THE MAN FROM THE PANHANDLE

CHAPTER I

 A desert meeting

As she lay crouched in the bear-grass there came to the girl clearly the crunch of wheels over disintegrated granite.  The trap had dipped into a draw, but she knew that presently it would reappear on the winding road.  The knowledge smote her like a blast of winter, sent chills racing down her spine, and shook her as with an ague.  Only the desperation of her plight spurred her flagging courage.

Round the bend came a pair of bays hitched to a single-seated open rig.  They were driven by a young man, and as he reached the summit he drew up opposite her and looked down into the valley.

It lay in a golden glow at their feet, a basin of pure light and silence stretching mile on mile to the distant edge of jagged mountain-line which formed its lip.  Sunlight strong as wine flooded a clean world, an amber Eden slumbering in an unbroken, hazy dream primeval.

“Don’t move!”

At the summons the driver swung his head sharply to a picture he will never forget.  A young woman was standing on the bank at the edge of the road covering him with a revolver, having apparently just stepped from behind the trunk of the cottonwood beside her.  The color had fled her cheeks even to the edge of the dull red-copper waves of hair, but he could detect in her slim young suppleness no doubt or uncertainty.  On the contrary, despite her girlish freshness, she looked very much like business.  She was like some young wild creature of the forest cornered and brought to bay, but the very terror in her soul rendered her more dangerous.  Of the heart beating like a trip-hammer the gray unwinking eyes that looked into hers read nothing.  She had schooled her taut nerves to obedience, and they answered her resolute will steadily despite fluttering pulses.

“Don’t move!” she said again.

“What do you want?” he asked harshly.

“I want your team,” she panted.

“What for?”

“Never mind.  I want it.”

The rigor of his gaze slowly softened to a smile compound both of humor and grimness.  He was a man to appreciate a piquant situation, none the less because it was at his expense.  The spark that gleamed in his bold eye held some spice of the devil.

“All right.  This is your hold-up, ma’am.  I’ll not move,” he said, almost genially.

She was uneasily aware that his surrender had been too tame.  Strength lay in that close-gripped salient jaw, in every line of the reckless sardonic face, in the set of the lean muscular shoulders.  She had nerved herself to meet resistance, and instead he was yielding with complacent good nature.

“Get out!” she commanded.

He stepped from the rig and offered her the reins.  As she reached for them his right hand shot out and caught the wrist that held the weapon, his left encircled her waist and drew her to him.  She gave a little cry of fear and strained from him, fighting with all her lissom strength to free herself.