CHAPTER XVSTEVE WINS A HAM SANDWICH
Yeager was roused from sleep next morning by a knock at the door. His visitor was Fleming Lennox, leading man of the company.
"Say, Steve, what about Threewit and Farrar? I just telephoned to the Lazy B Ranch and the foreman says his boys did not run across them. You know what that means. They've reached old Pasquale's camp."
Yeager sat up in bed and whistled softly to himself. This was a contingency he had not foreseen. What would the Mexican chief do to two of the range-rider's friends who delivered themselves into his hands so opportunely? Steve did not think he would kill them offhand, but he was very sure they would not be at liberty to return home. Moreover, Harrison would be on the ground, eager for revenge. The prizefighter never had liked Farrar. He had sworn to get even with Threewit. An added incentive to this course was the fact that he knew them both to be on very good terms with his chief enemy. Without doubt Chad would do his best to stimulate the insurgent leader to impulsive violence.
The man in bed concealed his apprehension under a comical grin. "This life's just one damned thing after another, looks like," he commented. "I didn't figure on that. I thought sure the boys would bump into Threewit. That slip-up surely spills the beans."
"You don't think even Pasquale would dare hurt them, do you?" asked Lennox anxiously.
"Search me. Pasquale's boiled in p'ison, especially when he is drunk. He'd do whatever he had a mind to do."
"What's the matter with us sending a messenger down there with a fake wire from the old man to Threewit telling him to hustle up and get busy right away on a feature film? Pasquale would have to show his hand, anyhow. We'd know where we were at."
Yeager assented. "He'd have to turn them loose or hold them. But even if he turned them loose, he might arrange to have them accidentally killed by bandits before they reached home. Still, it would put one thing right up to him—that their friends know where they are and are ready to sick Uncle Sam on him if he don't act proper."
Manderson, Miss Winters, and Daisy Ellington were called into council after breakfast. The situation was canvassed from all sides, but in the end they stood where they had been at the beginning. Nobody felt sure what Pasqualewould do or knew whether the visitors at his camp would be detained as prisoners. The original suggestion of Lennox seemed the best under the circumstances.
Old Juan Yuste was brought in from the stables and given the telegram. He was told nothing except that it was urgent that Threewit get the message as soon as possible. The five-dollar gold-piece which Lennox tossed to the Mexican drew a grin that exposed a mouth half empty of teeth.
In the absence of both Threewit and Farrar the business of producing films was at a standstill. The members of the company took an enforced holiday. Manderson read a novel. Daisy wrote letters. Lennox and Miss Winters went for a long stroll. Steve helped Baldy Cummings mend broken saddles and other property stuff. The extras played poker.
Juan returned late in the evening on the second day. He brought with him a letter addressed to Lennox. It was from Pasquale. The message was written in English. It said:—
Greetings, señor. Your friends are the guests of General Pasquale. They came to Noche Buena to find one Señor Yeager. They are resolved to stay here until he is found by them, even though they remain till the day of their death.
Greetings, señor. Your friends are the guests of General Pasquale. They came to Noche Buena to find one Señor Yeager. They are resolved to stay here until he is found by them, even though they remain till the day of their death.
The note was signed, "Siempre, Gabriel Pasquale."
After reading, it, Yeager handed the note back to Lennox and spoke quietly.
"Pasquale passes the buck up to me.I'vebeen thinking he might do that."
"You mean—?"
"—That he serves notice he's going to kill our friends if I don't give myself up to him."
"But would he? Dare he?"
Yeager shrugged. "It will happen in the usual Mexican way—killed by accident while trying to escape, or else ambushed by Federals on the desert while coming home, according to the story that will be dished up to the papers. He will be full of regrets and apologies to our Government, but that won't help Threewit or Frank any."
"Don't you think he's bluffing? Pasquale hasn't a thing against either of them. He surely wouldn't murder them in cold blood."
"I don't know whether he is or not. But it's up to me to sit in and take cards. They went down to Noche Buena on my account. I'm going down on theirs."
Lennox stared incredulously at him. "You don't mean you're going to give yourself up. Pasquale would hang up your hide to dry."
"That's just what he would do, after he had boiled me in oil or given me some other pleasantdiversion. No, I reckon I'll not give myself up. I'll join his army again."
"I give it up, Steve. Tell me the answer."
"As a private this time."
"Fat chance you'll have, with Friend Harrison there to spot you, not to mention the old boy himself and Culvera."
"It won't be Steve Yeager that joins. It will be a poor peon from the hills named Pedro or Juan or Pablo."
"You're going to rig up as a Mexican?"
"Some guesser, Lennox."
"You can't put it over, not with your face looking like a pounded beefsteak. I judge you don't know what an Exhibit A you are at present. The first time Chad looked at you, he would recognize the result of his uppercuts and swings."
"So he would. I'll have to wait a week or so. Send Juan back to Pasquale and tell him you hear I'm in the Lone Star country where I used to punch. Say you've sent for me with an offer to take Harrison's place in the company, and that if I come you'll arrange with him to have me taken by his men while we're doing a set near the line. He'll fall for that because he'll be so keen to get me that any chance will look good to him. You'll have to give Juan a tip not to let it out I'm here."
"What can you do if you get into Pasquale's camp as one of his men?"
"I don't know. Something will turn up."
"You're taking a big chance, Steve."
"Not because I want to. But I've got to do what I can for the boys. This ain't just the time for a 'watchful waiting' policy, seems to me. If you've got anything better to offer, I'm agreeable to listen."
"The only thing I can think of is to appeal to Uncle Sam."
"That won't get us much. But there's no harm in trying. Have the old man stir up a big dust at Washington. After plenty of red tape an official representation will be made to Pasquale. He will lie himself black in the face. More correspondence. More explanations. Finally, if the prisoners are still alive, they will start home. Mebbe they'll get here. Mebbe they won't."
"Then you don't think it's worth trying?"
"Sure I do. Every little helps. It might make Pasquale sit steady in the boat till I get a chance to pull off something."
When Daisy Ellington heard of the plan she went straight to Yeager.
"What's this I hear about you committing suicide?" she demanded.
"News to me, compadre," smiled the puncher.
"You're not really going down there to shoveyour head into that den of wolves, are you?" Without waiting for an answer she pushed on to a prediction. "Because if you do, they'll surely snap it off."
"Wish you'd change your brand of prophecy, niña. You see, this is the only head I've got. I'm some partial to it."
"Then you had better keep away from that old Pasquale and Chad Harrison. Don't be foolish, Steve." She caught the lapels of his coat and shook him fondly. "If you don't know when you're well off, your friends do. We're not going to let you go."
"Threewit and Farrar," he reminded her.
"They'll have to take their chance. Besides, Pasquale isn't going to hurt them. There wouldn't be any sense in it. So there's no use us getting panicky."
"I don't reckon I'm exactly panicky, Daisy. But it won't do to forget that Pasquale is one bad hombre. Harrison is another, and he's got it in for the boys. We can't lie down and quit on them, can we? I notice they didn't do that with me."
"What good will it do for you to go and get trapped too? It's different with you. They've got it in for you down there. It's just foolhardiness for you to go back," she told him sharply.
"You're sure some little boss," he laughed. "I'm willing to be reasonable. If I can prove to you that I stand a good chance to pull it off down at Noche Buena, will you feel different about it?"
"Yes, if you can—but you can't," she agreed, flashing at him the provocative little smile that was one of her charms.
"Bet you a box of chocolates against a ham sandwich I can."
"You're on," she nodded airily.
"Better order that ham sandwich," he advised, mocking her lazily with his friendly eyes.
"Oh, I don't know. You're not so much, Cactus Center. I expect to be eating chocolates soon."
Her gay audacity always pleased him. He settled himself for explanations soberly, but back of his gravity lay laughter.
"You've got the wrong hunch on me. I ain't any uneducated sheepherder. Don't run away with that notion. Me, I went through the first year of the High School at Tucson. I know all aboutamo, amas, amat, and how to make a flying tackle. Course oncet in a while I slip up in grammar. There's heap too much grammar in the world, anyhow. It plumb chokes up a man's language."
"All right, Steve. Show me. I'm from Joplin,Missouri. When are you going to do all this proving?"
"We won't set a date. Some time before I leave."
Yeager walked from the studio to his rooming-place. Ruth Seymour met him on the porch and stopped him. It was the first time he had seen her since their return.
"Is it true—what Mr. Manderson says—that you are going back to Noche Buena?" she flung at him.
"I'm certainly getting on the society page," he laughed. "Manderson has a pretty good reputation. I shouldn't wonder if what he says is true."
The face beneath the crown of soft black hair was colorless except for the trembling lips.
"Why? Why must you go? You've just escaped from there with your life. Are you mad?"
"Look here, Miss Ruth. I've just had a roundup with Miss Ellington about this. I'm going to take a whirl at rescuing our friends. Pasquale can't put over such a raw deal without getting a run for his money from me. I'm going back there because it's up to me to go. There are some things a man can't do. He can't quit when his friends need him."
She was standing in the doorway, her headleaning against the jamb so that the fine curve of the throat line showed a beating pulse. Something in the pose of the slim, graceful figure told him of repressed emotion.
"That is absurd, Mr. Yeager. You can't do anything for them if you go."
"Everybody sizes me up for a buzzard-head," he complained whimsically.
The gravity did not lift from her young, quick eyes.
"If you go they'll kill you," she said in a voice as dry as a whisper.
"Sho! Nothing to that. I'm going down disguised. I'll be safe enough."
"I suppose ... nothing can keep you from going." A sob choked up in her throat as she spoke.
"No. I've got to go."
"You think you have a right to play at dice with your life! Don't your friends count with you at all?"
"It's because they do that I'm going," he answered gently.
Her troubled eyes rested on his. The protest in her heart was still urgent, but she dared go no further. Some instinct of maidenly reticence curbed the passionate rebellion against his decision. If she said more, she might say too much. With a swift, sinuous turn of the slender bodyshe ran into the house and left him standing there.
Daisy sat at one end of the pergola mending a glove. It was in the pleasant cool of the evening just as dusk was beginning to fall. A light breeze rustled the rose-leaves and played with the tendrils of her soft, wavy hair. The coolness was grateful after the heat of an Arizona day.
The front gate creaked. A man was coming in, a Mexican of the peon class. He moved up the walk toward her with a slight limp. As he drew closer, she observed negligently that he was of early middle age, ragged, and of course dirty. Age and lack of soap had so dyed his serape that the original color was quite gone.
He bowed to her with the native courtesy that belongs to even the peons of his race. A swift patter of Spanish fell from his lips.
Miss Ellington shook her head. "No sabe Español."
The man gushed into a second eruption of liquid vowels, accompanied this time by gestures which indicated that he wanted food.
The young woman nodded, went into the house, and secured from Mrs. Seymour a plate of broken fragments left over from supper. With this and a cup of coffee she returned to the pergola.
"Gracias, señorita." The shining black poll of the man bowed over the donation as he accepted it.
He sat cross-legged among the roses and ate what had been given him. Daisy observed critically that his habit of eating was not at all nice. He discarded the fork she had brought, using only the knife and his fingers. The meat he tore apart and devoured ravenously, cramming it wolfishly into his mouth as fast as he could. A few days before she had fallen into an argument with Steve Yeager about the civilization of the Mexicans. She wished he could see this specimen.
The man spoke, after he had cleaned the plate, licked up the gravy, and gulped down the coffee. His words fell in a slow drawl, not in Spanish, but in English.
"Don't you reckon mebbe I could get a ham sandwich too?"
The actress jumped. "Steve, you fraud!" she screamed, and flew at him.
"Do I win?" he asked, protecting himself as he backed away.
"Of course you do. Why haven't we been using you up stage in the Mexican sets? You're perfect. How did you ever get your hair so slick and black?"
"I've been studying make-ups since I joined the Lunar Company," he told her.
"How about your Spanish? Is it good enough to pass muster?"
"I learned to jabber it when I was a year old before I did English."
"Then you'll do. I defy even Harrisontorecognize you."
He gave her his Mexican bow. "Gracias, señorita."
CHAPTER XVITHE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT
When Threewit and Farrar reached Noche Buena, Pasquale was absent from camp, but Culvera made them suavely welcome.
"Señor Yeager has recovered and was called away unexpectedly on business," he explained; adding with his lip smile, "He will be desolated to have missed you."
"He is better, then?"
"Indeed, quite his self. He nearly died from gunshot wounds, but unless he suffers a relapse he is entirely out of present danger."
"Shouldn't have thought it would have been safe to travel yet," Farrar returned.
He was uneasy in his mind, sensing something of mocking irony in the manner of the Mexican. It was strange that Yeager, wounded to death as his letter had said, was able in two days to be up and around again.
"We were anxious to have him stop, but he was in a hurry. Personally I did my best to get him to stay." Culvera's smile glittered reminiscently: "The truth is that he thought our climate unhealthy. He was afraid of heart failure."
Threewit scoffed openly. "Absurd. The manis the finest physical specimen I ever saw. If you had ever seen him on the back of an outlaw bronc, you'd know his heart was all right."
The door of the room opened and Harrison came in. He stopped, mouth open with surprise at sight of the Americans.
"Some of Mr. Yeager's anxious friends come down to inquire about his health, Harrison. Did he seem to you healthy last time you saw him?" the Mexican asked maliciously.
Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was beside himself. He raved like a madman—and the object of his invective was Stephen Yeager.
And all the time the man cursed he stamped painfully about the room, a sight to wonder at. His face was so swollen, so bruised and discolored, that he was hardly recognizable. He had managed to creep into another suit of clothes after the doctor had dressed his wounds and sewed up his cuts, but these could not hide the fact that every step was a torment to his pummeled ribs and lacerated flesh. He was game. Another man in his condition would have been in the hospital. Harrison dragged himself about because he would not admit that he was badly hurt.
Culvera turned to the Americans and explained the situation in a few sentences. He was enjoying himself extremely because the vanity of his companion writhed at the position in which he was placed.
"Your friend Yeager was not pleasing to our general and was sentenced to be shot. He escaped in the night. Our companion Harrison, also I believe a compatriot and friend of yours, is a charmer of ladies' hearts, as you will perceive with one glance at his handsome face. Behold, then, an elopement, romance, and moonshine. 'Linda de mi alma, amor mia, come,' he cries. The lady comes. But, alas! for true love, the brutal vaquero follows. They meet, and—I draw a merciful curtain over the result."
Harrison was off again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon Threewit and Farrar.
"I'll see Pasquale gets the right dope on you fellows too. You're a pair of damned fools for coming here, believeme. If the old man can't get Yeager, he'll take his friends instead. Didn't I tell you I'd make you sick of what you did to me, Threewit? Good enough. I've got you both where I want you now. You'll get plenty of hell, take my word for it."
Threewit turned with dignity to the Mexican."I have nothing to say to this man, Major Culvera. But you are a gentleman. We have been deceived. I ask for an escort as far as the border to see us safely back."
Culvera was full of bland hospitality. "Really I can't permit you to leave before the general returns. He would never forgive me. When friends travel so far, they must be entertained. Not so?"
"Are we prisoners? Is that what you mean?" demanded Farrar bluntly.
The major shook his finger toward him with smiling deprecation. "Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no rash peon makes the mistake of injuring you as an enemy."
"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing, major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It will reach easily to Noche Buena."
"So, señor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen—regrettable ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the mistake in regard to Señors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."
Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with thepolitest indifference. The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.
"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let us go, of course."
"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.
Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.
"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in fair fight too."
Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when we meet sure as he's a foot high."
"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in that."
The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. Hishead had sunk down and his shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.
"You've said enough—too much, damn you," he roared.
With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.
"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are guests of General Pasquale. Till he passes judgment they shall be treated with ver' much courtesy."
Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.
"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address, Señor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.
Heavily Harrison rose and passed from the room without looking at any of them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.
The Mexican smiled confidentially at his prisoners. "Between friends, it's ver' devilish unpleasant to do business with such a—what you call—ruffian. But ver' necessar'. Oh, yes! Quite so."
"Depends on one's business, I expect," replied Farrar.
"You have said it, señor. A patriot can't be too particulair. He uses the tools that come to his hands. But pardon! My tongue is like a woman's. It runs away with time."
He called the guard and had the prisoners removed. They were put in the same adobe hut where Yeager had been confined a few days earlier.
Threewit lit a cigar and paced up and down gloomily. "This is a hell of a fix we're in. Before we get out of here the old man will be hollering his head off for that 'Retreat of the Bandits' three-reeler."
The camera man laughed ruefully. "I ain't worrying any about the old man. He's back there safe in little old New York. It's Frank Farrar that's on my mind. How is he going to get out of here?"
The director stopped, took the cigar from his mouth, and looked across questioningly at him.
"You don't really think Pasquale will hurt us, do you?"
"No; not unless the breaks go against us. I don't reckon Pasquale has anything much against Yeager any more than he has against us. Of course, Harrison will do his darndest to make him sore at us. Notice how he tried to put it over that we had come about that bunch of cattle he stole?"
"Sure I did. But it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a ransom. He's nothing but an outlaw, anyhow."
Within the hour they were taken before Pasquale. He was still covered with the dust of travel. His riding-gloves lay on the table where he had tossed them. His soft white hat was on his head. As rapidly as possible he was devouring a chicken dinner.
It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood against the wall under the eye of the guard who had brought them.
The general finished his bottle of wine before he turned savagely upon them.
"You are friends of the Gringo Yeager. Not so?" he accused.
It was too late for a denial now. Threewit admitted the charge.
"So. Maldito! What are you doing here? I've had enough of you Yankees!" he exploded.
Before Threewit had more than begun his explanations he brushed aside the director's words.
"This Yeager is a devil. Did he not crawl up on me unexpect' and strike me here with an axe?" He touched the back of his head, across which a wide bandage ran. "Be sure I will cut his heartout some day. Gabriel Pasquale has said it. And you—you come here to spy what we have. You claim my cattle. Am I a fool that I do not know?"
"We are sorry—"
The Mexican struck the table with his hairy brown fist so that the dishes rang. "Sorry! Jesu Cristo! In good time I shall see to that. If I do not lay hands upon this devil Yeager, his friends will do instead. Am I one to be laughed at by Gringos?"
Threewit spoke as firmly as he could, though the fear of this big, unshaven savage was in his heart. "We are not spies, general. We were brought here by the lie that Yeager lay here dying and had sent for us. In no way have we harmed you. Before you go too far, remember that our Government will not tolerate any foul play. We are not stray sheepherders. Our friends are close to the President. They have his ear and—"
Pasquale leaned forward and snapped his fingers in the face of Threewit. "That for your President and your Government. Pouf! I snap my fingers. I spit on them. Mexico for the Mexicans. To the devil with all foreigners."
He nodded to the guard. "Away with them!"
As they left they could hear him roaring for another bottle.
CHAPTER XVIIPEDRO CABENZA
The Patriotic Legion of the Northern States was drinking mescal and gambling for the paper money Pasquale had issued and rolling about in the dust with joyous whoops from each squirming mass. It was a happy Legion, though a dirty one. It let its chief do all the worrying about how it was to be fed and transported. Cheerfully it went its ragged way, eating, drinking, sleeping, card-playing, rolling in the dust of its friendly wrestling. What matter that many members of the Legion were barefoot, that its horses were scarecrows, that gunnysacks and ends of wires from baled hay and bits of frazzled rope all made contribution to the saddles and bridles of the cavalry! Was Pasquale not going to take them straight to Mexico City, where all of them would be made rich at the expense of the accursed Federals who had trodden upon the face of the poor? Caramba! Soon now the devil would have his own.
A burro appeared at one end of the hot and dusty street. Beside the burro limped a man, occasionally beating the animal on the rump with a switch he carried. The Legion took a languidinterest. This was some farmer from a hill valley bringing supplies to sell to the patriotic army. Would his wares turn out to be mescal or vegetables or perhaps a leggy steer that he had butchered?
As he drew nearer it was to be seen that a crate hung from one side of the burro. In it were chickens. Balancing this, on the other side, were two gunnysacks. Through a hole in one of these pushed the green face of a cabbage. Interest in the new arrival declined. The chickens would go to the quarters of the officers, and cabbage was an old story.
When the burro was opposite the corral one of the sacks gave way with a rip. From out of the hole poured a stream of apples upon the dusty road. That part of the Legion which was nearest pounced upon the fruit with shouts of laughter. The owner tried to fight the half-grown soldiers from his property. He might as well have tried to sweep back an ocean tide with a broom. In ten seconds every apple had been gleaned from the dust. Within thirty more everything but the cores had gone to feed the Legion.
The vendor of food wailed and flung imprecations at his laughing tormentors. He cursed them fluently and shook a dirty brown fist at the circle of troopers. He threatened to tell Pasquale what they had done.
A harsh voice interrupted him. "What is it you will tell Pasquale?"
The army began to melt unobtrusively away. The general himself, accompanied by Major Ochampa, sat in the saddle and scowled at the farmer. The latter told his story, almost in tears. This was all he had, these chicken, cabbages, and apples. He had brought them down to sell and was going to enlist. His Excellency would understand that he, Pedro Cabenza, was a patriot, but, behold! he had been robbed.
He was at any rate a very ragged patriot. There was a hole in his cotton trousers through which four inches of coffee-colored leg showed. His shoes were in the last stages. The hat he doffed was an extremely ventilated one.
Pasquale passed judgment instantly. It would never do for word to get out that those bringing supplies to feed his army were not paid fairly.
"Buy the chickens and the cabbage, Ochampa. Pay the man for his apples. Enlist him and find him a mount."
He rode away, leaving his subordinate to deal with the details. Major Ochampa was the paymaster for the army as well as Secretary of the Treasury for the Government of which Pasquale was the chief. His name was on the very much-depreciated currency the insurgents had issued.
Until recently Ochampa had been a smallfarmer himself. He bargained shrewdly for the supplies, but in Cabenza he found a match. The man haggled to the last cent and then called on Heaven to witness that he had practically given away the goods for nothing. But when the sergeant led him away to enlist he was beaming at the bargain he had made.
Cabenza became at once an unobtrusive unit in the army. He could lie for hours and bask in the sunshine with the patient content of the Mexican peon. He could eat frijoles and tortillas week in and week out, offering no complaint at the monotony of his diet. He was as lazy, as hopeful, and as unambitious as several thousand other riders of the Legion. Nobody paid the least attention to him except to require of him the not very arduous duties of camp service. Presently Pasquale would move south and renew the campaign. Meanwhile his troopers had an indolent, easy time of it.
On the evening of the day after his enlistment Pedro Cabenza strolled across toward the prison where he had been told two Americans were held captive. Two guards sat outside in front of the door and gossiped. Cabenza, moved apparently by a desire for companionship, indifferently drifted toward them. He sat down. Presently he produced a bottle furtively. All three drank, to good health, to the success of the revolution, athird time to the day when they should march, victorious into the great city in the south.
They became exhilarated. Cabenza found it necessary to work off his excitement upon the prisoners. He stood on tiptoe, holding the window bars in his hands, and jeered at the men within.
"Ho, ho, Gringos! May the devil fly away with you! Food for powder—food for powder! Some fine morning the general will give orders and—we shall bury you in the sand by the river. Not so?" he scoffed in his own language.
One of the Americans within drew near the window.
"Listen," he said. "Do you want to earn some money—ten—twenty—one hundred dollars in gold? Will you take a letter for me to Los Robles?"
"No. The general would skin me alive. I spit upon your offer. I throw dirt upon you."
Cabenza stooped, in his hand scooped up some dust from the ground, and flung it between the bars.
One of the guards pulled him back savagely.
"Icabron! Know you not the orders of the general? None are to talk with the Gringos. Away, fool! Because of the drink Pablo and I will forget. Away!"
Cabenza showed a face ludicrously terror-stricken.The punishments of Pasquale were notoriously severe. If it were known he had broken the command he would at least be beaten with whips.
"I did not know. I did not know," he explained humbly, thrusting the liquor bottle at one of them. "Here, compañero, drink and forget that I have spoken."
He turned and scurried away into the darkness.
CHAPTER XVIIIHARRISON OVERPLAYS HIS HAND
Through the barred window Farrar watched the guard drag Cabenza back. He was very despondent. They had been prisoners now nearly a week and could see no termination of their jail sentence in sight. The food given them was wretched. They were anxious, dirty, and unkempt. Though he would not admit it even to himself, the camera man was oppressed by the shadow of a possible impending fate. The whim of a tyrant regardless of human life might at any hour send them to a firing squad.
Threewit sat gloomily on the stool, elbows on knees and chin resting on his fists. He could have wept for himself almost without shame. For forty-five years he had gone his safe way, a policeman always within call. Not once had life in the raw reached out and gripped him. Not once had he faced the stark probability of sudden, violent death. Clubs and after-theater suppers and poker and golf had offered him pleasant diversion. And now—a cruel fate had thrown him in the way of a barbarian with no sense of either justice or kindness. He felt himselftoo soft of fiber to cope with such elemental forces.
"Look! What is that, Threewit?"
Farrar was pointing to something on the table that gleamed white in the moonlight. He stepped forward and picked it up. The article was a stone around which was wrapped a paper tied by a string.
"The Mexican must have thrown it in with the dirt. It wasn't there before," replied the director quickly.
Farrar untied the string and smoothed out the paper, holding it toward the moonlight. "There's writing on it, but I can't make it out. Strike a match for me."
His companion struck on his trousers a match and the camera man read by its glowing flame.
Keep a stiff upper lip. Cactus Center is on the job. Don't know when my chance will come, but I'm looking for it.Chew this up.S. Y.
Keep a stiff upper lip. Cactus Center is on the job. Don't know when my chance will come, but I'm looking for it.Chew this up.
S. Y.
Farrar gave a subdued whoop of joy. "It's old Steve. He hasn't forgotten us, good old boy. I'll bet he has got something up his sleeve."
"Hope that greaser doesn't give us away to Pasquale or Harrison."
"He won't. Trust Cactus Center. He's bridle-wise, that lad is. I feel a lot better just to know he has got us on his mind."
"What do you suppose he is planning?"
"Don't know. Of course he has to lie low. But he pulled off his own getaway and I'll back him to figure out ours." The camera man was nothing if not a loyal admirer of the range-rider.
They talked in whispers, eager and excited with the possibility of rescue that had come. Somehow, of all the men they had known, they banked more on Steve Yeager in such an emergency than any other. It was not alone his physical vigor, though that counted, since it gave him so complete a mastery over himself. Farrar had seen him once stripped in a swimming-pool and been stirred to wonder. Beneath the satiny skin the muscles moved in ripples. The biceps crawled back and forth like living things, beautiful in the graceful flow of their movement. Whatever he had done had been done easily, apparently without effort. This reserve power was something more than a combination of bone and sinew and flesh. It was a product of the spirit, a moral force to be reckoned with. It helped to make impossible things easy of accomplishment.
The panic of Cabenza vanished as soon as he was out of sight of the guards. As he turned downtoward the sandy river-bed a little smile lay in his eyes.
From the place where it was buried beneath the root of a cottonwood, he dug out a bandanna handkerchief containing several bottles, little brushes, and a looking-glass. Sitting there in the moonlight, he worked busily renewing the tints of his hands and face and also of the coffee-colored patch of skin that peeped through his torn trouser leg.
This done, he sauntered back to the little town and down the adobe street. A horseman cantered up to the headquarters of the general just as Pasquale stepped out with Culvera. The latter snapped his fingers toward Cabenza and that trooper ran forward.
"Hold the horse," ordered the officer in Mexican.
Cabenza relieved the messenger, who stepped forward and delivered what had been given him to say. The hearing of the man holding the horse was acute and he listened intently.
"Señor Harrison sends greeting to the general. He is in touch with the play-actor Lennox and hopes soon to get the Gringo Yeager. If Lennox plays false...."
The words ran into a murmur and Cabenza could hear no more.
The messenger was dismissed. Cabenzastooped to tie a loose lace in his shoe. Pasquale and Culvera passed back from the end of the porch into the house. As they went the trooper heard another stray fragment in the voice of the general.
"If Harrison crosses the line after him at night...."
That was all, but it told Cabenza that Harrison was negotiating with Lennox for the delivery of Yeager in exchange for Threewit and Farrar. The leading man was, of course, playing for time until Steve, under the guise of Cabenza, could arrange to win the freedom of the prisoners.
This would take time, for success would depend upon several dove-tailing factors. To attempt a rescue and to fail would be practically to sign the death-warrant of Farrar and Threewit.
Yeager, alias Cabenza, returned to the stable where he and a score of patriots of the Northern Legion had sleeping-quarters. He would much have preferred to take his blankets out into the pure night air and to bed under the stars. But he was playing his part thoroughly. He could not afford to be nice or scrupulous, for fear of calling special attention to himself.
As for the peons beside him, they snored peacefully without regard to the lack of cleanliness of their bedroom. The first day of his arrival Yeager had knocked a hole in the flimsy wall andhad given it out as the result of a chance kick of a bronco. This served to let air into a building which had no other means of ventilation. It also allowed some small percentage of the various concentrated odors to escape.
The Arizonian was a light sleeper. But like some men in perfect trim he had the faculty of going to sleep whenever he desired. Often he had taken a nap in the saddle while night-herding. Fatigued from eighteen hours of wrestling the cattle to safety through a bitter storm, he had learned to fall easily into rest the instant his head hit the pillow. It was a heritage that had come to him from his rugged, outdoor life. So he slept now, a gentle, untroubled slumber, until daylight sifted through the hole in the wall at his side.
He was on duty that day herding the remuda, and it was not until late afternoon that he returned to camp. From a distance, dropping down into the draw which formed the location of the town, he saw a dust cloud moving down the street. At the apex of it rode a little bunch of travelers, evidently just in from the desert. Incuriously his eyes watched the party as it moved toward the headquarters of Pasquale. Some impulse led him to put his scarecrow of a pony at a canter.
The party reached the house of Pasquale and the two leaders dismounted. Yeager was still at some distance, but he had an uncertain impressionthat one of them was a woman. They stoodonthe porch talking. The larger one seemed to be overruling the protest of the other, so far as Steve could tell at that distance. The two passed together into the house.
It was not at all unusual for women to go into that house, according to the camp-fire stories that were whispered in the army. Pasquale was an unmoral old barbarian. If he liked women and wine the Legion made no complaint. The women were either camp-followers or visitors from the nearest town. In either case they were not of a sort whose reputation was likely to suffer.
Yeager cooked his simple supper and ate it. He sat down with his back to an adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool of the evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his own thoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out of his indifference. The word was the name of Harrison.
"This afternoon?" asked one.
"Not an hour ago."
"Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently.
"Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not care to express.
One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager.Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so? Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe."
The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling the cigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved.
"A white woman this time, Pablo says."
The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comes to the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"—He whispered a bit of slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.
The peons guffawed with delight. This kind of joke was adapted both to their prejudices and their lack of intelligence. They were as ignorant of the world as children, fully as gay, irresponsible, and kindhearted. But they had, too, a capacity for cruelty and frank sensuousness that belongs only to the childhood of a race.
Presently Yeager arose, yawned, and drifted inconspicuously toward the stable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process of throwing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out of sight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of the house where Pasquale was putting up.
The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager's second arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did hisappearance now mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Steve was inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubious acquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.
He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big house the insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light was shining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there came faintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs and hysteria struggled.
By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little back porch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room, he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black eyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.
The woman broke out into violent protest.
"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are, you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"
At the sound of that voice Yeager's heartjumped. He would have known it among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain and left him for the moment dizzy and trembling.
There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teeth showed behind the lifted lips.
"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine—"
"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," she protested, fighting against hysterical fears.
"So? But Señor Harrison says you were engaged to him."
"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than—"
Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionate protest.
Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders and turned to Harrison.
"You see. The lady has changed her mind, señor. What will you?"
"What's that got to do with it? She's mine. Send for a priest and have us married," the other man demanded bluntly.
"Not so fast, amigo," remonstrated Pasquale softly. "Give her time—a few days—quien sabe?—she may change her mind again."
Harrison choked on his anger. He was suspicious of this suavity, of this sudden respect for a girl's wishes. Since when had the old despot become so scrupulous as to risk offending one who had served him a good deal and might aid him in more serious matters? The prizefighter could guess only one reason for the general's attitude. His jealousy began to smoke at once.
"She can change her mind afterward just as well. If we're married now, then I'm sure of her," the prizefighter insisted doggedly.
Impulsively the girl swept into that part of the room within the view of Steve. She knelt in front of Pasquale and caught at his hand.
"Send me home—back to my mother. I'm only a girl. You don't make war on girls, do you?" she pleaded.
Had she only known it, the very sweetness of her troubled youth, the shadows under the starry eyes edging the wild-rose cheeks, the allure of her lines and soft flesh, fought potently against her desire for a safe-conduct home. The greedy, treacherous little eyes of the insurgent chief glittered.
He shook his head. "No, señorita. That is not possible. But you shall stay here—under the protection of Gabriel Pasquale himself. You shall have choice—Señor Harrison if you wish, another if you prefer it so. Take time. Perhaps—whoknows?" He smiled and bowed with the gallantry of a bear as he kissed her hand.
"No—no. I want to go home," she sobbed.
"Young ladies don't always know what is best for them. Behold, we shall marry you to a soldier, one of rank. From the general down, you shall have choice," Pasquale promised largely.
Harrison scowled. He did not at all like the turn things were taking. "Not as long as I'm alive," he said savagely. "She's mine, I tell you."
The Mexican looked directly at him with a face as hard as jade. "So you don't expect to live long, señor. Is that it? We shall all mourn. Yes, indeed." He turned decisively to the white-faced girl. "Go to sleep, muchacha. To-morrow we shall talk. Gabriel Pasquale is your friend. All shall be well with you. None shall insult you on peril of his life. Buenos!"
With a gesture of his hand he pointed the door to Harrison.
The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the American that finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce his commands and the other knew he would not hesitate to use it.
The prizefighter slouched out of the room with the general at his heels.
With a little gesture that betrayed the despairof her sick heart the girl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook her slender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave of the blanket upon which she lay.