SPEECHLESS HICKS.
When I spoke of holding a council of war, I did so largely in a
figurative sense. Literally, we set about reviving Hicks, with a view to
learning from him what had become of Lyn Rowan. He and Bevans
undoubtedly knew, and as Bevans persisted in his defiant sullenness,
refusing to open his mouth for other purpose than to curse us
vigorously, we turned to Hicks. A liberal amount of water dashed in his
face aided him to recover consciousness, and in a short time he sat up
and favored us with a scowl.
"What has become of that girl you took away from Baker's freight-train
yesterday morning?" MacRae dispassionately questioned.
Hicks glared at him by way of answer.
"Hurry up and find your tongue," MacRae prompted.
"I dunno what you're drivin' at," Hicks dissembled.
"You will know, in short order," MacRae retorted, "if you harp on that
tune. We've got you where we want you, and I rather think you'll be glad
to talk, before long. I ask you what became of that girl between the
time you knifed Goodell and this morning?"
Hicks started at mention of Goodell. His heavy face settled into
stubborn lines. He blinked under MacRae's steady look. Of a sudden he
sprang to his feet. I do not know what his intention may have been, but
he got little chance to carry out any desperate idea that took form in
his brain, for MacRae knocked him back on his haunches with a single
blow of his fist.
"Answer me," he shouted, "or by the Lord! I'll make you think hell is a
pleasure-garden compared to this sand-bar."
"Kick a few uh his ribs out uh place for a starter," Piegan coolly
advised. "That'll he'p him remember things."
Yet for all their threats Hicks obstinately refused to admit that he had
ever seen Lyn Rowan. What his object was in denying knowledge we knew he
possessed did not transpire till later. He knew the game was lost, so
far as he was concerned, and he was mustering his forces in a last
effort to save himself. And MacRae's patience snapped like a frayed
thread before many minutes of futile query.
"Get me a rope off one of those pack-horses, Sarge," he snapped.
I brought the rope; and I will brazenly admit that I should not have
balked at helping decorate the limb of a cottonwood with those two
red-handed scoundrels. But I was not prepared for the turn MacRae took.
Hicks evidently felt that there was something ominous to the fore, for
he fought like a fiend when we endeavored to apply the rope to his arms
and legs. There was an almost superhuman desperation in his resistance,
and while MacRae and I hammered and choked him into submission Piegan
gyrated about us with a gun in his left hand, begging us to let _him_
put the finishing touches to Hicks. That, however, was the very
antithesis of MacRae's purpose.
"I don't want to _kill_ him, Piegan," he said pointedly, when Hicks was
securely tied. "If I had, do you suppose I'd dirty my hands on him in
that sort of a scramble when I know how to use a gun? I want him to
talk--you understand?--and he _will_ talk before I'm through with him."
There was a peculiar inflection about that last sentence, a world of
meaning that was lost on me until I saw Mac go to the brush a few yards
distant, return with an armful of dry willows and place them on the sand
close by Hicks. Without audible comment I watched him, but I was
puzzled--at first. He broke the dry sticks into fragments across his
knee; when he had a fair-sized pile he took out his knife and whittled a
few shavings. Not till he snapped his knife shut and put it in his
pocket and began, none too gently, to remove the boots from Hicks' feet,
did I really comprehend what he was about. It sent a shiver through me,
and even old Piegan stood aghast at the malevolent determination of the
man. But we voiced no protest. That was neither the time nor place to
abide by the Golden Rule. Only the law of force, ruthless, inexorable,
would compel speech from Hicks. And since they would recognize no
authority save that of force, it seemed meet and just to deal with them
as they had dealt with us. So Piegan Smith and I stood aloof and watched
the grim play, for the fate of a woman hung in the balance. Hicks'
salient jaw was set, his expression unreadable.
MacRae stacked the dry wood in a neat pyramid twelve inches from the
bare soles of Hicks' feet. He placed the shavings in the edge of the
little pile. Then he stood up and began to talk, fingering a match with
horrible suggestiveness.
"Perhaps you think that by keeping a close mouth there's a chance to get
out of some of the deviltry you've had a hand in lately. But there
isn't. You'll get what's coming to you. And in case you're bolstering up
your nerve with false hopes in that direction, let me tell you that we
know exactly how you turned every trick. I don't particularly care to
take the law into my own hands; I'd rather take you in and turn you
over to the guard. But there's a woman to account for yet, and so you
can take your choice between the same deal you gave Hans Rutter and
telling me what became of her."
He paused for a moment. Hicks stared up at him calculatingly.
"I'll tell you all I know about it if you turn me loose," he said. "Give
me a horse and a chance to pull my freight, and I'll talk. Otherwise,
I'm dumb."
"I'll make no bargains with you," MacRae answered. "Talk or take the
consequences."
Hicks shook his head. MacRae coughed--the smoke was still rolling in
thick clouds from over the river--and went on.
"Perhaps it will make my meaning clearer if I tell you what happened to
Rutter, eh? You and Gregory got him after he was wounded, didn't you? He
wouldn't tell where that stuff had been _cached_. But you had a way of
loosening a man's tongue--I have you to thank for the idea. Oh, it was a
good one, but that old Dutchman was harder stuff than you're made of.
You built a fire and warmed his feet. Still he wouldn't talk, so you
warmed them some more. Fine! But you didn't suppose you'd ever get
_your_ feet warmed. I'm not asking much of you, and you'll be no deeper
in the mire when you answer. If you don't--well, there's plenty of wood
here. Will you tell me what I want to know, or shall I light the fire?"
Still no word from Hicks. MacRae bent and raked the match along a flat
stone.
"Oh, well," he said indifferently, "maybe you'll think better of it when
your toes begin to sizzle."
He thrust the flaring match among the shavings. As the flame crept in
among the broken willows, Hicks raised his head.
"If I tell you what become of her, will you let me go?" he proposed
again. "I'll quit the country."
"You'll tell me--or cook by inches, right here," Mac answered
deliberately. "You can't buy me off."
The blaze flickered higher. I watched it, with every fiber of my being
revolting against such savagery, and the need for it. I glanced at
Piegan and Bevans. The one looked on with grim repression, the other
with blanched face. And suddenly Hicks jerked up his knees and heaved
himself bodily aside with a scream of fear.
"Put it out! Put it out!" he cried. "I'll tell you. For God's
sake--anything but the fire!"
"Be quick, then," MacRae muttered, "before I move you back."
"Last night," Hicks gasped, "when we pulled into the gorge to camp, she
jerked the six-shooter out uh Lessard's belt and made a run for it. She
took to the brush. It was dark, and we couldn't follow her. I don't know
where she got to, except that she started down the creek. We hunted for
her half the night--didn't see nothin'. That's the truth, s'help me."
"Down the creek--say, by the great Jehosophat!" Piegan exclaimed. "D'yuh
remember that racket in the water this mornin'? Yuh wait." He turned
and ran down-stream. Almost instantly the smoke had swallowed him.
MacRae stood staring for a second or two, then turned and scattered the
fire broadcast on the sand with a movement of his foot. He lifted his
hat, and I saw that his forehead and hair was damp with sweat.
"That was a job I had mighty little stomach for," he said, catching my
eye and smiling faintly. "I thought that sulky brute would come through
if I made a strong bluff. I reckon I'd have weakened in another minute,
if he hadn't."
"Ugh!" I shuddered. "It gave me the creeps. I wouldn't make a good
Indian."
"Nor I," he agreed. "But I had to know. And I feel better now. I'm not
afraid for Lyn, since I know she got away from _them_."
Piegan, at this moment, set up a jubilant hallooing down the river, and
shortly came rushing back to us.
"Aha, I told yuh," he cried exultantly. "That was her crossed the river
this mornin'. I found her track in the sand. One uh yuh stand guard,
and the other feller come with me. We c'n trail her."
"Go ahead," I told MacRae--a superfluous command, for I could not have
kept him from going if I had tried.
So I was left on the sand-bar with two dead thieves, and two who should
have been dead, and a little knot of horses for company. Hicks and
Bevans gave me little concern. I had helped tie both of them, and I knew
they would not soon get loose. But it was a weary wait. An hour fled. I
paced the bar, a carbine in the crook of my arm and a vigilant eye for
incipient outbreaks for freedom on the part of those two wolves. The
horses stood about on three legs, heads drooping. The smoke-clouds
swayed and eddied, lifted a moment, and closed down again with the
varying spasms of the fire that was beating itself out on the farther
shore. I sat me down and rested a while, arose and resumed my nervous
tramping. The foglike haze began to thin. It became possible to breathe
without discomfort to the lungs; my eyes no longer stung and watered.
And after a period in which I seemed to have walked a thousand miles on
that sandy point, I heard voices in the distance. Presently MacRae and
Piegan Smith broke through the willow fringe on the higher ground--and
with them appeared a feminine figure that waved a hand to me.