Knights of the Range Read online

  “Per-fickly—clear—Frayne,” returned Heaver, haltingly. He drew a long deep breath that whistled with the intake. Then blood and arm and voice leaped simultaneously. “Covell! Bore him, men!”

  Britt’s sight was not swift enough to catch Frayne’s draw. But there the big blue guns were, spouting red behind puffs of smoke. Then followed the crashes, almost together. Covell’s gun was out and half up when it exploded. But his face was fiercely blank and he was swaying backward when his gun went off. Heaver sagged in the saddle as his horse lunged away, to unseat him and throw him heavily. Then Covell fell. Neither man moved a muscle. Both had been dead before they struck the ground.

  The other horses were hard to control. Iron arms dragged at their heads. Frayne had the riders covered. Perhaps the action of the horses favored Frayne in his intimidation of these men. None of them drew. As their mounts were pulled to a standstill Britt lined up beside Frayne with his two guns ready. The tension relaxed.

  “You fellars ride. Pronto!” called Britt, seizing the moment.

  Frayne’s left gun took a slight suggestive swerve toward the gate. As one man the raiders spurred their horses, almost running down the pale-faced Dillon, and galloped away toward San Marcos.

  “Fork yore hawse, Mugg,” called Britt. “This range won’t be healthy fer you heahafter. You shore got off easy. Take yore gun.”

  While Dillon hurried to leap astride Britt ran out the gate to where Holly hunched stiff over her pommel. The marble whiteness of her face, the dark fading horror of her dilated eyes, the palpitating of her heart attested to the strain she had come through.

  “Holly, it’s all over,” said Britt, fervently, as he grasped the gauntleted hand that shook on her knee. “Brace up. We’re shore lucky. Mebbe I won’t scold you good when we get home!”

  “He drove—the others away,” she panted, lifting her head to sweep the range with flashing glance.

  “Wal, I sort of snicker to say he did,” drawled Britt, talking to ease the contraction of his throat.

  “That devil—and the other man, Covell … dead?”

  “Daid?—I reckon they air.”

  “He killed them for me?”

  “Holly, lass, it shore wasn’t fer anyone else…. Come oot of it now. You had nerve. Don’t collapse now after it’s all over.”

  “He saved me—from God only knows what,” she whispered in awe.

  “Yes, he did, Holly. I cain’t gainsay thet. I’d had no show on earth if he had sided with Heaver. Shore I’d have killed Heaver, an’ then more of them. But I’d have got mine pronto. An’ thet’d left you at their mercy…. Holly, fer Gawd’s sake let this be a lesson to you.”

  “I must thank him—talk to him…. Go back, Britt. Give me a few moments. Then bring him to me.”

  Britt sometimes opposed Holly when she was serene and tractable, but never in her imperious moods, or when she was stirred by emotion. Naturally she had been poignantly upset. Still he did not quite like her request and he was in a quandary. As there seemed to be no help for it, however, he hid his dismay and hurried back inside the enclosure.

  He found Frayne leaning against the fence, one boot hooked on the lower pole. He was rolling a cigarette. Britt made note of the steady fingers. Frayne had shoved his sombrero back. His face was extraordinarily handsome, but that did not surprise Britt nearly so much as its utter absence of ashen hue, twitch, sweat, dark sombre cast, or anything else supposed to show in a man’s features immediately after dealing death. It was indeed a baffling face, smooth, unlined, like a stern image of bronze. Frayne had all the characteristics of the cowboy range-rider, even to the finest sombrero, belt, dress and boots, which but for their dark severity would have made him a dandy.

  “Got a match, Tex?” he inquired, civilly. His intonation was not that of a Southerner. Nor would Britt have accorded him western birth. Nevertheless the West had made him what he was. Britt had not seen his like.

  “Shore. Heah you air,” replied the Texan, producing a match.

  “Hardly needed you in that little set-to,” he said, as he lighted the cigarette. “But thanks all the same.”

  “You’re darn welcome,” grunted Britt, feelingly. “It was shore a bad mess…. Did you see me dancin’ aboot tryin’ to get a bead on Heaver?”

  “Yes, I was afraid you’d hit Miss Ripple. That made me run in sooner than I might have. I was curious to watch Heaver. Stranger to me where women are concerned.”

  “Wal, I seen thet, an’ I heahed you,” rejoined Britt. “But yore reasons don’t concern me. It was the result. Shore you saved me from gettin’ bored and Holly Ripple from wuss than death…. Seems sort of weak to thank you, Frayne.”

  “Don’t try. It was nothing.”

  “Wal, the girl wants to thank you. Come on oot.”

  “Thanks, Britt, but I’d rather not.”

  Holly, riding outside the fence on the grass, passed so close that she could not have failed to hear the cool speech of the raider. She turned in the gate, and rode up to the men. A wave of scarlet appeared to be receding from her face. Frayne stood out from the fence, and removing his sombrero, inclined his head.

  “May I ask your name?” she queried, composedly, though to Britt’s astonishment, her usual poise had gone into eclipse.

  “Frayne. Renn Frayne,” he replied. He was courteous but cold. The immeasurable distance between Holly Ripple and an outlaw of the range might have been imperceptible to Heaver, but not to this man.

  “Mr. Frayne, I—I am exceedingly grateful for your—your timely interference.”

  “Don’t mention it, Miss Ripple,” he returned, flipping his cigarette away. After that first direct glance he did not look up at her again. “I want no thanks. You only distress yourself further—coming inside near these dead men. Go away, at once.”

  “It was sickening, but I am over that…. Thanks in this case seem so silly. But won’t you accept something substantial?”

  “For what?” he retorted, and his wonderful gray eyes, clear and light as crystal, and as soulless, turned to fix upon her.

  “Evidently you place little store upon your service to me,” she replied, pride gaining ascendancy.

  “And you want to pay me for shooting a couple of dogs?”

  “You make my duty difficult, Mr. Frayne…. But I do want to reward you. Will you accept money?”

  “No.”

  She stripped off a gauntlet to take a magnificent ring of Spanish design from her finger and proffered that to him with an appealing smile.

  “Won’t you take this?”

  “Thank you. I don’t want it.”

  “Would you accept one of my thoroughbreds?” she persisted, hopefully.

  “Miss Holly Ripple,” he said, as if stung, “I am Renn Frayne, outlaw, rustler, gunman. This day made me a horse-thief. I have not a dollar to my name, nor a bed to sleep in, nor a friend in the world. But I cannot accept pay or gift for what I did. You could not reward such service any more than you could buy it. Not from me.”

  “Forgive me. I did not understand,” she replied, hastily. “But your—your kind have been unknown to me. How was I to know that a desperado—all you called yourself—could be a—a gentleman? You are a knight of the range, sir.” Plaintively she appealed to Britt. “What can I do, Cappy? He has placed me under eternal obligation.”

  “Lass, I reckon you’ll have to let it go at thet,” replied Britt.

  “Miss Ripple, I am rude, but I don’t misunderstand you,” said Frayne. “If you must do something for me…. But first— Haven’t you any more sense than to ride out on this range alone?”

  “I—I do as I please,” retorted Holly.

  “Then you ought to have a lesson. I’ve ridden all the wild ranges. And this is the worst. You are a headstrong little fool.”

  “How dare you?”

  “I call spades spades, Miss Ripple,” he rejoined. “It may do you further service to listen to the truth. You are a spoiled young woman. If Heaver had packed you off to the mountains, as he and many men like him have done before with girls—you’d soon have learned that blood, wealth, pride could avail you not at all. You would have become a rag. Heaver would have made you wash his feet.”

  “Sir! … Pray do not make me resent your service to me.”

  “That is nothing to me. But have you no father to hold you down?”

  “He is gone—and my mother, too.” In spite of herself, Holly seemed impelled to answer him.

  “It’s easy to see you have no husband. But surely a sweetheart——”

  “No!” A crimson tide blotted out Holly’s lovely fairness.

  “Small wonder then. Well, Miss Holly, if I were your father I’d spank some sense into you. And if I were your sweetheart, I’d beat you good and hard.”

  Holly’s individuality seemed to have suffered a blight. Her great eyes opened like midnight gulfs. In mute fascination she stared at this stranger to whom she owed so great a debt and who, all in the same hour, dared to flay her as no one had ever dared.

  “You’re a child, too,” he went on, as if astounded to contriteness. “Well, I’ll tell you how you can reward me. Promise on your honor never to ride out on this range again without men to protect you. That’d save you and your friends bitter grief. And for me it would mean one good deal to chalk up against all the bad ones.”

  “I—promise,” she replied, tremulously.

  “Thank you, Holly Ripple. I didn’t really think you would…. Shake hands on it, man to man…. There, we’re quits.”

  “Do you trust me?” she asked, strangely. “Do you think I can keep it?”

  He studied the beautiful face apparently blind to its charm, and impervious to the lure of her femininity, as one to whom the thought of attainableness had neve
r occurred.

  “You would never break your solemn word,” he said, with finality and turned to Britt. “Take her home, Tex. You’ll send some boys down to plant these stiffs?”

  “Shore will, Frayne. You better search them.”

  “Not me. And I mustn’t forget to tell you that your boy Stinger might still be alive.”

  “If Brazos Keene got away from Heaver he’s right back with Stinger now. Cowboys don’t come any nervier than Brazos.”

  “Brazos Keene. Wonder where I heard that name. He got away, Britt, believe me. They was all shooting at him. A chip off the old Texas block. Watch that lad, Britt.”

  “Wait—please wait,” called Holly, as Frayne turned to look for his horse.

  “I thought we were quits,” he said, dubiously.

  “Not yet. I have something more to ask of you.”

  Britt cursed under his breath. Almost, but not too late, to send him aghast and quaking the girl had come to her sweetest self. A man would have to be anchored like the rocks not to be drawn by those eyes of velvet blackness, shining eloquence of her strong and passionate soul.

  “Make it adios, señorita,” Frayne said.

  “You have no money, no bed, no friend in all the world.”

  “I told you. It is unkind to remind me.”

  “What will you do?”

  “The same as many a time before. Ride on.”

  “Not back to Heaver’s men!”

  “No.”

  “You’ll ride on alone, until loneliness drives you to other men like them?”

  “The truth is bitter, Miss Ripple.”

  “Renn Frayne, you do not belong to such gangs.”

  “I did not once, but I do now.”

  “You do not.”

  “Why, may I ask?” he queried, wearily.

  “Because of something noble in you. Because you killed to save a girl from harm!”

  “Well, I shall remember how Holly Ripple romanced over me,” he rejoined, with the ghost of a smile.

  “Will you work for me?” she asked.

  “Miss—Ripple!” Frayne ejaculated, at last shocked out of his indifference.

  “Will you ride for me?”

  “Girl, you are mad,” he burst out, incredulously. “You ask me—Renn Frayne—to ride for you?”

  “Yes…. Britt, don’t stand there like a gaping idiot. Tell him I need him, and why.”

  “Wal, Frayne,” exploded the Texan, “it ain’t a bad idee. I’ve got an ootfit as wild as they come. With you at their haid we’d weather these comin’ years.”

  “Man, the girl has you locoed.”

  “Thet may be. But it ain’t the question. I reckon she means this. Turn yore back on ootfits like Heaver’s an’ raise yore hand fer Don Carlos’ Rancho.”

  Frayne shivered and by that slight reaction he betrayed himself. His brazen boast of irremedial ill-fame was nullified.

  “My God, you ask me this?” he besought, huskily, a hand going out to Holly as if to warn her.

  “I beg of you.”

  “But I am a thief!” he blazed.

  “Yes, and you hate it,” she flashed, poignantly.

  “Heah’s yore chance, Frayne,” interposed Britt, at last inspired. “I’ve known a heap of bad men turn oot good. Thet’s western. Air you big enough fer the break?”

  “Miss Ripple, I’d be a liar if I denied the—the wonder of your offer. Only—it’s unbelievable. I’m new to this range, but the Texas Pan Handle, Kansas, all the ranges north, scream at me for listening to you.”

  “I don’t care what you’ve been,” she went on, passionately. “It’s what you are now…. Those ranges are far, far away. Forget them. Bury that past. Fight for my rancho, my cattle, my horses, for me!”

  Like a drunken man Frayne staggered back against the fence. Britt quickened to the most complex and moving situation of his experience. If this man had been utterly bad, he could not have remained so.

  “I will never ask you one question,” went on Holly. “I’ll exact only one promise.”

  “What?”

  “That as long as you stay with me—and I hope it will be always—this, this dishonesty you confess will be as if it had never been…. Do you promise me?”

  “I swear it…. But how can you trust me?”

  “I made you a promise. You said I would never break my word…. Can I do less than trust you, Frayne? Here’s my hand.”

  Blindly he reached out to take her ungloved hand in his, and bowed his face over it.

  Holly gazed down upon his lowered head. Britt had seen many lights and shades in those splendid Spanish eyes, but none ever so soft and strange and mystically lovely as those that shone there now. It had taken an outcast of the range to reach Holly’s wayward heart. For two years Britt had watched her varied obsessions in the cowboys of Don Carlos’ Rancho. She had been Lee Ripple’s American girl, but her light and fickle fancies had been Spanish. Britt sighed over the inevitable, yet his love for Holly stormed his convictions and routed them.

  Frayne lifted a cold face, from which emotion had been erased, and released her hand.

  “Take her home, Britt. I will follow,” he said, composedly, and stalked toward his grazing horse.

  Chapter Three

  HOLLY RIPPLE’S school life in New Orleans, from her ninth to her sixteenth year, had been one of comfort, luxury, restraint, so that when she was launched upon the wildest range on the frontier, soon to become sole mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho with its great herds of cattle and droves of horses, she most certainly needed the pride and spirit that had been born in her.

  Britt had trained her ceaselessly and faithfully during these past years. She cared nothing for cattle, but as she loved horses he had taught her to ride them like an Indian and to know them. She developed a superb physique, strength, skill, endurance, and a daring that had cost her foreman much dismay and anxiety. But Britt could not perform miracles, and the hard life of the range failed to blunt the soft feminine characteristics which had been fostered upon Holly during the impressionable forming time of adolescence. Perhaps the wise Colonel had intended this very thing.

  Naturally Holly had seen much rough life on the range. Curious, interested, thrilled by everything, it had not been possible to hold her back. The old caravan trail from Santa Fe to the Mississippi ran across her land. A Mexican village, the inhabitants of which were in her employ, nestled picturesquely below the great ranch-house. A branch post of Horn’s Trading Company was maintained here, where trappers came to sell and red men to buy and trade. Troops of dragoons stopped there on their way to escort caravans. From spring until winter the caravans passed, always camping in the cottonwood grove along the creek. Wagon-trains from Texas made the most of Don Carlos’ Rancho.

  In two short years much of western life had unrolled before Holly’s all-absorbing eyes. Half a hundred cowboys had come and gone. Many a wild or drunken cowboy had bit the dust or dug his spurs into the earth on her range. Fighting was the breath of their lives. Holly had seen the beginning or the end of innumerable brawls. She had been known to stop fights. On more than one occasion she had unwittingly ridden upon dark slack forms of men swinging by their necks from trees. She had viewed a brush between soldiers and savages; she had seen stage-coaches roll in with bloody drivers roaring and dead passengers with the living; she had been present that very spring when a cattleman and rustler shot it out fatally on the street of San Marcos.

  But the raw terrible spirit of the frontier had never closely touched Holly Ripple until this bright May morning when an outlaw had killed two of his comrades to save her.

  Holly rode away from that scene sick to her marrow. She had watched the encounter on her nerve. Every word and every action had been etched indelibly upon her consciousness. Anger at the boldness of these horse-thieves had given place to fury at their leader, and then to fright such as she had never known. If she could have saved the lives of Heaver and Covell by lifting her hand, she would not have done so. The West of her birth welled up in Holly that day. Afterward pride upheld her while she answered to irresistible and incomprehensible impulse in persuading this lone-wolf outlaw to become one of her riders.