The Round-Up | Page 9

ponies but some day I'll come back after Lane's cache."
A half-hour later the Mexican guards appeared upon the scene, and
unbound Lane's unconscious form from the sahuaro, which the fire had
consumed to a foot of his bowed head. They deluged his face and back,
and bathed his tortured feet with the contents of their canteens, and
brought him back to life, but, alas! not to reason.
Six months later there limped out of Chihuahua hospital a discharged
patient, wry-necked, crook-backed, with drawn features, and hair and
beard streaked with gray. It was Dick Lane, restored to old physical
strength, so far as the distortion of his spine, caused by his torture,

permitted, and to the full possession of his mental faculties. He
mounted one of the captured ponies, and rode off with the proceeds of
the sales of the others in his pocket, to purchase provisions for a return
to his prospecting.
Before plunging into the wilderness he wrote a letter: Chihuahua,
Mexico
"Mr. John Payson, "Sweetwater Ranch, "Florence, Arizona Territory,
U.S.A. "Dear Jack: I have been sick and out of my head in the hospital
here for the last six months. Just about the time you all were expecting
me home, I had a run in with the Apaches. And who do you think was
with them? Buck McKee, the half-breed that I ran off the range two
years ago for tongue-slitting. After I had done for all the rest, he got me,
and--well, the story's too long to write. I rather think McKee has made
off with the gold I had cached just before the fight. I'm going back to
see, and if he did, I'll hustle around to find a buyer for one of my claims.
I don't want to sell my big mine, Jack. I tell you I struck it rich!--but
that story can wait till I get back. Your loan can't, though, so expect to
receive $3,000 by express some time before I put in an appearance. I
hope you got the mortgage renewed at the end of the year. If my failure
to show up then has caused you trouble, you'll forgive me, old fellow, I
know, under the circumstances. I'll make it up to you. I owe you
everything. You're the best friend a man ever had. That's why I'm
writing to you instead of to Uncle Jim, for I want you to do me another
friendly service. Just break it gently to Echo Allen that I'm alive and
well though pretty badly damaged by that renegade McKee and tell her
that it wasn't my fault I wasn't home the day I promised. She'll forgive
me, I know, and be patient a while longer. It's all for her sake I'm
staying away. Give her the letter I enclose. "Your old bunkie, Dick
Lane"
CHAPTER II
The Heart of a Girl
Jim Allen was the sole owner and proprietor of Allen Hacienda. His

ranch, the Bar One, stretched for miles up and down the Sweetwater
Valley. Bounded on the east and west by the foot-hills, the tract was
one of the garden spots of Arizona. Southward lay the Sweetwater
Ranch, owned by Jack Payson. Northward was the home ranch of the
Lazy K, an Ishmaelitish outfit, ever at petty war with the other settlers
in the district. It was a miscellaneous and constantly changing crowd,
recruited from rustlers from Wyoming, gamblers from California,
half-breed outlaws from the Indian Territory; in short, "bad men" from
every section of the Western country. They had a special grudge
against Allen and Payson, whom they held to be accountable for the
sudden disappearance, about a year before, of their leader, Buck
McKee, a half-breed from the Cherokee Strip. However, no other
leader had arisen equal to that masterful spirit, and their enmity
expressed itself only in such petty depredations as changing brands on
stray cattle from the Bar One and Sweetwater Ranches, and the slitting
of the tongues of young calves, so that would be unable to feed
properly, and, as a result, be disowned by their mothers, whereupon the
Lazy K outfit would slap its brand on them as mavericks.
Allen was a Kentuckian who had served in the Confederate Army as
one of Morgan's raiders, and so had received, by popular brevet, the
title of colonel. At the close of the war he had come to Arizona with his
young wife, Josephine, and had founded a home on the Sweetwater. He
was now one of the cattle barons of the great Southwest. Prosperity had
not spoiled him. Careless in his attire, cordial in his manner, he was a
man who was loved and respected by his men, from the newest
tenderfoot to the veteran of the bunkhouse. His wife, however, was not
so highly regarded, for