Split up into pairs and with orders to stay together, the men were sent on their quest, each couple having a section of the range to cover. Phil was coupled with Rayton, one of the older hands, while Severn, the last to leave, was alone, save for his dog. He had allotted himself the task of searching the country towards the Pinnacles, where Stevens' body had been found.
Turning things over in his mind as he rode, he had to confess himself puzzled. The return of the horse was unexpected, for in the cattle country no man deliberately sets himself afoot, and this, with the bloodstains and missing rifle, seemed to point to an unexpected disturbance of Masters' plans. Had he met the fate of the old foreman, and, if so, who was the assassin? Clearly Black Bart could not be involved, since his interests depended upon the ranch-owner being alive. Had Masters unknowingly incurred the enrnity of the mysterious White Masks? Impatiently he dismissed the hopeless problem from his mind and set himself to the task in hand.
But his search proved abortive, and when he returned to the Lazy M, it was to find that the others had also been unsuccessful. Day after day the hunt went on, messengers being sent to Hope and Desert Edge, but no trace could be found of the missing man. It was early on the morning of the sixth day that Severn, going to the ranch-house, found Bartholomew and Phil on the veranda. The big man was explaining that he had been away, and had only just heard of her trouble. His face settled into a scowl when he saw the foreman.
"Yu can have my outfit if yu want it, Phil," he said. "Beats me where he can have got to. S'pose yore fellas have covered the ground pretty well?" This to Severn, who nodded. "Can't see much good in searchin' any more," the visitor went on. "If he's above ground, he'll turn up; if he ain't--" He shrugged his shoulders expressively, and suddenly darted a question at the foreman. "Yu got any ideas about it?"
"No, I'm in the dark," Severn replied, meeting the keen gaze unconcernedly, and Bartholomew turned again to the girl.
"Nothin' to do but carry on an' hope for the best," he said. "An', by the way, yore father promised me seventy-five threeyear-olds to fill up a trail herd."
"You will see they are delivered," the girl directed Severn. "What price yu payin'?" asked the foreman.
Black Bart's face darkened. "There ain't no question of price," he said. "The cows are in part payment of a debt," he added, to Phil.
'Got any writin' to prove that?" Severn persisted.
'What the hell's that gotta do with yu?" stormed the other. "Yu've had yore orders."
"I ain't takin' orders--certainly not from yu," came the cool retort. "I'm in charge, an' while I'm willin' to study Miss Masters' wishes in reason, I ain't handin' over property I'm responsible for on the say-so of any man, 'cept the owner."
"Yo're in charge, huh?" jeered Bartholomew. "Well, now yu ain't--Miss Masters is firin' yu right away."
The foreman looked at the girl. Her face was flushed, her lips trembling, and it was evident that she was content to let the rancher speak for her.
"That's somethin' she can't do," Severn said quietly.
"Can't, eh?" Bartholomew sneered. "The ranch ain't hers, I s'pose?"
"Yore s'pos'n is correct," the other pointed out. "It don't belong to her until her father's death is proved, an' only then when she's of age. Masters put me here an' I'm stayin' put, an' that's somethin' yu can bet high on."
There was a cold finality in his tone, and, having delivered this ultimatum, he turned and went about his business. Bartholomew stared after him for a moment, and then said to the girl :
"That fella is due for a lesson, an' I'm goin' to see that he gets it. Yu leave him to me an' don't yu worry."
Long after her visitor had gone, Phil sat trying to size up the situation. All through the week, grief over her father's disappearance, and the consequent hard riding--for she had done her share with the men--had driven every other consideration from her mind. But the clashing of wills she had just witnessed had brought her position home to her. Though familiar with the daily routine work of the ranch, she knew nothing of the business side, and greatly as she resented Severn's calm assumption of authority, she was dimly conscious of a sense of relief. But she would not admit it; she hated him, of course, and she would go on hating until Bartholomew succeeded in getting rid of him, a task in which she mentally promised him her hearty support.
Chapter V
Two weeks passed without news of the missing rancher, and the regular routine had been resumed at the Lazy M. The new foreman's handling of Devint had, as he intended, convinced the other men that he was not one to be trifled with, and this, added to the very evident fact that he knew his job, eliminated any further opposition. Phil, though she persisted in regarding him as an overbearing, tyrannical bully, had to admit that he could handle men.
One morning, Dinah, who acted as cook and housekeeper at the ranch-house, came to his shake with a message that "Missy Masters wanted for to see him." He found her waiting in the big room. She was looking pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, which showed that the stress of the past two weeks was taking its toll.
"I hear you are getting a herd together," she said. "I presume it is for Mr. Bartholomew?"
"No," Severn replied. "It is for Ridge of the XT. Yore father had arranged the sale, an' I need the money."
"You need it?" she queried sarcastically.
"Certainly; I gotta pay wages an' expenses," the man retorted. "P'raps I oughta said `we', but it comes to the same thing."
"Please don't deliver the cattle until I return; I am going to Desert Edge," the girl said coldly.
Somewhat to her disappointment he betrayed no curiosity. All he said was, "Yu can't ride there alone." She waited, wondering if he would have the temerity to offer himself as escort, and framing a crushing refusal, but again her hopes failed to fructify. "I can spare Barton," he said.
Thus it came about that some time later the girl and Larry were riding at a good road gait over the Desert Edge trail. At first the cowboy had kept a little in the rear until Phil, tired of her own company, had requested him to keep pace with her. In truth she liked the look of the new hand, whose rotundity of face and figure somehow gave him such a harmless appearance. He had little of the awkward shyness the average cowpuncher was afflicted with in the presence of all but some women. When she asked him if he liked the ranch, he said it was a "humdinger", but when she put the same query about the foreman, he did not reply either so quickly or so enthusiastically.
"He's certainly wise to his work," he allowed cautiously. "But he ain't no easy fella to satisfy. Yu see, Miss, he 'pears to want things done just so, an' he's liable to raise Cain an' Abel if they ain't."
"Obstinate and a bully," the girl summarised.
Larry squinted at her sideways and choked on a chuckle. "I wouldn't call him obstinate--though mebbe he's a bit sot in his ideas," he said.
"He looks to me like a professional gunman," the lady said contemptuously.
"Might be, o' course," Larry agreed, "but I'd say not; that sort is usually mean about the eyes. Allasame, I reckon a gent who pulled a gun on him would likely find hisself a trifle late."
He went on to talk to her of killers and gun-fights, of Wild Bill Hickok, Slade, Sudden and others, of the bad old times in Abilene and Dodge, and tried to show her the big part these men and their like had played in the settlement of the country. And when she protested that the law was there to punish evildoers, he laughed.
"What's the use o' the law to a dead man?" he asked. "No, ma'am, in those parts an' in these right now a man's gotta have his law handy on his hip, where he can get action on her speedy. Me, I'm a peaceable fella, but I like to know I got the means to protect m'self, yu betcha."