WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?
by William MacLeod Raine
CHAPTER 1
A Good Neighbor Reports
DALE CAME OUT of the cool dark house to the wide veranda. The ranch headquarters were on a mesa overlooking the Soledad Valley, and the eyes of the girl swept terrain that was largely part of the Seven Up and Down spread.
From the bluff upon which the house was set, the ground fell away sharply to the undulating floor of the valley through which the Soledad took its twisting way, a silver thread in the brown basin except where its banks were here and there green with cottonwoods and willows. For a dozen miles the eye could follow the river, to the huddled hills that concealed it before the plunge into Rabbit Ear Gorge. The Seven Up ran only to the park boundary. Beyond it lay the M K range.
Though the day was still so young that shreds of mist lingered in the gulches opposite and long shadows lanced into the desert from projecting cliffs, shimmering heat waves danced above the baked plain. Sunlight streamed across the cholla and the sage. In the south pasture Seven Up riders, diminutive from distance, moved among the cattle they were working. Dale heard the click of the windmill back of the house and the bawling of yearlings shut up in a corral behind the stable.
Incuriously her gaze rested on a small cloud of dust advancing up the road that led from the valley. It marked the approach of a rider. Not one of her men, she decided, as he drew nearer, and the bay gelding he was riding did not carry a Z on the right shoulder. He might be a drifter on the chuck line, though cowboys out of a job were few since the draft had reached out for ablebodied men.
She recognized resentfully the man in the saddle. What was Hal Stevens doing inside her fences? Between the Seven Up and the M K was no friendliness.
Stevens pulled up and took in the girl's slim grace with a leisurely regard that affronted Dale. Beneath the even tan of her cheeks a pink flush showed. It was vexatious to feel herself a source of mirth to one she so much disliked. On the rare occasions when they met, she was always at a disadvantage because he had a knack of putting a spur to her quick temper while remaining quite cool himself.
'If you came to see Frawley,' she began coldly, 'he's probably in the south pasture.'
'I came to see Miss Lovell,' he corrected cheerfully.
'About what?' she demanded, chin up.
He took his time to answer. It ran through the hinterland of his mind that this proud, lovely girl was worth seeing. She was wearing fresh white slacks and a jacket of the same material faced with blue. No spirited young racehorse could have been more fine of line than she, and the dark eyes that scorned him gave accent to a face beautifully modeled. The situation was to him piquantly amusing. She had inherited her father's enmity to the Stevens family and did not want him to have a moment's doubt of it.
'I'm an ambassador of good will,' he explained.
'If you have any business with me—'
She broke off. It was not necessary to finish the sentence. The sharpness with which she spoke made it clear he was to say what was in his mind and go.
'No business.' He eased the strong slender body in the saddle, letting the weight rest on a stirrup. 'Just putting into effect locally the Great White Father's good-neighbor policy. Unfortunately, I am the bearer of bad news.'
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that the sight of him was bad news, but she let him guess what she was thinking. It was eloquent in her stiff silence. She did not want to feed his derisive amusement by showing pique.
'Your north fence was cut last night near Bull Creek,' he continued. 'Tracks show that a truck drove into the pasture and out again. The M K offers regrets and condolences.'
The heat of anger whipped into her face. It was enough to learn that thieves had been busy again stealing her stuff without having to endure his mocking sympathy.
'Good of you to let me know. Maybe you can tell where the truck went after it left and who is the owner of it.' In her words was the singing lash of a small whip, but he chose to ignore the innuendo.
'Afraid I can't. All I can tell you is that some of your stock must have been stolen.'
'You are sure of that?' she flung out.
'By inference.' The grin on his face acknowledged the hit. 'The ground was soft where the wire was cut, and the tracks coming out were deeper than those going in. So I gathered the truck must have been loaded in the pasture.'
'Clever of you, Mr. Stevens.'
'An obvious deduction, Doctor Watson.'
'You got the situation as clearly as if you had been there at the time.'
He chuckled. 'Right on the chin, lady.'
'It is fortunate for you that thieves never take your stock.'
'Yes. The best way for a truck to get into the hills where my stock runs is by the road passing in front of my house. Too great a risk to take, going down by my front yard.'
'That's one explanation,' she agreed stiffly.
The white teeth in the brown face flashed to a sardonic smile. 'Another is that I would be foolish to rob myself.'
He had put her in the wrong. She had no evidence that he was a rustler, though she had heard queer stories about his consorting with the lawless riff-raff who nested in the hills close to the big ranches. Stevens lived his own life, in the way he wanted.
'You suggest that, not I,' she told him.
'Oh, no! It is in your mind.' Mirth danced in his gray eyes. 'I'm a lowdown miscreant running off your beef. Might be a good idea for me to include in my next gather some of my own and howl to high heaven about my loss — as a red herring across the track.'
'What you do is not important to me. But you might broadcast word to your friends that after this my riders will carry guns.'
'My goodness! Just like the good old days. And if your boys catch me will they hang me to a tree as the Virginian did Steve?'
Her stern young face refused to join in the jest with him.
From the house a young man strolled. His resemblance to Dale was marked. He had her dark eyes and light, graceful figure, but the chin was less clean-cut and the mouth a little weak. Apparently he had just got up, for there was still a sleepy look on the handsome face. The night before he had been up late playing poker.
He waved a hand at Stevens. 'Hello, Hal. What's new?'
'Mr. Stevens rode in to tell us more of our cattle have been stolen while you and Jim slept,' his sister answered acidly. 'Very kind of him.'
Frank Lovell had struck a match to light a cigarette. He held it in his hand, a startled look in his eyes, until it burned his fingers and he was forced to drop the stub. 'Anybody see who the fellows were?' he asked quickly.
Stevens shook his head. 'Far as I know they made a clean getaway.'
Young Lovell lit another match on the flap and cupped it in his hand. 'They are probably in New Mexico or Texas by this time,' he guessed, a surprising note of relief in his voice.
'Or burning up rubber to get there,' the owner of the M K added.
From the stable a big bowlegged man in chaps walked across to join them. Above a crook nose very light blue eyes were set a little too close in a brown leathery face. Jim Frawley, foreman of the Seven Up and Down, had the reputation of being a tough nut to crack. His gaze met and clashed with that of Stevens. These two did not like each other. There was no declared war between them, but both knew that some day trouble would flare up.
'Hal says the rustlers have got to our stuff again,' Frank told the foreman sulkily. 'We sure look after our stock well. A neighbor even has to tell us when we have lost some.'
Frawley flushed angrily. His stormy eyes fastened on Stevens. 'I'm listening,' he snapped. 'Where and when?'