Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 65: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE KNIGHT OF LONELY LAND. themselves in the inhospitable mountains towering beyond. The fencing here was new, part of the job Billie and Desmond had worked on a short time before, so that his eye at once sought it out. But he saw with a quick glance that there was no fence where the new bright wire had been a few days before. It had been cut in half a dozen places and its remnants lay along the ground half hidden in the brown stubble. His first thought was for ‘his precious whitefaces. The rustlers had been at work here without a doubt, and his heart sunk at the certainty that a portion at least of his stock would be missing—and he could not afford to lose a single hoof. His lips set in a gtim narrow line as he wheeled his horse toward home, and signaled Geraldine to follow. “What is it? What has happened?” she cried, fearfully, riding to his side. Geraldine knew nothing of the depreda- tions that had menaced the valley for weeks. Billie and Jack were careful to guard their speech when they were with her, but now that the evil had come so near, Billie knew that for her own safety she must be warned. “ There’s rustlers—cattle thieves ’round,” he explained grimly. ‘“That’s why I warned you so often not to ride far alone. Did you see that fence back there? Cut clean, They made sure we couldn’t patch it up in a hurry. Somebody had a terrible spite when they cut that wire. Must’ve thought they were cuttin’ into me.” “And are all the cattle gone?” cried Geraldine, pityingly. “Oh, dear, what will poor Jack say! He loves those whitefaces like they were his children.” “Tt may be they didn’t get any,” Billie returned. He was puzzled. Night was the time for cutting fences even in such remote places as this, and he knew that the wire had been out that day. There were cattle on the range in plain view, and if the fence had been down that moming when they watered, there would have been signs of stragglers on the other side. "There was something truly ominous about the procedure, and if Geraldine had not heen with him. he would have searched for 301 the intruders before leaving the place. But he did not know what dangers those low hills with their screening boulders and sorub concealed, and he dared not face it with the girl unguarded. She knew this instinctively. and offered to return alone. She was not a coward and had an English- woman’s disdain of retreat. ‘““T will ride back and send Jack to you,” she said. ‘It is a shame to let them escape,”’ ‘“They won't escape,” Billie answered briefly. “And I've already said it ain’t safe for you to ride alone.” “What could harm me?” she asked scornfully. ‘ Why do you persist in treat- ing me like an infant?” _ ‘Folks that cut wire in a cow country don’t let anything else stop ’em,” he an- swered, and the gait of the horses brought an end to the subject. Billie's heart was filled with trouble. A little while ago the world had seemed a fine place to be in. On the day he rode over the ridge with the whitefaces, life had seemed full and promising; that was the day he found Geraldine waiting for him at home. | Where had his happiness gone? His possessions were the same, and Geraldine was beside him, nearer than she had ever been: yet an insidious shadow, deepening as it came, had come between him and all the old gay. careless ways that had been his. The secret he was keeping from her lay heavy on his conscience; the was deceiving her, and no matter what the object of this deception might be, instinct ‘warned that the day of explanation must come. And the thought of Little Britches was not a pleasant one to face. After that, the grave provi of the enemy at his own gate. The ride back to the ranch was fast and silent. Geraldine glanced at the grim face beside her from time to time, but said nothing. She was one of those rare women who find in silence the strongest of weap- ons and unconsciously Billie was grateful that she forbore to question him. Jack was at home and in the act of un- saddling Tomate Can, but at Billie’s first words the threw the blanket on the pinto’s back again. Without »wasting. syord he.