THE PRISONER
Pasquale changed his tactics. Having located his prey with fair
accuracy, he spread his men so as to converge upon the fugitives as the
spokes of a wheel do toward the hub. His instructions were that the men
were not to fire unless they were within close enough range to be sure
not to hit the girl.
His courage had been tested often enough to be beyond doubt, so Gabriel
contented himself with waiting behind his horse for the captives to be
brought to him. He had no intention of being killed in a skirmish of
this kind as long as he had peons to send forward in his place.
"Bet five dollars gold I have them inside of a quarter of an hour,
captain," the Mexican general said, peering across his saddle toward the
grove.
"Yes," assented Major Ochampa in a depressed voice. He objected to
having camp vagrants take liberties with his leg. "Hope you make an
example of them, general."
Pasquale turned, his eyes like cold lights on a frosty night. "They'll
pray for death a hundred times before it comes to them," he promised
brutally. Then, with quick surprise, "Where's Holcomb?"
"He went forward with the men."
"Just like him," replied Gabriel, shrugging his shoulders. "The madman
must always be in the thick of it. It's the Gringo way."
From his mesquite thicket Yeager kept up as rapid a fire as possible,
using rifle and revolver alternately so as to deceive the enemy into
believing the whole party was there. His object was merely to gain time
for his escaping friends. Ochampa had been wounded as an object lesson,
but he did not intend to kill any of those who were surrounding him. If
there had been a dozen of them he would have fought it out to a finish,
but with one against a thousand he felt it would be useless murder to
kill.
Steve fired into the air, knowing that would do just as well to delay
the attackers. Each time he fired his revolver he called aloud softly to
himself the number of the shot. It was essential to his plan that there
should be one bullet left the moment before they took him.
He could hear them stumbling toward him through the brush and could make
out the dark figures as they crawled forward.
"Four," he counted as he fired his revolver into the air and cut off a
twig.
His rifle sang out twice. He waited, listening. Bushes crackled a few
yards behind him. Snatching up his revolver, he turned.
"Don't fire, Steve," said a low voice in perfectly good English.
Holcomb came out of the thicket toward him.
"Hello, captain. Nice large warm evening. You out taking the air?" asked
the cowpuncher.
"Did the rest get away?"
"Hope so. I had rotten luck. One of the guards plugged me in the leg, so
I thought I'd kinder keep the Legion busy while our friends make their
getaway."
"Can't you run?"
"Can't even walk." Yeager raised the revolver and fired. "Five. One left
now."
His eye met that of the captain. Each of them understood perfectly.
"That first shot of yours just missed Pasquale. Pity you didn't shoot
straighter."
"I had a dead beat on the old scamp, but I didn't want him. If Ruth gets
away, that's all I ask. He's all kinds of a wolf, but Mexico needs him,
I reckon."
"You're right about that, Steve. It wouldn't have done you any good to
lay him out. Here they come."
A man ploughed through the brush toward them. Another appeared to the
left. The face of a third peered around the trunk of an adjacent
cottonwood. Of a sudden the grove seemed alive with them.
Raising his gun, Steve nodded farewell to his friend.
A moment before Holcomb had had no intention of interfering, but an
impulse that was almost an inspiration gave springs to his muscles. He
leaped.
The fling of his arm sent the shot flying wildly into the night. Yeager
turned on him furiously as he picked himself up to his knees.
"What did you do that for?"
"I don't know--had no intention of it a moment before. Maybe I've done
you a bad turn, Steve. It came over me as a hunch that you were coming
out of this all right."
"The devil it did. Gimme your gun. Quick!"
It was too late. The Mexicans were closing with him. They flung him down
and pegged him to the ground with their weight. He made no attempt to
struggle.
"Get off of him. He's my prisoner," roared Holcomb, flinging one of the
Mexicans back.
They poured on him a flood of protesting Spanish. They had taken him
while he was still at large. The reward was theirs.
"Confound the reward. You may have it, but the man belongs to me. Get
up. He's wounded. Two of you will have to carry him."
"But if he tries to escape, señor--"
"Don't be a fool," snapped Holcomb curtly.
The captain was troubled in his heart. Had he saved this fine young
fellow to be the plaything of old Pasquale's vengeance? He knew well
enough what would happen to the Arizonian if Ruth escaped. But as long
as there was life there was a chance. Something might turn up yet to
save him.
When Pasquale found that only an insignificant peon Pedro Cabenza had
been taken in his dragnet, he exploded with fury. He ordered the man
shot against the nearest wall at once.
Culvera turned the prisoner so that the moon fell full upon his face. He
looked searchingly at him. Yeager knew that he was discovered. He spoke
in English.
"Good-evening, Colonel Culvera. You've guessed right, but you've guessed
it a little too late."
"What is this? Who is this man?" demanded Pasquale harshly.
"The man Yeager, who escaped from you two weeks since," explained Ramon.
"He has been in camp with us over a week arranging this girl's escape."
The old general let out a bellow of rage. He strode forward to make
sure for himself. Roughly he seized his prisoner by the hair of the head
and twisted the face toward him.
"Sorry I had to leave you so abruptly last time, general. Did you have a
pleasant night?" taunted Yeager.
Gabriel choked. He was beyond words.
"I see you haven't been able to get anybody else to assassinate your
friend Culvera yet," he said pleasantly.
The American had given up hope of life. He was trying to spur Pasquale
into such an uncontrollable anger that his death would be a swift and
easy one.
"Tie him hand and foot. Let a dozen men armed with rifles stay in the
room with him till I return. Ochampa, I hold you responsible. If he
escapes--"
"He won't escape," answered the major. "I'll see to that myself."
"See that you do." Pasquale swung to the saddle and looked around.
"Ramon, you're not a fool. Where shall we look for this girl and those
with her?" he demanded, scowling.
"They must have horses to escape, general. Except in the stable here,
which is guarded heavily, the nearest are across the river in the
direction they must be moving."
"Of course. Juan, have the remuda driven up and let every man saddle
his horse. We'll comb these hills if we must. Maldito! She shan't escape
me."
He galloped off at the head of his troop, taking the short cut to the
pasture.
The prisoner was dragged into the house where Ochampa was staying. A
doctor presently arrived and took care of the wounded leg of the major.
After he had finished dressing it, he turned to Yeager.
"No use bothering with mine. I'll have worse wounds soon," the man from
Arizona told him calmly.
The little doctor smiled genially because his heart was good. "Quien
sabe, señor? Yet it is my duty," he reminded his patient gently.
"Old Gabriel might not say so," demurred Steve.
Yet he conceded the point and let the surgeon minister to him. There was
no anaesthetic. The patient had to set his teeth and bear the pain while
the bullet was removed and the wound washed and dressed. Little beads of
perspiration stood out on his forehead. The lean muscles of his cheeks
stood out like ropes. But no sound escaped his lips.
"You are a brave man," said the doctor when he had finished. "I wish you
good fortune, sir."
A faint smile rested in the eyes of the cowpuncher. "I'm right likely
to have it, don't you think?" he asked ironically.
Whether Ochampa suspected Holcomb of being in collusion with his
countryman or was merely taking no chances, the prisoner had no way of
telling. But the major refused flatly to let the artillery officer into
the room.
"Tell him he can see the man after the general returns--if the general
wants him to see him," he told the messenger.
They could hear the voice of Holcomb, angry and insistent, protesting
against such treatment. But a file of soldiers stood between him and the
room. He had to retire defeated.
Slate-colored dawn rolled up without the return of Pasquale. With every
passing hour Steve gathered hope. It was certain that Ruth and her
friends had escaped through the lines or they must have been brought
back long ago. And if they once reached the hills and became lost among
them, they would surely be safe from pursuit.
The prisoner was drinking a cup of coffee the doctor had brought him
when the sound of horses' hoofs came to him through the open window.
The voice of Pasquale rang out, and at the sound of it Steve's heart
grew chill. For there was in the timbre of it a brutal, jovial triumph.
"Take these horses, boys,--feed them, water them. Let the girl go to
her room, Ramon, but see that she is watched every minute. Garcia,
attend to the Gringos."
He strode into the room where Yeager was detained. His greedy little
eyes sparkled; his face exuded malice and self-conceit.
"Ho, ho, amigo! Who laughs now?" he jeered. "I found your
friends--stumbled on them in a pocket of the hills while we were
returning. They had lost their way, of course, since Señor Yeager was
unfortunately not able to go along. So I brought them home to breakfast.
Was I not kind?"
He threw back his head and laughed. Steve said nothing. His heart was
sick. He had thrown the dice for his great chance and lost.
"First, to breakfast," repeated the Mexican. "And afterward--the young
lady shall have love. Por Dios, you shall be at the wedding," decided
Pasquale on malicious impulse, hammering on the table with his great
fist.
"If I had only had the sense to pull the trigger last night when I had
you at my mercy," Yeager commented aloud.
"Yes, you and all her friends--you shall all be there to wish her
joy--even Holcomb, who wearies me with his protests. Maldito! Is Gabriel
Pasquale not good enough for a kitchen wench from Arizona?"
"It's an outrage beyond belief."
"And afterward--while the little chatita makes love to Gabriel--her
friend Steve whom she loves will suffer his punishment with what
fortitude he can."
"And her other friends?"
"Behold, it is a great day, señor. Not so? If the chatita, linda de mi
alma (pugnosed one, pretty creature of my love), asks for their freedom,
she shall have it. I, Gabriel, will send them home under safe escort. Am
I not generous? A kind lover? Not so?"
Steve turned his head away and looked through the window at the sun
rising behind the distant hills. There was nothing to be said.