To Nicholas Bolt, Sheriff, Or Bucky O’connor, Lieutenant of Rangers:Having come into possession of a little valise which is not mine, I am getting rid of it in the following manner. I haverented a large safety-deposit box at the Cattlemen’s National Bank, and have put into it the valise with the lock still unbroken. The key is inclosed herewith. Shaw, the cashier, will tell you that when this box was rented I gave explicit orders it should be opened only by the men whose names are given in an envelope left with him, not even excepting myself. The valise was deposited at exactly 10:30 A. M. the morning after the robbery, as Mr. Shaw will also testify. I am writing this the evening of the same day.Cass Fendrick.
To Nicholas Bolt, Sheriff, Or Bucky O’connor, Lieutenant of Rangers:
Having come into possession of a little valise which is not mine, I am getting rid of it in the following manner. I haverented a large safety-deposit box at the Cattlemen’s National Bank, and have put into it the valise with the lock still unbroken. The key is inclosed herewith. Shaw, the cashier, will tell you that when this box was rented I gave explicit orders it should be opened only by the men whose names are given in an envelope left with him, not even excepting myself. The valise was deposited at exactly 10:30 A. M. the morning after the robbery, as Mr. Shaw will also testify. I am writing this the evening of the same day.
Cass Fendrick.
“Don’t believe a word of it,” Cullison exploded.
“Seeing is believing,” the sheepman murmured. He was enjoying greatly the discomfiture of his foe.
“Makes a likely fairy tale. What for would you keep the money and not turn it back?”
“That’s an easy one, Luck. He wanted to throw the burden of the robbery on you,” Bucky explained.
“Well, I’ve got to be shown.”
In the morning he was shown. Shaw confirmed exactly what Fendrick had said. He produced a sealed envelope. Within this was a sheet of paper, upon which were written two lines.
Box 2143 is to be opened only by Sheriff Bolt or Lieutenant Bucky O’Connor of the Rangers, and before witnesses.Cass Fendrick.
Box 2143 is to be opened only by Sheriff Bolt or Lieutenant Bucky O’Connor of the Rangers, and before witnesses.
Cass Fendrick.
From the safety-deposit vault Bucky drew a large package wrapped in yellow paper. He cut the string, tore away the covering, and disclosed a leather satchel. Perry Hawley, the local manager of the Western & Southern Express Company, fitted to this a key and took out a sealed bundle. This he ripped open before them all. Inside was found the sum of twenty thousand dollars in crisp new bills.
CHAPTER XVIA CLEAN UP
A slight accident occurred at the jail, one so unimportant that Scanlan the jailer did not think it worth reporting to his chief. Blackwell, while eating, knocked a glass from the table and broke it on the cement floor of his cell. There is a legend to the effect that for want of a nail a battle was lost. By reason of a bit of glass secreted in his bed something quite as important happened to the convict.
From the little table in his room he pried loose one of the corner braces. At night he scraped away at this with his bit of glass until the wood began to take the shape of a revolver. This he carefully blacked with the ink brought him by his guard. To the end of his weapon he fitted an iron washer taken from the bedstead. Then he waited for his opportunity.
His chance came through the good nature of Scanlan. The jailer was in the habit of going down town to loaf for an hour or two with old cronies after he had locked up for the night. Blackwell pretended to be out of chewing tobacco and asked the guard to buy him some. About teno’clock Scanlan returned and brought the tobacco to his prisoner. The moon was shining brightly, and he did not bring a lantern with him. As he passed the plug through the grating Blackwell’s fingers closed around his wrist and drew the man close to the iron lattice work. Simultaneously a cold rim was pressed against the temple of the guard.
“Don’t move, or I’ll fill you full of holes,” the convict warned.
Scanlan did not move, not until the man in the cell gave the word. Then he obeyed orders to the letter. His right hand found the bunch of keys, fitted the correct one to the door, and unlocked it according to instructions. Not until he was relieved of his weapon did Blackwell release him. The jailer was backed into the cell, gagged with a piece of torn bedding, and left locked up as securely as the other had been a few minutes earlier.
The convict made his way downstairs, opened the outer door with the bunch of keys he had taken from Scanlan, locked it behind him, and slipped into the first alley that offered refuge. By way of the Mexican quarters he reached the suburbs and open country. Two hours later he stole a horse from an irrigated ranch near town. Within twenty-four hours he had reached the Soapy Stone horse ranch and safety.
After this the plans for the raid on the Texas, Arizona & Pacific Flyer moved swiftly to a head. Soapy Stone and Sam dropped into Saguache inconspicuously one evening. Next day Stone rode down to Tin Cup to look over the ground. Maloney telephoned their movements to the Circle C and to the Hashknife. This brought to Saguache Luck Cullison, Curly Flandrau, and Slats Davis. Bucky O’Connor had been called to Douglas on important business and could not lend his help.
Curly met Sam in front of Chalkeye’s Place. They did the town together in a mild fashion and Flandrau proposed that they save money by taking a common room. To this young Cullison agreed.
Luck, Curly and Dick Maloney had already ridden over the country surrounding the scene of the projected hold-up. They had decided that the robbery would probably take place at the depot, so that the outlaws could get the agent to stop the Flyer without arousing suspicion. In a pocket of the hills back of the station a camp had been selected, its site well back from any trail and so situated that from it one could command a view of Tin Cup.
The owner of the Circle C selected three of his closemouthed riders—Sweeney, Jake and Buck were the ones he chose—to hold the camp with him until after the robbery. The only signal they needed was the stopping of the Flyer at Tin Cup. Then theywould come pounding down from the hills in time to catch the robbers before they had got through with their work. Maloney or Curly would be on the train to take a hand in the battle. Caught by surprise, Soapy’s gang would surely be trapped.
So they planned it, but it happened that Soapy Stone had made his arrangements differently.
Luck and his riders took their blankets and their traps down to Tin Cup according to agreement, while Davis, Maloney and Flandrau looked after the Saguache end of the business. All of them were very friendly with Sam. The boy, younger than any of them, was flattered that three of the best known riders in the territory should make so much of him. Moreover, Stone had given him instructions to mix with Curly’s crowd as much as he could. He had given as a reason that it would divert suspicion, but what he really wanted was to throw the blame of the hold-up on these friends after Sam was found dead on the scene.
Young Cullison had stopped drinking, but he could not keep his nerves from jumping. His companions pretended not to notice how worried he was, but they watched him so closely that he was never out of the sight of at least one of them. Soapy had decreed the boy’s death by treachery, but his friends were determined to save him and to end forever the reign of Stone as a bad man.
It was one day when the four young cowpunchers were sitting together in Curly’s room playing poker that a special delivery letter came to Sam. The others, to cover their excitement, started an argument as to whether five aces (they were playing with the joker) beat a straight flush. Presently Sam spoke, as indifferently as he could.
“Got the offer of a job down the line. Think I’ll run down to-night far as Casa Grande and see what’s doing.”
“If they need any extra riders here’s some more out of a job,” Dick told him.
“Heard to-day of a freighter that wants a mule-skinner. I’m going to see him to-morrow,” Slats chipped in.
“Darn this looking for a job anyhow. It’s tur’ble slow work,” Curly followed up, yawning. “Well, here’s hoping you land yours, Sam.”
This was about two o’clock in the afternoon. The game dragged on for a while, but nobody took any interest in it. Sam had to get ready for the work of the night, and the rest were anxious to get out and give him a chance. So presently Dick threw down his cards.
“I’ve had enough poker for one session. Me, I’m going to drift out and see what’s moving in town.”
“Think I’ll snooze for a while,” Sam said, stretching sleepily.
The others trooped out and left him alone. From the room rented by Davis the three watched to see that Sam did not leave without being observed. He did not appear, and about six o’clock Curly went back to his room.
“Time to grub,” he sang out.
“That’s right,” Sam agreed.
They went to the New Orleans Hash House, and presently Davis and Maloney also arrived. The party ordered a good dinner and took plenty of time to eat it. Sam was obviously nervous, but eager to cover his uneasiness under a show of good spirits.
Curly finished eating just as Sam’s second cup of coffee came. Flandrau, who had purposely chosen a seat in the corner where he was hemmed in by the chairs of the others, began to feel in his vest pockets.
“Darned if I’ve got a cigar. Sam, you’re young and nimble. Go buy me one at the counter.”
“Sure.” Cullison was away on the instant.
Curly’s hand came out of his pocket. In it was a paper. Quickly he shook the contents of the paper into the steaming cup of coffee and stirred the liquid with a spoon.
Sam brought back the cigar and drank his coffee. Without any unnecessary delay they returned to his room. Before the party had climbed the stairs the boy was getting drowsy.
“Dunno what’s the matter with me. I’m feeling awful sleepy,” he said, sitting on the bed.
“Why don’t you take a snooze? You’ve got lots of time before the train goes.”
“No, I don’t reckon I better.”
He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and slumped down. His lids wavered, shut, jerked open again, and closed slowly.
“Wake me, Curly—time for train.” And with that he was sound asleep.
They took off his boots and settled him comfortably. In his pocket they found a black mask big enough to cover his whole face. The registered letter could not be found and they decided he must have destroyed it.
The sight of the mask had given Curly an idea. He was of about the same build as Sam. Why not go in his place? It would be worth doing just to catch sight of Soapy’s face when he took the mask off after the robbers had been captured.
“What’s the use?” Davis protested. “It’s an unnecessary risk. They might shoot you in place of Sam.”
“I’ll look out for myself. Don’t worry aboutthat. Before the time for getting rid of Sam comes Mr. Soapy and his bunch will be prisoners.”
They argued it out, but Curly was set and could not be moved. He dressed in young Cullison’s clothes and with Maloney took the express at 9:57. Davis remained to guard Sam.
Curly’s watch showed 10:17 when the wheels began to grind from the setting of the air brakes. He was in the last sleeper, Dick in the day coach near the front. They had agreed that Dick was to drop off as soon as the train slowed down enough to make it safe, whereas Curly would go on and play Sam’s part until the proper time.
The train almost slid to a halt from the pressure of the hard-jammed brakes. A volley of shots rang out. Curly slipped the mask over his face and rose with a revolver in each hand. He had been sitting at the end of the car, so that nobody noticed him until his voice rang out with a crisp order.
“Hands up! Don’t anybody move!”
An earthquake shock could not have alarmed the passengers more. The color was washed completely from the faces of most of them.
“Reach for the roof. Come, punch a hole in the sky!” To do it thoroughly, Curly flung a couple of shots through the ceiling. That was enough. Hands went up without any argument, most of them quivering as from an Arkansas chill.
Presently Cranston herded the passengers in from the forward coaches. With them were most of the train crew. The front door of the car was locked so that they could not easily get out.
“We’re cutting off the express car and going forward to ’Dobe Wells with it. There we can blow open the safe uninterrupted,” Bad Bill explained. “You ride herd on the passengers here from the outside till you hear two shots, then hump yourself forward and hop on the express car.”
Fine! Curly was to stand out there in the moonlight and let anybody in the car that had the nerve pepper away at him. If they did not attend to the job of riddling him, his false friends would do it while he was running forward to get aboard. Nothing could have been simpler—if he had not happened to have had inside information of their intent.
He had to think quickly, for the plans of him and his friends had been deranged. They had reckoned on the express car being rifled on the spot. This would have given Cullison time to reach the scene of action. Mow they would be too late. Maloney, lying snugly in the bear grass beside the track, would not be informed as to the arrangement. Unless Curly could stop it, the hold-up would go through according to the program of Soapy and not of his enemies.
The decision of Flamdrau was instantaneous. He slid down beside the track into the long grass. Whipping up one of his guns, he fired. As if in answer to the first shot his revolver cracked twice. Simultaneously, he let out a cry of pain, wriggled back for a dozen yards through the grass, and crossed the track in the darkness. As he crouched down close to the wheels of the sleeper someone came running back on the other side.
“What’s up, Sam? You hit?” he could hear Blackwell whisper.
No answer came. The paroled convict was standing close to the car for fear of being hit himself and he dared not move forward into the grass to investigate.
“Sam,” he called again; then, “He’s sure got his.”
That was all Curly wanted to know. Softly he padded forward, keeping as low as he could till he reached the empty sleepers. A brakeman was just uncoupling the express car when Curly dived underneath and nestled close to the trucks.
From where he lay he could almost have reached out and touched Soapy standing by the car.
“What about the kid?” Stone asked Blackwell as the latter came up.
“They got him. Didn’t you hear him yelp?”
“Yes, but did they put him out of business? See his body?”
Blackwell had no intention of going back into the fire zone and making sure. For his part he was satisfied. So he lied.
“Yep. Blew the top of his head off.”
“Good,” Soapy nodded. “That’s a receipt in full for Mr. Luck Cullison.”
The wheels began to move. Soon they were hitting only the high spots. Curly guessed they must be doing close to sixty miles an hour. Down where he was the dust was flying so thickly he could scarce breathe, as it usually does on an Arizona track in the middle of summer.
Before many minutes the engine began to slow down. The wheels had hardly stopped moving when Curly crept out, plowed through the sand, up the rubble of a little hill, and into a draw where a bunch of scrub oaks offered cover.
A voice from in front called to him. Just then the moon appeared from behind drifting clouds.
“Oh, it’s you, Sam. Everything all right?”
“Right as the wheat. We’re blowing open the safe now,” Flandrau answered.
Moving closer, he saw that his questioner was the man in charge of the horses. Though he knew the voice, he could not put a name to its owner. But this was not the point that first occupied hismind.There were only four horses for five riders.Curly knew now that he had not been mistaken. Soapy had expected one of his allies to stay on the field of battle, had prepared for it from the beginning. The knowledge of this froze any remorse the youngvaqueromight have felt.
He pushed his revolver against the teeth of the horse wrangler.
“Don’t move, you bandy-legged maverick, or I’ll fill your hide full of holes. And if you want to keep on living padlock that mouth of yours.”
In spite of his surprise the man caught the point at once. He turned over his weapons without a word.
Curly unwound a rope from one of the saddles and dropped a loop round the neck of his prisoner. The two men mounted and rode out of the draw, the outlaw leading the other two horses. As soon as they reached the bluff above Flandrau outlined the next step in the program.
“We’ll stay here in thetornillaand see what happens, my friend. Unless you’ve a fancy to get lead poisoning keep still.”
“Who in Mexico are you?” the captured man asked.
“It’s your showdown. Skin off that mask.”
The man hesitated. His own revolver moved a few inches toward his head. Hastily he took offthe mask. The moon shone on the face of the man called Dutch. Flandrau laughed. Last time they had met Curly had a rope around his neck. Now the situation was reversed.
An explosion below told them that the robbers had blown open the safe. Presently Soapy’s voice came faintly to them.
“Bring up the horses.”
He called again, and a third time. The dwarfed figures of the outlaws stood out clear in the moonlight. One of them ran up the track toward the draw. He disappeared into the scrub oaks, from whence his alarmed voice came in a minute.
“Dutch! Oh, Dutch!”
The revolver rim pressed a little harder against the bridge of the horse wrangler’s nose.
“He ain’t here,” Blackwell called back to his accomplices.
That brought Stone on the run. “You condemned idiot, hemustbe there. Ain’t he had two hours to get here since he left Tin Cup?”
They shouted themselves hoarse. They wandered up and down in a vain search. All the time Curly and his prisoner sat in the brush and scarcely batted an eye.
At last Soapy gave up the hunt. The engine and the express car were sent back to join the rest of the train and as soon as they were out of sightthe robbers set out across country toward the Flatiron ranch.
Curly guessed their intentions. They would rustle horses there and head for the border. It was the only chance still left them.
After they had gone Curly and his prisoner returned to the road and set out toward Tin Cup. About a mile and a half up the line they met Cullison and his riders on the way down. Maloney was with them. He had been picked up at the station.
Dick gave a shout of joy when he heard Flandrau’s voice.
“Oh, you Curly! I’ve been scared stiff for fear they’d got you.”
Luck caught the boy’s hand and wrung it hard. “You plucky young idiot, you’ve got sand in your craw. What the deuce did you do it for?”
They held a conference while the Circle C riders handcuffed Dutch and tied him to a horse. Soon the posse was off again, having left the prisoner in charge of one of the men. They swung round in a wide half circle, not wishing to startle their game until the proper time. The horses pounded up hills, slid into washes, and plowed through sand on a Spanish trot, sometimes in the moonlight, more often in darkness. The going was rough, but they could not afford to slacken speed.
When they reached the edge of the mesa thatlooked down on the Flatiron the moon was out and the valley was swimming in light. They followed the dip of a road that led down to the corral. Passing the fenced lane leading to the stable, they tied their ponies inside and took the places assigned to them by Cullison.
They had not long to wait. In less than half an hour three shadowy figures slipped round the edge of the corral and up the lane. Each of them carried a rifle in addition to his hip guns.
They slid into the open end of the stable. Cullison’s voice rang out coldly.
“Drop your guns!”
A startled oath, a shot, and before one could have lifted a hand that silent moonlit valley of peace had become a battlefield.
The outlaws fell back from the stable, weapons smoking furiously. Blackwell broke into a run, never looking behind him, but Soapy and Bad Bill gave back foot by foot fighting every step of the way.
Dick and Curly rose from behind the rocks where they had been placed and closed the trap on Blackwell. The paroled convict let out one yell.
“I give up. Goddlemighty, don’t shoot!”
His rifle he had already thrown away. With his arms reaching above him, his terror-stricken eyes popping from his head, he was a picture of the mostfrightened “bad man” who had ever done business in Arizona.
Half way down the lane Cranston was hit. He sank to his knees, and from there lopped over sideways to his left elbow. In the darkness his voice could be heard, for the firing had momentarily ceased.
“They’ve got me, Soapy. Run for it. I’ll hold ’em back.”
“Hit bad, Bill?”
“I’m all in.Vamos!”
Stone turned to run, and for the first time saw that his retreat was cut off. As fast as he could pump the lever his rifle began working again.
The firing this time did not last more than five seconds. When the smoke cleared it was all over. Soapy lay on his back, shot through and through. Blackwell had taken advantage of the diversion to crawl through the strands of barbed wire and to disappear in the chaparral. Bill had rolled over on his face.
Curly crept through the fence after the escaping man, but in that heavy undergrowth he knew it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After a time he gave it up and returned to the field of battle.
Dick was bending over Stone. He looked up at the approach of his friend and said just one word.
“Dead.”
Cullison had torn open Cranston’s shirt and was examining his wounds.
“No use, Luck. I’ve got a-plenty. You sure fooled us thorough. Was it Sam gave us away?”
“No, Bill. Curly overheard Soapy and Blackwell at Chalkeye’s Place. Sam stood pat, though you were planning to murder him.”
“I wasn’t in on that, Luck—didn’t know a thing about it till after the boy was shot. I wouldn’t a-stood for it.”
“He wasn’t shot. Curly saved him. He had to give you away to do it.”
“Good enough. Serves Soapy right for double crossing Sam. Take care of that kid, Luck. He’s all right yet.” His eye fell on Flandrau. “You’re a game sport, son. You beat us all. No hard feelings.”
“Sorry it had to be this way, Bill.”
The dying man was already gray to the lips, but his nerve did not falter. “It had to come some time. And it was Luck ought to have done it too.” He waved aside Sweeney, who was holding a flask to his lips. “What’s the use? I’ve got mine.”
“Shall we take him to the house?” Maloney asked.
“No. I’ll die in the open. Say, there’s something else, boys. Curly has been accused of thatBar Double M horse rustling back in the early summer. I did that job. He was not one of us. You hear, boys. Curly was not in it.”
A quarter of an hour later he died. He had lied to save from the penitentiary the lad who had brought about his death. Curly knew why he had done it—because he felt himself to blame for the affair. Maybe Bad Bill had been a desperado, a miscreant according to the usual standard, but when it came to dying he knew how to go better than many a respectable citizen. Curly stole off into the darkness so that the boys would not see him play the baby.
By this time the men from the Flatiron were appearing, armed with such weapons as they could hastily gather. The situation was explained to them. Neighboring ranches were called up by telephone and a systematic hunt started to capture Blackwell.
Luck left his three riders to help in the man hunt, but he returned with Curly and Maloney to Saguache. On the pommel of his saddle was a sack. It contained the loot from the express car of the Flyer. Two lives already had been sacrificed to get it, and the sum total taken amounted only to one hundred ninety-four dollars and sixteen cents.
CHAPTER XVIITHE PRODIGAL SON
They found the prodigal son with his sister and Laura London at the Del Mar. Repentance was writ large all over his face and manner. From Davis and from the girls he had heard the story of how Soapy Stone had intended to destroy him. His scheme of life had been broken into pieces and he was a badly shaken young scamp.
When Luck and Curly came into the room he jumped up, very white about the lips.
“Father!”
“My boy!”
Cullison had him by the hand, one arm around the shaking shoulders.
“What——what——?”
Sam’s question broke down, but his father guessed it.
“Soapy and Bad Bill were killed, Dutch is a prisoner, and Blackwell escaped. All Spring Valley is out after him.”
The boy was aghast. “My God!”
“Best thing for all of us. Soapy meant to murder you. If it hadn’t been for Curly——”
“Are you sure?”
“No question about it. He brought no horse for you to ride away on. Bill admitted it, though he didn’t know what was planned. Curly heard Soapy ask Blackwell whether he had seen your body.”
The boy shuddered and drew a long sobbing, breath. “I’ve been a fool, Father—and worse.”
“Forget it, son. We’ll wipe the slate clean. I’ve been to blame too.”
It was no place for outsiders. Curly beat a retreat into the next room. The young women followed him. Both of them were frankly weeping. Arms twined about each other’s waists, they disappeared into an adjoining bedroom.
“Don’t go,” Kate called to him over her shoulder.
Curly sat down and waited. Presently Kate came back alone. Her shining eyes met his.
“I never was so happy in all my life before. Tell me what happened—everything please.”
As much as was good for her to know Curly told. Without saying a word she listened till he was through. Then she asked a question.
“Won’t Dutch tell about Sam being in it?”
“Don’t matter if he does. Evidence of an accomplice not enough to convict. Soapy overshot himself. I’m here to testify that Sam and he quarrelled before Sam left. Besides, Dutch won’t talk. I drilled it into him thorough that he’d better take his medicine without bringing Sam in.”
She sat for a long time looking out of the window without moving. She did not make the least sound, but the young man knew she was crying softly to herself. At last she spoke in a low sweet voice.
“What can we do for you? First you save Father and then Sam. You risked everything for my brother—to win him back to us, to save his life and now his reputation. If you had been killed people would always have believed you were one of the gang.”
“Sho! That’s nonsense, Miss Kate.” He twisted his hat in his hand uneasily. “Honest, I enjoyed every bit of it. And a fellow has to pay his debts.”
“Was that why you did it?” she asked softly.
“Yes. I had to make good. I had to show your father and you that I had not thrown away all your kindness. So I quit travelling that downhill road on which I had got started.”
“I’m glad—I’m so glad.” She whispered it so low he could hardly hear.
“There was one way to prove myself. That was to stand between Sam and trouble. So I butted in and spoiled Soapy’s game.”
“I wish I could tell you how fine Father thinks it was of you. He doesn’t speak of it much, but I know.”
“Nothing to what I did—nothing at all.” A wave of embarrassment had crept to the roots of his curly hair. “Just because a fellow—Oh, shucks!”
“That’s all very well for you to say, but you can’t help us thinking what we please.”
“But that ain’t right. I don’t want you thinking things that ain’t so because——”
“Yes? Because——?”
She lifted her eyes and met his. Then she knew it had to come out, that the feeling banked in him would overflow in words.
“Because you’re the girl I love.”
He had not intended to say it now, lest he might seem to be urging his services as a claim upon her. But the words had slipped out in spite of him.
She held out her two hands to him with a little gesture of surrender. The light of love was in her starry eyes.
And then——
She was in his arms, and the kisses he had dreamed about were on his lips.
CHAPTER XVIIICUTTING TRAIL
Kate Cullison had disappeared, had gone out riding one morning and at nightfall had not returned. As the hours passed, anxiety at the Circle C became greater.
“Mebbe she got lost,” Bob suggested.
Her father scouted this as absurd. “Lost nothing. You couldn’t lose her within forty miles of the ranch. She knows this country like a cow does the range. And say she was lost—all she would have to do would be to give that pinto his head and he’d hit a bee line for home. No, nor she ain’t had an accident either, unless it included the pony too.”
“You don’t reckon a cougar——,” began Sweeney, and stopped.
Luck looked at his bandy-legged old rider with eyes in which little cold devils sparkled. “A human cougar, I’ll bet. This time I’ll take his hide off inch by inch while he’s still living.”
“You thinking of Fendrick?” asked Sam.
“You’ve said it.”
Sweeney considered, rasping his stubbly chin. “Idon’t reckon Cass would do Miss Kate a meanness. He’s a white man, say the worst of him. But it might be Blackwell. When last seen he was heading into the hills. If he met her——”
A spasm of pain shot across Luck’s face. “My God! That would be awful.”
“By Gum, there he is now, Luck.” Sweeney’s finger pointed to an advancing rider.
Cullison swung as on a pivot in time to see someone drop into the dip in the road, just beyond the corral. “Who—Blackwell?”
“No. Cass.”
Fendrick reappeared presently and turned in at the lane. Cullison, standing on the porch at the head of the steps looked like a man who was passing through the inferno. But he looked too a personified day of judgment untempered by mercy. His eyes bored like steel gimlets into those of his enemy.
The sheepman spoke, looking straight at his foe. “I’ve just heard the news. I was down at Yesler’s ranch when you ’phoned asking if they had seen anything of Miss Cullison. I came up to ask you one question. When was she seen last?”
“About ten o’clock this morning. Why?”
“I saw her about noon. She was on Mesa Verde, headed for Blue Cañon looked like.”
“Close enough to speak to her?” Sam asked.
“Yes. We passed the time of day.”
“And then?” Luck cut back into the conversation with a voice like a file.
“She went on toward the gulch and I kept on to the ranch. The last I saw of her she was going straight on.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
The manner of the questioner startled Fendrick. “God, man, you don’t think I’m in this, do you?”
“If you are you’d better blow your brains out before I learn it. And if you’re trying to lead me on a false scent——” Luck stopped. Words failed him, but his iron jaw clamped like a vice.
Fendrick spoke quietly. “I’m willing. In the meantime we’d better travel over toward Mesa Verde, so as to be ready to start at daybreak.”
Cullison’s gaze had never left him. It observed, weighed, appraised. “Good enough. We’ll start.”
He left Sweeney to answer the telephone while he was away. All of his other riders were already out combing the hills under supervision of Curly. Luck had waited with Sam only to get some definite information before starting. Now he had his lead. Fendrick was either telling the truth or he was lying with some sinister purpose in view. The cattleman meant to know which.
Morning breaks early in Arizona. By the time they had come to the spot where the sheepman saidhe had met Kate gray streaks were already lightening the sky. The party moved forward slowly toward the cañon, spreading out so as to cover as much ground as possible. Before they reached its mouth the darkness had lifted enough to show the track of a horse in the sand.
They pushed up the gulch as rapidly as they could. The ashes of a camp fire halted them a few minutes later. Scattered about lay the feathers and dismembered bones of some birds.
Cass stooped and picked up some of the feathers. “Quails, I reckon. Miss Cullison had three tied to her saddle horn when I met her.”
“Why did she come up here to cook them?” Sam asked.
Luck was already off his horse, quartering over the ground to read what it might tell him.
“She wasn’t alone. There was a man with her. See these tracks.”
It was Fendrick who made the next discovery. He had followed a draw for a short distance and climbed to a little mesa above. Presently he called to Cullison.
Father and son hurried toward him. The sheep-owner was standing at the edge of a prospect hole pointing down with his finger.
“Someone has been in that pit recently, and he’s been there several days.”
“Then how did he get out?” Sam asked.
Fendrick knelt on the edge of the pit and showed him where a rope had been dragged so heavily that it had cut deeply into the clay.
“Someone pulled him out.”
“What’s it mean anyhow? Kate wasn’t in that hole, was she?”
Cass shook his head. “This is my guess. Someone was coming along here in the dark and fell in. Suppose Miss Cullison heard him calling as she came up the gulch. What would she do?”
“Come up and help the fellow out.”
“Sure she would. And if he was hungry—as he likely was—she would cook her quail for him.”
“And then? Why didn’t she come home?”
Luck turned a gray agonized face on him. “Boy, don’t you see? The man was Blackwell.”
“And if you’ll put yourself in Blackwell’s place you’ll see that he couldn’t let her go home to tell where she had seen him,” Fendrick explained.
“Then where is she? What did he do with her?”
There came a moment’s heavy silence. The pale face of the boy turned from the sheepman to his father. “You don’t think that—that——”
“No, I don’t,” Cass answered. “But let’s look this thing squarely in the face. There were three things he could do with her. First, he might leave her in the pit. He didn’t do that because he hadn’tthe nerve. She might be found soon and set the hunters on his track. Or she might die in that hole and he be captured later with her pinto. I know him. He always plays a waiting game when he can. Takes no chances if he can help it.”
“You think he took her with him then,” Luck said.
“Yes. There’s a third possibility. He may have shot her when he got a good chance, but I don’t think so. He would keep her for a hostage as long as he could.”
“That’s the way I figure it,” agreed Cullison. “He daren’t hurt her, for he would know Arizona would hunt him down like a wolf if he did.”
“Then where’s he taking her?” Sam asked.
“Somewhere into the hills. He knows every pocket of them. His idea will be to slip down and cut across the line into Sonora. He’s a rotten bad lot, but he won’t do her any harm unless he’s pushed to the wall. The fear of Luck Cullison is in his heart.”
“That’s about it,” nodded Luck. “He’s somewhere in these hills unless he’s broken through. Bolt ’phoned me that one of his posse came on the ashes of a camp fire still warm. They’re closing in on him. He’s got to get food or starve, unless he can break through.”
“There’s a chance he’ll make for one of my sheepcamps to lay in a supply. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep a man stationed at each one of them?”
“You’re talking sense,” Cullison approved. “Sam, ride back and get in touch with Curly. Tell him to do that. And rouse the whole country over the wire. We’ll run him down and feed him to the coyotes.”
CHAPTER XIXA GOOD SAMARITAN
Fendrick had told the exact truth. After leaving him Kate had ridden forward to the cañon and entered it. She did not mean to go much farther, but she took her time. More than once she slipped from under a fold of her waist a letter and reread sentences of it. Whenever she did this her eyes smiled. For it was a love letter from Curly, the first she had ever had. It had been lying on the inner edge of the threshold of her bedroom door that morning when she got up, and she knew that her lover had risen early to put it there unnoticed.
They were to be married soon. Curly had wished to wait till after his trial, but she had overruled him. Both her father and Sam had sided with her, for she had made them both see what an advantage it would be with a jury for Flandrau to have his bride sitting beside him in the courtroom.
Faintly there came to her a wind-swept sound. She pulled up and waited, but no repetition of it reached her ears. But before her pony had moveda dozen steps she stopped him again. This time she was almost sure of a far cry, and after it the bark of a revolver.
With the touch of a rein she guided her horse toward the sound. It might mean nothing. On the other hand it might be a call for help. Her shout brought an answer which guided her to the edge of a prospect hole. In the darkness she made out an indistinct figure.
“Water,” a husky voice demanded.
She got her canteen from the saddle and dropped it to him. The man glued his lips to the mouth as if he could never get enough.
“For God’s sake get me out of here,” he pleaded piteously.
“How long have you been there?”
“Two days. I fell in at night whilst I was cutting acrost country.”
Kate fastened her rope to the horn of the saddle, tightened the cinch carefully, and dropped the other end to him. She swung to the back of the horse and braced herself by resting her full weight on the farther stirrup.
“Now,” she told him.
The imprisoned man tried to pull himself up, bracing his feet against the rough projections of the rock wall to help him. But he could not manage the climb. At last he gave it up with an oath.
“We’ll try another way,” the girl told him cheerfully.
At spaces about a foot distant she tied knots in the rope for about the first six feet.
“This time you’ll make it,” she promised. “You can get up part way as you did before. Then I’ll start my horse forward. Keep braced out from the wall so as not to get crushed.”
He growled an assent. Once more she got into the saddle and gave the word. He dragged himself up a few feet and then the cowpony moved forward. The legs of the man doubled up under the strain and he was crushed against the wall just as he reached the top. However, he managed to hang on and was dragged over the edge with one cheek scratched and bleeding.
“Might a-known you’d hurt me if you moved so fast,” he complained, nursing his wounded face in such a way as to hide it.
“I’m sorry. I did my best to go carefully,” the girl answered, stepping forward.
His hand shot forward and caught her wrist Her startled eyes flashed to his face. The man was the convict Blackwell.
“Got anything to eat with you. I’m starving,” he snapped.
“Yes. I shot some quail Let go my hand.”
He laughed evilly, without mirth. “Don’t tryany of your sassy ways on me. By God, I’m a wolf on the howl.”
In spite of her supple slenderness there was strength in her small wrists. She fought and twisted till she was worn out in her efforts to free herself. Panting, she faced him.
“Let me go, I tell you.”
For answer his open hand struck her mouth. “Not till you learn your boss. Before I’m through with you a squaw won’t be half so tame as you.”
He dragged her to the horse, took from its case the rifle that hung by the saddle, and flung her from him roughly. Then he pulled himself to the saddle.
“March ahead of me,” he ordered.
As soon as they had reached the bed of the cañon lie called a halt and bade her light a fire and cook him the quail. She gathered ironwood and catclaw while he watched her vigilantly. Together they roasted the birds by holding them over the fire with sharpened sticks thrust through the wings. He devoured them with the voracity of a wild beast.
Hitherto his mind had been busy with the immediate present, but now his furtive shifting gaze rested on her more thoughtfully. It was as a factor of his safety that he considered her. Gratitude was a feeling not within his scope. The man’s mind worked just as Fendrick had surmised. He wouldnot let her go back to the ranch with the news that he was hidden in the hills so close at hand. He dared not leave her in the prospect hole. He was not yet ready to do murder for fear of punishment. That was a possibility to be considered only if he should be hard pressed. The only alternative left him was to take her to the border as a companion of his fugitive doublings.
“We’ll be going now,” he announced, after he had eaten.
“Going where? Don’t you see I’ll be a drag to you? Take my horse and go. You’ll get along faster.”
“Do you think so?”
She opened her lips to answer, but there was something in his face—something at once so cruel and deadly and wolfish—that made the words die on her lips. For the first time it came to her that if he did not take her with him he would kill her to insure his own safety. None of the arguments that would have availed with another man were of any weight here. Her sex, her youth, the service she had done him—these would not count a straw. He was lost to all the instincts of honor that govern even hard desperate men of his class.
They struck into the mountains, following a cattle trail that wound upward with devious twists. The man rode, and the girl walked in front withthe elastic lightness, the unconscious flexuous grace of poise given her body by an outdoor life. After a time they left the gulch. Steadily they traveled, up dark arroyos bristling with mesquite, across little valleys leading into timbered stretches through which broken limbs and uprooted trees made progress almost impossible, following always untrodden ways that appalled with their lonely desolation.
By dusk they were up in the headwaters of the creeks. The resilient muscles of the girl had lost their spring. She moved wearily, her feet dragging heavily so that sometimes she staggered when the ground was rough. Not once had the man offered her the horse. He meant to be fresh, ready for any emergency that might come. Moreover, it pleased his small soul to see the daughter of Luck Cullison fagged and exhausted but still answering the spur of his urge.
The moon was up before they came upon a tent shining in the cold silvery light. Beside it was a sheetiron stove, a box, the ashes of a camp fire, and a side of bacon hanging from the limb of a stunted pine. Cautiously they stole forward.
The camp was for the time deserted. No doubt its owner, a Mexican sheepherder in the employ of Fendrick and Dominguez, was out somewhere with his flock.
Kate cooked a meal and the convict ate. Thegirl was too tired and anxious to care for food, but she made herself take a little. They packed the saddlebags with bacon, beans, coffee and flour. Blackwell tightened again the cinches and once more the two took the trail.
They made camp in a pocket opening from a gulch far up in the hills. With her ownreatahe fastened her hands behind her and tied the girl securely to the twisted trunk of a Joshua tree. To make sure of her he lay on the rope, both hands clinched to the rifle. In five minutes he was asleep, but it was long before Kate could escape from wakefulness. She was anxious, her nerves were jumpy, and the muscles of arms and shoulders were cramped. At last she fell into troubled catnaps.
From one of these she awoke to see that the morning light was sifting through the darkness. Her bones and muscles ached from the constraint of the position in which the rope held them. She was shivering with the chill of an Arizona mountain night. Turning her body, the girl’s eyes fell upon her captor. He was looking at her in the way that no decent man looks at a woman. Her impulse was to scream, to struggle to her feet and run. What did he mean? What was he going to do?
But something warned her this would precipitate the danger. She called upon her courage and tried to still the fearful tumult in her heart. Somehowshe succeeded. A scornful, confident pride flashed from her eyes into his. It told him that for his life he dared not lay a finger upon her in the way of harm. And he knew it was true, knew that if he gave way to his desire no hole under heaven would be deep enough to hide him from the vengeance of her friends.
He got sullenly to his feet. “Come. We’ll be going.”
Within the hour they saw some of his hunters. The two were sweeping around the lip of a mountain park nestling among the summits. A wisp of smoke rose from the basin below. Grouped about it were three men eating breakfast.
“Don’t make a sound,” warned Blackwell.
His rifle covered her. With all her soul she longed to cry for help. But she dared not take the risk. Even as the two on the edge of the bowl withdrew from sight one of the campers rose and sauntered to a little grove where the ponies were tethered. The distance was too far to make sure, but something in the gait made the girl sure that the man was Curly. Her hands went out to him in a piteous little gesture of appeal.
She was right. It was Curly. He was thinking of her at that moment despairingly, but no bell of warning rang within to tell him she was so near and in such fearful need of him.
Twice during the morning did the refugee attempt to slip down into the parched desert that stretched toward Sonora and safety. But the cordon set about him was drawn too close. Each time a loose-seated rider lounging in the saddle with a rifle in his hands drove them back. The second attempt was almost disastrous, for the convict was seen. The hum of a bullet whistled past his ears as he and his prisoner drew back into the chaparral and from thence won back to cover.
Kate, drooping with fatigue, saw that fear rode Blackwell heavily. He was trapped and he knew that by the Arizona code his life was forfeit and would be exacted of him should he be taken. He had not the hardihood to game it out in silence, but whined complaints, promises and threats. He tried to curry favor with her, to work upon her pity, even while his furtive glances told her that he was wondering whether he would have a better chance if he sacrificed her life.
From gulch to arroyo, from rock-cover to pine-clad hillside he was driven in his attempts to break the narrowing circle of grim hunters that hemmed him. And with each failure, with every passing hour, the terror in him mounted. He would have welcomed life imprisonment, would have sold the last vestige of manhood to save the worthless life that would soon be snuffed out unless he couldevade his hunters till night and in the darkness break through the line.
He knew now that it had been a fatal mistake to bring the girl with him. He might have evaded Bolt’s posses, but now every man within fifty miles was on the lookout for him. His rage turned against Kate because of it. Yet even in those black outbursts he felt that he must cling to her as his only hope of saving himself. He had made another mistake in lighting a campfire during the morning. Any fool ought to have known that the smoke would draw his hunters as the smell of carrion does a buzzard.
Now he made a third error. Doubling back over an open stretch of hillside, he was seen again and forced into the first pocket that opened. It proved to be a blind gulch, one offering no exit at the upper end but a stiff rock climb to a bluff above.
He whipped off his coat and gave it to Kate.
“Put it on. Quick.”
Surprised, she slipped it on.
“Now ride back out and cut along the edge of the hill. You’ve got time to make it all right before they close in if you travel fast. Stop once—just once—and I’ll drop you in your tracks. Now git!”
She saw his object in a flash. Wearing his gray felt hat and his coat, the pursuers would mistakeher for him. They would follow her—perhaps shoot her down. Anyhow, it would be a diversion to draw them from him. Meanwhile he would climb the cliff and slip away unnoticed.
The danger of what she had to do stood out quite clearly, but as a chance to get away from him she welcomed it gladly. She swung the pony with a touch of the rein and set him instantly at the canter. It was rough going, but she took it almost blindly.
From the lip of the gulch she swung abruptly to the right. Her horse stumbled and went down just as a bullet flew over her head. Before she was free of the stirrups strong hands pinned her shoulders to the ground. She heard a glad startled cry. The rough hands became immediately gentle. Then things grew black. The last she remembered was that the mountains were dancing up and down in an odd fashion.
Her eyes opened to see Curly. She was in his arms and his face was broken with emotions of love and tenderness.
“You’re not hurt,” he implored.
“No.”
“He didn’t—mistreat you?” His voice was trembling as he whispered it.
“No—No.”
And at that she broke down. A deep sob shookher body—and another. She buried her head on his shoulder and wept.
Without losing an instant the convict set himself at the climb. His haste, the swift glances shot behind him, the appalling dread that made his nerves ragged, delayed his speed by dissipating the singleness of his energy. His face and hands were torn with catclaw, his knee bruised by a slip against a sharp jut of quartz.
When he reached the top he was panting and shaken. Before he had moved a dozen steps a man came out of the brush scarce seventy-five yards away and called to him to surrender. He flung his rifle to place and fired twice.
The man staggered and steadied himself. A shell had jammed and Blackwell could not throw it out. He turned to run as the other fired. But he was too late. He stumbled, tripped, and went down full length.
The man that had shot him waited for him to rise. The convict did not move. Cautiously the wounded hunter came forward, his eyes never lifting from the inert sprawling figure. Even now he half expected him to spring up, life and energy in every tense muscle. Not till he stood over him, till he saw the carelessly flung limbs, the uncouth twist to the neck, could he believe that so slight acrook of the finger had sent swift death across the plateau.
The wounded man felt suddenly sick. Leaning against a rock, he steadied himself till the nausea was past. Voices called to him from the plain below. He answered, and presently circled down into the gulch which led to the open.
At the gulch mouth he came on a little group of people. One glance told him all he needed to know. Kate Cullison was crying in the arms of Curly Flandrau. Simultaneously a man galloped up, flung himself from his horse, and took the young woman from her lover.
“My little girl,” he cried in a voice that rang with love.
Luck had found his ewe lamb that was lost.
It was Curly who first saw the man approaching from the gulch. “Hello, Cass! Did you get him?”
Fendrick nodded wearily.
“Dead sure?”
“Yep. He’s up there.” The sheepman’s hand swept toward the bluff.
“You’re wounded.”
“Got me in the shoulder. Nothing serious, I judge.”
Cullison swung around. “Sure about that, Cass?” It was the first time for years that he had called the other by his first name except in irony.
“Sure.”
“Let’s have a look at the shoulder.”
After he had done what he could for it Luck spoke bluffly. “This dashed feud is off, Cass. You’ve wiped the slate clean. When you killed Blackwell you put me out of a hostile camp.”
“I’m glad—so glad. Now we’ll all be friends, won’t we?” Kate cried.
Cass looked at her and at Curly, both of them radiant with happiness, and his heart ached for what he had missed. But he smiled none the less.
“Suits me if it does you.”
He gave one hand to Luck and the other to his daughter.
Curly laughed gaily. “Everybody satisfied, I reckon,”