more
aspiring. But to think that she had given her heart so suddenly and
so freely to this stranger was a shock. Hervey reaped the harvest of
their alarmed glances with a vast inward content. Every look he met
was an incipient gun levelled at the head of Red Jim.

"Didn't make no bones about it," he said, "she plumb begged for him.
Well, boys, she ain't going to get him. I think too much of old man
Jordan to let his girl run off with a man-killing vagabond like this
Perris. He's good looking and he talks dead easy. That's what's turned
the trick. I guess the rest of you would back me up?"

The answer was a growl.

"I'll go bust his neck," said Little Joe furiously. "One of them
heart-breakers, I figure."

"First thing," said the foreman, "is to see that she don't get to him.
If she does, she'll sure run off with him. But she's easy kept from
that. Joe, you and Shorty watch the hoss corrals to-night, will you?
And don't let her get through to a hoss by talking soft to you."

They vowed that they would be adamant. They vowed it with many oaths.
In fact, the rage of the cowpunchers was steadily growing. Red Perris
was more than a mere insolent interloper who had dared to scoff at the
banded powers of the Valley of the Eagles. He was far worse. He was
the most despicable sort of sneak and thief for he was trying to
steal the heart and ruin the life of a girl. They had looked upon
the approaching conflict with Perris as a bitter pill that must be
swallowed for the sake of the Valley of the Eagles outfit. They looked
upon it, from this moment, as a religious duty from which no one with
the name of a man dared to shrink. Little Joe and Shorty at once
started for the corral. The others gathered around the foreman for
further details, but he waved them away and retired to his own bunk.
For he never used the little room at the end of the building which
was set aside for the foreman. He lived and slept and ate among his
cowpunchers and that was one reason for his hold over them.

At his bunk, he produced writing materials scribbled hastily.

"Dear Jordan,

"Hell has busted loose.

"I played Perris with a long rope. I gave him a week because Miss
Jordan asked me to. But at the end of the week he still wasn't ready
to go. Seems that he's crazy to get Alcatraz. Talks about the horse
like a drunk talking about booze. Plumb disgusting. But when I told
him to go to-night, he up and said they wasn't enough men in the
Valley