CHAPTER XIII.

IN PUNISHMENT GULCH.

"Smiling Dick" Murdock, range boss on the Gallegher ranch, was not looking up to his sobriquet when he rode back to the group with a reluctant cayuse in tow. Childress noted a handsome man of about his own age and weight, although probably a trifle shorter when out of the saddle. He was dark, almost to a point of swarthiness, but his frown was not unbecoming.

"Lucky morning for us, boys," he said to his punchers. "We've got the White Horse King and got him with the goods two ways from the ace."

"Two ways?" asked the florid horseman, called Rust by his stirrup brother.

Murdock nodded. "The cayuse is one of that bunch they ran off last fall. They've tried brand-blotting, but you can still trace the mark of the Lazy G. And the other count is a hide stripped from one of Miss Flame's steers. The brute's not beyond a bog-skinning job, judging by the size and shape of the evidence."

"What we going to do with him?" asked Roper. "There's rope and to spare for a nice little four-in-hand necktie."

The foreman swung in his saddle for a searching inspection of the prairie. Because of the rolling nature of the region the visibility was not great, but as far as the eye could cover they were alone. He turned to the captive.

"You've got a powerful nerve, hombre, riding this range in daylight, leading a stolen hawse, packed with a butchered hide. Don't you think we're ever on the job, looking after our own? What you got to say for yourself?"

"Nothing until this rope trick is unwound and you take me before your owner. I'll talk to him, one ranchman to another. I was headed for the Lazy G home ranch when you stopped me."

The sergeant's calm speech seemed greatly to amuse Roper and Rust. Smiling Dick's facial muscles were too engaged in a sneer even to trace a smile.

"Having pulled wool on the daughter, you think you can do the same on the old man," he said with heat. "If ever you see Sam Gallegher, which I doubt, you'll find him a different proposition."

So they knew at the home ranch that Flame had seen and talked with him. That much was easily deduced from Murdock's outburst, which seemed tinctured with jealousy. But which of their meetings had she discussed--the one in the railroad land office at Strathconna or that memorable occasion when she had visited so briefly the Open A? That she had said nothing of their experience on the range the previous day seemed likely, else the foreman would not have made so much of the hide which the led horse was carrying.

"I'll take my chances with any honest man," returned Childress shortly.

"You're going to take chances with three and that in short order," snapped Murdock, and he turned to his companions, "Let's get down into Friday Gulch, where there's small chance of our being disturbed. Flame will be riding somewhere and we don't want her to be stumbling into the party. We'll give him a regular trial--settle the whole thing without any fuss or feathers."

Rust nodded approvingly. "Yuh be judge, Dick; I'll be jury, and Roper the cheerful executioner. Lead on!"

Short as it was, the ride across and down into the gulch fringed with cottonwoods was not a pleasant one for the sergeant. He did not doubt that the foreman already had in mind a punishment--one probably that would be humiliating rather than life-taking, and one that would leave the perpetrators comparatively safe from penalty. His keen mind went over every possibility of escape, and found none that would answer. He was hopelessly bound, his revolver was empty and his mount under rope. As a last resort he might declare himself and his mission, threatening them with the wrath of the Scarlet. But scarcely would they believe him under the circumstances, even if they found the black badge of the Mounted which he carried in a secret pocket. If they gave him the slightest chance, he would lay into them and inflict as much damage as he could. But if there was no opening, he felt sure he could endure the punishment without a whimper. In that belief lay his chief consolation. They never would have the fun of hearing him plead for mercy.

"Get him out of the saddle, boys, and put hobbles on him," ordered Murdock, when they had reached the bottom of the small canyon which nature had cut into the hillside at a sharp right angle. "We'll hold this court in style."

Childress felt that the time had arrived for protest and warning. Had he been making an arrest in his official capacity he would have been required to offer caution that whatever was said might be used against the prisoner. If these three persisted, he one day would be called upon to proceed against them. His calmness was icy when he began; his entire manner should have served as a warning.

"You're making a sorry mistake, men. I'm as honest as any of you. Never stole a horse nor lifted a hide in my life. I own a small ranch in this region, as I guess you've heard. I'm raising and breaking some horses on my own. Yesterday I decided to ride over and make the acquaintance of the Lazy G outfit. I came upon a bogged-down steer that just had been skinned alive. I fired a mercy shot and took up the trail. Lost my man in the rough of a ridge the other side of the line. Got his horse and the hide, though, and was bringing them in when came this uncalled for attack by ropes. All I ask is that you take me to your home ranch and let Gallegher decide. Otherwise----"

"Can the talk," cut in Murdock. "The old man's too damned merciful in his old age. He won't have any stock left unless we curb this rustling. You're going to haye some he-men decide your case and I'll bet when the verdict's in you'll keep to the States where you belong."

Childress had made no mention of the fact that Flame Gallegher had been with him when he put the bogged steer out of its misery or that she had undertaken one angle of the pursuit where the trail had seemed to fork. It was evident that she had said nothing at home about meeting him, a silence for which she doubtless had excellent reasons of her own. He would respect that silence, come what might.

The three Lazy G riders drew off a bit for consultation, leaving him, thoroughly trussed, seated on a fallen log. They were not beyond earshot, although their conversation did not seem to be intended for him.

At first, the two punchers were for employing old-time methods: a lynching and be done with it, "the way they manage hawse thieves over in Montana where he's from," as Roper put it.

But this the foreman vetoed as too drastic, too likely to bring unnecessary trouble upon themselves and to the ranch in case they were found out.

"Suppose we give him twenty or thirty lashes, carry him to the border and set him on foot?" This brilliant idea came from Rust who seemed to have a Nero-like enjoyment of the prospective situation. "The cayuse belongs to us and we can empound the stallion for trespassing. With all his nerve, boggin' in broad-day, the big gent won't come back this way if yuh let me play the quirt."

Evidently Murdock had more sense of responsibility than the two punchers. This had begun to work, blunting somewhat the jealousy aroused in his breast by the interest expressed in the stranger by his employer's daughter. He felt that they had caught the rider of the silver horse red-handed; yet the captive's calmness was disturbing. Besides there was no telling how Flame, long the object of his adoration, might look upon the affair. Suppose he took Childress to the home ranch and the plausable scoundrel lied himself out of their ropes. The situation would be worse than before. If only they had a confession made before the three of them and so convincing that Gallegher would turn him over to the authorities despite pleas from any source whatsoever!

"You two hobble the talk for a minute," he said to Roper and Rusty. "I've had an idea."

"Heavenly horizon, Dick!" cried Roper. "Don't let her bite yuh."

"Iders are hell on adnoids, my old ma always said," added Rusty.

Evidently the pair feared that the "party" was slipping. Whatever happened the responsibility scarcely would be theirs and both were of the sort who count the frolic before the cost. They knew loyalty, these riders of the Fire Weed, better than did many city employees; but from the very nature of their work ahorse, with its constant dangers, its exposure to all sorts of weather, its broken bones and near-death hemorrhages in the "busting" end of their game, they were somewhat hardened and keen for any diverting excitement.

Smiling Dick Murdock strolled across to Childress, whose clean-shaved lips--service habit--set tightly, rather than curled over the three-to-one odds.

"One or two small raids we might have stood for, Silver," the foreman began. "But when you come into our own range and start to build a ranch house, as if you hoped or intended to live in our midst, it's too much. A rustler's shack in the Fire Weed! That's something that can't be stood. And already you're presuming on a few acres bought from the railroad company, a fragment we all overlooked until it was too late!

"We've talked it all over, and the verdict is plum' against you. Punishment has got to be inflicted for violating the law of the range. But we're humane gents, we are, and willing to be some merciful. If you care to sign a confession that you are a rustler and a skinner of bogged cows and let the three of us witness it, we'll let you off some. What about it, rustler?"

For a moment Childress seemed to be considering the proposition. A confession of the sort demanded would probably save him much humiliation, but it would end his activities in the region and leave the mystery of the Fire Weed robbers unsolved. Any document he might sign under the circumstances would bring no penalty to him. The commissioner at Ottawa would see to that. But never had he yielded in the face of danger, and he was not ready to do so now.

"I'll sign nothing under duress!" he answered decisively.

"You'll think duress a hell of a more serious proposition before we're through," said Murdock quietly, and returned to his men.

"Yore ider didn't seem to be no good," said Rust, as the troubled foreman neared the punchers.

Roper was grinning. "But I gave birth to one of my own while yuh was gone. Why not brand the son of a butcher as if he was a maverick? A horseshoe on the forehead with the Lazy G inside! I've got a running iron."

"Whoah, boy! There is an ider," congratulated Rust. "Once he gets that burned into his classic brow he'll keep out of the province or I don't know who's what."

Childress heard every word. He hated to think what some artist in live-stock pyrotechnics might do to him in his present defenceless condition. It was evident that foreman Murdock controlled the situation; he watched the handsome stockman closely.

For a time--several minutes, although they seemed longer--Murdock considered. Then: "Build a fire, boys. That's the best idea yet. I'll take the responsibility."

The preliminaries were brief. Roper went to his horse and from somewhere about the saddle produced an iron resembling a poker. It was a tool of the range long outlawed in the United States because of the service it performed for brand-blotting rustlers of both horse and cattle stock. On most ranches the punchers whose duty it is to brand the strays which have escaped the round-up carry an iron that plants the entire brand at one pressure, embosses it, as it were, in the hair with the least possible pain and disfigurement to the animal.

Rust seemed to take diabolical glee in building a small fire of the driest twigs he could find. So expert was he at this that Childress' suspicion was aroused. Doubtless both Rust and Roper had been brand-blotters in their time. But small service did suspicion do him in the present emergency.

Horrible to think of was the punishment which Murdock, as foreman and obvious chief of the trio, seemed to have accepted. That they would not burn him deep enough to endanger his life he felt certain. There was some doubt in their suspicions or they would have shot him down at sight. But to go through life with a horseshoe scar on his forehead, even though later he brought prison punishment to all concerned in the operation, seemed insupportable. The certain pain of the branding did not trouble him so much. In the service he had suffered as much as a man can suffer and live to remember in his nightmares. The resultant trace of a bullet wound would not have been so bad; he had several tucked around his exceedingly vital body and at least one leaden slug bedded down where surgeons of the Royal did not care to probe for it. But a brand! He remembered the Scarlet letter of the old Puritans and the crime brands which certain nations of Europe put upon particular criminals. The situation was insupportable; yet he would not weaken--he'd be damned if he would.

Preparations went on apace, with him watching every move. As if nothing more important than the frying of morning bacon had been on the bill, he heard Roper give Rust a "call" for not building a hot enough fire and making so much smoke about it that some of the Silver Horse gang might get wise and take a pot shot at them. Rust flared at the aspersion and told Roper to go "plum'" to where it was "hotter," on the theory that he was going there anyway.

While they were quarreling, the sergeant called to Murdock. The eagerness with which the foreman responded possibly indicated that the foreman was losing his nerve and his desire for the particular punishment which the box canyon was to cloak. An average man would have taken a tip from this alacrity, made the confession under demand and denied it when again able to fight his own battles. But Sergt. Jack Childress was not an average man. Never had he compromised, and he was not ready to do so now. They could burn him if they dared, but they could not make him weaken and they could not force him to give up his quest in the Fire Weed.

"Mind lighting my pipe for me while they're heating the iron?" he asked, as casually as he might have asked for a match in the Strathconna Club. "The pipe's in my breast pocket and it don't need to be filled."

Dick Murdock took a startled backward step. The nerve of the man! And he was not thinking of nerve in the derisive sense. He had that same sort of nerve, to a degree; but he doubted if it would have carried him through such an impossible situation as that in which the horse thief--and he honestly believed the rider of the silver beast to be one--now found himself.

"Don't you ever weaken?" he asked.

"Why weaken, when there's nothing to be weak about?"

"We're going to brand you."

"That don't kill, and even if it did, death's only an experiment into something no one knows anything about."

"You're not afraid?"

Childress laughed at him heartily. "Of death or of pain; neither. I've near suffered both; never died and always came back to pay up those who had caused the pain."

"Good Lord, I'd hate to play poker with you." This sort of sprung from Murdock's lips without his intent.

"Maybe you will--some day, Murdock; but it won't be when you deal all the cards and look into my hand while my shuffling fingers are crippled. Anyway, light my pipe, if you don't mind."

Murdock got the pipe from the breast pocket of the sergeant's trail coat, a non-uniform one he had purchased in Ottawa against the time of casting the uniform behind him.

"Have some of my tobacco, even if you are a pest."

"No, thank you. By the time they get through with that branding iron I'll be cussin' you so hard that you'll wonder why you ever were born. The core of the pipe will be enough for me."

Murdock seemed troubled; took off his soft brimmed Stetson and combed his black hair with his fingers.

"I don't make you, stranger," he said slowly, as if his thoughts troubled him. "I've put up a hawse thief in my day--two of 'em. But they never----"

"They never were horse thieves the two you led the lynching party on, and you know it. Do you think you're ever going to get away from that? Do you think that I'm the only one who is coming up here after you? And the others won't come alone or be roped--_roped_!"

"Now, I'll sure have to get you!" Murdock was white about the lips and blue about the nose, as men get when suddenly confronted with a past they had thought forgotten.

"Now's your chance," said Childress.

"If you'd left Flame alone----" began the foreman.

"Here come the boys, tell them to put the brand as neatly as they can. Long as these ropes are about me, I've as much chance as that bogged steer----"

"Don't call yourself names," inserted Murdock.

Then interruption came from the two cheerful punchers who had the iron red hot. There was a moment of fortune for Childress, because Rust and Roper were scrapping among themselves. The question was which one could do the best and most artistic job upon the forehead of the captive.

Before this matter of artistry was settled, the clatter of a speeding horse struck their startled ears. All turned to look down the gulch as a mounted figure came into view. There were muttered exclamations from the Lazy G trio when they recognized the rider as Flame Gallegher.

She pulled up her horse at the edge of the group, and for a moment gazed about her with an incredulous expression.

"What is the meaning of this, Dick Murdock?" she at last demanded, a note of authority in her voice.

"We're just having a little fun with this here hawse thief," mumbled Murdock lamely.

"A little fun?" she repeated scornfully. "That man is tied up as though he were a criminal and that running iron is all aglow. What were you going to do with it?"

"It's a branding party, Flame," said the handsome foreman. "Caught the white-hawse king with the goods at last."

She flared angrily. "Then it's over before it begins or three Lazy G's look for other jobs. Even if he was all you say, you'd have no right to take the law into your own hands. Rust, if you have any respect for your rope, untie Mr. Childress instantly! If you don't I'll cut it into so many calf-size lengths you'll never get it together again."