What Bruce Standing could not know was that those few words signed
_Lynette_ and saying with such cruel curtness: "I have gone back to
Babe Deveril," had been written not by Lynette, but by Deveril himself.
Nor could he know that Lynette had not gone freely but under the harsh
coercion of four men.
Deveril, when Lynette refused to go with him, had hurried away
through the woods, his heart burning with jealous rage. Was the hated
Timber-Wolf to win again, not only in the game for gold but in another
game which was coming to be the one greatest consideration in Babe
Deveril's life?
"Not while I live!" he muttered to himself over and over. And once out
of sight of Lynette who still sat bowed over the dog he had struck
down, he broke into a run. Jim Taggart and Gallup and Cliff Shipton
were not so far away that he could not hope to reach them and to bring
them back before Standing returned.
Thus, not over fifteen minutes before Bruce Standing came back,
bringing Billy Winch and Mexicali Joe with him, Deveril had appeared
before Lynette a second time. And now she leaped to her feet, seeing
who his companions were and reading at one quick glance what lay
unhidden in their faces. Greed was there and savage gloating and
mercilessness; she knew that at least three of those men would stamp
her into the ground under their heavy boots if thus they might walk
over her body through the golden gates of Mexicali Joe's secret.
"You're arrested!" cried Taggart. "Come, get a move on. We clear out of
this on the run!"
"It was you who shot him, not I! And I'll not go with you. In a minute
he'll be back...."
Taggart was of no mind for delay and talk; he caught her roughly by the
arm. Her eyes went swiftly to Deveril's; of his look she could make
nothing. He shrugged and said only:
"Taggart's sheriff; he'll take you along, anyway. You might as well go
without a fuss."
Gallup, his face ugly with the emotions swaying him, was at her other
side. She looked to the hawk-faced man and then away with a shudder.
Then, trying to jerk away, she screamed out:
"Help! Bruce...."
Taggart's big hairy hand was over her mouth.
"Come along," he commanded angrily. "Get a move on."
Half dragging her the first few steps they led her out of camp, down
into the cañon and across among the trees. She gave over struggling;
they watched her so that she could not call again; Taggart threatened
to stuff his dirty bandana handkerchief into her mouth. Deveril alone
held back for a little; she did not know what he was doing; did not see
him as he wrote in a hand which he strove to give a girlish semblance
those few words to which he signed her name. She scarcely marked his
delay; she was trying now to think fast and logically.
These men were brutes, all of them; she had had ample evidence of that
already and had that evidence been lacking the information was there
emblazoned in their faces. Even Babe Deveril, in whom once she had
trusted, began to show the brutal lining of his insolent character. And
yet need she be afraid of any of them just now? If she openly thwarted
them, yes. They would show no mercy to a girl. But at the moment their
thoughts were set not upon her undoing, but upon Mexicali Joe's gold.
And she knew where it was and they knew that she knew.... Taggart was
speaking, growling into her ear:
"We followed Mexicali; we saw him come up here; Deveril followed him
into camp. He told where his gold was. And you heard it all!"
"Well?" said Lynette, striving with herself for calmness. She was
thinking: "If only I can have a little time. He will come for me.... If
only I can have a little time."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Taggart. "The whole earth ain't
Joe's because he picked up a nugget or two. Anybody's got a right to
stake a claim; I got a right and so has the boys ... and so have you."
"Suppose," offered Lynette as coolly as she could, "that I refused to
tell?"
There came a look into Taggart's hard eyes which answered her more
eloquently than any words from the man could have done, which put
certain knowledge and icy fear into her.
Always, when nervous or frightened, Lynette's laughter came easily to
her and now without awaiting any other answer from this man she began
laughing in such a fashion as to perplex him and bring a dragging frown
across his brows.
"Are you going to tell us?" he asked.
"If I do," she temporized, "do I have the chance to drive the first
stakes?"
"By God, yes! And say, little one, you're a peach into the bargain."
She did not appear to hear; she was thinking over and over: "Bruce
Standing will come after us as soon as he finds I am gone. I must gain
a little time, that is all."
If only she could make them think that the gold was somewhere near by
so that Standing must readily find them. But now Deveril had rejoined
them and she recalled how he had heard something, though not all, of
Joe's triumphant announcement. For Joe had shouted out at the top of
his voice, to catch and hold Timber-Wolf's attention: "Light Ladies'
Gulch!" Deveril had heard that; and Light Ladies' Gulch was many miles
away, down toward Big Pine....
Deveril was looking at her with eyes which were bright and hard and
told no tales of the man's thoughts.
"This lovely and altogether too charming young woman," Deveril said
lightly, his eyes still upon her, though his words were for the others,
"has a mind of her own. It would be as well to hear what she has to say
and learn what she intends to do."
"Will you try to lie to us?" demanded Taggart. "Or will you tell us the
truth?"
She, too, strove for lightness, saying:
"Think that out for yourself, Mr. Taggart. Bruce Standing knows where
the gold is now; both you and I know the sort of man he is and we can
imagine that if he drives the first stake he will see to it that he
takes the whole thing. Do you really think that after I came into this
country for gold myself I am going to miss my one chance now?" She
puzzled them again with her laughter and said: "Not that it would not
be a simple matter to trick you, were I minded to let my own chances go
for the sake of spoiling yours; Mexicali Joe fooled you so easily."
"Yet you yelled for Standing just now...."
"After you came rushing upon me as if you meant to tear me to pieces,
frightening the wits out of me."
"Well, then, tell us."
"If I told you now, then what? You'd desert me in a minute; you would
race on ahead; when I caught up with you there would be nothing left."
Deveril's eyes flashed and he said quickly:
"And give you the chance to send us to the wrong place, were you so
minded, so that you could slip off alone and be first at the other
spot! Very clever, Miss Lynette, but that won't work. You go with us."
And all the while she was trying so hard to think; and all the while
listening so eagerly for a certain glorious, golden voice shouting
after her. Deveril had heard part of Joe's exclamation....
"It is in Light Ladies' Gulch," she said quietly.
"Yes!" Here was Young Gallup speaking, his covetous soul aflame. "We
know that; Deveril heard. But Light Ladies' Gulch is forty miles long.
Where abouts in the gulch?"
She told herself that she would die before she led them aright. And yet
she realized to the full the danger to herself if she tricked them as
Joe had done and they discovered her trickery before Standing came. Yet
most of all was she confident that he would come and swiftly.... Joe's
words still rang in her memory; he had told first of the Red Cliffs,
how he had found color there last year; how he had made prospect
holes; how his real mine lay removed three or four miles. Still she
temporized, saying:
"Bruce Standing and Billy Winch and Joe have horses. We are on foot.
Tell me how we can hope to come to the spot first?"
"We'll have horses ourselves in a jiffy," said Taggart. "Stepping
lively, we're not more than a couple of hours from a cattle outfit over
the ridge. We'll get all the horses we want and we'll ride like hell!"
"You know where the Red Cliffs are? At the foot of the cliffs I'll show
you Joe's prospect holes...."
The pale-eyed, hawk-faced Cliff Shipton spoke for the first time.
"Not half a dozen miles out of Big Pine! I told you last year,
Gallup...."
Deveril, the keenest of them all, the one who knew her best, suspected
her from the beginning. His eyes never once left her face.
"How do we know," he said quietly, "that there's any gold there? That
Joe's gold is not somewhere else?"
"You will have to make your own decision," she told him as coolly as
she could. "If you think that I am mistaken or that I am trying to play
with you as Joe did, you are free to go where you please."
Taggart began cursing; his grip tightened on her arm so that he hurt
her terribly as he shouted at her:
"I'll give you one word of warning, little one! If you put up a game
on us now, you cut your own throat. In the first place I'll make it my
business that if we get shut out, you get shut out along with us. And
in the second place when I'm through with you no other man in the world
will have any use for you. Got that?"
She knew what he had done to Mexicali Joe; she could guess what other
unthinkable things he would have done. And she knew that if now she
tricked Jim Taggart and he found her out ... _before Bruce Standing
came_ ... she could only pray to die.
And yet at this, the supreme test in her life, she held steady to a
swiftly taken purpose. She would not put the game into these men's
hands. And she held steadfastly to her certainty, knowing the man,
that Bruce Standing would come. Therefore, though her face went a
little pale, and her mouth was so dry that she did not dare speak, she
shrugged her shoulders.
"Come, then," said Taggart. "Enough palaver. We're on our way."
And of them all, only Babe Deveril was still distrustful.
And thus Lynette, accepting her own grave risk with clear-eyed
comprehension and yet with unswerving determination, led these four men
to a spot where she knew that they would not find that gold for which
every man of them had striven so doggedly; thus it was she who made it
possible for Bruce Standing to be before all others and to triumph and
strike the death-blow to Big Pine and to begin that relentless campaign
which was to end in humbling his ancient enemy, Young Gallup. Yet there
was little exultation in Lynette's heart, but a growing fear, when,
after hours of furious haste, she and the four men came at last into
Light Ladies' Gulch and to the base of the towering red cliffs.
Cliff Shipton knew more of gold-mining than any of the others and
Lynette watched him narrowly as he went up and down under the high
cliffs. And she knew that she in turn was watched; in the first
excitement of coming to the long-sought spot she had hoped that she
might escape. But both Taggart and Deveril followed her at every step
with their eyes.
Desperately she clung to her assurance that Bruce Standing would come
for her. He had said that he would come "though it were ten thousand
mile." He might have difficulties in finding her; she might have to
wait a little while, an hour or two, or three hours. But it remained
that he was a man to surmount obstacles insurmountable to other men; a
man to pin faith upon. Yet time passed and he did not come.
They found indications of Mexicali Joe's labors, rock ledges at which
he had chipped and hammered, prospect holes lower on the steep slope.
And Cliff Shipton acknowledged that "the signs were all right." But
they did not find the gold and they did not find anything to show that
Joe or another had worked here recently.
"All this work," said Shipton, staring and frowning, "was done a year
ago."
"He'd be crafty enough," muttered Gallup, "to hide his real signs. We
got to look around every clump of brush and in every gully where maybe
he's covered things up.... You're sure," and he whipped about upon
Lynette, "that you got straight all he said?"
"I'm sure," said Lynette. And she was afraid that the men would hear
the beating of her heart.
"I am going up to the top of the cliffs again and see what I can see,"
she said.
"If there's gold anywhere it's down here," said Shipton. "There's
nothing on the top."
"Just the same I'm going!"
"Where the horses are?" jeered Taggart. "By God, if you have...."
"If you think I am trying to run away you can follow and watch me. I am
going!"
She turned. Deveril was watching her with keen, shrewd eyes. Taggart
took a quick stride toward her, his hand lifted to drag her back.
Deveril stepped before him, saying coolly:
"I'll go up with her, Taggart. And I guess you know how I stand on
this, don't you?"
"All right," conceded the sheriff. "Only keep your eye peeled. I'm
getting leery."
It was a long climb to the cliff tops and neither Lynette nor Deveril
at her heels spoke during the climb. They were silent when at last
they stood side by side near the tethered horses. Deveril's eyes were
upon her pale face; her own eyes ran swiftly, eagerly across the deep
cañon to the wooded lands beyond. She prayed with the fervor of growing
despair for the sight of a certain young blond giant of a man racing
headlong to her relief.
"Well?" said Deveril presently in a tone so strange, so vibrant with
suppressed emotion that he made her start and drew her wondering eyes
swiftly. "What are you looking for now?"
"Why do you talk like that ... what is the matter?"
His bitter laughter set her nerves quivering.
"Is the gold here, Lynette? Or is it some miles away, with Bruce
Standing already sinking his claws into it, Standing style?"
Again her eyes left him, returning across the gorge to the farther
wooded lands. Over there was a road, the road into which she and Babe
Deveril had turned briefly that night, a thousand years ago, when
they had fled from Big Pine in the dark; a road which led to Bruce
Standing's headquarters. From the top of the cliffs she caught a
glimpse of the road, winding among the trees; her eyes were fixedly
upon it; her lips were moving softly, though the words were not for
Babe Deveril's ears.
"Lynette," he said in that strangely tense and quiet voice, "if you
have been fool enough to try to put something over on this crowd....
Can't you guess how you'd fare in Jim Taggart's hands?"
She was not looking at him; she did not appear to mark his words. He
saw a sudden change in her expression; she started and the blood rushed
back into her cheeks and her eyes brightened. He looked where she was
looking. Far across the cañon, rising up among the trees, was a cloud
of dust. Some one was riding there, riding furiously....
Together they watched, waiting for that _some one_ to appear in the one
spot where the winding road could be glimpsed through the trees. And in
a moment they saw not one man only, but a dozen or a score of men, men
stooping in their saddles and riding hard, veiled in the rising dust
puffing up under their horses' flying feet. Now and then came a pale
glint of the sun striking upon the rifles which, to the last man, they
carried. They came into view with a rush, were gone with a rush. The
great cloud of dust rose and thinned and disappeared.
"That road will bring them down into Light Ladies' Gulch where it makes
the wide loop about three miles from here," said Deveril. "Have you an
idea who they are, Lynette?"
"No," she said, her lips dry; "I don't understand."
"I think that I do understand," he told her, with a flash of anger.
"Those are Standing's men and they are riding, armed, like the
mill-tails of hell. Listen to me while you've got the chance! That's
not the first bunch of men who have ridden over there like that to-day.
Two hours ago, when you went down the cliffs with the others and I
stopped up here, I saw the same sort of thing happening. If you're so
innocent," he sneered at her, "I'll read you the riddle. I've told you
those are Standing's men; then why the devil are they riding like that
and in such numbers? They're going straight down into the Gulch where
the gold is while you hold us back, up here. And Standing is paying off
an old grudge and jamming more gold into his bulging pockets.... And
you've got some men to reckon with in ten minutes who'll make you sorry
that you were ever born a girl!"
"No!" she cried hoarsely. "No. I won't believe it...."
He failed to catch just what she was thinking. She refused to believe
that Bruce Standing, instead of coming to her had raced instead to
Mexicali Joe's gold; that instead of scattering his men across fifty
miles of country seeking her, he was massing them at a new gold-mine.
Bruce Standing was not like that! She cried it passionately within her
spirit. She had stood loyally by him; she had, at all costs, kept her
word to him ... she had come to believe in his love for her and to long
for his return....
"If you saw men before ... if you thought the thing that you think now
... why didn't you rush on after them? It's not true!"
"I didn't rush after them," he returned curtly, "because I'd be a fool
for my pains and would only give that wolf-devil another chance to
laugh in my face. For if he's got this lead on us ... why, then, the
game is his."
"But I won't believe...."
"If you will watch you will see. I'll bet a thousand dollars he has a
hundred men down there already and that they'll be riding by all day;
they'll be staking claims which he will buy back from them at the price
of a day's work; he'll work a clean shut-out for Gallup and Taggart.
That's what he'd give his right hand to do. You watch a minute."
They watched. Once Taggart shouted up to them.
"Down in a minute, Taggart." Deveril called back.
Before long Lynette saw another cloud of dust; this time three or four
men rode into sight and sped away after the others; before the dust
had cleared another two or three men rode by. And at last Lynette felt
despair in her heart, rising into her throat, choking her. For she
understood that in her hour of direst need Bruce Standing had failed
her.
"Taggart will be wanting you in a minute," said Deveril. He spoke
casually; he appeared calm and untroubled; he took out tobacco and
papers and began rolling a cigarette. But Lynette saw that the man was
atremble with rage. "Before you go down to him, tell me: did you know
what you were doing when you brought us to the wrong place?"
"_Yes!_" It was scarcely above a whisper, yet she strove with all
her might to make it defiant. She was afraid and yet she fought with
herself, seeking to hide her fear from him.
He shrugged elaborately, as though the matter were of no great interest
and no longer concerned him.
"Then your blood be on your own head," he said carelessly. "I, for one,
will not raise my hand against you; what Taggart does to you concerns
only you and Taggart."
"Babe Deveril!"
She called to him with a new voice; she was afraid and no longer strove
to hide her fear. Until now she had carried on, head high, in full
confidence; confidence in a man. And that man, like Babe Deveril before
him, had thought first of gold instead of her. Bruce Standing had
spoken of love and had turned aside for gold; with both hands full of
the yellow stuff he thought only of more to be had, and not of her.
"Babe Deveril! Listen to me! I have been a fool ... oh, such a fool! I
knew so little of the real world and of men, and I thought that I knew
it all. My mother had me raised in a convent, thinking thus to protect
me against all the hardships she had endured; but she did not take into
consideration that her blood and Dick Brooke's blood was my blood! This
was all a glorious adventure to me; I thought ... I thought I could do
anything; I was not afraid of men, not of you nor of Bruce Standing nor
of any man. Now I am afraid ... of Jim Taggart! You helped me to run
from him once; help me again. Now. Let me have one of the horses ...
let me go...."
All the while he stood looking at her curiously. Toward the end there
was a look in his eyes which hinted at a sudden spiritual conflagration
within.
"You're not used to this sort of thing?" And when she shook her head
vehemently, he added sternly: "And you are not Bruce Standing's? And
have never been?"
"No, no!" she cried wildly, drawing back from him. "You don't think
that...."
Now he came to her and caught her two hands fiercely.
"Lynette!" he said eagerly. "Lynette, I love you! To-day you have stood
between me and a fortune, and I tell you ... I love you! Since first
you came to the door of my cabin I have loved you, you girl with the
daring eyes!"
"Don't!" she pleaded. "Let me go. Can't you see...."
"Tell me, Lynette," he said sternly, still holding her hands tight in
his, "is there any chance for me? I had never thought to marry; but
now I'd rather have you mine than have all the gold that ever came out
of the earth. Tell me and tell me the truth; we know each other rather
well for so few days, Lynette. So tell me; tell me, Lynette."
Again she shook her head.
"Let me go," she pleaded. "Let me have a horse and go. Before they come
up for me...."
"Then there's no chance, ever, for me?"
"Neither for you nor for any other man.... I have had enough of all
men.... Let me go, Babe Deveril!"
Still he held her, his hands hardening on her, as he demanded:
"And what of Bruce Standing?"
"I don't know ... I can't understand men ... I thought there never was
another man like him, a hard man who could be tender, a man who ... I
don't know; I want to go."
"Go?" There came a sudden gleam into his eyes. "And where? Back to
Bruce Standing maybe?"
"No! Anywhere on earth but back to him. To the stage which will be
leaving Big Pine in a little while; back to a land where trains run,
trains which can take me a thousand miles away. Oh, Babe Deveril...."
Taggart's voice rose up to them, sounding savage.
"What in hell's name are you doing up there?"
Then Deveril released her hands.
"Go to the horses," he commanded. "Untie all four. I'll ride with you
to the stage ... and we'll take the other horses along!"
She had scarcely hoped for this; for an instant she stood staring at
him, half afraid that he was jeering at her. Then she ran to the horses
and began wildly untying their ropes. Deveril, smoking his cigarette,
appeared on the edge of the cliff for Taggart to see, and called down
carelessly:
"What's all the excitement, Taggart?"
"Keep your eye on that girl. Shipton thinks she's fooled us. I want her
down here."
Deveril laughed at him and turned away. Once out of Taggart's sight he
ran. Lynette already was in the saddle; he mounted and took from her
the tie ropes of the other horses.
"On our way," he said crisply. "They'll be after us like bees out of a
jostled hive."
They did not ride into Big Pine, but into the road two or three miles
below where the stage would pass. Deveril hailed the stage when it came
and the driver took Lynette on as his solitary passenger. At the last
minute she caught Babe Deveril's hand in both of hers.
"There is good and bad in you, Babe Deveril, as I suppose there is in
all of us. But you have been good to me! I will never forget how you
have stood my friend twice; I will always remember that you were _a
man_; a man who never did little, mean things. And I shall always thank
God for that memory. And now, good-by, Babe Deveril and good luck go
with you!"
"And Standing?" he demanded at the end. "You are done with him, too?"
Suddenly she looked wearier than he had ever seen her even during their
days and nights together in the mountains. She looked a poor little
broken-hearted girl; there was a quick gathering of tears in her eyes,
which she strove to smile away. But despite the smile, the tears ran
down. She waved her hand; the stage driver cracked his long whip....
Deveril stood in the dusty road, his hat in his hand, staring down a
winding roadway. A clatter of hoofs, a rattle of wheels, a mist of dust
... and Lynette was gone.