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Show FOR HONOR'S SAKE. !BY CATHERINE LEWIS. (Copyright, 1904, C. B. Lewis.) i q buzz of talk at the "Ranch, at the Four-X ?"7th roa"'ou93 btweei1 thcm .1. three or four Pcatterer cabins 'Vp-SnaUc Creek. There had !? between Dave Hender-6 Hender-6 'the Three Stars and Gulllo 'iLof the Four X's. It had been Z for lo wcc,tB- and naU7 id W exchanged, and Gulllo ftoa sllfibtJy wounded. Men had & (hen. but not until a duel to Ll on toweback had been ar-X ar-X to come off a week later. tfctfOTV na(1 comc to act as gi. ji.the roadhouw a year be-t be-t to blame the widow Huber ! .i.rhter Viola, the latter a girl xas a flash, a report and a fottrabled to the ground. llhfir piece was a house of call larekrs, and wno well patronized, flgb there was no bar and no hVu Kild. i!!iventy-five cowboys employed Ifttrw contlRiious ranches were a b'itdarlne Viola Huber to be the faun, cutest, jolliest girl ever ita Ike grazing grounds of the i litre was no one to dispute. If tt nnmber fell In love at first ttit tvas only to be expected. i!i:Hiald, however, that the giti IL a coquette, and that the adora-ilsi adora-ilsi adulation were entirely un-iifcr. un-iifcr. Nor must one Jump to the cfc that thirty or forty cowboys kn to the roadhouse and offered WMi In succession. On the con- trary, few of them ever passed a word with the girl or got more than a glimpse of her. Thc-y elmnly loved in the abstract. Perhaps ten of the lot, In thi course of n year, had opportunities opportuni-ties for conversation, although only two of them dared to flatter her or speak of love. One was Dave Henderson, credited with being one of the smartest of the Anglo-Saxon cowboys, and the other was Gulllo Humnyun, a Mexican who could trace his ancestry back to kings. All other Mexicans on the ranches were spoken of as "Greasers." Gulllo was always referred to as Senor. It was a compliment to his aristocratic face, to his dare-devil riding and to IiIb well-known courage. Ho had flattered the Senorlta Huber, as he called her. He had looked at her In a languishing way rind had spoken soft words of love, hut he had been met by a dignity and a coIdne?3 that froze him out. In the end the field had been left to Dave Henderson, and while the girl's choice had brought to others humiliation humilia-tion and chngrin, It had also been tacitly tacit-ly approved by a majority of the unfortunates. un-fortunates. Dave was smart; he was a good fellow; he was on the road to secure se-cure an Interest In the big- "Three Stars.'"' Gulllo alone was chagrined and vengeful, and It soon became patent that he was biding his time to ptovoke an affray, and to use his guns. It must be brought about diplomatically. diplomati-cally. It must comc In such a way aa to present an appearance of fairness, fair-ness, or he would be wiped out by Dave's friends. To this purpose he bent all his mental energies. When the clash finally came "the Senor," too, had his backing, and when he demanded a duel on horseback he was announced to be wlihln his rights. Then came a single whisper. Given no attention, li soon became a buzzing. buz-zing. It wat Bald, even by some of Dave's friends, that he had shown a touch of the white feather In the first encounter, and they doubted if he would do the Three Stars credit on the day of the duel. These whispers reached his ears and he simply replied, "Walt." They reached the ears of the girl, and she set forth on her broncho and tried to trace them to their source. Men shook their heads In a dubious way, and refused to give her honest answers, and at the end of three days she asked Dave nenaeraun imnbeu: "Do you know what Is being said of you In connection with the duel?" He nodded his head. "And what do you mean to do?" "Kill Gulllo!" he curtly replied. The words were plain enough, but there was something in the lover's general gen-eral demeanor that sent a chill to the girl's heart. Something perhaps Intuition In-tuition told her that the man was either a (toward at heart, or he was a brave man, who realized his danger and was a bit nervous over Jt. "Tomorrow forenoon at 10 o'clock," he saldi the night before the duel, "I shall ride forth from the cottonwoods over there to meet Gulllo as he comes out from behind the bluffs, and I shall do my best to kill him. We will not say good-by; I hope to be here at this same hour tomorrow night," |
