255CHAPTER VIIN DEAD MAN’S CACHE
Not since the start of their journey had Melissy broken silence, save to answer, in few words as possible, the questions put to her by the outlaw. Yet her silence had not been sullenness. It had been the barrier which she had set up between them—one which he could not break down short of actual roughness.
Of this she could not accuse him. Indeed, he had been thoughtful of her comfort. At sunset they had stopped by a spring, and he had shared with her such food as he had. Moreover, he had insisted that she should rest for a while before they took up the last stretch of the way.
It was midnight now, and they had been traveling for many hours over rough mountain trails. There was more strength than one would look for in so slender a figure, yet Melissy was drooping with fatigue.
“It’s not far now. We’ll be there in a few minutes,” MacQueen promised her.
They were ascending a narrow trail which ran256along the sidehill through the timber. Presently they topped the summit, and the ground fell away from their feet to a bowl-shaped valley, over which the silvery moonshine played so that the basin seemed to swim in a magic sea of light.
“Welcome to the Cache,” he said to her.
She was surprised out of her silence. “Dead Man’s Cache?”
“It has been called that.”
“Why?”
She knew, but she wanted to see if he would tell a story which showed so plainly his own ruthlessness.
He hesitated, but only for a moment.
“There was a man named Havens. He had a reputation as a bad man, and I reckon he deserved it—if brand blotting, mail rustling, and shooting citizens are the credentials to win that title. Hard pressed on account of some deviltry, he drifted into this country, and was made welcome by those living here. The best we had was his. He was fed, outfitted, and kept safe from the law that was looking for him.
“You would figure he was under big obligations to the men that did this for him—wouldn’t you? But he was born skunk. When his chance came he offered to betray these men to the law, in exchange for a pardon for his own sneaking hide. The letter was found, and it was proved he wrote it. What ought those men to have done to him, Miss ’Lissie?”257
“I don’t know.” She shuddered.
“There’s got to be law, even in a place like this. We make our own laws, and the men that stay here have got to abide by them. Our law said this man must die. He died.”
She did not ask him how. The story went that the outlaws whom the wretched man had tried to sell let him escape on purpose—that, just as he thought he was free of them, their mocking laughter came to him from the rocks all around. He was completely surrounded. They had merely let him run into a trap. He escaped again, wandered without food for days, and again discovered that they had been watching him all the time. Turn whichever way he would, their rifles warned him back. He stumbled on, growing weaker and weaker. They would neither capture him nor let him go.
For nearly a week the cruel game went on. Frequently he heard their voices in the hills about him. Sometimes he would call out to them pitifully to put him out of his misery. Only their horrible laughter answered. When he had reached the limit of endurance he lay down and died.
And the man who had engineered that heartless revenge was riding beside her. He had been ready to tell her the whole story, if she had asked for it, and equally ready to justify it. Nothing could have shown her more plainly the character of the villain into whose hands she had fallen.
They descended into the valley, winding in and258out until they came suddenly upon ranch houses and a corral in a cleared space.
A man came out of the shadows into the moonlight to meet them. Instantly Melissy recognized his walk. It was Boone.
“Oh, it’s you,” MacQueen said coldly. “Any of the rest of the boys up?”
“No.”
Not a dozen words had passed between them, but the girl sensed hostility. She was not surprised. Dunc Boone was not the man to take second place in any company of riff-raff, nor was MacQueen one likely to yield the supremacy he had fought to gain.
The latter swung from the saddle and lifted Melissy from hers. As her feet struck the ground her face for the first time came full into the moonlight.
Boone stifled a startled oath.
“Melissy Lee!” Like a swiftly reined horse he swung around upon his chief. “What devil’s work is this?”
“My business, Dunc!” the other retorted in suave insult.
“By God, no! I make it mine. This young lady’s a friend of mine—or used to be.Sabe?”
“Isabeyou’d better not try to sit in at this game, my friend.”
Boone swung abruptly upon Melissy. “How come you here, girl? Tell me!”259
And in three sentences she explained.
“What’s your play? Whyfor did you bring her?” the Arkansan demanded of MacQueen.
The latter stood balanced on his heels with his feet wide apart. There was a scornful grin on his face, but his eyes were fixed warily on the other man.
“What was I to do with her, Mr. Buttinski? She found out who I was. Could I send her home? If I did how was I to fix it so I could go to Mesa when it’s necessary till we get this ransom business arranged?”
“All right. But you understand she’s a friend of mine. I’ll not have her hurt.”
“Oh, go to the devil! I’m not in the habit of hurting young ladies.”
MacQueen swung on his heel insolently and knocked on the door of a cabin near.
“Don’t forget that I’m here when you need me,” Boone told Melissy in a low voice.
“I’ll not forget,” the girl made answer in a murmur.
The wrinkled face of a Mexican woman appeared presently at a window. MacQueen jabbered a sentence or two in her language. She looked at Melissy and answered.
The girl had not lived in Southern Arizona for twenty years without having a working knowledge of Spanish. Wherefore, she knew that her captor had ordered his own room prepared for her.260
While they waited for this to be made ready MacQueen hummed a snatch of a popular song. It happened to be a love ditty. Boone ground his teeth and glared at him, which appeared to amuse the other ruffian immensely.
“Don’t stay up on our account,” MacQueen suggested presently with a malicious laugh. “We’re not needing a chaperone any to speak of.”
The Mexican woman announced that the bedroom was ready and MacQueen escorted Melissy to the door of the room. He stood aside with mock gallantry to let her pass.
“Have to lock you in,” he apologized airily. “Not that it would do you any good to escape. We’d have you again inside of twenty-four hours. This bit of the hills takes a heap of knowing. But we don’t want you running away. You’re too tired. So I lock the door and lie down on the porch under your window.Adios, señorita.”
Melissy heard the key turn in the lock, and was grateful for the respite given her by the night. She was glad, too, that Boone was here. She knew him for a villain, but she hoped he would stand between her and MacQueen if the latter proved unruly in his attentions. Her guess was that Boone was jealous of the other—of his authority with the gang to which they both belonged, and now of his relationship to her. Out of this division might come hope for her.
So tired was she that, in spite of her alarms,261sleep took her almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. When she awakened the sun was shining in at her window above the curtain strung across its lower half.
Some one was knocking at the door. When she asked who was there, in a voice which could not conceal its tremors, the answer came in feminine tones:
“’Tis I—Rosario Chaves.”
The Mexican woman was not communicative, nor did she appear to be sympathetic. The plight of this girl might have moved even an unresponsive heart, but Rosario showed a stolid face to her distress. What had to be said, she said. For the rest, she declined conversation absolutely.
Breakfast was served Melissy in her room, after which Rosario led her outdoors. The woman gave her to understand that she might walk about the cleared space, but must not pass into the woods beyond. To point the need of obedience, Rosario seated herself on the porch, and began doing some drawn work upon which she was engaged.
Melissy walked toward the corral, but did not reach it. An old hag was seated in a chair beside one of the log cabins. From the color of her skin the girl judged her to be an Indian squaw. She wore moccasins, a dirty and shapeless one-piece dress, and a big sunbonnet, in which her head was buried.
Sitting on the floor of the porch, about fifteen feet from her, was a hard-faced customer, with stony262eyes like those of a snake. He was sewing on a bridle that had given way. Melissy noticed that from the pocket of his chaps the butt of a revolver peeped. She judged it to be the custom in Dead Man’s Cache to go garnished with weapons.
Her curiosity led her to deflect toward the old woman. But she had not taken three steps toward the cabin before the man with the jade eyes stopped her.
“That’ll be near enough, ma’am,” he said, civilly enough. “This old crone has a crazy spell whenever a stranger comes nigh. She’s nutty. It ain’t safe to come nearer—is it, old Sit-in-the-Sun?”
The squaw grunted. Simultaneously, she looked up, and Miss Lee thought that she had never seen more piercing eyes.
“Is Sit-in-the-Sun her name?” asked the girl curiously.
“That’s the English of it. The Navajo word is a jawbreaker.”
“Doesn’t she understand English?”
“No more’n you do Choctaw, miss.”
A quick step crunched the gravel behind Melissy. She did not need to look around to know that here was Black MacQueen.
“What’s this—what’s this, Hank?” he demanded sharply.
“The young lady started to come up and speak to old Sit-in-the-Sun. I was just explaining to her263how crazy the old squaw is,” Jeff answered with a grin.
“Oh! Is that all?” MacQueen turned to Melissy.
“She’s plumb loony—dangerous, too. I don’t want you to go near her.”
The girl’s eyes flashed. “Very considerate of you. But if you want to protect me from the really dangerous people here, you had better send me home.”
“I tell you they do as I say, every man jack of them. I’d flay one alive if he insulted you.”
“It’s a privilege you don’t sublet then,” she retorted swiftly.
Admiration gleamed through his amusement. “Gad, you’ve got a sharp tongue. I’d pity the man you marry—unless he drove with a tight rein.”
“That’s not what we’re discussing, Mr. MacQueen. Are you going to send me home?”
“Not till you’ve made us a nice long visit, my dear. You’re quite safe here. My men are plumb gentle. They’ll eat out of your hand. They don’t insult ladies. I’ve taught ’em——”
“Pity you couldn’t teach their leader, too.”
He acknowledged the hit. “Come again, dearie. But what’s your complaint? Haven’t I treated you white so far?”
“No. You insulted me grossly when you brought me here by force.”
“Did I lay a hand on you?”264
“If it had been necessary you would have.”
“You’re right, I would,” he nodded. “I’ve taken a fancy to you. You’re a good-looking and a plucky little devil. I’ve a notion to fall in love with you.”
“Don’t!”
“Why not? Say I’m a villain and a bad lot. Wouldn’t it be a good thing for me to tie up with a fine, straight-up young lady like you? Me, I like the way your eyes flash. You’ve got a devil of a temper, haven’t you?”
They had been walking toward a pile of rocks some little way from the cluster of cabins. Now he sat down and smiled impudently across at her.
“That’s my business,” she flung back stormily.
Genially he nodded. “So it is. Mine, too, when we trot in double harness.”
Her scornful eyes swept up and down him. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
“No. Well, I’m not partial to that game myself. I didn’t mention matrimony, did I?”
The meaning she read in his mocking, half-closed eyes startled the girl. Seeing this, he added with a shrug:
“Just as you say about that. We’ll make you Mrs. MacQueen on the level if you like.”
The passion in her surged up. “I’d rather lie dead at your feet—I’d rather starve in these hills—I’d rather put a knife in my heart!”
He clapped his hands. “Fine! Fine! That265Bernhardt woman hasn’t got a thing on you when it comes to acting, my dear. You put that across bully. Never saw it done better.”
“You—coward!” Her voice broke and she turned to leave him.
“Stop!” The ring of the word brought her feet to a halt. MacQueen padded across till he faced her. “Don’t make any mistake, girl. You’re mine. I don’t care how. If it suits you to have a priest mumble words over us, good enough. But I’m the man you’ve got to get ready to love.”
“I hate you.”
“That’s a good start, you little catamount.”
“I’d rather die—a thousand times rather.”
“Not you, my dear. You think you would right now, but inside of a week you’ll be hunting for pet names to give me.”
She ran blindly toward the house where her room was. On the way she passed at a little distance Dunc Boone and did not see him. His hungry eyes followed her—a slender creature of white and russet and gold, vivid as a hillside poppy, compact of life and fire and grace. He, too, was a miscreant and a villain, lost to honor and truth, but just now she held his heart in the hollow of her tightly clenched little fist. Good men and bad, at bottom we are all made of the same stuff, once we are down to the primal emotions that go deeper than civilization’s veneer.
266CHAPTER VII“TRAPPED!”
Black MacQueen rolled a cigarette and sauntered toward the other outlaw.
“I reckon you better saddle up and take a look over the Flattops, Dunc. The way I figure it Lee’s posse must be somewhere over there. Swing around toward the Elkhorns and get back to report by to-morrow evening, say.”
Boone looked at him in an ugly manner. “Nothin’ doing, MacQueen.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m no greaser, my friend. Orders don’t go with me.”
“They don’t, eh? Who’s major domo of this outfit?”
“I’m going to stay right here in this valley to-night. See?”
“What’s eatin’ you, man?”
“And every night so long as Melissy Lee stays.”
MacQueen watched him with steady, hostile eyes. “So it’s the girl, is it? Want to cut in, do you?267Oh, no, my friend. Two’s company; three’s a crowd. She’s mine.”
“No.”
“Yes. And another thing, Mr. Boone. I don’t stand for any interference in my plans. Make a break at it and you’ll take a hurry up journey to kingdom come.”
“Or you will.”
“Don’t bank on that off chance. The boys are with me. You’re alone. If I give the word they’ll bump you off.Don’t make a mistake, Boone.”
The Arkansan hesitated. What MacQueen said was true enough. His overbearing disposition had made him unpopular. He knew the others would side against him and that if it came to a showdown they would snuff out his life as a man does the flame of a candle. The rage died out of his eyes and gave place to a look of cunning.
“It’s your say-so, Black. But there will be a day when it ain’t. Don’t forget that.”
“And in the meantime you’ll ride the Flattops when I give the word?”
Boone nodded sulkily. “I said you had the call, didn’t I?”
“Then ride ’em now, damn you. And don’t show up in the Cache till to-morrow night.”
MacQueen turned on his heel and strutted away. He was elated at his easy victory. If he had seen the look that followed him he might not have been so quiet in his mind.268
But on the surface he had cinched his leadership. Boone saddled and rode out of the Cache without another word to anybody. Sullen and vindictive he might be, but cowed he certainly seemed. MacQueen celebrated by frequent trips to his sleeping quarters, where each time he resorted to a bottle and a glass. No man had ever seen him intoxicated, but there were times when he drank a good deal for a few days at a stretch. His dissipation would be followed by months of total abstinence.
All day the man persecuted Melissy with his attentions. His passion was veiled under a manner of mock deference, of insolent assurance, but as the hours passed the fears of the girl grew upon her. There were moments when she turned sick with waves of dread. In the sunshine, under the open sky, she could hold her own, but under cover of the night’s blackness ghastly horrors would creep toward her to destroy.
Nor was there anybody to whom she might turn for help. Lane and Jackson were tools of their leader. The Mexican woman could do nothing even if she would. Boone alone might have helped her, and he had ridden away to save his own skin. So MacQueen told her to emphasize his triumph and her helplessness.
To her fancy dusk fell over the valley like a pall. It brought with it the terrible night, under cover of which unthinkable things might be done. With no appetite, she sat down to supper opposite her269captor. To see him gloat over her made her heart sink. Her courage was of no avail against the thing that threatened.
Supper over, he made her sit with him on the porch for an hour to listen to his boasts of former conquests. And when he let her take her way to her room it was not “Good-night” but a mocking “Au revoir” he murmured as he bent to kiss her hand.
Melissy found Rosario waiting for her, crouched in the darkness of the room that had been given the young woman. The Mexican spoke in her own language, softly, with many glances of alarm to make sure they were alone.
“Hist, señorita. Here is a note. Read it. Destroy it. Swear not to betray Rosario.”
By the light of a match Melissy read:
“Behind the big rocks. In half an hour.“A Friend.”
“Behind the big rocks. In half an hour.
“A Friend.”
“A Friend.”
What could it mean? Who could have sent it? Rosario would answer no questions. She snatched the note, tore it into fragments, chewed them into a pulp. Then, still shaking her head obstinately, hurriedly left the room.
But at least it meant hope. Her mind flew from her father to Jack Flatray, Bellamy, young Yarnell. It might be any of them. Or it might be O’Connor, who, perhaps, had by some miracle escaped.270
The minutes were hours to her. Interminably they dragged. The fear rose in her that MacQueen might come in time to cut off her escape. At last, in her stocking feet, carrying her shoes in her hand, she stole into the hall, out to the porch, and from it to the shadows of the cottonwoods.
It was a night of both moon and stars. She had to cross a space washed in silvery light, taking the chance that nobody would see her. But first she stooped in the shadows to slip the shoes upon her feet. Her heart beat against her side as she had once seen that of a frightened mouse do. It seemed impossible for her to cover all that moonlit open unseen. Every moment she expected an alarm to ring out in the silent night. But none came.
Safely she reached the big rocks. A voice called to her softly. She answered, and came face to face with Boone. A drawn revolver was in his hand.
“You made it,” he panted, as a man might who had been running hard.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But they’ll soon know. Let us get away.”
“If you hadn’t come I was going in to kill him.”
She noticed the hard glitter in his eyes as he spoke, the crouched look of the padding tiger ready for its kill. The man was torn with hatred and jealousy.
Already they were moving back through the rocks to a dry wash that ran through the valley. The bed of this they followed for nearly a mile.271Deflecting from it they pushed across the valley toward what appeared to be a sheer rock wall. With a twist to the left they swung back of a face of rock, turned sharply to the right, and found themselves in a fissure Melissy had not at all expected. Here ran a little cañon known only to those few who rode up and down it on the nefarious business of their unwholesome lives.
Boone spoke harshly, breaking for the first time in half an hour his moody silence.
“Safe at last. By God, I’ve evened my score with Black MacQueen.”
And from the cliff above came the answer—a laugh full of mocking deviltry and malice.
The Arkansan turned upon Melissy a startled face of agony, in which despair and hate stood out of a yellow pallor.
“Trapped.”
It was his last word to her. He swept the girl back against the shelter of the wall and ran crouching toward the entrance.
A bullet zipped—a second—a third. He stumbled, but did not fall. Turning, he came back, dodging like a hunted fox. As he passed her, Melissy saw that his face was ghastly. He ran with a limp.
A second time she heard the cackle of laughter. Guns cracked. Still the doomed man pushed forward. He went down, struck in the body, but dragged himself to his feet and staggered on.272
All this time he had seen nobody at whom he could fire. Not a shot had come from his revolver. He sank behind a rock for shelter. The ping of a bullet on the shale beside him brought the tortured man to his feet. He looked wildly about him, the moon shining on his bare head, and plunged up the cañon.
And now it appeared his unseen tormentors were afraid he might escape them. Half a dozen shots came close together. Boone sank to the ground, writhed like a crushed worm, and twisted over so that his face was to the moonlight.
Melissy ran forward and knelt beside him.
“They’ve got me ... in half a dozen places.... I’m going fast.”
“Oh, no ... no,” the girl protested.
“Yep.... Surest thing you know.... I did you dirt onct, girl. And I’ve been a bad lot—a wolf, a killer.”
“Never mind that now. You died to save me. Always I’ll remember that.”
“Onct you ’most loved me.... But it wouldn’t have done. I’m a wolf and you’re a little white lamb. Is Flatray the man?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so. Well, he’s square. I rigged it up on him about the rustling. I was the man you liked to ’a’ caught that day years ago.”
“You!”
“Yep.” He broke off abruptly. “I’m going,273girl.... It’s gittin’ black. Hold my hand till—till——”
He gave a shudder and seemed to fall together. He was dead.
Melissy heard the sound of rubble slipping. Some one was lowering himself cautiously down the side of the cañon. A man dropped to the wash and strutted toward her. He kept his eyes fixed on the lifeless form, rifle ready for action at an instant’s notice. When he reached his victim he pushed the body with his foot, made sure of no trap, and relaxed his alertness.
“Dead as a hammer.”
The man was MacQueen. He turned to Melissy and nodded jauntily.
“Good evening, my dear. Just taking a little stroll?” he asked ironically.
The girl leaned against the cold wall and covered her face with her arm. She was sobbing hysterically.
The outlaw seized her by the shoulders and swung her round. “Cut that out, girl,” he ordered roughly.
Melissy caught at her sobs and tried to check them.
“He got what was coming to him, what he’s been playing for a long time. I warned him, but the fool wouldn’t see it.”
“How did you know?” she asked, getting out her question a word at a time.274
“Knew it all the time. Rosario brought his note to me. I told her to take it to you and keep her mouth shut.”
“You planned his death.”
“If you like to put it that way. Now we’ll go home and forget this foolishness. Jeff, bring the horses round to the mouth of the gulch.”
Melissy felt suddenly very, very tired and old. Her feet dragged like those of an Indian squaw following her master. It was as though heavy irons weighted her ankles.
MacQueen helped her to one of the horses Jackson brought to the lip of the gulch. Weariness rode on her shoulders all the way back. The soul of her was crushed beneath the misfortunes that oppressed her.
Long before they reached the ranch houses Rosario came running to meet them. Plainly she was in great excitement.
“The prisoners have escaped,” she cried to MacQueen.
“Escaped. How?” demanded Black.
“Some one must have helped them. I heard a window smash and ran out. The young ranger and another man were coming out of the last cabin with the old man. I could do nothing. They ran.”
They had been talking in her own language. MacQueen jabbed another question at her.
“Which way?”
“Toward the Pass.”275
The outlaw ripped out an oath. “We’ve got ’em. They can’t reach it without horses as quick as we can with them.” He whirled upon Melissy. “March into the house, girl. Don’t you dare make a move. I’m leaving Buck here to watch you.” Sharply he swung to the man Lane. “Buck, if she makes a break to get away, riddle her full of holes. You hear me.”
A minute later, from the place where she lay face down on the bed, Melissy heard him and his men gallop away.
276CHAPTER VIIIAN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE
Far up in the mountains, in that section where head the Roaring Fork, One Horse Creek, and the Del Oro, is a vast tract of wild, untraveled country known vaguely as the Bad Lands. Somewhere among the thousand and one cañons which cleft the huddled hills lay hidden Dead Man’s Cache. Here Black MacQueen retreated on those rare occasions when the pursuit grew hot on his tracks. So the current report ran.
Whether the abductors of Simon West were to be found in the Cache or at some other nest in the almost inaccessible ridges Jack Flatray had no means of knowing. His plan was to follow the Roaring Fork almost to its headquarters, and there establish a base for his hunt. It might take him a week to flush his game. It might take a month. He clamped his bulldog jaw to see the thing out to a finish.
Jack did not make the mistake of underestimating his job. He had followed the trail of bad men often enough to know that, in a frontier country, no hunt is so desperate as the man-hunt. Such men277are never easily taken, even if they do not have all the advantage in the deadly game of hide and seek that is played in the timber and the pockets of the hills.
And here the odds all lay with the hunted. They knew every ravine and gulch. Day by day their scout looked down from mountain ledges to watch the progress of the posse.
Moreover, Flatray could never tell at what moment his covey might be startled from its run. The greatest vigilance was necessary to make sure his own party would not be ambushed. Yet slowly he combed the arroyos and the ridges, drawing always closer to that net of gulches in which he knew Dead Man’s Cache must be located.
During the day the sheriff split his party into couples. Bellamy and Alan McKinstra, Farnum and Charlie Hymer, young Yarnell and the sheriff. So Jack had divided his posse, thus leaving at the head of each detail one old and wise head. Each night the parties met at the rendezvous appointed for the wranglers with the pack horses. From sunrise to sunset often no face was seen other than those of their own outfit. Sometimes a solitary sheep herder was discovered at his post. Always the work was hard, discouraging, and apparently futile. But the young sheriff never thought of quitting.
The provisions gave out. Jack sent back Hal Yarnell and Hegler, the wrangler, to bring in a278fresh supply. Meanwhile the young sheriff took a big chance and scouted alone. He parted from the young Arkansan at the head of a gulch which twisted snakelike into the mountains; Yarnell and the pack outfit to ride to Mammoth, Flatray to dive still deeper into the mesh of hills. He had the instinct of the scout to stick to the high places as much as he could. Whenever it was possible he followed ridges, so that no spy could look down upon him as he traveled. Sometimes the contour of the country drove him into the open or down into hollows. But in such places he advanced with the swift stealth of an Indian.
It was on one of these occasions, when he had been driven into a dark and narrow cañon, that he came to a sudden halt. He was looking at an empty tomato can. Swinging down from his saddle, he picked it up without dismounting. A little juice dripped from the can to the ground.
Flatray needed no explanation. In Arizona men on the range often carry a can of tomatoes instead of a water canteen. Nothing alleviates thirst like the juice of this acid fruit. Some one had opened this can within two hours. Otherwise the sun would have dried the moisture.
Jack took his rifle from its place beneath his legs and set it across the saddle in front of him. Very carefully he continued on his way, watching every rock and bush ahead of him. Here and there in279the sand were printed the signs of a horse going in the same direction as his.
Up and down, in and out of a maze of crooked paths, working by ever so devious a way higher into the chain of mountains, Jack followed his leader. Now he would lose the hoofmarks; now he would pick them up again. And, at the last, they brought him to the rim of a basin, a bowl of wooded ravines, of twisted ridges, of bleak spurs jutting into late pastures almost green. It was now past sunset. Dusk was filtering down from the blue peaks. As he looked a star peeped out low on the horizon.
But was it a star? He glimpsed it between trees. The conviction grew on him that what he saw was the light of a lamp. A tangle of rough country lay between him and that beacon, but there before him lay his destination. At last he had found his way into Dead Man’s Cache.
The sheriff lost no time, for he knew that if he should get lost in the darkness on one of these forest slopes he might wander all night. A rough trail led him down into the basin. Now he would lose sight of the light. Half an hour later, pushing to the summit of a hill, he might find it. After a time there twinkled a second beside the first. He was getting close to a settlement of some kind.
Below him in the darkness lay a stretch of open meadow rising to the wooded foothills. Behind these a wall of rugged mountains encircled the valley like a gigantic crooked arm. Already he could280make out faintly the outlines of the huddled buildings.
Slipping from his horse, Jack went forward cautiously on foot. He was still a hundred yards from the nearest hut when dogs bayed warning of his approach. He waited, rifle in hand. No sign of human life showed except the two lights shining from as many windows. Flatray counted four other cabins as dark as Egypt.
Very slowly he crept forward, always with one eye to his retreat. Why did nobody answer the barking of the dogs? Was he being watched all the time? But how could he be, since he was completely cloaked in darkness?
So at last he came to the nearest cabin, crept to the window, and looked in. A man lay on a bed. His hands and feet were securely tied and a second rope wound round so as to bind him to the bunk.
Flatray tapped softly on a pane. Instantly the head of the bound man slewed round.
“Friend?”
The prisoner asked it ever so gently, but the sheriff heard.
“Yes.”
“The top part of the window is open. You can crawl over, I reckon.”
Jack climbed on the sill and from it through the window. Almost before he reached the floor his knife was out and he was slashing at the ropes.
“Better put the light out, pardner,” suggested the281man he was freeing, and the officer noticed that there was no tremor in the cool, steady voice.
“That’s right. We’d make a fine mark through the window.”
And the light went out.
“I’m Bucky O’Connor. Who are you?”
“Jack Flatray.”
They spoke together in whispers. Though both were keyed to the highest pitch of excitement they were as steady as eight-day clocks. O’Connor stretched his limbs, flexing them this way and that, so that he might have perfect control of them. He worked especially over the forearm and fingers of his right arm.
Flatray handed him a revolver.
“Whenever you’re ready, Lieutenant.”
“All right. It’s the cabin next to this.”
They climbed out of the window noiselessly and crept to the next hut. The door was locked, the window closed.
“We’ve got to smash the window. Nothing else for it,” Flatray whispered.
“Looks like it. That means we’ll have to shoot our way out.”
With the butt of his rifle the sheriff shattered the woodwork of the window, driving the whole frame into the room.
“What is it?” a frightened voice demanded.
“Friends, Mr. West. Just a minute.”
It took them scarce longer than that to free him282and to get him into the open. A Mexican woman came screaming out of an adjoining cabin.
The young men caught each an arm of the capitalist and hurried him forward.
“Hell’ll be popping in a minute,” Flatray explained.
But they reached the shelter of the underbrush without a shot having been fired. Nor had a single man appeared to dispute their escape.
“Looks like most of the family is away from home to-night,” Bucky hazarded.
“Maybe so, but they’re liable to drop in any minute. We’ll keep covering ground.”
They circled round toward the sheriff’s horse. As soon as they reached it West, still stiff from want of circulation in his cramped limbs, was boosted into the saddle.
“It’s going to be a good deal of a guess to find our way out of the Cache,” Jack explained. “Even in the daytime it would take a ’Pache, but at night—well, here’s hoping the luck’s good.”
They found it not so good as they had hoped. For hours they wandered in mesquit, dragged themselves through cactus, crossed washes, and climbed hills.
“This will never do. We’d better give it up till daylight. We’re not getting anywhere,” the sheriff suggested.
They did as he advised. As soon as a faint gray sifted into the sky they were on the move again.283But whichever way they climbed it was always to come up against steep cliffs too precipitous to be scaled.
The ranger officer pointed to a notch beyond a cowbacked hill. “I wouldn’t be sure, but it looks like that was the way they brought me into the Cache. I could tell if I were up there. What’s the matter with my going ahead and settling the thing? If I’m right I’ll come back and let you know.”
Jack looked at West. The railroad man was tired and drawn. He was not used to galloping over the hills all night.
“All right. We’ll be here when you come back,” Flatray said, and flung himself on the ground.
West followed his example.
It must have been half an hour later that Flatray heard a twig snap under an approaching foot. He had been scanning the valley with his glasses, having given West instructions to keep a lookout in the rear. He swung his head round sharply, and with it his rifle.
“You’re covered, you fool,” cried the man who was strutting toward them.
“Stop there. Not another step,” Flatray called sharply.
The man stopped, his rifle half raised. “We’ve got you on every side, man.” He lifted his voice. “Jeff—Hank—Steve! Let him know you’re alive.”
Three guns cracked and kicked up the dust close to the sheriff.284
“What do you want with us?” Flatray asked, sparring for time.
“Drop your gun. If you don’t we’ll riddle you both.”
West spoke to Jack promptly. “Do as he says. It’s MacQueen.”
Flatray hesitated. He could kill MacQueen probably, but almost certainly he and West would pay the penalty. He reluctantly put his rifle down. “All right. It’s your call.”
“Where’s O’Connor?”
The sheriff looked straight at him. “Haven’t you enough of us for one gather?”
The outlaws were closing in on them cautiously.
“Not without that smart man hunter. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“The devil you don’t.”
“We separated early this morning—thought it would give us a better chance for a getaway.” Jack gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. “So it was Black MacQueen himself who posed as O’Connor down at Mesa.”
“Guessed it right, my friend. And I’ll tell you one thing: you’ve made the mistake of your life butting into Dead Man’s Cache. Your missing friend O’Connor was due to hand in his checks to-day. Since you’ve taken his place it will be you that crosses the divide, Mr. Sheriff. You’d better285tell where he is, for if we don’t get Mr. Bucky it will be God help J. Flatray.”
The dapper little villain exuded a smug, complacent cruelty. It was no use for the sheriff to remind himself that such things weren’t done nowadays, that the times of Geronimo and the Apache Kid were past forever. Black MacQueen would go the limit in deviltry if he set his mind to it.
Yet Flatray answered easily, without any perceptible hesitation: “I reckon I’ll play my hand and let Bucky play his.”
“Suits me if it does you. Jeff, collect that hardware. Now, while you boys beat up the hills for O’Connor, I’ll trail back to camp with these two all-night picnickers.”
286CHAPTER IXA BARGAIN
Melissy saw the two prisoners brought in, though she could not tell at that distance who they were. Her watch told her that it was four-thirty. She had slept scarcely at all during the night, but now she lay down on the bed in her clothes.
The next she knew, Rosario was calling her to get up for breakfast. The girl dressed and followed Rosario to the adjoining cabin. MacQueen was not there, and Melissy ate alone. She was given to understand that she might walk up and down in front of the houses for a few minutes after breakfast. Naturally she made the most of the little liberty allowed her.
The old squaw Sit-in-the-Sun squatted in front of the last hut, her back against the log wall. The man called Buck sat yawning on a rock a few yards away. What struck Melissy as strange was that the squaw was figuring on the back of an old envelope with the stub of a lead pencil.287
The young woman walked leisurely past the cabin for perhaps a dozen yards.
“That’ll be about far enough. You don’t want to tire yourself, Miss Lee,” Buck Lane called, with a grin.
Melissy stopped, stood looking at the mountains for a few minutes, and turned back. Sit-in-the-Sun looked quickly at her, and at the same moment she tore the paper in two and her fingers opened to release one piece of the envelope upon which she had been writing. A puff of wind carried it almost directly in front of the girl. Lane was still yawning sleepily, his gaze directed toward the spot where he presently expected Rosario to step out and call him to breakfast. Melissy dropped her handkerchief, stooped to pick it up, and gathered at the same time in a crumpled heap into her hand the fragment of an envelope. Without another glance at the squaw, the young woman kept on her way, sauntered to the porch, and lingered there as if in doubt.
“I’m tired,” she announced to Rosario, and turned to her rooms.
“Si, señorita,” answered her attendant quietly.
Once inside, Melissy lay down on her bed, with her back to the window, and smoothed out the torn envelope. On one side were some disjointed memoranda which she did not understand.
K. C. & T. 93
D. & R. B. 87
Float $10,000,000 Cortes for extension.