CHAPTER VIISTEVE TELLS TOO MUCH TRUTH
Yeager ducked into the night. From the door through which he had just come bullets spat aimlessly. He crouched as he ran, dodging in zigzag little rushes. Voices pursued him, fierce and threatening. Men poured from the gambling-house as seeds are squirted from a squeezed lemon.
Into a vacant lot behind a store Steve swerved, finding shelter among some empty drygoods boxes. He was none too soon, for as he sank to cover, the rush of feet padded down the sidewalk. Stealthily he crept to the fence, vaulted it lightly, and found a more secure hiding-place in the lumber yard beyond. From the top of a pile of two by fours he watched, every sense alert to catch any warning of danger.
Soon his pursuers returned in little groups to their interrupted games. Now that the first excitement of the chase was over, few of them wanted to risk a battle with desperate men in the dark. That was what the rurales and the rangers were for.
The cowpuncher slid down cautiously andleft the lumber yard by way of the alley in the rear. He followed a barb-wire fence which bounded a pasture, and at the next corner crossed the street warily into United States territory. By alleys and back ways his feet took him to Johanson's stable. Noiselessly he crept toward it from the rear. Some one was inside saddling a horse. So much he could gather from the sounds. Was it Phil? Or was it some one getting ready for the pursuit? He moved a step nearer. A stick cracked beneath his foot.
The man saddling the bronco whirled, revolver in hand. "Who is it?" demanded a tense voice.
"All right, Phil." Steve moved forward, breathing easier. "Glad you made it. We'd better light a shuck out of here. They'll stir up the rurales to get after us, I reckon."
Already he was busy saddling Four Bits.
"Do you ... do you think I killed him?" jerked out the boy, a strangled sob of over-strained emotion in his throat.
"Don't know. He was asking for it, wasn't he?" answered Yeager in a matter-of-fact voice. He did not intend by an expression of sympathy to aid in any breakdown here. That could come later when they had put many miles between them and Arixico.
They led their horses out of the stable andswung to the saddles not a minute too soon. A man came running toward them.
"Hold on," he called. "Just a moment. I'm the sheriff. They say a man has been killed."
The fugitives put spurs to their broncos. The animals jumped to a canter. Over his shoulder Steve looked back. The sheriff was standing undecided. Before it penetrated his brain that these were the men he wanted they were out of range.
For a time they rode in silence except for the clicking of the hoofs. Yeager turned, his hand on the rump of his pony.
"Don't hear anything of them. We've made a clean getaway, looks like. But they'll keep the wires warm after us—if Mendoza is dead."
The boy broke down, sobbing. "My God, I couldn't help it. What else could I do? He was shooting when I fired."
"Sure he was, but that won't help you if they take you back to Mexico. My advice is for you to get into a hole and draw it in after you, for a few days anyhow. Where do you live?"
"At Los Robles—when I'm at home."
"Then youarePhil Seymour?"
"Who told you?" flashed the boy.
"I board with your mother. I'm a rider for the Lunar Company."
"Then you know Chad Harrison. Chad will get me out of this. He'll fix it."
"How'll he fix it?" demanded Yeager bluntly. "Back there across the line they're going to call this by an ugly name—if Mendoza cashes in his checks. Harrison can't fix murder, can he?"
A film of hard wariness covered the eyes of the boy as he looked across in the darkness at the other man. "He's got friends," was the dry, noncommittal answer that came to the range-rider after a moment's distinct pause.
Yeager asked no more questions. There had been a "No trespass" sign in Phil's manner. But as they rode silently toward Los Robles Steve's mind groped again with the problem of Harrison's relation to those in power across the border. Was the man tied up with old Pasquale? Or was he an agent of the Huerta Government? Just now the Federals had control of this part of the border. Did the boy mean that it was among them that Harrison had friends? It looked that way, and yet—The cowpuncher could not get it out of his head that the stolen cattle had been for old Pasquale. Huerta's lieutenants were too wary to stock their pantry from the United States in that fashion.
They rode into Los Robles in the first gray stirrings of dawn, long before anybody in the little town was afoot.
"Where are you going to hide? First place they'll look for you will be at home," suggested Yeager.
"There's a haystack out in the Lunar pastures. I'll lay low there. Tell Chad when you see him, and have Ruth fix me up something to eat."
They parted, each of them to get in what sleep was possible before day. When Steve was awakened by the sound of some one stirring in the next room it seemed as though he had been in bed only a few minutes.
He walked up to the hotel before breakfast and saw Harrison as the actor was going into the dining-room. The big man stopped in his tracks and shot out a heavy jaw at him.
"Thought you was giving our eyes a rest for a while," he growled.
Yeager declined to exchange compliments with him. "There's a friend of yours on the haystack in the pasture. He wants to see you soon as it's convenient."
The eyes of the pugilist narrowed. "Put a name to him."
"Phil Seymour."
"What's he doing here?" demanded Harrison blackly.
"Perhaps you'd better ask him." Steve turned on his heel and walked back to his boarding-house.
His arrival at the breakfast table was greeted with a chorus of exclamations. What was he doing back so soon? Had he got homesick? Had he run out of money already?
He let them worm out of him that he had ridden away and forgotten his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,—who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,—and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the proper amount of sheepish resentment.
After the meal was over he lingered to see Ruth, who had just sat down to eat.
"Can I see you alone, Miss Ruth?"
She flashed a quick look at him, doubtful and apprehensive. "In the pergola, almost right away."
The girl reached the vine-draped entrance of the pergola shortly after Yeager. Manifestly her fears had been growing in the interval since he had left her.
"What is it?" And swift on the heels of that, "Is it about Phil?"
"Yes."
"He's in trouble ... again?" she breathed.
He nodded assent. "The boy's out in the pasture. He wants you to send him breakfast."
The dread that was always lying banked inthe hearts of herself and her mother found voice. "What has he done now?"
The range-rider chose his words carefully. "There was some trouble—just across the border. He had to shoot ... and a man fell."
Her face mirrored terror. "You mean ... dead?"
"I don't know," he answered gravely.
"Tell me all about it, please,—the circumstances, everything."
"He will tell you himself. I'll just say this—the shooting was forced on him. He fired in self-defense."
She wrung her hands. "I knew ... I knew something dreadful would happen. Mr. Harrison promised me—he said he would look out for Phil."
Steve looked her straight in the eyes. "Harrison's a crook. He's been using your love for Phil as a lever. It's up to you and the boy to shake him off."
A swift, upblazing anger leaped to her face. "How dare you say that! How dare you!"
His blue eyes met her dark, stormy ones quietly and steadily. "I'm telling you the truth. Can't you see he's been leading Phil into deviltry? You're afraid of him, afraid of his influence over the boy. That's why you knuckle down to him."
"I'm not afraid. He's Phil's friend. You're against him just because he—he—"
"Say it, Miss Ruth. Just because he gave me the whaling of my young life. Nothing to that, nothing a-tall. My system can absorb a licking without bearing a grudge. But he ain't on the level. 'Course you'll hate me for saying it, but some one's got to tell you."
"It's none of your business. I dare say it was you that was with Phil when he—when he—got into trouble."
"Yes."
"I thought so." A sob swelled up in her throat. "You come here and make trouble. I do hate you if you want to know."
With that she turned tempestuously and went flying back to the house.
Steve smiled ruefully. He did not know much about women, but he had read somewhere that they were capable of injustice. She had plenty of spirit, anyhow, for all that she looked so demure and shy.
CHAPTER VIIITHE HEAVY GETS HIS TIME
Threewit came to Steve while Cummings was preparing the stage set for a dissolve.
"Wish you'd look over this scenario, Yeager. The old man sent it out to me to see if we can pull off the riding end of it. Scene twenty-seven is the sticker. Here's the idea: You've been thrown from your horse and your foot's caught in the stirrup. You draw your gat to shoot the bronch and it's bumped out of your hand as you're dragged over the rough ground. See? You save your life by wriggling your foot out of your boot. Can it be done without taking too many chances?"
The rider considered. "I reckon it could if a fellow's boot was fixed so he could slip his foot out at the right time. I'll take a whirl at it."
"There's another scene where you save Maisie by jumping from your horse to a wild steer that's pursuing her. You'll have to twist its head and throw the brute after you straddle it."
"All right. When you want to pull it off?"
"We can do the stirrup one to-day, before you go—if you still want to go."
"Got an answer yet from Arixico?"
"Just got it. Mendoza's still alive, but mighty badly hurt. I've sent the kid out to the animal farm. He'll lie low, and they won't find him there."
"I'm still curious about that bunch of cattle we lost. If you can spare me I'll run down and see if old Pasquale hasn't got 'em. It ain't likely we'll ever get hide or hair of 'em, but there's one thing I'd like to find out."
"Still got that notion about Harrison?"
"Maybe I have. Maybe I haven't. Anyhow, folks that are blind can't see. I'll keep my notions in my own fool haid for a while."
"Harrison has some friends across the line. He's going to try and fix it for the kid if they run him down."
"That's fine," commented Yeager dryly. "He sure must have influential friends."
"All ready, Mr. Threewit," called out Cummings.
The director lit a cigar and moved forward to the stage. "Lennox, you're too far up stage. Register fear, Daisy. That's the idea. Now, then, Miss Winters. Keep your eyes on Daisy as you come into the room. No—no—no! That won't do at all."
Yeager left them to their rehearsal troubles and strolled back to his boarding-house. He would not be needed till afternoon.
He spent a half-hour softening the leather of his right boot around the ankle. A man cannot tumble from a running horse, let himself be dragged forty yards, and then slip his foot from the stirrup of a cowpony that has become frightened without taking a big chance. But it was his business to take chances. He always had taken them. And he knew that they could be minimized by careful preparation, expertness, and cool skill of execution.
As it turned out, Yeager had to make his fall twice. The ground selected for the set was a bit of level space just at the foot of a hillside. The rider went down hard on his shoulder at exactly the spot selected, but he had miscalculated slightly and the force of the fall dragged his foot from the boot at once. His calculations worked better at the second attempt. Hanging on by a toe-hold, he was dragged bumping over the rough ground. His revolver came out on schedule time and flew into the air. When Farrar gave the word,—which was at the moment the galloping horse was opposite the camera,—Steve worked his foot free, leaving the boot still clinging to the stirrup.
Yeager got to his feet rather unsteadily. The fall had been an unusually hard one, and it had not helped any to be dragged at full speed over the bumpy ground. Maisie Winters ran forwardand slipped an arm around his waist to support him.
"You dandy man! I never did see one so game as you, Steve."
The cowpuncher grinned. He liked Maisie Winters. There was about her a boyish, slangy camaraderie that made for popularity.
"Says the extra to the star, 'Much obliged, ma'am.'"
"You're no extra. In your own line you're as big a star as we've got. I know there isn't a rider in the country like you. You're a jim-dandy."
"He's quite a family pet," contributed Harrison sourly.
Farrar came forward from the camera, his eyes shining. "Some picture, I'll bet. Good boy! You pulled it fine, Steve. Didn't he, Threewit?"
The director nodded. He was wondering how much he would have to raise this young man's salary to hold him from rival companies.
"Sho! I just fell out of the saddle, Frank. Most any one can fall off a horse."
Harrison laughed spitefully. "I saw him do a better fall than that oncet."
Farrar was on the spot. "I saw you do a mighty good one the same day."
"Don't get fresh, young fella, or you'll do more than see one," snarled the heavy.
"Want to beat me up, Chad?" asked Farrar with innocent impudence. "I weigh one hundred and thirty-one pounds when I'm hog fat. How much do you weigh?"
"Cut it out, Frank," ordered Threewit. "I've had about enough of this jangling. If it isn't stopped, some one's going to lose a job. We're here to take pictures. Any one who's got any other idea had better call at the office for his time."
"Meaning me, Mr. Director?" demanded Harrison menacingly.
"Meaning you or anybody else that won't keep the rules I set for the company I run," retorted the director sharply.
"Forget it, Threewit. I'm no kid. Nobody runs me with rules. I do as I please."
"You'll not make trouble in my company."
"You ain't any little tin god on wheels. Don't run away with that idee in your bean. I haven't seen any man yet that can lay onto me without getting his hair curled for him. Me, I play my own hand, by God; and I don't care whether it's against Mr. Yeager or Mr. Farrar—or Mr. Threewit. See?"
"Your pay is waiting for you, Harrison."
"What? How's that?" he snarled.
"You're discharged—no longer working for the Lunar Company."
Harrison's face became an apoplectic purple. He stood with clenched fists glaring at the director, ready to explode with rage. It was a part of his vanity that he had not supposed for an instant that Threewit would let him go.
But it happened that the director had a temper of his own. He had chafed long enough under the domineering ways of the ex-prizefighter. Moreover, Harrison was no longer so essential to the company. Yeager was a far better rider and could register more effectively the feats of horsemanship that were a feature of the Lunar films. Billie Threewit had known for some time that this man was an element of disorganization in the company. Therefore he was letting him go.
Steve stood quietly in the background, one arm thrown carelessly across the neck of his pony. But his gaze did not lift from the heavy, who stood glaring at the director, his fingers working and head thrust low on the deep chest so that the gorilla hunch was emphasized. The man's black eyes snapped with a blazing fire that seemed ready to leap like a crouched tiger.
"Through with me, are you? Going to use that grand-stander Yeager instead, I reckon. That's the game, is it?"
"I'm not discussing my plans with you."
"Ain't you? Well, I'll discuss mine to this extent. I'll make you sick of this day's work allright before I'm through with you. Get that? Plumb sick." His eyes traveled around the half-circle till they met those of Yeager. "You'll get yours too, my friend. Believeme. Get it a-plenty. You're going to sweat blood when I git you hog-tied."
He turned away, flung himself on his horse, and dug the rowels into the sides of the animal savagely.
Farrar laughed nervously. "Exit Mr. Chad Harrison, some annoyed."
Steve looked gravely at his employer. "Sorry you tied that can on him, Mr. Threewit. He's not just the man I'd choose for an enemy if I was picking one."
"Had to do it sometime. The sooner the quicker. Anyhow, he hasn't got it in for me as much as he has for you."
Yeager shrugged. "Oh, me. That's different. 'Course he hates me thorough, but I'm sorry you got mixed in it."
"What difference does it make? He can't hurt me any." The director clapped his hands briskly. "All over at the willows for the kid-finding scene. Got your location picked, Farrar?"
CHAPTER IXGABRIEL PASQUALE
A red-hot cannon ball was flaming high in the heavens when Yeager drew out of Los Robles at a road gait. The desert winds were whispering good-night to the sun as he crossed Dry Sandy just above the Sinks. Many dusty miles in Sonora had been clipped off by Four Bits before the chill moon rose above the black line of the distant hills and flooded a transformed land with magical light, touching a parched and arid earth to a vibrant and mysterious beauty of whispering yucca and fantastic cactus and weird outline of mesquite.
Twice he unsaddled the bronco, hobbled it, and lay on his back with his face to the million stars of night. The first time he gave Four Bits an hour's rest and grazing. It was midnight when he dismounted at a water-hole gone almost dry under many summer suns. Here he slept the heavy, restful sleep of healthy, fatigued youth, arms and legs sprawling, serene and peaceful, unmoving as a lifeless log.
With the first faint streaks of dawn that came flooding into the eastern sky he was afoot, knockingtogether such breakfast as a rider of the plains needs. Presently he was once more in the saddle, pushing across the tawny, empty desert toward the hills that hid Noche Buena, the village where Pasquale had his headquarters.
The smell of breakfast and the smoke of it were in the air when he rode into the street lined with brown adobe huts. The guards paid no attention to him. Gringos evidently were no unusual sight to the troopers of the insurgent chief. Most of these were wearing blue denim suits of overall stuff, though a few were clad in khaki. All carried bright-colored handkerchiefs around their necks. Serapes, faded and bright, of all hues and textures, were in evidence everywhere.
He stopped a boy in riding-boots reaching to his hips, down the sides of which were conchas of silver dollars. Like most of those in camp the face upturned to that of Yeager was of a strong Indian cast.
The American inquired where the general might be found.
The boy—Steve judged him not over fifteen, and he was to find many soldiers in camp younger even than this—pointed to a square two-story house near the center of the town.
Two sentries were on guard outside. One of these went inside with the message of Yeager.Presently he returned, relieved the American of his revolver, and announced that the general would see him.
Pasquale was at breakfast with one of his lieutenants, a slender young man with black sleek hair who sat with his back to the door. From the first moment that his eyes fell upon that lithe, graceful figure the American knew that presently he would be looking into the face of Ramon Culvera. A chill shudder passed through him for an instant. If the gambler recognized him he was lost.
But as yet Culvera had not taken the trouble to turn. He was eating a banana indolently and stray Gringos did not greatly interest him.
"You want to see me, señor," demanded Pasquale in Spanish.
"I'm out of a job—thought maybe you could give me something to do. I met Tom Neal. He figured you might."
"In the army? Do you want to fight?"
Pasquale leaned back in his chair and looked at his guest from narrowed eyes that expressed intelligent energy and brutality. He was smiling, but there was something menacing even about his smile. It struck Steve that he was as simple, as natural, and about as humane as a wolf. He was not tall, but there was unusual breadth and depth to his shoulders. Somethingof the Indian was in the high cheekbones of his rough, unshaven, coffee-colored face. The old ruffian looked what he was, a terrible man, one who could brush out a human life as lightly as he did the ash from his cigar.
"I don't know. Perhaps. Can you give me a commission?"
"Hmp!" The beadlike eyes of the bandit took in shrewdly the competence of this quiet, brown-faced man. He might be a thief and a murderer,—very likely was since he had crossed the border to join the insurgents,—but it was a safe bet that he had the fighting edge. Men of this particular stripe were needed to lick his tattered, nondescript recruits into shape. "Where you from? Who knows you?"
Culvera slewed round in his seat and glanced at the man standing behind his chair. The indifference did not fade out of his eyes.
"I've been with the Lunar Film Company. Before that I was riding for the Lone Star cattle outfit," answered Yeager.
The younger Mexican showed a flicker of interest. "The Lunar Film Company? Do you know a man named Harrison, señor?"
"Yes."
"And a boy named Pheelip Seymour?"
"I've just met him. He doesn't work for the company."
Culvera turned to his chief. "It is this Pheelip that shot Mendoza, he and another Gringo."
Pasquale nodded, still watching Yeager.
"Know any military tactics?" he asked.
"None—except to hit the other fellow first and hit him hardest."
"And to hit him when he isn't looking. Those three things are all there is to know about war—those three, and to keep your men fat." Pasquale's momentary grin faded. "I'll give you a try-out for a week. If we like each other we'll talk turkey about a commission. Eh, señor?"
"Go you one. If we ain't suited we part company at the end of a week."
The noted insurgent leader spoke English as well as he did Spanish. Sometimes he talked in one language, sometimes in the other. Now he relapsed into Spanish and asked Yeager to join them at breakfast.
The cowpuncher sat down promptly. It had been three hours since he had eaten lightly and he was as hungry as a Yukon husky. He observed that Culvera's table manners were nice and particular, whereas those of his chief, though they ate off silver taken from the home of a Federal supporter during a raid, were uncouth in the extreme. He wolfed his food, throwing it into his mouth from knife or fork as rapidly as he could.
Glancing up from his steak, Steve observedthe brooding eye of Culvera upon him. Faint suspicions, recollections too vague as yet for definiteness, were beginning to stir in the mind of the man. He had taken on the look of wariness, masked by a surface smile, that his face had worn the night of the shooting.
Yeager's talk flowed on, easy, careless, unperturbed. His stories were amusing Pasquale, and the old ruffian had a fondness for anybody that could entertain him. But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray street suit and a Panama straw hat. Culvera had caught only a momentary glance at him the night they had faced each other revolver in hand. Yet the American was morally convinced that given time recognition would flash upon the young Mexican. Some gesture or expression would betray him. Then the fat would be in the fire. And Steve—where would he be?
After breakfast Yeager rode out with Pasquale to review the troops. It was an entirely informal proceeding. The youthful army was happily engaged in loafing and in play. A bugle blew. There was an instant scurry for horses. They swung into line, stood at attention, and at a second blast charged yelling across the plain, serapes flying wild.
Pasquale turned to Yeager with a gesture of his hand. "They are mine, body and soul. They eat, sleep, starve, and die at my word. Is it not so?"
The charging line had wheeled and was coming back like the distant roll of thunder. "Viva Pasquale!" they shouted as they galloped. Steve had a momentary qualm lest they charge over him and their chief, but the tough little horses were dragged to a halt five yards from them in a great cloud of dust. Bullets zipped into the air in their wild enthusiasm. Wild whoops and cheers increased the tumult.
"Looks that way," agreed the American.
Returning to the village, Steve observed a bunch of cattle a hundred yards from the trail. A Mexican lad, half asleep, was herding them. Immediately a devouring curiosity took hold of the cowpuncher. He wanted to see the brand on those cattle. It struck him that the shortest way was the quickest. He borrowed the field-glasses of Pasquale.
As he lowered the glasses after looking through them, Yeager laughed. "Funny how things come out. In this country cattle are like chips in a poker game. They ain't got any home, I reckon."
"Meaning, señor?" suggested the insurgent chief.
"Meaning that less than a week ago I paid aperfectly good check of the Lunar Company for that bunch of steers. We did aim to use them in some roundup sets, but I expect you've got another use for them."
"Si, señor."
"Hope Harrison held you up for a good price," suggested the American casually.
Pasquale showed his teeth in a grin. "He was some anxious to unload in a hurry—had to take the market he could find handy."
"Looks like he was afraid the goods might spoil on his hands," Steve commented dryly.
"Maybeso. I didn't ask any questions and he didn't offer any explanations. Fifteen gold on the hoof was what I agreed to pay. Were you in on this with Harrison?"
"I was and I wasn't. Me, I drove that bunch 'most forty miles, then he held me up and took the whole outfit from me."
Pasquale saw he had made a mistake and promptly lied. "It wasn't Harrison I got them from at all—just wanted to see what you'd say."
"Well, they didn't cost me a red cent. You're welcome to 'em as far as I'm concerned. Slow elk suits me fine. I'll help you eat them while I'm here, and that will be a week anyhow."
"You're a good sport, Yeager, as you Gringos say. We'll get along like brothers. Not so?"
The revolutionary chief was an incessant card-player.He had a greasy pack out as soon as they reached camp. Steve was invited to take a hand, also Ramon Culvera and a fat, bald-headed Mexican of fifty named Ochampa. Culvera, playing in luck, won largely from his chief, who accepted his run of ill fortune grouchily. Pasquale had been a peon in his youth, an outlaw for twenty years, and a czar for three. He was as much the subject of his own unbridled passions as is a spoiled and tyrannous child. Yeager, studying him, was careful to lose money with a laugh to the old despot and equally careful to see that the chips came back to him from Ochampa's side of the table.
The cowpuncher knew fairly well the political rumors that were afloat in regard to the situation in northern Mexico. Pasquale as yet was dictator of the revolutionary forces, but there had been talk to the effect that Ramon Culvera was only biding his time. Other ambitious men had aspired to supplant Pasquale. They had died sudden, violent deaths. Ramon had been a great favorite of the dictator, but it was claimed signs were not lacking to show that a rupture between them was near. Watching them now, Yeager could well believe that this might be true. Culvera was suave, adroit, deferential as he raked in his chief's gold, but the irritability of the older man needed only an excuse to blaze.
A blue-denim trooper came into the room and stood at attention.
Pasquale nodded curtly.
"Señor Harrison to see the general," said the private in Spanish.
A chill ran down the spine of the American. This was the last place in the world that he wanted to meet Chad Harrison. A swift vision of himself standing with his back to a wall before a firing line flashed into his brain.
But he was in for it now. He knew that the ex-prizefighter would denounce him. A daredevil spirit of recklessness flooded up in his heart. A smile both gay and sardonic danced in his eyes. Thus does untimely mirth in the hour of danger drive away a sober, prayerful gravity from the mien of such light-hearted sons of nature as Stephen Yeager.
CHAPTER XA NIGHT VISIT
Harrison stood blinking in the doorway, having just come out from the untempered sunlight in the street. He shook hands with the general, with Culvera, and then his glance fell upon the American.
"Fine glad day, ain't it?" Yeager opened gayly. "Great the way friends meet in this little old world."
"What are you doing here?" demanded the prizefighter, his chin jutting forward and down.
"Me! I'm losing my wad at stud. Want to stake me?"
Harrison turned to Pasquale. "Know who he is? Know anything about him, general?"
"Only what he has told me, señor."
"And that is?"
"That he worked for the moving-picture company at Los Robles, that he is out of a job, and that he wants to try the revolutionary game, as you Americans say."
"Don't you believe it. Don't believe a word of it," broke out Harrison stormily. "He's a spy. That's what he is."
Smiling, Steve cut in. "What have I come to spy about, Harrison?"
"You told Threewit that you thought General Pasquale had those cattle. You may deny it, but—"
"WhyshouldI deny it?" Yeager turned genially to the insurgent chief. "Youdon't deny it, do you, general?"
Pasquale laughed. He liked the cheek of this young man. "I deny nothing and I admit nothing." He swept his hand around in a gesture of indifference. "My vaqueros herd cattle I have bought. Possibly rustlers sold them to me. Maybeso. I ask no questions."
"Nor I," added Yeager promptly. "At least, not many. I eat the beef and find it good. You ought to have got a good price for a nice fat bunch like that, Harrison."
"What d'you mean by that?" The man's fists were clenched. The rage was mounting in him.
"Forget it, Harrison! You've quit the company. You're across the line and among friends. No use keeping up the bluff. I know who held me up. If I'm not hos-tile about it, you don't need to be."
The prizefighter flung at him the word of insult that no man in the fighting West brooks. Before Steve could speak or move, Pasquale hammered the table with his heavy, hairy fist.
"Maldito!" he roared. "Is it so you talk to my friends in my own house, Señor Harrison?"
The rustler, furious, turned on him. But even in his rage he knew better than to let his passion go. The insurgent chief was more dangerous than dynamite in a fire. Purple with anger, Harrison choked back the volcanic eruption.
"Friend! I tell you he's a spy, general. This man killed Mendoza. He's here to sell you out."
The sleek black head of Culvera swung quickly round till his black eyes met the blue ones of Yeager. He flung his hand straight out toward the Anglo-Saxon.
"Mil diablos! What a dolt I am. It's the very man, and I've been racking my brain to think where I met him before."
Yeager laughed hardily. "I've got a better memory, señor. Knew you the moment I set eyes on you, though it was some smoky when we last met."
Culvera rose, his knuckles pressing against the table. There was a faint smile of triumph, on his masked, immobile face.
"Farewell, Señor Yeager," he said softly. "After all, it's a world full of hardship and unpleasantness. You're well rid of it."
Steve knew his sole appeal lay in Pasquale. Ochampo was a nonentity. Both Harrison andCulvera had already condemned him to death. He turned quietly to the insurgent leader.
"How about it, general? Do I get a pass to Kingdom Come—because I stood by a half-grown kid when two blacklegs were robbing him?"
"You shot Mendoza, eh?" demanded Pasquale, his heavy brows knit in a frown.
"No; I helped the boy escape who did."
"You were both employed by the enemy to murder him and Culvera—not so?"
"Nothing of the sort. Young Seymour was in a poker game with Culvera and Mendoza. They were cross-lifting him—and playing with a cold deck at that. I warned the kid. They began shooting. I could have killed either of them, but I blew out the lights instead. In self-defense the boy shot Mendoza. We escaped through the door. The trouble was none of our seeking."
Culvera shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture of bland denial. "Lies! All lies, general. Have I not already told you the truth?"
Coldly Pasquale pronounced judgment. "What matter which one shot Mendoza. Both were firing. Both escaped together. Both are equally guilty." He clapped his hands. A trooper entered. "'Tonio, get a guard and take this man to prison. See that he is kept safe. To-morrow at dawn he will be shot."
The trooper withdrew. Pasquale continued evenly. "We have one rule, Señor Yeager. He who kills one of us is our enemy. If we capture him, that man dies. Fate has shaken the dice and they fall against you. So be it. You pay forfeit."
Yeager nodded. He wasted no breath in useless protest against the decision of this man of iron. What must be, must. A plea for mercy or for a reversal of judgment would be mere weakness.
"If that's the way you play the game there's no use hollering. I'll take my medicine, because I must. But I'll just take one little flyer of a guess at the future, general. If you don't put friend Culvera out of business, it will presently be, 'Good-night, Pasquale.' He's a right anxious and ambitious little lieutenant, I shouldn't wonder."
Harrison triumphed openly. He followed out of the house the file of soldiers who took his enemy away.
"Told you I'd git even a-plenty, didn't I?" he jeered. "Told you I'd make you sweat blood, Mister Yeager. Good enough. You'll see me in a box right off the stage to-morrow morning when the execution set is pulled off. Adios, my friend!"
The cowpuncher was thrust into a one-room, flat-roofed adobe hut. The door was locked anda guard set outside. The prison had for furniture a three-legged stool and a rough, home-made table. In one corner lay a couple of blankets upon some straw to serve for a bed. The walls of the house, probably a hundred years old at least, were of plain, unplastered adobe. The fireplace was large, but one glance up the narrow chimney proved the futility of any hope of escape in that direction.
He was caught, like a rat in a trap. Yet somehow he did not feel as if it could be true that he was to be taken out at daybreak and shot. It must be some ridiculous joke Fate was playing on him. Something would turn up yet to save him.
But as the hours wore away the grim reality of his position came nearer home to him. He had only a few hours left. From his pocket he took a notebook and a pencil. It was possible that Pasquale would let him send a letter through to Threewit if it gave some natural explanation of his death, one that would relieve him of any responsibility. Steve tore out a page and wrote, standing under the little shaft of moonlight that poured through the small barred window:—
Fifteen minutes ago [so he wrote] I accidentally shot myself while target-practicing here in camp. They say I won't live more than a few hours. Bythe courtesy of General Pasquale I am getting a letter through to you, which is to be sent after my death. Give bearer ten dollars in gold.Say good-bye for me to Frank, Daisy, and the rest.Bust up that marriage if you can.Adios, my friend.Steve Yeager.
Fifteen minutes ago [so he wrote] I accidentally shot myself while target-practicing here in camp. They say I won't live more than a few hours. Bythe courtesy of General Pasquale I am getting a letter through to you, which is to be sent after my death. Give bearer ten dollars in gold.
Say good-bye for me to Frank, Daisy, and the rest.Bust up that marriage if you can.
Adios, my friend.
Steve Yeager.
He was searching in his pocket for an envelope when there came a sound that held him rigid. Some one was very carefully unlocking the door of his prison from the outside. Stealthily he drew back into the deep shadow at the farther end of the room, picking up noiselessly by one leg the stool by the table. It was possible that some one had been sent to murder him.
The grinding of the key ceased. Slowly the door opened inch by inch. A man's head was thrust through the opening. After a long time of silence a figure followed the head and the door was closed again.
"You may put down that weapon, Señor Yeager. I have not come to knife you."
The lower half of the man's face was covered by a fold of his serape, the upper part was shaded by his sombrero. Only the glittering eyes could be plainly seen.
"Why have you come?"
"To talk with you—perhaps to save you. Quien sabe?"
Yeager put down the stool and gave it a shove across the floor. "Will you take a seat, general? Sorry I can't offer you refreshments, but the truth is I'm not exactly master in my own house."
Pasquale dropped the serape from his face and moved forward. "So you knew me?"
"Yes."
"How much will you give for your life?" demanded the Mexican abruptly, sitting down on the stool with his back to the table.
"As much as any man."
The general eyed him narrowly. One sinewy brown hand caressed the butt of a revolver hanging at his hip.
"Who paid you to murder Culvera and Mendoza—not Farrugia, surely?" Pasquale shot at him, eyes gleaming under shaggy brows.
Garcia Farrugia was the Federal governor of the province, the general with whom Pasquale had been fighting for a year.
"No—not Farrugia."
The insurrecto chief, sprawling in the moonlight with his back against the table, nodded decisively.
"I thought as much. He's no fool. Garciaknows it would not weaken me to lose both of them, that my grief would not be inconsolable. Who, then, if not Farrugia?"
"Nobody. I'm not an assassin. The story I told you is the truth, general."
"If that is true, Ramon Culvera's lies have brought you to your death."
The Mexican still sprawled with an arm flung across the table. Not a muscle of his lax body had grown more taut. But the eyes of the man—the terrible eyes that condemned men to their graves without a flicker of ruth—were fixed on the range-rider with a steady compulsion filled with hidden significance.
"Yes." Steve waited, alert and watchful. Presently he would understand what this grim, virile old scoundrel was driving at.
"You fought him in the open. You played your cards above the table. He comes back at you with a cold deck. Señor, do you love Ramon like a brother?"
"Of course not. If I could get at him before—"
The rigor of the black eyes boring into those of Yeager did not relax. The impact of them was like steel grinding on steel.
"Yes? If you could get at him? What, then, señor?"
The words were hissed across the room at the American. Pasquale was no longer lounging. Heleaned forward, body tense and rigid. His prisoner understood that an offer for his life was being made him. But what kind of an offer? Just what was he to do?
"Say it right out in plain United States talk, general. What is it you want me to do?"
"Would you kill Ramon Culvera—to save your own life?"
After barely an instant's hesitation Steve answered. "Yep. I'll fight him to a finish—any time, any place."
"Bueno! But there will be no risk for you. He will be summoned from his house to-night. You will stand in the darkness outside. One thrust of the knife and—you will be avenged. A saddled horse is waiting for you now in the cottonwood grove opposite. Before we get the pursuit started you will be lost in the darkness miles away."
The heart of Yeager sank. The thing he was being asked to do was plain murder. Even to save his own life he could not set his hand to such a contract.
"I can't do that, general. But I'll pick a quarrel with him. I'll take a chance on even terms."
"No—no!" Pasquale's voice was harsh and imperative. "The dog is plotting my murder. But first he wants to make sure he is strong enough to succeed me. So he waits. But I—GabrielPasquale—I wait for no man's knife. I strike first—and sure. You execute the traitor and save your own life which is forfeit. Caramba! Are you afraid?"
"Not afraid, but—"
"You walk out of that door a free man. You give the password for to-night. It is 'Gabriel.' You settle with the traitor and then ride away to safety. Maldito! Why hesitate?"
"Because I'm a white man, general. We don't kill in the dark and run away. When I offer to fight him to a finish I go the limit—and then some. For I don't hate Culvera that bad. But I think a heap of Steve Yeager's life, so I'll stand pat on my proposition."
"Am I a fool, señor?" asked the Mexican harshly. "How do I know you would keep faith, that you would not ride away—what you call laugh in your sleeve at me? No! You will strike under my own eye—with my revolver at your heart. Then I make sure."
"I'll bet you'd make sure. You'd shoot me down and explain it all fine when your men came running. 'The Gringo dog escaped and killed my dear friend Ramon, but by good luck I shot him before he made his getaway.' Nothing doing."
"Then you refuse?" Pasquale's narrowed eyes glittered in the moonshine.
"You're right I do."
The Mexican rose. "Die like a dog, then, you pigheaded Gringo."
"Just a moment, general. I've got a letter here I wish you'd send north for me. It explains that I shot myself accidentally—lets you out fine in case Uncle Sam begins to ask inconvenient whys about my disappearance."
"And why so much care to save me trouble?" inquired the insurgent leader suspiciously.
"I have to put that in to get you to forward the letter, I reckon. What I want is that my friends should know I'm dead."
As a soldier Pasquale could understand that desire. He hesitated. The sudden death of Americans had of late stirred a good deal of resentment across the line. Why not take the alibi Yeager so conveniently offered him?
"Let's see your letter. But remember I promise nothing," said the Mexican roughly.
Steve moved forward and gave it to him. His heart was pounding against his ribs as does that of a frightened rabbit in the hand. If Pasquale looked at the letter now he had a chance. If he put it in his pocket the chance vanished.
The rebel chief glanced at the sheet of paper, opened it, and stepped back into the moonlight. For just an instant his eyes left Yeager and fell upon the paper. That moment belonged to Steve.Like a tiger he leaped for the hairy throat of the man.
Pasquale, with a half-articulate cry, stumbled back. But the American was on top of him, his strong, brown fingers were tightening on the sinewy throat. They went down together, the Mexican underneath. As he fell, the head of the general struck the edge of the table. The steel grip of Steve's hand did not relax, for a single sharp cry would mean death to him.
Just once Pasquale rolled half over before his body went slack and motionless. He had fainted.
The first thing Yeager did was to take the bandanna handkerchief from his neck and use it as a gag for his prisoner. He dragged the blankets from their corner and tore one of them into strips. With these he bound the hands of Pasquale behind him and tied his feet together. He unloosened the revolver belt of the Mexican and strapped it about his own waist. The silver-trimmed sombrero he put on his head and the serape he flung round his shoulders and across the lower part of his face in the same way the garment had been worn by its owner.
Steve glanced around to see that he had everything he needed.
"They's no manner o' doubt but you're taking a big chancet, son," he drawled to himself afterthe manner of an old range-rider he knew. "But we sure gotta take a long shot and gamble with the lid off. Any man who stops S. Yeager to-night is liable to find him a bad hombre. So-long, general."
He opened the door and stepped out. His heart was jumping queerly. The impulse was on him to cut across to the cottonwood grove on the dead run, but he knew this would never do. Instead, he sauntered easily into the moonlight with the negligence of one who has all night before his casual steps.
The sharp command of the guard outside slackened his stride.
"Gabriel," he called back over his shoulder without stopping.
"Si, señor. Buenos tardes."
"Buenos."
He moved at a leisurely pace down the street until he was opposite the cottonwoods. Here he diverged from the dusty road.
"Hope the old scalawag wasn't lying about that cavallo waiting for Steve. I'm plumb scairt to death till I get out of this here wolf's den. Me, I'm too tender to monkey with any revolutions. I've knowed it happen frequent that a man got his roof blowed off for buttin' in where he wasn't invited." He was still impersonating the old cowman as a vent to his excitement, which foundno expression in the cool, deliberate motions of his lithe body.
He found the horse in the cottonwoods as Pasquale had promised. Swinging to the saddle, he cantered down the road to the outskirts of the village. A sentinel stopped him, and a second time he gave the countersign. He was just moving forward again when some one emerged from the darkness back of the sentry and sharply called to him to stop.
Steve knew that voice, would have known it among a thousand. Since he had no desire at this moment to hold a conversation with Ramon Culvera he drove his heels into the side of the cow pony. The horse leaped forward just as a revolver rang out. So close did the shot come to Yeager that it lifted the sombrero from his head as he dodged.
After he was out of range Yeager laughed. "Pasquale gets his hat back again—ventilated. Oh, well, it's bad enough to be a horse-thief without burglarizing a man's haberdashery. You're sure welcome to it, Gabriel."
He kept the horse at a gallop, for he knew he would be pursued. But his heart was lifted in him, for he was leaving behind him a shameful death. All Sonora lay before him in which to hide, and in front of him stretched a distant line beyond which was the U.S.A. and safety.
The bench upon which he was riding dropped to a long roll of hills stretching to the horizon. The chances were a hundred to one that among these he would be securely hidden from the pursuit inside of an hour.
"Git down in yore collar to it, you buckskin," he urged his pony cheerfully. "This ain't no time to dream. You got to travel some, believe me. Steve played a bum hand for all it was worth and I can see where he's right to hit the grit some lively. Burn the wind, you buzzard-haid."
An hour later he drew his pony to a road gait and lifted his head to the first faint flush of a dawning day. He sang softly, because by a miracle of good fortune that coming sun brought him life and not death. The song he caroled was, "When Gabriel blows his horn in the mawnin'."