shattered carbon rattled to the table with fragments of the globe,
and Byrne stepped quickly to one side. The door flew open and Sergeant
Flannagan dove headlong into the darkened room. A foot shot out from
behind the opened door, and Flannagan, striking it, sprawled upon his
face amidst the legs of the literary lights who held dog-eared magazines
rightside up or upside down, as they chanced to have picked them up.
Simultaneously Billy Byrne and Bridge dodged through the open doorway,
banged the door to behind them, and sped across the barroom toward the
street.
As Flannagan shot into their midst the men at the table leaped to their
feet and bolted for the doorway; but the detective was up and after them
so quickly that only two succeeded in getting out of the room. One of
these generously slammed the door in the faces of his fellows, and there
they pulled and hauled at each other until Flannagan was among them.
In the pitch darkness he could recognize no one; but to be on the safe
side he hit out promiscuously until he had driven them all from the
door, then he stood with his back toward it--the inmates of the room his
prisoners.
Thus he remained for a moment threatening to shoot at the first sound
of movement in the room, and then he opened the door again, and stepping
just outside ordered the prisoners to file out one at a time.
As each man passed him Flannagan scrutinized his face, and it was not
until they had all emerged and he had reentered the room with a light
that he discovered that once again his quarry had eluded him. Detective
Sergeant Flannagan was peeved.
The sun smote down upon a dusty road. A heat-haze lay upon the arid land
that stretched away upon either hand toward gray-brown hills. A little
adobe hut, backed by a few squalid outbuildings, stood out, a screaming
high-light in its coat of whitewash, against a background that was
garish with light.
Two men plodded along the road. Their coats were off, the brims of their
tattered hats were pulled down over eyes closed to mere slits against
sun and dust.
One of the men, glancing up at the distant hut, broke into verse:
Yet then the sun was shining down, a-blazing on the little town,
A mile or so 'way down the track a-dancing in the sun.
But somehow, as I waited there, there came a shiver in the air,
“The birds are flying south,” he said. “The winter has begun.”
His companion looked up at him who quoted.
“There ain't no track,” he said, “an' that 'dobe shack don't look much
like a town; but otherwise his Knibbs has got our number all right, all
right. We are the birds a-flyin' south, and Flannagan was the shiver
in the air. Flannagan is a reg'lar frost. Gee! but I betcha dat guy's
sore.”
“Why is it, Billy,” asked Bridge, after a moment's silence, “that upon
occasion you speak king's English after the manner of the boulevard, and
again after that of the back alley? Sometimes you say 'that' and 'dat'
in the same sentence. Your conversational clashes are numerous. Surely
something or someone has cramped your original style.”
“I was born and brought up on 'dat,'” explained Billy. “SHE taught me
the other line of talk. Sometimes I forget. I had about twenty years of
the other and only one of hers, and twenty to one is a long shot--more
apt to lose than win.”
“'She,' I take it, is PENELOPE,” mused Bridge, half to himself. “She
must have been a fine girl.”
“'Fine' isn't the right word,” Billy corrected him. “If a thing's fine
there may be something finer, and then something else finest. She was
better than finest. She--she was--why, Bridge, I'd have to be a walking
dictionary to tell you what she was.”
Bridge made no reply, and the two trudged on toward the whitewashed hut
in silence for several minutes. Then Bridge broke it:
And you, my sweet Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me
With buds of roses in your hair and kisses on your mouth.
Billy sighed and shook his head.
“There ain't no such luck for me,” he said. “She's married to another
gink now.”
They came at last to the hut, upon the shady side of which they found a
Mexican squatting puffing upon a cigarette, while upon the doorstep sat
a woman, evidently his wife, busily engaged in the preparation of some
manner of foodstuff contained in a large, shallow vessel. About them
played a couple of half-naked children. A baby sprawled upon a blanket
just within the doorway.
The man looked up, suspiciously, as the two approached. Bridge saluted
him in fairly understandable Spanish, asking for food, and telling the
man that they had money with which to pay for a little--not much, just a
little.
The Mexican slowly unfolded himself and arose, motioning the strangers
to follow him into the interior of the hut. The woman, at a word from
her lord and master, followed them, and at his further dictation brought
them frijoles and tortillas.
The price he asked was nominal; but his eyes never left Bridge's hands
as the latter brought forth the money and handed it over. He appeared
just a trifle disappointed when no more money than the stipulated
purchase price was revealed to sight.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“We're looking for work,” explained Bridge. “We want to get jobs on one
of the American ranches or mines.”
“You better go back,” warned the Mexican. “I, myself, have nothing
against the Americans, senor; but there are many of my countrymen who
do not like you. The Americans are all leaving. Some already have been
killed by bandits. It is not safe to go farther. Pesita's men are all
about here. Even Mexicans are not safe from him. No one knows whether
he is for Villa or Carranza. If he finds a Villa ranchero, then Pesita
cries Viva Carranza! and his men kill and rob. If, on the other hand, a
neighbor of the last victim hears of it in time, and later Pesita comes
to him, he assures Pesita that he is for Carranza, whereupon Pesita
cries Viva Villa! and falls upon the poor unfortunate, who is lucky
if he escapes with his life. But Americans! Ah, Pesita asks them no
questions. He hates them all, and kills them all, whenever he can lay
his hands upon them. He has sworn to rid Mexico of the gringos.”
“Wot's the Dago talkin' about?” asked Billy.
Bridge gave his companion a brief synopsis of the Mexican's
conversation.
“Only the gentleman is not an Italian, Billy,” he concluded. “He's a
Mexican.”
“Who said he was an Eyetalian?” demanded Byrne.
As the two Americans and the Mexican conversed within the hut there
approached across the dusty flat, from the direction of the nearer
hills, a party of five horsemen.
They rode rapidly, coming toward the hut from the side which had neither
door nor window, so that those within had no warning of their coming.
They were swarthy, ragged ruffians, fully armed, and with an equipment
which suggested that they might be a part of a quasi-military
organization.
Close behind the hut four of them dismounted while the fifth, remaining
in his saddle, held the bridle reins of the horses of his companions.
The latter crept stealthily around the outside of the building, toward
the door--their carbines ready in their hands.
It was one of the little children who first discovered the presence of
the newcomers. With a piercing scream she bolted into the interior and
ran to cling to her mother's skirts.
Billy, Bridge, and the Mexican wheeled toward the doorway simultaneously
to learn the cause of the girl's fright, and as they did so found
themselves covered by four carbines in the hands of as many men.
As his eyes fell upon the faces of the intruders the countenance of
the Mexican fell, while his wife dropped to the floor and embraced his
knees, weeping.
“Wotinell?” ejaculated Billy Byrne. “What's doin'?”
“We seem to have been made prisoners,” suggested Bridge; “but whether by
Villistas or Carranzistas I do not know.”
Their host understood his words and turned toward the two Americans.
“These are Pesita's men,” he said.
“Yes,” spoke up one of the bandits, “we are Pesita's men, and Pesita
will be delighted, Miguel, to greet you, especially when he sees the
sort of company you have been keeping. You know how much Pesita loves
the gringos!”
“But this man does not even know us,” spoke up Bridge. “We stopped here
to get a meal. He never saw us before. We are on our way to the El Orobo
Rancho in search of work. We have no money and have broken no laws. Let
us go our way in peace. You can gain nothing by detaining us, and as for
Miguel here--that is what you called him, I believe--I think from what
he said to us that he loves a gringo about as much as your revered chief
seems to.”
Miguel looked his appreciation of Bridge's defense of him; but it was
evident that he did not expect it to bear fruit. Nor did it. The brigand
spokesman only grinned sardonically.
“You may tell all this to Pesita himself, senor,” he said. “Now
come--get a move on--beat it!” The fellow had once worked in El Paso and
took great pride in his “higher English” education.
As he started to herd them from the hut Billy demurred. He turned toward
Bridge.
“Most of this talk gets by me,” he said. “I ain't jerry to all the Dago
jabber yet, though I've copped off a little of it in the past two weeks.
Put me wise to the gink's lay.”
“Elementary, Watson, elementary,” replied Bridge. “We are captured by
bandits, and they are going to take us to their delightful chief who
will doubtless have us shot at sunrise.”
“Bandits?” snapped Billy, with a sneer. “Youse don't call dese little
runts bandits?”
“Baby bandits, Billy, baby bandits,” replied Bridge.
“An' you're goin' to stan' fer lettin' 'em pull off this rough stuff
without handin' 'em a come-back?” demanded Byrne.
“We seem to be up against just that very thing,” said Bridge. “There are
four carbines quite ready for us. It would mean sudden death to resist
now. Later we may find an opportunity--I think we'd better act simple
and wait.” He spoke in a quick, low whisper, for the spokesman of the
brigands evidently understood a little English and was on the alert for
any trickery.
Billy shrugged, and when their captors again urged them forward he
went quietly; but the expression on his face might have perturbed the
Mexicans had they known Billy Byrne of Grand Avenue better--he was
smiling happily.
Miguel had two ponies in his corral. These the brigands appropriated,
placing Billy upon one and Miguel and Bridge upon the other. Billy's
great weight rendered it inadvisable to double him up with another
rider.
As they were mounting Billy leaned toward Bridge and whispered:
“I'll get these guys, pal--watch me,” he said.
“I am with thee, William!--horse, foot, and artillery,” laughed Bridge.
“Which reminds me,” said Billy, “that I have an ace-in-the-hole--the
boobs never frisked me.”
“And I am reminded,” returned Bridge, as the horses started off to the
yank of hackamore ropes in the hands of the brigands who were leading
them, “of a touching little thing of Service's:
Just think! Some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold gray stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! 'twill be your own.”
“You're a cheerful guy,” was Billy's only comment.
CHAPTER VII. IN PESITA'S CAMP
PESITA was a short, stocky man with a large, dark mustache. He attired
himself after his own ideas of what should constitute the uniform of a
general--ideas more or less influenced and modified by the chance and
caprice of fortune.
At the moment that Billy, Bridge, and Miguel were dragged into his
presence his torso was enwrapped in a once resplendent coat covered with
yards of gold braid. Upon his shoulders were brass epaulets such as are
connected only in one's mind with the ancient chorus ladies of the light
operas of fifteen or twenty years ago. Upon his legs were some rusty and
ragged overalls. His feet were bare.
He scowled ferociously at the prisoners while his lieutenant narrated
the thrilling facts of their capture--thrilling by embellishment.
“You are Americanos?” he asked of Bridge and Billy.
Both agreed that they were. Then Pesita turned toward Miguel.
“Where is Villa?” he asked.
“How should I know, my general?” parried Miguel. “Who am I--a poor man
with a tiny rancho--to know of the movements of the great ones of the
earth? I did not even know where was the great General Pesita until now
I am brought into his gracious presence, to throw myself at his feet
and implore that I be permitted to serve him in even the meanest of
capacities.”
Pesita appeared not to hear what Miguel had said. He turned his shoulder
toward the man, and addressed Billy in broken English.
“You were on your way to El Orobo Rancho, eh? Are you acquainted there?”
he asked.
Billy replied that they were not--merely looking for employment upon an
American-owned ranch or in an American mine.
“Why did you leave your own country?” asked Pesita. “What do you want
here in Mexico?”
“Well, ol' top,” replied Billy, “you see de birds was flyin' south an'
winter was in de air, an a fat-head dick from Chi was on me trail--so I
ducks.”
“Ducks?” queried Pesita, mystified. “Ah, the ducks--they fly south, I
see.”
“Naw, you poor simp--I blows,” explained Billy.
“Ah, yes,” agreed Pesita, not wishing to admit any ignorance of plain
American even before a despised gringo. “But the large-faced dick--what
might that be? I have spend much time in the States, but I do not know
that.”
“I said 'fat-head dick'--dat's a fly cop,” Billy elucidated.
“It is he then that is the bird.” Pesita beamed at this evidence of his
own sagacity. “He fly.”
“Flannagan ain't no bird--Flannagan's a dub.”
Bridge came to the rescue.
“My erudite friend means,” he explained, “that the police chased him out
of the United States of America.”
Pesita raised his eyebrows. All was now clear to him.
“But why did he not say so?” he asked.
“He tried to,” said Bridge. “He did his best.”
“Quit yer kiddin',” admonished Billy.
A bright light suddenly burst upon Pesita. He turned upon Bridge.
“Your friend is not then an American?” he asked. “I guessed it. That
is why I could not understand him. He speaks the language of the gringo
less well even than I. From what country is he?”
Billy Byrne would have asserted with some show of asperity that he was
nothing if not American; but Bridge was quick to see a possible loophole
for escape for his friend in Pesita's belief that Billy was no gringo,
and warned the latter to silence by a quick motion of his head.
“He's from 'Gran' Avenoo,'” he said. “It is not exactly in Germany; but
there are a great many Germans there. My friend is a native, so he don't
speak German or English either--they have a language of their own in
'Gran' Avenoo'.”
“I see,” said Pesita--“a German colony. I like the Germans--they furnish
me with much ammunition and rifles. They are my very good friends. Take
Miguel and the gringo away”--this to the soldiers who had brought the
prisoners to him--“I will speak further with this man from Granavenoo.”
When the others had passed out of hearing Pesita addressed Billy.
“I am sorry, senor,” he said, “that you have been put to so much
inconvenience. My men could not know that you were not a gringo; but I
can make it all right. I will make it all right. You are a big man. The
gringos have chased you from their country as they chased me. I hate
them. You hate them. But enough of them. You have no business in Mexico
except to seek work. I give you work. You are big. You are strong. You
are like a bull. You stay with me, senor, and I make you captain. I need
men what can talk some English and look like gringo. You do fine.
We make much money--you and I. We make it all time while we fight to
liberate my poor Mexico. When Mexico liberate we fight some more to
liberate her again. The Germans they give me much money to liberate
Mexico, and--there are other ways of getting much money when one is
riding around through rich country with soldiers liberating his poor,
bleeding country. Sabe?”
“Yep, I guess I savvy,” said Billy, “an' it listens all right to me's
far's you've gone. My pal in on it?”
“Eh?”
“You make my frien' a captain, too?”
Pesita held up his hands and rolled his eyes in holy horror. Take a
gringo into his band? It was unthinkable.
“He shot,” he cried. “I swear to kill all gringo. I become savior of my
country. I rid her of all Americanos.”
“Nix on the captain stuff fer me, then,” said Billy, firmly. “That guy's
a right one. If any big stiff thinks he can croak little ol' Bridge
while Billy Byrne's aroun' he's got anudder t'ink comin'. Why, me an'
him's just like brudders.”
“You like this gringo?” asked Pesita.
“You bet,” cried Billy.
Pesita thought for several minutes. In his mind was a scheme which
required the help of just such an individual as this stranger--someone
who was utterly unknown in the surrounding country and whose presence in
a town could not by any stretch of the imagination be connected in any
way with the bandit, Pesita.
“I tell you,” he said. “I let your friend go. I send him under safe
escort to El Orobo Rancho. Maybe he help us there after a while. If you
stay I let him go. Otherwise I shoot you both with Miguel.”
“Wot you got it in for Mig fer?” asked Billy. “He's a harmless sort o'
guy.”
“He Villista. Villista with gringos run Mexico--gringos and the church.
Just like Huerta would have done it if they'd given him a chance, only
Huerta more for church than for gringos.”
“Aw, let the poor boob go,” urged Billy, “an' I'll come along wit you.
Why he's got a wife an' kids--you wouldn't want to leave them without no
one to look after them in this God-forsaken country!”
Pesita grinned indulgently.
“Very well, Senor Captain,” he said, bowing low. “I let Miguel and your
honorable friend go. I send safe escort with them.”
“Bully fer you, ol' pot!” exclaimed Billy, and Pesita smiled delightedly
in the belief that some complimentary title had been applied to him in
the language of “Granavenoo.” “I'll go an' tell 'em,” said Billy.
“Yes,” said Pesita, “and say to them that they will start early in the
morning.”
As Billy turned and walked in the direction that the soldiers had led
Bridge and Miguel, Pesita beckoned to a soldier who leaned upon his gun
at a short distance from his “general”--a barefooted, slovenly attempt
at a headquarters orderly.
“Send Captain Rozales to me,” directed Pesita.
The soldier shuffled away to where a little circle of men in
wide-brimmed, metal-encrusted hats squatted in the shade of a tree,
chatting, laughing, and rolling cigarettes. He saluted one of these and
delivered his message, whereupon the tall, gaunt Captain Rozales arose
and came over to Pesita.
“The big one who was brought in today is not a gringo,” said Pesita, by
way of opening the conversation. “He is from Granavenoo. He can be of
great service to us, for he is very friendly with the Germans--yet he
looks like a gringo and could pass for one. We can utilize him. Also he
is very large and appears to be equally strong. He should make a good
fighter and we have none too many. I have made him a captain.”
Rozales grinned. Already among Pesita's following of a hundred men there
were fifteen captains.
“Where is Granavenoo?” asked Rozales.
“You mean to say, my dear captain,” exclaimed Pesita, “that a man of
your education does not know where Granavenoo is? I am surprised. Why,
it is a German colony.”
“Yes, of course. I recall it well now. For the moment it had slipped my
mind. My grandfather who was a great traveler was there many times. I
have heard him speak of it often.”
“But I did not summon you that we might discuss European geography,”
interrupted Pesita. “I sent for you to tell you that the stranger would
not consent to serve me unless I liberated his friend, the gringo, and
that sneaking spy of a Miguel. I was forced to yield, for we can use the
stranger. So I have promised, my dear captain, that I shall send them
upon their road with a safe escort in the morning, and you shall command
the guard. Upon your life respect my promise, Rozales; but if some of
Villa's cutthroats should fall upon you, and in the battle, while you
were trying to defend the gringo and Miguel, both should be slain by the
bullets of the Villistas--ah, but it would be deplorable, Rozales, but
it would not be your fault. Who, indeed, could blame you who had fought
well and risked your men and yourself in the performance of your sacred
duty? Rozales, should such a thing occur what could I do in token of my
great pleasure other than make you a colonel?”
“I shall defend them with my life, my general,” cried Rozales, bowing
low.
“Good!” cried Pesita. “That is all.”
Rozales started back toward the ring of smokers.
“Ah, Captain!” cried Pesita. “Another thing. Will you make it known to
the other officers that the stranger from Granavenoo is a captain and
that it is my wish that he be well treated, but not told so much as
might injure him, or his usefulness, about our sacred work of liberating
poor, bleeding unhappy Mexico.”
Again Rozales bowed and departed. This time he was not recalled.
Billy found Bridge and Miguel squatting on the ground with two
dirty-faced peons standing guard over them. The latter were some
little distance away. They made no objection when Billy approached the
prisoners though they had looked in mild surprise when they saw him
crossing toward them without a guard.
Billy sat down beside Bridge, and broke into a laugh.
“What's the joke?” asked Bridge. “Are we going to be hanged instead of
being shot?”
“We ain't goin' to be either,” said Billy, “an' I'm a captain. Whaddaya
know about that?”
He explained all that had taken place between himself and Pesita while
Bridge and Miguel listened attentively to his every word.
“I t'ought it was about de only way out fer us,” said Billy. “We were in
worse than I t'ought.”
“Can the Bowery stuff, Billy,” cried Bridge, “and talk like a white man.
You can, you know.”
“All right, bo,” cried Billy, good-naturedly. “You see I forget when
there is anything pressing like this, to chew about. Then I fall back
into the old lingo. Well, as I was saying, I didn't want to do it unless
you would stay too, but he wouldn't have you. He has it in for all
gringos, and that bull you passed him about me being from a foreign
country called Grand Avenue! He fell for it like a rube for the
tapped-wire stuff. He said if I wouldn't stay and help him he'd croak
the bunch of us.”
“How about that ace-in-the-hole, you were telling me about?” asked
Bridge.
“I still got it,” and Billy fondled something hard that swung under his
left arm beneath his shirt; “but, Lord, man! what could I do against
the whole bunch? I might get a few of them; but they'd get us all in the
end. This other way is better, though I hate to have to split with you,
old man.”
He was silent then for a moment, looking hard at the ground. Bridge
whistled, and cleared his throat.
“I've always wanted to spend a year in Rio,” he said. “We'll meet there,
when you can make your get-away.”
“You've said it,” agreed Byrne. “It's Rio as soon as we can make it.
Pesita's promised to set you both loose in the morning and send you
under safe escort--Miguel to his happy home, and you to El Orobo Rancho.
I guess the old stiff isn't so bad after all.”
Miguel had pricked up his ears at the sound of the word ESCORT. He
leaned far forward, closer to the two Americans, and whispered.
“Who is to command the escort?” he asked.
“I dunno,” said Billy. “What difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference between life and death for your friend and
for me,” said Miguel. “There is no reason why I should need an escort.
I know my way throughout all Chihuahua as well as Pesita or any of
his cutthroats. I have come and gone all my life without an escort.
Of course your friend is different. It might be well for him to have
company to El Orobo. Maybe it is all right; but wait until we learn who
commands the escort. I know Pesita well. I know his methods. If Rozales
rides out with us tomorrow morning you may say good-bye to your friend
forever, for you will never see him in Rio, or elsewhere. He and I will
be dead before ten o'clock.”
“What makes you think that, bo?” demanded Billy.
“I do not think, senor,” replied Miguel; “I know.”
“Well,” said Billy, “we'll wait and see.”
“If it is Rozales, say nothing,” said Miguel. “It will do no good; but
we may then be on the watch, and if possible you might find the means
to obtain a couple of revolvers for us. In which case--” he shrugged and
permitted a faint smile to flex his lips.
As they talked a soldier came and announced that they were no longer
prisoners--they were to have the freedom of the camp; “but,” he
concluded, “the general requests that you do not pass beyond the limits
of the camp. There are many desperadoes in the hills and he fears for
your safety, now that you are his guests.”
The man spoke Spanish, so that it was necessary that Bridge interpret
his words for the benefit of Billy, who had understood only part of what
he said.
“Ask him,” said Byrne, “if that stuff goes for me, too.”
“He says no,” replied Bridge after questioning the soldier, “that
the captain is now one of them, and may go and come as do the other
officers. Such are Pesita's orders.”
Billy arose. The messenger had returned to his post at headquarters. The
guard had withdrawn, leaving the three men alone.
“So long, old man,” said Billy. “If I'm goin' to be of any help to you
and Mig the less I'm seen with you the better. I'll blow over and mix
with the Dago bunch, an' practice sittin' on my heels. It seems to be
the right dope down here, an' I got to learn all I can about bein' a
greaser seein' that I've turned one.”
“Good-bye Billy, remember Rio,” said Bridge.
“And the revolvers, senor,” added Miguel.
“You bet,” replied Billy, and strolled off in the direction of the
little circle of cigarette smokers.
As he approached them Rozales looked up and smiled. Then, rising,
extended his hand.
“Senor Captain,” he said, “we welcome you. I am Captain Rozales.” He
hesitated waiting for Billy to give his name.
“My monacker's Byrne,” said Billy. “Pleased to meet you, Cap.”
“Ah, Captain Byrne,” and Rozales proceeded to introduce the newcomer to
his fellow-officers.
Several, like Rozales, were educated men who had been officers in
the army under former regimes, but had turned bandit as the safer
alternative to suffering immediate death at the hands of the faction
then in power. The others, for the most part, were pure-blooded Indians
whose adult lives had been spent in outlawry and brigandage. All were
small of stature beside the giant, Byrne. Rozales and two others spoke
English. With those Billy conversed. He tried to learn from them the
name of the officer who was to command the escort that was to accompany
Bridge and Miguel into the valley on the morrow; but Rozales and the
others assured him that they did not know.
When he had asked the question Billy had been looking straight at
Rozales, and he had seen the man's pupils contract and noticed the
slight backward movement of the body which also denotes determination.
Billy knew, therefore, that Rozales was lying. He did know who was to
command the escort, and there was something sinister in that knowledge
or the fellow would not have denied it.
The American began to consider plans for saving his friend from the fate
which Pesita had outlined for him. Rozales, too, was thinking rapidly.
He was no fool. Why had the stranger desired to know who was to command
the escort? He knew none of the officers personally. What difference
then, did it make to him who rode out on the morrow with his friend? Ah,
but Miguel knew that it would make a difference. Miguel had spoken to
the new captain, and aroused his suspicions.
Rozales excused himself and rose. A moment later he was in conversation
with Pesita, unburdening himself of his suspicions, and outlining a
plan.
“Do not send me in charge of the escort,” he advised. “Send Captain
Byrne himself.”
Pesita pooh-poohed the idea.
“But wait,” urged Rozales. “Let the stranger ride in command, with a
half-dozen picked men who will see that nothing goes wrong. An hour
before dawn I will send two men--they will be our best shots--on ahead.
They will stop at a place we both know, and about noon the Captain
Byrne and his escort will ride back to camp and tell us that they
were attacked by a troop of Villa's men, and that both our guests were
killed. It will be sad; but it will not be our fault. We will swear
vengeance upon Villa, and the Captain Byrne will hate him as a good
Pesitista should.”
“You have the cunning of the Coyote, my captain,” cried Pesita. “It
shall be done as you suggest. Go now, and I will send for Captain Byrne,
and give him his orders for the morning.”
As Rozales strolled away a figure rose from the shadows at the side of
Pesita's tent and slunk off into the darkness.
CHAPTER VIII. BILLY'S FIRST COMMAND
AND so it was that having breakfasted in the morning Bridge and Miguel
started downward toward the valley protected by an escort under Captain
Billy Byrne. An old service jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, both donated
by brother officers, constituted Captain Byrne's uniform. His mount was
the largest that the picket line of Pesita's forces could produce. Billy
loomed large amongst his men.
For an hour they rode along the trail, Billy and Bridge conversing upon
various subjects, none of which touched upon the one uppermost in the
mind of each. Miguel rode, silent and preoccupied. The evening before he
had whispered something to Bridge as he had crawled out of the darkness
to lie close to the American, and during a brief moment that morning
Bridge had found an opportunity to relay the Mexican's message to Billy
Byrne.
The latter had but raised his eyebrows a trifle at the time, but later
he smiled more than was usual with him. Something seemed to please him
immensely.
Beside him at the head of the column rode Bridge and Miguel. Behind them
trailed the six swarthy little troopers--the picked men upon whom Pesita
could depend.
They had reached a point where the trail passes through a narrow dry
arroyo which the waters of the rainy season had cut deep into the
soft, powdery soil. Upon either bank grew cacti and mesquite, forming a
sheltering screen behind which a regiment might have hidden. The place
was ideal for an ambuscade.
“Here, Senor Capitan,” whispered Miguel, as they neared the entrance to
the trap.
A low hill shut off from their view all but the head of the cut, and it
also hid them from the sight of any possible enemy which might have been
lurking in wait for them farther down the arroyo.
At Miguel's words Byrne wheeled his horse to the right away from the
trail which led through the bottom of the waterway and around the base
of the hill, or rather in that direction, for he had scarce deviated
from the direct way before one of the troopers spurred to his side,
calling out in Spanish that he was upon the wrong trail.
“Wot's this guy chewin' about?” asked Billy, turning to Miguel.
“He says you must keep to the arroyo, Senor Capitan,” explained the
Mexican.
“Tell him to go back into his stall,” was Byrne's laconic rejoinder, as
he pushed his mount forward to pass the brigand.
The soldier was voluble in his objections. Again he reined in front of
Billy, and by this time his five fellows had spurred forward to block
the way.
“This is the wrong trail,” they cried. “Come this other way, Capitan.
Pesita has so ordered it.”
Catching the drift of their remarks, Billy waved them to one side.
“I'm bossin' this picnic,” he announced. “Get out o' the way, an' be
quick about it if you don't want to be hurted.”
Again he rode forward. Again the troopers interposed their mounts, and
this time their leader cocked his carbine. His attitude was menacing.
Billy was close to him. Their ponies were shoulder to shoulder, that of
the bandit almost broadside of the trail.
Now Billy Byrne was more than passing well acquainted with many of the
fundamental principles of sudden brawls. It is safe to say that he had
never heard of Van Bibber; but he knew, as well as Van Bibber knew, that
it is well to hit first.
Without a word and without warning he struck, leaning forward with
all the weight of his body behind his blow, and catching the man full
beneath the chin he lifted him as neatly from his saddle as though a
battering ram had struck him.
Simultaneously Bridge and Miguel drew revolvers from their shirts and as
Billy wheeled his pony toward the remaining five they opened fire upon
them.
The battle was short and sweet. One almost escaped but Miguel, who
proved to be an excellent revolver shot, brought him down at a hundred
yards. He then, with utter disregard for the rules of civilized warfare,
dispatched those who were not already dead.
“We must let none return to carry false tales to Pesita,” he explained.
Even Billy Byrne winced at the ruthlessness of the cold-blooded murders;
but he realized the necessity which confronted them though he could not
have brought himself to do the things which the Mexican did with such
sang-froid and even evident enjoyment.
“Now for the others!” cried Miguel, when he had assured himself that
each of the six were really quite dead.
Spurring after him Billy and Bridge ran their horses over the rough
ground at the base of the little hill, and then parallel to the arroyo
for a matter of a hundred yards, where they espied two Indians, carbines
in hand, standing in evident consternation because of the unexpected
fusillade of shots which they had just heard and which they were unable
to account for.
At the sight of the three the sharpshooters dropped behind cover and
fired. Billy's horse stumbled at the first report, caught himself,
reared high upon his hind legs and then toppled over, dead.
His rider, throwing himself to one side, scrambled to his feet and fired
twice at the partially concealed men. Miguel and Bridge rode in rapidly
to close quarters, firing as they came. One of the two men Pesita
had sent to assassinate his “guests” dropped his gun, clutched at his
breast, screamed, and sank back behind a clump of mesquite. The other
turned and leaped over the edge of the bank into the arroyo, rolling and
tumbling to the bottom in a cloud of dry dust.
As he rose to his feet and started on a run up the bed of the dry
stream, dodging a zigzag course from one bit of scant cover to another
Billy Byrne stepped to the edge of the washout and threw his carbine to
his shoulder. His face was flushed, his eyes sparkled, a smile lighted
his regular features.
“This is the life!” he cried, and pulled the trigger.
The man beneath him, running for his life like a frightened jackrabbit,
sprawled forward upon his face, made a single effort to rise and then
slumped limply down, forever.
Miguel and Bridge, dismounted now, came to Byrne's side. The Mexican was
grinning broadly.
“The captain is one grand fighter,” he said. “How my dear general would
admire such a man as the captain. Doubtless he would make him a colonel.
Come with me Senor Capitan and your fortune is made.”
“Come where?” asked Billy Byrne.
“To the camp of the liberator of poor, bleeding Mexico--to General
Francisco Villa.”
“Nothin' doin',” said Billy. “I'm hooked up with this Pesita person now,
an' I guess I'll stick. He's given me more of a run for my money in the
last twenty-four hours than I've had since I parted from my dear old
friend, the Lord of Yoka.”
“But Senor Capitan,” cried Miguel, “you do not mean to say that you are
going back to Pesita! He will shoot you down with his own hand when he
has learned what has happened here.”
“I guess not,” said Billy.
“You'd better go with Miguel, Billy,” urged Bridge. “Pesita will not
forgive you this. You've cost him eight men today and he hasn't any
more men than he needs at best. Besides you've made a monkey of him and
unless I miss my guess you'll have to pay for it.”
“No,” said Billy, “I kind o' like this Pesita gent. I think I'll stick
around with him for a while yet. Anyhow until I've had a chance to see
his face after I've made my report to him. You guys run along now and
make your get-away good, an' I'll beat it back to camp.”
He crossed to where the two horses of the slain marksmen were hidden,
turned one of them loose and mounted the other.
“So long, boes!” he cried, and with a wave of his hand wheeled about and
spurred back along the trail over which they had just come.
Miguel and Bridge watched him for a moment, then they, too, mounted and
turned away in the opposite direction. Bridge recited no verse for the
balance of that day. His heart lay heavy in his bosom, for he missed
Billy Byrne, and was fearful of the fate which awaited him at the camp
of the bandit.
Billy, blithe as a lark, rode gaily back along the trail to camp. He
looked forward with unmixed delight to his coming interview with Pesita,
and to the wild, half-savage life which association with the bandit
promised. All his life had Billy Byrne fed upon excitement and
adventure. As gangster, thug, holdup man and second-story artist Billy
had found food for his appetite within the dismal, sooty streets of
Chicago's great West Side, and then Fate had flung him upon the savage
shore of Yoka to find other forms of adventure where the best that is
in a strong man may be brought out in the stern battle for existence
against primeval men and conditions. The West Side had developed only
Billy's basest characteristics. He might have slipped back easily into
the old ways had it not been for HER and the recollection of that which
he had read in her eyes. Love had been there; but greater than that to
hold a man into the straight and narrow path of decency and honor had
been respect and admiration. It had seemed incredible to Billy that a
goddess should feel such things for him--for the same man her scornful
lips once had branded as coward and mucker; yet he had read the truth
aright, and since then Billy Byrne had done his best according to the
light that had been given him to deserve the belief she had in him.
So far there had crept into his consciousness no disquieting doubts
as to the consistency of his recent action in joining the force of
a depredating Mexican outlaw. Billy knew nothing of the political
conditions of the republic. Had Pesita told him that he was president of
Mexico, Billy could not have disputed the statement from any knowledge
of facts which he possessed. As a matter of fact about all Billy had
ever known of Mexico was that it had some connection with an important
place called Juarez where running meets were held.
To Billy Byrne, then, Pesita was a real general, and Billy, himself,
a bona fide captain. He had entered an army which was at war with some
other army. What they were warring about Billy knew not, nor did he
care. There should be fighting and he loved that--that much he knew.
The ethics of Pesita's warfare troubled him not. He had heard that some
great American general had said: “War is hell.” Billy was willing to
take his word for it, and accept anything which came in the guise of war
as entirely proper and as it should be.
The afternoon was far gone when Billy drew rein in the camp of the
outlaw band. Pesita with the bulk of his raiders was out upon some
excursion to the north. Only half a dozen men lolled about, smoking or
sleeping away the hot day. They looked at Billy in evident surprise
when they saw him riding in alone; but they asked no questions and Billy
offered no explanation--his report was for the ears of Pesita only.
The balance of the day Billy spent in acquiring further knowledge of
Spanish by conversing with those of the men who remained awake, and
asking innumerable questions. It was almost sundown when Pesita rode
in. Two riderless horses were led by troopers in the rear of the
little column and three men swayed painfully in their saddles and their
clothing was stained with blood.
Evidently Pesita had met with resistance. There was much voluble
chattering on the part of those who had remained behind in their
endeavors to extract from their returning comrades the details of the
day's enterprise. By piecing together the various scraps of conversation
he could understand Billy discovered that Pesita had ridden far to
demand tribute from a wealthy ranchero, only to find that word of
his coming had preceded him and brought a large detachment of Villa's
regulars who concealed themselves about the house and outbuildings until
Pesita and his entire force were well within close range.
“We were lucky to get off as well as we did,” said an officer.
Billy grinned inwardly as he thought of the pleasant frame of mind in
which Pesita might now be expected to receive the news that eight of his
troopers had been killed and his two “guests” safely removed from the
sphere of his hospitality.
And even as his mind dwelt delightedly upon the subject a ragged Indian
carrying a carbine and with heavy silver spurs strapped to his bare feet
approached and saluted him.
“General Pesita wishes Senor Capitan Byrne to report to him at once,”
said the man.
“Sure Mike!” replied Billy, and made his way through the pandemonium of
the camp toward the headquarters tent.
As he went he slipped his hand inside his shirt and loosened something
which hung beneath his left arm.
“Li'l ol' ace-in-the-hole,” he murmured affectionately.
He found Pesita pacing back and forth before his tent--an energetic
bundle of nerves which no amount of hard riding and fighting could tire
or discourage.
As Billy approached Pesita shot a quick glance at his face, that he
might read, perhaps, in his new officer's expression whether anger or
suspicion had been aroused by the killing of his American friend, for
Pesita never dreamed but that Bridge had been dead since mid-forenoon.
“Well,” said Pesita, smiling, “you left Senor Bridge and Miguel safely
at their destination?”
“I couldn't take 'em all the way,” replied Billy, “cause I didn't have
no more men to guard 'em with; but I seen 'em past the danger I guess
an' well on their way.”
“You had no men?” questioned Pesita. “You had six troopers.”
“Oh, they was all croaked before we'd been gone two hours. You see it
happens like this: We got as far as that dry arroyo just before the
trail drops down into the valley, when up jumps a bunch of this here
Villa's guys and commenced takin' pot shots at us.
“Seein' as how I was sent to guard Bridge an' Mig, I makes them dismount
and hunt cover, and then me an' my men wades in and cleans up the bunch.
They was only a few of them but they croaked the whole bloomin' six o'
mine.
“I tell you it was some scrap while it lasted; but I saved your guests
from gettin' hurted an' I know that that's what you sent me to do. It's
too bad about the six men we lost but, leave it to me, we'll get even
with that Villa guy yet. Just lead me to 'im.”
As he spoke Billy commenced scratching himself beneath the left arm, and
then, as though to better reach the point of irritation, he slipped his
hand inside his shirt. If Pesita noticed the apparently innocent little
act, or interpreted it correctly may or may not have been the fact. He
stood looking straight into Byrne's eyes for a full minute. His face
denoted neither baffled rage nor contemplated revenge. Presently a slow
smile raised his heavy mustache and revealed his strong, white teeth.
“You have done well, Captain Byrne,” he said. “You are a man after my
own heart,” and he extended his hand.
A half-hour later Billy walked slowly back to his own blankets, and to
say that he was puzzled would scarce have described his mental state.
“I can't quite make that gink out,” he mused. “Either he's a mighty good
loser or else he's a deep one who'll wait a year to get me the way he
wants to get me.”
And Pesita a few moments later was saying to Captain Rozales:
“I should have shot him if I could spare such a man; but it is seldom I
find one with the courage and effrontery he possesses. Why think of it,
Rozales, he kills eight of my men, and lets my prisoners escape, and
then dares to come back and tell me about it when he might easily have
gotten away. Villa would have made him an officer for this thing, and
Miguel must have told him so. He found out in some way about your little
plan and he turned the tables on us. We can use him, Rozales, but we
must watch him. Also, my dear captain, watch his right hand and when he
slips it into his shirt be careful that you do not draw on him--unless
you happen to be behind him.”
Rozales was not inclined to take his chief's view of Byrne's value to
them. He argued that the man was guilty of disloyalty and therefore a
menace. What he thought, but did not advance as an argument, was of
a different nature. Rozales was filled with rage to think that the
newcomer had outwitted him, and beaten him at his own game, and he was
jealous, too, of the man's ascendancy in the esteem of Pesita; but he
hid his personal feelings beneath a cloak of seeming acquiescence in his
chief's views, knowing that some day his time would come when he might
rid himself of the danger of this obnoxious rival.
“And tomorrow,” continued Pesita, “I am sending him to Cuivaca. Villa
has considerable funds in bank there, and this stranger can learn what I
want to know about the size of the detachment holding the town, and the
habits of the garrison.”
CHAPTER IX. BARBARA IN MEXICO
THE manager of El Orobo Rancho was an American named Grayson. He was a
tall, wiry man whose education had been acquired principally in the cow
camps of Texas, where, among other things one does NOT learn to love
nor trust a greaser. As a result of this early training Grayson was
peculiarly unfitted in some respects to manage an American ranch in
Mexico; but he was a just man, and so if his vaqueros did not love
him, they at least respected him, and everyone who was or possessed the
latent characteristics of a wrongdoer feared him.
Perhaps it is not fair to say that Grayson was in any way unfitted for
the position he held, since as a matter of fact he was an ideal ranch
foreman, and, if the truth be known, the simple fact that he was a
gringo would have been sufficient to have won him the hatred of the
Mexicans who worked under him--not in the course of their everyday
relations; but when the fires of racial animosity were fanned to flame
by some untoward incident upon either side of the border.
Today Grayson was particularly rabid. The more so because he could not
vent his anger upon the cause of it, who was no less a person than his
boss.
It seemed incredible to Grayson that any man of intelligence could have
conceived and then carried out the fool thing which the boss had just
done, which was to have come from the safety of New York City to the
hazards of warring Mexico, bringing--and this was the worst feature
of it--his daughter with him. And at such a time! Scarce a day passed
without its rumors or reports of new affronts and even atrocities
being perpetrated upon American residents of Mexico. Each day, too, the
gravity of these acts increased. From mere insult they had run of late
to assault and even to murder. Nor was the end in sight.
Pesita had openly sworn to rid Mexico of the gringo--to kill on sight
every American who fell into his hands. And what could Grayson do in
case of a determined attack upon the rancho? It is true he had a hundred
men--laborers and vaqueros, but scarce a dozen of these were Americans,
and the rest would, almost without exception, follow the inclinations of
consanguinity in case of trouble.
To add to Grayson's irritability he had just lost his bookkeeper, and
if there was one thing more than any other that Grayson hated it was pen
and ink. The youth had been a “lunger” from Iowa, a fairly nice little
chap, and entirely suited to his duties under any other circumstances
than those which prevailed in Mexico at that time. He was in mortal
terror of his life every moment that he was awake, and at last had given
in to the urge of cowardice and resigned. The day previous he had been
bundled into a buckboard and driven over to the Mexican Central
which, at that time, still was operating trains--occasionally--between
Chihuahua and Juarez.
His mind filled with these unpleasant thoughts, Grayson sat at his desk
in the office of the ranch trying to unravel the riddle of a balance
sheet which would not balance. Mixed with the blue of the smoke from his
briar was the deeper azure of a spirited monologue in which Grayson was
engaged.
A girl was passing the building at the moment. At her side walked a
gray-haired man--one of those men whom you just naturally fit into a
mental picture of a director's meeting somewhere along Wall Street.
“Sich langwidge!” cried the girl, with a laugh, covering her ears with
her palms.
The man at her side smiled.
“I can't say that I blame him much, Barbara,” he replied. “It was a
very foolish thing for me to bring you down here at this time. I can't
understand what ever possessed me to do it.”
“Don't blame yourself, dear,” remonstrated the girl, “when it was all my
fault. I begged and begged and begged until you had to consent, and I'm
not sorry either--if nothing happens to you because of our coming. I
couldn't stay in New York another minute. Everyone was so snoopy, and
I could just tell that they were dying to ask questions about Billy and
me.”
“I can't get it through my head yet, Barbara,” said the man, “why in the
world you broke with Billy Mallory. He's one of the finest young men in
New York City today--just my ideal of the sort of man I'd like my only
daughter to marry.”
“I tried, Papa,” said the girl in a low voice; “but I couldn't--I just
couldn't.”
“Was it because--” the man stopped abruptly. “Well, never mind dear,
I shan't be snoopy too. Here now, you run along and do some snooping
yourself about the ranch. I want to stop in and have a talk with
Grayson.”
Down by one of the corrals where three men were busily engaged in
attempting to persuade an unbroken pony that a spade bit is a pleasant
thing to wear in one's mouth, Barbara found a seat upon a wagon box
which commanded an excellent view of the entertainment going on within
the corral. As she sat there experiencing a combination of admiration
for the agility and courage of the men and pity for the horse the tones
of a pleasant masculine voice broke in upon her thoughts.
“Out there somewhere!” says I to me. “By Gosh, I guess, thats poetry!”
“Out there somewhere--Penelope--with kisses on her mouth!”
And then, thinks I, “O college guy! your talk it gets me in the eye,
The north is creeping in the air, the birds are flying south.”
Barbara swung around to view the poet. She saw a slender man astride a
fagged Mexican pony. A ragged coat and ragged trousers covered the
man's nakedness. Indian moccasins protected his feet, while a torn and
shapeless felt hat sat upon his well-shaped head. AMERICAN was written
all over him. No one could have imagined him anything else. Apparently
he was a tramp as well--his apparel proclaimed him that; but there
were two discordant notes in the otherwise harmonious ensemble of your
typical bo. He was clean shaven and he rode a pony. He rode erect, too,
with the easy seat of an army officer.
At sight of the girl he raised his battered hat and swept it low to his
pony's shoulder as he bent in a profound bow.
“I seek the majordomo, senorita,” he said.
“Mr. Grayson is up at the office, that little building to the left of
the ranchhouse,” replied the girl, pointing.
The newcomer had addressed her in Spanish, and as he heard her reply,
in pure and liquid English, his eyes widened a trifle; but the familiar
smile with which he had greeted her left his face, and his parting bow
was much more dignified though no less profound than its predecessor.
And you, my sweet Penelope, out there somewhere you wait for me,
With buds of roses in your hair and kisses on your mouth.
Grayson and his employer both looked up as the words of Knibbs' poem
floated in to them through the open window.
“I wonder where that blew in from,” remarked Grayson, as his eyes
discovered Bridge astride the tired pony, looking at him through the
window. A polite smile touched the stranger's lips as his eyes met
Grayson's, and then wandered past him to the imposing figure of the
Easterner.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” said Bridge.
“Evenin',” snapped Grayson. “Go over to the cookhouse and the Chink'll
give you something to eat. Turn your pony in the lower pasture. Smith'll
show you where to bunk tonight, an' you kin hev your breakfast in the
mornin'. S'long!” The ranch superintendent turned back to the paper in
his hand which he had been discussing with his employer at the moment of
the interruption. He had volleyed his instructions at Bridge as though
pouring a rain of lead from a machine gun, and now that he had said what
he had to say the incident was closed in so far as he was concerned.
The hospitality of the Southwest permitted no stranger to be turned away
without food and a night's lodging. Grayson having arranged for these
felt that he had done all that might be expected of a host, especially
when the uninvited guest was so obviously a hobo and doubtless a horse
thief as well, for who ever knew a hobo to own a horse?
Bridge continued to sit where he had reined in his pony. He was looking
at Grayson with what the discerning boss judged to be politely concealed
enjoyment.
“Possibly,” suggested the boss in a whisper to his aide, “the man has
business with you. You did not ask him, and I am sure that he said
nothing about wishing a meal or a place to sleep.”
“Huh?” grunted Grayson, and then to Bridge, “Well, what the devil DO you
want?”
“A job,” replied Bridge, “or, to be more explicit, I need a job--far be
it from me to WISH one.”
The Easterner smiled. Grayson looked a bit mystified--and irritated.
“Well, I hain't got none,” he snapped. “We don't need nobody now unless
it might be a good puncher--one who can rope and ride.”
“I can ride,” replied Bridge, “as is evidenced by the fact that you now
see me astride a horse.”
“I said RIDE,” said Grayson. “Any fool can SIT on a horse. NO, I hain't
got nothin', an' I'm busy now. Hold on!” he exclaimed as though seized
by a sudden inspiration. He looked sharply at Bridge for a moment and
then shook his head sadly. “No, I'm afraid you couldn't do it--a guy's
got to be eddicated for the job I got in mind.”
“Washing dishes?” suggested Bridge.
Grayson ignored the playfulness of the other's question.
“Keepin' books,” he explained. There was a finality in his tone which
said: “As you, of course, cannot keep books the interview is now over.
Get out!”
“I could try,” said Bridge. “I can read and write, you know. Let me
try.” Bridge wanted money for the trip to Rio, and, too, he wanted to
stay in the country until Billy was ready to leave.
“Savvy Spanish?” asked Grayson.
“I read and write it better than I speak it,” said Bridge, “though I do
the latter well enough to get along anywhere that it is spoken.”
Grayson wanted a bookkeeper worse than he could ever recall having
wanted anything before in all his life. His better judgment told him
that it was the height of idiocy to employ a ragged bum as a bookkeeper;
but the bum was at least as much of a hope to him as is a straw to a
drowning man, and so Grayson clutched at him.
“Go an' turn your cayuse in an' then come back here,” he directed, “an'
I'll give you a tryout.”
“Thanks,” said Bridge, and rode off in the direction of the pasture
gate.
“'Fraid he won't never do,” said Grayson, ruefully, after Bridge had
passed out of earshot.
“I rather imagine that he will,” said the boss. “He is an educated man,
Grayson--you can tell that from his English, which is excellent. He's
probably one of the great army of down-and-outers. The world is full
of them--poor devils. Give him a chance, Grayson, and anyway he adds
another American to our force, and each one counts.”
“Yes, that's right; but I hope you won't need 'em before you an' Miss
Barbara go,” said Grayson.
“I hope not, Grayson; but one can never tell with conditions here such
as they are. Have you any hope that you will be able to obtain a safe
conduct for us from General Villa?”
“Oh, Villa'll give us the paper all right,” said Grayson; “but it won't
do us no good unless we don't meet nobody but Villa's men on the way
out. This here Pesita's the critter I'm leery of. He's got it in for all
Americans, and especially for El Orobo Rancho. You know we beat off a
raid of his about six months ago--killed half a dozen of his men, an' he
won't never forgive that. Villa can't spare a big enough force to give
us safe escort to the border and he can't assure the safety of the train
service. It looks mighty bad, sir--I don't see what in hell you came
for.”
“Neither do I, Grayson,” agreed the boss; “but I'm here and we've got
to make the best of it. All this may blow over--it has before--and we'll
laugh at our fears in a few weeks.”
“This thing that's happenin' now won't never blow over 'til the stars
and stripes blow over Chihuahua,” said Grayson with finality.
A few moments later Bridge returned to the office, having unsaddled his
pony and turned it into the pasture.
“What's your name?” asked Grayson, preparing to enter it in his time
book.
“Bridge,” replied the new bookkeeper.
“'Nitials,” snapped Grayson.
Bridge hesitated. “Oh, put me down as L. Bridge,” he said.
“Where from?” asked the ranch foreman.
“El Orobo Rancho,” answered Bridge.
Grayson shot a quick glance at the man. The answer confirmed his
suspicions that the stranger was probably a horse thief, which, in
Grayson's estimation, was the worst thing a man could be.
“Where did you get that pony you come in on?” he demanded. “I ain't
sayin' nothin' of course, but I jest want to tell you that we ain't got
no use for horse thieves here.”
The Easterner, who had been a listener, was shocked by the brutality of
Grayson's speech; but Bridge only laughed.
“If you must know,” he said, “I never bought that horse, an' the man he
belonged to didn't give him to me. I just took him.”
“You got your nerve,” growled Grayson. “I guess you better git out. We
don't want no horse thieves here.”
“Wait,” interposed the boss. “This man doesn't act like a horse thief.
A horse thief, I should imagine, would scarcely admit his guilt. Let's
have his story before we judge him.”
“All right,” said Grayson; “but he's just admitted he stole the horse.”
Bridge turned to the boss. “Thanks,” he said; “but really I did steal
the horse.”
Grayson made a gesture which said: “See, I told you so.”
“It was like this,” went on Bridge. “The gentleman who owned the horse,
together with some of his friends, had been shooting at me and my
friends. When it was all over there was no one left to inform us who
were the legal heirs of the late owners of this and several other horses
which were left upon our hands, so I borrowed this one. The law would
say, doubtless, that I had stolen it; but I am perfectly willing to
return it to its rightful owners if someone will find them for me.”
“You been in a scrap?” asked Grayson. “Who with?”
“A party of Pesita's men,” replied Bridge.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“You see they are working pretty close,” said Grayson, to his employer,
and then to Bridge: “Well, if you took that cayuse from one of Pesita's
bunch you can't call that stealin'. Your room's in there, back of the
office, an' you'll find some clothes there that the last man forgot to
take with him. You ken have 'em, an' from the looks o' yourn you need
'em.”
“Thank you,” replied Bridge. “My clothes are a bit rusty. I shall have
to speak to James about them,” and he passed through into the little
bedroom off the office, and closed the door behind him.
“James?” grunted Grayson. “Who the devil does he mean by James? I hain't
seen but one of 'em.”
The boss was laughing quietly.
“The man's a character,” he said. “He'll be worth all you pay him--if
you can appreciate him, which I doubt, Grayson.”
“I ken appreciate him if he ken keep books,” replied Grayson. “That's
all I ask of him.”
When Bridge emerged from the bedroom he was clothed in white duck
trousers, a soft shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes, and such a change
had they wrought in his appearance that neither Grayson nor his employer
would have known him had they not seen him come from the room into which
they had sent him to make the exchange of clothing.
“Feel better?” asked the boss, smiling.
“Clothes are but an incident with me,” replied Bridge. “I wear them
because it is easier to do so than it would be to dodge the weather and
the police. Whatever I may have upon my back affects in no way what
I have within my head. No, I cannot say that I feel any better, since
these clothes are not as comfortable as my old ones. However if it
pleases Mr. Grayson that I should wear a pink kimono while working for
him I shall gladly wear a pink kimono. What shall I do first, sir?” The
question was directed toward Grayson.
“Sit down here an' see what you ken make of this bunch of trouble,”
replied the foreman. “I'll talk with you again this evenin'.”
As Grayson and his employer quitted the office and walked together
toward the corrals the latter's brow was corrugated by thought and his
facial expression that of one who labors to fasten upon a baffling and
illusive recollection.
“It beats all, Grayson,” he said presently; “but I am sure that I have
known this new bookkeeper of yours before. The moment he came out of
that room dressed like a human being I knew that I had known him; but
for the life of me I can't place him. I should be willing to wager
considerable, however, that his name is not Bridge.”
“S'pect you're right,” assented Grayson. “He's probably one o' them
eastern dude bank clerks what's gone wrong and come down here to hide.
Mighty fine place to hide jest now, too.
“And say, speakin' of banks,” he went on, “what'll I do 'bout sendin'
over to Cuivaca fer the pay tomorrow. Next day's pay day. I don't like
to send this here bum, I can't trust a greaser no better, an' I can't
spare none of my white men thet I ken trust.”
“Send him with a couple of the most trustworthy Mexicans you have,”
suggested the boss.
“There ain't no sich critter,” replied Grayson; “but I guess that's the
best I ken do. I'll send him along with Tony an' Benito--they hate
each other too much to frame up anything together, an' they both hate a
gringo. I reckon they'll hev a lovely trip.”
“But they'll get back with the money, eh?” queried the boss.
“If Pesita don't get 'em,” replied Grayson.
CHAPTER X. BILLY CRACKS A SAFE
BILLY BYRNE, captain, rode into Cuivaca from the south. He had made a
wide detour in order to accomplish this; but under the circumstances he
had thought it wise to do so. In his pocket was a safe conduct from one
of Villa's generals farther south--a safe conduct taken by Pesita from
the body of one of his recent victims. It would explain Billy's presence
in Cuivaca since it had been intended to carry its rightful possessor to
Juarez and across the border into the United States.
He found the military establishment at Cuivaca small and ill commanded.
There were soldiers upon the streets; but the only regularly detailed
guard was stationed in front of the bank. No one questioned Billy. He
did not have to show his safe conduct.
“This looks easy,” thought Billy. “A reg'lar skinch.”
He first attended to his horse, turning him into a public corral,
and then sauntered up the street to the bank, which he entered, still
unquestioned. Inside he changed a bill of large denomination which
Pesita had given him for the purpose of an excuse to examine the lay of
the bank from the inside. Billy took a long time to count the change.
All the time his eyes wandered about the interior while he made mental
notes of such salient features as might prove of moment to him later.
The money counted Billy slowly rolled a cigarette.
He saw that the bank was roughly divided into two sections by a wire and
wood partition. On one side were the customers, on the other the clerks
and a teller. The latter sat behind a small wicket through which he
received deposits and cashed checks. Back of him, against the wall,
stood a large safe of American manufacture. Billy had had business
before with similar safes. A doorway in the rear wall led into the yard
behind the building. It was closed by a heavy door covered with sheet
iron and fastened by several bolts and a thick, strong bar. There were
no windows in the rear wall. From that side the bank appeared almost
impregnable to silent assault.
Inside everything was primitive and Billy found himself wondering how
a week passed without seeing a bank robbery in the town. Possibly the
strong rear defenses and the armed guard in front accounted for it.
Satisfied with what he had learned he passed out onto the sidewalk and
crossed the street to a saloon. Some soldiers and citizens were drinking
at little tables in front of the bar. A couple of card games were in
progress, and through the open rear doorway Billy saw a little gathering
encircling a cock fight.
In none of these things was Billy interested. What he had wished in
entering the saloon was merely an excuse to place himself upon the
opposite side of the street from the bank that he might inspect the
front from the outside without arousing suspicion.
Having purchased and drunk a bottle of poor beer, the temperature of
which had probably never been below eighty since it left the bottling
department of the Texas brewery which inflicted it upon the ignorant, he
sauntered to the front window and looked out.
There he saw that the bank building was a two-story affair, the entrance
to the second story being at the left side of the first floor, opening
directly onto the sidewalk in full view of the sentry who paced to and
fro before the structure.
Billy wondered what the second floor was utilized for. He saw soiled
hangings at the windows which aroused a hope and a sudden inspiration.
There was a sign above the entrance to the second floor; but Billy's
knowledge of the language had not progressed sufficiently to permit him
to translate it, although he had his suspicions as to its meaning. He
would learn if his guess was correct.
Returning to the bar he ordered another bottle of beer, and as he drank
it he practiced upon the bartender some of his recently acquired Spanish
and learned, though not without considerable difficulty, that he might
find lodgings for the night upon the second floor of the bank building.
Much elated, Billy left the saloon and walked along the street until he
came to the one general store of the town. After another heart rending
scrimmage with the language of Ferdinand and Isabella he succeeded in
making several purchases--two heavy sacks, a brace, two bits, and a
keyhole saw. Placing the tools in one of the sacks he wrapped the whole
in the second sack and made his way back to the bank building.
Upon the second floor he found the proprietor of the rooming-house and
engaged a room in the rear of the building, overlooking the yard. The
layout was eminently satisfactory to Captain Byrne and it was with
a feeling of great self-satisfaction that he descended and sought a
restaurant.
He had been sent by Pesita merely to look over the ground and the
defenses of the town, that the outlaw might later ride in with his
entire force and loot the bank; but Billy Byrne, out of his past
experience in such matters, had evolved a much simpler plan for
separating the enemy from his wealth.
Having eaten, Billy returned to his room. It was now dark and the bank
closed and unlighted showed that all had left it. Only the sentry paced
up and down the sidewalk in front.
Going at once to his room Billy withdrew his tools from their hiding
place beneath the mattress, and a moment later was busily engaged in
boring holes through the floor at the foot of his bed. For an hour he
worked, cautiously and quietly, until he had a rough circle of holes
enclosing a space about two feet in diameter. Then he laid aside the
brace and bit, and took the keyhole saw, with which he patiently sawed
through the wood between contiguous holes, until, the circle completed,
he lifted out a section of the floor leaving an aperture large enough to
permit him to squeeze his body through when the time arrived for him to
pass into the bank beneath.
While Billy had worked three men had ridden into Cuivaca. They were
Tony, Benito, and the new bookkeeper of El Orobo Rancho. The Mexicans,
after eating, repaired at once to the joys of the cantina; while Bridge
sought a room in the building to which his escort directed him.
As chance would have it, it was the same building in which Billy labored
and the room lay upon the rear side of it overlooking the same yard. But
Bridge did not lie awake to inspect his surroundings. For years he had
not ridden as many miles as he had during the past two days, so that
long unused muscles cried out for rest and relaxation. As a result,
Bridge was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, and
so profound was his slumber that it seemed that nothing short of a
convulsion of nature would arouse him.
As Bridge lay down upon his bed Billy Byrne left his room and descended
to the street. The sentry before the bank paid no attention to him,
and Billy passed along, unhindered, to the corral where he had left his
horse. Here, as he was saddling the animal, he was accosted, much to his
disgust, by the proprietor.
In broken English the man expressed surprise that Billy rode out so late
at night, and the American thought that he detected something more
than curiosity in the other's manner and tone--suspicion of the strange
gringo.
It would never do to leave the fellow in that state of mind, and so
Billy leaned close to the other's ear, and with a broad grin and a wink
whispered: “Senorita,” and jerked his thumb toward the south. “I'll be
back by mornin',” he added.
The Mexican's manner altered at once. He laughed and nodded, knowingly,
and poked Billy in the ribs. Then he watched him mount and ride out
of the corral toward the south--which was also in the direction of the
bank, to the rear of which Billy rode without effort to conceal his
movements.
There he dismounted and left his horse standing with the bridle reins
dragging upon the ground, while he removed the lariat from the pommel of
the saddle, and, stuffing it inside his shirt, walked back to the street
on which the building stood, and so made his way past the sentry and to
his room.
Here he pushed back the bed which he had drawn over the hole in the
floor, dropped his two sacks through into the bank, and tying the brace
to one end of the lariat lowered it through after the sacks.
Looping the middle of the lariat over a bedpost Billy grasped both
strands firmly and lowered himself through the aperture into the room
beneath. He made no more noise in his descent than he had made upon
other similar occasions in his past life when he had practiced the
gentle art of porch-climbing along Ashland Avenue and Washington
Boulevard.
Having gained the floor he pulled upon one end of the lariat until he
had drawn it free of the bedpost above, when it fell into his waiting
hands. Coiling it carefully Billy placed it around his neck and under
one arm. Billy, acting as a professional, was a careful and methodical
man. He always saw that every little detail was properly attended to
before he went on to the next phase of his endeavors. Because of this
ingrained caution Billy had long since secured the tops of the two sacks
together, leaving only a sufficient opening to permit of their each
being filled without delay or inconvenience.
Now he turned his attention to the rear door. The bar and bolts were
easily shot from their seats from the inside, and Billy saw to it that
this was attended to before he went further with his labors. It were
well to have one's retreat assured at the earliest possible moment. A
single bolt Billy left in place that he might not be surprised by an
intruder; but first he had tested it and discovered that it could be
drawn with ease.
These matters satisfactorily attended to Billy assaulted the combination
knob of the safe with the metal bit which he had inserted in the brace
before lowering it into the bank.
The work was hard and progressed slowly. It was necessary to withdraw
the bit often and lubricate it with a piece of soap which Billy had
brought along in his pocket for the purpose; but eventually a hole was
bored through into the tumblers of the combination lock.
From without Billy could hear the footsteps of the sentry pacing back
and forth within fifty feet of him, all unconscious that the bank he was
guarding was being looted almost beneath his eyes. Once a corporal came
with another soldier and relieved the sentry. After that Billy heard the
footfalls no longer, for the new sentry was barefoot.
The boring finished, Billy drew a bit of wire from an inside pocket and
inserted it in the hole. Then, working the wire with accustomed fingers,
he turned the combination knob this way and that, feeling with the bit
of wire until the tumblers should all be in line.
This, too, was slow work; but it was infinitely less liable to attract
attention than any other method of safe cracking with which Billy was
familiar.
It was long past midnight when Captain Byrne was rewarded with
success--the tumblers clicked into position, the handle of the safe door
turned and the bolts slipped back.
To swing open the door and transfer the contents of the safe to the two
sacks was the work of but a few minutes. As Billy rose and threw the
heavy burden across a shoulder he heard a challenge from without, and
then a parley. Immediately after the sound of footsteps ascending the
stairway to the rooming-house came plainly to his ears, and then he had
slipped the last bolt upon the rear door and was out in the yard beyond.
Now Bridge, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion that the boom of a
cannon might not have disturbed, did that inexplicable thing which every
one of us has done a hundred times in our lives. He awakened, with a
start, out of a sound sleep, though no disturbing noise had reached his
ears.
Something impelled him to sit up in bed, and as he did so he could see
through the window beside him into the yard at the rear of the building.
There in the moonlight he saw a man throwing a sack across the horn of
a saddle. He saw the man mount, and he saw him wheel his horse around
about and ride away toward the north. There seemed to Bridge nothing
unusual about the man's act, nor had there been any indication either
of stealth or haste to arouse the American's suspicions. Bridge lay back
again upon his pillows and sought to woo the slumber which the sudden
awakening seemed to have banished for the remainder of the night.
And up the stairway to the second floor staggered Tony and Benito. Their
money was gone; but they had acquired something else which appeared much
more difficult to carry and not so easily gotten rid of.
Tony held the key to their room. It was the second room upon the right
of the hall. Tony remembered that very distinctly. He had impressed it
upon his mind before leaving the room earlier in the evening, for Tony
had feared some such contingency as that which had befallen.
Tony fumbled with the handle of a door, and stabbed vainly at an elusive
keyhole.
“Wait,” mumbled Benito. “This is not the room. It was the second door
from the stairway. This is the third.”
Tony lurched about and staggered back. Tony reasoned: “If that was the
third door the next behind me must be the second, and on the right;” but
Tony took not into consideration that he had reversed the direction of
his erratic wobbling. He lunged across the hall--not because he wished
to but because the spirits moved him. He came in contact with a door.
“This, then, must be the second door,” he soliloquized, “and it is upon
my right. Ah, Benito, this is the room!”
Benito was skeptical. He said as much; but Tony was obdurate. Did he not
know a second door when he saw one? Was he, furthermore, not a grown man
and therefore entirely capable of distinguishing between his left hand
and his right? Yes! Tony was all of that, and more, so Tony inserted
the key in the lock--it would have turned any lock upon the second
floor--and, lo! the door swung inward upon its hinges.
“Ah! Benito,” cried Tony. “Did I not tell you so? See! This is our room,
for the key opens the door.”
The room was dark. Tony, carried forward by the weight of his head,
which had long since grown unaccountably heavy, rushed his feet rapidly
forward that he might keep them within a few inches of his center of
equilibrium.
The distance which it took his feet to catch up with his head was equal
to the distance between the doorway and the foot of the bed, and when
Tony reached that spot, with Benito meandering after him, the latter,
much to his astonishment, saw in the diffused moonlight which pervaded
the room, the miraculous disappearance of his former enemy and erstwhile
friend. Then from the depths below came a wild scream and a heavy thud.
The sentry upon the beat before the bank heard both. For an instant he
stood motionless, then he called aloud for the guard, and turned toward
the bank door. But this was locked and he could but peer in through the
windows. Seeing a dark form within, and being a Mexican he raised his
rifle and fired through the glass of the doors.
Tony, who had dropped through the hole which Billy had used so quietly,
heard the zing of a bullet pass his head, and the impact as it sploshed
into the adobe wall behind him. With a second yell Tony dodged behind
the safe and besought Mary to protect him.
From above Benito peered through the hole into the blackness below. Down
the hall came the barefoot landlord, awakened by the screams and the
shot. Behind him came Bridge, buckling his revolver belt about his hips
as he ran. Not having been furnished with pajamas Bridge had not thought
it necessary to remove his clothing, and so he had lost no time in
dressing.
When the two, now joined by Benito, reached the street they found the
guard there, battering in the bank doors. Benito, fearing for the life
of Tony, which if anyone took should be taken by him, rushed upon
the sergeant of the guard, explaining with both lips and hands the
remarkable accident which had precipitated Tony into the bank.
The sergeant listened, though he did not believe, and when the doors had
fallen in, he commanded Tony to come out with his hands above his head.
Then followed an investigation which disclosed the looting of the safe,
and the great hole in the ceiling through which Tony had tumbled.
The bank president came while the sergeant and the landlord were in
Billy's room investigating. Bridge had followed them.
“It was the gringo,” cried the excited Boniface. “This is his room. He
has cut a hole in my floor which I shall have to pay to have repaired.”
A captain came next, sleepy-eyed and profane. When he heard what had
happened and that the wealth which he had been detailed to guard had
been taken while he slept, he tore his hair and promised that the sentry
should be shot at dawn.
By the time they had returned to the street all the male population of
Cuivaca was there and most of the female.
“One-thousand dollars,” cried the bank president, “to the man who stops
the thief and returns to me what the villain has stolen.”
A detachment of soldiers was in the saddle and passing the bank as the
offer was made.
“Which way did he go?” asked the captain. “Did no one see him leave?”
Bridge was upon the point of saying that he had seen him and that he had
ridden north, when it occurred to him that a thousand dollars--even a
thousand dollars Mex--was a great deal of money, and that it would carry
both himself and Billy to Rio and leave something for pleasure beside.
Then up spoke a tall, thin man with the skin of a coffee bean.
“I saw him, Senor Capitan,” he cried. “He kept his horse in my corral,
and at night he came and took it out saying that he was riding to visit
a senorita. He fooled me, the scoundrel; but I will tell you--he rode
south. I saw him ride south with my own eyes.”
“Then we shall have him before morning,” cried the captain, “for there
is but one place to the south where a robber would ride, and he has not
had sufficient start of us that he can reach safety before we overhaul
him. Forward! March!” and the detachment moved down the narrow street.
“Trot! March!” And as they passed the store: “Gallop! March!”
Bridge almost ran the length of the street to the corral. His pony must
be rested by now, and a few miles to the north the gringo whose capture
meant a thousand dollars to Bridge was on the road to liberty.
“I hate to do it,” thought Bridge; “because, even if he is a bank
robber, he's an American; but I need the money and in all probability
the fellow is a scoundrel who should have been hanged long ago.”
Over the trail to the north rode Captain Billy Byrne, secure in the
belief that no pursuit would develop until after the opening hour of
the bank in the morning, by which time he would be halfway on his return
journey to Pesita's camp.
“Ol' man Pesita'll be some surprised when I show him what I got for
him,” mused Billy. “Say!” he exclaimed suddenly and aloud, “Why the
devil should I take all this swag back to that yellow-faced yegg? Who
pulled this thing off anyway? Why me, of course, and does anybody think
Billy Byrne's boob enough to split with a guy that didn't have a hand in
it at all. Split! Why the nut'll take it all!
“Nix! Me for the border. I couldn't do a thing with all this coin down
in Rio, an' Bridgie'll be along there most any time. We can hit it up
some in lil' ol' Rio on this bunch o' dough. Why, say kid, there must be
a million here, from the weight of it.”
A frown suddenly clouded his face. “Why did I take it?” he asked
himself. “Was I crackin' a safe, or was I pullin' off something fine fer
poor, bleedin' Mexico? If I was a-doin' that they ain't nothin' criminal
in what I done--except to the guy that owned the coin. If I was just
plain crackin' a safe on my own hook why then I'm a crook again an' I
can't be that--no, not with that face of yours standin' out there so
plain right in front of me, just as though you were there yourself,
askin' me to remember an' be decent. God! Barbara--why wasn't I born for
the likes of you, and not just a measly, ornery mucker like I am. Oh,
hell! what is that that Bridge sings of Knibbs's:
There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's longing much for me,
But I can smell the blundering sea, and hear the rigging hum;
And I can hear the whispering lips that fly before the out-bound ships,
And I can hear the breakers on the sand a-calling “Come!”
Billy took off his hat and scratched his head.
“Funny,” he thought, “how a girl and poetry can get a tough nut like me.
I wonder what the guys that used to hang out in back of Kelly's 'ud
say if they seen what was goin' on in my bean just now. They'd call
me Lizzy, eh? Well, they wouldn't call me Lizzy more'n once. I may be
gettin' soft in the head, but I'm all to the good with my dukes.”
Speed is not conducive to sentimental thoughts and so Billy had
unconsciously permitted his pony to drop into a lazy walk. There was no
need for haste anyhow. No one knew yet that the bank had been robbed,
or at least so Billy argued. He might, however, have thought differently
upon the subject of haste could he have had a glimpse of the horseman in
his rear--two miles behind him, now, but rapidly closing up the distance
at a keen gallop, while he strained his eyes across the moonlit flat
ahead in eager search for his quarry.
So absorbed was Billy Byrne in his reflections that his ears were deaf
to the pounding of the hoofs of the pursuer's horse upon the soft dust
of the dry road until Bridge was little more than a hundred yards from
him. For the last half-mile Bridge had had the figure of the fugitive in
full view and his mind had been playing rapidly with seductive visions
of the one-thousand dollars reward--one-thousand dollars Mex, perhaps,
but still quite enough to excite pleasant thoughts. At the first glimpse
of the horseman ahead Bridge had reined his mount down to a trot that
the noise of his approach might thereby be lessened. He had drawn his
revolver from its holster, and was upon the point of putting spurs
to his horse for a sudden dash upon the fugitive when the man ahead,
finally attracted by the noise of the other's approach, turned in his
saddle and saw him.
Neither recognized the other, and at Bridge's command of, “Hands up!”
Billy, lightning-like in his quickness, drew and fired. The bullet raked
Bridge's hat from his head but left him unscathed.
Billy had wheeled his pony around until he stood broadside toward
Bridge. The latter fired scarce a second after Billy's shot had pinged
so perilously close--fired at a perfect target but fifty yards away.
At the sound of the report the robber's horse reared and plunged, then,
wheeling and tottering high upon its hind feet, fell backward. Billy,
realizing that his mount had been hit, tried to throw himself from the
saddle; but until the very moment that the beast toppled over the man
was held by his cartridge belt which, as the animal first lunged, had
caught over the high horn of the Mexican saddle.
The belt slipped from the horn as the horse was falling, and Billy
succeeded in throwing himself a little to one side. One leg, however,
was pinned beneath the animal's body and the force of the fall jarred
the revolver from Billy's hand to drop just beyond his reach.
His carbine was in its boot at the horse's side, and the animal was
lying upon it. Instantly Bridge rode to his side and covered him with
his revolver.
“Don't move,” he commanded, “or I'll be under the painful necessity of
terminating your earthly endeavors right here and now.”
“Well, for the love o' Mike!” cried the fallen bandit. “You?”
Bridge was off his horse the instant that the familiar voice sounded in
his ears.
“Billy!” he exclaimed. “Why--Billy--was it you who robbed the bank?”
Even as he spoke Bridge was busy easing the weight of the dead pony from
Billy's leg.
“Anything broken?” he asked as the bandit struggled to free himself.
“Not so you could notice it,” replied Billy, and a moment later he was
on his feet. “Say, bo,” he added, “it's a mighty good thing you dropped
little pinto here, for I'd a sure got you my next shot. Gee! it makes
me sweat to think of it. But about this bank robbin' business. You can't
exactly say that I robbed a bank. That money was the enemy's resources,
an' I just nicked their resources. That's war. That ain't robbery.
I ain't takin' it for myself--it's for the cause--the cause o' poor,
bleedin' Mexico,” and Billy grinned a large grin.
“You took it for Pesita?” asked Bridge.
“Of course,” replied Billy. “I won't get a jitney of it. I wouldn't take
none of it, Bridge, honest. I'm on the square now.”
“I know you are, Billy,” replied the other; “but if you're caught
you might find it difficult to convince the authorities of your
highmindedness and your disinterestedness.”
“Authorities!” scoffed Billy. “There ain't no authorities in Mexico. One
bandit is just as good as another, and from Pesita to Carranza they're
all bandits at heart. They ain't a one of 'em that gives two whoops
in hell for poor, bleedin' Mexico--unless they can do the bleedin'
themselves. It's dog eat dog here. If they caught me they'd shoot me
whether I'd robbed their bank or not. What's that?” Billy was suddenly
alert, straining his eyes back in the direction of Cuivaca.
“They're coming, Billy,” said Bridge. “Take my horse--quick! You must
get out of here in a hurry. The whole post is searching for you. I
thought that they went toward the south, though. Some of them must have
circled.”
“What'll you do if I take your horse?” asked Billy.
“I can walk back,” said Bridge, “it isn't far to town. I'll tell them
that I had come only a short distance when my horse threw me and ran
away. They'll believe it for they think I'm a rotten horseman--the two
vaqueros who escorted me to town I mean.”
Billy hesitated. “I hate to do it, Bridge,” he said.
“You must, Billy,” urged the other.
“If they find us here together it'll merely mean that the two of us will
get it, for I'll stick with you, Billy, and we can't fight off a whole
troop of cavalry out here in the open. If you take my horse we can both
get out of it, and later I'll see you in Rio. Good-bye, Billy, I'm off
for town,” and Bridge turned and started back along the road on foot.
Billy watched him in silence for a moment. The truth of Bridge's
statement of fact was so apparent that Billy was forced to accept the
plan. A moment later he transferred the bags of loot to Bridge's pony,
swung into the saddle, and took a last backward look at the diminishing
figure of the man swinging along in the direction of Cuivaca.
“Say,” he muttered to himself; “but you're a right one, bo,” and
wheeling to the north he clapped his spurs to his new mount and loped
easily off into the night.
CHAPTER XI. BARBARA RELEASES A CONSPIRATOR
IT was a week later, yet Grayson still was growling about the loss of
“that there Brazos pony.” Grayson, the boss, and the boss's daughter
were sitting upon the veranda of the ranchhouse when the foreman
reverted to the subject.
“I knew I didn't have no business hirin' a man thet can't ride,” he
said. “Why thet there Brazos pony never did stumble, an' if he'd of
stumbled he'd a-stood aroun' a year waitin' to be caught up agin. I jest
cain't figger it out no ways how thet there tenderfoot bookkeeper lost
him. He must a-shooed him away with a stick. An' saddle an' bridle an'
all gone too. Doggone it!”
“I'm the one who should be peeved,” spoke up the girl with a wry smile.
“Brazos was my pony. He's the one you picked out for me to ride while
I am here; but I am sure poor Mr. Bridge feels as badly about it as
anyone, and I know that he couldn't help it. We shouldn't be too hard
on him. We might just as well attempt to hold him responsible for the
looting of the bank and the loss of the pay-roll money.”
“Well,” said Grayson, “I give him thet horse 'cause I knew he couldn't
ride, an' thet was the safest horse in the cavvy. I wisht I'd given him
Santa Anna instid--I wouldn't a-minded losin' him. There won't no one
ride him anyhow he's thet ornery.”
“The thing that surprises me most,” remarked the boss, “is that Brazos
doesn't come back. He was foaled on this range, and he's never been
ridden anywhere else, has he?”
“He was foaled right here on this ranch,” Grayson corrected him, “and
he ain't never been more'n a hundred mile from it. If he ain't dead or
stolen he'd a-ben back afore the bookkeeper was. It's almighty queer.”
“What sort of bookkeeper is Mr. Bridge?” asked the girl.
“Oh, he's all right I guess,” replied Grayson grudgingly. “A feller's
got to be some good at something. He's probably one of these here
paper-collar, cracker-fed college dudes thet don't know nothin' else
'cept writin' in books.”
The girl rose, smiled, and moved away.
“I like Mr. Bridge, anyhow,” she called back over her shoulder, “for
whatever he may not be he is certainly a well-bred gentleman,” which
speech did not tend to raise Mr. Bridge in the estimation of the
hard-fisted ranch foreman.
“Funny them greasers don't come in from the north range with thet bunch
o' steers. They ben gone all day now,” he said to the boss, ignoring the
girl's parting sally.
Bridge sat tip-tilted against the front of the office building reading
an ancient magazine which he had found within. His day's work was done
and he was but waiting for the gong that would call him to the evening
meal with the other employees of the ranch. The magazine failed to rouse
his interest. He let it drop idly to his knees and with eyes closed
reverted to his never-failing source of entertainment.
And then that slim, poetic guy he turned and looked me in the eye,
“....It's overland and overland and overseas to--where?”
“Most anywhere that isn't here,” I says. His face went kind of queer.
“The place we're in is always here. The other place is there.”
Bridge stretched luxuriously. “'There,'” he repeated. “I've been
searching for THERE for many years; but for some reason I can never get
away from HERE. About two weeks of any place on earth and that place is
just plain HERE to me, and I'm longing once again for THERE.”
His musings were interrupted by a sweet feminine voice close by. Bridge
did not open his eyes at once--he just sat there, listening.
As I was hiking past the woods, the cool and sleepy summer woods,
I saw a guy a-talking to the sunshine in the air,
Thinks I, “He's going to have a fit--I'll stick around and watch a bit,”
But he paid no attention, hardly knowing I was there.
Then the girl broke into a merry laugh and Bridge opened his eyes and
came to his feet.
“I didn't know you cared for that sort of stuff,” he said. “Knibbs
writes man-verse. I shouldn't have imagined that it would appeal to a
young lady.”
“But it does, though,” she replied; “at least to me. There's a swing to
it and a freedom that 'gets me in the eye.'”
Again she laughed, and when this girl laughed, harder-headed and much
older men than Mr. L. Bridge felt strange emotions move within their
breasts.
For a week Barbara had seen a great deal of the new bookkeeper. Aside
from her father he was the only man of culture and refinement of which
the rancho could boast, or, as the rancho would have put it, be ashamed
of.
She had often sought the veranda of the little office and lured the new
bookkeeper from his work, and on several occasions had had him at the
ranchhouse. Not only was he an interesting talker; but there was an
element of mystery about him which appealed to the girl's sense of
romance.
She knew that he was a gentleman born and reared, and she often found
herself wondering what tragic train of circumstances had set him adrift
among the flotsam of humanity's wreckage. Too, the same persistent
conviction that she had known him somewhere in the past that possessed
her father clung to her mind; but she could not place him.
“I overheard your dissertation on HERE AND THERE,” said the girl. “I
could not very well help it--it would have been rude to interrupt a
conversation.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously and her cheeks dimpled.
“You wouldn't have been interrupting a conversation,” objected Bridge,
smiling; “you would have been turning a monologue into a conversation.”
“But it was a conversation,” insisted the girl. “The wanderer was
conversing with the bookkeeper. You are a victim of wanderlust, Mr. L.
Bridge--don't deny it. You hate bookkeeping, or any other such prosaic
vocation as requires permanent residence in one place.”
“Come now,” expostulated the man. “That is hardly fair. Haven't I been
here a whole week?”
They both laughed.
“What in the world can have induced you to remain so long?” cried
Barbara. “How very much like an old timer you must feel--one of the
oldest inhabitants.”
“I am a regular aborigine,” declared Bridge; but his heart would have
chosen another reply. It would have been glad to tell the girl that
there was a very real and a very growing inducement to remain at El
Orobo Rancho. The man was too self-controlled, however, to give way to
the impulses of his heart.
At first he had just liked the girl, and been immensely glad of her
companionship because there was so much that was common to them both--a
love for good music, good pictures, and good literature--things Bridge
hadn't had an opportunity to discuss with another for a long, long time.
And slowly he had found delight in just sitting and looking at her. He
was experienced enough to realize that this was a dangerous symptom, and
so from the moment he had been forced to acknowledge it to himself he
had been very careful to guard his speech and his manner in the girl's
presence.
He found pleasure in dreaming of what might have been as he sat watching
the girl's changing expression as different moods possessed her; but as
for permitting a hope, even, of realization of his dreams--ah, he was
far too practical for that, dreamer though he was.
As the two talked Grayson passed. His rather stern face clouded as he
saw the girl and the new bookkeeper laughing there together.
“Ain't you got nothin' to do?” he asked Bridge.
“Yes, indeed,” replied the latter.
“Then why don't you do it?” snapped Grayson.
“I am,” said Bridge.
“Mr. Bridge is entertaining me,” interrupted the girl, before Grayson
could make any rejoinder. “It is my fault--I took him from his work. You
don't mind, do you, Mr. Grayson?”
Grayson mumbled an inarticulate reply and went his way.
“Mr. Grayson does not seem particularly enthusiastic about me,” laughed
Bridge.
“No,” replied the girl, candidly; “but I think it's just because you
can't ride.”
“Can't ride!” ejaculated Bridge. “Why, haven't I been riding ever since
I came here?”
“Mr. Grayson doesn't consider anything in the way of equestrianism
riding unless the ridden is perpetually seeking the life of the rider,”
explained Barbara. “Just at present he is terribly put out because you
lost Brazos. He says Brazos never stumbled in his life, and even if you
had fallen from his back he would have stood beside you waiting for
you to remount him. You see he was the kindest horse on the
ranch--especially picked for me to ride. However in the world DID you
lose him, Mr. Bridge?”
The girl was looking full at the man as she propounded her query. Bridge
was silent. A faint flush overspread his face. He had not before known
that the horse was hers. He couldn't very well tell her the truth, and
he wouldn't lie to her, so he made no reply.
Barbara saw the flush and noted the man's silence. For the first time
her suspicions were aroused, yet she would not believe that this gentle,
amiable drifter could be guilty of any crime greater than negligence
or carelessness. But why his evident embarrassment now? The girl was
mystified. For a moment or two they sat in silence, then Barbara rose.
“I must run along back now,” she explained. “Papa will be wondering what
has become of me.”
“Yes,” said Bridge, and let her go. He would have been glad to tell her
the truth; but he couldn't do that without betraying Billy. He had heard
enough to know that Francisco Villa had been so angered over the bold
looting of the bank in the face of a company of his own soldiers that
he would stop at nothing to secure the person of the thief once his
identity was known. Bridge was perfectly satisfied with the ethics of
his own act on the night of the bank robbery. He knew that the girl
would have applauded him, and that Grayson himself would have done what
Bridge did had a like emergency confronted the ranch foreman; but to
have admitted complicity in the escape of the fugitive would have been
to have exposed himself to the wrath of Villa, and at the same time
revealed the identity of the thief. “Nor,” thought Bridge, “would it get
Brazos back for Barbara.”
It was after dark when the vaqueros Grayson had sent to the north range
returned to the ranch. They came empty-handed and slowly for one of them
supported a wounded comrade on the saddle before him. They rode directly
to the office where Grayson and Bridge were going over some of the
business of the day, and when the former saw them his brow clouded for
he knew before he heard their story what had happened.
“Who done it?” he asked, as the men filed into the office, half carrying
the wounded man.
“Some of Pesita's followers,” replied Benito.
“Did they git the steers, too?” inquired Grayson.
“Part of them--we drove off most and scattered them. We saw the Brazos
pony, too,” and Benito looked from beneath heavy lashes in the direction
of the bookkeeper.
“Where?” asked Grayson.
“One of Pesita's officers rode him--an Americano. Tony and I saw this
same man in Cuivaca the night the bank was robbed, and today he was
riding the Brazos pony.” Again the dark eyes turned toward Bridge.
Grayson was quick to catch the significance of the Mexican's meaning.
The more so as it was directly in line with suspicions which he himself
had been nursing since the robbery.
During the colloquy the boss entered the office. He had heard the
returning vaqueros ride into the ranch and noting that they brought no
steers with them had come to the office to hear their story. Barbara,
spurred by curiosity, accompanied her father.
“You heard what Benito says?” asked Grayson, turning toward his
employer.
The latter nodded. All eyes were upon Bridge.
“Well,” snapped Grayson, “what you gotta say fer yourself? I ben
suspectin' you right along. I knew derned well that that there Brazos
pony never run off by hisself. You an' that other crook from the States
framed this whole thing up pretty slick, didn'tcha? Well, we'll--”
“Wait a moment, wait a moment, Grayson,” interrupted the boss. “Give
Mr. Bridge a chance to explain. You're making a rather serious
charge against him without any particularly strong proof to back your
accusation.”
“Oh, that's all right,” exclaimed Bridge, with a smile. “I have known
that Mr. Grayson suspected me of implication in the robbery; but who can
blame him--a man who can't ride might be guilty of almost anything.”
Grayson sniffed. Barbara took a step nearer Bridge. She had been ready
to doubt him herself only an hour or so ago; but that was before he had
been accused. Now that she found others arrayed against him her impulse
was to come to his defense.
“You didn't do it, did you, Mr. Bridge?” Her tone was almost pleading.
“If you mean robbing the bank,” he replied; “I did not, Miss Barbara. I
knew no more about it until after it was over than Benito or Tony--in
fact they were the ones who discovered it while I was still asleep in my
room above the bank.”
“Well, how did the robber git thet there Brazos pony then?” demanded
Grayson savagely. “Thet's what I want to know.”
“You'll have to ask him, Mr. Grayson,” replied Bridge.
“Villa'll ask him, when he gits holt of him,” snapped Grayson; “but I
reckon he'll git all the information out of you thet he wants first.
He'll be in Cuivaca tomorrer, an' so will you.”
“You mean that you are going to turn me over to General Villa?” asked
Bridge. “You are going to turn an American over to that butcher knowing
that he'll be shot inside of twenty-four hours?”
“Shootin's too damned good fer a horse thief,” replied Grayson.
Barbara turned impulsively toward her father. “You won't let Mr. Grayson
do that?” she asked.
“Mr. Grayson knows best how to handle such an affair as this, Barbara,”
replied her father. “He is my superintendent, and I have made it a point
never to interfere with him.”
“You will let Mr. Bridge be shot without making an effort to save him?”
she demanded.
“We do not know that he will be shot,” replied the ranch owner. “If
he is innocent there is no reason why he should be punished. If he is
guilty of implication in the Cuivaca bank robbery he deserves, according
to the rules of war, to die, for General Villa, I am told, considers
that a treasonable act. Some of the funds upon which his government
depends for munitions of war were there--they were stolen and turned
over to the enemies of Mexico.”
“And if we interfere we'll turn Villa against us,” interposed Grayson.
“He ain't any too keen for Americans as it is. Why, if this fellow was
my brother I'd hev to turn him over to the authorities.”
“Well, I thank God,” exclaimed Bridge fervently, “that in addition to
being shot by Villa I don't have to endure the added disgrace of being
related to you, and I'm not so sure that I shall be hanged by Villa,”
and with that he wiped the oil lamp from the table against which he had
been leaning, and leaped across the room for the doorway.
Barbara and her father had been standing nearest the exit, and as the
girl realized the bold break for liberty the man was making, she pushed
her father to one side and threw open the door.
Bridge was through it in an instant, with a parting, “God bless you,
little girl!” as he passed her. Then the door was closed with a bang.
Barbara turned the key, withdrew it from the lock and threw it across
the darkened room.
Grayson and the unwounded Mexicans leaped after the fugitive only to
find their way barred by the locked door. Outside Bridge ran to the
horses standing patiently with lowered heads awaiting the return of
their masters. In an instant he was astride one of them, and lashing the
others ahead of him with a quirt he spurred away into the night.
By the time Grayson and the Mexicans had wormed their way through one of
the small windows of the office the new bookkeeper was beyond sight and
earshot.
As the ranch foreman was saddling up with several of his men in the
corral to give chase to the fugitive the boss strolled in and touched
him on the arm.
“Mr. Grayson,” he said, “I have made it a point never to interfere with
you; but I am going to ask you now not to pursue Mr. Bridge. I shall
be glad if he makes good his escape. Barbara was right--he is a
fellow-American. We cannot turn him over to Villa, or any other Mexican
to be murdered.”
Grumblingly Grayson unsaddled. “Ef you'd seen what I've seen around
here,” he said, “I guess you wouldn't be so keen to save this feller's
hide.”
“What do you mean?” asked the boss.
“I mean that he's ben tryin' to make love to your daughter.”
The older man laughed. “Don't be a fool, Grayson,” he said, and walked
away.
An hour later Barbara was strolling up and down before the ranchhouse
in the cool and refreshing air of the Chihuahua night. Her mind was
occupied with disquieting reflections of the past few hours. Her pride
was immeasurably hurt by the part impulse had forced her to take in the
affair at the office. Not that she regretted that she had connived in
the escape of Bridge; but it was humiliating that a girl of her position
should have been compelled to play so melodramatic a part before Grayson
and his Mexican vaqueros.
Then, too, was she disappointed in Bridge. She had looked upon him as
a gentleman whom misfortune and wanderlust had reduced to the lowest
stratum of society. Now she feared that he belonged to that substratum
which lies below the lowest which society recognizes as a part of
itself, and which is composed solely of the criminal class.
It was hard for Barbara to realize that she had associated with a
thief--just for a moment it was hard, until recollection forced upon her
the unwelcome fact of the status of another whom she had known--to whom
she had given her love. The girl did not wince at the thought--instead
she squared her shoulders and raised her chin.
“I am proud of him, whatever he may have been,” she murmured; but she
was not thinking of the new bookkeeper. When she did think again of
Bridge it was to be glad that he had escaped--“for he is an American,
like myself.”
“Well!” exclaimed a voice behind her. “You played us a pretty trick,
Miss Barbara.”
The girl turned to see Grayson approaching. To her surprise he seemed to
hold no resentment whatsoever. She greeted him courteously.
“I couldn't let you turn an American over to General Villa,” she said,
“no matter what he had done.”
“I liked your spirit,” said the man. “You're the kind o' girl I ben
lookin' fer all my life--one with nerve an' grit, an' you got 'em both.
You liked thet bookkeepin' critter, an' he wasn't half a man. I like you
an' I am a man, ef I do say so myself.”
The girl drew back in astonishment.
“Mr. Grayson!” she exclaimed. “You are forgetting yourself.”
“No I ain't,” he cried hoarsely. “I love you an' I'm goin' to have you.
You'd love me too ef you knew me better.”
He took a step forward and grasped her arm, trying to draw her to him.
The girl pushed him away with one hand, and with the other struck him
across the face.
Grayson dropped her arm, and as he did so she drew herself to her full
height and looked him straight in the eyes.
“You may go now,” she said, her voice like ice. “I shall never speak of
this to anyone--provided you never attempt to repeat it.”
The man made no reply. The blow in the face had cooled his ardor
temporarily, but had it not also served another purpose?--to crystallize
it into a firm and inexorable resolve.
When he had departed Barbara turned and entered the house.
CHAPTER XII. BILLY TO THE RESCUE
IT WAS nearly ten o'clock the following morning when Barbara, sitting
upon the veranda of the ranchhouse, saw her father approaching from the
direction of the office. His face wore a troubled expression which the
girl could not but note.
“What's the matter, Papa?” she asked, as he sank into a chair at her
side.
“Your self-sacrifice of last evening was all to no avail,” he replied.
“Bridge has been captured by Villistas.”
“What?” cried the girl. “You can't mean it--how did you learn?”
“Grayson just had a phone message from Cuivaca,” he explained. “They
only repaired the line yesterday since Pesita's men cut it last month.
This was our first message. And do you know, Barbara, I can't help
feeling sorry. I had hoped that he would get away.”
“So had I,” said the girl.
Her father was eyeing her closely to note the effect of his announcement
upon her; but he could see no greater concern reflected than that which
he himself felt for a fellow-man and an American who was doomed to death
at the hands of an alien race, far from his own land and his own people.
“Can nothing be done?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he replied with finality. “I have talked it over with
Grayson and he assures me that an attempt at intervention upon our part
might tend to antagonize Villa, in which case we are all as good as
lost. He is none too fond of us as it is, and Grayson believes, and
not without reason, that he would welcome the slightest pretext for
withdrawing the protection of his favor. Instantly he did that we should
become the prey of every marauding band that infests the mountains. Not
only would Pesita swoop down upon us, but those companies of freebooters
which acknowledge nominal loyalty to Villa would be about our ears in no
time. No, dear, we may do nothing. The young man has made his bed, and
now I am afraid that he will have to lie in it alone.”
For awhile the girl sat in silence, and presently her father arose and
entered the house. Shortly after she followed him, reappearing soon
in riding togs and walking rapidly to the corrals. Here she found an
American cowboy busily engaged in whittling a stick as he sat upon an
upturned cracker box and shot accurate streams of tobacco juice at a
couple of industrious tumble bugs that had had the great impudence to
roll their little ball of provender within the whittler's range.
“O Eddie!” she cried.
The man looked up, and was at once electrified into action. He sprang
to his feet and whipped off his sombrero. A broad smile illumined his
freckled face.
“Yes, miss,” he answered. “What can I do for you?”
“Saddle a pony for me, Eddie,” she explained. “I want to take a little
ride.”
“Sure!” he assured her cheerily. “Have it ready in a jiffy,” and away
he went, uncoiling his riata, toward the little group of saddle ponies
which stood in the corral against necessity for instant use.
In a couple of minutes he came back leading one, which he tied to the
corral bars.
“But I can't ride that horse,” exclaimed the girl. “He bucks.”
“Sure,” said Eddie. “I'm a-goin' to ride him.”
“Oh, are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“I'm goin' with you, miss,” announced Eddie, sheepishly.
“But I didn't ask you, Eddie, and I don't want you--today,” she urged.
“Sorry, miss,” he threw back over his shoulder as he walked back to rope
a second pony; “but them's orders. You're not to be allowed to ride no
place without a escort. 'Twouldn't be safe neither, miss,” he almost
pleaded, “an' I won't hinder you none. I'll ride behind far enough to be
there ef I'm needed.”
Directly he came back with another pony, a sad-eyed, gentle-appearing
little beast, and commenced saddling and bridling the two.
“Will you promise,” she asked, after watching him in silence for a time,
“that you will tell no one where I go or whom I see?”
“Cross my heart hope to die,” he assured her.
“All right, Eddie, then I'll let you come with me, and you can ride
beside me, instead of behind.”
Across the flat they rode, following the windings of the river road,
one mile, two, five, ten. Eddie had long since been wondering what the
purpose of so steady a pace could be. This was no pleasure ride which
took the boss's daughter--“heifer,” Eddie would have called her--ten
miles up river at a hard trot. Eddie was worried, too. They had passed
the danger line, and were well within the stamping ground of Pesita and
his retainers. Here each little adobe dwelling, and they were scattered
at intervals of a mile or more along the river, contained a rabid
partisan of Pesita, or it contained no one--Pesita had seen to this
latter condition personally.
At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut.
Eddie gasped. It was Jose's, and Jose was a notorious scoundrel whom old
age alone kept from the active pursuit of the only calling he ever had
known--brigandage. Why should the boss's daughter come to Jose? Jose was
hand in glove with every cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within a
radius of two hundred miles of his abode.
Barbara swung herself from the saddle, and handed her bridle reins to
Eddie.
“Hold him, please,” she said. “I'll be gone but a moment.”
“You're not goin' in there to see old Jose alone?” gasped Eddie.
“Why not?” she asked. “If you're afraid you can leave my horse and ride
along home.”
Eddie colored to the roots of his sandy hair, and kept silent. The girl
approached the doorway of the mean hovel and peered within. At one end
sat a bent old man, smoking. He looked up as Barbara's figure darkened
the doorway.
“Jose!” said the girl.
The old man rose to his feet and came toward her.
“Eh? Senorita, eh?” he cackled.
“You are Jose?” she asked.
“Si, senorita,” replied the old Indian. “What can poor old Jose do to
serve the beautiful senorita?”
“You can carry a message to one of Pesita's officers,” replied the girl.
“I have heard much about you since I came to Mexico. I know that there
is not another man in this part of Chihuahua who may so easily reach
Pesita as you.” She raised her hand for silence as the Indian would have
protested. Then she reached into the pocket of her riding breeches and
withdrew a handful of silver which she permitted to trickle, tinklingly,
from one palm to the other. “I wish you to go to the camp of Pesita,”
she continued, “and carry word to the man who robbed the bank at
Cuivaca--he is an American--that his friend, Senor Bridge has been
captured by Villa and is being held for execution in Cuivaca. You must
go at once--you must get word to Senor Bridge's friend so that help may
reach Senor Bridge before dawn. Do you understand?”
The Indian nodded assent.
“Here,” said the girl, “is a payment on account. When I know that you
delivered the message in time you shall have as much more. Will you do
it?”
“I will try,” said the Indian, and stretched forth a clawlike hand for
the money.
“Good!” exclaimed Barbara. “Now start at once,” and she dropped the
silver coins into the old man's palm.
It was dusk when Captain Billy Byrne was summoned to the tent of Pesita.
There he found a weazened, old Indian squatting at the side of the
outlaw.
“Jose,” said Pesita, “has word for you.”
Billy Byrne turned questioningly toward the Indian.
“I have been sent, Senor Capitan,” explained Jose, “by the beautiful
senorita of El Orobo Rancho to tell you that your friend, Senor Bridge,
has been captured by General Villa, and is being held at Cuivaca, where
he will doubtless be shot--if help does not reach him before tomorrow
morning.”
Pesita was looking questioningly at Byrne. Since the gringo had returned
from Cuivaca with the loot of the bank and turned the last penny of it
over to him the outlaw had looked upon his new captain as something just
short of superhuman. To have robbed the bank thus easily while Villa's
soldiers paced back and forth before the doorway seemed little short of
an indication of miraculous powers, while to have turned the loot
over intact to his chief, not asking for so much as a peso of it, was
absolutely incredible.
Pesita could not understand this man; but he admired him greatly and
feared him, too. Such a man was worth a hundred of the ordinary run of
humanity that enlisted beneath Pesita's banners. Byrne had but to ask a
favor to have it granted, and now, when he called upon Pesita to
furnish him with a suitable force for the rescue of Bridge the brigand
enthusiastically acceded to his demands.
“I will come,” he exclaimed, “and all my men shall ride with me. We will
take Cuivaca by storm. We may even capture Villa himself.”
“Wait a minute, bo,” interrupted Billy Byrne. “Don't get excited. I'm
lookin' to get my pal outen' Cuivaca. After that I don't care who
you capture; but I'm goin' to get Bridgie out first. I ken do it with
twenty-five men--if it ain't too late. Then, if you want to, you can
shoot up the town. Lemme have the twenty-five, an' you hang around the
edges with the rest of 'em 'til I'm done. Whaddaya say?”
Pesita was willing to agree to anything, and so it came that half an
hour later Billy Byrne was leading a choice selection of some two dozen
cutthroats down through the hills toward Cuivaca. While a couple of
miles in the rear followed Pesita with the balance of his band.
Billy rode until the few remaining lights of Cuivaca shone but a short
distance ahead and they could hear plainly the strains of a grating
graphophone from beyond the open windows of a dance hall, and the voices
of the sentries as they called the hour.
“Stay here,” said Billy to a sergeant at his side, “until you hear
a hoot owl cry three times from the direction of the barracks and
guardhouse, then charge the opposite end of the town, firing off your
carbines like hell an' yellin' yer heads off. Make all the racket you
can, an' keep it up 'til you get 'em comin' in your direction, see? Then
turn an' drop back slowly, eggin' 'em on, but holdin' 'em to it as long
as you can. Do you get me, bo?”
From the mixture of Spanish and English and Granavenooish the sergeant
gleaned enough of the intent of his commander to permit him to salute
and admit that he understood what was required of him.
Having given his instructions Billy Byrne rode off to the west, circled
Cuivaca and came close up upon the southern edge of the little village.
Here he dismounted and left his horse hidden behind an outbuilding,
while he crept cautiously forward to reconnoiter.
He knew that the force within the village had no reason to fear attack.
Villa knew where the main bodies of his enemies lay, and that no force
could approach Cuivaca without word of its coming reaching the garrison
many hours in advance of the foe. That Pesita, or another of the several
bandit chiefs in the neighborhood would dare descend upon a garrisoned
town never for a moment entered the calculations of the rebel leader.
For these reasons Billy argued that Cuivaca would be poorly guarded. On
the night he had spent there he had seen sentries before the bank, the
guardhouse, and the barracks in addition to one who paced to and fro in
front of the house in which the commander of the garrison maintained his
headquarters. Aside from these the town was unguarded.
Nor were conditions different tonight. Billy came within a hundred yards
of the guardhouse before he discovered a sentinel. The fellow lolled
upon his gun in front of the building--an adobe structure in the rear
of the barracks. The other three sides of the guardhouse appeared to be
unwatched.
Billy threw himself upon his stomach and crawled slowly forward stopping
often. The sentry seemed asleep. He did not move. Billy reached the
shadow at the side of the structure and some fifty feet from the soldier
without detection. Then he rose to his feet directly beneath a barred
window.