She had been right in her suspicions of the Man of Mystery, Jerry
thought, as she put spurs to her horse. The words Beechy had called
after her echoed in her mind. "Tell Greyson if he gets a chance--to put
a bullet through the man--Ranlett took on in--my place--that range-rider
at Bear-Creek ranch." It was growing dark. Heavy clouds had rolled up.
She had some difficulty in forcing Patches from the old pack-trail which
eventually led to home and supper. She cut across fields, splashed
through the stream, then headed for the X Y Z ranch-house whose lights
seemed like will-o'-the-wisps. The longer she rode the more they
receded.
She determined not to worry about Beechy. He had promised that he would
try to get to the Double O and she knew that he would win out. The
unexpected would happen to help him, as nine out of ten times it did
when one was in dire straights. With the thought came a vision of her
father; she could see his massive head, his shrewd eyes, hear his deep
voice saying:
"I have a firm conviction, that a person can through any worthy thing on
which he is determined; how else do you account for the seeming miracles
of heroism men got away with in the World War? The test is, how much do
you want it? I've gone on that principle all my life and it's worked, I
tell you, it's worked."
It was curious how that memory of her father vitalized her. Jerry
straightened in the saddle. She felt as though she had been warmed, fed,
had had the elixir of courage poured through her veins. Beechy would
come through. All she need think of was her part.
It was quite dark when she reached the X Y Z. The air stirred in hot
gusts; from far off came the rumble of thunder. Patches was matted with
sweat and dust. Ito, the Jap, opened the door in response to her knock.
From behind him came the sound of voices, the tinkle of silver, the
ripple of a woman's laugh. Felice Denbigh! Jerry had forgotten her. For
an instant she visualized the gold hair, the gold eyes with their
tigerish spots, the alluring chiffoned daintiness of the woman. With a
shrug she looked down at her own torn, dusty riding clothes. She would
hate to meet the ultra fashionable Mrs. Denbigh now. Felice must not
know that she had come; she might ruin everything. Jerry had an
intuition that she would stop at nothing to humiliate the girl Steve had
married. She caught the astonished Ito by the lapels of his coat and
drew him into the shadow.
"It is Mrs. Courtlandt, Ito. I must see Mr. Greyson. Don't tell him who
it is, though. Say--say that--that the ranch boss wants to see him."
The Jap's yellow mask of a face did not for a moment lose its
imperturbability.
"All lie will I tell him, honorable lady. Keep in dark when I door make
open."
Jerry sank to a bench among the vines; weary Patches sagged in the
shadows. For an instant it seemed as though life drained out of her, as
though she were being swept along the tide of indifference to
unconsciousness. For the first time she realized that she had had but
two hours' sleep in almost forty-eight hours. She forced herself erect.
She pulled off her hat which she had crushed down over her forehead when
she started on her wild ride to the X Y Z. It was a relief to get it
off. She could think better. She dropped it to the bench beside her. A
ray of light from somewhere set the gold in the cord glinting. Where was
the owner of that hat, she wondered. Had Steve gone into the mountains?
Would Tommy and Peg be anxious when she did not appear for dinner? She
did not dare 'phone them for fear that in some way Ranlett might get a
clue to her errand. She started forward as the door opened and closed
and Greyson's voice demanded sharply:
"What's to pay, McGregor?"
"It isn't McGregor, it's Jerry Courtlandt," the girl whispered. "Shs-s!
Take me somewhere we can talk and not be overheard."
He led her to a clump of trees near the entrance to the drive; her horse
followed with his head close to the girl's shoulder. The branches swayed
in the wind. Even in the dusk she could see the eddies of dust in the
road. The atmosphere seemed electrically alive. Jerry shivered and
seized a fold of Greyson's sleeve.
"I--I just want to make sure you're really here--it's so--so dark I can
hardly see you," she apologized shakily. His hand closed over hers. His
voice was tense as he demanded:
"What has happened, Jerry? What has brought you to me like this?" For
the first time she was conscious of the absurdity of her costume, of her
delicate, torn blouse with its bandana addition, her linen breeches and
riding boots. She flung the thought of her appearance from her mind and
plunged into explanation. Greyson questioned when she had finished:
"Are you sure? How did Beechy know?"
Jerry's eyes widened.
"I never thought to ask," she confessed. "I just believed what he told
me and I know, I know that he was telling the truth. What shall we do?
We must hurry--hurry----" For what seemed an eternity of time to her
Bruce Greyson was silent. The wind rose and whistled and whined. Jerry
was quivering with impatience when he spoke.
"The train must be flagged before it reaches the X Y Z. I'll run the
flivver to the crossing and try to get down the track. It's a mad scheme
but it's the only chance. We couldn't get to the station at Slippy Bend
in time if we tried. I'll take one of the men to wave a lantern----"
"You'll take me," interrupted Jerry breathlessly. The amazing audacity
of the plan thrilled her with its possibilities. "We mustn't take a
chance with a third party. Beechy warned me that Ranlett had
sympathizers everywhere. We can't trust one of the men."
"But there is a tremendous storm rising. What if Steve----"
"Steve may not be at home to-night; what he doesn't know won't trouble
him. Tommy and Peg will have to worry. Individuals must be sacrificed to
the good of the government, or words to that effect." Her spirits were
mounting now that she had secured an ally. "Felice must not know that I
am here."
"I'll have Ito make my apologies to Mrs. Denbigh. He can tell her that I
have been called away suddenly. He can also tel--slip down to the front
gate and wait for me. I'll take your horse to the corral. If the men
notice him at all, they win think merely that you have taken refuge from
the storm."
Crouched against the shrubs near the gate the girl waited. A lurid flash
in the heavens gave an instant's glimpse of the ranch-house, the white
fences of the corral. Then came the crash of thunder and utter darkness.
There was a sound as of a fusillade of bullets on the hard road. "Here
comes the rain!" Jerry murmured. The words were drowned in a sudden
hissing downpour. She peered at the illuminated dial of her watch. Nine
o'clock! In just one hour the train was due at Devil's Hold-up. Could
they stop it? She listened. Was that the sound of wheels? Yes. Greyson
was coasting the machine down the slight incline toward her; there was
no sound of the engine. While it was still in motion she sprang to the
running-board, took her seat and closed the door softly. Not a moment
had been lost. For the first time she felt the rain beating on her bare
head; it stung her shoulders through her thin blouse. The top of the car
had been thrown back. She put her hand up. Her hat! Where was it? Then
she remembered that she had flung it on the bench beside Greyson's
front door. "Being hatless is the least of my troubles," she thought
buoyantly as she peered forward into the darkness. At the foot of the
incline Greyson bent to the lever.
"Now we're off," he whispered. "There is a lantern at your feet. Light
that."
On her knees in the bottom of the car Jerry struggled with the lantern.
The flivver bounced and swerved as the driver tried to force the engine
belonging to the hundreds class to speed achieved only by the thousands.
After using a profusion of matches, and--anathemas when she burned her
fingers, Jerry lighted the lantern. She gave a long sigh of relief as
she slipped back into her seat.
"It's done! The bottom of the car looks as though there had been a
massacre of matches, just as the floor round Steve's chair looks when he
is smoking his pipe, but what are a few matches at a time like this?
What can I do next?"
"Jerry, you amazing girl! Nothing--nothing seems hard or impossible when
you have a share in it," Greyson burst out impetuously. He steadied his
voice and directed, "When we come to the gate get out and open it. I'll
run through to the crossing. Be sure that you fasten the gate securely
behind you. No sane person will think of our getting down the track this
way. No sane person would think of attempting it," he added under his
breath.
Once through the gate Greyson cautiously steered the car off the
crossing on to the track which paralleled that on which the west-bound
train would come. He manipulated the motor until the left-hand wheels of
the car hugged the inside of one rail and the right-hand wheels were in
the road-bed. He waited for flashes of lightning to show him the way.
They came almost incessantly. The thunder crashed and rumbled as though
the gods of the mountains were playfully pitching TNT shells for
exercise.
"This is going to be one little stunt," the man confided to the girl as
she took her seat beside him. "Keep the lantern in your hand. When I say
'Ready' stand up on the seat and wave like mad. Now we're off, and may
the gods be good to us!"
It wasn't a heathen god whom Jerry Courtlandt importuned. She never
looked back upon that wild ride without a renewed thanksgiving that the
prayer in her heart had been answered, without a reminiscent ache in
every bone of her body, without seeing a close-up of Greyson,
tense-jawed and wrinkle-browed bent over the wheel. He drove with his
eyes intent on the tracks which seemed glistening streaks of fire when
the lightning flashed. The swift transitions from dazzling light to inky
darkness blinded her. It would always remain one of the inexplicable
miracles to the girl that the flivver did not capsize. She felt no fear
at the time. Only when from behind them came the sound as of a hundred
furies let loose did she shudder.
"Is--is that a pack of wolves?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Coyotes. Two can make as much noise as a dozen of anything else. Hear
that? Begin to wave! Ready!"
Jerry scrambled to the seat. She lost her balance as the car careened
tipsily. She clutched Greyson's hair with a violence which wrung a
stifled "Ouch!" from the victim.
"I'm sorry. My mistake! I wasn't trained as a bareback rider," the girl
apologized with an hysterical ripple of laughter.
"Wave! Wave!" Greyson shouted above the din of the storm.
The girl waved her lantern in curving sweeps. At first she could hear
nothing, see nothing, then above the noise of their own wheels she heard
a rumble which quickly increased to a roar. Then came a light and behind
it a creature which might have belonged to the ancient order of
Compsognatha, so long was it, so sinuous, so sinister. It was the train.
Jerry waved frantically. Surely, surely the engineer must see her light.
She caught her breath and held it as the roar grew deafening and the
monster came leaping, writhing, pounding on.
"They see us! They see us!" she shouted, and laughed exultantly all the
while waving the lantern madly. The whistle of the oncoming engine blew
a frenzied warning. Greyson turned his wheel way over. The flivver
literally jumped the rails and ran along a siding which joined the main
track. The girl slid into her seat limp with exhaustion. With groaning
and grinding of brakes and clanking of wheels the long train trembled to
a stop. Which one of the cars carried the treasure, Jerry wondered, just
as a rough Irish voice thundered in her ear:
"For the love of Mike! What we got here? Escaped lunatics, or I miss my
guess." The light of a lantern was flashed in the faces of the occupants
of the car. The man who held it swore with an ease and facility which
took Jerry's breath. "It's a man and a woman, crazy as coots," he called
to someone behind him. Then in a magisterial tone, "It's a hunch we got
the new division superintendent aboard this trip. He can see for himself
what held us up; he'd never believe it if I told him. Now what'd you
flag this train for?" demanded the violator of the second Commandment,
truculently. A group of men had gathered round him.
Greyson stepped from the flivver and drew Jerry after him. What would
he say, she wondered anxiously. Their errand must not be suspected. They
must get aboard the train and interview the division superintendent. A
sudden mad thought suggested itself. Without an instant's hesitation
Jerry slipped her arm under Greyson's, rested her head against his
sleeve and smiled audaciously into the broad, weather-beaten face
glowering at her.
"Don't scold, Mr. Brakeman. It was reckless, but--but--you see, we just
had to flag this train. We--we want to get to the coast.
We're--we're--eloping."
"Good God!"
Greyson's inarticulate protest was submerged in the hoarse ejaculation.
Jerry wheeled. Behind her stood Stephen Courtlandt.