COPYRIGHT 1939 BY

      DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      CHAPTER I

      BEHIND THE HILL

      THE open space in which they had reined up was scarcely ten feet in diameter, but it was wide enough for tragedy to stalk. The two men were face to face, motionless, clearly outlined by the moonlight; moonlight so strong that it cast black shadows across the prickly pear and sand.

      Silently they sat there a moment, both men shaken by the bitter news one had winded his mount in order to bring—Gage Hardin, young owner of the Circle Crossbar in Great Lost Valley, and his slightly older partner, Doe Gaston. Aside from the spot where their horses stood, there was not a rod of ground but had some cover. Either the dark foliage of spruce on the foothills and leading higher, or the varied green of mesquite or scrub oak or thorn bush that would stop abruptly a little further on, at the mouth of the canyon, where the desert would begin.

      But neither of the two mounted men were thinking now of the beauty of the spot, nor of moonlight night nor of the breeze, so grateful after the heat of the day; a breeze that gently waved the brims of their Stetsons, softly ruffled the horses’ manes. Speechless they gazed at each other, eyes troubled, though in Hardin’s gray eyes was a steely glint that held a promise of death.

      Gage Hardin loomed almost grotesque in his height—he measured six feet and three inches in his bare feet—and astride his horse he towered skyward. He was an impressive figure of a man whose skin was burned to an Indian bronze by the sun and hot winds, nights and days of riding range. Under his smooth skin, muscles that outdoor life had built rippled silkily, giving an impression of strength in leash.

      Doe Gaston commanded a bare five feet and ten inches booted, but he was so blockily built that he seemed a full two inches shorter than he was. His freckled face was one that was made for rollicking laughter, but now it was grim, the lines of his mouth drawn in with pain at the knowledge of how the story he had just told had hurt the tall man who faced him. As if repeating a sorely learned lesson he said again what had brought him.

      “There was nothing else to do—so I came for you, secretly. Nobody has an idea I’ve left the ranch.” Gaston’s heavy shoulders moved slightly in a helpless shrug. “No one would be looking for either of us here where Tammer Canyon ends and the desert begins, and I knew you’d be going this way. I knew if anything was to be done to straighten things out that it wouldn’t do for that buzzard bunch to realize you had word—yet.”

      “I would expect you to do the wise thing, Doe,” Hardin said, his voice cold and hard as the stones beside the trail. “You always have—always will.” The young rancher’s gaze was inscrutable, intent on Doe Gaston’s face, as though he believed not yet had the worst been told. He added dully: “How was he killed?”

      He could not bring himself to say the name of Lonny Pope, the young waddy who for so long had been like a brother to him—Lonny, dead! Murdered! While watching out for the girl who meant more than life to Gage Hardin. It was beating over and over in his head with the insistence of a sharp pain: “Lonny dead—Mary gone!” His eyes were not even on Doe Gaston as he heard his partner answer:

      “He was shot, Gage. His body and head showed seven bullet wounds. His hands—were tied behind his back.”

      Hardin drew in a raspy breath. “You saw him?” he asked.

      “I found him, Gage,” Gaston said in the same monotone.

      “Dead?”

      “Not quite. But he never regained consciousness. He never said a word. Couldn’t tell who—who—” The blocky man’s lips tightened and his knuckles whitened where they rested on his cantle. “By God, if he only could have told, if we’d only had a thing to go on, I’d have—”

      Gage Hardin raised one hand and passed it across his brow, as if he would wipe clear the frown that was not there, or erase the pictures that were dancing before his mind’s eye.

      “Where did you find him?” he asked. “Tell me everything you know, Doe. It’s time for a showdown now!”

      “Just inside the door of Mary Silver’s cabin, Gage,” Doe Gaston said, “like I told you. As soon as you lit out after Rood Vandover after that last killing of your horses, and you knew it was Rood, Lonny Pope took it in his head that maybe Mary needed to be watched.

      “Lonny was wiser than we were, Gage, just because we’ve never been able to pin anything on Louis Peele and his gang, but it’s simple enough now to see through the whole plot—hell—I’m not talking straight.”

      “I follow you, Doe,” Hardin said grimly.

      “They got you out of the way by making sure you would go after Vandover. Must be through with him to make him take it on the chin like that, but maybe he thought he could get clean away before you caught up with him. Anyhow, the minute you were gone, they went about their real business. They did enough damage to make certain you’d go after them the minute you got back. That’s what they want! For some reason they want to get hold of you where they’ll have you helpless in their hands. And for that reason Louis Peele has finally grown reckless, Gage.”

      “No argument there, Doe,” he said dully. “He probably knew I was gone within an hour after I’d left Great Lost Valley, and got busy. Did—does anybody have any idea where Mary is? Where did she run off to?”

      Doe Gaston’s usually facile tongue stumbled, and he turned his head as though he could not look into the eyes of his friend.

      “Nobody knows,” he mumbled.

      Gage Hardin’s great body jerked once, then stiffened to steeliness. One of his hands reached out to grip Gaston’s shoulder in a rigid clasp.

      “Doe!” he rasped. “What are you trying to tell me? You didn’t say, at first, that they . . . I thought she had run away from them. . . . You don’t mean that the way it sounds, do you?”

      Gaston slowly nodded. “I’m afraid I do, Gage,” he mumbled. “Louis and his gang—if they were the ones that killed Lonny, which I’d bet my life is so—took her with them when they went.”

      Gage Hardin dropped his hand as though it were suddenly leaden. His gaze was far away, and Doe Gaston could not be certain whether or not the moonlight alone caused his companion’s face to appear a shade whiter. Never had the older partner seen the young rancher to whom he was so loyal show even so much as a trace of emotion. But he knew how this news he had brought had cut deep into Gage Hardin’s soul until only blood payment could now atone.

      A short dry laugh, without any trace of humor, a laugh that came from a heart filled with bitterness, cut shortly into the night air.

      “Listen, Doe!” Hardin lowered his voice to say hurriedly, “I’ve got to talk fast. This is the time to save minutes now—and they’re precious. I know what Louis Peele will do, as well as if he’d told me himself. He will find some quiet hiding place, and lie low there for a few days, waiting for me to track him and catch up with him, getting a nice little ambush all ready for me.

      “He won’t harm Mary. He knows he’ll be walking right into the noose if he does. He’s only taken the poor kid as bait for me—knowing I’d come after her hell-bent. Well, I will! But first I’ve got to get Rood Vandover. I have to bring him back with me now, Doe. Everybody’s suspected Rood was Louis’ chief killer for some time, but it looks like Louis has shuffled him off now. Don’t you see? That’s my chance—the one I’ve waited for so long? I’ll bring Rood Vandover back and turn him over to the law. The law—Guy Shawnessy—will make him talk all right, and furnish