RANDY TAKES THE ACID TEST.

A mile farther on the partners came to where the high point of prairie pushed in to form the stopper to the Silver Bend bottle. Here the river crowded close to the bluff, and the trail ran along the foot of the bluff and close to the high, red banks of the river for a quarter of a mile, with the valley on the other side. Beyond that narrow pass, the bottom broadened again on their side, and formed the considerable community of plantations that supported the better business of the town of Willow Mills. Just before entering this narrow defile, Sankey stopped and said:

"There's two things I want to mention. One is that some time, when the river is high, two sticks of dynamite, one mule, and one bull-tongue plow is all it would take to turn the water across here, cut a new channel, and leave Silver Bend on the other side."

"All of which ain't got nothing to do with finding Randy and getting him back home as quick as possible."

"Maybe not, but here's something that has. A man in them seedling cottonwoods, just across the river, could pick us off easy as we go through that narrow place, and I ain't quite ready to be picked."

"They ain't had time to get up here and get set, but that'll be a good thing to remember. Go ahead."

They rode on through the pass, watching the thicket of young cottonwoods on the other side of the stream. Sankey breathed a sigh of relief as they entered the big bottom above the bend. The river turned back west, and slightly north, here. The trail entered a wide lane that ran due west, two miles, to Willow Mills.

To the south of the lane, left of the riders, a number of farmhouses and broad fields could be seen. On their right, north of the lane, and about a mile from the town, stood a big, two-story white house, with green blinds and trimmings. There was no house near it. A few tenant houses stood well back along the river.

"I been seeing that house ever since I've been in this country," said Dolly, pointing ahead. "Who lives there?"

"Everything to the right of the lane, in this bottom, is the Tarleton plantation. The Tarletons have been here ever since Texas has been Texas. Old Judge Tarleton's grandfather settled the place."

"Judge Tarleton? Anything to that young chap we saw layin' dead in the bushes back a ways?"

"Yes, right smart. Ben Tarleton was the youngest son of Judge Tarleton. That makes this big white house one of the corner posts of the three-cornered mess that starts in Silver Bend to-day, and won't stop until God knows when."

"Just farmers, ain't they?"

"No. They're planters. There's a difference. The people who live in the shacks and work the land are farmers. The old judge is a real, by gad, sir, Southern planter. The kind that reaches for his gun when he's insulted. He's apt as not to take the killin' of Ben as an insult. The judge is pretty old, but he's got two more boys, and ary one of 'em would think it a disgrace to run from the devil if he had a red-hot pitchfork in his hand."

"Nice folks. You said this is a three-cornered mess. Where's the other corner? I might want to run the lines some time—or maybe dodge 'em."

"The other corner is one of the outposts of hell. It's the Holderness ranch, owned by Bell Holderness and his brothers. Steve Holderness married an Indian woman. That gives him a right to hold land in the Indian country. Bell Holderness, the oldest brother and a bachelor, furnishes the brains for the outfit, and everybody knows he owns the ranch in Steve's name. The reason they ain't pirates is because they ain't got a ship."

"Some more nice people. But look! Ain't that Randy Ross?"

The sun was just setting behind the distant forest. At the mouth of a broad lane that ran back through an avenue of tall poplars to where the Tarleton home stood in its grove of locust trees, a man and a woman sat their horses, as if they had merely met at that spot and stopped to pass the time of day.

That is exactly what had happened. Neither of them noticed the approach of the two riders. Suddenly, the man whirled his horse in the road and went thundering on toward Willow Mills. The woman put her hand to her brow, to shade her eyes against the glare of the setting sun, and stared after him.

Not until the two punchers were fairly abreast of her did she notice them. With a quick glance at her, as she turned her head, Dolly saw the same patrician feature that had marked the dead face of Ben Tarleton.

"Good evening, Miss Zella," said Sankey, sweeping his hat from his head.

"Oh, Mr. Sankey, I'm so glad it is you," returned Zella Tarleton. "Maybe you can do something with Randy. I—I don't know this gentleman with you, but—"

"You can say anything you like in his presence, ma'am. He'd forget to eat if a lady asked him to forget."

"I'm sure of that, or he wouldn't be with you. I know you haven't any patience with Randy, but he's good. He's just—he's just spoiled and irresponsible, generally, but now he seems to be demented."

"What seems to be the matter with him now?"

"I don't know. I met him here, and he didn't want to stop and talk to me. Something terrible has happened. He said he was going to kill Bell Holderness, and after that, he didn't care what happened. He said that half a dozen times. I begged him to go to the house, and tell me what was wrong, but he was almost insulting, and broke away while I was talking to him."

"That does sound like he was crazy," drawled Sank. "If he wouldn't listen to you he ain't apt to listen to me."

"I know, Mr. Sankey, but you must do something! Get to him before he—You know how he gets when he's in trouble. Get him to go home. Make him go home. He wouldn't have a chance with Bell Holderness."

"Then I reckon we better ride," said Sank, shaking his bridle reins. "I'll do my best, Miss Zella."

"Now who dealt that lady a hand in the game?" asked Dolly when they were out of earshot.

"She deals 'em herself and deals 'em square," snapped Sank. "It's a damn shame for a woman like that to be crazy over a sorry cub like Randy Ross."

"Oh, I see. That brings on more talk. Why don't she marry him and reform him?"

"She's got too much sense to try a fool stunt like that. She's told him plenty of times that she'd marry him whenever he showed her that he could keep straight, and be a man. Every time she tells him that he goes and gets drunk to drown his sorrow."

"I see. Let's go to Willow Mills," and Dolly shot down the road like a flash, with Sank spurring hard to keep up with him.

Willow Mills was but a border village, with half a dozen stores, blacksmith shop, hotel, two saloons, and a dance hall. It was a combination farm center and cow-town, and like all border towns, especially those on the line between Texas and Indian Territory, it was rough. As the partners rode into town they saw Randy dismount in front of the Cottonwood Saloon, and drop his bridle on the ground. They saw him pull his gun from the holster, spin the cylinder, put it back, and then disappear into the saloon.

"If he meets Bell Holderness in that shape, old Railroad Ross loses another boy," snapped Sank. "Come on, let's get him before he gets to drinking."

They stepped to the door and looked in. There was no one in the place but Randy and the bartender. Randy Ross was standing in the full light of the big hanging lamp. He was a picture of physical beauty for a man. Full six feet, broad of shoulder, and tapering to the waist. His head was finely modeled, and his features good. He was as well clad as Ben Tarleton had been, and after much the same fashion. His physical strength was such that he showed no more than his twenty-five years, in spite of his dissipation.

"Ain't it a damn shame for a man like that to be yellow?" muttered Sankey.

"He ain't yellow, or he wouldn't be here," replied Dolly. "Come on. Let's get him out of there."

"You get him out. He's taken one drink, and the devil couldn't stop him."

Randy had taken one drink, set his glass on the bar, and was reaching for the bottle, when Dolly said, at his elbow:

"Wait a minute, Randy, I want to see you outside."

"Why, hello, Dolly! What are you doing here? Just in time to help me take a drink. Give us another glass, and—"

"No. Sometimes I drink and sometimes I don't."

"This is when I do," returned Randy, and filled his glass to the brim.

Dolly caught his arm, and he looked into those blue eyes, which had gone cold and dark.

"Set that glass down, Randy. If you take another drink right now, you'll curse yourself for it as long as you live. People are saying you are yellow. Let that alone. Come with me, and show 'em you ain't yellow."

Randy set the glass down and turned slowly away from the bar. His face had gone hard and set.

"Show me somebody that says I'm yel—" he began, and then stopped. "Dolly, I am yellow. Yellow as paint. I wish to God I wasn't!"

"No, you're not yellow. Come on outside. I want to talk to you."

For half an hour the two of them squatted in the deep shadow by the blacksmith shop. Old Sankey kept them located by the red glow of their cigarettes, while he watched for the possible coming of Bell Holderness. Dolly talked as he had never talked in his life. At last he said:

"You can't whip anything by running from it. I know; I've tried it. Come on. Let's go back to the ranch. I'll stay with you and help you face it."

The three of them mounted and rode out of town. Preposterous as it might seem, Randy had never touched or looked upon a dead person. For several years there had been no occasion to see such things. Prior to that time he had simply run away from them, and to-day he had done the same thing.

Probably no other man in the Railroad outfit understood Randy's feeling in the matter, except little Dolly. Up to the time he saw Zella Tarleton, Dolly hadn't cared much what happened, but something in the girl's pleading tone had determined him to save Randy from himself. There was going to be trouble, and plenty of it, in Silver Bend, but Randy Ross had to face it like a man, for that girl. At the lane leading to the Tarleton place, Randy stopped.

"Let me go in here a minute, fellows," said Randy. "I'll come on and catch up with you."

He wasn't fooling Dolly. The little puncher knew what would happen. Randy would go back to town and try to drown his troubles. He cudgeled his brain, and finally:

"They might not want you in there, Randy. They might heard about Ben by this time, and—"

"Ben! What about Ben?"

"Didn't you know he was killed in that mess at the Railroad to-day?"

"Killed! My God, no!"

"Yes, he was killed. I saw him."

"Then I don't want to go in there. Let me go back to town."

"No," said Dolly, firmly. "We're going back to the Railroad. That's the best place for all of us right now."

They rode on through the lane and struck the trail that ran through the narrows. Sank led the way, then came Randy, and Dolly brought up the rear. He was back there because he didn't mean to let Randy Ross turn and get away from him.

He knew that terrible thing that was gripping Randy's heart with icy fingers. It wasn't fear. It was a tangible thing, worse than fear. He himself had lain awake at night, gripped by it. It couldn't be tamed. It had to be killed, and only one thing could kill it. That was contact with the dead.

Just as they reached the narrows, two shots rang on the night, and a minute later two riderless horses came bounding along the trail toward them. They stopped the horses, and old Sank felt over the saddles in the darkness.

"One of 'em's Leck's and the other Pate's," he said.

"Well, let's get down the trail," said Dolly. "Whoever done it has run away, and maybe the boys are just shot up a little."

He knew better, but they pushed on, the two riderless horses trotting ahead of them, with bridles over the saddle horns. At the narrowest place, the lead horse snorted, shied, and the two of them whirled and came back to the riders.

"I'll—I'll hold the horses while you look," said Randy.

"No, come on," insisted Dolly. "The horses will stand."

Randy dismounted and staggered along the trail. Fifty yards farther on, they found Leck, stone dead. Twenty feet beyond him lay Peyton Ross.

"I'll—I'll get the horses," faltered Randy.

"No. Let Sank bring them."

They stood together, within a few feet of Leck's body, until the horses came. Dolly knew, only too well, what Randy was suffering. He recalled that night in a line-rider's cabin, with his dead partner. This was the baptism of death for Randy. He'd either come out of it a brave man or a hopeless coward, according to the stuff that was in him.

"Hold the horse, Sank," commanded the little puncher. "You take his shoulders, Randy. You're stronger than me."

How Randolph Ross went through that ordeal he never knew. When Leck was lashed to his horse, they went on to Peyton Ross. As they lifted the body to its saddle, sobs were shaking Randy, but they were no longer sobs of fear and dread. He loved this gentle, kindly brother, as if he were a sister. He had always stood in awe of Asa, who was ten years his senior, and paid little attention to him.

Suddenly Randy laid his hand on his brother as he lay bound to the saddle, and in a husky tone that seemed the very tearing of his heartstrings, he said:

"Good-by, Pate. You'll go to God, if ever man did. I won't forget you, and I won't forget the men that done this." He was cold now, and when he spoke a moment later, his voice was hard and even. "Each one of you boys lead one of the horses. You won't have to watch me now, Dolly. I'll lead the way, so if those fellows are still in the brush, you'll get a warning."

"God! What a dose for a man to take," whispered Dolly to the silent old Sankey, as Randy mounted, and rode on down the trail. "He took it like a man, too. Don't tell me he's yellow!"

A light was burning in the house at the Railroad Ranch, while some of the men sat up with the dead, as was the custom of the country. A light also showed in the long bunk house.

There would be little sleeping that night. The men talked among themselves in low tones. Asa Ross, as foreman of the ranch, had been a hard driver, but fair, and the men liked him. They wondered who would handle the men now.

For all of old Railroad's dash that day in the gun fight, they knew he was too old for the job. Peyton couldn't do it. He was too tender-hearted. He'd either give the ranch away, or somebody would take it away from him. There was no use to consider Randy. He was too young, and besides that, he was yellow, and a drinker. All these things the men talked over among themselves.

The evening was chilly, and old Railroad Ross sat by a little fire in the open fireplace. Asa's body was in another room. Railroad was alone with his grief. The grief of such men is not normal. They feel as deeply, perhaps, as other people, but their grief seems to benumb and harden them. Often such men are charged with looking upon death as merely a physical loss.

Ross had been disappointed in the matter of sons. He wanted a houseful of them; ten had been born to him. As one man put it, owing to rattlesnakes, round-up fights, and rough stuff, only three reached full manhood. Asa was now gone. Peyton was also gone, but the old fellow didn't know it as he sat staring, hard-eyed, at the fire, and trying to get his bearings in this storm that had overtaken him as he neared the last port on the seas of life.

Silver Bend, all of it, twelve thousand acres in extent, had been acquired by Ross in his early manhood. His real name was Randolph Ross. His brand was plain RR. He said he knew the brand could be run, but that a thief would take your stuff anyway, if you didn't watch it.

Waggish cowboys dubbed the place Railroad Ranch. From that it was but a step to calling the ranchman Railroad Ross. As the years passed he became so known all over the far-flung ranges. Even the banks thought that the initial in his signature, "R. Ross," stood for Railroad.

Railroad cattle and horses in thousands roamed the unfenced prairies to the southward, but Silver Bend was Railroad's home, and he loved it in the peculiar way that such men love their homes.

He was wondering now who would carry on, and keep it together, when he was gone. Of all his boys, Randy, the baby, named for his father and more like his sire in some ways than any of the others, had been the bitter disappointment. What would the spoiled, irresponsible Randy do with Silver Bend and the Railroad if it fell to him? The old man's musings were interrupted by low voices and shuffling steps at the side gate of the yard, heard through the open door.

He stepped out into the yard and called:

"What is it, boys?"

"Come out here, please, Mr. Ross," replied Sank, and then when he reached them the old puncher went on in low tones:

"It's Pate and Leck. We found 'em up at the narrows."

"Found 'em? What do you mean? Dead?"

"Yes, sir. I reckon somebody got the water light on 'em from across the river and just potted 'em."

"Potted Pate. Murdered him. He never done a thing to anybody in his life. Him and Leck was goin' to town to get a coffin for Asa and have a grave dug. Pate didn't even have a gun on him. And they just bushed him, cold."

The old man's voice was hard and hummed like a taut wire. He stopped and seemed to be trying to control himself before those strained wires broke. Presently he went on in a flat, lifeless tone:

"Take Pate in the room where Asa is and lay him out. Better take Leck to the bunk house, I reckon. He'd feel more at home there."

He turned away and took a few steps, and then turned back. "I sent you after Randy, Sank. Did you find him?"

"Here I am, dad," said Randy, stepping forward from the group by the gate.

"Come on in the house. The other boys can attend to things out here."

He and his one remaining son went into the house together. What terrible thoughts of havoc and disaster were in the mind of old Railroad Ross at that moment none would ever know.