Lane turned his back on the approaching pair and smiled at Joan, whose
chin was tilted in defiance. “Will doesn’t like the idea of my meeting
you,” he said. She flashed him a friendly look of understanding as the
two brothers came up.
“I thought I told you to stay home,” Will French said harshly,
addressing the girl and ignoring Lane.
“I didn’t promise,” said Joan curtly.
“You’re going back,” wrathfully said Will, while Frank looked at Lane
with an amused smile.
“Who said so besides yourself?” said Joan saucily.
Will bit his lip and shook his head, raging inwardly. It was plain to
Lane that the brothers had no control over this willful sister. Will
French’s manner showed that he knew he was beaten at the start, and Lane
surmised that Joan held the upper hand because the brothers had
permitted her to accompany them on previous occasions. Still, it was no
business for a girl to be mixed up in and French was right in ordering
her home.
“Now listen to reason, Joan,” said Will, striving to control his temper
and his voice. “This business isn’t like some of the jaunts you’ve been
on. We’ve got to scatter an’ scatter fast after—after our work is done.
You’d only be in the way. Don’t you see?”
“I’ve got a good horse,” replied the girl, “an’ I can ride as well as
any of the rest of you. Besides, I haven’t had any excitement in months.
Suppose they _did_ run across me; would they think _I_ had anything to
do with your schemes?”
“But don’t you see, Joan, you would be in the way,” Will pleaded. And
then, seeing the uncompromising look in her eyes, he lost his temper,
which, under the circumstances, was the worst thing he could do.
“You’ve got to go back, that’s all,” he said in an angry voice. “If you
won’t go willingly, I’ll have you _taken_ back! You can make the ranch
before noon—or you can wait an’ go tonight. I guess that would be best.
But you’ve just got to go, Joan.”
“Oh, let it go at that, then,” said the girl, turning away.
For the first time Will French seemed to notice the presence of Lane. He
scowled heavily at the new recruit and seemed on the point of making a
sharp remark, but held the words on the tip of his tongue. In fact, he
was so exasperated that he was not sure of himself.
“Come on back to camp,” he said gruffly, and he and Lane started back
through the trees to the rendezvous, leaving Frank with his sister.
Although the sun was mounting steadily, throwing its burning rays into
the seething desert, it was cool in the mountain retreat of the outlaws.
Will French paused before one of the cabins and faced Lane. “I’d take it
as a favor if you’d forget about this business, and stay away from that
place down there,” he said, looking Lane straight in the eyes.
“My memory can be poor when necessary,” Lane replied, “an’ I’ve no
intention of going down there again—unless your sister should send for
me, which, of course, isn’t likely.”
Will French gave him a queer look and turned into the cabin. “I’m going
to get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll be forty-eight hours without it,
startin’ tonight.”
Lane made no comment. He went into another cabin where some of the men
were having coffee and a bite of breakfast, and took his morning meal
with them. He spoke to no one and none spoke to him. He was wondering if
Joan really would go home. Her last words, “Let it go at that,” had been
uttered in a tone which conveyed a meaning to him that was apparently
lost on Will French. In his heart, Lane did not believe the girl would
go home. Her wild, adventurous spirit was roused. She might pretend to
go back, but she would not. Of this, Lane felt certain. Had he been
_sure_ that Joan would go home, he would have laid his plans for his own
escape from the desperate enterprise. He walked for a time after the
scanty meal and then sought a bunk in the cabin where Will French was
sleeping.
Raysville was an old mining camp that had a past, a present, and a
future, so far as actual mining operations were concerned. It had first
been a silver camp of small proportions, abandoned when the price of
silver “dropped into the sump,” as the saying went. But several old
prospectors who had never lost faith in the camp kept one or two of the
mines working on a small scale and continued to prospect. Then had come
the discovery of gold-bearing quartz; the camp became a gold
proposition, flowered into a boom overnight, and now was the most
prosperous town in the Wizards, with prospects of even greater
prosperity as the veins widened and the ore became more and more
plentiful.
The Miners’ State Bank had been established and carried large surpluses
of cash against the regular pay days. There were several stores and
cafés, two hotels, other business houses, and many resorts, the largest
of which was The Golden Nugget. This was both a drink emporium and a
gambling place. It was the chief rendezvous of miners, prospectors,
professional gamblers, hangers-on and the riffraff of a booming mining
camp. Large amounts of cash were carried in the safe in the front office
against the no-limit games which were played at the tables, the roulette
wheels, craps, and blackjack. Everything was cash in Raysville, which
was the lure that attracted Brule and the band of which the French boys
were members.
It lacked an hour of midnight when a cavalcade of riders filed slowly
down a trail perilously steep above Raysville. The trail wound through
the timber, along the rims of precipices, across treacherous shale
slopes, and ever downward. It was little more than a game trail and used
only by occasional prospectors. There were no mines or habitations near
it, and it let Brule and his band into the timber on either side of
Raysville unobserved.
Shortly afterward there was a faint glimmer of light in the bank, which
was situated near the upper end of the street. Behind the bank were
horses and men. A rear window was open. Down the street, in the trees
behind The Golden Nugget, were other horses and men. The street was
quiet, but the resorts were booming.
Lane was with the men behind The Nugget. Neff was in charge of this unit
of the raiding band—a nervous, shifty-eyed man who was plainly
suspicious, or jealous, of Lane. Lane knew that any attempt on his part
to make a break would draw a bullet from this lieutenant of Brule’s.
Will and Frank were with the men at the bank. Frank had come into the
rendezvous camp at nightfall and had told his brother that Joan had
gone. Lane had overheard him. “Sloped before I woke up,” Frank had said.
“Fiddle an’ all. For once she’s showing some sense.” And Lane had smiled
to himself, for he had not believed that Joan had gone home. But now,
after the trip down the dangerous trail at the head of the canyon, he
had his doubts. No girl would be likely to try to negotiate such a trail
alone at night, and to enter town by the main road from the foothills
would be inviting recognition.
Lane was turning these thoughts over in his mind when a man came
hurrying around the corner of the building. Neff’s gun was out in a
flash, but Brule’s huge form was readily recognized in the moonlit space
between the clump of trees and the rear of the resort.
“All right, Neff, we’re goin’ to take ’em both together,” said the chief
in a guarded tone. “When you hear my whistle in front, go in the back
way with the bunch an’ go fast. Drive ’em back against the wall an’ keep
’em reaching. Lane, you edge up front toward the office. I’ve picked
some men to clean the table drawers. We’ll go down the road afterward.”
That was all. It already was understood that they would gather at a town
near the border in a week’s time. Brule slipped away, and Neff and the
others held their guns in readiness. Lane reluctantly drew his weapon.
Then the old spirit of reckless adventure seized him. He forgot his
qualms in these moments of waiting. Joan could not very well censure him
for taking part in an enterprise in which her brothers were engaged. Nor
could Will or any one else at the rancho object to his seeing her after
this. He would make straight for the ranch after——
A sharp whistle sounded in the street in front of the resort. “C’mon!”
Neff commanded, and they started on the run for the rear door of The
Nugget. But the door proved to be bolted on the inside. Neff swore
horribly and turned back against the others. “The front!” he shouted.
But at this moment the bolt was shot back, the door opened, and several
men plunged out, running full into the midst of the outlaws. At once
there was a mêlée, the outlaws flailing right and left with their heavy
gun barrels.
“Let ’em go,” yelled Neff, leaping inside.
Lane and the others followed him. In the short space during which they
had been delayed, Brule’s men had started operations. The place was in a
turmoil, with Brule, brandishing two guns, roaring orders; his men,
covering the crowd, were driving them back against the wall. The hands
of the players and bar patrons were elevated. Tables and chairs were
overturned in the scramble to reach the wall; men fell, and curses came
thick and fast. Already two of the outlaws were emptying the money
drawers of the poker tables. Another leaped over the bar to secure the
bank notes and gold in the money boxes there. And from up the street
came a dull rumble of thunder as a blast shattered the doors of the
bank’s vault.
Lane slipped toward the front, where Brule was herding the white-faced
proprietor of the place into the office to open the safe. At this moment
a shot rang out at the lower end of the long room. The glass partition
of the office was shattered a scant foot from Brule’s head. The outlaw
whirled and emptied the gun in his left hand. Two men in the line
against the wall went down, shot in the back.
Lane cried out in protest involuntarily. A gambler shook a derringer out
of his sleeve and shot at him twice. Both shots missed. And then the
whole double line of men seemed to turn at once. Some dropped to the
floor to be out of the way of flying lead; guns appeared as if by magic,
and the battle was on.
Bullets shattered the hanging lamps, the dripping oil took fire, one
lamp exploded. The other lamps, ranged along the wall in reflector
sockets, cast a weird, yellow glow over the scene. Men took refuge
behind overturned tables. Several of the outlaws went down before the
fire of the intended victims. Lane leaped over the bar to safety. Brule
was roaring inarticulate orders from the office, where the owner of The
Golden Nugget was working with feverish fingers at the combination dial
of the safe.
There was firing outside now, signifying that the outlaws had left the
bank and were in the street. Lane’s practiced ear caught the difference
in the reports of weapons. “Rifles!” he ejaculated. “The miners are
out!” And then a tall, stoop-shouldered figure appeared in the front
entrance. It was Sheriff McClure.
Brule came running out of the office through a door that opened into the
bar. In one hand was a sack and the other held a gun. He whipped his gun
hand over to shoot at the sheriff, but at this moment Lane, as if by
accident, bumped against him and the shot went wild.
Brule staggered back, cursing, and deliberately turned his gun on Lane.
For the first time that night, Lane shot. Brule’s weapon went spinning
to the floor. Into Lane’s mind came the thought of flight. The bank
robbery might have succeeded, but the holdup of the Nugget had failed!
His gaze flashed to the rear and his heart seemed to stop beating.
Standing at the entrance to the narrow hallway leading to the private
rooms was a slight figure in worn riding togs, _masked!_
He went over the bar in a twinkling with bullets whistling in his ears.
Some one was shooting out the lights along the walls and the remaining
outlaws were fighting their way toward the front doors, presumably to
aid their comrades in the street. Lane plunged into the mêlée, swinging
his gun right and left and striking out with his left fist. He caught
sight of a flashing star on a man’s vest which showed he was a deputy.
The man was making for Joan. Lane could see men crowding into the
passage behind her, saw her turn and then whirl about, gun in hand, as
the deputy made a lunge for her. His leap fell short and Joan’s gun
cracked above the uproar. The deputy went down. Then Lane reached the
girl.
“Follow me!” he commanded.
At this juncture the last of the lights went out. Lane grasped the girl
by the arm with his left hand and drew her with him as he threw himself
against the crowd behind her, using his pistol barrel as a bludgeon. In
this way he literally battered his way to the rear door and outside.
“Take off that mask; it makes you a target,” Lane ordered. He did not
wait for her to comply but jerked at the mask, breaking the cords which
held it. Even in that fleeting moment in the moonlight, he had time to
see the wide-eyed look Joan gave him. It was not terror and it was not
fright. It was more a look of puzzled astonishment. But there was no
time for delay. A bullet cut between them, to bury itself in the rear
wall of the resort. The miners were firing rifles from their cabins on
the canyon slopes. Lane dragged Joan toward the clump of trees as men
came running toward them.