"Good! I"ll back you," Sampson replied. "Understand, Russ, I didn"t want you here, but I always had you sized up as a pretty hard nut, a man not to be trifled with. You"ve got a bad name. Diane insists the name"s not deserved. She"d trust you with herself under any circ.u.mstances. And the kid, Sally, she"d be fond of you if it wasn"t for the drink. Have you been drunk a good deal? Straight now, between you and me."
"Not once," I replied.
"George"s a liar then. He"s had it in for you since that day at Sanderson. Look out you two don"t clash. He"s got a temper, and when he"s drinking he"s a devil. Keep out of his way."
"I"ve stood a good deal from Wright, and guess I can stand more."
"All right, Russ," he continued, as if relieved. "Chuck the drink and cards for a while and keep an eye on the girls. When my affairs straighten out maybe I"ll make you a proposition."
Sampson left me material for thought. Perhaps it was not only the presence of a Ranger in town that gave him concern, nor the wilfulness of his daughter. There must be internal strife in the rustler gang with which we had a.s.sociated him.
Perhaps a menace of publicity, rather than risk, was the cause of the wearing strain on him. I began to get a closer insight into Sampson, and in the absence of any conclusive evidence of his personal baseness I felt pity for him.
In the beginning he had opposed me just because I did not happen to be a cowboy he had selected. This latest interview with me, amounting in some instances to confidence, proved absolutely that he had not the slightest suspicion that I was otherwise than the cowboy I pretended to be.
Another interesting deduction was that he appeared to be out of patience with Wright. In fact, I imagined I sensed something of fear and distrust in this spoken att.i.tude toward his relative. Not improbably here was the internal strife between Sampson and Wright, and there flashed into my mind, absolutely without reason, an idea that the clash was over Diane Sampson.
I scouted this intuitive idea as absurd; but, just the same, it refused to be dismissed.
As I turned my back on the coa.r.s.e and exciting life in the saloons and gambling h.e.l.ls, and spent all my time except when sleeping, out in the windy open under blue sky and starry heaven, my spirit had an uplift.
I was glad to be free of that job. It was bad enough to have to go into these dens to arrest men, let alone living with them, almost being one.
Diane Sampson noted a change in me, attributed it to the absence of the influence of drink, and she was glad. Sally made no attempt to conceal her happiness; and to my dismay, she utterly failed to keep her promise not to tease or tempt me further.
She was adorable, distracting.
We rode every day and almost all day. We took our dinner and went clear to the foothills to return as the sun set. We visited outlying ranches, water-holes, old adobe houses famous in one way or another as scenes of past fights of rustlers and ranchers.
We rode to the little village of Sampson, and half-way to Sanderson, and all over the country.
There was no satisfying Miss Sampson with rides, new places, new faces, new adventures. And every time we rode out she insisted on first riding through Linrock; and every time we rode home she insisted on going back that way.
We visited all the stores, the blacksmith, the wagon shop, the feed and grain houses--everywhere that she could find excuse for visiting. I had to point out to her all the infamous dens in town, and all the lawless and lounging men we met.
She insisted upon being shown the inside of the Hope So, to the extreme confusion of that bewildered resort.
I pretended to be blind to this restless curiosity. Sally understood the cause, too, and it divided her between a sweet gravity and a naughty humor.
The last, however, she never evinced in sight or hearing of Diane.
It seemed that we were indeed fated to cross the path of Vaughn Steele.
We saw him working round his adobe house; then we saw him on horseback.
Once we met him face to face in a store.
He gazed steadily into Diane Sampson"s eyes and went his way without any sign of recognition. There was red in her face when he pa.s.sed and white when he had gone.
That day she rode as I had never seen her, risking her life, unmindful of her horse.
Another day we met Steele down in the valley, where, inquiry discovered to us, he had gone to the home of an old cattleman who lived alone and was ill.
Last and perhaps most significant of all these meetings was the one when we were walking tired horses home through the main street of Linrock and came upon Steele just in time to see him in action.
It happened at a corner where the usual slouchy, shirt-sleeved loungers were congregated. They were in high glee over the predicament of one ruffian who had purchased or been given a poor, emaciated little burro that was on his last legs. The burro evidently did not want to go with its new owner, who pulled on a halter and then viciously swung the end of the rope to make welts on the worn and scarred back.
If there was one thing that Diane Sampson could not bear it was to see an animal in pain. She pa.s.sionately loved horses, and hated the sight of a spur or whip.
When we saw the man beating the little burro she cried out to me:
"Make the brute stop!"
I might have made a move had I not on the instant seen Steele heaving into sight round the corner.
Just then the fellow, whom I now recognized to be a despicable character named Andrews, began to bestow heavy and brutal kicks upon the body of the little burro. These kicks sounded deep, hollow, almost like the boom of a drum.
The burro uttered the strangest sound I ever heard issue from any beast and it dropped in its tracks with jerking legs that told any horseman what had happened. Steele saw the last swings of Andrews" heavy boot. He yelled. It was a sharp yell that would have made anyone start. But it came too late, for the burro had dropped.
Steele knocked over several of the jeering men to get to Andrews. He kicked the fellow"s feet from under him, sending him hard to the ground.
Then Steele picked up the end of the halter and began to swing it powerfully. Resounding smacks mingled with hoa.r.s.e bellows of fury and pain. Andrews flopped here and there, trying to arise, but every time the heavy knotted halter beat him down.
Presently Steele stopped. Andrews rose right in front of the Ranger, and there, like the madman he was, he went for his gun.
But it scarcely leaped from its holster when Steele"s swift hand intercepted it. Steele clutched Andrews" arm.
Then came a wrench, a cracking of bones, a scream of agony.
The gun dropped into the dust; and in a moment of wrestling fury Andrews, broken, beaten down, just able to moan, lay beside it.
Steele, so cool and dark for a man who had acted with such pa.s.sionate swiftness, faced the others as if to dare them to move. They neither moved nor spoke, and then he strode away.
Miss Sampson did not speak a word while we were riding the rest of the way home, but she was strangely white of face and dark of eye. Sally could not speak fast enough to say all she felt.
And I, of course, had my measure of feelings. One of them was that as sure as the sun rose and set it was written that Diane Sampson was to love Vaughn Steele.
I could not read her mind, but I had a mind of my own.
How could any woman, seeing this maligned and menaced Ranger, whose life was in danger every moment he spent on the streets, in the light of his action on behalf of a poor little beast, help but wonder and brood over the magnificent height he might reach if he had love--pa.s.sion--a woman for his inspiration?
It was the day after this incident that, as Sally, Diane, and I were riding homeward on the road from Sampson, I caught sight of a group of dark horses and riders swiftly catching up with us.
We were on the main road, in plain sight of town and pa.s.sing by ranches; nevertheless, I did not like the looks of the hors.e.m.e.n and grew uneasy.
Still, I scarcely thought it needful to race our horses just to reach town a little ahead of these strangers.
Accordingly, they soon caught up with us.
They were five in number, all dark-faced except one, dark-clad and superbly mounted on dark bays and blacks. They had no pack animals and, for that matter, carried no packs at all.