TEN

            We had eaten our noon meal on the following day when we saw a plume of dust. It seemed like one rider, at most not more than two.

            Mulvaney got up unhurriedly and moved across to the log barricade and waited beside his rifle. He was not a man who grew greatly excited, and I liked him for that. Fighting is a cool-headed business.

            Rolling a smoke, I watched that dust. It could mean anything or nothing.

            No man likes to stand against odds, yet sometimes it is the only way. No man likes to face a greater power than himself, and especially when there are always the coattail hangers who will render lip service to anyone who seems to be top dog.

            It brings a bitterness to a man, and especially when he is right.

            Yet this morning I'd no need for worry. The rider came into view, coming at an easy lope. And it was Moira Maclaren.

            We had worked all that morning clearing ground for the new house I was to build. Moira drew up and her eyes went to the cleared space and the rocks we'd hauled on a stone boat for the foundation.

            The house would stand on a hill with the long sweep of Cottonwood Wash before it, shaded by several huge cottonwoods and a sycamore or two.

            "You must be careful. I think you had a visitor last night," she said.

            "A visitor?"

            "Morgan Park came over this way."

            So he had been around, had he? And devilishly quiet or we would have heard him. It was a thing to be remembered, and Moira was right. We must be more careful.

            "He's a puzzling man, Moira. Who is he?"

            "He doesn't talk much about the past. I know he's been in Philadelphia and New York. And he takes trips to Salt Lake or San Francisco occasionally."

            She swung down and looked around, seeing the barricade.

            "Were the boys hurt?" I asked her.

            "No ... but they had a lot to say about you using dynamite." She looked up at me. "Would you have minded if you had hurt them?"

            "Who wants to hurt anybody? All I wanted was to get them out of here. Only, that Finder crowd ... I'd not be fussy in their case."

            We stood together near her horse, enjoying the warm sun, and looking down the Wash over the green grass where the cattle fed.

            "It's a nice view."

            "You'll see it many times, from the house."

            She looked around at me. "You really believe that, don't you?"

            Before I could reply, she said thoughtfully, "You asked about Morgan Park. Be careful, Matt. I think he is utterly without scruples."

            There was more to come, and I waited. There was something about Morgan Park that bothered me. He was a handsome man as well as a strong one, and a man who might well appeal to women, yet from her manner I was beginning to believe that Moira had sensed about him the same thing I had.

            "There was a young man, Arnold D'Arcy, out here from the east," she said, "and I liked him. Knowing Morgan, I didn't mention him when Morgan was around. Then one night he commented on him, and suggested it would be better for all concerned if the young man did not come back."

            She turned around and looked up at me. "Matt, when Morgan found out Arnold's name he was frightened."

            "Frightened? Morgan?"

            "Yes ... and Arnold wasn't a big man, or by any means dangerous. But Morgan began to ask questions. What was D'Arcy doing here? Had he been asking questions about anybody? Or mentioned looking for anyone?"

            It was a thing to think of. Why would a man like Morgan Park be frightened? Not of physical danger ... the man obviously believed himself invulnerable. There must be something else.

            "Did you tell D'Arcy about it?"

            "No." There was a shadow of worry on her face. "Matt, I never saw him again."

            I looked at her quickly. "You mean, he never came back?"

            "Never. And he didn't write."

            We walked down the Wash, talking of the ranch and of my plans. It was a quiet, pleasant hour, and a rare thing for me, who had known few quiet hours since coming to Hattan's Point, and who could expect few until this was settled and I was accepted as the owner of the Two-Bar, and a man to be reckoned with.

            When she was mounting to leave, I asked her, "This D'Arcy—where was he from?"

            "Virginia. He had served in the Army, and before coming out here he had been stationed in Washington."

            Watching her ride away, my mind turned again to Morgan Park. He might have frightened D'Arcy away, but it was a matter to think about.

            Behind Morgan's questions, and behind the disappearance of D'Arcy, there might be something sinister, something that Park did not want known. And yet he had been here during the night and hadn't killed me. Was it because he could not get a good shot? Or for another reason? Did he want me alive?

            Mulvaney and I worked steadily around the place, but I rested from time to time, for my strength had not yet returned. We accomplished a lot, and by nightfall our foundation was finished and the shape of my house was plain to see.

            Mulvaney was a steady and tireless worker. We each went to the rim of the Wash from time to time to look around the country, although the foundations of the house were almost as high as that rim now.

            Toward evening, mounted on a gray horse, I scouted the country with care. I found tracks that must have been those of Morgan Park's horse, for they were the tracks of a big horse, the kind it would take to carry the weight of the man. I studied them, wanting to know them again. For in the back of my mind I had a plan shaping.

            There were four sides to the question here at Hattan's. Jim Finder and his CP, Maclaren and the Boxed M, myself on the Two-Bar, and Morgan Park.

            Finder could understand nothing but force. Maclaren, when he saw he could not win, would back off. He could be circumvented. But Morgan Park worried me.

            It would be a good thing to learn something about Morgan Park.

            There had been a Major Leo D'Arcy at Fort Concho, in Texas. A sharp, intelligent officer with a good bit of experience. The name was not too uncommon, but Major D'Arcy had, I believed, been from Virginia. He would not be a brother, unless a much older brother. He might be the father, or an uncle. And he might be no relative at all, but it was a chance, and I had to begin somewhere.

            We cut hay for the horses that we had to keep in the corral, and by the time the moon was rising we were eating a leisurely supper.

            "I'm going to Silver Reef tomorrow, Mulvaney. I'm sending a couple of messages."

            "Have yourself a time. I'll be all right."

            He looked down at the Wash in the moonlight. "It's a fine place this. I'd like to stay on."

            "And why not? I'll be needing help."

            I told Mulvaney about Morgan Park being near us in the night, and I could see he did not like it. We would have to be careful.

            Rolled in my blankets I lay long awake, looking at the stars. The fire burned low ... a coyote yammered at the moon, and somewhere a quail called inquiringly into the night.

            Mulvaney turned and muttered in his sleep. And nothing moved along the western rim.

            Into my mind came again the face of Morgan Park, square, brutal, and handsome. It was a strong face, a powerful face, but what lay behind it? What was there in the man? Who was he? Where had he come from? What was his stake here? And what had become of Arnold D'Arcy? Far off, the coyote called ... slow smoke lifted from the embers, and my lids grew heavy.