Blue Eyes and Blue Steel

by Charles H. Snow

copyright 1947 Columbia Publications

for the April 1947Double Action Western .

No record of copyright renewal.

It was in that delightful period of the morning which Ben Coltron, owner of the "26" outfit, alluded to as "halfway between flapjacks and saddlin' time" when his daughter came out to the ranch house porch.

Bernice Coltron was a tall girl, and slim. The hair that was wound about her proudly poised head was the color of darkened corn-silk. Her eyes were as blue as cornflowers. They held a heaviness from sleep that made her lashes droop drowsily, but the richness of the morning and of life was in the red of her lips.

The sun was shedding its rays down across the grey mesas and slopes from above the summit of the Amarillo Mountains, and as the soft morning breeze up the valley rustled the leaves of the Alamosa trees it cast a delicately shifting pattern of light and shadow on the girl's blue gingham dress, on her slim and rounded forearms and on the golden-tanned spot below her throat.

Despite her life on this sun-steeped range, Bernice Coltron's skin had kept its soft creaminess, and would have been the envy of many a city girl. Yet for all her natural softness of body and expression, there was something about her that spoke eloquently of power and endurance; no wonder, for she could ride as far and as hard as any cowboy that had ever forked a saddle for the "26."

Standing there on the porch, splendidly poised, she was indeed a good creature to look upon. The finest part of it was that she was neither unconscious of her beauty nor cared a rap about it. The cowboys lolling before the cook-house across the yard might have made varied and complimentary remarks about her had it not been that her two brothers were with them.

Bernice's rapt appreciation of the glory of the morning was suddenly broken. She tensed like a doe ready for flight, listened. Across the yard the six riders were also listening. The fast clatter of hoofs became quickly louder. A rider swept into the yard and hauled his lathered mount to its haunches. He glanced about wildly, and was making as though to spur toward the men at the cook-house when he espied Bernice. "This here Ben Coltron's ranch?"

"Yes. What's wrong?"

The tired rider slid from the saddle, grasped the horn.

"Where's Mr. Coltron?" he stammered. "Got to see himpronto."

Bernice was turning to call her father when he appeared at the door. In one swift glance he took in the strange rider, who was not much more than eighteen years old.

Howdy, Bub," Coltron called genially. "Undress that there horse and hustle yourself to the cook-shack. Anything wrong?"

The youth let go the saddle-horn, and tottering to the porch, lifted a foot to the bottom step. His eyes were bloodshot.

"Sheriff Ed Nailor sent me, Mr. Coltron," he managed. "I rode all night. Diamond Jack McLernan has been run out of the Breckenridge country with his gang. There was a fight last night on the Simeon. Two of Diamond Jack's men and one deputy was killed."

The men from the cook-house had by this time surged across the yard and surrounded the newcomer. All began plying him with questions.

"One at a time!" commanded Coltron. "Let me do the talkin'."

Within a few minutes he had the boy's story. It seemed that a posse from the north had driven Diamond Jack McLernan out of the Breckenridge hills; and on the San Simeon, Sheriff Nailor of Braddock and a posse had taken up the chase. There had been a running fight about dark, and two bandits and one officer had indeed been shot.

Bernice was now tensely gripping her father's arm.

"Diamond Jack McLernan!" she cried. "Dad, if they've crossed the Simeon they're headed for Diamond Jack's old hangout in the Amarillos! "

"Yeah, yeah!" stammered the tired messenger. "That's what Sheriff Nailor told me to tell you. He said for you to round up all your men and high-tail it for the Squaw and Papoose to - to head the outlaws off there. The sheriff and his men are headed for the Squaw and Papoose, Mr. Coltron!"

There was no need to tell Coltron more. He had about forgotten Damond Jack

McLernan, who for three years had made his hangout in the almost inaccessible fastness of the Amarillo Mountains, and from there ridden out on raids that had terrorized the Rincon Valley country.

Now with Sheriff Nailor and a posse forcing from behind, and another and fresher posse cutting in from the west, it would be the time, once and for all, to rid the country of the desperadoes before they could re-establish a foothold in the hills.

There was not so much excitement as unwonted activity at the "26." Coltron gave his orders with quick conciseness. Men ran for horses; saddles were cinched on.

Rifles and revolvers were brought out. Magazines and belts were filled and rations hurriedly requisitioned from the cook-house. This might prove a chase that would last for days, and there was no food except game in the Amarillos.

The youthful messenger from Drake's ranch on the San Simeon was unwilling to be left behind. He was told to eat breakfast, and by the time he had eaten there was a fresh horse ready for him. Within a half-hour of the boy's arrival, eight saddled horses were in the yard and as many armed riders ready to step into their saddles.

"Dad burn it!" Coltron suddenly exploded. "I wanted co send a couple of the boys over to Poison Springs to see if the fence about the water-hole was all right. Water's gettin' scarce off to the south, and if that fence is busted down and the cattle get to that arsenic water, we'll lose a lot. Well, I reckon it can't be helped. Diamond Jack's more important right now than a few cows."

"Why Dad, I'll ride to Poison Springs!" said Bernice, as if she were proposing to walk through the old ranch house.

Her father's grim features relaxed into an affectionate and appreciative smile.

"If you'll do that, honey, it'll save me a heap of worry. I hate to see even one old cow die before her time comes."

"Of course, I'll do it. It's only twenty miles, Dad. And with Diamond Jack in the other direction-"

"If he was in the direction of Poison Springs, you know I wouldn't let you ride that way alone, Bernice," said her father as he took her in his arms."Adios, cara mia. You'll have to run the rancho till we get back."

"You'll be careful, Dad?" she whispered, still clutching his arms. "You know Diamond Jack is bad. He'll shoot his way out before he'll - he'll surrender!"

Stepping back to the porch, Bernice watched the cavalcade leave, with her father at its head. She saw it cross the valley, reach the grey sage-and-greasewood-dotted slope. Running into the house, she hurriedly changed to a costume consisting of khaki riding skirt, blue silk shirt, soft boots and narrow-brimmed Stetson. She knotted a flame-colored scarf about her throat.

A few minutes later she led her horse from the corral and cinched on the saddle.

The animal was a small buckskin, short-coupled and wiry, with arched neck and legs as trim as those of an antelope. She slipped the bit between the protesting teeth, pulled an ear through the split in the head stall. She was about to mount when old Manuela, theMoza, ran from the house carrying a flour sack, and a rifle in a leather scabbard. "Here isla comida ninia," announced the wrinkled crone.

"It a long ride will be, and you will getmucha hungry."

While Bernice tied the partially filled sack behind the cantle, Manuela fastened the rifle scabbard firmly under the left stirrup leather.

"A better feel it is you will have, mynifia," said the old Mexican woman as she patted the stock of the trim .32-20 rifle.

"When thebandidos are in the hill,un hombre he feelsmucho better with a gun.Por Dios, you have not yourpistolenifia!"

Enjoining the girl not to leave, Manuela ambled into the house. A minute later she reappeared, carrying a slim, blue-barreled revolver, with holster and filled cartridge-belt. Pridefully she buckled the belt about the girl's waist.

"Hah! Now it ees like the bold, badhombre you look,nina. Por Dios, eef you ride upon the bad Diamond Jack you should throw down on heem and bring heem in."

"That's just what I'll do, Manuela," laughed the girl as she swung lightly into the saddle. "The trouble is that Diamond Jack McLernan is in the other direction."

"He is for say he in the othaire direction," Manuela corrected. "Thesemal diablo, there ees no for tell wheech direction he ees in.Adios, nifia, and vaya con Dios!"

***

As Bernice rode across the valley she tried to recall everything she had heard of Diamond Jack McLernan. She found that many and strange stories of the daring desperado had come out of the mountains. One was that he was the black sheep of a rich and respectable family and that McLernan was not his real name.

There were tales of his ruthlessness and daring, and of his chivalry. It was taken for truth among the ranchers that Diamond Jack had never harmed nor allowed a member of his lawless gang to harm a woman or child. Nor would he permit rustling of cattle from any of the smaller and poorer outfits. Thus he made for himself, if not actual allies, friends who would at least protect him.

What occupied more of Bernice's thoughts than any of the other rumors was the one that told of Diamond Jack's penchant for garish colors. It was said of him that he never would go out on a raid unless all the articles of his outfit were of the same hue. At times the hue was red, with red chaps, red shirt, red sombrero, red even to the smaller details of scarf and leathern wrist-bands and holsters. At other times it would be grey, or yellow, or brown. He had been seen a few times clothed in funereal black, from sombrero to boots. It was even said of Diamond Jack that he had guns whose handles matched in color the hues of his many outfits.

Though when he had been in the heyday of his power in the country, Diamond Jack McLernan had ridden boldly in and out of the cattle towns, nobody knew how old he was, except that he was still young. It was rumored that he had been a mere youth when first he had taken to the bloody trail of Colt, Winchester and running-iron, and had recruited around him a gang of desperadoes as brave and lawless as himself, though all of them years older.

By the time Bernice was ascending the slope toward the low mesa across which was the canyon trail leading up Cholla Chica, she was wishing she might have the opportunity of seeing this swashbuckling bandit chief - if only for a few moments.

"I wonder," she mused, "why I didn't tell Dad I wanted to go along with him and the boys? He'd have let me go. I don't want to see Diamond Jackafter he's dead."

On the mesa Bernice reined in and looked back across the sun drenched valley to the grey slopes. In the dim distance was a thin, moving cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of the mounts of the men riding to join Sheriff Nailor and his posse at Squaw and Papoose. The Squaw and Papoose were two black-capped buttes, one towering, the other low, that rose out of a lava-capped plateau near the northerly end of the Arnarillos. From these buttes, trails radiated into several almost impassable canyons of the mountain range. It was said that when he had made the Arnarillos his hangout, Diamond Jack had always kept a lookout on the pinnacle summit of the Squaw.

Bernice was now imbued with the hope that the posse would take Diamond Jack alive and bring him to the "26," if only for long enough for her to see for herself what he looked like. And with this desire came impatience. The capture might be made early. In such event the posse would be back at the ranch before night.

If there were no repairs to be made to the double wire fence enclosing the deadly arsenic water-hole known as Poison Spring, Bernice could, by maintaining a steady pace, reach the spring and be back at the ranch by mid-afternoon.

The trail down into Cholla Chica Canyon was short. There were cottonwoods and willows and green little vegas along the murmuring brook, extending into the mouths of intersecting ravines to vary and relieve the monotony of the grey-brown hills.

About the time Bernice pointed the nose of the buckskin gelding up the canyon trail, a horseman reined in on the low divide at the head of the creek a mile away. Lolling sideways in his saddle, for several minutes he scanned the yellow-brown ramparts of the Amarillos rising rugged and ragged against the blue sky twenty miles to eastward.

It was not with speculation or conjecture that this rider surveyed the mountains. He knew their every canyon, ridge, hog-back, divide; every spired-web trail that led into or through their rockbound fastnesses. Now, when he had selected the trail by which he would gain the adamant heart of the range, he touched his horse with a spur and rode down into the head of Cholla Chica Canyon.

Bernice Coltron had traveled the canyon trail for a half-mile when her ears caught the clip of a shoe on rock. The trail here traversed a narrow vega, and on the thick turf the hoofs of her own horse made no sound. Ahead was a rocky point about which creek and trail bent. Halfway to this point was a screen of cottonwoods and willows.

"Who can be riding here?" she whispered.

Then she spurred in behind the trees, reined about. Her every sense was instantly keyed to tautness by some strange premonition of danger. She grasped the stock of the light carbine and dragged the weapon from its scabard.

Noiselessly, she levered a cartridge into the chamber. She did not lower the hammer.

Clutching the rifle, she leaned forward that she might get a view of the trail through the branches.

Her lips parted, and for a moment it seemed that her heart would pound itself out against her breast. Then it seemed to stop beating altogether.

Round the point was riding a man on a beautiful coal-black horse, but that was not what made Bernice's heart seem to freeze. The man was clad in funereal black from sombrero to boots, except for a spot of white at each hip. These spots were the ivory handles of his revolvers. Even the holsters in which the deadly weapons rested were of black leather.

The black handkerchief was drawn about so the knot was at the back, allowing the silken fullness to drape down across the breast of the man's black shirt.

"Diamond Jack McLernan!" the girl whispered. "The band must have split up after the battle on the Simeon last night. So help me, I'm going to take him!"

In one flash her thought crystallized into adamant resolve. Here was Diamond Jack riding down the trail, right into her hands Why not thence into the arms of the law which he had so long defied and evaded and from which he had escaped?

She would be a fool if she did not take full advantage of her opportunity.

He was only forty yards away now, and she could clearly see the set of his broad shoulders, the narrow line of his waist where the ivory-handled guns swung.

His face was rather roundish, and sun-tanned. Yes, his eyes were dark, as Diamond Jack's eyes were said to be, and his mouth wide. It was with some disappointment that Bernice saw that the face of the apparently unsuspecting rider was really handsome. She realized that it was in repose. Its owner seemed to be thinking of something pleasant.

Then she saw him tense, saw his mouth clamp to a thin line, saw his eyes narrow under their straight black brows. The ears of the black horse had flipped forward. The right hand of the rider jerked back to the gun at his hip, held there for a moment, then drew away.

"Just a cow critter, I reckon, Negro," he muttered aloud. "Nothin' to be scared of in these parts, old hoss. Amble along."

Only a fraction of a minute had flashed by since Bernice had first sighted the black-garbed rider, and each split-second he was coming closer. Now she saw that he was young, perhaps twenty-five, certainly not yet thirty. Not more than ten paces separated the two horses when Bernice touched the range-broke buckskin with a spur. The horse stopped at the soft command of "whoa!" It had to be a spoken command, for both the girl's steady hands were occupied with the carbine, the muzzle of which pointed at the man's black-shirted breast.

The black horse had slid to a stop as the girl flashed into view, and the man's hand had darted toward one of the white-handled guns, but had instantly jerked away.

Now, after one long look of incredulity in the wide-set dark eyes under the heavy, straight black brows, a winning smile lighted the sun-bronzed features.

Bernice had a momentary thought that this did not look like the smile of a wanton desperado. Her next thought was that if rumours were true, Diamond Jack McLernan was deadliest when most affable.

"Howdy," the man drawled. There was amusement in his dark eyes.

"Get your hands up,pronto!" commanded the girl.

"Who? Me?" He looked suddenly more incredulous than ever.

"Who else? Get 'em up! I don't want to have to shoot!"

"Then don't. The report of a rifle always sets my nerves on edge. Besides, I wouldn't want to get this new shirt all messed up."

Bernice smiled sardonically. She knew he was watching for a chance to break through. Her fingers tightened a little on the trigger.

"Are you going to put your hands up?"

"Oh, sure! Anything to oblige a lady, especially such a pretty one." He lifted his hands until the tips of his fingers were even with his shoulders. "Say, that's a funny combination, girl."

"Get your hands higher! What's a funny combination?"

"Blue eyes and blue steel," he informed her soberly. "I say, I wish you wouldn't look so hard at me with that eye along the blue steel barrel of that popgun.

Yeah, and don't squint the other eye so much. It sort of subtracts from your good looks. You ought to learn to shoot with both eyes open."

"Are - you - going - to - get - those - hands - up?"

Though Bernice shuddered at the imminent thought that she might have to kill him, it did not shake her resolve. She was going to take Diamond Jack McLernan in, dead or alive.

A slow, whimsical smile softened his features. Then he was serious, very serious.

"You know, I reckon I could like you if you'd give me a chance?" he hazarded.

"Well, you won't get the chance? Get those hands higher!"

"These hands are all right. I never yet shot a lady, and likely never will. I'll raise that there bet I just made. Yeah, I'll bet my horse I could actually love you. Give me a chance, please. You just ought to hear me talk when I get started."

"You'll hear this rifle talk in about ten seconds. One-two-three-"

"Just a minute, just a minute." His drawl was entirely unperturbed. "I'll lift that bet again. I'll bet my socks I could make you love me inside a week. If that blue eye wouldn't look so hard along that blue steel. Please smile! Yeah, and say you like me just a little. A little always makes a start."

She smiled, but it was not a smile of friendliness.

"Four-five-six-"

"Hold on there! Do you know who I am?"

"DoI! Seven-eight-"

"Folks as know me right good sometimes call me Mac," he said. "Wouldn't you like to try it, honey?"

"No, I wouldn't!"

Holding out even a light carbine for a full minute makes it a heavy weapon.

Without shifting her aim, Bernice braced her elbow against her side.

"You're Diamond Jack McLernan and I'm going to take you in - dead or alive! Unbuckle those guns and throw them down. Don't run away with any idea that you can fool me. I mean business! "

"And so do I! How about that bet that I can make you love me inside five days? I'll cut it to three days, even two, if you say so."

"And I'll cut you off in just two seconds?" she retorted, cradling her elbow more firmly. "Can't you see I'm not fooling?"

"And can't you see I'm not? Gee whizz, as for the lovin', I'm up to my ears in love with you right now, honey. Give me a break, can't you? This one-sided lovin' business ain't got any kick to it."

The two allotted seconds flew as they looked at each other. In her blue eyes, lining the sights, there was no compromise. His dark eyes surely held no symptoms of fright. Her finger was tightening on the trigger when suddenly his hands down. It was as if this were a signal for the remainder of his tall, lithe body to go into action.

Whipping his body forward and to the right, his legs shot back. The spur-rowels sank into the flanks of the black horse. The animal leaped, its spring made longer and faster by the bullet that grazed its rump.

There was the sharp crack of the carbine. Straight down the black horse charged.

As it gathered for its second stride, its rider righted in his saddle, swung to the left, and as Bernice lifted the carbine to lever in another cartridge, a long arm shot out.

A big, browned hand grasped the barrel of the weapon and before she could tighten her grip upon it, it was wrenched away. The black-garbed rider flung the carbine wide and went thundering down the trail.

Furious, chagrined, humiliated, Bernice reined about and jerked her revolver from its holster. As fast as she could pull the trigger she fired. At the fifth shot she saw the fleeing rider flinch and jerk to the right. Then he was upright in his saddle. He turned and waved. She heard his voice float back.

"You'll have to do better than that, little sweetheart.Adios! See you before the five days are up."

Unwilling even now to admit defeat, Bernice leaped to the ground, grabbed up the rifle. She vaulted into the saddle, rammed in the sharp roweled spurs, and headed the eager buckskin pony down the crooked trail in pursuit. She would see Diamond Jack again before he got out of range, and this time she would roll him from the saddle even if she did have to shoot him in the back

***

Though the buckskin was fast, Bernice had not counted enough on the speed of the black horse nor the daring of its rider. She did not catch a glimpse of them again until she came to where she could see the half-mile-wide valley. Black horse and black clad rider were flying across the valley like a bird skimming the grass.

Jerking the buckskin to its haunches, she flung the carbine to her shoulder. At each report she saw a spurt of dust behind the flying hoofs of the black horse.

The man turned, jerked off his sombrero. He waved it, as if to say that .32-20 bullets flying about were of no more consequence than buzzing flies.

Baffled and filled with a new chagrin because she had again allowed the desperado to escape, Bernice began refilling the magazine of the carbine. It seemed that the fleeing rider scorned such a weapon at more than a few hundred yards range. He slowed his gait and traversed the remaining width of the valley at an easy lope turning occasionally to look back.

"He's still laughing at me, like he was back there in the canyon," Bernice told herself bitterly. "The idea of his saying I wish I had shot first and talked afterwards!"

She saw him reach the grey sage. Black horse and black-clad rider were a moving dot against it. There was the mouth of an arroyo ahead. He made straight for it.

Unwilling to admit defeat and doubly humbled because she had allowed the most desperate bandit that had ever ridden the country to escape her custody, Bernice thought quickly. He should not escape. She would track him down, and when she again came upon him, her carbine would do the talking.

He was riding up the arroyo a mile away now. In order that he might not see that she was following, she rode towards the ranch. When the point at the northerly side of the arroyo screened her, she reined about and galloped straight for the slope.

She was a mile up the easy slope when she saw him ahead. He was maintaining a steady pace and apparently had seen her, for he was taking no more chances of getting within range of the small rifle. Now that she was seen, Bernice took no precautions to conceal her purpose. Let him know that she was following!

She already knew that in speed her pony was no match for the black horse, but that did not mean that it was not in endurance. This was not to be a race in which speed counted. Such was now her determination to overhaul the handsome young swashbuckling bandit, that she did not seriously think of the dangers into which she might be riding.

However, she was not wholly unimpressed by what she had already seen of him. His smiling, nonchalant coolness there in the canyon, as he had looked into the end of her carbine, was something she would never forget. It was part of the code of the honest people of the range country to admire bravery, even in a lawless man.

The sun rose higher, beating down with relentless fierceness out of a tinny sky.

The going was rougher, too. The buckskin pony avoided patches of cholla, shied away from ocatillos. Here and there on rocky ridges or hummocks, giant cacti lifted bare green fingers toward the sky.

There were times now when Bernice did not see her quarry, but this did not deter her from her purpose. She knew he was heading for his old retreat in the rocky fastness of the Arnarillos.

The mountains were much nearer now, looming yellow, gray, brown. She could trace the rocky ridges and the shadowy canyons. The tiny dark spots of a few hours ago were now distinguishable as junipers and stunted pines.

There was a black silhouette on a ridge a mile ahead. It disappeared. Bernice touched the buckskin with a spur, determined to retrieve the ground she had lost since she had last sighted Diamond Jack. The tiring pony responded, but it had trotted only a little way across the mesa when Bernice's eyes caught sight of something white on the ground.

"Oh, it's blood!" she whispered as she leaned down to stare at a strip of white cloth lying on a rock. "I must have hit him! Oh, I wish he would let me catch up with him now!"

She dismounted, picked up the blood-smeared rag. It was a strip torn from a large white handkerchief. Tears of anxiety and self-contempt dimmed her eyes as she realized that she had wounded a man. What if he were a bandit leader! Her pity, however, was short-lived. The man she had shot was Diamond Jack McLernan!

She had made her mistake in not killing him when she had had the opportunity, back in the canyon of Cholla Chica.

She crammed the bloody rag into a pocket and remounted, heading for the ridge over which her quarry had vanished. She gazed ahead as she topped the ridge.

There were only the broken foothills and the ramparted mountains; not a living thing except a coyote that slunk away.

The region was now too rocky for a horse to leave a plain trail. Bernice decided she would wait here until she sighted him again. Then another white object caught her attention. This time it was a piece of paper hooked to a thorn of an ocatillo. Reining to one side, she picked the paper off the cactus, and read:

You had better turn back, little blue-eyed sweetheart. I'll see you at the ranch before the five days are up. It's dangerous business following.

Yours with love,

Mac.

Bernice compressed her pretty mouth until most of the color vanished from her lips. Her eyes flashed.

"Yours with love-!" she repeated icily. "I like your nerve, Mr. Diamond Jack McLernan!"

Then the color came back to her lips and her cornflower-blue eyes danced with a mischievous light.

"I wonder if he really will have the cheek to - oh, I wish he wasn't a bandit!"

She looked ahead to where the mouth of a great canyon yawned between yellowish-brown ridges.

"He's heading for the Diablo! I know what I'll do. I'll ride for the Squaw and Papoose and find Dad and the posse, and put them on his trail!"

It was past noon when Ben Coltron and his seven riders came upon Sheriff Nailor and his posse, camped at a water-hole a mile south of the Squaw and Papoose.

"Still on the trail?" Coltron demanded after the first brief greeting.

"Yeah, we stuck to her, Ben. From the way this here campfire looks, Diamond Jack and his gang pulled out of here shortly after daylight. I scouted on a ways, and they're heading straight for the mouth of Devil's Canyon."

"Then it's a cinch they won't stop till they get to Devil's Pasture," put in George Coltron, Bernice's older brother.

"That's the way we figure it," said the sheriff. "That's why I sent Andy after you men. We'll need plenty of men to run Diamond Jack out of Devil's Pasture."

The majority of these men knew that the rock-walled meadow at the head of Devil's Canyon was the stronghold from which Diamond Jack McLernan and his gang had been driven by the combined forces of the ranchers.

The sheriff and his posse had already eaten. Now Coltron and his riders untied their grub and dropped to the spare grass, after first picketing their tired horses.

"Reckon you'll want to hit the trail again as soon as the bosses get a little rest," said Ben Coltron.

"There ain't no particular rush," replied the sheriff. "We can't get to Devil's Pasture before dark. I figure we ought to get well into the canyon and make camp; then in the early morning we can go on foot and surround Devil's Pasture before daylight. Say, by the way, did any of you boys see anything of my deputy, Jim McLeod?"

There was an immediate and unusual attentiveness from all the men from the "26."

They all knew Jim, son of old Bill McLeod of the Triangle M outfit, east of the Armadillos. It had been Jim McLeod who trailed like an Apache and knew every dim, rocky path in the mountains, who had led the ranchers, three years ago, in the fight that had driven Diamond Jack out of the Amarillos. In fact, there were men in the Rincon Valley country and across the Amarillos who declared that Jim MacLeod had done the job almost single-handed.

"No," blurted Sandy wells. "What about Jim? We ain't seen hide nor hair of him."

"Funny," mused the sheriff. "Last night I sent a man to, Pueblo Viejo after him.

I'd sent him down there to quell a little ruckus among the Mexicans. Soon's I got word that Diamond Jack was headed this way, I sent a rider high-tailin' after Jim. Reckoned he ought to been here by now."

"In that case he ought to come by way of my place," declared Ben Coltron.

"Reckon he must'a got there after we rode away. Left early, though."

It was not long before the combined posse took up the trail which led along the base of the mountains toward the mouth of Devil's Canyon.

"Three hoss tracks here," remarked Buck Wardlow. "I reckon Diamond Jack ain't got much of a band left."

"Yeah, looks that way," returned the sheriff," but what stumps me is that last night after the fight on the Simeon, I'd have swore four men got away. It'd be just like that wily fox, Diamond Jack, to split off from what was left of his gang and double back into the Breckenridge breaks."

For a time the members of the posse discussed this idea, while their horses picked the way along the rock-littered terrain. Now Tom Coltron was in the lead. He reined in, and shaded his eyes with his hand as he looked away to the right.

"Feller on a hoss yonder," he declared. "On that ridge. Looks like he was wavin' to us. Reckon it's Jim MacLeod now, Sheriff?"

Nailor drew his binoculars from their case and adjusted them to his eyes. His seamed face puckered in perplexity.

"Doggone me, if it don't look like a gal instead of a man! She's ridin' a buckskin pony. Durn if it ain't a gal!"

"Gimmee them spectacles, Nailor!" commanded Ben Coltron,

He managed to get the object within the area of magnified vision. "Girl on a buckskin pony! Hell's bells! That's my girl, Bernice. Wonder what on earth she's doin' here? I sent her toward Poison Spring."

The younger members of the posse galloped away, oblivious of rocks, gullies and cactus. They began firing questions as they surrounded the girl.

"I won't tell a thing till I've had some water," she answered them. "Somebody give me a canteen. I've been spitting cotton for five miles. Lordy, but it's hot! "

Bill Fenster handed her his canteen. By the time she had drunk, and could smile more easily, her father and Sheriff Nailor had come up.

"What in Sam Hill brings you here, Bernice?" her father demanded. "Got word of Diamond Jack?"

"I've more than got word of him. Dad! Boys! I'm after him! "

"You're after Diamond Jack McLernan?" demanded her brother Tom. "Say, that's draggin' too long a rope for us."

"Well,I was after him till I quit his trail and headed across to find you folks," she qualified. "I've run him into Devil's Canyon. Now it's up to you men to ride in there and get him. Surely there ought to be enough of you to do that, especially as he's wounded."

"Looky here, now," put in the old sheriff. "What's this cock-and-bull story? Far be it from me to doubt the word of a lady, special a purty gal like the darter of Ben Coltron, but do you mean to set there on that hoss and tell me you been chasin' Diamond Jack, and that you shot him?"

"That's just what I've been doing," she returned, chin up and eyes level.

She told a brief story of her encounter with the bandit and the subsequent events.

"And if you don't believe me, here's a piece of bloody bandage I found on the trail."

She handed the sheriff the strip of bloody handkerchief.

The other riders crowded around as Nailor examined the blood-smeared bit of cloth.

"'S blood all right," commented the sheriff. "Umm. Reckon it's human blood."

Half a dozen voices were now demanding a description of the man she had met and shot. Bernice described him, briefly, but vividly.

"All dressed in black, eh?" asked the sheriff.

"There wasn't a stitch of any other color on him, Mr. Nailor; that is, except his white-handled ' guns."

"And he rode a black hoss?"

"I'd tell a man he road a black horse, and a good one!"

The sheriff knitted his thick grizzled brows, and tugged at an end of his moustache.

"That's him, I reckon. Sure you didn't hit him bad, gal?"

"Oh - I don't think so, Sheriff. In fact, I am sure he was only hit in one arm. He couldn't have ridden so hard and so far if he had been hit through the body, do you think? Oh, I wish now I hadn't shot him!"

"There you go," spoke up her brother Tom. "You shoot a bad hombre and the next minute you're ready to blubber over him. "

"You keep out of this, Tom!" she flared. "I did shoot him, but now I wish he'd stopped to let me tend to his wound."

"And a fine, sympathizin' nurse you'd make," said her other brother, George.

"Funny hedidn't stop and let you nurse him, specially after you'd shot him."

"I don't care. I do want to see him taken, but I'm sorry I had to shoot him."

"Well then, why did you do it?" asked her father.

"He - he made me so mad, Dad! The way he got away from me, after I was so sure I had him."

Ben Coltron looked hard at the sheriff, then up at the westering sun.

"You'd better be ridin', if you're to get home before it's late, Bernice," he said.

"I'm not going home, Dad," she answered. "I'm the one that chased Diamond Jack into Devil's Canyon. I'm going along."

Nor would she turn back. She was riding with the posse, to be in at the capture or the death of the notorious bandit leader who had escaped from her.

"But old Manuela will be so worried when you don't show up, honey, she'll be prayin' to her seven saints," argued her father.

"A few extra prayers won't hurt her, Dad," the girl returned smilingly but resolutely. "I'm going along if I have to tag behind, so we might as well be rambling."

"Dog-gone a girl, anyway," grumbled George Coltron as he led the posse around a rocky slope. "Here she goes and shoots a man and chases him for miles, and now she wishes he'd stopped and let her tie him up. Wonder she didn't say she wanted him to stop so she could kiss him! "

"Women is plumb queer," said Bill Fenster. "As for me, I never did understand females."

"Neither did anybody else," said George Coltron with a harsh chuckle. "Now we got a fine chance of takin' Diamond Jack, with her along."

Now that they were sanguine that Diamond Jack was ahead of them, all the men of the posse were eager to forge on, and attempt his capture or extermination before dark. The sheriff, however, declared that they could not reach Devil's Pasture before night.

"We'll make camp at Soldier Flat," he said. "In the mornin' we'll work out a plan."

As Bernice rode with the grim, armed men up the rough canyon trail, she began to wish she had not pursued the outlaw into the mountains. It seemed such a terrible thing to think of a posse hunting out and shooting down a man, even an outlaw, as if he were a wolf. More than once she wished she had turned back when her father had ordered her to. Coltron and the sheriff had dropped back and, where the trail permitted, rode stirrup to stirrup. At times they conversed earnestly in low tones.

"Then you figure it's him all right, Ed?" Coltron asked for the third time.

"There can't be no doubt about it, Ben. The description tallies, even to the white-handled guns. I sure wish we had been here to head him off before he got into the roughs. It might have saved some complications."

"Yeah, looks like there might be complications," mused Coltron.

"Sure looks that way, Ben."

It was, however, not an unwatchful posse that rode during that late afternoon.

In the climbing, twisting canyon that cut like a ragged gash back into the heart of the Amarillos were a hundred places, in any one of which three or four armed and determined men could have repulsed a regiment.

Soldier Flat was merely a sloping, open oval in the bottom of the canyon. To northward was a grey slope, dotted with junipers and strewn with boulders, and ribbed by rocky reefs thrust upward. At the other side a tall, grey-brown cliff rose precipitously. About the flat were hundreds of boulders, great and small, tumbled down in past ages from the cliff. The flat was cold and filled with shadows when the posse reached it. Men reined in their jaded horses, tumbled from their saddles.

"Picket your hosses secure, boys," ordered the sheriff. "Somebody rustle some firewood. There'll be grub enough, I reckon, if we assay it out, ration like."

Bernice was tired enough to obey when she was told to lie down with her head on a saddle, and rest. The lonely surroundings and the realization that only that day she had wounded a man, the thought that even now he might be dying somewhere back in the rock-rimmed solitude of the mountains, filled her soul with a strange sadness and unrest. She was vastly grateful that there were so many brave and loyal men about her. She closed her tired eyes and tried to visualize the man she had shot and pursued, tried to make herself believe that she had not wounded him seriously. What if he were an outlaw that needed killing! What a terrible thing it seemed now to have shot a man!

Because her eyes were closed and her thoughts roaming back among the crates, she did not see her father and the sheriff as they moved about among the men who were gathering firewood and picketing the horses. To each group the sheriff and Coltron confided something in gruff whispers, and there were mysterious headshakes and muttered exclamations and grinning looks toward the tired girl.

It was not long before a rising fire was filling the cool air with the fragrance of burning green juniper. Men squatted about and began broiling strips of bacon spitted on the ends of mesquite shoots. The men in Sheriff Nailor's part of the posse had thoughtfully brought tin cans, and in them coffee was soon simmering.

The warmth and cheer of the fire aroused the tired girl. She wrapped a blanket about her shoulders, pulled the saddle nearer the fire and sat down on it. Now that she was roused, she was suddenly conscious of the mystery that seemed to surcharge the air. There were significant glances in her direction, low chuckles that seemed aimed at her. Her face flushed and her eyes snapped.

"What's so funny about me?" she asked icily. "You act like I was a freak!"

"We was all just grinnin' at that smudge of dirt on your nose," Sandy Wells returned with a long, solemn face. "We-all wasn't meanin' to make fun of you, Bernice. Was we, George?"

"I reckon not," drawled her brother. "But I'm beginnin' to wonder if she wasn't imagining she chased Diamond Jack into these here hills."

"You all make me tired!" Bernice told them sardonically. "Dad, what is it they all seem to know and I don't?"

"Hisst!" suddenly warned Sheriff Nailor. "Listen! Somebody's comin' down the canyon."

Instantly every man was tense, and in another few seconds the men who did not have guns in their hands were ready to grab them. Bernice, huddled on the saddle, felt as if an electric current had raced through her, leaving her every nerve taut and surcharged. There was the unmistakable clip of shod hoofs on the rocky trail leading up the canyon.

"They's three of 'em!" whispered Tom Coltron as he peered into the gathering gloom. "Derned if one of 'em don't look like he was ridin' a black horse!"

"A black horse!" whispered Bernice, and her lips remained parted and her eyes wide as she half rose and peered up the canyon. Her suddenly pallid face made a white spot in the gloom. "He rode a black horse!"

"Whoopee!" yelled a man. "It's Jim MacLeod,and he's got 'em ! Hello, Jim, old hoss! Who's your friends there?"

"Howdy, boys," came back the answer in a good-natured drawl. "Got Diamond Jack and one of his compadres here. The other one put up a fight, and I had to leave him back in Pasturo Diablo."

Men were now surging about the riders, but to Bernice it was as if she were suddenly bereft of all strength. She sank back to the saddle. That good-natured drawl, that black horse, that tall black garbed rider! There could be no doubt.

"Good Lord, what have I done?" she groaned, and closed her eyes. In the loud, excited talk that came to her incoherent and far away, she made out that the man she had taken for Diamond Jack McLernan was Jim MacLeod; that she had not wounded him seriously - merely a scratch on the left arm; that he had ridden back into Devil's Pasture, surprised Diamond Jack and his two confederates. One had put up a fight. He had been killed. Despite the illimitable relief that surged through her now, Bernice felt as if she wanted to sink into the rocky earth and have the towering cliff come toppling down on the spot where she disappeared.

***

The sunshine was searching out the canyons and gullies on the westerly side of the Amarillos the following morning when the posse saddled and made ready to start down the trail with its captives. Bernice was already on her buckskin pony. She was wishing that the posse would ride ahead and leave her and Jim MacLeod to bring up the rear, when he spoke as if he had read her very thoughts"You'all ramble on," he drawled. "I got to take Miss Bernice in as a prisoner, and I'd like to make a little medicine-talk with her."

"You've got to take me in as a prisoner?" she gasped.

He stood with one hand on the tall pommel of his saddle. His sun-bronzed face was very serious.

"Reckon I got to take you, Miss Coltron. You see, it's a serious offence to shoot an officer of the law. Mighty serious."

"But I didn't know you were an officer! I thought-"

The posse and its captives had disappeared around a bend in the trail and they were left alone, the girl with the cornflower-eyes and the tall black-garbed young man with the ivory-handled guns at his lean waist. Now he left the fine black horse, and taking two strides, placed his left hand on the horn of her saddle. His right hand gently touched her arm.

As he looked up at her, Bernice thought his eyes did not look like the eyes of a man who once, at the head of a band of determined ranchers, had rid the Armadillos of a desperate band of outlaws, or one who had gone back into Devil's Pasture and single-handed brought back Diamond Jack and the last of his band, after shooting it out with them.

A little smile, affectionate, half-humorous, quirked the ends of his wide mouth, and his brown eyes seemed to dance with little lights, the sight of which made the trembling girl weak with a strange, new happiness.

"I'm wondering," he said softly," if you've made up your mind about love at first sight, Bernice, honey."

"I don't know," she whispered, and in her agitation laid a soft warm hand on the big brown one that rested on the pommel of her saddle. "I - I hope you don't hate me because I shot you, Jim."

"Shot clean through the heart," he chuckled huskily, and his strong arms reached up to enfold her. But before their lips met, he added: "I think that shot hit you in the same place, honey-girl. How about it?"

"I think it must, have, Jim!" she whispered.