Produced by Jim Weiler
A TEXAS RANGER
By William MacLeod Raine,
1910
FOREWORD TO YE GENTLE READER.
Within the memory of those of us still on the sunny side of forty the
more remote West has passed from rollicking boyhood to its responsible
majority. The frontier has gone to join the good Indian. In place of
the ranger who patrolled the border for “bad men” has come the forest
ranger, type of the forward lapping tide of civilization. The place
where I write this--Tucson, Arizona--is now essentially more civilized
than New York. Only at the moving picture shows can the old West,
melodramatically overpainted, be shown to the manicured sons and
daughters of those, still living, who brought law and order to the
mesquite.
As Arthur Chapman, the Western poet, has written:
No loopholes now are framing
Lean faces, grim and brown;
No more keen eyes are aiming
To bring the redskin down.
The plough team's trappings jingle
Across the furrowed field,
And sounds domestic mingle
Where valor hung its shield.
But every wind careering
Seems here to breathe a song--
A song of brave frontiering--
A saga of the strong.
PART I -- THE MAN FROM THE PANHANDLE
(In Which Steve Plays Second Fiddle)
CHAPTER I -- A DESERT MEETING
As she lay crouched in the bear-grass there came to the girl clearly the
crunch of wheels over disintegrated granite. The trap had dipped into a
draw, but she knew that presently it would reappear on the winding road.
The knowledge smote her like a blast of winter, sent chills racing down
her spine, and shook her as with an ague. Only the desperation of her
plight spurred her flagging courage.
Round the bend came a pair of bays hitched to a single-seated open rig.
They were driven by a young man, and as he reached the summit he drew up
opposite her and looked down into the valley.
It lay in a golden glow at their feet, a basin of pure light and silence
stretching mile on mile to the distant edge of jagged mountain-line
which formed its lip. Sunlight strong as wine flooded a clean world, an
amber Eden slumbering in an unbroken, hazy dream primeval.
“Don't move!”
At the summons the driver swung his head sharply to a picture he will
never forget. A young woman was standing on the bank at the edge of the
road covering him with a revolver, having apparently just stepped from
behind the trunk of the cottonwood beside her. The color had fled her
cheeks even to the edge of the dull red-copper waves of hair, but he
could detect in her slim young suppleness no doubt or uncertainty. On
the contrary, despite her girlish freshness, she looked very much like
business. She was like some young wild creature of the forest cornered
and brought to bay, but the very terror in her soul rendered her more
dangerous. Of the heart beating like a trip-hammer the gray unwinking
eyes that looked into hers read nothing. She had schooled her taut
nerves to obedience, and they answered her resolute will steadily
despite fluttering pulses.
“Don't move!” she said again.
“What do you want?” he asked harshly.
“I want your team,” she panted.
“What for?”
“Never mind. I want it.”
The rigor of his gaze slowly softened to a smile compound both of humor
and grimness. He was a man to appreciate a piquant situation, none the
less because it was at his expense. The spark that gleamed in his bold
eye held some spice of the devil.
“All right. This is your hold-up, ma'am. I'll not move,” he said, almost
genially.
She was uneasily aware that his surrender had been too tame. Strength
lay in that close-gripped salient jaw, in every line of the reckless
sardonic face, in the set of the lean muscular shoulders. She had nerved
herself to meet resistance, and instead he was yielding with complacent
good nature.
“Get out!” she commanded.
He stepped from the rig and offered her the reins. As she reached for
them his right hand shot out and caught the wrist that held the weapon,
his left encircled her waist and drew her to him. She gave a little cry
of fear and strained from him, fighting with all her lissom strength to
free herself.
For all the impression she made the girdle round her waist might have
been of steel. Without moving, he held her as she struggled, his brown
muscular fingers slowly tightening round her wrist. Her stifled cry
was of pain this time, and before it had died the revolver fell to the
ground from her paralyzed grip.
But her exclamation had been involuntary and born of the soft tender
flesh. The wild eyes that flamed into his asked for no quarter and
received none. He drew her slowly down toward him, inch by inch, till
she lay crushed and panting against him, but still unconquered. Though
he held the stiff resistant figure motionless she still flashed battle
at him.
He looked into the storm and fury of her face, hiding he knew not what
of terror, and laughed in insolent delight. Then, very deliberately, he
kissed her lips.
“You--coward!” came instantly her choking defiance.
“Another for that,” he laughed, kissing her again.
Her little fist beat against his face and he captured it, but as he
looked at her something that had come into the girl's face moved his not
very accessible heart. The salt of the adventure was gone, his victory
worse than a barren one. For stark fear stared at him, naked and
unconcealed, and back of that he glimpsed a subtle something that he
dimly recognized for the outraged maidenly modesty he had so ruthlessly
trampled upon. His hands fell to his side reluctantly.
She stumbled back against the tree trunk, watching him with fascinated
eyes that searched him anxiously. They found their answer, and with a
long ragged breath the girl turned and burst into hysterical tears.
The man was amazed. A moment since the fury of a tigress had possessed
her. Now she was all weak womanish despair. She leaned against the
cottonwood and buried her face in her arm, the while uneven sobs shook
her slender body. He frowned resentfully at this change of front, and
because his calloused conscience was disturbed he began to justify
himself. Why didn't she play it out instead of coming the baby act on
him? She had undertaken to hold him up and he had made her pay forfeit.
He didn't see that she had any kick coming. If she was this kind of a
boarding-school kid she ought not to have monkeyed with the buzz-saw.
She was lucky he didn't take her to El Paso with him and have her
jailed.
“I reckon we'll listen to explanations now,” he said grimly after a
minute of silence interrupted only by her sobs.
The little fist that had struck at his face now bruised itself in
unconscious blows at the bark of the tree. He waited till the staccato
breaths had subsided, then took her by the shoulders and swung her
round.
“You have the floor, ma'am. What does this gun-play business mean?”
Through the tears her angry eyes flashed starlike.
“I sha'n't tell you,” she flamed. “You had no right to--How dared you
insult me as you have?”
“Did I insult you?” he asked, with suave gentleness. “Then if you feel
insulted I expect you lay claim to being a lady. But I reckon that don't
fit in with holding up strangers at the end of a gun. If I've insulted
you I'll ce'tainly apologize, but you'll have to show me I have. We're
in Texas, which is next door but one to Missouri, ma'am.”
“I don't want your apologies. I detest and hate you,” she cried,
“That's your privilege, ma'am, and it's mine to know whyfor I'm held
up with a gun when I'm traveling peaceably along the road,” he answered
evenly.
“I'll not tell you.”
He spoke softly as if to himself. “That's too bad. I kinder hate to take
her to jail, but I reckon I must.”
She shrank back, aghast and white.
“No, no! You don't understand. I didn't mean to--I only wanted--Why, I
meant to pay you for the team.”
“I'll understand when you tell me,” he said placidly.
“I've told you. I needed the team. I was going to let you have one of
our horses and seventy-five dollars. It's all I have with me.”
“One of your horses, you say? With seventy-five dollars to boot? And you
was intending to arrange the trade from behind that gun. I expect you
needed a team right bad.”
His steady eyes rested on her, searched her, appraised her, while he
meditated aloud in a low easy drawl.
“Yes, you ce'tainly must need the team. Now I wonder why? Well, I'd hate
to refuse a lady anything she wants as bad as you do that.” He swiftly
swooped down and caught up her revolver from the ground, tossed it into
the air so as to shift his hold from butt to barrel, and handed it to
her with a bow. “Allow me to return the pop-gun you dropped, ma'am.”
She snatched it from him and leveled it at him so that it almost touched
his forehead. He looked at her and laughed in delighted mockery.
“All serene, ma'am. You've got me dead to rights again.”
His very nonchalance disarmed her. What could she do while his low
laughter mocked her?
“When you've gone through me complete I think I'll take a little pasear
over the hill and have a look at your hawss. Mebbe we might still do
business.”
As he had anticipated, his suggestion filled her with alarm. She flew to
bar the way.
“You can't go. It isn't necessary.”
“Sho! Of course it's necessary. Think I'm going to buy a hawss I've
never seen?” he asked, with deep innocence.
“I'll bring it here.”
“In Texas, ma'am, we wait on the ladies. Still, it's your say-so when
you're behind that big gun.”
He said it laughing, and she threw the weapon angrily into the seat of
the rig.
“Thank you, ma'am. I'll amble down and see what's behind the hill.”
By the flinch in her eyes he tested his center shot and knew it true.
Her breast was rising and falling tumultuously. A shiver ran through
her.
“No--no. I'm not hiding--anything,” she gasped.
“Then if you're not you can't object to my going there.”
She caught her hands together in despair. There was about him something
masterful that told her she could not prevent him from investigating;
and it was impossible to guess how he would act after he knew. The men
she had known had been bound by convention to respect a woman's wishes,
but even her ignorance of his type made guess that this steel-eyed,
close-knit young Westerner--or was he a Southerner?--would be impervious
to appeals founded upon the rules of the society to which she had been
accustomed. A glance at his stone-wall face, at the lazy confidence
of his manner, made her dismally aware that the data gathered by her
experience of the masculine gender were insufficient to cover this
specimen.
“You can't go.”
But her imperative refusal was an appeal. For though she hated him from
the depths of her proud, untamed heart for the humiliation he had put
upon her, yet for the sake of that ferocious hunted animal she had left
lying under a cottonwood she must bend her spirit to win him.
“I'm going to sit in this game and see it out,” he said, not unkindly.
“Please!”
Her sweet slenderness barred the way about as electively as a mother
quail does the road to her young. He smiled, put his big hands on
her elbows, and gently lifted her to one side. Then he strode forward
lightly, with the long, easy, tireless stride of a beast of prey,
striking direct for his quarry.
A bullet whizzed by his ear, and like a flash of light his weapon was
unscabbarded and ready for action. He felt a flame of fire scorch his
cheek and knew a second shot had grazed him.
“Hands up! Quick!” ordered the traveler.
Lying on the ground before him was a man with close-cropped hair and a
villainous scarred face. A revolver in his hand showed the source of the
bullets.
Eye to eye the men measured strength, fighting out to the last ditch the
moral battle which was to determine the physical one. Sullenly, at the
last, the one on the ground shifted his gaze and dropped his gun with a
vile curse.
“Run to earth,” he snarled, his lip lifting from the tobacco-stained
upper teeth in an ugly fashion.
The girl ran toward the Westerner and caught at his arm. “Don't shoot,”
she implored.
Without moving his eyes from the man on the ground he swept her back.
“This outfit is too prevalent with its hardware,” he growled. “Chew out
an explanation, my friend, or you're liable to get spoiled.”
It was the girl that spoke, in a low voice and very evidently under a
tense excitement.
“He is my brother and he has--hurt himself. He can't ride any farther
and we have seventy miles still to travel. We didn't know what to do,
and so--”
“You started out to be a road-agent and he took a pot-shot at the
first person he saw. I'm surely obliged to you both for taking so much
interest in me, or rather in my team. Robbery and murder are quite a
family pastime, ain't they?”
The girl went white as snow, seemed to shrink before his sneer as from
a deadly weapon; and like a flash of light some divination of the truth
pierced the Westerner's brain. They were fugitives from justice, making
for the Mexican line. That the man was wounded a single glance had
told him. It was plain to be seen that the wear and tear of keeping the
saddle had been too much for him.
“I acted on an impulse,” the girl explained in the same low tone. “I
saw you coming and I didn't know--hadn't money enough to buy the
team--besides--”
He took the words out of her mouth when she broke down.
“Besides, I might have happened to be a sheriff. I might be, but then
I'm not.”
The traveler stepped forward and kicked the wounded man's revolver
beyond his reach, then swiftly ran a hand over him to make sure he
carried no other gun.
The fellow on the ground eyed him furtively. “What are you going to do
with me?” he growled.
The other addressed himself to the girl, ignoring him utterly.
“What has this man done?”
“He has--broken out from--from prison.”
“Where?”
“At Yuma.”
“Damn you, you're snitching,” interrupted the criminal in a scream that
was both wheedling and threatening.
The young man put his foot on the burly neck and calmly ground it into
the dust. Otherwise he paid no attention to him, but held the burning
eyes of the girl that stared at him from a bloodless face.
“What was he in for?”
“For holding up a train.”
She had answered in spite of herself, by reason of something compelling
in him that drew the truth from her.
“How long has he been in the penitentiary?”
“Seven years.” Then, miserably, she added: “He was weak and fell into
bad company. They led him into it.”
“When did he escape?”
“Two days ago. Last night he knocked at my window--at the window of the
room where I lodge in Fort Lincoln. I had not heard of his escape, but
I took him in. There were horses in the barn. One of them was mine. I
saddled, and after I had dressed his wound we started. He couldn't get
any farther than this.”
“Do you live in Fort Lincoln?”
“I came there to teach school. My home was in Wisconsin before.”
“You came out here to be near him?”
“Yes. That is, near as I could get a school. I was to have got in the
Tucson schools next year. That's much nearer.”
“You visited him at the penitentiary?”
“No. I was going to during the Thanksgiving vacation. Until last night I
had not seen him since he left home. I was a child of seven then.”
The Texan looked down at the ruffian under his feet.
“Do you know the road to Mexico by the Arivaca cut-off?”
“Yes.”
“Then climb into my rig and hit the trail hard--burn it up till you've
crossed the line.”
The fellow began to whine thanks, but the man above would have none of
them, “I'm giving you this chance for your sister's sake. You won't make
anything of it. You're born for meanness and deviltry. I know your kind
from El Paso to Dawson. But she's game and she's white clear through,
even if she is your sister and a plumb little fool. Can you walk to the
road?” he ended abruptly.
“I think so. It's in my ankle. Some hell-hound gave it me while we were
getting over the wall,” the fellow growled.
“Don't blame him. His intentions were good. He meant to blow out your
brains.”
The convict cursed vilely, but in the midst of his impotent rage the
other stopped and dragged him to his feet.
“That's enough. You padlock that ugly mouth and light a shuck.”
The girl came forward and the man leaned heavily on her as he limped to
the road. The Texan followed with the buckskin she had been riding and
tied it to the back of the road-wagon.
“Give me my purse,” the girl said to the convict after they were seated.
She emptied it and handed the roll of bills it contained to the owner of
the team. He looked at it and at her, then shook his head.
“You'll need it likely. I reckon I can trust you. Schoolmarms are mostly
reliable.”
“I had rather pay now,” she answered tartly.
“What's the rush?”
“I prefer to settle with you now.”
“All right, but I'm in no sweat for my money. My team and the wagon are
worth two hundred and fifty dollars. Put this plug at forty and it
would be high.” He jerked his head toward the brush where the other
saddle-horse was. “That leaves me a balance of about two hundred and
ten. Is that fair?”
She bit her lip in vexation. “I expect so, but I haven't that much with
me. Can't I pay this seventy on account?”
“No, ma'am, you can't. All or none.” There was a gleam of humor in his
hard eyes. “I reckon you better let me come and collect after you get
back to Fort Lincoln.”
She took out a note-book and pencil. “If you will give me your name and
address please.”
He smiled hardily at her. “I've clean forgotten them.”
There was a warning flash in her disdainful eye.
“Just as you like. My name is Margaret Kinney. I will leave the money
for you at the First National Bank.”
She gathered up the rains deftly.
“One moment.” He laid a hand on the lines. “I reckon you think I owe you
an apology for what happened when we first met.”
A flood of spreading color dyed her cheeks. “I don't think anything
about it.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” he contradicted. “And you're going to think a heap
more about it. You're going to lay awake nights going over it.”
Out of eyes like live coals she gave him one look. “Will you take your
hands from these reins please?”
“Presently. Just now I'm talking and you're listening.”
“I don't care to hear any apologies, sir,” she said stiffly.
“I'm not offering any,” he laughed, yet stung by her words.
“You're merely insulting me again, I presume?”
“Some young women need punishing. I expect you're one.”
She handed him the horsewhip, a sudden pulse of passion beating fiercely
in her throat. “Very well. Make an end of it and let me see the last of
you,” she challenged.
He cracked the lash expertly so that the horses quivered and would have
started if his strong hand had not tightened on the lines.
The Westerner laughed again. “You're game anyhow.”
“When you are quite through with me,” she suggested, very quietly.
But he noticed the fury of her deep-pupiled eyes, the turbulent rise and
fall of her bosom.
“I'll not punish you that way this time.” And he gave back the whip.
“If you won't use it I will.”
The lash flashed up and down, twined itself savagely round his wrist,
and left behind a bracelet of crimson. Startled, the horses leaped
forward. The reins slipped free from his numbed fingers. Miss Kinney had
made her good-by and was descending swiftly into the valley.
The man watched the rig sweep along that branch of the road which led to
the south. Then he looked at his wrist and laughed.
“The plucky little devil! She's a thoroughbred for fair. You bet I'll
make her pay for this. But ain't she got sand in her craw? She's surely
hating me proper.” He laughed again in remembrance of the whole episode,
finding in it something that stirred his blood immensely.
After the trap had swept round a curve out of sight he disappeared in
the mesquite and bear-grass, presently returning with the roan that had
been ridden by the escaped convict.
“Whoever would suppose she was the sister of that scurvy scalawag with
jailbird branded all over his hulking hide? He ain't fit to wipe her
little feet on. She's as fine as silk. Think of her going through what
she is to save that coyote, and him as crooked as a dog's hind leg.
There ain't any limit to what a good woman will do for a man when she
thinks he's got a claim on her, more especially if he's a ruffian.”
With this bit of philosophic observation he rolled a cigarette and lit
it.
“Him fall into bad company and be led away?” he added in disgust. “There
ain't any worse than him. But he'll work her to the limit before she
finds it out.”
Leisurely he swung to the saddle and rode down into the valley of the
San Xavier, which rolled away from his feet in numberless tawny waves
of unfeatured foot-hills and mesas and washes. Almost as far as the eye
could see there stretched a sea of hilltops bathed in sun. Only on
the west were they bounded, by the irregular saw-toothed edge of the
Frenchman Hills, silhouetted against an incomparable blue. For a stretch
of many miles the side of the range was painted scarlet by millions of
poppies splashed broadcast.
“Nature's gone to flower-gardening for fair on the mountains,” murmured
the rider. “What with one thing and another I've got a notion I'm going
to take a liking to this country.”
The man was plainly very tired with rapid travel, and about the middle
of the afternoon the young man unsaddled and picketed the animal near a
water-hole. He lay down in the shadow of a cottonwood, flat on his
back, face upturned to the deep cobalt sky. Presently the drowse of the
afternoon crept over him. The slumberous valley grew hazy to his nodding
eyes. The reluctant lids ceased to open and he was fast asleep.
CHAPTER II -- LIEUTENANT FRASER INTERFERES.
The sun had declined almost to a saddle in the Cuesta del Burro when
the sleeper reopened his eyes. Even before he had shaken himself free
of sleep he was uneasily aware of something wrong. Hazily the sound of
voices drifted to him across an immense space. Blurred figures crossed
before his unfocused gaze.
The first thing he saw clearly was the roan, still grazing in the circle
of its picket-rope. Beside the bronco were two men looking the animal
over critically.
“Been going some,” he heard one remark, pointing at the same time to the
sweat-stains that streaked the shoulders and flanks.
“If he had me on his back he'd still be burning the wind, me being in
his boots,” returned the second, with a grating laugh, jerking his head
toward the sleeper. “Whatever led the durned fool to stop this side of
the line beats me.”
“If he was hiking for Chihuahua he's been hitting a mighty crooked
trail. I don't savvy it, him knowing the country as well as they say he
does,” the first speaker made answer.
The traveler's circling eye now discovered two more men, each of them
covering him with a rifle. A voice from the rear assured him there was
also a fifth member to the party.
“Look out! He's awake,” it warned.
The young man's hand inadvertently moved toward his revolver-butt. This
drew a sharp imperative order from one of the men in front.
“Throw up your hands, and damn quick!”
“You seem to have the call, gentlemen,” he smiled. “Would you mind
telling me what it's all about?”
“You know what it's all about as well as we do. Collect his gun, Tom.”
“This hold-up business seems to be a habit in this section. Second time
to-day I've been the victim of it,” said the victim easily.
“It will be the last,” retorted one of the men grimly.
“If you're after the mazuma you've struck a poor bank.”
“You've got your nerve,” cried one of the men in a rage; and another
demanded: “Where did you get that hawss?”
“Why, I got it--” The young man stopped in the middle of his sentence.
His jaw clamped and his eyes grew hard. “I expect you better explain
what right you got to ask that question.”
The man laughed without cordiality. “Seeing as I have owned it three
years I allow I have some right.”
“What's the use of talking? He's the man we want, broke in another
impatiently.
“Who is the man you want?” asked their prisoner.
“You're the man we want, Jim Kinney.”
“Wrong guess. My name is Larry Neill. I'm from the Panhandle and I've
never been in this part of the country till two days ago.”
“You may have a dozen names. We don't care what you call yourself. Of
course you would deny being the man we're after. But that don't go with
us.”
“All right. Take me back to Fort Lincoln, or take me to the prison
officials. They will tell you whether I am the man.”
The leader of the party pounced on his slip. “Who mentioned prison? Who
told you we wanted an escaped prisoner?”
“He's give himself away,” triumphed the one edged Tom. “I guess that
clinches it. He's riding Maloney's hawss. He's wounded; so's the man we
want. He answers the description--gray eyes, tall, slim, muscular. Same
gun--automatic Colt. Tell you there's nothin' to it, Duffield.”
“If you're not Kinney, how come you with this hawss? He stole it from
a barn in Fort Lincoln last night. That's known,” said the leader,
Duffield.
The imperilled man thought of the girl bing toward the border with her
brother and the remembrance padlocked his tongue.
“Take me to the proper authorities and I'll answer questions. But, I'll
not talk here. What's the use? You don't believe a word I say.”
“You spoke the truth that time,” said one.
“If you ever want to do any explaining now's the hour,” added another.
“I'll do mine later, gentlemen.”
They looked at each other and one of them spoke.
“It will be too late to explain then.”
“Too late?”
Some inkling of the man's hideous meaning seared him and ran like an
ice-blast through him.
“You've done all the meanness you'll ever do in this world. Poor Dave
Long is the last man you'll ever kill. We're going to do justice right
now.”
“Dave Long! I never heard of him,” the prisoner repeated mechanically.
“Good God, do you think I'm a murderer?”
One of the men thrust himself forward. “We know it. Y'u and that hellish
partner of yours shot him while he was locking the gate. But y'u made a
mistake when y'u come to Fort Lincoln. He lived there before he went to
be a guard at the Arizona penitentiary. I'm his brother. These gentlemen
are his neighbors. Y'u're not going back to prison. Y'u're going to stay
right here under this cottonwood.”
If the extraordinary menace of the man appalled Neill he gave no sign
of it. His gray eye passed from one to another of them quietly without
giving any sign of the impotent tempest raging within him.
“You're going to lynch me then?”
“Y'u've called the turn.”
“Without giving me a chance to prove my innocence?”
“Without giving y'u a chance to escape or sneak back to the
penitentiary.”
The thing was horribly unthinkable. The warm mellow afternoon sunshine
wrapped them about. The horses grazed with quiet unconcern. One of
these hard-faced frontiersmen was chewing tobacco with machine-like
regularity. Another was rolling a cigarette. There was nothing of
dramatic effect. Not a man had raised his voice. But Neill knew there
was no appeal. He had come to the end of the passage through a horrible
mistake. He raged in bitter resentment against his fate, against these
men who stood so quietly about him ready to execute it, most of all
against the girl who had let him sacrifice himself by concealing the
vital fact that her brother had murdered a guard to effect his escape.
Fool that he had been, he had stumbled into a trap, and she had let
him do it without a word of warning. Wild, chaotic thoughts crowded his
brain furiously.
But the voice with which he addressed them was singularly even and
colorless.
“I am a stranger to this country. I was born in Tennessee, brought up
in the Panhandle. I'm an irrigation engineer by profession. This is my
vacation. I'm headed now for the Mal Pais mines. Friends of mine are
interested in a property there with me and I have been sent to look
the ground over and make a report. I never heard of Kinney till to-day.
You've got the wrong man, gentlemen.”
“We'll risk it,” laughed one brutally. “Bring that riata, Tom.”
Neill did not struggle or cry out frantically. He stood motionless while
they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him
for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there
straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a
thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the
eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes
were quiet and steady.
“If you want to leave any message for anybody I'll see it's delivered,”
promised Duffield.
“I'll not trouble you with any.”
“Just as you like.”
“He didn't give poor Dave any time for messages,” cried Tom Long
bitterly.
“That's right,” assented another with a curse.
It was plain to the victim they were spurring their nerves to hardihood.
“Who's that?” cried one of the men, pointing to a rider galloping toward
them.
The newcomer approached rapidly, covered by their weapons, and flung
himself from his pony as he dragged it to a halt beside the group.
“Steve Fraser,” cried Duffield in surprise, and added, “He's an officer
in the rangers.”
“Right, gentlemen. Come to claim my prisoner,” said the ranger promptly.
“Y'u can't have him, Steve. We took him and he's got to hang.”
The lieutenant of rangers shook his dark curly head.
“Won't do, Duffield. Won't do at all,” he said decisively. “You'd ought
to know law's on top in Texas these days.”
Tom Long shouldered his way to the front. “Law! Where was the law when
this ruffian Kinney shot down my poor brother Dave? I guess a rope and a
cottonwood's good enough law for him. Anyhow, that's what he gits.”
Fraser, hard-packed, lithe, and graceful, laid a friendly hand on the
other's shoulder and smiled sunnily at him.
“I know how you feel, Tom. We all thought a heap of Dave and you're his
brother. But Dave died for the law. Both you boys have always stood for
order. He'd be troubled if he knew you were turned enemy to it on his
account.”
“I'm for justice, Steve. This skunk deserves death and I'm going to see
he gits it.”
“No, Tom.”
“I say yes. Y'u ain't sitting in this game, Steve.”
“I reckon I'll have to take a hand then.”
The ranger's voice was soft and drawling, but his eyes were indomitably
steady. Throughout the Southwest his reputation for fearlessness was
established even among a population singularly courageous. The audacity
of his daredevil recklessness was become a proverb.
“We got a full table. Better ride away and forget it,” said another.
“That ain't what I'm paid for, Jack,” returned Fraser good-naturedly.
“Better turn him over to me peaceable, boys. He'll get what's coming to
him all right.”
“He'll get it now, Steve, without any help of yours. We don't aim to
allow any butting in.”
“Don't you?”
There was a flash of steel as the ranger dived forward. Next instant he
and the prisoner stood with their backs to the cottonwood, a revolver
having somehow leaped from its scabbard to his hand. His hunting-knife
had sheared at a stroke the riata round the engineer's neck.
“Take it easy, boys,” urged Fraser, still in his gentle drawl, to the
astonished vigilantes whom his sudden sally had robbed of their victim.
“Think about it twice. We'll all be a long time dead. No use in hurrying
the funerals.”
Nevertheless he recognized battle as inevitable. Friends of his though
they were, he knew these sturdy plainsmen would never submit to be
foiled in their purpose by one man. In the momentary silence before the
clash the quiet voice of the prisoner made itself heard.
“Just a moment, gentlemen. I don't want you spilling lead over me. I'm
the wrong man, and I can prove it if you'll give me time. Here's the
key to my room at the hotel in San Antonio. In my suit-case you'll find
letters that prove--”
“We don't need them. I've got proof right here,” cut in Fraser,
remembering.
He slipped a hand into his coat pocket and drew out two photographs.
“Boys, here are the pictures and descriptions of the two men that
escaped from Yuma the other day. I hadn't had time to see this gentleman
before he spoke, being some busy explaining the situation to you, but a
blind jackass could see he don't favor either Kinney or Struve, You're
sure barking up the wrong tree.”
The self-appointed committee for the execution of justice and the man
from the Panhandle looked the prison photographs over blankly. Between
the hard, clean-cut face of their prisoner and those that looked at them
from the photographs it was impossible to find any resemblance. Duffield
handed the prints back with puzzled chagrin.
“I guess you're right, Steve. But I'd like this gentleman to explain
how come he to be riding the horse one of these miscreants stole from
Maloney's barn last night.”
Steve looked at the prisoner. “It's your spiel, friend,” he said.
“All right. I'll tell you some facts. Just as I was coming down from
the Roskruge range this mo'ning I was held up for my team. One of these
fellows--the one called Kinney--had started from Fort Lincoln on this
roan here, but he was wounded and broke down. There was some gun-play,
and he gave me this scratch on the cheek. The end of it was that he took
my team and left me with his worn-out bronc. I plugged on all day with
the hawss till about three mebbe, then seeing it was all in I
unsaddled and picketed. I lay down and dropped asleep. Next I knew the
necktie-party was in session.”
“What time was it y'u met this fellow Kinney?” asked Long sharply.
“Must have been about nine or nine-thirty I judge.”
“And it's five now. That's eight hours' start, and four more before we
can cut his trail on Roskruge. By God, we've lost him!”
“Looks like,” agreed another ruefully.
“Make straight for the Arivaca cut-off and you ought to stand a show,”
suggested Fraser.
“That's right. If we ride all night, might beat him to it.” Each of the
five contributed a word of agreement.
Five minutes later the Texan and the ranger watched a dust-cloud
drifting to the south. In it was hidden the posse disappearing over the
hilltop.
Steve grinned. “I hate to disappoint the boys. They're so plumb anxious.
But I reckon I'll strike the telephone line and send word to Moreno for
one of the rangers to cut out after Kinney. Going my way, seh?”
“If you're going mine.”
“I reckon I am. And just to pass the time you might tell me the real
story of that hold-up while we ride.”
“The real story?”
“Well, I don't aim to doubt your word, but I reckon you forgot to tell
some of it.” He turned on the other his gay smile. “For instance, seh,
you ain't asking me to believe that you handed over your rig to Kinney
so peaceful and that he went away and clean forgot to unload from you
that gun you pack.”
The eyes of the two met and looked into each other's as clear and
straight as Texas sunshine. Slowly Neill's relaxed into a smile.
“No, I won't ask you to believe that. I owe you something because you
saved my life--”
“Forget it,” commanded the lieutenant crisply.
“And I can't do less than tell you the whole story.”
He told it, yet not the whole of it either; for there was one detail
he omitted completely. It had to do with the cause for existence of the
little black-and-blue bruise under his right eye and the purple ridge
that seamed his wrist. Nor with all his acuteness could Stephen Fraser
guess that the one swelling had been made by a gold ring on the clenched
fist of an angry girl held tight in Larry Neill's arms, the other by the
lash of a horsewhip wielded by the same young woman.
CHAPTER III -- A DISCOVERY
The roan, having been much refreshed by a few hours on grass, proved to
be a good traveller. The two men took a road-gait and held it steadily
till they reached a telephone-line which stretched across the desert
and joined two outposts of civilization. Steve strapped on his climbing
spurs and went up a post lightly with his test outfit. In a few minutes
he had Moreno on the wire and was in touch with one of his rangers.
“Hello! This you, Ferguson? This is Fraser. No, Fraser--Lieutenant
Fraser. Yes. How many of the boys can you get in touch with right away?
Two? Good. I want you to cover the Arivaca cut-off. Kinney is headed
that way in a rig. His sister is with him. She is not to be injured
under any circumstances. Understand? Wire me at the Mal Pais mines
to-morrow your news. By the way, Tom Long and some of the boys are
headed down that way with notions of lynching Kinney. Dodge them if you
can and rush your man up to the Mal Pais. Good-bye.”
“Suppose they can't dodge them?” ventured Neill after Steve had rejoined
him.
“I reckon they can. If not--well, my rangers are good boys; I expect
they won't give up a prisoner.”
“I'm right glad to find you are going to the Mal Pais mines with me,
lieutenant. I wasn't expecting company on the way.”
“I'll bet a dollar Mex against two plunks gold that you're wondering
whyfor I'm going.”
Larry laughed. “You're right. I was wondering.”
“Well, then, it's this way. What with all these boys on Kinney's trail
he's as good as rounded up. Fact is, Kinney's only a weak sister anyhow.
He turned State's witness at the trial, and it was his testimony that
convicted Struve. I know something about this because I happened to be
the man that caught Struve. I had just joined the rangers. It was my
first assignment. The other three got away. Two of them escaped and the
third was not tried for lack of sufficient evidence. Now, then:
Kinney rides the rods from Yuma to Marfa and is now or had ought to
be somewhere in this valley between Posa Buena and Taylor's ranch. But
where is Struve, the hardier ruffian of the two? He ain't been seen
since they broke out. He sure never reached Ft. Lincoln. My notion is
that he dropped off the train in the darkness about Casa Grande, then
rolled his tail for the Mal Pais country. Your eyes are asking whys
mighty loud, my friend; and my answer is that there's a man up there
mebbe who has got to hide Struve if he shows up. That's only a guess,
but it looks good to me. This man was the brains of the whole outfit,
and folks say that he's got cached the whole haul the gang made from
that S. P. hold-up. What's more, he scattered gold so liberal that
his name wasn't even mentioned at the trial. He's a big man now, a
millionaire copper king and into gold-mines up to the hocks. In the
Southwest those things happen. It doesn't always do to look too closely
at a man's past.
“We'll say Struve drops in on him and threatens to squeak. Mebbe he has
got evidence; mebbe he hasn't. Anyhow, our big duck wants to forget the
time he was wearing a mask and bending a six-gun for a living. Also and
moreover, he's right anxious to have other folks get a chance to forget.
From what I can hear he's clean mashed on some girl at Amarillo, or
maybe it's Fort Lincoln. See what a twist Strove's got on him if he can
slip into the Mal Pais country on the q. t.”
“And you're going up there to look out for him?”
“I'm going in to take a casual look around. There's no telling what a
man might happen onto accidentally if he travels with his ear to the
ground.”
The other nodded. He could now understand easily why Fraser was going
into the Mal Pais country, but he could not make out why the ranger,
naturally a man who lived under his own hat and kept his own counsel,
had told him so much as he had. The officer shortly relieved his mind on
this point.
“I may need help while I'm there. May I call on you if I do, seh?”
Neill felt his heart warm toward this hard-faced, genial frontiersman,
who knew how to judge so well the timbre of a casual acquaintance.
“You sure may, lieutenant.”
“Good. I'll count on you then.”
So, in these few words, the compact of friendship and alliance was
sealed between them. Each of them was strangely taken with the other,
but it is not the way of the Anglo-Saxon fighting man to voice his
sentiment. Though each of them admired the stark courage and the
flawless fortitude he knew to dwell in the other, impassivity sat
on their faces like an ice-mask. For this is the hall-mark of the
Southwest, that a man must love and hate with the same unchanging face
of iron, save only when a woman is in consideration.
They were to camp that night by Cottonwood Spring, and darkness caught
them still some miles from their camp. They were on no road, but were
travelling across country through washes and over countless hills.
The ranger led the way, true as an arrow, even after velvet night had
enveloped them.
“It must be right over this mesa among the cottonwoods you see rising
from that arroyo,” he announced at last.
He had scarcely spoken before they struck a trail that led them direct
to the spring. But as they were descending this in a circle Fraser's
horse shied.
“Hyer you, Pinto! What's the matter with--”
The ranger cut his sentence in two and slid from the saddle. When his
companion reached him and drew rein the ranger was bending over a dark
mass stretched across the trail. He looked up quietly.
“Man's body,” he said briefly.
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
Neill dismounted and came forward. The moon-crescent was up by now and
had lit the country with a chill radiance. The figure was dressed in the
coarse striped suit of a convict.
“I don't savvy this play,” Fraser confessed softly to himself.
“Do you know him?”
“Suppose you look at him and see if you know him.”
Neill looked into the white face and shook his head.
“No, I don't know him, but I suppose it is Struve.”
From his pocket the ranger produced a photograph and handed it to him.
“Hyer, I'll strike a match and you'll see better.”
The match flared up in the slight breeze and presently went out, but
not before Neill had seen that it was the face of the man who lay before
them.
“Did you see the name under the picture, seh?”
“No.”
Another match flared and the man from the Panhandle read a name, but
it was not the one he had expected to see. The words printed there were
“James Kinney.”
“I don't understand. This ain't Kinney. He is a heavy-set man with a
villainous face. There's some mistake.”
“There ce'tainly is, but not at this end of the line. This is Kinney all
right. I've seen him at Yuma. He was heading for the Mal Pais country
and he died on the way. See hyer. Look at these soaked bandages. He's
been wounded--shot mebbe--and the wound broke out on him again so that
he bled to death.”
“It's all a daze to me. Who is the other man if he isn't Kinney?”
“We're coming to that. I'm beginning to see daylight,” said Steve,
gently. “Let's run over this thing the way it might be. You've got to
keep in mind that this man was weak, one of those spineless fellows that
stronger folks lead around by the nose. Well, they make their getaway at
Yuma after Struve has killed a guard. That killing of Dave Long shakes
Kinney up a lot, he being no desperado but only a poor lost-dog kind of
a guy. Struve notices it and remembers that this fellow weakened before.
He makes up his mind to take no chances. From that moment he watches for
a chance to make an end of his pardner. At Casa Grande they drop off the
train they're riding and cut across country toward the Mal Pais. Mebbe
they quarrel or mebbe Struve gets his chance and takes it. But after he
has shot his man he sees he has made a mistake. Perhaps they were seen
travelling in that direction. Anyhow, he is afraid the body will be
found since he can't bury it right. He changes his plan and takes a
big chance; cuts back to the track, boards a freight, and reaches Fort
Lincoln.”
“My God!” cried the other, startled for once out of his calm.
The officer nodded. “You're on the trail right enough. I wish we were
both wrong, but we ain't.”
“But surely she would have known he wasn't her brother, surely--”
The ranger shook his head. “She hadn't seen the black sheep since she
was a kid of about seven. How would she know what he looked like? And
Struve was primed with all the facts he had heard Kinney blat out time
and again. She wasn't suspecting any imposition and he worked her to a
fare-you-well.”
Larry Neill set his teeth on a wave of icy despair.
“And she's in that devil's power. She would be as safe in a den of
rattlers. To think that I had my foot on his neck this mo'ning and
didn't break it.”
“She's safe so long as she is necessary to him. She's in deadly peril
as soon as he finds her one witness too many. If he walks into my boys'
trap at the Arivaca cut-off, all right. If not, God help her! I've shut
the door to Mexico and safety in his face. He'll strike back for the Mal
Pais country. It's his one chance, and he'll want to travel light and
fast.”
“If he starts back Tom Long's party may get him.”
“That's one more chance for her, but it's a slim one. He'll cut straight
across country; they're following the trail. No, seh, our best bet is my
rangers. They'd ought to land him, too.”
“Oh, ought to,” derided the other impatiently. “Point is, if they don't.
How are we going to save her? You know this country. I don't.”
“Don't tear your shirt, amigo,” smiled the ranger. “We'll arrive faster
if we don't go off half-cocked. Let's picket the broncs, amble down
to the spring, and smoke a cigarette. We've got to ride twenty miles for
fresh hawsses and these have got to have a little rest.”
They unsaddled and picketed, then strolled to the spring.
“I've been thinking that maybe we have made a mistake. Isn't it possible
the man with Miss Kinney is not Struve?” asked Neill.
“That's easy proved. You saw him this mo'ning.” The lieutenant went down
into his pocket once more for a photograph. “Does this favor the man
with Miss Kinney?”
Under the blaze of another match, shielded by the ranger's hands, Larry
looked into the scowling, villainous face he had seen earlier in the
day. There could be no mistaking those leering, cruel eyes nor the
ratlike, shifty look of the face, not to mention the long scar across
it. His heart sank.
“It's the man.”
“Don't you blame yourself for not putting his lights out. How could you
tell who he was?”
“I knew he was a ruffian, hide and hair.”
“But you thought he was her brother and that's a whole lot different.
What do you say to grubbing here? We've got to go to the Halle ranch for
hawsses and it's a long jog.”
They lit a fire and over their coffee discussed plans. In the midst of
these the Southerner picked up idly a piece of wrapping-paper. Upon it
was pencilled a wavering scrawl:
Bleeding has broke out again. Can't stop it. Struve shot me and left me
for dead ten miles back. I didn't kill the guard or know he meant to. J.
KINNEY.
Neill handed the paper to the ranger, who read it through, folded it,
and gave it back to the other.
“Keep that paper. We may need it.” His grave eyes went up the trail to
where the dark figure lay motionless in the cold moonlight. “Well, he's
come to the end of the trail--the only end he could have reached. He
wasn't strong enough to survive as a bad man. Poor devil!”
They buried him in a clump of cottonwoods and left a little pile of
rocks to mark the spot.
CHAPTER IV -- LOST!
After her precipitate leave-taking of the man whose team she had bought
or borrowed, Margaret Kinney nursed the fires of her indignation in
silence, banking them for future use against the time when she should
meet him again in the event that should ever happen. She brought her
whip-lash snapping above the backs of the horses, and there was that in
the supple motion of the small strong wrist which suggested that nothing
would have pleased her more than having this audacious Texan there in
place of the innocent animals. For whatever of inherited savagery lay
latent in her blood had been flogged to the surface by the circumstances
into which she had been thrust. Never in all her placid life had she
known the tug of passion any closer than from across the footlights of a
theatre.
She had had, to be sure, one stinging shame, but it had been buried in
far-away Arizona, quite beyond the ken of the convention-bound people
of the little Wisconsin town where she dwelt. But within the past twelve
hours Fate had taken hold of her with both hands and thrust her into
Life. She sensed for the first time its roughness, its nakedness, its
tragedy. She had known the sensations of a hunted wild beast, the flush
of shame for her kinship to this coarse ruffian by her side, and the
shock of outraged maiden modesty at kisses ravished from her by force.
The teacher hardly knew herself for the same young woman who but
yesterday was engrossed in multiplication tables and third readers.
A sinister laugh from the man beside her brought the girl back to the
present.
She looked at him and then looked quickly away again. There was
something absolutely repulsive in the creature--in the big ears that
stood out from the close-cropped head, in the fishy eyes that saw
everything without ever looking directly at anything, in the crooked
mouth with its irregular rows of stained teeth from which several were
missing. She had often wondered about her brother, but never at the
worst had she imagined anything so bad as this. The memory would be
enough to give one the shudders for years.
“Guess I ain't next to all that happened there in the mesquite,” he
sneered, with a lift of the ugly lip.
She did not look at him. She did not speak. There seethed in her a
loathing and a disgust beyond expression.
“Guess you forgot that a fellow can sometimes hear even when he can't
see. Since I'm chaperooning you I'll make out to be there next time you
meet a good-looking lady-killer. Funny, the difference it makes, being
your brother. You ain't seen me since you was a kid, but you plumb
forgot to kiss me.”
There was a note in his voice she had not heard before, some hint of
leering ribaldry in the thick laugh that for the first time stirred
unease in her heart. She did not know that the desperate, wild-animal
fear in him, so overpowering that everything else had been pushed to the
background, had obscured certain phases of him that made her presence
here such a danger as she could not yet conceive. That fear was now
lifting, and the peril loomed imminent.
He put his arm along the back of the seat and grinned at her from his
loose-lipped mouth.
“But o' course it ain't too late to begin now, my dearie.”
Her fearless level eyes met squarely his shifty ones and read there
something she could dread without understanding, something that was an
undefined sacrilege of her sweet purity. For woman-like her instinct
leaped beyond reason.
“Take down your arm,” she ordered.
“Oh, I don't know, sis. I reckon your brother--”
“You're no brother of mine,” she broke in. “At most it is an accident of
birth I disown. I'll have no relationship with you of any sort.”
“Is that why you're driving with me to Mexico?” he jeered.
“I made a mistake in trying to save you. If it were to do over again I
should not lift a hand.”
“You wouldn't, eh?”
There was something almost wolfish in the facial malignity that
distorted him.
“Not a finger.”
“Perhaps you'd give me up now if you had a chance?”
“I would if I did what was right.”
“And you'd sure want to do what was right,” he snarled.
“Take down your arm,” she ordered again, a dangerous glitter in her
eyes.
He thrust his evil face close to hers and showed his teeth in a blind
rage that forgot everything else.
“Listen here, you little locoed baby. I got something to tell you
that'll make your hair curl. You're right, I ain't your brother. I'm
Nick Struve--Wolf Struve if you like that better. I lied you into
believing me your brother, who ain't ever been anything but a skim-milk
quitter. He's dead back there in the cactus somewhere, and I killed
him!”
Terror flooded her eyes. Her very breathing hung suspended. She gazed at
him in a frozen fascination of horror.
“Killed him because he gave me away seven years ago and was gittin'
ready to round on me again. Folks don't live long that play Wolf Struve
for a lamb. A wolf! That's what I am, a born wolf, and don't you forget
it.”
The fact itself did not need his words for emphasis. He fairly reeked
the beast of prey. She had to nerve herself against faintness. She must
not swoon. She dared not.
“Think you can threaten to give me up, do you? 'Fore I'm through with
you you'll wish you had never been born. You'll crawl on your knees and
beg me to kill you.”
Such a devil of wickedness she had never seen in human eyes before. The
ruthlessness left no room for appeal. Unless the courage to tame him lay
in her she was lost utterly.
He continued his exultant bragging, blatantly, ferociously.
“I didn't tell you about my escape; how a guard tried to stop me and I
put the son of a gun out of business. There's a price on my head. D'ye
think I'm the man to give you a chance to squeal on me? D'ye think I'll
let a pink-and-white chit send me back to be strangled?” he screamed.
The stark courage in her rose to the crisis. Not an hour before she had
seen the Texan cow him. He was of the kind would take the whip
whiningly could she but wield it. Her scornful eyes fastened on him
contemptuously, chiseled into the cur heart of him.
“What will you do?” she demanded, fronting the issue that must sooner or
later rise.
The raucous jangle of his laugh failed to disturb the steadiness of
her gaze. To reassure himself of his mastery he began to bluster, to
threaten, turning loose such a storm of vile abuse as she had never
heard. He was plainly working his nerve up to the necessary pitch.
In her first terror she had dropped the reins. Her hands had slipped
unconsciously under the lap-robe. Now one of them touched something
chilly on the seat beside her. She almost gasped her relief. It was the
selfsame revolver with which she had tried to hold up the Texan.
In the midst of Struve's flood of invective the girl's hand leaped
quickly from the lap-robe. A cold muzzle pressed against his cheek
brought the convict's outburst to an abrupt close.
“If you move I'll fire,” she said quietly.
For a long moment their gazes gripped, the deadly clear eyes of the
young woman and the furtive ones of the miscreant. Underneath the robe
she felt a stealthy movement, and cried out quickly: “Hands up!”
With a curse he threw his arms into the air.
“Jump out! Don't lower your hands!”
“My ankle,” he whined.
“Jump!”
His leap cleared the wheel and threw him to the ground. She caught up
the whip and slashed wildly at the horses. They sprang forward in a
panic, flying wildly across the open plain. Margaret heard a revolver
bark twice. After that she was so busy trying to regain control of the
team that she could think of nothing else. The horses were young and
full of spirit, so that she had all she could do to keep the trap from
being upset. It wound in and out among the hills, taking perilous places
safely to her surprise, and was at last brought to a stop only by the
narrowing of a draw into which the animals had bolted.
They were quiet now beyond any chance of farther runaway, even had it
been possible. Margaret dropped the lines on the dashboard and began
to sob, at first in slow deep breaths and then in quicker uneven ones.
Plucky as she was, the girl had had about all her nerves could stand for
one day. The strain of her preparation for flight, the long night
drive, and the excitement of the last two hours were telling on her in a
hysterical reaction.
She wept herself out, dried her eyes with dabs of her little kerchief,
and came back to a calm consideration of her situation. She must get
back to Fort Lincoln as soon as possible, and she must do it without
encountering the convict. For in the course of the runaway the revolver
had been jolted from the trap.
Not quite sure in which direction lay the road, she got out from the
trap, topped the hill to her right, and looked around. She saw in all
directions nothing but rolling hilltops, merging into each other even
to the horizon's edge. In her wild flight among these hills she had lost
count of direction. She had not yet learned how to know north from south
by the sun, and if she had it would have helped but little since she
knew only vaguely the general line of their travel.
She felt sure that from the top of the next rise she could locate the
road, but once there she was as uncertain as before. Before giving up
she breasted a third hill to the summit. Still no signs of the road.
Reluctantly she retraced her steps, and at the foot of the hill was
uncertain whether she should turn to right or left. Choosing the left,
from the next height she could see nothing of the team. She was not yet
alarmed. It was ridiculous to suppose that she was lost. How could she
be when she was within three or four hundred yards of the rig? She would
cut across the shoulder into the wash and climb the hillock beyond. For
behind it the team must certainly be.
But at her journey's end her eyes were gladdened by no sight of the
horses. Every draw was like its neighbor, every rolling rise a replica
of the next. The truth came home to a sinking heart. She was lost in one
of the great deserts of Texas. She would wander for days as others had,
and she would die in the end of starvation and thirst. Nobody would know
where to look for her, since she had told none where she was going. Only
yesterday at her boarding-house she had heard a young man tell how a
tenderfoot had been found dead after he had wandered round and round in
intersecting circles. She sank down and gave herself up to despair.
But not for long. She was too full of grit to give up without a long
fight. How many hours she wandered Margaret Kinney did not know. The sun
was high in the heavens when she began. It had given place to flooding
moonlight long before her worn feet and aching heart gave up the search
for some human landmark. Once at least she must have slept, for she
stared up from a spot where she had sunk down to look up into a starry
sky that was new to her.
The moon had sailed across the vault and grown chill and faint with dawn
before she gave up, completely exhausted, and when her eyes opened again
it was upon a young day fresh and sweet. She knew by this time hunger
and an acute thirst. As the day increased, this last she knew must be a
torment of swollen tongue and lime-kiln throat. Yesterday she had cried
for help till her voice had failed. A dumb despair had now driven away
her terror.
And then into the awful silence leaped a sound like a messenger of hope.
It was a shot, so close that she could see the smoke rise from an arroyo
near. She ran forward till she could look down into it and caught sight
of a man with a dead bird in his hand. He had his back toward her and
was stooping over a fire. Slithering down over the short dry grass, she
was upon him almost before she could stop.
“I've been lost all night and all yesterday,” she sobbed.
He snatched at the revolver lying beside him and whirled like a flash
as if to meet an attack. The girl's pumping heart seemed to stand still.
The man snarling at her was the convict Struve.
CHAPTER V -- LARRY NEILL TO THE RESCUE
The snarl gave way slowly to a grim more malign than his open hostility.
“So you've been lost! And now you're found--come safe back to your
loving brother. Ain't that luck for you? Hunted all over Texas till you
found him, eh? And it's a powerful big State, too.”
She caught sight of something that made her forget all else.
“Have you got water in that canteen?” she asked, her parched eyes
staring at it.
“Yes, dearie.”
“Give it me.”
He squatted tailor-fashion on the ground, put the canteen between his
knees, and shoved his teeth in a crooked grin.
“Thirsty?”
“I'm dying for a drink.”
“You look like a right lively corpse.”
“Give it to me.”
“Will you take it now or wait till you get it?”
“My throat's baked. I want water,” she said hoarsely.
“Most folks want a lot they never get.”
She walked toward him with her hand outstretched.
“I tell you I've got to have it.”
He laughed evilly. “Water's at a premium right now. Likely there ain't
enough here to get us both out of this infernal hole alive. Yes, it's
sure at a premium.”
He let his eye drift insolently over her and take stock of his prey, in
the same feline way of a cat with a mouse, gloating over her distress
and the details of her young good looks. His tainted gaze got the faint
pure touch of color in her face, the reddish tinge of her wavy brown
hair, the desirable sweetness of her rounded maidenhood. If her step
dragged, if dusky hollows shadowed her lids, if the native courage had
been washed from the hopeless eyes, there was no spring of manliness
hid deep within him that rose to refresh her exhaustion. No pity or
compunction stirred at her sweet helplessness.
“Do you want my money?” she asked wearily.
“I'll take that to begin with.”
She tossed him her purse. “There should be seventy dollars there. May I
have a drink now?”
“Not yet, my dear. First you got to come up to me and put your arms
round--”
He broke off with a curse, for she was flying toward the little circle
of cottonwoods some forty yards away. She had caught a glimpse of the
water-hole and was speeding for it.
“Come back here,” he called, and in a rage let fly a bullet after her.
She paid no heed, did not stop till she reached the spring and threw
herself down full length to drink, to lave her burnt face, to drink
again of the alkali brackish water that trickled down her throat like
nectar incomparably delicious.
She was just rising to her feet when Struve hobbled up.
“Don't you think you can play with me, missie. When I give the word you
stop in your tracks, and when I say 'Jump!' step lively.”
She did not answer. Her head was lifted in a listening attitude, as if
to catch some sound that came faintly to her from a distance.
“You're mine, my beauty, to do with as I please, and don't you forget
it.”
She did not hear him. Her ears were attuned to voices floating to her
across the desert. Of course she was beginning to wander in her mind.
She knew that. There could be no other human beings in this sea of
loneliness. They were alone; just they two, the degenerate ruffian and
his victim. Still, it was strange. She certainly had imagined the murmur
of people talking. It must be the beginning of delirium.
“Do you hear me?” screamed Struve, striking her on the cheek with his
fist. “I'm your master and you're my squaw.”
She did not cringe as he had expected, nor did she show fight. Indeed
the knowledge of the blow seemed scarcely to have penetrated her mental
penumbra. She still had that strange waiting aspect, but her eyes were
beginning to light with new-born hope. Something in her manner shook the
man's confidence; a dawning fear swept away his bluster. He, too, was
now listening intently.
Again the low murmur, beyond a possibility of doubt. Both of them caught
it. The girl opened her throat in a loud cry for help. An answering
shout came back clear and strong. Struve wheeled and started up the
arroyo, bending in and out among the cactus till he disappeared over the
brow.
Two horsemen burst into sight, galloping down the steep trail at
breakneck speed, flinging down a small avalanche of shale with them. One
of them caught sight of the girl, drew up so short that his horse slid
to its haunches, and leaped from the saddle in a cloud of dust.
He ran toward her, and she to him, hands out to meet her rescuer.
“Why didn't you come sooner? I've waited so long,” she cried
pathetically, as his arms went about her.
“You poor lamb! Thank God we're in time!” was all he could say.
Then for the first time in her life she fainted.
The other rider lounged forward, a hat in his hand that he had just
picked up close to the fire.
“We seem to have stampeded part of this camping party. I'll just take
a run up this hill and see if I can't find the missing section and
persuade it to stay a while. I don't reckon you need me hyer, do you?”
he grinned, with a glance at Neill and his burden.
“All right. You'll find me here when you get back, Fraser,” the other
answered.
Larry carried the girl to the water-hole and set her down beside it.
He sprinkled her face with water, and presently her lids trembled and
fluttered open. She lay there with her head on his arm and looked at him
quite without surprise.
“How did you find me?”
“Mainly luck. We followed your trail to where we found the rig. After
that it was guessing where the needle was in the haystack It just
happened we were cutting across country to water when we heard a shot.”
“That must have been when he fired at me,” she said.
“My God! Did he shoot at you?”
“Yes. Where is he now?” She shuddered.
“Cutting over the hills with Steve after him.”
“Steve?”
“My friend, Lieutenant Fraser. He is an officer in the ranger force.”
“Oh!” She relapsed into a momentary silence before she said: “He isn't
my brother at all. He is a murderer.” She gave a sudden little moan of
pain as memory pierced her of what he had said. “He bragged to me that
he had killed my brother. He meant to kill me, I think.”
“Sho! It doesn't matter what the coyote meant. It's all over now. You're
with friends.”
A warm smile lit his steel-blue eyes, softened the lines of his lean,
hard face. Never had shipwrecked mariner come to safer harbor than she.
She knew that this slim, sun-bronzed Westerner was a man's man, that
strength and nerve inhabited his sinewy frame. He would fight for her
because she was a woman as long as he could stand and see.
A touch of color washed back into her cheeks, a glow of courage into her
heart. “Yes, it's all over. The weary, weary hours--and the fear--and
the pain--and the dreadful thirst--and worst of all, him!”
She began to cry softly, hiding her face in his coat-sleeve.
“I'm crying because--it's all over. I'm a little fool, just as--as you
said I was.”
“I didn't know you then,” he smiled. “I'm right likely to make snap-shot
judgments that are 'way off.”
“You knew me well enough to--” She broke off in the middle, bathed in
a flush of remembrance that brought her coppery head up from his arm
instantly.
“Be careful. You're dizzy yet.”
“I'm all right now, thank you,” she answered, her embarrassed profile
haughtily in the air. “But I'm ravenous for something to eat. It's been
twenty-four hours since I've had a bite. That's why I'm weepy and
faint. I should think you might make a snap-shot judgment that breakfast
wouldn't hurt me.”
He jumped up contritely. “That's right. What a goat I am!”
His long, clean stride carried him over the distance that separated him
from his bronco. Out of the saddle-bags he drew some sandwiches wrapped
in a newspaper.
“Here, Miss Margaret! You begin on these. I'll have coffee ready in two
shakes of a cow's tail. And what do you say to bacon?”
He understood her to remark from the depths of a sandwich that she said
“Amen!” to it, and that she would take everything he had and as soon as
he could get it ready. She was as good as her word. He found no cause
to complain of her appetite. Bacon and sandwiches and coffee were all
consumed in quantities reasonable for a famished girl who had been
tramping actively for a day and a night, and, since she was a child
of impulse, she turned more friendly eyes on him who had appeased her
appetite.
“I suppose you are a cowboy like everybody else in this country?” she
ventured amiably after her hunger had become less sharp.
“No, I belong to the government reclamation service.”
“Oh!” She had a vague idea she had heard of it before. “Who is it you
reclaim? Indians, I suppose.”
“We reclaim young ladies when we find them wandering about the desert,”
he smiled.
“Is that what the government pays you for?”
“Not entirely. Part of the time I examine irrigation projects and report
on their feasibility. I have been known to build dams and bore tunnels.”
“And what of the young ladies you reclaim? Do you bore them?” she asked
saucily.
“I understand they have hitherto always found me very entertaining,” he
claimed boldly, his smiling eyes on her.
“Indeed!”
“But young ladies are peculiar. Sometimes we think we're entertaining
them when we ain't.”
“I'm sure you are right.”
“And other times they're interested when they pretend they're not.”
“It must be comforting to your vanity to think that,” she said coldly.
For his words had recalled similar ones spoken by him twenty-four hours
earlier, which in turn had recalled his unpardonable sin.
The lieutenant of rangers appeared over the hill and descended into the
draw. Miss Kinney went to meet him.
“He got away?” she asked.
“Yes, ma'am. I lost him in some of these hollows, or rather I never
found him. I'm going to take my hawss and swing round in a circle.”
“What are you going to do with me?” she smiled.
“I been thinking that the best thing would be for you to go to the Mal
Pais mines with Mr. Neill.”
“Who is Mr. Neill?”
“The gentleman over there by the fire.”
“Must I go with him? I should feel safer in your company, lieutenant.”
“You'll be safe enough in his, Miss Kinney.”
“You know me then?” she asked.
“I've seen you at Fort Lincoln. You were pointed out to me once as a new
teacher.”
“But I don't want to go to the Mal Pais mines. I want to go to Fort
Lincoln. As to this gentleman, I have no claims on him and shall not
trouble him to burden himself with me.”
Steve laughed. “I don't reckon he would think, it a terrible burden,
ma'am. And about the Mal Pais--this is how it is. Fort Lincoln is all of
sixty miles from here as the crow flies. The mines are about seventeen.
My notion was you could get there and take the stage to-morrow to your
town.”
“What shall I do for a horse?”
“I expect Mr. Neill will let you ride his. He can walk beside the
hawss.”
“That won't do at all. Why should I put him to that inconvenience? I'll
walk myself.”
The ranger flashed his friendly smile at her. He had an instinct that
served him with women. “Any way that suits you and him suits me. I'm
right sorry that I've got to leave you and take out after that hound
Struve, but you may take my word for it that this gentleman will look
after you all right and bring you safe to the Mal Pais.”
“He is a stranger to me. I've only met him once and on that occasion not
pleasantly. I don't like to put myself under an obligation to him. But
of course if I must I must.”
“That's the right sensible way to look at it. In this little old world
we got to do a heap we don't want to do. For instance, I'd rather see
you to the Mal Pais than hike over the hills after this fellow,” he
concluded gallantly.
Neill, who had been packing the coffee-pot and the frying-pan, now
sauntered forward with his horse.
“Well, what's the program?” he wanted to know.
“It's you and Miss Kinney for the Mal Pais, me for the trail. I ain't
very likely to find Mr. Struve, but you can't always sometimes tell.
Anyhow, I'm going to take a shot at it,” the ranger answered.
“And at him?” his friend suggested.
“Oh, I reckon not. He may be a sure-enough wolf, but I expect this ain't
his day to howl.”
Steve whistled to his pony, swung to the saddle when it trotted up, and
waved his hat in farewell.
His “Adios!” drifted back to them from the crown of the hill just before
he disappeared over its edge.
CHAPTER VI -- SOMEBODY'S ACTING MIGHTY FOOLISH.
Larry Neill watched him vanish and then turned smiling to Miss Kinney.
“All aboard for the Mal Pais,” he sang out cheerfully.
Too cheerfully perhaps. His assurance that all was well between them
chilled her manner. He might forgive himself easily if he was that sort
of man; she would at least show him she was no party, to it. He had
treated her outrageously, had manhandled her with deliberate intent to
insult. She would show him no one alive could treat her so and calmly
assume to her that it was all right.
Her cool eyes examined the horse, and him.
“I don't quite see how you expect to arrange it, Mr. Neill. That is your
name, isn't it?” she added indifferently.
“That's my name--Larry Neill. Easiest thing in the world to arrange. We
ride pillion if it suits you; if not, I'll walk.”
“Neither plan suits me,” she announced curtly, her gaze on the far-away
hills.
He glanced at her in quick surprise, then made the mistake of letting
himself smile at her frosty aloofness instead of being crestfallen by
it. She happened to look round and catch that smile before he could
extinguish it. Her petulance hardened instantly to a resolution.
“I don't quite know what we're going to do about it--unless you walk,”
he proposed, amused at the absurdity of his suggestion.
“That's just what I'm going to do,” she retorted promptly.
“What!” He wheeled on her with an astonished smile on his face.
This served merely to irritate her.
“I said I was going to walk.”
“Walk seventeen miles?”
“Seventy if I choose.”
“Nonsense! Of course you won't.”
Her eyebrows lifted in ironic demurrer. “I think you must let me be the
judge of that,” she said gently.
“Walk!” he reiterated. “Why, you're walked out. You couldn't go a mile.
What do you take me for? Think I'm going to let you come that on me.”
“I don't quite see how you can help it, Mr. Neill,” she answered.
“Help it! Why, it ain't reasonable. Of course you'll ride.”
“Of course I won't.”
She set off briskly, almost jauntily, despite her tired feet and aching
limbs.
“Well, if that don't beat--” He broke off to laugh at the situation.
After she had gone twenty steps he called after her in a voice that did
not suppress its chuckle: “You ain't going the right direction, Miss
Kinney.”
She whirled round on him in anger. How dared he laugh at her?
“Which is the right way?” she choked.
“North by west is about it.”
She was almost reduced to stamping her foot.
Without condescending to ask more definite instructions she struck off
at haphazard, and by chance guessed right. There was nothing for it but
to pursue. Wherefore the man pursued. The horse at his heels hampered
his stride, but he caught up with her soon.
“Somebody's acting mighty foolish,” he said.
She said nothing very eloquently.
“If I need punishing, ma'am, don't punish yourself, but me. You ain't
able to walk and that's a fact.”
She gave her silent attention strictly to the business of making
progress through the cactus and the sand.
“Say I'm all you think I am. You can trample on me proper after we get
to the Mal Pais. Don't have to know me at all if you don't want to.
Won't you ride, ma'am? Please!”
His distress filled her with a fierce delight. She stumbled defiantly
forward.
He pondered a while before he asked quietly:
“Ain't you going to ride, Miss Kinney?”
“No, I'm not. Better go on. Pray don't let me detain you.”
“All right. See that peak with the spur to it? Well, you keep that
directly in line and make straight for it. I'll say good-by now, ma'am.
I got to hurry to be in time for dinner. I'll send some one out from the
camp to meet you that ain't such a villain as I am.”
He swung to the saddle, put spurs to his pony, and cantered away.
She could scarce believe it, even when he rode straight over the hill
without a backward glance. He would never leave her. Surely he would
not do that. She could never reach the camp, and he knew it. To be left
alone in the desert again; the horror of it broke her down, but not
immediately. She went proudly forward with her head in the air at first.
He might look round. Perhaps he was peeping at her from behind some
cholla. She would not gratify him by showing any interest in his
whereabouts. But presently she began to lag, to scan draws and mesas
anxiously for him, even to call aloud in an ineffective little voice
which the empty hills echoed faintly. But from him there came no answer.
She sat down and wept in self-pity. Of course she had told him to go,
but he knew well enough she did not mean it. A magnanimous man would
have taken a better revenge on an exhausted girl than to leave her alone
in such a spot, and after she had endured such a terrible experience as
she had. She had read about the chivalry of Western men. Yet these two
had ridden away on their horses and left her to live or die as chance
willed it.
“Now, don't you feel so bad, Miss Margaret. I wasn't aiming really to
leave you, of course,” a voice interrupted her sobs to say.
She looked through the laced fingers that covered her face, mightily
relieved, but not yet willing to confess it. The engineer had made a
circuit and stolen up quietly behind.
“Oh! I thought you had gone,” she said as carelessly as she could with a
voice not clear of tears.
“Were you crying because you were afraid I hadn't?” he asked.
“I ran a cactus into my foot. And I didn't say anything about crying.”
“Then if your foot is hurt you will want to ride. That seventeen miles
might be too long a stroll before you get through with it.”
“I don't know what I'll do yet,” she answered shortly.
“I know what you'll do.”
“Yes?”
“You'll quit your foolishness and get on this hawss.”
She flushed angrily. “I won't!”
He stooped down, gathered her up in his arms, and lifted her to the
saddle.
“That's what you're going to do whether you like it or not,” he informed
her.
“How are you going to make me stay here, now you have put me here?”
“I'm going to get on behind and hold you if it's necessary.”
He was sensible enough of the folly of it all, but he did not see what
else he could do. She had chosen to punish him through herself in a way
that was impossible. It was a childish thing to do, born of some touch
of hysteria her experience had induced, and he could only treat her as a
child till she was safely back in civilization.
Their wills met in their eyes, and the man's, masculine and dominant,
won the battle. The long fringe of hers fell to the soft cheeks.
“It won't be at all necessary,” she promised.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“That's the way to talk.”
“If you care to know,” she boiled over, “I think you the most hateful
man I ever met.”
“That's all right,” he grinned ruefully. “You're the most contrary
woman I ever bumped into, so I reckon honors are easy.”
He strode along beside the horse, mile after mile, in a silence which
neither of them cared to break. The sap of youth flowed free in him, was
in his elastic tread, in the set of his broad shoulders, in the carriage
of his small, well-shaped head. He was as lean-loined and lithe as a
panther, and his stride ate up the miles as easily.
They nooned at a spring in the dry wash of Bronco Creek. After he had
unsaddled and picketed he condescended to explain to her.
“We'll stay here three hours or mebbe four through the heat of the day.”
“Is it far now?” she asked wearily.
“Not more than seven miles I should judge. Are you about all in?”
“Oh, no! I'm all right, thank you,” she said, with forced sprightliness.
His shrewd, hard gaze went over her and knew better.
“You lie down under those live-oaks and I'll get some grub ready.”
“I'll cook lunch while you lie down. You must be tired walking so far
through the sun,” said Miss Kinney.
“Have I got to pick you up again and carry you there?”
“No, you haven't. You keep your hands off me,” she flashed.
But nevertheless she betook herself to the shade of the live-oaks and
lay down. When he went to call her for lunch he found her fast asleep
with her head pillowed on her arm. She looked so haggard that he had not
the heart to rouse her.
“Let her sleep. It will be the making of her. She's fair done. But ain't
she plucky? And that spirited! Ready to fight so long as she can drag a
foot. And her so sorter slim and delicate. Funny how she hangs onto
her grudge against me. Sho! I hadn't ought to have kissed her, but I'll
never tell her so.”
He went back to his coffee and bacon, dined, and lay down for a siesta
beneath a cottonwood some distance removed from the live-oaks where Miss
Kinney reposed. For two or three hours he slept soundly, having been in
the saddle all night. It was mid-afternoon when he awoke, and the sun
was sliding down the blue vault toward the sawtoothed range to the west.
He found the girl still lost to the world in deep slumber.
The man from the Panhandle looked across the desert that palpitated
with heat, and saw through the marvelous atmosphere the smoke of the
ore-mills curling upward. He was no tenderfoot, to suppose that ten
minutes' brisk walking would take him to them. He guessed the distance
at about two and a half hour's travel.
“This is ce'tainly a hot evening. I expect we better wait till sundown
before moving,” he said aloud.
Having made up his mind, it was characteristic of him that he was asleep
again in five minutes. This time she wakened before him, to look into a
wonderful sea of gold that filled the crotches of the hills between the
purple teeth. No sun was to be seen--it had sunk behind the peaks--but
the trail of its declension was marked by that great pool of glory into
which she gazed.
Margaret crossed the wash to the cottonwood under which her escort
was lying. He was fast asleep on his back, his gray shirt open at the
bronzed, sinewy neck. The supple, graceful lines of him were relaxed,
but even her inexperience appreciated the splendid shoulders and the
long rippling muscles. The maidenly instinct in her would allow but one
glance at him, and she was turning away when his eyes opened.
Her face, judging from its tint, might have absorbed some of the
sun-glow into which she had been gazing.
“I came to see if you were awake,” she explained.
“Yes, ma'am, I am,” he smiled.
“I was thinking that we ought to be going. It will be dark before we
reach Mal Pais.”
He leaped to his feet and faced her.
“C'rect.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
He relit the fire and put on the coffee-pot before he saddled the horse.
She ate and drank hurriedly, soon announcing herself ready for the
start.
She mounted from his hand; then without asking any questions he swung to
a place behind her.
“We'll both ride,” he said.
The stars were out before they reached the outskirts of the mining-camp.
At the first house of the rambling suburbs Neill slipped to the ground
and walked beside her toward the old adobe plaza of the Mexican town.
People passed them on the run, paying no attention to them, and others
dribbled singly or in small groups from the houses and saloons. All of
them were converging excitedly to the plaza.
“Must be something doing here,” said her guide. “Now I wonder what!”
Round the next turn he found his answer. There must have been present
two or three hundred men, mostly miners, and their gazes all focussed on
two figures which stood against a door at the top of five or six steps.
One of the forms was crouched on its knees, abject, cringing terror
stamped on the white villainous face upturned to the electric light
above. But the other was on its feet, a revolver in each hand, a smile
of reckless daring on the boyish countenance that just now stood for law
and order in Mal Pais.
The man beside the girl read the situation at a glance. The handcuffed
figure groveling on the steps belonged to the murderer Struve, and over
him stood lightly the young ranger Steve Fraser. He was standing off a
mob that had gathered to lynch his prisoner, and one glance at him was
enough to explain how he had won his reputation as the most dashing and
fearless member of a singularly efficient force. For plain to be read as
the danger that confronted him was the fact that peril was as the breath
of life to his nostrils.
CHAPTER VII -- ENTER MR. DUNKE
“He's my prisoner and you can't have him,” the girl heard the ranger
say.
The answer came in a roar of rage. “By God, we'll show you!”
“If you want him, take him. But don't come unless you are ready to pay
the price!” warned the officer.
He was bareheaded and his dark-brown curly hair crisped round his
forehead engagingly. Round his right hand was tied a blood-stained
handkerchief. A boy he looked, but his record was a man's, and so the
mob that swayed uncertainly below him knew. His gray eyes were steady as
steel despite the fire that glowed in them. He stood at ease, with nerve
unshaken, the curious lifted look of a great moment about the poise of
his graceful figure.
“It is Lieutenant Fraser,” cried Margaret, but as she looked down she
missed her escort.
An instant, and she saw him. He was circling the outskirts of the crowd
at a run. For just a heart-beat she wondered what he was about, but her
brain told her before her eye. He swung in toward the steps, shoulders
down, and bored a way through the stragglers straight to the heart of
the turmoil. Taking the steps in two jumps, he stood beside the ranger.
“Hello, Tennessee,” grinned that young man. “Come to be a pall-bearer?”
“Hello, Texas! Can't say, I'm sure. Just dropped in to see what's
doing.”
Steve's admiring gaze approved him a man from the ground up. But the
ranger only laughed and said: “The band's going to play a right lively
tune, looks like.”
The man from the Panhandle had his revolvers out already. “Yes, there
will be a hot time in the old town to-night, I shouldn't wonder.”
But for the moment the attackers were inclined to parley. Their leader
stepped out and held up a hand for a suspension of hostilities. He was a
large man, heavily built, and powerful as a bear. There was about him an
air of authority, as of one used to being obeyed. He was dressed roughly
enough in corduroy and miner's half-leg boots, but these were of the
most expensive material and cut. His cold gray eye and thin lips denied
the manner of superficial heartiness he habitually carried. If one
scratched the veneer of good nature it was to find a hard selfishness
that went to his core.
“It's Mr. Dunke!” the young school-teacher cried aloud in surprise.
“I've got something to say to you, Mr. Lieutenant Ranger,” he announced,
with importance.
“Uncork it,” was Fraser's advice.
“We don't want to have any trouble with you, but we're here for
business. This man is a cold-blooded murderer and we mean to do justice
on him.”
Steve laughed insolently. “If all them that hollers for justice the
loudest got it done to them, Mr. Dunke, there'd be a right smart
shrinkage in the census returns.”
Dunke's eye gleamed with anger. “We're not here to listen to any smart
guys, sir. Will you give up Struve to us or will you not?”
“That's easy. I will not.”
The mob leader turned to the Tennessean. “Young man, I don't know who
you are, but if you mean to butt into a quarrel that ain't yours all
I've got to say is that you're hunting an early grave.”
“We'll know about that later, seh.”
“You stand pat, do you?”
“Well, seh, I draw to a pair that opens the pot anyhow,” answered Larry,
with a slight motion of his weapons.
Dunke fell back into the mob, a shot rang out into the night, and the
crowd swayed forward. But at that instant the door behind Fraser swung
open. A frightened voice sounded in his ear.
“Quick, Steve!”
The ranger slewed his head, gave an exclamation of surprise, and
hurriedly threw his prisoner into the open passage.
“Back, Larry! Lively, my boy!” he ordered.
Neill leaped back in a spatter of bullets that rained round him. Next
moment the door was swung shut again.
“You all right, Nell?” asked Fraser quickly of the young woman who had
opened the door, and upon her affirmative reply he added: “Everybody
alive and kicking? Nobody get a pill?”
“I'm all right for one,” returned Larry. “But we had better get out of
this passage. I notice our friends the enemy are sending their cards
through the door after us right anxious.”
As he spoke a bullet tore a jagged splinter from a panel and buried
itself in the ceiling. A second and a third followed.
“That's c'rect. We'd better be 'Not at home' when they call. Eh, Nell?”
Steve put an arm affectionately round the waist of the young woman who
had come in such timely fashion to their aid and ran through the passage
with her to the room beyond, Neill following with the prisoner.
“You're wounded, Steve,” the young woman cried.
He shrugged. “Scratch in the hand. Got it when I arrested him. Had to
shoot his trigger finger off.”
“But I must see to it.”
“Not now; wait till we're out of the woods.” He turned to his friend:
“Nell, let me introduce to you Mr. Neill, from the Panhandle. Mr. Neill,
this is my sister. I don't know how come she to drop down behind us like
an angel from heaven, but that's a story will wait. The thing we got to
do right now is to light a shuck out of here.”
His friend nodded, listening to the sound of blows battering the outer
door. “They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the
wind seven ways for Sunday.”
“What I'd like to know is whether there are two entrances to this
rat-trap. Do you happen to know, Nell?” asked Fraser of his sister.
“Three,” she answered promptly. “There's a back door into the court and
a trap-door to the roof. That's the way I came.”
“And it's the way we'll go. I might a-known you'd know all about it give
you a quarter of a chance,” her brother said admiringly. “We'll duck
through the roof and let Mr. Dunke hold the sack. Lead the way, sis.”
She guided them along another passageway and up some stairs to the
second story. The trap-door that opened to the flat roof was above the
bed about six feet. Neill caught the edges of the narrow opening, drew
himself up, and wriggled through. Fraser lifted his sister by the waist
high enough for Larry to catch her hands and draw her up.
“Hurry, Steve,” she urged. “They've broken in. Hurry, dear.”
The ranger unlocked his prisoner's handcuffs and tossed them up to the
Tennessean.
“Get a move on you, Mr. Struve, unless you want to figure in a necktie
party,” he advised.
But the convict's flabby muscles were unequal to the task of getting
him through the opening. Besides which, his wounded hand, tied up with
a blood-soaked rag, impeded him. He had to be pulled from above and
boosted from behind. Fraser, fit to handle his weight in wildcats, as
an admirer had once put it, found no trouble in following. Steps were
already heard on the stairs below when Larry slipped the cover to its
place and put upon it a large flat stone which he found on the roof for
that purpose. The fugitives crawled along the roof on their hands and
knees so as to escape the observation of the howling mob outside the
house. Presently they came into the shadows, and Nell rose, ran forward
to a little ladder which led to a higher roof, and swiftly ascended.
Neill, who was at her heels, could not fail to note the light supple
grace with which she moved. He thought he had never seen a more charming
woman in appearance. She still somehow retained the slim figure and
taking ways of a girl, in conjunction with the soft rounded curves of a
present-day Madonna.
Two more roofs were crossed before they came to another open trap-door.
A lamp in the room below showed it to be a bedroom with two cots in it.
Two children, one of them a baby, were asleep in these. A sweet-faced
woman past middle age looked anxiously up with hands clasped together as
in prayer.
“Is it you, Nellie?” she asked.
“Yes, mother, and Steve, and his friend. We're all right.”
Fraser dropped through, and his sister let herself down into his arms.
Struve followed, and was immediately handcuffed. Larry put back the trap
and fastened it from within before he dropped down.
“We shall have to leave at once, mother, without waiting to dress
the children,” explained Fraser. “Wrap them in blankets and take some
clothes along. I'll drop you at the hotel and slip my prisoner into
the jail the back way if I can; that is, if another plan I have doesn't
work.”
The oldest child awoke and caught sight of Fraser. He reached out his
hands in excitement and began to call: “Uncle Steve! Uncle Steve back
again.”
Fraser picked up the youngster. “Yes, Uncle Steve is back. But we're
going to play a game that Indians are after us. Webb must be good and
keep very, very still. He mustn't say a word till uncle tells him he
may.”
The little fellow clapped his hands. “Goody, goody! Shall we begin now?”
“Right this minute, son. Better take your money with you, mother. Is
father here?”
“No, he is at the ranch. He went down in the stage to-day.”
“All right, friends. We'll take the back way. Tennessee, will you look
out for Mr. Struve? Sis will want to carry the baby.”
They passed quietly down-stairs and out the back door. The starry night
enveloped them coldly, and the moon looked down through rifted clouds.
Nature was peaceful as her own silent hills, but the raucous jangle of
cursing voices from a distance made discord of the harmony. They slipped
along through the shadows, meeting none except occasional figures
hurrying to the plaza. At the hotel door the two men separated from the
rest of the party, and took with them their prisoner.
“I'm going to put him for safe-keeping down the shaft of a mine my
father and I own,” explained Steve. “He wouldn't be safe in the jail,
because Dunke, for private reasons, has made up his mind to put out his
lights.”
“Private reasons?” echoed the engineer.
“Mighty good ones, too. Ain't that right?” demanded the ranger of
Struve.
The convict cursed, though his teeth still chattered with fright from
the narrow escape he had had, but through his prison jargon ran a hint
of some power he had over the man Dunke. It was plain he thought the
latter had incited the lynching in order to shut the convict's mouth
forever.
“Where is this shaft?” asked Neill.
“Up a gulch about half a mile from here.”
Fraser's eyes fixed themselves on a young man who passed on the run. He
suddenly put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle. The running
man stopped instantly, his head alert to catch the direction from which
the sound had come. Steve whistled again and the stranger turned toward
them.
“It's Brown, one of my rangers,” explained the lieutenant.
Brown, it appeared, had just reached town and stabled his horse when
word came to him that there was trouble on the plaza. He had been making
for it when his officer's whistle stopped him.
“It's all over except getting this man to safety. I'm going to put him
down an abandoned shaft of the Jackrabbit. He'll be safe there, and
nobody will think to look for him in any such place,” said Fraser.
The man from the Panhandle drew his friend to one side. “Do you need
me any longer? I left Miss Kinney right on the edge of that mob, and I
expect I better look around and see where she is now.”
“All right. No, we don't need you. Take care you don't let any of these
miners recognize you. They might make you trouble while they're still
hot. Well, so-long. See you to-morrow at the hotel.”
The Tennessean looked to his guns to make sure they hung loose in the
scabbards, then stepped briskly back toward the plaza.
CHAPTER VIII -- WOULD YOU WORRY ABOUT ME?
Margaret Kinney's heart ceased beating in that breathless instant after
the two dauntless friends had flung defiance to two hundred. There was a
sudden tightening of her throat, a fixing of dilated eyes on what would
have been a thrilling spectacle had it not meant so much more to her.
For as she leaned forward in the saddle with parted lips she knew a
passionate surge of fear for one of the apparently doomed men that went
through her like swift poison, that left her dizzy with the shock of it.
The thought of action came to her too late. As Dunke stepped back to
give the signal for attack she cried out his name, but her voice was
drowned in the yell of rage that filled the street. She tried to spur
her horse into the crowd, to force a way to the men standing with
such splendid fearlessness above this thirsty pack of wolves. But the
denseness of the throng held her fixed even while revolvers flashed.
And then the miracle happened. She saw the door open and limned in
a penumbra of darkness the white comely face of a woman. She saw the
beleaguered men sway back and the door close in the faces of the horde.
She saw bullets go crashing into the door, heard screams of baffled
fury, and presently the crash of axes into the panels of the barrier
that held them back. It seemed to fade away before her gaze, and instead
of it she saw a doorway full of furious crowding miners.
Then presently her heart stood still again. From her higher place in the
saddle, well back in the outskirts of the throng, in the dim light she
made out a figure crouching on the roof; then another, and another, and
a fourth. She suffered an agony of fear in the few heart-beats before
they began to slip away. Her eyes swept the faces near her. One and all
they were turned upon the struggling mass of humanity at the entrance
to the passage. When she dared look again to the roof the fugitives were
gone. She thought she perceived them swarming up a ladder to the higher
roof, but in the surrounding grayness she could not be sure of this.
The stamping of feet inside the house continued. Once there was the
sound of an exploding revolver. After a long time a heavy figure
struggled into view through the roof-trap. It was Dunke himself. He
caught sight of the ladder, gave a shout of triumph, and was off in
pursuit of his flying prey. As others appeared on the roof they, too,
took up the chase, a long line of indistinct running figures.
There were other women on the street now, most of them Mexicans, so that
Margaret attracted little attention. She moved up opposite the house
that had become the scene of action, expecting every moment to hear the
shots that would determine the fate of the victims.
But no shots came. Lights flashed from room to room, and presently one
light began to fill a room so brilliantly that she knew a lamp must have
been overturned and set the house on fire. Dunke burst from the front
door, scarce a dozen paces from her. There was a kind of lurid fury in
his eyes. He was as ravenously fierce as a wolf balked of its kill. She
chose that moment to call him.
“Mr. Dunke!”
Her voice struck him into a sort of listening alertness, and again she
pronounced his name.
“You, Miss Kinney--here?” he asked in amazement.
“Yes--Miss Kinney.”
“But--What are you doing here? I thought you were at Fort Lincoln.”
“I was, but I'm here now.”
“Why? This is no place for you to-night. Hell's broke loose.”
“So it seems,” she answered, with shining eyes.
“There's trouble afoot, Miss Margaret. No girl should be out, let alone
an unprotected one.”
“I did not come here unprotected. There was a man with me. The one, Mr.
Dunke, that you are now looking for to murder!”
She gave it to him straight from the shoulder, her eyes holding his
steadily.
“Struve?” he gasped, taken completely aback.
“No, not Struve. The man who stood beside Lieutenant Fraser, the one you
threatened to kill because he backed the law.”
“I guess you don't know all the facts, Miss Kinney.” He came close and
met her gaze while he spoke in a low voice. “There ain't many know what
I know. Mebbe there ain't any beside you now. But I know you're Jim
Kinney's sister.”
“You are welcome to the knowledge. It is no secret. Lieutenant Fraser
knows it. So does his friend. I'm not trying to hide it. What of it?”
Her quiet scorn drew the blood to his face.
“That's all right. If you do want to keep it quiet I'm with you. But
there's something more. Your brother escaped from Yuma with this fellow
Struve. Word came over the wire an hour or two ago that Struve had been
captured and that it was certain he had killed his pal, your brother.
That's why I mean to see him hanged before mo'ning.”
“He did kill my brother. He told me so himself.” Her voice carried a sob
for an instant, but she went on resolutely. “What has that to do with
it? Isn't there any law in Texas? Hasn't he been captured? And isn't he
being taken back to his punishment?”
“He told you so himself!” the man echoed. “When did he tell you? When
did you see him?”
“I was alone with him for twelve hours in the desert.”
“Alone with you?” His puzzled face showed how he was trying to take this
in, “I don't understand. How could he be alone with you?”
“I thought he was my brother and I was helping him to escape from Fort
Lincoln.”
“Helping him to escape! Helping Wolf Struve to escape! Well, I'm darned
if that don't beat my time. How come you to think him your brother?” the
man asked suspiciously.
“It doesn't matter how or why. I thought so. That's enough.”
“And you were alone with him--why, you must have been alone with him all
night,” cried Dunke, coming to a fresh discovery.
“I was,” she admitted very quietly.
A new suspicion edged itself into his mind. “What did you talk about?
Did he say anything about--Did he--He always was a terrible liar. Nobody
ever believed Wolf Struve.”
Without understanding the reason for it, she could see that he was
uneasy, that he was trying to discount the value of anything the convict
might have told her. Yet what could Struve the convict, No. 9,432, have
to do with the millionaire mine-owner, Thomas J. Dunke? What could there
be in common between them? Why should the latter fear what the other had
to tell? The thing was preposterous on the face of it, but the girl knew
by some woman's instinct that she was on the edge of a secret Dunke held
hidden deep in his heart from all the world. Only this much she guessed;
that Struve was a sharer of his secret, and therefore he was set on
lynching the man before he had time to tell it.
“They got away, didn't they?” she asked.
“They got away--for the present,” he answered grimly. “But we're still
hunting them.”
“Can't you let the law take its course, Mr. Danke? Is it necessary to do
this terrible thing?”
“Don't you worry any about it, Miss Kinney. This ain't a woman's job.
I'll attend to it.”
“But my friends,” she reminded him.
“We ain't intending to hurt them any. Come, I'll see you home. You
staying at the hotel?”
“I don't know. I haven't made any arrangements yet.”
“Well, we'll go make them now.”
But she did not move. “I'm not going in till I know how this comes out.”
He was a man used to having his own brutal way, one strong by nature,
with strength increased by the money upon which he rode rough-shod to
success.
He laughed as he caught hold of the rein. “That's ridiculous!”
“But my business, I think,” the girl answered sharply, jerking the
bridle from his fingers.
Dunke stared at her. It was his night of surprises. He failed to
recognize the conventional teacher he knew in this bright-eyed,
full-throated young woman who fronted him so sure of herself. She seemed
to him to swim brilliantly in a tide of flushed beauty, in spite of the
dust and the stains of travel. She was in a shapeless khaki riding-suit
and a plain, gray, broad-brimmed Stetson. But the one could not hide
the flexible curves that made so frankly for grace, nor the other the
coppery tendrils that escaped in fascinating disorder from under its
brim.
“You hadn't ought to be out here. It ain't right.”
“I don't remember asking you to act as a standard of right and wrong for
me.”
He laughed awkwardly. “We ain't quarreling, are we, Miss Margaret?”
“Certainly I am not. I don't quarrel with anybody but my friends.”
“Well, I didn't aim to offend you anyway. You know me better than that.”
He let his voice fall into a caressing modulation and put a propitiatory
hand on her skirt, but under the uncompromising hardness of her gaze the
hand fell away to his side. “I'm your friend--leastways I want to be.”
“My friends don't lynch men.”
“But after what he did to your brother.”
“The law will take care of that. If you want to please me call off your
men before it is too late.”
It was his cue to please her, for so far as it was in him the man loved
her. He had set his strong will to trample on his past, to rise to a
place where no man could shake his security with proof of his former
misdeeds. He meant to marry her and to place her out of reach of those
evil days of his. Only Struve was left of the old gang, and he knew
the Wolf well enough to be sure that the fellow would delight in
blackmailing him. The convict's mouth must be closed. But just now he
must promise t she wanted, and he did.
The promise was still on his lips when a third person strode into their
conversation.
“Sorry I had to leave you so hastily, Miss Kinney. I'm ready to take you
to the hotel now if it suits you.”
Both of them turned quickly, to see the man from the Panhandle
sauntering forth from the darkness. There was a slight smile on his
face, which did not abate when he nodded to Dunke amiably.
“You?” exclaimed the mine-owner angrily.
“Why, yes--me. Hope we didn't inconvenience you, seh, by postponing the
coyote's journey to Kingdom Come. My friend had to take a hand because
he is a ranger, and I sat in to oblige him. No hard feelings, I hope.”
“Did you--Are you all safe?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, ma'am. Got away slick and clean.”
“Where?” barked Dunke.
“Where what, my friend?”
“Where did you take him?”
Larry laughed in slow deep enjoyment. “I hate to disappoint you, but if
I told that would be telling. No, I reckon I won't table my cards yet a
while. If you're playing in this game of Hi-Spy go to it and hunt.”
“Perhaps you don't know that I am T. J. Dunke.”
“You don't say! And I'm General Grant. This lady hyer is Florence
Nightingale or Martha Washington, I disremember which.”
Miss Kinney laughed. “Whichever she is she's very very tired,” she said.
“I think I'll accept your offer to see me to the hotel, Mr. Neill.”
She nodded a careless good night to the mine-owner, and touched the
horse with her heel. At the porch of the rather primitive hotel she
descended stiffly from the saddle.
Before she left the Southerner--or the Westerner, for sometimes she
classified him as one, sometimes as the other--she asked him one
hesitant question.
“Were you thinking of going out again tonight?”
“I did think of taking a turn out to see if I could find Fraser.
Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes. Please don't go. I don't want to have to worry about you. I have
had enough trouble for the present.”
“Would you worry about me?” he asked quietly, his eyes steadily on her.
“I lie awake about the most unaccountable things sometimes.”
He smiled in his slow Southern fashion. “Very well. I'll stay indoors.
I reckon Steve ain't lost, anyhow. You're too tired to have to lie awake
about me to-night. There's going to be lots of other nights for you to
think of me.”
She glanced at him with a quick curiosity. “Well, of all the conceit I
ever heard!”
“I'm the limit, ain't I?” he grinned as he took himself off.
CHAPTER IX -- DOWN THE JACKRABBIT SHAFT.
Next morning Larry got up so late that he had to Order a special
breakfast for himself, the dining-room being closed. He found one guest
there, however, just beginning her oatmeal, and he invited himself to
eat at her table.
“Good mawnin', Miss Kinney. You don't look like you had been lying awake
worrying about me,” he began by way of opening the conversation.
Nor did she. Youth recuperates quickly, and after a night's sound sleep
she was glowing with health and sweet vitality. He could see a flush
beat into the fresh softness of her flesh, but she lifted her dark
lashes promptly to meet him, and came to the sex duel gaily.
“I suppose you think I had to take a sleeping-powder to keep me from
it?” she flashed back.
“Oh, well, a person can dream,” he suggested.
“How did you know? But you are right. I did dream of you.”
To the waiter he gave his order before answering her. “Some oatmeal and
bacon and eggs. Yes, coffee. And some hot cakes, Charlie. Did you honest
dream about me?” This last not to the Chinese waiter who had padded
soft-footed to the kitchen.
“Yes.”
She smiled shyly at him with sweet innocence, and he drew his chair a
trifle closer.
“Tell me.”
“I don't like to.”
“But you must. Go on.”
“Well,” very reluctantly. “I dreamed I was visiting the penitentiary and
you were there in stripes. You were in for stealing a sheep, I think.
Yes, that was it, for stealing a sheep.”
“Couldn't you make it something more classy if you're bound to have me
in?” he begged, enjoying immensely the rise she was taking out of him.
“I have to tell it the way it was,” she insisted, her eyes bubbling with
fun. “And it seems you were the prison cook. First thing I knew you
were standing in front of a wall and two hundred of the prisoners were
shooting at you. They were using your biscuits as bullets.”
“That was a terrible revenge to take on me for baking them.”
“It seems you had your sheep with you--the one you stole, and you and it
were being pelted all over.”
“Did you see a lady hold-up among those shooting at me?” he inquired
anxiously.
She shook her head. “And just when the biscuits were flying thickest the
wall opened and Mr. Fraser appeared. He caught you and the sheep by
the back of your necks, and flung you in. Then the wall closed, and I
awoke.”
“That's about as near the facts as dreams usually get.”
He was very much pleased, for it would have been a great disappointment
to him if she had admitted dreaming about him for any reason except to
make fun of him. The thing about her that touched his imagination most
was something wild and untamed, some quality of silken strength in her
slim supple youth that scoffed at all men and knew none as master. He
meant to wrest from her if he could an interest that would set him apart
in her mind from all others, but he wanted the price of victory to cost
him something. Thus the value of it would be enhanced.
“But tell me about your escape--all about it and what became of
Lieutenant Fraser. And first of all, who the lady was that opened the
door for you,” she demanded.
“She was his sister.”
“Oh! His sister.” Her voice was colorless. She observed him without
appearing to do so. “Very pretty, I thought her. Didn't you?”
“Right nice looking. Had a sort of an expression made a man want to look
at her again.”
“Yes.”
Innocently unaware that he was being pumped, he contributed more
information. “And that game.”
“She was splendid. I can see her now opening the door in the face of the
bullets.”
“Never a scream out of her either. Just as cool.”
“That is the quality men admire most, isn't it--courage?”
“I don't reckon that would come first. Course it wouldn't make a hit
with a man to have a woman puling around all the time.”
“My kind, you mean.”
Though she was smiling at him with her lips, it came to him that his
words were being warped to a wrong meaning.
“No, I don't,” he retorted bluntly.
“As I remember it, I was bawling every chance I got yesterday and the
day before,” she recalled, with fine contempt of herself.
“Oh, well! You had reason a-plenty. And sometimes a woman cries just
like a man cusses. It don't mean anything. I once knew a woman wet her
handkerchief to a sop crying because her husband forgot one mo'ning to
kiss her good-by. She quit irrigating to run into a burning house after
a neighbor's kids.”
“I accept your apology for my behavior if you'll promise I won't do it
again,” she laughed. “But tell me more about Miss Fraser. Does she live
here?”
For a moment he was puzzled. “Miss Fraser! Oh! She gave up that name
several years ago. Mrs. Collins they call her. And say, you ought to see
her kiddies. You'd fall in love with them sure.”
The girl covered her mistake promptly with a little laugh. It would
never do for him to know she had been yielding to incipient jealousy.
“Why can't I know them? I want to meet her too.”
The door opened and a curly head was thrust in. “Dining-room closes for
breakfast at nine. My clock says it's ten-thirty now. Pretty near work
to keep eating that long, ain't it? And this Sunday, too! I'll have you
put in the calaboose for breaking the Sabbath.”
“We're only bending it,” grinned Neill. “Good mo'ning, Lieutenant. How
is Mrs. Collins, and the pickaninnies?”
“First rate. Waiting in the parlor to be introduced to Miss Kinney.”
“We're through,” announced Margaret, rising.
“You too, Tennessee? The proprietor will be grateful.”
The young women took to each other at once. Margaret was very fond of
children, and the little boy won her heart immediately. Both he and his
baby sister were well-trained, healthy, and lovable little folks, and
they adopted “Aunt Peggy” enthusiastically.
Presently the ranger proposed to Neill an adjournment.
“I got to take some breakfast down the Jackrabbit shaft to my prisoner.
Wanter take a stroll that way?” he asked.
“If the ladies will excuse us.”
“Glad to get rid of you,” Miss Kinney assured him promptly, but with a
bright smile that neutralized the effect of her sauciness. “Mrs. Collins
and I want to have a talk.”
The way to the Jackrabbit lay up a gulch behind the town. Up one incline
was a shaft-house with a great gray dump at the foot of it. This they
left behind them, climbing the hill till they came to the summit.
The ranger pointed to another shaft-house and dump on the next hillside.
“That's the Mal Pais, from which the district is named. Dunke owns it
and most of the others round here. His workings and ours come together
in several places, but we have boarded up the tunnels at those points
and locked the doors we put in. Wonder where Brown is? I told him to
meet me here to let us down.”
At this moment they caught sight of him coming up a timbered draw. He
lowered them into the shaft, which was about six hundred feet deep.
From the foot of the shaft went a tunnel into the heart of the mountain.
Steve led the way, flashing an electric searchlight as he went.
“We aren't working this part of the mine any more,” he explained. “It
connects with the newer workings by a tunnel. We'll go back that way to
the shaft.”
“You've got quite a safe prison,” commented the other.
“It's commodious, anyhow; and I reckon it's safe. If a man was to
get loose he couldn't reach the surface without taking somebody into
partner-ship with him. There ain't but three ways to daylight; one by
the shaft we came down, another by way of our shaft-house, and the third
by Dunke's, assuming he could break through into the Mal Pais. He'd
better not break loose and go to wandering around. There are seventeen
miles of workings down here in the Jackrabbit, let alone the Mal Pais.
He might easily get lost and starve to death. Here he is at the end of
this tunnel.”
Steve flashed the light twice before he could believe his eyes. There
was no sign of Struve except the handcuffs depending from an iron chain
connected by a heavy staple with the granite wall. Apparently he had
somehow managed to slip from the gyves by working at them constantly.
The officer turned to his friend and laughed. “I reckon I'm holding the
sack this time. See. There's blood on these cuffs. He rasped his hands
some before he got them out.”
“Well, you've still got him safe down here somewhere.”
“Yes, I have or Dunke has. The trouble is both the mines are shut down
just now. He's got about forty miles of tunnel to play hide-and-go-seek
in. He's in luck if he doesn't starve to death.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I'll have to get some of my men out on search-parties--just tell them
there's a man lost down here without telling them who. I reckon we
better say nothing about it to the ladies. You know how tender-hearted
they are. Nellie wouldn't sleep a wink to-night for worrying.”
“All right. We'd better get to it at once then.”
Fraser nodded. “We'll go up and rustle a few of the boys that know the
mine well. I expect before we find him Mr. Wolf Struve will be a lamb
and right anxious for the shepherd to arrive.”
All day the search proceeded without results, and all of the next day.
The evening of this second day found Struve still not accounted for.
CHAPTER X -- IN A TUNNEL OF THE MAL PAIS
Although Miss Kinney had assured Neill that she was glad to be rid of
him it occurred to her more than once in the course of the day that
he was taking her a little too literally. On Sunday she did not see a
glimpse of him after he left. At lunch he did not appear, nor was he
in evidence at dinner. Next morning she learned that he had been to
breakfast and had gone before she got down. She withheld judgment till
lunch, being almost certain that he would be on hand to that meal. His
absence roused her resentment and her independence. If he didn't care to
see her she certainly did not want to see him. She was not going to sit
around and wait for him to take her down into the mine he had promised
she should see. Let him forget his appointment if he liked. He would
wait a long time before she made any more engagements with him.
About this time Dunke began to flatter himself that he had made an
impression. Miss Kinney was all smiles. She was graciously pleased to
take a horseback ride over the camp with him, nor did he know that
her roving eye was constantly on the lookout for a certain spare,
clean-built figure she could recognize at a considerable distance by the
easy, elastic tread. Monday evening the mine-owner called upon her and
Mrs. Collins, whose brother also was among the missing, and she was
delighted to accept his invitation to go through the Mal Pais workings
with him.
“That is, if Mrs. Collins will go, too,” she added as an afterthought.
That young woman hesitated. Though this man had led his miners against
her brother, she was ready to believe the attack not caused by personal
enmity. The best of feeling did not exist between the owners of the
Jackrabbit and those of the Mal Pais. Dunke was suspected of boldly
crossing into the territory of his neighbor where his veins did not
lead. But there had been no open rupture. For the very reason that an
undertow of feeling existed Nellie consented to join the party. She did
not want by a refusal to put into words a hostility that he had always
carefully veiled. She was in the position of not wanting to go at all,
yet wanting still less to decline to do so.
“I shall be glad to go,” she said.
“Fine. We'll start about nine, or nine-thirty say. I'll drive up in a
surrey.”
“And we'll have lunch for the party put up at the hotel here. I'll get
some fruit to take along,” said Margaret.
“We'll make a regular picnic of it,” added Dunke heartily. “You'll enjoy
eating out of a dinner-pail for once just like one of my miners, Miss
Kinney.”
After he had gone Margaret mentioned to Mrs. Collins her feeling
concerning him. “I don't really like him. Or rather I don't give him my
full confidence. He seems pleasant enough, too.” She laughed a little as
she added: “You know he does me the honor to admire me.”
“Yes, I know that. I was wondering how you felt about it.”
“How ought one to feel about one of the great mining kings of the West?”
“Has that anything to do with it, my dear? I mean his being a mining
king?” asked Mrs. Collins gently.
Margaret went up to her and kissed her. “You're a romantic little thing.
That's because you probably married a heaven-sent man. We can't all be
fortunate.”
“We none of us need to marry where we don't love.”
“Goodness me! I'm not thinking of marrying Mr. Dunke's millions. The
only thing is that I don't have a Croesus to exhibit every day at my
chariot wheels. It's horrid of course, but I have a natural feminine
reluctance to surrendering him all at once. I don't object in the least
to trampling on him, but somehow I don't feel ready for his declaration
of independence.”
“Oh, if that's all!” her friend smiled.
“That's quite all.”
“Perhaps you prefer Texans who come from the Panhandle.”
Mrs. Collins happened to be looking straight at her out of her big brown
eyes. Wherefore she could not help observing the pink glow that deepened
in the soft cheeks.
“He hasn't preferred me much lately.”
Nellie knitted her brow in perplexity. “I don't understand. Steve's been
away, too, nearly all the time. Something is going on that we don't know
about.”
“Not that I care. Mr. Neill is welcome to stay away.”
Her new friend shot a swift slant look at her. “I don't suppose you
trample on him much.”
Margaret flushed. “No, I don't. It's the other way. I never saw anybody
so rude. He does not seem to have any saving sense of the proper thing.”
“He's a man, dearie, and a good one. He may be untrammeled by
convention, but he is clean and brave. He has eyes that look through
cowardice and treachery, fine strong eyes that are honest and unafraid.”
“Dear me, you must have studied them a good deal to see all that in
them,” said Miss Peggy lightly, yet pleased withal.
“My dear,” reproached her friend, so seriously that Peggy repented.
“I didn't really mean it,” she laughed. “I've heard already on good
authority that you see no man's eyes except the handsome ones in the
face of Mr. Tim Collins.”
“I do think Tim has fine eyes,” blushed the accused.
“No doubt of it. Since you have been admiring my young man I must praise
yours,” teased Miss Kinney.
“Am I to wish you joy? I didn't know he was your young man,” flashed
back the other.
“I understand that you have been trying to put him off on me.”
“You'll find he does not need any 'putting off' on anybody.”
“At least, he has a good friend in you. I think I'll tell him, so that
when he does condescend to become interested in a young woman he may
refer her to you for a recommendation.”
The young wife borrowed for the occasion some of Miss Peggy's audacity.
“I'm recommending him to that young woman now, my dear,” she made
answer.
Dunke's party left for the mine on schedule time, Water-proof coats and
high lace-boots had been borrowed for the ladies as a protection against
the moisture they were sure to meet in the tunnels one thousand feet
below the ground. The mine-owner had had the hoisting-engine started for
the occasion, and the cage took them down as swiftly and as smoothly
as a metropolitan elevator. Nevertheless Margaret clung tightly to
her friend, for if was her first experience of the kind. She had never
before dropped nearly a quarter of a mile straight down into the heart
of the earth and she felt a smothered sensation, a sense of danger
induced by her unaccustomed surroundings. It is the unknown that awes,
and when she first stepped from the cage and peered down the long, low
tunnel through which a tramway ran she caught her breath rather quickly.
She had an active imagination, and she conjured cave-ins, explosions,
and all the other mine horrors she had read about.
Their host had spared no expense to make the occasion a gala one.
Electric lights were twinkling at intervals down the tunnel, and an
electric ore-car with a man in charge was waiting to run them into the
workings nearly a mile distant. Dunke dealt out candles and assisted his
guests into the car, which presently carried them deep into the mine.
Margaret observed that the timbered sides of the tunnel leaned inward
slightly and that the roof was heavily cross-timbered.
“It looks safe,” she thought aloud.
“It's safe enough,” returned Dunke carelessly. “The place for cave-ins
is at the head of the workings, before we get drifts timbered.”
“Are we going into any of those places?”
“I wouldn't take you into any place that wasn't safe, Miss Margaret.”
“Is it always so dreadfully warm down here?” she asked.
“You must remember we're somewhere around a thousand feet in the heart
of the earth. Yes, it's always warm.”
“I don't see how the men stand it and work.”
“Oh, they get used to it.”
They left the car and followed a drift which took them into a region of
perpetual darkness, into which the electric lights did not penetrate.
Margaret noticed that her host carried his candle with ease, holding
it at an angle that gave the best light and most resistance to the
air, while she on her part had much ado to keep hers from going out.
Frequently she had to stop and let the tiny flame renew its hold on the
base of supplies. So, without his knowing it, she fell behind gradually,
and his explanations of stopes, drifts, air-drills, and pay-streaks fell
only upon the already enlightened ears of Mrs. Collins.
The girl had been picking her way through some puddles of water that had
settled on the floor, and when she looked up the lights of those ahead
had disappeared. She called to them faintly and hurried on, appalled
at the thought of possibly losing them in these dreadful underground
catacombs where Stygian night forever reigned. But her very hurry
delayed her, for in her haste the gust of her motion swept out the
flame. She felt her way forward along the wall, in a darkness such as
she had never conceived before. Nor could she know that by chance she
was following the wrong wall. Had she chosen the other her hand must
have come to a break in it which showed that a passage at that point
deflected from the drift toward the left. Unconsciously she passed this,
already frightened but resolutely repressing her fear.
“I'll not let them know what an idiot I am. I'll not! I'll not!” she
told herself.
Therefore she did not call yet, thinking she must come on them at any
moment, unaware that every step was taking her farther from the gallery
into which they had turned. When at last she cried out it was too late.
The walls hemmed in her cry and flung it back tauntingly to her--the
damp walls against which she crouched in terror of the subterranean
vault in which she was buried. She was alone with the powers of
darkness, with the imprisoned spirits of the underworld that fought
inarticulately against the audacity of the puny humans who dared venture
here. So her vivid imagination conceived it, terrorizing her against
both will and reason.
How long she wandered, a prey to terror, calling helplessly in the
blackness, she did not know. It seemed to her that she must always
wander so, a perpetual prisoner condemned to this living grave. So that
it was with a distinct shock of glad surprise she heard a voice answer
faintly her calls. Calling and listening alternately, she groped her way
in the direction of the sounds, and so at last came plump against the
figure of the approaching rescuer.
“Who is it?” a hoarse voice demanded.
But before she could answer a match flared and was held close to her
face. The same light that revealed her to him told the girl who this man
was that had met her alone a million miles from human aid. The haggard,
drawn countenance with the lifted upper lip and the sunken eyes that
glared into hers belonged to the convict Nick Struve.
The match went out before either of them spoke.
“You--you here!” she exclaimed, and was oddly conscious that her relief
at meeting even him had wiped out for the present her fear of the man.
“For God's sake, have you got anything to eat?” he breathed thickly.
It had been part of the play that each member of their little party
should carry a dinner-pail just like an ordinary miner. Wherefore she
had hers still in her hand.
“Yes, and I have a candle here. Have you another match?”
He lit the candle with a shaking hand.
“Gimme that bucket,” he ordered gruffly, and began to devour ravenously
the food he found in it, tearing at sandwiches and gulping them down
like a hungry dog.
“What day is this?” he stopped to ask after he had stayed the first
pangs.
She told him Tuesday.
“I ain't eaten since Saturday,” he told her. “I figured it was a week.
There ain't any days in this place--nothin' but night. Can't tell one
from another.”
“It's terrible,” she agreed.
His appetite was wolfish. She could see that he was spent, so weak
with hunger that he had reeled against the wall as she handed him
the dinner-pail. Pallor was on the sunken face, and exhaustion in the
trembling hands and unsteady gait.
“I'm about all in, what with hunger and all I been through. I thought I
was out of my head when I heard you holler.” He snatched up the candle
from the place where he had set it and searched her face by its flame.
“How come you down here? You didn't come alone. What you doin' here?” he
demanded suspiciously.
“I came down with Mr. Dunke and a friend to look over his mine. I had
never been in one before.”
“Dunke!” A spasm of rage swept the man's face. “You're a friend of his,
are you? Where is he? If you came with him how come you to be roaming
around alone?”
“I got lost. Then my light went out.”
“So you're a friend of Dunke, that damned double-crosser! He's a
millionaire, you think, a big man in this Western country. That's what
he claims, eh?” Struve shook a fist into the air in a mad burst of
passion. “Just watch me blow him higher'n a kite. I know what he is, and
I got proof. The Judas! I keep my mug shut and do time while he gets off
scot-free and makes his pile. But you listen to me, ma'am. Your friend
ain't nothin' but an outlaw. If he got his like I got mine he'd be at
Yuma to-day. Your brother could a-told you. Dunke was at the head of the
gang that held up that train. We got nabbed, me and Jim. Burch got
shot in the Catalinas by one of the rangers, and Smith died of fever in
Sonora. But Dunke, curse him, he sneaks out and buys the officers off
with our plunder. That's what he done--let his partners get railroaded
through while he sails out slick and easy. But he made one mistake, Mr.
Dunke did. He wrote me a letter and told me to keep mum and he would
fix it for me to get out in a few months. I believed him, kept my mouth
padlocked, and served seven years without him lifting a hand for me.
Then, when I make my getaway he tries first off to shut my mouth by
putting me out of business. That's what your friend done, ma'am.”
“Is this true?” asked the girl whitely.
“So help me God, every word of it.”
“He let my brother go to prison without trying to help him?”
“Worse than that. He sent him to prison. Jim was all right when he first
met up with Dunke. It was Dunke that got him into his wild ways and
led him into trouble. It was Dunke took him into the hold-up business.
Hadn't been for him Jim never would have gone wrong.”
She made no answer. Her mind was busy piecing out the facts of her
brother's misspent life. As a little girl she remembered her big brother
before he went away, good-natured, friendly, always ready to play with
her. She was sure he had not been bad, only fatally weak. Even this man
who had slain him was ready to testify to that.
She came back from her absorption to find Struve outlining what he meant
to do.
“We'll go back this passage along the way you came. I want to find
Mr. Dunke. I allow I've got something to tell him he will be right
interested in hearing.”
He picked up the candle and led the way along the tunnel. Margaret
followed him in silence.
CHAPTER XI -- THE SOUTHERNER TAKES A RISK
The convict shambled forward through the tunnel till he came to a drift
which ran into it at a right angle.
“Which way now?” he demanded.
“I don't know.”
“Don't know,” he screamed. “Didn't you just come along here? Do you want
me to get lost again in this hell-hole?”
The stricken fear leaped into his face. He had forgotten her danger,
forgotten everything but the craven terror that engulfed him. Looking at
him, she was struck for the first time with the thought that he might be
on the verge of madness.
His cry still rang through the tunnel when Margaret saw a gleam of
distant light. She pointed it out to Struve, who wheeled and fastened
his eyes upon it. Slowly the faint yellow candle-rays wavered toward
them. A man was approaching through the gloom, a large man whom she
presently recognized as Dunke. A quick gasp from the one beside her
showed that he too knew the man. He took a dozen running steps forward,
so that in his haste the candle flickered out.
“That you, Miss Margaret?” the mine-owner called.
Neither she nor Struve answered. The latter had stopped and was waiting
tensely his enemy's approach. When he was within a few yards of the
other Dunke raised his candle and peered into the blackness ahead of
him.
“What's the matter? Isn't it you, Miss Peggy?”
“No, it ain't. It's your old pal, Nick Struve. Ain't you glad to see
him, Joe?”
Dunke looked him over without a word. His thin lips set and his gaze
grew wall-eyed. The candle passed from right to left hand.
Struve laughed evilly. “No, I'm not going to pay you that way--not yet;
nor you ain't going to rid yourself of me either. Want to know why, Mr.
Millionaire Dunke, what used to be my old pal? Want to know why it ain't
going to do you any good to drop that right hand any closeter to your
hip pocket?”
Still Dunke said nothing, but the candle-glow that lit his face showed
an ugly expression.
“Don't you whip that gun out, Joe Dunke. Don't you! 'Cause why? If you
do you're a goner.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I kept the letter you wrote me seven years ago, and have
put it where it will do you no good if anything happens to me. That's
why you won't draw that gun, Joe Dunke. If you do it will send you
to Yuma. Millionaire you may be, but that won't keep you from wearing
stripes.”
Struve's voice rang exultantly. From the look in the face of his old
comrade in crime who had prospered at his expense, as he chose to think,
he saw that for the time being he had got the whip-hand.
There was a long silence before Dunke asked hoarsely:
“What do you want?”
“I want you to hide me. I want you to get me out of this country. I want
you to divvy up with me. Didn't we grub-stake you with the haul from the
Overland? Don't we go share and share alike, the two of us that's left?
Ain't that fair and square? You wouldn't want to do less than right by
an old pal, cap, you that are so respectable and proper now. You ain't
forgot the man that lay in the ditch with you the night we held up the
flyer, the man that rode beside you when you shot--”
“For God's sake don't rake up forgotten scrapes. We were all young
together then. I'll do what's right by you, but you got to keep your
mouth shut and let me manage this.”
“The way you managed it before when you let me rot at Yuma seven years,”
jeered Struve.
“I couldn't help it. They were on my trail and I had to lie low. I tell
you I'll pull you through if you do as I say.”
“And I tell you I don't believe a word you say. You double-crossed me
before and you will again if you get a chance. I'll not let you out of
my sight.”
“Don't be a fool, Nick. How can I help you if I can't move around to
make the arrangements for running you across the line?”
“And what guarantee have I got you ain't making arrangements to have me
scragged? Think I'm forgetting Saturday night?”
The girl in the blackness without the candle-shine moved slightly.
“What's that?” asked Dunke, startled.
“What's what?”
“That noise. Some one moved.”
Dunke's revolver came swiftly from his pocket.
“I reckon it must a-been the girl.”
“What girl? Miss Kinney?”
Dunke's hard eyes fastened on the other like steel augers.
Margaret came forward and took wraithlike shape.
“I want you to take me to Mrs. Collins, Mr. Dunke,” she said.
The steel probes shifted from Struve to her.
“What did you hear, Miss Kinney? This man is a storehouse of lies. I let
him run on to see how far he would go.”
Struve's harsh laugh filled the tunnel.
“Take me to Mrs. Collins,” she reiterated wearily.
“Not till I know what you heard,” answered Dunke doggedly.
“I heard everything,” she avowed boldly. “The whole wretched, miserable
truth.”
She would have pushed past him, but he caught her arm.
“Let me go!”
“I tell you it's all a mistake. I can explain it. Give me time.”
“I won't listen, I want never to see either of you again. What have
I ever done that I should be mixed up with such men?” she cried, with
bitter despair.
“Don't go off half-cocked. 'Course I'll take you to Mrs. Collins if you
like. But you got to listen to what I say.”
Another candle glimmered dimly in the tunnel and came toward them. It
presently stopped, and a voice rolled along the vault.
“Hello, there!”
Margaret would have known that voice anywhere among a thousand. Now it
came to her sweet as water after a drought. She slipped past Dunke and
ran stumbling through the darkness to its source.
“Mr. Neill! Mr. Neill!”
The pitiful note in her voice, which he recognized instantly, stirred
him to the core. Astonished that she should be in the mine and in
trouble, he dashed forward, and his candle went out in the rush. Groping
in the darkness her hands encountered his. His arms closed round
her, and in her need of protection that brushed aside conventions and
non-essentials, the need that had spoken in her cry of relief, in her
hurried flight to him, she lay panting and trembling in his arms. He
held her tight, as one who would keep his own against the world.
“How did you get here--what has happened?” he demanded.
Hurriedly she explained.
“Oh, take me away, take me away!” she concluded, nestling to him with no
thought now of seeking to disguise her helpless dependence upon him,
of hiding from herself the realization that he was the man into whose
keeping destiny had ordained that she was to give her heart.
“All right, honey. You're sure all safe now,” he said tenderly, and in
the blackness his lips sought and met hers in a kiss that sealed the
understanding their souls had reached.
At the sound of Neill's voice Dunke had extinguished the candle and
vanished in the darkness with Struve, the latter holding him by the arm
in a despairing grip. Neill shouted again and again, as he relighted his
candle, but there came no answer to his calls.
“We had better make for the shaft,” he said.
They set out on the long walk to the opening that led up to the light
and the pure air. For a while they walked on in silence. At last he took
her hand and guided her fingers across the seam on his wrist.
“It don't seem only four days since you did that, honey,” he murmured.
“Did I do that?” Her voice was full of self-reproach, and before he
could stop her she lifted his hand and kissed the welt.
“Don't, sweet. I deserved what I got and more. I'm ready with that
apology you didn't want then, Peggy.”
“But I don't want it now, either. I won't have it. Didn't I tell you
I wouldn't? Besides,” she added, with a little leap of laughter in her
voice, “why should you ask pardon for kissing the girl you were meant
to--to----”
He finished it for her.
“To marry, Peggy. I didn't know it then, but I knew it before you said
good-by with your whip.”
“And I didn't know it till next morning,” she said.
“Did you know it then, when you were so mean to me?”
“That was why I was so mean to you. I had to punish myself and you
because I--liked you so well.”
She buried her face shyly in his coat to cover this confession.
It seemed easy for both of them to laugh over nothing in the exuberance
of their common happiness. His joy pealed now delightedly.
“I can't believe it--that four days ago you wasn't on the earth for me.
Seems like you always belonged; seems like I always enjoyed your sassy
ways.”
“That's just the way I feel about you. It's really scandalous that in
less than a week--just a little more than half a week--we should be
engaged. We are engaged, aren't we?”
“Very much.”
“Well, then--it sounds improper, but it isn't the least bit. It's right.
Isn't it?”
“It ce'tainly is.”
“But you know I've always thought that people who got engaged so soon
are the same kind of people that correspond through matrimonial papers.
I didn't suppose it would ever happen to me.”
“Some right strange things happen while a person is alive, Peggy.”
“And I don't really know anything at all about you except that you say
your name is Larry Neill. Maybe you are married already.”
She paused, startled at the impossible thought.
“It must have happened before I can remember, then,” he laughed.
“Or engaged. Very likely you have been engaged a dozen times. Southern
people do, they say.”
“Then I'm an exception.”
“And me--you don't know anything about me.”
“A fellow has to take some risk or quit living,” he told her gaily.
“When you think of my temper doesn't it make you afraid?”
“The samples I've had were surely right exhilarating,” he conceded. “I'm
expecting enough difference of opinion to keep life interesting.”
“Well, then, if you won't be warned you'll just have to take me and risk
it.”
And she slipped her arm into his and held up her lips for the kiss
awaiting her.
CHAPTER XII -- EXIT DUNKE
Dunke plowed back through the tunnel in a blind whirl of passion. Rage,
chagrin, offended vanity, acute disappointment, all blended with a
dull heartache to which he was a stranger. He was a dangerous man in
a dangerous mood, and so Wolf Struve was likely to discover. But the
convict was not an observant man. His loose upper lip lifted in the ugly
sneer to which it was accustomed.
“Got onto you, didn't she?”
Dunke stuck his candle in a niche of the ragged granite wall, strode
across to his former partner in crime, and took the man by the throat.
“I'll learn you to keep that vile tongue of yours still,” he said
between set teeth, and shook the hapless man till he was black in the
face.
Struve hung, sputtering and coughing, against the wall where he had been
thrown. It was long before he could do more than gasp.
“What--what did you do--that for?” His furtive ratlike face looked
venomous in its impotent anger. “I'll pay you for this--and don't
you--forget it, Joe Dunke!”
“You'd shoot me in the back the way you did Jim Kinney if you got a
chance. I know that; but you see you won't get a chance.”
“I ain't looking for no such chance. I--”
“That's enough. I don't have to stand for your talk even if I do have to
take care of you. Light your candle and move along this tunnel lively.”
Something in Dunke's eye quelled the rebellion the other contemplated.
He shuffled along, whining as he went that he would never have looked
for his old pal to treat him so. They climbed ladders to the next level,
passed through an empty stope, and stopped at the end of a drift.
“I'll arrange to get you out of here to-night and have you run across
the line. I'm going to give you three hundred dollars. That's the last
cent you'll ever get out of me. If you ever come back to this country
I'll see that you're hanged as you deserve.”
With that Dunke turned on his heel and was gone. But his contempt for
the ruffian he had cowed was too fearless. He would have thought so
if he could have known of the shadow that dogged his heels through the
tunnel, if he could have seen the bare fangs that had gained Struve
his name of “Wolf,” if he could have caught the flash of the knife that
trembled in the eager hand. He did not know that, as he shot up in the
cage to the sunlight, the other was filling the tunnel with imprecations
and wild threats, that he was hugging himself with the promise of a
revenge that should be sure and final.
Dunke went about the task of making the necessary arrangements
personally. He had his surrey packed with food, and about eleven o'clock
drove up to the mine and was lowered to the ninth level. An hour later
he stepped out of the cage with a prisoner whom he kept covered with a
revolver.
“It's that fellow Struve,” he explained to the astonished engineer in
the shaft-house. “I found him down below. It seems that Fraser took
him down the Jackrabbit and he broke loose and worked through to our
ground.”
“Do you want any help in taking him downtown, sir? Shall I phone for the
marshal?”
His boss laughed scornfully.
“When I can't handle one man after I've got him covered I'll let you
know, Johnson.”
The two men went out into the starlit night and got into the surrey. The
play with the revolver had hitherto been for the benefit of Johnson,
but it now became very real. Dunke jammed the rim close to the other's
temple.
“I want that letter I wrote you. Quick, by Heaven! No fairy-tales, but
the letter!”
“I swear, Joe--”
“The letter, you villain! I know you never let it go out of your
possession. Give it up! Quick!”
Struve's hand stole to his breast, came out slowly to the edge of his
coat, then leaped with a flash of something bright toward the other's
throat. Simultaneously the revolver rang out. A curse, the sound of
a falling body, and the frightened horses leaped forward. The wheels
slipped over the edge of the narrow mountain road, and surrey, horses,
and driver plunged a hundred feet down to the sharp, broken rocks below.
Johnson, hearing the shot, ran out and stumbled over a body lying in
the road. By the bright moonlight he could see that it was that of his
employer. The surrey was nowhere in sight, but he could easily make
out where it had slipped over the precipice. He ran back into the
shaft-house and began telephoning wildly to town.
CHAPTER XIII -- STEVE OFFERS CONGRATULATIONS
When Fraser reached the dining-room for breakfast his immediate family
had finished and departed. He had been up till four o'clock and his
mother had let him sleep as long as he would. Now, at nine, he was up
again and fresh as a daisy after a morning bath.
He found at the next table two other late breakfasters.
“Mo'ning, Miss Kinney. How are you, Tennessee?” he said amiably.
Both Larry and the young woman admitted good health, the latter so
blushingly that Steve's keen eyes suggested to him that he might not be
the only one with news to tell this morning.
“What's that I hear about Struve and Dunke?” asked Neill at once.
“Oh, you've heard it. Well, it's true. I judge Dunke was arranging to
get him out of the country. Anyhow, Johnson says he took the fellow
out to his surrey from the shaft-house of the Mal Pais under his gun.
A moment later the engineer heard a shot and ran out. Dunke lay in the
road dead, with a knife through his heart. We found the surrey down in
the canyon. It had gone over the edge of the road. Both the hawsses were
dead, and Struve had disappeared. How the thing happened I reckon never
will be known unless the convict tells it. My guess would be that Dunke
attacked him and the convict was just a little bit more than ready for
him.”
“Have you any idea where Struve is?”
“The obvious guess would be that he is heading for Mexico. But I've got
another notion. He knows that's where we will be looking for him.
His record shows that he used to trail with a bunch of outlaws up in
Wyoming. That was most twenty years ago. His old pals have disappeared
long since. But he knows that country up there. He'll figure that down
here he's sure to be caught and hanged sooner or later. Up there he'll
have a chance to hide under another name.”
Neill nodded. “That's a big country up there and the mountains are full
of pockets. If he can reach there he will be safe.”
“Maybe,” the ranger amended quietly.
“Would you follow him?”
The officer's opaque gaze met the eyes of his friend. “We don't aim to
let a prisoner make his getaway once we get our hands on him. Wyoming
ain't so blamed far to travel after him--if I learn he is there.”
For a moment all of them were silent. Each of them was thinking of the
fellow and the horrible trail of blood he had left behind him in one
short week. Margaret looked at her lover and shuddered. She had not the
least doubt that this man sitting opposite them would bring the criminal
back to his punishment, but the sinister grotesque shadow of the convict
seemed to fall between her and her happiness.
Larry caught her hand under the table and gave it a little pressure of
reassurance. He spoke in a low voice. “This hasn't a thing to do with
us, Peggy--not a thing. They were already both out of your life.”
“Yes, I know, but--”
“There aren't any buts.” He smiled warmly, and his smile took the other
man into their confidence. “You've been having a nightmare. That's past.
See the sunshine on those hills. It's bright mo'ning, girl. A new day
for you and for me.”
Steve grinned. “This is awful sudden, Tennessee. You must a-been sawing
wood right industrious on the hawssback ride and down in the tunnel. I
expect there wasn't any sunshine down there, was there?”
“You go to grass, Steve.”
“No, Tennessee is ce'tainly no two-bit man. Lemme see.
One--two--three--four days. That's surely going some,” the ranger
soliloquized.
“Mr. Fraser,” the young woman reproved with a blush.
“Don't mind him, Peggy. He's merely jealous,” came back Larry.
“Course I'm jealous. Whyfor not? What license have these Panhandle guys
to come in and tote off our girls? But don't mind me. I'll pay strict
attention to my ham and eggs and not see a thing that's going on.”
“Lieutenant!” Miss Margaret was both embarrassed and shocked.
“Want me to shut my eyes, Tennessee?”
“Next time we get engaged you'll not be let in on the ground floor,”
Neill predicted.
“Four days! My, my! If that ain't rapid transit for fair!”
“You're a man of one idea, Steve. Cayn't you see that the fact's the
main thing, not the time it took to make it one?”
“And counting out Sunday and Monday, it only leaves two days.”
“Don't let that interfere with your breakfast. You haven't been elected
timekeeper for this outfit, you know!”
Fraser recovered from his daze and duly offered congratulations to the
one and hopes for unalloyed joy to the other party to the engagement.
“But four days!” he added in his pleasant drawl. “That's sure some
precipitous. Just to look at him, ma'am”--this innocently to Peggy--“a
man wouldn't think he had it in him to locate, stake out, and do the
necessary assessment work on such a rich claim as the Margaret Kinney
all in four days. Mostly a fellow don't strike such high-grade ore
without a lot of--”
“That will do for you, lieutenant,” interrupted Miss Kinney, with merry,
sparkling eyes. “You needn't think we're going to let you trail this off
into a compliment now. I'm going to leave you and see what Mrs. Collins
says. She won't sit there and parrot 'Four days' for the rest of her
life.”
With which Mistress Peggy sailed from the room in mock hauteur.
When Larry came back from closing the door after her, his friend fell
upon him with vigorous hands to the amazement of Wun Hop, the waiter.
“You blamed lucky son of a gun,” he cried exuberantly between punches.
“You've ce'tainly struck pure gold, Tennessee. Looks like Old Man Good
Luck has come home to roost with you, son.”
The other, smiling, shook hands with him. “I'm of that opinion myself,
Steve,” he said.
PART II -- THE GIRL OF LOST VALLEY
CHAPTER I -- IN THE FIRE ZONE
“Say, you Teddy hawss, I'm plumb fed up with sagebrush and scenery. I
kinder yearn for co'n bread and ham. I sure would give six bits for a
drink of real wet water. Yore sentiments are similar, I reckon, Teddy.”
The Texan patted the neck of his cow pony, which reached round playfully
and pretended to nip his leg. They understood each other, and were now
making the best of a very unpleasant situation. Since morning they had
been lost on the desert. The heat of midday had found them plowing
over sandy wastes. The declining sun had left them among the foothills,
wandering from one to another, in the vain hope that each summit
might show the silvery gleam of a windmill, or even that outpost
of civilization, the barb-wire fence. And now the stars looked down
indifferently, myriads of them, upon the travelers still plodding
wearily through a land magically transformed by moonlight to a silvery
loveliness that blotted out all the garish details of day.
The Texan drew rein. “We all been discovering that Wyoming is a powerful
big state. Going to feed me a cigarette, Teddy. Too bad a hawss cayn't
smoke his troubles away,” he drawled, and proceeded to roll a cigarette,
lighting it with one sweeping motion of his arm, that passed down the
leg of his chaps and ended in the upward curve at his lips.
The flame had not yet died, when faintly through the illimitable velvet
night there drifted to him a sound.
“Did you hear that, pardner?” the man demanded softly, listening
intently for a repetition of it.
It came presently, from away over to the left, and, after it, what might
have been taken for the popping of a distant bunch of firecrackers.
“Celebrating the Fourth some premature, looks like. What? Think not,
Teddy! Some one getting shot up? Sho! You are romancin', old hawss.”
Nevertheless he swung the pony round and started rapidly in the
direction of the shots. From time to time there came a renewal of them,
though the intervals grew longer and the explosions were now individual
ones. He took the precaution to draw his revolver from the holster and
to examine it carefully.
“Nothing like being sure. It's a heap better than being sorry
afterward,” he explained to the cow pony.
For the first time in twelve hours, he struck a road. Following this
as it wound up to the summit of a hill, he discovered that the area of
disturbance was in the valley below. For, as he began his descent, there
was a flash from a clump of cotton-woods almost at his feet.
“Did yo' git him?” a voice demanded anxiously.
“Don't know, dad,” the answer came, young, warm, and tremulous.
“Hello! There's a kid there,” the Texan decided. Aloud, he asked
quietly: “What's the row, gentlemen?”
One of the figures whirled--it was the boyish one, crouched behind a
dead horse--and fired at him.
“Hold on, sonny! I'm a stranger. Don't make any more mistakes like
that.”
“Who are you?”
“Steve Fraser they call me. I just arrived from Texas. Wait a jiff, and
I'll come down and explain.”
He stayed for no permission, but swung from the saddle, trailed the
reins, and started down the slope. He could hear a low-voiced colloquy
between the two dark figures, and one of them called roughly:
“Hands up, friend! We'll take no chances on yo'.”
The Texan's hands went up promptly, just as a bullet flattened itself
against a rock behind him. It had been fired from the bank of the dry
wash, some hundred and fifty yards away.
“That's no fair! Both sides oughtn't to plug at me,” he protested,
grinning.
The darkness which blurred detail melted as Fraser approached, and the
moonlight showed him a tall, lank, unshaven old mountaineer, standing
behind a horse, his shotgun thrown across the saddle.
“That's near enough, Mr. Fraser from Texas,” said the old man, in a slow
voice that carried the Southern intonation. “This old gun is loaded with
buckshot, and she scatters like hell. Speak yore little piece. How came
yo' here, right now?”
“I got lost in the Wind River bad lands this mo'ning, and I been playing
hide and go seek with myself ever since.”
“Where yo' haided for?”
“Gimlet Butte.”
“Huh! That's right funny, too.”
“Why?”
“Because all yo' got to do to reach the butte is to follow this road and
yore nose for about three miles.”
A bullet flung up a spurt of sand beside the horse.
The young fellow behind the dead horse broke in, with impatient alarm:
“He's all right, dad. Can't you tell by his way of talking that he's
from the South? Make him lie down.”
Something sweet and vibrant in the voice lingered afterward in the
Texan's mind almost like a caress, but at the time he was too busy to
think of this. He dropped behind a cottonwood, and drew his revolver.
“How many of them are there?” he asked of the lad, in a whisper.
“About six, I think. I'm sorry I shot at you.”
“What's the row?”
“They followed us out of Gimlet Butte. They've been drinking. Isn't that
some one climbing up the side of the ridge?”
“I believe it is. Let me have your rifle, kid.”
“What for?” The youngster took careful aim, and fired.
A scream from the sagebrush--just one, and then no more.
“Bully for you', Arlie,” the old man said.
None of them spoke for some minutes, then Fraser heard a sob--a stifled
one, but unmistakable none the less.
“Don't be afraid, kid. We'll stand 'em off,” the Texan encouraged.
“I ain't afraid, but I--I----Oh, God, I've killed a man.”
The Texan stared at him, where he lay in the heavy shadows, shaken with
his remorse. “Holy smoke! Wasn't he aiming to kill you? He likely isn't
dead, anyhow. You got real troubles to worry about, without making up
any.”
He could see the youngster shaking with the horror of it, and could hear
the staccato sobs forcing themselves through the closed teeth. Something
about it, some touch of pathos he could not account for, moved his not
very accessible heart. After all, he was a slim little kid to be engaged
in such a desperate encounter Fraser remembered his own boyhood and the
first time he had ever seen bloodshed, and, recalling it, he slipped
across in the darkness and laid an arm across the slight shoulder.
“Don't you worry, kid. It's all right. You didn't mean--”
He broke off in swift, unspeakable amazement. His eye traveled up the
slender figure from the telltale skirt. This was no boy at all, but
a girl. As he took in the mass of blue-black hair and the soft but
clean-cut modeling from ear to chin, his hand fell from her shoulder.
What an idiot he had been not to know from the first that such a voice
could have come only from a woman! He had been deceived by the darkness
and by the slouch hat she wore. He wanted to laugh in sardonic scorn of
his perception.
But on the heel of that came a realization of her danger. He must get
her out of there at once, for he knew that the enemy must be circling
round, to take them on the flank too. It was not a question of whether
they could hold off the attackers. They might do that, and yet she
might be killed while they were doing it. A man used to coping with
emergencies, his brain now swiftly worked out a way of escape.
“Yore father and I will take care of these coyotes. You slip along those
shadows up the hill to where my Teddy hawss is, and burn the wind out of
here,” he told her.
“I'll not leave dad,” she said quickly.
The old mountaineer behind the horse laughed apologetically. “I been
trying to git her to go, but she won't stir. With the pinto daid, o'
course we couldn't both make it.”
“That's plumb foolishness,” the Texan commented irritably.
“Mebbe,” admitted the girl; “but I reckon I'll stay long as dad does.”
“No use being pigheaded about it.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “Is this your say-so, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is?”
she asked sharply, less because she resented what he said than because
she was strung to a wire edge.
His troubled gaze took in again her slim girlishness. The frequency of
danger had made him proof against fear for himself, but just now he was
very much afraid for her. Hard man as he was, he had the Southerner's
instinctive chivalry toward woman.
“You better go, Arlie,” her father counseled weakly.
“Well, I won't,” she retorted emphatically.
The old man looked whimsically at the Texan. “Yo' see yo'self how it is,
stranger.”
Fraser saw, and the girl's stanchness stirred his admiration even while
it irritated him. He made his decision immediately.
“All right. Both of you go.”
“But we have only one horse,” the girl objected. “They would catch us.”
“Take my Teddy.”
“And leave you here?” The dark eyes were full on him again, this time in
a wide-open surprise.
“Oh, I'll get out once you're gone. No trouble about that.”
“How?”
“We couldn't light out, and leave yo' here,” the father interrupted.
“Of course we couldn't,” the girl added quickly. “It isn't your quarrel,
anyhow.”
“What good can you do staying here?” argued Fraser. “They want you,
not me. With you gone, I'll slip away or come to terms with them. They
haven't a thing against me.”
“That's right,” agreed the older man, rubbing his stubbly beard with his
hand. “That's sho'ly right.”
“But they might get you before they understood,” Arlie urged.
“Oh, I'll keep under cover, and when it's time, I'll sing out and let
them know. Better leave me that rifle, though.” He went right on, taking
it for granted that she had consented to go: “Slip through those shadows
up that draw. You'll have no trouble with Teddy. Whistle when you're
ready, and your father will make a break up the hill on his hawss.
So-long. See you later some time, mebbe.”
She went reluctantly, not convinced, but overborne by the quality of
cheerful compulsion that lay in him. He was not a large man, though
the pack and symmetry of his muscles promised unusual strength. But
the close-gripped jaw, the cool serenity of the gray eyes that looked
without excitement upon whatever they saw, the perfect poise of his
carriage--all contributed to a personality plainly that of a leader of
men.
It was scarce a minute later that the whistle came from the hilltop. The
mountaineer instantly swung to the saddle and set his pony to a canter
up the draw. Fraser could see him join his daughter in the dim light,
for the moon had momentarily gone behind a cloud, but almost at once the
darkness swallowed them.
Some one in the sagebrush called to a companion, and the Texan knew
that the attackers had heard the sound of the galloping horses. Without
waiting an instant, he fired twice in rapid succession.
“That'll hold them for a minute or two,” he told himself. “They won't
understand it, and they'll get together and have a powwow.”
He crouched behind the dead horse, his gaze sweeping the wash, the
sagebrush, and the distant group of cottonwoods from which he had seen
a shot fired. Though he lay absolutely still, without the least visible
excitement, he was alert and tense to the finger tips. Not the slightest
sound, not the smallest motion of the moonlit underbrush, escaped his
unwavering scrutiny.
The problem before him was to hold the attackers long enough for Arlie
and her father to make their escape, without killing any of them
or getting killed himself. He knew that, once out of the immediate
vicinity, the fugitives would leave the road and take to some of the
canyons that ran from the foothills into the mountains. If he could
secure them a start of fifteen minutes that ought to be enough.
A voice from the wash presently hailed him:
“See here! We're going to take you back with us, old man. That's a
cinch. We want you for that Squaw Creek raid, and we're going to have
you. You done enough damage. Better surrender peaceable, and we'll
promise to take you back to jail. What say?”
“Gimme five minutes to think it over,” demanded the Texan.
“All right, five minutes. But you want to remember that it's all off
with you if you don't give up. Billy Faulkner's dead, and we'll sure
come a-shooting.”
Fraser waited till his five minutes was nearly up, then plunged across
the road into the sagebrush growing thick there. A shot or two rang out,
without stopping him. Suddenly a man rose out of the sage in front of
him, a revolver in his hand.
For a fraction of a second, the two men faced each other before either
spoke.
“Who are you?”
Fraser's answer was to dive for the man's knees, just as a football
tackle does. They went down together, but it was the Texan got up first.
A second man was running toward him.
“Hands up, there!” the newcomer ordered.
Fraser's hand went up, but with his forty-five in it. The man pitched
forward into the sage. The Southerner twisted forward again, slid down
into the dry creek, and ran along its winding bed for a hundred yards.
Then he left it, cutting back toward the spot where he had lain behind
the dead horse. Hiding in the sage, he heard the pursuit pouring down
the creek, waited till it was past, and quickly recrossed the road.
Here, among the cow-backed hills, he knew he was as safe as a needle in
a haystack.
“I had to get that anxious guy, but it might have been a whole lot
worse. I only plugged his laig for him,” he reflected comfortably.
“Wonder why they wanted to collect the old man's scalp, anyhow? The
little girl sure was game. Just like a woman, though, the way she broke
down because she hit that fellow.”
Within five minutes he was lost again among the thousand hills that rose
like waves of the sea, one after another. It was not till nearly morning
that he again struck a road.
He was halted abruptly by a crisp command from behind a bowlder:
“Up with your hands--quick!”
“Who are you, my friend?” the Texan asked mildly.
“Deputy sheriff,” was the prompt response. “Now, reach for the sky, and
prompt, too.”
“Just as you say. You've ce'tainly got the crawl on me.”
The deputy disarmed his captive, and drove him into town before him.
When morning dawned, Fraser found himself behind the bars. He was
arrested for the murder of Faulkner.