STEVE TELLS TOO MUCH TRUTH
Yeager ducked into the night. From the door through which he had just
come bullets spat aimlessly. He crouched as he ran, dodging in zigzag
little rushes. Voices pursued him, fierce and threatening. Men poured
from the gambling-house as seeds are squirted from a squeezed lemon.
Into a vacant lot behind a store Steve swerved, finding shelter among
some empty drygoods boxes. He was none too soon, for as he sank to
cover, the rush of feet padded down the sidewalk. Stealthily he crept to
the fence, vaulted it lightly, and found a more secure hiding-place in
the lumber yard beyond. From the top of a pile of two by fours he
watched, every sense alert to catch any warning of danger.
Soon his pursuers returned in little groups to their interrupted games.
Now that the first excitement of the chase was over, few of them wanted
to risk a battle with desperate men in the dark. That was what the
rurales and the rangers were for.
The cowpuncher slid down cautiously and left the lumber yard by way of
the alley in the rear. He followed a barb-wire fence which bounded a
pasture, and at the next corner crossed the street warily into United
States territory. By alleys and back ways his feet took him to
Johanson's stable. Noiselessly he crept toward it from the rear. Some
one was inside saddling a horse. So much he could gather from the
sounds. Was it Phil? Or was it some one getting ready for the pursuit?
He moved a step nearer. A stick cracked beneath his foot.
The man saddling the bronco whirled, revolver in hand. "Who is it?"
demanded a tense voice.
"All right, Phil." Steve moved forward, breathing easier. "Glad you made
it. We'd better light a shuck out of here. They'll stir up the rurales
to get after us, I reckon."
Already he was busy saddling Four Bits.
"Do you ... do you think I killed him?" jerked out the boy, a strangled
sob of over-strained emotion in his throat.
"Don't know. He was asking for it, wasn't he?" answered Yeager in a
matter-of-fact voice. He did not intend by an expression of sympathy to
aid in any breakdown here. That could come later when they had put many
miles between them and Arixico.
They led their horses out of the stable and swung to the saddles not a
minute too soon. A man came running toward them.
"Hold on," he called. "Just a moment. I'm the sheriff. They say a man
has been killed."
The fugitives put spurs to their broncos. The animals jumped to a
canter. Over his shoulder Steve looked back. The sheriff was standing
undecided. Before it penetrated his brain that these were the men he
wanted they were out of range.
For a time they rode in silence except for the clicking of the hoofs.
Yeager turned, his hand on the rump of his pony.
"Don't hear anything of them. We've made a clean getaway, looks like.
But they'll keep the wires warm after us--if Mendoza is dead."
The boy broke down, sobbing. "My God, I couldn't help it. What else
could I do? He was shooting when I fired."
"Sure he was, but that won't help you if they take you back to Mexico.
My advice is for you to get into a hole and draw it in after you, for a
few days anyhow. Where do you live?"
"At Los Robles--when I'm at home."
"Then you _are_ Phil Seymour?"
"Who told you?" flashed the boy.
"I board with your mother. I'm a rider for the Lunar Company."
"Then you know Chad Harrison. Chad will get me out of this. He'll fix
it."
"How'll he fix it?" demanded Yeager bluntly. "Back there across the line
they're going to call this by an ugly name--if Mendoza cashes in his
checks. Harrison can't fix murder, can he?"
A film of hard wariness covered the eyes of the boy as he looked across
in the darkness at the other man. "He's got friends," was the dry,
noncommittal answer that came to the range-rider after a moment's
distinct pause.
Yeager asked no more questions. There had been a "No trespass" sign in
Phil's manner. But as they rode silently toward Los Robles Steve's mind
groped again with the problem of Harrison's relation to those in power
across the border. Was the man tied up with old Pasquale? Or was he an
agent of the Huerta Government? Just now the Federals had control of
this part of the border. Did the boy mean that it was among them that
Harrison had friends? It looked that way, and yet--The cowpuncher could
not get it out of his head that the stolen cattle had been for old
Pasquale. Huerta's lieutenants were too wary to stock their pantry from
the United States in that fashion.
They rode into Los Robles in the first gray stirrings of dawn, long
before anybody in the little town was afoot.
"Where are you going to hide? First place they'll look for you will be
at home," suggested Yeager.
"There's a haystack out in the Lunar pastures. I'll lay low there. Tell
Chad when you see him, and have Ruth fix me up something to eat."
They parted, each of them to get in what sleep was possible before day.
When Steve was awakened by the sound of some one stirring in the next
room it seemed as though he had been in bed only a few minutes.
He walked up to the hotel before breakfast and saw Harrison as the actor
was going into the dining-room. The big man stopped in his tracks and
shot out a heavy jaw at him.
"Thought you was giving our eyes a rest for a while," he growled.
Yeager declined to exchange compliments with him. "There's a friend of
yours on the haystack in the pasture. He wants to see you soon as it's
convenient."
The eyes of the pugilist narrowed. "Put a name to him."
"Phil Seymour."
"What's he doing here?" demanded Harrison blackly.
"Perhaps you'd better ask him." Steve turned on his heel and walked back
to his boarding-house.
His arrival at the breakfast table was greeted with a chorus of
exclamations. What was he doing back so soon? Had he got homesick? Had
he run out of money already?
He let them worm out of him that he had ridden away and forgotten his
purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies
of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,--who was manifestly
incredulous about his explanation,--and he accepted their hilarious
repartee with the proper amount of sheepish resentment.
After the meal was over he lingered to see Ruth, who had just sat down
to eat.
"Can I see you alone, Miss Ruth?"
She flashed a quick look at him, doubtful and apprehensive. "In the
pergola, almost right away."
The girl reached the vine-draped entrance of the pergola shortly after
Yeager. Manifestly her fears had been growing in the interval since he
had left her.
"What is it?" And swift on the heels of that, "Is it about Phil?"
"Yes."
"He's in trouble ... again?" she breathed.
He nodded assent. "The boy's out in the pasture. He wants you to send
him breakfast."
The dread that was always lying banked in the hearts of herself and her
mother found voice. "What has he done now?"
The range-rider chose his words carefully. "There was some trouble--just
across the border. He had to shoot ... and a man fell."
Her face mirrored terror. "You mean ... dead?"
"I don't know," he answered gravely.
"Tell me all about it, please,--the circumstances, everything."
"He will tell you himself. I'll just say this--the shooting was forced
on him. He fired in self-defense."
She wrung her hands. "I knew ... I knew something dreadful would happen.
Mr. Harrison promised me--he said he would look out for Phil."
Steve looked her straight in the eyes. "Harrison's a crook. He's been
using your love for Phil as a lever. It's up to you and the boy to shake
him off."
A swift, upblazing anger leaped to her face. "How dare you say that! How
dare you!"
His blue eyes met her dark, stormy ones quietly and steadily. "I'm
telling you the truth. Can't you see he's been leading Phil into
deviltry? You're afraid of him, afraid of his influence over the boy.
That's why you knuckle down to him."
"I'm not afraid. He's Phil's friend. You're against him just because
he--he--"
"Say it, Miss Ruth. Just because he gave me the whaling of my young
life. Nothing to that, nothing a-tall. My system can absorb a licking
without bearing a grudge. But he ain't on the level. 'Course you'll hate
me for saying it, but some one's got to tell you."
"It's none of your business. I dare say it was you that was with Phil
when he--when he--got into trouble."
"Yes."
"I thought so." A sob swelled up in her throat. "You come here and make
trouble. I do hate you if you want to know."
With that she turned tempestuously and went flying back to the house.
Steve smiled ruefully. He did not know much about women, but he had read
somewhere that they were capable of injustice. She had plenty of spirit,
anyhow, for all that she looked so demure and shy.