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THE SHERIFF'S SON
by
WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
Author of
The Yukon Trail, Wyoming, etc.
Illustrated by Harold Cue
[Frontispiece: When Meldrum came in answer to her summons, he met the
shock of his life.]
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1917 and 1918, by Frank A. Munsey Company
Copyright, 1918, by William Macleod Raine
All Rights Reserved
Published April 1918
TO
ROBERT H. DAVIS
WHO WITH HIS USUAL GENEROSITY TO WRITERS
MADE THE AUTHOR A PRESENT
OF THE GERM IDEA
OF THIS PLOT
Contents
Foreword
I. Dingwell Gives Three Cheers.
II. Dave Caches a Gunnysack
III. The Old-Timer Sits into a Big Game
IV. Royal Beaudry Hears a Call
V. The Hill Girl
VI. "Cherokee Street"
VII. Jess Tighe Spins a Web
VIII. Beulah Asks Questions
IX. The Man on the Bed
X. Dave Takes a Ride
XI. Tighe Weaves his Web Tighter
XII. Stark Fear
XIII. Beulah Interferes
XIV. Personally Escorted
XV. The Bad Man
XVI. Roy is Invited to Take a Drink
XVII. Roy Improves the Shining Hours
XVIII. Rutherford Answers Questions
XIX. Beaudry Blows a Smoke Wreath
XX. At the Lazy Double D
XXI. Roy Rides his Paint Hoss
XXII. Miss Rutherford Speaks her Mind
XXIII. In the Pit
XXIV. The Bad Man Decides not to Shoot
XXV. Two and a Camp-Fire
XXVI. The Sins of the Fathers
XXVII. The Quicksands
XXVIII. Pat Ryan Evens an Old Score
XXIX. A New Leaf
The Sheriff's Son
Foreword
Through the mesquite a horse moved deviously, following the crooked
trail of least resistance. A man was in the saddle and in front of him
a little boy nodding with sleep. The arm of the rider cradled the
youngster against the lurches of the pony's gait.
The owner of the arm looked down at the tired little bundle it was
supporting. A wistful tenderness was in the leathery face. To the
rest of the world he was a man of iron. To this wee bit of humanity he
was a nurse, a playmate, a slave.
"We're 'most to the creek now, son. Onc't we get there, we'll throw
off and camp. You can eat a snack and tumble right off to bye-low
land," he promised.
The five-year-old smiled faintly and snuggled closer. His long lashes
drooped again to the soft cheeks. With the innocent selfishness of a
child he accepted the love that sheltered him from all troubles.
A valley opened below the mesa, the trail falling abruptly almost from
the hoofs of the horse. Beaudry drew up and looked down. From rim to
rim the meadow was perhaps half a mile across. Seen from above, the
bed of it was like an emerald lake through which wound a ribbon of
silver. This ribbon was Big Creek. To the right it emerged from a
draw in the foothills where green reaches of forest rose tier after
tier toward the purple mountains. Far up among these peaks Big Creek
had its source in Lost Lake, which lay at the foot of a glacier near
the top of the world.
The saw-toothed range lifted its crest into a sky of violet haze. Half
an hour since the sun had set in a blaze of splendor behind a crotch of
the hills, but dusk had softened the vivid tints of orange and crimson
and scarlet to a faint pink glow. Already the mountain silhouette had
lost its sharp edge and the outlines were blurring. Soon night would
sift down over the roof of the continent.
The eyes of the man searched warily the valley below. They rested
closely on the willows by the ford, the cottonwood grove to the left,
and the big rocks beyond the creek. From its case beneath his leg he
took the sawed-off shotgun loaded with buckshot. It rested on the
pommel of the saddle while his long and careful scrutiny swept the
panorama. The spot was an ideal one for an ambush.
His unease communicated itself to the boy, who began to whimper softly.
Beaudry, distressed, tried to comfort him.
"Now, don't you, son--don't you. Dad ain't going to let anything hurt
you-all."
Presently he touched the flank of his roan with a spur and the animal
began to pick its way down the steep trail among the loose rubble. Not
for an instant did the rider relax his vigilance as he descended. At
the ford he examined the ground carefully to make sure that nobody had
crossed since the shower of the afternoon. Swinging to the saddle
again, he put his horse to the water and splashed through to the
opposite shore. Once more he dismounted and studied the approach to
the creek. No tracks had written their story on the sand in the past
few hours. Yet with every sense alert he led the way to the cottonwood
grove where he intended to camp. Not till he had made a tour of the
big rocks and a clump of prickly pears adjoining was his mind easy.
He came back to find the boy crying. "What's the matter, big son?" he
called cheerily. "Nothing a-tall to be afraid of. This nice
camping-ground fits us like a coat of paint. You-all take forty winks
while dad fixes up some supper."
He spread his slicker and rolled his coat for a pillow, fitting it
snugly to the child's head. While he lit a fire he beguiled the time
with animated talk. One might have guessed that he was trying to make
the little fellow forget the alarm that had been stirred in his mind.
"Sing the li'l' ole hawss," commanded the boy, reducing his sobs.
Beaudry followed orders in a tuneless voice that hopped gayly up and
down. He had invented words and music years ago as a lullaby and the
song was in frequent demand.
"Li'l' ole hawss an' li'l' ole cow,
Amblin' along by the ole haymow,
Li'l' ole hawss took a bite an' a chew,
'Durned if I don't,' says the ole cow, too."
Seventeen stanzas detailed the adventures of this amazing horse and
predatory cow. Somewhere near the middle of the epic little Royal
Beaudry usually dropped asleep. The rhythmic tale always comforted
him. These nameless animals were very real friends of his. They had
been companions of his tenderest years. He loved them with a devotion
from which no fairy tale could wean him.
Before he had quite surrendered to the lullaby, his father aroused him
to share the bacon and the flapjacks he had cooked.
"Come and get it, big son," Beaudry called with an imitation of manly
roughness.
The boy ate drowsily before the fire, nodding between bites.
Presently the father wrapped the lad up snugly in his blankets and
prompted him while he said his prayers. No woman's hands could have
been tenderer than the calloused ones of this frontiersman. The boy
was his life. For the girl-bride of John Beaudry had died to give this
son birth.
Beaudry sat by the dying fire and smoked. The hills had faded to
black, shadowy outlines beneath a night of a million stars. During the
day the mountains were companions, heaven was the home of warm friendly
sunshine that poured down lance-straight upon the traveler. But now
the black, jagged peaks were guards that shut him into a vast prison of
loneliness. He was alone with God, an atom of no consequence. Many a
time, when he had looked up into the sky vault from the saddle that was
his pillow, he had known that sense of insignificance.
To-night the thoughts of John Beaudry were somber. He looked over his
past with a strange feeling that he had lived his life and come to the
end of it. He was not yet forty, a well-set, bow-legged man of medium
height, in perfect health, sound as to every organ. From an old war
wound he had got while raiding with Morgan he limped a little. Two
more recent bullet scars marked his body. But none of these interfered
with his activity. He was in the virile prime of life; yet a bell rang
in his heart the warning that he was soon to die. That was why he was
taking his little son out of the country to safety.
He took all the precautions that one could, but he knew that in the end
these would fail him. The Rutherfords would get him. Of that he had
no doubt. They would probably have killed him, anyhow, but he had made
his sentence sure when he had shot Anse Rutherford and wounded Eli
Schaick ten days ago. That it had been done by him in self-defense
made no difference.
Out of the Civil War John Beaudry had come looking only for peace. He
had moved West and been flung into the wild, turbulent life of the
frontier. In the Big Creek country there was no peace for strong men
in the seventies. It was a time and place for rustlers and
horse-thieves to flourish at the expense of honest settlers. They
elected their friends to office and laughed at the law.
But the tide of civilization laps forward. A cattlemen's association
had been formed. Beaudry, active as an organizer, had been chosen its
first president. With all his energy he had fought the rustlers. When
the time came to make a stand the association nominated Beaudry for
sheriff and elected him. He had prosecuted the thieves remorselessly
in spite of threats and shots in the dark. Two of them had been put by
him behind bars. Others were awaiting trial. The climax had come when
he met Anse Rutherford and his companion at Battle Butte, had defeated
them both single-handed, and had left one dead on the field and the
other badly wounded.
Men said that John Beaudry was one of the great sheriffs of the West.
Perhaps he was, but he would have to pay the price that such a
reputation exacts. The Rutherford gang had sworn his death and he knew
they would keep the oath.
The man sat with one hand resting on the slim body of the sleeping boy.
His heart was troubled. What was to become of little Royal without
either father or mother? After the manner of men who live much alone
in the open he spoke his thoughts aloud.
"Son, one of these here days they're sure a-goin' to get yore dad.
Maybe he'll ride out of town and after a while the hawss will come
galloping back with an empty saddle. A man can be mighty unpopular and
die of old age, but not if he keeps bustin' up the plans of rampageous
two-gun men, not if he shoots them up when they're full of the devil
and bad whiskey. It ain't on the cyards for me to beat them to the
draw every time, let alone that they'll see to it all the breaks are
with them. No, sir. I reckon one of these days you're goin' to be an
orphan, little son."
He stooped over the child and wrapped the blankets closer. The muscles
of his tanned face twitched. Long he held the warm, slender body of
the boy as close to him as he dared for fear of wakening him.
The man lay tense and rigid, his set face staring up into the starry
night. It was his hour of trial. A rising tide was sweeping him away.
He had to clutch at every straw to hold his footing. But something in
the man--his lifetime habit of facing the duty that he saw--held him
steady.
"You got to stand the gaff, Jack Beaudry. Can't run away from your
job, can you? Got to go through, haven't you? Well, then!"
Peace came at last to the tormented man. He fell asleep. Hours later
he opened his eyes upon a world bathed in light. It was such a brave
warm world that the fears which had gripped him in the chill night
seemed sinister dreams. In this clear, limpid atmosphere only a sick
soul could believe in a blind alley from which there was no escape.
But facts are facts. He might hope for escape, but even now he could
not delude himself with the thought that he might win through without a
fight.
While they ate breakfast he told the boy about the mother whom he had
never seen. John Beaudry had always intended to tell Royal the story
of his love for the slender, sweet-lipped girl whose grace and beauty
had flooded his soul. But the reticence of shyness had sealed his
lips. He had cared for her with a reverence too deep for words.
She was the daughter of well-to-do people visiting in the West. The
young cattleman and she had fallen in love almost at sight and had
remained lovers till the day of her death. After one year of happiness
tragedy had stalked their lives. Beaudry, even then the object of the
rustlers' rage, had been intercepted on the way from Battle Butte to
his ranch. His wife, riding to meet him, heard shots and galloped
forward. From the mesa she looked down into a draw and saw her husband
fighting for his life. He was at bay in a bed of boulders, so well
covered by the big rocks that the rustlers could not easily get at him.
His enemies, scattered fanshape across the entrance to the arroyo, were
gradually edging nearer. In a panic of fear she rode wildly to the
nearest ranch, gasped out her appeal for help, and collapsed in a
woeful little huddle. His friends arrived in time to save Beaudry,
damaged only to the extent of a flesh wound in the shoulder, but the
next week the young wife gave premature birth to her child and died
four days later.
In mental and physical equipment the baby was heir to the fears which
had beset the last days of the mother. He was a frail little fellow
and he whimpered at trifles. But the clutch of the tiny pink fingers
held John Beaudry more firmly than a grip of steel. With unflagging
patience he fended bogies from the youngster.
But the day was at hand when he could do this no longer. That was why
he was telling Royal about the mother he had never known. From his
neck he drew a light gold chain, at the end of which was a small square
folding case. In it was a daguerreotype of a golden-haired, smiling
girl who looked out at her son with an effect of shy eagerness.
"Give Roy pretty lady," demanded the boy.
Beaudry shook his head slowly. "I reckon that's 'most the only thing
you can ask your dad for that he won't give you." He continued
unsteadily, looking at the picture in the palm of his hand. "Lady-Bird
I called her, son. She used to fill the house with music right out of
her heart. . . . Fine as silk and true as gold. Don't you ever forget
that your mother was a thoroughbred." His voice broke. "But I hadn't
ought to have let her stay out here. She belonged where folks are good
and kind, where they love books and music. Yet she wouldn't leave me
because . . . because . . . Maybe you'll know why she wouldn't some
day, little son."
He drew a long, ragged breath and slipped the case back under his shirt.
Quickly Beaudry rose and began to bustle about with suspicious
cheerfulness. He whistled while he packed and saddled. In the fresh
cool morning air they rode across the valley and climbed to the mesa
beyond. The sun mounted higher and the heat shimmered on the trail in
front of them. The surface of the earth was cracked in dry, sun-baked
tiles curving upward at the edges. Cat's-claw clutched at the legs of
the travelers. Occasionally a swift darted from rock to rock. The
faint, low voices of the desert were inaudible when the horse moved.
The riders came out of the silence and moved into the silence.
It was noon when Beaudry drew into the suburbs of Battle Butte. He
took an inconspicuous way by alleys and side streets to the corral.
His enemies might or might not be in town. He wanted to take no
chances. All he asked was to postpone the crisis until Royal was safe
aboard a train. Crossing San Miguel Street, the riders came face to
face with a man Beaudry knew to be a spy of the Rutherfords. He was a
sleek, sly little man named Chet Fox.
"Evening sheriff. Looks some like we-all might have rain," Fox said,
rasping his unshaven chin with the palm of a hand.
"Looks like," agreed Beaudry with a curt nod and rode on.
Fox disappeared around a corner, hurried forward for half a block, and
turned in at the Silver Dollar Saloon. A broad-shouldered, hawk-nosed
man of thirty was talking to three of his friends. Toward this group
Fox hurried. In a low voice he spoke six words that condemned John
Beaudry to death.
"Beaudry just now rode into town."
Hal Rutherford forgot the story he was telling. He gave crisp, short
orders. The men about him left by the back door of the saloon and
scattered.
Meanwhile the sheriff rode into the Elephant Corral and unsaddled his
horse. He led the animal to the trough in the yard and pumped water
for it. His son trotted back beside him to the stable and played with
a puppy while the roan was being fed.
Jake Sharp, owner of the corral, stood in the doorway and chatted with
the sheriff for a minute. Was it true that a new schoolhouse was going
to be built on Bonito? And had the sheriff heard whether McCarty was
to be boss of Big Creek roundup?
Beaudry answered his questions and turned away. Royal clung to one
hand as they walked. The other held the muley gun.
It was no sound that warned the sheriff. The approach of his enemies
had been noiseless. But the sixth sense that comes to some fighting
men made him look up quickly. Five riders were moving down the street
toward the stable, Hal Rutherford in the lead. The alert glance of the
imperiled man swept the pasture back of the corral. The glint of the
sun heliographed danger from the rifle barrels of two men just topping
the brow of the hill. Two more were stealing up through a draw to the
right. A bullet whistled past the head of the officer.
The father spoke quietly to his little boy. "Run, son, to the stable."
The little chap began to sob. Bullets were already kicking up the dust
behind them. Roy clung in terror to the leg of his father.
Beaudry caught up the child and made a dash for the stable. He reached
it, just as Sharp and his horse-wrangler were disappearing into the
loft. There was no time to climb the ladder with Royal. John flung
open the top of the feed-bin, dropped the boy inside, and slammed down
the lid.
The story of the fight that followed is still an epic in the Southwest.
There was no question of fair play. The enemies of the sheriff
intended to murder him.
The men in his rear were already clambering over the corral fence. One
of them had a scarlet handkerchief around his neck. Beaudry fired from
his hip and the vivid kerchief lurched forward into the dust. Almost
at the same moment a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his leg told the
officer that he was wounded.
From front and rear the attackers surged into the stable. The sheriff
emptied the second barrel of buckshot into the huddle and retreated
into an empty horse-stall. The smoke of many guns filled the air so
that the heads thrust at him seemed oddly detached from bodies. A
red-hot flame burned its way through his chest. He knew he was
mortally wounded.
Hal Rutherford plunged at him, screaming an oath. "We've got him,
boys."
Beaudry stumbled back against the manger, the arms of his foe clinging
to him like ropes of steel. Twice he brought down the butt of his
sawed-off gun on the black head of Rutherford. The grip of the big
hillman grew lax, and as the man collapsed, his fingers slid slackly
down the thighs of the officer.
John dropped the empty weapon and dragged out a Colt's forty-four. He
fired low and fast, not stopping to take aim. Another flame seared its
way through his body. The time left him now could be counted in
seconds.
But it was not in the man to give up. The old rebel yell of Morgan's
raiders quavered from his throat. They rushed him. With no room even
for six-gun work he turned his revolver into a club. His arm rose and
fell in the melee as the drive of the rustlers swept him to and fro.
So savage was the defense of their victim against the hillmen's
onslaught that he beat them off. A sudden panic seized them, and those
that could still travel fled in terror.
They left behind them four dead and two badly wounded. One would be a
cripple to the day of his death. Of those who escaped there was not
one that did not carry scars for months as a memento of the battle.
The sheriff was lying in the stall when Sharp found him. From out of
the feed-bin the owner of the corral brought his boy to the father
whose life was ebbing. The child was trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Picture," gasped Beaudry, his hand moving feebly toward the chain.
A bullet had struck the edge of the daguerreo-type case.
"She . . . tried . . . to save me . . . again," murmured the dying man
with a faint smile.
He looked at the face of his sweetheart. It smiled an eager invitation
to him. A strange radiance lit his eyes.
Then his head fell back. He had gone to join his Lady-Bird.
Chapter I
Dingwell Gives Three Cheers
Dave Dingwell had been in the saddle almost since daylight had wakened
him to the magic sunshine of a world washed cool and miraculously clean
by the soft breath of the hills. Steadily he had jogged across the
desert toward the range. Afternoon had brought him to the foothills,
where a fine rain blotted out the peaks and softened the sharp outlines
of the landscape to a gentle blur of green loveliness.
The rider untied his slicker from the rear of the saddle and slipped
into it. He had lived too long in sun-and-wind-parched New Mexico to
resent a shower. Yet he realized that it might seriously affect the
success of what he had undertaken.
If there had been any one to observe this solitary traveler, he would
have said that the man gave no heed to the beauty of the day. Since he
had broken camp his impassive gaze had been fixed for the most part on
the ground in front of him. Occasionally he swung his long leg across
the rump of the horse and dismounted to stoop down for a closer
examination of the hoofprints he was following. They were not recent
tracks. He happened to know that they were about three days old.
Plain as a printed book was the story they told him.
The horses that had made these tracks had been ridden by men in a
desperate hurry. They had walked little and galloped much. Not once
had they fallen into the easy Spanish jog-trot used so much in the
casual travel of the South-west. The spur of some compelling motive
had driven this party at top speed.
Since Dingwell knew the reason for such haste he rode warily. His
alert caution suggested the panther. The eye of the man pounced surely
upon every bit of cactus or greasewood behind which a possible foe
might be hidden. His lean, sun-tanned face was an open letter of
recommendation as to his ability to take care of himself in a world
that had often glared at him wolfishly. A man in a temper to pick a
quarrel would have looked twice at Dave Dingwell before choosing him as
the object of it--and then would have passed on to a less competent
citizen.
The trail grew stiffer. It circled into a draw down which tumbled a
jocund little stream. Trout, it might be safely guessed, lurked here
in the riffles and behind the big stones. An ideal camping-ground
this, but the rider rejected it apparently without consideration. He
passed into the canon beyond, and so by a long uphill climb came to the
higher reaches of the hills.
He rode patiently, without any hurry, without any hesitation. Here
again a reader of character might have found something significant in
the steadiness of the man. Once on the trail, it would not be easy to
shake him off.
By the count of years Dingwell might be in the early forties. Many
little wrinkles radiated fanlike from the corners of his eyes. But
whatever his age time had not tamed him. In the cock of those same
steel-blue eyes was something jaunty, something almost debonair, that
carried one back to a youth of care-free rioting in a land of sunshine.
Not that Mr. Dingwell was given to futile dissipations. He had the
reputation of a responsible ranchman. But it is not to be denied that
little devils of mischief at times danced in those orbs.
Into the hills the trail wound across gulches and along the shoulders
of elephant humps. It brought him into a country of stunted pines and
red sandstone, and so to the summit of a ridge which formed part of the
rim of a saucer-shaped basin. He looked down into an open park hedged
in on the far side by mountains. Scrubby pines straggled up the slopes
from arroyos that cleft the hills. By divers unknown paths these led
into the range beyond.
A clump of quaking aspens was the chief landmark in the bed of the
park. Though this was the immediate destination of Mr. Dingwell, since
the hoofprints he was following plunged straight down toward the grove,
yet he took certain precautions before venturing nearer. He made sure
that the 45-70 Winchester that lay across the saddle was in working
order. Also he kept along the rim of the saucer-shaped park till he
came to a break where a creek tumbled down in a white foam through a
ravine.
"It's a heap better to be safe than to be sorry," he explained to
himself cheerfully. "They call this Lonesome Park, and maybe so it
deserves its name to-day. But you never can tell, Dave. We'll make
haste slowly if you don't mind."
Along the bank of the creek he descended, letting his sure-footed
cowpony pick its own way while he gave strict attention to the scenery.
At a bend of the stream he struck again the trail of the riders he had
been following and came from there directly to the edge of the aspen
clump.
Apparently his precautions were unnecessary. He was alone. There
could be no doubt of that. Only the tracks of feet and the ashes of a
dead fire showed that within a few days a party had camped here.
Dingwell threw his bridle to the ground and with his rifle tucked under
his arm examined the tracks carefully. Sometimes he was down on hands
and knees peering at the faint marks of which he was reading the story.
Foot by foot he quartered over the sand, entirely circling the grove
before he returned to the ashes of the dead fire. Certain facts he had
discovered. One was that the party which had camped here had split up
and taken to the hills by different trails instead of as a unit. Still
another was that so far as he could see there had been no digging in or
near the grove.
It was raining more definitely now, so that the distant peaks were
hidden in a mist. In the lee of the aspens it was still dry. Dingwell
stood there frowning at the ashes of the dead campfire. He had had a
theory, and it was not working out quite as he had hoped. For the
moment he was at a mental impasse. Part of what had happened he could
guess almost as well as if he had been present to see it. Sweeney's
posse had given the fugitives a scare at Dry Gap and driven them back
into the desert. In the early morning they had tried the hills again
and had reached Lonesome Park. But they could not be sure that Sweeney
or some one of the posses sent out by the railroad was not close at
hand. Somewhere in the range back of them the pursuers were combing
the hills, and into those very hills the bandits had to go to disappear
in their mountain haunts.
Even before reaching the park Dingwell had guessed the robbers would
separate here and strike each for individual safety. But what had they
done with the loot? That was the thing that puzzled him.
They had divided the gold here. Or one of them had taken it with him
to an appointed rendezvous in the hills. Or they had cached it, One of
these three plans had been followed. But which?
Dingwell rubbed the open fingers of one hand slowly through his
sunburnt thatch of hair. "Doggone my hide, if it don't look like they
took it with them," he murmured. "But that ain't reasonable, Dave.
The man in charge of this hold-up knew his business. It was smooth
work all the way through. If it hadn't been for bad luck he would have
got away with the whole thing fine. They still had the loot with them
when they got here. No doubt about that. Well, then! He wouldn't
divvy up here, because, if they separated, and any one of them got
caught with the gold on him, it would be a give-away. But if they
didn't have the dough on them, it would not matter if some of the boys
were caught. You can't do anything with a man riding peaceable through
the hills looking for strays, no matter how loaded to the guards with
suspicions you may be. So they would cache the loot. Wouldn't they?
Sure they would if they had any sense. But tell me where, Dave."
His thoughtful eyes had for some moments been resting on something that
held them. He stooped and picked up a little chip of sealing-wax.
Instantly he knew how it had come here. The gold sacks had been sealed
by the express company with wax. At least one of the sacks had been
opened here by the robbers.
Did this mean they had divided their treasure here? It might mean
that. Or it might mean that before they cached it they had opened one
sack to see how much it held. Dingwell clung to the opinion that the
latter was the truth, partly because this marched with his hopes and
partly because it seemed to him more likely. There would be a big risk
in taking their haul with them farther. There was none at all in
caching it.
It was odd how that little heap of ashes in the center of the camp-fire
drew his eye. Ashes did not arrange themselves that way naturally.
Some one had raked these into a pile. Why? And who?
He could not answer those questions offhand. But he had a large bump
of curiosity about some things. Otherwise he would not have been where
he was that afternoon. With his boot he swept the ashes aside. The
ground beneath them was a little higher than it was in the immediate
neighborhood. Why should the bandits have built their fire on a small
hillock when there was level ground adjacent? There might be a reason
underneath that little rise of ground or there might not. Mr. Dingwell
got out his long hunting-knife, fell on his knees, and began to dig at
the center of the spot where the campfire had been.
The dirt flew. With his left hand he scooped it from the hole he was
making. Presently the point of his knife struck metal. Three minutes
later he unearthed a heavy gunnysack. Inside of it were a lot of
smaller sacks bearing the seal of the Western Express Company. He had
found the gold stolen by the Rutherford gang from the Pacific Flyer.
Dave was pleased with himself. It had been a good day's work. He
admitted cheerfully that there was not another man in New Mexico who
could have pulled off successfully the thing he had just done. The
loot had been well hidden. It had been a stroke of genius to cache it
in the spot where the camp-fire was afterward built. But he had
outguessed Jess Tighe that time. His luck had sure stood up fine. The
occasion called for a demonstration.
He took off his broad-rimmed gray hat. "Three rousing cheers, Mr.
Dingwell," he announced ceremoniously. "Now, all together."
Rising to his toes, he waved his hat joyously, worked his shoulders
like a college cheer leader, and gave a dumb pantomime of yelling. He
had intended to finish off with a short solo dance step, for it is not
every day that a man finds twenty thousand dollars in gold bars buried
in the sand.
But he changed his mind. As he let himself slowly down to his heels
there was a sardonic grin on his brown face. In outguessing Tighe he
had slipped one little mental cog, after all, and the chances were that
he would pay high for his error. A man had been lying in the mesquite
close to the creek watching him all the time. He knew it because he
had caught the flash of light on the rifle barrel that covered him.
The gold-digger beckoned with his hat as he called out. "Come right
along to the party. You're welcome as a frost in June."
A head raised itself cautiously out of the brush. "Don't you move, or
I'll plug lead into you."
"I'm hog-tied," answered Dingwell promptly. His mind worked swiftly.
The man with the drop on him was Chet Fox, a hanger-on of the
Rutherford gang, just as he had been seventeen years before when he
betrayed John Beaudry to death. Fox was shrewd and wily, but no
gunman. If Chet was alone, his prisoner did not propose to remain one.
Dave did not intend to make any fool breaks, but it would be hard luck
if he could not contrive a chance to turn the tables.
"Reach for the roof."
Dingwell obeyed orders.
Fox came forward very cautiously. Not for an instant did his beady
eyes lift from the man he covered.
"Turn your back to me."
The other man did as he was told.
Gingerly Fox transferred the rifle to his left hand, then drew a
revolver. He placed the rifle against the fork of a young aspen and
the barrel of the six-gun against the small of Dingwell's back.
"Make just one break and you're a goner," he threatened.
With deft fingers he slid the revolver of the cattleman from its
holster. Then, having collected Dingwell's rifle, he fell back a few
steps.
"Now you can go on with those health exercises I interrupted if you've
a mind to," Fox suggested with a sneer.
His prisoner turned dejected eyes upon him. "That's right. Rub it in,
Chet. Don't you reckon I know what a long-eared jackass I am?"
"There's two of us know it then," said Fox dryly. "Now, lift that
gunnysack to your saddle and tie it on behind."
This done, Fox pulled himself to the saddle, still with a wary eye on
his captive.
"Hit the trail along the creek," he ordered.
Dingwell moved forward reluctantly. It was easy to read chagrin and
depression in the sag of his shoulders and the drag of his feet.
The pig eyes of the fat little man on horseback shone with triumph. He
was enjoying himself hugely. It was worth something to have tamed so
debonair a dare-devil as Dingwell had the reputation of being. He had
the fellow so meek that he would eat out of his hand.