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But Bucky's contempt was tolerant, after all. He could not deny his sympathy to a youngster in trouble. Again he touched gently the lad's crisp curls of burnished gold.
“Brace up, bub. The worst is yet to come,” he laughed awkwardly. “I reckon there's no use spillin' any more emotion over it. He ain't your dad, is he?”
The lad's big brown eyes looked up into the serene blue ones and found comfort in their strength. “No, he's my uncle—and my master.”
“This is a free country, son. We don't have masters if we're good Americans, though we all have to take orders from our superior officers. You don't need to serve this fellow unless you want to. That's a cinch.”
The boy's troubled eyes were filmed with reminiscent terror. “You don't know him. He is terrible when he is angry,” he murmured.
“I don't think it,” returned Bucky contemptuously. “He's the worst blowhard ever. Say the word and I'll run the piker out of town for you.”
The boy whipped up the sleeve of the fancy Mexican jacket he wore and showed a long scar on his arm. “He did that one day when he was angry at me. He pretended to others that it was an accident, but I knew better. This morning I begged him to let me leave him. He beat me, but he was still mad; and when he took to drinking I was afraid he would work himself up to stick me again with one of his knives.”
Bucky looked at the scar in the soft, rounded arm and swept the boy with a sudden puzzled glance that was not suspicion but wonder.
“How long have you been with him, kid?”
“Oh, for years. Ever since I was a little fellow. He took me after my father and mother died of yellow fever in New Orleans. His wife hates me too, but they have to have me in the show.”
“Then I guess you had better quit their company. What's your name?”
“Frank Hardman. On the show bills I have all sorts of names.”
“Well, Frank, how would you like to go to live on a ranch?”
“Where he wouldn't know I was?” whispered the boy eagerly.
“If you like. I know a ranch where you'd be right welcome.”
“I would work. I would do anything I could. Really, I would try to pay my way, and I don't eat much,” Frank cried, his eyes as appealing as a homeless puppy's.
Bucky smiled. “I expect they can stand all you eat without going to the poorhouse. It's a bargain then. I'll take you out there to-morrow.”
“You're so good to me. I never had anybody be so good before.” Tears stood in the big eyes and splashed over.
“Cut out the water works, kid. You want to take a brace and act like a man,” advised his new friend brusquely.
“I know. I know. If you knew what I have done maybe you wouldn't ask me to go with you. I—I can't tell you anything more than that,” the youngster sobbed.
“Oh, well. What's the diff? You're making a new start to-day. Ain't that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me Bucky.”
“Yes, sir. Bucky, I mean.”
A hand fell on the ranger's shoulder and a voice in his ear. “Young man, I want you.”
The lieutenant whirled like a streak of lightning, finger on trigger already. “I'll trouble you for yore warrant, seh,” he retorted.
The man confronting him was the big cattleman who had entered the Silver Dollar in time to see O'Connor's victory over the showman. Now he stood serenely under Bucky's gun and laughed.
“Put up your .45, my friend. It's a peaceable conference I want with you.”
The level eyes of the young man fastened on those of the cattleman, and, before he spoke again, were satisfied. For both of these men belonged to the old West whose word is as good as its bond, that West which will go the limit for a cause once under taken without any thought of retreat, regardless of the odds or the letter of the law. Though they had never met before, each knew at a glance the manner of man the other was.
“All right, seh. If you want me I reckon I'm here large as life,” the ranger said,
“We'll adjourn to the poker room upstairs then, Mr. O'Connor.”
Bucky laid a hand on the shoulder of the boy. “This kid goes with me. I'm keeping an eye on him for the present.”
“My business is private, but I expect that can be arranged. We'll take the inner room and let him have the outer.”
“Good enough. Break trail, seh. Come along, Frank.”
Having reached the poker room upstairs, that same private room which had seen many a big game in its day between the big cattle kings and mining men of the Southwest, Bucky's host ordered refreshments and then unfolded his business.
“You don't know me, lieutenant, do you?”
“I haven't that pleasure, seh.”
“I am Major Mackenzie's brother.”
“Webb Mackenzie, who came from Texas last year and bought the Rocking Chair Ranch?”
“The same.”
“I'm right glad to meet you, seh.”
“And I can say the same.”
Webb Mackenzie was so distinctively a product of the West that no other segment of the globe could have produced him. Big, raw-boned, tanned to a leathery brick-brown, he was as much of the frontier as the ten thousand cows he owned that ran the range on half as many hills and draws. He stood six feet two and tipped the beam at two hundred twelve pounds, not an ounce of which was superfluous flesh. Temperamentally, he was frank, imperious, free-hearted, what men call a prince. He wore a loose tailor-made suit of brown stuff and a broad-brimmed light-gray Stetson. For the rest, you may see a hundred like him at the yearly stock convention held in Denver, but you will never meet a man even among them with a sounder heart or better disposition.
“I've got a story to tell you, Lieutenant O'Connor,” he began. “I've been meaning to see you and tell it ever since you made good in that Fernendez matter. It wasn't your gameness. Anybody can be game. But it looked to me like you were using the brains in the top of your head, and that happens so seldom among law officers I wanted to have a talk with you. Since yesterday I've been more anxious. For why? I got a letter from my brother telling me Sheriff Collins showed him a locket he found at the place of the T. P. Limited hold-up. That locket has in it a photograph of my wife and little girl. For fifteen years I haven't seen that picture. When I saw it last 'twas round my little baby's neck. What's more, I haven't seen her in that time, either.”
Mackenzie stopped, swallowed hard, and took a drink of water.
“You haven't seen your little girl in fifteen years,” exclaimed Bucky.
“Haven't seen or heard of her. So far as I know she may not be alive now. This locket is the first hint I have had since she was taken away, the very first news of her that has reached me, and I don't know what to make of that. One of the robbers must have been wearing it, the way I figure it out. Where did he get it? That's what I want to know.”
“Suppose you tell me the story, seh,” suggested the ranger gently.
The cattleman offered O'Connor a cigar and lit one himself. For a minute he puffed slowly at his Havana, leaning far back in his chair with eyes reminiscent and half shut. Then he shook himself back into the present and began his tale.
“I don't reckon you ever heard tell of Dave Henderson. It was back in Texas I knew him, and he's been missing