TIME TO ACT
The room was bathed in sunlight when Johnny Dice felt some one
prodding him back to consciousness. Vinnie the Basque stood over
him, his eyes wild with excitement.
“_Dios mio_, Johnny!” the man cried. “How you come here all night?
What you do weeth those man Gale?”
“Search me,” Johnny answered with a yawn. “Did I roost here all
night?”
“How I know that? You come up here last night.”
“Sure! Gale wasn’t here. I took off my boots and lay down to wait
for him. Guess he didn’t come back.”
“You not hurt heem, eh?” Vin inquired anxiously.
“’Course not. I’m too anxious to talk to him to hurt him.”
“Well, plenty trouble come now,” the Basque said sadly. “Roddy,
Gallup, and Kent ees just go ’way. They look for you. Sheriff, hee’s
got warrant for you, Johnny.”
“What?” Johnny pulled on his boots with a savage tug. “What’s he
after me for?”
“Kent say hees daughter ees gone; that you stole her.”
“For the love of God!” the boy cried, his face paling. “It’s a lie.
I was here at midnight. I couldn’t ’a’ got to the ranch and back
since then unless I’d had wings. Just what did Kent say?”
“Say the girl ees gone; room all mussed up; tracks outside the
door.”
“I can’t believe it, Vin. It’s a trap to git me. If Molly’s gone,
they took her themselves. Where is Madeiras? I counted on him to
look after her.”
Vin shook his head as he saw Johnny lash himself into a rage.
“If Gallup is back of this I’ll bust him. Ain’t they tryin’ to find
the girl?”
“_Sí!_ Gallup say she be weeth you. Eef they fin’ you, they fin’
her. They come here look for you. They try fin’ your horse, too.
Horse ees gone, so they think you gone.”
“Where they headin’ for?”
“Elk Valley. Those Faulkner boy say you ees ask las’ night ’bout the
road to the Reservation.”
“This gits pretty close to the showdown with me,” Johnny growled.
“If Roddy ever gits me I’m as good as dead. I’d just have to make a
move to have him shoot me down. ‘Tryin’ to git away’ would be his
answer. They’ll never take me. It’s a pretty mess they’ve cooked up,
ain’t it?”
“Well, what you do now, Johnny?”
“I’m goin’ to do what I should ’a’ done two days ago—go to Jim
Kelsey. If there is any law in this county, he’s it. Vin, Charlie
Paul is campin’ at that spring beyond Stiles’s old place. He’s got
my horse. Go git him for me, will you. Tell him to wait in back of
the hotel. I’ll slip out that way now. No sense gittin’ you or
Scanlon mixed up in this.”
“I go myself,” Vin answered. He stopped at the door and seemed to
hesitate about saying what was on his mind. “Johnny,” he said
haltingly, “you hear all thees bad talk about Madeiras, yet you ask
for heem. What you theenk?”
“Say, Vin,” Johnny said warmly, “he’s my best friend. What he does
is done on my say-so. I don’t know where he is or what he is doin’,
but it’s right with me.”
Johnny could not have said anything which would have pleased the
Basque more. The pride of race was strong in Vin. His people had
been fighting from the day they landed for the respect of the native
sons.
The boy waited until the Basque had gone before he moved. He knew
that he was face to face with trouble. Jim Kelsey held the decision.
If what Johnny had to tell him was convincing enough, the district
attorney could not refuse to act.
Gale’s mysterious absence also was of alarming importance. Having
brought Thunder Bird to face the coroner, it followed, as a matter
of course, that Tobias would endeavor to learn the outcome of that
visit.
“He might ’a’ seen me drivin’ off with the old chief,” the boy
thought. “He stole out of the hotel just as I’m goin’ to do now. You
can bet the cautious Toby wasn’t headed for Aaron’s house.”
Johnny tried to catch sight of Gallup’s party as it rode out of
town. To see the better he opened the trapdoor which led to the roof
of the hotel and crawled out upon it. A mile away he could see four
horsemen riding into the north.
“A buckboard wasn’t fast enough for Gallup today, eh?” Johnny
muttered. “They’ll never git anywhere ridin’ that fast. Aaron’ll be
so sore in an hour or two that he’ll want to ride in a bed.”
Johnny crossed the roof to the side nearest the railroad tracks and
looked down on Gallup’s house.
“My Lord,” he said half aloud, “this would ’a’ been a grand-stand
seat for the doin’s last evenin’. If Toby had crawled up here he
wouldn’t ’a’ missed a thing. And you can just bet your last cookie
that that’s what he did. He’s just about streakin’ it right now for
the Reservation. Him and the old chief are goin’ to have another
powwow. Elk Valley is goin’ to be ’way over-populated before this
day is done. I’ve got a hunch some of the visitors are never goin’
to come back to the Rock—unless Doc brings ’em.”