded rapidly 
 to cover. It was necessary to shoot rather quickly. The 
 inexperienced would be apt to run forward eagerly, hoping 
 to atch a glimpse of the cottontail on the other side; but 
 always it would be in vain. That would be owing to the 
 fact that the little rabbit has a trick of apparently running 
 through a brush at full speed, but in reality of stopping 
 abruptly and squatting at the roots. Often it is possible 
 to get a shot by scrutinizing carefully the last place he was 
 seen. He can stop as suddenly as a cow pony. 
 
 34 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 Often and often, like good strategic generals, we were 
 induced by circumstances to change our plans or our method 
 of attack at the last moment. On several occasions, while 
 shooting in the fields of Egyptian corn, I have killed a quail 
 with my right barrel and a duck with my left! Continually 
 one was crouching in hopes, when some unexpected flock 
 stooped toward him as he walked across country. These 
 hasty concealments were in general quite futile, for it is a 
 fairly accurate generalization that, in the open, game will 
 see you before you see it. This is not always true. I have 
 on several occasions stood stock still in the open plain until a 
 low-flying mallard came within easy range. Invariably 
 the bird was flying toward the setting sun, so I do not 
 doubt his vision was more or less blinded. 
 
 The most ridiculous effort of this sort was put into execu- 
 tion by the Captain and myself. 
 
 Be it premised that while, in the season, the wildfowl 
 myriads were always present, it by no means followed that 
 the sportsman was always sure of a bag. The ducks followed 
 the irrigation water. One week they might be here in 
 countless hordes; the next week might see only a few coots 
 and hell divers left, while the game was reported twenty 
 miles away. Furthermore, although fair shooting of the 
 pleasantest sort, in my opinion was always to be had by 
 jumping small bands and singles from the "holes" and 
 ditches, the big flocks were quite apt to feed and loaf in the 
 wide spaces discouragingly free of cover. Irrigation was 
 done on a large scale. A section of land might be submerged 
 from three inches to a foot in depth. In the middle 
 of this temporary pond and a half dozen others like it fed 
 
 305 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 the huge bands of ducks. What could you do? There was 
 no cover by which to sneak them. You might build a blind, 
 but before the ducks could get used to its strange presence 
 in a flat and featureless landscape the water would be 
 withdrawn from that piece of land. Only occasionally, 
 when a high wind drove them from the open, or when the 
 irrigation water happened to be turned in to a brushy 
 country, did the sportsman get a chance at the great 
 swarms. Since a man could get all the ducks he could 
 reasonably require, there was no real reason why he should 
 look with longing on these inaccessible packs, but we all did. 
 It was not that we wanted more ducks; for we held strictly 
 within limits, but we wanted to get in the thick of it. 
 
 On the occasion of which I started to tell, the Captain 
 and I were returning from somewhere. Near the Lake- 
 side ranch we came across a big tract of land overflowed 
 by not deeper than two or three inches of water. The ducks 
 were everywhere on it. They sat around fat and solemn 
 in flocks; they swirled and stooped and lit and rose again; 
 they fed busily; they streamed in from all points of the 
 compass, cleaving the air with a whistling of wings. 
 
 Cover there was none. It was exactly like a big, flat cow 
 pasture without any fences. We pulled up the Invigorator 
 and eyed the scene with speculative eyes. Finally, we did 
 as follows: 
 
 Into the middle of that field waded we. The ducks, of 
 course, arose with a roar, circled once out of range, and de- 
 parted. We knew that in less than a minute the boldest 
 would return to see if, perchance, we might have been mere 
 passers-by. Finding us still there, they would, in the 
 
 306 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 natural course of events, circle once or twice and then depart 
 for good. 
 
 Now we had noticed this: ducks will approach to within 
 two or three hundred yards of a man standing upright, but 
 they will come within one hundred or almost in range 
 if he squats and holds quite still. This, we figured, is be- 
 cause he is that much more difficult to recognize as a man, 
 even though he is in plain sight. We had to remain in plain 
 sight; but could we not make ourselves more difficult to 
 recognize? 
 
 After pulling up our rubber boots carefully, we knelt in 
 the two inches of water, placed our chests across two wooden 
 shell boxes we had brought for the purpose, ducked our 
 heads, and waited. After a few moments overhead came 
 the peculiar swift whistle of wings. We waited, rigid. 
 When that whistle sounded very loud indeed, we jerked 
 ourselves upright and looked up. Immediately above us, 
 already towering frantically, was a flock of sprig. They 
 were out of range, but we were convinced that this was only 
 because we had mistakenly looked up too soon. 
 
 It was fascinating work, for we had to depend entirely 
 on the sense of hearing. The moment we stirred in the 
 slightest degree away went the ducks. As it took an 
 appreciable time to rise to our feet, locate the flock, and get 
 into action, we had to guess very accurately. We fired a 
 great many times, and killed a very few; but each duck was 
 an achievement. 
 
 Though the bag could not be guaranteed, the sight of 
 ducks could. When my brother went with me to the 
 ranch, the duck shooting was very poor. This was owing 
 
 307 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 to the fact that sudden melting of the snows in the Sierras 
 had overflowed an immense tract of country to form a lake 
 eight or nine miles across. On this lake the ducks were safe, 
 and thither they resorted in vast numbers. As a con- 
 sequence, the customary resorts were deserted. We 
 could see the ducks, and that was about all. Realizing the 
 hopelessness of the situation we had been confining ourselves 
 so strictly to quail that my brother had begun to be a little 
 sceptical of our wildfowl tales. Therefore, one day, I took 
 him out and showed him ducks. 
 
 They were loafing in an angle of the lake formed by the 
 banks of two submerged irrigating ditches, so we were 
 enabled to measure them accurately. After they had 
 flown we paced off their bulk. They had occupied a space 
 on the bank and in the water three hundred yards long by 
 fifty yards wide; and they were packed in there just about as 
 thick as ducks could crowd together. An able statistician 
 might figure out how many there were. At any rate, 
 my brother agreed that he had seen some ducks. 
 
 There was one thing about Uncle Jim's expeditions: they 
 were cast in no rigid lines. Their direction, scope, or purpose 
 could be changed at the last moment should circumstances 
 warrant. 
 
 One day Uncle Jim came after me afoot, with the quiet 
 assurance that he knew where there were "some ducks." 
 
 "Tommy is down there now," said he, "in a blind. 
 We'll make a couple more blinds across the pond, and in that 
 way one or the other of us is sure to get a shot at everything 
 that comes in. And the way they're coming in is scand'- 
 lous!" 
 
 308 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 Therefore I filled my pockets with duck shells, seized my 
 close-choked i2-bore, and followed Uncle Jim. We walked 
 across three fields. 
 
 "Those ducks are acting mighty queer," proffered Uncle 
 Jim in puzzled tones. 
 
 We stopped a moment to watch. Flock after flock 
 stooped toward the little pond, setting their wings and 
 dropping with the extraordinary confidence wildfowl some- 
 times exhibit. At a certain point, however, and while still 
 at a good elevation, they towered swiftly and excitedly. 
 
 "Doesn't seem like they'd act so scared even if Tommy 
 wasn't well hid," puzzled Uncle Jim. 
 
 We proceeded cautiously, keeping out of sight behind 
 some greasewood, until we could see the surface of the pond. 
 There were Tommy's decoys, and there was Tommy's 
 blind. We could not see but that it was a well-made blind. 
 Even as we looked another flock of sprig sailed down wind, 
 stopped short at a good two hundred yards, towered with 
 every appearance of lively dismay, and departed. Tommy's 
 head came above the blind, gazing after them. 
 
 "They couldn't act worse if Tommy was out waving his 
 hat at 'em," said Uncle Jim. 
 
 We climbed a fence. This brought us to a slight eleva- 
 tion, but sufficient to enable us to see abroad over the flat 
 landscape. 
 
 Immediately beyond Tommy was a long, low irrigation 
 check grown with soft green sod. On the farther slope 
 thereof were the girls. They had brought magazines and 
 fancy work, and evidently intended to spend the afternoon 
 in the open, enjoying the fresh air and the glad sunshine 
 
 309 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and the cheerful voices of God's creatures. They were, 
 of course, quite unconscious of Tommy's sporting venture 
 not a hundred feet away. Their parasols were green, red, 
 blue, and other explosive tints. 
 
 Uncle Jim and I sat for a few moments on the top of that 
 fence enjoying the view. Then we climbed softly down and 
 went away. We decided tacitly not to shoot ducks. The 
 nature of the expedition immediately changed. We spent 
 the rest of the afternoon on quail. To be sure number-five 
 shot in a close-choked twelve is not an ideal load for the 
 purpose; but by care in letting our birds get far enough 
 away we managed to have a very good afternoon's sport. 
 And whenever we would make a bad miss we had ready 
 consolation: the thought of Tommy waiting and wondering 
 and puzzling in his blind. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GRAND TOUR 
 
 Almost always our sporting expeditions were of this 
 casual character, sandwiched in among other occupations. 
 Guns were handy, as was the game. To seize the one and 
 pursue the other on the whim of the moment was the normal 
 and usual thing. Thus one day Mrs. Kitty drove me over 
 to look at a horse I was thinking of buying. On the way 
 home, in a corner of brush, I hopped out and bagged twelve 
 quail; and a little farther on, by a lucky sneak, I managed to 
 gather in five ducks from an irrigation pond. On another 
 occasion, having a spare hour before lunch, I started out 
 afoot from the ranch house at five minutes past eleven, 
 found my quail within a quarter mile, had luck in scattering 
 them, secured my limit of twenty-five, and was back at the 
 house at twelve twenty-five! Before this I had been to 
 drive with Mrs. Kitty; and after lunch we drove twelve miles 
 to call on a neighbour. Although I had enjoyed a full 
 day's quail shoot, it had been, as it were, merely an inter- 
 polation. 
 
 Occasionally, however, it was elected to make a grand and 
 formal raid on the game. This could be either a get-up- 
 early-in-the-morning session in the blinds, a formal quail 
 hunt, or the Grand Tour. 
 
 To take the Grand Tour we got out the Liver Invigorator 
 
 3" 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and as many saddle horses as might be needed to accommo- 
 date the shooters. On reaching the hog field it was proper 
 to disembark, and to line up for an advance on the corner 
 of the irrigation ditch where I had so unexpectedly jumped 
 the ducks my first morning on the ranch. In extended order 
 we approached. If ducks were there, they got a great 
 hammering. Everybody shot joyously whether in sure 
 range or not, it must be confessed. The birds went into a 
 common bag, for it would be impossible to say who had 
 killed what. After congratulations and reproaches, both 
 of which might be looked upon as sacrifices to the great god 
 Josh, we swung to the left and tramped a half mile to the 
 artesian well. The Invigorator and saddle horses followed 
 at a respectful distance. When we had investigated the 
 chances at the well, we climbed aboard again and rattlety- 
 banged across country to the Slough. 
 
 The Slough comprised a wide and varied country. In 
 proper application it was a little winding ravine sunk eight 
 or ten feet below the flat plain, and filled with water. This 
 water had been grown thick with trees, but occasionally, 
 for some reason to me unknown, the growth gave space for 
 tiny open ponds or channels. These were further screened 
 by occasional willows or greasewood growing on the banks. 
 They were famous loafing places for mallards. 
 
 It was great fun to slip from bend to bend of the Slough, 
 peering keenly, moving softly, trying to spy through the 
 thick growth to a glimpse of the clear water. The ducks 
 were very wary. It was necessary to know the exact 
 location of each piece of open water, its surroundings, and 
 how best it was to be approached. Only too often, peer as 
 
 312 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 cautiously as we might, the wily old mallards would catch 
 a glimpse of some slight motion. At once they would begin 
 to swim back and forth uneasily. Always then we would 
 withdraw cautiously, hoping against hope that suspicion 
 would die. It never did. Our stalk would disclose to us 
 only a troubled surface of water on which floated lightly a 
 half dozen feathers. 
 
 But when things went right we had a beautiful shot. 
 The ducks towered straight up, trying to get above the level 
 of the brush, affording a shot at twenty-five or thirty yards' 
 range. We always tried to avoid shooting at the same bird, 
 but did not always succeed. Old Ben delighted in this 
 work, for now he had a chance to plunge in after the fallen. 
 As a matter of fact, it would have been quite useless to shoot 
 ducks in these circumstances had we not possessed a good 
 retriever like Old Ben. 
 
 The Slough proper was about two miles long, and had 
 probably eight or ten " holes" in which ducks might be ex- 
 pected. The region of the Slough was, however, a different 
 matter. 
 
 It was a fascinating stretch of country, partly marshy, 
 partly dry, but all of it overgrown with tall and rustling 
 tules. These reeds were sometimes so dense that one could 
 not force his way through them; at others so low and thin 
 that they barely made good quail cover. Almost every- 
 where a team could be driven; and yet there were soft places 
 and water channels and pond holes in which a horse would 
 bog down hopelessly. From a point on the main north- 
 and-south ditch a man afoot left the bank to plunge directly 
 into a jungle of reeds ten feet tall. Through them narrow 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 passages led him winding and twisting and doubting in a 
 labyrinth. He waded in knee-deep water, but confidently, 
 for he knew the bottom to be solid beneath his feet. On 
 either side, fairly touching his elbows, the reeds stood tall 
 and dense, so that it seemed to him that he walked down a 
 narrow and winding hallway. And every once in a while 
 the hallway debouched into a secret shallow pond lying in 
 the middle of the tule jungle in which might or might not be 
 ducks. If there were ducks, it behooved him to shoot very, 
 very quickly, for those that fell in the tules were probably 
 not to be recovered. Then more narrow passages led to 
 other ponds. 
 
 Always the footing was good, so that a man could strike 
 forward confidently. But again there are other places in the 
 Slough region where one has to walk for half a mile to pass a 
 miserable little trickle only just too wide to step across. 
 The watercress grows thick against either oozy bank, leav- 
 ing a clear of only a foot. Yet it is bottomless. 
 
 The Captain knew this region thoroughly, and drove in 
 it by landmarks of his own. After many visits I myself got 
 to know the leading " points of interest" and how to get to 
 them by a set route; but their relations one to another have 
 always remained a little vague. 
 
 For instance, there was an earthen reservoir , comprising 
 two circular connecting ponds, elevated slightly above the 
 surrounding flats, so that a man ascended an incline to stand 
 on its banks. One half of this reservoir is bordered thickly 
 by tules; but the other half is without growth. We left 
 the Invigorator at some hundreds of yards diataace; and, 
 single file, followed the Captain. We stopped when 'he did, 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 crawled when he did, watched to see what dry and rustling 
 footing he avoided, every sense alert to play accurately this 
 unique game of "follow my leader." He alone kept watch 
 of the cover, the game, and the plan of attack. We were 
 like the tail of a snake, merely following where the head 
 directed. This was not because the Captain was so much 
 more expert than ourselves, but so as to concentrate the 
 chances of remaining undiscovered. If each of us had 
 worked out his own stalk we should have multiplied the 
 chances of alarming the game; we should have created the 
 necessity for signals; and we should have had the greatest 
 difficulty in synchronizing our arrival at the shooting point. 
 We moved a step at a time, feeling circumspectly before 
 resting our weight. At the last moment the Captain 
 motioned with his hand. Wriggling forward, we came into 
 line. Then, very cautiously, we crawled up the bank of the 
 reservoir and peered over ! That was the supreme moment ! 
 The wildfowl might arise in countless numbers; in which 
 case we shot as carefully and as quickly as possible, reload- 
 ing and squatting motionless in the almost certain hope 
 of a long-range shot or so at a straggler as the main body 
 swung back over us. Or, again, our eager eyes were quite 
 likely to rest upon nothing but a family party of mud-hens 
 gossiping sociably. 
 
 Just beyond the reservoir on the other side was an over- 
 flowed small flat. It was simply hummocky solid ground 
 with a little green grass and some water. Behind the 
 hummocks, even after a cannonade at the reservoir, we were 
 almost certain to jump two or three single spoonbills or teal. 
 Why they stayed there, I could not tell you; but stay they 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 did. We walked them up one at a time, as we would quail. 
 The range was long. Sometimes we got them; and some- 
 times we did not. 
 
 From the reservoir we drove out into the illimitable 
 tules. The horses went forward steadily, breasting the 
 rustling growth. Behind them the Invigorator rocked and 
 swayed like a small boat in a tide rip. We stayed in as best 
 we could, our guns bristling up in all directions. The 
 Captain drove from a knowledge of his own. After some 
 time, across the yellow, waving expanse of the rushes, we 
 made out a small dead willow stub slanted rakishly. At 
 sight of this we came to a halt. Just beyond that stub 
 lay a denser thicket of tules, and in the middle of them was 
 known to be a patch of open water about twenty feet across. 
 There was not much to it; but invariably a small bunch of 
 fat old greenheads were loafing in the sun. 
 
 It now became, not a question of game, for it was always 
 there, but a question of getting near enough to shoot. 
 To be sure, the tiny pond was so well covered that a stranger 
 to the country would actually be unaware of its existence 
 until he broke through the last barrier of tules; but, by the 
 same token, that cover was the noisiest cover invented for 
 the protection of ducks. Often and often, when still sixty 
 or seventy yards distant, we heard the derisive quack, 
 quack, quack, with which a mallard always takes wing, and, 
 a moment later, would see those wily birds rising above the 
 horizon. A false step meant a crackle; a stumble meant 
 a crash. We fairly wormed our way in by inches. Each 
 yard gained was a triumph. When, finally, after a half hour 
 of Indian work, we had managed to line up ready for the 
 
 316 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 shot, we felt that we had really a few congratulations com- 
 ing. We knew that within fifteen or twenty feet floated 
 the wariest of feathered game; and absolutely unconscious 
 of our presence. 
 
 "Now!" the Captain remarked, aloud, in conversational 
 tones. 
 
 We stood up, guns at present. The Captain's command 
 was answered by the instant beat of wings and the confused 
 quicker calling of alarm. In the briefest fraction of a 
 second the ducks appeared above the tules. They had to 
 tower straight up, for the pond was too small and the 
 reeds too high to permit of any sneaking away. So close 
 were they that we could see the markings of every feather 
 the iridescence of the heads, the delicate, wave-marked cinna- 
 mons and grays and browns, even the absurd little curled 
 plumes over the tails. The guns cracked merrily, the 
 shooters aiming at the up-stretched necks. Down came 
 the quarry with mighty splashes that threw the water 
 high. The remnant of the flock swung away. We stood 
 upright and laughed and joked and exulted after the long 
 strain of our stalk. Ben plunged in again and again, 
 bringing out the game. 
 
 Of these tule holes there were three. When we had 
 visited them each in turn we swung back toward the west. 
 There, after much driving, we came to the land of irrigation 
 ditches again. At each new angle one of us would descend, 
 sneak cautiously to the bank and, bending low, peer down 
 the length of the ditch. If ducks were in sight, he located 
 them carefully and then we made our sneak. If not, we 
 drove on to the next bend. Once we all lay behind an 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 embankment like a lot of soldiers behind a breastwork 
 while one of us made a long detour around a big flock 
 resting in an overflow across the ditch. The ruse was 
 successful. The ducks, rising at sight of the scout, flew high 
 directly over the ambuscade. A battery of six or eight 
 guns thereupon opened up. I believe we killed three or 
 four ducks among us; but if we had not brought down a 
 feather we should have been satisfied with the fact that our 
 stratagem succeeded. 
 
 So at the last, just as the sun was setting, we completed 
 the circle and landed at the ranch. We had been out all 
 day in the warm California sun and the breezes that blow 
 from the great mountains across the plains; we had worked 
 hard enough to deserve an appetite; we had in a dozen in- 
 stances exercised our wit or our skill against the keen senses 
 of wild game; we had used our ingenuity in meeting un- 
 expected conditions; we had had a heap of companionship 
 and good-natured fun one with another; we had seen a lot of 
 country. This was much better than sitting solitary 
 anchored in a blind. To be sure a man could kill more 
 ducks from a blind; but what of that? 
 
 318 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RANCH ACTIVITIES 
 
 Big as it was, the ranch was only a feeder for the open 
 range. Way down in southeastern Arizona its cattle had 
 their birth and grew to their half-wild maturity. They 
 won their living where they could, fiercely from the fierce 
 desert. On the broad plains they grazed during the fat 
 season; and as the feed shortened and withered, they retired 
 slowly to the barren mountains. In long lines they plodded 
 to the watering places; and in long, patient lines they plodded 
 their way back again, until deep and indelible troughs 
 had been worn in the face of the earth. Other living 
 creatures they saw few, save the coyotes that hung on their 
 flanks, the jackrabbits, the prairie dogs, the birds strangely 
 cheerful in the face of the mysterious and solemn desert. 
 Once in a while a pair of mounted men jog-trotted slowly 
 here and there among them. They gave way to right and 
 left, swinging in the free trot of untamed creatures, their 
 heads high, their eyes wild. Probably they remembered the 
 terror and ignominy and temporary pain of the branding. 
 The men examined them with critical eye, and commented 
 technically and passed on. 
 
 This was when the animals were alive with the fat 
 grasses. But as the drought lengthened, they pushed 
 farther into the hills until the boldest or hardiest of them 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 stood on the summits, and the weakest merely stared dully 
 as the mounted men jingled by. The desert, kind in her 
 bounty, was terrible in her wrath. She took her toll freely 
 and the dried bones of her victims rattled in the wind. The 
 fittest survived. Durham died, Hereford lived through, 
 and turned up after the first rains wiry, lean, and active. 
 
 Then came the round-up. From the hidden denies, the 
 buttes and ranges, the hills and plains, the cowboys drew 
 their net to the centre. Each "drive" brought together on 
 some alkali flat thousands of the restless, milling, bawling 
 cattle. The white dust rose in a cloud against the very blue 
 sky. Then, while some of the cowboys sat their horses as 
 sentinels, turning the herd back on itself, others threaded a 
 way through the multitude, edging always toward the 
 border of the herd some animal uneasy in the consciousness 
 that it was being followed. Surrounding the main herd, 
 and at some distance from it, other smaller herds rapidly 
 formed from the "cut." Thus there was one composed 
 entirely of cows and unbranded calves; another of strays 
 from neighbouring ranges; and a third of the steers con- 
 sidered worthy of being made into beef cattle. 
 
 In due time the main herd was turned back on the range; 
 the strays had been cut out and driven home by the cow- 
 boys of their several owners; the calves had been duly 
 branded and sent out on the desert to grow up. But there 
 remained still compact the beef herd. When all the excite- 
 ment of the round-up had died, it showed as the tangible 
 profit of the year. 
 
 Its troubles began. Driven to the railroad and into the 
 corrals, it next had to be urged to its first experience of side- 
 
 320 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 door Pullmans. There the powerful beasts went frantic. 
 Pike poles urged them up the chute into the cars. They 
 rushed, and hesitated, and stopped and turned back in a 
 panic. At times it seemed impossible to get them started 
 into the narrow chute. On the occasion of one after-dark 
 loading old J. B., the foreman, discovered that the excited 
 steers would charge a lantern light. Therefore he posted 
 himself, with a lantern, in the middle of the chute. 
 Promply the maddened animals rushed at him. He 
 skipped nimbly one side, scaled the fence of the chute. 
 "Now keep 'em coming, boys!" he urged. 
 
 The boys did their best, and half filled the car. Then 
 some other impulse seized the bewildered rudimentary 
 brains; the cattle balked. J. B. did it again, and yet again, 
 until the cars were filled. 
 
 You have seen the cattle trains, rumbling slowly along, 
 the crowded animals staring stupidly through the bars. 
 They are not having a particularly hard time, considering 
 the fact that they are undergoing their first experience in 
 travelling. Nowadays they are not allowed to become 
 thirsty; and they are too car sick to care about eating. 
 Car sick? Certainly; just as you or I are car sick, no 
 worse; only we do not need to travel unless we want to. 
 At the end of the journey, often, they are too wobbly to 
 stand up. This is not weakness, but dizziness from the 
 unwonted motion. Once a fool S.P.C.A. officer ordered a 
 number of the Captain's steers shot on the ground that they 
 were too weak to live. That greenhorn got into fifty- 
 seven varieties of trouble. 
 
 Arrived at their journey's end the steers were permitted 
 
 321 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 to get their sea legs off; and then were driven slowly to a 
 cattle paradise the ranch. 
 
 For there was flowing water always near to the thirsty 
 nose; and rich grazing; and wonderful wagons from which 
 the fodder was thrown abundantly; and pleasant shade 
 from a mild and beneficent sun. The thin, wiry beasts of 
 the desert lost their angles; they became fat, and curly of 
 hair, and sleek of coat, and much inclined to kink up their 
 tails and cavort off in clumsy buck jumps just from the sheer 
 joy of living. For now they were, in good truth, beef 
 cattle, the aristocracy of fifty thousand, the pick of wide 
 ranges, the total tangible wealth of a great principality. 
 To see them would come red-faced men with broad hats 
 and linen dusters; and their transfer meant dollars and 
 dollars. 
 
 I have told you these things lest you might have con- 
 cluded that the Captain did nothing but shoot ducks and 
 quail and ride the polo ponies around the enclosure. As a 
 matter of fact, the Captain was always going to Arizona, 
 or coming back, or riding here or driving there. When we 
 went to the ranch, he looked upon our visit as a vacation, 
 but even then he could not shoot with us as often as we all 
 would have liked. On the Arizona range were the JI 
 ranch, and the Circle I, and the Bar O, and the Double R, 
 and the Box Springs, and others whose picturesque names 
 I have forgotten. To manage them were cowpunchers; 
 and appertaining thereunto were. Chinese cooks, and horses, 
 and pump mules, and grub lists, and many other things. 
 The ranch itself was even more complicated an affair; for, 
 as I have indicated, it meant many activities besides 
 
 322 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 cattle. And then there was the buying and selling and 
 shipping. The Captain was a busy man. 
 
 And the ranch was a busy place. Its population swung 
 through the nations. Always the aristocracy was the cow- 
 boy. There were not many of him, for the cattle here were 
 fenced and fattened; but a few were necessary to ride abroad 
 in order that none of the precious beef be mired down or 
 tangled in barbed wire; and that all of it be moved hither 
 and yon as the pasture varied. And of course the driving, 
 the loading and unloading of fresh shipments in and out de- 
 manded expert handling. 
 
 Some of them came from the desert, lean, bronzed, steady- 
 eyed men addicted to "double-barrelled" (two cinch) 
 saddles, ox-bow stirrups, straight-shanked spurs, tall- 
 crowned hats, and grass ropes. They were plain "cow- 
 punchers." Between them and the California "vaqueros," 
 or "buckeroos", was always much slow and drawling 
 argument. For the latter had been "raised different" in 
 about every particular. They used the single-cinch saddle; 
 long tapaderos, or stirrup hoods; curve-shanked spurs with 
 jingling chains; low, wide-brimmed sombreros and rawhide 
 ropes. And you who have gauged the earnestness of what 
 might be called "equipment arguments" among those of a 
 gentler calling, can well appreciate that never did bunk- 
 house conversation lack. 
 
 Next to these cow riders and horse riders came probably 
 the mule drivers. There were many teams of mules, and 
 they were used for many things: such as plowing, cultivat- 
 ing, harvesting, haying, the building of irrigation checks and 
 ditches, freighting, and the like. A team comprised from 
 
 323 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 six to twelve individuals. The man in charge had to know 
 mules which is no slight degree of special wisdom; had to 
 know loads; had to understand conditioning. His lantern 
 was the first to twinkle in the morning as he doled out corn 
 to his charges. 
 
 Then came the ruck of field hands of all types. The 
 average field hand in California is a cross between a hobo 
 and a labourer. He works probably about half the year. 
 The other half he spends on the road, tramping it from 
 place to place. Like the common hobo, he begs his way 
 when he can; catches freight train rides; consorts in thickets 
 with his kind. Unlike the common hobo, however, he 
 generally has money in his pocket and always carries a bed- 
 roll. The latter consists of a blanket or so, or quilt, and a 
 canvas strapped around the whole. You can see him at any 
 time plodding along the highways and railroads, the roll 
 slung across his back. He much appreciates a lift in your 
 rig; and sometimes proves worth the trouble. His labour 
 raises him above the level degradation of the ordinary tramp; 
 the independence of his spirit gives his point of view an 
 originality; the nomadic stirring of his blood keeps him going. 
 In the course of years he has crossed the length and breadth 
 of the state a half dozen times. He has harvested apples in 
 Siskiyou and oranges in Riverside; he has chopped sugar pine 
 in the snows of the Sierras and manzanita on the blazing 
 hillsides of San Bernardino; he has garnered the wheat of the 
 great Santa Clara Valley and the alfalfa of San Fernando. 
 And whenever the need for change or the desire for a drink 
 has struck him, he has drawn his pay, strapped his bed roll, 
 and cheerfully hiked away down the long and dusty trail. 
 
 324 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 That is his chief defect as a field hand his unreliability. 
 He seems to have no great pride in finishing out a job, al- 
 though he is a good worker while he is at it. The Captain 
 used to send in the wagon to bring men out, but refused 
 absolutely to let any man ride in anything going the other 
 way. Nevertheless the hand, when the wanderlust hit him, 
 trudged cheerfully the long distance to town. I am not 
 sure that a new type is not thus developing, a type as 
 distinct in its way as the riverman or the cowboy. It is not 
 as high a type, of course, for it has not the strength either of 
 sustained and earnest purpose nor of class loyalty; but still 
 it makes for new species. The California field hand has 
 mother- wit, independence, a certain reckless, you-be-damned 
 courage, a wandering instinct. He quits work not because 
 he wants to loaf, but because he wants to go somewhere 
 else. He is always on the road travelling, travelling, travel- 
 ling. It is not hope of gain that takes him, for in the scarcity 
 of labour wages are as high here as there. It is not desire 
 for dissipation that lures him from labour; he drinks hard 
 enough, but the liquor is as potent here as two hundred 
 miles away. He looks you steadily enough in the eye; 
 and he begs his bread and commits his depredations half 
 humorously, as though all this were fooling that both you 
 and he understood. What his impelling motive is, I 
 cannot say; nor whether he himself understands it, this 
 restlessness that turns his feet ever to the pleasant Cali- 
 fornia highways, an Ishmael of the road. 
 
 But this very unreliability forces the ranchman to the 
 next element in our consideration of the ranch's people 
 the Orientals. They are good workers, these little brown 
 
 325 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 and yellow men, and unobtrusive and skilled. They do not 
 quit until the job is done; they live frugally; they are 
 efficient. The only thing we have against them is that we 
 are afraid of them. They crowd our people out. Into a 
 community they edge themselves little by little. At the 
 end of two years they have saved enough capital to begin 
 to buy land. At the end of ten years they have taken up 
 all the small .farms from the whites who cannot or will not 
 live in competition with Oriental frugality. The valley, or 
 cove, or flat has become Japanese. They do not amalga- 
 mate. Their progeny are Japanese unchanged; and 
 their progeny born here are American citizens. In the face 
 of public sentiment, restriction, savage resentment they 
 have made head. They are continuing to make head. 
 The effects are as yet small in relation to the whole of the 
 body politic; but more and more of the fertile, beautiful 
 little farm centres of California are becoming the breeding 
 grounds of Japanese colonies. As the pressure of popula- 
 tion on the other side increases, it is not difficult to foresee a 
 result. We are afraid of them. 
 
 The ranchmen know this. " We would use white labour/* 
 say they, " if we could get it, and rely on it. But we cannot ; 
 and we must have labour!" The debt of California to the 
 Orientals can hardly be computed. The citrus crop is almost 
 entirely moved by them; and all other produce depends so 
 largely on them that it would hardly be an exaggeration 
 to say that without them a large part of the state's produce 
 would rot in fields. We do not want the Oriental; and 
 yet we must have him, must have more of him if we are to 
 reach our fullest development. It is a dilemma; a paradox. 
 
 326 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 And yet, it seems to me, the paradox only exists because 
 we will not face facts in a commonsense manner. As I 
 remember it, the original anti-Oriental howl out here made 
 much of the fact that the Chinaman and Japanese saved his 
 money and took it home with him. In the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances we should not object to that. We cannot get 
 our work done by our own people; we are forced to hire in 
 outsiders to do it; we should expect, as a country, to pay a 
 fair price for what we get. It is undoubtedly more desirable 
 to get our work done at home; but if we cannot find the help, 
 what more reasonable than that we should get it outside, 
 and pay for it? If we insist that the Oriental is a detriment 
 as a permanent resident, and if at the same time we need his 
 labour, what else is there to do but pay him and let him go 
 when he has done his job? 
 
 And he will go if pay is all he gets. Only when he is 
 permitted to settle down to his favourite agriculture in a 
 fertile country does he stay permanently. To be sure a 
 certain number of him engages in various other commercial 
 callings, but that number bears always a very definite pro- 
 portion to the Oriental population in general. And it is 
 harmless. It is not absolute restriction of immigration we 
 want although I believe immigration should be numeri- 
 cally restricted, but absolute prohibition of the right to 
 hold real estate. To many minds this may seem a denial 
 of the "equal rights of man." I doubt whether in some 
 respects men have equal rights. Certainly Brown has not 
 an equal right with Jones to spank Jones's small boy; nor do 
 I believe the rights of any foreign nation paramount to our 
 own right to safeguard ourselves by proper legislation. 
 
 3 2 7 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 These economics have taken us a long distance from the 
 ranch and its Orientals. The Japanese contingent were 
 mainly occupied with the fruit, possessing a peculiar deftness 
 in pruning and caring for the prunes and apricots. The 
 Chinese had to do with irrigation and with the vegetables. 
 Their broad, woven-straw hats and light denim clothes lent 
 the particular landscape they happened for the moment to 
 adorn a peculiarly foreign and picturesque air. 
 
 And outside of these were various special callings rep- 
 resented by one or two men: such as the stable men, the 
 bee keeper, the blacksmith and wagon-wright, the various 
 cooks and cookees, the gardeners, the "varmint catcher," 
 and the like. 
 
 Nor must be forgotten the animals, both wild and tame. 
 Old Ben and Young Ben and Linn, the bird dogs; the 
 dachshunds; the mongrels of the men's quarters; all the 
 domestic fowls; the innumerable and blue-blooded hogs; 
 the polo ponies and brood mares, the stud horses and 
 driving horses and cow horses, colts, yearlings, the young 
 and those enjoying a peaceful and honourable old age; 
 Pollymckittrick; Redmond's cat and fifty others, half- wild 
 creatures; vireos and orioles in the trees around the house; 
 thousands and thousands of blackbirds rising in huge 
 swarms like gnats; full- voiced meadowlarks on the fence 
 posts; herons stalking solemnly, or waiting like so many 
 Japanese bronzes for a chance at a gopher; red- tailed 
 hawks circling slowly; pigeon hawks passing with their 
 falcon dart; little gaudy sparrow hawks on top the telephone 
 poles; buzzards, stately and wonderful in flight, repulsive 
 when at rest; barn-owls dwelling in the haystacks, and horned 
 
 328 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 owls in the hollow trees; the game in countless numbers; 
 all the smaller animals and tiny birds in species too nu- 
 merous to catalogue, all these drew their full sustenance of 
 life from the ranch's smiling abundance. 
 
 And the mules; I must not forget them. I have the 
 greatest respect for a mule. He knows more than the 
 horse; just as the goose or the duck knows more than the 
 chicken. Six days the mules on the ranch laboured; but 
 on the seventh they were turned out into the pastures to 
 rest and roll and stand around gossiping sociably, rub- 
 bing their long, ridiculous Roman noses together, or switch- 
 ing the flies off one another with their tasselled tails. Each 
 evening at sunset all the various teams came in from 
 different directions, converging at the lane, and plodding 
 dustily up its length to the sheds and their night's rest. 
 Five evenings thus they come in silence. But on the sixth 
 each and every mule lifted up his voice in rejoicing over the 
 morrow. The distant wayfarer familiar with ranch ways 
 hearing this strident, discordant, thankful chorus far 
 across the evening peace of the wide country, would thus 
 have known this was Saturday night, and that to-morrow 
 was the Sabbath, the day of rest! 
 
 329 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE HEATHEN 
 
 This must be mainly discursive and anecdotal, for no one 
 really knows much more than externals concerning the 
 Chinese. Some men there are, generally reporters on the 
 big dailies, who have been admitted to the tongs; who can 
 take you into the exclusive Chinese clubs; who are every- 
 where in Chinatown greeted cordially, treated gratis to 
 strange food and drink, and patted on the back with every 
 appearance of affection. They can tell you of all sorts of 
 queer, unknown customs and facts, and can show you all 
 sorts of strange and unusual things. Yet at the last 
 analysis these are also discursions and anecdotes. We 
 gather empirical knowledge: only rarely do we think 
 we get a glimpse of how the delicate machinery moves 
 behind those twinkling eyes. 
 
 I am led to these remarks by the contemplation of 
 Chinese Charley at the ranch. He has been with Mrs. 
 Kitty twenty-five years; he wears American clothes; he 
 speaks English with hardly a trace of either accent or idiom ; 
 he has long since dropped the deceiving Oriental stolid- 
 ity and weeps out his violent Chinese rages unashamed. 
 Yet even now Mrs. Kitty's summing up is that Charley is a 
 "queer old thing." 
 
 If you start out with a good Chinaman, you will always 
 
 330 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 have good Chinamen; if you draw a poor one, you will 
 probably be cursed with a succession of mediocrities. 
 They pass you along from one to another of the same 
 "family"; and, short of the adoption of false whiskers and 
 a change of name, you can find no expedient to break the 
 charm. When one leaves of his own accord, he sends you 
 another boy to take his place. When he is discharged, he 
 does identically that, although you may not know it. 
 Down through the list of Gins or Sings or Ungs you slide 
 comfortably or bump disagreeably according to your good 
 fortune or deserts. 
 
 Another feature to which you must become accustomed is 
 that of the Unexpected Departure. Everything is going 
 smoothly, and you are engaged in congratulating yourself. 
 To you appears Ah Sing. 
 
 "I go San Flancisco two o'clock tlain," he remarks. 
 And he does. 
 
 In vain do you point to the inconvenience of guests, the 
 injustice thus of leaving you in the lurch; in vain do you 
 threaten detention of wages due unless he gives you what 
 your servant experience has taught you is a customary 
 "week's warning." He repeats his remark: and goes. 
 At two-fifteen another bland and smiling heathen appears 
 at your door. He may or may not tell you that Ah Sing 
 sent him. Dinner is ready on time. The household work 
 goes on without a hitch or a tiniest jar. 
 
 "Ah Sing say you pay me his money," announces this new 
 heathen. 
 
 If you are wise, you abandon your thoughts of fighting 
 the outrage. You pay over Ah Sing's arrears. 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 "By the way," you inquire of your new retainer, "what's 
 your name?" 
 
 "My name Lum Sing," the newcomer replies. 
 
 That is about the way such changes happen. If by 
 chance you are in the good graces of heathendom, you 
 will be given an involved and fancy reason for the de- 
 parture. These generally have to do with the mysterious 
 movements of relatives. 
 
 "My second-uncle, he come on ship to San Flancisco. 
 I got to show him what to do/' explains Ah Sing. 
 
 If they like you very much, they tell you they will come 
 back at the end of a month. They never do, and by the 
 end of the month the new man has so endeared himself to 
 you that Ah Sing is only a pleasant memory. 
 
 The reasons for these sudden departures are two-fold as 
 near as I can make out. Ah Sing may not entirely like the 
 place; or he may have received orders from his tong to move 
 on probably the latter. If both Ah Sing and his tong 
 approve of you and the situation, he will stay with you 
 for many years. Our present man once remained but two 
 days at a place. The situation is an easy one; Toy did 
 his work well; the relations were absolutely friendly. After 
 we had become intimate with Toy, he confided to us his 
 reasons: 
 
 "I don' like stay at place where nobody laugh," said he. 
 
 As servants the Chinese are inconceivably quick, deft, 
 and clean. One good man will do the work of two white 
 servants, and do it better. Toy takes care of us ab- 
 solutely. He cooks, serves, does the housework, and with 
 it all manages to get off the latter part of the afternoon 
 
 332 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 and nearly every evening. At first, with recollections of 
 the rigidly defined "days off" of the East, I was a little 
 inclined to look into this. I did look into it; but when I 
 found all the work done, without skimping, I concluded 
 that if the man were clever enough to save his time, he had 
 certainly earned it for himself. Systematizing and no false 
 moves proved to be his method. 
 
 Since this is so, it follows, quite logically and justly, that 
 the Chinese servant resents the minute and detailed 
 supervision some housewives delight in. Show him what 
 you want done; let him do it; criticize the result but do 
 not stand around and make suggestions and offer amend- 
 ments. Some housekeepers, trained to make of house- 
 keeping an end rather than a means, can never keep 
 Chinese. This does not mean that you must let them go 
 at their own sweet will: only that you must try as far as 
 possible to do your criticizing and suggesting before or 
 after the actual performance. 
 
 I remember once Billy came home from some afternoon 
 tea where she had been talking to a number of "conscien- 
 tious" housekeepers of the old school until she had been 
 stricken with a guilty feeling that she had been loafing on 
 the job. To be sure the meals were good, and on time; 
 the house was clean; the beds were made; and the comforts 
 of life seemed to be always neatly on hand; but what of 
 that? The fact remained that Billy had time to go horse- 
 back riding, to go swimming, to see her friends, and to 
 shoot at a mark. Every other housekeeper was busy from 
 morning until night; and then complained that somehow or 
 other she never could get finished up! It was evident that 
 
 333 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 somehow Billy was not doing her full duty by the sphere 
 to which woman was called, etc. 
 
 So home she came, resolved to do better. Toy was 
 placidly finishing up for the afternoon. Billy followed 
 him around for a while, being a housekeeper. Toy watched 
 her with round, astonished eyes. Finally he turned on her 
 with vast indignation. 
 
 "Look here, Mis' White," said he. "What a matter with 
 you? You talk just like one old woman!" 
 
 Billy paused in her mad career and considered. That 
 was just what she was talking like. She laughed. Toy 
 laughed. Billy went shooting. 
 
 After your Chinaman becomes well acquainted with you, 
 he develops human traits that are astonishing only in 
 contrast to his former mask of absolute stolidity. To the 
 stranger the Oriental is as impassive and inscrutable as a 
 stone Buddha, so that at last we come to read his attitude 
 into his inner life, and to conclude him without emotion. 
 This is also largely true of the Indian. As a matter of fact, 
 your heathen is rather vividly alive inside. His enjoy- 
 ment is keen, his curiosity lively, his emotions near the sur- 
 face. If you have or expect to have visitors, you must 
 tell Ah Sing all about them their station in life, their im- 
 portance, and the like. He will listen, keenly interested, 
 gravely nodding his pig- tailed, shaven head. Then, if 
 your visitors are from the East, you inform them of what 
 every Californian knows that each and every member 
 of a household must say "good morning" ceremoniously to 
 Ah Sing. And Ah Sing will smile blandly and duck his 
 pig-tailed, shaven head, and wish each member "good 
 
 334 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 morning" back again. It is sometimes very funny to hear 
 the matin chorus of a dozen people crying out their volley 
 of salute to ceremony; and to hear again the Chinaman's 
 conscientious reply to each in turn down the long table 
 " Good mo'ning, Mr. White; good mo'ning, Mis' White; 
 
 good mo'ning, Mr. Lewis " and so on, until each has 
 
 been remembered. There are some families that, either 
 from ignorance or pride, omit this and kindred little 
 human ceremonials. The omission is accepted; but that 
 family is never "my family" to the servant within its 
 gates. 
 
 For your Chinaman is absolutely faithful and loyal and 
 trustworthy. He can be allowed to handle any amount of 
 money for you. We ourselves are away from home a great 
 deal. When we get ready to go, we simply pack our trunks 
 and depart. Toy then puts away the silver and valuables 
 and places them in the bank vaults, closes the house, and 
 puts all in order. A week or so before our return we write 
 him. Thereupon he cleans things up, reclaims the valu- 
 ables, rearranges everything. His wonderful Chinese 
 memory enables him to replace every smallest item exactly 
 as it was. If I happen to have left seven cents and an 
 empty .38 cartridge on the southwestern corner of the 
 bureau, there they will be. It is difficult to believe that 
 affairs have been at all disturbed. Yet probably, if our 
 stay away has been of any length, everything in the house 
 has been moved or laid away. 
 
 Furthermore, Toy reads and writes English, and enjoys 
 greatly sending us wonderful and involved reports. One 
 of them ended as follows: "The weather is doing nicely, 
 
 335 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 the place is safely well, and the dogs are happy all the 
 while." It brings to mind a peculiarly cheerful picture. 
 
 One of the familiar and persistent beliefs as to Chinese 
 traits is that they are a race of automatons. "Tell your 
 Chinaman exactly what you want done, and how you want 
 it done," say your advisors, "for you will never be able to 
 change them once they get started." And then they will 
 adduce a great many amusing and true incidents to il- 
 lustrate the point. 
 
 The facts of the case are undoubted, but the conclusions 
 as to the invariability of the Chinese mind are, in my 
 opinion, somewhat exaggerated. 
 
 It must be remembered that almost all Chinese customs 
 and manners of thought are the direct inverse of our own. 
 When announcing or receiving a piece of bad news, for 
 example, it is with them considered polite to laugh; while 
 intense enjoyment is apt to be expressed by tears. The 
 antithesis can be extended almost indefinitely by the 
 student of Oriental manners. Contemplate, now, the con- 
 dition of the young Chinese but recently arrived. He is 
 engaged by some family to do its housework; and, as he is 
 well paid and conscientious, he desires to do his best. But 
 in this he is not permitted to follow his education. Each 
 move he makes in initiative is stopped and corrected. To 
 his mind there seems no earthly sense or logic in nine 
 tenths of what we want; but he is willing to do his 
 best. 
 
 "Oh, well," says he to himself, "these people do things 
 crazily; and no well-regulated Chinese mind could possibly 
 either anticipate how they desire things done, or figure out 
 
 336 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 why they want them that way. I give it up! I'll just 
 follow things out exactly as I am told" and he does so! 
 
 This condition of affairs used to be more common than it is 
 now. Under the present exclusion law no fresh immigra- 
 tion is supposed to be possible. Most of the Chinese ser- 
 vants are old timers, who have learned white people's ways, 
 and what is more important understand them. They 
 are quite capable of initiative; and much more intelligent 
 than the average white servant. 
 
 But a green Chinaman is certainly funny. He does 
 things forever-after just as you show him the first time; and 
 a cataclysm of nature is required to shake his purpose. 
 Back in the middle 'eighties my father, moving into a new 
 house, dumped the ashes beside the kitchen steps pending 
 the completion of a suitable ash bin. When the latter 
 had been built, he had Gin Gwee move the ashes from the 
 kitchen steps to the bin. This happened to be of a Friday. 
 Ever after Gin Gwee deposited the ashes by the kitchen 
 steps every day; and on Friday solemnly transferred them 
 to the ash bin! Nor could anything persuade him to 
 desist. 
 
 Again he was given pail, soap, and brush, shown the front 
 steps and walk leading to the gate, and set to work. Gin 
 Gwee disappeared. When we went to hunt him up, we 
 found him half way down the block, still scrubbing away. 
 I was in favour of letting him alone to see how far he would 
 go, but mother had other ideas as to his activities. 
 
 These stories could be multiplied indefinitely; and are 
 detailed by the dozen as proof of the "stupidity" of the 
 Chinese. The Chinese are anything but stupid; and, as I 
 
 337 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 have said before, when once they have grasped the logic 
 of the situation, can figure out a case with the best of 
 them. 
 
 They are, however, great sticklers for formalism ; and dis- 
 approve of any short cuts in ceremony. As soon leave 
 with the silver as without waiting for the finger bowls. 
 A friend of mine, training a new man by example, as new 
 men of this nationality are always trained, was showing 
 him how to receive a caller. Therefore she rang her own 
 doorbell, presented a card; in short, went through the whole 
 performance. Tom understood perfectly. That same 
 
 afternoon Mrs. G , a next-door neighbour and intimate 
 
 friend, ran over for a chat. She rang the bell. Tom 
 appeared. 
 
 "Is Mrs. B at home?" inquired the friend. 
 
 Tom planted himself square in the doorway. He sur- 
 veyed her with a cold and glittering eye. 
 
 "You got ticket?" he demanded. "You no got ticket, 
 you no come in!" 
 
 On another occasion two ladies came to call on Mrs. 
 
 B but by mistake blundered to the kitchen door. 
 
 Mrs. B 's house is a bungalow and on a corner. Tom 
 
 appeared. 
 
 "Is Mrs. B at home?" they asked. 
 
 "This kitchen door; you go front door," requested Tom, 
 politely. 
 
 The callers walked around the house to the proper door, 
 rang, and waited. After a suitable interval Tom appeared 
 again. 
 
 "Is Mrs. B at home?" repeated the visitors. 
 
 338 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 "No, Mrs. B she gone out," Tom informed them. 
 
 The proper ceremonials had been fulfilled. 
 
 To one who appreciates what he can do, and how well he 
 does it; who can value absolute faithfulness and honesty; 
 who confesses a sneaking fondness for the picturesque as 
 nobly exemplified in a clean and starched or brocaded 
 heathen; who understands how to balance the difficult poise, 
 supervision, and interference, the Chinese servant is the best 
 on the continent. But to one who enjoys supervising every 
 step or who likes well-trained ceremony, "good form" in 
 minutiae, and the deference of our kind of good training the 
 heathen is likely to prove disappointing. When you ring 
 your friend's door-bell, you are quite apt to be greeted by a 
 cheerful and smiling "hullo!" I think most Calif ornians 
 rather like the entirely respectful but freshly unconven- 
 tional relationship that exists between the master and his 
 Chinese servant. I do.* 
 
 *This chapter was written in the alas vanished past! 
 
 339 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE LAST HUNT 
 
 Of ail ranch visits the last day neared. Always we 
 forgot it until the latest possible moment; for we did not 
 like to think of it. Then, when the realization could be no 
 longer denied, we planned a grand day just to finish up on. 
 The telephone's tiny, thin voice returned acceptances from 
 distant neighbours; so bright and early we waited at the 
 cross-roads rendezvous. 
 
 And from the four directions they came, jogging along in 
 carts or spring-wagons, swaying swiftly in automobiles 
 whose brass flashed back the early sun. As each vehicle 
 drew up, the greetings flew, charged electrically with the dry, 
 chaffing humour of the out of doors. When we finally 
 climbed the fence into the old cornfield we were almost a 
 dozen. There were the Captain, Uncle Jim, and myself from 
 the ranch; and T and his three sons and two guests from 
 Stockdale ranch; the sporting parson of the entire neigh- 
 bourhood, and Dodge and his three beautiful dogs. 
 
 Spread out in a rough line we tramped away through 
 the dried and straggling ranks of the Egyptian corn. 
 Quail buzzed all around us like angry hornets. We did not 
 fire a shot. Each had his limit of twenty-five still before 
 him, and each wanted to have all the fun he could out of 
 getting them. Shooting quail in Egyptian com is, com- 
 
 340 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 paratively speaking, not much fun. We joked each 
 other, and whistled and sang, and trudged manfully along, 
 gun over shoulder. The pale sun was strengthening; the 
 mountains were turning darker as they threw aside the 
 filmy rose of early day; in tree tops a row of buzzards sat, 
 their wings outspread like the heraldic devices of a foreign 
 nation. Thousands of doves whistled away; thousands of 
 smaller birds rustled and darted before our advancing lines; 
 tens of thousands of blackbirds sprinkled the bare branches 
 of single trees, uttering the many-throated multitude call; 
 underneath all this light and joyous life the business-like 
 little quail darted away in their bullet flight. 
 
 Always they bore across our front to the left; for on that 
 side, paralleling our course, ran a long ravine or "dry 
 slough." It was about ten feet deep on the average, 
 probably thirty feet wide, and was densely grown with a 
 tangle of willows, berry vines, creepers, wild grape, and the 
 like. Into this the quail pitched. 
 
 By the time we had covered the mile length of that 
 cornfield we had dumped an unguessable number of quail 
 into that slough. 
 
 Then we walked back the entire distance still with 
 our guns over our shoulders but this time along the edge of 
 the ravine. We shouted and threw clods, and kicked on the 
 trees, and rattled things, urging the hidden quail once more 
 to flight. The thicket seemed alive with them. We caught 
 glimpses as they ran before us, pacing away at a great rate, 
 their feathers sleek and trim; they buzzed away at bewilder- 
 ing pitches and angles ; they sprang into the tops of bushes, 
 cocking their head plumes forward. Their various clicking 
 
 34i 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 undercalls, chatterings, and chirrings filled the thicket as 
 full of sound as of motion. And in the middle distance 
 before and behind us they mocked us with their calls. 
 
 "You can't shoot! You can't shoot!" 
 
 Some of them flew ever ahead, some of them doubled- 
 back and dropped into the slough behind us; but a propor- 
 tion broke through the thicket and settled in the wide 
 fields on the other side. After them we went, and for the 
 first time opened our guns and slipped the yellow shells 
 into the barrels. 
 
 For this field on the other side was the wide, open plain; 
 and it was grown over by tiny, half-knee high thickets 
 of tumbleweed with here and there a trifle of sagebrush. 
 Between these miniature thickets wound narrow strips of 
 sandy soil, like streams and bays and estuaries in shape. 
 We knew that the quail would lie well here, for they hate to 
 cross bare openings. 
 
 Therefore, we threw out our skirmish line, and the 
 real advance in force began. 
 
 Every man retrieved his own birds, a matter of some 
 difficulty in the tumbleweed. While one was searching, the 
 rest would get ahead of him. The line became disorganized, 
 broke into groups, finally disintegrated entirely. Each 
 man hunted for himself, circling the tumbleweed patches, 
 combing carefully their edges for the quail that sometimes 
 burst into the air fairly at his feet. When he had killed one, 
 he walked directly to the spot. On the way he would flush 
 two or three more. They were tempting; but we were old 
 hands at the sport, and we knew only too well that if we 
 yielded so far as to shoot a second before we had picked up 
 
 342 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 the first, the probabilities were strong that the first would 
 never be found. In this respect such shooting requires 
 good judgment. It is generally useless to try to shoot a 
 double, even though a dozen easy shots are in the air at 
 once; and yet, occasionally, on a day when Koos-ey-oonek 
 is busy elsewhere, it may happen that the birds flush across a 
 wide, bare space. It is well to keep a weather eye open for 
 such chances. 
 
 With a green crowd and in different cover such shooting 
 might have been dangerous; but with an abundance of birds, 
 in this wide, open prairie, cool heads knew enough to keep 
 wide apart and to look before they shot. The fun grew 
 fast and furious; and the guns popped away like fire- 
 crackers. In fact, the fun grew a little too fast and furious 
 to suit Dodge. 
 
 Dodge had beautiful and well-trained dogs. Ordinarily 
 any one of us would have esteemed it a high privilege to shoot 
 over them. In fact, I have often declared myself to the 
 effect that of the three elements of pleasure comprehended in 
 field shooting that of working the dogs was the chief. Just 
 as it is better to catch one yellowtail on a nine-ounce rod 
 than twenty on a hand line, so it is better to kill one quail 
 over a well- trained dog than a half dozen " Walking 'em 
 up." But this particular case was different. We were out 
 for a high old time; and part of a high old time was a wild 
 and reckless disregard of inhibitive sporting conventions. 
 The birds were here literally in thousands. Not a third 
 had left the slough for this open country; we could not 
 shoot at a tenth of those flushed, yet the guns were popping 
 continuously. Everybody was shooting and laughing and 
 
 343 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 running about. The game was to pelt away, retrieve your 
 bird as quickly as you could, and pelt away again. The 
 dogs, working up to their points carefully and stylishly, 
 as good dogs should, were being constantly left in the rear. 
 They drew down to their points and behold nobody but 
 their devoted master would pay any attention to their bird ! 
 Everybody else was engaged busily in popping away at any 
 one of the dozen-odd other birds to be had for the selection ! 
 
 Poor Dodge, being somewhat biased by the accident of 
 ownership, looked on us as a lot of barbarians as, for the 
 time being, we were; nice, happy barbarians having a good 
 time. He worked his dogs conscientiously, and muttered 
 in his beard. The climax came when, in the joyous excite- 
 ment of the occasion, someone threw out a chance remark on 
 
 "those dogs" being in the way. Then Dodge withdrew 
 
 with dignity. Having a fellow-feeling as a dog-handler I 
 went over to console him. He was inconsolable; and so 
 remained until after lunch. 
 
 In this manner we made our way slowly down the length 
 of the slough, and then slowly back again. Of the birds 
 originally flushed from the Egyptian corn into the thicket 
 but a small proportion had left that thicket for the open 
 country of the tumbleweed and sage; and of the latter we 
 had been able to shoot at a very, very small percentage. 
 Nevertheless, when we emptied our pockets, we found that 
 each had made his bag. We counted them out, throwing 
 them into one pile. 
 
 "Twenty-four," counted the Captain. 
 
 "Twenty-four," Tom enumerated. 
 
 "Twenty-four," Uncle Jim followed him. 
 
 344 
 
THE RANCH 
 
 We each had twenty-four. And then it developed that 
 every man had saved just one bird of his limit until after 
 lunch. No one wanted to be left out of all the shooting 
 while the rest filled their bags; and no one had believed that 
 anybody but himself had come so close to the limit. 
 
 So we laughed, and shouldered our guns, and trudged 
 across country to the clump of cottonwood where already 
 the girls had spread lunch. 
 
 That was a good lunch. We sat under shady trees, and 
 the sunlit plains stretched away and away to distant calm 
 mountains. Near at hand the sparse gray sagebrush 
 reared its bonneted heads; far away it blurred into a mono- 
 chrome where the plains lifted and flowed molten into the 
 canons and crevices of the foothills. Numberless crows, 
 blackbirds, and wildfowl crossed and recrossed the very 
 blue sky. A gray jackrabbit, thinking himself concealed 
 by a very creditable imitation of a sacatone hummock, sat 
 motionless not seventy yards away. 
 
 After lunch we moved out leisurely to get our one bird 
 apiece. Some of the girls followed us. We were now 
 epicures of shooting, and each let many birds pass before 
 deciding to fire. Some waited for cross shots, some for very 
 easy shots, some for the most difficult shots possible. Each 
 suited his fancy. 
 
 "I'm all in," remarked each, as he pocketed his bird; and 
 followed to see the others finish. 
 
 Next day, our baggage piled in most anywhere, our fare- 
 wells all said, we bowled away toward town in the brand-new 
 machine. Redmond sat in the front seat with the chauffeur. 
 
 345 
 
THE KILLER 
 
 It was his first experience in an automobile, and he sat very 
 rigidly upright, eyes front, his moustaches bristling. 
 
 Now at a certain point on the road lived a large black 
 dog just plain ranch dog who was accustomed to come 
 bounding out to the road to run alongside and bark for an 
 appropriate interval. This was an unvarying ceremony. 
 He was a large and prancing dog; and, I suppose from his 
 appearance, must have been named Carlo. In the course of 
 our many visits to the ranch we grew quite fond of the 
 dog, and always looked as hard for him to come out as he 
 did for us to come along. 
 
 This day also the dog came forth; but now he had no 
 steady-trotting ranch team to greet. The road was smooth 
 and straight, and the car was hitting thirty-five miles an 
 hour. The dog bounded confidently down the front walk, 
 leaping playfully in the air, opened his mouth to bark and, 
 behold! the vehicle was not within range any more, but 
 thirty yards away and rapidly departing. So Carlo shut 
 his mouth and got down to business. For three hundred 
 yards he managed to keep pace alongside; but the effort 
 required all his forces; not once did he manage to gather 
 wind for even a single bark. 
 
 Redmond in the front seat sat straighter than ever. From 
 his lordly elevation he waved a lordly hand at the poor dog. 
 
 "Useless ! Useless ! " said he, loftily. 
 
 And looking back at the dog seated panting in a rapidly 
 disappearing distance, we saw that he also knew that the Old 
 Order had changed. 
 
 THE END 
 
 346 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
"ORED AT NRLF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
 .'UL 26 1972 
 
 100m-8,'65(F6282s8)2373 
 
3 2106 00215 4901