From without came the low murmur of men's voices. Judith laid her book
aside and drew her rifle across her knees, her eyes bright and eager.
At infrequent intervals for perhaps three or four minutes the two
voices came indistinctly to those in the cabin. Then silence for as
long a time. And then a voice again, this time quite near the door,
calling out clearly:
"Hey, you in there! Pitch the money out the window and we'll let you
go."
"There's a voice," said Judith quietly, "to remember! I'll be able to
swear to it in court."
Certainly a voice to remember, just as one remembers an unusual face
for years, though it be but a chance one seen in a crowd. A voice
markedly individual, not merely because it was somewhat high-pitched
for a man's, but rather for a quality not easily defined, which gave to
it a certain vibrant, unpleasant harshness, sounding metallic almost,
rasping, as though with the hiss of steel surfaces rubbing. Altogether
impossible to describe adequately, yet, as Judith said, not to be
forgotten.
Judith noticed a puzzled look on Bud's face. He called out: "What did
you say out there?"
Word for word came the command again:
"Pitch the money out of the window and we'll let you go."
Lee turned triumphantly to Judith.
"I've got his tag!" he whispered to her. "I played poker with that
voice one night not four months ago in Rocky Bend!"
"Who is he?" Judith whispered back. "With Crowdy down, if we know who
one of these men is, the rest will be easy. Who is he?"
"A bad egg," Lee told her gravely. "He's done time in the State pen.
He's been out less than a year. Gunman, stick-up man, convicted once
already for manslaughter . . ."
"Not Chris Quinnion, Bud Lee!" she cried excitedly. "Not Chris
Quinnion!"
"Sh!" he commanded softly. "There's no use tipping our hand off to
him. Yes; it's crooked Chris Quinnion. You don't know him, do you?"
He had never seen her eyes look as they looked now. They were as hard
and bright as steel; no true woman's eyes, he thought swiftly. Rather
the eyes of a man with murder in his heart.
"Then, thank God!" whispered Judith, her voice tense. "Can you keep a
secret with me, Bud Lee? Were it not for the man calling to us now,
Luke Sanford would be here in our stead. Crooked Chris Quinnion served
his time in San Quentin because my father sent him there. And he had
not been free six months before he kept his oath and murdered my poor
old dad!"
"Well?" came the interrupting snarl of Quinnion's voice, like the
ominous whine of an enraged animal. "What's the word?"
"Give us five minutes to think it over," returned Lee coolly. And,
incredulous eyes on Judith's set face, he said gently: "I was on the
ranch when the accident happened. He must have driven that heavy car a
little too close to the edge of the grade. The bank just naturally
gave way."
Judith, her lips tightly compressed, shook her head.
"You didn't find him under the car, did you? And the blow that killed
him might have been dealt with some heavy weapon in the hands of a man
standing behind him, mightn't it? I know, Bud Lee, I know!"
"How do you know?" he demanded intently. "You weren't here even."
"No. I was in San Francisco. But the day before I had a letter from
father. He expected me home very soon. He was going out, he said in
his letter, to look at the road over the mountain. He wrote that the
grade was dangerous, especially at the very place where the car went
over! He wanted me to know so that in case he could not get the work
done on it before I came, I would be careful. On top of that would he
go and run his car into such danger as that? Oh, I know!" she cried
again, her hands hard upon her rifle. "I know, I tell you! From the
first I suspected. I knew that Chris Quinnion had threatened a dozen
times to 'get' father; I knew that soon or late he would try. I wrote
Emmet Sawyer, our county sheriff, and told him what I believed, asked
him to go to the spot and see what the signs told. A square man is
Emmet Sawyer and as sharp as tacks."
"And he told you that you were mistaken?"
"He did nothing of the kind! He reported that the tracks of the car
showed that it had kept well away from the bank, that evidently it had
stopped there, that again it had gone on, swerving so as to run close
to the edge! I know what happened: Father got out to look at the
dangerous spot and to put up the sign he had brought with him and that
was found in the road. Chris Quinnion had followed him, perhaps to
shoot him down from behind, Chris Quinnion's way! Then he saw a safer
way. He came up behind poor old dad and struck him in the head with
something, rifle-barrel or revolver. He started the car up and let it
run over the bank. He--"
She broke off then. Bud Lee felt that he knew what she would say if
she could bring herself to go on; that she would tell how crooked Chris
Quinnion had thrown the unconscious man down over the bank to lie,
bruised and broken, by the wrecked car.
"You've got to be almighty sure before you make a charge like that," he
reminded her. "If Quinnion had done it, why didn't Emmet Sawyer get
the dead-wood on him?"
"Because," she whispered quickly, "a man fooled Sawyer! Yes, and
fooled me! Quinnion established an alibi. A man whose word there was
no reason to doubt said that Quinnion was with him at the time of the
murder. And that man was--Bayne Trevors!"
"Trevors?" muttered Lee. He shook his head. "Trevors is a hard man,
Judith. And he's a scoundrel, if you want to know! But frame up a
murder deal--plan to murder Luke Sanford--No. I don't believe it!"
"Is he the man to miss a chance that lay at his hand? The main chance
for him? The chance to hold a man like Chris Quinnion in the hollow of
his hand, to make him do his bidding, to set him just such work as he
is doing now? Answer me! Is Bayne Trevors above a deal like that?"
Bud Lee's answer was silence.
"And there is one other thing," went on Judith swiftly, "known to no
one but Emmet Sawyer, whom I told, and me and Chris Quinnion: In
father's letter he told me that a man had paid him some money the day
before, and that he was going to drive to Rocky Bend to bank it.
'There are some tough customers in the country,' he wrote, 'and it's
foolhardy to have too much money in our old safe.' That money, several
hundred dollars, was never banked. It was not found on his body.
Where did it go?"
"Even that doesn't incriminate Quinnion, you know."
"No. The rest is pure guesswork on my part. Guesswork based on what I
know. Not enough to hang Chris Quinnion, Bud Lee. But enough to make
me sure. He's working at Trevor's game right now. If we can prove
that it is Trevors's game, it will go to show how worthless his alibi
was."
"Well?" called Quinnion, the third time. "What about it? We ain't
goin' to wait all night."
"Tell him," whispered Judith, her hand on Lee's arm, "to come and get
it if he wants it! One of us can hold the cabin against the two of
them while the other slips out in the dark and rides back to the
ranch-house for help. If we're in luck, Bud Lee, we'll corner the
bunch of them before daylight!"
Lee stood a moment looking down into her face, his mind filled with
uncertainties. With all his soul he wished that Judith had not come
with him to-night, that he had only himself to think of now. Quinnion,
not to be further put off, called again, the snarl of his voice rising
into ugly threat. Still Lee, thinking of Judith, hesitated.
"It's the only way," she insisted. "If we gave them the money they'd
want Bill Crowdy next. If they got Crowdy away with them into the
mountains I am not sure that they could not hide until they got him
safe in Trevors's hands. Then we'd have the whole fight still to make,
sooner or later. It's our one bet, Lee!"
And Bud Lee, seeing no better way ahead for them, blew out the candle,
forced Judith to stand close to the rock chimney of the fireplace, took
his station near her, and answered Quinnion, saying shortly:
"Come ahead when you're ready. We're waiting."
Quinnion's curse, the crack of his rifle, the flying splinters from the
cabin door, came together like one implacable menace.
"And now, Bud Lee," cried Judith quickly, "I don't mind telling you,
not seeing the end of the string we are playing, that you are a man to
my liking!"
"My hat's off," said Lee, with grave simplicity. "And in any old kind
of a fight a man wouldn't want a better pardner than I can reach now,
putting out my hand. He'd want--just a thoroughbred! And now, little
pardner, let's give them--fits!"
Judith, even as Quinnion's second shot tore into the door, laughed
softly.
"Finish it as you began it, Bud Lee! Even George Washington swore at
Monmouth, you know!"
So Bud Lee amended his words and spoke his thought:
"Then, pardner, let's give 'em hell!"
Crouching in the dark, reserving their own fire while they waited for
something more definite than the bark of a rifle to shoot at, their
hand met.