QUICK FACTS
Disregarding the sounds which continued to come from below, Rathburn
stood, gun in hand, regarding Sautee with a grim countenance and a
cold look in his keen, gray eyes.
"I saw that truck driver held up, Sautee. I was on a ridge below the
divide. I saw the tall man in the black slicker, his pardner, an' the
boy. I didn't figure it would do any good to tell Mannix I'd taken in
the show, an' I was on my way to the desert. I'd be there now if
Carlisle hadn't overstepped the mark in that Red Feather place."
Sautee pricked up his ears. "You let them arrest you," he said.
"Why----"
"Because I knew Mannix didn't know who I was an' didn't have anything
on me," said Rathburn quickly. "An' I got peevish at Carlisle an'
plumb suspicious when he tried to make things look bad for me right
there at the start. I began to wise up to the whole lay when you got
me out of jail."
Sautee's face went white again.
"Your fine explanations of why you couldn't get that money up to the
mine were thin as water, Sautee. You could get that money up there if
you wanted to, an' when you asked me to carry the package to the mine
it was a dead out-an'-out give-away. I reckon you didn't play me to
have any sense, an' I don't think you gave Carlisle credit for havin'
the brains of a jack rabbit, either."
Rathburn laughed as the mine manager stared at mention of Carlisle's
name again.
"Don't worry," he said contemptuously. "I know it was Carlisle who
held me up. I take it he figured that you'd actually put money in that
package. Wouldn't be surprised if it was him that you got to try that
stunt. An' he started away with the package as soon as he got it
instead of sneakin' back home to split with you. He double crossed you
an' you double crossed him an' me. Now I'm double crossing the two of
you."
Sautee's look had changed to one of anger. He glared at Rathburn,
forgetting his predicament.
"You'd have a fine time proving any of this nonsense," he found the
courage to say.
"I'm not only goin' to prove what I've said so far, but I'm goin' to
prove that these robberies were a put-up job between you an' Carlisle,
with somebody helping you," said Rathburn. "I've been in the mining
game myself, Sautee, but in our country men spend their lives hunting
metal to make some bunch of stockholders rich. Maybe they get
something out of it themselves, an' maybe they don't; but they're
square, an' the men that run the mines are square 'most always. Anyway
they develop properties, an' that's more'n you're doing. You're not
doing this camp any good. You're bleeding the mine an' the company,
too."
"And I suppose you--The Coyote--are taking a hand in this business as
a matter of principle," sneeringly replied Sautee.
"I didn't take a hand," Rathburn pointed out sternly. "You an'
Carlisle forced a hand on me, an' I'm goin' to play it out. I've
another reason, too," he added mysteriously.
"Did you say you had Carlisle?" Sautee asked in feigned anxiety.
"I've got him dead to rights," replied Rathburn shortly, taking some
paper and a pencil from a pocket.
Sautee looked at him curiously as he started to write on the paper.
"Going to write it all out and leave it?" he asked sneeringly.
"I'm going to put it outside the powder house in a place where Mannix
or some of the others will be sure to find it," was the puzzling
answer.
"I suppose they'll believe it quicker if it's in writing," said Sautee
bravely.
Rathburn finished writing, folded the paper, and placed it in the
left-hand pocket of his coat. He carefully put away the pencil. His
next act caused Sautee real concern.
Using a drill which was there for the purpose, evidently, Rathburn
broke open a box of dynamite caps and a box of dynamite. A single coil
of fuse was lying on a box. He quickly affixed the cap to a stick of
the dynamite and crimped on a two-foot length of fuse. Then he moved
the opened box of dynamite to the doorway and struck the stick with
cap and fuse attached into it.
"There," he said, evidently greatly satisfied with his work. "That
fuse will burn about two minutes----" He paused. "That's too long," he
concluded.
Perspiration again stood out on Sautee's forehead as he watched
Rathburn cut off a foot of the fuse.
"That's better," said Rathburn with a queer smile. "That'll burn about
a minute. Time enough."
Sautee stared in horrified fascination at the foot of fuse which stuck
straight out from the box of dynamite in the doorway. "What--what are
you going to do?" he gasped out.
"Listen, Sautee," said Rathburn coolly. "When that stick of powder
explodes it'll set off the box an' the other boxes, an' instead of a
powder house here there'll be a big hole in the side of the
mountain."
"Man--man--you're not going to do--_that_!" Sautee's words came in a
hoarse whisper.
"I reckon that's what I'm goin' to have to do," said Rathburn as he
bent over the form on the floor of the powder house.
The boy's eyes were open and were staring into Rathburn's.
Rathburn lifted him to his feet, where he stood unsteadily. Again the
gun was in Rathburn's hand.
"This party is goin' to leave us," he said to the frightened mine
manager. "I'm goin' to step just outside for a minute. It's your
chance to make a break, Sautee; but if you try it I'll send a bullet
into that cap. Maybe you heard somewhere that I can shoot tolerably
well," he concluded in his drawl.
Sautee gripped the sides of the boxes piled behind him.
Rathburn led the boy outside and said quickly: "Just what is this man
Carlisle to you?"
A look of fear, remorse, dejection--all commingled and pleading--came
into the dark eyes that looked up into his.
Rathburn didn't wait for a verbal answer.
"Your horse is just up the trail a piece," he said hurriedly. "Get up
there--go up behind the powder house, so the men below can't see you.
Swing off into the timber to the left and get down out of here. I'll
keep their attention. Go home."
He waited a moment until he saw that his instructions were being
carried out, then he leaped again to the doorway of the powder house.
Sautee's face was livid, and his teeth were chattering. Rathburn took
a match from his shirt pocket.
"Stop!" screamed Sautee. "I'll talk. You were right. It was a
frame-up. I'll tell everything--_everything_!"
The perspiration was streaming from his face, and his voice shook with
terror.
"You'll have a chance to talk in less than a minute," said Rathburn
calmly.
A chorus of shouts came from the trail just below the powder house as
a number of men came into view.
Rathburn stepped in front of the door with the match in his left hand
and his gun in his right.