What that course must be he dared not, however, reveal to himself in a single flash of comprehension. It was too much for his mind to grasp at one stretch. There were results involved which spun out before him in a dizzy succession. He could not see exactly where they would lead him.
But step by step he went down the trail until he decided that it was time to put his thoughts into the realization of action. He went straight into the front of the hotel, found Al Jenkins, as usual, with a dense group rotating around him, and drew him to one side.
"Mr. Jenkins," he said, "you've been sort of hard on me once, but, take you all in all, you've been pretty square, Jenkins, or at least you've tried to be square, and so—"
And laying his mighty grip upon the shoulder of Ronicky he fairly swept him through the night outside, pungent with dust raised by a horse which had just pounded by at a canter.
"When a man begins like you just done," chuckled Al Jenkins, "the best thing to do is to dodge him and get him to think of something else as quick as you can. I can't get you to thinking of something else, but as least I can get you out here by ourselves. Now, Ronicky, you were getting all ready to tell me a piece of bad news. Do you have to tell me still?"
"It won't mean much to you," said Ronicky, "but what I have to say is that I've made up my mind. I thought at first that I was going to be able to get out of Twin Springs without taking any sides in the fight that was going on. But now I see that everything I do has brought me in deeper and deeper. And now I've picked my side in the fight, and I'm sorry to say that I'm against you!"
There was a grunt from Jenkins, an absurdly realistic imitation of the sound a man makes when he has received a heavy body blow.
"But", he protested, "you can't mean it, Ronicky. You're crazy about the girl."
"I never said that," said Ronicky.
"Sure you didn't," agreed Jenkins. "But I say you're wild about her. Well, if you fight on her side, you'll be fighting on the same side with Blondy Loring. And that means you'll be fighting his fight. Don't you see that now that he's down and out she's got to stay with him, and that her loyalty wouldn't let her desert Blondy for anybody else— that little fool!"
"I see all that," said Ronicky gloomily. "But the point is— I've made up my mind!"
Jenkins was silent a moment, and then he laid his hand kindly on Ronicky's shoulder.
"My boy," said he, "if you were like the main run of the young gents that I meet nowdays, I'd let you go and say nothing about it. You ain't going to make me or break me. But I'll take time out and tell you that if you buck up against me, you'd better be bucking up against a stone wall. Understand?"
"I know," admitted Ronicky. "I've imagined a good lot of things about you, Jenkins. I know you put on your gloves when you begin to work. I know that you've got all the odds on your side."
"Hang it!" exploded the rancher. "I half begin to think that that's why you're against me. You got a sneaking idea that because Bennett is the under dog you ought to help him. Is that it?"
"That hound!" said Ronicky. "I tell you straight I ain't wasting any thoughts on him."
Jenkins sighed and began to speak.
"When we meet up," he said, "remember that I'll be bound on a blood trail— if it has to be one. But no matter what I have to climb over to get to the end of it, I'm going to smash Bennett before I'm through. Is that clear? And when you and me smash together head-on, I got an idea that you'll be the one that falls. Keep all them things in mind, son, before you make up your mind for good and all. Will you?"
"Thanks," said Ronicky. "I'll have my own gloves on."
"You realize that you'll be all alone? You know that there ain't a real man on the whole Bennett place? You realize that the old man is going busted, anyway, because he's up to the ears in debt? And you realize that I've got every decent man in the country right behind me?"
"Then," said Jenkins, "God help you. Good-by and good luck!"
He caught the hand of Ronicky in a great pressure, turned on his heel, and before he reached the veranda steps Ronicky heard him humming again. Then Ronicky himself started around the corner of the building. He paused a moment as he passed the spot where he had stood to confront Charlie Loring earlier that day. Where would the result of the firing of that shot some time place him?
In the shed, he saddled the bay mare and led her out. He left her near the front of the hotel, went to his room, made his pack quickly and deftly, and came down again. A moment later he was galloping through the night on the back of Lou and facing a strange future, indeed.
Knowing the lay of the land better now, he bore off to the right until he reached the road running up the valley to the Bennett place, and on this smooth going the mare made excellent time, never checked her pace until the buildings of the ranch rolled up into his view.
Ronicky dismounted at the side of the ranch house and knocked at the door.
"Come in!" called a voice which he recognized as belonging to the rancher.
He opened the door and stood in the presence of Steve Bennett. His effect was magical. It brought Bennett jumping out of his chair and placed him in a straddle-legged position in front of the fireplace, his gaunt right hand clutching at the butt of his revolver.
Whatever the other faults of the father of Elsie Bennett, cowardice was not one of them. A fire burned up in his buried eyes, and color flared in his cheeks, while he set his teeth and stood ready to fight and kill, or be killed, for apparently he took it for granted that this must be the reason for Ronicky's coming.
But the latter kicked the door shut behind him. He dared not expose himself by turning aside for an instant from the malignant face of the other.
"Now," said Ronicky, "we can talk."
"Aye, we can. About what, though?
"I know all that. But mind yourself, Doone. I got four of my men in yonder room. If I call 'em—"
"Don't lie. I know that you ain't got a man in the house except yourself."
"And what if that were the truth? I ain't as old as I look. I could give you a game that would warm up your face before you saw the finish of Steve Bennett, lad!"
Ronicky nodded, grinning a fierce appreciation. He liked the hardy fellow better than he could ever have dreamed he might like him.
"About Loring," he began saying. "I've come to tell you that Loring ain't dead yet."
"I knew that. I figure that I'd have heard Elsie wailing and crying for him if he was. And the devil knows how long he'll be lying yonder and my girl with him. There ain't a soul here to do the cooking that—"
Ronicky stopped him with a gesture and an ugly look. Such cold indifference to the welfare of his champion was more than the cow-puncher could stand. But he presently restored himself and leaned against the wall, watching the rancher closely all the time.
"Sit down," said Bennett, "now that you're here."
"I'll stand up for a while," said Ronicky. "I like the feel of a wall behind me. It has a sort of an honest way about it."
He looked Bennett straight in the eyes as he spoke, but he relaxed his vigilance enough to start rolling a cigarette.
"First of all," said Ronicky, "you got a week to get ready in. Jenkins is giving you that much time before he comes after you."
The upper lip of Bennett lifted. Otherwise, he made no sign that he understood.
"A week is a long time," he said at length. "By that time I'll be ready to run his dirty gang of cutthroats off the range."
"Are you asking me to tell you? All I got to say is that I can get the men for it."
"You can't," said Ronicky. "There ain't enough fighting men in the mountains that would hire under you to fight against Al Jenkins."
A single deep-voiced curse was the reply of Bennett.
"That," said Ronicky, "is why I've come out here."
"Get finished with your chatter," said Bennett. "I hate your infernal croaking, but, if you're bound to talk, I suppose that I got to listen. Blaze away and finish up."
He lighted a cigarette of his own making and closed his eyes as he inhaled the smoke. His face at once assumed the appearance of great age and deathly thinness. Then, opening his eyes as he blew forth the smoke, he was looking out to Ronicky through a thin veil, and for the moment Ronicky caught the impression— a very ghost of an impression— of a startlingly handsome face, poetic, unusual. That was the face of the man who had married the mother of Elsie Bennett.
Had Jenkins been right? Had she wakened in her age to find out the truth concerning the man she had married? Ronicky could only hope, for her own sake and the sake of her daughter, that she had remained blind to the end.
"Well?" Bennett was urging him. "Are you going to talk? Or are you going to stand there the rest of the night like a buzzard looking at a dead cow?"
"Bennett," said Ronicky, "suppose a real man was to offer to work for you, what sort of terms would you make with him?"
"A real man?" asked Bennett, but at the suggestion a flare of fire altered his eyes.
"I mean a man that's square and a man that's not afraid to fight for himself and his boss."
Bennett threw himself back in the chair with a grim laugh.
"They don't come that way any more," he said. "When I was your age we'd all have risked our lives for the sake of one hoof of the scrawniest yearling on the boss' range. We took it for granted. He paid us to look out for his interests. But nowadays it's different. You can't get men."
"Not if you underpay 'em, underfeed 'em and treat 'em like a lot of dogs. Real men won't work for you then, that's dead sure."
"Well," snarled Bennett, anxiety and anger combining to bring his tone to a singularly piercing whine, "what's up?"
"Bennett, I'll come out here, if you can hit up the right terms with me."
Steve Bennett gasped, glared with a wild hope, and then sank back into his chair, from which he had half risen, with something between a growl and a groan.
"This is some of Al Jenkins' work," he vowed. "He's sent you out here to get a job so that you can dig the ground from under me, and when he's ready he can—"
"Stop that kind of talk," said Ronicky. "It just peeves me and it don't bring you no place in particular, Bennett."
The rancher shrugged his bony shoulders.
"I say again," said Ronicky, "I'll work on your place for you."
Bennett merely stared. Not at Ronicky's face, but in a grim effort to get at his secret mind.
"It's the girl!" he exclaimed suddenly. "She's got enough of her mother in her for that. It's Elsie that's bringing you."
He chuckled and twisted one hand inside the other, as though he were trying to warm them. And more and more the wonder grew in Ronicky that beautiful Elsie Bennett could be the daughter of this man.
"No matter what's bringing me," said Ronicky, "I'm here to hit up a bargain with you. I'll run your place until you're through with the fight with Jenkins. I'll do that, if you'll give me full swing and let me run everything. I'll do it, if you'll let me hire your men and fire 'em, just as I see fit. Does that sound good to you at all, Bennett?"
The rancher, breathing hard, stepped up from his chair and elevated his tall form by the table. He glowered at Ronicky like a famine-stricken wretch who sees food, but fears that it is poisoned.
"How would I know that you ain't from Jenkins?" he asked. "How would I know that you ain't out here to arrange so's he can scoop up the last of my cattle— the unhung robber!— and get off clean and free with it? How am I to know that?"
"I dunno," said Ronicky. "unless you read my mind. But you got no other chance, Bennett. It's up to you to do this or go under. You got no real men on your ranch. You—"
"A lot of cowards— a lot of yallarlivered—"
"Then let me fire them and get a new set."
"You can't. You can't pick up a crew in Twin Springs— not for my ranch. Jenkins, curse him, with his bought men and his bought lies— he's seen to that! He'll be singed for it! Oh, he'll burn for it."
In the strength of his malice he literally gnashed his teeth, and then he brought his attention back to Ronicky Doone. He stalked slowly forward. He laid a gaunt, cold hand upon Ronicky's shoulder.
"Ah," he said, "you got an honest face, Doone. You got an honest face, after all!"
Ronicky struck his hand away with an irresistible outbreak of disgust. For he was remembering how Bennett had stood over him on the evening when big Blondy carried him into this very room and denounced him.
"I don't want your lies," said Ronicky. "You and me might as well come out in the clear quick, Bennett. I ain't doing this to please you, none. And I ain't doing it for your money, because you ain't got none. But I want your promise to let me go straight ahead and run things. Will you do that?"
"And take a chance of getting the house burned down right from over my head, so far as I know?"
He was fairly shaken by dread and temptation combined.
"And take that chance, yes," admitted Ronicky. It seemed that this admission that he had no proof of good faith to offer made a great impression upon the other. For his face brightened at once.
"I was always a good gambler," he said. "I've gambled on life and death. And why shouldn't I gamble on this ranch that never brought me luck?"
He turned to a cabinet, drew out a bottle, and placed two glasses upon the table.
"I ain't drinking," said Ronicky in return to the questioning glance. "I don't drink when I got hard work ahead."
"Then," said the old man, "I'll drink to myself. It'll give me heart for the chance that I'm taking."
And he poured the little glass full and tossed it off, and then he leaned back against the wall, watching Ronicky with blurred eyes of pleasure, as the alcohol burned home in him.
