第43章

"_I_ proved, over fifteen years ago, that there WASN'T," Peaceful drawled laconically, and sucked so hard upon his pipe that his cheeks held deep hollows.

Stanley grinned at him. "Sorry I can't let it go at that," he said ironically. "I reckon I'll have to do some washin' myself, though, before I feel satisfied there ain't.""Then you haven't panned out anything yet?" Phoebe caught him up.

Stanley's eyes flickered a questioning glance at Baumberger, and Baumberger puffed out his chest and said:

"The law won't permit you to despoil this man's property without good reason. We can serve an injunction--""You can serve and be darned." Stanley's grin returned, wider than before.

"As Mr. Hart's legal adviser," Baumberger began, in the tone he employed in the courtroom--a tone which held no hint of his wheezy chuckle or his oily reassurance--"I hereby demand that you leave this claim which you have staked out upon Thomas Hart's ranch, and protest that your continued presence here, after twenty-four hours have expired, will be looked upon as malicious trespass, and treated as such."Stanley still grinned. "As my own legal adviser," he returned calmly, "I hereby declare that you can go plumb to HEL-ena."Stanley evidently felt impelled to adapt his vocabulary to feminine ears, for he glanced at them deprecatingly and as if he wished them elsewhere.

If either Stanley or Baumberger had chanced to look toward Good Indian, he might have wondered why that young man had come, of a sudden, to resemble so strongly his mother's people. He had that stoniness of expression which betrays strong emotion held rigidly in check, with which his quivering nostrils and the light in his half-shut eyes contrasted strangely. He had missed no fleeting glance, no guarded tone, and he was thinking and weighing and measuring every impression as it came to him. Of some things he felt sure; of others he was half convinced; and there was more which he only suspected. And all the while he stood there quietly beside Evadna, his attitude almost that of boredom.

"I think, since you have been properly notified to leave," said Baumberger, with the indefinable air of a lawyer who gathers up his papers relating to one case, thrusts them into his pocket, and turns his attention to the needs of his next client, "we'll just have it out with these other fellows, though I look upon Stanley," he added half humorously, "as a test case. If he goes, they'll all go.""Better say he's a TOUGH case," blurted Wally, and turned on his heel. "What the devil are they standing around on one foot for, making medicine?" he demanded angrily of Good Indian, who unceremoniously left Evadna and came up with him. "I'D run him off the ranch first, and do my talking about it afterward. That hunk uh pork is kicking up a lot uh dust, but he ain't GETTINGanywhere!""Exactly." Good Indian thrust both hands deep into his trousers pockets, and stared at the ground before him.

Wally gave another snort. "I don't know how it hits you, Grant--but there's something fishy about it.""Ex-actly." Good Indian took one long step over the ditch, and went on steadily.

Wally, coming again alongside, turned his head, and regarded him attentively.

"Injun's on top," he diagnosed sententiously after a minute.

"Looks like he's putting on a good, thick layer uh war-paint, too." He waited expectantly. "You might hand me the brush when you're through," he hinted grimly. "I might like to get out after some scalps myself.""That so?" Good Indian asked inattentively, and went on without waiting for any reply. They left the garden, and went down the road to the stable, Wally passively following Grant's lead.

Someone came hurrying after them, and they turned to see Jack.

The others had evidently stayed to hear the legal harangue to a close.

"Say, Stanley says there's four beside the fellows we saw," Jack announced, rather breathlessly, for he had been running through the loose, heavy soil of the garden to overtake them. "They've located twenty acres apiece, he says--staked 'em out in the night and stuck up their notices--and everyone's going to STICK.

They're all going to put in grizzlies and mine the whole thing, he told dad. He just the same as accused dad right out of covering up valuable mineral land on purpose. And he says the law's all on their side." He leaned hard against the stable, and drew his fingers across his forehead, white as a girl's when he pushed back his hat. "Baumberger," he said cheerlessly, "was still talking injunction when I left, but--" He flung out his hand contemptuously.

"I wish dad wasn't so--" began Wally moodily, and let it go at that.

Good Indian threw up his head with that peculiar tightening of lips which meant much in the way of emotion.

"He'll listen to Baumberger, and he'll lose the ranch listening,"he stated distinctly. "If there's anything to do, we've got to do it.""We can run 'em off--maybe," suggested Jack, his fighting instincts steadied by the vivid memory of four rifles held by four men, who looked thoroughly capable of using them.

"This isn't a case of apple-stealing," Good Indian quelled sharply, and got his rope from his saddle with the manner of a man who has definitely made up his mind.

"What CAN we do, then?" Wally demanded impatiently.

"Not a thing at present." Good Indian started for the little pasture, where Keno was feeding and switching methodically at the flies. "You fellows can do more by doing nothing to-day than if you killed off the whole bunch."He came back in a few minutes with his horse, and found the two still moodily discussing the thing. He glanced at them casually, and went about the business of saddling.

"Where you going?" asked Wally abruptly, when Grant was looping up the end of his latigo.

"Just scouting around a little," was the unsatisfactory reply he got, and he scowled as Good Indian rode away.