A GAMBLER TALKS
The masked man studied Vince and then the others in turn. He could feel
the electric tension in the room. The killers were motionless and
silent, returning his gaze with crafty eyes, watching for the slightest
relaxation that would give them the split second required to drop a hand
and fire from the hip. The Lone Ranger knew this type, and didn't
underestimate them. They were expert gunmen who would kill without
compunction. When he spoke, his voice was low, but every word was sharp
and distinct.
"It's something of a surprise to learn that three men who are wanted so
badly by the law have stayed close by. You might have done better to
have gotten out of Texas."
None of the men replied. Penelope watched the masked man as if
hypnotized. Twice now he had arrived at a crisis. In spite of herself,
she found that she was trusting him.
"Of course, you felt secure here," the Lone Ranger went on. "You knew
that Thunder Mountain would make a fine hideout in case any law men
managed to get through the Gap. You cleared out a trail and a campsite,
and then concealed it. You felt pretty safe, or you wouldn't have stayed
here."
"Won't yuh cut us loose?" pleaded Vince.
"Where are the rest of the men who work here?" asked the masked man.
"They went tuh town," said Vince, "right after the buryin'. They made a
sort o' holiday of it. They'll be comin' back."
The masked man turned slightly toward Penny, still however watching the
others. He would ask later about the burial.
"How many of those other men are wanted by the law?"
"I don't know. I don't know but the whole pack of them are crooked. They
must be. If they weren't, they'd get out, like Yuma did."
"Yuma?"
"He tried to persuade me to leave here. I wish to Heaven I could have. I
thought I could depend on Uncle Bryant, but now--" Penny broke off in
doubt.
The Lone Ranger, realizing that the girl could add a great deal to his
understanding of events, pressed her for more details.
"There's time to talk later," she said.
"Talk now. Tell me more about this man, Yuma."
Penny explained how she had trusted her uncle in spite of all that had
been said, how she had tried to account for his unconcern in the face of
events, by thinking that his eyes must be failing. Yuma, she explained,
had tried to tell her that she was mistaken in her trust. Yuma had been
fired at by Bryant; had fought with him, and finally had left the Basin.
She explained that it was Bryant's belief in Mort's thin alibi for
murdering Rebecca that had finally showed her her mistake, and now the
clincher was the paper Bryant had left for her to sign.
The Lone Ranger broke in from time to time with questions that brought
out the story of Rebecca and the children upstairs. Penny told him that
she felt compelled to remain for the sake of the children until Wallie
returned. Gimlet, she said, was too old to take the responsibility.
"So you believe in Yuma?"
Penny nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
"I--I must."
"The last time we met," the masked man said, "I offered you something
that you refused. I'm going to offer it again, and what I said then
still goes." He reached one hand into a pocket, then dropped a silver
bullet on the table. The men looked at it curiously. Penny glanced at
it, then at the steady, level eyes behind the mask. For a time she said
nothing. Then, "It means a lot to you to find out who killed those Texas
Rangers, doesn't it?"
The Lone Ranger nodded. "Please," he said, "pick up that bullet. You
might need it. Remember what I told you to do with it. You mentioned an
old man named Gimlet."
"Yes?"
"Gimlet is dead."
The announcement was an obvious surprise to everyone. And to Penny it
was much more. It was a severe shock.
"He was stabbed," the masked man explained. "I was with him when he died
in the bunkhouse."
"But what was he doing there? He slept in the house here."
"I don't know why he went to the bunkhouse, but that's where I found
him. He gave me the name of the man."
"_Who?_"
The Lone Ranger spoke slowly. "He named a fellow you mentioned a few
minutes ago. He said, 'Yuma.'"
"I don't believe it!" declared Penny hotly. "Yuma was Gimlet's friend.
Yuma was my friend too. He tried to reason with Uncle Bryant, and when
he couldn't he left here. Oh, no, no, no! Yuma wouldn't murder anyone,
least of all old Gimlet." Penny picked up the silver bullet and clutched
it in her tiny fist. "There must be a mistake," she sobbed.
"If Yuma didn't kill him," said the Lone Ranger, "we'll soon know who
did. In the meantime, I'll take this paper to Bryant to see what he has
to say about it."
Lonergan, the gambler-lawyer, spoke.
"D'you mind," he drawled in a cocksure manner, "if I have a few words to
say?"
"Well?"
"It strikes me, stranger, that you're in a hell of a spot right now, and
you don't know just what to do about it. You're like the gent that had a
wildcat by the tail and didn't dare let go."
"Go on," snapped the masked man.
Lonergan's lean fingers, resting on the table, beat a soft rhythm. He
spoke with an assurance that was annoying, to say the least.
"You've ravaged the privacy of this ranch and illegally entered a
private home without permission. You've flaunted that gun in our faces
and asked a lot of questions. You've stolen a legal form that isn't
yours by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's none of your
damned business what goes on here."
"Any more to say, Lonergan?"
"Plenty. You can't stay here from now on. You don't know when the rest
of the men will come back and make it hot for you. You can't prove any
of the charges you've made or hinted at, or anything that the girl has
said. Besides, I don't expect the law would listen to you while you're
wearin' that mask. You'd like to turn us all over to the law and collect
some rewards, but that'd be downright hard to handle because there's
quite a few of us here and you'd have to take us through the Gap and run
the risk of meeting our friends. You can't very well take the girl and
the four youngsters away with you for the same reason. You leave here
alone, and we'll simply make out another form like the one you've stuck
in your pocket and have the signatures made all over again. When you
leave, there's a damn good chance that one of us will drill you."
Penny thought she saw uneasiness in the masked man. She glanced from him
to Lonergan while she too wondered what could be done. She wanted
nothing less than to be left there with those killers, especially after
what she had heard about Gimlet and Yuma. Now there would be no one to
witness whatever might transpire.
"Have you," asked the masked man, "any propositions?"
Penny saw the wink that Lonergan showed Sawtell; she wondered if the
masked man saw it too.
"Maybe so," the gambler said. "You seem to know a lot about things here.
Now just forget what you know, take off that mask, and let us see who
you are, and then either join up with us or ride away and keep your
mouth shut."
The tall stranger seemed to be considering. Penny wanted to scream out a
warning that he would never be allowed to leave the place alive. He
would be killed, no matter what his decision might be.
Lonergan went on.
"You must have brains enough to realize that you wouldn't be able to
prove that any of us had a hand in murdering those Texas Rangers. Why,
we could even prove we _didn't_ do it, by the footprints of an Indian
around the place where they've been buried."
So the graves had been found. The masked man added this minute detail to
his stored-up knowledge.
"Anyone can see," went on Lonergan, "that they must have been ambushed
by Indians. Maybe old Gimlet, who took a message in to town for Captain
Blythe, had a hand in framing them for murder. Gimlet might have had an
old grudge he wanted to settle with Texas Rangers. He's been around here
for a good many years, you know."
"I admit," the masked man said, "it would be pretty hard to prove who
killed those men, but cattle-stealing is a different matter.
Furthermore, the law wants you men for other things."
"As for _us_," Lonergan argued, "the law'd have to find us first. As for
the cattle-stealing, when we sell cattle the brands are _right_. We
haven't sold a head that hasn't had the Cavendish brand."
Penny felt the world fall still further apart when the man she had begun
to trust said, "What if I join up with you?"
Lombard and Sawtell looked admiringly at Lonergan and more than ever
appreciated his glib tongue.
"In that case, you'd split the proceeds like the rest of us."
"But what about the stolen cattle?"
Lonergan shook his head.
"Never can be traced here," he said. "We bring them down the mountain
trail from the top of Thunder Mountain; we shove them in with older cows
and run a new brand. We got a dozen brands recorded to work with. We
keep the cattle here until the scar has healed to look old; meanwhile we
take cattle from the last batch up the trail and sell them. We don't
have no trouble at all."
Penelope could see Lonergan's purpose. He was a gambler and playing at
his game. He told everything that would occupy time, knowing that at any
minute some of the men would be returning from Red Oak. He was betting
that the masked man could never use that information.
She saw the tall stranger apparently considering the offer to join the
gang. Why, in the name of Heaven, couldn't this masked man realize what
Lonergan was doing? Why didn't he come here with some concrete plan
instead of bungling in to find himself so helpless, even though he held
a gun on the others?
"You have a pretty well-greased machine for stealing cattle," the Lone
Ranger said in admiration, "and as you say, it would be almost
impossible for me to do much in fighting against you."
"That's right," agreed Lonergan. "Now put up that gun and take off the
mask, an' we'll talk."
"But first tell me who I'm taking orders from."
"Sawtell."
The masked man shook his head.
"There's someone giving him orders; who is that?"
A crafty look came into Lonergan's cadaverous face.
"You mentioned his name a while ago." He glanced at Penny, and said,
"Yuma."
Hoofs clattered close outside the house. Penny felt that now there
surely would be a climax of events, and she was right. The masked man's
manner changed abruptly. He listened for a moment as the hoofbeats
stopped. A trace of a smile showed on his lips. His uncertainty gave way
to grim and vigorous speech.
"You've wondered and asked," he snapped, "what I was going to do here.
Now you'll find out."
Something about the transformation in the masked man made Penny want to
shout. She felt that her trust in him had not been misplaced after all.
The Lone Ranger shoved the table back, then kicked a hooked rug away
from its place on the plank floor.
"This house has stood here a good many years," he said. "Before Bryant
came here, it was used as a hiding place for army supplies when the
Indians were bad. I've been told by a lot of old timers that there's a
vault beneath this floor."
Penny knew about the vault. The trap door in the floor that led to it
had been hidden by the carpet, but now it was exposed.
"That vault," continued the masked man, "was also used to hold prisoners
when it wasn't convenient to move them. Well, it's going to be used to
hold prisoners again."
Watching the men, still holding his gun on them, he threw back the trap
door with a bang.
Lonergan's poker face was changed. Baffled fury showed in his black,
snapping eyes. Lombard swore and Sawtell squinted grimly while his lips
compressed to a thin line.
"Get down there," commanded the masked man. "All of you."
Lonergan went first, very slowly, dragging his steps until the masked
man prodded him hard with his gun, after disarming him.
"You two can take those men you've tied up," the Lone Ranger told
Sawtell and Lombard, as he drew their guns from the holsters and tossed
them aside.
Despite their pleas, Vince and Jeb were hauled down the steep and
rotting ladder to the damp windowless vault, walled in by stone, beneath
the floor.
"At least untie us," cried Vince.
"Your pals can do that."
"It's unholy," cried Jeb. "Yuh can't put me with them killers. This
ain't the will o' the Lord fer me tuh suffer sech company."
"At least," yelled Lombard from the depths, "give us a light down here."
The Lone Ranger dropped the door in place and bolted it.
"It'll be hard for them to open it from down below," he told Penelope,
"but just to make sure they stay there for the time being, we'll brace
it."
He moved the heavy table over the trap door, and on this piled a chair.
Five-foot lengths of firewood were stacked near the fireplace, and one
of these reached from the chair to the rafter of the room.
"If they want to push their way out of that," commented the masked man,
"they'll have to push the roof off this house."
"But Yuma, I know he isn't--"
The Lone Ranger gripped the trembling hand of the girl firmly.
"Please don't jump to conclusions," he admonished her. "We're not going
to take a thing for granted."
"But everything else they said was true. That _must_ be what they've
been doing to steal the cattle. The stock here haven't increased in
numbers a great deal. Lonergan told the truth about everything else."
"We'll see."
"And that horse that came up. Someone has returned from Red Oak."
The masked man shook his head. "No one has come from Red Oak yet. That
horse you heard was Silver. I sent him after my friend."
"Me come."
Penny turned sharply and saw Tonto standing in the doorway.
The Indian looked troubled. "You come quick," he told the Lone Ranger.
"There plenty trouble. Tonto tell you."
The man in the mask nodded quickly. "Remember that bullet," he told
Penny. "Don't worry and take good care of those kids upstairs. You have
plenty of loaded weapons here. If those men below make trouble, shoot a
warning through the floor."
The Lone Ranger left the room and went outside with Tonto.