THE WOMAN WITH THE REVOLVER.
Let us go back a step in our story of crime and its detection, and keep
track of another character--Belle Demona.
We saw her at last on her way toward Perth, well mounted and eager.
She was leaving Merle behind, and she knew it.
Somewhere in the house almost tenantless, thanks to Stareyes' avenging
hand, he was facing Riggs, the guard, now known to both as the trailer
from beyond the sea; but, for all this, she was deserting him, leaving
him to fight his battles alone.
Belle Demona put the endurance of the horse to its utmost, and, as she
careered over the barren, she glanced up now and then as if to mark the
flight of time by the stars.
Nothing occurred to give her ride an eventful turn.
Day broke over her and lit up the way, and in due course of time she
pulled into Perth, her black steed foamy at the bit and streaked with
white at the flanks.
She looked romantically picturesque as she galloped down the main
street of the provincial capital, looking on both sides and singling
out certain people here and there.
Almost at the end of the street she drew rein and dismounted.
"He said the traitor was here," she muttered. "If so I'll face him and
show him that I brook no disobedience."
She walked to the door of a small two-story house and knocked.
Her heated horse stood in the middle of the street.
The door was opened at last by an old woman who looked at Belle Demona,
and then let her in.
As she crossed the threshold she clutched the old woman's arm and
almost hissed:
"Where is he?"
There was a start and a recoil, for the speaker's eyes were dangerous
in their light and quite enough to frighten one.
"You know me, Meg?" Belle Demona went on. "I came over on business. Jem
is here?"
There was a hasty glance toward the ceiling, and the other said:
"Yes, I see. Is he asleep?"
"Yes, he came in but half an hour ago."
"Sober?"
"Reasonably so," was the answer, and then Belle Demona moved toward the
door.
"How's Round Robin?" queried the old woman.
"Gone, but my vengeance remains!"
"Your vengeance?"
"Yes."
Before the older one could reply there were hasty footsteps on the
stairs in the dingy hall and the figure of Belle Demona vanished.
Overhead a little door met her roving vision and she pushed it open.
Stretched on a sofa with his clothes on lay Jem, the Sydneyite, the man
whom she had sent to Melbourne to discover the truth about Old Danny's
trap.
He did not hear her.
For a moment Belle Demona, pistol in hand, looked at the sleeper, and a
smile of vengeance came to her finely-chiseled lips.
After a while she went over to the sofa and let her gloved hand fall
upon his shoulder.
It took a little shaking to open Jem's eyes, and the first look did not
reveal the truth.
But when he looked again and saw the tensely-drawn face, and perhaps
the cocked six-shooter in the woman's hand, he sat bolt upright and
lost color.
She had unmasked him.
Belle Demona had come to prove that he had deceived her, that he had
never gone to Melbourne, and perhaps she knew that his time had been
passed in the gilded gambling hells and dance halls of Perth.
"I am here, traitor!" sternly spoke Belle Demona.
Jem shook off the last semblance of sleep and got up.
"You have played me false. You let another make you his slave. You have
rested here in Perth."
What could he say?
There were marks of dissipation on his face, and he wondered if Riggs
had gone back to the ranch and betrayed him.
"Stand over there against the wall!" commanded the queen of the ranch.
Jem hesitated.
"I'll kill you if you don't!"
He moved away and she continued:
"Merle told you to stop in Perth?" She looked at him as she spoke. "He
gave you money--my money--with which to fight the tiger here."
Jem was ready for any confession now, for he saw the determined mien
of his mistress, and knew that she came from Ranch Robin merciless and
cool.
"Like a fool I listened to Merle," he said.
"Like a fool? Rather like a traitor!" cried the woman. "You must have
met the man called Riggs?"
"He threw himself across my path."
"Why didn't you kill him?"
"I didn't suspect that he was the detective."
"Fool! you might have known that he would not seek you if not for a
terrible purpose."
"Let me meet him again."
"That is never to take place."
The last words seemed to come through clinched teeth, and the hand of
Belle Demona got a tighter grip on the revolver.
"My death would do you no good, woman," he said, seeing her
determination as expressed in deep-set and glowing eyes.
"It would put a traitor out of the way. It would stop treason among
those I have trusted. I will have no traitors in my way."
Jem, the Sydneyite, seemed to measure the distance between him and the
woman, but a few steps away, and he knew that she would carry out the
purposes of her heart to the letter.
"I have come to kill you!" deliberately spoke Belle Demona.
He did not plead for time or mercy.
Once more he looked across the space and tried to detect a quivering of
her muscles, but failed.
Belle Demona fell back a step, and the deadly weapon looked Jem fairly
in the face.
"When I pass from this room to fight to the bitter end the battle of
life against the minions of the law, you will not be a witness against
me," she said. "Your time is up, Jem!"
The finger against the trigger moved a little.
A jet of fire leaped into the man's face, and he reeled against the
walls, throwing up his hands with a cry.
She appeared riveted to the floor while she watched the sinking body
that finally reached the carpet with a white face turned toward hers.
Jem, the Sydneyite, did not move after striking the floor, and Belle
Demona remained in her tracks a full minute.
Presently, with a last look at her victim, she moved toward the door,
which she locked behind her.
With steady step she descended the stairs and looked in upon Meg in the
lower room.
The face of the old woman was as white as that of the dead overhead and
she greeted Belle Demona with a look which told that she knew all.
"Don't open the room for an hour," said the queen of Ranch Robin.
"Not for a day if you give the command."
"Well, say not for three hours. Jem, your lodger, was a traitor,
Meg----"
"Death to all such, I say!" cried the old woman, and the woman with the
revolver threw a lot of bills upon the clothless table.
Half a minute later Belle Demona stood once more in the street of Perth.
Her horse had waited for her and she mounted with the grace of a
finished rider.
She cast a glance up the street as she did so and then moved away.
Suddenly at the second glance she changed color a trifle.
Three horsemen were just entering Perth in the early light of morning.
The figures, blended for some time, opened as they came on, and the
face of the queen of the ranch became a study while she watched them.
Did she guess who they were?
Belle Demona turned aside at the first corner and rode into another
thoroughfare.
"I'll wait and see," she said.
Riding down a narrow alley, still dark, she reined in her steed and
turned his face toward the street.
There, with the revolver in her hand, she sat upright in the silken
saddle and watched the mouth of the alley.
Not a muscle moved.
Like a hunted creature, this magnificent woman, beautiful despite her
wild and reckless life, awaited the appearance of the three men.
Presently she caught the sound of hoofs and leaned forward.
"They will soon be here, and then----"
She did not complete the sentence, but broke it of her own accord and
held her breath.
Nearer and nearer came the steeds as yet unseen, and the gloved finger
of Belle Demona rested against the shining trigger of the six-shooter.
"He will never take him across the sea!" she hissed. "Here ends the
trail of the Yankee spotter, and here finishes as well the story of
Belle Demona's hate."
The next moment the horsemen came opposite the mouth of the alley, and
the fair foe in ambush pressed the trigger, and a loud report rang out
on the crisp air.