THE CLASSIC WESTERN ROMANCE
Judith Sanford, whose father's death had left her suddenly the owner of Blue Lake Ranch, expected trouble when she arrived to dismiss her crooked foreman, Bayne Trevors. But Judith was a woman who could handle a six-shooter as well as she could ride a horse. However, Trevors wasn't about to give up the rich pickings of Blue Lake Ranch with out a fight. Judith's only ally was Bud Lee, a ranch hand with a mysterious past and a prejudice against women who wore buckskin instead of lace. Sparks fly between the two, then Lee meets his "ideal" woman. When Trevors' men come gunning, will Bud Lee stand with her, now that he's fallen in love with another and the secret of his own past is imperiled?
CHAPTER 1
Bud Lee Wants to Know
BUD LEE, horse foreman of the Blue Lake Ranch, sat on the corral gate and stared across the valley to the rose glow where the sun was coming up.
"If a man's got the hunch an egg is bad," he mused, "is that a real good reason why he should go poking his finger inside the shell? I want to know!"
Tommy Burkitt, the youngest of the outfit and a profound admirer of all that taciturnity, good-humor, and quick capability which went into the make-up of Bud Lee, approached from the ranch house.
"Bud!" he called. "Trevors wants you. On the jump." He stopped at the gate, looking up at Lee. "On the jump, Trevors said," he repeated.
"The devil he did," said Lee pleasantly. "How old are you this morning, Tommy?"
"Aw, quit it, Bud," he said. Involuntarily his big hand rose to the tender growth upon lip and chin which, like the flush in the eastern sky, was now but a vague promise.
"A hair for each year, " continued the quiet-voiced Bud. "Ten on one side, nine on the other."
"Ain't you going to do what Trevors says?" demanded Tommy.
For a moment Lee sat still, his cigarette unlighted, his broad black hat far back on his close-cropped hair, his eyes serenely on the pink of the sky above the pines. Then he slipped from his place and, stood beside Burkitt.
"Stick around," he said gently, a lean brown hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "A man can't see what is on the cards until they're tipped, but it's always a fair gamble that between dawn and dusk I'll gather up my string of colts and crowd on. If I do, you want to come along?"
He smiled at young Burkitt's eagerness and turned away toward the ranch house.
"They ain't no more men like him," meditated Tommy, in an approval so profound as to be a little less than devotion.
In fact a man might ride up and down the world for many a day and not find a man who was Bud Lee's superior. Tall, with good shoulders, a slender body, narrow-hipped, he carried himself with a lithe grace born of the perfect play of superb physical development. He had slipped from the corral gate like some great, splendid cat. His hands, face, throat, bronzed dark, but whether by inheritance or because of long exposure to sun and wind, it would have been difficult to say. The eyes were dark, keen, and grave. From under their black brows they had a habit of appearing to be reluctantly withdrawn from some great distance to come to rest, steady and calm, upon whoever it was to whom he was speaking. The serene, dispassionate eyes of one who for months of each year is alone, communing with the silent, majestic mountains, the wide meadow-lands or his horse.
Bud Lee passed beyond the clump of wild lilacs which screened the open court about which the ranch house was built. A strangely elaborate ranch house set here so far from the world of rich residences. There were a score of rooms in the great, one-story, rambling edifice of rudely squared timbers set in fieldstone and cement, rooms now closed and locked. Flower gardens were still cultivated daily by Jose, the half-breed handy man, there was a fountain in the patio and many roses clustered around a dozen doorways, and wide verandas with glimpses beyond of fireplaces and polished floor.
Until recently, this had been not only the headquarters of the Blue Lake Ranch, but the home of the principal one of its several owners. Luke Sanford, whose own efforts had made him at forty-five a man to be reckoned with, had followed his fancy here extensively and expensively, allowing himself this one luxury of his many lean, hard years. Then, six months ago, just as his ambitions were soaring to new heights, had come Sanford's tragic death in the mountains.
Bud Lee passed silently through the patio and by the fountain which was like a chain of silver run through invisible hands and on to the door at the far end, the door to the office of Bayne Trevors, general manager. As Lee's boots upon the bare floor announced his entrance, Trevors looked up quickly.
"Hello, Lee," he said quietly. "Wait a minute, will you?"
Bayne Trevors was heavy and square and hard. His eyes were the glinting gray eyes of a man who is forceful, dynamic, strong enough to grasp life by the throat and demand that she stand and deliver. Because of his initiative and a marked executive ability, Luke Sanford had chosen Bayne Trevors as his right-hand man in the colossal venture known as the Blue Lake Ranch. Because of his pushing, vigorous personality, he now was general manager, with the unlimited authority of a dictator over a petty principality.
In a moment, Trevors turned in his chair toward Lee, who stood lounging against the doorjamb.
"That young idiot wants money again," he growled. "As if I didn't have enough to contend with already!"
"Meaning young Hampton, I take it?" Lee asked quietly.
Trevors nodded savagely, "Telegram. Last night. We'll have to sell some horses this time, Lee."
Lee's eyes narrowed. "I didn't plan to do any selling for six months yet," he expostulated. "They're not ready."
"How many three-year-olds have you got in your string in Big Meadow?" asked Trevors crisply.
"Seventy-three."
"What would you say to fifty dollars a head for them?" asked Trevors, whirling again in his swivel chair.
"I'd say the same," answered Lee deliberately, "that I'd say to a man who offered me two bits for Daylight or Ladybird. I just naturally wouldn't say anything at all."
"Daylight and Ladybird?" demanded Trevors.
"Two of my horses," Lee said gently, "that no man's got the money to buy."
Trevors smiled cynically. "What are the seventy-three colts worth then?"
"Right now, when I'm just ready to break 'em," Bud said thoughtfully, "I'd say twenty of the herd ought to bring fifty dollars a head, twenty more ought to bring sixty; ten are worth seventy-five; ten are worth an even hundred. Seven of the Red Duke stock are good for a hundred and a quarter; the other four Red Dukes and the three Robert the Devils are worth a hundred and fifty a head. The whole bunch, an easy fifty-seven hundred little iron men." He paused and stared hard at Trevors, then added meditatively: "There's something almighty peculiar about an outfit that will listen to a man offer fifty bucks on a string like that. Are you going to sell those three-year-olds for thirty-six hundred?"
"Yes," answered Trevors bluntly, "I am. What are you going to do about it?"
"Ask for my time, I guess." Although Bud's voice was gentle, his eyes were hard.
"What difference does it make to you?" Trevors cried heatedly. "You draw down your monthly pay, don't you? I raised you last month without your asking for it, didn't I?"
The foreman shrugged. "None of the boys have any kick coming at the wages, I reckon."
Trevors sat frowning at Lee's inscrutable face, then he laughed shortly. "Look here, Bud," he said good-humoredly, "I want to talk with you before you do anything rash. Sit down."
But Lee remained standing.
"Shoot," he said.
"I wonder," Trevors said thoughtfully, "if the boys realize the size of the job I've got on my hands. You know this ranch is a million-dollar outfit; you can ride fifteen miles without getting off the home range, and we are doing a dozen different kinds of farming and stock-raising. But you don't know just how short money is! And there's that young idiot, Hampton. He holds a third interest and I've got to consider what he says, even if he is a weak-minded pup who can't do anything but spend his inheritance like the born fool he is. His share is mortgaged. I've got to keep the interest paid up. Interest amounts to three thousand dollars a year. And now that Luke Sanford is dead his one-third interest belongs to another young fool, a girl!"
Trevors' fist came smashing down upon his table.
"A girl!" he repeated savagely. "She's continually writing for reports, eternally butting in, making suggestions until I'm sick of the job."
"That would be Luke's girl, Judith?" asked Bud.
"Yes. And the third owner, Timothy Gray, the only sensible one of the lot, has just up and sold out his share, and I suppose I'll be hearing next that some superannuated female in an old lady's home has bought it. Do you think I'd hold on to my job here for ten minutes if I didn't have the reputation of making a go of things? And now you, the best man I've got, have to throw me down!"
"I don't see," Lee said slowly, "just what good it does to sell real horses like they were so many sheep."
"Hampton wants money. And besides, a horse is a horse."
"Is it?" A hard smile touched Lee's lips, then he asked abruptly: "Just who is offering fifty dollars a head for those horses? Could it be the Big Western Lumber Company?"
"Yes. "
"Uh-huh. Well, you can kill the rats in your own barn, Trevors. I'll go look for a job somewhere else."
Bayne Trevors, his lips tightly compressed, a faint, angry flush in his cheeks, was about to speak when the quiet of the morning was broken by the quick thud of a horse's hoofs on the hard ground of the courtyard. As the horse came to a standstill a slender figure, which Bud Lee at first mistook for a boy, slipped out of the saddle. Then suddenly a girl, the spurs on her riding boots making jingling music on the veranda, her quirt swinging from her wrist, stepped by him and was looking with bright, snapping eyes from him to Trevors.
"I am Judith Sanford," she announced briefly, her young voice bell-like in the still air. "Which of you is Bayne Trevors?"
Bud Lee looked at her with open interest, swiftly appraising the flush in her sun-browned cheeks, the curling dark hair, the vivid, red-blooded beauty of her. Mouth and eyes and the very carriage of her dark head announced boldly that here was no wax-petalled lily but a maid whose blood, like the blood of the father before her, was turbulent and would boil at opposition. Her dark eyes were the eyes of fighting stock.
Trevors turned hard eyes up at her. He did not move from his chair. But Lee removed his hat.
"I am Trevors," said the general manager curtly. "And whether you are Judith Sanford or the Queen of Siam, I am busy right now."
"You talk soft with me, Trevors!" cried the girl, "if you want to hold your job five minutes! I'll tolerate none of your high and mighty airs!"
Trevors laughed at her. "I talk the way I talk," he answered roughly. "People who don't like it don't have to listen! Lee, round up those seventy-three horses and crowd them over the ridge to the lumber camp. Or if you want to quit now I'll send a sane man."
Color mounted higher in the girl's face, a new anger leaped into her eyes.
"Take no orders this morning that I don't give," she said to Lee. And to Trevors: "Busy or not busy, you take time right now to answer my questions. All that your reports tell me is that you are going in the hole as fast as you can, spending thousands of dollars needlessly. What business have you got selling off my young steers at a sacrifice? What did you build three miles of fence for?"
"Go get those horses, Lee," said Trevors, ignoring her.
"What horses is he talking about?" she demanded crisply.
Bud Lee answered: "The eleven Red Duke three-year olds; the two Robert the Devil colts; Brown Babe's filly, Comet?"
"All mine, every running hoof of 'em," she cut in. "Does Trevors want you to give them away for ten dollars a head or cut their throats?"
"Look here? " cried Trevors angrily, on his feet now.
"Shut up!" commanded the girl sharply. "Lee, answer me."
"He's selling them fifty dollars a head," he said with a secret joy as he saw Trevors' flushed face.
"Fifty dollars for a Red Duke Colt like Comet!" Judith gasped, as suddenly she whirled on Trevors. "I came out here to see if you were a crook or just a fool," she told him, her words like a slap in his face. "No man could be so big a fool as that! You--you crook!"
The muscles of Bayne Trevors' jaws corded. "You've said about enough," he shot at her. "And even if you do own a third of this outfit, I'm the manager here and I do what I like."
From a pocket she snatched a big envelope, tossing it to the table. "Look at that," she ordered him. "You thief! I've mortgaged my holding and bought Timothy Gray's share. I swing two votes out of three now, Bayne Trevors. And the first thing I do is run you out, you great big grafting fathead! You would chuck Luke Sanford's outfit to the dogs, would you? Get off the ranch! You're fired!"
"You can't do this!" snapped Trevors, after one swift glance at the papers.
"I can't, can't I?" she jeered at him. "Don't fool yourself! Pack your duds and hit the trail!"
"I'll do nothing of the kind. Why, I don't know even who you are! You say you are Judith Sanford"--he shrugged--"but how do I know what you're up to?"
"You can't bluff me, Bayne Trevors," she blazed at him. "You know who I am, all right. Send for Sunny Harper!"
"Fired three months ago," Trevors told her, baring his teeth.
"Johnny Hodge, then," she commanded. "Or Tod Bruce or Bing Kelley."
"Fired long ago, all of them," Trevors laughed. "To make room for competent men."
"To make room for more crooks!" she cried, her brown hands balled into fists. Again she turned on Lee. "You are one of his new thieves, I suppose?"
"Thank you, ma'am," Bud Lee said, gravely.
"Well, are you?"
"No, ma'am," he told her, with no hint of a twinkle in his calm eyes. "Leastwise, not his. I do all my killing and highway robbing on my own hook."
"Well," Judith sniffed, "it will be a jolt to me if there's a square man left on the ranch! Go down to the bunkhouse and tell the cook I'm here and hungry. Tell the boys I've come to stay and that Trevors is fired. They take orders from me and no one else. And hurry, if you know how. You look as though it would take you half an hour to turn around!"
"Thank you, ma'am," said Bud Lee. "But I had just told Trevors here I'm not working for the Blue Lake any more. As I go down to the corral, shall I send up one of the boys to take your orders?"
A little grin went with the last words, as Bud Lee thought of the boys taking orders from a slip of a girl.
"She's a wonder, all right," he thought. "But what does she want to butt in on a man's job for, I want to know?"
"Lee," called Trevors, "you take orders from me or no one on this ranch. You can go now. And just keep your mouth shut."
Lee, standing in the doorway, his hat spinning upon a brown forefinger, saw consuming rage in Trevors' eyes.
"I guess," he said quietly, "I'll stick around until you two get through quarrelling. I might come in handy."
"Blast you," shouted Trevors, "get out!"
"Cut out the cuss words, Trevors," Lee said with quiet sternness. "There's a lady here."
"Lady!" scoffed Trevors. He laughed contemptuously. "Where? That?" He leveled a scornful finger at the girl. "A ranting female who brings a breath of the stables with her and scolds like a fishwife!"
"Shut up!" said Lee, crossing the room with quick strides, his face thrust forward a little.
"You shut up!" said Judith, as her hand fell upon Bud Lee's shoulder, pushing him aside. "If I couldn't take care of myself do you think I'd be fool enough to take over a job like running the Blue Lake? Now,"--and with blazing eyes she confronted Trevors--"if you've got any more nice little things to say, suppose you say them to me!"
Trevors' temper had had ample provocation and now in a blind instant he laid his tongue to a word which would have sent Bud Lee at his throat. But Judith stood between them and, like an echo to the word, came the resounding slap as her palm struck Trevors' cheek.
"You wildcat!" he cried. And his two big hands flew out for her shoulders.
"Keep away!" ordered Judith. "Don't make any mistake. Keep away from me, I tell you!"
Swiftly her hand had gone into her blouse and out again, a small-caliber revolver in the steady fingers now. He had never known a man--himself possibly excepted--quicker on the draw.
But Bayne Trevors, who did not know the meaning of fear, only laughed sneeringly. His hands out before him, his face crimson, he came on.
"Fool!" cried the girl.
Trevors came on. Lee gathered himself to spring.
Judith fired--and Trevors' right arm fell to his side. A second shot, and Trevors' left arm hung limp like the other. His face was dead white now. Beads of sweat were on his brow.
Lee's astonished eyes were on Judith.
"Now you know who's running this outfit, don't you?" she said coolly. "Lee--I heard him call you that--have a team hitched up to carry Trevors wherever he wants to go. He's not hurt much. I just winged him. Then go tell the cook about my breakfast."
For moments, Bud Lee could only stand and look at her. He had no remark to offer. Then as he turned toward the bunkhouse he could only mutter softly: "Well, I'll be hanged! I certainly will!"
)
