Racey Dawson and Rack Slimson, rising a hill on the way to Farewell, simultaneously turned their heads and looked at each other. Rack's expression was dolefully sullen. Racey's was hard and uncompromising.
"Who was it put you up to this?" asked Racey.
"What?"
"Coming out here after me."
"I didn't come out after you, I tell you!"
"Shore, shore," soothed Racey, "I know all about that. Who put you up to it?"
"I dunno what yo're talkin' about."
"The ignorance of some people," said Racey, recalling sundry occasions when other folk had oddly failed to grasp his meaning.
They rode onward silently.
When they reached the southern slope of Indian Ridge, Racey headed to the east. A spirit of unease lit heavily upon the sagging shoulders of Rack Slimson.
"You ain't goin' straight for Farewell," he remarked at a venture.
"I ain't—no."
"I thought you was."
"I am—but not straight."
"Huh?" Rack Slimson wrinkled his forehead at this.
"We're goin' in town from the side," explained Racey Dawson.
This, too, was a puzzler. "Why?" queried Rack Slimson.
"So's nobody will know we're coming till we're there." The smile with which Racey garnished his answer was chilling to the soul of Mr. Slimson.
"But I don't see—"
"You wouldn't. I'll tell you how it is all in words of one syllable. You and me are coming into town from the east where that draw is and those shacks behind the dance hall. We'll leave our hosses in the draw, and proceed, like they say in the army, on foot. Then you and me—"
"But why me?" Rack Slimson desired to know. "What are you always putting 'me' in for?"
"Because yo're a-going with me, Rack, that's why. Yo're a-going with me while I'm hunting for Coffin and Honey Hoke and Punch-the-breeze Thompson and Peaches Austin. Those four will likely be together, see, and I wanna use you for a breastwork sort of."
"A breastwork!" cried the now thoroughly upset Mr. Slimson. "A breastwork!"
"Shore a breastwork. I'll shove you ahead of me into the saloon and if they—there's four of 'em, y'understand—cut down on me you'll be in the way."
"But they'll down me!"
"I'm counting on that."
"But—"
"Aw, shut up, you —— skunk! You come out to Moccasin Spring on purpose to get me to come to Farewell and be peaceably shot by Doc Coffin and his gang. Can't tell me you didn't. I know better."
"I didn't! I didn't! I—"
"Aw right you didn't. In that case you got nothing to scare you. If Doc and his outfit ain't got any harsh thoughts against me they won't shoot when we run up on 'em. That'll prove yo're telling the truth, and I'll beg yore pardon. I'll do more'n beg yore pardon. I'll eat yore shirt an' my saddle."
Racey's assurance that he would do the right thing if his suspicions proved unfounded did not appear to cheer Rack Slimson.
"I—lookit here," he began, desperately, "can't we fix this here up some way? I dunno as—"
"Shore we can fix it up," interposed Racey, heartily. "Go after yore gun any time you feel like it. I been letting you keep it on purpose."
Rack Slimson did not accept the invitation. He had not the slightest desire to go after his gun. He was not fast enough, and he knew it.
"It ain't necessary to do that," said he.
"Suit yoreself," Racey told him calmly. "Hop into action any time you feel like it. Of course before we get to that draw outside Farewell where we're gonna leave our hosses I'll have to take yore gun away. Later I might be too busy to do it—and I can't afford to takeeverychance. Not with four or five men. You can see that yoreself."
Rack Slimson saw. He saw other things too. Oh, there was no warmth in the sunlight, and the sky was a drabby gray, and he was filled with bitterness unutterable.
"We'll be at the draw some time soon," suggested Racey ten minutes later.
But Rack Slimson's hands continued to remain in plain sight, the whileRack gnawed a thin and bloodless lip.
When at long last the draw opened before them Racey calmly reached over and removed the saloon-keeper's sixshooter. After satisfying himself that the weapon was fully loaded he stuffed it down inside the waistband of his trousers. Then he buttoned the two lower buttons of his vest and pulled the garment in question over the protruding butt.
For a space of time they rode the bottom of the draw. Where a few heavy willows grew about a tiny spring Racey pulled in.
"We'll leave the cayuses here," said he. "We're right close in back ofMarie's shack."
They dismounted, tied the horses to separate willows, and climbed the side of the draw.
"No hurry," cautioned Racey, for Rack Slimson was showing signs of a nervous haste. "Besides, I want to pat you all over for a hideout."
Behind the blind end of Marie's shack Rack Slimson submitted to being searched for concealed weapons. Racey found none, not even a pocket-knife.
"Let's go," said Racey Dawson. "We'll go to yore saloon first. And you pray hard that nobody sees us from the back window."
They diagonalled down past the stage company's corral to the house next door to the Starlight.
"They haven't seen us yet," Racey observed, cheerfully, to Rack Slimson whose wretched knees had been knocking together ever since he had dismounted. "Slide over this way a li'l more, Rack. Now take off yore spurs."
Racey stooped and removed his own. And not for an instant did he lose the magic of the drop. As a matter of fact, he had kept Rack covered from the moment Rack set his boot-soles to earth. Rack's spurs jingled on the ground. Racey let them lie. His own spurs he jammed each into a hip pocket.
"I'll have to be careful how I sit down now," he remarked, jocularly, to Rack Slimson. "You ready? Aw right. You know the way to the Starlight's back door."
The back door of the saloon was wide open. They entered on tiptoe, the proprietor in the lead.
"Remember," whispered Racey, when he discovered the back room to be empty, "remember, I'm right behind you. Keep on yore toes."
He held Rack Slimson by the belt and pushed him toward the door giving into the front room. This door was shut. They paused behind it.
"He oughta be along pretty soon," complained a fretful voice thatRacey recognized as belonging to Honey Hoke.
"We don't mind waiting," chimed in Punch-the-breeze Thompson.
"It's the best thing we do." This was big Doc Coffin speaking.
The two behind the door heard a bottle-neck clink against the rim of a glass.
"You better not take too much," advised Thompson.
"Aw, who's takin' too much?" flung back Honey Hoke.
"Well, you don't see the rest of us touching a single drop, do you? Speaking personal, I wouldn't drownmyinsides with liquor when I'm due to go up against a proposition like Racey Dawson."
Here was praise indeed. Racey thumbed Rack Slimson in the ribs. Rack turned his head and saw that Racey was grinning. Rack grew even more spineless.
"You see," pointed out Racey in a sardonic whisper. "Yo're up against the pure quill, feller."
Which remark at any other time would have been in the worst possible taste, but license is extended to men in peril of their lives.
"They're at the table in the corner beside the bar, this end, ain't they?" resumed Racey. "Ain't it lucky the door opens that way?"
Then he was silent for a time while he strove to catch the accents of Peaches Austin. He wanted to know if they were all four at the one table. But Peaches was either not talking or elsewhere. A moment later the question was answered for him by Honey Hoke.
"If he slips by Peaches without Peaches seem' him—" began Honey.
"Aw, hownell can he?" sneered Doc Coffin. "They's Peaches camped down in front of the blacksmith shop right where he can see the trail alla way down Injun Ridge. A dog couldn't get past Peaches without being seen, let alone a two-legged man on a four-legged hoss."
"S'pose he goes round the ridge," offered the doubter, unconsciously hitting the nail on the head.
"He won't," declared the confident Doc. "He'll come boiling right in like he owned the place. Don't you lose no sleep overthat."
"Maybe Rack couldn't find him," pursued Honey Hoke, and an answering quiver ran through the frame of Rack Slimson.
"Rack will find him all right," said Punch-the-breeze Thompson.
"He might be suspicious of Rack, alla same," Honey Hoke wavered on.
"Not the way Rack will tell him. Didn't we fix it up just what Rack was to say and all before he went? Shore we did. He won't make no mistake, Rack won't. You'll see."
"And anyway," broke in Doc Coffin, "they's four of us to take care of any mistakes."
At which the three laughed loudly.
"I hope," Racey whispered in Rack's rather grimy left ear, "I hope you heard all those fellers said. Proves I was right, don't it? Nemmine nodding yore head more'n once. Hold still. Yo're doin' fine. Yep, I'm shore glad we stood here a-listenin' like we have. Makes me feel a heap easier in my mind about you. Otherwise I might always have had a doubt I did right. I'd have been shore, y' understand, but I wouldn't have beendeadshore."
At which the unfortunate Rack came within an eyewink of fainting. As it was his stomach seemed to roll over and over. He began to feel a little sick.
"The bartender now," went on Racey after a moment, "is he likely to mix into this?"
"I dunno," breathed Rack.
"Who is he? I ain't been in yore place for some time."
Rack told him the name of the bartender, and Racey nodded quite as ifRack were facing him and could see everything he did.
"Then that's all right," whispered Racey. "I know that feller. He's a friend of Mike Flynn's. He won't do anythin' hostyle. Let's go right in. Open the door. G'on, damn yore soul, or I'll blow you apart!"
Rack Slimson opened the door and immediately endeavoured to spring to one side. But he reckoned not on the strength of Racey Dawson. The latter swung Rack back into place between himself (Racey Dawson) and the table at which Doc Coffin and his two friends were sitting.
It was a painfully surprised trio that confronted Racey and his unwilling barricade. The bartender was likewise surprised. He immediately fell flat on the floor. Not so the three men at the table. They sat quite still and stared at the man and the gun behind the body of their friend Rack Slimson. They said nothing. Perhaps there was nothing to say.
"I hear you were expectin' me, Doc," drawled Racey, his eyes bright with cold anger. "Whatsa matter?" he added. "Ain't three of you enough to take care of any mistakes?"
At which Doc Coffin's right hand flashed downward. Racey drove an accurate bullet through Doc Coffin's mouth. The bullet ranging upward, and making its exit through the parietal bone, let in the light on Doc's hitherto darkened intellect in more ways than one.
Doc Coffin's forefinger, tightening convulsively on the trigger of its wearer's sixshooter, sent an unaimed shot downward. But previous to embedding itself in a floor board, the bullet passed through Honey Hoke's foot. This disturbed Honey's aim to such an extent that instead of shooting Racey through the head he shot Rack through the hat.
Racey, attending strictly to his knitting, bored Honey Hoke with a bullet that removed the top of the second knuckle of Honey's right hand, shaved a piece from the wrist bone, and then proceeded to thoroughly lacerate most of the muscles of the forearm before finally lodging in the elbow. Thus was Honey Hoke rendered innocuous for the time being. He was not a two-handed gunfighter.
As yet Punch-the-breeze Thompson had remained strictly neutral. His hands were on the table top, and had been from the beginning.
"It's yore move, Thompson," Racey said with significance.
"Then I'll be goin'," said Thompson, calmly. "See you later—maybe."
So saying he rose to his feet, turned his back on Racey, and walked out of the place. Racey had no illusions as to Thompson, but he obviously could not shoot him in the back. He let him go. Watching from a window he saw Thompson go to the hitching-rail in front of the saloon, untie his horse, mount, and ride away northward.
And the blacksmith shop in front of which Peaches Austin was supposed to be on guard lay at the south end of the street. Where, then, was Thompson going?
"Where's he goin'?" he demanded of the now wriggling Rack Slimson.
"Huh? Who? Punch? I dunno."
"Where's Jack Harpe?"
"I dunno."
"Yo're a liar. Where is he?"
"I dunno! I dunno! I tell you! Yo're gug-gug-chokin' me!"
"Yo're lying again. If I was choking you you couldn't talk. Yo're talkin', ain't you? Where's Jack Harpe?"
"I dud-dud-dunno," insisted Rack Slimson, his teeth chattering asRacey shook him.
"Is he in town?"
"I dud-dunno."
"Is Thompson going after him, do you think?"
"I dud-dunny-dunno!"
"I guess maybe you don't, after all," Racey said, disgustedly, flinging the unfortunate saloon-keeper from him with such force that the fellow skittered quite across the floor and sat down in the washpan into which the bartender was accustomed to throw the broken glassware.
"Ow-wow!" It was a hearty, full-lunged howl that Rack Slimson uttered as he bounded erect and clutched at his trousers.
Racey's eyes brightened at the sight. "Y' oughta known better than to sit down in all that glass. I could 'a' told you you'd get prickles in you. Why don't you stand still and let yore barkeep pick 'em out for you? You can get at most of the big pieces with yore fingers," he added to the bartender, who was gingerly emerging on all fours round the end of the bar. "And the little ones you can dig out with a sharp knife. Yep, Rack, old-timer, I'll bet you won't carry any more messages on horseback for a while."
There was a sudden crashing thud at the back of the room. Honey Hoke had fallen out of his chair. Now he lay on the floor, his legs drawn up and the back of his frowsy head resting against a rung of the chair in which still sat the dead body of Doc Coffin.
Racey went to Honey and spread him out in a more comfortable position.
Calloway and Judge Dolan entered the saloon together.
"We thought we heard shootin'—" began Galloway, staring in astonishment at the grotesque posture Rack Slimson had assumed the better to endure the ministrations of the bartender.
"We heard shootin', all right," said Judge Dolan, his glance sweeping past Slimson and the bartender to the rear of the room.
"What's happened, Racey?" queried Dolan, striding forward. "Both of 'em cashed?"
Racey shook his head. "Doc Coffin passed out," said he in a hard, dry voice. "But Honey Hoke's heart is beatin' regular enough. Guess he's only fainted from loss of blood."
The Judge nodded. "They do that sometimes." Here he looked at Doc Coffin's body lying humped over the table, an arm hanging free, the head resting on the table-top.
"Were they rowin' together?" was the Judge's next question.
Racey gave him a circumstantial account of the shooting and the incidents that had led up to it. The Judge heard him through without a word.
"They asked for it," said he, when Racey made an end. "'Sfunny Punch didn't pick up a hand. Tell you what you do, Racey: You come to my office in about a hour. Nothing to do with this business. I got no fault to find with what you done. Even break and all that. Something else I wanna see you about. Huh? What's that, Piggy?"
The place was beginning to fill up with inquisitive folk from the vicinity, and Racey decided to withdraw. He went out the back way. Closing the door, he set his shoulders against it, and remained motionless a moment. His eyes were on the distant hills, but they neither saw the hills nor anything that lay between.
"I had to do it," he muttered, bitterly. "I didn't want to down him. But I had to. They were gonna down me if they could. And he—they—they asked for it."
"Lo, Peaches, ain't you afraid of gettin' sunburnt?" Peaches Austin, gambler though he was, flickered his eyelashes. He was startled. He had not had the slightest warning of Racey Dawson's approach.
"Didn't hear me, did you?" Racey continued, conversationally. "I didn't want you to. That's why I kept my spurs off and sifted round from the back of the blacksmith shop. And you were expecting me to come scampering down the trail over Injun Ridge, weren't you? Joke's on you, Peaches, sort of."
Still Peaches said nothing. He sat and gazed at Racey Dawson.
"Don't be a hawg," resumed Racey. "Move over and lemme sit down, too. That's the boy. Now we're both comfortable, Peaches, you mean to sit there and tell me you didn't hear any shooting up at the Starlight a while back?"
Peaches Austin wetted his lips with the tip of a careful tongue. "I heard shootin'," he admitted, stiff-lipped.
"And what did you think it was?"
"I didn't know."
"Didn't you see Thompson ride away?"
"Shore."
"And didn't you think anything about that, either?"
"Oh, I thought, but—"
"But you had yore orders to sit here and wait for li'l Willie. And you always obey orders. That it, Peaches?"
"What are you drivin' at?"
"Yo're always asking me that, Peaches. Try something new for a change.Look."
Racey extended a long arm past Peaches' nose and pointed up the street toward the Starlight Saloon. A man was backing out through the doorway. Another followed, walking forward. Between them they were carrying a third man. The hat of the third man was over his face. His arms, which hung down, jerked like the arms of a doll. Even at that distance Peaches could see that there was no life in the third man.
"That's Doc Coffin," Racey murmured without rancour. "I wonder where they're taking him? He used to bach with Nebraska Jones, didn't he? I guess that's where they're taking him to. Yep, they've gone round the corner of the stage company's corral."
"Where's Honey?" queried Peaches in a still, small voice.
"In the Starlight. He ain't hurt bad. Foot and arm. Lucky, huh?"
Peaches Austin considered these things a moment. "Doc Coffin was reckoned a fast man," he said in the tone of one who, after adding up a column of figures, has found the correct total, "and Honey Hoke wasn't none slow himself. And you got 'em both."
"I didn't get 'em both," corrected Racey. "Honey is only wounded."
"Same thing. You could 'a' got 'him if you wanted to. Yo're lucky, that's what it is. Yo're lucky. And you been lucky from the beginning. I ain't superstitious, but—" Here he lied. Like most gamblers Peaches was sadly superstitious. He looked at Racey, and there was something much akin to wonder on his countenance. He shook his head and was silent a long thirty seconds. "Yo're too lucky for me—I quit," he finished.
"How much?"
"Complete. I tell you, I don't buck no such luck as yores no longer.I'll never have none myself if I do. I'm goin'."
Peaches Austin got to his feet and walked across the street to the hotel. Twenty minutes later Racey, sitting on the bench in front of the blacksmith shop, saw him issue from the hotel, carrying a saddle, packed saddlebags, andcantenas, blanket and bridle, and go to the hotel corral.
Within three minutes Peaches Austin rode out from behind the hotel. As he passed the blacksmith shop he said "So long" to Racey.
"See you later," nodded that serene young man.
"I hope not," tossed back Peaches, and rode on down the trail that leads over Indian Ridge to Marysville and the south.
Racey watched him out of town. Then he went to Mike Flynn's to see and, if it were possible, to cheer up his wounded friend, Swing Tunstall. But he was not allowed to see him. Swing, it appeared, had been given an opiate by Joy Blythe, who was acting as nurse, and she refused to awaken her patient for anybody. So there.
Racey went to the Happy Heart to while away the remainder of the hour set by Judge Dolan. The bartender greeted him respectfully and curiously. So did several other men he knew. For that respect and that curiosity he understood the reason. It lay on a bunk in Nebraska Jones's shack.
No one asked him to drink. People are usually a little backward in social intercourse with a citizen who has just killed his fellowman. Of course in time the coolness wears off. In this case the time would be short, Doc Coffin having been one of those that more or less encumber the face of the earth. But for the moment Racey felt his ostracism and resented it.
He set down his drink half drunk and walked out of the Happy Heart.
* * * * *
"See anything of Luke Tweezy lately?" asked Judge Dolan when Racey was sitting across the table from him in the Judge's office.
"Saw him to-day."
"Where?"
"Moccasin Spring."
Judge Dolan nodded and rasped a hand across his stubbly chin. "Luke is in town now," said he.
"I ain't lost any Luke Tweezys," observed Racey, looking up at the ceiling.
"I wonder how long Luke is figuring on staying in town," went on JudgeDolan, sticking like a stamp to his original subject.
"Nothing to me."
"It might be. It might be. You never can tell about them things,Racey."
Racey Dawson's eyes came down from the ceiling. He studied the Judge's face attentively. What was Dolan driving at? Racey had known the Judge for several years, and he was aware that the more indirect the Judge became in his discourse the more important the subject matter was likely to be.
"No," said Racey, willing to bite, "you never can tell."
"We was talking one day about a feller making mistakes." The tangent was merely apparent.
"Yep," acquiesced Racey. "We were saying Luke Tweezy made a good many."
"Something like that, yeah. You run across any of Luke's mistakes yet,Racey?"
Racey shook his head. "No."
"Did you go to Marysville?"
"Why for Marysville?"
"Luke Tweezy lives in Marysville."
"And you think there's somebody in Marysville would talk?"
Judge Dolan looked pained. "I didn't say so," he was quick to remark.
"I know you didn't, but—"
"I don't guess they's many folks in Marysvilleknowmuch aboutLuke—no, not many. Luke is careful and clever, damn clever.But they's other things besides folks which might have usefulinformation."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. A gent, a lawyer anyway, keeps a lot of papers in his safe as a rule. Sometimes them papers make a heap interesting readin'." The Judge paused and regarded Racey coolly.
"They might prove interesting reading, that's a fact," drawled Racey.
"Now I ain't suggestin' anything," pursued Judge Dolan. "I couldn't on account of my oath. But it ain't so Gawd-awful far from Farewell to Marysville."
"It ain'ttoofar."
"I got a notion Luke Tweezy will find important business to keep him here in Farewell the next four or five days."
"I wonder what kind of a safe Luke has got," murmured Racey.
"Damfino," said the Judge. "You know anything about dynamite—how it's handled, huh?"
"Shore, handle it carefully."
"I mean how to prepare a fuse and detonator and stick it in the cartridge. You know how?"
"I helped a miner man once for a week. Shore I know. You cut the fuse square-ended. Stick the square end into the cap until it touches the fulminate, and crimp down the copper shell all round with a dull knife to hold the fuse. Then you make a hole in the end of the cartridge and—"
"I guess you know yore business, Racey," interrupted Judge Dolan."You'll find a package on that shelf by the door. Handle it carefully.I'm glad you dropped in, Racey, Nice weather we're having."
"But there are some people about due for a cold wave," capped Racey, stopping on his way out to take the package from the shelf and wink at Judge Dolan.
The wink was not returned. But the Judge's tongue may have been in his cheek. He was a most human person, was Judge Dolan of Farewell.
Racey, handling the package with care, went back to the draw where he had left the two horses. In the draw he opened the package. It contained six sticks of dynamite and the necessary detonators and fuse.
"Good old Judge," said Racey, admiringly, and rewrapped the dynamite, the detonators, and the fuse with even more care than he had employed in unwrapping them.
He rolled the package into his slicker and tied down the slicker behind the cantle of his saddle. Untying the two horses he mounted his own and, leading the other, rode to the hotel corral.
Bill Lainey was only too glad to lend him a fresh horse and a bran sack.
It was dusk when he dismounted at the Dale corral. There was a lamp in the kitchen. Its rays shone out through the open door and made a rectangle of golden light on the dusty earth. Molly was standing at the kitchen table. She was stirring something in a bowl. She did not turn her head when he came to the door.
"Evenin', Molly," said Racey.
"Good evening." Just that.
"Uh. Yore ma around?"
"She's gone to bed." Still the dark head was not raised.
He misunderstood both her brevity and the following silence. He left his hat on the washbench outside the door and stepped into the kitchen.
"Don't take it so to heart, Molly," he said, awkwardly.
"It's hard, but—Shucks, lookit, I've got something to tell you."
In very truth he had something to tell her but he had not meant to tell her so soon.
"Lemme take care of you, Molly—dear. You know I love you, and—"
"Stop!" Molly turned to him an expressionless face. She looked at him steadily. "You say you love me?" she went on.
"Shore I say it." He was plainly puzzled at her reception of what he had said. Girls did not act this way in books.
"How about that—that other girl? Marie, I think her name is."
"What about her?"
"A good deal."
"What has she got to do with my loving you, I'd like to know?"
"She loves you."
"Marie? Loves me? Yo're crazy!"
"Oh, am I? If she hadn't loved you do you think for one minute she'd come riding all the way out here to give you a warning?"
"Marie and I are friends," he admitted. "But there ain't any law against that."
"None at all." Molly's eyes dropped. Her head turned back. She resumed her operations with a spoon in the bowl.
"Lookit here, Molly—"
"Don't you call me Molly." Her tone was as lacking in expression as was her face.
"But you've got to listen to me!" he insisted, desperately. "I tell you there ain't anything between Marie and me."
"Then there ought to be." Thus Molly. Womanlike she yearned to use her claws.
"But—"
"Oh, I've heard all about your carryings on with that—creature; how you talk to her, and people have seen you walking with her on the street. I saw you myself. Yesterday when Mis' Jackson drove out here to buy three hens she told me when the girl was arrested and fined for trying to murder a man you stepped up and paid her fine. Did you?"
"I did. But—"
"There aren't any buts! You've got a nerve, you have, making love to me after running round with that wretched hussy!"
"She ain't a hussy!" denied the exasperated Racey, who was always loyal to absent friends. "She's all right. Just because she happens to be a lookout in the Happy Heart ain't anything against her. It don't give you nor anybody else license to insult her."
This was too much. Not content with confessing his friendship for the girl, he was standing up for her. Molly whirled upon him.
"Go!" Tone and business could not have been excelled by Peg Woffington herself.
Racey went.
"What's the matter?" queried a sleepy voice from the doorway giving into an inner room, as Racey's spurred heels jingled past the washbench. "What's goin' on? Who was here? What you yelling about, anyway?"
"Racey was here, Ma," said Molly.
"Seems to me you made an uncommon racket about it," grumbled her mother, plodding into the kitchen in her slippers.
Her gray hair was all in strings about her face. Her eyes and cheeks were puffed with sleep. She had pulled a quilt round her shoulders over her nightdress. Now she gave the quilt a hitch up and sat down in a chair.
"Make me a cup o' coffee, will you, Molly?" said Mrs. Dale. "My head aches sort of. I hope you didn't have a fight with Racey Dawson."
"Well, we didn't quite agree," admitted Molly, snapping shut the cover of the coffee-mill and clamping the mill between her knees. "I don't like him any more, Ma."
"And after he's helped us so! I was counting on him to fix up this mortgage business! Whatever's got into you, Molly?"
"He's been running round with that awful lookout girl at the HappyHeart."
"Is that all?" yawned Mrs. Dale, greatly relieved. "I thought it might have been something serious."
"It is serious! What right has he to—"
"Why hasn't he? You ain't engaged to him."
"I know I'm not, but he—I—you—" Molly began to flounder.
"Has he ever told you he loved you?" Mrs. Dale inquired, shrewdly.
"Not in so many words, but—"
"But you know he does. Well, so do I know he does. I knew it soon as you did—before, most likely. Don't you fret, Molly, he'll come back."
"No, he won't. Not now. I don't want him to."
"Then who's to fix up this mortgage business with Tweezy, I'd like to know? I declare, I wish I'd taken that lawyer's offer. We'd have something then, anyhow. Now we'll have to get out without a nickel. Oh, Molly, what did you quarrel with Racey for?"
Merely because he believed that the well-known all was over between Molly Dale and himself, Racey did not relinquish his plans for the future.
He rode to Marysville as he had intended. That is, he rode to the vicinity of Marysville. For, arriving at a hill five miles outside of town in the broad of an afternoon, he stopped in a hollow under the cedars and waited for night. Daylight was decidedly not appropriate for the act he contemplated.
"I wonder," he muttered, as he lay with his back braced against a tree and stared at the bulge in his slicker, "I wonder if I ought to use all them sticks at once. I never heard that miner man say how much of an argument a safe needed. I s'pose I better use 'em all."
Luke Tweezy was a bachelor. His office was in his four-room house, and he did not employ a housekeeper. Further than this, Racey Dawson knew nothing of the lawyer's establishment. But he believed that his knowledge was sufficient to serve his purpose.
About midnight Racey Dawson removed himself, his horse, and his dynamite from the hollow on the hill to where a lone pine grew almost directly in the rear of and two hundred yards from the residence of Luke Tweezy. He had selected the tall and lonely pine as the best place to leave his horse because, should he be forced to run for it, he would have against the stars a plain landmark to run for. He thoroughly expected to be forced to run. Six sticks of dynamite letting go together would arouse a cemetery. And Marysville was a lively village.
Racey, taking no chances on the Lainey horse stampeding at the explosion, rope-tied the animal to the trunk of the pine. After which he removed his spurs, carefully unwrapped the dynamite and stuck three sticks in each hip-pocket. The caps, in their little box, he put in the breast-pocket of his shirt. With the coil of fuse in one hand and the bran sack given him by Lainey in the other he walked toward the house of Tweezy.
The house was of course dark. Nor were there any lights in the irregular line of houses stretching up and down this side of the street. The neighbours had apparently all gone to bed. Through an opening between two houses Racey saw a brightly lighted window in a house an eighth of a mile away. That would be Judge Allison's house. The Judge, then, was awake. Two hundred and twenty yards was not a long distance even for a portly man like Judge Allison to cover at speed. And Racey had known Judge Allison to move briskly on occasion.
Racey, moving steadily ahead, slid past someone's barn and opened up a view of the dance hall. It had previously been concealed from his sight by the high posts and rails of three corrals. The dance hall was going full blast. At least all the windows were bright with light. He was too far away to hear the fiddles.
The dance hall! He might have known it would still be operating at midnight. But it was almost twice as far from the Tweezy house to the dance hall as it was from the Judge's house to Tweezy's. That was something. Indeed it was a great deal. But he would have to work fast. All the neighbours would come bouncing out at the crash of the explosion.
Racey paused to flatten an ear at the kitchen door. He heard nothing, and tiptoed along the wall to the window of the room next the kitchen. The ground plan of the house was almost an exact square. There was a room in each angle. The office, which Racey knew contained the safe, was diagonally across from the kitchen.
Racey, halting at the window of the room next the kitchen, was somewhat surprised to find it open. He stuck in his head and saw a faint glow beyond the half-closed door of the office. The glow seemed to be brighter near the floor. Racey listened intently. He heard a faint grumble and now and then a squeak.
He crouched beneath the window and removed his boots. Then he crawled over the sill and hunkered down on the uncarpeted floor. The floor boards did not creak. Still crouching, his arms extended in front of him, he made his way silently across the room, skirting safely in the process two chairs and a table, and stood upright behind the crack of the door.
Looking through the crack he perceived that the glow he had seen from the window emanated from a tin can pierced with several holes. The dim, uncertain light revealed the figure of a tall and hatless man kneeling beside the safe. The man's back was toward the lighted tin can. One of the tall man's hands was slowly turning the knob of the combination. The side of the man's head was pressed against the front of the safe near the combination. Racey could not see the man's face.
Across the window of the room two blankets had been hung. The door into the other front room was open. Then suddenly the doorway was no longer a black void. A man stood there—a fat man with a stomach that hung out over the waistband of his trousers. There was something very familiar about the figure of that fat man.
The fat man leaned against the doorjamb and pushed back his wide black hat. The light in the tin can illumined his countenance dimly. But Racey's eyes were becoming accustomed to the half darkness. He was able to recognize Jacob Pooley—Fat Jakey Pooley, the register of the district, whose home was in Piegan City.
"You ain't as fast as you used to be," observed Fat Jakey in a soft whisper.
"Shut up!" hissed the kneeling man, and turned his face for an instant toward Fat Jakey, so that the light shone upon his features.
It was Jack Harpe.
"What's biting your ear?" Fat Jakey asked, good-naturedly.
"I've told you more'n once to let what's past alone," grumbled JackHarpe.
"Hell, there's nobody around."
"Nemmine whether they is or not. You get out of the habit."
"Rats," sneered Fat Jakey.
"What was that?" Jack Harpe's figure tautened in a flash.
"Rats," repeated Fat Jakey.
"I thought I heard something," persisted Jack Harpe.
"You heard rats," chuckled Fat Jakey. "You're nervous, that's what's the matter, or else you ain't able to open the safe."
"I can open the safe all right," growled Jack Harpe, bending again to his work.
"I wonder what he did hear," Racey said to himself. "I thought I heard something, too."
Whatever it was he did not hear it again.
"There she is," said Jack Harpe, suddenly, and threw open the safe door.
It was at this precise juncture that a voice from the darkness behindFat Jakey said, "Hands up!"
Oh, it was then that events began to move with celerity. Fat Jakey Pooley ducked and leaped. Jack Harpe kicked the tin can, the candle fell out and rolled guttering in a quarter circle only to be extinguished by one of Fat Jakey's flying feet.
There was a slithering sound as the blankets across the window were ripped down, followed by a scraping and a heaving and a grunting as two large people endeavoured to make their egress through the same window at the same time.
"So that window was open alla time," thought Racey as he prudently waited for the owner of the voice in the other room to discover himself. But this the voice's owner did not immediately do. Racey could not understand why he did not shoot while the two men were struggling through the window. Lord knows he had plenty of time and opportunity.
Even after Jack Harpe and Fat Jakey had reached the outer air and presumably gone elsewhere swiftly, there was no sound from the other room. Racey, his gun ready, waited.
At first his impulse had been incontinently to flee the premises as Jack and Jake had done. But a saving second thought held him where he was. It was more than possible that the mysterious fourth man had designs on the contents of the safe. In which event—
Racey stood pat.
He heard no sound for at least a minute after Jack and Jake had left, then he heard a soft swish, and a few stars which had been visible through the upper half of the window were blotted out. The blankets were being readjusted.
A match was struck and a figure stooped for the candle that had been dashed out by the foot of Fat Jakey Pooley. A table shielded the figure from Racey. Then the figure straightened and set the flaring match to the candle end. And the face that bent above the light was the face of one he knew.
"Molly!" he whispered, and slipped from his ambush.
At which Molly dropped candle and match and squeaked in affright. But her scare did not prevent her from drawing a sixshooter. He heard the click of the hammer, and whispered desperately, "Molly! Molly! It's me! Racey!"
He struck a match and retrieved the candle and lit it quickly. By its light he saw her staring at him uncertainly. Her eyes were bright with conflicting emotions. Her sixshooter still pointed in his general direction.
"Put yore gun away," he advised her. "We've got no time to lose. Hold the candle for me! Put it in the can first!"
Automatically she obeyed the several commands.
He knelt before the open safe and, beginning at the top shelf, he stuffed into his bran sack every piece of paper the safe contained. Besides papers there were two sixshooters and a bowie. These he did not take.
When the safe was clean of papers Racey tied the mouth of the bran sack, took Molly by the hand, and blew out the candle.
"C'mon," he said, shortly. "We'll be leavin' here now."
Towing her behind him he led her to the window of the rear room. Holding his hat by the brim he shoved it out through the window. No blow or shot followed the action. He clapped the hat on his head, and looked out cautiously. He satisfied himself that the coast was clear and flung a leg over the sill.
When he had helped out Molly he gave her the sack to hold and pulled on his boots.
"Where's yore hoss?" he whispered.
"I tied him at the corner of the nearest corral," was the answer.
"C'mon," said he and took her again by the hand.
They had not gone ten steps when she stumbled and fell against him.
"Whatsa matter?"
"Nothing," was the almost breathless reply. "I'm—I'm all right. I just stepped on a sharp stone."
"Yore shoes!" he murmured, contritely. "I never thought. Why didn't you say something? Here."
So saying he scooped her up in his arms, settled her in place with due regard for the box of caps in his breast-pocket, and plowed on through the night. Her arms went round his neck and her head went down on his shoulder. She sighed a gentle little sigh. For a sigh like that Racey would cheerfully have shot a sheriff's posse to pieces.
"I left my shoes in my saddle pocket," she said, apologetically. "I—I thought it would be safer."
There was a sudden yell somewhere on Main Street. It sounded as if it came from uncomfortably close to the Tweezy house. Then a sixshooter cracked once, twice, and again. At the third shot Racey was running as tight as he could set foot to the ground.
Encumbered as he was with a double armful of girl and a fairly heavy sackful of papers he yet made good time to the corner of the nearest corral. The increasing riot in Main Street undoubtedly was a most potent spur.
"Which way's the hoss?" he gasped when the dark rail of the corral fretted the sky before them.
"You're heading straight," she replied, calmly. "Thirty feet more and you'll run into him. Better set me down."
He did—literally. He turned his foot on a tin can and went down ker-flop. Forced to guard his box of caps with one hand he could not save Molly Dale a smashing fall.
"Ah-ugh!" guggled Molly, squirming on the ground, for she had struck the pit of her stomach on a round rock the size of a football and the wind was knocked out of her.
Racey scrambled to his feet, and knowing that if Molly was able to wriggle and groan she could not be badly hurt, picked up the sack and scouted up Molly's horse. He found it without difficulty, and tied the sack with the saddle strings in front of the horn. He loosed the horse and led it to where Molly still lay on the ground. The poor girl was sitting up, clutching her stomach and rocking back and forth and fighting for her breath with gasps and crows.
But there was not time to wait till she should regain the full use of her lungs—not in the face of the shouts and yells in Main Street. Lord, the whole town was up. Lights were flashing in every house. Racey stooped, seized Molly under the armpits, and heaved her bodily into the saddle.
"Hang onto the horn," he ordered, "and for Gosh sake don't make so much noise!"
Molly obeyed as best she could. He mounted behind her, and of course had to fight the horse, which harboured no intention of carrying double if it could help itself. Racey, however, was a rider, and he jerked Molly's quirt from where it hung on the horn. Not more than sixty seconds were wasted before they were travelling toward the lone pine as tight as the horse could jump.
At the pine Racey slipped to the ground and ran to untie his horse.
"Can you hang on all right at a trot if I lead yore hoss?" he queried, sharply, his fingers busy with the knot of the rope.
"I cue-can and gug-guide him, too," she stuttered, picking up her reins and making a successful effort to sit up straight. "Lul-look! At Tut-Tweezy's huh-house!"
He looked. There were certainly three lanterns bobbing about in the open behind the house of Luke Tweezy. He knew too well what those lights meant. The Marysville citizens were hunting for a hot trail.
He swung up with a rush.
"Stick right alongside me," he told her. "We'll trot at first till we get behind the li'l hill out yonder. After that we can hit the landscape lively."
She spoke no word till they had rounded the little hill and were galloping south. Then she said in her normal voice, "This isn't the way home."
"I know it ain't. We've got to lose whoever follows us before we skip for home."
"Of course," she told him, humbly. "I might have known. You always think of the right thing, Racey."
All of which was balm to a hitherto tortured soul.
"That's all right," he said, modestly.
"And how strong you are—carrying me and that heavy sack all that distance." Both admiration and appreciation were in her tone. Any man would have been made happy thereby. Racey was overjoyed. And the daughter of Eve at his side knew that he was overjoyed and was made glad herself. She did not realize that Eve invariably employed the same method with our grandfather Adam.
He reached across and patted her arm.
"Yo're all right," he told her. "When we get out of this yo're going to marry me."
Her free hand turned under his and clasped his fingers. S6 they rode for a space hand-in-hand. And Racey's heart was full. And so was hers. If they forgot for the moment what dread possibilities the future held who can blame them?
"But what was yore idea in coming to Marysville a-tall?"
"To get that release Father signed—I thought it might be in his safe."
"Anybody give you the idea it might be?"
She shook her head. "Nobody."
"You've got more brains than I have, for a fact. But how were you figuring on getting into the safe?"
"Oh, I brought a bunch of keys along. What are you laughing at? I thought one might fit."
"Keys for a safe! Say, don't you know you don't open safes with keys?They've got combinations, safes have."
"I didn't know it. How could I? I never saw a safe in my life till I saw this one to-night. I thought they had locks like any other ordinary—Oh, I think you're horrid to laugh!"
"I'm not laughing. Lean over, and I'll show you…. There, I ain't laughing, am I?"
"Not now, but you were…. Not another one, Racey. Sit back where you belong, will you? You can hold my hand if you like. But I wasn't such a fool as you seem to think, Racey. I brought an extra key along in case the others didn't fit."
"Extra key?"
"Surely—seven sticks of dynamite, caps, and fuse. Chuck had a lot he was using for blowing stumps, so I borrowed some from his barn. He didn't know I took it."
"I should hope not," Racey declared, fervently. "You leave dynamite alone, do you hear? Where is it now?"
"Oh, I left it on the floor in Tweezy's house when I found I didn't need it any longer."
"Thank God!" breathed Racey, whose hair had begun to rise at the bare idea of the explosives still being somewhere on her person. "What was yore motive in hold in' up Jack Harpe and Jakey Pooley?"
"Was that who they were? I couldn't see their faces. Well, when I had broken the lock and opened the back window and crawled through, I went into the front room where I thought likely the safe would be, and I was just going to strike a match when I heard a snap at the front window as the lock broke. Maybe I wasn't good and scared. I paddled into the other front room by mistake. Got turned around in the dark, I suppose. And before I could open a window and get out I heard two men in the front room I'd just left. I didn't dare open a window then. They'd have heard me surely, so I just knelt down behind a bed. And after a while, when one man was busy at the safe, the fat man came into my room and sat down on a chair inside the door. Lordy, I hardly dared breathe. It's a wonder my hair didn't turn white. Once I thought they must have heard me—the time the fat man said 'rats'. Honestly, I was so scared I was almost sick."
"But you have nerve enough to try and hold them up."
"I had to. When I found out they were going to rob the safe, I had to do something. Why, they might have taken the very paper I wanted, and somehow later Tweezy might have gotten it back. I couldn't allow that. I knew that I must get at what was inside the safe before they did. I just had to, so when the fat man got up from his chair and stood in the doorway with his back to me, I just gritted my teeth and stood up and said 'Hands up.'"
"My Gawd, girl, you might 'a' been shot!"
"I had a sixshooter," she said, tranquilly. "But I wouldn't have shot first," she added, reflectively.
Willy-nilly then he took her in his arms and held her tightly.
"But I don't see why," he said after an interval, "you had to go off on a wild-goose chase thisaway. Didn't I tell you I was going to fix it up for you? Couldn't you 'a' trusted me enough to lemme do it my own way?"
"We had that—that quarrel in the kitchen, and I thought you didn't like me any more, and—and wouldn't have any more to do with me and that it was my job to do something to help out the family…. Please! Racey! I can't breathe!"
Another interval, and she resolutely pushed his arms down and held him away from her with both hands on his shoulders.
"Tell me," said she, her blue eyes plumbing the very depths of his soul, "tell me you don't love anybody else."
He told her.
Later. "There was a time once when I thought you liked Luke Tweezy," he observed, lazily.
"How horrible," she murmured with a slight shudder as she snuggled closer.
And that was that.
"I think, dearest," said Molly, raising her head from his shoulder some twenty minutes later, "that it's light enough now to see what's in the sack."
So, in the brightness of a splendid dawn, snugly hidden on the tree-covered flank of one of the Frying Pan Mountains, they opened the bran sack and went through every paper it contained.
There were deeds, mortgages, legal documents of every description. They found the Dale mortgage, but they did not find the release alleged to have been signed by Dale immediately prior to his death.
"Of course that mortgage is recorded," said Racey, dolefully, staring at the pile of papers, "so destroyin' that won't help us any. The release he's carrying with him, and I don't see anything—"
"Here's one we missed," said Molly Dale in a hopeless tone, picking up a slip of paper from where it had fallen behind a saddle. The slip of paper was folded several times. She opened it and spread it out against her knee. "Why, how queer," she muttered.
"Huh?" In an instant Racey was looking over her shoulder.
When both had thoroughly digested the meaning of the writing on that piece of paper they sat back and regarded each other with wide eyes.
"This ought to fix things," breathed Molly.
"Fix things!" cried Racey. "Cinch! We've got him like that."
He snapped his fingers joyfully.
Molly reached for the bran sack. "You only shook it out," she said."I'm going to turn it inside out. Maybe we'll find something else."
They did find something else. They found a document caught in the end seam. They read it with care and great interest.
"Well," said Racey, when he came to the signatures, "no wonder Jack Harpe and Jakey Pooley wanted to get into the safe. No wonder. If we don't get the whole gang now we're no good."
"And to think we never thought of such a thing."
"I was took in. I never thought anything else. And it does lie just right for a cow ranch."
"Of course it does. You couldn't help being fooled. None of us had any idea—"
"I'd oughta worked it out," he grumbled. "There ain't any excuse for my swallowing what Jack Harpe told me. Lordy, I was easy."
"What do you care now? Everything's all right, and you've got me, haven't you?" And here she leaned across the bran sack to kiss him.
She could not understand why his return kiss lacked warmth.
* * * * *
"Sun's been up two hours," he announced. "And the hosses have had a good rest. We'd better be goin'."
"What are you climbing the tree for, then?" she demanded.
"I want to look over our back trail," he told her, clambering into the branches of a tall cedar. "I know we covered a whole heap of ground last night, but you never can tell."
Apparently you never could tell. For, when he arrived near the top of the cedar and looked out across a sea of treetops to the flat at the base of the mountain, he saw that which made him catch his breath and slide earthward in a hurry.
"What is it?" asked Molly in alarm at his expression.
"They picked up our trail somehow," he answered, whipping up a blanket and saddle and throwing both on her horse. "They're about three miles back on the flat just a-burnin' the ground."
"Saddle your own horse," she cried, running to his side. "I'll attend to mine."
"You stuff all the papers back in the sack. That's yore job. Hustle, now. I'll get you out of this. Don't worry."
"I'm not worrying—not a worry," she said, cheerfully, both hands busy with Luke Tweezy's papers. "I'd like to know how they picked up the trail after our riding up that creek for six miles."
"I dunno," said he, his head under an upflung saddle-fender. "I shore thought we'd lost 'em."
She stopped tying the sack and looked at him. "How silly we are!" she cried. "All we have to do is show these two letters to the posse an'—"
"S'pose now the posse is led by Jack Harpe and Jakey Pooley," said he, not ceasing to pass the cinch strap.
Her face fell. "I never thought of that," she admitted. "But there must be some honest men in the bunch."
"It takes a whole lot to convince an honest man when he's part of a posse," Racey declared, reaching for the bran sack. "They don't stop to reason, a posse don't, and this lot of Marysville gents wouldn't give us time to explain these two letters, and before they got us back to town, the two letters would disappear, and then where would we be? We'd be in jail, and like to stay awhile."
"Let's get out of here," exclaimed Molly, crawling her horse even quicker than Racey did his.
Racey led the way along the mountain side for three or four miles. Most of the time they rode at a gallop and all the time they took care to keep under cover of the trees. This necessitated frequent zigzags, for the trees grew sparsely in spots.
"There's a slide ahead a ways," Racey shouted to the girl. "She's nearly a quarter-mile wide, and over two miles long, so we'll have to take a chance and cross it."
Molly nodded her wind-whipped head and Racey snatched a wistful glance at the face he loved. Renunciation was in his eyes, for that second letter found caught in the bran sack's seam had changed things. He could not marry her. No, not now. And yet he loved her more than ever. She looked at him and smiled, and he smiled back—crookedly.
"What's the matter?" she cried above the drum of the flying hoofs.
"Nothing," he shouted back.
He hoped she believed him. And bitter almonds were not as bitter as that hope.
Then the wide expanse of the slide was before them. Now some slides have trails across their unstable backs, and some have not. Some are utterly unsafe to cross and others can be crossed with small risk. There was no trail across this particular slide, and it did not present a dangerous appearance. Neither does quicksand—till you step on it.
Racey dismounted at the edge and started across, leading his horse. Twenty yards in the rear Molly Dale followed in like manner. At every step the footing gave a little. Once a rounded rock dislodged by the forefoot of Racey's horse bounded away down the long slope.
The slither of a started rock behind him made him turn his head with a jerk. Molly's horse was down on its knees.
"Easy, boy, easy," soothed Molly, coaxingly, keeping the bridle reins taut.
The horse scrambled up and plunged forward, and almost overran Molly. She seized it short by the rein-chains. The horse pawed nervously and tried to rear. More rocks skidded downward under the shove of the hind hoofs. To Racey's imagination the whole slide seemed to tremble.
Molly's face when the horse finally quieted and she turned around was pale and drawn. Which was not surprising.
"It's all right, it's all right, it's all right," Racey found himself repeating with stiff lips.
"Of course it is," nodded Molly, bravely. "There's no danger!"
"No," said Racey. "Better not hold him so short. Don't wind that rein round yore wrist! S'pose he goes down you'd go, too. Here, you lemme take him. I'll manage him all right."
"I'll manage him all right myself!" snapped Molly, up in arms immediately at this slur upon her horsemanship. "You go on."
Racey turned and went on. It was not more than a hundred yards to where the grass grew on firm ground. Racey and his horse reached solid earth without incident. Then—a scramble, a scraping, and a clattering followed in a breath by the indescribable sound of a mass of rocks in motion.
Racey had wasted no time in looking to see what had happened. He knew. At the first sound of disaster he had snapped his rope strap, freed his rope and taken two half hitches round the horn. Then he leaped toward the slide, shaking out his rope as he went.
Twenty feet out and below him Molly Dale and her struggling horse were sliding downward. If the horse had remained quiet—but the horse was not remaining quiet and Molly's wrist was tangled in the bridle reins.
In the beginning the movement was slow, but as Racey reached the edge of the slide an extra strong plunge of the horse drove both girl and animal downward two yards in a breath. Molly turned a white face upward.
"So long, Racey," she called, bravely, and waved her free hand.
But Racey was going down to her with his rope in one hand. With the other hand and his teeth he was opening his pocket-knife. The loose stones skittered round his ankles and turned under his boot soles. He took tremendous steps and, with that white face below him, lived an age between each step.
"Grab the rope above my hand!" he yelled, although by now she was not a yard from him.
Racey was closer to the end of his rope than he realized. At the instant that her free hand clutched at the rope it tightened with a jerk as the cow pony at the other end, feeling the strain and knowing his business, braced his legs and swayed backward. Molly's fingers brushed the back of Racey's hand and swept down his arm. Well it was for him that he had taken two turns round his wrist, for her forearm went round his neck and almost the whole downward pull of girl and horse exerted itself against the strength of Racey Dawson's arm and shoulder muscles.
Molly's face and chin were pressed tightly against Racey's neck. Small blame to her if her eyes were closed. The arm held fast by the bridle was cruelly stretched and twisted. And where the rein was tight across the back of her wrist, for he could reach no lower, Racey set the blade of his pocket-knife and sawed desperately. It was not a sharp knife and the leather was tough. The steel did not bite well. Racey sawed all the harder. His left arm felt as if it were being wrenched out of its socket. The sweat was pouring down his face. His hat jumped from his head. He did not even wonder why. He must cut that bridle rein in two. He must—he must.