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  No one stood up when Barney came near and dismounted. But eating was suspended for an instant while bright, savage eyes glared at the stranger.

  Barney saw that he had come so far out on the rim of the world that even hospitality was forgotten here.

  “Who are you?” asked the father. “There ain’t any hand-outs for bums on my ranch.”

  “I’m from the Parmelee Ranch,” said Barney. “It seems that Mister Parmelee feels that some cattle . . . fifty of ’em . . . took the wrong way across the hills, and may have gone close to your place. He wants to know if you’ve seen them?”

  Through a blank moment of silence, they stared. Then, of one mind, the five men arose from the table and faced Barney. At the door of the house, against the blackness of the interior, Barney saw the woman standing to watch, with a toothless grin.

  Said the father: “If Parmelee thinks that something of his is over here on my place, what in hell does he mean by sendin’ one fat-faced fool to get it?”

  Barney was stunned. He had expected discourtesy, but not this degree of it. He had hardly known what he would do when his request was refused, but he had felt that the moment would come when his back would be against the wall. For the sake of his job, for the sake of his entire future, for the sake of his hopes of happiness with Sue, he would have to manage something on the spur of the moment. And that spur was now entering his side.

  The father walked slowly toward him. The four huge sons advanced, spreading out a little to either side. It was like the stalking of five great wolves.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the elder Washburn. “I’ll send fifty cows to Parmelee . . . the damned landgrabber . . . when that there rock is tore up from the ground and rolled down the hill into the creek. I’ll . . .”

  “All right,” said Barney. “Let me try the rock.” He was glad of it. No matter for the failure. If it were a problem on which he could set the strength of his hands, he felt that he would be in heaven. As for the irony in the speech of the elder Washburn, he was not even aware of it. So he stepped past the puzzled faces of those big men and laid his grip on the lower ledge of the mushroom-shaped rock. Then he lifted.

  Such strength as his could not easily be unlocked and bestowed like a gesture, like the breaking of a dam. Only little by little the full current of his strength began to work. His legs were bent, his back was slightly bowed, and with all the force in him, he strained until more than a ton’s weight of effort drove his feet down into the earth.

  The Washburns had smiled; they remained to stare. They heard the creaking of mighty sinews, terribly strained. They heard crackings of bones, as it were. They saw the whole body of this stranger shuddering with his own unleashed power.

  And now, with a sudden wrench, he gave the whip snap to his labor. With a ripping sound, with a grinding and a wrenching, the long-embedded stone heaved up from its foundations, while a yell of wonder and dismay came from the Washburns, as though something of their own flesh were being uptorn.

  The great boulder staggered, leaned. Its own weight took charge of it, and toppling over, it rolled with gathering impetus down the brow of the slope, gained speed on the descent, began to leap like a drunken beast, struck a tree, shattered it with a noise like the explosion of a cannon, and then plunged into the creek.

  Water leaped up fifty feet in white spray that fell again.

  “It’s gone!” Mrs. Washburn gasped, coming tottering out from the doorway of the house. “My lands, Pete . . . the table’s gone . . . it’s gone!”

  They stood in awe, the whole family, and stared at the hole from which the great rock had been uprooted. They stared, last of all, at the face of Barney Dwyer, which was covered with a fine perspiration. Threats they would have withstood with their lifeblood. All pleas concerning justice they would have brayed down with mulish and derisive laughter. But here they saw their jest turned into a miraculous and accomplished truth.

  They were moved as nothing else in the world could have moved them. The wolfishness was gone from their faces. Like so many children, they gaped at Barney Dwyer.

  “Jumpin’ . . . almighty . . . black-headed . . . thunder,” breathed the father of the house.

  And after a long moment, Barney said: “You’ll send back the steers, Mister Washburn?”

  There was a silence.

  “Who are you?” asked the oldest son in a hushed voice.

  “I’m working on the Parmelee Ranch,” said Barney. “Mister Parmelee asked me to come out as his foreman.”

  The Washburns drew together in a solid group, half of their backs turned to Barney.

  But the conference lasted only a moment. He distinguished the guttural tones of the father saying: “And when I see a sign, I reckon I know it.”

  Then the group quietly dissolved and faced him.

  The elder Washburn said: “I know there was some strange cattle come over onto my range. Might be that they’re the Parmelee steers. Might be that they’re up yonder, now. My boys’ll go and take a look at the brands . . . and if they are . . . I’m gonna have them drove right over onto the Parmelee place.”

  “Thank you,” said Barney. “That’s neighborly. Mister Parmelee will appreciate it a lot, I’m sure. Good morning.”

  He swung into the saddle on the red mare. Silence followed him. Slowly he walked her back across the open ground, very slowly. But presently he heard a crashing of brush, a clacking of hoofs, and looking back, he saw a herd of young steers break out of the woods behind the Washburn house with three of the Washburn boys on mustangs driving the cattle at full speed straight toward the Parmelee Ranch at the foot of the valley.

  VIII

  Barney came up with Phil. That worthy cowpuncher was transformed into a staring ghost who looked beyond the new foreman at the miracle of the fifty young steers that were running behind him.

  At the verge of the Parmelee lands, the Washburn boys no longer rode behind the cattle, but let them scatter, and Phil it was who skillfully picked them up and drove them bunched before him, as only a good cowman can, straight up toward the Parmelee Ranch house.

  Red and Boston Charlie were building fence behind the barn under the immediate eye of Parmelee himself, when Barney came up. He had cantered the red mare well ahead of the returning steers, and as he approached the barn, first Parmelee and then the two cowpunchers were struck dumb.

  Barney reined the mare close by. “Where would you like to have those steers herded?” he asked of Parmelee.

  The rancher stared with a hungry eye. “How many are there?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Barney. “I just asked for as many of them as might be on the Washburn land. It didn’t occur to me to count them.”

  “There’s fifty of them, all right,” said Red. His voice was husky. His eyes seemed to have grown larger, his head smaller, his neck longer, as he stared at the approaching herd and then at the new foreman.

  “By God!” broke out Parmelee, “I don’t know how you’ve managed that, but I’ll tell you one thing . . . it’s the prettiest picture that I ever saw in all of my days. It gives me a sort of hope . . . it gives me a sort of a chance to dream that maybe I’ll have a fair chance, from now on, to raise cows in these mountains. And if I have that chance, I’m going to raise ’em by the tens of thousands. I’m going to fill the land with beef. I’m going to make a fortune on hides and horns and hoofs and tallow alone.”

  He saw the whole future burningly before him, and his eyes shone at Barney.

  And Barney Dwyer looked calmly back at him and then around the green hills. “There’s lots of good grass, around here,” said Barney Dwyer.

  “Humph!” grunted Parmelee. “How did you get those cows back, anyway?”

  “Why, I just asked for them,” said Barney. “And then the Washburn boys . . . three of them . . . drove the steers back to the edge of the ranch, and Phil brought them in, as you see. Where do you want them driven, Mister Parmelee.”

  “Mister Parmele
e,” said Bob Parmelee, “wants them left near the ranch house, for a while. He wants them where he can see them for a few days. He wants to fatten his eyes on ’em. You go and put your horse up and go to the house. I’ll be in there to talk to you, in a minute.”

  Barney winced a little. The strength of Parmelee’s tone seemed to threaten hard times ahead of him. Was it to be immediate discharge? Slowly he turned the mare and loped her toward the barn, while the three men he had just left eyed one another grimly.

  “You started to make a fool of him, Red,” said Boston Charlie.

  “He seemed to me like a half-wit and a coward,” said Red. “And he looked scared just now, Parmelee, when you told him to put up his horse and go to the barn. I dunno what happened at the Washburn place. There’s Phil. Call him over.”

  Phil needed no calling. He came up at a gallop. He dismounted with the face of one who has seen a miracle. “All I know is this,” said Phil in a low voice. “I stopped at the edge of the trees, in view of the house. The Washburns was all there. The new boss, he rides up. The five Washburns get up and walk at him. I think that they’re gonna knock him on his ear. Then a funny thing happens. You know that big rock in front of the Washburn house? Well, the foreman, he just sashays up to that rock, and he tears it out of the ground . . .”

  “Hold on!” said Red. “I’ve been and seen that rock, and I’ve handled it. What’re you talkin’ about . . . tearin’ it up?”

  “I tell you what I seen with my own eyes, and no liquor aboard me, neither,” said Phil. “He done that thing. He tore that rock up, and he threw it down the hill. And it smashed a big tree on the way, and then it landed in the creek, and it knocked the water up as high as the hills, and there it stayed. And I looked to see the Washburn gang turn the boss into a regular colander with their guns, but they didn’t do nothin’. And pretty soon three of ’em goes up into the woods behind the house, and they come out ag’in, drivin’ the cows before ’em, and they keep right on drivin’, until those steers are safe on our land, and I pick ’em up.”

  Stunned bewilderment greeted this statement.

  “What did the foreman say?” asked Red, actually so pale that the freckles stood darkly forth on his face.

  “Nothing,” said Phil, his voice more subdued than ever. “He acted like it wasn’t nothing much that he had done. He come back talkin’ more to his red mare than to me. And I know that what I’m tellin’ you was what happened before my eyes . . . unless I was hypnotized, or something.”

  No one answered him, for an instant, and then Parmelee said: “Well, I had a kind of a hope that something like this might happen. I saw a sort of a dream of it in the back of my head. But I still can’t believe that it’s true.”

  They saw Barney go in toward the house. Then a horseman rocked over the top of the nearest hill and came swinging down toward them, a fine rider, on a fine chestnut horse. He drew rein nearby and waved his hand.

  “It’s Leonard Peary!” exclaimed Red. “It’s him that used to run with the McGregor gang, till they were broke up by that fellow Barney Dwyer. What’s he want up here?”

  “Hello, fellows,” said Peary. “Hello, Red. Long time no see. I want to know if Barney Dwyer is up here?”

  “Dwyer?” shouted Red. “What would he be doing up here? Dwyer?”

  “He left Coffeeville to come up here the other day,” said Peary. “And I’ve got news for him.”

  “Yes,” said Parmelee. “He’s here.”

  A sudden shout from Red and Boston Charley. “Dwyer?” they cried.

  Then Red added: “Is that new boss really Barney Dwyer? The red mare . . . my God, I might’ve known that. I might’ve known him by his mare. Only, I thought that he’d be bigger. Parmelee, why didn’t you tell us? Did you want him to break all our backs?”

  “I wanted to wait and see. That’s all,” answered Parmelee. “I wanted to see how much man he’d show without an introduction. The Washburns seem to think that he’s man enough, at any rate.”

  He left the two to their fence-building and went to Peary.

  “Come over to the house,” he said. “I’ll take you to Dwyer. But look here, Peary, I thought that you and Dwyer were not friends? I thought you were on the lookout to get him not long ago?”

  “I was,” answered Peary instantly. “I was one of the fools who thought that Dwyer is a half-wit. He was too big for me to see, all at once. Then he made me seem like a child, a few times. He saved my life, here and there. Finally I woke up to the fact that he was a great deal better man than I am. And now I’ve got some bad news for him.”

  He rode at the side of Parmelee toward the house.

  “If you try to get him away from me,” said Parmelee, “you’ll have to talk big money to him. And you’ll have trouble with me, Peary.”

  “I don’t mind who I have trouble with, except with Dwyer,” Peary said calmly. “But you can hear the news that I have for him.”

  He dismounted in front of the ranch house, and there they found Barney Dwyer sitting on the porch and whittling a stick. He jumped up at the sight of Peary, who went toward him with an outstretched hand.

  “Barney,” he said, “can you let bygones be bygones?”

  Barney took the hand at once, very cheerfully. “Why,” he said, “I never wanted to be anything but a friend to you, Len. Is there any news?”

  “There’s the blackest news that you ever heard,” said Peary. “Adler set fire to the jail. When the prisoners were taken out, the whole mob of them bolted. Most of them were recaptured, but not Adler and McGregor. They got away. They may be up here already. And they may be picking up a gang to make trouble for you before they arrive. I came on as fast as I could to give you the word. I’m going to stick with you till this trouble is over, if you’ll have me.”

  “Adler and McGregor!” exclaimed Parmelee. “The devil and the devil’s grandfather. Both of ’em loose?”

  “Both loose,” said Peary grimly. “Maybe you won’t want Barney Dwyer so badly now. Because wherever he is, the lightning is pretty sure to strike, before long.”

  “Did you see Sue?” asked Barney.

  “I saw her. She begged me to come here and see the thing through with you.”

  “Is she safe?” asked Barney, never thinking of himself. “Is anything likely to happen to her?”

  “Not if the whole town of Coffeeville can keep trouble away from her,” answered Leonard Peary. “The men down there are half crazy because this jail delivery happened. They’re watching the girl now like a diamond that might be stolen. No one can bother her, Barney, if all the guns in Coffeeville can keep danger away from her.”

  “Then I can stay up here,” said Barney. “That is, if you still want me, Mister Parmelee.”

  “Want you?” exclaimed Parmelee. “After you’ve brought back that whole herd of steers, without one missing? Want you?”

  “There’s McGregor and the gang he’s sure to get together,” said Barney. “He’d poison the air of the whole mountain, if he could get rid of me. He’d blow up the whole ranch for you, and never stop to think twice. You understand that?”

  “Yes,” said Parmelee. “And he’ll have to blow up the entire ranch to get at you. I’ll tell you what, Dwyer . . . we’ve given you a pretty rough reception up here. But now we’re going to show you what we’re made of. My men are a hard lot. But they’re men. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. And by the Lord, Barney Dwyer, we’re going to stand by you, shoulder to shoulder, if McGregor, and a thousand devils along with him, try to get at you. Find a single weak-kneed hound on my ranch, and I’ll eat his weight in salt.”

  IX

  Events thickened like rain around the Parmelee Ranch that day.

  Late in the morning, the father of the Washburn family rode onto the ranch and found Bob Parmelee working at accounts in the house. Old Washburn would not come inside. He sat on his mustang, outside, with a rifle balanced across the horn of his saddle and waited for Parmelee to come out. So Parmelee c
ame, and a gun with him.

  Said Washburn: “Parmelee, we ain’t been friends.”

  “I’m never friends with cattle thieves,” Parmelee said calmly, watchfully.

  “That’s a big word and a lot of it,” said Washburn. “But I’m here to say that maybe you’re gonna change your mind. You got a new man on this ranch of yours, and maybe he’s gonna make a whole new outfit. I’ve come over to talk about him.”

  “The new foreman?”

  “Yes. That’s him. He’s a whole horse boiled down to the size of a man. Now, Parmelee, me and my family, we’ve made trouble for you. I ain’t denying it. But right from now on, all trouble stops. I ain’t a gent that sees many signs, but, when I see ’em, I know what they mean. I seen a sign, this morning bright and early. I’m gonna pay a heed to it, too. Parmelee, what my tribe aims at from now on is friendship. If they’s any cattle run off of your place, the last place that you need to look is on my land.”

  “I’ll believe you, Washburn,” said the rancher.

  “But if you miss cows, they is one thing that you might get from us,” went on Washburn.

  “What’s that?”

  “News! We might have news for you, and we might give it to you, Parmelee. Times has changed, and we’ve gone and changed with the times. That’s all I wanted to tell you. So long.”

  He snapped his horse about with a slap of the reins and loped the cow pony across the hills, and Parmelee, staring after him, saw that the end of his long war seemed to be at hand—if only he could keep Barney Dwyer with him.

  The long feud had come to a head and turned in his favor, and Barney Dwyer with a single stroke had made the difference.

  * * * * *

  At noon, several of the men were far out on the edges of the ranch, their lunches carried with them. Therefore it was not until suppertime that Parmelee made his next effort. He waited until the other men were seated, Peary at the side of Dwyer, and the other ranch hands watching Barney as mice might watch a cat.