83
“Open the door and I’ll take it in to him,” ordered the sheriff. “Can’t get this stuff through the bars. You might keep him covered.”
The jailer’s hand flew to his hip for his gun as he also brought up a large key on a ring. He unlocked the door to the cage and held it open while he kept his gun trained upon Rathburn.
The sheriff entered and placed the food on the stool and a large bowl of coffee on the floor beside it. Then he backed out, watching Rathburn keenly as the latter sat on his bench with his right foot in his hand.
When the door clanged shut and the key rattled in the lock, Rathburn let down his right foot, took two steps, and pulled the stool to the bench. He stepped back and secured the coffee. Then he began to eat and drink, keeping his right foot tipped on its toes, while the two officials watched him attentively.
“Sheriff,” said Rathburn suddenly, between bites on a huge meat sandwich, “could you let me have a stub of a lead pencil an’ a sheet of paper to write a letter on?”
“Easy enough,” answered Neal. “Course, you know all mail that goes out of the jail is read by us before it’s delivered––if it’s delivered at all.”
“I’ll chance it,” snapped out Rathburn.
As the sheriff left to get the writing materials, with the jailer following him, doubtless for a whispered confab as to what Rathburn might be wanting to write and its possible bearing on his capture, the prisoner hastily ran his left hand down into his right sock and with some difficulty withdrew a peculiar-shaped leather case about ten inches long and nearly the width of his foot. This he put within his shirt.
When the officials returned he had finished his84repast and was waiting for them near the bars with a smile of gratitude on his lips.
“This may be a confession I’m going to write,” he said, grinning at Neal. “It’s going to take me a long time, I reckon, but you said I had something like ten hours for sleep, so I guess I can spare two or three for this effort at literary composition. I figure, sheriff, that this’ll be my masterpiece.”
His look puzzled the sheriff as he took the pencil and paper through the bars and returned to his bunk. He drew up the stool and sat upon it. It was a little lower than the bench, so, putting his paper on the bench, he had a fairly good makeshift desk. He began to write steadily, and after a few minutes the sheriff and jailer retired to the office.
It did not take Rathburn a quarter of an hour to write what he wished on the first of the several pieces of paper. He tore off what he had written, doubled it again and again into a small square, took out his sack of tobacco which he had been allowed to retain, and put it therein with the loose tobacco.
Then he wrote for a few minutes on the second sheet of paper.
When the sheriff looked in later he evidently was slowly and laboriously achieving a composition.
Rathburn heard the sheriff go out of the front door a few minutes later. Instantly he was alert. He drew on his boots. He surmised that the sheriff had gone out for something to eat and, though he wasn’t sure of this, it was true.
“Oh, jailer!” he called amiably.
The wrinkled face of the desert trailer appeared in the office doorway.
Rathburn looked about from his seat on the stool. “This job ain’t none too easy, as it is,” he complained.85“As a writer I’m a first-rate cow hand. Lemme take your knife to sharpen this pencil with. When I asked the sheriff for a stub of a pencil he took me at my word.”
“Sure I’ll let you have my knife,” said the jailer sarcastically. “How about my gun––want that, too?”
“Oh, come on, old-timer,” pleaded Rathburn. “The lead in this pencil’s worn clean down into the wood.”
“Hand it over here an’ I’ll sharpen it,” said the jailer, drawing his pocketknife.
Rathburn walked to the bars and held out the pencil. An amiable smile played on his lips. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said contritely. “I forgot it wasn’t jail etiquette to ask for a knife. But I ain’t had much experience in jail. Now according to his nibs, the sheriff, I’m in to get pretty well acquainted with ’em, eh?”
He watched the jailer as he began sharpening the pencil.
“Speaking of knives, now,” he continued in a confiding tone, “I got in a ruckus down near the border once an’ some gents started after me. One of ’em got pretty close––close enough to take some skin off my shoulder with a bullet. He just sort of compelled me to shoot back.”
“I suppose you killed him,” observed the jailer, pausing in his work of sharpening the pencil.
“I ain’t saying,” replied Rathburn. “Anyways I had a hole-up down there for a few days, an’ as luck would have it, I had to put up with a Mexican. All that Mex would do was argue that a knife was better than a gun. He claimed it was sure and made no noise––those were his hardest talking points, an’ I’ll be danged if there isn’t something in it.
“But what I was gettin’ at is that I didn’t have86nothing to do, an’ that Mexican got me to practicing knife throwing. You know how slick those fellows are at throwing a blade. Well, in the couple of weeks that I hung aroun’ there he coached me along till I could throw a knife as good as he could. He thought it was great sport, teaching me to throw a knife so good, that a way.
“Since I left down there I’ve sort of practiced that knife-throwing business now and then, just for fun. Anyways I thought it was just for fun. But now I see, jailer, that it was my luck protecting me. Anything you learn is liable to prove handy some time.Don’t move an inch or I’ll let you have it!”
Rathburn’s hand snapped out of his shirt and up above his right shoulder.
The man from the desert shuddered involuntarily as he saw the yellow light from the lamp play fitfully upon a keen, white blade.
87CHAPTER XIIAGAINST HIS ETHICS
Rathburn’s eyes held the other’s as completely as would have been the case if he were invested with a power to charm in some occult way. Moreover, every trace of his amiable, confiding smile was gone. His gaze was hard and cold and gleaming. His face was drawn into grim lines. When he spoke he talked smoothly, rapidly, and with an edge to his words which convinced his listener that he was in deadly earnest.
“I’m not used to jails, my friend, an’ I don’t aim to stay here. You’re not very far away an’ these bars are wide enough for me to miss ’em; but I don’t think I could miss you.”
The jailer looked in horror at the gleaming knife which Rathburn held by its hilt with the blade pointing backward. The jailer was from the border; he knew the awful possibilities of a quick motion of the wrist in that position, a half turn of the knife as it streaked toward its target. He shuddered again.
“Now just edge this way about two steps so your holster will be against the bars,” Rathburn instructed. “I can drop you where you stand, reach through the bars an’ drag you close if need be; but I’m banking on you having some good sense.”
The jailer, without moving the hands which held the pencil and his pocketknife, sidled up against the bars.
Rathburn leaned forward. Keeping his right hand high and tipped back, ready for the throw, he reached88out with his left, just through the bars, and secured the jailer’s gun.
“Now it’s all off,” he said quietly. “If the sheriff or anybody else comes before I get out of here I’m just naturally going to have to live up to the reputation for shooting that they’ve fastened on me. Unlock the door.”
The jailer wet his lips with his tongue. The pencil and pocketknife fell to the floor. Covered by his own gun, now in Rathburn’s hand, he moved to the door, brought out his key, and opened it. Still keeping him covered, Rathburn backed to the bench, snatched up his coat, and walked out of the cage, motioning to the jailer to precede him into the office.
There he slipped the gun in his holster and put on his coat. The jailer reckoned better than to try to leap upon him while he was thus engaged; the prisoner’s speed with a six-gun was well known.
Rathburn drew a peculiar leather case from within his shirt, put the knife in it, and stowed it away in a pocket. Then he turned on the jailer.
“Maybe you think that was a mean trick––resorting to a knife,” he said pleasantly; “but all is fair in love and war and when a man’s in jail. You better sort of stand in one place while I look around a bit.”
He backed behind the desk in the big office, opened two or three drawers, and brought out a pair of handcuffs. He moved around in front of the jailer again.
“Hold out your hands,” he commanded. “That’s it.” He snapped the handcuffs on with one hand while he kept the other on the butt of his gun.
“You don’t seem to have much to say,” he commented.
“What’s the use?” said the jailer. “I know when a man’s got me dead to rights. But I’ll be on your89trail again, an’ if I ever get within shootin’ distance of you an’ see you first, you’ll never get another chance to pull a knife.”
“Well said,” Rathburn admitted. “Now we understand each other. But I don’t intend for you to ever get within shooting distance of me.”
Rathburn glanced casually about. “Now it seems to me,” he resumed, “that most of these fellows who gum up their jail breaks make a mistake by hurrying. Suppose you just walk natural-like through that door and into the cage I just had the foresight to leave. That’s it––right on in.”
He turned the key which the jailer had left in the lock. “Now you’re all right unless you start hollering,” said Rathburn.
He stood quietly in the doorway between the office and the cages. The man from the desert studied him. He saw a variety of expressions flit over Rathburn’s face––anger, determination, scorn, resolve. He was deliberately ignoring his opportunity to make his escape while conditions were propitious; he was waiting!
Although the jailer felt the urge to cry out in an endeavor to make himself heard outside the jail and thus bring help, something in the bearing of the man standing in the doorway made him keenly curious to watch the drama which he knew must be enacted sooner or later before his eyes, for The Coyote was certainly waiting for the sheriff.
Rathburn now drew the jailer’s gun from his own holster and toyed with it to get its “feel” and balance. He dropped it back into the holster and in a wink of an eyelid it was back in his hand. The man from the desert gasped at the lightning rapidity of the draw. Time and again the gun virtually leaped from the holster into The Coyote’s hand at his hip, ready to spit forth leaden death. The jailer drew a90long breath. The man was accustoming himself to the weapon which had come into his possession, making sure of it. Now he again stood motionless in the doorway, waiting––waiting–––
Boots stamped upon the steps outside, and Rathburn drew back from the doorway in the aisle before the cages.
The front door opened and a man entered.
Both the man in the cage and the man in the aisle recognized the sheriff’s step as Neal closed the door, paused for a look about the office, and then walked toward the door leading into the jail proper.
The jailer opened his mouth to sound a warning, but something in Rathburn’s gaze and posture held him silent. Rathburn’s body was tense; his gaze was glued to the doorway; his right hand with its slim, brown, tapered fingers, hung above the gun at his side.
The sheriff loomed in the doorway. Without a flicker of surprise in his eyes he took in the situation. His lids half closed as his lips tightened to a thin, white line. He met Rathburn’s gaze and knew that he now faced The Coyote in the role which had won him his sinister reputation.
“Did I mention to you that I wasn’t used to jails, sheriff?” said Rathburn evenly, his words carrying crisp and clear. “I don’t fancy ’em. But I needed the sleep and the meal. Now I’m going. Do you recollect I said no one ever took my gun from me but what I got it back? I had to borrow this one from the gent in the cage. I’ll take my gun, sheriff––now!”
Neal had watched him closely. He saw that while he was speaking The Coyote did not for an instant relax his vigilance. The merest resemblance of a move would precipitate gun play.
He turned abruptly, and with Rathburn following91him closely, went into the private room off the jail office. He pointed to the other’s gun which lay upon the flat desk where many had curiously inspected it.
Rathburn took it in his left hand and ascertained at a glance that it wasn’t loaded. Therefore he elected to carry it in his left hand.
“I won’t take a chance on feeding it right now, sheriff,” he said. “Under the circumstances it would be right awkward. If you make up your mind to draw I’ll have to depend on a strange gun.”
Sheriff Neal’s eyes glittered; his lips parted just a little.
“Now if you’ll walk back toward the cage, sheriff,” Rathburn prompted. “Correct––don’t stumble.”
Neal backed slowly out of the door, through the second door into the aisle before the cages, watching Rathburn like a cat.
Rathburn slipped his own weapon into his left hip pocket and with his left hand dug into his trousers pocket for the key to the cage. He didn’t take his eyes from Neal’s as he brought it out and inserted it in the lock. His right hand continued to hang above the gun he had taken from the jailer.
“Sheriff,” he said with a cold ring in his voice, “this may seem like an insult, but I’m goin’ to ask you to unlock that cage and go in. You can take your time if you want, but I warn you fair that if any one should start coming up the steps outside I’ll try to smoke you up.”
For answer Neal, with the glitter still in his eyes, stepped to the cage door, unlocked it, and swung it open.
He took a step, whirled like a flash––and the deafening report of guns crashed and reverberated within the jail’s walls.
Neal staggered back within the cage, his gun clattering92to the floor, his right hand dropping to his side.
“If I hadn’t been up against a strange gun I wouldn’t have hit your finger, sheriff,” said Rathburn mockingly. “I was shootin’ at your gun.”
He shut the cage door quickly, locked it, and stuck the key in his pocket. Then he threw the jailer’s gun in through the bars and thrust his own weapon in its holster.
“I want you gentlemen inside, an’ armed,” he said laughingly. “If the jailer will be so good as to read what’s written on the paper on the bench, he’ll learn something to his advantage. Sheriff, you an’ Brown were wrong in this, but the devil of it is you’ll never know why.”
He left Neal pondering this cryptic sally, ran to the front door, opened it, and disappeared.
Neal clutched his injured fingers and swore freely, although there was amazement in his eyes. He could have been killed like a rat in a trap if The Coyote had felt the whim.
The man from the desert stepped to the bench and read on the sheet of paper:
If anybody ever gets to read this they will know that what I said about learning to throw a knife is true. I can do it. I’ve carried that knife in a special case that would fit in my sock and boot for just such an emergency as came up to-night. But I never would have throwed it. It would be against my ethics.
The man from the desert swore softly. Then he hurriedly picked up his gun and fired five shots to attract attention.
93CHAPTER XIIIA MAN AND HIS HORSE
When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down the steps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showed in the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beams streaming from the windows of the resort up the street, however, as he hesitated.
He was mightily handicapped because he had no horse. A horse––his own horse, he felt––was necessary for his escape, but his horse was a long distance away.
Rathburn stole across the street to the side on which the big resort was situated, and slipped behind a building just as the muffled reports came from within the jail. After a short interval, five more shots were heard, and Rathburn grinned as he realized that the jailer had fired the remaining bullets in his own and the sheriff’s guns.
He heard men running down the street. So he hurried up street behind the buildings until he reached the rear of the large resort, which was the place Lamy had held up.
Peering through one of the rear windows he saw the room was deserted except for the man behind the bar. Even at that distance he could hear horses and men down the street. Doubtless they were crowding into the jail where the sheriff would insist upon being liberated at once so he could lead the chase and, as Rathburn had the key, this would result in a delay until another key could be found, or Brown, who probably had one, could be routed out.
94
Rathburn thought of this as he looked through the window at the lonely bartender who evidently could not decide whether to close up and see what it all was about or not. But the thing which impressed Rathburn most was the presence of a pile of sandwiches and several cans of corned beef and sardines––emergency quick lunches for patrons––on the back bar. Also, he saw several gunny sacks on a box in the rear of the place almost under the window through which he was looking.
Rathburn stepped to the door in sudden decision, threw it open, and walked in. His gun flashed into his hand. “Quiet!” was all he said to the stupefied bartender.
He scooped up one of the sacks, darted behind the bar, brushed the sandwiches and most of the cans of corned beef and sardines into it, and then slung it over his left shoulder with his left hand.
“The sheriff will return the money that was taken from here,” he said coolly as he walked briskly to the front door. “Play the game safe; stay where you are!” he cautioned as he vanished through the door.
There were no horses at the hitching rail, but he saw several down the street in front of the jail. Men were running back and forth across the street––after Brown, he surmised.
Again he stole around to the rear of the resort; then he struck straight up into the timbered slope above the town, climbing rapidly afoot with the distant peaks and ridges as his guide.
Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watching a rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen other riders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screen of cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than that exhibited by a whimsical95smile. But he did not smile as he watched this rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mind was made up.
When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned the empty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confronted the horseman.
Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.
“There’s not much time, an’ I don’t hanker to be seen––afoot,” said Rathburn quickly. “Where’s my horse?”
“He’s in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a line from the house where you left him,” replied Lamy readily. “Or you can have mine.”
“Don’t want him,” said Rathburn curtly. “You going in to see the sheriff?”
Lamy nodded. “His orders. Say, Coyote–––”
“He’ll probably meet you on the way,” Rathburn interrupted with a sneer. “You can be figurin’ out what to say to him. My saddle with the horse?”
“It’s hanging from a tree where you go into the pocket. Big limestone cliffs there below the shale. Say, Coyote, my sister an’ kid brother was tellin’ me about your visit that morning, an’ I guess I understand–––”
“We can’t stand here talkin’,” Rathburn broke in, pulling the tobacco sack from his shirt pocket. He extracted a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a note I wrote you in jail before I left. Read it on the way in when there’s no one watching you. Maybe you’ll learn something from it; maybe you won’t. I expect you wanted money to fix that ranch up; but you’ll get further by doing a little irrigating from up that stream than by trying to be a bandit. You just naturally ain’t cut out for the part!”
With these words he handed Lamy the note and96bounded back up the slope. The screen of cedar bushes closed behind him as Lamy pushed on, looking back, wondering and confused, with heightened color in his face.
It was late that night when Lamy returned to the little ranch house. Frankie had gone to bed, but his sister was waiting up for him with a meal and hot tea ready.
He talked to his sister in a low voice while he ate. When he had finished he read the note for the third time; read it aloud, so his sister could hear.
“Lamy: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were nice things, anyway.“Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from the stuff you’d heard about me, and I sort of felt kind of responsible. I thought I’d teach you a lesson by flirting with that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what a man is up against in this game. I guess I can’t get away from it because they won’t let me. But you don’t have to start. I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go, but I hadn’t counted on the little kid in the house. I’m glad he told the truth. He’ll remember that. I gave you back your gun because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was square I’d give it to you and let you make a run for it.“I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame and let you off. I can take97the blame without hurting my reputation, so don’t worry. I’m not doing this so much for your sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you’d sort of caught on when I heard they hadn’t located my horse. That was a good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There’s plenty of us fellows that’s quite capable to furnish the bad examples.“Rathburn.”
“Lamy: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were nice things, anyway.
“Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from the stuff you’d heard about me, and I sort of felt kind of responsible. I thought I’d teach you a lesson by flirting with that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what a man is up against in this game. I guess I can’t get away from it because they won’t let me. But you don’t have to start. I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go, but I hadn’t counted on the little kid in the house. I’m glad he told the truth. He’ll remember that. I gave you back your gun because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was square I’d give it to you and let you make a run for it.
“I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame and let you off. I can take97the blame without hurting my reputation, so don’t worry. I’m not doing this so much for your sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you’d sort of caught on when I heard they hadn’t located my horse. That was a good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There’s plenty of us fellows that’s quite capable to furnish the bad examples.
“Rathburn.”
The girl was crying softly with an arm about her brother’s neck when he finished reading.
“What––what are you going to do, Eddie?” she sobbed.
“I’m goin’ to irrigate!” said Ed Lamy with a new note in his voice. “I’m goin’ to build a sure-enough ranch for us with this piece of paper for a corner stone!”
Dawn was breaking over the mountains, strewing the gleaming peaks with warm rosettes of color. A clear sky, as deep and blue as any sea, arched its canopy above. Virgin stands of pine and fir marched up the steep slopes to fling their banners of green against the snow. Silver ribbons of streams laughed in the welcome sunlight.
In a rock-walled gulch, far above the head of Sunrise Cañon, a fire was burning, its thin smoke streamer riding on a vagrant breeze. Near by lay a dun-colored horse on its side, tied fast. A man was squatting by the blaze.
“I hate to have to do this, old hoss,” the man crooned; “but we’ve got to change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together, an’ I reckon we want to stick.”
He thrust the running iron deeper into the glowing coals.
98CHAPTER XIVTHE WITNESS
The morning was hardly two hours old, and the crisp air was stinging sweet with the tang of pine and fir, as Rathburn rode jauntily down the trail on the eastern slope of the divide and drew rein on the crest of a high ridge. As he looked below he whistled softly.
“Juniper, hoss, there’s folks down there plying a nefarious trade, a plumb dangerous trade,” he mused, digging for the tobacco and brown papers in the pocket of his shirt. “I reckon they’re carrying on in direct defiance of the law, hoss.”
The dun-colored mustang tossed his head impatiently, but his master ignored the animal’s fretful desire to be off and dallied with tobacco and paper, fashioning a cigarette, lighting it, breathing thin smoke as his gray eyes squinted appraisingly at the scene below.
Winding down into the foothills, in striking contrast to the dim trails higher up, was a well-used road. It evidently led from the saffron-tinted dump and gray buildings of a mine which showed on the side of a big, bald mountain to southward. At a point almost directly below the ridge where the man and horse stood, it crossed a small hogback and descended a steep slope between lines of jack pines, disappearing in the timber farther down.
The gaze of the man on the ridge was concentrated on the bit of road which showed on the hogback and the slope beyond. A truck was laboriously climbing the ascent. But the watcher evidently was not so99much concerned with the approach of the truck as with certain movements which were in progress on the hogback at the head of the grade.
Three persons had dismounted from their horses behind the screen of timber. One, a tall man, had donned a long, black slicker and was tying a handkerchief about his face.
“Juniper, hoss,” said Rathburn, “what does that gent want that slicker on for? It ain’t going to rain. An’ how does he reckon to see onless maybe he’s got holes cut in that there hanky?”
A second man had made his way down the slope a short distance. He took advantage of the timber which screened him from sight of the driver of the oncoming truck.
“I ’spect that’s in case the truck driver should suddenly take it into his head to slide down backwards,” said the observer, speaking his thoughts aloud in a musical, bass voice. “One in front, one behind; now how about the kid?”
As if in answer to his question the third member of the party, evidently a boy, led the horses a short way up the hogback where a good view could be obtained of the road in both directions.
The watcher grunted in approval. “One in front to do the stick-up, one behind to stop a retreat and get whatever it is they’re after, and one on the lookout to see there ain’t any unexpected guests. Couldn’t have planned the lay any better ourselves, hoss.”
He was too far distant to interfere, even if he had had any desire to do so, which was doubtful from his interested and tolerant manner. Anyway it could have done no good to shout a warning, for the driver of the truck could not have heard anything above the roar of his machine, and the trio had gone about the preparations with dispatch. Already the100truck was climbing the last steep pitch to the top of the hogback.
The tall man in the black slicker and mask now quickly stepped forth from the edge of the timber. The watcher above saw his right hand and arm whip out level with his shoulders. There was a glint of morning sunlight and dull metal. The truck came to a jarring stop as the driver jammed on the brakes. Then the driver’s hands went into the air.
Stepping from the timber at the roadside behind the truck, the second man leaped upon the machine. The watcher grunted again as he saw that this man was also masked. The driver was disarmed and searched, then forced to clamber down from the truck into the road, where the man in the slicker kept him covered while the other quickly searched about the seat and cab of the truck. Then the second man released the brakes and dropped nimbly from the machine which plunged backward down the steep slope, crashed into the tree growth on one side of the road, and overturned.
The boy mounted and led the other two horses down the hogback in the scanty timber to the head of the grade. There the man in the slicker and his companion joined him, mounted, and the trio rode quickly along the hogback in a southerly direction and disappeared on a blind rail into the forest.
Rathburn rolled himself another cigarette with a grin as he watched the truck driver stand for some moments uncertainly in the road and then start rapidly down the slope toward his disabled machine.
“C’mon, hoss,” said the erstwhile spectator, turning his dun-colored mount again into the trail. “So far’s I can make out, this is the only way down out of these tall mountains to the east, so we might as well get going. We ain’t got no business south or101west. We’ll be just in time to get blamed for what’s happened down there.”
Whatever there might be in the prospect, the rider did not permit it to have any influence on his cheerful mood. He drew in long breaths of the stimulating air and sniffed joyously at the fragrance of the murmuring forests which clothed the higher hills. Far below the timber would dwindle, the ridges would flatten into round knolls and lose their verdure; then would come the dust and lava slopes, and beyond––the desert.
A wistful light came into the horseman’s eyes. “Home, Juniper, hoss,” he said softly. “We’ve just got to have cactus an’ water holes an’ danged blistering heat in ours; and I don’t care so much as the faded label off an empty tomato can if it’s in California, or Arizona, or Nevada, so long as it’s desert!”
The trail he was following wound tortuously around ridges, through the timber, into ravines and cañons; now treading close upon the bank of a swift-running mountain stream in a narrow valley, and again seeking the higher places where there were rocks and fallen trees and other obstructions. An observer would have gleaned at once that the rider was not familiar with the trail or territory he traversed.
So it was past noon when he finally reached the hogback where the outstanding event of the morning had taken place. The rider looked back up toward the divide and grinned as he rested his horse just above the scene of the holdup.
“Don’t reckon they’d have heard me if I’d hollered, or seen me if I’d waved,” he mused. “They picked out a good spot for the dirty work,” he concluded, looking about.
Shortly afterward, as he was staring down at the tracks in the road, he smothered an exclamation. Then he dismounted, picked up two small objects102from the dust at the point where the trio had started on their get-away, examined them with a puzzled expression, and thrust them into a pocket.
“Queer,” he ruminated; “mighty queer. If those silly things had been laying there in the road before the rumpus they’d have been tracked into the dust. But they was ontopof a perfectly good hoss track. An’ it don’t look like there’s been anybody along here since.”
He continued down the road, descending the steep slope, and came to the overturned truck. At a glance he saw it had been used for hauling supplies, doubtless to the mine he had glimpsed on the slope of the high mountain to southward. Several kegs of nails, some hardware, and some sacks of cement were scattered in the road. He remembered that the man who had climbed on the truck had only searched the driver and the cab. Anything he might have taken must have been in a small package or it would have been discernible even at that long distance.
“That outfit wasn’t after no mine supplies,” Rathburn reflected as he finished his brief inspection and again mounted. “An’ they wasn’t taking any chances on smoking anybody up or being followed too quick. Pretty work all around. An’ here’s the committee, hoss!”
A touring car came careening around a turn in the road and raced toward him. He turned his horse to the side of the road and spoke to him as the animal, plainly unfamiliar with motor cars, snorted and shied.
The car drew to a stop with a screeching of brakes. The horseman raised his hands as he saw two rifles leveled at him from the rear seat. There were five men in the car besides the driver. One of the men, who had been sitting in the front with the driver, leaped from the machine and strode toward the rider.
“Calm that horse down an’ climb out of that saddle,”103he commanded. “If you make any motions toward that gun you’re packing, it’ll make things simpler, in a way.”
The rider slipped from the saddle with a broad grin. “Right up to form,” he sang cheerfully, although he kept his hands elevated while the other took his gun. “My hoss’ll be calm enough now that that danged thing is shut off. You must be a sheriff to be flirting with the speed limit that way an’ forgetting you’ve got a horn.”
“Where are you from an’ where was you going?” demanded the other.
“I’m from up in the mountains, but I’d never got where I was going if I hadn’t seen you first the way you busted around that curve,” was the cool reply.
“Stranger,” was the next comment in a tone of satisfaction. “Look here, friend, I’m Mannix, deputy from High Point. You’ll sail smoother if you answer my questions straight.”
The deputy motioned to two men in the car. “Search him,” he ordered. Then he stood back, six-shooter in hand.
The stranger built a cigarette while the men were going through him. He lighted the weed and smiled quizzically while they examined the meager contents of the slicker pack on the rear of his saddle.
“See you’re packing a black slicker,” said Mannix, pointing to the rough raincoat in which the pack was wrapped.
“That’s in case of rain,” was the ready answer.
“What’s your name?” asked the deputy with a frown.
“Rathburn.”
“Where was you heading?”
“I was aiming in a general eastern direction,” Rathburn replied in a drawl. “Is there any law104against ridin’ hosses in this here part of the country?”
“Not at all,” replied the deputy heartily. “An’ there’s no law against drivin’ automobiles or trucks. But there’s a law against stoppin’ ’em with a gun.”
“So,” said Rathburn. “You stopped because you saw my gun? An’ I’m to blame, for it? If I’d known you were touchy about guns down here I’d have worn mine in my shirt.”
One of the other men from the car had joined the deputy. He was looking at Rathburn keenly. Mannix turned to him.
“Look like him?” he asked.
The man nodded. “About the same size and height.”
“This man was drivin’ a truck up here that was stopped this morning,” said the deputy sternly to Rathburn. “He says you size up to one of the men that turned the trick––one of them that wore a black slicker like yours.”
Rathburn nodded pleasantly. “Exactly,” he said with a smile. “I happen to be in the country an’ I’ve got a black slicker. There you are; everything all proved up. An’ yet there was somebody once told me it took brains to be a sheriff!”
There was a glint in Rathburn’s eyes as he uttered the last sentence.
Instead of flying into a rage, Mannix laughed.
“Don’t kid yourself,” he said grimly. “You’re not the man who held up this truck driver.”
He gave Rathburn back his gun, to the latter’s surprise. Then he waved toward Rathburn’s horse.
“Go ahead,” he said, smiling. “General eastern direction, wasn’t it? This road will take you clean to the desert, if you want to go that far. So long.”
He led the others back to the car which started105off with a roar. It passed the truck and continued on up the road.
Rathburn sat his horse and watched the automobile out of sight. His expression was one of deep perplexity.
“By all the rules of the game that fellow should have held me as a suspect,” he soliloquized. “Now he don’t know me from a hoss thief––or does he?”
He frowned and rode thoughtfully down the road in the direction from which the automobile had come.
106CHAPTER XVTHE WELCOME
The afternoon wore on as Rathburn followed the road at an easy jog. He quickened his pace somewhat when he passed through aisles in thick timber, and, despite his careless attitude in the saddle, he kept a sharp lookout at all times. For Rathburn was carrying some gold and bills in a belt under his shirt––which had been examined and returned to him at the order of the deputy––and he had no intention of being waylaid. Moreover, the man’s natural bearing was one of constant alertness. He rode for more than two hours without seeing any one.
“Strange,” he observed aloud. “This road is used a lot, too. Maybe the morning’s ceremonies has scared all the travelers into the brush.”
But, as he turned the next bend in the road, he saw a small cabin in a little clearing to the right.
Spurred by a desire to obtain some much-needed information, he turned from the road into the clearing and rode up to the cabin. He doffed his broad-brimmed hat in haste as he saw a girl.
“Ma’am, I’m a stranger in these woods an’ I’m looking for an honest man or woman to guide me on my way,” he said with a flashing smile.
Instead of returning his smile with a gracious word of greeting, the girl regarded him gravely out of glowing, dark eyes.
“Pretty!” he thought to himself. “Limping lizards, but she’s pretty!”
“Where are you from?” the girl asked soberly.
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“From yonder mountains, an’ then some,” he answered with a sweeping gesture.
“You rode down this morning?”
“I rode down this morning. Down from the toppermost top of the divide with the wind singing in my whiskers an’ the birds warbling in my ears.” He laughed gayly, for he appreciated her puzzled look. “I was wondering two things,” he continued solemnly.
“What might they be?” she asked doubtfully.
“First: Why isn’t there more travel on this good road?” he said. “I haven’t seen a soul except yourself and a––a party in an automobile. Now on a road like this–––”
“Where did you meet the automobile?” she asked in a voice which he interpreted as eager.
“Two hours an’ some minutes back––and up. Near a truck which had had some trouble in the road. Perhaps you heard about it? Turned over on its side in collapse after some free-thinking gents turned their smoke wagons toward it.”
It was plain she was interested.
“Did––is the automobile still there?” she inquired with a breathless catch in her voice.
“Oh, no. After some of the passengers had had a little disrespectful conversation with me, it went on up the road. Are they scarce around here, ma’am––automobiles?”
“Not exactly,” she replied with a frown. “They truck ore and men and supplies to and from the mine every day. The reason you’ve seen so few people to-day is because it’s Sunday.”
“Thank you,” he said gallantly. “That answers my first question. You remember, I was wonderingtwothings?”
Her lips trembled with a smile, but her eyes flashed with suspicion.
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“You will observe, ma’am, that I am not followed by any pack horses or heavily-laden burros,” he went on gravely, although his eyes sparkled with good humor. “Nor is there anything much to speak of in this slicker pack on my saddle. I need some new smoking tobacco, some new shaving soap, some new hair cut, a bath, a dinner, and a bed––after I’ve put up my hoss.”
This time the girl laughed, and Rathburn was rewarded by the flashing gleam of two rows of pearls and eyes merry with mirth. But her reciprocating mood of cheerfulness was quickly spent.
“You are only a mile and a half from High Point,” she said hurriedly. “You can get what you want there.”
She retreated into the doorway, and Rathburn saw that the chance interview was at an end.
“Gracias, as they say in the desert country,” he said, saluting as he turned away. “It means thanks, ma’am.”
He looked back as he touched the mustang with his steel and saw her looking after him with a strange look in her eyes.
“That gal looks half like she was scared, hoss,” he reflected. “I wonder, now, if she got me wrong. Dang it! Maybe she thought I was trying to flirt with her. Well, maybe I was.”
He thrust a hand in a pocket and fingered the two objects he had picked up in the road at the scene of the holdup. Then he pulled his hat a bit forward over his eyes and increased his pace. The town, as he had half expected, came suddenly into sight around a sharp bend in the road.
High Point consisted of some two-score structures, and only a cursory glance was needed to ascertain that it was the source of supplies and rendez-vous for entertainment of the several mines and all109the miners and prospectors in the neighboring hills. Several fairly good roads and many trails led into it, and from it there was a main road of travel to the railroad on the edge of the desert in the east.
Before he entered the dusty, single street, lined with small buildings flaunting false fronts, Rathburn recognized the signs of a foothill town where the hand of authority rested but lightly.
He rode directly to the first hotel, the only two-story structure in town, and around to the rear where he put up his horse and left his saddle, chaps and slicker pack in the care of the barn man.
He received instructions as to the location of the best barber shop and speedily wended his way there. He found Sunday was not observed in the barber shop, nor in the resort which adjoined it.
“Any chance to get a bath here?” he asked one of the two barbers with a twinkle in his gray eyes.
He expected a snort of astonishment and a sarcastic reply.
“Sure. Want it first or after?”
Rathburn eyed the barber suspiciously. Was the man poking fun at him? Well, he was not a stranger to repartee.
“First or after what?” he asked, scowling.
“Your shave and hair cut.”
Rathburn laughed. “I’ll take it first––if you have it. An’ if you have, I’ll say this is a first-class barber shop.”
The barber led the way to a room in the rear of the place with a pleased grin.
An hour or so later Rathburn, with the lower part of his face a shade paler than the upper half, his dark hair showing neatly under his broad-brimmed hat, his black riding boots glistening, and a satisfied smile on his face, sauntered out of the barber shop into the resort next door.