SCUDDER COMES
The night passed, and the day, and another night, dragging their weary
length above Morongo Valley. After the car that bore Piute, Willyum,
and the sheriff had vanished over the desert horizon, that horizon had
remained unbroken. No one had come.
Murray slept the clock around, and wakened hungry but very weak. All
strength seemed to have fled out of him. The rare sunstroke of the
desert had smitten fiercely. When he heard Claire's narrative of what
had happened during the preceding night, his first thought was to get
back to the aid of Bill Hobbs; but when the girl inspected the car, she
pronounced the task hopeless.
"The front axle's all crooked, and the left wheel is half twisted off,"
she reported, her eyes resting upon him anxiously. "I must have done
it getting up here----"
"No matter," said Murray, losing all energy. The least movement
appeared to drain his strength. The slightest touch of that blinding
sunlight sent his brain whirling and reeling.
"I give up," he went on. "I'm good for nothing. Take a look around
for rattlers; you have to watch out for them this season, for they give
no warning but strike blindly;--and they're bad medicine. Lord, but
I'm helpless!"
As he lay there, he reviewed the girl's story of the attempted arrest,
and believed that he understood it very plainly, although he did not
attempt to explain matters to Claire. She had enough to worry her, he
decided.
He remembered that Scudder had been talking with the contractor when
Hennesy left to get the sheriff. He knew already that Scudder had
opium, for the use of Tom Lee. It would have been no hard matter for
Scudder to have planted some of the drug among his own effects, he
reflected.
"I'll settle with you, Scudder!" he vowed to himself.
Toward sunset they searched the horizon, but vainly. What was
happening beyond that horizon, over the rim of the world? Murray
worried, more about his friends than himself, for he was little
concerned over Scudder's enmity and attempts to disprove him in the
eyes of Tom Lee.
But Sandy Mackintavers was in the toils, and as for Bill Hobbs--Murray
groaned at the thought. He knew that Willyum had only recently come
out of "stir" when he had picked up the ex-burglar. Now that Bill
Hobbs had deliberately sacrificed himself in order to save Murray and
Claire Lee, it meant a setback that would put him in the criminal ranks
again for good. And at this moment, when both his friends needed him
so sorely, Murray was stretched out here in the desert, helpless and
impotent--himself under the menace of a cloud!
During that day, Murray and the girl lived long, came to know each
other deeply; not with the superficial words and phrases and acts of
civilized life, but in primitive ways and fashions. When the night
closed down again like a mantle above the desert, it drew them yet
closer together.
"Your father will be here tomorrow at latest," said Murray reflectively.
"He should have come long ago." Claire's eyes were filled with somber
shadows. "I'm afraid that--that Doctor Scudder has been keeping him
under the influence of opium. How I detest and fear that man! I wish
that Father could be made to see him as I see him, that he would break
with the man!"
"I think he will, eventually," said Murray, and smiled grimly to
himself at thought of the reckoning he would have with Scudder.
The night passed. Once, Murray wakened; it seemed to him that he
caught, in the desert silence and cold stillness, the throbbing motor
of an automobile. Yet he could see no lights, and Claire had not
wakened. He lay for a space, watching vainly, and at last fell asleep
again.
With the morning, Murray opened his eyes to find Claire already up and
breakfast nearly ready. He tried to rise, and managed to leave his
blankets, but he was giddy and too weak to walk. With a muttered curse
at his own feebleness, he sank down again upon the sand.
"If no one shows up here by afternoon," he declared resolutely, while
they breakfasted and discussed the situation, "I think we'd better make
an effort to get back with the car. She may run; when it comes to
flivvers, the days of miracles are by no means over----"
At this instant, Claire sprang to her feet with a cry of joy.
"Look--look! A car!"
Murray twisted around, and saw a moving object upon the desert face.
From where they were upon the hillside, it was possible to see only the
stretch of the cañon floor immediately below them; a twist in the cañon
walls hid the remainder of the road from their sight, until it came out
again upon the desert basin half a mile away. It was out there,
crawling in from the low horizon, that the moving automobile appeared.
"It's Father!" cried the girl, watching the car intently as it rapidly
drew closer to them. "It's our car! I know it because we had to put
the license plate on the right fender--oh, I'm so glad. Now
everything's all right!"
Silence fell upon them both. They watched without further speech as
the car came in toward them, and finally vanished from sight. Five
minutes later, it appeared down below in the little valley, its
cheerful thrum reverberating upon the morning silence, echoing back
from the cañon walls. But, as Claire watched, uneasiness grew in her
eyes.
There was but one man in the car, the driver. The flivver was halted
down by the shack, and its driver alighted. Murray glanced at the
girl, and read a swift flutter of fear in her eyes.
"It's not Father at all--it's Doctor Scudder!" she breathed.
"Don't worry," said Murray coolly. "I expect your father sent him
here. Ah, he's coming up! That's good."
His calm manner exerted a quieting effect upon Claire. Toward them
from the cañon climbed Doctor Scudder. As he came closer, his cheery
"Good morning!" floated to them, and both Murray and Claire made
answer. Scudder completed the climb, panting a little, and removed his
hat to wipe his brow.
"Where's Father?" exclaimed Claire eagerly.
"I'm sorry to say, Miss Lee, that he's not well," returned Scudder, his
eyes taking in each detail of the scene. "Hobbs came into town
yesterday in custody of the sheriff, and told us of the situation here.
Your father hoped to be able to come himself, but early this morning he
was taken rather ill. So I came in his place."
"Did you give him more opium?" cried the girl accusingly. Scudder's
brows lifted.
"No, I mean that he was really ill, Miss Lee. For the past two days he
has not touched the drug, and his system is not yet inured to the
deprivation. What's this, Murray--sunstroke? I hope you'll let me do
anything in my power----"
"Thanks," said Murray quietly. Instinct told him that the words of
Scudder were a tissue of lies, yet he knew that he was in need of the
man's skill. "I'd like to have a talk with you all alone. Miss Lee,
would you have any objection to leaving me and Doctor Scudder in
private for a few moments?"
"Ah!" said Scudder suavely. "I was about to make the same request!"
He smiled thinly. "And I have a very good excuse, Miss Lee. The
contractor arrived yesterday to come out here with your father; but as
their trip has been temporarily delayed, your father asked if you would
take some pictures of the ground just back and above the place he had
selected as a building site. It has something to do, I believe, with
the building of a tank or a reservoir for water from the spring.
You'll find the camera in the rear of the car."
"Very well," said Claire, with a nod of her head.
She departed down the hillside, and Scudder gazed reflectively after
her, watching her lift the camera from his car, and then start toward
the wall of manzanita that cloaked the upper end of the valley.
Murray's voice caused him to turn.
"Well, Scudder, we'd better have a showdown," said Murray calmly,
gazing up at the man. "The sheriff was out here, as you know, and told
about finding dope in my belongings. What made you plant the dope
there? That was a silly way to try and discredit me in the eyes of Tom
Lee."
Scudder looked down at him and smiled. There was nothing mirthful in
the smile, however. It was a cold, hard, deadly smile, like the fixed
and drawn-back lips of a snake waiting to strike.
"You guessed right, Murray," he said unexpectedly. "It _was_ a rather
futile thing, and I've found a much better way. I don't mind telling
you that I gave Tom Lee enough opium last night to keep him doped for a
week, so there'll be no interference."
Murray swore. "You damned whelp!" he said, trying to raise himself,
but vainly. "If----"
Scudder leaned forward and shoved him back in his place, with a chuckle.
"No more fisticuffs, eh?" he sneered. "Not in condition just now, are
you? Well, I'll have you fixed up in no time! Morphia victim, weren't
you? Well, I'll pump morphia into you for about three weeks--and turn
you loose. That'll take care of you, I guess."
From his pocket, Scudder took a hypodermic case, and a bottle of
tablets. He filled the tiny thimble-cup with water from the spring,
dropped a tablet into it, unfolded the inch-square metal stand, and set
the cup in place. Then he put the stand down, struck a match, and held
it beneath the cup.
"Handy affair, this!" he observed.
Murray watched him in horror which changed from incredulity to
realization that the man intended his words literally. Knowing that
Murray had been a morphia victim, he was now deliberately taking
advantage of his helplessness to inject the drug again--and with Murray
in his charge, he could put him hopelessly under the spell of the drug
once more!
"Good God, man!" cried Murray, getting up on one elbow. "You can't
mean----"
Scudder put out a foot and shoved him back again.
"Lie put, will you?" he chuckled. "Wait till I get this syringe
filled, and by the time Claire comes back, you'll be past speech! And
you won't speak to her again until I'm ready to let you."
While he spoke, Scudder filled the syringe, and adjusted a needle.
Then, the syringe in his hand, he came and stood over Murray.
"Struggling won't do you any good," he said, and bent down.
Murray struck at him--struck weakly and vainly. Scudder seized his
right wrist and drew it down--put it under his foot and held it there.
Then he seized Murray's left arm, gripped the wrist, and drew it up to
meet the syringe.
"Now for happyland!" he said. "One slight prick----"
He paused suddenly--paused and jerked himself upright, a flood of color
sweeping into his pale features as his head came up. From the clumps
of manzanita twenty feet away, had come a voice.
"Hold on, Scudder!"
And from that covert of twisting, grotesque, blood-red manzanita trees,
stepped Tom Lee. Murray felt something of the fright that had seized
upon Scudder, for the presence of Tom Lee seemed nothing short of an
apparition.
"I waited for this, Scudder!" rang out the voice of the yellow man, his
eyes fastened upon the horrified gaze of Scudder. "When you gave me
all that dope last night, I guessed that you were coming here; I
discovered that you had planted the stuff in Doctor Murray's suitcase,
I had begun to penetrate your wiles and deviltry! Now it's ended."
Tom Lee came forward. Before him, Scudder shrank. The syringe dropped
from his nerveless fingers; he stepped back from the figure of Murray,
retreated from the advancing form of Tom Lee in visible terror and
consternation.
"You devil!" cried the oriental, a deep and surging passion filling his
voice. "I came here last night in Hennesy's car--I've been waiting for
you! I heard all your lies, heard all your plotted deviltry. You
thought you'd dispose of Murray and have Claire in your power, didn't
you?"
There was reason for the sheer terror that filled Scudder. The face of
the advancing man had changed into a frightful mask; it had changed and
altered into the face of the great stone Buddha that watches over the
Yungmen caves--it had become a purely Asian face, filled with terrible
and deadly things, unguessed menaces.
Murray painfully got to one elbow again and watched. The others were
oblivious of him; all their attention was fastened upon each other.
Still Scudder retreated, and still Tom Lee advanced upon him,
weaponless, yet in his advance a potent and fearful threat. Before
that threat, Scudder still retreated, his face ghastly.
"Damn you!" he cried, his voice shrill. "What d'ye mean by all
this----?"
"You can't get away from me," said Tom Lee impassively. "I'm going to
have a reckoning with you."
"No, but I can stop your game!" retorted Scudder with an oath. The
mask was gone now, and he cursed luridly. "You can't run any damned
Chinese bluff on me----"
With the words, he plucked a revolver from his pocket and fired.
The shot echoed and reëchoed in the cañon. Tom Lee did not move.
Scudder glared up at him and made as if to lift the weapon again, then
he hurled it from him with another curse, and kicked at something on
the sand at his feet. A shrill scream broke from him. Something fell
away from his kick--an incoherent, feeble object that slipped to the
sand and blended there, shapeless and invisible; a stark-blind thing, a
living volute of death and venom--a rattler, that had struck blind, but
that had struck home!
With that scream still on his lips, Scudder whirled about and began to
run. He fled, as though after him pursued some invisible and awful
thing. He ran blindly down the valley as though in search of
something, desperate in his extremity; he passed the automobile in
which he had come, running, stumbling through the soft sand. And so
out of sight around the twist in the cañon.
"Let him go! It is finished."
The words came from Tom Lee. He turned to Murray, smiling, and the
smile seemed fastened in his face. He lifted his arm, and looked at
the hand, curiously. A cry broke from Murray, for the hand was
streaming with a scarlet fluid.
Abruptly, Tom Lee pitched forward and lay in a heap, just as Claire,
called by the shot, appeared.