ONE-EYE SEES DEATH
The Lone Ranger stood close to his horse at the edge of the Basin where thick foliage marked the beginning of the rise of Thunder Mountain. He strained his eyes and ears to detect what he could in the Basin. Motionless and tense, the masked man waited like a hunter that tried to catch a scent from a wind that held its breath. He heard the usual night sounds of cattle, katydids, and frogs. There was an occasional call from a creature of the forest that rose behind him. Nothing more.
On the downward path, the masked man had met no one. He had dismounted on several occasions to examine the trail by matchlight, and near the bottom, where itwas overgrown with weeds, he had lighted a candle to inspect it further. He found that many head of cattle had traveled where the path was smooth, but the beef had been fanned out in many directions near the bottom of the mountain and driven into the Basin at several points. He decided that this had been done so that a path would not be seen from the Basin itself.
The Lone Ranger guided Silver back among the trees where the white coat wouldn't be so obvious if someone rode near. He whispered softly, then left the horse untethered.
He paused to make sure that his mask was snugly in place. It had become so much a part of him that he couldn't be sure of its presence unless he felt it with his hand. When Tonto had, at first, suggested wearing the mask all the time, he had thought it a bit dramatic, perhaps even silly, but consideration made him realize that he already was hampered by the determination not to shoot to kill, by great odds, and by the weakness of his wounds and recent fever. He might have to fight, to rope and shoot, and the mask must be no handicap. He checked his guns, making sure that they were fully loaded by replacing the shell that had been used to disarm Rangoon. Then he was ready.
An experienced black cat stalking a nervous bird could be no more quiet than was the Lone Ranger as he moved across the Basin. His clothing had no flapping superfluities; he wore no jingling spurs; his guns were tied down so that the holsters could not slap his legs. Boots oiled to preclude the slightest possibility of any squeaking leather, he moved swiftly and surely toward the buildingsof the ranch. He saw the house and, not far from it, the row of lighted squares that marked the bunkhouse.
Halfway to the buildings, the Lone Ranger froze. He wondered if his eyes were playing tricks, or if he actually had seen someone, or something, move at one end of the bunkhouse. Now he saw a moving figure in the beam of light that slanted from a rear window. In an instant, whatever he saw was obscured by the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder. Silver was well out of sight. His own dark clothing would be barely visible unless someone were quite close to him.
Then he heard the sound of hoofs. A horse and rider appeared as a vague shadow against the lighted bunkhouse windows. The masked man dropped flat on his stomach, hugging the ground as closely as possible. The rider was coming straight toward him.
He drew a pistol, holding it in readiness if he should be seen. He knew that his hat was light, and might attract attention, but he dared not move it. He felt the ground tremble with the beat of hoofs. He heard the crack of a quirt, cruelly applied, and a man's husky voice. Now the rider was almost upon him, without slackening his speed. The racing horse looked tremendous as it passed within twenty feet of the Lone Ranger. It was impossible to tell who was in the saddle. All details were shrouded by the darkness, but whoever that horseman was, he was in a hurry. He swept across the Basin toward the foot of Thunder Mountain, and the last the masked man saw was the barely perceptible shadow breaking through the underbrush that hid the uphill trail.
The Lone Ranger presently rose to his feet, waited several seconds, and then moved ahead again. This time his destination was the bunkhouse. He could call on Bryant and Penelope later. First, he would investigate to learn, if possible, the reason for the unknown rider's sudden departure.
There was no sound from within the bunkhouse. The masked man advanced toward the side of the long and rather narrow one-story building. The rear, from which the unknown rider had started, was on his right, the front of the building on his left. He could see that a door which opened out was wide, but from his point of view the Lone Ranger couldn't see the inside of the place.
He could hear something going on inside the ranch house, a couple of hundred feet away, but couldn't distinguish the sounds clearly enough to know what they might mean. "Go there," he muttered, "later on."
With increasing caution, he approached the objective until his back was pressed close to the slab side of the bunkhouse at the corner between the lighted windows and the open door. Still there was no sound inside. His gun in readiness, he rounded the corner and looked in the door. He saw a well-lighted room. Double-deck bunks lined each of the side walls, divided by a narrow aisle. In the front part of the room there was one large table, and several chairs. At least twenty men slept here, but now there was no one in sight.
The table had held a poker game which seemed to have been interrupted suddenly. Freshly dealt cards lay face down on the table as they had fallen, before the chairs of the players. The room was littered with battered pictures,extra boots, blanket rolls, and other paraphernalia that would naturally be accumulated by those who slept there. The Lone Ranger stepped inside and drew the door shut behind him.
At the poker table he paused and examined a few of the cards. Riffling through them he came across two aces. He held these cards close to a coal-oil lamp and studied their backs. In one corner, he found a barely discernible indentation that might have been made by a fingernail. He nodded slowly.
"Looks like it might be Slick Lonergan," he mused. Slick hadn't been seen in any of his familiar haunts since the time he had disappeared before a trial in which he was to be questioned about a murder. The Lone Ranger knew Lonergan's entire background; a crooked gambler, a crafty lawyer, and a shrewd schemer, who should have been jailed long ago, but who had repeatedly found loopholes that served as ratholes for him to slip through and remain free.
Leaving the table, the Lone Ranger began a quick but systematic search of the building. He moved down the aisle, studying the possessions near each bunk. He found a handbill that had Rangoon's picture on it, but the name at the time of its printing was Abe Larkin. Larkin apparently hadn't taken any pains to hide the fact that he was wanted by the law.
Once he thought he heard a faint, low moan from somewhere close at hand. He stood attentive, but the sound was not repeated. He continued in his search, oppressed by a somewhat guilty feeling as a prowler and an unexplainablesensation that there was someone else in the bunkhouse with him.
He studied two more bunks and then heard the moan again. This time it was unmistakable. The Lone Ranger hurried to the far end of the bunkhouse, and there, in the lower bunk on his right, he found a man unconscious. The window over the head of the still form was open. It was outside this window that the unknown rider had been first seen.
The unconscious man—the Lone Ranger could see in the dim light that he was old—was shadowed by the shelf-like bunk of the second tier. The Lone Ranger unhooked a lamp that swung from the ceiling and placed it so that the light fell across the bald head, which lay in a widening pool of red. He jerked his bandanna from a pocket and soused it in a near-by water pitcher; then he bathed the old fellow's face. A tremulous soft sob broke through the white mustache. The eyes of the wounded man fluttered slightly, then stared up. There was an empty socket where the left eye should have been, but the other eye was bright with pain.
"Take it easy," the Lone Ranger whispered. "I'm going to have a look at that wound and see what we can do for you. Don't try to speak just yet—wait a little."
He turned the old man gently to his side and saw the handle of a knife protruding from high up on one shoulder. The blade was out of sight. He didn't touch the knife—there was no use. The wound was fatal; Gimlet at best had only a few minutes.
He applied more water to the old man's face and forehead. "Tell me, if you can, who did this?" he said.
Gimlet's lips moved feebly, but no words came.
"Do you know who stabbed you?" asked the Lone Ranger. "One word, just the name of the man, can you tell me that?"
Gimlet lifted one hand very feebly, and pointed toward the open window.
The Lone Ranger nodded. "I know, he stabbed you through that window. Tell me who it was."
The dying man seemed to be gathering himself for one supreme effort. He swallowed hard; his eyelids closed, then opened.
"Tried," he said, then coughed and started again. "I—I tried tuh—get Yuma—His bunk here—" More coughing choked the words. Blood drooled from the side of the old man's mouth and stained his white mustache. The Lone Ranger pressed water from his handkerchief against Gimlet's lips.
"I heard you," he said softly, "I heard what you said. You tried to get Yuma. Yuma is a man who works here?"
Gimlet nodded.
"You said this was his bunk?"
Again the slowly moving head went down and up.
"Tell me some more. What about Yuma?"
"Felt o' his bunk ... lookin' tuh see...." Gimlet had to pause for a fit of coughing so violent that it hardly seemed his fast-ebbing strength could stand it. When he finished, his breath came in short and painful gasps. "The ... the house," he managed to say. He struggled hard, fighting the Grim Specter every step of its advancing way. There was more he wanted desperately to tell. The old man was upon that borderline between the livingand the dead. From his position, he seemed to see things in their true light. He looked beyond the mask and saw a man he knew could be trusted. His gnarled, blue-veined hand clutched that of the Lone Ranger while he fought hard to make a last statement. The masked man leaned close to him, to catch the dying words if they were uttered. But whatever Gimlet was about to say went with him across the last threshold. His hand clutched convulsively and then relaxed. He coughed once, and brought a flood of his life's blood to his mouth, and then lay back.
The masked man felt and found no pulse. He closed the old man's fingers and laid them across the bony chest.
"Yuma," he muttered. "This was Yuma's bunk. I wonder who Yuma is and where I'll find him?"
His thoughts came to a lurching halt when a sharp voice snarled a curse with cataclysmic violence.
"Yuh damned murderin' skunk, I'll kill yuh fer this!" It was Yuma who shouted from the doorway.
PENELOPE SIGNS HER NAME
Yuma swept the poker table aside and sent it clattering and crashing against the wall. The Lone Ranger had no chance to deny the accusation the man from Arizona hurled. Anything he said would have fallen on unhearing ears. Yuma ignored his guns and, lowering his head, charged like an infuriated bull, sweeping down the aisle between the bunks and gathering power and speed as he advanced.
The masked man had no chance to dodge, no place to dodge to. He was trapped between the bunks on each side of the narrow space down which the cowboy rushed. His gun half-drawn, he dropped it back in leather. Nothingbut a death slug would stop Yuma. He was blind to any threat of shooting.
Then Yuma struck with the force of a battering ram. The Lone Ranger staggered back from the terrific impact of the heavy shoulder flush against his chest. Intense pain stabbed his own bandaged shoulder, and brilliant lights seemed to dance before his eyes. He barely saw the huge, balled fist that Yuma swung to follow up his charge. Almost without thought, the Lone Ranger turned his head quickly to roll it with the punch and take a glancing blow instead of one that might have smashed his jaw. He fell back several paces, fighting to stay on his feet until his reeling senses could function coherently.
Yuma's face was livid. He swung again, bringing his left up almost from the floor, but this time the masked man dodged the blow, then set himself for defense. He could barely move his left arm. He thought the wound must have been reopened by the awful onslaught. Yuma was reaching out with both hands, trying to wrap his heavy arms around the lithe Lone Ranger and crush him to the floor. The space was far too limited for such maneuvering, so the masked man let his knees collapse and dropped like a plummet while the adversary clutched at empty air. Then the Lone Ranger shot up from his crouch as if his legs were coiled steel springs. He brought his right fist up with the full whipcorded strength of his good arm, augmented by the muscles of the legs. His aim was perfect and his timing likewise. He felt his hard fist crash against the point of Yuma's chin and saw the cowboy's head snap back.
Pain and fury made Yuma careless and too eager. While still off balance from the blow that hurt, he tried to swing a roundhouse left. The Lone Ranger stepped inside the arc of that tremendous swing and jabbed another right to Yuma's nose, then chopped a hard blow to the unprotected jaw.
Yuma, it appeared, could take terrific punishment. Those blows of the Lone Ranger were short, but they were hard. Strong men had often dropped before those jabs, but Yuma kept on fighting. His fists swung wildly while he kept up a continual string of cursing threats.
The Lone Ranger's strength was nearly gone. He admired the ability of Yuma to stand up beneath his rain of rights. He dared not use his left and tear that shoulder wound still further.
"How long," he wondered, "in the name of Mercy, how long can he keep this up?" He knew that any one of the wild blows, if it landed true, would knock him out. Then his campaign would end before it got well started.
Again, and still again, he drove his right fist flush against the big man's face. Blood streamed from Yuma's nose, and a cut was opened over his right eye. He gave ground now, backing toward the door of the bunkhouse, while the Lone Ranger advanced.
How long it might have gone on is hard to say, but Yuma backed against the upturned table, lost his balance, and went over backward. His head smacked hard against the floor. For an instant Yuma tried to rise; though totally unconscious, his stout fighter's heart fighting on. Then his eyes rolled up and he went limp.
Breathing hard, almost gasping, the Lone Ranger crouched beside his fallen enemy. He found that Yuma, though bumped hard, was probably not seriously injured. He opened the door and sucked deep, satisfying drinks of the cool night air until his breathing was more nearly normal and his throbbing head stopped spinning. Then he turned once more to the unconscious man.
"What a fighter," he thought admiringly. "What a man!"
But he must not linger here too long. There was still the all-important business at the ranch house.
He saw a horse standing just outside the bunkhouse. There was a blanket roll strapped behind the saddle, and saddlebags that bulged. He glanced toward the ranch house, but saw no sign that anyone had heard the fight.
"Even if this isn't that man's horse," he decided, "it will have to do for the time being."
He dragged the heavy form of the unconscious man to the side of the horse and then, sparing his throbbing left arm as much as possible, hoisted Yuma across the saddle in a highly uncomfortable position. Yuma's head, shoulders, and arms drooped on one side, as the cowboy's belly rested on the saddle and his legs balanced him on the other side. The masked man used Yuma's own rope to tie him securely in place. The man was going to prove something of a problem, but the Lone Ranger wanted to keep him to question him at length when he recovered consciousness.
Already the masked man had been widely side-tracked in his plan to call on Bryant and Penny for a conference, but one of the qualities that contributed to his latergreatness was his ability to revise his plans continually to suit changing conditions, or to reject plans altogether and replace them by new ones.
He wanted Silver near him now, but the stallion was far across the level stretch, concealed at the foot of the mountain.
"If anyone had been near enough to hear," he thought, "the sound of that fight would certainly have brought them. I'll take a chance."
He whistled sharply, and heard a responsive whinny come back to him from the darkness. He stood tense and guarded, waiting for anything his whistle might have brought, but no one came. Pounding hoofs, however, announced the approach of Silver as the stallion beat across the grass. Still no sign of any other presence.
The Lone Ranger didn't know, then, that the solid timber walls of the big rambling house where Penny and her cousins were faced by Sawtell and his men were practically soundproof. The quality that made it impossible for the masked man's whistle or the noise of the fight to be heard inside the house likewise muffled the sounds in the house, so that the masked man didn't hear the pleas and cries of Vince and Jeb Cavendish.
Leading Yuma's horse with its unconscious burden, the Lone Ranger moved away from the lighted bunkhouse and met Silver in the darkness. He fumbled in a pocket for a pencil, then scribbled a hurried message on paper from a saddlebag and tied it to the pommel of his saddle.
He knew that some hard rider had already gone up the Thunder Mountain trail. If it were in the cards for someone to find, talk with, and perhaps release Rangoon,this would have already transpired, and Tonto's mission would be finished.
"Now," he said softly to Silver, "go find Tonto."
He slapped the white horse firmly, repeating the name "Tonto." Silver tossed his head and rushed away.
The masked man made another quick examination of his prisoner. He found him still unconscious, but the pulse was steady, and the breathing normal. Assured that nothing was seriously wrong, he led the loaded horse to the ranch house, walked to one side of the building, and tossed the reins about a post. Then, on soundless feet, he stepped upon the porch. He felt in his pocket and found the silver bullet Penelope had refused. It served to remind him that he owed the girl a debt that would be hard to repay.
He must, he decided, catch Bryant by surprise before the old man could shout for help; must speak quickly, reassure the man and make him listen to the purpose of the call. He opened the outer door without a sound, and then heard Penny's voice.
The girl sat between Lonergan and Lombard at a round table near the fireplace. Sawtell was in another chair a little distant, keeping one eye on a red-hot poker in the coals, the other on two bound men on the floor. Vince was whimpering like a beaten cur, while Penny looked at him with disgust evident in her face.
"I won't never ferget this, Cousin Penny, honest tuh God I won't," said Vince. "As sure as hell yer savin' us from havin' our eyes burned out with that poker."
"I haven't signed this agreement yet," the girl replied.
"But yuh will, you've got tuh, yuh know blamed well that Uncle Bryant is waitin' fer Sawtell tuh take it to him in Red Oak. Hurry up an' sign it."
Lonergan dipped a pen in a bottle of ink and held it toward the girl.
"Here you are," he said suavely, as he pointed to a line at the bottom of a long page of close writing. "Sign right there beneath the others and then we'll sign as witnesses."
Penelope took the pen and tapped the un-inked end meditatively against her small, even teeth.
"Just let me get everything straight," she said. "In the first place, if Uncle Bryant doesn't want to leave his property to us, he doesn't need to. He can make a will, can't he?"
Lonergan nodded and glanced at Sawtell.
"Tell her," the bland-faced man suggested.
Lonergan went into a lengthy discourse on the legality of wills that left estates to others than the blood relations, and told how there had been times in courts of law when those wills had been contested.
"Bryant's one desire," he went on, "is to leave his outfit to someone and have no question about the will being valid. He wants all four nephews and you to sign to the effect that you relinquish all claims whatsoever to the Basin property for a consideration not described." Lonergan didn't make it as simple as he might have done. He seemed to gloat in the opportunity to air his knowledge of legal phrases and quote from his experiences as a lawyer in the East.
"Doesn't it," asked Penny, "make some difference when the signature is secured by threat of torture?"
Lonergan smiled, "Of course."
"If I don't sign you'll use that red-hot iron on Vince and Jeb."
"That would be hard to prove," suggested Lonergan.
Sawtell broke in impatiently.
"Hurry up and sign—we can't wait all night."
"One thing more," said Penny. "What about Wallie, and Mort?"
"Bryant'll get their names signed when we take that paper to town."
Penny still hesitated. She knew everything was topsy-turvy. There were lies and liars on every side; no one could be trusted. She wondered why all the cries hadn't brought old Gimlet from the kitchen. She almost wished that she had left when Yuma wanted her to go with him.
"Look," said Penny suddenly. "I've been listening to what you've said. Now suppose you listen to me for just a minute. I'm going to sign this paper, simply because it won't make a particle of difference to me. If anything happened to Uncle Bryant, I'd want no part of this ranch as long as the place is infested with vermin."
Lonergan showed resentment at this statement, and leaned forward to speak, but a glance at Sawtell changed his mind. The smooth-faced killer held up a silencing hand. Lonergan relaxed.
Penelope looked at Vince.
"You," she said hotly, "turn my stomach! I know very well that you and Mort have been scheming all along. You helped Rangoon kill those Texas Rangers. You'reas much to blame for Becky's murder as Mort. You told him he had to shut her up."
Vince looked wide-eyed at his cousin as she went on.
"You're nothing but a little squirt without spunk enough to evenlooklike a man, let aloneactlike one. You've been whimpering like a whipped cur, trying to arouse a lot of sympathy with your crocodile tears. Well, I knew all along that you were faking. Now don't you feel like a jackass?"
As Penelope warmed to the subject, all the bitterness of the past weeks found outlet in her lashing words.
"Maybe this is Uncle Bryant's desire. If so, it's all right with me, but I'm going to find out what's possessed him to turn on me. If itisn'this idea,I'll find that out, too."
She turned toward Jeb. "As for you, I'm sorry for you. You're a worthless dreamer. You might have been an artist or a writer or a poet, if you hadn't been too lazy to get some education. As it is you're not worth a plugged dime to anyone, least of all to these crooks. As soon as they're satisfied that you can't help them, they'll kill you." Jeb squirmed uneasily in his ropes. "You'relittlemen, both of you, and so are your brothers."
The girl jabbed the pen into the ink and rapidly signed her name to the paper.
"You can have your paper all signed as you want it," she said, almost trembling with the white heat of her rage. "Take it to Bryant, if that's what you're going to do, and tell him that as long as those kids are upstairs, without anyone to take care of them, a six-in-hand can'tdrag me from here, and as soon as Wallie brings that woman he promised to, there isn't any power on earth cankeepme here."
She thrust the paper, signed, toward Sawtell. "Here you are, and have fun while you can, because pretty soon someone is going to ask a lot of questions about six murdered Texas Rangers."
"I'll take that," a new voice said. All eyes turned toward the door. A tall man with lean hips and broad shoulders stood there; a man whose hat was white, whose face was masked.
"Who the hell are you?" barked Lonergan.
The masked man stepped forward, reaching for the paper.
"I'll be damned before you—" started Lombard, as he rose from his chair. A gun appeared as if by magic in the tall masked man's right hand. Lombard fell back before the weapon's threat.
"Who is he?" "Whar'd he come from?" "How'd he git here?"
There was a chorus of amazed exclamations. There were threats: "Yuh won't git away with this"; "Yuh better drop them guns afore we git mad"; "You won't leave this Basin alive." But no one made a move of aggression. The Lone Ranger glanced quickly at the document, folded it, and tucked it in the pocket of his shirt while his gun remained steady, covering the room at large.
"I gathered from what I heard that Bryant Cavendish has gone to Red Oak," he said. "If this paper is for him, none of you need worry, because I'll take it to him."
The expression on Penelope's flushed face was a mixture of admiration and resentment. She stared at the intruder, liking him instinctively in spite of herself. She couldn't understand his part in the grim drama that seemed to be unfolding on a circular stage while she stood in the center.
A GAMBLER TALKS
The masked man studied Vince and then the others in turn. He could feel the electric tension in the room. The killers were motionless and silent, returning his gaze with crafty eyes, watching for the slightest relaxation that would give them the split second required to drop a hand and fire from the hip. The Lone Ranger knew this type, and didn't underestimate them. They were expert gunmen who would kill without compunction. When he spoke, his voice was low, but every word was sharp and distinct.
"It's something of a surprise to learn that three men who are wanted so badly by the law have stayed closeby. You might have done better to have gotten out of Texas."
None of the men replied. Penelope watched the masked man as if hypnotized. Twice now he had arrived at a crisis. In spite of herself, she found that she was trusting him.
"Of course, you felt secure here," the Lone Ranger went on. "You knew that Thunder Mountain would make a fine hideout in case any law men managed to get through the Gap. You cleared out a trail and a campsite, and then concealed it. You felt pretty safe, or you wouldn't have stayed here."
"Won't yuh cut us loose?" pleaded Vince.
"Where are the rest of the men who work here?" asked the masked man.
"They went tuh town," said Vince, "right after the buryin'. They made a sort o' holiday of it. They'll be comin' back."
The masked man turned slightly toward Penny, still however watching the others. He would ask later about the burial.
"How many of those other men are wanted by the law?"
"I don't know. I don't know but the whole pack of them are crooked. They must be. If they weren't, they'd get out, like Yuma did."
"Yuma?"
"He tried to persuade me to leave here. I wish to Heaven I could have. I thought I could depend on Uncle Bryant, but now—" Penny broke off in doubt.
The Lone Ranger, realizing that the girl could add agreat deal to his understanding of events, pressed her for more details.
"There's time to talk later," she said.
"Talk now. Tell me more about this man, Yuma."
Penny explained how she had trusted her uncle in spite of all that had been said, how she had tried to account for his unconcern in the face of events, by thinking that his eyes must be failing. Yuma, she explained, had tried to tell her that she was mistaken in her trust. Yuma had been fired at by Bryant; had fought with him, and finally had left the Basin. She explained that it was Bryant's belief in Mort's thin alibi for murdering Rebecca that had finally showed her her mistake, and now the clincher was the paper Bryant had left for her to sign.
The Lone Ranger broke in from time to time with questions that brought out the story of Rebecca and the children upstairs. Penny told him that she felt compelled to remain for the sake of the children until Wallie returned. Gimlet, she said, was too old to take the responsibility.
"So you believe in Yuma?"
Penny nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
"I—I must."
"The last time we met," the masked man said, "I offered you something that you refused. I'm going to offer it again, and what I said then still goes." He reached one hand into a pocket, then dropped a silver bullet on the table. The men looked at it curiously. Penny glanced at it, then at the steady, level eyes behind the mask. For a time she said nothing. Then, "It means a lot to you to find out who killed those Texas Rangers, doesn't it?"
The Lone Ranger nodded. "Please," he said, "pick up that bullet. You might need it. Remember what I told you to do with it. You mentioned an old man named Gimlet."
"Yes?"
"Gimlet is dead."
The announcement was an obvious surprise to everyone. And to Penny it was much more. It was a severe shock.
"He was stabbed," the masked man explained. "I was with him when he died in the bunkhouse."
"But what was he doing there? He slept in the house here."
"I don't know why he went to the bunkhouse, but that's where I found him. He gave me the name of the man."
"Who?"
The Lone Ranger spoke slowly. "He named a fellow you mentioned a few minutes ago. He said, 'Yuma.'"
"I don't believe it!" declared Penny hotly. "Yuma was Gimlet's friend. Yuma was my friend too. He tried to reason with Uncle Bryant, and when he couldn't he left here. Oh, no, no, no! Yuma wouldn't murder anyone, least of all old Gimlet." Penny picked up the silver bullet and clutched it in her tiny fist. "There must be a mistake," she sobbed.
"If Yuma didn't kill him," said the Lone Ranger, "we'll soon know who did. In the meantime, I'll take this paper to Bryant to see what he has to say about it."
Lonergan, the gambler-lawyer, spoke.
"D'you mind," he drawled in a cocksure manner, "if I have a few words to say?"
"Well?"
"It strikes me, stranger, that you're in a hell of a spot right now, and you don't know just what to do about it. You're like the gent that had a wildcat by the tail and didn't dare let go."
"Go on," snapped the masked man.
Lonergan's lean fingers, resting on the table, beat a soft rhythm. He spoke with an assurance that was annoying, to say the least.
"You've ravaged the privacy of this ranch and illegally entered a private home without permission. You've flaunted that gun in our faces and asked a lot of questions. You've stolen a legal form that isn't yours by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's none of your damned business what goes on here."
"Any more to say, Lonergan?"
"Plenty. You can't stay here from now on. You don't know when the rest of the men will come back and make it hot for you. You can't prove any of the charges you've made or hinted at, or anything that the girl has said. Besides, I don't expect the law would listen to you while you're wearin' that mask. You'd like to turn us all over to the law and collect some rewards, but that'd be downright hard to handle because there's quite a few of us here and you'd have to take us through the Gap and run the risk of meeting our friends. You can't very well take the girl and the four youngsters away with you for the same reason. You leave here alone, and we'll simply make out another form like the one you've stuck in yourpocket and have the signatures made all over again. When you leave, there's a damn good chance that one of us will drill you."
Penny thought she saw uneasiness in the masked man. She glanced from him to Lonergan while she too wondered what could be done. She wanted nothing less than to be left there with those killers, especially after what she had heard about Gimlet and Yuma. Now there would be no one to witness whatever might transpire.
"Have you," asked the masked man, "any propositions?"
Penny saw the wink that Lonergan showed Sawtell; she wondered if the masked man saw it too.
"Maybe so," the gambler said. "You seem to know a lot about things here. Now just forget what you know, take off that mask, and let us see who you are, and then either join up with us or ride away and keep your mouth shut."
The tall stranger seemed to be considering. Penny wanted to scream out a warning that he would never be allowed to leave the place alive. He would be killed, no matter what his decision might be.
Lonergan went on.
"You must have brains enough to realize that you wouldn't be able to prove that any of us had a hand in murdering those Texas Rangers. Why, we could even prove wedidn'tdo it, by the footprints of an Indian around the place where they've been buried."
So the graves had been found. The masked man added this minute detail to his stored-up knowledge.
"Anyone can see," went on Lonergan, "that they must have been ambushed by Indians. Maybe old Gimlet, who took a message in to town for Captain Blythe, had a hand in framing them for murder. Gimlet might have had an old grudge he wanted to settle with Texas Rangers. He's been around here for a good many years, you know."
"I admit," the masked man said, "it would be pretty hard to prove who killed those men, but cattle-stealing is a different matter. Furthermore, the law wants you men for other things."
"As forus," Lonergan argued, "the law'd have to find us first. As for the cattle-stealing, when we sell cattle the brands areright. We haven't sold a head that hasn't had the Cavendish brand."
Penny felt the world fall still further apart when the man she had begun to trust said, "What if I join up with you?"
Lombard and Sawtell looked admiringly at Lonergan and more than ever appreciated his glib tongue.
"In that case, you'd split the proceeds like the rest of us."
"But what about the stolen cattle?"
Lonergan shook his head.
"Never can be traced here," he said. "We bring them down the mountain trail from the top of Thunder Mountain; we shove them in with older cows and run a new brand. We got a dozen brands recorded to work with. We keep the cattle here until the scar has healed to look old; meanwhile we take cattle from the last batch up the trail and sell them. We don't have no trouble at all."
Penelope could see Lonergan's purpose. He was a gambler and playing at his game. He told everything that would occupy time, knowing that at any minute some of the men would be returning from Red Oak. He was betting that the masked man could never use that information.
She saw the tall stranger apparently considering the offer to join the gang. Why, in the name of Heaven, couldn't this masked man realize what Lonergan was doing? Why didn't he come here with some concrete plan instead of bungling in to find himself so helpless, even though he held a gun on the others?
"You have a pretty well-greased machine for stealing cattle," the Lone Ranger said in admiration, "and as you say, it would be almost impossible for me to do much in fighting against you."
"That's right," agreed Lonergan. "Now put up that gun and take off the mask, an' we'll talk."
"But first tell me who I'm taking orders from."
"Sawtell."
The masked man shook his head.
"There's someone giving him orders; who is that?"
A crafty look came into Lonergan's cadaverous face.
"You mentioned his name a while ago." He glanced at Penny, and said, "Yuma."
Hoofs clattered close outside the house. Penny felt that now there surely would be a climax of events, and she was right. The masked man's manner changed abruptly. He listened for a moment as the hoofbeats stopped. A trace of a smile showed on his lips. His uncertainty gave way to grim and vigorous speech.
"You've wondered and asked," he snapped, "what I was going to do here. Now you'll find out."
Something about the transformation in the masked man made Penny want to shout. She felt that her trust in him had not been misplaced after all. The Lone Ranger shoved the table back, then kicked a hooked rug away from its place on the plank floor.
"This house has stood here a good many years," he said. "Before Bryant came here, it was used as a hiding place for army supplies when the Indians were bad. I've been told by a lot of old timers that there's a vault beneath this floor."
Penny knew about the vault. The trap door in the floor that led to it had been hidden by the carpet, but now it was exposed.
"That vault," continued the masked man, "was also used to hold prisoners when it wasn't convenient to move them. Well, it's going to be used to hold prisoners again."
Watching the men, still holding his gun on them, he threw back the trap door with a bang.
Lonergan's poker face was changed. Baffled fury showed in his black, snapping eyes. Lombard swore and Sawtell squinted grimly while his lips compressed to a thin line.
"Get down there," commanded the masked man. "All of you."
Lonergan went first, very slowly, dragging his steps until the masked man prodded him hard with his gun, after disarming him.
"You two can take those men you've tied up," theLone Ranger told Sawtell and Lombard, as he drew their guns from the holsters and tossed them aside.
Despite their pleas, Vince and Jeb were hauled down the steep and rotting ladder to the damp windowless vault, walled in by stone, beneath the floor.
"At least untie us," cried Vince.
"Your pals can do that."
"It's unholy," cried Jeb. "Yuh can't put me with them killers. This ain't the will o' the Lord fer me tuh suffer sech company."
"At least," yelled Lombard from the depths, "give us a light down here."
The Lone Ranger dropped the door in place and bolted it.
"It'll be hard for them to open it from down below," he told Penelope, "but just to make sure they stay there for the time being, we'll brace it."
He moved the heavy table over the trap door, and on this piled a chair. Five-foot lengths of firewood were stacked near the fireplace, and one of these reached from the chair to the rafter of the room.
"If they want to push their way out of that," commented the masked man, "they'll have to push the roof off this house."
"But Yuma, I know he isn't—"
The Lone Ranger gripped the trembling hand of the girl firmly.
"Please don't jump to conclusions," he admonished her. "We're not going to take a thing for granted."
"But everything else they said was true. Thatmustbe what they've been doing to steal the cattle. The stockhere haven't increased in numbers a great deal. Lonergan told the truth about everything else."
"We'll see."
"And that horse that came up. Someone has returned from Red Oak."
The masked man shook his head. "No one has come from Red Oak yet. That horse you heard was Silver. I sent him after my friend."
"Me come."
Penny turned sharply and saw Tonto standing in the doorway.
The Indian looked troubled. "You come quick," he told the Lone Ranger. "There plenty trouble. Tonto tell you."
The man in the mask nodded quickly. "Remember that bullet," he told Penny. "Don't worry and take good care of those kids upstairs. You have plenty of loaded weapons here. If those men below make trouble, shoot a warning through the floor."
The Lone Ranger left the room and went outside with Tonto.