CHAPTER XXII. FOR A GOOD REASON

CHAPTER I.

ENTER “BEAR-TRAP” COLLINS

She had been aware of him from the moment of his spectacular entrance,

though no slightest sign of interest manifested itself in her indolent,

incurious eyes. Indeed, his abundant and picturesque area was so vivid

that it would have been difficult not to feel his presence anywhere,

let alone on a journey so monotonous as this was proving to be.

It had been at a water-tank, near Socorro, that the Limited, churning

furiously through brown Arizona in pursuit of a lost half-hour, jarred

to a sudden halt that shook sleep from the drowsy eyes of bored

passengers. Through the window of her Pullman the young woman in

Section 3 had glimpsed a bevy of angry train officials eddying around a

sturdy figure in the center, whose strong, lean head rose confidently

above the press. There was the momentary whirl of a scuffle, out of the

tangle of which shot a brakeman as if propelled from a catapult. The

circle parted, brushed aside by a pair of lean shoulders, muscular and

broad. Yet a few moments and the owner of the shoulders led down the

aisle to the vacant section opposite her a procession whose tail was

composed of protesting trainmen.

“You had no right to flag the train, Sheriff Collins, and you’ll have

to get off; that’s all there is to it,” the conductor was explaining

testily.

“Oh, that’s all right,” returned the offender with easy good nature,

making himself at home in Section 4. “Tell the company to send in its

bill. No use jawing about it.”

“You’ll have to get off, sir.”

“That’s right—at Tucson.”

“No, sir. You’ll have to get off here. I have no authority to let you

ride.”

“Didn’t I hear you say the train was late? Don’t you think you’d arrive

earlier at the end of your run if your choo-choo got to puffing?”

“You’ll have to get off, sir.”

“I hate to disoblige,” murmured the owner of the jingling spurs, the

dusty corduroys, and the big, gray hat, putting his feet leisurely on

the cushion in front of him. “But doesn’t it occur to you that you are

a man of one idea?”

“This is the Coast Limited. It doesn’t stop for anybody—not even for

the president of the road.”

“You don’t say! Well, I ce’tainly appreciate the honor you did me in

stopping to take me on.” His slight drawl was quite devoid of concern.

“But you had no right to flag the train. Can’t you understand

_anything?_” groaned the conductor.

“You explain it again to me, sonny. I’m surely thick in the haid,”

soothed the intruder, and listened with bland good-humor to the

official’s flow of protest.

“Well—well! Disrupted the whole transcontinental traffic, didn’t I? And

me so innocent, too. Now, this is how I figured it out. Here’s me in a

hurry to get to Tucson. Here comes your train a-foggin’—also and

likewise hittin’ the high spots for Tucson. Seemed like we ought to

travel in company, and I was some dubious she’d forget to stop unless I

flagged her. Wherefore, I aired my bandanna in the summer breeze.”

“But you don’t understand.” The conductor began to explain anew as to a

dull child. “It’s against the law. You’ll get into trouble.”

“Put me in the calaboose, will they?”

“It’s no joke.”

“Well, it does seem to be worrying you,” Mr. Collins conceded. “Don’t

mind me. Free your mind proper.”

The conductor, glancing about nervously, noticed that passengers were

smiling broadly. His official dignity was being chopped to mince-meat.

Back came his harassed gaze to the imperturbable Collins with the

brown, sun-baked face and the eyes blue and untroubled as an Arizona

sky. Out of a holster attached to the sagging belt that circled the

corduroy trousers above his hips gleamed the butt of a revolver. But in

the last analysis the weapon of the occasion was purely a moral one.

The situation was one not covered in the company’s rule book, and in

the absence of explicit orders the trainman felt himself unequal to

that unwavering gaze and careless poise. Wherefore, he retreated,

muttering threats of what the company would do.

“Now, if I had only known it was against the law. My thick haid’s

always roping trouble for me,” the plainsman confided to the Pullman

conductor, with twinkling eyes.

That official unbent. “Talking about thick heads, I’m glad my porter

has one. If it weren’t iron-plated and copper-riveted he’d be needing a

doctor now, the way you stood him on it.”

“No, did I? Ce’tainly an accident. The nigger must have been in my way

as I climbed into the car. Took the kink out of his hair, you say?

Here, Sam!” He tossed a bill to the porter, who was rolling affronted

eyes at him. “Do you reckon this is big enough to plaster your injured

feelings, boy?”

The white smile flashed at him by the porter was a receipt for

indemnity paid in full.

Sheriff Collins’ perception of his neighbor across the aisle was more

frank in its interest than the girl’s had been of him. The level,

fearless gaze of the outdoors West looked at her unabashed,

appreciating swiftly her points as they impinged themselves upon his

admiration. The long, lithe lines of the slim, supple body, the languid

grace missing hauteur only because that seemed scarce worth while, the

unconscious pride of self that fails to be offensive only in a young

woman so well equipped with good looks as this one indubitably was the

rider of the plains had appraised them all before his eyes dismissed

her from his consideration and began a casual inspection of the other

passengers.

Inside of half an hour he had made himself _persona grata_ to everybody

in the car except his dark-eyed neighbor across the way. That this

dispenser of smiles and cigars decided to leave her out in the

distribution of his attentions perhaps spoke well for his discernment.

Certainly responsiveness to the geniality of casual fellow passengers

did not impress Mr. Collins as likely to be an outstanding, quality in

her. But with the drummer from Chicago, the young mining engineer going

to Sonora, the two shy little English children just in front of him

traveling to meet their father in California, he found intuitively

common ground of interest. Even Major Mackenzie, the engineer in charge

of the large irrigation project being built by a company in southern

Arizona, relaxed at one of the plainsman’s humorous tales.

It was after Collins had half-depopulated the car by leading the more

jovial spirits back in search of liquid refreshments that an urbane

clergyman, now of Boston but formerly of Pekin, Illinois, professedly

much interested in the sheriff’s touch-and-go manner as presumably

quite characteristic of the West, dropped into the vacant seat beside

Major Mackenzie.

“And who might our energetic friend be?” he asked, with an ingratiating

smile.

The young woman in front of them turned her head ever so slightly to

listen.

“Val Collins is his name,” said the major. “Sometimes called ‘Bear-trap

Collins.’ He has always lived on the frontier. At least, I met him

twelve years ago when he was riding mail between Aravaipa and Mesa. He

was a boy then, certainly not over eighteen, but in a desperate fight

he had killed two men who tried to hold up the mail. Cow-puncher,

stage-driver, miner, trapper, sheriff, rough rider, politician—he’s

past master at them all.”

“And why the appellation of ‘Bear-trap,’ may I ask?” The smack of

pulpit oratory was not often missing in the edifying discourse of the

Reverend Peter Melancthon Brooks.

“Well, sir, that’s a story. He was trapping in the Tetons about five

years ago thirty miles from the nearest ranch-house. One day, while he

was setting a bear-trap, a slide of snow plunged down from the tree

branches above and freed the spring, catching his hand between its

jaws. With his feet and his other hand he tried to open that trap for

four hours, without the slightest success. There was not one chance in

a million of help from outside. In point of fact, Collins had not seen

a human being for a month. There was only one thing to do, and he did

it.”

“And that was?”

“You probably noticed that he wears a glove over his left hand. The

reason, sir, is that he has an artificial hand.”

“You mean—” The Reverend Peter paused to lengthen his delicious thrill

of horror.

“Yes, sir. That’s just what I mean. He hacked his hand off at the wrist

with his hunting-knife.”

“Why, the man’s a hero!” cried the clergyman, with unction.

Mackenzie flung him a disgusted look. “We don’t go much on heroes out

here. He’s game, if that’s what you mean. And able, too. Bucky O’Connor

himself isn’t any smarter at following a trail.”

“And who is Bucky O’Connor?”

“He’s the man that just ran down Fernendez. Think I’ll have a smoke,

sir. Care to join me?”

But the Pekin-Bostonian preferred to stay and jot down in his note-book

the story of the bear-trap, to be used later as a sermon illustration.

This may have been the reason he did not catch the quick look that

passed without the slightest flicker of the eyelids between Major

Mackenzie and the young woman in Section 3. It was as if the old

officer had wired her a message in some code the cipher of which was

known only to them.

But the sheriff, returning at the head of his cohorts, caught it, and

wondered what meaning might lie back of that swift glance. Major

Mackenzie and this dark-eyed beauty posed before others as strangers,

yet between them lay some freemasonry of understanding to which he had

not the key.

Collins did not know that the aloofness in the eyes of Miss

Wainwright—he had seen the name on her suit-case—gave way to horror

when her glance fell on his gloved hand. She had a swift, shuddering

vision of a grim-faced man, jaws set like a vise, hacking at his wrist

with a hunting-knife. But the engaging impudence of his eye, the

rollicking laughter in his voice, shut out the picture instantly.

The young man resumed his seat, and Miss Wainwright her listless

inspection of the flying stretches of brown desert. Dusk was beginning

to fall, and the porter presently lit the lamps. Collins bought a

magazine from the newsboy and relapsed into it, but before he was well

adjusted to reading the Limited pounded to a second unscheduled halt.

Instantly the magazine was thrown aside and Collins’ curly head thrust

out of the window. Presently the head reappeared, simultaneously with

the crack of a revolver, the first of a detonating fusillade.

“Another of your impatient citizens eager to utilize the unspeakable

convenience of rapid transit,” suggested the clergyman, with ponderous

jocosity.

“No, sir; nothing so illegal,” smiled the cattleman, a whimsical light

in his daredevil eyes. He leaned forward and whispered a word to the

little girl in front of him, who at once led her younger brother back

to his section.

“I had hoped it would prove to be more diverting experience for a

tenderfoot,” condescended the gentleman of the cloth.

“It’s ce’tainly a pleasure to be able to gratify you, sir. You’ll be

right pleased to know that it is a train hold-up.” He waved his hand

toward the door, and at the word, as if waiting for his cue, a masked

man appeared at the end of the passage with a revolver in each hand.

CHAPTER II.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

“Hands up!”

There was a ring of crisp menace in the sinister voice that was a spur

to obedience. The unanimous show of hands voted “Aye” with a hasty

precision that no amount of drill could have compassed.

It was a situation that might have made for laughter had there been

spectators to appreciate. But of whatever amusement was to be had one

of the victims seemed to hold a monopoly. Collins, his arm around the

English children by way of comfort, offered a sardonic smile at the

consternation his announcement and its fulfillment had created, but

none of his fellow passengers were in the humor to respond.

The shock of an earthquake could not have blanched ruddy faces more

surely. The Chicago drummer, fat and florid, had disappeared completely

behind a buttress of the company’s upholstery.

“God bless my soul!” gasped the Pekin-Bostonian, dropping his eyeglass

and his accent at the same moment. The dismay in his face found a

reflection all over the car. Miss Wainwright’s hand clutched at her

breast for an instant, and her color ebbed till her lips were ashen,

but her neighbor across the aisle noticed that her eyes were steady and

her figure tense.

“Scared stiff, but game,” was his mental comment.

“Gents to the right and ladies to the left; line up against the walls;

everybody waltz.” called the man behind the guns, with grim humor.

The passengers fell into line as directed, Collins with the rest.

“You’re calling this dance, son; it’s your say-so, I guess,” he

conceded.

“Keep still, or I’ll shoot you full of holes,” growled the autocrat of

the artillery.

“Why, sure! Ain’t you the real thing in Jesse Jameses?” soothed the

sheriff.

At the sound of Collins’ voice, the masked man had started perceptibly,

and his right hand had jumped forward an inch or two to cover the

speaker more definitely. Thereafter, no matter what else engaged his

attention, the gleaming eyes behind the red bandanna never wandered for

a moment from the big plainsman. He was taking no risks, for he

remembered the saying current in Arizona, that after Collins’ hardware

got into action there was nothing left to do but plant the deceased and

collect the insurance. He had personal reasons to know the fundamental

accuracy of the colloquialism.

The train-conductor fussed up to the masked outlaw with a ludicrous

attempt at authority. “You can’t rob the passengers on this train. I’m

not responsible for the express-car, but the coaches—”

A bullet almost grazed his ear and shattered a window on its way to the

desert.

“Drift, you red-haired son of a Mexican?” ordered the man behind the

red bandanna. “Git back to that seat real prompt. This here’s taxation

without representation.”

The conductor drifted as per suggestion.

The minutes ticked themselves away in a tense strain marked by pounding

hearts. The outlaw stood at the end of the aisle, watching the sheriff

alertly.

“Why doesn’t the music begin?” volunteered Collins, by way of

conversation, and quoted: “On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined.”

A dull explosion answered his question. The bandits were blowing open

the safe in the express-car with dynamite, pending which the looting of

the passengers was at a standstill.

A second masked figure joined his companion at the end of the passage

and held a hurried conversation with him. Fragments of their low-voiced

talk came to Collins.

“Only thirty thousand in the express-car. Not a red cent on the old man

himself.”

“Where’s the rest?” The irritation in the newcomer’s voice was

pronounced.

Collins slewed his head and raked him with keen eyes that missed not a

detail. He was certain that he had never seen the man before, yet he

knew at once that the trim, wiry figure, so clean of build and so

gallant of bearing, could belong only to Wolf Leroy, the most ruthless

outlaw of the Southwest. It was written in his jaunty insolence, in the

flashing eyes. He was a handsome fellow, white-toothed, black-haired,

lithely tigerish, with masterful mouth and eyes of steel, so far as one

might judge behind the white mask he wore. Alert, cruel, fearless from

the head to the heel of him, he looked the very devil to lead an

enterprise so lawless and so desperate as this. His vigilant eyes swept

contemptuously up and down the car, rested for a moment on the young

woman in Section 3, and came back to his partner.

“Bah! A flock of sheep—tamest bunch of spring lambs we ever struck.

I’ll send Scotty in to go through them. If anybody gets gay, drop him.”

And the outlaw turned on his heel.

Another of the highwaymen took his place, a stout, squat figure in the

flannel shirt, spurs, and chaps of a cow-puncher. It took no second

glance to tell Collins this bandy-legged fellow had been a rider of the

range.

“Come, gentlemen, get a move on you,” Collins implored. “This train’s

due at Tucson by eight o’clock. We’re more than an hour late now. I’m

holding down the job of sheriff in that same town, and I’m awful

anxious to get a posse out after a bunch of train-robbers. So burn the

wind, and go through the car on the jump. Help yourself to anything you

find. Who steals my purse takes trash. ’Tis something, nothing. ’Twas

mine; ’tis his. That’s right, you’ll find my roll in that left-hand

pocket. I hate to have you take that gun, though. I meant to run you

down with that same old Colt’s reliable. Oh, well, just as you say. No,

those kids get a free pass. They’re going out to meet papa at Los

Angeles, boys. See?”

Collins’ running fire of comment had at least the effect of restoring

the color to some cheeks that had been washed white and of snatching

from the outlaws some portion of their sense of dominating the

situation. But there was a veiled vigilance in his eyes that belied his

easy impudence.

“That lady across the aisle gets a pass, too, boys,” continued the

sheriff. “She’s scared stiff now, and you won’t bother her, if you’re

white men. Her watch and purse are on the seat. Take them, if you want

them, and let it go at that.”

Miss Wainwright listened to this dialogue silently. She stood before

them cool and imperious and unwavering, but her face was bloodless and

the pulse in her beautiful soft throat fluttered like a caged bird.

“Who’s doing this job?” demanded one of the hold-ups, wheeling savagely

on the impassive officer “Did I say we were going to bother the lady?

Who’s doing this job, Mr. Sheriff?”

“You are. I’d hate to be messing the job like you—holding up the wrong

train by mistake.” This was a shot in the dark, and it did not quite

hit the bull’s-eye. “I wouldn’t trust you boys to rob a hen-roost, the

amateur way you go at it. When you get through, you’ll all go to

drinking like blue blotters. I know your kind—hell-bent to spend what

you cash in, and every mother’s son of you in the pen or with his toes

turned up inside of a month.”

“Who’ll put us there?” gruffly demanded the bowlegged one.

Collins smiled at him with confidence superb “Mebbe I will—and if I

don’t Bucky O’Connor will—those of you that are left alive when you go

through shooting each other in the back. Oh, I see your finish to a

fare-you-well.”

“Cheese it, or I’ll bump you off.” The first out law drove his gun into

the sheriff’s ribs.

“That’s all right. You don’t need to punctuate that remark. I line up

with the sky-pilot and chew the cud of silence. I merely wanted to

frame up to you how this thing’s going to turn out. Don’t come back at

me and say I didn’t warn you, sonnie.”

“You make my head ache,” snarled the bandy-legged outlaw sourly, as he

passed down with his sack, accumulating tribute as he passed down the

aisle with his sack, accumulating tribute as he went.

The red-kerchiefed robber whooped when they came to the car conductor.

“Dig up, Mr. Pullman. Go way down into your jeans. It’s a right smart

pleasure to divert the plunder of your bloated corporation back to the

people. What! Only fifty-seven dollars. Oh, dig deeper, Mr. Pullman.”

The drummer contributed to the sack eighty-four dollars, a diamond

ring, and a gold watch. His hands were trembling so that they played a

tattoo on the sloping ceiling above him.

“What’s the matter, Fatty? Got a chill?” inquired one of the robbers,

as he deftly swept the plunder into the sack.

“For—God’s sake—don’t shoot. I have—a wife—and five children,” he

stammered, with chattering teeth.

“No race suicide for Fatty. But whyfor do they let a sick man like you

travel all by his lone?”

“I don’t know—I—Please turn that weapon another way.”

“Plumb chuck full of malaria,” soliloquized the owner of the weapon,

playfully running its business end over the Chicago man’s anatomy.

“Shakes worse’n a pair of dice. Here, Fatty. Load up with quinine and

whisky. It’s sure good for chills.” The man behind the bandanna gravely

handed his victim back a dollar. “Write me if it cures you. Now for the

sky-pilot. No white chips on this plate, parson. It’s a contribution to

the needy heathen. You want to be generous. How much do you say?”

The man of the cloth reluctantly said thirty dollars, a Lincoln penny,

and a silver-plated watch inherited from his fathers. The watch was

declined with thanks, the money accepted without.

The Pullman porter came into the car under compulsion of a revolver in

the hand of a fourth outlaw, one in a black mask. His trembling finger

pointed out the satchel and suit-case of Major Mackenzie, and under

orders he carried out the baggage belonging to the irrigation engineer.

Collin observed that the bandit in the black mask was so nervous that

the revolver in his hand quivered like an aspen in the wind. He was

slenderer and much shorter than the Mexican, so that the sheriff

decided he was a mere boy.

It was just after he had left that three shots in rapid succession rang

out in the still night air.

The red-bandannaed one and his companion, who had apparently been

waiting for the signal, retreated backward to the end of the car, still

keeping the passengers covered. They flung rapidly two or three bullets

through the roof, and under cover of the smoke slipped out into the

night. A moment later came the thud of galloping horses, more shots,

and, when the patter of hoofs had died away—silence.

The sheriff was the first to break it. He thrust his brown hands deep

into his pockets and laughed—laughed with the joyous, rollicking

abandon of a tickled schoolboy.

“Hysterics?” ventured the mining engineer sympathetically.

Collins wiped his eyes. “Call ’em anything you like. What pleases me is

that the reverend gentleman should have had this diverting experience

so prompt after he was wishing for it.” He turned, with concern, to the

clergyman. “Satisfied, sir? Did our little entertainment please, or

wasn’t it up to the mark?”

But the transported native of Pekin was game. “I’m quite satisfied, if

you are. I think the affair cost you a hundred dollars or so more than

it did me.”

“That’s right,” agreed the sheriff heartily. “But I don’t grudge it—not

a cent of it. The show was worth the price of admission.”

The car conductor had a broadside ready for him. “Seems to me you shot

off your mouth more than you did that big gun of yours, Mr. Sheriff.”

Collins laughed, and clapped him on the back. “That’s right. I’m a

regular phonograph, when you wind me up.” He did not think it necessary

to explain that he had talked to make the outlaws talk, and that he had

noted the quality of their voices so carefully that he would know them

again among a thousand. Also he had observed—other things—the garb of

each of the men he had seen, their weapons, their manner, and their

individual peculiarities.

The clanking car took up the rhythm of the rails as the delayed train

plunged forward once more into the night. Again the clack of tongues,

set free from fear, buzzed eagerly. The glow of the afterclap of danger

was on them, and in the warm excitement each forgot the paralyzing fear

that had but now padlocked his lips. Courage came flowing back into

flabby cheeks and red blood into hearts of water.

At the next station the Limited stopped, and the conductor swung from a

car before the wheels had ceased rolling and went running into the

telegraph office.

“Fire a message through for me, Pat. The Limited has been held up,” he

announced.

“Held up?” gasped the operator.

“That’s right. Get this message right through to Sabin. I’m not going

to wait for an answer. Tell him I’ll stop at Apache for further

instructions.”

With which the conductor was out again waving his lantern as a signal

for the train to start. Sheriff Collins and Major Mackenzie had entered

the office at his heels. They too had messages to send, but it was not

until the train was already plunging into the night that the station

agent read the yellow slips they had left and observed that both of

them went to the same person.

“Lieutenant Bucky O’Connor, Douglas, Arizona,” was the address he read

at the top of each. His comment serves to show the opinion generally in

the sunburned territory respecting one of its citizens.

“You’re wise guys, gents, both of yez. This is shure a case for the

leftenant. It’s send for Bucky quick when the band begins to play,” he

grinned.

Sitting down, he gave the call for Tucson, preparatory to transmitting

the conductor’s message to the division superintendent. His fingers

were just striking the first tap when a silken voice startled him.

“One moment, friend. No use being in a hurry.”

The agent looked up and nearly fell from his stool. He was gazing into

the end of a revolver held carelessly in the hand of a masked man

leaning indolently on the counter.

“Whe—where did you come from?” the operator gasped.

“Kaintucky, but I been here a right smart spell. Why? You takin’ the

census?” came the drawling answer.

“I didn’t hear youse come in.”

“I didn’t hear you come in, either,” the man behind the mask mocked.

But even as he spoke his manner changed, and crisp menace rang in his

voice. “Have you sent those messages yet?”

“Wha—what messages?”

“Those lying on your desk. I say, have you sent them?”

“Not yet.”

“Hand them over here.”

The operator passed them across the counter without demur.

“Now reach for the roof.”

Up shot the station agent’s hands. The bandit glanced over the written

sheets and commented aloud:

“Huh! One from the conductor and one from Mackenzie. I expected those.

But this one from Collins is ce’tainly a surprise party. I didn’t know

he was on the train. Lucky for him I didn’t, or mebbe I’d a-put his

light for good and all. Friend, I reckon we’ll suppress these messages.

Military necessity, you understand.” And with that he lightly tore up

the yellow sheets and tossed them away.

“The conductor will wire when he reaches Apache,” the operator

suggested, not very boldly.

The outlaw rolled a cigarette deftly and borrowed a match. “He most

surely will. But Apache is seventy miles from here. That gives us an

extra hour and a half, and with us right now time is a heap more

valuable than money. You may tell Bucky O’Connor when you see him that

that extra hour and a half cinches our escape, and we weren’t on the

anxious seat any without it.”

It may have been true, as the train robber had just said, that time was

more valuable to him then than money, but if so he must have held the

latter of singularly little value. For he sat him down on the counter

with his back against the wall and his legs stretched full length in

front of him and glanced over the Tucson _Star_ in leisurely fashion,

while Pat’s arms still projected roofward.

The operator, beginning to get over his natural fright, could not

withhold a reluctant admiration of this man’s aplomb. There was a

certain pantherish lightness about the outlaw’s movements, a trim grace

of figure which yet suggested rippling muscles perfectly under control,

and a quiet wariness of eye more potent than words at repressing

insurgent impulses. Certainly if ever there was a cool customer and one

perfectly sure of himself, this was he.

“Not a thing in the _Star_ to-day,” Pat’s visitor commented, as he

flung it away with a yawn. “I’ll let a thousand dollars of the express

company’s money that there will be something more interesting in it

to-morrow.”

“That’s right,” agreed the agent.

“But I won’t be here to read it. My engagements take me south. I’ll

make a present to the great Lieutenant O’Connor of the information.

We’re headed south, tell him. And tell Mr. Sheriff Collins, too—happy

to entertain him if he happens our way. If it would rest your hands any

there’s no law against putting them in your trousers pockets, my

friend.”

From outside there came a short sharp whistle. The man on the counter

answered it, and slipped at once to the floor. The door opened, to let

in another masked form, but one how different from the first! Here was

no confidence almost insolent in its nonchalance. The figure was slight

and boyish, the manner deprecating, the brown eyes shy and shrinking He

was so obviously a novice at outlawry that fear sat heavy upon his

shoulders. When he spoke, almost in a whisper, his teeth chattered.

“All ready, sir.”

“The wires are cut?” demanded his leader crisply.

“Yes, sir.”

“On both sides?”

“On both sides.”

His chief relieved the operator of the revolver in his desk, broke it,

emptied out the shells, and flung them through the window, then tossed

the weapon back to its owner.

“You’ll not shoot yourself by accident now,” he explained, and with

that he had followed his companion into the night.

There came to the station agent the sound of galloping horses, growing

fainter, until a heavy silence seemed to fill the night. He stole to

the door and locked it, pulled down the window blinds, and then

reloaded his revolver with feverish haste. This done, he sat down

before his keys with the weapon close at hand and frantically called

for Tucson over and over again. No answer came to him, nor from the

other direction when he tried that. The young bandit had told the

truth. His companions had cut the wires and so isolated from the world

for the time the scene of the hold-up. The agent understood now why the

leader of the outlaws had honored him with so much of his valuable

time. He had stayed to hold back the telegrams until he knew the wires

were cut.

CHAPTER III.

THE SHERIFF INTRODUCES HIMSELF

Bear-trap Collins, presuming on the new intimacy born of an exciting

experience shared in common, stepped across the aisle, flung aside Miss

Wainwright’s impedimenta, and calmly seated himself beside her. She was

a young woman capable of a hauteur chillier than ice to undue

familiarity, but she did not choose at this moment to resent his

assumption of a footing that had not existed an hour ago. Picturesque

and unconventional conduct excuses itself when it is garbed in

picturesque and engaging manners. She had, besides, other reasons for

wanting to meet him, and they had to do with a sudden suspicion that

flamed like tow in her brain. She had something for which to thank

him—much more than he would be likely to guess, she thought—and she was

wondering, with a surge of triumph, whether the irony of fate had not

made his pretended consideration for her the means of his undoing.

“I am sorry you lost so much, Miss Wainwright,” he told her.

“But, after all, I did not lose so much as you. Her dark, deep-pupiled

eyes, long-lashed as Diana’s, swept round to meet his coolly.

“That’s a true word. My reputation has gone glimmering for fair, I

guess.” He laughed ruefully. “I shouldn’t wonder, ma’am, when election

time comes round, if the boys ain’t likely to elect to private life the

sheriff that lay down before a bunch of miscreants.”

“Why did you do it?”

His humorous glance roamed round the car. “Now, I couldn’t think it

proper for me to shoot up this sumptuous palace on wheels. And wouldn’t

some casual passenger be likely to get his lights put out when the band

began to play? Would you want that Boston church to be shy a preacher,

ma’am?”

Her lips parted slightly in a curve of scorn. “I suppose you had your

reasons for not interfering.”

“Surely, ma’am. I hated to have them make a sieve of me.”

“Were you afraid?”

“Most men are when Wolf Leroy’s gang is on the war path.”

“Wolf Leroy?”

“That was Wolf who came in to see they were doing the job right. He’s

the worst desperado on the border—a sure enough bad proposition, I

reckon. They say he’s part Spanish and part Indian, but all pisen.

Others say he’s a college man of good family. I don’t know about that,

for nobody knows who he really is. But the name is a byword in the

country. People lower their voices when they speak of him and his

night-riders.”

“I see. And you were afraid of him?”

“Very much.”

Her narrowed eyes looked over the strong lines of his lean face and

were unconvinced. “I expect you found a better reason than that for not

opposing them.”

He turned to her with frank curiosity. “I’d like real well to have you

put a name to it.”

But he was instantly aware that her interest had been side tracked.

Major Mackenzie had entered the car and was coming down the aisle.

Plainer than words his eyes asked a question, and hers answered it.

The sheriff stopped him with a smiling query: “Hit hard, major?”

Mackenzie frowned. “The scoundrels took thirty thousand from the

express car, I understand. Twenty thousand of it belonged to our

company. I was expecting to pay off the men next Tuesday.”

“Hope we’ll be able to run them down for you,” returned Collins

cheerfully. “I suppose you lay it to Wolf Leroy’s gang?”

“Of course. The work was too well done to leave any doubt of that.” The

major resumed his seat behind Miss Wainwright.

To that young woman the sheriff repeated his unanswered question in the

form of a statement. “I’m waiting to learn that better reason, ma’am.”

She was possessed of that spice of effrontery more to be desired than

beauty. “Shall we say that you had no wish to injure your friends?”

“My friends?”

Her untender eyes mocked his astonishment. “Do I choose the wrong

word?” she asked, with an audacity of a courage that delighted him.

“Perhaps they are not your friends—these train robbers? Perhaps they

are mere casual acquaintances?”

His bold eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident

youth—the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely, subtle

eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the alluring lines of

long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was no sweet, ingenuous

youth all prone to blushes, but the complex heir of that world-old

wisdom the weaker sex has shaped to serve as a weapon against the

strength that must be met with the wit of Mother Eve.

“You ce’tainly have a right vivid imagination, ma’am,” he said dryly.

“You are quite sure you have never seen them before?” her velvet voice

asked.

He laughed. “Well, no—I can’t say I am.”

“Aren’t you quite sure you have seen them?”

Her eyes rested on him very steadily.

“You’re smart as a whip, Miss Wainwright. I take off my hat to a young

lady so clever. I guess you’re right. About the identity of one of

those masked gentlemen I’m pretty well satisfied.”

She drew a long breath. “I thought so.”

“Yes,” he went on evenly, “I once earmarked him so that I’d know him

again in case we met.”

“I beg pardon. You—what?”

“Earmarked him. Figure of speech, ma’am. You may not have observed that

the curly-headed person behind the guns was shy the forefinger of his

right hand. We had a little difficulty once when he was resisting

arrest, and it just happened that my gun fanned away his trigger

finger.” He added reminiscently:

“A good boy, too, Neil was once. We used to punch together on the

Hashknife. A straight-up rider, the kind a fellow wants when Old Man

Trouble comes knocking at the door. Well, I reckon he’s a miscreant

now, all right.”

“They knew _you_—at least two of them did.”

“I’ve been pirootin’ around this country, boy and man, for fifteen

years. I ain’t responsible for every yellow dog that knows me,” he

drawled.

“And I noticed that when you told them not to rob the children and not

to touch me they did as you said.”

“Hypnotism,” he suggested, with a smile.

“So, not being a child, I put two and two together and draw an

inference.”

He seemed to be struggling with his mirth. “I see you do. Well, ma’am,

I’ve been most everything since I hit the West, but this is the first

time I’ve been taken for a train robber.”

“I didn’t say that,” she cried quickly.

“I think you mentioned an inference.” The low laugh welled out of him

and broke in his face. “I’ve been busy on one, too. It’s a heap nearer

the truth than yours, Miss Mackenzie.”

Her startled eyes and the swift movement of her hand toward her heart

showed him how nearly he had struck home, how certainly he had

shattered her cool indifference of manner.

He leaned forward, so close that even in the roar of the train his low

whisper reached her. “Shall I tell you why the hold-ups didn’t find

more money on your father or in the express car, Miss Mackenzie?”

She was shaken, so much so that her agitation trembled on her lips.

“Shall I tell you why your hand went to your breast when I first

mentioned that the train was going to be held up, and again when your

father’s eyes were firing a mighty pointed question at you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she retorted, again mistress of herself.

Her gallant bearing compelled his admiration. The scornful eyes, the

satirical lift of the nostrils, the erect, graceful figure, all flung a

challenge at him. He called himself hard names for putting her on the

rack, but the necessity to make her believe in him was strong within

him.

“I noticed you went right chalky when I announced the hold-up, and I

thought it was because you were scared. That was where I did you an

injustice, ma’am, and you can call this an apology. You’ve got sand. If

it hadn’t been for what you carry in the chamois skin hanging on the

chain round your neck you would have enjoyed every minute of the little

entertainment. You’re as game as they make them.”

“May I ask how you arrived at this melodramatic conclusion?” she asked,

her disdainful lip curling.

“By using my eyes and my ears, ma’am. I shouldn’t have noticed your

likeness to Major Mackenzie, perhaps, if I hadn’t observed that there

was a secret understanding between you. Now, whyfor should you be

passing as strangers? I could guess one reason, and only one. There

have twice been attempted hold-ups of the paymaster of the Yuba

reservoir. It was to avoid any more of these that Major Mackenzie took

charge personally of paying the men. He has made good up till now. But

there have been rumors for months that he would be held up either

before leaving the train or while he was crossing the desert. He didn’t

want to be seen taking the boodle from the express company at Tucson.

He would rather have the impression get out that this was just a casual

visit. It occurred to him to bring along some unsuspected party to help

him out. The robbers would never expect to find the money on a woman.

That’s why the major brought his daughter with him. Doesn’t it make you

some uneasy to be carrying fifty thousand in small bills sewed in your

clothes and hung round your neck?”

She broke into musical laughter, natural and easy. “I don’t happen to

have fifty thousand with me.”

“Oh, well, say forty thousand. I’m no wizard to guess the exact

figure.”

Her swift glance at him was almost timid.

“Nor forty thousand,” she murmured.

“I should think, ma’am, you’d crinkle more than a silk-lined lady

sailing down a church aisle on Sunday.”

A picture in the magazine she was toying with seemed to interest her.

“I expect that’s the signal for ‘Exit Collins.’ I’ll say good-by till

next time, Miss Mackenzie.”

“Oh, is there going to be a next time?” she asked, with elaborate

carelessness.

“Several of them.”

“Indeed!”

He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote.

“I ain’t the son of a prophet, but I’m venturing a prediction,” he

explained.

She had nothing to say, and she said it competently.

“Concerning an investment in futurities I’m making,” he continued.

Her magazine article seemed to be beginning, well.

“It’s a little guess about how this train robbery is coming out. If you

don’t mind, I’ll leave it with you.” He tore the page out, put it in an

empty envelope, sealed the flap, and handed it to her.

“Open it in a month, and see whether my guess is a good one.”

The dusky lashes swept round indolently. “Suppose I were to open it

to-night.”

“I’ll risk it,” smiled the blue eyes.

“On honor, am I?”

“That’s it.” He held out a big, brown hand.

“You’re going to try to capture the robbers, are you?”

“I’ve been thinking that way—with the help of Lieutenant Bucky

O’Connor, I mean.”

“And I suppose you’ve promised yourself success.”

“It’s on the knees of chance, ma’am. We may get them. They may get us.”

“But this prediction of yours?” She held up the sealed envelope.

“That’s about another matter.”

“But I don’t understand. You said—” She gave him a chance to explain.

“It ain’t meant you should. You’ll understand plenty at the proper

time.”

He offered her his hand again. “We’re slowing down for Apache.

Good-by—till next time.”

The suede glove came forward, and was buried in his handshake.

He understood it to be an unvoiced apology of its owner for her

suspicions, and his instinct was correct. For how could her doubts hold

their ground when he had showed himself a sharer in her secret and a

guardian of it? And how could anything sinister lie behind those frank,

unwavering eyes or consist with that long, clean stride that was

carrying him so forcefully to the vestibule?

At Apache no telegrams were found waiting for those who had been

expecting them. Communication with the division superintendent at

Tucson uncovered the fact that no message of the hold-up had yet

reached him. It was an easy guess for Collins to find the reason.

“We’re in the infant class, major,” he told Mackenzie, with a sardonic

laugh. “Leroy must have galloped down the line direct to the station

after the hold-up. Likely enough he went into the depot just as we went

out. That gives him the other hour or two he needs to make his getaway

with the loot. Well, it can’t be helped now. If I can only reach Bucky

there’s one chance in fifty he can head them off from crossing into

Sonora. Soon as I can get together a posse I’ll take up the trail from

the point of the hold-up. But they’ll have a whole night’s start on me.

That’s a big handicap.”

From Apache Collins sent three dispatches. One was to his deputy,

Dillon, at Tucson. It read:

“Get together at once posse of four and outfit same for four days.”

Another went to Sabin, the division superintendent:

“Order special to carry posse with horses from Tucson to Big Gap. Must

leave by midnight. Have track clear.”

The third was a notification to Lieutenant O’Connor, of the Arizona

Rangers, of the hold-up, specifying time and place of the occurrence.

The sheriff knew it was not necessary to add that the bandits were

probably heading south to get into Sonora. Bucky would take that for

granted and do his best to cover the likely spots of the frontier.

It was nearly eleven when the Limited drew in to Tucson. Sabin was on

the platform anxiously awaiting their arrival. Collins reached him even

before the conductor.

“Ordered the special, Mr. Sabin?” he asked, in a low voice.

The railroad man was chewing nervously on an unlit cigar. “Yes,

sheriff. You want only an engine and one car, I suppose.”

“That will be enough. I’ve got to go uptown now and meet Dillon.

Midnight sharp, please.”

“Do you know how much they got?” Sabin whispered.

“Thirty thousand, I hear, besides what they took from the passengers.

The conductor will tell you all about it. I’ve got to jump to be

ready.”

A disappointment awaited him in the telegrapher’s room at the depot. He

found a wire, but not from the person he expected. The ranger in charge

at Douglas said that Lieutenant O’Connor was at Flagstaff, but pending

that officer’s return he would put himself under the orders of Sheriff

Collins and wait for instructions.

The sheriff whistled softly to himself and scratched his head. Bucky

would not have waited for instructions. By this time that live wire

would have finished telephoning all over Southern Arizona and would

himself have been in the saddle. But Bucky in Flagstaff, nearly three

hundred miles from the battlefield, so far as the present emergency

went, might just as well be in Calcutta. Collins wired instructions to

the ranger and sent a third message to the lieutenant.

“I expect I’ll hear this time he’s skipped over to Winslow,” he told

himself, with a rueful grin.

The special with the posse on board drew out at midnight sharp. It

reached the scene of the holdup before daybreak. The loading board was

lowered and the horses led from the car and picketed. Meanwhile two of

the men lit a fire and made breakfast while the others unloaded the

outfit and packed for the trail. The first faint streaks of gray dawn

were beginning to fleck the sky when Collins and Dillon, with a

lantern, moved along the railroad bed to the little clump of

cottonwoods where the outlaws had probably lain while they waited for

the express. They scanned this ground inch by inch. The coals where

their camp-fire had been were still alive. Broken bits of food lay

scattered about. Half-trampled into the ground the sheriff picked up a

narrow gold chain and locket. This last he opened, and found it to

contain a tiny photograph of a young mother and babe, both laughing

happily. A close search failed to disclose anything else of interest.

They returned to their companions, ate breakfast, and saddled. It was

by this time light enough to be moving. The trail was easy as a printed

map, for the object of the outlaws had been haste rather than secrecy.

The posse covered it swiftly and without hesitation.

“Now, I wonder why this trail don’t run straight south instead of

bearing to the left into the hills. Looks like they’re going to cache

their stolen gold up in the mountains before they risk crossing into

Sonora. They figure Bucky’ll be on the lookout for them,” the sheriff

said to his deputy.

“I believe you’ve guessed it, Val. Stands to reason they’ll want to get

rid of the loot soon as they can. Oh, hell!”

Dillon’s disgust proved justifiable, for the trail had lost itself in a

mountain stream, up or down which the outlaws must have filed. A month

later and the creek would have been dry. But it was still spring. The

mountain rains had not ceased feeding the brook, and of this the

outlaws had taken advantage to wipe out their trail.

The sheriff looked anxiously at the sky. “It’s fixin’ to rain, Jim.

Don’t that beat the Dutch? If it does, that lets us out plenty.”

The men they were after might have gone either upstream or down. It was

impossible to know definitely which, nor was there time to follow both.

Already big drops of rain were splashing down.

“We’ll take a chance, and go up. They’re probably up in the hills

somewhere right now,” said Collins, with characteristic decision.

He had guessed right. A mile farther upstream horses had clambered to

the bank and struck deeper into the hills. But already rain was falling

in a brisk shower. The posse had not gone another quarter of a mile

before the trail was washed out. They were now in a rough and rocky

country getting every minute steeper.

“It’s going to be like lookin’ for a needle in a haystack, Val,” Dillon

growled.

Collins nodded. “We ain’t got one chance in a hundred, Jim, but I

reckon we’ll take that chance.”

For three days they blundered around in the hills before they gave it

up. The first night, about dusk, the pursuers were without knowing it

so warm that one of the bandits lay with his rifle on a rock rim not a

stone’s throw above them as they wound through a little ravine. But

Collins got no glimpse of the robbers. At last he reluctantly gave the

word to turn back. Probably the men he wanted had already slipped down

to the plains and across to Mexico. If not, they might play hide and

seek with him a month in the recesses of these unknown mountains.

Next morning the sheriff struck a telephone wire, tapped it, got Sabin

on the line, told him of his failure and that he was returning to

Tucson. About the middle of the afternoon the dispirited posse reached

its sidetracked special.

A young man lay stretched full length on the loading board, with a

broad-brimmed felt hat over his eyes. He wore a gray flannel shirt and

corduroy trousers thrust into half-leg laced boots. At the sound of

voices he turned lazily on his side and watched the members of the

posse swing wearily from their saddles. An amiable smile, not wholly

free of friendly derision, lit his good-looking face.

“Oh, you sheriff,” he drawled.

Collins swung round, as if he had been pricked with a knife point. He

stared an instant before he let out a shout of welcome and fell upon

the youth.

“Bucky, by thunder!”

The latter got up nimbly in time to be hospitably thumped and punched.

He was a lithe, slender young fellow, of medium height, and he carried

himself lightly with that manner of sunburned competency given only by

the rough-and-tumble life of the outdoors West.

While the men reloaded the car he and the sheriff stood apart and

talked in low tones. Collins told what he knew, both what he had seen

and inferred, and Bucky heard him to the end.

“Yes, it ce’tainly looks like one of Wolf Leroy’s jobs,” he agreed.

“Nobody else but Leroy would have had the nerve to follow you right up

to the depot and put the kibosh on sending those wires. He’s surely

game from the toes up. Think of him sittin’ there reading the newspaper

half an hour after he held up the Limited!”

“Did he do that, Bucky?” The sheriff’s tone conceded admiration.

“He did. He’s the only train robber ever in the business that could

have done it. Oh, the Wolf’s tracks are all over this job.”

“No doubt about that. I told you I recognized York Neil by him being

shy that trigger finger I fanned off down at Tombstone. Well, they say

he’s one of the Wolf’s standbys.”

“Yes. I warned him two months ago that if he didn’t break away he’d die

sudden. Somehow I couldn’t persuade him he was an awful sick man right

then. You saw four of these hold-ups in all, didn’t you, Val?”

“Four’s right. First off Neil, then the fellow I took to be the Wolf.

After he went out a bowlegged fellow came in, and last a slim little

kid that was a sure enough amateur, the way his gun shook.”

“Any notion how many more there were?”

“I figured out two more. A big gazabo in a red wig held up Frost, the

engineer. He knew it was a wig because he saw long black hair peeping

out around his neck. Then there must ’a’ been another in charge of

blowing up the express car, a Mexican, from the description the

messenger gives of him.”

Bucky nodded. “Looks like you got it figured about right, Val. The

Mexican is easy to account for. The Wolf spends about half his time

down in Chihuahua and trains with some high-class greasers down there.

Well, we’ll see what we’ll see. I’ll set my rangers at rounding up the

border towns a bit, and if I don’t start anything there I’ll hike down

into Mexico and see what’s doing. I’ll count on you to run the Arizona

end of it while I’m away, Val. The Wolf’s outfit is a pretty wild one,

and it won’t be long till something begins to howl. We’ll keep an eye

on the gambling halls and see who is burning up money. Oh, they’ll

leave plenty of smoke behind them,” the ranger concluded cheerfully.

“There will be plenty of smoke if we ever do round ’em up, not to

mention a heap of good lead that will be spilled,” the sheriff agreed

placidly. “Well, all I got to say is the sooner the quicker. The bunch

borrowed a mighty good.45 of mine I need in my biz. I kinder hanker to

get it back _muy pronto_.”

“Here’s hoping,” Bucky nodded gayly. “I bet there will be a right

lively wolf hunt. Hello! The car’s loaded. All aboard for Tucson.”

The special drew out from the side track and gathered speed. Soon the

rhythmic chant of the rails sounded monotonously, and the plains on

either side of the track swam swiftly to the rear.

CHAPTER IV.

A BLUFF IS CALLED

Torpid lay Aravaipa in a coma of sunheat. Its adobe-lined streets

basked in the white glare of an Arizona spring at midday. One or two

Papago Indians, with their pottery wares, squatted in the shade of the

buildings, but otherwise the plaza was deserted. Not even a moving dog

or a lounging peon lent life to the drowsy square. Silence profound and

peace eternal seemed to brood over the land.

Such was the impression borne in upon the young man riding townward on

a wiry buckskin that had just topped the rise which commanded the

valley below. The rider presented a striking enough appearance to take

and hold the roving eye of any young woman in search of romance. He was

a slender, lithe young Adonis of medium height. His hair and eyebrows

left one doubtful whether to pronounce them black or brown, but the

eyes called for an immediate verdict of Irish blue. Every inch of him

spoke of competency—promised mastership of any situation likely to

arise. But when the last word is said it was the eyes that dominated

the personality. They could run the whole gamut of emotions, or they

could be impervious as a stone wall. Now they were deep and innocent as

a girl’s, now they rollicked with the buoyant youth in them. Comrades

might see them bubbling with fun, and the next moment enemies find them

opaque as a leaden sky. Not the least wonder of them was that they

looked out from under long lashes, soft enough for any maiden, at a

world they appraised with the shrewdness of a veteran.

The young man drew rein above the valley, sitting his horse in the

easy, negligent fashion of one that lives in the saddle. A thumb was

hitched carelessly in the front pocket of his chaps, which pocket

served also as a holster for the .45 that protruded.

Even in the moment that he sat there a change came over Aravaipa. As a

summer shower sweeps across a lake so something had ruffled the town to

sudden life. From stores and saloons men dribbled, converging toward a

common centre hurriedly.

“I reckon, Bucky, the band has begun to play,” the rider told himself

aloud. “Mebbe we better move on down in time for the music.”

But no half-expected revolver shots shattered the stillness, even

though interest did not abate.

“There’s ce’tainly something doing at the Silver Dollar this glad

mo’ning. Chinks, greasers, and several other kinds of citizens driftin’

that way, not to mention white men. I expect there will be room for

you, Bucky, if you hurry before the seats are all sold out.”

He cantered down the plaza, swung from the saddle, threw the rein over

the pony’s head to the ground, and jingled across the sidewalk into the

gambling house. It was filled with a motley crowd of miners, vaqueros,

tourists, cattlemen, Mexicans, Chinese, and a sample of the rest of the

heterogeneous population of the Southwest. Behind this assemblage the

newcomer tiptoed in vain to catch a glimpse of the cause of the

excitement. Wherefore, he calmly removed an almond-eyed Oriental from a

chair on which he was standing, tipped the ex-Cantonese a half dollar,

and appropriated the point of vantage himself.

There was a cleared space in the corner by the roulette table, and

here, his chair tipped back against the wall and a glass of whisky in

front of him, sat a sufficiently strange specimen of humanity. He was a

man of about fifty years, large boned and gaunt. Dressed in fringed

buckskin trousers and a silver-laced Mexican sombrero, he affected the

long hair, the sweeping mustache, and the ferocious aspect that are the

custom of the pseudo-Westerners who do business in the East with fake

medical remedies. Around his waist was a belt garnished with knives by

the dozen. These were long and pointed, sharpened to a razor edge. One

of them was in his hand poised for a throw at the instant Bucky mounted

the chair and looked over the densely packed mass of heads in front of

him.

The ranger’s keen glance swept to the wall and took in the target. A

slim lad of about fifteen stood against it with his arms outstretched.

Above and below each hand and on either side of the swelling throat

knives quivered in the frame wall. There was a flash of steel, and the

seventh knife sank into the wood so close to the crisp curls that a

lock hung by a hair, almost completely severed by the blade. The boy

choked back a scream, his big brown eyes dilating with terror.

The bully sipped at his highball and deliberately selected another

knife. To Bucky’s swift inspection it was plain he had drunk too much

and that a very little slip might make an end of the boy. The

fascinated horror in the lad’s gaze showed that he realized his danger.

“Now, f’ler cit’zens, I will continue for your ’musement by puttin’

next two knives on right and lef’ sides of his cheek. Observe, pleash,

that these will land less than an inch from hish eyes. As the champion

knife thrower in the universe I claim—”

What he claimed his audience had to guess, for at this instant another

person took a part in the act. Bucky had stepped lightly across the

intervening space on the shoulders of the tightly packed crowd and had

dropped as lightly to the ground in front of the astonished champion of

the universe.

“I reckon you’ve about wore out that target. What’s the matter with

trying a brand new one,” drawled the ranger, his quiet, unwavering eye

fixed on the bloated, mottled face of the imitation “bad man.”

The bully, half seas over, leaned forward and gripped his knife. He was

sober enough to catch the jeer running through the other’s words

without being sufficiently master of himself to appreciate the menace

that underlay them.

“Wha’s that? Say that again!” he burst out, purple to the collar line.

He was not used to having beardless boys with long, soft eyelashes

interfering with his amusements, and a blind rage flooded his heart.

“I allowed that a change of targets would vary the entertainment, if

you haven’t any objections, seh,” the blue-eyed stranger explained

mildly.

“Who is this kid?” demanded the bully, with a sweep of his arm toward

the intruder.

Nobody seemed to know, wherefore the ranger himself gave the

information mildly:

“Bucky O’Connor they call me.”

A faint murmur of surprise soughed through the crowd, for Bucky

O’Connor of the Arizona Rangers was by way of being a public hero just

now on account of his capture of Fernendez, the stage robber. But the

knife thrower had but lately arrived in the country. The youth carried

with him none of the earmarks of his trade, unless it might be that

quiet, steady gaze that seemed to search the soul. His voice was soft

and drawling, his manner almost apologetic. In the smile that came and

went was something sweet and sunny, in his bearing a gay charm that did

not advertise the recklessness that bubbled from his daredevil spirit.

Surely here was an easy victim upon whom to vent his spleen, thought

the other in his growing passion.

“You want to be my target, do you?” he demanded, tugging ferociously at

his long mustache.

“If you please, seh.”

The fellow swore a vile oath. “Just as you say. Line up beside the

other kid.”

With three strides Bucky reached the wall, and turned.

“Let ’er go,” his gentle voice murmured.

He was leaning back easily against the wall, his thumb hitched

carelessly in the revolver pocket of his worn leather chaps. He looked

at ease, every jaunty inch of him, but a big bronzed cattleman who had

just pushed his way in noticed that the frosty blue eyes never released

for an instant those of the enemy.

The bully at the table passed an uncertain hand over his face to clear

his blurred vision, poised the cruel blade in his hand, and sent it

flashing forward with incredible swiftness. The steel buried itself two

inches deep in the soft pine beside Bucky’s head. So close had it

shaved him that a drop of blood gathered and dropped from his ear to

the floor.

“Good shot,” commented the ranger quietly, and on the instant his

revolver seemed to leap from its holster to his hand. Without raising

or moving his arm in the least, Bucky fired.

Again a murmur eddied through the crowd. The bullet had neatly bored

the bully’s ear. He raised his hand in dazed fashion and brought it

away covered with blood. With staring eyes he looked at his moist red

fingers, then at his latest victim, who was proving such an unexpected

surprise.

The big cattleman, who by this time had pushed a way with his broad

shoulders to the front, observed the two men attentively with a

derisive smile on his frank face. He was seeing a bluff called, and he

enjoyed it.

“You’ll be able to wear earrings, Mr. Champion of the Universe, after I

have ventilated the other,” suggested the ranger affably. “Come again,

seh.”

But his opponent had had enough, and more than enough. It was one thing

to browbeat a harmless boy, quite another to measure courage with a

young gamecock like this. He had all the advantage of the first move.

He was an expert and could drive his first throw into the youth’s

heart. But at bottom he was a coward and lacked the nerve, if not the

inclination, to kill. If he took up that devil-may-care challenge he

must fight it out alone. Moreover, as his furtive glance went round the

ring of faces, he doubted whether a rope and the nearest telegraph pole

might not be his fate if he went the limit. Sourly he accepted defeat,

raging in his craven spirit at the necessity.

“Hell! I don’t fight with boys,” he snarled,

“So?”

Bucky moved forward with the curious lightness of a man spring-footed.

His gaze held the other’s shifting eyes as he plucked the knife from

his opponent’s hand.

“Unbuckle that belt,” he ordered.

All said, the eye is a prince of weapons. It is a moral force more

potent than the physical, and by it men may measure strength to a

certainty. So now these two clinched and battled with it till the best

man won. The showman’s look gave way before the stark courage of the

other. His was no match for the inscrutable, unwavering eye that

commanded him. His fingers began to twitch, edged slowly toward his

waist. For an instant they fumbled at the buckle of the belt, which

presently fell with a rattle to the floor.

“Now, roll yore trail to the wall. Face this way! Arms out! That’s

good! You rest there comfortable while I take these pins down and let

the kid out.”

He removed the knives that hemmed in the boy and supported the

half-fainting figure to a chair beside the roulette table. But always

he remained in such a position as to keep the big bully he was baiting

in view. The boy dropped into the chair and covered his face with his

hands, sobbing with deep, broken breaths. The ranger touched

caressingly the crisp, fair hair that covered the head in short curls.

“Don’t you worry, bub. Now, don’t you. It’s all over with now. That

coyote won’t pester you any more. Will you, Mr. False Alarm Bad Man?”

At the last words he wheeled suddenly to the showman. “You’re right

sorry already you got so gay, ain’t you? Come! Speak yore little piece,

please.”

He waited for an answer, and his gaze held fast to the bloated face

that cringed before his attack.

“What’s your name?”

“Jay Hardman,” quavered the now thoroughly sobered bad man.

“Dead easy jay, I reckon you mean. Now, chirp, up and tell the boy how

sorry you are you got fresh with your hardware.”

“He’s my boy. I guess I can do what I like with him,” the man burst out

angrily. “I wasn’t hurting him any, either. That’s part of our show,

to—”

Bucky fondled suggestively the revolver in his hand. A metallic click

came to his victim.

“Don’t you shoot at me again,” the man broke off to scream.

The Colt clipped the sentence and the man’s other ear.

“You can put in your order now for them earrings we were mentionin’,

Mr. Deadeasy. You see, I had to puncture this one so folks would know

they were mates.”

“I’ll put you in the pen for this,” the fellow whined, in terror.

“Funny how you will get off the subject. We were discussin’ an apology

when you got to wandering in yore haid.”

The mottled face showed white in patches. Beads of perspiration stood

out on the forehead of Hardman. “I didn’t aim to hurt him any. I’ll be

right glad to explain to you—”

A bullet plowed a path through the long hair that fell to the showman’s

shoulders and snipped a lock from it.

“You don’t need to explain a thing to me, seh. I’m sure resting easy in

my mind. But as you were about to re-mark you’re fair honin’ for a

chance to ask the kid’s pardon. Now, ain’t I a mind reader, seh?”

A trembling voice stammered huskily an apology.

“Better late than too late. Now, I’ve a good mind to take a vote

whether I’d better unload the rest of the pills in this old reliable

medicine box at you. Mebbe I ought to pump one into that coyote heart

of yours.”

The fellow went livid. “My God, you wouldn’t kill an unarmed man, would

you?”

For answer the ranger tossed the weapon on the table with a scornful

laugh and strode up to the other. The would-be bad man towered six

inches above him, and weighed half as much again. But O’Connor whirled

him round, propelled him forward to the door, and kicked him into the

street.

“I’d hate to waste a funeral on _him_,” he said, as he sauntered back

to the boy at the table.

The lad was beginning to recover, though his breath still came with a

catch. His rag of a handkerchief was dabbing tears out of his eyes.

O’Connor noticed how soft his hands and how delicate his features.

“This kid ain’t got any more business than a rabbit going around in the

show line with that big scoundrel. He’s one of these gentle,

rock-me-to-sleep-mother kids that ought to stay in the home nest and

not go buttin’ into this hard world. I’ll bet a doughnut he’s an

orphan, though.”

Bucky had been brought up in the school of experience, where every

student keeps his own head or goes to the wall. All his short life he

had played a lone hand, as he would have phrased it. He had campaigned

in Cuba as a mere boy. He had ridden the range and held his own on the

hurricane deck of a bucking broncho. From cowpunching he had graduated

into the tough little body of territorial rangers at the head of which

was “Hurry Up” Millikan. This had brought him a large and turbulent

experience in the knack of taking care of himself under all

circumstances. Naturally, a man of this type, born and bred to the code

of the outdoors West, could not fail of a certain contempt for a boy

that broke down and cried when the game was going against him.

But Bucky’s contempt was tolerant, after all. He could not deny his

sympathy to a youngster in trouble. Again he touched gently the lad’s

crisp curls of burnished gold.

“Brace up, bub. The worst is yet to come,” he laughed awkwardly. “I

reckon there’s no use spillin’ any more emotion over it. He ain’t your

dad, is he?”

The lad’s big brown eyes looked up into the serene blue ones and found

comfort in their strength. “No, he’s my uncle—and my master.”

“This is a free country, son. We don’t have masters if we’re good

Americans, though we all have to take orders from our superior

officers. You don’t need to serve this fellow unless you want to.

That’s a cinch.”

The boy’s troubled eyes were filmed with reminiscent terror. “You don’t

know him. He is terrible when he is angry,” he murmured.

“I don’t think it,” returned Bucky contemptuously. “He’s the worst

blowhard ever. Say the word and I’ll run the piker out of town for

you.”

The boy whipped up the sleeve of the fancy Mexican jacket he wore and

showed a long scar on his arm. “He did that one day when he was angry

at me. He pretended to others that it was an accident, but I knew

better. This morning I begged him to let me leave him. He beat me, but

he was still mad; and when he took to drinking I was afraid he would

work himself up to stick me again with one of his knives.”

Bucky looked at the scar in the soft, rounded arm and swept the boy

with a sudden puzzled glance that was not suspicion but wonder.

“How long have you been with him, kid?”

“Oh, for years. Ever since I was a little fellow. He took me after my

father and mother died of yellow fever in New Orleans. His wife hates

me too, but they have to have me in the show.”

“Then I guess you had better quit their company. What’s your name?”

“Frank Hardman. On the show bills I have all sorts of names.”

“Well, Frank, how would you like to go to live on a ranch?”

“Where he wouldn’t know I was?” whispered the boy eagerly.

“If you like. I know a ranch where you’d be right welcome.”

“I would work. I would do anything I could. Really, I would try to pay

my way, and I don’t eat much,” Frank cried, his eyes as appealing as a

homeless puppy’s.

Bucky smiled. “I expect they can stand all you eat without going to the

poorhouse. It’s a bargain then. I’ll take you out there to-morrow.”

“You’re so good to me. I never had anybody be so good before.” Tears

stood in the big eyes and splashed over.

“Cut out the water works, kid. You want to take a brace and act like a

man,” advised his new friend brusquely.

“I know. I know. If you knew what I have done maybe you wouldn’t ask me

to go with you. I—I can’t tell you anything more than that,” the

youngster sobbed.

“Oh, well. What’s the diff? You’re making a new start to-day. Ain’t

that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Bucky.”

“Yes, sir. Bucky, I mean.”

A hand fell on the ranger’s shoulder and a voice in his ear. “Young

man, I want you.”

The lieutenant whirled like a streak of lightning, finger on trigger

already. “I’ll trouble you for yore warrant, seh,” he retorted.

The man confronting him was the big cattleman who had entered the

Silver Dollar in time to see O’Connor’s victory over the showman. Now

he stood serenely under Bucky’s gun and laughed.

“Put up your .45, my friend. It’s a peaceable conference I want with

you.”

The level eyes of the young man fastened on those of the cattleman,

and, before he spoke again, were satisfied. For both of these men

belonged to the old West whose word is as good as its bond, that West

which will go the limit for a cause once under taken without any

thought of retreat, regardless of the odds or the letter of the law.

Though they had never met before, each knew at a glance the manner of

man the other was.

“All right, seh. If you want me I reckon I’m here large as life,” the

ranger said,

“We’ll adjourn to the poker room upstairs then, Mr. O’Connor.”

Bucky laid a hand on the shoulder of the boy. “This kid goes with me.

I’m keeping an eye on him for the present.”

“My business is private, but I expect that can be arranged. We’ll take

the inner room and let him have the outer.”

“Good enough. Break trail, seh. Come along, Frank.”

Having reached the poker room upstairs, that same private room which

had seen many a big game in its day between the big cattle kings and

mining men of the Southwest, Bucky’s host ordered refreshments and then

unfolded his business.

“You don’t know me, lieutenant, do you?”

“I haven’t that pleasure, seh.”

“I am Major Mackenzie’s brother.”

“Webb Mackenzie, who came from Texas last year and bought the Rocking

Chair Ranch?”

“The same.”

“I’m right glad to meet you, seh.”

“And I can say the same.”

Webb Mackenzie was so distinctively a product of the West that no other

segment of the globe could have produced him. Big, raw-boned, tanned to

a leathery brick-brown, he was as much of the frontier as the ten

thousand cows he owned that ran the range on half as many hills and

draws. He stood six feet two and tipped the beam at two hundred twelve

pounds, not an ounce of which was superfluous flesh. Temperamentally,

he was frank, imperious, free-hearted, what men call a prince. He wore

a loose tailor-made suit of brown stuff and a broad-brimmed light-gray

Stetson. For the rest, you may see a hundred like him at the yearly

stock convention held in Denver, but you will never meet a man even

among them with a sounder heart or better disposition.

“I’ve got a story to tell you, Lieutenant O’Connor,” he began. “I’ve

been meaning to see you and tell it ever since you made good in that

Fernendez matter. It wasn’t your gameness. Anybody can be game. But it

looked to me like you were using the brains in the top of your head,

and that happens so seldom among law officers I wanted to have a talk

with you. Since yesterday I’ve been more anxious. For why? I got a

letter from my brother telling me Sheriff Collins showed him a locket

he found at the place of the T. P. Limited hold-up. That locket has in

it a photograph of my wife and little girl. For fifteen years I haven’t

seen that picture. When I saw it last ’twas round my little baby’s

neck. What’s more, I haven’t seen her in that time, either.”

Mackenzie stopped, swallowed hard, and took a drink of water.

“You haven’t seen your little girl in fifteen years,” exclaimed Bucky.

“Haven’t seen or heard of her. So far as I know she may not be alive

now. This locket is the first hint I have had since she was taken away,

the very first news of her that has reached me, and I don’t know what

to make of that. One of the robbers must have been wearing it, the way

I figure it out. Where did he get it? That’s what I want to know.”

“Suppose you tell me the story, seh,” suggested the ranger gently.

The cattleman offered O’Connor a cigar and lit one himself. For a

minute he puffed slowly at his Havana, leaning far back in his chair

with eyes reminiscent and half shut. Then he shook himself back into

the present and began his tale.

“I don’t reckon you ever heard tell of Dave Henderson. It was back in

Texas I knew him, and he’s been missing sixteen years come the eleventh

of next August. For fifteen years I haven’t mentioned his name, because

Dave did me the dirtiest wrong that one man ever did another. Back in

the old days he and I used to trail together. We was awful thick, and

mostly hunted in couples. We began riding the same season back on the

old Kittredge Ranch, and we went in together for all the kinds of

spreeing that young fellows who are footloose are likely to do. Fact

is, we suited each other from the ground up. We frolicked round

a-plenty, like young colts will, and there was nothing on this green

earth Dave could have asked from me that I wouldn’t have done for him.

Nothing except one, I reckon, and Dave never asked that of me.”

Mackenzie puffed at his cigar a silent moment before resuming. “It

happened we both fell in love with the same girl, little Frances Clark,

of the Double T Ranch. Dave was a better looker than me and a more

taking fellow, but somehow Frances favored me from the start. Dave

stayed till the finish, and when he seen he had lost he stood up with

me at the wedding. We had agreed, you see, that whoever won it wasn’t

to break up our friendship.

“Well, Frankie and I were married, and in course of time we had two

children. My boy, Tom, is the older. The other was a little girl, named

after her mother.” The cattleman waited a moment to steady his voice,

and spoke through teeth set deep in his Havana. “I haven’t seen her, as

I said, since she was two years and ten months old—not since the night

Dave disappeared.”

Bucky looked up quickly with a question on his lips, but he did not

need to word it.

Mackenzie nodded. “Yes, Dave took her with him when he lit out across

the line for Mexico.”

But I’ll have to go back to something that happened earlier. About

three months before this time Dave and me were riding through a cut in

the Sierra Diablo Mountains, when we came on a Mexican who had been

wounded by the Apaches. I reckon we had come along just in time to

scare them off before they finished him. We did our best for him, but

he died in about two hours. Before dying, he made us a present of a map

we found in his breast pocket. It showed the location of a very rich

mine he had found, and as he had no near kin he turned it over to us to

do with as we pleased.

“Just then the round-up came on, and we were too busy to pay much

attention to the mine. Each of us would have trusted the other with his

life, or so I thought. But we cut the paper in half, each of us keeping

one part, in order that nobody else could steal the secret from the one

that held the paper. The last time I had been in El Paso I had bought

my little girl a gold chain with two lockets pendent. These lockets

opened by a secret spring, and in one of them I put my half of the map.

It seemed as safe a place as I could devise, for the chain never left

the child’s neck, and nobody except her mother, Dave, and I knew that

it was placed there. Dave hid his half under a rock that was known to

both of us. The strange thing about the story is that my false friend,

in the hurry of his flight, forgot to take his section of the map with

him. I found it under the rock next day, so that his vile treachery

availed him nothing from a mercenary point of view.”

“Didn’t take his half of the map with him. That’s right funny,” Bucky

mused aloud.

“We never could understand why he didn’t.”

“Mebbe if you understood that a heap of things might be clear that are

dark now.”

“Mebbe. Knowing Dave Henderson as I did, or, rather, as I thought I

did, such treachery as his was almost unbelievable. He was the

sweetest, sunniest soul I ever knew, and no two brothers could have

been as fond of each other as we seemed to be. But there was no chance

of mistake. He had gone, and taken our child with him, likely in

accordance with a plan of revenge long cherished by him. We never heard

of him or the child again. They disappeared as completely as if the

earth had swallowed them up. Our cook, too, left with him that evil

night.”

“Your cook?” It was the second comment Bucky had ventured, and it came

incisively. “What manner of man was he?”

“A huge, lumbering braggart. I could never understand why Dave took the

man with him.”

“If he did.”

“But I tell you he did. They disappeared the same night, and the trail

showed they went the same road. We followed them for about an hour next

day, but a heavy rain came up and blotted out the tracks.”

“What was the cook’s name?”

“Jeff Anderson.”

“Have you a picture of him, or one of your friend?”

“Back at the ranch I had pictures of Dave, but I burned them after he

left. Yes, I reckon we have one of Anderson, standing in front of the

chuck wagon.”

“Send it to me, please.”

“All right.”

The ranger asked a few questions that made clearer the situation on the

day of the kidnapping, and some more concerning Anderson, then fell

again into the role of a listener while Mackenzie concluded his story.

“All these years I have kept my eyes open, confident that at last I

would discover something that would help me to discover the whereabouts

of my child, or, at least, give me a chance to punish the scoundrel who

betrayed my confidence. Yesterday my brother’s letter gave the first

clue we have had. I want that lead worked. Ferret this thing out to the

bottom, lieutenant. Get me something definite to go on. That’s what I

want you to do. Run the thing to earth, get at the facts, and find my

child for me. I’ll give you carte blanche up to a hundred thousand

dollars. All I ask of you is to make good. Find the little girl, or

else bring me face to face with that villain Henderson. Can you do it?”

O’Connor was strangely interested in this story of treachery and

mystery. He rose with shining eyes and held out his hand. “I don’t

know, seh, but I’ll try damned hard to do three things: find out what

has become of the little girl, of Dave Henderson, and of the scoundrel

who stole your baby because he thought the map was in the pocket.”

“You mean that you don’t think Dave—”

“That is exactly what I mean. Your cook, Anderson, kidnapped the child,

looks like to me. I saw that locket Collins found. My guess was that

the marks on the end of the chain were deep teeth marks. The man that

stole your baby tried first to cut the chain with his teeth so as to

steal the chain. You see, he could not find the clasp in the dark. Then

the child wakened and began to cry. He clapped a hand over its mouth

and carried the little girl out of the room. Then he heard somebody

moving about, lost his nerve, and jumped on the horse that was waiting,

saddled, at the door. He took the child along simply because he had to

in order to get the chain and the secret he thought it held.”

“Perhaps; but that does not prove it was not Dave.”

“It’s contributory evidence, seh. Your friend could have slipped the

chain from her neck any day, or he could have opened the locket and

taken the map. No need for him to steal in at night. Do you happen to

remember whether your little girl had any particular aversion to the

cook?”

The cattleman’s forehead frowned in thought. “I do remember, now, that

she was afraid of him. She always ran screaming to her mother when he

tried to be friendly with her. He was a sour sort of fellow.”

“That helps out the case a heap, for it shows that he wanted to make

friends with her and she refused. He was thus forced to take the chain

when she was asleep instead of playing with her till he had discovered

the spring and could simply take the map.”

“But he didn’t know anything about the map. He was not in our

confidence.”

“You and your friend talked it over evenings when he was at the ranch,

and other places, too, I expect.”

“Yes, our talk kind of gravitated that way whenever we got together.”

“Well, this fellow overheard you. That’s probable, at least.”

“But you’re ignoring the important fact. Dave disappeared too that

night, with my little girl.”

Bucky cut in sharply with a question. “Did he? How do you know he

disappeared _with_ her? Why not _after?_ That’s the theory my mind is

groping on just now.”

“That’s a blind trail to me. Why _after?_ And what difference does it

make?”

“All the difference in the world. If he left after the cook, you have

been doing him an injustice for fifteen years, seh.”

Mackenzie leaned forward, excitement burning in his eyes. “Prove that,

young man, and I’ll thank you to the last day of my life. It’s for my

wife’s sake more than my own I want my little girl back. She jes’ pines

for her every day of her life. But for my friend—if you can give me

back the clean memory of Dave you’ll have done a big thing for me, Mr.

O’Connor.”

“It’s only a working theory, but this is what I’m getting at. You and

Henderson had arranged to take an early start on a two days’ deer hunt

next mo’ning. That’s what you told me, isn’t it?”

“We were to start about four. Yes, sir.”

“Well, let’s suppose a case. Along comes Dave before daybreak, when the

first hooters were beginning to call. Just as he reaches your ranch he

notices a horse slipping away in the darkness. Perhaps he hears the

little girl cry out. Anyhow, instead of turning in at the gate, he

decides to follow. Probably he isn’t sure there’s anything wrong, but

when he finds out how the horse he’s after is burning the wind his

suspicions grow stronger. He settles down to a long chase. In the

darkness, we’ll say, he loses his man, but when it gets lighter he

picks up the trail again. The tracks lead south, across the line into

Mexico. Still he keeps plodding on. The man in front sees him behind

and gets scared because he can’t shake him off. Very likely he thinks

it is you on his track. Anyhow, while the child is asleep he waits in

ambush, and when Henderson rides up he shoots him down. Then he pushes

on deeper into Chihuahua, and proceeds to lose himself there by

changing his name.”

“You think he murdered Dave?” The cattleman got up and began to pace up

and down the floor.

“I think it possible.”

Webb Mackenzie’s face was pallid, but there was a new light of hope in

it. “I believe you’re right. God knows I hope so. That may sound a

horrible thing to say of my best friend, but if it has got to be one or

the other—if it is certain that my old bunkie came to his death foully

in Chihuahua while trying to save my baby, or is alive to-day, a

skulking coward and villain—with all my heart I hope he is dead.” He

spoke with a passionate intensity which showed how much he had cared

for his early friend, and how much the latter’s apparent treachery had

cut him. “I hope you’ll never have a friend go back on you, Mr.

O’Connor, the one friend you would have banked on to a finish. Why,

Dave Henderson saved my life from a bunch of Apaches once when it was

dollars to doughnuts he would lose his own if he tried it. We were

prospecting in the Galiuros together, and one mo’ning when he went down

to the creek to water the hawsses he sighted three of the red devils

edging up toward the cabin. There might have been fifty of them there

for all he knew, and he had a clear run to the plains if he wanted to

back one of the ponies and take it. Most any man would have saved his

own skin, but not Dave. He hoofed it back to the cabin, under fire

every foot of the way, and together we made it so hot for them that

they finally gave up getting us. We were in the Texas Rangers together,

and pulled each other through a lot of close places. And then at the

end—Why, it hurt me more than it did losing my own little girl.”

Bucky nodded. Since he was a man and not a father, he could understand

how the hurt would rankle year after year at the defalcation of his

comrade.

“That’s another kink we have got to unravel in this tangle. First off,

there’s your little girl, to find if she is still alive. Second, we

must locate Dave Henderson or his grave. Third, there’s something due

the scoundrel who is responsible for this. Fourthly, brethren, there’s

that map section to find. And lastly, we’ve got to find just how this

story you’ve told me got mixed with the story of the holdup of the

Limited. For it ce’tainly looks as if the two hang together. I take it

that the thing to do is to run down the gang that held up the Limited.

Once we do that, we ought to find the key to the mystery of your little

girl’s disappearance. Or, at least, there is a chance we shall. And

it’s chances we’ve got to gamble on in this thing.”

“Good enough. I like the way you go at this. Already I feel a heap

better than I did.”

“If the cards fall our way you’re going to get this thing settled once

for all. I can’t promise my news will be good news when I get it, but

anything will be better than the uncertainty you’ve been in, I take

it,” said Bucky, rising from his chair.

“You’re right there. But, wait a moment. Let’s drink to your success.”

“I’m not much of a sport,” Bucky smiled. “Fact is, I never drink, seh.”

“Of course. I remember, now. You’re the good bad man of the West,”

Mackenzie answered amiably. “Well, I drink to you. Here’s good hunting,

lieutenant.”

“Thank you.”

“I suppose you’ll get right at this thing?”

“I’ve got to take that kid in the next room out to my ranch first. I

won’t stand for that knife thrower making a slave of him.”

“What’s the matter with me taking the boy out to the Rocking Chair with

me? My wife and I will see he’s looked after till you return.”

“That would be the best plan, if it won’t trouble you too much. We’d

better keep his whereabouts quiet till this fellow Hardman is out of

the country.”

“Yes, though I hardly think he’d be fool enough to show up at the

Rocking Chair. If my vaqueros met up with him prowling around they

might show him as warm a welcome as you did half an hour ago.”

“A chapping would sure do him a heap of good,” grinned Bucky, and so

dismissed the Champion of the World from his mind.

CHAPTER V.

BUCKY ENTERTAINS

Bucky began at once to tap the underground wires his official position

made accessible to him. These ran over Southern Arizona, Sonora, and

Chihuahua. All the places to which criminals or frontiersmen with money

were wont to resort were reported upon. For the ranger’s experience had

taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to

burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of

the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb

disport themselves together.

The photograph from Webb Mackenzie of the cook Anderson reached him at

Tucson the third day after his interview with that gentleman, at the

same time that Collins dropped in on him to inquire what progress he

was making.

O’Connor told him of the Aravaipa episode, and tossed across the table

to him the photograph he had just received.

“If we could discover the gent that sat for this photo it might help

us. You don’t by any chance know him, do you, Val?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Not in my rogues’ gallery, Bucky.”

The ranger again examined the faded picture. A resemblance in it to

somebody he had met recently haunted vaguely his memory. As he looked

the indefinite suggestion grew sharp and clear. It was a photograph of

the showman who had called himself Hardman. All the trimmings were

lacking, to be sure—the fierce mustache, the long hair, the buckskin

trappings, none of them were here. But beyond a doubt it was the same

shifty-eyed villain. Nor did it shake Bucky’s confidence that Mackenzie

had seen him and failed to recognize the man as his old cook. The

fellow was thoroughly disguised, but the camera had happened to catch

that curious furtive glance of his. But for that O’Connor would never

have known the two to be the same.

Bucky was at the telephone half an hour. In the middle of the next

afternoon his reward came in the form of a Western Union billet. It

read:

“Eastern man says you don’t want what is salable here.”

The lieutenant cut out every other word and garnered the wheat of the

message:

“Man you want is here.”

The telegram was marked from Epitaph, and for that town the ranger and

the sheriff entrained immediately.

Bucky’s eye searched in vain the platform of the Epitaph depot for

Malloy, of the Rangers, whose wire had brought him here. The cause of

the latter’s absence was soon made clear to him in a note he found

waiting for him at the hotel:

“The old man has just sent me out on hurry-up orders. Don’t know when

I’ll get back. Suggest you take in the show at the opera house to-night

to pass the time.”

It was the last sentence that caught Bucky’s attention. Jim Malloy had

not written it except for a reason. Wherefore the lieutenant purchased

two tickets for the performance far back in the house. From the local

newspaper he gathered that the showman was henceforth to be a resident

of Epitaph. Mr. Jay Hardman, or Signor Raffaello Cavellado, as he was

known the world over by countless thousands whom he had entertained,

had purchased a corral and livery stable at the corner of Main and

Boothill Streets and solicited the patronage of the citizens of Hualpai

County. That was the purport of the announcement which Bucky ringed

with a pencil and handed to his friend.

That evening Signor Raffaello Cavellado made a great hit with his

audience. He swaggered through his act magnificently, and held his

spectators breathless. Bucky took care to see that a post and the

sheriff’s big body obscured him from view during the performance.

After it was over O’Connor and the sheriff returned to the hotel, where

also Hardman was for the present staying, and sent word up to his room

that one of the audience who had admired very much the artistic

performance would like the pleasure of drinking a glass of wine with

Signor Cavellado if the latter would favor him with his company in room

seven. The Signor was graciously pleased to accept, and followed his

message of acceptance in person a few minutes later.

Bucky remained quietly in the corner of the room back of the door until

the showman had entered, and while the latter was meeting Collins he

silently locked the door and pocketed the key.

The sheriff acknowledged Hardman’s condescension brusquely and without

shaking hands. “Glad to meet you, seh. But you’re mistaken in one

thing. I’m not your host. This gentleman behind you is.”

The man turned and saw Bucky, who was standing with his back against

the door, a bland smile on his face.

“Yes, seh. I’m your host to-night. Sheriff Collins, hyer, is another

guest. I’m glad to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Signor

Raffaello Cavellado,” Bucky assured him, in his slow, gentle drawl,

without reassuring him at all.

For the fellow was plainly disconcerted at recognition of his host. He

turned with a show of firmness to Collins. “If you’re a sheriff, I

demand to have that door opened at once,” he blustered.

Val put his hands in his pockets and tipped back his chair. “I ain’t

sheriff of Hualpai County. My jurisdiction don’t extend here,” he said

calmly.

“I’m an unarmed man,” pleaded Cavellado.

“Come to think of it, so am I.”

“I reckon I’m holding all the aces, Signor Cavellado,” explained the

ranger affably. “Or do you prefer in private life to be addressed as

Hardman—or, say, Anderson?”

The showman moistened his lips and offered his tormentor a blanched

face.

“Anderson—a good plain name. I wonder, now, why you changed it?”

Bucky’s innocent eyes questioned him blandly as he drew from his pocket

a little box and tossed it on the table. “Open that box for me, Mr.

Anderson. Who knows? It might explain a heap of things to us.”

With trembling fingers the big coward fumbled at the string. With all

his fluent will he longed to resist, but the compelling eyes that met

his so steadily were not to be resisted. Slowly he unwrapped the paper

and took the lid from the little box, inside of which was coiled up a

thin gold chain with locket pendant.

“Be seated,” ordered Bucky sternly, and after the man had found a chair

the ranger sat down opposite him.

From its holster he drew a revolver and from a pocket his watch. He

laid them on the table side by side and looked across at the

white-lipped trembler whom he faced.

“We had better understand each other, Mr. Anderson. I’ve come here to

get from you the story of that chain, so far as you know it. If you

don’t care to tell it I shall have to mess this floor up with your

remains. Get one proposition into your cocoanut right now. You don’t

get out of this room alive with your secret. It’s up to you to choose.”

Quite without dramatics, as placidly as if he were discussing railroad

rebates, the ranger delivered his ultimatum. It seemed plain that he

considered the issue no responsibility of his.

Anderson stared at him in silent horror, moistening his dry lips with

the tip of his tongue. Once his gaze shifted to the sheriff but found

small comfort there. Collins had picked up a newspaper and was absorbed

in it.

“Are you going to let him kill me?” the man asked him hoarsely.

He looked up from his newspaper in mild protest at such unreason. “Me?

I ain’t sittin’ in this game. Seems like I mentioned that already.”

“Better not waste your time, signor, on side issues,” advised the man

behind the gun. “For I plumb forgot to tell you I’m allowing only three

minutes to begin your story, half of which three has already slipped

away to yesterday’s seven thousand years. Without wantin’ to hurry you,

I suggest the wisdom of a prompt decision.”

“Would he do it?” gasped the victim, with a last appeal to Collins.

“Would he what? Oh, shoot you up. Cayn’t tell till I see. If he says he

will he’s liable to. He always was that haidstrong.”

“But—why—why—”

“Yes, it’s sure a heap against the law, but then Bucky ain’t a lawyer.

I don’t reckon he cares sour grapes for the law—as law. It’s a right

interesting guess as to whether he will or won’t.”

“There’s a heap of cases the law don’t reach prompt. This is one of

them,” contributed the ranger cheerfully. He pocketed his watch and

picked up the .45. “Any last message or anything of that sort, signor?

I don’t want to be unpleasant about this, you understand.”

The whilom bad man’s teeth chattered. “I’ll tell you anything you want

to know.”

“Now, that’s right sensible. I hate to come into another man’s house

and clutter it up. Reel off your yarn.”

“I don’t know—what you want.”

“I want the whole story of your kidnapping of the Mackenzie child, how

came you to do it, what happened to Dave Henderson, and full directions

where I may locate Frances Mackenzie. Begin at the beginning, and I’ll

fire questions at you when you don’t make any point clear to me. Turn

loose your yarn at me hot off the bat.”

The man told his story sullenly. While he was on the round-up as cook

for the riders he had heard Mackenzie and Henderson discussing together

the story of their adventure with the dying Spaniard and their hopes of

riches from the mine he had left them. From that night he had set

himself to discover the secret of its location, had listened at windows

and at keyholes, and had once intercepted a letter from one to the

other. By chance he had discovered that the baby was carrying the

secret in her locket, and he had set himself to get it from her.

But his chance did not come. He could not make friends with her, and at

last, in despair of finding a better opportunity, he had slipped into

her room one night in the small hours to steal the chain. But it was

wound round her neck in such a way that he could not slip it over her

head. She had awakened while he was fumbling with the clasp and had

begun to cry. Hearing her mother moving about in the next room, he had

hastily carried the child with him, mounted the horse waiting in the

yard, and ridden away.

In the road he became aware, some time later, that he was being

pursued. This gave him a dreadful fright, for, as Bucky had surmised,

he thought his pursuer was Mackenzie. All night he rode southward

wildly, but still his follower kept on his trail till near morning,

when he eluded him. He crossed the border, but late that afternoon got

another fright. For it was plain he was still being followed. In the

endless stretch of rolling hills he twice caught sight of a rider

picking his way toward him. The heart of the guilty man was like water.

He could not face the outraged father, nor was it possible to escape so

dogged a foe by flight. An alternative suggested itself, and he

accepted it with sinking courage. The child was asleep in his arms now,

and he hastily dismounted, picketed his horse, and stole back a quarter

of a mile, so that the neighing of his bronco might not betray his

presence. Then he lay down in a dense mesquit thicket and waited for

his foe. It seemed an eternity till the man appeared at the top of a

rise fifty yards away. Hastily Anderson fired, and again. The man

toppled from his horse, dead before he struck the ground. But when the

cook reached him he was horrified to see that the man he had killed was

a member of the Rurales, or Mexican border police. In his guilty terror

he had shot the wrong man.

He fled at once, pursued by a thousand fears. Late the next night he

reached a Chihuahua village, after having been lost for many hours. The

child he still carried with him, simply because he had not the heart to

leave it to die in the desert alone. A few weeks later he married an

American woman he met in Sonora. They adopted the child, but it died

within the year of fever.

Meanwhile, he was horrified to learn that Dave Henderson, following

hard on his trail, had been found bending over the spot where the dead

soldier lay, had been arrested by a body of Rurales, tried hurriedly,

and convicted to life imprisonment. The evidence had been purely

circumstantial. The bullet found in the dead body of the trooper was

one that might have come from his rifle, the barrel of which was empty

and had been recently fired. For the rest, he was a hated _Americano_,

and, as a matter of course, guilty. His judges took pains to see that

no message from him reached his friends in the States before he was

buried alive in the prison. In that horrible hole an innocent man had

been confined for fifteen years, unless he had died during that time.

That, in substance, was the story told by the showman, and Bucky’s

incisive questions were unable to shake any portion of it. As to the

missing locket, the man explained that it had been broken off by

accident and lost. When he discovered that only half the secret was

contained on the map section he had returned the paper to the locket

and let the child continue to carry it. Some years after the death of

the child, Frances, his wife had lost the locket with the map.

“And this chain and locket—when did you lose them?” demanded Bucky

sharply.

“It must have been about two months ago, down at Nogales, that I sold

it to a fellow. I was playing faro and losing. He gave me five dollars

for it.”

And to that he stuck stoutly, nor could he be shaken from it. Both

O’Connor and the sheriff believed he was lying, for they were convinced

that he was the bandit with the red wig who had covered the engineer

while his companions robbed the train. But of this they had no proof.

Nor did Bucky even mention his suspicion to Hardman, for it was his

intention to turn him loose and have him watched. Thus, perhaps, he

would be caught corresponding or fraternizing with some of the other

outlaws. Collins left the room before the showman, and when the latter

came from the hotel he followed him into the night.

Meanwhile, Bucky went out and tapped another of his underground wires.

This ran directly to the Mexican consul at Tucson, to whom Bucky had

once done a favor of some importance, and from him to Sonora and

Chihuahua. It led to musty old official files, to records already

yellowed with age, to court reports and prison registers. In the end it

flashed back to Bucky great news. Dave Henderson, arrested for the

murder of the Rurales policeman, was still serving time in a Mexican

prison for another man’s crime. There in Chihuahua for fifteen years he

had been lost to the world in that underground hole, blotted out from

life so effectually that few now remembered there had been such a

person. It was horrible, unthinkable, but none the less true.

CHAPTER VI.

BUCKY MAKES A DISCOVERY

For a week Bucky had been in the little border town of Noches, called

there by threats of a race war between the whites and the Mexicans.

Having put the quietus on this, he was returning to Epitaph by way of

the Huachuca Mountains. There are still places in Arizona where rapid

transit can be achieved more expeditiously on the back of a bronco than

by means of the railroad, even when the latter is available. So now

Bucky was taking a short cut across country instead of making the two

train changes, with the consequent inevitable delays that would have

been necessary to travel by rail.

He traveled at night and in the early morning, to avoid the heat of the

midday sun, and it was in the evening of the second and last day that

the skirts of happy chance led him to an adventure that was to affect

his whole future life. He knew a waterhole on the Del Oro, where cows

were wont to frequent even in the summer drought, and toward this he

was making in the fag-end of the sultry day. While still some hundred

yards distant he observed a spiral of smoke rising from a camp-fire at

the spring, and he at once made a more circumspect approach. For it

might be any one of a score of border ruffians who owed him a grudge

and would be glad to pay it in the silent desert that tells no tales

and betrays no secrets to the inquisitive.

He flung the bridle-rein over his pony’s neck and crept forward on

foot, warily and noiselessly. While still some little way from the

water-hole he was arrested by a sound that startled him. He could make

out a raucous voice in anger and a pianissimo accompaniment of womanish

sobs.

“You’re mine to do with as I like. I’m your uncle. I’ve raised you from

a kid, and, by the great mogul! you can’t sneak off with the first

good-for nothing scoundrel that makes eyes at you. Thought you had

slipped away from me, you white-faced, sniveling little idiot, but I’ll

show you who is master.”

The lash of a whip rose and fell twice on quivering flesh before Bucky

leaped into the fireglow and wrested the riding-whip from the hands of

the angry man who was plying it.

“Dare to touch a woman, would you?” cried the ranger, swinging the whip

vigorously across the broad shoulders of the man. “Take that—and

that—and that, you brute!”

But when Bucky had finished with the fellow and flung him a limp,

writhing huddle of welts to the ground, three surprises awaited him.

The first was that it was not a woman he had rescued at all, but a boy,

and, as the flickering firelight played on his face, the ranger came to

an unexpected recognition. The slim lad facing him was no other than

Frank Hardman, whom he had left a few days before at the Rocking Chair

under the care of motherly Mrs. Mackenzie. The young man’s eyes went

back with instant suspicion to the fellow he had just punished, and his

suspicions were verified when the leaping light revealed the face of

the showman Anderson.

Bucky laughed. “I ce’tainly seem to be interfering in your affairs a

good deal, Mr. Anderson. You may take my word for it that you was the

last person in the world I expected to meet here, unless it might be

this boy. I left him safe at a ranch fifty miles from here, and I left

you a staid business man of Epitaph. But it seems neither of you stayed

hitched. Why for this yearning to travel?”

“He found me where I was staying. I was out riding alone on an errand

for Mrs. Mackenzie when he met me and made me go with him. He has

arranged to have me meet his wife in Mexico. The show wouldn’t draw

well without me. You know I do legerdemain,” Frank explained, in his

low, sweet voice.

“So you had plans of your own, Mr. Anderson. Now, that was right

ambitious of you. But I reckon I’ll have to interfere with them again.

Go through him, kid, and relieve him of any guns he happens to be

garnished with. Might as well help yourself to his knives, too. He’s so

fond of letting them fly around promiscuous he might hurt himself.

Good. Now we can sit down and have a friendly talk. Where did you say

you was intending to spend the next few weeks before I interrupted so

unthinking and disarranged your plans? I’m talking to you, Mr.

Anderson.”

“I was heading for Sonora,” the man whined.

What Bucky thought was: “Right strange direction to be taking for

Sonora. I’ll bet my pile you were going up into the hills to meet some

of Wolf Leroy’s gang. But why you were taking the kid along beats me,

unless it was just cussedness.” What he said was:

“Oh, you’ll like Epitaph a heap better. I allow you ought to stay at

that old town. It’s a real interesting place. Finished in the adobe

style and that sort of thing. The jail’s real comfy, too.”

“Would you like something to eat, sir?” presently asked Frank timidly.

“Would I? Why, I’m hungry enough to eat a leather mail-sack. Trot on

your grub, young man, and watch my smoke.”

Bucky did ample justice to the sandwiches and lemonade the lad set in

front of him, but he ate with a wary eye on a possible insurrection on

the part of his prisoner.

“I’m a new man,” he announced briskly, when he had finished. “That veal

loaf sandwich went sure to the right spot. If you had been a young lady

instead of a boy you couldn’t fix things up more appetizing.”

The lad’s face flushed with embarrassment, apparently at the ranger’s

compliment, and the latter, noticed how delicate the small face was. It

made an instinctive, wistful appeal for protection, and Bucky felt an

odd little stirring at his tender Irish heart.

“Might think I was the kid’s father to see what an interest I take in

him,” the young man told himself reprovingly. “It’s all tommyrot, too.

A boy had ought to have more grit. I expect he needed that licking all

right I saved him from.”

When Bucky had eaten, the camp things were repacked for travel. Epitaph

was only twenty-three miles away, and the ranger preferred to ride in

the cool of the night rather than sit up till daybreak with his

prisoner. Besides, he could then catch the morning train from that town

and save almost a day.

So hour after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O’Connor in

the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona

night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere

that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged,

violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many

shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown

magical under its divine touch.

The ranger rode with a limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting

now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid

stiffness.

It must have been well past midnight that he caught the long breath of

a sigh behind him. The trail had broadened at that point, for they were

now down in the rolling plain, so that two could ride abreast in the

road. Bucky fell back and put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the

boy.

“Plumb fagged out, kid?” he asked.

“I am tired. Is it far?”

“About four miles. Stick it out, and we’ll be there in no time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. Call me Bucky.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bucky laughed. “You’re ce’tainly the queerest kid I’ve run up against.

I guess you didn’t scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I

did. You’re too soft for this country.” He let his firm brown fingers

travel over the lad’s curly hair and down the smooth cheek. “There it

is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I’ll bet a

biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your

life.”

“No, sir,” murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a

little, chuckling laugh.