CHAPTER VIIIA MESSAGE IN CIPHER
While Kate listened to what Curly had to tell her the dark eyes of the girl were fastened upon the trembling little woman standing near the door.
“Do you mean that she is going to let my father be killed rather than tell what she knows?” Her voice was sharply incredulous, touched with a horror scarcely realized.
“So she says.”
Mrs. Wylie wrung her hands in agitation. Her lined face was a mirror of distress.
“But that’s impossible. She must tell. What has Father ever done to hurt her?”
“I—I don’t know anything about it,” the harassed woman iterated.
“What’s the use of saying that when we know you do? And you’ll not get out of it by sobbing. You’vegotto talk.”
Kate had not moved. None the less her force, the upblaze of feminine energy in her, crowded the little storekeeper to the wall. “You’ve got to tell—you’ve just got to,” she insisted.
The little woman shrank before the energy of a passion so vital. No strength was in her to fight.But she could and did offer the passive resistance of obstinate silence.
Curly had drawn from his pocket the newspaper found in the cellar. His eyes had searched for the date line to use as cumulative evidence, but they had remained fastened to one story. Now he spoke imperatively.
“Come here, Miss Kate.”
She was beside him in an instant. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure yet, but—— Look here. I believe this is a message to us.”
“A message?”
“From your father perhaps.”
“How could it be?”
“I found the paper in the cellar where he was. See how some of these words are scored. Done with a finger nail, looks like.”
“But how could he know we would see the paper, and if we did see it would understand?”
“He couldn’t. It would be one chance in a million, but all his life he’s been taking chances. This couldn’t do any harm.”
Her dark head bent beside his fair one with the crisp sun-reddened curls.
“I don’t see any message. Where is it?”
“I don’t see it myself—not much of it. Gimme time.”
This was the paragraph upon which his gaze hadfastened, and the words and letters were scored sharply as shown below, though in the case of single letters the mark ran through them instead of underneath, evidently that no mistake might be made as to which was meant.
J. P. Kelley of the ranger force reportsover the telephone that by unexpected goodluckhe has succeeded in takingprisonerthe notoriousJackFosterofHermosillaand theRincons notoriety and isnowbringing him toSaguachewhere he will belocked up pending a disposition of his case.Kelleysucceeded in surprising himwhilehe was eating dinner at a Mexican road-house just this side of the border.
“Do you make it out?” Maloney asked, looking over their shoulders.
Curly took a pencil and an envelope from his pocket. On the latter he jotted down some words and handed the paper to his friend. This was what Maloney read:
....................................................... luck ............ prisoner ....Jack....of He....a....R......t......s now............Saguache...locked up pending a dis-position of his case...succeeded insurprising him...........................................................................................
“Read that right ahead.”
Dick did not quite get the idea, but Kate, tense with excitement, took the envelope and read aloud.
“Luck——prisoner——Jack of Hearts——now Saguache——locked up pending a disposition of his case——succeeded in surprising him.” She looked up with shining eyes. “He tells us everything but the names of the people who did it. Perhaps somewhere else in the paper he may tell that too.”
But though they went over it word for word they found no more. Either he had been interrupted, or he had been afraid that his casual thumb nail pressures might arouse the suspicion of his guards if persisted in too long.
“He’s alive somewhere. We’ll save him now.” Kate cried it softly, all warm with the joy of it.
“Seems to let our friend Fendrick out,” Maloney mused.
“Lets him out of kidnapping Uncle Luck but maybe not out of the robbery,” Bob amended.
“Doesn’t let him out of either. Somebody was in this with Blackwell. If it wasn’t Cass Fendrick then who was it?” Kate wanted to know.
“Might have been Soapy Stone,” Dick guessed.
“Might have been, but now Sam has gone back into the hills to join Soapy; the gang would have to keep it from Sam. He wouldn’t stand for it.”
“No, not for a minute,” Kate said decisively.
Curly spoke to her in a low voice. “You have a talk with Mrs. Wylie alone. We’ll pull our freights. She’ll tell you what she knows.” He smiled in his gentle winning way. “She’s sure had a tough time of it if ever a woman had. I reckon a little kindness is what she needs. Let her see we’re her friends and will stand by her, that we won’t let her come to harm because she talks. Show her we know everything anyhow but want her to corroborate details.”
It was an hour before Kate joined them, and her eyes, though they were very bright, told tales, of tears that had been shed.
“That poor woman! She has told me everything. Father has been down in that cellar for days under a guard. They took him away to-night. She doesn’t know where. It was she sent the warnings to Sheriff Bolt. She wanted him to raid the place, but she dared not go to him.”
“Because of Blackwell?”
“Yes. He came straight to her as soon as he was freed from the penitentiary. He had her completely terrorized. It seems she has been afraid to draw a deep breath ever since he returned. Even while he was in the hills she was always looking for him to come. The man used to keep her in a hell and he began bullying her again. So shegave him money, and he came for more—and more.”
Curly nodded. He said nothing, but his strong jaw clamped.
“He was there that day,” the girl continued. “She plucked up courage to refuse him what little she had left because she needed it for the rent. He got hold of her arm and twisted it. Father heard her cry and came in. Blackwell was behind the door as it opened. He struck with a loaded cane and Father fell unconscious. He raised it to strike again, but she clung to his arm and called for help. Before he could shake her off another man came in. He wrenched the club away.”
“Fendrick?” breathed Curly.
“She doesn’t know. But the first thing he did was to lock the outer door and take the key. They carried Father down into the cellar. Before he came to himself his hands were tied behind his back.”
“And then?”
“They watched him day and night. Fendrick himself did not go near the place—if it was Fendrick. Blackwell swore to kill Mrs. Wylie if she told. They held him there till to-night. She thinks they were trying to get Father to sign some paper.”
“The relinquishment of course. That means the other man was Fendrick.”
Kate nodded. “Yes.”
Curly rose. The muscles stood out in his jaw; hard as steel ropes.
“We’ll rake the Rincons with a fine tooth comb. Don’t you worry. I’ve already wired for Bucky O’Connor to come and help. We’ll get your Father out of the hands of those hell hounds. Won’t we, Dick?”
The girl’s eyes admired him, a lean hard-bitten Westerner with eyes as unblinking as an Arizona sun and with muscles like wire springs. His face still held its boyishness, but it had lost forever the irresponsibility of a few months before. She saw in him an iron will, shrewdness, courage and resource. All of these his friend Maloney also had. But Curly was the prodigal son, the sinner who had repented. His engaging recklessness lent him a charm from which she could not escape. Out of ten thousand men there were none whose voice drummed on her heart strings as did that of this youth.
CHAPTER IX“THE FRIENDS OF L. C. SERVE NOTICE”
Two men sat in a log cabin on opposite sides of a cheap table. One of them was immersed in a newspaper. His body was relaxed, his mind apparently at ease. The other watched him malevolently. His fingers caressed the handle of a revolver that protruded from the holster at his side. He would have liked nothing better than to have drawn it and sent a bullet crashing into the unperturbed brain of his prisoner.
There were reasons of policy why it were better to curb this fascinating desire, but sometimes the impulse to kill surged up almost uncontrollably. On these occasions Luck Cullison was usually “deviling” him, the only diversion that had been open to the ranchman for some days past. Because of its danger—for he could never be quite sure that Blackwell’s lust for swift vengeance would not over-power discretion—this pastime made a peculiar appeal to the audacious temper of the owner of the Circle C.
From time to time as Luck read he commented genially on the news.
“I see Tucson is going to get the El Paso & Southwestern extension after all. I’ll bet the boys in that burg will be right tickled to hear it. They sure have worked steady for it.”
Blackwell merely scowled. He never relaxed to the give and take of casual talk with his captive. Given his way, Cullison would not be here to read theSentinel. But the brains of the conspiracy had ruled otherwise and had insisted too upon decent treatment. With one ankle securely tied to a leg of the table there was no danger in freeing the hands of the cattleman, but his hosts saw that never for an instant were hands and feet at liberty together. For this man was not the one with whom to take chances.
“Rudd has been convicted of forgery and taken to Yuma. Seems to me you used to live there, didn’t you?” asked the cattleman with cool insolence, looking up from his paper to smile across at the furious convict.
Blackwell was livid. The man who had sent him to the territorial prison at Yuma dared to sit there bound and unarmed and taunt him with it.
“Take care,” he advised hoarsely.
Cullison laughed and went back to the paper.
“‘Lieutenant O’Connor of the Arizona Rangers left town to-day for a short trip into the hills where he expects to spend a few days hunting.’ Huntingwhat, do you reckon? Or hunting who, I should say. Ever meet Bucky O’Connor, Blackwell? No, I reckon not. He’s since your time. A crackerjack too! Wonder if Bucky ain’t after some friends of mine.”
“Shut up,” growled the other.
“Sure you’ll be shut up—when Bucky lands you,” retorted Luck cheerfully. Then, with a sudden whoop: “Hello, here’s a personal to your address. Fine! They’re getting ready to round you up, my friend. Listen. ‘The friends of L. C. serve notice that what occurred at the Jack of Hearts is known. Any violence hereafter done to him will be paid for to the limit. No guilty man will escape.’ So the boys are getting busy. I figured they would be. Looks like your chance of knocking me on the head has gone down Salt River. I tell you nowadays a man has to grab an opportunity by the tail when it’s there.”
The former convict leaned forward angrily. “Lemme see that paper.”
His guest handed it over, an index finger pointing out the item. “Large as life, Blackwell. No, sir. You ce’tainly didn’t ride herd proper on that opportunity.”
“Don’t be too sure it’s gone, Mr. Sheriff.”
The man’s face was twisted to an ugly sneer backof which lurked cruel menace. The gray eyes of Cullison did not waver a hair’s breadth.
“It’s gone. I’m as safe as if I were at the Circle C.”
“Don’t you think it.”
“They’ve got you dead to rights. Read that personal again. Learn it by heart. ‘The friends of L. C. give warning.’ You better believe they’re rounding up your outfit. They know I’m alive. They know all about the Jack of Hearts. Pretty soon they’ll know where you’ve got me hidden.”
“You’d better pray they won’t. For if they find the nest it will be empty.”
“Yes?” Luck spoke with ironical carelessness, but he shot an alert keen glance at the other.
“That’s what I said. Want to know where you will be?” the other triumphed.
“I see you want to tell me. Unload your mind.”
Triumph overrode discretion. “Look out of that window behind you.”
Luck turned. The cabin was built on a ledge far up on the mountain side. From the back wall sloped for a hundred feet an almost perpendicular slide of rock.
“There’s a prospect hole down there,” Blackwell explained savagely. “You’d go down the Devil’s Slide—what’s left of you, I mean—deep into thatprospect hole. The timberings are rotted and the whole top of the working ready to cave in. When your body hits it there will be an avalanche—with Mr. Former-sheriff Cullison at the bottom of it. You’ll be buried without any funeral expenses, and I reckon your friends will never know where to put the headstone.”
The thing was devilishly simple and feasible. Luck, still looking out of the window, felt the blood run cold down his spine, for he knew this fellow would never stick at murder if he felt it would be safe. No doubt he was being well paid, and though in this workaday world revenge has gone out of fashion there was no denying that this ruffian would enjoy evening the score. But his confederate was of another stripe, a human being with normal passions and instincts. The cattleman wondered how he could reconcile it to his conscience to go into so vile a plot with a villain like the convict.
“So you see I’m right; you’d better pray your friendswon’tfind you. They can’t reach here without being heard. If they get to hunting these hills you sure want to hope they’ll stay cold, for just as soon as they get warm it will be the signal for you to shoot the chutes.”
Luck met his triumphant savagery with an impassive face. “Interesting if true. And where willyou be when my friends arrive. I reckon it won’t be a pleasant meeting for Mr. Blackwell.”
“I’ll be headed for Mexico. I tell you because you ain’t liable to go around spreading the news. There’s a horse saddled in the dip back of the hill crest. Get it?”
“Fine,” Cullison came back. “And you’ll ride right into some of Bucky O’Connor’s rangers. He’s got the border patroled. You’d never make it.”
“Don’t worry. I’d slip through. I’m no tenderfoot.”
“What if you did? Bucky would drag you back by the scruff of the neck in two weeks. Remember Chavez.”
He referred to a murderer whom the lieutenant of rangers had captured and brought back to be hanged later.
“Chavez was a fool.”
“Was he? You don’t get the point. The old days are gone. Law is in the saddle. Murder is no longer a pleasant pastime.” And Cullison stretched his arms and yawned.
From far below there came through the open window the faint click of a horse’s hoofs ringing against the stones in the dry bed of a river wash. Swiftly Blackwell moved to the door, taking down a rifle from its rack as he did so. Cullison rosenoiselessly in his chair. If it came to the worst he meant to shout aloud his presence and close with this fellow. Hampered as he was by the table, the man would get him without question. But if he could only sink his fingers into that hairy throat while there was still life in him he could promise that the Mexican trip would never take place.
Blackwell, from his place by the door, could keep an eye both on his prisoner and on a point of the trail far below where horsemen must pass to reach the cabin.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
Cullison’s eyes were like finely-tempered steel. “I’d rather stand.”
“By God, if you move from there——” The man did not finish his sentence, but the rifle was already half lifted. More words would have been superfluous.
A rider came into sight and entered the mouth of the cañon. He was waving a white handkerchief. The man in the doorway answered the signal.
“Not your friends this time, Mr. Sheriff,” Blackwell jeered.
“I get a stay of execution, do I?” The cool drawling voice of the cattleman showed nothing of the tense feeling within.
He resumed his seat and the reading of the newspaper.Presently, to the man that came over the threshold he spoke with a casual nod.
“Morning, Cass.”
Fendrick mumbled a surly answer. The manner of ironical comradeship his captive chose to employ was more than an annoyance. To serve his ends it was necessary to put the fear of death into this man’s heart, which was a thing he had found impossible to do. His foe would deride him, joke with him, discuss politics with him, play cards with him, do anything but fear him. In the meantime the logic of circumstances was driving the sheepman into a corner. He had on impulse made the owner of the Circle C his prisoner. Seeing him lie there unconscious on the floor of the Jack of Hearts, it had come to him in a flash that he might hold him and force a relinquishment of the Del Oro claim. His disappearance would explain itself if the rumor spread that he was the W. & S. express robber. Cass had done it to save himself from the ruin of his business, but already he had regretted it fifty times. Threats could not move Luck in the least. He was as hard as iron.
So the sheepman found himself between the upper and the nether millstones. He could not drive his prisoner to terms and he dared not release him. For if Cullison went away unpledged he would surely send him to the penitentiary. Nor could hehold him a prisoner indefinitely. He had seen the “personal” warning in both the morning and the afternoon papers. He guessed that the presence of the ranger Bucky O’Connor in Saguache was not a chance. The law was closing in on him. Somehow Cullison must be made to come through with a relinquishment and a pledge not to prosecute. The only other way out would be to let Blackwell wreak his hate on the former sheriff. From this he shrank with every instinct. Fendrick was a hard man. He would have fought it out to a finish if necessary. But murder was a thing he could not do.
He had never discussed the matter with Blackwell. The latter had told him of this retreat in the mountains and they had brought their prisoner here. But the existence of the prospect hole at the foot of the Devil’s Slide was unknown to him. From the convict’s revenge he had hitherto saved Luck. Blackwell was his tool rather than his confederate, but he was uneasily aware that if the man yielded to the elemental desire to kill his enemy the law, would hold him, Cass Fendrick, guilty of the crime.
“Price of sheep good this week?” Cullison asked amiably.
“I didn’t come here to discuss the price of sheep with you.” Fendrick spoke harshly. A dull anger against the scheme of things burned in him. Forsomehow he had reached animpassefrom which there was neither advance nor retreat.
“No. Well, you’re right there. What I don’t know about sheep would fill several government reports. Of course I’ve got ideas. One of them is——”
“I don’t care anything about your ideas. Are you going to sign this relinquishment?”
Luck’s face showed a placid surprise. “Why no, Cass. Thought I mentioned that before.”
“You’d better.” The sheepman’s harassed face looked ugly enough for anything.
“Can’t figure it out that way.”
“You’ve got to sign it. By God, you’ve no option.”
“No?” Still with pleasant incredulity.
“Think I’m going to let you get away from here now. You’ll sign and you’ll promise to tell nothing you know against us.”
“No, I don’t reckon I will.”
Cullison was looking straight at him with his fearless level gaze. Fendrick realized with a sinking heart that he could not drive him that way to surrender. He knew that in the other man’s place he would have given way, that his enemy was gamer than he was.
He threw up his hand in a sullen gesture thatdisclaimed responsibility. “All right. It’s on your own head. I’ve done all I can for you.”
“What’s on my head?”
“Your life. Damn you, don’t you see you’re driving me too far?”
“How far?”
“I’m not going to let you get away to send us to prison. What do you expect?”
Luck’s frosty eyes did not release the other for a moment. “How are you going to prevent it, Cass?”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Blackwell’s way—the Devil’s Slide?”
The puzzled look of the sheepman told Cullison that Blackwell’s plan of exit for him had not been submitted to the other.
“Your friend from Yuma has been explaining how he has arranged for me to cross the divide,” he went on. “I’m to be plugged full of lead, shot down that rock, and landed in a prospect hole at the bottom.”
“First I’ve heard of it.” Fendrick wheeled upon his accomplice with angry eyes. He was in general a dominant man, and not one who would stand much initiative from his assistants.
“He’s always deviling me,” complained the convict surlily. Then, with a flash of anger: “ButI stand pat. He’ll get his before I take chances of getting caught. I’m nobody’s fool.”
Cass snapped him up. “You’ll do as I say. You’ll not lift a finger against him unless he tries to escape.”
“Have you seen theSentinel? I tell you his friends know everything. Someone’s peached. They’re hot on our trail. Bucky O’Connor is in the hills. Think I’m going to be caught like a rat in a trap?”
“We’ll talk of that later. Now you go look after my horse while I keep guard here.”
Blackwell went, protesting that he was no “nigger” to be ordered about on errands. As soon, as he was out of hearing Fendrick turned his thin lip-smile on the prisoner.
“It’s up to you, Cullison. I saved your life once. I’m protecting you now. But if your friends show up he’ll do as he says. I won’t be here to stop him. Sign up and don’t be a fool.”
Luck’s answer came easily and lightly. “My friend, we’ve already discussed that point.”
“You won’t change your mind?”
“Your arguments don’t justify it, Cass.”
The sheepman looked at him with a sinister significance. “Good enough. I’ll bring you one that will justify itmuy pronto.”
“It will have to be a mighty powerful one. Sorry I can’t oblige you and your friend, the convict.”
“It’ll be powerful enough.” Fendrick went to the door and called Blackwell. “Bring back that horse. I’m going down to the valley.”
CHAPTER XCASS FENDRICK MAKES A CALL
Kate was in her rose garden superintending the stable boy as he loosened the dirt around the roots of some of the bushes. She had returned to the Circle C for a day or two to give some directions in the absence of her father. Buck and the other riders came to her for orders and took them without contempt. She knew the cattle business, and they knew she knew it. To a man they were proud of her, of her spirit, her energy, and her good looks.
This rose garden was one evidence of her enterprise. No ranch in the county could show such a riot of bloom as the Circle C. The American Beauty, the Duchess, the La France bowed gracefully to neighbors of a dozen other choice varieties. Kate had brought this glimpse of Eden into the desert. She knew her catalogues by heart and she had the loving instinct that teaches all gardeners much about growing things.
The rider who cantered up to the fence, seeing her in her well-hung corduroy skirt, her close-fitting blouse, and the broad-rimmed straw hat that shielded her dark head from the sun, appreciated the fitnessof her surroundings. She too was a flower of the desert, delicately fashioned, yet vital with the bloom of health.
At the clatter of hoofs she looked up from the bush she was trimming and at once rose to her feet. With the change in position she showed slim and tall, straight as a young poplar. Beneath their long lashes her eyes grew dark and hard. For the man who had drawn to a halt was Cass Fendrick.
From the pocket of his shirt he drew a crumpled piece of stained linen.
“I’ve brought back your handkerchief, Miss Cullison.”
“What have you done with my father?”
He nodded toward the Mexican boy and Kate dismissed the lad. When he had gone she asked her question again in exactly the same words.
“If we’re going to discuss your father you had better get your quirt again,” the sheepman suggested, touching a scar on his face.
A flush swept over her cheeks, but she held her voice quiet and even. “Where is Father? What have you done with him?”
He swung from the horse and threw the rein to the ground. Then, sauntering to the gate, he let himself in.
“You’ve surely got a nice posy garden here.Didn’t know there was one like it in all sunbaked Arizona.”
She stood rigid. Her unfaltering eyes, sloe-black in the pale face, never lifted from him.
“There’s only one thing you can talk to me about Where have you hidden my father?”
“I’ve heard folks say he did himself all the hiding that was done.”
“You know that isn’t true. That convict and you have hidden him somewhere. We have evidence enough to convict you both.”
“Imagination, most of it, I expect.” He was inspecting the roses and inhaling their bloom.
“Fact enough to send you to the penitentiary.”
“I ought to be scared. This is a La France, ain’t it?”
“I want you to tell me what you have done with my father.”
He laughed a little and looked at her with eyes that narrowed like those of a cat basking in the sun. He had something the look of the larger members of the cat family—the soft long tread, the compact rippling muscles of a tame panther, and with these the threat that always lies behind its sleepy wariness.
“You’re a young lady of one idea. No use arguing with you, I reckon.”
“Not the least use. I’ve talked with Mrs. Wylie.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do I know the lady?”
“She will know you. That is more to the point.”
“Did she say she knew me?” he purred.
“She will say it in court—if it ever comes to that.”
“Just what will she say, if you please.”
Kate told him in four sentences with a stinging directness that was the outstanding note of her, that and a fine self-forgetful courage.
“Is that all? Comes to this then, that she says I heard her scream, ran in, and saved your father’s life. Is that a penitentiary offense? I don’t say it oughtn’t to be, but is it?”
“You helped the villain take his body into the cellar. You plotted with him to hold Father a prisoner there.”
“Says that, does she—that she overheard us plotting?”
“Of course she did not overhear what you said. You took good care of that. But she knew you were conspiring.”
“Just naturally knew it without overhearing,” he derided. “And of course if I was in a plot I must have been Johnny-on-the-spot a good deal of the time. Hung round there a-plenty, I expect?”
He had touched on the weak spot of Mrs. Wylie’s testimony. The man who had saved Cullison’s life, after a long talk with Blackwell, had gone out ofthe Jack of Hearts and had not returned so far as she knew. For her former husband had sent her on an errand just before the prisoner was taken away and she did not know who had helped him.
Kate was silent.
“How would this do for an explanation?” he suggested lazily. “We’ll say just for the sake of argument that Mrs. Wylie’s story is true, that I did save your father’s life. We’ll put it that I did help carry him downstairs where it was cooler and that I did have a long talk with the fellow Blackwell. What would I be talking to him about, if I wasn’t reading the riot act to him? Ain’t it likely too that he would be sorry for what he did while he was angry at your father for butting in as he was having trouble with his wife? And after he had said he was sorry why shouldn’t I hit the road out of there? There’s no love lost between me and Luck Cullison. I wasn’t under any obligations to wrap him up in cotton and bring him back this side up with care to his anxious friends. If he chose later to take a hike out of town on p.d.q. hurry up business I ain’t to blame. And I reckon you’ll find a jury will agree with me.”
She had to admit to herself that he made out a plausible case. Not that she believed it for a moment. But very likely a jury would. As for his subsequent silence that could be explained by hisdesire not to mix himself in the affairs of one with whom he was upon unfriendly terms. The irrefutable fact that he had saved the life of Cullison would go a long way as presumptive proof of his innocence.
“I see you are wearing your gray hat again? What have you done with the brown one?”
She had flashed the question at him so unexpectedly that he was startled, but the wary mask fell again over the sardonic face.
“You take a right friendly interest in my hats, seems to me.”
“I know this much. Father took your hat by mistake from the club. You bought a brown one half an hour later. You used Father’s to manufacture evidence against him. If it isn’t true that he is your prisoner how does it come that you have your gray hat again? You must have taken it from him.”
He laughed uneasily. She had guessed the exact truth.
“In Arizona there are about forty thousand gray hats like this. Do you figure you can identify this one, Miss Cullison? And suppose your fairy tale of the Jack of Hearts is true, couldn’t I have swapped hats again while he lay there unconscious?”
She brushed his explanation aside with a woman’s superb indifference to logic.
“You can talk of course. I don’t care. It is all lies—lies. You have kidnapped Father and are holding him somewhere. Don’t you dare to hurt him. If you should—Oh, if you should—you will wish you had never been born.” The fierceness of her passion beat upon him like sudden summer hail.
He laughed slowly, well pleased. A lazy smoldering admiration shone in his half shuttered eyes.
“So you’re going to take it out of me, are you?”
A creature of moods, there came over her now a swift change. Every feature of her, the tense pose, the manner of defiant courage, softened indescribably. She was no longer an enemy bent on his destruction but a girl pleading for the father she loved.
“Why do you do it? You are a man. You want to fight fair. Tell me he is well. Tell me you will set him free.”
He forgot for the moment that he was a man with the toils of the law closing upon him, forgot that his success and even his liberty were at stake. He saw only a girl with the hunger of love in her wistful eyes, and knew that it lay in his power to bring back the laughter and the light into them.
“Suppose I can’t fight fair any longer. SupposeI’ve let myself get trapped and it isn’t up to me but to somebody else.”
“How do you mean?”
“Up to your father, say.”
“My father?”
“Yes. How could I turn him loose when the first thing he did would be to swear out a warrant for my arrest?”
“But he wouldn’t—not if you freed him.”
He laughed harshly. “I thought you knew him. He’s hard as nails.”
She recognized the justice of this appraisal. “But he is generous too. He stands by his friends.”
“I’m not his friend, not so you could notice it.” He laughed again, bitterly. “Not that it matters. Of course I was just putting a case. Nothing to it really.”
He was hedging because he thought he had gone too far, but she appeared not to notice it. Her eyes had the faraway look of one who communes with herself.
“If I could only see him and have a talk with him.”
“What good would that do?” he pretended to scoff.
But he watched her closely nevertheless.
“I think I could get him to do as I ask. He nearly always does.” Her gaze went swiftly backto him. “Let me talk with him. There’s a reason why he ought to be free now, one that would appeal to him.”
This was what he had come for, but now that she had met him half way he hesitated. If she should not succeed he would be worse off than before. He could neither hold her a prisoner nor free her to lead the pack of the law to his hiding place. On the other hand if Cullison thought they intended to keep her prisoner he would have to compromise. He dared not leave her in the hands of Lute Blackwell. Fendrick decided to take a chance. At the worst he could turn them both free and leave for Sonora.
“All right. I’ll take you to him. But you’ll have to do as I say.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“I’m taking you to back my play. I tell you straight that Blackwell would like nothing better than to put a bullet through your father. But I’ve got a hold on the fellow that ties him. He’s got to do as I say. But if I’m not there and it comes to a showdown—if Bucky O’Connor for instance happens to stumble in—then it’s all off with Luck Cullison. Blackwell won’t hesitate a second. He’ll kill your father and make a bolt for it. That’s one reason why I’m taking you. I want to pile up witnesses against the fellow so as to make him goslow. But that’s not my main object. You’ve got to persuade Luck to come through with an agreement to let go of that Del Oro homestead and to promise not to prosecute us. He won’t do it to save his own life. He’s got to think you come there as my prisoner. See? He’s got to wrestle with the notion that you’re in the power of the damnedest villain that ever went unhung. I mean Blackwell. Let him chew on that proposition a while and see what he makes of it.”
She nodded, white to the lips. “Let us go at once, please. I don’t want to leave Father alone with that man.” She called across to the corral. “Manuel, saddle the pinto for me. Hurry!”
They rode together through the wind-swept sunlit land. From time to time his lazy glance embraced her, a supple graceful creature at perfect ease in the saddle. What was it about her that drew the eye so irresistibly? Prettier girls he had often seen. Her features were irregular, mouth and nose too large, face a little thin. Her contour lacked the softness, the allure that in some women was an unconscious invitation to cuddle. Tough as whipcord she might be, but in her there flowed a life vital and strong; dwelt a spirit brave and unconquerable. She seemed to him as little subtle as any woman he had ever met. This directness came no doubt from living so far from feminine influences.But he had a feeling that if a man once wakened her to love, the instinct of sex would spring full-grown into being.
They talked of the interests common to the country, of how the spring rains had helped the range, of Shorty McCabe’s broken leg, of the new school district that was being formed. Before she knew it Kate was listening to his defense of himself in the campaign between him and her father. He found her a partisan beyond chance of conversion. Yet she heard patiently his justification.
“I didn’t make the conditions that are here. I have to accept them. The government establishes forest reserves on the range. No use ramming my head against a stone wall. Uncle Sam is bigger than we are. Your father and his friends got stubborn. I didn’t.”
“No, you were very wise,” she admitted dryly.
“You mean because I adapted myself to the conditions and made the best of them. Why shouldn’t I?” he flushed.
“Father’s cattle had run over that range thirty years almost. What right had you to take it from him?”
“Conditions change. He wouldn’t see it. I did. As for the right of it—well, Luck ain’t king of the valley just because he thinks he is.”
She began to grow angry. A dull flush burned through the tan of her cheeks.
“So you bought sheep and brought them in to ruin the range, knowing that they would cut the feeding ground to pieces, kill the roots of vegetation with their sharp hoofs, and finally fill the country with little gullies to carry off the water that ought to sink into the ground.”
“Sheep ain’t so bad if they are run right.”
“It depends where they run. This is no place for them.”
“That’s what you hear your father say. He’s prejudiced.”
“And you’re not, I suppose.”
“I’m more reasonable than he is.”
“Yes, you are,” she flung back at him irritably.
Open country lay before them. They had come out from a stretch of heavy underbrush. Catclaw had been snatching at their legs. Cholla had made the traveling bad for the horses. Now she put her pony to a canter that for the time ended conversation.
CHAPTER XIA COMPROMISE
Luck lay stretched full length on a bunk, his face, to the roof, a wreath of smoke from his cigar traveling slowly toward the ceiling into a filmy blue cloud which hung above him. He looked the personification of vigorous full-blooded manhood at ease. Experience had taught him to take the exigencies of his turbulent life as they came, nonchalantly, to the eye of an observer indifferently, getting all the comfort the situation had to offer.
By the table, facing him squarely, sat José Dominguez, a neatly built Mexican with snapping black eyes, a manner of pleasant suavity, and an ever-ready smile that displayed a double row of shining white teeth. That smile did not for an instant deceive Luck. He knew that José had no grudge against him, that he was a very respectable citizen, and that he would regretfully shoot him full of holes if occasion called for so drastic a termination to their acquaintanceship. For Dominguez had a third interest in the C. F. ranch, and he was the last man in the world to sacrifice his business for sentiment. Having put the savings of a lifetime into the sheep business, he did not propose to letanybody deprive him of his profits either legally or illegally.
Luck was talking easily, in the most casual and amiable of voices.
“No, Dominguez, the way I look at it you and Cass got in bad this time. Here’s the point. In this little vendetta of ours both sides were trying to keep inside the law and win out. When you elected Bolt sheriff that was one to you. When you took out that grazing permit and cut me off the reserve that was another time you scored heavy. A third time was when you brought ’steen thousand of Mary’s little lambs baaing across the desert. Well, I come back at you by deeding the Circle C to my girl and taking up the Del Oro homestead. You contest and lose. Good enough. It’s up to you to try another move.”
“Si, Señor, and we move immediate. We persuade you to visit us at our summer mountain home where we can talk at leisure. We suggest a compromise.”
Luck grinned. “Your notion of a compromise and mine don’t tally, José. Your idea is for me to give you the apple and stand by while you eat it. Trouble is that both parties to this quarrel are grabbers.”
“True, but Señor Cullison must remember his hands are tied behind him. He will perhaps notfind the grabbing good,” his opponent suggested politely.
“Come to that, your hands are tied too, my friend. You can’t hold me here forever. Put me out of business and the kid will surely settle your hash by proving up on the claim. What are you going to do about it?”
“Since you ask me, I can only say that it depends on you. Sign the relinquishment, give us your word not to prosecute, and you may leave in three hours.”
Cullison shook his head. “That’s where you get in wrong. Buck up against the law and you are sure to lose.”
“If we lose you lose too,” Dominguez answered significantly.
The tinkle of hoofs from the river bed in the gulch below rose through the clear air. The Mexican moved swiftly to the door and presently waved a handkerchief.
“What gent are you wig-wagging to now?” Luck asked from the bed. “Thought I knew all you bold bad bandits by this time. Or is it Cass back again?”
“Yes, it’s Cass. There’s someone with him too. It is a woman,” the Mexican discovered in apparent surprise.
“A woman!” Luck took the cigar from his mouth in vague unease. “What is he doing here with a woman?”
The Mexican smiled behind his open hand. “Your question anticipates mine, Señor. I too ask the same.”
The sight of his daughter in the doorway went through the cattleman with a chilling shock. She ran forward and with a pathetic cry of joy threw herself upon him where he stood. His hands were tied behind him. Only by the turn of his head and by brushing his unshaven face against hers could he answer her caresses. There was a look of ineffable tenderness on his face, for he loved her more than anything else on earth.
“Mr. Fendrick brought me,” she explained when articulate expression was possible.
“He brought you, did he?” Luck looked across her shoulder at his enemy, and his eyes grew hard as jade.
“Of my own free will,” she added.
“I promised you a better argument than those I’d given you. Miss Cullison is that argument,” Fendrick said.
The cattleman’s set face had a look more deadly than words. It told Fendrick he would gladly have killed him where he stood. For Luck knew he was cornered and must yield. Neither Dominguez nor Blackwell would consent to let her leave otherwise.
“He brought me here to have a talk with you,Dad. You must sign any paper he wants you to sign.”
“And did he promise to take you back home after our talk?”
“Miss Cullison would not want to leave as long as her father was here,” Fendrick answered for her glibly with a smile that said more than the words.
“I’m going to hold you responsible for bringing her here.”
Fendrick could not face steadily the eyes of his foe. They bored into him like gimlets.
“And responsible for getting her back home just as soon as I say the word,” Luck added, the taut muscles standing out in his clenched jaw.
“I expect your say-so won’t be final in this matter, Luck. But I’ll take the responsibility. Miss Cullison will get home at the proper time.”
“I’m not going home till you do,” the girl broke in. “Oh, Dad, we’ve been so worried. You can’t think.”
“You’ve played a rotten trick on me, Fendrick. I wouldn’t have thought it even of a sheepman.”
“No use you getting crazy with the heat, Cullison. Your daughter asked me to bring her here, and I brought her. Of course I’m not going tobreak my neck getting her home where she can ’phone Bolt or Bucky O’Connor and have us rounded up. That ain’t reasonable to expect. But I aim to do what’s right. We’ll all have supper together like sensible folks. Then José and I will give you the cabin for the night if you’ll promise not to attempt to escape. In the morning maybe you’ll see things different.”
Fendrick calculated not without reason that the best thing to do would be to give Kate a chance for a long private talk with her father. Her influence would be more potent than any he could bring to bear.
After supper the door of the cabin was locked and a sentry posted. The prisoners were on parole, but Cass did not on that account relax his vigilance. For long he and his partner could hear a low murmur of voices from within the cabin. At length the lights went out and presently the voices died. But all through the night one or the other of the sheepmen patroled a beat that circled around and around the house.
Fendrick did not broach the subject at issue next morning till after breakfast.
“Well, what have you decided?” he asked at last.
“Let’s hear about that compromise. What is it you offer?” Luck demanded gruffly.
“You sign the relinquishment and agree not to make us any trouble because we brought you here, and you may go by two o’clock.”
“You want to reach Saguache with the relinquishment in time to file it before I could get to a ’phone. You don’t trust me.”
Fendrick smiled. “When we let you go we’re trusting you a heap more than we would most men. But of course you’re going to be sore about this and we don’t want to put temptation in your way.”
“I see. Well, I accept your terms. I’ll make you nolegaltrouble. But I tell you straight this thing ain’t ended. It’s only just begun. I’m going to run you out of this country before I’m through with you.”
“Go to it. We’ll see whether you make good.”
“Where is that paper you want me to sign?”
Luck dashed off his signature and pushed the document from him. He hated the necessity that forced him to surrender. For himself he would have died rather than give way, but he had to think of his daughter and of his boy Sam who was engaged in a plot to hold up a train.
His stony eyes met those of the man across the table. “No need for me to tell you what I think of this. A white man wouldn’t have done such a trick. It takes sheepherders and greasers to putacross a thing so damnable as dragging a woman into a feud.”
Fendrick flushed angrily. “It’s not my fault; you’re a pigheaded obstinate chump. I used the only weapon left me.”
Kate, standing straight and tall behind her father’s chair, looked at their common foe with uncompromising scorn. “He is not to blame, Dad. He can’t help it because he doesn’t see how despicable a thing he has done.”
Again the blood rushed to the face of the sheepman. “I reckon that will hold me hitched for the present, Miss Cullison. In the meantime I’ll go file that homestead entry of mine. Nothing like living up to the opinion your friends have of you.”
He wheeled away abruptly, but as he went out of the door one word came to him.
“Friends!” Kate had repeated, and her voice told fully the contempt she felt.
At exactly two o’clock Dominguez set the Cullisons on the homeward road. He fairly dripped apologies for the trouble to which he and his friends had been compelled to put them.
Blackwell, who had arrived to take his turn as guard, stood in the doorway and sulkily watched them go.