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then smiled.

“Here, wait a minute,” he said, stepping to the door, where he scooped up a handful of sand. “Throw this on it–it can’t get no muddier, anyhow.”

Shields carefully folded the missive and tucked it in his hip pocket, and then he looked up at the foreman.

“Sneed,” he slowly began, “your punchers ain’t never coming back.”

“What!” yelled the foreman, leaping to his feet, and having visions of his men being cut up by outlaws and Indians.

“Nope,” replied Shields with an air of finality. “Bill Howland gave them the most awful beating up that I ever saw men get, the whole four of them, too! When he got through with them I took a hand and ordered them to get out of the country, and I told them that if they ever came back I’d shoot on sight, and I will.”

Sneed’s rage was pathetic, and was not induced by the beating his men had received, nor by the sheriff’s orders, but because it left him only three men to work a ranch which needed twelve. As he listened to the sheriff’s story he paced back and forth in the small room and swore luridly, kicking at everything in sight, except the sheriff. Then he cooled down, spread his feet far apart and stared at Shields.

“Why didn’t you kill ’em, the d––d fools?” he cried. “That’s what they deserved!” Then he paused. “But what am I going to do?” he asked. “Where’ll I get men, and what’ll I do ’til I do get ’em?”

“I’ll send Charley and half a dozen of the boys out from town to stay with you ’til you get some others,” replied the sheriff, walking toward the door. “And you might tell the three that are left that I’ll kill the next man who tries that kind of work in this country. I’m getting good and tired of it. So long.”

Sneed didn’t hear him, but sat with his head in his hands for several minutes after the sheriff had gone, swearing fluently.

“Orphan h–l!” he yelled as he picked up the water pail and stamped to the cook shack.

CHAPTER XIII
THE STAR C GIVES WELCOME

THE Limping Water, within a mile after it passed Ford’s Station, turned abruptly and flowed almost due west for thirty miles, where it again proceeded southward. At the second bend stood the ranch houses and corrals of the Star C, in a country rich in grass and water. Its cows numbered far into the thousands and its horses were the best for miles around, while the whole ranch had an air of opulence and plenty. Its ranch house was a curiosity, for even now there were lace curtains in some of the windows, badly torn and soiled, but still lace curtains; and on the floors of several rooms were thick carpets, now covered with dust and riding paraphernalia. Oddly shaped and badly scratched chairs were piled high with accumulated trash, and the few gilt-framed paintings which graced the walls were hanging awry and were torn and scratched. At one time an Eastern woman had tried to live there, but that was when the owner of the ranch and his wife had been enthusiasts. New York regained and kept its own, and they now would rather receive quarterly reports by mail than daily reports in person. The foreman and his wolf hounds reigned supreme, not at all bothered by the stiff furniture and lace curtains, because he would rather be comfortable than stylish, and so lived in two rooms which he had fitted up to his ideas. Carpets and two-inch spurs cause profanity and ravelings, and as for pictures, they have a most annoying way of tilting when one hangs a six-shooter on one corner of the frame, and they are so inviting that one is constantly forgetting. So the unstable pictures, the dress-parade chairs, bothersome curtains and clutching carpets were left under the dust.

The Star C, being in a part of the country little traversed and crossed by no trails, was removed from the zone of The Orphan’s activities and had no cause for animosity, save that induced by his reputation. Several of its punchers had seen him, and all were well versed in his exploits, for frequently Ford’s Station shared its hospitality with one or more of them; and in Ford’s Station at that time The Orphan was the chief topic of conversation and the bone of contention. But the foreman of the Star C would not know him if he should see him, unless by intuition.

Blake was a man much after the pattern of Shields in his ideas, and the two were warm friends and had roughed it together when Ford’s Station had only been an adobe hut. Their affection for each other was of the stern, silent kind, which seldom betrayed itself directly in words, and they could ride together for hours in an understanding silence and never weary of the companionship; and when need was, deeds spoke for them. The Cross Bar-8 would have had more than Ford’s Station to fight if it had declared war on the sheriff, which the Cross Bar-8 knew. The three cleverest manipulators of weapons in that section, in the order of their merit, were The Orphan, Shields and Blake, which also the Cross Bar-8 knew.

The foreman of the Star C rode at a walk toward a distant point of his dominions and cogitated as to whether he could ride over to Ford’s Station that night to see the sheriff. It was a matter of sixty miles for the round trip, but it might have been sixty blocks, so far as the distance troubled him. He had just decided to make the trip and to spend a pleasant hour with his friend, and drink some of the delicious coffee which Mrs. Shields always made for him and eat one of her prize pies, or some of her light ginger bread, when he descried a horseman coming toward him at a lope.

The Orphan gives Blake Shields’ note. (See page 213.)

The newcomer was a stranger to Blake and appeared to be a young man, which was of no consequence. But the thing which attracted more than a casual glance from the foreman was a certain jaunty, reckless air about the man which spoke well for the condition of his nerves and liver.

The stranger approached to within a rod of Blake before he spoke, and then he slowed down and nodded, but with wide-eyed alertness.

“Howdy,” he said. “Are you the foreman of the Star C?”

“Howdy. I am,” replied the foreman.

“Then I reckon this is yours,” said the stranger, holding out a bit of straw-colored paper.

The foreman took it and slowly read it. When he had finished reading he turned it over to see if there was anything on the back, and then stuck it in his pocket and looked up casually.

“Are you The Orphan?” he asked, with no more interest than he would have displayed if he had asked about the weather.

“Yes,” replied The Orphan, nonchalantly rolling another cigarette.

“How is the sheriff?” Blake asked.

“Shore well enough, but a little mad about the Cross Bar-8,” answered the other as he inhaled deeply and with much satisfaction. “He said there was some good coffee waiting for you to-night if you wanted it,” he added.

“Did he?” asked Blake, grinning his delight.

“Yes, and some–apricot pie,” added The Orphan wistfully.

Blake laughed: “Well, I reckon I’ve got some business over in town to-night, so you keep on going ’til you get to the bunk house. Tell Lee Lung to rustle the grub lively–I’ll be there right after you. Apricot pie!” he chuckled as he pushed on at a lope.

Jim Carter was washing for supper, being urged to show more speed by Bud Taylor, when the latter looked up and saw The Orphan dismount. His mouth opened a trifle, but he continued his urging without a break. He had seen The Orphan at Ace High the year before, when the outlaw had ridden in for a supply of cartridges, and he instantly recalled the face. But Bud was not only easy-going, but also very hungry at the time, and he didn’t care if the devil himself called as long as the devil respected the etiquette of the range. Besides, if there was to be trouble it would rest more comfortably on a full stomach.

“Give me a quit-claim to that pan, yu coyote,” he said pleasantly to Jim. “Yu ain’t taking no bath!”

“Blub–no I ain’t–blub blub–but you will be–blub–if yu don’t lemme alone,” came from the pan. “Hand me that towel!”

“Don’t wallow in it, yu!” admonished Bud as he refilled the basin. “Leave some dry spots for me, this time.”

Jim carefully hung the towel on a peg in the wall of the house and then noticed the stranger, who was removing his saddle.

“Howdy, stranger!” he said heartily. “Just in time to feed. Coax some of that water from Bud, but get holt of the towel first, for there won’t be none left soon.”

The Orphan laughed and dusted his chaps.

“Where’ll I find Lee Lung?” he asked. “Blake wants him to rustle the grub lively.”

“He’s in the cook shack behind the house a-doing it and trying to sing,” replied Jim. “He’s always trying to sing; it goes something like this: Hop-lee, low-hop yum-see,” he hummed in a monotonous wail as he combed his hair before a broken bit of mirror stuck in a crack. “Hi-dee, hee-hee, chop-chop––

“Gimme that comb, yu heathen Chinee,” cried Bud, “and don’t make that noise.”

“Anything else yu wants?” asked Jim, deliberately putting the comb away in the box.

“I want to be in Kansas City with a million dollars and a whopper of a thirst,” replied Bud as he filled the basin for the stranger. “It’s all yourn, stranger. Grub’s waiting for yu inside when yore ready.”

“Do yu know who that feller is?” Bud asked in a whisper as they made their way to the table, from which came much laughter. “That’s The Orphant,” he added.

“Th’ h–l it is!” said Jim. “Him? Him Th’ Orphant? Tell another! I’m more than six years old, even if yu ain’t.”

“That’s straight, fellers!” said Bud to the assembled outfit in a low voice. “I ain’t kidding yu none, honest. I saw him up to Ace High last year. That’s him, all right. Wait ’til he comes in and see!”

“Well, I don’t care if he’s Jonah,” responded Jim. “Only I reckons you’re plumb loco, all the same. But I’m too hungry to care if Gabriel blows if I can fill up before these Oliver Twists eats it all up,” he said, revealing his last reading matter.

“He shore enough wears his gun plumb low–and the holster is tied to his chaps, too,” muttered Jim as he seated himself at the table. “So would I, too, if I was him. Pass them murphys, Humble,” he ordered.

“You has got to bust that piebald pet what you’ve been keeping around the house to-morrow, Humble,” exulted the man nearest to him. “And it’ll shore be a circus watching you do it, too!”

The blankets which divided the bunk house into two rooms were pushed aside and The Orphan entered, carrying his saddle and bridle, which he placed beside the others on the floor. Then he unbuckled his belts and hung them, Colts and all, over the pommel, which was etiquette and which gave assurance that the guest was not hunting anyone. Then he seated himself at the table in a chair which Humble pushed back for him. His entry in no degree caused a lull in the conversation.

“Well, you hasn’t got no kick coming, has you?” asked Humble. “Hey, Cookie!” he shouted into the dark gallery which led to the cook shack. “Rustle in some more fixings for

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