The mare herself was in a far from safe condition. And if the marshal had roused himself from his grief and hurried up the slope on foot he would have found the fugitive out of the saddle and walking by the side of the played-out Sally, forcing her with slaps on the hip to keep in motion. She went on, stumbling, her head down, and the sound of her breathing was a horrible thing to hear. But she must keep in motion, for, if she stopped in this condition, Sally would never run again.
Andrew forced her relentlessly on. At length her head came up a little and her breathing was easier and easier. Before dark that night he came on a deserted shanty, and there he took Sally under the shelter, and, tearing up the floor, he built a fire which dried them both. The following day he walked again, with Sally following like a dog at his heels. One day later he was in the saddle again, and Sally was herself once more. Give her one feed of grain, and she would have run again that famous race from beginning to end.But Andrew, stealing out of the Roydon mountains into the lower ground, had no thought of another race. He was among a district of many houses, many men, and, for the final stage of his journey, he waited until after dusk had come and then saddled Sally and cantered into the valley.
It was late on the fourth night after he left Los Toros that Andrew came again to the house of John Merchant and left Sally in the very place among the trees where the pinto had stood before. There was no danger of discovery on his approach, for it was a wild night of wind and rain. The drizzling mists of the last three days had turned into a steady downpour, and rivers of water had been running from his slicker on the way to the ranch house. Now he put the slicker behind the saddle, and from the shelter of the trees surveyed the house.
It was bursting with music and light; sometimes the front door was opened and voices stole out to him; sometimes even through the closed door he heard the ghostly tinkling of some girl's laughter.
And that was to Andrew the most melancholy sound in the world.
The rain, trickling even through the foliage of the evergreen, decided him to act at once. It might be that all the noise and light were, after all, an advantage to him, and, running close to the ground, he skulked across the dangerous open stretch and came into the safe shadow of the wall of the house.
Once there, it was easy to go up to the roof by one of the rain pipes, the same low roof from which he had escaped on the time of his last visit. On the roof the rush and drumming of the rain quite covered any sound he made, but he was drenched before he reached the window of Anne's room. Could he be sure that on her second visit she would have the same room? He settled that by a single glance. The curtain was not drawn, and a lamp, turned low,burned on the table beside the bed. The room was quite empty.
The window was fastened, but he worked back the fastening iron with the blade of his knife and raised himself into the room. He closed the window behind him. At once the noise of rain and the shouting of the wind faded off into a distance, and the voices of the house came more clearly to him. But he dared not stay to listen, for the water was dripping around him; he must move before a large dark spot showed on the carpet, and he saw, moreover, exactly where he could best hide. There was a heavily curtained alcove at one end of the room, and behind this shelter he hid himself.
And here he waited. How would she come? Would there be someone with her? Would she come laughing, with all the triumph of the dance bright in her face?
Vaguely he heard the shrill droning of the violins die away beneath him, and the slipping of many dancing feet on a smooth floor fell to a whisper and then ceased. Voices sounded in the hall, but he gave no heed to the meaning of all this. Not even the squawking of horns, as automobiles drove away, conveyed any thought to him; he wished that this moment could be suspended to an eternity.
Parties of people were going down the hall; he heard soft flights of laughter and many young voices. People were calling gaily to one another and then by an inner sense rather than by a sound he knew that the door was opened into the room. He leaned and looked, and he saw Anne Withero close the door behind her and lean against it. In the joy of her triumph that evening?
No, her head was fallen, and he saw the gleam of her hand at her breast. He could not see her face clearly, but the bent head spoke eloquently of defeat. She came forward at length.Thinking of her as the reigning power in that dance and all the merriment below him, Andrew had been imagining her tall, strong, with compelling eyes commanding admiration. He found all at once that she was small, very small; and her hair was not that keen fire which he had pictured. It was simply a coppery glow, marvelously delicate, molding her face. She went to a great full-length mirror. She raised her head for one instant to look at her image, and then she bowed her head again and placed her hand against the edge of the mirror for support. Little by little, through the half light, he was making her out and now the curve of this arm, from wrist to shoulder, went through Andrew like a phrase of music. He stepped out from behind the curtain, and, at the sound of the cloth swishing back into place, she whirled on him.
She was speechless; her raised hand did not fall; it was as if she were frozen where she stood.
"I shall leave you at once," said Andrew quietly, "if you are frightened. You have only to tell me."
He had come closer. Now he was astonished to see her turn swiftly toward the door and touch his arm with her hand. "Hush!" she said. "Hush! They may hear you!"
She glided to the door into the hall and turned the lock softly and came to him again.
It made Andrew weak to see her so close, and he searched her face with a hungry and jealous fear, lest she should be different from his dream of her. "You are the same," he said with a sigh of relief. "And you are not afraid of me?"
"Hush! Hush!" she repeated. "Afraid of you? Don't you see that I'm happy, happy, happy to see you again?"
She drew him forward a little, and her hand touched his as she did so. She turned up the lamp, and a flood of strong yellow light went over the room. "But you have changed," said Anne Withero with a little cry. "Oh, you have changed! They've been hounding you—the cowards!"
"Does it make no difference to you—that I have killed a man."
"Ah, it was that brother to the Dozier man. But I've learned about him. He was a bloodhound like his brother, but treacherous. Besides, it was in fair fight. Fair fight? It was one against six!"
"Don't," said Andrew, breathing hard, "don't say that! You make me feel that it's almost right to have done what I've done. But besides him—all the rest—do they make no difference?"
"All of what?"
"People say things about me. They even print them." He winced as he spoke.
But she was fierce again; her passion made her tremble.
"When I think of it!" she murmured. "When I think of it, the rotten injustice makes me want to choke 'em all! Why, today I heard—I can't repeat it. It makes me sick—sick! Why, they've hounded you and bullied you until they've made you think you are bad, Andrew. They've even made you a little bit proud of the hard things people say about you. Isn't that true?"
Was it any wonder that Andrew could not answer? He felt all at once so supple that he was hot tallow which those small fingers would mold and bend to suit themselves.
"Sit down here!" she commanded.
Meekly he obeyed. He sat on the edge of his chair, with his hat held with both hands, and his eyes widened as he stared at her—like a person coming out of a great darkness into a great light.
And tears came into the eyes of the girl.
"You're as thin as a starved—wolf," she said, and closed her eyes and shuddered. "And all the time I've been thinking of you as you were when I saw you here before—the same clear, steady eyes and the same direct smile. But they've made you older—they've burned the boy out of you with pain! And I've been thinking about you just cantering through wild, gay adventures. Are you ill now?"
He had leaned back in the chair and gathered his hat close to his breast, crushing it.
"I'm not ill," said Andrew. His voice was hoarse and thick. "I'm just listening to you. Go on and talk."
"About you?" asked the girl.
"I don't hear your words—hardly; I just hear the sound you make." He leaned forward again and cast out his arm so that the palm of his hand was turned up beneath her eyes. She could see the long, lean fingers. It suddenly came home to her that every strong man in the mountain desert was in deadly terror of that hand. Anne Withero was shaken for the first time.
"Listen to me," he was saying in that tense whisper which was oddly like the tremor of his hand, "I've been hungry for that voice all these weeks—and months."
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said the girl, very grave. "I'm going to break up this cowardly conspiracy against you. I've written to my father to get the finest lawyer in the land and send him out here to make you—legal—again."
He began to smile, and shook his head.
"It's no use," he said. "Perhaps your lawyer could help me on account of Bill's death, but he couldn't help me from Hal."
"Are you—do you mean you're going to fight the other man, too?"
"He killed his horse chasing me," said Andrew. "I couldn't stop to fight him because I was comin' down here to see you. But when I go away I've got to find him and givehim a chance back at me. It's only fair."
"Because he killed a horse trying to get you, you're going to give him a chance to shoot you?"
Her voice had become shrill. She lowered it instinctively toward the end and cast a glance of apprehension toward the door.
"You are quite mad," said the girl.
"You don't understand," said Andrew. "His horse was Gray Peter—the stallion. And I would rather have killed a man than have seen Gray Peter die. Hal had Peter's head in his arms," he added softly. "And he'll never give up the trail until he's had it out with me. He wouldn't be half a man if he let things drop now."
"So you have to fight Hal Dozier?"
"Yes."
"But when that's done—"
"When that's done one of us will be dead. If it's me, of course, there's no use worryin'; if it's Hal, of course, I'm done in the eyes of the law. Two—murders!"
His eyes glinted and his fingers quivered. It sent a cold thrill through the girl.
"But they say he's a terrible man, Andrew. You wouldn't let him catch you?"
"I won't stand and wait for him," said Andrew gravely. "But if we fight I think I'll kill him."
"What makes you think that?" She was more curious than shocked.
"It's just a sort of feeling that you get when you look at a man; either you're his master or you aren't. You see it in a flash."
"Have you ever seen your master?" asked the girl slowly.
"I'll want to die when I see that," he said simply.
Suddenly she clenched her hands and sat straight up.
"It's got to be stopped," she said hotly. "It's all nonsense, and I'm going to see that you're both stopped." "Four days ago," he said, "you could have taken me in the hollow of your hand. I would have come to you and gone from you at a nod. That time is about to end."
He paused a little, and looked at her in such a manner that she was frightened, but it was a pleasant fear. It made her interlace her fingers with nervous anxiety, but it set a fire in her eyes.
"That time is ending," said Andrew. "You are about to be married."
"And after that you will never look at me again, never think of me again?"
"I hope not," he answered. "I strongly hope not."
"But why? Is a marriage a blot or a stain?"
"It is a barrier," he answered.
"Even to thoughts? Even to friendship?"
"Yes."
A very strange thing happened in the excited mind of Anne Withero. It seemed to her that Charles Merchant sat, a filmy ghost, beside this tattered fugitive. He was speaking the same words that Andrew spoke, but his voice and his manner were to Andrew Lanning what moonshine is to sunlight. She had been thinking of Charles Merchant as a social asset; she began to think of him now as a possessing force. Anne Withero possessed by Charlie Merchant!
"What you have told me," she said, "means more than you may think to me. Have you come all this distance to tell me?"
"All this distance to talk?" he said. He seemed to sit back and wonder. "Have I traveled four days?" he went on. "Has Gray Peter died, and have I been under Hal Dozier's rifle only to speak to you?" He suddenly recalled himself.
"No, no! I have come to give you a wedding present."
He watched her color change.
"Are you angry? Is it wrong to give you a present?"
"No," she answered in a singular, stifled voice. "It is this watch." It was a large gold watch and a chain of very old make that he put into her hand. "It is for your son," said Andrew.
She stood up; he rose instinctively.
"When I look at it I'm to remember that you are forgetting me?"
A little hush fell upon them.
"Are you laughing at me, Anne?"
He had never called her by her name before, and yet it came naturally upon his lips.
She stood, indeed, with the same smile upon her lips, but her eyes were fixed and looked straight past him. And presently he saw a tear pass slowly down her face. Her hand remained without moving, with the watch in it exactly as he had placed it there.
She had not stirred when he slipped without a noise through the window and was instantly swallowed in the rushing of the wind and rain.
There was, as Andrew had understood for a long time, a sort of underground world of criminals even here on the mountain desert. Otherwise the criminals could not have existed for even a moment in the face of the organized strength of lawful society. Several times in the course of his wanderings Andrew had come in contact with links of the underground chain, and he learned what every fugitive learns—the safe stopping points in the great circuit of his flight.
Three elements went into the making of that hidden society. There was first of all the circulating and active part,and this was composed of men actually known to be under the ban of the law and openly defying it. Beneath this active group lay a stratum much larger which served as a base for the operating criminals. This stratum was built entirely of men who had at one time been incriminated in shady dealings of one sort and another. It included lawbreakers from every part of the world, men who had fled first of all to the shelter of the mountain desert and who had lived there until their past was even forgotten in the lands from which they came. But they had never lost the inevitable sympathy for their more active fellows, and in this class there was included a meaner element—men who had in the past committed crimes in the mountain desert itself and who, from time to time, when they saw an absolutely safe opportunity, were perfectly ready and willing to sin again.
The third and largest of all the elements in the criminal world of the desert was a shifting and changing class of men who might be called the paid adherents of the active order. The "long riders," acting in groups or singly, fled after the commission of a crime and were forced to find places of rest and concealment along their journey. Under this grave necessity they quickly learned what people on their way could be hired as hosts and whose silence and passive aid could be bought. Such men were secured in the first place by handsome bribes. And very often they joined the ranks unwillingly. But when some peaceful householder was confronted by a desperate man, armed, on a weary horse—perhaps stained from a wound—the householder was by no means ready to challenge the man's right to hospitality. He never knew when the stranger would take by force what was refused to him freely, and, if the lawbreaker took by force, he was apt to cover his trail by a fresh killing.
Of course, such killings took place only when the "long rider" was a desperate brute rather than a man, but enough of them had occurred to call up vivid examples to everyhouseholder who was accosted. As a rule he submitted to receive the unwelcome guest. Also, as a rule, he was weak enough to accept a gift when the stranger parted. Once such a gift was taken, he was lost. His name was instantly passed on by the fugitive to his fellows as a "safe" man. Before long he became, against or with his will, a depository of secrets—banned faces became known to him. And if he suddenly decided to withdraw from that criminal world his case was most precarious.
The "long riders" admitted no neutrals. If a man had once been with them he could only leave them to become an enemy. He became open prey. His name was published abroad. Then his cattle were apt to disappear. His stacks of hay might catch fire unexpectedly at night. His house itself might be plundered, and, in not infrequent cases, the man himself was brutally murdered. It was part of a code no less binding because it was unwritten.
All of this Andrew was more or less aware of, and scores of names had been mentioned to him by chance acquaintances of the road. Such names he stored away, for he had always felt that time impending of which Henry Allister had warned him, the time when he must openly forget his scruples and take to a career of crime. That time, he now knew, was come upon him.
It would be misrepresenting Andrew to say that he shrank from the future. Rather he accepted everything that lay before him wholeheartedly, and, with the laying aside of his scruples, there was an instant lightening of the heart, a fierce keenness of mind, a contempt for society, a disregard for life beginning with his own. One could have noted it in the recklessness with which he sent Sally up the slope away from the ranch house this night.
He had made up his mind immediately to hunt out a "safe" man, recently mentioned to him by that unconscionable scapegrace Harry Woods, crooked gambler, thief ofsmall and large, and whilom murderer. The man's name was Garry Baldwin, a small rancher, some half day's ride above Sullivan's place in the valley. He was recommended as a man of silence. In that direction Andrew took his way, but, coming in the hills to a dished-out place on a hillside, where there was a natural shelter from both wind and rain, he stopped there for the rest of the night, cooked a meal, rolled himself in his blankets, and slept into the gray of the morning.
No sooner was the first light streaking the horizon to the east than Andrew wakened. He saddled Sally and, after a leisurely breakfast, started at a jog trot through the hills, taking the upslope with the utmost care. For nothing so ruins a horse as hard work uphill at the very beginning of the day. He gave Sally her head, and by letting her go as she pleased she topped the divide, breathing as easily as if she had been walking on the flat. She gave one toss of her head as she saw the long, smooth slope ahead of her, and then, without a word from Andrew or a touch of his heels, she gave herself up to the long, rocking canter which she could maintain so tirelessly for hour on hour.
A clear, cold morning came on. Indeed, it was rarely chill for the mountain desert, with a feel of coming snow in the wind. Sally pricked one ear as she looked into the north, and Andrew knew that that was a sign of trouble coming.
He came in the middle of the morning to the house of Garry Baldwin. It was a wretched shack, the roof sagged in the middle, and the building had been held from literally falling apart by bolting an iron rod through the length of it.
A woman who fitted well into such a background kicked open the door and looked up to Andrew with the dishwater still dripping from her red hands. He asked for her husband. He was gone from the house. Where, she did not know. Somewhere yonder, and her gesture included half the width of the horizon to the west. There was his trail, ifAndrew wished to follow it. For her part, she was busy and could not spare time to gossip. At that she stepped back and kicked the door shut with a slam that set the whole side of the shack shivering.
At that moment Andrew wondered what he would have done when he lived in Martindale if he had been treated in such a manner. He would have crimsoned to the eyes, no doubt, and fled from the virago. But now he felt neither embarrassment nor fear nor anger. He drew his revolver, and with the heavy butt banged loudly on the door. It left three deep dents in the wood, and the door was kicked open again. But this time he saw only the foot of the woman clad in a man's boot. The door remained open, but the hostess kept out of view.
"You be ridin' on, friend," she called in her harsh voice. "Bud, keep out'n the kitchen. Stranger, you be ridin' on. I don't know you and I don't want to know you. A man that beats on doors with his gun!"
Andrew laughed, and the sound brought her into view, a furious face, but a curious face as well. She carried a long rifle slung easily under her stout arm.
"What d'you want with Garry?" she asked.
And he replied with a voice equally hard: "I want direction for finding Scar-faced Allister."
He watched that shot shake her.
"You do? You got a hell of a nerve askin' around here for Allister! Slope, kid, slope. You're on a cold trail."
"Wait a minute," protested Andrew. "You need another look at me."
"I can see all there is to you the first glance," said the woman calmly. "Why should I look again?"
"To see the reward," said Andrew bitterly. He laughed again. "I'm Andrew Lanning. Ever hear of me?"
It was obvious that she had. She blinked and winced as though the name stunned her. "Lanning!" she said. "Why,you ain't much more'n a kid. Lanning! And you're him?"
All at once she melted.
"Slide off your hoss and come in, Andy," she said. "Dogged if I knew you at all!"
"Thanks. I want to find Allister and I'm in a hurry."
"So you and him are goin' to team it? That'll be high times! Come here, Bud. Look at Andy Lanning. That's him on the horse right before you."
A scared, round face peered out at Andrew from behind his mother. "All right, partner. I'll tell you where to find him pretty close. He'll be up the gulch along about now. You know the old shack up there? You can get to him inside three hours—with that hoss." She stopped and eyed Sally. "Is that the one that run Gray Peter to death? She don't look the part, but them long, low hosses is deceivin'. Can't you stay, Andy? Well, s'long. And give Allister a good word from Bess Baldwin. Luck!"
He waved, and was gone at a brisk gallop.
It was not yet noon when he entered the gulch, he was part way up the ravine when something moved at the top of the high wall to his right. He guessed at once that it was a lookout signaling the main party of the approach of a stranger, so Andrew stopped Sally with a word and held his hand high above his head, facing the point from which he had seen the movement. There was a considerable pause; then a man showed on the top of the cliff, and Andrew recognized Jeff Rankin by his red hair. Yet they were at too great a distance for conversation, and after waving a greeting, Rankin merely beckoned Andrew on his way up thevalley. Around the very next bend of the ravine he found the camp. It was of the most impromptu character, and the warning of Rankin had caused them to break it up precipitately, as Andrew could see by one length of tarpaulin tossed, without folding, over a saddle. Each of the four was ready, beside his horse, for flight or for attack, as their outlook on the cliff should give signal. But at sight of Andrew and the bay mare a murmur, then a growl of interest went among them. Even Larry la Roche grinned a skull-like welcome, and Henry Allister actually ran forward to receive the newcomer. Andrew dropped out of the saddle and shook hands with him.
"I've done as you said I would," said Andrew. "I've run in a circle, Allister, and now I'm back to make one of you, if you still want me."
Allister, laughing joyously, turned to the other three and repeated the question to them. There was only one voice in answer.
"Want you?" said Allister, and his smile made Andrew almost forget the scar which twisted the otherwise handsome face. "Want you? Why, man, if we've been beyond the law up to this time, we can laugh at the law now. Sit down. Hey, Scottie, shake up the fire and put on some coffee, will you? We'll take an hour off."
Larry la Roche was observed to make a dour face.
"Who'll tell me it's lucky," he said, "to have a gent that starts out by makin' us all stop on the trail? Is that a good sign?"
But Scottie, with laughter, hushed him. Yet Larry la Roche remained of all the rest quite silent during the making of the coffee and the drinking of it. The others kept up a running fire of comments and questions, but Larry la Roche, as though he had never forgiven Andrew for their first quarrel, remained with his long, bony chin droppedupon his breast and followed the movements of Andrew Lanning with restless eyes.
The others were glad to see him, as Andrew could tell at a glance, but also they were a bit troubled, and by degrees he made out the reason. Strange as it seemed, they regretted that he had not been able to make his break across the mountains. His presence made them more impregnable than they had ever been under the indomitable Allister, and yet, more than the aid of his fighting hand, they would have welcomed the tidings of a man who had broken away from the shadow of the law and made good. For each of the fallen wishes to feel that his exile is self-terminable.
And therefore Andrew, telling his story to them in brief, found that they were not by any means filled with unmixed pleasure. Joe Clune, with his bright brown hair of youth and his lined, haggard face of worn middle age, summed up their sentiments at the end of Andrew's story: "You're what we need with us, Lanning. You and Allister will beat the world, and it means high times for the rest of us, but God pity you—that's all!"
The pause that followed this solemn speech was to Andrew like an amen. He glanced from face to face, and each stern eye met his in gloomy sympathy.
Then something shot through him which was to his mind what red is to the eye; it was a searing touch of reckless indifference, defiance.
"Forget this prayer-meeting talk," said Andrew. "I came up here for action, not mourning. I want something to do with my hands, not something to think about with my head!"
Something to think about! It was like a terror behind him. If he should have long quiet it would steal on him and look at him over his shoulder like a face. A little of thisshowed in his face; enough to make the circle flash significant glances at one another.
"You got something behind you, Andy," said Scottie. "Come out with it. It ain't too bad for us to hear."
"There's something behind me," said Andrew. "It's the one really decent part of my life. And I don't want to think about it. Allister, they say you never let the grass grow under you. What's on your hands now?"
"Somebody has been flattering me," said the leader quietly, and all the time he kept studying the face of Andrew. "We have a little game ahead, if you want to come in on it. We're shorthanded, but I'd try it with you. That makes us six all told. Six enough, boys?"
"Count me half of one," said Larry la Roche. "I don't feel lucky about this little party."
"We'll count you two times two," replied the leader. He added: "You boys play a game; I'm going to break in Lanning to our job."
Taking his horse, he and Andrew rode at a walk up the ravine. On the way the leader explained his system briefly and clearly. Told in short, he worked somewhat as follows: Instead of raiding blindly right and left, he only moved when he had planned every inch of ground for the advance and the blow and the retreat. To make sure of success and the size of his stakes he was willing to invest heavily.
"Big business men sink half a year's income in their advertising. I do the same."
It was not public advertising; it was money cunningly expended where it would do most good. Fifty per cent of the money the gang earned was laid away to make future returns surer. In twenty places Allister had his paid men who, working from behind the scenes, gained priceless information and sent word of it to the outlaw. Trusted officials in great companies were in communication with him. When large shipments of gold were to be made, for instance,he was often warned beforehand. Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the date of its shipment, its route, and the hands to which it was supposed to fall. Or, again, in many a bank and prosperous mercantile firm in the mountain desert he had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the safe was crammed with cash and by what means the treasure was guarded.
Not until he had secured such information did the leader move. And he still delayed until every possible point of friction had been noted, every danger considered, and a check appointed for it, every method of advance and retreat gone over.
"A good general," Allister was fond of saying, "plans in two ways: for an absolute victory and for an absolute defeat. The one enables him to squeeze the last ounce of success out of a triumph; the other keeps a failure from turning into a catastrophe."
With everything arranged for the stroke, he usually posted himself with the band as far as possible from the place where the actual work was to be done. Then he made a feint in the opposite direction—he showed himself or a part of his gang recklessly. The moment the alarm was given—even at the risk of having an entire hostile countryside around him—he started a whirlwind course in the opposite direction from which he was generally supposed to be traveling. If possible, at the ranches of adherents, or at out-of-the-way places where confederates could act, he secured fresh horses and dashed on at full speed all the way.
Then, at the very verge of the place for attack, he gathered his men, rehearsed in detail what each man was to do, delivered the blow, secured the spoils, and each man of the party split away from the others and fled in scattering directions, to assemble again at a distant point on a comparatively distant date. There they sat down around a counciltable, and there they divided the spoils. No matter how many were employed, no matter how vast a proportion of the danger and scheming had been borne by the leader, he took no more than two shares. Then fifty per cent of the prize was set aside. The rest was divided with an exact care among the remaining members of the gang. The people who had supplied the requisite information for the coup were always given their share.
From this general talk Allister descended to particulars. He talked of the gang itself. They were quite a fixed quantity. In the last half dozen years there had not been three casualties. For one thing, he chose his men with infinite care; in the second place, he saw to it that they remained in harmony, and to that end he was careful never to be tempted into forming an unwieldy crew, no matter how large the prize. Of the present organization each was an expert. Larry la Roche had been a counterfeiter and was a consummate penman. His forgeries were works of art. "Have you noticed his hands?"
Scottie Macdougal was an eminent advance agent, whose smooth tongue was the thing for the very dangerous and extremely important work of trying out new sources of information, noting the dependability of those sources, and understanding just how far and in what line the tools could be used. Joe Clune was a past expert in the blowing of safes; not only did he know everything that was to be known about means of guarding money and how to circumvent them, but he was an artist with the "soup," as Allister called nitroglycerin.
Jeff Rankin, without a mental equipment to compare with his companions, was often invaluable on account of his prodigious strength. Under the strain of his muscles, iron bars bent like hot wax. In addition he had more than his share of an ability which all the members of the gang possessed—an infinite cunning in the use of weapons and astar-storming courage and self-confidence.
"And where," said Andrew at the end of this long recital, "do I fit in?"
"You begin," said Allister, "as the least valuable of my men; before six months you will be worth the whole set of 'em. You'll start as my lieutenant, Lanning. The boys expect it. You've built up a reputation that counts. They admit your superiority without question. Larry la Roche squirms under the weight of it, but he admits it like the rest of' em. In a pinch they would obey you nearly as well as they obey me. It means that, having you to take charge, I can do what I've always wanted to do—I can give the main body the slip and go off for advance-guard and rear-guard duty. I don't dare to do it now.
"Do you know why? Those fellows yonder, who seem so chummy, would be at each other's throats in ten seconds if I weren't around to keep them in order. I know why you're here, Lanning. It isn't the money. It's the cursed fear of loneliness and the fear of having time to think. You want action, action to fill your mind and blind you. That's what I offer you. You're the keeper of the four wildcats you see over there. You start in with their respect. Let them lose their fear of you for a moment and they'll go for you. Treat them like men; think of them as wild beasts. That's what they are. The minute they know you're without your whip they go for you like tigers at a wounded trainer. One taste of meat is all they need to madden them. It's different with me. I'm wild, too."
His eyes gleamed at Andrew.
"And, if they raise you, I think they'll find you've more iron hidden away in you than I have. But the way they'll find it out will be in an explosion that will wipe them out. You've got to handle them without that explosion, Lanning. Can you do it?"
The younger man moistened his lips. "I think this job isgoing to prove worth while," he returned.
"Very well, then. But there are penalties in your new position. In a pinch you've got to do what I do—see that they have food enough—go without sleep if one of them needs your blankets—if any of 'em gets in trouble, even into a jail, you've got to get him out."
"Better still," smiled Andrew.
"And now," said the leader, "I'll tell you about our next job as we go back to the boys."
It was ten days later when the band dropped out of the mountains into the Murchison Pass—a singular place for a train robbery, Andrew could not help thinking. They were at the southwestern end of the pass, where the mountains gave back in a broad gap. Below them, not five miles away, was the city of Gidding Creek; they could see its buildings and parks tumbled over a big area, for there was a full twenty-five thousand of inhabitants in Gidding Creek. Indeed, the whole country was dotted with villages and towns, for it was no longer a cattle region, but a semifarming district cut up into small tracts. One was almost never out of sight of at least one house.
It worried Andrew, this closely built country, and he knew that it worried the other men as well; yet there had not been a single murmur from among them as they jogged their horses on behind Allister. Each of them was swathed from head to heels in a vast slicker that spread behind, when the wind caught it, as far as the tail of the horse. And the rubber creaked and rustled softly. Whatever they mighthave been inclined to think of this daring raid into the heart of a comparatively thickly populated country, they were too accustomed to let the leader do their thinking for them to argue the point with him. And Andrew followed blindly enough. He saw, indeed, one strong point in their favor. The very fact that the train was coming out of the heart of the mountains, through ravines which afforded a thousand places for assault, would make the guards relax their attention as they approached Gidding Creek. And, though there were many people in the region, they were a fat and inactive populace, not comparable with the lean fellows of the north.
There was bitter work behind them. Ten days before they had made a feint to the north of Martindale that was certain to bring out Hal Dozier; then they doubled about and had plodded steadily south, choosing always the most desolate ground for their travel. There had been two changes of horses for the others, but Andrew kept to Sally. To her that journey was play after the labor she had passed through before; the iron dust of danger and labor was in her even as it was in Andrew. Three in all that party were fresh at the end of the long trail. They were Allister, Sally, and Andrew. The others were poisoned with weariness, and their tempers were on edge; they kept an ugly silence, and if one of them happened to jostle the horse of the other, there was a flash of teeth and eyes—a silent warning. The sixth man was Scottie, who had long since been detached from the party. His task was one which, if he failed in it, would make all that long ride go for nothing. He was to take the train far up, ride down as blind baggage to the Murchison Pass, and then climb over the tender into the cab, stick up the fireman and the engineer, and make them bring the engine to a halt at the mouth of the pass, with Gidding Creek and safety for all that train only five minutesaway. There was a touch of the Satanic in this that pleased Andrew and made Allister show his teeth in self-appreciation.
So perfectly had their journey been timed that the train was due in a very few minutes. They disposed their horses in the thicket, and then went back to take up their position in the ambush. The plan of work was carefully divided. To Jeff Rankin, that nicely accurate shot and bulldog fighter, fell what seemed to be a full half of the total risk and labor. He was to go to the blind side of the job. In other words, he was to guard the opposite side of the train to that on which the main body advanced. It was always possible that when a train was held up the passengers—at least the unarmed portion, and perhaps even some of the armed men—would break away on the least threatened side. Jeff Rankin on that blind side was to turn them back with a hurricane of bullets from his magazine rifle. Firing from ambush and moving from place to place, he would seem more than one man. Probably three or four shots would turn back the mob. In the meantime, having made the engineer and fireman stop the train, Scottie would be making them continue to flood the fire box. This would delay the start of the engine on its way and gain precious moments for the fugitives. Two of the band would be thus employed while Larry la Roche went through the train and turned out the passengers. There was no one like Larry for facing a crowd and cowing it. His spectral form, his eyes burning through the holes in his mask, stripped them of any idea of resistance.
While the crowd turned out, Andrew, standing opposite the middle of the train, rifle in hand, would line them up, while Allister and Joe Clune attended to overpowering the guards of the safe, and Larry la Roche came out and went through the line of passengers for personal valuables, andClune and Allister fixed the soup to blow the safe. Last of all, there was the explosion, the carrying off of the coin in its canvas sacks to the horses. Each man was to turn his horse in a direction carefully specified, and, riding in a roundabout manner, which was also named, he was to keep on until he came, five days later, to a deserted, ruinous shack far up in the mountains on the side of the Twin Eagles peaks.
These were the instructions which Allister went over carefully with each member of his crew before they went to their posts. There had been twenty rehearsals before, and each man was letter perfect. They took their posts, and Allister came to the side of Andrew among the trees.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Scared to death," said Andrew truthfully. "I'd give a thousand dollars, if I had it, to be free of this job."
Andrew saw that hard glint come in the eyes of the leader.
"You'll do—later," nodded Allister. "But keep back from the crowd. Don't let them see you get nervous when they turn out of the coaches. If you show a sign of wavering they might start something. Once they make a surge, shooting won't stop 'em."
Andrew nodded. There was more practical advice on the heels of this. Then they stood quietly and waited.
For days and days a northeaster had been blowing; it had whipped little drifts of rain and mist that stung the face and sent a chill to the bone, and, though there had been no actual downpour, the cold and the wet had never broken since the journey started. Now the wind came like a wolf down the Murchison Pass, howling and moaning. Andrew, closing his eyes, felt that the whole thing was dreamlike. Presently he would open his eyes and find himself back beside the fire in the house of Uncle Jasper, with the old man prodding his shoulder and telling him that it was bedtime.When he opened his eyes, in fact, they fell upon a solitary pine high up on the opposite slope, above the thicket where Jeff Rankin was hiding. It was a sickly tree, half naked of branches, and it shivered like a wretched animal in the wind. Then a new sound came down the pass, wolflike, indeed; it was repeated more clearly—the whistle of a train.
It was the signal arranged among them for putting on the masks, and Andrew hastily adjusted his.
"Did you hear that?" asked Allister as the train hooted in the distance again.
Andrew turned and started at the ghostly thing which had been the face of the outlaw a moment before; he himself must look like that, he knew.
"What?" he asked.
"That voicelike whistle," said Allister. "There's no luck in this day—for me."
"You've listened to Larry la Roche too much," said Andrew. "He's been growling ever since we started on this trail."
"No, no!" returned Allister. "It's another thing, an older thing than Larry la Roche. My mother—"
He stopped. Whatever it was that he was about to say, Andrew was never to hear it. The train had turned the long bend above, and now the roar of its wheels filled the cañon and covered the sound of the wind.
It looked vast as a mountain as it came, rocking perceptibly on the uneven roadbed. It rounded the curve, the tail of the train flicked around, and it shot at full speed straight for the mouth of the pass. How could one man stop it? How could five men attack it after it was stopped? It was like trying to storm a medieval fortress with a popgun.
The great black front of the engine came rocking toward them, gathering impetus on the sharp grade. Had Scottie missed his trick? But when the thunder of the iron on ironwas deafening Andrew, and the engine seemed almost upon them, there was a cloud of white vapor that burst out on either side of it and the brakes were jumped on; the wheels skidded, screaming on the tracks. The engine lurched past; Andrew caught a glimpse of Scottie, a crouched, masked form in the cab of the engine, with a gun in either hand. For Scottie was one of the few natural two-gun men that Andrew was ever to know. The engineer and the fireman he saw only as two shades before they were whisked out of his view. The train rumbled on; then it went from half speed to a stop with one jerk that brought a cry from the coaches. During the next second there was the successive crashing of couplings as the coaches took up their slack.
Andrew, stepping out with his rifle balanced in his hands, saw Larry la Roche whip into the rear car. Then he himself swept the windows of the train, blurred by the mist, with the muzzle of his gun, keeping the butt close to his shoulder, ready for a swift snapshot in any direction. In fact, his was that very important post, the reserve force, which was to come instantly to the aid of any overpowered section of the active workers. He had rebelled against this minor task, but Allister had assured him that, in former times, it was the place which he took himself to meet crises in the attack.
The leader had gone with Joe Clune straight for the front car. How would they storm it? Two guards, armed to the teeth, would be in it, and the door was closed.
But the guards had no intention to remain like rats in a trap, while the rest of the train was overpowered and they themselves were blasted into small bits with a small charge of soup. The door jerked open, the barrels of two guns protruded. Andrew, thrilling with horror, recognized one as a sawed-off shotgun. He saw now the meaning of the manner in which Allister and Clune made their attack. ForAllister had run slowly straight for the door, while Clune skirted in close to the cars, going more swiftly. As the gun barrels went up Allister plunged headlong to the ground, and the volley of shot missed him cleanly; but Clune the next moment leaped out from the side of the car, and, thereby getting himself to an angle from which he could deliver a cross fire, pumped two bullets through the door. Andrew saw a figure throw up its arms, a shadow form in the interior of the car, and then a man pitched out headlong through the doorway and flopped with horrible limpness on the roadbed. While this went on Allister had snapped a shot, while he still lay prone, and his single bullet brought a scream. The guards were done for.
Two deaths, Andrew supposed. But presently a man was sent out of the car at the point of Clune's revolver. He climbed down with difficulty, clutching one hand with the other. He had been shot in the most painful place in the body—the palm of the hand. Allister turned over the other form with a brutal carelessness that sickened Andrew. But the man had been only stunned by a bullet that plowed its way across the top of his skull. He sat up now with a trickle running down his face. A gesture from Andrew's rifle made him and his companion realize that they were covered, and, without attempting any further resistance, they sat side by side on the ground and tended to each other's wounds—a ludicrous group for all their suffering.
In the meantime, Clune and Allister were at work in the car; the water was hissing in the fire box as a vast cloud of steam came rushing out around the engine; the passengers were pouring out of the cars. They acted like a group of actors, carefully rehearsed for the piece. Not once did Andrew have to speak to them, while they ranged in a solid line, shoulder to shoulder, men, women, children. And then Larry la Roche went down the line with a saddlebag and took up the collection. "Passin' the hat so often has give me a religious touch, ladies and gents," Andrew heard the ruffian say. "Any little contributions I'm sure grateful for, and, if anything's held back, I'm apt to frisk the gent that don't fork over. Hey, you, what's that lump inside your coat? Lady, don't lie. I seen you drop it inside your dress. Why, it's a nice little set o' sparklers. That ain't nothin' to be ashamed of. Come on, please; a little more speed. Easy there, partner; don't take both them hands down at once. You can peel the stuff out of your pockets with one hand, I figure. Conductor, just lemme see your wallet. Thanks! Hate to bother you, ma'am, but you sure ain't traveling on this train with only eighty-five cents in your pocketbook. Just lemme have a look at the rest. See if you can't find it in your stocking. No, they ain't anything here to make you blush. You're among friends, lady; a plumb friendly crowd. Your poor old pa give you this to go to school on, did he? Son, you're gettin' a pile more education out of this than you would in college. No, honey, you just keep your locket. It ain't worth five dollars. Did you? That jeweler ought to have my job, 'cause he sure robbed you! You call that watch an heirloom? Heirloom is my middle name, miss. Just get them danglers out'n your ears, lady. Thanks! Don't hurry, mister; you'll bust the chain."
His monologue was endless; he had a comment for every person in the line, and he seemed to have a seventh sense for concealed articles. The saddlebag was bulging before he was through. At the same time Allister and Clune jumped from the car and ran. Larry la Roche gave the warning. Every one crouched or lay down. The soup exploded. The top of the car lifted. It made Andrew think, foolishly enough, of someone tipping a hat. It fell slowly, with a crash that was like a faint echo of the explosion. Clune ran back, and they could hear his shrill yell of delight: "It ain't a safe!" heexclaimed. "It's a baby mint!"
And a baby mint it was! It was a gold shipment. Gold coin runs about ninety pounds to ten thousand dollars, and there was close to a hundred pounds apiece for each of the bandits. It was the largest haul Allister's gang had ever made. Larry la Roche left the pilfering of the passengers and went to help carry the loot. They brought it out in little loose canvas bags and went on the run with it to the horses.
Someone was speaking. It was the gray-headed man with the glasses and the kindly look about the eyes. "Boys, it's the worst little game you've ever worked. I promise you we'll keep on your trail until we've run you all into the ground. That's really something to remember. I speak for Gregg and Sons."
"Partner," said Scottie Macdougal from the cab, where he still kept the engineer and fireman covered, "a little hunt is like an after-dinner drink to me."
To the utter amazement of Andrew the whole crowd—the crowd which had just been carefully and systematically robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze the waverers in their tracks.
Once inside the thicket a yell came from the crowd, but Andrew had whirled and was running at full speed. He could hear the others crashing away. Sally, as he had taught her, broke into a trot as he approached, and the moment he struck the saddle she was in full gallop. Guns were rattling behind him; random shots cut the air sometimes close to him, but not one of the whole crowd dared venture beyond that unknown screen of trees.