[Illustration]




BUCKY O’CONNOR

A Tale of the Unfenced Border

By William MacLeod Raine




To My Brother
 EDGAR C. RAINE

MY DEAR WANDERER:

I write your name on this page that you may know we hold you not less
in our thoughts because you have heard and answered again the call of
the frozen North, have for the time disappeared, swallowed in some of
its untrodden wilds. As in those old days of 59 Below On Bonanza, the
long Winter night will be of interminable length. Armed with this note
of introduction then, Bucky O’Connor offers himself, with the best bow
of one Adventurer to another, as a companion to while away some few of
those lonely hours.

March, 1910, Denver.




BUCKY O’CONNOR




CONTENTS

 BUCKY O’CONNOR
 CHAPTER I. ENTER “BEAR-TRAP” COLLINS 
 CHAPTER II. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION 
 CHAPTER III. THE SHERIFF INTRODUCES HIMSELF 
 CHAPTER IV. A BLUFF IS CALLED 
 CHAPTER V. BUCKY ENTERTAINS 
 CHAPTER VI. BUCKY MAKES A DISCOVERY 
 CHAPTER VII. IN THE LAND OF REVOLUTIONS 
 CHAPTER VIII. FIRST BLOOD! 
 CHAPTER IX. "ADORE HAS ONLY ONE D.” 
 CHAPTER X. THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER 
 CHAPTER XI. "STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE.” 
 CHAPTER XII. A CLEAN WHITE MAN’S OPTION 
 CHAPTER XIII. BUCKY’S FIRST-RATE REASONS 
 CHAPTER XIV. LE ROI EST MORT; VIVE LE ROI 
 CHAPTER XV. IN THE SECRET CHAMBER 
 CHAPTER XVI. JUAN VALDEZ SCORES 
 CHAPTER XVII. HIDDEN VALLEY 
 CHAPTER XVIII. A DINNER FOR THREE 
 CHAPTER XIX. A VILLON OF THE DESERT 
 CHAPTER XX. BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY 
 CHAPTER XXI. THE WOLF PACK 
 CHAPTER XXII. FOR A GOOD REASON 




CHAPTER I.
ENTER “BEAR-TRAP” COLLINS


She had been aware of him from the moment of his spectacular entrance,
though no slightest sign of interest manifested itself in her indolent,
incurious eyes. Indeed, his abundant and picturesque area was so vivid
that it would have been difficult not to feel his presence anywhere,
let alone on a journey so monotonous as this was proving to be.

It had been at a water-tank, near Socorro, that the Limited, churning
furiously through brown Arizona in pursuit of a lost half-hour, jarred
to a sudden halt that shook sleep from the drowsy eyes of bored
passengers. Through the window of her Pullman the young woman in
Section 3 had glimpsed a bevy of angry train officials eddying around a
sturdy figure in the center, whose strong, lean head rose confidently
above the press. There was the momentary whirl of a scuffle, out of the
tangle of which shot a brakeman as if propelled from a catapult. The
circle parted, brushed aside by a pair of lean shoulders, muscular and
broad. Yet a few moments and the owner of the shoulders led down the
aisle to the vacant section opposite her a procession whose tail was
composed of protesting trainmen.

“You had no right to flag the train, Sheriff Collins, and you’ll have
to get off; that’s all there is to it,” the conductor was explaining
testily.

“Oh, that’s all right,” returned the offender with easy good nature,
making himself at home in Section 4. “Tell the company to send in its
bill. No use jawing about it.”

“You’ll have to get off, sir.”

“That’s right—at Tucson.”

“No, sir. You’ll have to get off here. I have no authority to let you
ride.”

“Didn’t I hear you say the train was late? Don’t you think you’d arrive
earlier at the end of your run if your choo-choo got to puffing?”

“You’ll have to get off, sir.”

“I hate to disoblige,” murmured the owner of the jingling spurs, the
dusty corduroys, and the big, gray hat, putting his feet leisurely on
the cushion in front of him. “But doesn’t it occur to you that you are
a man of one idea?”

“This is the Coast Limited. It doesn’t stop for anybody—not even for
the president of the road.”

“You don’t say! Well, I ce’tainly appreciate the honor you did me in
stopping to take me on.” His slight drawl was quite devoid of concern.

“But you had no right to flag the train. Can’t you understand
_anything?_” groaned the conductor.

“You explain it again to me, sonny. I’m surely thick in the haid,”
soothed the intruder, and listened with bland good-humor to the
official’s flow of protest.

“Well—well! Disrupted the whole transcontinental traffic, didn’t I? And
me so innocent, too. Now, this is how I figured it out. Here’s me in a
hurry to get to Tucson. Here comes your train a-foggin’—also and
likewise hittin’ the high spots for Tucson. Seemed like we ought to
travel in company, and I was some dubious she’d forget to stop unless I
flagged her. Wherefore, I aired my bandanna in the summer breeze.”

“But you don’t understand.” The conductor began to explain anew as to a
dull child. “It’s against the law. You’ll get into trouble.”

“Put me in the calaboose, will they?”

“It’s no joke.”

“Well, it does seem to be worrying you,” Mr. Collins conceded. “Don’t
mind me. Free your mind proper.”

The conductor, glancing about nervously, noticed that passengers were
smiling broadly. His official dignity was being chopped to mince-meat.
Back came his harassed gaze to the imperturbable Collins with the
brown, sun-baked face and the eyes blue and untroubled as an Arizona
sky. Out of a holster attached to the sagging belt that circled the
corduroy trousers above his hips gleamed the butt of a revolver. But in
the last analysis the weapon of the occasion was purely a moral one.
The situation was one not covered in the company’s rule book, and in
the absence of explicit orders the trainman felt himself unequal to
that unwavering gaze and careless poise. Wherefore, he retreated,
muttering threats of what the company would do.

“Now, if I had only known it was against the law. My thick haid’s
always roping trouble for me,” the plainsman confided to the Pullman
conductor, with twinkling eyes.

That official unbent. “Talking about thick heads, I’m glad my porter
has one. If it weren’t iron-plated and copper-riveted he’d be needing a
doctor now, the way you stood him on it.”

“No, did I? Ce’tainly an accident. The nigger must have been in my way
as I climbed into the car. Took the kink out of his hair, you say?
Here, Sam!” He tossed a bill to the porter, who was rolling affronted
eyes at him. “Do you reckon this is big enough to plaster your injured
feelings, boy?”

The white smile flashed at him by the porter was a receipt for
indemnity paid in full.

Sheriff Collins’ perception of his neighbor across the aisle was more
frank in its interest than the girl’s had been of him. The level,
fearless gaze of the outdoors West looked at her unabashed,
appreciating swiftly her points as they impinged themselves upon his
admiration. The long, lithe lines of the slim, supple body, the languid
grace missing hauteur only because that seemed scarce worth while, the
unconscious pride of self that fails to be offensive only in a young
woman so well equipped with good looks as this one indubitably was the
rider of the plains had appraised them all before his eyes dismissed
her from his consideration and began a casual inspection of the other
passengers.

Inside of half an hour he had made himself _persona grata_ to everybody
in the car except his dark-eyed neighbor across the way. That this
dispenser of smiles and cigars decided to leave her out in the
distribution of his attentions perhaps spoke well for his discernment.
Certainly responsiveness to the geniality of casual fellow passengers
did not impress Mr. Collins as likely to be an outstanding, quality in
her. But with the drummer from Chicago, the young mining engineer going
to Sonora, the two shy little English children just in front of him
traveling to meet their father in California, he found intuitively
common ground of interest. Even Major Mackenzie, the engineer in charge
of the large irrigation project being built by a company in southern
Arizona, relaxed at one of the plainsman’s humorous tales.

It was after Collins had half-depopulated the car by leading the more
jovial spirits back in search of liquid refreshments that an urbane
clergyman, now of Boston but formerly of Pekin, Illinois, professedly
much interested in the sheriff’s touch-and-go manner as presumably
quite characteristic of the West, dropped into the vacant seat beside
Major Mackenzie.

“And who might our energetic friend be?” he asked, with an ingratiating
smile.

The young woman in front of them turned her head ever so slightly to
listen.

“Val Collins is his name,” said the major. “Sometimes called ‘Bear-trap
Collins.’ He has always lived on the frontier. At least, I met him
twelve years ago when he was riding mail between Aravaipa and Mesa. He
was a boy then, certainly not over eighteen, but in a desperate fight
he had killed two men who tried to hold up the mail. Cow-puncher,
stage-driver, miner, trapper, sheriff, rough rider, politician—he’s
past master at them all.”

“And why the appellation of ‘Bear-trap,’ may I ask?” The smack of
pulpit oratory was not often missing in the edifying discourse of the
Reverend Peter Melancthon Brooks.

“Well, sir, that’s a story. He was trapping in the Tetons about five
years ago thirty miles from the nearest ranch-house. One day, while he
was setting a bear-trap, a slide of snow plunged down from the tree
branches above and freed the spring, catching his hand between its
jaws. With his feet and his other hand he tried to open that trap for
four hours, without the slightest success. There was not one chance in
a million of help from outside. In point of fact, Collins had not seen
a human being for a month. There was only one thing to do, and he did
it.”

“And that was?”

“You probably noticed that he wears a glove over his left hand. The
reason, sir, is that he has an artificial hand.”

“You mean—” The Reverend Peter paused to lengthen his delicious thrill
of horror.

“Yes, sir. That’s just what I mean. He hacked his hand off at the wrist
with his hunting-knife.”

“Why, the man’s a hero!” cried the clergyman, with unction.

Mackenzie flung him a disgusted look. “We don’t go much on heroes out
here. He’s game, if that’s what you mean. And able, too. Bucky O’Connor
himself isn’t any smarter at following a trail.”

“And who is Bucky O’Connor?”

“He’s the man that just ran down Fernendez. Think I’ll have a smoke,
sir. Care to join me?”

But the Pekin-Bostonian preferred to stay and jot down in his note-book
the story of the bear-trap, to be used later as a sermon illustration.
This may have been the reason he did not catch the quick look that
passed without the slightest flicker of the eyelids between Major
Mackenzie and the young woman in Section 3. It was as if the old
officer had wired her a message in some code the cipher of which was
known only to them.

But the sheriff, returning at the head of his cohorts, caught it, and
wondered what meaning might lie back of that swift glance. Major
Mackenzie and this dark-eyed beauty posed before others as strangers,
yet between them lay some freemasonry of understanding to which he had
not the key.

Collins did not know that the aloofness in the eyes of Miss
Wainwright—he had seen the name on her suit-case—gave way to horror
when her glance fell on his gloved hand. She had a swift, shuddering
vision of a grim-faced man, jaws set like a vise, hacking at his wrist
with a hunting-knife. But the engaging impudence of his eye, the
rollicking laughter in his voice, shut out the picture instantly.

The young man resumed his seat, and Miss Wainwright her listless
inspection of the flying stretches of brown desert. Dusk was beginning
to fall, and the porter presently lit the lamps. Collins bought a
magazine from the newsboy and relapsed into it, but before he was well
adjusted to reading the Limited pounded to a second unscheduled halt.

Instantly the magazine was thrown aside and Collins’ curly head thrust
out of the window. Presently the head reappeared, simultaneously with
the crack of a revolver, the first of a detonating fusillade.

“Another of your impatient citizens eager to utilize the unspeakable
convenience of rapid transit,” suggested the clergyman, with ponderous
jocosity.

“No, sir; nothing so illegal,” smiled the cattleman, a whimsical light
in his daredevil eyes. He leaned forward and whispered a word to the
little girl in front of him, who at once led her younger brother back
to his section.

“I had hoped it would prove to be more diverting experience for a
tenderfoot,” condescended the gentleman of the cloth.

“It’s ce’tainly a pleasure to be able to gratify you, sir. You’ll be
right pleased to know that it is a train hold-up.” He waved his hand
toward the door, and at the word, as if waiting for his cue, a masked
man appeared at the end of the passage with a revolver in each hand.




CHAPTER II.
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION


“Hands up!”

There was a ring of crisp menace in the sinister voice that was a spur
to obedience. The unanimous show of hands voted “Aye” with a hasty
precision that no amount of drill could have compassed.

It was a situation that might have made for laughter had there been
spectators to appreciate. But of whatever amusement was to be had one
of the victims seemed to hold a monopoly. Collins, his arm around the
English children by way of comfort, offered a sardonic smile at the
consternation his announcement and its fulfillment had created, but
none of his fellow passengers were in the humor to respond.

The shock of an earthquake could not have blanched ruddy faces more
surely. The Chicago drummer, fat and florid, had disappeared completely
behind a buttress of the company’s upholstery.

“God bless my soul!” gasped the Pekin-Bostonian, dropping his eyeglass
and his accent at the same moment. The dismay in his face found a
reflection all over the car. Miss Wainwright’s hand clutched at her
breast for an instant, and her color ebbed till her lips were ashen,
but her neighbor across the aisle noticed that her eyes were steady and
her figure tense.

“Scared stiff, but game,” was his mental comment.

“Gents to the right and ladies to the left; line up against the walls;
everybody waltz.” called the man behind the guns, with grim humor.

The passengers fell into line as directed, Collins with the rest.

“You’re calling this dance, son; it’s your say-so, I guess,” he
conceded.

“Keep still, or I’ll shoot you full of holes,” growled the autocrat of
the artillery.

“Why, sure! Ain’t you the real thing in Jesse Jameses?” soothed the
sheriff.

At the sound of Collins’ voice, the masked man had started perceptibly,
and his right hand had jumped forward an inch or two to cover the
speaker more definitely. Thereafter, no matter what else engaged his
attention, the gleaming eyes behind the red bandanna never wandered for
a moment from the big plainsman. He was taking no risks, for he
remembered the saying current in Arizona, that after Collins’ hardware
got into action there was nothing left to do but plant the deceased and
collect the insurance. He had personal reasons to know the fundamental
accuracy of the colloquialism.

The train-conductor fussed up to the masked outlaw with a ludicrous
attempt at authority. “You can’t rob the passengers on this train. I’m
not responsible for the express-car, but the coaches—”

A bullet almost grazed his ear and shattered a window on its way to the
desert.

“Drift, you red-haired son of a Mexican?” ordered the man behind the
red bandanna. “Git back to that seat real prompt. This here’s taxation
without representation.”

The conductor drifted as per suggestion.

The minutes ticked themselves away in a tense strain marked by pounding
hearts. The outlaw stood at the end of the aisle, watching the sheriff
alertly.

“Why doesn’t the music begin?” volunteered Collins, by way of
conversation, and quoted: “On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined.”

A dull explosion answered his question. The bandits were blowing open
the safe in the express-car with dynamite, pending which the looting of
the passengers was at a standstill.

A second masked figure joined his companion at the end of the passage
and held a hurried conversation with him. Fragments of their low-voiced
talk came to Collins.

“Only thirty thousand in the express-car. Not a red cent on the old man
himself.”

“Where’s the rest?” The irritation in the newcomer’s voice was
pronounced.

Collins slewed his head and raked him with keen eyes that missed not a
detail. He was certain that he had never seen the man before, yet he
knew at once that the trim, wiry figure, so clean of build and so
gallant of bearing, could belong only to Wolf Leroy, the most ruthless
outlaw of the Southwest. It was written in his jaunty insolence, in the
flashing eyes. He was a handsome fellow, white-toothed, black-haired,
lithely tigerish, with masterful mouth and eyes of steel, so far as one
might judge behind the white mask he wore. Alert, cruel, fearless from
the head to the heel of him, he looked the very devil to lead an
enterprise so lawless and so desperate as this. His vigilant eyes swept
contemptuously up and down the car, rested for a moment on the young
woman in Section 3, and came back to his partner.

“Bah! A flock of sheep—tamest bunch of spring lambs we ever struck.
I’ll send Scotty in to go through them. If anybody gets gay, drop him.”
And the outlaw turned on his heel.

Another of the highwaymen took his place, a stout, squat figure in the
flannel shirt, spurs, and chaps of a cow-puncher. It took no second
glance to tell Collins this bandy-legged fellow had been a rider of the
range.

“Come, gentlemen, get a move on you,” Collins implored. “This train’s
due at Tucson by eight o’clock. We’re more than an hour late now. I’m
holding down the job of sheriff in that same town, and I’m awful
anxious to get a posse out after a bunch of train-robbers. So burn the
wind, and go through the car on the jump. Help yourself to anything you
find. Who steals my purse takes trash. ’Tis something, nothing. ’Twas
mine; ’tis his. That’s right, you’ll find my roll in that left-hand
pocket. I hate to have you take that gun, though. I meant to run you
down with that same old Colt’s reliable. Oh, well, just as you say. No,
those kids get a free pass. They’re going out to meet papa at Los
Angeles, boys. See?”

Collins’ running fire of comment had at least the effect of restoring
the color to some cheeks that had been washed white and of snatching
from the outlaws some portion of their sense of dominating the
situation. But there was a veiled vigilance in his eyes that belied his
easy impudence.

“That lady across the aisle gets a pass, too, boys,” continued the
sheriff. “She’s scared stiff now, and you won’t bother her, if you’re
white men. Her watch and purse are on the seat. Take them, if you want
them, and let it go at that.”

Miss Wainwright listened to this dialogue silently. She stood before
them cool and imperious and unwavering, but her face was bloodless and
the pulse in her beautiful soft throat fluttered like a caged bird.

“Who’s doing this job?” demanded one of the hold-ups, wheeling savagely
on the impassive officer “Did I say we were going to bother the lady?
Who’s doing this job, Mr. Sheriff?”

“You are. I’d hate to be messing the job like you—holding up the wrong
train by mistake.” This was a shot in the dark, and it did not quite
hit the bull’s-eye. “I wouldn’t trust you boys to rob a hen-roost, the
amateur way you go at it. When you get through, you’ll all go to
drinking like blue blotters. I know your kind—hell-bent to spend what
you cash in, and every mother’s son of you in the pen or with his toes
turned up inside of a month.”

“Who’ll put us there?” gruffly demanded the bowlegged one.

Collins smiled at him with confidence superb “Mebbe I will—and if I
don’t Bucky O’Connor will—those of you that are left alive when you go
through shooting each other in the back. Oh, I see your finish to a
fare-you-well.”

“Cheese it, or I’ll bump you off.” The first out law drove his gun into
the sheriff’s ribs.

“That’s all right. You don’t need to punctuate that remark. I line up
with the sky-pilot and chew the cud of silence. I merely wanted to
frame up to you how this thing’s going to turn out. Don’t come back at
me and say I didn’t warn you, sonnie.”

“You make my head ache,” snarled the bandy-legged outlaw sourly, as he
passed down with his sack, accumulating tribute as he passed down the
aisle with his sack, accumulating tribute as he went.

The red-kerchiefed robber whooped when they came to the car conductor.
“Dig up, Mr. Pullman. Go way down into your jeans. It’s a right smart
pleasure to divert the plunder of your bloated corporation back to the
people. What! Only fifty-seven dollars. Oh, dig deeper, Mr. Pullman.”

The drummer contributed to the sack eighty-four dollars, a diamond
ring, and a gold watch. His hands were trembling so that they played a
tattoo on the sloping ceiling above him.

“What’s the matter, Fatty? Got a chill?” inquired one of the robbers,
as he deftly swept the plunder into the sack.

“For—God’s sake—don’t shoot. I have—a wife—and five children,” he
stammered, with chattering teeth.

“No race suicide for Fatty. But whyfor do they let a sick man like you
travel all by his lone?”

“I don’t know—I—Please turn that weapon another way.”

“Plumb chuck full of malaria,” soliloquized the owner of the weapon,
playfully running its business end over the Chicago man’s anatomy.
“Shakes worse’n a pair of dice. Here, Fatty. Load up with quinine and
whisky. It’s sure good for chills.” The man behind the bandanna gravely
handed his victim back a dollar. “Write me if it cures you. Now for the
sky-pilot. No white chips on this plate, parson. It’s a contribution to
the needy heathen. You want to be generous. How much do you say?”

The man of the cloth reluctantly said thirty dollars, a Lincoln penny,
and a silver-plated watch inherited from his fathers. The watch was
declined with thanks, the money accepted without.

The Pullman porter came into the car under compulsion of a revolver in
the hand of a fourth outlaw, one in a black mask. His trembling finger
pointed out the satchel and suit-case of Major Mackenzie, and under
orders he carried out the baggage belonging to the irrigation engineer.
Collin observed that the bandit in the black mask was so nervous that
the revolver in his hand quivered like an aspen in the wind. He was
slenderer and much shorter than the Mexican, so that the sheriff
decided he was a mere boy.

It was just after he had left that three shots in rapid succession rang
out in the still night air.

The red-bandannaed one and his companion, who had apparently been
waiting for the signal, retreated backward to the end of the car, still
keeping the passengers covered. They flung rapidly two or three bullets
through the roof, and under cover of the smoke slipped out into the
night. A moment later came the thud of galloping horses, more shots,
and, when the patter of hoofs had died away—silence.

The sheriff was the first to break it. He thrust his brown hands deep
into his pockets and laughed—laughed with the joyous, rollicking
abandon of a tickled schoolboy.

“Hysterics?” ventured the mining engineer sympathetically.

Collins wiped his eyes. “Call ’em anything you like. What pleases me is
that the reverend gentleman should have had this diverting experience
so prompt after he was wishing for it.” He turned, with concern, to the
clergyman. “Satisfied, sir? Did our little entertainment please, or
wasn’t it up to the mark?”

But the transported native of Pekin was game. “I’m quite satisfied, if
you are. I think the affair cost you a hundred dollars or so more than
it did me.”

“That’s right,” agreed the sheriff heartily. “But I don’t grudge it—not
a cent of it. The show was worth the price of admission.”

The car conductor had a broadside ready for him. “Seems to me you shot
off your mouth more than you did that big gun of yours, Mr. Sheriff.”

Collins laughed, and clapped him on the back. “That’s right. I’m a
regular phonograph, when you wind me up.” He did not think it necessary
to explain that he had talked to make the outlaws talk, and that he had
noted the quality of their voices so carefully that he would know them
again among a thousand. Also he had observed—other things—the garb of
each of the men he had seen, their weapons, their manner, and their
individual peculiarities.

The clanking car took up the rhythm of the rails as the delayed train
plunged forward once more into the night. Again the clack of tongues,
set free from fear, buzzed eagerly. The glow of the afterclap of danger
was on them, and in the warm excitement each forgot the paralyzing fear
that had but now padlocked his lips. Courage came flowing back into
flabby cheeks and red blood into hearts of water.

At the next station the Limited stopped, and the conductor swung from a
car before the wheels had ceased rolling and went running into the
telegraph office.

“Fire a message through for me, Pat. The Limited has been held up,” he
announced.

“Held up?” gasped the operator.

“That’s right. Get this message right through to Sabin. I’m not going
to wait for an answer. Tell him I’ll stop at Apache for further
instructions.”

With which the conductor was out again waving his lantern as a signal
for the train to start. Sheriff Collins and Major Mackenzie had entered
the office at his heels. They too had messages to send, but it was not
until the train was already plunging into the night that the station
agent read the yellow slips they had left and observed that both of
them went to the same person.

“Lieutenant Bucky O’Connor, Douglas, Arizona,” was the address he read
at the top of each. His comment serves to show the opinion generally in
the sunburned territory respecting one of its citizens.

“You’re wise guys, gents, both of yez. This is shure a case for the
leftenant. It’s send for Bucky quick when the band begins to play,” he
grinned.

Sitting down, he gave the call for Tucson, preparatory to transmitting
the conductor’s message to the division superintendent. His fingers
were just striking the first tap when a silken voice startled him.

“One moment, friend. No use being in a hurry.”

The agent looked up and nearly fell from his stool. He was gazing into
the end of a revolver held carelessly in the hand of a masked man
leaning indolently on the counter.

“Whe—where did you come from?” the operator gasped.

“Kaintucky, but I been here a right smart spell. Why? You takin’ the
census?” came the drawling answer.

“I didn’t hear youse come in.”

“I didn’t hear you come in, either,” the man behind the mask mocked.
But even as he spoke his manner changed, and crisp menace rang in his
voice. “Have you sent those messages yet?”

“Wha—what messages?”

“Those lying on your desk. I say, have you sent them?”

“Not yet.”

“Hand them over here.”

The operator passed them across the counter without demur.

“Now reach for the roof.”

Up shot the station agent’s hands. The bandit glanced over the written
sheets and commented aloud:

“Huh! One from the conductor and one from Mackenzie. I expected those.
But this one from Collins is ce’tainly a surprise party. I didn’t know
he was on the train. Lucky for him I didn’t, or mebbe I’d a-put his
light for good and all. Friend, I reckon we’ll suppress these messages.
Military necessity, you understand.” And with that he lightly tore up
the yellow sheets and tossed them away.

“The conductor will wire when he reaches Apache,” the operator
suggested, not very boldly.

The outlaw rolled a cigarette deftly and borrowed a match. “He most
surely will. But Apache is seventy miles from here. That gives us an
extra hour and a half, and with us right now time is a heap more
valuable than money. You may tell Bucky O’Connor when you see him that
that extra hour and a half cinches our escape, and we weren’t on the
anxious seat any without it.”

It may have been true, as the train robber had just said, that time was
more valuable to him then than money, but if so he must have held the
latter of singularly little value. For he sat him down on the counter
with his back against the wall and his legs stretched full length in
front of him and glanced over the Tucson _Star_ in leisurely fashion,
while Pat’s arms still projected roofward.

The operator, beginning to get over his natural fright, could not
withhold a reluctant admiration of this man’s aplomb. There was a
certain pantherish lightness about the outlaw’s movements, a trim grace
of figure which yet suggested rippling muscles perfectly under control,
and a quiet wariness of eye more potent than words at repressing
insurgent impulses. Certainly if ever there was a cool customer and one
perfectly sure of himself, this was he.

“Not a thing in the _Star_ to-day,” Pat’s visitor commented, as he
flung it away with a yawn. “I’ll let a thousand dollars of the express
company’s money that there will be something more interesting in it
to-morrow.”

“That’s right,” agreed the agent.

“But I won’t be here to read it. My engagements take me south. I’ll
make a present to the great Lieutenant O’Connor of the information.
We’re headed south, tell him. And tell Mr. Sheriff Collins, too—happy
to entertain him if he happens our way. If it would rest your hands any
there’s no law against putting them in your trousers pockets, my
friend.”

From outside there came a short sharp whistle. The man on the counter
answered it, and slipped at once to the floor. The door opened, to let
in another masked form, but one how different from the first! Here was
no confidence almost insolent in its nonchalance. The figure was slight
and boyish, the manner deprecating, the brown eyes shy and shrinking He
was so obviously a novice at outlawry that fear sat heavy upon his
shoulders. When he spoke, almost in a whisper, his teeth chattered.

“All ready, sir.”

“The wires are cut?” demanded his leader crisply.

“Yes, sir.”

“On both sides?”

“On both sides.”

His chief relieved the operator of the revolver in his desk, broke it,
emptied out the shells, and flung them through the window, then tossed
the weapon back to its owner.

“You’ll not shoot yourself by accident now,” he explained, and with
that he had followed his companion into the night.

There came to the station agent the sound of galloping horses, growing
fainter, until a heavy silence seemed to fill the night. He stole to
the door and locked it, pulled down the window blinds, and then
reloaded his revolver with feverish haste. This done, he sat down
before his keys with the weapon close at hand and frantically called
for Tucson over and over again. No answer came to him, nor from the
other direction when he tried that. The young bandit had told the
truth. His companions had cut the wires and so isolated from the world
for the time the scene of the hold-up. The agent understood now why the
leader of the outlaws had honored him with so much of his valuable
time. He had stayed to hold back the telegrams until he knew the wires
were cut.




CHAPTER III.
THE SHERIFF INTRODUCES HIMSELF


Bear-trap Collins, presuming on the new intimacy born of an exciting
experience shared in common, stepped across the aisle, flung aside Miss
Wainwright’s impedimenta, and calmly seated himself beside her. She was
a young woman capable of a hauteur chillier than ice to undue
familiarity, but she did not choose at this moment to resent his
assumption of a footing that had not existed an hour ago. Picturesque
and unconventional conduct excuses itself when it is garbed in
picturesque and engaging manners. She had, besides, other reasons for
wanting to meet him, and they had to do with a sudden suspicion that
flamed like tow in her brain. She had something for which to thank
him—much more than he would be likely to guess, she thought—and she was
wondering, with a surge of triumph, whether the irony of fate had not
made his pretended consideration for her the means of his undoing.

“I am sorry you lost so much, Miss Wainwright,” he told her.

“But, after all, I did not lose so much as you. Her dark, deep-pupiled
eyes, long-lashed as Diana’s, swept round to meet his coolly.

“That’s a true word. My reputation has gone glimmering for fair, I
guess.” He laughed ruefully. “I shouldn’t wonder, ma’am, when election
time comes round, if the boys ain’t likely to elect to private life the
sheriff that lay down before a bunch of miscreants.”

“Why did you do it?”

His humorous glance roamed round the car. “Now, I couldn’t think it
proper for me to shoot up this sumptuous palace on wheels. And wouldn’t
some casual passenger be likely to get his lights put out when the band
began to play? Would you want that Boston church to be shy a preacher,
ma’am?”

Her lips parted slightly in a curve of scorn. “I suppose you had your
reasons for not interfering.”

“Surely, ma’am. I hated to have them make a sieve of me.”

“Were you afraid?”

“Most men are when Wolf Leroy’s gang is on the war path.”

“Wolf Leroy?”

“That was Wolf who came in to see they were doing the job right. He’s
the worst desperado on the border—a sure enough bad proposition, I
reckon. They say he’s part Spanish and part Indian, but all pisen.
Others say he’s a college man of good family. I don’t know about that,
for nobody knows who he really is. But the name is a byword in the
country. People lower their voices when they speak of him and his
night-riders.”

“I see. And you were afraid of him?”

“Very much.”

Her narrowed eyes looked over the strong lines of his lean face and
were unconvinced. “I expect you found a better reason than that for not
opposing them.”

He turned to her with frank curiosity. “I’d like real well to have you
put a name to it.”

But he was instantly aware that her interest had been side tracked.
Major Mackenzie had entered the car and was coming down the aisle.
Plainer than words his eyes asked a question, and hers answered it.

The sheriff stopped him with a smiling query: “Hit hard, major?”

Mackenzie frowned. “The scoundrels took thirty thousand from the
express car, I understand. Twenty thousand of it belonged to our
company. I was expecting to pay off the men next Tuesday.”

“Hope we’ll be able to run them down for you,” returned Collins
cheerfully. “I suppose you lay it to Wolf Leroy’s gang?”

“Of course. The work was too well done to leave any doubt of that.” The
major resumed his seat behind Miss Wainwright.

To that young woman the sheriff repeated his unanswered question in the
form of a statement. “I’m waiting to learn that better reason, ma’am.”

She was possessed of that spice of effrontery more to be desired than
beauty. “Shall we say that you had no wish to injure your friends?”

“My friends?”

Her untender eyes mocked his astonishment. “Do I choose the wrong
word?” she asked, with an audacity of a courage that delighted him.
“Perhaps they are not your friends—these train robbers? Perhaps they
are mere casual acquaintances?”

His bold eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident
youth—the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely, subtle
eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the alluring lines of
long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was no sweet, ingenuous
youth all prone to blushes, but the complex heir of that world-old
wisdom the weaker sex has shaped to serve as a weapon against the
strength that must be met with the wit of Mother Eve.

“You ce’tainly have a right vivid imagination, ma’am,” he said dryly.

“You are quite sure you have never seen them before?” her velvet voice
asked.

He laughed. “Well, no—I can’t say I am.”

“Aren’t you quite sure you have seen them?”

Her eyes rested on him very steadily.

“You’re smart as a whip, Miss Wainwright. I take off my hat to a young
lady so clever. I guess you’re right. About the identity of one of
those masked gentlemen I’m pretty well satisfied.”

She drew a long breath. “I thought so.”

“Yes,” he went on evenly, “I once earmarked him so that I’d know him
again in case we met.”

“I beg pardon. You—what?”

“Earmarked him. Figure of speech, ma’am. You may not have observed that
the curly-headed person behind the guns was shy the forefinger of his
right hand. We had a little difficulty once when he was resisting
arrest, and it just happened that my gun fanned away his trigger
finger.” He added reminiscently:

“A good boy, too, Neil was once. We used to punch together on the
Hashknife. A straight-up rider, the kind a fellow wants when Old Man
Trouble comes knocking at the door. Well, I reckon he’s a miscreant
now, all right.”

“They knew _you_—at least two of them did.”

“I’ve been pirootin’ around this country, boy and man, for fifteen
years. I ain’t responsible for every yellow dog that knows me,” he
drawled.

“And I noticed that when you told them not to rob the children and not
to touch me they did as you said.”

“Hypnotism,” he suggested, with a smile.

“So, not being a child, I put two and two together and draw an
inference.”

He seemed to be struggling with his mirth. “I see you do. Well, ma’am,
I’ve been most everything since I hit the West, but this is the first
time I’ve been taken for a train robber.”

“I didn’t say that,” she cried quickly.

“I think you mentioned an inference.” The low laugh welled out of him
and broke in his face. “I’ve been busy on one, too. It’s a heap nearer
the truth than yours, Miss Mackenzie.”

Her startled eyes and the swift movement of her hand toward her heart
showed him how nearly he had struck home, how certainly he had
shattered her cool indifference of manner.

He leaned forward, so close that even in the roar of the train his low
whisper reached her. “Shall I tell you why the hold-ups didn’t find
more money on your father or in the express car, Miss Mackenzie?”

She was shaken, so much so that her agitation trembled on her lips.

“Shall I tell you why your hand went to your breast when I first
mentioned that the train was going to be held up, and again when your
father’s eyes were firing a mighty pointed question at you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she retorted, again mistress of herself.

Her gallant bearing compelled his admiration. The scornful eyes, the
satirical lift of the nostrils, the erect, graceful figure, all flung a
challenge at him. He called himself hard names for putting her on the
rack, but the necessity to make her believe in him was strong within
him.

“I noticed you went right chalky when I announced the hold-up, and I
thought it was because you were scared. That was where I did you an
injustice, ma’am, and you can call this an apology. You’ve got sand. If
it hadn’t been for what you carry in the chamois skin hanging on the
chain round your neck you would have enjoyed every minute of the little
entertainment. You’re as game as they make them.”

“May I ask how you arrived at this melodramatic conclusion?” she asked,
her disdainful lip curling.

“By using my eyes and my ears, ma’am. I shouldn’t have noticed your
likeness to Major Mackenzie, perhaps, if I hadn’t observed that there
was a secret understanding between you. Now, whyfor should you be
passing as strangers? I could guess one reason, and only one. There
have twice been attempted hold-ups of the paymaster of the Yuba
reservoir. It was to avoid any more of these that Major Mackenzie took
charge personally of paying the men. He has made good up till now. But
there have been rumors for months that he would be held up either
before leaving the train or while he was crossing the desert. He didn’t
want to be seen taking the boodle from the express company at Tucson.
He would rather have the impression get out that this was just a casual
visit. It occurred to him to bring along some unsuspected party to help
him out. The robbers would never expect to find the money on a woman.
That’s why the major brought his daughter with him. Doesn’t it make you
some uneasy to be carrying fifty thousand in small bills sewed in your
clothes and hung round your neck?”

She broke into musical laughter, natural and easy. “I don’t happen to
have fifty thousand with me.”

“Oh, well, say forty thousand. I’m no wizard to guess the exact
figure.”

Her swift glance at him was almost timid.

“Nor forty thousand,” she murmured.

“I should think, ma’am, you’d crinkle more than a silk-lined lady
sailing down a church aisle on Sunday.”

A picture in the magazine she was toying with seemed to interest her.

“I expect that’s the signal for ‘Exit Collins.’ I’ll say good-by till
next time, Miss Mackenzie.”

“Oh, is there going to be a next time?” she asked, with elaborate
carelessness.

“Several of them.”

“Indeed!”

He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote.

“I ain’t the son of a prophet, but I’m venturing a prediction,” he
explained.

She had nothing to say, and she said it competently.

“Concerning an investment in futurities I’m making,” he continued.

Her magazine article seemed to be beginning, well.

“It’s a little guess about how this train robbery is coming out. If you
don’t mind, I’ll leave it with you.” He tore the page out, put it in an
empty envelope, sealed the flap, and handed it to her.

“Open it in a month, and see whether my guess is a good one.”

The dusky lashes swept round indolently. “Suppose I were to open it
to-night.”

“I’ll risk it,” smiled the blue eyes.

“On honor, am I?”

“That’s it.” He held out a big, brown hand.

“You’re going to try to capture the robbers, are you?”

“I’ve been thinking that way—with the help of Lieutenant Bucky
O’Connor, I mean.”

“And I suppose you’ve promised yourself success.”

“It’s on the knees of chance, ma’am. We may get them. They may get us.”

“But this prediction of yours?” She held up the sealed envelope.

“That’s about another matter.”

“But I don’t understand. You said—” She gave him a chance to explain.

“It ain’t meant you should. You’ll understand plenty at the proper
time.”

He offered her his hand again. “We’re slowing down for Apache.
Good-by—till next time.”

The suede glove came forward, and was buried in his handshake.

He understood it to be an unvoiced apology of its owner for her
suspicions, and his instinct was correct. For how could her doubts hold
their ground when he had showed himself a sharer in her secret and a
guardian of it? And how could anything sinister lie behind those frank,
unwavering eyes or consist with that long, clean stride that was
carrying him so forcefully to the vestibule?

At Apache no telegrams were found waiting for those who had been
expecting them. Communication with the division superintendent at
Tucson uncovered the fact that no message of the hold-up had yet
reached him. It was an easy guess for Collins to find the reason.

“We’re in the infant class, major,” he told Mackenzie, with a sardonic
laugh. “Leroy must have galloped down the line direct to the station
after the hold-up. Likely enough he went into the depot just as we went
out. That gives him the other hour or two he needs to make his getaway
with the loot. Well, it can’t be helped now. If I can only reach Bucky
there’s one chance in fifty he can head them off from crossing into
Sonora. Soon as I can get together a posse I’ll take up the trail from
the point of the hold-up. But they’ll have a whole night’s start on me.
That’s a big handicap.”

From Apache Collins sent three dispatches. One was to his deputy,
Dillon, at Tucson. It read:

“Get together at once posse of four and outfit same for four days.”

Another went to Sabin, the division superintendent:

“Order special to carry posse with horses from Tucson to Big Gap. Must
leave by midnight. Have track clear.”

The third was a notification to Lieutenant O’Connor, of the Arizona
Rangers, of the hold-up, specifying time and place of the occurrence.
The sheriff knew it was not necessary to add that the bandits were
probably heading south to get into Sonora. Bucky would take that for
granted and do his best to cover the likely spots of the frontier.

It was nearly eleven when the Limited drew in to Tucson. Sabin was on
the platform anxiously awaiting their arrival. Collins reached him even
before the conductor.

“Ordered the special, Mr. Sabin?” he asked, in a low voice.

The railroad man was chewing nervously on an unlit cigar. “Yes,
sheriff. You want only an engine and one car, I suppose.”

“That will be enough. I’ve got to go uptown now and meet Dillon.
Midnight sharp, please.”

“Do you know how much they got?” Sabin whispered.

“Thirty thousand, I hear, besides what they took from the passengers.
The conductor will tell you all about it. I’ve got to jump to be
ready.”

A disappointment awaited him in the telegrapher’s room at the depot. He
found a wire, but not from the person he expected. The ranger in charge
at Douglas said that Lieutenant O’Connor was at Flagstaff, but pending
that officer’s return he would put himself under the orders of Sheriff
Collins and wait for instructions.

The sheriff whistled softly to himself and scratched his head. Bucky
would not have waited for instructions. By this time that live wire
would have finished telephoning all over Southern Arizona and would
himself have been in the saddle. But Bucky in Flagstaff, nearly three
hundred miles from the battlefield, so far as the present emergency
went, might just as well be in Calcutta. Collins wired instructions to
the ranger and sent a third message to the lieutenant.

“I expect I’ll hear this time he’s skipped over to Winslow,” he told
himself, with a rueful grin.

The special with the posse on board drew out at midnight sharp. It
reached the scene of the holdup before daybreak. The loading board was
lowered and the horses led from the car and picketed. Meanwhile two of
the men lit a fire and made breakfast while the others unloaded the
outfit and packed for the trail. The first faint streaks of gray dawn
were beginning to fleck the sky when Collins and Dillon, with a
lantern, moved along the railroad bed to the little clump of
cottonwoods where the outlaws had probably lain while they waited for
the express. They scanned this ground inch by inch. The coals where
their camp-fire had been were still alive. Broken bits of food lay
scattered about. Half-trampled into the ground the sheriff picked up a
narrow gold chain and locket. This last he opened, and found it to
contain a tiny photograph of a young mother and babe, both laughing
happily. A close search failed to disclose anything else of interest.

They returned to their companions, ate breakfast, and saddled. It was
by this time light enough to be moving. The trail was easy as a printed
map, for the object of the outlaws had been haste rather than secrecy.
The posse covered it swiftly and without hesitation.

“Now, I wonder why this trail don’t run straight south instead of
bearing to the left into the hills. Looks like they’re going to cache
their stolen gold up in the mountains before they risk crossing into
Sonora. They figure Bucky’ll be on the lookout for them,” the sheriff
said to his deputy.

“I believe you’ve guessed it, Val. Stands to reason they’ll want to get
rid of the loot soon as they can. Oh, hell!”

Dillon’s disgust proved justifiable, for the trail had lost itself in a
mountain stream, up or down which the outlaws must have filed. A month
later and the creek would have been dry. But it was still spring. The
mountain rains had not ceased feeding the brook, and of this the
outlaws had taken advantage to wipe out their trail.

The sheriff looked anxiously at the sky. “It’s fixin’ to rain, Jim.
Don’t that beat the Dutch? If it does, that lets us out plenty.”

The men they were after might have gone either upstream or down. It was
impossible to know definitely which, nor was there time to follow both.
Already big drops of rain were splashing down.

“We’ll take a chance, and go up. They’re probably up in the hills
somewhere right now,” said Collins, with characteristic decision.

He had guessed right. A mile farther upstream horses had clambered to
the bank and struck deeper into the hills. But already rain was falling
in a brisk shower. The posse had not gone another quarter of a mile
before the trail was washed out. They were now in a rough and rocky
country getting every minute steeper.

“It’s going to be like lookin’ for a needle in a haystack, Val,” Dillon
growled.

Collins nodded. “We ain’t got one chance in a hundred, Jim, but I
reckon we’ll take that chance.”

For three days they blundered around in the hills before they gave it
up. The first night, about dusk, the pursuers were without knowing it
so warm that one of the bandits lay with his rifle on a rock rim not a
stone’s throw above them as they wound through a little ravine. But
Collins got no glimpse of the robbers. At last he reluctantly gave the
word to turn back. Probably the men he wanted had already slipped down
to the plains and across to Mexico. If not, they might play hide and
seek with him a month in the recesses of these unknown mountains.

Next morning the sheriff struck a telephone wire, tapped it, got Sabin
on the line, told him of his failure and that he was returning to
Tucson. About the middle of the afternoon the dispirited posse reached
its sidetracked special.

A young man lay stretched full length on the loading board, with a
broad-brimmed felt hat over his eyes. He wore a gray flannel shirt and
corduroy trousers thrust into half-leg laced boots. At the sound of
voices he turned lazily on his side and watched the members of the
posse swing wearily from their saddles. An amiable smile, not wholly
free of friendly derision, lit his good-looking face.

“Oh, you sheriff,” he drawled.

Collins swung round, as if he had been pricked with a knife point. He
stared an instant before he let out a shout of welcome and fell upon
the youth.

“Bucky, by thunder!”

The latter got up nimbly in time to be hospitably thumped and punched.
He was a lithe, slender young fellow, of medium height, and he carried
himself lightly with that manner of sunburned competency given only by
the rough-and-tumble life of the outdoors West.

While the men reloaded the car he and the sheriff stood apart and
talked in low tones. Collins told what he knew, both what he had seen
and inferred, and Bucky heard him to the end.

“Yes, it ce’tainly looks like one of Wolf Leroy’s jobs,” he agreed.
“Nobody else but Leroy would have had the nerve to follow you right up
to the depot and put the kibosh on sending those wires. He’s surely
game from the toes up. Think of him sittin’ there reading the newspaper
half an hour after he held up the Limited!”

“Did he do that, Bucky?” The sheriff’s tone conceded admiration.

“He did. He’s the only train robber ever in the business that could
have done it. Oh, the Wolf’s tracks are all over this job.”

“No doubt about that. I told you I recognized York Neil by him being
shy that trigger finger I fanned off down at Tombstone. Well, they say
he’s one of the Wolf’s standbys.”

“Yes. I warned him two months ago that if he didn’t break away he’d die
sudden. Somehow I couldn’t persuade him he was an awful sick man right
then. You saw four of these hold-ups in all, didn’t you, Val?”

“Four’s right. First off Neil, then the fellow I took to be the Wolf.
After he went out a bowlegged fellow came in, and last a slim little
kid that was a sure enough amateur, the way his gun shook.”

“Any notion how many more there were?”

“I figured out two more. A big gazabo in a red wig held up Frost, the
engineer. He knew it was a wig because he saw long black hair peeping
out around his neck. Then there must ’a’ been another in charge of
blowing up the express car, a Mexican, from the description the
messenger gives of him.”

Bucky nodded. “Looks like you got it figured about right, Val. The
Mexican is easy to account for. The Wolf spends about half his time
down in Chihuahua and trains with some high-class greasers down there.
Well, we’ll see what we’ll see. I’ll set my rangers at rounding up the
border towns a bit, and if I don’t start anything there I’ll hike down
into Mexico and see what’s doing. I’ll count on you to run the Arizona
end of it while I’m away, Val. The Wolf’s outfit is a pretty wild one,
and it won’t be long till something begins to howl. We’ll keep an eye
on the gambling halls and see who is burning up money. Oh, they’ll
leave plenty of smoke behind them,” the ranger concluded cheerfully.

“There will be plenty of smoke if we ever do round ’em up, not to
mention a heap of good lead that will be spilled,” the sheriff agreed
placidly. “Well, all I got to say is the sooner the quicker. The bunch
borrowed a mighty good.45 of mine I need in my biz. I kinder hanker to
get it back _muy pronto_.”

“Here’s hoping,” Bucky nodded gayly. “I bet there will be a right
lively wolf hunt. Hello! The car’s loaded. All aboard for Tucson.”

The special drew out from the side track and gathered speed. Soon the
rhythmic chant of the rails sounded monotonously, and the plains on
either side of the track swam swiftly to the rear.




CHAPTER IV.
A BLUFF IS CALLED


Torpid lay Aravaipa in a coma of sunheat. Its adobe-lined streets
basked in the white glare of an Arizona spring at midday. One or two
Papago Indians, with their pottery wares, squatted in the shade of the
buildings, but otherwise the plaza was deserted. Not even a moving dog
or a lounging peon lent life to the drowsy square. Silence profound and
peace eternal seemed to brood over the land.

Such was the impression borne in upon the young man riding townward on
a wiry buckskin that had just topped the rise which commanded the
valley below. The rider presented a striking enough appearance to take
and hold the roving eye of any young woman in search of romance. He was
a slender, lithe young Adonis of medium height. His hair and eyebrows
left one doubtful whether to pronounce them black or brown, but the
eyes called for an immediate verdict of Irish blue. Every inch of him
spoke of competency—promised mastership of any situation likely to
arise. But when the last word is said it was the eyes that dominated
the personality. They could run the whole gamut of emotions, or they
could be impervious as a stone wall. Now they were deep and innocent as
a girl’s, now they rollicked with the buoyant youth in them. Comrades
might see them bubbling with fun, and the next moment enemies find them
opaque as a leaden sky. Not the least wonder of them was that they
looked out from under long lashes, soft enough for any maiden, at a
world they appraised with the shrewdness of a veteran.

The young man drew rein above the valley, sitting his horse in the
easy, negligent fashion of one that lives in the saddle. A thumb was
hitched carelessly in the front pocket of his chaps, which pocket
served also as a holster for the .45 that protruded.

Even in the moment that he sat there a change came over Aravaipa. As a
summer shower sweeps across a lake so something had ruffled the town to
sudden life. From stores and saloons men dribbled, converging toward a
common centre hurriedly.

“I reckon, Bucky, the band has begun to play,” the rider told himself
aloud. “Mebbe we better move on down in time for the music.”

But no half-expected revolver shots shattered the stillness, even
though interest did not abate.

“There’s ce’tainly something doing at the Silver Dollar this glad
mo’ning. Chinks, greasers, and several other kinds of citizens driftin’
that way, not to mention white men. I expect there will be room for
you, Bucky, if you hurry before the seats are all sold out.”

He cantered down the plaza, swung from the saddle, threw the rein over
the pony’s head to the ground, and jingled across the sidewalk into the
gambling house. It was filled with a motley crowd of miners, vaqueros,
tourists, cattlemen, Mexicans, Chinese, and a sample of the rest of the
heterogeneous population of the Southwest. Behind this assemblage the
newcomer tiptoed in vain to catch a glimpse of the cause of the
excitement. Wherefore, he calmly removed an almond-eyed Oriental from a
chair on which he was standing, tipped the ex-Cantonese a half dollar,
and appropriated the point of vantage himself.

There was a cleared space in the corner by the roulette table, and
here, his chair tipped back against the wall and a glass of whisky in
front of him, sat a sufficiently strange specimen of humanity. He was a
man of about fifty years, large boned and gaunt. Dressed in fringed
buckskin trousers and a silver-laced Mexican sombrero, he affected the
long hair, the sweeping mustache, and the ferocious aspect that are the
custom of the pseudo-Westerners who do business in the East with fake
medical remedies. Around his waist was a belt garnished with knives by
the dozen. These were long and pointed, sharpened to a razor edge. One
of them was in his hand poised for a throw at the instant Bucky mounted
the chair and looked over the densely packed mass of heads in front of
him.

The ranger’s keen glance swept to the wall and took in the target. A
slim lad of about fifteen stood against it with his arms outstretched.
Above and below each hand and on either side of the swelling throat
knives quivered in the frame wall. There was a flash of steel, and the
seventh knife sank into the wood so close to the crisp curls that a
lock hung by a hair, almost completely severed by the blade. The boy
choked back a scream, his big brown eyes dilating with terror.

The bully sipped at his highball and deliberately selected another
knife. To Bucky’s swift inspection it was plain he had drunk too much
and that a very little slip might make an end of the boy. The
fascinated horror in the lad’s gaze showed that he realized his danger.

“Now, f’ler cit’zens, I will continue for your ’musement by puttin’
next two knives on right and lef’ sides of his cheek. Observe, pleash,
that these will land less than an inch from hish eyes. As the champion
knife thrower in the universe I claim—”

What he claimed his audience had to guess, for at this instant another
person took a part in the act. Bucky had stepped lightly across the
intervening space on the shoulders of the tightly packed crowd and had
dropped as lightly to the ground in front of the astonished champion of
the universe.

“I reckon you’ve about wore out that target. What’s the matter with
trying a brand new one,” drawled the ranger, his quiet, unwavering eye
fixed on the bloated, mottled face of the imitation “bad man.”

The bully, half seas over, leaned forward and gripped his knife. He was
sober enough to catch the jeer running through the other’s words
without being sufficiently master of himself to appreciate the menace
that underlay them.

“Wha’s that? Say that again!” he burst out, purple to the collar line.
He was not used to having beardless boys with long, soft eyelashes
interfering with his amusements, and a blind rage flooded his heart.

“I allowed that a change of targets would vary the entertainment, if
you haven’t any objections, seh,” the blue-eyed stranger explained
mildly.

“Who is this kid?” demanded the bully, with a sweep of his arm toward
the intruder.

Nobody seemed to know, wherefore the ranger himself gave the
information mildly:

“Bucky O’Connor they call me.”

A faint murmur of surprise soughed through the crowd, for Bucky
O’Connor of the Arizona Rangers was by way of being a public hero just
now on account of his capture of Fernendez, the stage robber. But the
knife thrower had but lately arrived in the country. The youth carried
with him none of the earmarks of his trade, unless it might be that
quiet, steady gaze that seemed to search the soul. His voice was soft
and drawling, his manner almost apologetic. In the smile that came and
went was something sweet and sunny, in his bearing a gay charm that did
not advertise the recklessness that bubbled from his daredevil spirit.
Surely here was an easy victim upon whom to vent his spleen, thought
the other in his growing passion.

“You want to be my target, do you?” he demanded, tugging ferociously at
his long mustache.

“If you please, seh.”

The fellow swore a vile oath. “Just as you say. Line up beside the
other kid.”

With three strides Bucky reached the wall, and turned.

“Let ’er go,” his gentle voice murmured.

He was leaning back easily against the wall, his thumb hitched
carelessly in the revolver pocket of his worn leather chaps. He looked
at ease, every jaunty inch of him, but a big bronzed cattleman who had
just pushed his way in noticed that the frosty blue eyes never released
for an instant those of the enemy.

The bully at the table passed an uncertain hand over his face to clear
his blurred vision, poised the cruel blade in his hand, and sent it
flashing forward with incredible swiftness. The steel buried itself two
inches deep in the soft pine beside Bucky’s head. So close had it
shaved him that a drop of blood gathered and dropped from his ear to
the floor.

“Good shot,” commented the ranger quietly, and on the instant his
revolver seemed to leap from its holster to his hand. Without raising
or moving his arm in the least, Bucky fired.

Again a murmur eddied through the crowd. The bullet had neatly bored
the bully’s ear. He raised his hand in dazed fashion and brought it
away covered with blood. With staring eyes he looked at his moist red
fingers, then at his latest victim, who was proving such an unexpected
surprise.

The big cattleman, who by this time had pushed a way with his broad
shoulders to the front, observed the two men attentively with a
derisive smile on his frank face. He was seeing a bluff called, and he
enjoyed it.

“You’ll be able to wear earrings, Mr. Champion of the Universe, after I
have ventilated the other,” suggested the ranger affably. “Come again,
seh.”

But his opponent had had enough, and more than enough. It was one thing
to browbeat a harmless boy, quite another to measure courage with a
young gamecock like this. He had all the advantage of the first move.
He was an expert and could drive his first throw into the youth’s
heart. But at bottom he was a coward and lacked the nerve, if not the
inclination, to kill. If he took up that devil-may-care challenge he
must fight it out alone. Moreover, as his furtive glance went round the
ring of faces, he doubted whether a rope and the nearest telegraph pole
might not be his fate if he went the limit. Sourly he accepted defeat,
raging in his craven spirit at the necessity.

“Hell! I don’t fight with boys,” he snarled,

“So?”

Bucky moved forward with the curious lightness of a man spring-footed.
His gaze held the other’s shifting eyes as he plucked the knife from
his opponent’s hand.

“Unbuckle that belt,” he ordered.

All said, the eye is a prince of weapons. It is a moral force more
potent than the physical, and by it men may measure strength to a
certainty. So now these two clinched and battled with it till the best
man won. The showman’s look gave way before the stark courage of the
other. His was no match for the inscrutable, unwavering eye that
commanded him. His fingers began to twitch, edged slowly toward his
waist. For an instant they fumbled at the buckle of the belt, which
presently fell with a rattle to the floor.

“Now, roll yore trail to the wall. Face this way! Arms out! That’s
good! You rest there comfortable while I take these pins down and let
the kid out.”

He removed the knives that hemmed in the boy and supported the
half-fainting figure to a chair beside the roulette table. But always
he remained in such a position as to keep the big bully he was baiting
in view. The boy dropped into the chair and covered his face with his
hands, sobbing with deep, broken breaths. The ranger touched
caressingly the crisp, fair hair that covered the head in short curls.

“Don’t you worry, bub. Now, don’t you. It’s all over with now. That
coyote won’t pester you any more. Will you, Mr. False Alarm Bad Man?”

At the last words he wheeled suddenly to the showman. “You’re right
sorry already you got so gay, ain’t you? Come! Speak yore little piece,
please.”

He waited for an answer, and his gaze held fast to the bloated face
that cringed before his attack.

“What’s your name?”

“Jay Hardman,” quavered the now thoroughly sobered bad man.

“Dead easy jay, I reckon you mean. Now, chirp, up and tell the boy how
sorry you are you got fresh with your hardware.”

“He’s my boy. I guess I can do what I like with him,” the man burst out
angrily. “I wasn’t hurting him any, either. That’s part of our show,
to—”

Bucky fondled suggestively the revolver in his hand. A metallic click
came to his victim.

“Don’t you shoot at me again,” the man broke off to scream.

The Colt clipped the sentence and the man’s other ear.

“You can put in your order now for them earrings we were mentionin’,
Mr. Deadeasy. You see, I had to puncture this one so folks would know
they were mates.”

“I’ll put you in the pen for this,” the fellow whined, in terror.

“Funny how you will get off the subject. We were discussin’ an apology
when you got to wandering in yore haid.”

The mottled face showed white in patches. Beads of perspiration stood
out on the forehead of Hardman. “I didn’t aim to hurt him any. I’ll be
right glad to explain to you—”

A bullet plowed a path through the long hair that fell to the showman’s
shoulders and snipped a lock from it.

“You don’t need to explain a thing to me, seh. I’m sure resting easy in
my mind. But as you were about to re-mark you’re fair honin’ for a
chance to ask the kid’s pardon. Now, ain’t I a mind reader, seh?”

A trembling voice stammered huskily an apology.

“Better late than too late. Now, I’ve a good mind to take a vote
whether I’d better unload the rest of the pills in this old reliable
medicine box at you. Mebbe I ought to pump one into that coyote heart
of yours.”

The fellow went livid. “My God, you wouldn’t kill an unarmed man, would
you?”

For answer the ranger tossed the weapon on the table with a scornful
laugh and strode up to the other. The would-be bad man towered six
inches above him, and weighed half as much again. But O’Connor whirled
him round, propelled him forward to the door, and kicked him into the
street.

“I’d hate to waste a funeral on _him_,” he said, as he sauntered back
to the boy at the table.

The lad was beginning to recover, though his breath still came with a
catch. His rag of a handkerchief was dabbing tears out of his eyes.
O’Connor noticed how soft his hands and how delicate his features.

“This kid ain’t got any more business than a rabbit going around in the
show line with that big scoundrel. He’s one of these gentle,
rock-me-to-sleep-mother kids that ought to stay in the home nest and
not go buttin’ into this hard world. I’ll bet a doughnut he’s an
orphan, though.”

Bucky had been brought up in the school of experience, where every
student keeps his own head or goes to the wall. All his short life he
had played a lone hand, as he would have phrased it. He had campaigned
in Cuba as a mere boy. He had ridden the range and held his own on the
hurricane deck of a bucking broncho. From cowpunching he had graduated
into the tough little body of territorial rangers at the head of which
was “Hurry Up” Millikan. This had brought him a large and turbulent
experience in the knack of taking care of himself under all
circumstances. Naturally, a man of this type, born and bred to the code
of the outdoors West, could not fail of a certain contempt for a boy
that broke down and cried when the game was going against him.

But Bucky’s contempt was tolerant, after all. He could not deny his
sympathy to a youngster in trouble. Again he touched gently the lad’s
crisp curls of burnished gold.

“Brace up, bub. The worst is yet to come,” he laughed awkwardly. “I
reckon there’s no use spillin’ any more emotion over it. He ain’t your
dad, is he?”

The lad’s big brown eyes looked up into the serene blue ones and found
comfort in their strength. “No, he’s my uncle—and my master.”

“This is a free country, son. We don’t have masters if we’re good
Americans, though we all have to take orders from our superior
officers. You don’t need to serve this fellow unless you want to.
That’s a cinch.”

The boy’s troubled eyes were filmed with reminiscent terror. “You don’t
know him. He is terrible when he is angry,” he murmured.

“I don’t think it,” returned Bucky contemptuously. “He’s the worst
blowhard ever. Say the word and I’ll run the piker out of town for
you.”

The boy whipped up the sleeve of the fancy Mexican jacket he wore and
showed a long scar on his arm. “He did that one day when he was angry
at me. He pretended to others that it was an accident, but I knew
better. This morning I begged him to let me leave him. He beat me, but
he was still mad; and when he took to drinking I was afraid he would
work himself up to stick me again with one of his knives.”

Bucky looked at the scar in the soft, rounded arm and swept the boy
with a sudden puzzled glance that was not suspicion but wonder.

“How long have you been with him, kid?”

“Oh, for years. Ever since I was a little fellow. He took me after my
father and mother died of yellow fever in New Orleans. His wife hates
me too, but they have to have me in the show.”

“Then I guess you had better quit their company. What’s your name?”

“Frank Hardman. On the show bills I have all sorts of names.”

“Well, Frank, how would you like to go to live on a ranch?”

“Where he wouldn’t know I was?” whispered the boy eagerly.

“If you like. I know a ranch where you’d be right welcome.”

“I would work. I would do anything I could. Really, I would try to pay
my way, and I don’t eat much,” Frank cried, his eyes as appealing as a
homeless puppy’s.

Bucky smiled. “I expect they can stand all you eat without going to the
poorhouse. It’s a bargain then. I’ll take you out there to-morrow.”

“You’re so good to me. I never had anybody be so good before.” Tears
stood in the big eyes and splashed over.

“Cut out the water works, kid. You want to take a brace and act like a
man,” advised his new friend brusquely.

“I know. I know. If you knew what I have done maybe you wouldn’t ask me
to go with you. I—I can’t tell you anything more than that,” the
youngster sobbed.

“Oh, well. What’s the diff? You’re making a new start to-day. Ain’t
that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Bucky.”

“Yes, sir. Bucky, I mean.”

A hand fell on the ranger’s shoulder and a voice in his ear. “Young
man, I want you.”

The lieutenant whirled like a streak of lightning, finger on trigger
already. “I’ll trouble you for yore warrant, seh,” he retorted.

The man confronting him was the big cattleman who had entered the
Silver Dollar in time to see O’Connor’s victory over the showman. Now
he stood serenely under Bucky’s gun and laughed.

“Put up your .45, my friend. It’s a peaceable conference I want with
you.”

The level eyes of the young man fastened on those of the cattleman,
and, before he spoke again, were satisfied. For both of these men
belonged to the old West whose word is as good as its bond, that West
which will go the limit for a cause once under taken without any
thought of retreat, regardless of the odds or the letter of the law.
Though they had never met before, each knew at a glance the manner of
man the other was.

“All right, seh. If you want me I reckon I’m here large as life,” the
ranger said,

“We’ll adjourn to the poker room upstairs then, Mr. O’Connor.”

Bucky laid a hand on the shoulder of the boy. “This kid goes with me.
I’m keeping an eye on him for the present.”

“My business is private, but I expect that can be arranged. We’ll take
the inner room and let him have the outer.”

“Good enough. Break trail, seh. Come along, Frank.”

Having reached the poker room upstairs, that same private room which
had seen many a big game in its day between the big cattle kings and
mining men of the Southwest, Bucky’s host ordered refreshments and then
unfolded his business.

“You don’t know me, lieutenant, do you?”

“I haven’t that pleasure, seh.”

“I am Major Mackenzie’s brother.”

“Webb Mackenzie, who came from Texas last year and bought the Rocking
Chair Ranch?”

“The same.”

“I’m right glad to meet you, seh.”

“And I can say the same.”

Webb Mackenzie was so distinctively a product of the West that no other
segment of the globe could have produced him. Big, raw-boned, tanned to
a leathery brick-brown, he was as much of the frontier as the ten
thousand cows he owned that ran the range on half as many hills and
draws. He stood six feet two and tipped the beam at two hundred twelve
pounds, not an ounce of which was superfluous flesh. Temperamentally,
he was frank, imperious, free-hearted, what men call a prince. He wore
a loose tailor-made suit of brown stuff and a broad-brimmed light-gray
Stetson. For the rest, you may see a hundred like him at the yearly
stock convention held in Denver, but you will never meet a man even
among them with a sounder heart or better disposition.

“I’ve got a story to tell you, Lieutenant O’Connor,” he began. “I’ve
been meaning to see you and tell it ever since you made good in that
Fernendez matter. It wasn’t your gameness. Anybody can be game. But it
looked to me like you were using the brains in the top of your head,
and that happens so seldom among law officers I wanted to have a talk
with you. Since yesterday I’ve been more anxious. For why? I got a
letter from my brother telling me Sheriff Collins showed him a locket
he found at the place of the T. P. Limited hold-up. That locket has in
it a photograph of my wife and little girl. For fifteen years I haven’t
seen that picture. When I saw it last ’twas round my little baby’s
neck. What’s more, I haven’t seen her in that time, either.”

Mackenzie stopped, swallowed hard, and took a drink of water.

“You haven’t seen your little girl in fifteen years,” exclaimed Bucky.

“Haven’t seen or heard of her. So far as I know she may not be alive
now. This locket is the first hint I have had since she was taken away,
the very first news of her that has reached me, and I don’t know what
to make of that. One of the robbers must have been wearing it, the way
I figure it out. Where did he get it? That’s what I want to know.”

“Suppose you tell me the story, seh,” suggested the ranger gently.

The cattleman offered O’Connor a cigar and lit one himself. For a
minute he puffed slowly at his Havana, leaning far back in his chair
with eyes reminiscent and half shut. Then he shook himself back into
the present and began his tale.

“I don’t reckon you ever heard tell of Dave Henderson. It was back in
Texas I knew him, and he’s been missing sixteen years come the eleventh
of next August. For fifteen years I haven’t mentioned his name, because
Dave did me the dirtiest wrong that one man ever did another. Back in
the old days he and I used to trail together. We was awful thick, and
mostly hunted in couples. We began riding the same season back on the
old Kittredge Ranch, and we went in together for all the kinds of
spreeing that young fellows who are footloose are likely to do. Fact
is, we suited each other from the ground up. We frolicked round
a-plenty, like young colts will, and there was nothing on this green
earth Dave could have asked from me that I wouldn’t have done for him.
Nothing except one, I reckon, and Dave never asked that of me.”

Mackenzie puffed at his cigar a silent moment before resuming. “It
happened we both fell in love with the same girl, little Frances Clark,
of the Double T Ranch. Dave was a better looker than me and a more
taking fellow, but somehow Frances favored me from the start. Dave
stayed till the finish, and when he seen he had lost he stood up with
me at the wedding. We had agreed, you see, that whoever won it wasn’t
to break up our friendship.

“Well, Frankie and I were married, and in course of time we had two
children. My boy, Tom, is the older. The other was a little girl, named
after her mother.” The cattleman waited a moment to steady his voice,
and spoke through teeth set deep in his Havana. “I haven’t seen her, as
I said, since she was two years and ten months old—not since the night
Dave disappeared.”

Bucky looked up quickly with a question on his lips, but he did not
need to word it.

Mackenzie nodded. “Yes, Dave took her with him when he lit out across
the line for Mexico.”

But I’ll have to go back to something that happened earlier. About
three months before this time Dave and me were riding through a cut in
the Sierra Diablo Mountains, when we came on a Mexican who had been
wounded by the Apaches. I reckon we had come along just in time to
scare them off before they finished him. We did our best for him, but
he died in about two hours. Before dying, he made us a present of a map
we found in his breast pocket. It showed the location of a very rich
mine he had found, and as he had no near kin he turned it over to us to
do with as we pleased.

“Just then the round-up came on, and we were too busy to pay much
attention to the mine. Each of us would have trusted the other with his
life, or so I thought. But we cut the paper in half, each of us keeping
one part, in order that nobody else could steal the secret from the one
that held the paper. The last time I had been in El Paso I had bought
my little girl a gold chain with two lockets pendent. These lockets
opened by a secret spring, and in one of them I put my half of the map.
It seemed as safe a place as I could devise, for the chain never left
the child’s neck, and nobody except her mother, Dave, and I knew that
it was placed there. Dave hid his half under a rock that was known to
both of us. The strange thing about the story is that my false friend,
in the hurry of his flight, forgot to take his section of the map with
him. I found it under the rock next day, so that his vile treachery
availed him nothing from a mercenary point of view.”

“Didn’t take his half of the map with him. That’s right funny,” Bucky
mused aloud.

“We never could understand why he didn’t.”

“Mebbe if you understood that a heap of things might be clear that are
dark now.”

“Mebbe. Knowing Dave Henderson as I did, or, rather, as I thought I
did, such treachery as his was almost unbelievable. He was the
sweetest, sunniest soul I ever knew, and no two brothers could have
been as fond of each other as we seemed to be. But there was no chance
of mistake. He had gone, and taken our child with him, likely in
accordance with a plan of revenge long cherished by him. We never heard
of him or the child again. They disappeared as completely as if the
earth had swallowed them up. Our cook, too, left with him that evil
night.”

“Your cook?” It was the second comment Bucky had ventured, and it came
incisively. “What manner of man was he?”

“A huge, lumbering braggart. I could never understand why Dave took the
man with him.”

“If he did.”

“But I tell you he did. They disappeared the same night, and the trail
showed they went the same road. We followed them for about an hour next
day, but a heavy rain came up and blotted out the tracks.”

“What was the cook’s name?”

“Jeff Anderson.”

“Have you a picture of him, or one of your friend?”

“Back at the ranch I had pictures of Dave, but I burned them after he
left. Yes, I reckon we have one of Anderson, standing in front of the
chuck wagon.”

“Send it to me, please.”

“All right.”

The ranger asked a few questions that made clearer the situation on the
day of the kidnapping, and some more concerning Anderson, then fell
again into the role of a listener while Mackenzie concluded his story.

“All these years I have kept my eyes open, confident that at last I
would discover something that would help me to discover the whereabouts
of my child, or, at least, give me a chance to punish the scoundrel who
betrayed my confidence. Yesterday my brother’s letter gave the first
clue we have had. I want that lead worked. Ferret this thing out to the
bottom, lieutenant. Get me something definite to go on. That’s what I
want you to do. Run the thing to earth, get at the facts, and find my
child for me. I’ll give you carte blanche up to a hundred thousand
dollars. All I ask of you is to make good. Find the little girl, or
else bring me face to face with that villain Henderson. Can you do it?”

O’Connor was strangely interested in this story of treachery and
mystery. He rose with shining eyes and held out his hand. “I don’t
know, seh, but I’ll try damned hard to do three things: find out what
has become of the little girl, of Dave Henderson, and of the scoundrel
who stole your baby because he thought the map was in the pocket.”

“You mean that you don’t think Dave—”

“That is exactly what I mean. Your cook, Anderson, kidnapped the child,
looks like to me. I saw that locket Collins found. My guess was that
the marks on the end of the chain were deep teeth marks. The man that
stole your baby tried first to cut the chain with his teeth so as to
steal the chain. You see, he could not find the clasp in the dark. Then
the child wakened and began to cry. He clapped a hand over its mouth
and carried the little girl out of the room. Then he heard somebody
moving about, lost his nerve, and jumped on the horse that was waiting,
saddled, at the door. He took the child along simply because he had to
in order to get the chain and the secret he thought it held.”

“Perhaps; but that does not prove it was not Dave.”

“It’s contributory evidence, seh. Your friend could have slipped the
chain from her neck any day, or he could have opened the locket and
taken the map. No need for him to steal in at night. Do you happen to
remember whether your little girl had any particular aversion to the
cook?”

The cattleman’s forehead frowned in thought. “I do remember, now, that
she was afraid of him. She always ran screaming to her mother when he
tried to be friendly with her. He was a sour sort of fellow.”

“That helps out the case a heap, for it shows that he wanted to make
friends with her and she refused. He was thus forced to take the chain
when she was asleep instead of playing with her till he had discovered
the spring and could simply take the map.”

“But he didn’t know anything about the map. He was not in our
confidence.”

“You and your friend talked it over evenings when he was at the ranch,
and other places, too, I expect.”

“Yes, our talk kind of gravitated that way whenever we got together.”

“Well, this fellow overheard you. That’s probable, at least.”

“But you’re ignoring the important fact. Dave disappeared too that
night, with my little girl.”

Bucky cut in sharply with a question. “Did he? How do you know he
disappeared _with_ her? Why not _after?_ That’s the theory my mind is
groping on just now.”

“That’s a blind trail to me. Why _after?_ And what difference does it
make?”

“All the difference in the world. If he left after the cook, you have
been doing him an injustice for fifteen years, seh.”

Mackenzie leaned forward, excitement burning in his eyes. “Prove that,
young man, and I’ll thank you to the last day of my life. It’s for my
wife’s sake more than my own I want my little girl back. She jes’ pines
for her every day of her life. But for my friend—if you can give me
back the clean memory of Dave you’ll have done a big thing for me, Mr.
O’Connor.”

“It’s only a working theory, but this is what I’m getting at. You and
Henderson had arranged to take an early start on a two days’ deer hunt
next mo’ning. That’s what you told me, isn’t it?”

“We were to start about four. Yes, sir.”

“Well, let’s suppose a case. Along comes Dave before daybreak, when the
first hooters were beginning to call. Just as he reaches your ranch he
notices a horse slipping away in the darkness. Perhaps he hears the
little girl cry out. Anyhow, instead of turning in at the gate, he
decides to follow. Probably he isn’t sure there’s anything wrong, but
when he finds out how the horse he’s after is burning the wind his
suspicions grow stronger. He settles down to a long chase. In the
darkness, we’ll say, he loses his man, but when it gets lighter he
picks up the trail again. The tracks lead south, across the line into
Mexico. Still he keeps plodding on. The man in front sees him behind
and gets scared because he can’t shake him off. Very likely he thinks
it is you on his track. Anyhow, while the child is asleep he waits in
ambush, and when Henderson rides up he shoots him down. Then he pushes
on deeper into Chihuahua, and proceeds to lose himself there by
changing his name.”

“You think he murdered Dave?” The cattleman got up and began to pace up
and down the floor.

“I think it possible.”

Webb Mackenzie’s face was pallid, but there was a new light of hope in
it. “I believe you’re right. God knows I hope so. That may sound a
horrible thing to say of my best friend, but if it has got to be one or
the other—if it is certain that my old bunkie came to his death foully
in Chihuahua while trying to save my baby, or is alive to-day, a
skulking coward and villain—with all my heart I hope he is dead.” He
spoke with a passionate intensity which showed how much he had cared
for his early friend, and how much the latter’s apparent treachery had
cut him. “I hope you’ll never have a friend go back on you, Mr.
O’Connor, the one friend you would have banked on to a finish. Why,
Dave Henderson saved my life from a bunch of Apaches once when it was
dollars to doughnuts he would lose his own if he tried it. We were
prospecting in the Galiuros together, and one mo’ning when he went down
to the creek to water the hawsses he sighted three of the red devils
edging up toward the cabin. There might have been fifty of them there
for all he knew, and he had a clear run to the plains if he wanted to
back one of the ponies and take it. Most any man would have saved his
own skin, but not Dave. He hoofed it back to the cabin, under fire
every foot of the way, and together we made it so hot for them that
they finally gave up getting us. We were in the Texas Rangers together,
and pulled each other through a lot of close places. And then at the
end—Why, it hurt me more than it did losing my own little girl.”

Bucky nodded. Since he was a man and not a father, he could understand
how the hurt would rankle year after year at the defalcation of his
comrade.

“That’s another kink we have got to unravel in this tangle. First off,
there’s your little girl, to find if she is still alive. Second, we
must locate Dave Henderson or his grave. Third, there’s something due
the scoundrel who is responsible for this. Fourthly, brethren, there’s
that map section to find. And lastly, we’ve got to find just how this
story you’ve told me got mixed with the story of the holdup of the
Limited. For it ce’tainly looks as if the two hang together. I take it
that the thing to do is to run down the gang that held up the Limited.
Once we do that, we ought to find the key to the mystery of your little
girl’s disappearance. Or, at least, there is a chance we shall. And
it’s chances we’ve got to gamble on in this thing.”

“Good enough. I like the way you go at this. Already I feel a heap
better than I did.”

“If the cards fall our way you’re going to get this thing settled once
for all. I can’t promise my news will be good news when I get it, but
anything will be better than the uncertainty you’ve been in, I take
it,” said Bucky, rising from his chair.

“You’re right there. But, wait a moment. Let’s drink to your success.”

“I’m not much of a sport,” Bucky smiled. “Fact is, I never drink, seh.”

“Of course. I remember, now. You’re the good bad man of the West,”
Mackenzie answered amiably. “Well, I drink to you. Here’s good hunting,
lieutenant.”

“Thank you.”

“I suppose you’ll get right at this thing?”

“I’ve got to take that kid in the next room out to my ranch first. I
won’t stand for that knife thrower making a slave of him.”

“What’s the matter with me taking the boy out to the Rocking Chair with
me? My wife and I will see he’s looked after till you return.”

“That would be the best plan, if it won’t trouble you too much. We’d
better keep his whereabouts quiet till this fellow Hardman is out of
the country.”

“Yes, though I hardly think he’d be fool enough to show up at the
Rocking Chair. If my vaqueros met up with him prowling around they
might show him as warm a welcome as you did half an hour ago.”

“A chapping would sure do him a heap of good,” grinned Bucky, and so
dismissed the Champion of the World from his mind.




CHAPTER V.
BUCKY ENTERTAINS


Bucky began at once to tap the underground wires his official position
made accessible to him. These ran over Southern Arizona, Sonora, and
Chihuahua. All the places to which criminals or frontiersmen with money
were wont to resort were reported upon. For the ranger’s experience had
taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to
burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of
the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb
disport themselves together.

The photograph from Webb Mackenzie of the cook Anderson reached him at
Tucson the third day after his interview with that gentleman, at the
same time that Collins dropped in on him to inquire what progress he
was making.

O’Connor told him of the Aravaipa episode, and tossed across the table
to him the photograph he had just received.

“If we could discover the gent that sat for this photo it might help
us. You don’t by any chance know him, do you, Val?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Not in my rogues’ gallery, Bucky.”

The ranger again examined the faded picture. A resemblance in it to
somebody he had met recently haunted vaguely his memory. As he looked
the indefinite suggestion grew sharp and clear. It was a photograph of
the showman who had called himself Hardman. All the trimmings were
lacking, to be sure—the fierce mustache, the long hair, the buckskin
trappings, none of them were here. But beyond a doubt it was the same
shifty-eyed villain. Nor did it shake Bucky’s confidence that Mackenzie
had seen him and failed to recognize the man as his old cook. The
fellow was thoroughly disguised, but the camera had happened to catch
that curious furtive glance of his. But for that O’Connor would never
have known the two to be the same.

Bucky was at the telephone half an hour. In the middle of the next
afternoon his reward came in the form of a Western Union billet. It
read:

“Eastern man says you don’t want what is salable here.”

The lieutenant cut out every other word and garnered the wheat of the
message:

“Man you want is here.”

The telegram was marked from Epitaph, and for that town the ranger and
the sheriff entrained immediately.

Bucky’s eye searched in vain the platform of the Epitaph depot for
Malloy, of the Rangers, whose wire had brought him here. The cause of
the latter’s absence was soon made clear to him in a note he found
waiting for him at the hotel:

“The old man has just sent me out on hurry-up orders. Don’t know when
I’ll get back. Suggest you take in the show at the opera house to-night
to pass the time.”

It was the last sentence that caught Bucky’s attention. Jim Malloy had
not written it except for a reason. Wherefore the lieutenant purchased
two tickets for the performance far back in the house. From the local
newspaper he gathered that the showman was henceforth to be a resident
of Epitaph. Mr. Jay Hardman, or Signor Raffaello Cavellado, as he was
known the world over by countless thousands whom he had entertained,
had purchased a corral and livery stable at the corner of Main and
Boothill Streets and solicited the patronage of the citizens of Hualpai
County. That was the purport of the announcement which Bucky ringed
with a pencil and handed to his friend.

That evening Signor Raffaello Cavellado made a great hit with his
audience. He swaggered through his act magnificently, and held his
spectators breathless. Bucky took care to see that a post and the
sheriff’s big body obscured him from view during the performance.

After it was over O’Connor and the sheriff returned to the hotel, where
also Hardman was for the present staying, and sent word up to his room
that one of the audience who had admired very much the artistic
performance would like the pleasure of drinking a glass of wine with
Signor Cavellado if the latter would favor him with his company in room
seven. The Signor was graciously pleased to accept, and followed his
message of acceptance in person a few minutes later.

Bucky remained quietly in the corner of the room back of the door until
the showman had entered, and while the latter was meeting Collins he
silently locked the door and pocketed the key.

The sheriff acknowledged Hardman’s condescension brusquely and without
shaking hands. “Glad to meet you, seh. But you’re mistaken in one
thing. I’m not your host. This gentleman behind you is.”

The man turned and saw Bucky, who was standing with his back against
the door, a bland smile on his face.

“Yes, seh. I’m your host to-night. Sheriff Collins, hyer, is another
guest. I’m glad to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Signor
Raffaello Cavellado,” Bucky assured him, in his slow, gentle drawl,
without reassuring him at all.

For the fellow was plainly disconcerted at recognition of his host. He
turned with a show of firmness to Collins. “If you’re a sheriff, I
demand to have that door opened at once,” he blustered.

Val put his hands in his pockets and tipped back his chair. “I ain’t
sheriff of Hualpai County. My jurisdiction don’t extend here,” he said
calmly.

“I’m an unarmed man,” pleaded Cavellado.

“Come to think of it, so am I.”

“I reckon I’m holding all the aces, Signor Cavellado,” explained the
ranger affably. “Or do you prefer in private life to be addressed as
Hardman—or, say, Anderson?”

The showman moistened his lips and offered his tormentor a blanched
face.

“Anderson—a good plain name. I wonder, now, why you changed it?”
Bucky’s innocent eyes questioned him blandly as he drew from his pocket
a little box and tossed it on the table. “Open that box for me, Mr.
Anderson. Who knows? It might explain a heap of things to us.”

With trembling fingers the big coward fumbled at the string. With all
his fluent will he longed to resist, but the compelling eyes that met
his so steadily were not to be resisted. Slowly he unwrapped the paper
and took the lid from the little box, inside of which was coiled up a
thin gold chain with locket pendant.

“Be seated,” ordered Bucky sternly, and after the man had found a chair
the ranger sat down opposite him.

From its holster he drew a revolver and from a pocket his watch. He
laid them on the table side by side and looked across at the
white-lipped trembler whom he faced.

“We had better understand each other, Mr. Anderson. I’ve come here to
get from you the story of that chain, so far as you know it. If you
don’t care to tell it I shall have to mess this floor up with your
remains. Get one proposition into your cocoanut right now. You don’t
get out of this room alive with your secret. It’s up to you to choose.”

Quite without dramatics, as placidly as if he were discussing railroad
rebates, the ranger delivered his ultimatum. It seemed plain that he
considered the issue no responsibility of his.

Anderson stared at him in silent horror, moistening his dry lips with
the tip of his tongue. Once his gaze shifted to the sheriff but found
small comfort there. Collins had picked up a newspaper and was absorbed
in it.

“Are you going to let him kill me?” the man asked him hoarsely.

He looked up from his newspaper in mild protest at such unreason. “Me?
I ain’t sittin’ in this game. Seems like I mentioned that already.”

“Better not waste your time, signor, on side issues,” advised the man
behind the gun. “For I plumb forgot to tell you I’m allowing only three
minutes to begin your story, half of which three has already slipped
away to yesterday’s seven thousand years. Without wantin’ to hurry you,
I suggest the wisdom of a prompt decision.”

“Would he do it?” gasped the victim, with a last appeal to Collins.

“Would he what? Oh, shoot you up. Cayn’t tell till I see. If he says he
will he’s liable to. He always was that haidstrong.”

“But—why—why—”

“Yes, it’s sure a heap against the law, but then Bucky ain’t a lawyer.
I don’t reckon he cares sour grapes for the law—as law. It’s a right
interesting guess as to whether he will or won’t.”

“There’s a heap of cases the law don’t reach prompt. This is one of
them,” contributed the ranger cheerfully. He pocketed his watch and
picked up the .45. “Any last message or anything of that sort, signor?
I don’t want to be unpleasant about this, you understand.”

The whilom bad man’s teeth chattered. “I’ll tell you anything you want
to know.”

“Now, that’s right sensible. I hate to come into another man’s house
and clutter it up. Reel off your yarn.”

“I don’t know—what you want.”

“I want the whole story of your kidnapping of the Mackenzie child, how
came you to do it, what happened to Dave Henderson, and full directions
where I may locate Frances Mackenzie. Begin at the beginning, and I’ll
fire questions at you when you don’t make any point clear to me. Turn
loose your yarn at me hot off the bat.”

The man told his story sullenly. While he was on the round-up as cook
for the riders he had heard Mackenzie and Henderson discussing together
the story of their adventure with the dying Spaniard and their hopes of
riches from the mine he had left them. From that night he had set
himself to discover the secret of its location, had listened at windows
and at keyholes, and had once intercepted a letter from one to the
other. By chance he had discovered that the baby was carrying the
secret in her locket, and he had set himself to get it from her.

But his chance did not come. He could not make friends with her, and at
last, in despair of finding a better opportunity, he had slipped into
her room one night in the small hours to steal the chain. But it was
wound round her neck in such a way that he could not slip it over her
head. She had awakened while he was fumbling with the clasp and had
begun to cry. Hearing her mother moving about in the next room, he had
hastily carried the child with him, mounted the horse waiting in the
yard, and ridden away.

In the road he became aware, some time later, that he was being
pursued. This gave him a dreadful fright, for, as Bucky had surmised,
he thought his pursuer was Mackenzie. All night he rode southward
wildly, but still his follower kept on his trail till near morning,
when he eluded him. He crossed the border, but late that afternoon got
another fright. For it was plain he was still being followed. In the
endless stretch of rolling hills he twice caught sight of a rider
picking his way toward him. The heart of the guilty man was like water.
He could not face the outraged father, nor was it possible to escape so
dogged a foe by flight. An alternative suggested itself, and he
accepted it with sinking courage. The child was asleep in his arms now,
and he hastily dismounted, picketed his horse, and stole back a quarter
of a mile, so that the neighing of his bronco might not betray his
presence. Then he lay down in a dense mesquit thicket and waited for
his foe. It seemed an eternity till the man appeared at the top of a
rise fifty yards away. Hastily Anderson fired, and again. The man
toppled from his horse, dead before he struck the ground. But when the
cook reached him he was horrified to see that the man he had killed was
a member of the Rurales, or Mexican border police. In his guilty terror
he had shot the wrong man.

He fled at once, pursued by a thousand fears. Late the next night he
reached a Chihuahua village, after having been lost for many hours. The
child he still carried with him, simply because he had not the heart to
leave it to die in the desert alone. A few weeks later he married an
American woman he met in Sonora. They adopted the child, but it died
within the year of fever.

Meanwhile, he was horrified to learn that Dave Henderson, following
hard on his trail, had been found bending over the spot where the dead
soldier lay, had been arrested by a body of Rurales, tried hurriedly,
and convicted to life imprisonment. The evidence had been purely
circumstantial. The bullet found in the dead body of the trooper was
one that might have come from his rifle, the barrel of which was empty
and had been recently fired. For the rest, he was a hated _Americano_,
and, as a matter of course, guilty. His judges took pains to see that
no message from him reached his friends in the States before he was
buried alive in the prison. In that horrible hole an innocent man had
been confined for fifteen years, unless he had died during that time.

That, in substance, was the story told by the showman, and Bucky’s
incisive questions were unable to shake any portion of it. As to the
missing locket, the man explained that it had been broken off by
accident and lost. When he discovered that only half the secret was
contained on the map section he had returned the paper to the locket
and let the child continue to carry it. Some years after the death of
the child, Frances, his wife had lost the locket with the map.

“And this chain and locket—when did you lose them?” demanded Bucky
sharply.

“It must have been about two months ago, down at Nogales, that I sold
it to a fellow. I was playing faro and losing. He gave me five dollars
for it.”

And to that he stuck stoutly, nor could he be shaken from it. Both
O’Connor and the sheriff believed he was lying, for they were convinced
that he was the bandit with the red wig who had covered the engineer
while his companions robbed the train. But of this they had no proof.
Nor did Bucky even mention his suspicion to Hardman, for it was his
intention to turn him loose and have him watched. Thus, perhaps, he
would be caught corresponding or fraternizing with some of the other
outlaws. Collins left the room before the showman, and when the latter
came from the hotel he followed him into the night.

Meanwhile, Bucky went out and tapped another of his underground wires.
This ran directly to the Mexican consul at Tucson, to whom Bucky had
once done a favor of some importance, and from him to Sonora and
Chihuahua. It led to musty old official files, to records already
yellowed with age, to court reports and prison registers. In the end it
flashed back to Bucky great news. Dave Henderson, arrested for the
murder of the Rurales policeman, was still serving time in a Mexican
prison for another man’s crime. There in Chihuahua for fifteen years he
had been lost to the world in that underground hole, blotted out from
life so effectually that few now remembered there had been such a
person. It was horrible, unthinkable, but none the less true.




CHAPTER VI.
BUCKY MAKES A DISCOVERY


For a week Bucky had been in the little border town of Noches, called
there by threats of a race war between the whites and the Mexicans.
Having put the quietus on this, he was returning to Epitaph by way of
the Huachuca Mountains. There are still places in Arizona where rapid
transit can be achieved more expeditiously on the back of a bronco than
by means of the railroad, even when the latter is available. So now
Bucky was taking a short cut across country instead of making the two
train changes, with the consequent inevitable delays that would have
been necessary to travel by rail.

He traveled at night and in the early morning, to avoid the heat of the
midday sun, and it was in the evening of the second and last day that
the skirts of happy chance led him to an adventure that was to affect
his whole future life. He knew a waterhole on the Del Oro, where cows
were wont to frequent even in the summer drought, and toward this he
was making in the fag-end of the sultry day. While still some hundred
yards distant he observed a spiral of smoke rising from a camp-fire at
the spring, and he at once made a more circumspect approach. For it
might be any one of a score of border ruffians who owed him a grudge
and would be glad to pay it in the silent desert that tells no tales
and betrays no secrets to the inquisitive.

He flung the bridle-rein over his pony’s neck and crept forward on
foot, warily and noiselessly. While still some little way from the
water-hole he was arrested by a sound that startled him. He could make
out a raucous voice in anger and a pianissimo accompaniment of womanish
sobs.

“You’re mine to do with as I like. I’m your uncle. I’ve raised you from
a kid, and, by the great mogul! you can’t sneak off with the first
good-for nothing scoundrel that makes eyes at you. Thought you had
slipped away from me, you white-faced, sniveling little idiot, but I’ll
show you who is master.”

The lash of a whip rose and fell twice on quivering flesh before Bucky
leaped into the fireglow and wrested the riding-whip from the hands of
the angry man who was plying it.

“Dare to touch a woman, would you?” cried the ranger, swinging the whip
vigorously across the broad shoulders of the man. “Take that—and
that—and that, you brute!”

But when Bucky had finished with the fellow and flung him a limp,
writhing huddle of welts to the ground, three surprises awaited him.
The first was that it was not a woman he had rescued at all, but a boy,
and, as the flickering firelight played on his face, the ranger came to
an unexpected recognition. The slim lad facing him was no other than
Frank Hardman, whom he had left a few days before at the Rocking Chair
under the care of motherly Mrs. Mackenzie. The young man’s eyes went
back with instant suspicion to the fellow he had just punished, and his
suspicions were verified when the leaping light revealed the face of
the showman Anderson.

Bucky laughed. “I ce’tainly seem to be interfering in your affairs a
good deal, Mr. Anderson. You may take my word for it that you was the
last person in the world I expected to meet here, unless it might be
this boy. I left him safe at a ranch fifty miles from here, and I left
you a staid business man of Epitaph. But it seems neither of you stayed
hitched. Why for this yearning to travel?”

“He found me where I was staying. I was out riding alone on an errand
for Mrs. Mackenzie when he met me and made me go with him. He has
arranged to have me meet his wife in Mexico. The show wouldn’t draw
well without me. You know I do legerdemain,” Frank explained, in his
low, sweet voice.

“So you had plans of your own, Mr. Anderson. Now, that was right
ambitious of you. But I reckon I’ll have to interfere with them again.
Go through him, kid, and relieve him of any guns he happens to be
garnished with. Might as well help yourself to his knives, too. He’s so
fond of letting them fly around promiscuous he might hurt himself.
Good. Now we can sit down and have a friendly talk. Where did you say
you was intending to spend the next few weeks before I interrupted so
unthinking and disarranged your plans? I’m talking to you, Mr.
Anderson.”

“I was heading for Sonora,” the man whined.

What Bucky thought was: “Right strange direction to be taking for
Sonora. I’ll bet my pile you were going up into the hills to meet some
of Wolf Leroy’s gang. But why you were taking the kid along beats me,
unless it was just cussedness.” What he said was:

“Oh, you’ll like Epitaph a heap better. I allow you ought to stay at
that old town. It’s a real interesting place. Finished in the adobe
style and that sort of thing. The jail’s real comfy, too.”

“Would you like something to eat, sir?” presently asked Frank timidly.

“Would I? Why, I’m hungry enough to eat a leather mail-sack. Trot on
your grub, young man, and watch my smoke.”

Bucky did ample justice to the sandwiches and lemonade the lad set in
front of him, but he ate with a wary eye on a possible insurrection on
the part of his prisoner.

“I’m a new man,” he announced briskly, when he had finished. “That veal
loaf sandwich went sure to the right spot. If you had been a young lady
instead of a boy you couldn’t fix things up more appetizing.”

The lad’s face flushed with embarrassment, apparently at the ranger’s
compliment, and the latter, noticed how delicate the small face was. It
made an instinctive, wistful appeal for protection, and Bucky felt an
odd little stirring at his tender Irish heart.

“Might think I was the kid’s father to see what an interest I take in
him,” the young man told himself reprovingly. “It’s all tommyrot, too.
A boy had ought to have more grit. I expect he needed that licking all
right I saved him from.”

When Bucky had eaten, the camp things were repacked for travel. Epitaph
was only twenty-three miles away, and the ranger preferred to ride in
the cool of the night rather than sit up till daybreak with his
prisoner. Besides, he could then catch the morning train from that town
and save almost a day.

So hour after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O’Connor in
the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona
night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere
that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged,
violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many
shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown
magical under its divine touch.

The ranger rode with a limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting
now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid
stiffness.

It must have been well past midnight that he caught the long breath of
a sigh behind him. The trail had broadened at that point, for they were
now down in the rolling plain, so that two could ride abreast in the
road. Bucky fell back and put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the
boy.

“Plumb fagged out, kid?” he asked.

“I am tired. Is it far?”

“About four miles. Stick it out, and we’ll be there in no time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. Call me Bucky.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bucky laughed. “You’re ce’tainly the queerest kid I’ve run up against.
I guess you didn’t scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I
did. You’re too soft for this country.” He let his firm brown fingers
travel over the lad’s curly hair and down the smooth cheek. “There it
is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I’ll bet a
biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your
life.”

“No, sir,” murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a
little, chuckling laugh.

“Well, you ought to be ashamed of it. When come back from old Mexico
I’m going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You’re going to ride
the range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the
bronc and you disagrees. Oh, I’ll bet all you need is training. I’ll
make a man out of you yet,” the ranger assured his charge cheerfully.
“Will you?” came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the
sense of being laughed at.

“Yes, I ‘will you,’ sissy,” he retorted, without the least
exasperation. “Don’t think you know it all. Right now you’re riding
like a wooden man. You want to take it easy in the saddle. There’s
about a dozen different positions you can take to rest yourself.” And
Bucky put him through a course of sprouts. “Don’t sit there laughing at
folks that knows a heap more than you ever will get in your noodle, and
perhaps you won’t be so done up at the end of a little jaunt like
this,” he concluded. And to his conclusion he presently added a
postscript: “Why, I know kids your age can ride day and night for a
week on the round-up without being all in. How old are you, son?”

“Eighteen.”

“That’s a lie,” retorted the ranger, with immediate frankness. “You’re
not a day over fifteen, I’ll bet.”

“I meant to say fifteen,” meekly corrected the youth.

“That’s another of them. You meant to say eighteen, but you found I
wouldn’t swallow it. Now, Master Frank, you want to learn one thing
prompt if you and I are to travel together. I can’t stand a liar. You
tell the truth, or I’ll give you the best licking you ever had in your
life.”

“You’re as bad a bully as he is,” the boy burst out, flushing angrily.

“Oh, no, I’m not,” came the ranger’s prompt unmoved answer. “But just
because you’re such a weak little kid that I could break you in two
isn’t any reason why I should put up with any foolishness from you. I
mean to see that you act proper, the way an honest kid ought to do.
Savvy?”

“I’d like to know who made you my master?” demanded the boy hotly.

“You’ve ce’tainly been good and spoiled, but you needn’t ride your high
hawss with me. Here’s the long and the short of it. To tell lies ain’t
square. If I ask you anything you don’t want to answer tell me to go to
hell, but don’t lie to me. If you do I’ll punish you the same as if you
were my brother, so long as you trail with me. If you don’t like it,
cut loose and hit the pike for yourself.”

“I’ve a good mind to go.”

Bucky waved a hand easily into space. “That’s all right, too, son.
There’s a heap of directions you can hit from here. Take any one you
like. But if I was as beat as you are, I think I’d keep on the Epitaph
road.” He laughed his warm, friendly laugh, before the geniality of
which discord seemed to melt, and again his arm went round the other’s
weary shoulders with a caressing gesture that was infinitely
protecting.

The boy laughed tremulously. “You’re awfully good to me. I know I’m a
cry-baby, sissy boy, but if you’ll be patient with me I’ll try to be
gamer.”

It certainly was strange the way Bucky’s pulse quickened and his blood
tingled when he touched the little fellow and heard that velvet voice’s
soft murmur. Yes, it surely was strange, but perhaps the young
Irishman’s explanation was not the correct one, after all. The cause he
offered to himself for this odd joy and tender excitement was perfectly
simple.

“I’m surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid,” he told
himself grimly.

But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed
through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even
madness.

Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and
made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had
returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to
set out for any point where he was needed.

Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at
it, and voiced his perplexity.

“Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better
ship you back to the Rocking Chair.”

“I don’t want to go back there. He’ll come out again and find me after
you leave.”

“Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in
the convent school here,” he reflected aloud.

Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth’s cheeks. “Why can’t
I go with you?” he asked shyly.

The ranger laughed. “Mebbe you think I’m going on a picnic. Why, I’m
starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble’s shoulder. Like as
not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky’s scalp down in _mañana_ land.
No, sir, this doesn’t threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion.”

“If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I’m awful good at
making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native.”

“Sho! You don’t want to go running your neck into a noose. It’s a
jail-break I’m planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we get
back to God’s country—if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then
some, for there’s a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as
your uncle happens to know from reliable information.”

“Two can always work better than one. Try me, Bucky,” pleaded the boy,
the last word slipping out with a trailing upward inflection that was
irresistible.

“Sure you won’t faint if we get in a tight pinch, Curly?” scoffed
O’Connor, even though in his mind he was debating a surrender. For he
was extraordinarily taken with the lad, and his judgment justified what
the boy had said.

“I shall not be afraid if you are with me.”

“But I may not be with you. That’s the trouble. Supposing I should be
caught, what would you do?”

“Follow any orders you had given me before that time. If you had not
given any, I would use my best judgment.”

“I’ll give them now,” smiled Bucky. “If I’m lagged, make straight for
Arizona and tell Webb Mackenzie or Val Collins.”

“Then you _will_ take me?” cried the boy eagerly.

“Only on condition that you obey orders explicitly. I’m running this
cutting-out expedition.”

“I wouldn’t think of disobeying.”

“And I don’t want you to tell me any lies.”

“No.”

Bucky’s big brown fist caught the little one and squeezed it. “Then
it’s a deal, kid. I only hope I’m doing right to take you.”

“Of course you are. Haven’t you promised to make a man of me?” And
again Bucky caught that note of stifled laughter in the voice, though
the big brown eyes met his quite seriously.

They took the train that night for El Paso, Bucky in the lower berth
and his friend in the upper of section six of one of the Limited’s
Pullman cars. The ranger was awake and up with the day. For a couple of
hours he sat in the smoking section and discussed politics with a
Chicago drummer. He knew that Frank was very tired, and he let him
sleep till the diner was taken on at Lordsburg. Then he excused himself
to the traveling man.

“I reckon I better go and wake up my pardner. I see the chuck-wagon is
toddling along behind us.”

Bucky drew aside the curtains and shook the boy gently by the shoulder.
Frank’s eyes opened and looked at the ranger with that lack of
comprehension peculiar to one roused suddenly from deep sleep.

“Time to get up, Curly. The nigger just gave the first call for the
chuck-wagon.”

An understanding of the situation flamed over the boy’s face. He
snatched the curtains from the Arizonian and gathered them tightly
together. “I’ll thank you not to be so familiar,” he said shortly from
behind the closed curtains.

“I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself
announced and craved an audience, I reckon,” was Bucky’s ironic retort;
and swiftly on the heels of it he added. “You make me tired, kid.”

O’Connor was destined to be “made tired” a good many times in the
course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies
Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the
ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as to
his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of
embarrassment to brush his teeth before his fellow passengers. Nor did
it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while
he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this
excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was
merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the
point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of
innocence in the lad tied his tongue.

“Blame it all, I’m getting to be a regular old granny. What Master
Frank needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss
has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I’m mum as a hooter on
the nest,” he admitted to himself ruefully. “Just when something comes
up that needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school
eye of his, and it’s Bucky back to Webster’s unabridged. I’ve got to
quit trailing with him, or I’ll be joining the church first thing I
know. He makes me feel like I want to be _good_, confound the little
swindle.”

Notwithstanding the ranger’s occasional moments of exasperation, the
two got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in
delving into the other’s unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into
one of those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and
man. Some subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the
hearts of each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have
explained what lay at the roots of it, but O’Connor admitted that he
was “buffaloed” when he attempted an analysis of his unusual feeling.

From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them
to Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso.
Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the
country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the
lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture.
They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making
their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded
in their object.

At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David
Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone
walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who
paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their
chances.

“It isn’t a very gay outlook,” Bucky admitted cheerfully to his
companion, “but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican
officials weren’t slower than molasses in January it might have been
better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of
Hardman’s confession. But it would take them two or three years to come
to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have
got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at
the last, then. Course I’ve got the law machinery grinding, too, but
I’m not banking on it real heavy. We’ll get him out first any old way,
then get the government to O. K. the thing.”

“How were you thinking of proceeding?”

“I expect it’s time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon
you happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there’s usually
a revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those
for the government and those ferninst. The ‘ins’ stand pat, but the
‘outs’ have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there’s
mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run
it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody
has to be shot, and it’s always so much to the good if they can line up
gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it’s an
Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens
to be Mickey O’Halloran, an old friend of mine. I’m going to put it up
to Mick to find a way.”

“But it isn’t any affair of his. He won’t do it, will he?”

“Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish.”

“Well?”

“And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his
fist out of the hive when there’s such a gem of a chance to get stung?”

It had been Frank’s suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which
open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The
reason for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as
soon as they were alone Frank explained.

“It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or
two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well,
we’ll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come
boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we
shall be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors.
It will give us a great deal more liberty.”

“Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less.
What’s your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?”

“We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we could
easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do
sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes.”

“You would be a gipsy lad?”

The youngster blushed. “A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband.”

“I’m no play actor, even if you are,” said Bucky. “I don’t want to be
your husband, thank you.”

“All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy
enough.”

“And you think you could pass for a girl? You’re slim and soft enough,
but I’ll bet you would give it away inside of an hour.”

The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O’Connor under his long
lashes. “I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years.
Nobody ever suspected that I wasn’t.”

“We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part.”

“Leave that to me. I’ll buy some to-day while you are looking the
ground over for our first assault an the impregnable fortress.”

“I don’t know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the
things, and we’ll see how you look in them. Better not get all the
things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around.”

They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials
he needed, and O’Connor to look up O’Halloran and get a permit to visit
the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned
triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and
thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.

“I’m altering this to fit me and fixing it up,” he explained.

“Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?” asked Bucky, in surprise.

“My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my
costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?”

“You bet I did, and didn’t. Mickey was out, but I left him a note. The
other thing I pulled off all right. I’m to be allowed to visit the
prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure. There’s
nothing like a pull, son.”

“Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the
prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.

“No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery
made?”

“A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I’m just making a few
changes. Do you want to try on your suit?”

“Is _this_ mine?” asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt
the rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.

“Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we’ll see how it fits.”

Bucky returned a few minutes later in his gipsy uniform, with a
deprecating grin.

“I’ll have to stain your face. Then you’ll do very well,” said Frank,
patting and pulling at the clothes here and there. “It’s a good fit, if
I do say it that chose it. The first thing you want to do when you get
out in it is to roll in the dust and get it soiled. No respectable
gipsy wears new clothes. Better have a tear or two in it, too.”

“You ce’tainly should have been a girl, the way you take to clothes,
Curly.”

“Making up was my business for a good many years, you know,” returned
the lad quietly. “If you’ll step into the other room for about fifteen
minutes I’ll show you how well I can do it.”

It was a long half-hour later that Bucky thumped on the door between
the rooms. “Pretty nearly ready, kid? Seems to me it is taking you a
thundering long time to get that outfit on.”

“How long do you think it ought to take a lady to dress?”

“Ten minutes is long enough, and fifteen, say, if she is going to a
dance. You’ve been thirty-five by my Waterbury.”

“It’s plain you never were married, Mr. Innocent. Why, a girl can’t fix
her hair in less than half an hour.”

“Well, you got a wig there, ain’t you? It doesn’t take but about five
seconds to stick that on. Hurry up, _amigo!_ I’m clean through this old
newspaper.”

“Read the advertisements,” came saucily through the door.

“I’ve read the durned things twice.”

“Learn them by heart,” the sweet voice advised.

“Oh, you go to Halifax!”

Nevertheless, Mr. Bucky had to wait his comrade’s pleasure. But when he
got a vision of the result, it was so little what he had expected that
it left him staring in amazement, his jaw fallen and his eyes
incredulous.

The vision swept him a low bow. “How do you like Bonita?” it demanded
gaily.

Bucky’s eyes circled the room, to make sure that the boy was not hidden
somewhere, and came back to rest on his surprise with a look that was
almost consternation. Was this vivid, dazzling creature the boy he had
been patronizing, lecturing, promising to thrash any time during the
past four days? The thing was unbelievable, not yet to be credited by
his jarred brain. How incredibly blind he had been! What an idiot of
sorts! Why, the marks of sex sat on her beyond any possibility of
doubt. Every line of the slim, lissom figure, every curve of the soft,
undulating body, the sweep of rounded arm, of tapering waist-line, of
well-turned ankle, contributed evidence of what it were folly to ask
further proof. How could he have ever seen those lovely, soft-lashed
eyes and the delicate little hands without conviction coming home to
him? And how could he have heard the low murmur of her voice, the catch
of her sobs, without knowing that they were a denial of masculinity?

She was dressed like a Spanish dancing girl, in short kilts, red sash,
and jaunty little cap placed sidewise on her head. She wore a wig of
black hair, and her face was stained to a dusky, gipsy hue. Over her
thumb hung castanets and in her hand was a tambourine. Roguishly she
began to sway into a slow, rhythmic dance, beating time with her
instruments as she moved. Gradually the speed quickened to a faster
time. She swung gracefully to and fro with all the lithe agility of the
race she personified. No part could have been better conceived or
executed. Even physically she displayed the large, brilliant eyes, the
ringleted, coal-black hair, the tawny skin, and the flashing smile that
showed small teeth of dazzling ivory, characteristic of the Romanies he
had met. It was a daring part to play, but the young man watching
realized that she had the free grace to carry it out successfully. She
danced the fandango to a finish, swept him another low bow, and
presented laughingly to him the tambourine for his donation. Then,
suddenly flinging aside the instrument, she curtsied and caught at his
hand.

“Will the señor have his fortune told?”

Bucky drew a handful of change from his pocket and selected a gold
eagle. “I suppose I must cross your palm with gold,” he said, even
while his subconscious mind was running on the new complication
presented to him by this discovery.

He was very clear about one thing. He must not let her know that he
knew her for a girl. To him she must still be a boy, or their relation
would become impossible. She had trusted in her power to keep her
secret from him. On no other terms would she have come with him; of so
much he was sure, even while his mind groped for a sufficient reason to
account for an impulse that might have impelled her. If she found out
that he knew, the knowledge would certainly drive her at once from him.
For he knew that not the least charm of the extraordinary fascination
she had for him lay in her sweet innocence of heart, a fresh innocence
that consisted with this gay Romany abandon, and even with a mental
experience of the sordid, seamy side of life as comprehensive as that
of many a woman twice her age. She had been defrauded out of her
childish inheritance of innocence, but, somehow, even in her foul
environment the seeds of a rare personal purity had persistently sprung
up and flourished. Some flowers are of such native freshness that no
nauseous surroundings can kill their fragrance. And this was one of
them.

Meanwhile, her voice ran on with the patter of her craft. There was the
usual dark woman to be circumvented and the light one to be rewarded.
Jealousies and rivalries played their part in the nonsense she glibly
recited, and somewhere in the future lay, of course, great riches and
happiness for him.

With a queer little tug at his heart he watched the dainty finger that
ran so lightly over his open palm, watched, too, the bent head so
gracefully fine of outline and the face so mobile of expression when
the deep eyes lifted to his in question of the correctness of her
reading. He would miss the little partner that had wound himself so
tightly round his heart. He wondered if he would find compensating joy
in this exquisite creature whom a few moments had taken worlds distant
from him.

Suddenly tiring of her diversion, she dropped his hand. “You don’t say
I do it well,” she charged, aware suspiciously, at last, of his grave
silence.

“You do it very well indeed. I didn’t think you had it in you, kid.
What’s worrying me is that I can never live up to such a sure enough
gipsy as you.”

“All you have to do is to look sour and frown if anybody gets too
familiar with me. You can do that, can’t you?”

“You bet I can,” he answered promptly, with unnecessary emphasis.

“And look handsome,” she teased.

“Oh, that will be easy for me—since you are going to make me up. As a
simple child of nature I’m no ornament to the scenery, but art’s a heap
improving sometimes.”

She thought, but did not say, that art would go a long way before it
could show anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was
not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many
things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy
lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on
the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he
could whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after
seeing how surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the
emergency that sifts men, and she had seen him rise to several with a
readiness that showed the stuff in him.

That evening they slipped out unobserved in the dusk, and a few minutes
later a young gipsy and his bride presented themselves at the inn to be
put up. The scowling young Romany was particular, considering that he
spent most nights in the open, with a sky for a roof. So the master of
the inn thought when he rejected on one pretense or another the first
two rooms that were shown him. He wanted two rooms, and they must
connect. Had the innkeeper such apartments? The innkeeper had, but he
would very much like to see the price in advance if he was going to
turn over to guests of such light baggage the best accommodations in
the house. This being satisfactorily arranged, the young gipsies were
left to themselves in the room they had rented.

The first thing that the man did when they were alone was to roll a
cigarette, which operation he finished deftly with one hand, while the
other swept a match in a circular motion along his trousers leg. In
very fair English the Spanish gipsy said: “You ce’tainly ought to learn
to smoke, kid. Honest, it’s more comfort than a wife.”

“How do you know, since you are not married?” she asked archly.

“I been noticing some of my poor unfortunate friends,” he grinned.




CHAPTER VII.
IN THE LAND OF REVOLUTIONS


The knock that sounded on the door was neither gentle nor apologetic.
It sounded as if somebody had flung a baseball bat at it.

O’Connor smiled, remembering that soft tap of yore. “I reckon—” he was
beginning, when the door opened to admit a visitor.

This proved to be a huge, red-haired Irishman, with a face that served
just now merely as a setting for an irresistible smile. The owner of
the flaming head looked round in surprise on the pair of Romanies and
began an immediate apology to which a sudden blush served as
accompaniment.

“Beg pardon. I didn’t know. The damned dago told me—” He stopped in
confusion, with a scrape and a bow to the lady.

“Sir, I demand an explanation of this most unwarrantable intrusion,”
spoke the ranger haughtily, in his best Spanish.

A patter of soft foreign vowels flowed from the stranger’s
embarrassment.

“You durned old hawss-stealing greaser, cayn’t you talk English?”
drawled the gipsy, with a grin.

The other’s mouth fell open with astonishment He stared at the slim,
dusky young Spaniard for an instant before he fell upon him and began
to pound his body with jovial fists.

“You would, would you, you old pie-eating fraud! Try to fool your Uncle
Mick and make him think you a greaser, would you? I’ll learn yez to
play horse with a fullgrown, able-bodied white man.” He punctuated his
points with short-arm jolts that Bucky laughingly parried.

“Before ladies, Mick! Haven’t you forgot your manners, Red-haid?”

Swiftly Mr. O’Halloran came to flushed rigidity. “Madam, I must still
be apologizing. The surprise of meeting me friend went to me head, I
shouldn’t wonder.”

Bucky doubled up with apparent mirth. “Get into the other room, Curly,
and get your other togs on,” he ordered. “Can’t you see that Mick is
going to fall in love with you if he sees you a minute longer, you
young rascal? Hike!”

“Don’t you talk that way to a lady, Bucky,” warned O’Halloran, again
blushing vividly, after she had disappeared into the next room. “And I
want to let yez have it right off the bat that if you’ve been leading
that little Mexican señorita into trouble you’ve got a quarrel on with
Mike O’Halloran.”

“Keep your shirt on, old fire-eater. Who told you I was wronging her
any?”

“Are you married to her?”

“You bet I ain’t. You see, Mick, that handsome lady you’re going to
lick the stuffing out of me about is only a plumb ornery sassy young
boy, after all.”

“No!” denied Mick, his eyes two excited interrogation-points. “You
can’t stuff me with any such fairy-tale, me lad.”

“All right. Wait and see,” suggested the ranger easily. “Have a smoke
while you’re falling out of love.”

“You young limb, I want you to tell me all about it this very minute,
before I punch holes in yez.”

Bucky lit his cigar, leaned back, and began to tell the story of Frank
Hardman and the knife-thrower. Only one thing he omitted to tell, and
that was the conviction that had come home to him a few moments ago
that his little comrade was no boy, but a woman. O’Halloran was a
chivalrous Irishman, a daredevil of an adventurer, with a pure love of
freedom that might very likely in the end bring him to face a row of
loaded carbines with his back to a wall, but Bucky had his reticencies
that even loyal friendship could not break down. This girl’s secret he
meant to guard until such time as she chose of her own free will to
tell it.

Frank returned just as he finished the tale of the knife episode, and
Mick’s frank open eyes accused him of idiocy for ever having supposed
that this lad was a woman. Why, he was a little fellow not over
fifteen—not a day past fifteen, he would swear to that. He was, to be
sure, a slender, girlish young fellow, a good deal of a sissy by the
look of him, but none the less a sure enough boy. Convinced of this,
the big Irishman dismissed him promptly from his thoughts and devoted
himself to Bucky.

“And what are yez doing down in greaser land? Thought you was rustling
cows for a living somewheres in sunburnt Arizona,” he grinned amiably.

“Me? Oh, I came down on business. We’ll talk about that presently.
How’s your one-hawss revolution getting along, Reddy? I hope it’s right
peart and healthy.”

O’Halloran’s eyes flashed a warning, with the slightest nod in the
world toward the boy.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s straight as a string and knows how to keep
his mouth shut. You can tell him anything you would me.” He turned to
the boy sitting quietly in an inconspicuous corner. “Mum’s the word,
Frank. You understand that, of course?”

The boy nodded. “I’ll go into the next room, if you like.”

“It isn’t necessary. Fire ahead, Mike.”

The latter got up, tiptoed to each door in turn, flung it suddenly open
to see that nobody was spying behind it, and then turned the lock. “I
have use for me head for another year or two, and it’s just as well to
see that nobody is spying. You understand, Bucky, that I’m risking me
life in telling you what I’m going to. If you have any doubts about
this lad—” He stopped, keen eyes fixed on Frank.

“He’s as safe as I am, Mike. Is it likely I would take any risks about
a thing of that sort with my old bunkie’s tough neck inviting the
hangman?” asked O’Connor quietly.

“Good enough. The kid looks stanch, and, anyhow, if you guarantee him
that’s enough for me.” He accepted another of the ranger’s cigars,
puffed it to a red glow, and leaned back to smile at his friend.
“Glory, but it’s good to see ye, Bucky, me bye. You’ll never know how a
man’s eyes ache to see a straight-up white man in this land of
greasers. It’s the God’s truth I’m telling ye when I say that I haven’t
had a scrimmage with me hands since I came here. The only idea this
forsaken country has of exchanging compliments is with a knife in the
dark.” He shook his flaming head regretfully at the deplorably lost
condition of a country where the shillalah was unknown as a social
institution.

“If I wasn’t tied up with this Valdez bunch I’d get out to-morrow, and
sometimes I have half a mind to pull out anyhow. If you’ve never been
associated, me lad, with half a dozen most divilishly polite señors,
each one of them watching the others out of the corner of his slant
eyes for fear they are going to betray him or assassinate him first,
you’ll never know the joys of life in this peaceful and contented land
of indolence. Life’s loaded to the guards with uncertainties, so eat,
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you hang, or your friend will carve
ye in the back with a knife, me old priest used to say, or something
like it. ’Tis certain he must have had in mind the Spanish-American, my
son.”

“Which is why you’re here, you old fraud,” smiled Bucky. “You’ve got to
grumble, of course, but you couldn’t be dragged away while there’s a
chance of a row. Don’t I know you of old, Reddy?”

“Anyway, here I am, with me neck so near to the rope it fairly aches
sometimes. If you have any inclinations toward suicide, I’ll be glad to
introduce ye to me revolutionary friends.”

“Thank you, no. The fact is that we have a little private war of our
own on hand, Mike. I was thinking maybe you’d like to enlist, old
filibuster.”

“Is the pay good?”

“Nothing a day and find yourself,” answered Bucky promptly.

“No reasonable man could ask fairer than that,” agreed O’Halloran, his
grin expanding. “Well, then, what’s the row? Would ye like to be
dictator of Chihuahua or Emperor of Mexico?”

“There’s an American in the government prison here under a life
sentence. He is not guilty, and he has already served fifteen years.”

“He is like to serve fifteen more, if he lives that long.”

“Wrong guess. I mean to get him out.”

“And I’m meaning to go to Paradise some day, but will I?”

“You’re going to help me get him out, Mike.”

“Who told ye that, me optimistic young friend?”

“I didn’t need to be told.”

“Well, I’ll not lift a finger, Bucky—not a finger.”

“I knew you wouldn’t stand to see a man like Henderson rot in a
dungeon. No Irishman would.”

“You needn’t blarney me. I’m too old a bird to be caught with chaff.
It’s a dirty shame, of course, about this man Henderson, but I’m not
running the criminal jurisprudence of Mexico meself.”

“And I said to Webb Mackenzie: ‘Mickey O’Halloran is the man to see;
he’ll know the best way to do it as nobody else would.’ I knew I could
depend on you.”

“You’ve certainly kissed the blarney stone, Mr. O’Connor,” returned the
revolutionist dryly. “Well, then, what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing much. Get Henderson out and help us to get safely from the
country whose reputation you black-eye so cheerfully.”

“Mercy of Hiven! Bring me the moon and a handful of stars, says he, as
cool as you please.”

The ranger told the story of Henderson and Mackenzie’s lost child in
such a way that it lost nothing in the telling. O’Halloran was moved.
“’Tis a damned shame about this man Henderson,” he blurted out.

Bucky leaned back comfortably and waved airily his brown hand. “It’s up
to you,” his gay, impudent eyes seemed to say.

“I don’t say I won’t be able to help you,” conceded O’Halloran. “It
happens, me bye, that you’ve dropped in on me just before the band
begins to play.” He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “There’s a
shipment of pianos being brought down the line this week. The night
after they arrive I’m looking for music.”

“I see. The piano boxes are filled with rifles and ammunition.”

“You have a mind like a tack, Bucky. Rifles is the alias of them
pianos. They’ll make merry music once we get them through.”

“That’s all very well, but have you reckoned with the government at
Mexico? Chihuahua isn’t the whole country, Mickey. Suppose President
Diaz takes a hand in the game and sends troops in on you?”

“He won’t,” answered the other, with a wink. “He’s been seen. The
president isn’t any too friendly to that old tyrant Megales, who is now
governor here. There’s an election next week. The man that gets most
votes will be elected, and I’m thinking, Bucky, that the man with most
rifles will the most votes. Now, says Diaz, in effect, with an official
wave of his hand, ‘Settle your own rows, gintlemen. I don’t give a damn
whether Megales or Valdez is governor of Chihuahua, subject, of coorse,
to the will of the people.’ Then he winks at Valdez wid his off eye as
much as to say: ‘Go in an’ win, me boy; me prayers are supporting ye.
But be sure ye do nothing too illegal.’ So there ye are, Bucky. If ould
Megales was to wake up election morning and find that the
polling-places was in our hands, his soldiers disarmed or bought over,
and everything contributing smoothly to express the will of the people
in electing him to take a swift hike out of Chihuahua, it is likely
that he might accept the inevitable as the will of fate and make a
strategic retreat to climes more healthy.”

“And if in the meantime he should discover those rifles, or one of
those slant-eyed señors should turn out a Benedict Arnold, what then,
my friend?”

“Don’t talk in that cruel way. You make me neck ache in anticipation,”
returned O’Halloran blithely.

“I think we’ll not travel with you in public till after the election,
Mr. O’Halloran,” reflected Bucky aloud.

“’Twould be just as well, me son. My friends won’t be overpopular with
Megales if the cards fall his way.”

“If you win, I suppose we may count Henderson as good as a free man?”

“It would be a pity if me pull wouldn’t do a little thing like that,”
scoffed the conspirator genially.

“But, win or lose, I may be able to help you. We need musicians to play
those pianos we’re bringing in. Well, the most dependable men we can
set to play some of them are the prisoners in the fortress. There’s
likely to be a wholesale jail delivery the night before the election.
Now, it’s just probable that the lads we free will fight to keep their
freedom. That’s why we use them. They _have_ to be true to us because,
if they don’t, _whichever side wins_ back they go to jail.”

“Of course. I wish I could take a hand myself. But I can’t, because I’m
a soldier of a friendly power. We’ll get Henderson out the night before
the election and leave on the late train. You’ll have to arrange the
program in time for us to catch that train.”

O’Halloran looked drolly at him. “I’m liking your nerve, young man. I
pull the chestnuts out of the fire for yez and, likely enough, get
burned. You walk off with your chestnut, and never a ‘Thank ye’ for
poor Mickey the catspaw.”

“It doesn’t look like quite a square deal, does it?” laughed the
ranger. “Well, we might vary the program a bit. Bucky O’Connor, Arizona
ranger, can’t stop and take a hand in such a game, but I don’t know
anything to prevent a young gipsy from Spain staying over a few days.”

“If you stay, I shall,” announced the boy Frank.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, seh. You’ll do just as I say, according
to the agreement you made with me when I let you come,” was Bucky’s
curt answer. “We’re not playing this game to please you, Master Frank.”

Yet though the ranger spoke curtly, though he still tried to hold
toward his comrade precisely the same attitude as he had before
discovering her sex, he could not put into his words the same
peremptory sting that, he had done before when he found that
occasionally necessary. For no matter how severely he must seem to deal
with her to avoid her own suspicions as to what he knew, as well as to
keep from arousing those of others, his heart was telling a very
different story all the time. He could see again the dainty grace with
which she had danced for him, heard again that low voice breaking into
a merry piping lilt, warmed once more to the living, elusive smile, at
once so tender and mocking. He might set his will to preserve an even
front to her gay charm, but it was beyond him to control the thrills
that shot his pulses.




CHAPTER VIII.
FIRST BLOOD!


Occasionally Alice Mackenzie met Collins on the streets of Tucson. Once
she saw him at the hotel where she was staying, deep in a discussion
with her father of ways and means of running down the robbers of the
Limited. He did not, however, make the least attempt to push their
train acquaintanceship beyond the give and take of casual greeting.
Without showing himself unfriendly, he gave her no opportunity to
determine how far they would go with each other. This rather piqued
her, though she would probably have rebuffed him if he had presumed
far. Of which probability Val Collins was very well aware.

They met one morning in front of a drug store downtown. She carried a
parasol that was lilac-trimmed, which shade was also the outstanding
note of her dress. She was looking her very best, and no doubt knew it.
To Val her dainty freshness seemed to breathe the sweetness of spring
violets.

“Good morning, Miss Mackenzie. Weather like this I’m awful glad I ain’t
a mummy,” he told her. “The world’s mighty full of beautiful things
this glad day.”

“Essay on the Appreciation of Nature, by Professor Collins,” she
smiled.

“To be continued in our next,” he amended. “Won’t you come in and have
a sundae? You look as if you didn’t know it, but the rest of us have
discovered it’s a right warm morning.”

Looking across the little table at him over her sundae, she questioned
him with innocent impudence. “I saw you and dad deep in plans Tuesday.
I suppose by now you have all the train robbers safely tucked away in
the penitentiary?”

“Not yet,” he answered cheerfully.

“Not yet!” Her lifted eyebrows and the derisive flash beneath mocked
politely his confidence. “By this time I should think they might be
hunting big game in deepest Africa.”

“They might be, but they’re not.”

“What about that investment in futurities you made on the train? The
month is more than half up. Do you see any chance of realizing?”

“It looks now as if I might be a false prophet, but I feel way down
deep that I won’t. In this prophet’s business confidence is half the
stock in trade.”

“Really. I’m very curious to know what it is you predicted. Was it
something good?”

“Good for me,” he nodded.

“Then I think you’ll get it,” she laughed. “I have noticed that it is
the people that expect things—and then go out and take them—that
inherit the earth these days. The meek have been dispossessed.”

“I’m glad I have your good wishes.”

“I didn’t say you had, but you’ll get along just as well without them,”
she answered with a cool little laugh as she rose.

“I’d like to discuss that proposition with you more at length. May I
call on you some evening this week, Miss Mackenzie?”

There was a sparkle of hidden malice in her answer. “You’re too late,
Mr. Collins. We’ll have to leave it undiscussed. I’m going to leave
to-day for my uncle s ranch, the Rocking Chair.”

He was distinctly disappointed, though he took care not to show it.
Nevertheless, the town felt empty after her train had gone. He was glad
when later in the day a message came calling him to Epitaph. It took
him at least seventy-five miles nearer her.

Before he had been an hour at Epitaph the sheriff knew he had struck
gold this time. Men were in town spending money lavishly, and at a
rough description they answered to the ones he wanted. Into the Gold
Nugget Saloon that evening dropped Val Collins, big, blond, and jaunty.
He looked far less the vigorous sheriff out for business than the
gregarious cowpuncher on a search for amusement.

Del Hawkes, an old-time friend of his staging days, pounced on him and
dragged him to the bar, whence his glance fell genially on the roulette
wheel and its devotees, wandered casually across the impassive poker
and Mexican monte players, took in the enthroned musicians, who were
industriously murdering “La Paloma,” and came to rest for barely an
instant at a distant faro table. In the curly-haired good-looking young
fellow facing the dealer he saw one of the men he had come seeking. Nor
did he need to look for the hand with the missing trigger finger to be
sure it was York Neil—that same gay, merry-hearted York with whom he
used to ride the range, changed now to a miscreant who had elected to
take the short cut to wealth.

But the man beside Neil, the dark-haired, pallid fellow from whose
presence something at once formidable and sinister and yet gallant
seemed to breathe—the very sight of him set the mind of Collins at work
busily upon a wild guess. Surely here was a worthy figure upon whom to
set the name and reputation of the notorious Wolf Leroy.

Yet the sheriff’s eyes rested scarce an instant before they went
traveling again, for he wanted to show as yet no special interest in
the object of his suspicions. The gathering was a motley one,
picturesque in its diversity. For here had drifted not only the
stranded derelicts of a frontier civilization, but selected types of
all the turbid elements that go to make up its success. Mexican,
millionaire, and miner brushed shoulders at the roulette-wheel.
Chinaman and cow-puncher, Papago and plainsman, tourist and tailor,
bucked the tiger side by side with a democracy found nowhere else in
the world. The click of the wheel, the monotonous call of the croupier,
the murmur of many voices in alien tongues, and the high-pitched
jarring note of boisterous laughter, were all merged in a medley of
confusion as picturesque as the scene itself.

“Business not anyways slack at the Nugget,” ventured Collins, to the
bartender.

“No, I don’t know as ’tis. Nearly always somethin’ doing in little old
Epitaph,” answered the public quencher of thirsts, polishing the glass
top of the bar with a cloth.

“Playing with the lid off back there, ain’t they?” The sheriff’s nod
indicated the distant faro-table.

“That’s right, I guess. Only blue chips go.”

“It’s Wolf Leroy—that Mexican-looking fellow there,” Hawkes explained
in a whisper. “A bad man with the gun, they say, too. Well, him and
York Neil and Scotty Dailey blew in last night from their mine, up at
Saguache. Gave it out he was going to break the bank, Leroy did.
Backing that opinion usually comes high, but Leroy is about two
thousand to the good, they say.”

“Scotty Dailey? Don’t think I know him.”

“That shorthorn in chaps and a yellow bandanna is the gentleman; him
that’s playing the wheel so constant. You don’t miss no world-beater
when you don’t know Scotty. He’s Leroy’s Man Friday. Understand they’ve
struck it rich. Anyway, they’re hitting high places while the mazuma
lasts.”

“I can’t seem to locate their mine. What’s its brand?”

“The Dalriada. Some other guy is in with them; fellow by the name of
Hardman, if I recollect; just bought out a livery barn in town here.”

“Queer thing, luck; strikes about as unexpected as lightning. Have
another, Del?”

“Don’t care if I do, Val. It always makes me thirsty to see people I
like. Anything new up Tucson way?”

The band had fallen on “Manzanilla,” and was rending it with variations
when Collins circled round to the wheel and began playing the red. He
took a place beside the bow-legged vaquero with the yellow bandanna
knotted loosely round his throat. For five minutes the cow-puncher
attended strictly to his bets. Then he cursed softly, and asked Collins
to exchange places with him.

“This place is my hoodoo. I can’t win—” The sentence died in the man’s
throat, became an inarticulate gurgle of dismay.

He had looked up and met the steady eyes of the sheriff, and the
surprise of it had driven the blood from his heart. A revolver thrust
into his face could not have shaken him more than that serene smile.

Collins took him by the arm with a jovial laugh meant to cover their
retreat, and led him into one of the curtained alcove rooms. As they
entered he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Leroy and Neil
were still intent on their game. Not for a moment, not even while the
barkeeper was answering their call for liquor, did the sheriff release
Scotty from the rigor of his eyes, and when the attendant drew the
curtain behind him the officer let his smile take on a new meaning.

“What did I tell you, Scotty?”

“Prove it,” defied Scotty. “Prove it—you can’t prove it.”

“What can’t I prove?”

“Why, that I was in that—” Scotty stopped abruptly, and watched the
smile broaden on the strong face opposite him. His dull brain had come
to his rescue none too soon.

“Now, ain’t it funny how people’s thoughts get to running on the same
thing? Last time I met up with you there you was collecting a hundred
dollars and keep-the-change cents from me, and now here you are
spending it. It’s ce’tinly curious how both of us are remembering that
little seance in the Pullman car.”

Scotty took refuge in a dogged silence. He was sweating fear.

“Yes, sir. It comes up right vivid before me. There was you a-trainin’
your guns on me—”

“I wasn’t,” broke in Scotty, falling into the trap.

“That’s right. How come I to make such a mistake? Of cou’se you carried
the sack and York Neil held the guns.”

The man cursed quietly, and relapsed into silence.

“Always buy your clothes in pairs?”

The sheriff’s voice showed only a pleasant interest, but the outlaw’s
frightened eyes were puzzled at this sudden turn.

“Wearing a bandanna same color and pattern as you did the night of our
jamboree on the Limited, I see. That’s mightily careless of you, ain’t
it?”

Instinctively a shaking hand clutched at the kerchief. “It don’t cut
any ice because a hold-up wears a mask made out of stuff like this.”

“Did I say it was a mask he wore?” the gentle voice quizzed.

Scotty, beads of perspiration on his forehead, collapsed as to his
defense. He fell back sullenly to his first position: “You can’t prove
anything.”

“Can’t I?” The sheriff’s smile went out like a snuffed candle. Eyes and
mouth were cold and hard as chiseled marble. He leaned forward far
across the table, a confident, dominating assurance painted on his
face. “Can’t I? Don’t you bank on that. I can prove all I need to, and
your friends will prove the rest. They’ll be falling all over
themselves to tell what they know—and Mr. Dailey will be holding the
sack again, while Leroy and the rest are slipping out.”

The outlaw sprang to his feet, white to the lips.

“It’s a damned lie. Leroy would never—” He stopped, again just in time
to bite back the confession hovering on his lips. But he had told what
Collins wanted to know.

The curtain parted, and a figure darkened the doorway—a slender, lithe
figure that moved on springs. Out of its sardonic, devil-may-care face
gleamed malevolent eyes which rested for a moment on Dailey, before
they came home to the sheriff.

“And what is it Leroy would never do?” a gibing voice demanded silkily.

Scotty pulled himself together and tried to bluff, but at the look on
his chief’s face the words died in his throat.

Collins did not lift a finger or move an eyelash, but with the first
word a wary alertness ran through him and starched his figure to
rigidity. He gathered himself together for what might come.

“Well, I am waiting. What it is Leroy would never do?” The voice
carried a scoff with it, the implication that his very presence had
stricken conspirators dumb.

Collins offered the explanation.

“Mr. Dailey was beginning a testimonial of your virtues just as you
right happily arrived in time to hear it. Perhaps he will now proceed.”

But Dailey had never a word left. His blunders had been crying ones,
and his chief’s menacing look had warned him what to expect. The
courage oozed out of his heart, for he counted himself already a dead
man.

“And who are you, my friend, that make so free with Wolf Leroy’s name?”
It was odd how every word of the drawling sentence contrived to carry a
taunt and a threat with it, strange what a deadly menace the glittering
eyes shot forth.

“My name is Collins.”

“Sheriff of Pica County?”

“Yes.”

The eyes of the men met like rapiers, as steady and as searching as
cold steel. Each of them was appraising the rare quality of his
opponent in this duel to the death that was before him.

“What are you doing here? Ain’t Pica County your range?”

“I’ve been discussing with your friend the late hold-up on the
Transcontinental Pacific.”

“Ah!” Leroy knew that the sheriff was serving notice on them of his
purpose to run down the bandits. Swiftly his mind swept up the factors
of the situation. Should he draw now and chance the result, or wait for
a more certain ending? He decided to wait, moved by the consideration
that even if he were victorious the lawyers were sure to draw out of
the fat-brained Scotty the cause of the quarrel.

“Well, that don’t interest me any, though I suppose you have to explain
a heap how come they to hold you up and take your gun. I’ll leave you
and your jelly-fish Scotty to your gabfest. Then you better run back
home to Tucson. We don’t go much on visiting sheriffs here.” He turned
on his heel with an insolent laugh, and left the sheriff alone with
Dailey.

The superb contempt of the man, his readiness to give the sheriff a
chance to pump out of Dailey all he knew, served to warn Collins that
his life was in imminent danger. On no hypothesis save one—that Leroy
had already condemned them both to death in his mind—could he account
for such rashness. And that the blow would fall soon, before he had
time to confer with other officers, was a corollary to the first
proposition.

“He’ll surely kill me on sight,” Scotty burst out.

“Yes, he’ll kill you,” agreed the sheriff, “unless you move first.”

“Move how?”

“Against him. Protect yourself by lining up with me. It’s your only
show on earth.”

Dailey’s eyes flashed. “Then, by thunder, I ain’t taking it! I’m no
coyote, to round on my pardners.”

“I give it to you straight. He means murder.”

Perspiration poured from the man’s face. “I’ll light out of the
country.”

The sheriff shook his head. “You’d never get away alive. Besides, I
want you for holding up the Limited. The safest place for you is in
jail, and that’s where I’m going to put you. Drop that gun! Quick!
That’s right. Now, you and I are going out of this saloon by the back
door. I’m going to walk beside you, and we’re going to laugh and talk
as if we were the best of friends, but my hand ain’t straying any from
the end of my gun. Get that, amigo? All right. Then we’ll take a little
_pasear_.”

As Collins and his prisoner reappeared in the main lobby of the Gold
Nugget, a Mexican slipped out of the back door of the gambling-house.
The sheriff called Hawkes aside.

“I want you to call a hack for me, Del. Bring it round to the back
door, and arrange with the driver to whip up for the depot as soon as
we get in. We ought to catch that 12:20 up-train. When the hack gets
here just show up in the door. If you see Leroy or Neil hanging around
the door, put your hand up to your tie. If the coast is clear, just
move off to the bar and order something.”

“Sure,” said Hawkes, and was off at once, though just a thought
unsteady from his frequent libations.

Both hands of the big clock on the wall pointed to twelve when Hawkes
appeared again in the doorway at the rear of the Gold Nugget. With a
wink at Collins, he made straight for the cocktail he thought he
needed.

“Now,” said the sheriff, and immediately he and Dailey passed through
the back door.

Instantly two shots rang out. Collins lurched forward to the ground,
drawing his revolver as he fell. Scotty, twisting from his grasp, ran
in a crouch toward the alley along the shadow of the buildings. Shots
spattered against the wall as his pursuers gave chase. When the Gold
Nugget vomited from its rear door a rush of humanity eager to see the
trouble, the noise of their footsteps was already dying in the
distance.

Hawkes found his friend leaning against the back of the hack, his
revolver smoking in his hand.

“For God’s sake, Val!” screamed Hawkes. “Did they get you?”

“Punctured my leg. That’s all. But I expect they’ll get Dailey.”

“How come you to go out when I signaled you to stay?”

“Signaled me to stay, why—”

Collins stopped, unwilling to blame his friend. He knew now that
Hawkes, having mixed his drinks earlier in the evening, had mixed his
signals later.

“Get me a horse, Del, and round up two or three of the boys. I’ve got
to get after those fellows. They are the ones that held up the Limited
last week. Find out for me what hotel they put up at here. I want their
rooms searched. Send somebody round to the corrals, and let me know
where they stabled their horses. If they left any papers or
saddle-bags, get them for me.”

Fifteen minutes later Collins was in the saddle ready for the chase,
and only waiting for his volunteer posse to join him. They were just
starting when a frightened Chinaman ran into the plaza with the news
that there had been shooting just back of his laundry on the edge of
town and that a man had been killed.

When the sheriff reached the spot, he lowered himself from the saddle
and limped over to the black mass huddled against the wall in the
bright moonlight. He turned the riddled body over and looked down into
the face of the dead man. I was that of the outlaw, Scotty Dailey. That
the body had been thoroughly searched was evident, for all around him
were scattered his belongings. Here an old letter and a sack of
tobacco, its contents emptied on the ground; there his coat and vest,
the linings of each of them ripped out and the pockets emptied. Even
the boots and socks of the man had been removed, so thorough had been
the search. Whatever the murderers had been looking for it was not
money, since his purse, still fairly well lined with greenbacks, was
found behind a cactus bush a few yards away.

“What in time were they after?” frowned Collins. “If it wasn’t his
money—and it sure wasn’t—what was it? I ce’tainly would like to know
what the Wolf wanted so blamed bad. Guess I’ll not follow Mr. Leroy
just now till my leg is in better shape. Maybe I had better investigate
a little bit round town first.”

The body was taken back to the Gold Nugget and placed on a table,
pending the arrival of the undertaker. It chanced that Collins, looking
absently over the crowd, glimpsed a gray felt hat that looked familiar
by reason of a frayed silver band found it. Underneath the hat was a
Mexican, and him the sheriff ordered to step forward.

“Where did you get that hat, Manuel?”

“My name is José—José Archuleta,” corrected the olive-hued one.

“I ain’t worrying about your name, son. What I want to know is where
you found that hat.”

“In the alley off the plaza, señor.”

“All right. Chuck it up here.”

“_Muy bien, señor_.” And the dusty hat was passed from hand to hand
till it reached the sheriff.

Collins ripped off the silver band and tore out the sweat-pad. It was
an off chance—one in a thousand—but worth trying none the less. And a
moment later he knew it was the chance that won. For sewed to the
inside of the discolored sweat-pad was a little strip of silk. With his
knife he carefully removed the strip, and found between it and the
leather a folded fragment of paper closely covered with writing. He
carried this to the light, and made it out to be a memorandum of
direction of some sort. Slowly he spelled out the poorly written words:

From Y. N. took Unowhat. Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight
feet direckly west. Fifty yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke.
Then eighteen to nerest cotonwood. J. H. begins hear.


Collins read the scrawl twice before an inkling of its meaning came
home to him. Then in a flash his brain was lighted. It was a memorandum
of the place where Dailey’s share of the plunder was buried.

His confederates had known that he had it, and had risked capture to
make a thorough search for the paper. That they had not found it was
due only to the fact that the murdered man had lost his hat as he
scurried down the streets before them.

The doctor, having arrived, examined the wound and suggested an
anaesthetic. Collins laughed.

“I reckon not, doc. You round up that lead pill and I’ll endure the
grief without knockout drops.”

While the doctor was probing for the bullet lodged in his leg, the
sheriff studied the memorandum found in Dailey’s hat. He found it
blind, disappointing work, for there was no clearly indicated
starting-point. Bit by bit he took it:

From Y. N. took Unowhat.


This was clear enough, so far as it went. It could only mean that from
York Neil the writer had taken the plunder to hide. But _where_ did he
take it? From what point? A starting-point must be found somewhere, or
the memorandum was of no use. Probably only Neil could supply the
needed information, now that Dailey was dead.

Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight feet direckly west. Fifty
yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke. Then eighteen to nerest
cotonwood.


All this was plain enough, but the last sentence was the puzzler.

J. H. begins hear.


Was J. H. a person? If so, what did he begin. If Dailey had buried his
plunder, what had J. H. left to do?

But _had_ he buried it? Collins smiled. It was not likely he had handed
it over to anybody else to hide for him. And yet—

He clapped his hand down on his knee. “By the jumping California frog,
I’ve got it!” he told himself. “They hid the bulk of what they got from
the Limited all together. Went out in a bunch to hide it. Blind-folded
each other, and took turn about blinding up the trail. No one of them
can go get the loot without the rest. When they want it, every one of
these memoranda must be Johnny-on-the-spot before they can dig up the
mazuma. No wonder Wolf Leroy searched so thorough for this bit of
paper. I’ll bet a stack of blue chips against Wolf’s chance of heaven
that he’s the sorest train-robber right this moment that ever punctured
a car-window.”

Collins laughed softly, nor had the smile died out of his eyes when
Hawkes came into the room with information to the point. He had made a
round of the corrals, and discovered that the outlaws’ horses had been
put up at Jay Hardman’s place, a tumble-down feed-station on the edge
of town.

“Jay didn’t take kindly to my questions,” Hawkes explained, “but after
a little rock-me-to-sleep-mother talk I soothed him down some, and cut
the trail of Wolf Leroy and his partners. The old man give me several
specimens of langwidge unwashed and uncombed when I told him Wolf and
York was outlaws and train-robbers. Didn’t believe a word of it, he
said. ’Twas just like the fool officers to jump an innocent party. I
told Jay to keep his shirt on—he could turn his wolf lose when they
framed up that he was in it. Well, sir! I plumb thought for a moment he
was going to draw on me when I said that. Say he must be the fellow
that’s in on that mine, with Leroy and York Neil. He’s a big,
long-haired guy.”

Collins’ eyes narrowed to slits, as they always did when he was
thinking intensely. Were their suspicions of the showman about to be
justified? Did Jay Hardman’s interest in Leroy have its source merely
in their being birds of a feather, or was there a more direct community
of lawlessness between them? Was he a member of Wolf Leroy’s murderous
gang? Three men had joined in the chase of Dailey, but the tracks had
told him that only two horses had galloped from the scene of the murder
into the night. The inference left to draw was that a local accomplice
had joined them in the chase of Scotty, and had slipped back home after
the deed had been finished.

What more likely than that Hardman had been this accomplice? Hawkes
said he was a big long-haired fellow. So was the man that had held up
the engineer of the Limited. He was—“J. H. begins hear.” Like a flash
the ill-written scrawl jumped to his sight. “J. H.” was Jay Hardman.
What luck!

The doctor finished his work, and Collins tested his leg gingerly.
“Del, I’m going over to have a little talk with the old man. Want to go
along?”

“You bet I do, Val”—from Del Hawkes.

“You mustn’t walk on that leg for a week or two yet, Mr. Collins,” the
doctor explained, shaking his head.

“That so, doctor? And it nothing but a nice clean flesh-wound! Sho!
I’ve a deal more confidence in you than that. Ready, Del?”

“It’s at your risk then, Mr. Collins.”

“Sure.” The sheriff smiled. “I’m living at my own risk, doctor. But I’d
a heap rather be alive than daid, and take all the risk that’s coming,
too. But since you make a point of it, I’ll do most of my walking on a
bronco’s back.”

They found Mr. Hardman just emerging from the stable with a saddle-pony
when they rode into the corral. At a word from Collins, Hawkes took the
precaution to close the corral gate.

The fellow held a wary position on the farther side of his horse, the
while he ripped out a raucous string of invectives.

“Real fluent, ain’t he?” murmured Hawkes, as he began to circle round
to flank the enemy.

“Stay right there, Del Hawkes. Move, you redhaided son of a brand
blotter, and I’ll pump holes in you!” A rifle leveled across the saddle
emphasized his sentiments.

“Plumb hospitable,” grinned Hawkes, coming promptly to a halt.

Collins rode slowly forward, his hand on the butt of the revolver that
still lay in its scabbard. The Winchester covered every step of his
progress, but he neither hastened nor faltered, though he knew his life
hung in the balance. If his steely blue eyes had released for one
moment the wolfish ones of the villain, if he had hesitated or hurried,
he would have been shot through the head.

But the eyes of a brave man are the king of weapons. Hardman’s fingers
itched at the trigger he had not the courage to pull. For such an
unflawed nerve he knew himself no match.

“Keep back,” he screamed. “Damn it, another step and I’ll fire!”

But he did not fire, though Collins rode up to him, dismounted, and
threw the end of the rifle carelessly from him.

“Don’t be rash, Hardman. I’ve come here to put you under arrest for
robbing the T. P. Limited, and I’m going to do it.”

The indolent, contemptuous drawl, so free of even a suggestion of the
strain the sheriff must have been under, completed his victory. The
fellow lowered his rifle with a peevish oath.

“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Mr. Collins.”

“I guess not,” retorted the sheriff easily. “Del, you better relieve
Mr. Hardman of his ballast. He ain’t really fit to be trusted with a
weapon, and him so excitable. That Winchester came awful near going
off, friend. You don’t want to be so careless when you’re playing with
firearms. It’s a habit that’s liable to get you into trouble.”

Collins had not shaved death so closely without feeling a reaction of
boyish gaiety at his adventure. It bubbled up in his talk like
effervescing soda.

“Now we’ll go into a committee of the whole, gentlemen, adjourn to the
stable, and have a little game of ‘Button, button, who’s got the
button?’ You first, Mr. Hardman. If you’ll kindly shuck your coat and
vest, we’ll begin button-hunting.”

They diligently searched the miscreant without hiding anything
pertaining to “J. H. begins hear.”

“He’s bound to have it somewhere,” asseverated Collins. “It don’t stand
to reason he was making his getaway without that paper. We got to be
more thorough, Del.”

Hawkes, under the direction of his friend, ripped up linings and tore
away pockets from clothing. The saddle on the bronco and the
saddle-blankets were also torn to pieces in vain.

Finally Hawkes scratched his poll and looked down on the wreckage. “I
hate to admit it, Val, but the old fox has got us beat; it ain’t on his
person.”

“Not unless he’s got it under his skin,” agreed Collins, with a grin.

“Maybe he ate it. Think we better operate and find out?”

An idea hit the sheriff. He walked up to Hardman and ordered him to
open his mouth.

The jaws set like a vise.

Collins poked his revolver against the closed mouth. “Swear for us, old
bird. Get a move on you.”

The mouth opened, and Collins inserted two fingers. When he withdrew
them they brought a set of false teeth. Under the plate was a tiny
rubber bag that stuck to it. Inside the bag was a paper. And on it was
written four lines in Spanish. Those lines told what he wanted to know.
They, too, were part of a direction for finding hidden treasure.

The sheriff wired at once to Bucky, in Chihuahua. Translated into plain
English, his cipher dispatch meant: “Come home at once. Trail getting
red hot.”

But Bucky did not come. As it happened, that young man had other fish
to fry.




CHAPTER IX.
“ADORE HAS ONLY ONE D.”


After all, adventures are to the adventurous. In this prosaic twentieth
century the Land of Romance still beckons to eager eyes and gallant
hearts. The rutted money-grabber may deny till he is a nerve-racked
counting-machine, but youth, even to the end of time, will laugh to
scorn his pessimism and venture with elastic heel where danger and
mystery offer their dubious hazards.

So it was that Bucky and his little comrade found nothing of dulness in
the mission to which they had devoted themselves. In their task of
winning freedom for the American immured in the Chihuahua dungeon they
already found themselves in the heart of a web of intrigue, the stakes
of which were so high as to carry life and death with them in the
balance. But for them the sun shone brightly. It was enough that they
played the game and shared the risks together. The jocund morning was
in their hearts, and brought with it an augury of success based on
nothing so humdrum or tangible as reason.

O’Connor carried with him to the grim fortress not only his permit for
an inspection, but also a note from O’Halloran that was even more
potent in effect. For Colonel Ferdinand Gabilonda, warden of the
prison, had a shrewd suspicion that a plot was under way to overthrow
the unpopular administration of Megales, and though he was an
office-holder under the present government he had no objection to
ingratiating himself with the opposition, providing it could be done
without compromising himself openly. In other words, the warden was
sitting on the fence waiting to see which way the cat would jump. If
the insurgents proved the stronger party, he meant to throw up his hat
and shout “Viva Valdez.” On the other hand, if the government party
crushed them he would show himself fussily active in behalf of Megales.
Just now he was exerting all his diplomacy to maintain a pleasant
relationship with both. Since it was entirely possible that the big
Irishman O’Halloran might be the man on horseback within a very few
days, the colonel was all suave words and honeyed smiles to his friend
the ranger.

Indeed he did him the unusual honor of a personally conducted
inspection. Gabilonda was a fat little man, with a soft, purring voice
and a pompous manner. He gushed with the courteous volubility of his
nation, explaining with great gusto this and that detail of the work.
Bucky gave him outwardly a deferent ear, but his alert mind and eyes
were scanning the prisoners they saw. The ranger was trying to find in
one of these scowling, defiant faces some resemblance to the picture
his mind had made of Henderson.

But Bucky looked in vain. If the man he wanted was among these he had
changed beyond recognition. In the end he was forced to ask Gabilonda
plainly if he would not take him to see David Henderson, as he knew a
man in Arizona who was an old friend of his, and he would like to be
able to tell him that he had seen his friend.

Henderson was breaking stone when O’Connor got his first glimpse of
him. He continued to swing his hammer listlessly, without looking up,
when the door opened to let in the warden and his guests. But something
in the ranger’s steady gaze drew his eyes. They were dull eyes, and
sullen, but when he saw that Bucky was an American, the fire of
intelligence flashed into them.

“May I speak to him?” asked O’Connor.

“It is against the rules, señor, but if you will be brief—” The colonel
shrugged, and turned his back to them, in order not to see. It must be
said for Gabilonda that his capacity for blinking what he did not think
it judicious to see was enormous.

“You are David Henderson, are you not?” The ranger asked, in a low
voice.

Surprise filtered into the dull eyes. “That was my name,” the man
answered bitterly. “I have a number now.”

“I come from Webb Mackenzie to get you out of this,” the ranger said.

The man’s eyes were no longer dull now, but flaming with hatred. “Curse
him, I’ll take nothing from his hands. For fifteen years he has let me
rot in hell without lifting a hand for me.”

“He thought you dead. It can all be explained. It was only last week
that the mystery of your disappearance was solved.”

“Then why didn’t he come himself? It was to save his little girl I got
myself into this place. If I had been in his shoes I would have come if
I’d had to crawl on my hands and knees.”

“He doesn’t know yet you are here. I wrote him simply that I knew where
you were, and then I came at once.” Bucky glanced round warily at the
fat colonel gazing placidly out of the barred window. “I mean to rescue
you, and I knew if he were here his impulsiveness would ruin
everything.”

“Do you mean it? For God’s sake! don’t lie to me. If there’s no hope
for me, don’t say there is.” The prisoner’s voice shook and his hands
trembled. He was only the husk of the man he had been, but it did
Bucky’s heart good to see that the germ of life was still in him. Back
in Arizona, on the Rocking Chair Ranch, with the free winds of the
plains beating on his face, he would pick up again the old strands of
his broken life, would again learn to love the lowing of cattle and the
early morning call of the hooter to his mate.

“I mean it. As sure as I stand here I’ll get you out, or, if I don’t,
Webb Mackenzie will. We’re calling the matter to the attention of the
United States Government, but we are not going to wait till that time
to free you. Keep up your courage, man. It is only for a little time
now.”

Tears leaped to the prisoner’s eyes. He had been a game man in the dead
years that were past, none gamer in Texas, and he could still face his
jailers with an impassive face; but this first kindly word from his
native land in fifteen years to the man buried alive touched the fount
of his emotions. He turned away and leaned against the grating of his
cell, his head resting on his forearm. “My God! man, you don’t know
what it means to me. Sometimes I think I shall go mad and rave. After
all these years. But I know you’ll fail—It’s too good to be true,” he
finished quietly.

“I’ll not fail, though I may be delayed. But I can’t say more.
Gabilonda is coming back. Next time I see you it will be to take you
out to freedom. Think of that always, and believe it.”

Gabilonda bowed urbanely. “If the señor has seen all he cares to of
this department we will return to the office,” he suggested suavely.

“Certainly, colonel. I can’t appreciate too much your kindness in
allowing me to study your system so carefully.”

“Any friend of my friend the Señor O’Halloran is cherished deeply in my
heart,” came back the smiling colonel, with a wave of his plump, soft
hand.

“I am honored, sir, to receive such consideration at the hands of so
distinguished a soldier as Colonel Gabilonda,” bowed Bucky gravely, in
his turn, with the most flowery Spanish he could muster.

There was another half-hour of the mutual exchange of compliments
before O’Connor could get away. Alphonse and Gaston were fairly
outdone, for the Arizonian, with a smile hidden deep behind the
solemnity of his blue eyes, gave as good as he got. When he was at last
fairly in the safety of his own rooms he gave way to limp laughter
while describing to his little friend that most ceremonious parting.

“He pressed me to his manly bay window, Curly, and allowed he was plumb
tickled to death to have met me. Says I, coming back equal strong,
’twas the most glorious day of my life.”

“Oh, I know _you_,” answered young Hardman, with a smile.

“A friend of his friend O’Halloran—”

“Mr. O’Halloran was here while you were away. He seemed very anxious to
see you; said he would call again in an hour. I think it must be
important.”

Came at that instant O’Halloran’s ungentle knock, on the heels of which
his red head came through the open door.

“You’re the very lad I’m wanting to see, Bucky,” he announced, and
followed this declaration by locking all the doors and beckoning him to
the center of the room.

“Is that tough neck of yours aching again, Reddy?” inquired his friend
whimsically.

“It is that, me bye. There’s the very divil to pay,” he whispered.

“Cough it out, Mike.”

“That tyrant Megales is onto our game. Somebody’s leaked, or else he
has a spy in our councils—as we have in his, the ould scoundrel.”

“I see. Your spy has told you that his spy has reported to him—”

“That the guns are to be brought in to-night. He has sent out a guard
to bring them in safely to _him_. If he gets them, our game is up, me
son, and you can bet your last nickle on that.”

“If he gets them! Is there a chance for us?”

“Glory be! there is. You see, he doesn’t know that we know what he has
done. For that reason he sent out only a guard of forty men. If he sent
more we would suspect what he was doing, ye see. That is the way the
old fox reasoned. But forty—they were able to slip out of the city on
last night’s train in civilian’s clothes and their arms in a couple of
coffins.”

“Why didn’t he send a couple of hundred men openly, and at the same
time arrest you all?”

“That doesn’t suit his book at all. For one thing, he probably doesn’t
know all of us, and he doesn’t want to bag half of us and throw the
rest into immediate rebellion. It’s his play not to force the issue
until after the election, Bucky. He controls all the election machinery
and will have himself declared reëlected, the old scamp,
notwithstanding that he’s the most unpopular man in the State. To
precipitate trouble now would be just foolishness, he argues. So he’ll
just capture our arms, and after the election give me and my friends
quiet hell. Nothing public, you know—just unfortunate assassinations
that he will regret exceedingly, me bye. But I have never yit been
assassinated, and, on principle, I object to being trated so. It’s very
destructive to a man’s future usefulness.”

“And so?” laughed the ranger.

“And so we’ve arranged to take a few lads up the line and have a train
hold-up. I’m the robber-in-chief. Would ye like to be second in command
of the lawless ruffians, me son?”

Bucky met his twinkling eye gaily. “Mr. O’Connor is debarred from
taking part in such an outrageous affair by international etiquette,
but he knows a gypsy lad would be right glad to join, I reckon.”

“Bully for him. If you’ll kindly have him here I’ll come around and
collect him this evening at eight-thirty sharp.”

“I hope you’ll provide a pleasant entertainment for him.”

“We’ll do our best,” grinned the revolutionist. “Music provided by
Megales’ crack military band. A lively and enjoyable occasion
guaranteed to all who attend. Your friend will meet some of the
smartest officers in the State. It promises to be a most sumptuous
affair.”

“Then my friend accepts with pleasure.”

After the conspirator had gone, Frank spoke up. “You wouldn’t go away
with him and leave me here alone, would you?”

“I ce’tainly shouldn’t take you with me, kid. I don’t want my little
friend all shot up by greasers.”

“If you’re going, I want to go, too. Supposing—if anything were to
happen to you, what could I do?”

“Leave the country by the next train. Those are the orders.”

“You’re always talking about a square deal. Do you think that is one? I
might say that I don’t want _you_ shot. You don’t care anything about
my feelings.” The soft voice had a little break in it that Bucky loved.

He walked across to his partner, that rare, tender smile of his in his
eyes. “If I’m always talking about a square deal I reckon I have got to
give you one. Now, what would you think a square deal, Curly? Would it
be square for me to let my friend O’Halloran stand all the risk of this
and then me take the reward when Henderson has been freed by him? Would
that be your notion of the right telling?”

“I didn’t say that, though I don’t see why you have to mix yourself up
in his troubles. Why should you go out and kill these soldiers that
haven’t injured you?”

“I’m not going to kill any of them,” he smiled “Besides, that isn’t the
way I look at it. This fellow Megales is a despot. He has made out to
steal the liberty of the people from them. President Diaz can’t
interfere because the old rascal governor does everything with that
smooth, oily way of his under cover of law. It’s up to some of the
people to put up a good strong kick for themselves. I ain’t a bit sorry
to give them the loan of my foot while they are doing it.”

“Then can’t I go, too? I don’t want to be left alone here and you away
fighting.”

Bucky’s eyes gleamed. He dared an experiment in an indifferent drawl.
“Whyfor don’t you want to stay alone, kid? Are you afraid for yourself
or for me?”

His partner’s cheeks were patched with roses. Shyly the long, thick
lashes lifted and let the big brown eyes meet his blue ones. “Maybe I’m
afraid for both of us.”

“Would you care if one of their pills happened along in the scrimmage
and put me out of business? Honest, would you?”

“You haven’t any right to talk that way. It’s cruel,” was the reply
that burst from the pretty lips, and he noticed that at his suggestion
the roses had died from soft cheeks.

“Well, I won’t talk that way any more, little partner,” he answered
gaily, taking the small hand in his. “For reasons good. I’m fire-proof.
The Mexican bullet hasn’t been cast yet that can find Bucky O’Connor’s
heart.”

“But you mustn’t think that, either, and be reckless,” was the next
injunction. The shy laugh rang like music. “That’s why I want to go
along, to see that you behave yourself properly.”

“Oh, I’ll behave,” he laughed; for the young man found it very easy to
be happy when those sweet eyes were showing concern for him. “I’ve got
several good reasons why I don’t aim to get bumped off just yet. Heaps
of first-rate reasons. I’ll tell you what some of them are one of these
days,” he dared to add.

“You had better tell me now.” The gaze that fell before his steady eyes
was both shy and eager.

“No, I reckon I’ll wait, Curly,” he answered, turning away with a long
breath. “Well, we better go out and get some grub, tortillas and
frijoles, don’t you think?”

“Just as you like.” The lad’s breath was coming a little fast. They had
been on the edge of some moment of intimacy that Bucky’s partner both
longed for and dreaded. “But you have not told me yet whether I can go
with you.”

“You can’t. I’m sorry. I’d like first-rate to take you, if you want to
go, but I can’t do it. I hate to disappoint you if you’re set on it,
but I’ve got to, kid. Anything else you want I’ll be glad to do.”

He added this last because Frank looked so broken-hearted about it.

“Very well.” Swift as a flash came the demand: “Tell me these heaps of
first-rate reasons you were mentioning just now.”

Under the sun-tan he flushed. “I reckon I’ll have to make another
exception, Curly. Those reasons ain’t ripe yet for telling.”

“Then if you are—if anything happens—I’ll never know them. And you
promised you would tell me—you, who pretend to hate a liar so,” she
scoffed.

“Would it do if I wrote those reasons and left them in a sealed
envelope? Then in case anything happened you could open it and satisfy
that robust curiosity of yours.” He recognized that he had trapped
himself, and he was making the best bargain left him.

“You may write them, if you like. But I’m going to open the letter,
anyway. The reasons belong to me now. You promised.”

“I’ll make a new deal with you, then,” he smiled. “I’ll take awful good
care of myself to-night if you’ll promise not to open the envelope for
two weeks unless—well, unless that something happens that we ain’t
expecting.”

“Call it a week, and it’s a bargain.”

“Better say when we’re back across the line again. That may be inside
of three days, if everything goes well,” he threw in as a bait.

“Done. I’m to open the letter when we cross the line into Texas.”

Bucky shook the little hand that was offered him and wished mightily
that he had the right to celebrate with more fervent demonstrations.

That afternoon the ranger wrote with a good deal of labor the letter he
had promised. It appeared to be a difficult thing for him to deliver
himself even on paper of those good and sufficient reasons. He made and
destroyed no less than half a dozen openings before at last he was
fairly off. Meanwhile, Master Frank, busy over some alterations in
Bucky’s gypsy suit, took pleasure in deriding with that sweet voice the
harassed correspondent.

“It might be a love letter from the pains you take with it. Would you
like me to come and help you with it?” the sewer railed merrily.

“I ain’t used to letter writing much,” apologized the scribe, wiping
his bedewed brow, which had suddenly gone a shade more flushed.

“Apparently not. I expect, from the time you give it, the result will
be a literary classic.”

“Don’t you disturb me, Curly, or I’ll never get done,” implored the
tortured ranger.

“You’re doing well. You’ve only been an hour and a half on six lines,”
the tormentor mocked.

Womanlike, she was quite at her ease, since he was very far indeed from
being at his. Yet she had a problem of her own she was trying to
decide.

Had he discovered, after all, that she was not a boy, and had his
reasons—the ones he was trying to tell in that disturbing
letter—anything to do with that discovery? Such a theory accounted for
several things she had noticed in him of late. There was an added
respect in his manner for her. He never now invaded the room recognized
as hers without a specific invitation, nor did he seem any longer to
chafe at the little personal marks of fastidiousness that had at first
appeared to annoy him. To be sure, he ordered her about, just as he had
been in the habit of doing at first. But it was conceivable that this
might be a generous blind to cover up his knowledge of her sex.

“How do you spell guessed—one s or two?” he presently asked, out of the
throes of composition.

She spelled it, and added demurely: “Adore has only one d”

Bucky laid down his pen and pretended to glare at him. “You young
rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you
young imp, and you’ll never grow up to be a gentleman.”

Their glances caught and held, the minds of each of them busy over that
last prediction of his. For one long instant masks were off and both
were trying to find an answer to a question in the eyes opposite. Then
voluntarily each gaze released the other in a confusion of sweet shame.
For the beating of a lash, soul had looked into naked soul, all
disguise stripped from them. She knew that he knew. Yet in that instant
when his secret was surprised from him another secret, sweeter than the
morning song of birds, sang its way into both their hearts.




CHAPTER X.
THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER


Agua Negra is twelve miles from Chihuahua as the crow flies, but if one
goes by rail one twists round thirty sinuous miles of rough mountainous
country in the descent from the pass to the capital of the State. The
ten men who slipped singly or by twos out of the city in the darkness
that evening and met at the rendezvous of the Santa Dolorosa mission
did not travel by rail to the pass, but followed a horseback trail
which was not more than half the distance.

At the mission O’Halloran and his friend found gathered half a dozen
Mexicans, one or two of them tough old campaigners, the rest young
fellows eager for the excitement of their first active service.

“Is Juan Valdez here yet?” asked O’Halloran, peering around in the
gloom.

“Not yet; nor Manuel Garcia,” answered a young fellow.

Bucky was introduced to those present under the name of Alessandro
Perdoza, and presently also to the two missing members of the party who
arrived together a few moments later. Juan Valdez was the son of the
candidate who was opposing the reelection of Megales, and Manuel Garcia
was his bosom friend, and the young man to whom his sister was engaged.
They were both excellent types of the honorable aristocratic young
Mexican. They were lightly built, swarthy young men, possessed of that
perfect grace and courtesy which can be found at its best in the
Spanish races. Gay, handsome young cavaliers as they were, filled with
the pride of family, Bucky thought them almost ideal companions for
such a harebrained adventure as this. The ranger was a social democrat
to the marrow. He had breathed in with the Southwest breezes the
conviction that every man must stand on his own bottom, regardless of
adventitious circumstance, but he was not fool enough to think all men
equal. It had been his experience that some men, by grace of the
strength in them, were born to be masters and others by their weakness
to be servants. He knew that the best any civilization can offer a man
is a chance. Given that, it is up to every man to find his own niche.

But though he had no sense of deference to what is known as good blood,
Bucky had too much horse sense to resent the careless, half-indifferent
greeting which these two young sprouts of aristocracy bestowed on the
rest of the party. He understood that it was the natural product of
their education and of that of the others.

“Are we all here?” asked Garcia.

“All here,” returned O’Halloran briskly. “Rodrigo will guide the party.
I ride next with Señor Garcia. Perdoza and Señor Valdez will bring up
the rear. Forward, gentlemen, and may the Holy Virgin bring a happy
termination to our adventure.” He spoke in Mexican, as they all did,
though for the next two hours conversation was largely suspended, owing
to the difficulty of the precipitous trail they were following.

Coming to a bit of the road where they were able to ride two abreast,
O’Connor made comment on the smallness of their number. “O’Halloran
must have a good deal of confidence in his men. Forty to ten is rather
heavy odds, is it not, señor?”

“There are six more to join us at the pass. The wagons have gone round
by the road and the drivers will assist in the attack.”

“Of course it is all in the surprise. I have seen three men hold up a
train with five hundred people on it. Once I knew a gang to stick up a
treasure train with three heavily armed guards protecting the gold.
They got them right, with the drop on them, and it was good-by to the
mazuma.”

“Yes, if they have had any warning or if our plans slip a cog anywhere
we shall be repulsed to a certainty.”

By the light of a moon struggling out from behind rolling clouds Bucky
read eleven-thirty on his watch when the party reached Agua Negra. It
was still thirty minutes before the Flyer was due, and O’Halloran
disposed his forces with explicit directions as to the course to be
followed by each detail. Very rapidly he sketched his orders as to the
present disposition of the wagons and the groups of attackers. When the
train slowed down to remove the obstacles they placed on the track,
Garcia and another young man were to command parties covering the train
from both sides, while Rodrigo and one of the drivers were to cover the
engineer and the fireman.

O’Halloran himself, with Bucky and young Valdez, rode rapidly in the
direction of the approaching train. At Concho the engine would take on
water for the last stiff climb of the ascent, and here he meant to
board the train unnoticed, just as it was pulling out, in order to
emphasize the surprise at the proper moment and render resistance
useless. If the troopers were all together in the car next the one with
the boxes of rifles, he calculated that they might perhaps be taken
unawares so sharply as to render bloodshed unnecessary.

Concho was two miles from the summit, and when the three men galloped
down to the little station the headlight of the approaching engine was
already visible. They tied their horses in the mesquit and lurked in
the thick brush until the engine had taken water and the signal for the
start was given. Then O’Halloran and Bucky slipped across in the
darkness to the train and swung themselves to the platform of the last
car. To Valdez, very much against his will, had fallen the task of
taking the horses back to Agua Negra. Since the track wound round the
side of the mountain in such a way as to cover five miles in making the
summit from Concho, the young Mexican had ample time to get back to the
scene of action before the train arrived.

The big Irishman and Bucky rested quietly in the shadows of the back
platform for some time. Then they entered the last car, passed through
it, and on to the next. In the sleeper they met the conductor, but
O’Halloran quietly paid their fares and passed forward. As they had
hoped, the whole detail of forty men were in a special car next to the
one containing the arms consigned to Michael O’Halloran, importer of
pianos.

Lieutenant Chaves, in charge of the detail sent out to see that the
rifles reached Governor Megales instead of the men who had paid for
them, was finding his assignment exceedingly uninteresting. There was
at Chihuahua a certain black-eyed dona with whom he had expected to
enjoy a pleasant evening’s flirtation. It was confounded luck that it
had fallen to him to take charge of the escort for the guns. He had
endured in consequence an unpleasant day of dusty travel and many hours
of boredom through the evening. Now he was cross and sleepy, which
latter might also be said of the soldiers in general.

He was connected with a certain Arizona outfit which of late had been
making money very rapidly. If one more coup like the last could be
pulled off safely by his friend Wolf Leroy he would resign from the
army and settle down. It would then no longer be necessary to bore
himself with such details as this.

There was, of course, no necessity for alertness in his present
assignment. The opposition was scarcely mad enough to attempt taking
the guns from forty armed men. Chaves devoutly hoped they would, in
order that he might get a little glory, at least, out of the affair.
But of course such an expectation would be ridiculous. No, the journey
would continue to be humdrum to the end, he was wearily assured of
that, and consequently attempted to steal a half hour’s sleep while
propped against a window with his feet in the seat opposite.

The gallant lieutenant was awakened by a cessation of the drumming of
the wheels. Opening his eyes, he saw that the train was no longer in
motion. He also saw—and his consciousness of that fact was much more
acute—the rim of a revolver about six inches from his forehead. Behind
the revolver was a man, a young Spanish gypsy, and he was offering the
officer very good advice.

“Don’t move, sir. No cause for being uneasy. Just sit quiet and
everything will be serene. No, I wouldn’t reach for that revolver, if I
were you.”

Chaves cast a hurried eye down the car, and at the end of it beheld the
huge Irishman, O’Halloran, dominating the situation with a pair of
revolvers. Chaves’ lambs were ranged on either side of the car, their
hands in the air. Back came the lieutenant’s gaze to the impassive face
in front of him. Taken by and large, it did not seem an auspicious
moment for garnering glory. He decided to take the advice bestowed on
him.

“Better put your hands up and vote with your men. Then you won’t be
tempted to play with your gun and commit suicide. That’s right, sir.
I’ll relieve you of it if you don’t object.”

Since the lieutenant had no objections to offer, the smiling gypsy
possessed himself of the revolver. At the same instant two more men
appeared at the end of the car. One of them was Juan Valdez and another
one of the mule-skinners. Simultaneously with their entrance rang out a
most disconcerting fusillade of small arms in the darkness without.
Megales’ military band, as O’Halloran had facetiously dubbed them to
the ranger, arrived at the impression that there were about a thousand
insurgents encompassing the train. Chaves choked with rage, but the
rest of the command yielded to the situation very tranquilly, with no
desire to offer themselves as targets to this crackling explosion of
Colts. _Muy bien!_ After all, Valdez was a better man to serve than the
fox Megales.

Swiftly Valdez and the wagon driver passed down the car and gathered
the weapons from the seats of the troopers. Raising a window, they
passed them out to their friends outside. Meanwhile, the sound of an
axe could be heard battering at the door of the next car, and presently
the crash of splintering wood announced that an entrance had been
forced.

“Breaking furniture, I reckon,” drawled Bucky, in English, for the
moment forgetful of the part he was playing. “I hope they’ll be all
right careful of them pianos and not mishandle them so they’ll get out
of tune.”

“So, señor, you are American,” said Chaves, in English, with a sinister
smile.

O’Connor shrugged, answering in Spanish: “I am Romany. Who shall say,
whether American, or Spanish, or Bohemian? All nations call to me, but
none claim me, señor.”

The lieutenant continued to smile his meaning grin. “Yet you are
American,” he persisted.

“Oh, as you please. I am what you will, lieutenant.”

“You speak the English like a native.”

“You are complimentary.”

Chaves lifted his eyebrows. “For believing that you are in costume,
that you are wearing a disguise, Mr. American?”

Bucky laughed outright, and offered a gay retort. “Believe me,
lieutenant, I am no more disguised as a gypsy than you are as a
soldier.”

The Mexican officer flushed with anger at the suggestion of contempt in
the careless voice. His generalship was discredited. He had been
outwitted and made to yield without a blow. But to have it flung in his
teeth with such a debonair insolence threw him into a fury.

“If you and I ever meet on equal terms, señor, God pity you,” he ground
out between his set jaws.

Bucky bowed, answering the furious anger in the man’s face as much as
his words. “I shall try to be careful not to offer myself a sheath for
a knife some dark night,” he scoffed.

A whistle blew, and then again. The revolver of Bucky rang out almost
on the same instant as those of O’Halloran. Under cover of the smoke
they slipped out of the car just as Rodrigo leaped down from the cab of
the engine. Slowly the train began to back down the incline in the same
direction from which it had come. The orders given the engineer were to
move back at a snail’s pace until he reached Concho again. There he was
to remain for two hours. That Chaves would submit to this O’Halloran
did not for a moment suspect.

But the track would be kept obstructed till six o’clock in the morning,
and a sufficient guard would wait in the underbrush to see that the
right of way was not cleared. In the meantime the wagons would be
pushing toward Chihuahua as fast as they could be hurried, and the rest
of the riders would guard them till they separated on the outskirts of
the town and slipped quietly in. In order to forestall any telegraphic
communication between Lieutenant Chaves and his superiors in the city,
the wires had been cut. On the face of it, the guns seemed to be safe.
Only one thing had O’Halloran forgotten. Eight miles across the hills
from Concho ran the line of the Chihuahua Northern.




CHAPTER XI.
“STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE.”


The two young Spanish aristocrats rode in advance of the convoy on the
return trip, while O’Halloran and Bucky brought up the rear. The roads
were too rough to permit of rapid travel, but the teams were pushed as
fast as it could safely be done in the dark. It was necessary to get
into the city before daybreak, and also before word reached Megales of
the coup his enemies had made. O’Halloran calculated that this could be
done, but he did not want to run his margin of time too fine.

“When the governor finds we have recaptured the arms, will he not have
all your leaders arrested today and thrown into the prison?” asked the
ranger.

“He will—if he can lay hands on them. But he had better catch his hare
before he cooks it. I’m thinking that none of us will be at home to-day
when his men come with a polite invitation to go along with them.”

“Then he’ll spend all day strengthening his position. With this warning
he will be a fool if he can’t make himself secure before night, when
the army is on his side.”

“Oh, the army is on his side, is it? Now, what would you say if most of
the officers were ready to come over to us as soon as we declare
ourselves? And ye speak of strengthening his position. The beauty of
his position, me lad, from our point of view, is that he doesn’t know
his weak places. He’ll be the most undeceived man in the State when the
test comes—unless something goes wrong.”

“When do you propose to attack the prison?”

“To-night. To-morrow is election day, and we want all the byes we can
on hand to help us out.”

“Do you expect to throw the prison doors wide open—let every scoundrel
in Chihuahua loose on the public.”

“We couldn’t do that, since half of them are loose already,” retorted
O’Halloran dryly. “And as for the rest—we expect to make a selection,
me son, to weed out a few choice ruffians and keep them behind the
bars. But if ye know anything about the prisons of this country, you’re
informed, sir, that half the poor fellows behind bars don’t belong
there so much as the folk that put them there. I’m Irish, as ye are
yourself, and it’s me instinct to fight for the under dog. Why
shouldn’t the lads rotting behind those walls have another chance at
the game? By the mother of Moses! they shall, if Mike O’Halloran has
anything to say about it.”

“You ce’tainly conduct your lawful elections in a beautifully lawless
way,” grinned the ranger.

“And why not? Isn’t the law made for man?”

“For which man—Megales?”

“In order to give the greatest liberty to each individual man. But here
comes young Valdez riding back as if he were in a bit of a hurry.”

The filibuster rode forward and talked with the young man for a few
minutes in a low voice. When he rejoined Bucky he nodded his head
toward the young man, who was again headed for the front of the column.
“There’s the best lad in the State of Chihuahua. He’s a Mexican, all
right, but he has as much sense as a white man. He doesn’t mix issues.
Now, the lad’s in love with Carmencita Megales, the prettiest
black-eyed lass in Mexico, and, by the same token, so is our friend
Chaves, who just gave us the guns a little while ago. But Valdez is a
man from the heel of him to the head. Miss Carmencita has her nose in
the air because Juan doesn’t snuggle up to ould Megales and flatter him
the same way young Chaves does. So the lad is _persona non grata_ at
court with the lady, and that tin soldier who gave up the guns without
a blow gets the lady’s smiles. But it’s my opinion that, for all her
haughty ways, miss would rather have our honest fighting lad than a
roomful of the imitation toy kind.”

A couple of miles from the outskirts of the city the wagons separated,
and each was driven to the assigned place for the hiding of the rifles
till night. At the edge of the town Bucky made arrangements to join his
friend again at the monument in the centre of the plaza within fifteen
minutes. He was to bring his little partner with him, and O’Halloran
was to take them to a place where they might lie in hiding till the
time set for the rising.

“I would go with ye, but I want to take charge of the unloading. Don’t
lose any time, lad, for as soon as Megales learns of what has happened
his fellows will scour the town for every mother’s son of us. Of course
you have been under surveillance, and it’s likely he’ll try to bag you
with the rest of us. It was a great piece of foolishness me forgetting
about the line of the Chihuahua Northern and its telegraph. But there’s
a chance Chaves has forgot, too. Anyway, get back as soon as you can;
after we’re hidden, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack
to put his fat finger on us.”

Bucky went singing up the stairway of the hotel to his room. He was
keen to get back to his little friend after the hazards of the night,
eager to see the brown eyes light up with joy at sight of him and to
hear the soft voice with the trailing inflection drawl out its shy
questions. So he took the stairs three at a time, with a song on his
lips and in his heart.

“’Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone
    My dark Rosaleen!
    My own Rosaleen!
’Tis you shall have the golden throne,
’Tis you shall reign, and reign alone
    My dark Rosaleen!”


O’Connor, somewhat out of breath, was humming the last line when he
passed through the gypsy apartments and opened his own door, to meet
one of the surprises of his life. Yet he finished the verse, though he
was looking down the barrels of two revolvers in the hands of a pair of
troopers, and though Lieutenant Chaves, very much at his ease, sat on
the table dangling his feet.

Bucky’s sardonic laughter rang out gayly. “I ce’tainly didn’t expect to
meet you here, lieutenant. May I ask if you have wings?”

“Not exactly, señor. But it is quite possible you may have before
twenty-four hours,” came the swift retort.

“Interesting, if true,” remarked the ranger carelessly, tossing his
gloves on the bed. “And may I ask to what I am indebted for the
pleasure of a visit from you?”

“I am returning your call, sir, and at the very earliest opportunity. I
assure you that I have been in the city less than ten minutes, Señor
whatever-you-choose-to-call-yourself. My promptness I leave you to
admire.”

“Oh, you’re prompt enough, lieutenant. I noticed that when you handed
over your gun to me so lamblike.” He laughed it out flippantly,
buoyantly, though it was on his mind to wonder whether the choleric
little officer might not kill him out of hand for it.

But Chaves merely folded his arms and looked sternly at the American
with a manner very theatrical. “Miguel, disarm the prisoner,” he
ordered.

“So I’m a prisoner,” mused Bucky aloud. “And whyfor, lieutenant?”

“Stirring up insurrection against the government. The prisoner will not
talk,” decreed his captor, a frowning gaze attempting to quell him.

But here the popinjay officer reckoned without his host, for that
gentleman had the most indomitable eyes in Arizona. It was not
necessary for him to stiffen his will to meet the other’s attack. His
manner was still lazy, his gaze almost insolent in its indolence, but
somewhere in the blue eyes was that which told Chaves he was his
master. The Mexican might impotently rebel—and did; he might feed his
vanity with the swiftness of his revenge, but in his heart he knew that
the moment was not his, after all, or that it was his at least with no
pleasure unalloyed.

“The prisoner will not talk,” repeated Bucky, with drawling mockery.
“Sure he will, general. There’s several things he’s awful curious to
know. One of them is how you happen to be Johnnie-on-the-spot so
opportune.”

The lieutenant’s dignity melted before his vanity. Having so excellent
a chance to sun the latter, he delivered himself of an oration. After
all, silent contempt did not appear to be the best weapon to employ
with this impudent fellow.

“Señor, no Chaves ever forgets an insult. Last night you, a common
American, insulted me grossly—me, Lieutenant Ferdinand Chaves, me, of
the bluest Castilian blood.” He struck himself dramatically on the
breast. “I submit, señor, but I vow revenge. I promised myself to spit
on you, to spit on your Stars and Stripes, the flag of a nation of
dirty traders. Ha! I do so now in spirit. The hour I have longed for is
come.”

Bucky took one step forward. His eyes had grown opaque and flinty.
“Take care, you cur.”

Swiftly Chaves hurried on without pressing the point. He had a
prophetic vision of his neck in the vise grip of those brown, sinewy
hands, and, though his men would afterward kill the man, small good
would he get from that if the life were already squeezed out of him.

“And so what do I do? I think, and having thought I act with the
swiftness of a Chaves. How? I ride across country. I seize a hand car.
My men pump me to town on the roadbed of the Northern. I telephone to
the hotels and find where Americans are staying. Then I come here like
the wind, arrest your friend, and send him to prison, arrest you also
and send you to the gallows.”

“That’s real kind of you, general,” replied Bucky, in irony sportive.
“But you really are putting yourself out too much for me. I reckon I’ll
not trouble you to go so far. By the way, did I understand you to say
you had arrested a friend of mine?”

Indifferently he flung out the question, if his voice were index of his
feeling, but his heart was pumping faster than it normally ought.

“He is in prison, where you will shortly join him. Soldiers, to the
commandant with your captive.”

If Bucky had had any idea of attempting escape, he now abandoned it at
once. The place of all places where he most ardently desired to be at
that moment was in the prison with his little comrade. His desire
marched with that of Chaves so far, and the latter could not hurry him
there too fast to suit him.

One feature of the situation made him chuckle, and that was this: The
fiery lieutenant, intent first of all on his revenge, had given first
thought to the capture of the man who had made mincemeat of his vanity
and rendered him a possible subject of ridicule to his fellow officers.
So eager had he been to accomplish this that he had failed as yet to
notify his superiors of what had happened, with the result that the
captured guns had been safely smuggled in and hidden. Bucky thought he
could trust O’Halloran to see that he did not stay long behind bars and
bolts, unless indeed the game went against that sanguine and most
cheerful plotter. In which event—well, that was a contingency that
would certainly prove embarrassing to the ranger. It might indeed turn
out to be a good deal more than embarrassing in the end. The thing that
he had done would bear a plain name if the Megales faction won the
day—and the punishment for it would be easy to guess. But it was not of
himself that O’Connor was thinking. He had been in tight places before
and squeezed safely out. But his little friend, the one he loved better
than his life, must somehow be extricated, no matter how the cards
fell.

The ranger was taken at once before General Carlo, the ranking army
officer at Chihuahua, and, after a sharp preliminary examination, was
committed to prison. The impression that O’Connor got of Carlo was not
a reassuring one. The man was a military despot, apparently, and a
stickler for discipline. He had a hanging face, and, in the Yaqui war,
had won the nickname of “the butcher” for his merciless treatment of
captured natives. If Bucky were to get the same short shrift as they
did—and he began to suspect as much when his trial was set for the same
day before a military tribunal—it was time for him to be setting what
few worldly affairs he had in order. Technically, Megales had a legal
right to have him put to death and the impression lingered with Bucky
that the sly old governor would be likely to do that very thing and
later be full of profuse regrets to the United States Government that
inadvertently a citizen of the great republic had been punished by
mistake.

Bucky was registered and receipted for at the prison office, after
which he was conducted to his cell. The corridors dripped as he
followed under ground the guide who led the way with a flickering
lantern. It was a gruesome place to contemplate as a permanent abode.
But the young American knew that his stay here would be short, whether
the termination of it were liberty or the gallows.

Reaching the end of a narrow, crooked corridor that sloped downward,
the turnkey unlocked a ponderous iron door with a huge key, and one of
the guards following at Bucky’s heels, pushed him forward. He fell down
two or three steps and came to a sprawling heap on the floor of the
cell.

From the top of the steps came a derisive laugh as the door swung to
and left him in utter darkness.

Stiffly the ranger got to his knees and was about to rise when a sound
stopped him. Something was panting in deep breaths at the other side of
the cell. A shiver of terror went goose-quilling down O’Connor’s back.
Had they locked him up with some wild beast, to be torn to pieces? Or
was this the ghost of some previous occupant? In such blackness of
gloom it was easy to believe, or, at least, to imagine impossible
conceptions that the light of day would have scattered in an instant.
He was afraid—afraid to the marrow.

And then out of the darkness came a small, trembling voice: “Are you a
prisoner, too, sir?”

Bucky wanted to shout aloud his relief—and his delight. The sheer joy
of his laughter told him how badly he had been frightened. That
voice—were he sunk in twice as deep and dark an inferno—he would know
it among a thousand. He groped his way forward toward it.

“Oh, little pardner, I’m plumb tickled to death you ain’t a ghost,” he
laughed.

“It is—Bucky?” The question joyfully answered itself.

“Right guess. Bucky it is.”

He had hold of her hands by this time, was trying to peer down into the
happy-brown eyes he knew were scanning him. “I can’t see you yet, Curly
Haid, but it’s sure you, I reckon. I’ll have to pass my hand over your
face the way a blind man does,” he laughed, and, greatly daring, he
followed his own suggestion, and let his fingers wander across her
crisp, thick hair, down her soft, warm cheeks, and over the saucy nose
and laughing mouth he had often longed to kiss.

Presently she drew away shyly, but the lilt of happiness in her voice
told him she was not offended. “I can see you, Bucky.” The last word
came as usual, with that sweet, hesitating, upward inflection that made
her familiarity wholly intoxicating, even while the comradeship of it
left room for an interpretation either of gay mockery or something
deeper. “Yes, I can see you. That’s because I have been here longer and
am more used to the darkness. I think I’ve been here about a year.” He
felt her shudder. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

“No gladder than I am to feel you,” he answered gayly. “It’s worth the
price of admission to find you here, girl o’mine.”

He had forgotten the pretense that still lay between them, so far as
words went when they had last parted. Nor did it yet occur to him that
he had swept aside the convention of her being a boy. But she was
vividly aware of it, and aware, too, of the demand his last words had
made for a recognition of the relationship that existed in feeling
between them.

“I knew you knew I was a girl,” she murmured.

“You knew more than that,” he challenged joyfully.

But, in woman’s way, she ignored his frontal attack. He was going at
too impetuous a speed for her reluctance. “How long have you known that
I wasn’t a boy—not from the first, surely?”

“I don’t know why I didn’t, but I didn’t. I was sure locoed,” he
confessed. “It was when you came out dressed as a gypsy that I knew.
That explained to me a heap of things I never had understood before
about you.”

“It explained, I suppose, why I never had licked the stuffing out of
any other kid, and why you did not get very far in making a man out of
me as you promised,” she mocked.

“Yes, and it explained how you happened to say you were eighteen. By
mistake you let the truth slip out. Course I wouldn’t believe it.”

“I remember you didn’t. I think you conveyed the impression to me
diplomatically that you had doubts.”

“I said it was a lie,” he laughed. “I sure do owe you a heap of
apologies for being so plumb dogmatic when you knew best. You’ll have
to sit down on me hard once in a while, or there won’t be any living
with me.”

Blushingly she did some more ignoring. “That was the first time you
threatened to give me a whipping,” she recalled aloud.

“My goodness! Did I ever talk so foolish?”

“You did, and meant it.”

“But somehow I never did it. I wonder why I didn’t.”

“Perhaps I was so frail you were afraid you would break me.”

“No, that wasn’t it. In the back of my haid somewhere there was an
instinct that said: ‘Bucky, you chump, if you don’t keep your hands off
this kid you’ll be right sorry all your life.’ Not being given to many
ideas, I paid a heap of respect to that one.”

“Well, it’s too bad, for I probably needed that whipping, and now
you’ll never be able to give it to me.”

“I shan’t ever want to now.”

Saucily her merry eyes shot him from under the long lashes. “I’m not so
sure of that. Girls can be mighty aggravating.”

“That’s the way girls are meant to be, I expect,” he laughed. “But
fifteen-year-old boys have to be herded back into line. There’s a
difference.”

She rescued her hands from him and led the way to a bench that served
for a seat. “Sit down here, sir. There are one or two things that I
have to explain.” She sat down beside him at the farther end of the
bench.

“This light is so dim, I can’t see you away over there,” he pleaded,
moving closer.

“You don’t need to see me. You can hear me, can’t you?”

“I reckon.”

She seemed to find a difficulty in beginning, even though the darkness
helped her by making it impossible for him to see her embarrassment.
Presently he chuckled softly. “No, ma’am, I can’t even hear you. If
you’re talking, I’ll have to come closer.”

“If you do, I’ll get up. I want you to be really earnest.”

“I never was more earnest in my life, Curly.”

“Please, Bucky? It isn’t easy to say it, and you mustn’t make it
harder.”

“Do you have to say it, pardner?” he asked, more seriously.

“Yes, I have to say it.” And swiftly she blurted it out. “Why do you
suppose I came with you to Mexico?”

“I don’t know.” He grappled with her suggestion for a moment. “I
suppose—you said it was because you were afraid of Hardman.”

“Well, I wasn’t. At least, I wasn’t afraid that much. I knew that I
would have been quite safe next time with the Mackenzies at the ranch.”

“Then why was it?”

“You can’t think of any reason?” She leaned forward and looked directly
into his eyes—eyes as honest and as blue as an Arizona sky.

But he stood unconvicted—nay, acquitted. The one reason she had dreaded
he might offer to himself had evidently never entered his head.
Whatever guesses he might have made on the subject, he was plainly
guiltless of thinking she might have come with him because she was in
love with him.

“No, I can’t think of any other reason, if the one you gave isn’t the
right one.”

“Quite sure?”

“Quite sure, pardner.”

“Think! Why did you come to Chihuahua?”

“To run down Wolf Leroy’s gang and to get Dave Henderson out of
prison.”

“Perhaps there is a reason why I should want him out of prison, a
better reason than you could possibly have.”

“I don’t savvy it. How can there be? You don’t know him, do you? He’s
been in prison almost ever since you were born.” And on top of his last
statement Bucky’s eyes began to open with a new light. “Good heavens!
It can’t be possible. You’re not Webb Mackenzie’s little girl, are
you?”

She did not answer him in words, but from her neck she slipped a chain
and handed it to him. On the chain hung a locket.

The ranger struck a match and examined the trinket. “It’s the very
missing locket. See! Here’s the other one. Compare them together.” He
touched the spring and it opened, but the match was burned out and he
had to light another. “Here’s the mine map that has been lost all these
years. How did you get this? Have you always had it? And how long have
you known that you were Frances Mackenzie?”

His questions tumbled out one upon another in his excitement.

She laughed, answering him categorically. “I don’t know, for sure. Yes,
at least a great many years. Less than a week.”

“But—I don’t understand—”

“And won’t until you give me a chance to do some of the talking,” she
interrupted dryly.

“That’s right. I reckon I am getting off left foot first. It’s your
powwow now,” he conceded.

“So long as I can remember exactly I have always lived with the man
Hardman and his wife. But before that I can vaguely recall something
different. It has always seemed like a kind of fairyland, for I was a
very little tot then. But one of the things I seem to remember was a
sweet, kind-eyed mother and a big, laughing father. Then, too, there
were horses and lots of cows. That is about all, except that the chain
around my neck seemed to have some connection with my early life.
That’s why I always kept it very carefully, and, after one of the
lockets broke, I still kept it and the funny-looking paper inside of
it.”

“I don’t understand why Hardman didn’t take the paper,” he interrupted.

“I suppose he did, and when he discovered that it held only half the
secret of the mine he probably put it back in the locket. I see you
have the other part.”

“It was lost at the place where the robbers waited to hold up the T. P.
Limited. Probably you lost it first and one of the robbers found it.”

“Probably,” she said, in a queer voice.

“What was the first clue your father had had for many years about his
little girl. He happened to be at Aravaipa the day you and I first met.
I guess he took a fancy to me, for he asked me to take this case up for
him and see if I couldn’t locate you. I ran Hardman down and made him
tell me the whole story. But he lied about some of it, for he told me
you were dead.”

“He is a born liar,” the girl commented. “Well, to get on with my
story. Anderson, or Hardman, as he now calls himself, except when he
uses his stage name of Cavallado, went into the show business and took
me with him. When I was a little bit of a girl he used to use me for
all sorts of things, such as a target for his knife throwing and to
sell medicine to the audience. Lots of people would buy because I was
such a morsel of a creature, and I suppose he found me a drawing card.
We moved all over the country for years. I hated the life. But what
could I do?”

“You poor little lamb,” murmured the man. “And when did you find out
who you were?”

“I heard you talking to him the night you took him back to Epitaph, and
then I began to piece things together. You remember you went over the
whole story with him again just before we reached the town.”

“And you knew it was you I was talking about?”

“I didn’t know. But when you mentioned the locket and the map, I knew.
Then it seemed to me that since this man Henderson had lost so many
years of his life trying to save me I must do something for him. So I
asked you to take me with you. I had been a boy so long I didn’t think
you would know the difference, and you did not. If I hadn’t dressed as
a girl that time you would not know yet.”

“Maybe, and maybe not,” he smiled. “Point is, I do know, and it makes a
heap of difference to me.”

“Yes, I know,” she said hurriedly. “I’m more trouble now.”

“That ain’t it,” he was beginning, when a thought brought him up short.
As the daughter of Webb Mackenzie this girl was no longer a penniless
outcast, but the heiress of one-half interest in the big Rocking Chair
Ranch, with its fifteen thousand head of cattle. As the first he had a
perfect right to love her and to ask her to marry him, but as the
latter—well, that was quite a different affair. He had not a cent to
bless himself with outside of his little ranch and his salary, and,
though he might not question his own motives under such circumstances,
there would be plenty who would question them for him. He was an
independent young man as one could find in a long day’s ride, and his
pride rose up to padlock his lips.

She looked across at him in shy surprise, for all the eagerness had in
an instant been sponged from his face. With a hard, impassive
countenance he dropped the hand he had seized and turned away.

“You were saying—” she suggested.

“I reckon I’ve forgot what it was. It doesn’t matter, anyhow.”

She was hurt, and deeply. It was all very well for her to try her
little wiles to delay him, but in her heart she longed to hear the
words he had been about to say. It had been very sweet to know that
this brown, handsome son of Arizona loved her, very restful to know
that for the first time in her life she could trustfully let her
weakness lean on the strength of another. And, more than either, though
she sometimes smilingly pretended to deny it to herself, was the
ultimate fact that she loved him. His voice was music to her, his
presence joy. He brought with him sunshine, and peace, and happiness.

He was always so reliable, so little the victim of his moods. What
could have come over him now to change him in that swift instant? Was
she to blame? Had she unknowingly been at fault? Or was there something
in her story that had chilled him? It was characteristic of her that it
was herself she doubted and not him; that it never occurred to her that
her hero had feet of clay like other men.

She felt her heart begin to swell, and choked back a sob. It wrung him
to hear the little breath catch, but he was a man, strong-willed and
resolute. Though he dug his finger nails into his palms till the flesh
was cut he would not give way to his desire.

“You’re not angry at me—Bucky?” she asked softly.

“No, I’m not angry at you.” His voice was cold because he dared not
trust himself to let his tenderness creep into it.

“I haven’t done anything that I ought not to? Perhaps you think it
wasn’t—wasn’t nice to—to come here with you.”

“I don’t think anything of the kind,” his hard voice answered. “I think
you’re a prince, if you want to know.”

She smiled a little wanly, trying to coax him back into friendliness.
“Then if I’m a prince you must be a princess,” she teased.

“I meant a prince of good fellows.”

“Oh!” She could be stiff, too, if it came to that.

And at this inopportune moment the key turned harshly and the door
swung open.




CHAPTER XII.
A CLEAN WHITE MAN’S OPTION


The light of a lantern coming down the steps blinded them for a moment.
Behind the lantern peered the yellow face of the turnkey. “Ho, there,
_Americano!_ They want you up above,” the man said. “The generals, and
the colonels, and the captains want a little talk with you before they
hang you, señor.”

The two soldiers behind the fellow cackled merrily at his wit, and the
encouraged turnkey tried again.

“We shall trouble you but a little time. Only a few questions, señor,
an order, and then _poco tiempo_, after a short walk to the
gallows—paradise.”

“What—what do you mean?” gasped the girl whitely.

“Never mind, _muchacho_. This is no affair of yours. Your turn will
come later. Have no fear of that,” nodded the wrinkled old parchment
face.

“But—but he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Ho, ho! Let him explain that to the generals and the colonels,”
croaked the old fellow. “And that you may explain the sooner, señor,
hurry—let your feet fly!”

Bucky walked across to the girl he loved and took her hands in his.

“If I don’t come back before three hours read the letter that I wrote
you yesterday, dear. I have left matches on that bench so that you may
have a light. Be brave, pardner. Don’t lose your nerve, whatever you
do. We’ll both get out of this all right yet.”

He spoke in a low voice, so that the guards might not hear, and it was
in kind that she answered.

“I’m afraid, Bucky; afraid away down deep. You don’t half believe
yourself what you say. I can’t stand it to be here alone and not know
what’s going on. They might be—be doing what that man said, and I not
know anything about it till afterward.” She broke down and began to
sob. “Oh, I know I’m a dreadful little coward, but I can’t be like
you—and you heard what he said.”

“Sho! What he says is nothing. I’m an American citizen, and I reckon
that will carry us through all right. Uncle Sam has awful long arms,
and these greasers know it. I’m expecting to come back here again,
little pardner. But if I don’t make it, I want you, just as soon as
they turn you loose, to go straight to your father’s ranch.”

“Come! This won’t do. Look alive, señor,” the turnkey ordered, and to
emphasize his words reached a hand forward to pluck away the sobbing
lad. Bucky caught his wrist and tightened on it like a vise. “Hands
off, here!” he commanded quietly.

The man gave a howl of pain and nursed his hand gingerly after it was
released.

“Oh, Bucky, make him let me go, too,” the girl wailed, clinging to his
coat.

Gently he unfastened her fingers. “You know I would if I could, Curly;
but it isn’t my say-so.”

And with that he was gone. Ashen-faced she watched him go, and as soon
as the door had closed groped her way to the bench and sank down on it,
her face covered with her hands. He was going to his death. Her lover
was going to his death. Why had she let him go? Why had she not done
something—thought of some way to save him?

The ranger’s guards led him to the military headquarters in the next
street from the prison. He observed that nearly a whole company of
Rurales formed the escort, and this led him to conclude that the
government party was very uneasy as to the situation and had taken
precautions against a possible attempt at rescue. But no such attempt
was made. The sunny streets were pretty well deserted, except for a few
lounging peons hardly interested enough to be curious. The air of
peace, of order, sat so incongruously over the plaza that Bucky’s heart
fell. Surely this was the last place on earth for a revolution to make
any headway of consequence. His friends were hidden away in holes and
cellars, while Megales dominated the situation with his troops. To
expect a reversal of the situation was surely madness.

Yet even while the thought was in his mind he caught a glimpse in a
doorway of a man he recognized. It was Rodrigo, one of his allies of
the previous night’s escapade, and it seemed to him that the man was
trying to tell him something with his eyes. If so, the meaning of his
message failed to carry home, for after the ranger had passed he dared
not look back again.

So far as the trial itself went, O’Connor hoped for nothing and was the
less disappointed. One glance at his judges was enough to convince him
of the futility of expectation. He was tried by a court-martial
presided over by General Carlo. Beside him sat a Colonel Onate and
Lieutenant Chaves. In none of the three did he find any room for hope.
Carlo was a hater of Americans and a butcher by temperament and choice,
Chaves a personal enemy of the prisoner, and Onate looked as grim an
old scoundrel as Jeffreys the hanging judge of James Stuart. Governor
Megales, though not technically a member of the court, was present, and
took an active part in the prosecution. He was a stout, swarthy little
man, with black, beady eyes that snapped restlessly to and fro, and
from his manner to the officers in charge of the trial it was plain
that he was a despot even in his own official family.

The court did not trouble itself with forms of law. Chaves was both
principal witness and judge, notwithstanding the protest of the
prisoner. Yet what the lieutenant had to offer in the way of testimony
was so tinctured with bitterness that it must have been plain to the
veriest novice he was no fit judge of the case.

But Bucky knew as well as the judges that his trial was a merely
perfunctory formality. The verdict was decided ere it began, and,
indeed, so eager was Megales to get the farce over with that several
times he interrupted the proceedings to urge haste.

It took them just fifteen minutes from the time the young American was
brought into the room to find him guilty of treason and to decide upon
immediate execution as the fitting punishment.

General Carlo turned to the prisoner. “Have you anything to say before
I pronounce sentence of death upon you?”

“I have,” answered Bucky, looking him straight in the eyes. “I am an
American, and I demand the rights of a citizen of the United States.”

“An American?” Incredulously Megales lifted his eyebrows. “You are a
Spanish gypsy, my friend.”

The ranger was fairly caught in his own trap. He had donned the gypsy
masquerade because he did not want to be taken for what he was, and he
had succeeded only too well. He had played into their hands. They
would, of course, claim, in the event of trouble with the United
States, that they had supposed him to be what his costume proclaimed
him, and they would be able to make good their pretense with a very
decent appearance of candor. What an idiot of sorts he had been!

“We understand each other perfectly, governor. I know and you know that
I am an American. As a citizen of the United States I claim the
protection of that flag. I demand that you will send immediately for
the United States consul to this city.”

Megales leaned forward with a thin, cruel smile on his face. “Very
well, señor. Let it be as you say. Your friend, Señor O’Halloran, is
the United States consul. I shall be very glad to send for him if you
can tell me where to find him. Having business with him to-day, I have
despatched messengers who have been unable to find him at home. But
since you know where he is, and are in need of him, perhaps you can
assist me with information of value.”

Again Bucky was fairly caught. He had no reason to doubt that the
governor spoke truth in saying that O’Halloran was the United States
consul. There were in the city as permanent residents not more than
three or four citizens of the United States. With the political
instinct of the Irish, it would be very characteristic of O’Halloran to
work his “pull” to secure for himself the appointment. That he had not
happened to mention the fact to his friend could be accounted for by
reason of the fact that the duties of the office at that place were few
and unimportant.

“We are waiting, señor. If you will tell us where we may send?” hinted
Megales.

“I do not know any more than you do, if he is not at home.”

The governor’s eyes glittered. “Take care, señor. Better sharpen your
memory.”

“It’s pretty hard to remember what one never knew,” retorted the
prisoner.

The Mexican tyrant brought his clinched fist slowly down on the table
in front of him. “It is necessary to remember, sir. It is necessary to
answer a few questions. If you answer them to our satisfaction you may
yet save your life.”

“Indeed!” Bucky swept his fat bulk scornfully from head to foot. “If I
were what you think me, do you suppose I would betray my friends?”

“You have no option, sir. Answer my questions, or die like a dog.”

“You mean that you would not think you had any option if you were in my
place, but since I’m a clean white man there’s an option. By God! sir,
it doesn’t take me a whole lot of time to make it, either. I’ll see you
rot in hell before I’ll play Judas.”

The words rang like a bell through the room, not loud, but clear and
vibrant. There was a long instant’s silence after the American finished
speaking, and as his eyes swept from one to another of the enemy Bucky
met with a surprise. On Colonel Onate’s face was a haggard look of
fear—surely it was fear—that lifted in relief at the young man’s brave
challenge. He had been dreading something, and the dread was lifted.
Onate! Onate! The ranger’s memory searched the past few days to locate
the name. Had O’Halloran mentioned it? Was this man one of the officers
expected to join the opposition when it declared itself against
Megales? He had a vague recollection of the name, and he could have
heard it only through his friend.

“Was Juan Valdez a member of the party that took the rifles from
Lieutenant Chaves and his escort?”

Bucky laughed out his contempt.

“Speak, sir,” broke in Chaves. “Answer the governor, you dog.”

“If I speak, it will be to tell you what a cur I think you.”

Chaves flushed angrily and laid a hand on his revolver. “Who are you
that play dice with death, like a fool?”

“My name, seh, is Bucky O’Connor.”

At the words a certain fear, followed by a look of triumph, passed over
the face of Chaves. It was as if he had had an unpleasant shock that
had instantly proved groundless. Bucky did not at the time understand
it.

“Why don’t you shoot? It’s about your size, you pinhead, to kill an
unarmed man.”

“Tell all you know and I promise you your life.” It was Megales who
spoke.

“I’ll tell you nothing, except that I’m Bucky O’Connor, of the Arizona
Rangers. Chew on that a while, governor, and see how it tastes. Kill
me, and Uncle Sam is liable to ask mighty loud whyfor; not because I’m
such a mighty big toad in the puddle, but because any man that stands
under that flag has back of him the biggest, best, and gamest country
on God’s green footstool.” Bucky spoke in English this time, straight
as he could send it.

“In that case, I think sentence may now be pronounced, general.”

“I warn you that the United States will exact vengeance for my death.”

“Indeed!” Politely the governor smiled at him with a malice almost
devilish. “If so, it will be after you are dead, Señor Bucky O’Connor,
of the Arizona Rangers.”

Colonel Onate leaned forward and whispered something to General Carlo,
who shook his head and frowned. Presently the black head of Chaves
joined them, and the three were in excited discussion. Arms waved like
signals, as is usual among the Latin races who talk with their hands
and expressive shrugs of the shoulders. Outvoted by two to one, Onate
appealed to the governor, who came up and listened, frowning, to both
sides of the debate. In their excitement the voices raised, and to
Bucky came snatches of phrases that told him his life hung in the
balance. Carlo and Chaves were for having him executed out of hand, at
latest, by sunset. The latter was especially vindictive. Indeed, it
seemed to the ranger that ever since he had mentioned his name this man
had set himself more malevolently to compass his death. Onate
maintained, on the other hand, that their prisoner was worth more to
them alive than dead. There was a chance that he might weaken before
morning and tell secrets. At worst they would still have his life as a
card to hold in case of need over the head of the rebels. If it should
turn out that this was not needed, he could be executed in the morning
as well as to-night.

It may be conceived with what anxiety Bucky listened to the whispered
conversation and waited for the decision of the governor. He was a game
man, noted even in a country famous for its courageous citizens, but he
felt strangely weak now as he waited with that leather-crusted face of
his bereft of all expression.

“Give him till morning to weaken. If he still stays obstinate, hang him
in the dawn,” decided the governor, his beady eyes fixed on the
prisoner.

Not a flicker of the eyelid betrayed the Arizonian’s emotion, but for
an instant the world swam dizzily before him. Safe till morning! Before
then a hundred chances might change the current of the game in his
favor. How brightly the sunshine flooded the room! What a glorious
world it was, after all! Through the open window poured the rich,
full-throated song of a meadow lark, and the burden of its blithe song
was, “How good is this life the mere living.”




CHAPTER XIII.
BUCKY’S FIRST-RATE REASONS


How long Frances Mackenzie gave herself up to despair she never knew,
but when at last she resolutely took herself in hand it seemed hours
later. “Bucky told me to be brave, he told me not to lose my nerve,”
she repeated to herself over and over again, drawing comfort from the
memory of his warm, vibrant voice. “He said he would come back, and he
hates a liar. So, of course, he will come.” With such argument she
tried to allay her wild fears.

But on top of all her reassurances would come a swift, blinding vision
of gallant Bucky being led to his death that crumpled her courage as a
hammer might an empty egg shell. What was the use of her pretending all
was well when at that very moment they might be murdering him? Then in
her agony she would pace up and down, wringing her hands, or would beat
them on the stone walls till the soft flesh was bruised and bleeding.

It was in the reaction, after one of these paroxysms of despair, that
in her groping for an anchor to make fast her courage she thought of
his letter.

“He said in three hours I was to read it if he didn’t come back. It
must be more than three hours now,” she said aloud to herself, and knew
a fresh dread at his prolonged absence beyond the limit he had set.

In point of fact, he had been gone less than three-quarters of an hour,
but in each one of them she had lived a lifetime of pain and died many
deaths.

By snatches she read her letter, a sentence or a fragment of a sentence
at a time as the light served. Luckily he had left a case nearly full
of matches, and one after another of them dropped, charred and burned
out, before she had finished reading. After she had read it, her first
love letter, she must needs go over it again, to learn by heart the
sweet phrases in which he had wooed her. It was a commonplace note
enough, far more neutral than the strong, virile writer who had lacked
the cunning to transmit his feeling to ink and paper. But, after all,
it was from him, and it told the divine message, however haltingly. No
wonder she burned her little finger tips from the flame of the matches
creeping nearer unheeded. No wonder she pressed it to her lips in the
darkness and dreamed her happy dream in those few moments when she was
lost in her love before cruel realities pressed home on her again.

“I told you, Little Curly Haid, that I had first-rate reasons for not
wanting to be killed by these Mexicans. So I have, the best reasons
going. But they are not ripe to tell you, and so I write them.

“I guessed your secret, little pardner, right away when I seen you in a
girl’s outfit. If I hadn’t been blind as a bat I would have guessed it
long since, for all the time my feelings were telling me mighty loud
that you were the lovingest little kid Bucky had ever come across.

“I’ll not leave you to guess my secret the way you did me yours, dear
Curly, but right prompt I’ll set down adore (with one D) and say you
hit the bull’s-eye that time without expecting to. But if I was saying
it I would not use any French words sweetheart, but plain American. And
the word would be l-o-v-e, without any D’s. Now you have got the
straight of it, my dear. I love you—love you—love you, from the crown
of that curly hear to the soles of your little feet. What’s more, you
have got to love me, too, since I am,

“Your future husband,
“BUCKY O’CONNOR.


“P. S.—And now, Curly, you know my first-rate reasons for not meaning
to get shot up by any of these Mexican fellows.”

So the letter ran, and it went to her heart directly as rain to the
thirsty roots of flowers. He loved her. Whatever happened, she would
always have that comfort. They might kill him, but they could not take
away that. The words of an old Scotch song that Mrs. Mackenzie sang
came back to her:

“The span o’ life’s nae large eneugh,
    Nor deep enough the sea,
Nor braid eneugh this weary warld,
    To part my love frae me.”


No, they could not part their hearts in this world or the next, and
with this sad comfort she flung herself on the rough bed and sobbed.
She would grieve still, but the wildness of her grief and despair was
gone, scattered by the knowledge that however their troubles eventuated
they were now one in heart.

She was roused after a long time by the sound of the huge key grating
in the lock. Through the opened door a figure descended, and by an
illuminating swing of the turnkey’s lantern she saw that it was Bucky.
Next moment the door had closed and they were in each other’s arms.
Bucky’s stubborn pride, the remembrance of the riches which of a sudden
had transformed his little partner into an heiress and set a high wall
of separation between them, these were swept clean away on a great wave
of love which took Bucky off his feet and left him breathless.

“I had almost given you up,” she cried joyfully.

Again he passed his hand across her face. “You’ve been crying, little
pardner. Were you crying on account of me?”

“On account of myself, because I was afraid I had lost you. Oh, Bucky,
isn’t it too good to be true?”

The ranger smiled, remembering that he had about fourteen hours to
live, if the Megales faction triumphed. “Good! I should think it is.
Bully! I’ve been famished to see Curly Haid again.”

“And to know that everything is going to come out all right and that we
love each other.”

“That’s right good hearing and most ce’tainly true on my side of it.
But how do you happen to know it so sure?” he laughed gayly.

“Why, your letter, Bucky. It was the dearest letter. I love it.”

“But you weren’t to read it for three hours,” he pretended to reprove,
holding her at arm’s length to laugh at her.

“Wasn’t it three hours? It seemed ever so much longer.”

“You little rogue, you didn’t play fair.” And to punish her he drew her
soft, supple body to him in a close embrace, and for the first time
kissed the sweet mouth that yielded itself to him.

“Tell me all about what happened to you,” she bade him playfully, after
speech was again in order.

“Sure.” He caught her hand to lead her to the bench and she winced
involuntarily.

“I burned it,” she explained, adding, with a ripple of shy laughter:
“When I was reading your letter. It doesn’t really hurt, though.”

But he had to see for himself and make much over the little blister
that the flame of a match revealed to him. For they were both very much
in love, and, in consequence, bubbling over with the foolishness that
is the greatest inherited wisdom of the ages.

But though her lover had acquiesced so promptly to her demand for a
full account of his adventures since leaving her, that young man had no
intention of offering an unexpurged edition of them. It was his hope
that O’Halloran would storm the prison during the night and effect a
rescue. If so, good; if not, there was no need of her knowing that for
them the new day would usher in fresh sorrow. So he gave her an account
of his trial and its details, told her how he had been convicted, and
how Colonel Onate had fought warily to get the sentence of execution
postponed in order to give their friends a chance to rescue them.

“When Megales remanded me to prison I wanted to let out an Arizona
yell, Curly. It sure seemed too good to be true.”

“But he may want the sentence carried out some time, if he changes his
mind. Maybe in a week or two he may take a notion that—” She stopped,
plainly sobered by the fear that the good news of his return might not
be final.

“We won’t cross that bridge till we come to it. You don’t suppose our
friends are going to sit down and fold their hands, do you? Not if I’ve
got Mike O’Halloran and young Valdez sized up right. Fur is going to
begin to fly pretty soon in this man’s country. But it’s up to us to
help all we can, and I reckon we’ll begin by taking a preliminary
survey of this wickiup.”

Wickiup was distinctly good, since the word is used to apply to a frail
Indian hut, and this cell was nothing less than a tomb built in the
solid rock by blowing out a chamber with dynamite and covering the
front with a solid sheet of iron, into which a door fitted. It did not
take a very long investigation to prove to Bucky that escape was
impossible by any exit except the door, which meant the same thing as
impossible at all under present conditions. Yet he did not yield to
this opinion without going over every inch of the walls many times to
make sure that no secret panel opened into a tunnel from the room.

“I reckon they want to keep us, Curly. Mr. Megales has sure got us real
safe this time. I’d be plumb discouraged about breaking jail out of
this cage. It’s ce’tainly us to stay hitched a while.”

About dark tortillas and frijoles were brought down to them by the
facetious turnkey, who was accompanied as usual by two guards.

“Why don’t my little birdies sing?” he asked, with a wink at the
soldiers. “One of them will not do any singing after daybreak
to-morrow. Ho, ho, my larks! Tune up, tune up!”

“What do you mean about one not singing after daybreak?” asked the
girl, with eyes dilating.

“What! Hasn’t he told you? Señor the ranger is to be hanged at the dawn
unless he finds his tongue for Governor Megales. Ho, ho! Our birdie
must speak even if he doesn’t sing.” And with that as a parting shot
the man clanged the door to after him and locked it.

“You never told me, Bucky. You have been trying to deceive me,” she
groaned.

He shrugged his shoulders. “What was the use, girlie? I knew it would
worry you, and do no good. Better let you sleep in peace, I thought.”

“While you kept watch alone and waited through the long night. Oh,
Bucky!” She crept close to him and put her arms around his neck,
holding him tight, as if in the hope that she could keep him against
the untoward fate that was reaching for him. “Oh, Bucky, if I could
only die for you!”

“Don’t give up, little friend. I don’t. Somehow I’ll slip out, and then
you’ll have to live for me and not die for me.”

“What is it that the governor wants you to say that you won’t?”

“Oh, he wants me to sell our friends. I told him to go climb a giant
cactus.”

“Of course you couldn’t do that,” she sighed regretfully.

He laughed. “Well, hardly, and call myself a white man.”

“But—” She blanched at the alternative. “Oh, Bucky, we must do
something. We must—we must.”

“It ain’t so bad as it looks, honey. You want to remember that Mike
O’Halloran is on deck. What’s the matter with him knocking out a home
run and bringing us both in. I put a heap of confidence in that
red-haided Irishman,” he answered cheerfully.

“You say that just to—to give me courage. You don’t really think he can
do anything,” she said wanly.

“That’s just what I think, Curly. Some men have a way of getting things
done. When you look at O’Halloran you feel this, the same as you do
when you look at Val Collins. Oh, he’ll get us out all right. I’ve been
in several tighter holes than this one.” His mention of Collins
suggested a diversion, and he took up a less distressing theme lightly.
“Wonder what Val is doing at this precise moment. I’ll bet he’s
beginning to make things warm for Wolf Leroy’s bunch of miscreants.
We’ll have the robbers of the Limited behind the bars within two weeks
now, or I miss my guess.”

He had succeeded in diverting her attention better than he had dared to
hope. Her big eyes fixed on his much as if he had raised for her some
forgotten spectre.

“That’s another thing I must tell you. I didn’t think to before. But I
want you to know all about me now. Don’t think me bad, Bucky. I’m only
a girl. I couldn’t help myself,” she pleaded.

“What is it you have done that is so awful?” he smiled, and went to
gather her into his arms.

She stayed him with a gesture of her hand. “No, not yet. Mebbe after
you know you won’t want to. I was one of the robbers of the Limited.”

“You—what!” he exclaimed, for once struck dumb with sheer amazement.

“Yes, Bucky. I expect you’ll hate me now. What is it you called me—a
miscreant? Well, that’s what I am.”

His arms slipped round her as she began to sob, and he gentled her till
she could again speak. “Tell me all about it, little Curly.” he said.

“I didn’t go into it because I wanted to. My master made me. I don’t
know much about the others, except that I heard the names they called
each other.”

“Would you know them again if you saw them? But of course you would.”

“Yes. But that’s it, Bucky. I hated them all, and I was in mortal fear
all the time. Still—I can’t betray them. They thought I went in freely
with them—all but Hardman. It wouldn’t be right for me to tell what I
know. I’ve got to make you see that, dear.”

“You’ll not need to argue that with me, honey. I see it. You must keep
quiet. Don’t tell anybody else what you’ve told me.”

“And will they put me in the penitentiary when the rest go there?”

“Not while Bucky O’Connor is alive and kicking,” he told her
confidently.

But the form in which he had expressed his feeling was unfortunate. It
brought them back to the menace of their situation. Neither of them
could tell how long he would be alive and kicking. She flung herself
into his arms and wept till she could weep no more.




CHAPTER XIV.
LE ROI EST MORT; VIVE LE ROI


When the news reached O’Halloran that Megales had scored on the
opposition by arresting Bucky O’Connor, the Irishman swore fluently at
himself for his oversight in forgetting the Northern Chihuahua. So far
as the success of the insurgents went, the loss of the ranger was a
matter of no importance, since O’Halloran knew well that nothing in the
way of useful information could be cajoled or threatened out of him.
But, personally, it was a blow to the filibuster, because he knew that
the governor would not hesitate to execute his friend if his fancy or
his fears ran that way, and the big, red-headed Celt would not have let
Bucky go to death for a dozen teapot revolutions if he could help it.

“And do you think you’re fit to run even a donation party, you great,
blundering gumph?” Mike asked himself, in disgust. “You a conspirator!
You a leader of a revolution! By the ghost of Brian Boru, you had
better run along back to the kindergarten class.”

But he was not the man to let grass grow under his feet while he
hesitated how to remedy his mistake. Immediately he got in touch with
Valdez and a few of his party, and decided on a bold counterstroke
that, if successful, would oppose a checkmate to the governor’s check
and would also make unnecessary the unloosing of the State prisoners on
the devoted heads of the people.

“But mind, gentlemen,” said Juan Valdez plainly, “the governor must not
be injured personally. I shall not consent to any violence, no matter
what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the
palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We
cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by
unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages.”

O’Halloran smothered a smile. “Quite right, señor. Success at all
hazards, but, if possible, success with peace. And, faith, subject to
the approval of the rest of those present, I do hereby appoint you
keeper of the governor’s person and his palace, as well as all that do
dwell therein, including his man servants, his maid servants, and his
daughter. We hold you personally responsible for their safe keeping.
See that none of them cherish the enemy or give aid and comfort to
them.” The Irishman finished, with a broad smile that seemed to say:
“Begad, there’s a clear field. Go in and win, me bye.”

Nothing could be done in broad daylight, while the troops of the
government party patrolled the streets and were prepared to pounce on
the first suspects that poked their noses out of the holes where they
were hidden. Nevertheless, their spies were busy all day, reporting to
the opposition leaders everything that happened of interest. In the
course of the day General Valdez, the father of Juan, was arrested on
suspicion of complicity and thrown into prison, as were a score of
others thought to be in touch with the Valdez faction. All day the
troops of the governor were fussily busy, but none of the real leaders
of the insurgents was taken. For General Valdez, though he had been
selected on account of his integrity and great popularity to succeed
Megales, was unaware of the plot on foot to retire the dictator from
power.

It was just after nightfall that a farmer drove into Chihuahua with a
wagonload of alfalfa. He was halted once or twice by guards on the
streets, but, after a very cursory inspection, was allowed to pass. His
route took him past the back of the governor’s palace, an impressive
stone affair surrounded by beautiful grounds. Here he stopped, as if to
fasten a tug. Out of the hay tumbled fifteen men armed with rifles and
revolvers, all of them being careful to leave the wagon on the side
farthest from the palace.

“Now, me lads, we’re all heroes by our talk. It’s up to us to make
good. I can promise one thing: by this time to-morrow we’ll all be live
patriots or dead traitors. Which shall it be?”

O’Halloran’s concluding question was a merely rhetorical one, for
without waiting for an answer he started at the double toward the
palace, taking advantage of the dense shrubbery that offered cover up
to the last twenty yards. This last was covered with a rush so rapid
that the guard was surprised into a surrender without a protest.

Double guard was on duty on account of the strained situation, but the
officer in charge, having been won over to the Valdez side, had taken
care to pick them with much pains. As a consequence, the insurgents met
friends in place of enemies, and within three minutes controlled fully
the palace. Every entrance was at once closed and guarded, so that no
news of the reversal could reach the military barracks.

So silently had the palace been taken that, except the guards and one
or two servants held as prisoners, not even those living within it were
aware of anything unusual.

“Señor Valdez, you are appointed to notify the señorita that she need
not be alarmed at what has occurred. Señor Garcia will act as captain
of the day, and allow nobody to leave the building under any pretext
whatever. I shall personally put the tyrant under arrest. Rodrigo and
José will accompany me.”

O’Halloran left his subordinates at the door when he entered the
apartments of the governor. The outer room was empty, and the Irishman
passed through it to the inner one, where Megales was accustomed to
take his after-dinner siesta.

To-night, however, that gentleman was in no mood for peaceful
reflection followed by slumber. He was on the edge of a volcano, and he
knew it. The question was whether he could hold the lid on without an
eruption. General Valdez he dared not openly kill, on account of his
fame and his popularity, but that pestilent Irishman O’Halloran could
be assassinated and so could several of his allies—if they only gave
him time. That was the rub. The general dissatisfaction at his rule had
been no secret, of course, but the activity of the faction opposing
him, the boldness and daring with which it had risked all to overthrow
him, had come as so complete a surprise that he had been unprepared to
meet it. Everywhere to-night his guards covered the city, ready to
crush rebellion as soon as it showed its head. Carlo was in personal
charge of the troops, and would remain so until after the election
to-morrow, at which he would be declared formally reëlected. If he
could keep his hands on the reins for twenty-four hours more the worst
would be past. He would give a good deal to know what that mad
Irishman, O’Halloran, was doing just now. If he could once get hold of
him, the opposition would collapse like a house of cards.

At that precise moment in walked the mad Irishman pat to the Mexican’s
thought of him.

“_Buenos noches_, excellency. I understand you have been looking for
me. I am, señor, yours to command.” The big Irishman brought his heels
together and gave a mocking military salute.

The governor’s first thought was that he was a victim of treachery, his
second that he was a dead man, his third that he would die as a Spanish
gentleman ought. He was pale to the eyes, but he lost no whit of his
dignity.

“You have, I suppose, taken the palace,” he said quietly.

“As a loan, excellency, merely as a loan. After to-morrow it will be
returned you in the event you still need it,” replied O’Halloran
blandly.

“You expect to murder me, of course?”

The big Celt looked shocked. “Not at all! The bulletins may perhaps
have to report you accidentally killed or a victim of suicide.
Personally I hope not.”

“I understand; but before this lamentable accident happens I beg leave
to assure myself that the palace really is in your hands, señor. A mere
formality, of course.” The governor smiled his thin-lipped smile and
touched a bell beside him.

Twice Megales pressed the electric bell, but no orderly appeared in
answer to it. He bowed to the inevitable.

“I grant you victor, Señor O’Halloran. Would it render your victory
less embarrassing if I were to give you material immediately for that
bulletin on suicide?” He asked the question quite without emotion, as
courteously as if he were proposing a stroll through the gardens.

O’Halloran had never liked the man. The Irish in him had always boiled
at his tyranny. But he had never disliked him so little as at this
moment. The fellow had pluck, and that was one certain passport to the
revolutionist’s favor.

“On the contrary, it would distress me exceedingly. Let us reserve that
bulletin as a regrettable possibility in the event that less drastic
measures fail.”

“Which means, I infer, that you have need of me before I pass by the
Socratic method,” he suggested, still with that pale smile set in
granite “I shall depend on you to let me know at what precise hour you
would like to order an epitaph written for me. Say the word at your
convenience, and within five minutes your bulletin concerning the late
governor will have the merit of truth.”

“Begad, excellency, I like your spirit. If it’s my say-so, you will
live to be a hundred. Come the cards are against you. Some other day
they may fall more pat for you. But the jig’s up now.”

“I am very much of your opinion, sir,” agreed Megales.

“Then why not make terms?”

“Such as—”

“Your life and your friends’ lives against a graceful capitulation.”

“Our lives as prisoners or as free men?”

“The utmost freedom compatible with the circumstances. Your friends may
either leave or remain and accept the new order of things. I’m afraid
it will be necessary for you and General Carlo to leave the state for
your own safety. You have both many enemies.”

“With our personal possessions?”

“Of course. Such property as you cannot well take may be left in the
hands of an agent and disposed of later.”

Megales eyed him narrowly. “Is it your opinion, on honor, that the
general and I would reach the boundaries of the State without being
assassinated?”

“I pledge you my honor and that of Juan Valdez that you will be safely
escorted out of the country if you will consent to a disguise. It is
only fair to him to say that he stands strong for your life.”

“Then, sir, I accept your terms if you can make it plain to me that you
are strong enough to take the city against General Carlo.”

From his pocket O’Halloran drew a typewritten list and handed it to the
governor, who glanced it over with interest.

“These army officers are all with you?”

“As soon as the word is given.”

“You will pardon me if I ask for proof?”

“Certainly. Choose the name of any one of them you like and send for
him. You are at liberty to ask him whether he is pledged to us.”

The governor drew a pencil-mark through a name. O’Halloran clapped his
hands and Rodrigo came into the room.

“Rodrigo, the governor desires you to carry a message to Colonel Onate.
He is writing it now. You will give Colonel Onate my compliments and
ask him to make as much haste as is convenient.”

Megales signed and sealed the note he was writing and handed it to
O’Halloran, who in turn passed it to Rodrigo.

“Colonel Onate should be here in fifteen minutes at the farthest. May I
in the meantime offer you a glass of wine, Dictator O’Halloran?” At the
Irishman’s smile, the Mexican governor hastened to add,
misunderstanding him purposely: “Perhaps I assume too much in taking
the part of host here. May I ask whether you will be governor in person
or by deputy, señor?”

“You do me too much honor, excellency. Neither in person nor by deputy,
I fear. And, as for the glass of wine—with all my heart. Good liquor is
always in order, whether for a funeral or a marriage.”

“Or an abdication, you might add. I drink to a successful reign, Señor
Dictator: _Le roi est mort; vive le roi!_”

The Irishman filled a second glass. “And I drink to Governor Megales, a
brave man. May the cards fall better for him next time he plays.”

The governor bowed ironically. “A brave man certainly, and you might
add: ‘Who loses his stake without striking one honest blow for it.’”

“We play with stacked cards, excellency. Who can forestall the
treachery of trusted associates?”

“Sir, your apology for me is very generous, no less so than the terms
you offer,” returned Megales sardonically.

O’Halloran laughed. “Well, if you don’t like my explanations I shall
have to let you make your own. And, by the way, may I venture on a
delicate personal matter, your excellency?”

“I can deny you nothing to-night, señor,” answered Megales, mocking at
himself.

“Young Valdez is in love with your daughter. I am sure that she is fond
of him, but she is very loyal to you and flouts the lad. I was
thinking, sir, that—”

The Spaniard’s eye flashed, but his answer came suavely as he
interrupted: “Don’t you think you had better leave Señor Valdez and me
to arrange our own family affairs? We could not think of troubling you
to attend to them.”

“He is a good lad and a brave.”

Megales bowed. “Your recommendation goes a long way with me, señor,
and, in truth, I have known him only a small matter of twenty years
longer than you.”

“Never a more loyal youngster in the land.”

“You think so? A matter of definitions, one may suppose. Loyal to the
authorized government of his country, or to the rebels who would
illegally overthrow it?”

“Egad, you have me there, excellency. ’Tis a question of point of view,
I’m thinking. But you’ll never tell me the lad pretended one thing and
did another. I’ll never believe you like that milksop Chaves better.”

“Must I choose either a fool or a knave?”

“I doubt it will be no choice of yours. Juan Valdez is an ill man to
deny what he sets his heart on. If the lady is willing—”

“I shall give her to the knave and wash my hands of her. Since treason
thrives she may at last come back to the palace as its mistress. _Quien
sabe?_”

“Less likely things have happened. What news, Rodrigo?” This last to
the messenger, who at that moment appeared at the door.

“Colonel Onate attends, señor.”

“Show him in.”

Onate was plainly puzzled at the summons to attend the governor, and
mixed with his perplexity was a very evident anxiety. He glanced
quickly at O’Halloran as he entered, as if asking for guidance, and
then as questioningly at Megales. Had the Irishman played Judas and
betrayed them all? Or was the coup already played with success?

“Colonel Onate, I have sent for you at the request of Governor Megales
to set his mind at rest on a disturbing point. His health is failing
and he considers the advisability of retiring from the active cares of
state. I have assured him that you, among others, would, under such
circumstances, be in a friendly relation to the next administration. Am
I correct in so assuring him?”

Megales pierced him with his beady eyes. “In other words, Colonel
Onate, are you one of the traitors involved in this rebellion?”

“I prefer the word patriot, señor,” returned Onate, flushing.

“Indeed I have no doubt you do. I am answered,” he exclaimed
scornfully. “And what is the price of patriotism these days, colonel?”

“Sir!” The colonel laid his hand on his sword.

“I was merely curious to know what position you would hold under the
new administration.”

O’Halloran choked a laugh, for by chance the governor had hit the nail
on the head. Onate was to be Secretary of State under Valdez, and this
was the bait that had been dangled temptingly under his nose to induce
a desertion of Megales.

“If you mean to reflect upon my honor I can assure you that my
conscience is clear,” answered Onate blackly.

“Indeed, colonel, I do not doubt it. I have always admired your
conscience and its adaptability.” The governor turned to O’Halloran. “I
am satisfied, Senior Dictator. If you will permit me—”

He walked to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and drew forth a parchment,
which he tossed across to the Irishman. “It is my commission as
governor. Allow me to place it in your hands and put myself at the
service of the new administration.”

“If you will kindly write notes, I will send a messenger to General
Carlo and another to Colonel Gabilonda requesting their attendance. I
think affairs may be quickly arranged.”

“You are irresistible, señor. I hasten to obey.”

Megales sat down and wrote two notes, which he turned over to
O’Halloran. The latter read them, saw them officially sealed, and
dispatched them to their destinations.

When Gabilonda was announced, General Carlo followed almost at his
heels. The latter glanced in surprise at O’Halloran.

“Where did you catch him, excellency?” he asked.

“I did not catch him. He has caught me, and, incidentally, you,
general,” answered the sardonic Megales.

“In short, general,” laughed the big Irishman, “the game is up.”

“But the army—You haven’t surrendered without a fight?”

“That is precisely what I have done. Cast your eye over that paper,
general, and then tell me of what use the army would be to us. Half the
officers are with the enemy, among them the patriotic Colonel Onate,
whom you see present. A resistance would be futile, and would only
result in useless bloodshed.”

“I don’t believe it,” returned Carlo bluntly.

“Seeing is believing, general,” returned O’Halloran, and he gave a
little nod to Onate.

The colonel left the room, and two or three minutes later a bell began
to toll.

“What does that mean?” asked Carlo.

“The call to arms, general. It means that the old régime is at an end
in Chihuahua. _Viva Valdez_.”

“Not without a struggle,” cried the general, rushing out of the room.

O’Halloran laughed. “I’m afraid he will not be able to give the
countersign to Garcia. In the meantime, excellency, pending his return,
I would suggest that you notify Colonel Gabilonda to turn over the
prison to us without resistance.”

“You hear your new dictator, colonel,” said Megales.

“Pardon me, your excellency, but a written order—”

“Would relieve you of responsibility. So it would. I write once more.”

He was interrupted as he wrote by a great shout from the plaza. “_Viva
Valdez!_” came clearly across the night air, and presently another that
stole the color from the cheek of Megales.

“Death to the tyrant! Death to Megales!” repeated the governor, after
the shouts reached them. “I fear, Señor Dictator, that your pledge to
see me across the frontier will not avail against that mad-dog mob.” He
smiled, waving an airy hand toward the window.

The Irishman set his bulldog jaw. “I’ll get you out safely or, begad!
I’ll go down fighting with you.”

“I think we are likely to have interesting times, my dear dictator. Be
sure I shall watch your doings with interest so long as your friends
allow me to watch anything in this present world.” The governor turned
to his desk and continued the letter with a firm hand. “I think this
should relieve you of responsibility, colonel.”

By this time General Carlo had reentered the room, with a crestfallen
face.

O’Halloran had been thinking rapidly. “Governor, I think the safest
place for you and General Carlo, for a day or two, will be in the
prison. I intend to put my friend O’Connor in charge of its defense,
with a trustworthy command. There is no need of word reaching the mob
as to where you are hidden. I confess the quarters will be narrows
but—”

“No narrower than those we shall occupy very soon if we do not accept
your suggestion,” smiled Megales. “_Buenos!_ Anything to escape the
pressing attentions of your friends outside. I ask only one favor, the
loan of a revolver, in order that we may disappoint the mad dogs if
they overpower the guard of Señor O’Connor.”

Hastily O’Halloran rapped out orders, gathered together a little force
of five men, and prepared to start. Both Carlo and Megales he furnished
with revolvers, that they might put an end to their lives in case the
worst happened. But before they had started Juan Valdez and Carmencita
Megales came running toward them.

“Where are you going? It is too late. The palace is surrounded!” cried
the young man. “Look!” He swept an excited arm toward the window.
“There are thousands and thousands of frenzied people calling for the
lives of the governor and General Carlo.”

Carlo shook like a leaf, but Megales only smiled at O’Halloran his
wintry smile. “That is the trouble in keeping a mad dog, señor. One
never knows when it may get out of leash and bite perhaps even the hand
that feeds it.”

Carmencita flung herself, sobbing, into the arms of her father and
filled the palace with her screams. Megales handed her over promptly to
her lover.

“To my private office,” he ordered briskly. “Come, general, there is
still a chance.”

O’Halloran failed to see it, but he joined the little group that
hurried to the private office. Megales dragged his desk from the corner
where it set and touched a spring that opened a panel in the wall.
Carlo, blanched with fear at the threats and curses that filled the
night, sprang toward the passageway that appeared.

Megales plucked him back. “One moment, general. Ladies first.
Carmencita, enter.”

Carlo followed her, after him the governor, and lastly Gabilonda,
tearing himself from a whispered conversation with O’Halloran. The
panel swung closed again, and Valdez and O’Halloran lifted back the
desk just as Garcia came running in to say that the mob would not be
denied. Immediately O’Halloran threw open a French window and stepped
out to the little railed porch upon which it opened. He had the chance
of his life to make a speech, and that is the one thing that no
Irishman can resist. He flung out from his revolver three shots in
rapid succession to draw the attention of the mob to him. In this he
succeeded beyond his hopes. The word ran like wildfire that the mad
Irishman, O’Halloran, was about to deliver a message to them, and from
all sides of the building they poured to hear it. He spoke in Mexican,
rapidly, his great bull voice reaching to the utmost confines of the
crowd.

“Fellow lovers of liberty, the hour has struck that we have worked and
prayed for. The glorious redemption of our State has been accomplished
by your patriotic hands. An hour ago the tyrants, Megales and Carlo,
slipped out of the palace, mounted swift horses, and are galloping
toward the frontier.”

A roar of rage, such as a tiger disappointed of its kill might give,
rose into the night. Such a terrible cry no man made of flesh and blood
could hear directed at him and not tremble.

“But the pursuit is already on. Swift riders are in chase, with orders
not to spare their horses so only they capture the fleeing despots. We
expect confidently that before morning the tyrants will be in our
hands. In the meantime, let us show ourselves worthy of the liberty we
have won. Let us neither sack nor pillage, but show our great president
in the City of Mexico that not ruffians but an outraged people have
driven out the oppressors.”

The huge Celt was swimming into his periods beautifully, but it was
very apparent to him that the mob must have a vent for its stored
excitement. An inspiration seized him.

“But one sacred duty calls to us from heaven, my fellow citizens.
Already I see in your glorious faces that you behold the duty. Then
forward, patriots! To the plaza, and let us tear down, let us destroy
by fire, let us annihilate the statue of the dastard Megales which
defaces our fair city. Citizens, to your patriotic duty!”

Another wild yell rang skyward, and at once the fringes of the crowd
began to vanish plazaward, its centre began to heave, its flanks to
stir. Three minutes later the grounds of the palace were again dark and
empty. The Irishman’s oratory had won the day.




CHAPTER XV.
IN THE SECRET CHAMBER


The escaping party groped its way along the passage in the wall, down a
rough, narrow flight of stone steps to a second tunnel, and along this
underground way for several hundred yards. Since he was the only one
familiar with the path they were traversing, the governor took the lead
and guided the others. At a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile
from the palace the tunnel forked. Without hesitation, Megales kept to
the right. A stone’s throw beyond this point of divergence there began
to be apparent a perceptible descent which terminated in a stone wall
that blocked completely the way.

Megales reached up and put his weight on a rope suspended from the
roof. Slowly the solid masonry swung on a pivot, leaving room on either
side for a person to squeeze through. The governor found it a tight
fit, as did also Gabilonda.

“I was more slender last time I passed through there. It has been
several years since then,” said the governor, giving his daughter a
hand to assist her through.

They found themselves in a small chamber fitted up as a living room in
a simple way. There were three plain chairs, a bed, a table, and a
dresser, as well as a cooking stove.

“This must be close to the prison. We have been coming in that
direction all the time. It is strange that it could be so near and I
not know of it,” said the warden, looking around curiously.

Megales smiled. “I am the only person alive that knew of the existence
of this room or of the secret passage until half an hour ago. I had it
built a few years since by Yaquis when I was warden of the prison. The
other end, the one opening from the palace, I had finished after I
became governor.”

“But surely the men who built it know of its existence.”

Again Megales smiled. “I thought you knew me better, Carlo. The Yaquis
who built this were condemned raiders. I postponed their execution a
few months while they were working on this. It was a convenience both
to them and to me.”

“And is also a convenience to me,” smiled Carlo, who was beginning to
recover from his terror.

“But I don’t quite understand yet how we are to get out of here except
by going back the way we came,” said Gabilonda.

“Which for some of us might prove a dangerously unhealthy journey.
True, colonel, and therefore one to be avoided.” Megales stepped to the
wall, spanned with his fingers a space from the floor above a joint in
the masonry, and pressed against the concrete. Inch by inch the wall
fell back and opened into a lower corridor of the prison, the very one
indeed which led to the cell in which Bucky and his love were
imprisoned. Cautiously the Spaniard’s glance traveled down the passage
to see it was empty before he opened the panel door more than enough to
look through. Then he beckoned to Gabilonda. “Behold, doubting Thomas!”

The warden gasped. “And I never knew it, never had a suspicion of it.”

“But this only brings us from one prison to another,” objected the
general. “We might be penned in here as well as at the castle.”

“Even that contingency has been provided for. You noticed, perhaps,
where the tunnel forked. The left branch runs down to the river-wash,
and by ten minutes’ digging with the tools lying there one can force an
exit.”

“Your excellency is certainly a wonder, and all this done without
arousing the least suspicion of anybody,” admired the warden.

“The wise man, my dear colonel, prepares for emergencies; the fool
trusts to his luck,” replied the governor dryly.

“Are we to stay here for the present, colonel?” broke in the governor’s
daughter. “And can you furnish accommodations for the rest of us if we
stay all night, as I expect we must?”

“My dear señorita, I have accommodations and to spare. But the trouble
is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest’ man
alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua’s fairest
daughter. But if it should get out that you are here—” Gabilonda
stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at the prospect.

“We shall have to stay here, or, at least, in the lower tier of cells.
I’m sorry, Carmencita, but there is no other course compatible with
safety,” decided Megales promptly.

The warden’s face cleared. “That is really not a point for me to
decide, governor. This young American, O’Connor, is now in charge of
the prison. I must release him at once, and shall then bring him here
to confer with you as to means of safety.”

Bucky’s eyes opened wide when Gabilonda and Megales came alone and
without a lantern to his cell. In the darkness it was impossible to
recognize them, but once within the closed cell the warden produced a
dark lantern from under his coat.

“Circumstances have arisen that make the utmost vigilance necessary,”
explained the warden. “I may begin my explanations by congratulating
you and your young friend. Let me offer a thousand felicitations.
Neither of you are any longer prisoners.”

If he expected either of them to fall on his neck and weep tears of
gratitude at his pompous announcement, the colonel was disappointed.
From the darkness where the ranger’s little partner sat on the bed came
a deep sigh of relief, but O’Connor did not wink an eyelash.

“I may conclude, then, that Mike O’Halloran has been getting in his
work?” was his cool reply.

“Exactly, señor. He is the man on horseback and I travel afoot,” smiled
Megales.

Bucky looked him over coolly from head to foot. “Still I can’t quite
understand why your ex-excellency does me the honor of a personal
visit.”

“Because, señor, in the course of human events Providence has seen fit
to reverse our positions. I am now your prisoner and you my jailer,”
explained Megales, and urbanely added a whimsical question. “Shall you
have me hanged at dawn?”

“It would be a pleasure, and, I reckon, a duty too. But I can’t promise
till I’ve seen Mike. Do some more explaining, colonel. I want to know
all about the round-up O’Halloran is boss of. Did he make a right good
gather?”

The subtleties of American humor baffled the little Mexican, but he
appreciated the main drift of the ranger’s query, and narrated with
much gesticulation the story of the coup that O’Halloran had pulled off
in capturing the government leaders.

“It was an exceedingly neat piece of strategy,” its victim admitted. “I
would give a good deal to have the privilege of hanging your red-headed
friend, but since that is denied me, I must be grateful he does not
take a fancy to hang me.”

“In case he doesn’t, your excellency,” was Bucky’s addendum.

“I understand he has decided to deport me,” retorted Megales lightly.
“It is perhaps better politics, on the whole, better even than a knife
in the back.”

“Unless rumor is a lying jade, you should be a good judge of that,
governor,” said the American, eyeing him sternly.

Megales shrugged. “One of the penalties of fame is that one gets credit
for much he does not deserve. There was your immortal General Lincoln,
a wit so famous in your country that every good story is fathered upon
him, I understand. So with your humble servant. Let a man accomplish
his vendetta upon the body of an enemy, and behold! the world cries: ‘A
victim of Megales.’”

“Still, if you deserve your reputation as much as our immortal General
Lincoln deserves his, the world may be pardoned for an occasional
error.” O’Connor turned to the warden. “What does he mean by saying
that he is my prisoner? Have you a message for me from O’Halloran,
colonel?”

“It is his desire, señor, that, pending the present uncertain state of
public opinion, you accept the command of the prison and hold safe all
persons detained here, including his excellency and General Carlo. He
desired me to assure you that as soon as is possible he will arrive to
confer with you in person.”

“Good enough, and are you a prisoner, too, colonel?”

“I did not so understand Señor O’Halloran.”

“If you’re not you have to earn your grub and lodgings. I’ll appoint
you my deputy, colonel. And, first off, my orders are to lock up his
excellency and General Carlo in this cell till morning.”

“The cell, Señor O’Connor, is damp and badly ventilated,” protested
Gabilonda.

“I know that a heap better than you do, colonel,” said Bucky dryly.
“But if it was good enough for me and my pardner, here, I reckon it’s
good enough for them. Anyhow, we’ll let them try it, won’t we, Frank.”

“If you think best, Bucky.”

“You bet I do.”

“And what about the governor’s daughter?” asked Gabilonda.

“You don’t say! Is she a guest of this tavern?”

The colonel explained how they had reached the prison and the
circumstances that had led to their hurried flight, while the ranger
whistled the air of a cowboy song, his mind busy with this new phase of
the case.

“She’s one of these here Spanish blue-blooded señoritas used to guitar
serenades under her window. Now, what would you do with her in a jail,
Bucky?” he asked himself, in humorous dismay; but even as he reflected
on it his roving eye fell on his friend. “The very thing. I’ll take
Curly Haid in to her and let them fall in love with each other. You’re
liable to be some busy, Bucky, and shy on leisure to entertain a lady,
let alone two.”

And so he arranged it. Leaving the former governor and General Carlo in
the cell just vacated by them, Frances and he accompanied Gabilonda to
the secret room behind the corridor wall.

All three parties to the introduction that followed acknowledged
secretly to a surprise. Miss Carmencita had expected the friend of big,
rough, homely O’Halloran to resemble him in kind, at least. Instead,
she looked on a bronzed young Apollo of the saddle with something of
that same lithe grace she knew and loved in Juan Valdez. And the shy
boy beside him—why, the darling was sweet enough to kiss. The big,
brown, helpless eyes, the blushing, soft cheeks, the crop of thick,
light curls were details of an extraordinarily taking picture. Really,
if these two were fair specimens, Americans were not so bad, after all.
Which conclusion Juan Valdez’s fondness for that race may have helped
in part to form.

But if the young Spanish girl found a little current of pleasure in her
surprise, Bucky and his friend were aware of the same sensation. All
the charm of her race seemed summed up in Carmencita Megales. She was
of blue blood, every feature and motion told that. The fine, easy set
of her head, the fire in the dark, heavy-lashed eyes, the sweep of
dusky chin and cheek and throat certified the same story. She had, too,
that coquettish hint of uncertainty, that charm of mystery so fatal in
its lure to questing man. Even physically the contradiction of sex
attracted. Slender and lissom as a fawn, she was yet a creature of
exquisitely rounded curves. Were her eyes brown or black or—in the
sunlight—touched with a gleam of copper? There was always uncertainty.
But much more was there fire, a quality that seemed to flash out from
her inner self. She was a child of whims, a victim of her moods. Yet in
her, too, was a passionate loyalty that made fickleness impossible. She
knew how to love and how to hate, and, despite her impulses, was
capable of surrender complete and irrevocable.

All of this Bucky did not read in that first moment of meeting, but the
shrewd judgment behind the level blue eyes came to an appraisal roughly
just. Before she had spoken three sentences he knew she had all her
sex’s reputed capacity for injustice as well as its characteristic
flashes of generosity.

“Are you one of the men who have rebelled against my father and
attempted to murder him?” she flashed.

“I’m the man he condemned to be hanged tomorrow morning at dawn for
helping Juan Valdez take the guns,” retorted Bucky, with a laugh.

“You are his enemy, and, therefore, mine.”

“I’m a friend of Michael O’Halloran, who stood between him and the mob
that wanted to kill him.”

“Who first plotted against him and seduced his officers to betray him,”
she quickly replied.

“I reckon, ma’am, we better agree to disagree on politics,” said Bucky
good-naturedly. “We’re sure liable to see things different from each
other. Castile and Arizona don’t look at things with the same eyes.”

She looked at him just then with very beautiful and scornful ones, at
any rate. “I should hope not.”

“You see, we’re living in the twentieth century up in the sunburned
State,” said Bucky, with smiling aplomb.

“Indeed! And we poor Chihuahuans?”

“When I see the ladies I think you’re ce’tainly in the golden age, but
when I break into your politics, I’m some reminded of that Richard
Third fellow in the Shakespeare play.”

“Referring, I presume, to my father?” she demanded haughtily.

“In a general way, but eliminating the most objectionable points of the
king fellow.”

“You’re very kind.” She interrupted her scorn to ask him where he meant
her to sleep.

He glanced over the room. “This might do right here, if we had that bed
aired.”

“Do you expect to put me in irons?”

“Not right away. Colonel, I’ll ask you to go to the office and notify
me as soon as Señor O’Halloran arrives.” He waited till the colonel had
gone before adding: “I’m going to leave this boy with you, señorita,
for a while. He’ll explain some things to you that I can’t. In about an
hour I’ll be back, perhaps sooner. So long, Curly. Tell the lady your
secret.” And with that Bucky was out of the room.

“Your secret, child! What does he mean?”

The flame of color that swept into the cheeks of Frances, the appeal in
the shamed eyes, held Carmencita’s surprised gaze. Then coolly it
traveled over the girl and came back to her burning face.

“So that’s it, is it?”

But the scorn in her voice was too much for Frances. She had been
judged and condemned in that cool stare, and all the woman in her
protested at its injustice.

“No, no, no!” she cried, running forward and catching at the other’s
hand. “I’m not that. You don’t understand.”

Coldly Carmencita disengaged her hand and wiped it with her kerchief.
“I understand enough. Please do not touch me.”

“May I not tell you my story?”

“I’ll not trouble you. It does not interest me.”

“But you will listen?” implored the other.

“I must ask to be excused.”

“Then you are a heartless, cruel woman,” flamed Frances. “I’m good—as
good as you are.” The color patched her cheek and ebbed again. “I
wouldn’t treat a dog as you do me. Oh, cruel, cruel!”

The surprising extravagance of her protest, the despair that rang in
the fresh young voice, caught the interest of the Mexican girl. Surely
such a heart-broken cry did not consist with guilt. But the facts—when
a young and pretty girl masquerades through the country in the garb of
a boy with a handsome young man, not much room for doubt is left.

Frances was quick to see that the issue was reopened. “Oh, señorita, it
isn’t as you think. Do I look like—” She broke off to cover with her
hands a face in which the pink and white warred with alternate success.
“I ought not to have come. I ought never to have come. I see that now.
But I didn’t think he would know. You see, I had always passed as a boy
when I wanted to.”

“A remarkably pretty one, child,” said Miss Carmencita, a smile
dimpling her cheeks. “But how do you mean that you had passed as a
boy?”

Frances explained, giving a rapid sketch of her life with the Hardmans
during which she had appeared every night on the stage as a boy without
the deception being suspected. She had cultivated the tricks and ways
of boys, had tried to dress to carry out the impression, and had always
succeeded until she had made the mistake of putting on a gypsy girl’s
dress a couple of days before.

Carmencita heard her out, but not as a judge. Very early in the story
her doubts fled and she succumbed to the mothering instinct in her. She
took the American girl in her arms and laughed and cried with her; for
her imagination seized on the romance of the story and delighted in its
fresh unconventionality. Since she had been born Carmencita’s life had
been ordered for her with precision by the laws of caste. Her
environment wrapped her in so that she must follow a set and beaten
path. It was, to be sure, a flower-strewn one, but often she impotently
rebelled against its very orderliness. And here in her arms was a
victim of that adventurous romance she had always longed so
passionately to know. Was it wonder she found it in her heart to both
love and envy the subject of it?

“And this young cavalier—the Señor Bucky, is it you call him?—surely
you love him, my dear.”

“Oh, señorita!” The blushing face was buried on her new friend’s
shoulder. “You don’t know how good he is.”

“Then tell me,” smiled the other. “And call me Carmencita.”

“He is so brave, and patient, and good. I know there was never a man
like him.”

Miss Carmencita thought of one and demurred silently. “I’m sure this
paragon of lovers is at least part of what you say. Does he love you?
But I am sure he couldn’t help it.”

“Sometimes I think he does, but once—” Frances broke off to ask, in a
pink flame: “How does a lover act?”

Miss Carmencita’s laughter rippled up. “Gracious me, have you never had
one before.”

“Never.”

“Well, he should make verses to you and pretty speeches. He should sing
serenades about undying love under your window. Bonbons should bombard
you, roses make your rooms a bower. He should be ardent as _Romeo_,
devoted as a knight of old. These be the signs of a true love,” she
laughed.

Frances’ face fell. If these were the tokens of true love, her ranger
was none. For not one of the symptoms could fairly be said to fit him.
Perhaps, after all, she had given him what he did not want.

“Must he do all that? Must he make verses?” she asked blankly, not
being able to associate Bucky with poetasting.

“He must,” teased her tormentor, running a saucy eye over her boyish
garb. “And why not with so fair a _Rosalind_ for a subject?” She broke
off to quote in her pretty, uncertain English, acquired at a convent in
the United States, where she had attended school:

“From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.

All the pictures, fairest lin’d,
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no face be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.”


“So your Shakespeare has it, does he not?” she asked, reverting again
to the Spanish language, in which they had been talking. But swift on
the heels of her raillery came repentance. She caught the dispirited
girl to her embrace laughingly. “No, no, child! Nonsense ripples from
my tongue. These follies are but for a carpet lover. You shall tell me
more of your Señor Bucky and I shall make no sport of it.”

When Bucky returned at the expiration of the time he had set himself,
he found them with their arms twined about each other’s waists,
whispering the confidences that every girl on the threshold of
womanhood has to tell her dearest friend.

“I reckon you like my pardner better than you do me,” smiled Bucky to
Miss Carmencita.

“A great deal better, sir, but then I know him better.”

Bucky’s eyes rested for a moment almost tenderly on Frances. “I reckon
he is better worth knowing,” he said.

“Indeed! And you so brave, and patient, and good?” she mocked.

“Oh! Am I all that?” asked Bucky easily.

“So I have been given to understand.”

Out of the corner of his eye O’Connor caught the embarrassed,
reproachful look that Frances gave her audacious friend, and he found
it easy to fit quotation marks round the admirable qualities that had
just been ascribed to him. He guessed himself blushing _à deux_ with
his little friend, and also divined Miss Carmencita’s roguish merriment
at their confusion.

“I _am_ all those things you mentioned and a heap more you forgot to
say,” claimed the ranger boldly, to relieve the situation. “Only I
didn’t know for sure that folks had found it out. My mind’s a heap
easier to know I’m being appreciated proper at last.”

Under her long, dark lashes Miss Carmencita looked at him in gentle
derision. “I’m of opinion, sir, that you get all the appreciation that
is good for you.”

Bucky carried the war into the enemy’s country. “Which same, I expect,
might be said of Chihuahua’s most beautiful belle. And, talking of
Señor Valdez reminds me that I owe a duty to his father, who is
confined here. I’ll be saying good night ladies.”

“It’s high time,” agreed Miss Megales. “Talking of Señor Valdez,
indeed!”

“Good night, Curly said.”

“Good night, Bucky.”

To which, in mocking travesty, added, in English, Miss Carmencita, who
seemed to have an acute attack of Shakespeare:

“Good night, good night; parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till It be morrow.”




CHAPTER XVI.
JUAN VALDEZ SCORES


The first thing Bucky did after leaving the two young women was to go
down in person with one of the guards to the cell of David Henderson.
The occupant of the cell was asleep, but he woke up when the two men
entered.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“Webb Mackenzie’s man come to release you,” answered Bucky.

The prisoner fell to trembling like an aspen. “God, man, do you mean
it?” he begged. “You wouldn’t deceive an old man who has lived fifteen
years in hell?”

“It’s true, friend, every word of it. You’ll live to ride the range
again and count your cattle on the free hillside. Come with me up to
the office and we’ll talk more of it.”

“But may I? Will they let me?” trembled Henderson, fearful lest his cup
of joy be dashed from him. “I’m not dreaming, am I? I’ll not wake the
way I often do and find that it is all a dream, will I?” He caught at
the lapel of O’Connor’s coat and searched his face.

“No, your dreams are true at last, Dave Henderson. Come, old friend,
take a drink of this to steady you. It’s all coming out right now.”

Tears streamed down the face of the man rescued from a living grave. He
dashed them away impatiently with a shaking hand. “I used to be as game
as other men, young man, and now you see what a weakling I am. Don’t
judge me too hard. Happiness is a harder thing to stand than pain or
grief. They’ve tried to break my spirit many a time and they couldn’t,
but you’ve done it now with a word.”

“You’ll be all right as soon as you are able to realize it. I don’t
wonder the shock unnerves you. Have you anything you want to take out
of here with you before you leave forever?”

Pathetically the prisoner looked round on his few belongings. Some of
them had become endeared to him by years of use and association, but
they had served their time. “No, I want to forget it all. I came in
with nothing. I’ll take out nothing. I want to blot it all out like a
hideous nightmare.”

Bucky ordered Colonel Gabilonda to bring up from his cell General
Valdez and the other arrested suspects. They reached the office at the
same time as Mike O’Halloran, who greeted them with the good news that
the day was won. The Megales faction had melted into mist, and all over
the city a happy people was shouting for Valdez.

“I congratulate you, general. We have just telegraphed the news over
the State that Megales has resigned and fled. There can be no doubt
that you will be elected governor to-morrow and that the people’s party
will win the day with an unprecedented vote. Glory be, Chihuahua is at
last free from the heel of tyranny. _Viva Valdez! Viva Chihuahua
libre!_”

Bucky at once introduced to General Valdez the American prisoner who
had suffered so long and unjustly. He recited the story of the
abduction of the child, of Henderson’s pursuit, of the killing of the
trooper, and of the circumstantial evidence that implicated the Texan
and upon which he was convicted. He then drew from his pocket a signed
and attested copy of the confession of the knife thrower and handed it
to the general.

Valdez looked it over, asked an incisive question or two of Bucky,
heard from Henderson his story, and, after a few moments’ discussion of
the matter with O’Halloran, promised a free pardon as his first
official act after being elected to the governorship, in case he should
be chosen.

The vote next day amply justified the hopes of O’Halloran and his
friends. The whole ticket, sent out by telegraph and messengers
throughout the State, was triumphantly elected by large majorities.
Only in one or two out-of-the-way places, where the news of the fall of
Megales did not arrive in time to affect the voting, did the old
government party make any showing worthy of consideration.

It was after Valdez’s election had been made certain by the returns
that O’Halloran and Juan Valdez posted to the prison and visited father
and daughter. They separated in the lower corridor, one to visit the
defeated governor, the other Miss Carmencita. The problem before Juan
Valdez was to induce that young woman to remain in Chihuahua instead of
accompanying her father in his flight. He was a good fighter, and he
meant to win, if it were a possibility. She had tacitly admitted that
she loved him, but he knew that she felt that loyalty demanded she stay
by her father in his flight.

When O’Halloran was admitted to the cell where the governor and the
general were staying he laughed aloud.

“Faith, gentlemen, is this the best accommodation Governor Valdez can
furnish his guests? We must petition him to improve the sanitation of
his hotel.”

“We are being told, one may suppose, that General Valdez is the newly
elected governor?”

“Right, your excellency, elected by a large majority to succeed the
late Governor Megales.”

“Late!” The former governor lifted his eyebrows. “Am I also being told
that necessity demands the posting of the suicide bulletin, after all?”

“Not at all. Sure, I gave you me word, excellency. And that is one of
the reasons why I am here. We have arranged to run a special down the
line to-night, in order to avoid the risk of the news leaking out that
you are still here. Can you make your arrangements to take that train,
or will it hurry your packing too much?”

Megales laughed. “I have nothing to take with me except my daughter.
The rest of my possessions may be forwarded later.”

“Oh, your daughter! Well, that’s pat, too. What about the lad, Valdez?”

“Are you his representative, señor?”

“Oh, he can talk for himself.” O’Halloran grinned. “He’s doing it right
now, by the same token. Shall we interrupt a tête-à-tête and go pay our
compliments to Miss Carmencita? You will want to find out whether she
goes with you or stays here.”

“Assuredly. Anything to escape this cave.”

Miss Carmencita was at that moment reiterating her everlasting
determination to go wherever her father went. “If you think, sir, that
your faithlessness to him is a recommendation of your promised
faithfulness to me, I can only wish you more light on the feelings of a
daughter,” she was informing Valdez, when her father slipped through
the panel door and stood before her.

“Brava, señorita!” he applauded, with subtle irony, clapping his hands.
“Brava, brava!”

That young woman swam blushingly toward him and let her face disappear
in an embrace.

“You see, one can’t have everything, Señor Valdez,” continued Megales
lightly. “For me, I cannot have both Chihuahua and my life; you, it
seems, cannot have both your successful revolution and my daughter.”

“Your excellency, she loves me. Of that I am assured. It rests with you
to say whether her life will be spoiled or not. You know what I can
offer her in addition to a heart full of devotion. It is enough. Shall
she be sacrificed to her loyalty to you?” the young man demanded, with
all the ardor of his warm-blooded race.

“It is no sacrifice to love and obey my father,” came a low murmur from
the former governor’s shoulder.

“Since the world began it has been the law of life that the young
should leave their parents for a home of their own,” Juan protested.

“So the Scripture says,” agreed Megales sardonically. “It further
counsels to love one’s enemies, but, I think, omits mention of the
enemies of one’s father.”

“Sir, I am not your enemy. Political exigencies have thrown us into
different camps, but we are not so small as to let such incidentals
come between us as a vital objection in such a matter.”

“You argue like a lawyer,” smiled the governor. “You forget that I am
neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people that
needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am not to my only
daughter.”

“Then you consent, your excellency?” cried Valdez joyously.

“I neither consent nor refuse. You must go to a more final authority
than mine for an answer, young man.”

“But you are willing she should follow where her heart leads?”

“But certainly.”

“Then she is mine,” cried Valdez.

“I am not,” replied the girl indignantly over her shoulder.

Megales turned her till her unconsenting eyes met his. “Do you want to
marry this young man, Carmencita?”

“I never told him anything of the sort,” she flamed.

“I didn’t quite ask what you had told him. The question is whether you
love him.”

“But no; I love you,” she blushed.

“I hope so,” smiled her father. “But do you love him? An honest answer,
if you please.”

“Could I love a rebel?”

“No Yankee answers, _muchacha_. Do you love Juan Valdez?”

It was Valdez that broke triumphantly the moment’s silence that
followed. “She does. She does. I claim the consent of silence.”

But victory spoke too prematurely in his voice. Cried the proud Spanish
girl passionately: “I hate him!”

Megales understood the quality of her hate, and beckoned to his future
son-in-law. “I have some arrangements to make for our journey to-night.
Would it distress you, señor, if I were to leave you for a while?”

He slipped out and left them alone.

“Well?” asked O’Halloran, who had remained in the corridor.

“I think, Señor Dictator, I shall have to make the trip with only
General Carlo for a companion,” answered the Spaniard.

The Irishman swung his hat. “Hip, hip, hurrah! You’re a gentleman I
could find it in me heart to both love and hate, governor.”

“And you’re a gentleman,” returned the governor, with a bow, “I could
find it in my heart to hang high as Haman without love or hate.”

Michael linked his arm in that of his excellency.

“Sure, you’re a broth of a lad, Señor Megales,” he said irreverently,
in good, broad Irish brogue. “Here, me bye, where are you hurrying?” he
added, catching at the sleeve of Frances Mackenzie, who was slipping
quietly past.

“Please, Mr. O’Halloran, I’ve been up to the office after water. I’m
taking it to Señorita Carmencita.”

“She doesn’t want water just now. You go back to the office, son, and
stay there thirty minutes. Then you take her that water,” ordered
O’Halloran.

“But she wanted it as soon as I could get it, sir.”

“Forget it, kid, just as she has. Water! Why, she’s drinking nectar of
the gods. Just you do as I tell ye.”

Frances was puzzled, but she obeyed, even though she could not
understand his meaning. She understood better when she slid back the
panel at the expiration of the allotted time and caught a glimpse of
Carmencita Megales in the arms of Juan Valdez.




CHAPTER XVII.
HIDDEN VALLEY


Across the desert into the hills, where the sun was setting in a great
splash of crimson in the saddle between two distant peaks, a bunch of
cows trailed heavily. Their tongues hung out and they panted for water,
stretching their necks piteously to low now and again. For the heat of
an Arizona summer was on the baked land and in the air that palpitated
above it.

But the end of the journey was at hand and the cowpuncher in charge of
the drive relaxed in the saddle after the easy fashion of the vaquero
when he is under no tension. He did not any longer cast swift, anxious
glances behind him to make sure no pursuit was in sight. For he had
reached safety. He knew the ‘Open sesame’ to that rock wall which rose
sheer in front of him. Straight for it he and his companion took their
gather, swinging the cattle adroitly round a great slab which concealed
a gateway to the secret cañon. Half a mile up this defile lay what was
called Hidden Valley, an inaccessible retreat known only to those who
frequented it for nefarious purposes.

It was as the man in charge circled round to head the lead cows in that
a faint voice carried to him. He stopped, listening. It came again, a
dry, parched call for help that had no hope in it. He wheeled his pony
as on a half dollar, and two minutes later caught sight of an exhausted
figure leaning against a cottonwood. He needed no second guess to
surmise that she was lost and had been wandering over the sandy desert
through the hot day. With a shout, he loped toward her, and had his
water bottle at her lips before she had recovered from her glad
surprise at sight of him.

“You’ll feel better now,” he soothed. “How long you been lost, ma’am?”

“Since ten this morning. I came with my aunt to gather poppies, and
somehow I got separated from her and the rig. These hills look so
alike. I must have got turned round and mistaken one for another.”

“You have to be awful careful here. Some one ought to have told you,”
he said indignantly.

“Oh, they told me, but of course I knew best,” she replied, with quick
scorn of her own self-sufficiency.

“Well, it’s all right now,” the cowpuncher told her cheerfully. He
would not for a thousand dollars have told her how near it had come to
being all wrong, how her life had probably depended upon that faint
wafted call of hers.

He put her on his horse and led it forward to the spot where the cattle
waited at the gateway. Not until they came full upon them did he
remember that it was dangerous for strange young women to see him with
those cattle and at the gateway to the Hidden cañon.

“They are my uncle’s cattle. I could tell the brand anywhere. Are you
one of his riders? Are we close to the Rocking Chair Ranch?” she cried.

He flung a quick glance at her. “Not very close. Are you from the
Rocking Chair?”

“Yes. I’m Mr. Mackenzie’s niece.”

“Major Mackenzie’s daughter?” demanded the man quickly.

“Yes.” She said it with a touch of annoyance, for he looked at her as a
man does who has heard of her before. She knew that the story had been
bruited far and wide of how she had passed through the hands of the
train robbers carrying thirty thousand dollars on her person. She had
no doubt that it was in this connection her rescuer had heard of her.

He drew off to one side and called his companion to him.

“Hardman, you ride up to the ranch and tell Leroy I’ve just found Miss
Mackenzie wandering around on the desert, lost. Ask him whether I’m to
bring her up. She’s played out and can’t travel far, tell him.”

The showman rode on his errand and the other returned to Helen.

“You better light, ma’am. We’ll have to wait here a few minutes,” he
explained.

He helped her dismount. She did not understand why it was necessary to
wait, but that was his business and not hers. Her roving eyes fell upon
the cattle again.

“They _are_ my uncle’s, aren’t they?”

“They were,” he corrected. “Cattle change hands a good deal in this
country,” he added dryly.

“Then you’re not one of his riders?” Her stark eyes passed over him
swiftly.

“No, ma’am.”

“Are we far from the Rocking Chair?”

“A right smart distance. You’ve been traveling, you see, for eight or
nine hours.”

It occurred to her that there was something elusive, something not
quite frank, about the replies of this young man. Her glance raked him
again and swept up the details of his person. One of them that
impressed itself upon her mind was the absence of a finger on his right
hand. Another was that he was a walking arsenal. This startled her,
though she was not yet afraid. She relapsed into silence, to which he
seemed willing to consent. Once and again her glance swept him. He
looked a tough, weather-beaten Westerner, certainly not a man whom a
woman need be afraid to meet alone on the plains, but the oftener she
looked the more certain she became that he was not a casual puncher
busy at the legitimate work of his craft.

“Do you—live near here?” she asked presently.

“I live under my hat, ma’am,” he told her.

“Sometimes near here, sometimes not so near.”

This told her exactly nothing.

“How far did you say it was to the Rocking Chair?”

“I didn’t say.”

At the sound of a horses footfall she turned, and she saw that whereas
they had been two, now they were three. The newcomer was a slender,
graceful man, dark and lithe, with quick, piercing eyes, set deep in
the most reckless, sardonic face she had ever seen.

The man bowed, with a sweep of his hat almost derisive. “Miss
Mackenzie, I believe.”

She met him with level eyes that confessed no fear.

“Who are you, sir?”

“They call me Wolf Leroy.”

Her heart sank. “You and he are the men that held up the Limited.”

“If we are, you are the young lady that beat us out of thirty thousand
dollars. We’ll collect now,” he told her, with a silky smile and a
glitter of white, even teeth.

“What do you mean? Do you think I carry money about with me?”

“I didn’t say that. We’ll put it up to your father.”

“My father?”

“He’ll have to raise thirty thousand dollars to redeem his daughter.”
He let his bold eyes show their admiration. “And she’s worth every cent
of it.”

“Do you mean—” She read the flash of triumph in his ribald eyes and
broke off. There was no need to ask him what he meant.

“That’s what I mean exactly, ma’am. You’re welcome to the hospitality
of Hidden Valley. What’s ours is yours. You’re welcome to stay as long
as you like, but I reckon _you’re not welcome to go whenever you want
to_—not till we get that thirty thousand.”

“You talk as if he were a millionaire,” she told him scornfully.

“The major’s got friends that are. If it’s a showdown he’ll dig the
dough up. I ain’t a bit worried about that. His brother, Webb, will
come through.”

“Why should he?” She stood as straight and unbending as a young pine,
courage regnant in the very poise of the fine head. “You daren’t harm a
hair of my head, and he knows it. For your life, you daren’t.”

His eyes glittered. Wolf Leroy was never a safe man to fling a
challenge at. “Don’t you be too sure of that, my dear. There ain’t one
thing on this green earth I daren’t do if I set my mind to it. And your
friends know it.”

The other man broke in, easy and unmoved. “Hold yore hawses, cap. We
got no call to be threatening this young lady. We keep her for a ransom
because that’s business. But she’s as safe here as she would be at the
Rocking Chair. She’s got York Neil’s word for that.”

The Wolf snarled. “The word of a miscreant. That’ll comfort her a heap.
And York Neil’s word don’t always go up here.”

The cowpuncher’s steady eyes met him. “It’ll go this time.”

The girl gave her champion a quiet little nod and a low “Thank you.” It
was not much, but enough. For on the frontier “white men” do not war on
women. Her instinct gave just the right manner of treating his help. It
assumed that since he was what he was he could do no less. Moreover, it
had the unexpected effect of spurring the Wolf’s vanity, or something
better than his vanity. She could see the battle in his face, and the
passing of its evil, sinister expression.

“Beg your pardon, Miss Mackenzie. York’s right. I’ll add my word to his
about your safety. I’m a wolf, they’ll tell you. But when I give my
word I keep it.”

They turned and followed through the gateway the cattle which Hardman
and another rider were driving up the cañon. Presently the walls fell
back, the gulch opened to a saucer-shaped valley in which nestled a
little ranch.

Leroy indicated it with a wave of his hand. “Welcome to Hidden Valley,
Miss Mackenzie,” he said cynically.

“Afraid I’m likely to wear my welcome out if you keep me here until my
father raises thirty thousand dollars,” she said lightly.

“Don’t you worry any about that. We need the refining influences of
ladies’ society here. I can see York’s a heap improved already. Just to
teach us manners you’re worth your board and keep.” Then hardily, with
a sweeping gesture toward the weary cattle: “Besides, your uncle has
sent up a contribution to help keep you while you visit with us.”

York laughed. “He sent it, but he didn’t know he was sending it.”

Leroy surrendered his room to Miss Mackenzie and put at her service the
old Mexican woman who cooked for him. She was a silent, taciturn
creature, as wrinkled as leather parchment and about as handsome, but
Alice found safety in the very knowledge of the presence of another
woman in the valley. She was among robbers and cutthroats, but old
Juanita lent at least a touch of domesticity to a situation that would
otherwise have been impossible. The girl was very uneasy in her mind. A
cold dread filled her heart, a fear that was a good deal less than
panic-terror, however. For she trusted the man Neil even as she
distrusted his captain. Miscreant he had let himself be called, and
doubtless was, but she knew no harm could befall her from his
companions while he was alive to prevent it. A reassurance of this came
to her that evening in the fragment of a conversation she overheard.
They were passing her window which she had raised on account of the
heat when the low voices of two men came to her.

“I tell you I’m not going, Leroy. Send Hardman,” one said.

“Are you running this outfit, or am I, Neil?”

“You are. But I gave her my word. That’s all there’s to it.”

Alice was aware that they had stopped and were facing each other
tensely.

“Go slow, York. I gave her my word, too. Do you think I’m allowing to
break it while you’re away?”

“No, I don’t. Look here, Phil. I’m not looking for trouble. You’re
major-domo of this outfit What you say goes—except about this girl. I’m
a white man, if I’m a scoundrel.”

“And I’m not?”

“I tell you I’m not sayin’ that,” the other answered doggedly.

“You’re hinting it awful loud. I stand for it this time, York, but
never again. You butt in once more and you better reach for your
hardware simultaneous. Stick a pin in that.”

They had moved on again, and she did not hear Neil’s answer.
Nevertheless, she was comforted to know she had one friend among these
desperate outlaws, and that comfort gave her at least an hour or two of
broken, nappy sleep.

In the morning when she had dressed she found her room door unlocked,
and she stepped outside into the sunshine. York Neil was sitting on the
porch at work on a broken spur strap. Looking up, he nodded a casual
good morning. But she knew why he was there, and gratitude welled up in
her heart. Not a young woman who gave way to every impulse, she yielded
to one now, and shook hands with him. Their eyes met for a moment and
he knew she was thanking him.

An eye derisive witnessed the handshake. “An alliance against the teeth
of the wolf, I’ll bet. Good mo’ning, Miss Mackenzie,” drawled Leroy.

“Good morning,” she answered quietly, her hands behind her.

“Sleep well?”

“Would you expect me to?”

“Why not, with York here doing the virgin-knight act outside your
door?”

Her puzzled eyes discovered that Neil’s face was one blush of
embarrassment.

“He slept here on the po’ch,” explained Leroy, amused. “It’s a great
fad, this outdoor sleeping. The doctors recommend it strong for sick
people. You wouldn’t think to look at him York was sick. He looks plumb
husky. But looks are right deceptive. It’s a fact, Miss Mackenzie, that
he was so sick last night I wasn’t dead sure he’d live till mo’ning.”

The eyes of the men met like rapiers. Neil said nothing, and Leroy
dropped him from his mind as if he were a trifle and devoted his
attention to Alice.

“Breakfast is ready, Miss Mackenzie. This way, please.”

The outlaw led her to the dining room, where the young woman met a
fresh surprise. The table was white with immaculate linen and shone
with silver. She sat down to breakfast food with cream, followed by
quail on toast, bacon and eggs, and really good coffee. Moreover, she
discovered that this terror of the border knew how to handle his knife
and fork, was not deficient in the little niceties of table decorum. He
talked, and talked well, ignoring, like a perfect host, the relation
that existed between them. They sat opposite each other and ate alone,
waited upon by the Mexican woman. Alice wondered if he kept solitary
state when she was not there or ate with the other men.

It was evening before Hardman returned from the mission upon which he
had been sent in place of the obstinate Neil. He reported at once to
Leroy, who came smilingly to the place where she was sitting on the
porch to tell her his news.

“Webb Mackenzie’s going to raise that thirty thousand, all right. He’s
promised to raise it inside of three days,” he told her triumphantly.

“And shall I have to stay here three whole days?”

He looked with half-shut, smoldering eyes at her slender exquisiteness,
compact of a strange charm that was both well-bred and gypsyish. There
was a scarce-veiled passion in his gaze that troubled her. More than
once that day she had caught it.

“Three days ain’t so long. I could stand three months of you and wish
for more,” he told her.

Lightly she turned the subject, but not without a chill of fear. Three
days was a long time. Much might happen if this wolf slipped the leash
of his civilization.

It was next day that an incident occurred which was to affect the
course of events more than she could guess at the time. A bunch of wild
hill steers had been driven down by Hardman, Reilly, and Neil in the
afternoon and were inclosed in the corral with the cows from the
Rocking Chair Ranch. Just before sunset Leroy, who had been away all
day, returned and sauntered over from the stable to join Alice. It
struck the girl from his flushed appearance that he had been drinking.
In his eye she found a wild devil of lawlessness that set her heart
pounding. If Neil and he clashed now there would be murder done. Of
that she felt sure.

That she set herself to humor the Wolf’s whims was no more for her own
safety than for that of the man who had been her friend. She curbed her
fears, clamped down her startled maiden modesty, parried his advances
with light words and gay smiles. Once Neil passed, and his eyes asked a
question. She shook her head, unnoticed by Leroy. She would fight her
own battle as long as she could. It was to divert him that she proposed
they go down to the corral and look at the wild cattle the men had
driven down. She told him she had heard a great deal about them, but
had never seen any. If he would go with her she would like to look at
them.

The outlaw was instantly at her service, and they sauntered across. In
her hand the girl carried a closed umbrella she had been using to keep
off the sun.

They stood at the gate of the corral looking at the long-legged, shaggy
creatures, as wild and as active almost as hill deer. On horseback one
could pass to and fro among them without danger, but in a closed corral
a man on foot would have taken a chance. Nobody knew this better than
Leroy. But the liquor was still in his head, and even when sober he was
reckless beyond other men.

“They need water,” he said, and with that opened the gate and started
for the windmill.

He sauntered carelessly across, with never a glance at the dangerous
animals among which he was venturing. A great bull pawed the ground
lowered its head, and made a rush at the unconscious man. Alice called
to him to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy
turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with
a deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of
its rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless.

Even as his revolver flashed out from the scabbard the outlaw knew he
was too late to save her, for she stood in such a position that he
could not hit a vital spot. Suddenly her umbrella opened in the face of
the animal. Frightened, it set its feet wide and slithered to a halt so
close to her that its chorus pierced the silk of the umbrella. With one
hand Leroy swept the girl behind him; with the other he pumped three
bullets into the forehead of the bull. Without a groan it keeled over,
dead before it reached the ground.

Alice leaned against the iron support of the windmill. She was so white
that the man expected her to sink down. One glance showed him other
cattle pawing the ground angrily.

“Come!” he ordered, and, putting an arm round her waist, he ran with
her to the gate. Yet a moment, and they were through in safety.

She leaned against him helpless for an instant before she had strength
to disengage herself. “Thank you. I’m all right now.”

“I thought you were going to faint,” he explained.

She nodded. “I nearly did.”

His face was colorless. “You saved my life.”

“Then we’re quits, for you saved mine,” she answered, with a shaken
attempt at a smile.

He shook his head. “That’s not the same at all. I had to do that, and
there was no risk to it. But you chose to save me, to risk your life
for mine.”

She saw that he was greatly moved, and that his emotion had swept away
the effects of the liquid as a fresh breeze does a fog.

“I didn’t know I was risking my life. I saw you didn’t see.”

“I didn’t think there was a woman alive had the pluck to do it—and for
me, your enemy. That what you count me, isn’t it—an enemy?”

“I don’t know. I can’t quite think of you as friend, can I?”

“And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost.”

“Except the danger of yourself,” she said, in low voice, meeting him
eye to eye.

He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning his
arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle between the
peak which still glowed with sunset light.

“I haven’t met a woman of your kind before in ten years,” he said
presently. “I’ve lived on your looks, your motions, the inflections of
your voice. I suppose I’ve been starved for that sort of thing and
didn’t know it till you came. It’s been like a glimpse of heaven to
me.” He laughed bitterly: and went on: “Of course, I had to take to
drinking and let you see the devil I am. When I’m sober you would be as
safe with me as with York. But the excitement of meeting you—I have to
ride my emotions to death so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink
stimulates the imagination, and I drank.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously. “You’re
only a girl. What do you know about men of my sort? You have been
wrappered and sheltered all your life. And yet you understand me better
than any of the people I meet. All my life I have fought with myself. I
might have been a gentleman and I’m only a wolf. My appetites and
passions, stronger than myself dragged me down. It was Kismet, the
destiny ordained for me from my birth.”

“Isn’t there always hope for a man who knows his weaknesses and fights
against them?” she asked timidly.

“No, there is not,” came the harsh answer. “Besides, I don’t fight. I
yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me.
You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt.”

“I didn’t think who you were,” her honesty compelled her to say.

“That doesn’t matter. You did it. I’m going to take you back to your
father and straight as I can.”

Her eyes lit. “Without a ransom?”

“Yes.”

“You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir.”

“I’m not coyote all through.”

She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her.
“What about your friends? Will they let me go?”

“They’ll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in
private, and when they’re away from me.”

“I don’t want to make trouble for you.”

“You won’t make trouble for me. If there’s any trouble it will be for
them,” he said grimly.

Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a
strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast
the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the
eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction
for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness
too late—too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed
inexorably the character he could no longer change.

“I am sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t see that in you at first. I
misjudged you. One can’t label men just good or bad, as the novelists
used to. You have taught me that—you and Mr. Neil.”

His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. “I’m bad enough. Don’t make any
mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York’s different. He’s just a good
man gone wrong. But I’m plain miscreant.”

“Oh, no,” she protested.

“As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through,” he said again.
“Something’s happened to me to-day. It won’t change me. I’ve gone too
far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf
Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his
opinion of the deceased you’ll remember one thing. He wasn’t a wolf to
you—not at the last.”

“I’ll not forget,” she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.

York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner
he had a joke up his sleeve.

“You’re wanted, Phil,” he announced.

“Wanted where?”

“You got a visitor in there,” Neil said, with a grin and a jerk of his
thumb toward the house. “Came blundering into the draw sorter
accidental-like, but some curious. So I asked him if he wouldn’t light
and stay a while. He thought it over, and figured he would.”

“Who is it?” asked Leroy.

“You go and see. I ain’t giving away what your Christmas presents are.
I aim to let Santa surprise you a few.”

Miss Mackenzie followed the outlaw chief into the house, and over his
shoulder glimpsed two men. One of them was the Irishman, Cork Reilly,
and he sat with a Winchester across his knees. The other had his back
toward them, but he turned as they entered, and nodded casually to the
outlaw. Helen’s heart jumped to her throat when she saw it was Val
Collins.

The two men looked at each other steadily in a long silence. Wolf Leroy
was the first to speak.

“You damn fool!” The swarthy face creased to an evil smile of derision.

“I ce’tainly do seem to butt in considerable, Mr. Leroy,” admitted
Collins, with an answering smile.

Leroy’s square jaw set like a vise. “It won’t happen again, Mr.
Sheriff.”

“I’d hate to gamble on that heavy,” returned Collins easily. Then he
caught sight of the girl’s white face, and rose to his feet with
outstretched hand.

“Sit down,” snapped out Reilly.

“Oh, that’s all right I’m shaking hands with the lady. Did you think I
was inviting you to drill a hole in me, Mr. Reilly?”




CHAPTER XVIII.
A DINNER FOR THREE


“I thought we bumped you off down at Epitaph,” Leroy said.

“Along with Scotty? Well, no. You see, I’m a regular cat to kill, Mr.
Leroy, and I couldn’t conscientiously join the angels with so lame a
story as a game laig to explain my coming,” said Collins cheerfully.

“In that case—”

“Yes, I understand. You’d be willing to accommodate with a hole in the
haid instead of one in the laig. But I’ll not trouble you.”

“What are you doing here? Didn’t I warn you to attend to your own
business and leave me alone?”

“Seems to me you did load me up with some good advice, but I plumb
forgot to follow it.”

The Wolf cursed under his breath. “You came here at your own risk,
then?”

“Well, I did and I didn’t,” corrected the sheriff easily. “I’ve got a
five-thousand policy in the Southeastern Life Insurance Company, so I
reckon it’s some risk to them. And, by the way, it’s a company I can
recommend.”

“Does it insure against suicide?” asked Leroy, his masked, smiling face
veiling thinly a ruthless purpose.

“And against hanging. Let me strongly urge you to take out a policy at
once,” came the prompt retort.

“You think it necessary?”

“Quite. When you and York Neil and Hardman made an end of Scotty you
threw ropes round your own necks. Any locoed tenderfoot would know
that.”

The sheriff’s unflinching look met the outlaw’s black frown serene and
clear-eyed.

“And would he know that you had committed suicide when you ran this
place down and came here?” asked Leroy, with silken cruelty.

“Well, he ought to know it. The fact is, Mr. Leroy, that it hadn’t
penetrated my think-tank that this was your hacienda when I came
mavericking in.”

“Just out riding for your health?”

“Not exactly. I was looking for Miss Mackenzie. I cut her trail about
six miles from the Rocking Chair and followed it where she wandered
around. The trail led directly away from the ranch toward the
mountains. That didn’t make me any easy in my mind. So I just jogged
along and elected myself an investigating committee. I arrived some
late, but here I am, right side up—and so hearty welcome that my friend
Cork won’t hear of my leaving at all. He don’t do a thing but entertain
me—never lets his attention wander. Oh, I’m the welcome guest, all
right. No doubt about that.”

Wolf Leroy turned to Alice. “I think you had better go to your room,”
he said gently.

“Oh, no, no; let me stay,” she implored. “You would never—you would
never—” The words died on her white lips, but the horror in her eyes
finished the question.

He met her gaze fully, and answered her doggedly. “You’re not in this,
Miss Mackenzie. It’s between him and me. I shan’t allow even you to
interfere.”

“But—oh, it is horrible! for two minutes.”

He shook his head.

“You must! Please.”

“What use?”

Let me see you alone

Her troubled gaze shifted to the strong, brown, sun-baked face of the
man who had put himself in this deadly peril to save her. His keen,
blue-gray eyes, very searching and steady, met hers with a courage she
thought splendid, and her heart cried out passionately against the
sacrifice.

“You shall not do it. Oh, please let me talk it over with you.”

“No.”

“Have you forgotten already?—and you said you would always remember.”
She almost whispered it.

She had stung his consent at last. “Very well,” he said, and opened the
door to let her pass into the inner room.

But she noticed that his eyes were hard as jade.

“Don’t you see that he came here to save me?” she cried, when they were
alone. “Don’t you see it was for me? He didn’t come to spy out your
place of hiding.”

“I see that he has found it. If I let him go, he will bring back a
posse to take us.”

“You could ride across the line into Mexico.”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“But why?”

“Because, Miss Mackenzie, the money we took from the express car of the
Limited is hidden here, and I don’t know where it is; because the sun
won’t ever rise on a day when Val Collins will drive me out of
Arizona.”

“I don’t know what you mean about the money, but you must let him go.
You spoke of a service I had done you. This is my pay.”

“To turn him loose to hunt us down?”

“He’ll not trouble you if you let him go.”

A sardonic smile touched his face. “A lot you know of him. He thinks it
his duty to rid the earth of vermin like us. He’d never let up till he
got us or we got him. Well, we’ve got him now, good and plenty. He took
his chances, didn’t he? It isn’t as if he didn’t know what he was up
against. He’ll tell you himself it’s a square deal. He’s game, and he
won’t squeal because we win and he has to pay forfeit.”

The girl wrung her hands despairingly.

“It’s his life or mine—and not only mine, but my men’s,” continued the
outlaw. “Would you turn a wolf loose from your sheep pen to lead the
pack to the kill?”

“But if he were to promise—”

“We’re not talking about the ordinary man—he’d promise anything and lie
to-morrow. But Sheriff Collins won’t do it. If you think you can twist
a promise out of him not to take advantage of what he has found out
you’re guessing wrong. When you think he’s a quitter, just look at that
cork hand of his, and remember how come he to get it. He’ll take his
medicine proper, but he’ll never crawl.”

“There must be some way,” she cried desperately,

“Since you make a point of it, I’ll give him his chance.”

“You’ll let him go?” The joy in her voice was tremulously plain.

He laughed, leaning carelessly against the mantelshelf. But his
narrowed eyes watched her vigilantly. “I didn’t say I would let him go.
What I said was that I’d give him a chance.”

“How?”

“They say he’s a dead shot. I’m a few with a gun myself. We’ll ride
down to the plains together, and find a good lonely spot suitable for a
graveyard. Then one of us will ride away, and the other will stay, or
perhaps both of us will stay.”

She shuddered. “No—no—no. I won’t have it.”

“Afraid something might happen to me, ma’am?” he asked, with a queer
laugh,

“I won’t have it.”

“Afraid, perhaps, he might be the one left for the coyotes and the
buzzards?”

She was white to the lips, but at his next word the blood came flaming
back to her cheeks.

“Why don’t you tell the truth? Why don’t you; say you love him, and be
done with it? Say it and I’ll take him back to Tucson with you safe as
if he were a baby.”

She covered her face with her hands, but with two steps he had reached
her and captured he hands.

“The truth,” he demanded, and his eyes compelled.

“It is to save his life?”

He laughed harshly. “Here’s melodrama for you! Yes—to save your lover’s
life.”

She lifted her eyes to his bravely. “What you say is true. I love him.”

Leroy bowed ironically. “I congratulate Mr. Collins, who is now quite
safe, so far as I am concerned. Meanwhile, lest he be jealous of your
absence, shall we return now?”

Some word of sympathy for the reckless scamp trembled on her lips, but
her instinct told her would hold it insult added to injury, and she
left her pity unvoiced.

“If you please.”

But as he heeled away she laid a timid hand on his arm. He turned and
looked grimly down at the working face, at the sweet, soft, pitiful
eyes brimming with tears. She was pure woman now, all the caste pride
dissolved in yearning pity.

“Oh, you lamb—you precious lamb,” he groaned, and clicked his teeth
shut on the poignant pain of his loss.

“I think you’re splendid,” she told him. “Oh, I know what you’ve
done—that you are not good. I know you’ve wasted your life and lived
with your hand against every man’s. But I can’t help all that. I look
for the good in you, and I find it. Even in your sins you are not
petty. You know how to rise to an opportunity.”

This man of contradictions, forever the creature of his impulses, gave
the lie to her last words by signally failing to rise to this one. He
snatched her to him, and looked down hungry-eyed at her sweet beauty,
as fresh and fragrant as the wild rose in the copse.

“Please,” she cried, straining from him with shy, frightened eyes.

For answer he kissed her fiercely on the cheeks, and eyes, and mouth.

“The rest are his, but these are mine,” he laughed mirthlessly.

Then, flinging her from him, he led the way into the next room. Flushed
and disheveled, she followed. He had outraged her maiden instincts and
trampled down her traditions of caste, but she had no time to think of
this now.

“If you’re through explaining the mechanism of that Winchester to
Sheriff Collins we’ll reluctantly dispense with your presence, Mr.
Reilly. We have arranged a temporary treaty of peace,” the chief outlaw
said.

Reilly, a huge lout of a fellow with a lowering countenance, ventured
to expostulate. “Ye want to be careful of him. He’s quicker’n chain
lightning.”

His chief exploded with low-voiced fury. “When I ask your advice, give
it, you fat-brained son of a brand blotter. Until then padlock that
mouth of yours. _Vamos_.”

Reilly vanished, his face a picture of impotent malice, and Leroy
continued:

“We’re going to the Rocking Chair in the morning, Mr. Collins—at least,
you and Miss Mackenzie are going there. I’m going part way. We’ve
arranged a little deal all by our lones, subject to your approval. You
get away without that hole in your head. Miss Mackenzie goes with you,
and I get in return the papers you took off Scotty and Webster.”

“You mean I am to give up the hunt?” asked Collins.

“Not at all. I’ll be glad to death to see you blundering in again when
Miss Mackenzie isn’t here to beg you off. The point is that in exchange
for your freedom and Miss Mackenzie’s I get those papers you left in a
safety-deposit vault in Epitaph. It’ll save me the trouble of sticking
up the First National and winging a few indiscreet citizens of that
burgh. Savvy?”

“That’s all you ask?” demanded the surprised sheriff.

“All I ask is to get those papers in my hand and a four-hour start
before you begin the hunt. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal, but I give it to you straight that I’ll be after you as
soon as the four hours are up,” returned Collins promptly. “I don’t
know what magic Miss Mackenzie used. Still, I must compliment her on
getting us out mighty easy.”

But though the sheriff looked smilingly at Alice, that young woman,
usually mistress of herself in all emergencies, did not lift her eyes
to meet his. Indeed, he thought her strangely embarrassed. She was as
flushed and tongue-tied as a country girl in unaccustomed company. She
seemed another woman than the self-possessed young beauty he had met a
month before on the Limited, but he found her shy abashment charming.

“I guess you thought you had come to the end of the passage, Mr.
Collins,” suggested the outlaw, with listless curiosity.

“I didn’t know whether to order the flowers or not, but way down in my
heart I was backing my luck,” Collins told him.

“Of course it’s understood that you are on parole until we separate,”
said Leroy curtly.

“Of course.”

“Then we’ll have supper at once, for we’ll have to be on the road
early.” He clapped his hands together, and the Mexican woman appeared.
Her master flung out a command or two in her own language.

“_Poco tiempo_,” she answered, and disappeared.

In a surprisingly short time the meal was ready, set out on a table
white with Irish linen and winking with cut glass and silver.

“Mr. Leroy does not believe at all in doing when in Rome as the Romans
do,” Alice explained to Collins, in answer to his start of amazement.
“He’s a regular Aladdin. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to see electric
lights come on next.”

“One has to attempt sometimes to blot out the forsaken desert,” said
Leroy. “Try this cut of slow elk, Miss Mackenzie. I think you’ll like
it.”

“Slow elk! What is that?” asked the girl, to make talk.

“Mr. Collins will tell you,” smiled Leroy.

She turned to the sheriff, who first apologized, with a smile, to his
host. “Slow elk, Miss Mackenzie, is veal that has been rustled. I
expect Mr. Leroy has pressed a stray calf into our Service.”

“I see,” she flashed. “Pressed veal.”

The outlaw smiled at her ready wit, and took on himself the burden of
further explanation. “And this particular slow elk comes from a ranch
on the Aravaipa owned by Mr. Collins. York shot it up in the hills a
day or two ago.”

“Shouldn’t have been straying so far from its range,” suggested
Collins, with a laugh. “But it’s good veal, even if I say it that
shouldn’t.”

“Thank you,” burlesqued the bandit gravely, with such an ironic touch
of convention that Alice smiled.

After dinner Leroy produced cigars, and with the permission of Miss
Mackenzie the two men smoked while the conversation ran on a topic as
impersonal as literature. A criticism of novels and plays written to
illustrate the frontier was the line into which the discussion fell,
and the girl from the city, listening with a vivid interest, was
pleased to find that these two real men talked with point and a sense
of dexterous turns. She felt a sort of proud proprietorship in their
power, and wished that some of the tailors’ models she had met in
society, who held so good a conceit of themselves, might come under the
spell of their strong, tolerant virility. Whatever the difference
between them, it might be truly said of both that they had lived at
first hand and come in touch closely with all the elemental realities.
One of them was a romantic villain and the other an unromantic hero,
but her pulsing emotions morally condemned one no more than the other.

This was the sheer delight of her esthetic sense of fitness, that
strong men engaged in a finish fight could rise to so perfect a
courtesy that an outsider could not have guessed the antagonism that
ran between them, enduring as life.

Leroy gave the signal for breaking up by looking at his watch. “Afraid
I must say ‘Lights out.’ It’s past eleven. We’ll have to be up and on
our way with the hooters. Sleep well, Miss Mackenzie. You don’t need to
worry about waking. I’ll have you called in good time. _Buenos
noches_.”

He held the door for her as she passed out; and, in passing, her eyes
rose to meet his.

“_Buenos noches, señor;_ I’m sure I shall sleep well to-night,” she
said.

It had been the day of Alice Mackenzie’ life. Emotions and sensations,
surging through her, had trodden on each other’s heels. Woman-like, she
welcomed the darkness to analyze and classify the turbid chaos of her
mind. She had been swept into sympathy with an outlaw, to give him no
worse name. She had felt herself nearer to him than to some honest men
she could name who had offered her their love.

Surely, that had been bad enough, but worse was to follow. This
discerning scamp had torn aside her veils of maiden reserve and exposed
the secret fancy of her heart, unknown before even to herself. She had
confessed love for this big-hearted sheriff and frontiersman. Here she
could plead an ulterior motive. To save his life any deception was
permissible. Yes, but where lay the truth? With that insistent demand
of the outlaw had rushed over her a sudden wave of joy. What could it
mean unless it meant what she would not admit that it could mean? Why,
the man was impossible. He was not of her class. She had scarce seen
him a half-dozen times. Her first meeting with him had been only a
month ago. One month ago—

A remembrance flashed through her that brought her from the bed in a
barefoot search for matches. When the candle was relit he slipped a
chamoisskin pouch from her neck and from it took a sealed envelope. It
was the note in which the sheriff on the night of the train robbery had
written his prediction of how the matter would come out. She was to
open the envelope in a month, and the month was up to-night.

As she tore open the flap it came to her with one of her little
flashing smiles that she could never have guessed under what
circumstances she would read it. By the dim flame of a guttering
candle, in a cotton nightgown borrowed from a Mexican menial, a
prisoner of the very man who had robbed her and the recipient of a
practical confession of love from him not three hours earlier! Surely
here was a situation to beggar romance. But before she had finished
reading the reality was still more unbelievable.


I have just met for the first time the woman I am going to marry if God
is good to one. I am writing this because I want her to know it as soon
as I decently can. Of course, I am not worthy of her, but then I don’t
know any man that is.

So the fact goes—I’m bound to marry her if there’s nobody else in the
way. This isn’t conceit. It is a deep-seated certainty I can’t get away
from, and don’t want to. When she reads this, she will think it a piece
of foolish presumption. My hope is she will not always think so. Her
Lover,


VAL COLLINS.


Her swift-pulsing heart was behaving very queerly. It seemed to hang
delightfully still, and then jump forward with odd little beats of joy.
She caught a glimpse of her happy face, and blew out the light for
shame, groping her way back to bed with the letter carefully guarded
against crumpling by her hand.

Foolish presumption indeed. Why, he had only seen her once, and he said
he would marry her with never a by-your-leave! Wasn’t that what he had
said? She had to strike another match to learn the lines that had not
stuck word for word in her mind, and after that another match to get a
picture of the scrawl to visualize in the dark.

How dared he take her for granted? But what a masterly way of wooing
for the right man! What idiotic folly if he had been the wrong one! Was
he, then, the right one? She questioned herself closely, but came to no
more definite answer than this—that her heart went glad with a sweet
joy to know he wanted to marry her.

She resolved to put him from her mind, and in this resolve she fell at
last into smiling sleep.




CHAPTER XIX.
A VILLON OF THE DESERT


When Alice Mackenzie looked back in after years upon the incidents
connected with that ride to the Rocking Chair, it was always with a
kind of glorified pride in her villain-hero. He had his moments, had
this twentieth-century Villon, when he represented not unworthily the
divinity in man; and this day held more than one of them. Since he was
what he was, it also held as many of his black moods.

The start was delayed, owing to a cause Leroy had not foreseen. When
York went, sleepy-eyed, to the corral to saddle the ponies, he found
the bars into the pasture let down, and the whole _remuda_ kicking up
its heels in a paddock large as a goodsized city. The result was that
it took two hours to run up the bunch of ponies and another half-hour
to cut out, rope, and saddle the three that were wanted. Throughout the
process Reilly sat on the fence and scowled.

Leroy, making an end of slapping on and cinching the last saddle,
wheeled suddenly on the Irishman. “What’s the matter, Reilly?”

“Was I saying anything was the matter?”

“You’ve been looking it right hard. Ain’t you man enough to say it
instead of playing dirty little three-for-a-cent tricks—like letting
down the corral-bars?”

Reilly flung a look at Neil that plainly demanded support, and then
descended with truculent defiance from the fence.

“Who says I let down the bars? You bet I am man enough to say what I
think; and if ye think I ain’t got the nerve—”

His master encouraged him with ironic derision. “That’s right, Reilly.
Who’s afraid? Cough it up and show York you’re game.”

“By thunder, I _am_ game. I’ve got a kick coming, sorr.”

“Yes?” Leroy rolled and lit a cigarette, his black eyes fixed intently
on the malcontent. “Well, register it on the jump. I’ve got to be off.”

“That’s the point.” The curly-headed Neil had lounged up to his
comrade’s support. “_Why_ have you got to be off? We don’t savvy your
game, cap.”

“Perhaps you would like to be major-domo of this outfit, Neil?” scoffed
his chief, eying him scornfully.

“No, sir. I ain’t aimin’ for no such thing. But we don’t like the way
things are shaping. What does all this here funny business mean,
anyhow?” His thumb jerked toward Collins, already mounted and waiting
for Leroy to join him. “Two days ago this world wasn’t big enough to
hold him and you. Well, I git the drop on him, and then you begin to
cotton up to him right away. Big dinner last night—champagne corks
popping, I hear. What I want to know is what it means. And here’s this
Miss Mackenzie. She’s good for a big ransom, but I don’t see it ambling
our way. It looks darned funny.”

“That’s the ticket, York,” derided Leroy. “Come again. Turn your wolf
loose.”

“Oh! I ain’t afraid to say what I think.”

“I see you’re not. You should try stump-speaking, my friend. There’s a
field fox you there.”

“I’m asking you a question, Mr. Leroy.”

“That’s whatever,” chipped in Reilly.

“Put a name to it.”

“Well, I want to know what’s the game, and where we come in.”

“Think you’re getting the double-cross?” asked Leroy pleasantly, his
vigilant eyes covering them like a weapon.

“Now you’re shouting. That’s what I’d like right well to know. There
_he_ sits”—with another thumbjerk at Collins—“and I’m a Chink if he
ain’t carryin’ them same two guns I took offen him, one on the train
and one here the other day. I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t all right, cap. But
what I do say is—how about it?”

Leroy did some thinking out loud. “Of course I might tell you boys to
go to the devil. That’s my right, because you chose me to run this
outfit without any advice from the rest of you. But you’re such
infants, I reckon I had better explain. You’re always worrying those
fat brains of yours with suspicions. After we stuck up the Limited you
couldn’t trust me to take care of the swag. Reilly here had to cook up
a fool scheme for us all to hide it blindfold together. I told you
straight what would happen, and it did. When Scotty crossed the divide
we were in a Jim Dandy of a hole. We had to have that paper of his to
find the boodle. Then Hardman gets caught, and coughs up his little
recipe for helping to find hidden treasure. Who gets them both? Mr.
Sheriff Collins, of course. Then he comes visiting us. Not being a
fool, he leaves the documents behind in a safety-deposit vault. Unless
I can fix up a deal with him, Mr. Reilly’s wise play buncoes us and
himself out of thirty thousand dollars.”

“Why don’t you let him send for the papers first?”

“Because he won’t do it. Threaten nothing! Collins ain’t that kind of a
hairpin. He’d tell us to shoot and be damned.”

“So you’ve got it fixed with him?” demanded Neil.

“You’ve a head like a sheep, York,” admired Leroy. “_You_ don’t need
any brick-wall hints to hit you. As your think-tank has guessed, I have
come to an understanding with Collins.”

“But the gyurl—I allow the old major would come down with a right smart
ransom.”

“Wrong guess, York. I allow he would come down with a right smart posse
and wipe us off the face of the earth. Collins tells me the major has
sent for a couple of Apache trailers from the reservation. That means
it’s up to us to hike for Sonora. The only point is whether we take
that buried money with us or leave it here. If I make a deal with
Collins, we get it. If I don’t, it’s somebody else’s gold-mine.
Anything more the committee of investigation would like to know?”
concluded Leroy, as his cold eyes raked them scornfully and came to
rest on Reilly.

“Not for mine,” said Neil, with an apologetic laugh. “I’m satisfied. I
just wanted to know. And I guess Cork corroborates.”

Reilly growled something under his breath, and turned to hulk away.

“One moment. You’ll listen to _me_, now. You have taken the liberty to
assume I was going to sell you out. I’ll not stand that from any man
alive. To-morrow night I’ll get back from Tucson. We’ll dig up the loot
and divide it. And right then we quit company. You go your way and I go
mine.” And with that as a parting shot, Leroy turned on his heel and
went direct to his horse.

Alice Mackenzie might have searched the West with a fine-tooth comb and
not found elsewhere two such riders for an escort as fenced her that
day. Physically they were a pair of superb animals, each perfect after
his fashion. If the fair-haired giant, with his lean, broad shoulders
and rippling flow of muscles, bulked more strikingly in a display of
sheer strength, the sinewy, tigerish grace of the dark Apollo left
nothing to be desired to the eye. Both of them had been brought up in
the saddle, and each was fit to the minute for any emergency likely to
appear.

But on this pleasant morning no test of their power seemed likely to
arise, and she could study them at her ease without hindrance. She had
never seen Leroy look more the vagabond enthroned. For dress, he wore
the common equipment of Cattleland—jingling spurs, fringed chaps,
leather cuffs, gray shirt, with kerchief knotted loosely at the neck,
and revolver ready to his hand. But he carried them with an air, an
inimitable grace, that marked him for a prince among his fellows.
Something of the kind she hinted to him in jesting paradoxical fashion,
making an attempt to win from his sardonic gloom one of his quick,
flashing smiles.

He countered by telling her what he had heard York say to Reilly of
her. “She’s a princess, Cork,” York had said. “Makes my Epitaph gyurl
look like a chromo beside her. Somehow, when she looks at a fellow, he
feels like a whitewashed nigger.”

All of them laughed at that, but both Leroy and the sheriff tried to
banter her by insisting that they knew exactly what York meant.

“You can be very splendid when you want to give a man that whitewashed
feeling; he isn’t right sure whether he’s on the map or not,”
reproached the train-robber.

She laughed in the slow, indolent way she had, taking the straw hat
from her dark head to catch better the faint breath of wind that was
soughing across the plains.

“I didn’t know I was so terrible. I don’t think _you_ ever had any awe
of anybody, Mr. Leroy.” Her soft cheek flushed in unexpected memory of
that moment when he had brushed aside all her maiden reserves and
ravished mad kisses from her. “And Mr. Collins is big enough to take
care of himself,” she added hastily, to banish the unwelcome
recollection.

Collins, with his eyes on the light-shot waves that crowned her vivid
face, wondered whether he was or not. If she had been a woman to desire
in the queenly, half-insolent indifference of manner with which she had
first met him, how much more of charm lay in this piquant gaiety, in
the warm sweetness of her softer and more pliant mood! It seemed to him
she had the gift of comradeship to perfection.

They unsaddled and ate lunch in the shade of the live-oaks at El Dorado
Springs, which used to be a much-frequented watering-hole in the days
when Camp Grant thrived and mule-skinners freighted supplies in to feed
Uncle Sam’s pets. Two hours later they stopped again at the edge of the
Santa Cruz wash, two miles from the Rocking Chair Ranch.

It was while they were resaddling that Collins caught sight of a cloud
of dust a mile or two away. He unslung his field-glasses, and looked
long at the approaching dust-swirl. Presently he handed the binoculars
to Leroy.

“Five of them; and that round-bellied Papago pony in front belongs to
Sheriff Forbes, or I’m away wrong.”

Leroy lowered the glasses, after a long, unflurried inspection. “Looks
that way to me. Expect I’d better be burning the wind.”

In a few sentences he and Collins arranged a meeting for next day up in
the hills. He trailed his spurs through the dust toward Alice
Mackenzie, and offered her his brown hand and wistful smile
irresistible. “Good-by. This is where you get quit of me for good.”

“Oh, I hope not,” she told him impulsively. “We must always be
friends.”

He laughed ruefully. “Your father wouldn’t indorse those unwise
sentiments, I reckon—and I’d hate to bet your husband would,” he added
audaciously, with a glance at Collins. “But I love to hear you say it,
even though we never could be. You’re a right game, stanch little
pardner. I’ll back that opinion with the lid off.”

“You should be a good judge of those qualities. I’m only sorry you
don’t always use them in a good cause.”

He swung himself to his saddle. “Good-by.”

“Good-by—till we meet again.”

“And that will be never. So-long, sheriff. Tell Forbes I’ve got a
particular engagement in the hills, but I’ll be right glad to meet him
when he comes.”

He rode up the draw and disappeared over the brow of the hillock. She
caught another glimpse of him a minute later on the summit of the hill
beyond. He waved a hand at her, half-turning in his saddle as he rode.

Presently she lost him, but faintly the wind swept back to her a
haunting snatch of uncouth song:

“Oh, bury me out on the lone prairee,
In my narrow grave just six by three,”


Were the words drifted to her by the wind. She thought it pathetically
likely he might get the wish of his song.

To Sheriff Forbes, dropping into the draw a few minutes later with his
posse, Collins was a well of misinformation literally true. Yes, he had
followed Miss Mackenzie’s trail into the hills and found her at a
mountain ranch-house. She had been there a couple of days, and was
about to set out for the Rocking Chair with the owner of the place,
when he arrived and volunteered to see her as far as her uncle’s ranch.

“I reckon there ain’t any use asking you if you seen anything of Wolf
Leroy’s outfit,” said Forbes, a weather-beaten Westerner with a shrewd,
wrinkled face.

“No, I reckon there’s no use asking me that,” returned Collins, with a
laugh that deceptively seemed to include the older man in the joke.

“We’re after them for rustling a bunch of Circle 33 cows. Well, I’ll be
moving. Glad you found the lady, Val. She don’t look none played out
from her little trek across the desert. Funny, ain’t it, how she could
have wandered that far and her afoot?”

The Arizona sun was setting in its accustomed blaze of splendor, when
Val Collins and Alice Mackenzie put their horses again toward the ranch
and the rainbow-hued west. In his contented eyes were reflected the
sunshine and a serenity born of life in the wide, open spaces. They
rode in silence for long, the gentle evening breeze blowing in soughs.

“Did you ever meet a man of such promises gone wrong so utterly? He
might have been anything—and it has come to this, that he is hunted
like a wild beast. I never saw anything so pitiful. I would give
anything to save him.”

He had no need to ask to whom she was referring. “Can’t be done. Good
qualities bulge out all over him, but they don’t count for anything.
‘Unstable as water.’ That’s what’s the matter with him. He is the slave
of his own whims. Hence he is only the splendid wreck of a man, full of
all kinds of rich outcropping pay-ore that pinch out when you try to
work them. They don’t raise men gamer, but that only makes him a more
dangerous foe to society. Same with his loyalty and his brilliancy.
He’s got a haid on him that works like they say old J. E. B. Stuart’s
did. He would run into a hundred traps, but somehow he always worked
his men out of them. That’s Leroy, too. If he had been an ordinary
criminal he would have been rounded up years ago. It’s his audacity,
his iron nerve, his good horse-sense judgment that saves his skin. But
he’s certainly up against it at last.”

“You think Sheriff Forbes will capture him?”

He laughed. “I think it more likely he’ll capture Forbes. But we know
now where he hangs out, and who he is. He has always been a mystery
till now. The mystery is solved, and unless he strikes out for Sonora,
Leroy is as good as a dead man.”

“A dead man?”

“Does he strike you as a man likely to be taken alive? I look to see a
dramatic exit to the sound of cracking Winchesters.”

“Yes, that would be like him,” she confessed with shudder. “I think he
was made to lead a forlorn hope. Pity it won’t be one worthy of the
best in him.”

“I guess he does have more moments set to music than most of us, and
I’ll bet, too, he has hidden way in him a list of ‘Thou shalt nots.’ I
read a book once by a man named Stevenson that was sure virgin gold. He
showed how every man, no matter how low he falls, has somewhere in him
a light that burns, some rag of honor for which he is still fighting
I’d hate to have to judge Leroy. Some men, I reckon, have to buck
against so much in themselves that even failure is a kind of success
for them.”

“Yet you will go out to hunt him down?” she’ said, marveling at the
broad sympathy of the man.

“Sure I will. My official duty is to look out for society. If something
in the machine breaks loose and goes to ripping things to pieces, the
engineer has to stop the damage, even if he has to smash the rod that’s
causing the trouble.”

The ponies dropped down again into the bed of the wash, and plowed
across through the heavy sand. After they had reached the solid road,
Collins resumed conversation at a new point.

“It’s a month and a day since I first met you Miss Mackenzie,” he said,
apparently apropos of nothing.

She felt her blood begin to choke. “Indeed!”

“I gave you a letter to read when I was on the train.”

“A letter!” she exclaimed, in well-affected surprise.

“Did you think it was a book of poems? No, ma’am, it was a letter. You
were to read it in a month. Time was up last night. I reckon you read
it.”

“Could I read a letter I left at Tucson, when it was a hundred miles
away?” she smiled with sweet patronage.

“Not if you left it at Tucson,” he assented, with an answering smile.

“Maybe I _did_ lose it.” She frowned, trying to remember.

“Then I’ll have to tell you what was in it.”

“Any time will do. I dare say it wasn’t important.”

“Then we’ll say _this_ time.”

“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Collins. I want to talk about our desert Villon.”

“I said in that letter—”

She put her pony to a canter, and they galloped side by side in silence
for half a mile. After she had slowed down to a walk, he continued
placidly, as if oblivious of an interruption:

“I said in that letter that I had just met the young lady I was
expecting to marry.”

“Dear me, how interesting! Was she in the smoker?”

“No, she was in Section 3 of the Pullman.”

“I wish I had happened to go into the other Pullman, but, of course, I
couldn’t know the young lady you were interested in was riding there.”

“She wasn’t.”

“But you’ve just told me—”

“That I said in the letter you took so much trouble to lose that I
expected to marry the young woman passing under the name of Miss
Wainwright.”

“Sir!”

“That I expected—”

“Really, I am not deaf, Mr. Collins.”

“—expected to marry her, just as soon as she was willing.”

“Oh, she is to be given a voice in the matter, is she?”

“Ce’tainly, ma’am.”

“And when?”

“Well, I had been thinking now was a right good time.”

“It can’t be too soon for me,” she flashed back, sweeping him with
proud, indignant eyes.

“But I ain’t so sure. I rather think I’d better wait.”

“No, no! Let us have it done with once and for all.”

He relapsed into a serene, abstracted silence.

“Aren’t you going to speak?” she flamed.

“I’ve decided to wait.”

“Well, _I_ haven’t. Ask me this minute, sir, to marry you.”

“Ce’tainly, if you cayn’t wait. Miss Mackenzie, will you—”

“No, sir, I won’t—not if you were the last man on earth,” she
interrupted hotly, whipping herself into a genuine rage. “I never was
so insulted in my life. It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so—so
outrageous. You _expect_, do you? And it isn’t conceit, but a
deep-seated certainty you can’t get away from.”

He had her fairly. “Then you _did_ read the letter.”

“Yes, sir, I read it—and for sheer, unmatched impudence I have never
seen its like.”

“Now, I wish you would tell me what you _really_ think,” he drawled.

Not being able, for reasons equestrian, to stamp her foot, she gave her
bronco the spur.

When Collins again found conversation practicable, the Rocking Chair, a
white adobe huddle in the moonlight, lay peacefully beneath them in the
alley.

“It’s a right quaint old ranch, and it’s seen a heap of
rough-and-tumble life in its day. If those old adobe bricks could tell
stories, I expect they could put some of these romances out of
business.” Miss Mackenzie’s covert glance questioned suspiciously what
this diversion might mean.

“All this country’s interesting. Take Tucson now that burg is loaded to
the roofs with live stories. It’s an all-right business town, too—the
best in the territory,” he continued patriotically. “She ain’t so great
as Douglas on ore or as Phoenix on lungers, but when it comes, to the
git-up-and-git hustle, she’s there rounding up the trade from early
morn till dine.”

He was still expatiating in a monologue with grave enthusiasm on the
town of his choice, when they came to the pasture fence of the ranch.

“Some folks don’t like it—call it adobe-town, and say it’s full of
greasers. Everybody to his taste, I say. Little old Tucson is good
enough for me.”

She gave a queer little laugh as he talked. She had put a taboo on his
love story herself, but she resented the perfectly unmoved good humor
with which he seemed to be accepting her verdict. She made up her mind
to punish him, but he gave her no chance. As he helped her to dismount,
he said:

“I’ll take the horses round to the stable, Miss Mackenzie. Probably I
won’t see you again before I leave, but I’m hoping to meet you again in
Tucson one of these days. Good-by.”

She nodded a curt good-by and passed into the house. She was vexed and
indignant, but had too strong a sense of humor not to enjoy a joke even
when it was against herself.

“I forgot to ask him whether he loves me or Tucson more, and as one of
the subjects seems to be closed I’ll probably never find out,” she told
herself, but with a queer little tug of pain in her laughter.

Next moment she was in the arms of her father.




CHAPTER XX.
BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY


To minimize the risk, Megales and Carlo left the prison by the secret
passage, following the fork to the river bank and digging at the
piled-up sand till they had forced an exit. O’Halloran met them here
with horses, and the three men followed the riverwash beyond the limits
of the town and cut across by a trail to a siding on the Central
Mexican Pacific tracks. The Irishman was careful to take no chances,
and kept his party in the mesquit till the headlight of an approaching
train was visible.

It drew up at the siding, and the three men boarded one of the two cars
which composed it. The coach next the engine was occupied by a dozen
trusted soldiers, who had formerly belonged to the bodyguard of
Megales. The last car was a private one, and in it the three found
Henderson, Bucky O’Connor, and his little friend, the latter still
garbed as a boy.

Frances was exceedingly eager to don again the clothes proper to her
sex, and she had promised herself that, once habited as she desired,
nothing could induce her ever to masquerade again. Until she met and
fell in love with the ranger she had thought nothing of it, since it
had been merely a matter of professional business to which she had been
forced. Indeed, she had sometimes enjoyed the humor of the deception.
It had lent a spice o enjoyment to a life not crowded with it. But
after she met Bucky there had grown up in her a new sensitiveness. She
wanted to be womanly, to forget her turbid past and the shifts to which
she had sometimes been put. She had been a child; she was now a woman.
She wanted to be one of whom he need be in no way ashamed.

When their train began to pull out of the depot at Chihuahua she drew a
deep sigh of relief.

“It’s good to get away from here back to the States. I’m tired of plots
and counterplots. For the rest of my life I want to be just a woman,”
she said to Bucky.

The young man smiled. “I reckon I must quit trying to make you a
gentleman. Fact is, I don’t want you to be one any more.”

She slanted a look at him to see what that might mean and another up
the car to make sure that Henderson was out of hearing.

“It was rather hopeless, wasn’t it?” she smiled. “We’ll do pretty well
if we succeed in making me a lady in course of time. I’ve a lot to
learn, you know.”

“Well, you got lots of time to learn it,” he replied cheerfully. “And
I’ve got a notion tucked away in the back of my haid that you haven’t
got such a heap to study up. Mrs. Mackenzie will put you next to the
etiquette wrinkles where you are shy.”

A shadow fell on the piquant, eager face beside him. “Do you think she
will love me?”

“I don’t think. I know. She can’t help it.”

“Because she is my mother? Oh, I hope that is true.”

“No, not only because she is your mother.”

She decided to ask for no more reasons. Henderson, pleased at the wide
stretch of plain as only one who had missed the open air for many years
could be, was on the observation platform in the rear of the car, one
glance at his empty seat showed her. There was no safety for her
shyness in the presence of that proverbial three which makes a crowd,
and she began to feel her heart again in panic as once before. She took
at once the opening she had given.

“I do need a mother so much, after growing up like Topsy all these
years. And mine is the dearest woman in the world. I fell in love with
her before, and I did not know who she was when I was at the ranch.”

“I’ll agree to the second dearest in the world, but I reckon you shoot
too high when you say the plumb dearest.”

“She is. We’ll quarrel if you don’t agree,” trying desperately to
divert him from the topic she knew he meant to pursue. For in the past
two days he had been so busy helping O’Halloran that he had not even
had a glimpse of her. As a consequence of which each felt half-dubious
of the other’s love, and Frances felt wholly shy about expressing her
own or even listening to his.

“Well, we’re due for a quarrel, I reckon. But we’ll postpone it till we
got more time to give it.” He drew a watch from his pocket and glanced
at it “In less than fifteen minutes Mike and our two friends who are
making their getaway will come in that door Henderson just went out of.
That means we won’t get a chance to be alone together, for about two
days. I’ve got something to say to you, Curly Haid, that won’t keep
that long with out running my temperature clear up. So I’m allowing to
say it right now immediate. No, you don’t need to turn them brown
appealers on me. It won’t do a mite of good. It’s Bucky to the bat and
he’s bound to make a hit or strike out.”

“I think I hear Mr. Henderson coming,” murmured Frances, for lack of
something more effective to say.

“Not him. He’s hogtied to the scenery long enough to do my business.
Now, it won’t take me long if I get off right foot first. You read my
letter, you said?”

“Which letter?” She was examining attentively the fringe of the sash
she wore.

“Why, honey, that love-letter I wrote you. If there was more than one
it must have been wrote in my sleep, for I ce’tainly disremember it.”

He could just hear her confused answer: “Oh, yes, I read that. I told
you that before.”

“What did you think? Tell me again.”

“I thought you misspelled feelings.”

“You don’t say. Now, ain’t that too bad? But, girl o’ mine, I expect
you were able to make it out, even if I did get the letters to milling
around wrong. I meant them feelings all right. Outside of the spelling,
did you have any objections to them,

“How can I remember what you wrote in that letter several days ago?”

“I’ll bet you know it by heart, honey, and, if you don’t, you’ll find
it in your inside vest pocket, tucked away right close to your heart.”

“It isn’t,” she denied, with a blush.

“Sho! Pinned to your shirt then, little pardner. I ain’t particular
which. Point is, if you need to refresh that ailin’ memory of yours,
the document is—right handy. But you don’t need to. It just says one
little sentence over and over again. All you have got to do is to say
one little word, and you don’t have to say it but once.”

“I don’t understand you,” her lips voiced.

“You understand me all right. What my letter said was ‘I love you,’ and
what you have got to say is: ‘Yes’.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll make out the meaning when you say it.”

“Do I have to say it?”

“You have to if you feel it.”

Slowly the big brown eyes came up to meet his bravely. “Yes, Bucky.”

He caught her hands and looked down into her pure, sweet soul.

“I’m in luck,” he breathed deeply. “In golden luck to have you look at
me twice. Are you sure?”

“Sure. I loved you that first day I met you. I’ve loved you every day
since,” she confessed simply.

Full on the lips he kissed her.

“Then we’ll be married as soon as we reach the Rocking Chair.”

“But you once said you didn’t want to be my husband,” she taunted
sweetly. “Don’t you remember? In the days when we were gipsies.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I want to, and I’m in a hurry.”

She shook her head. “No, dear. We shall have to wait. It wouldn’t be
fair to my mother to lose me just as soon as she finds me. It is her
right to get acquainted with me just as if I belonged to her alone. You
understand what I mean, Bucky. She must not feel as if she never had
found me, as if she never had been first with me. We can love each
other more simply if she doesn’t know about you. We’ll have it for a
secret for a month or two.”

She put her little hand on his arm appealingly to win his consent. His
eyes rested on it curiously, Then he took it in his big brown one and
turned it palm up. Its delicacy and perfect finish moved him, for it
seemed to him that in the contrast between the two hands he saw in
miniature the difference of sex. His showed strength and competency and
the roughness that comes of the struggle of life. But hers was
strangely tender and confiding, compact of the qualities that go to
make up the strength of the weak. Surely he deserved the worst if he
was not good to her, a shield and buckler against the storms that must
beat against them in the great adventure they were soon to begin
together.

Reverently he raised the little hand and kissed its palm.

“Sure, sweetheart I had forgotten about your mother’s claim. We can
wait, I reckon,” he added with a smile. “You must always set me
straight when I lose the trail of what’s right, Curly Haid. You are to
be a guiding-star to me.”

“And you to me. Oh, Bucky, isn’t it good?”

He kissed her again hurriedly, for the train was jarring to a halt.
Before he could answer in words, O’Halloran burst into the coach, at
the head of his little company.

“All serene, Bucky. This is the last scene, and the show went without a
hitch in the performance anywhere.”

Bucky smiled at Frances as he answered his enthusiastic friend:

“That’s right. Not a hitch anywhere.”

“And say, Bucky, who do you think is in the other coach dressed as one
of the guards?”

“Colonel Roosevelt,” the ranger guessed promptly.

“Our friend Chaves. He’s escaping because he thinks we’ll have him
assassinated in revenge,” the big Irishman returned gleefully. “You
should have seen his color, me bye, when he caught sight of me. I asked
him if he’d been reduced to the ranks, and he begged me not to tell you
he was here. Go in and devil him.”

Bucky glanced at his lover. “No, I’m so plumb contented I haven’t the
heart.”


At the Rocking Chair Ranch there was bustle and excitement. Mexicans
scrubbed and scoured under the direction of Alice and Mrs. Mackenzie,
and vaqueros rode hither and thither on bootless errands devised by
their nervous master. For late that morning a telephone call from
Aravaipa had brought Webb to the receiver to listen to a telegram. The
message was from Bucky, then on the train on his way home.

“The best of news. Reach the Rocking Chair tonight.”

That was the message which had disturbed the serenity of big Webb
Mackenzie and had given to the motherly heart of his wife an unusual
flutter. The best of news it could not be, for the ranger had already
written them of the confession of Anderson, which included the
statement of the death of their little daughter. But at least he might
bring the next best news, information that David Henderson was free at
last and his long martyrdom ended.

So all day hurried preparations were being made to receive the honored
guests with a fitting welcome. The Rocking Chair was a big ranch, and
its hospitality was famous all over the Southwest. It was quite
unnecessary to make special efforts to entertain, but Webb and his wife
took that means of relieving the strain on them till night.

Higher crept the hot sun of baked Arizona. It passed the zenith and
began to descend toward the purple hills in the west, went behind them
with a great rainbow splash of brilliancy peculiar to that country.
Dusk came, and died away in the midst of a love-concert of quails.
Velvet night, with its myriad stars, entranced the land and made magic
of its hills and valleys.

For the fiftieth time Webb dragged out his watch and consulted it.

“I wish that young man had let us know which way he was coming, so I
could go and meet them. If they come by the river they should be in the
Box canyon by this time. But if I was to ride out, like as not they
would come by the mesa,” he sputtered.

“What time is it, Webb?” asked his wife, scarcely less excited.

He had to look again, so absent-minded had been his last glance at the
watch. “Nine-fifteen. Why didn’t I telephone to Rogers and ask him to
find out which way they were coming? Sometimes I’m mighty
thick-headed.”

As Mackenzie had guessed, the party was winding its way through the Box
Canyon at that time of speaking. Bucky and Frances led the way,
followed by Henderson and the vaquero whom Mackenzie had telephoned to
guide them from Aravaipa.

“I reckon this night was made for us, Curly Haid. Even good old Arizona
never turned out such a one before. I expect it was ordered for us ever
since it was decided we belonged to each other. That may have been
thousands of years ago.” Bucky laughed, to relieve the tension, and
looked up at the milky way above. “We’re like those stars, honey. All
our lives we have been drifting around, but all the time it had been
decided by the God-of-things-as-they-are that our orbits were going to
run together and gravitate into the same one when the right time came.
It has come now.”

“Yes, Bucky,” she answered softly. “We belong, dear.”

“Hello, here’s the end of the cañon. The ranch lies right behind that
spur.”

“Does it?” Presently she added: “I’m all a-tremble, Bucky. To think I’m
going to meet my father and my mother for the first time really, for I
don’t count that other time when we didn’t know. Suppose they shouldn’t
like me.”

“Impossible. Suppose something reasonable,” her lover replied.

“But they might not. You think, you silly boy, that because you do
everybody must. But I’m so glad I’m clothed and in my right mind again.
I couldn’t have borne to meet my mother with that boys suit on. Do you
think I look nice in this? I had to take what I could find ready-made,
you know.”

Unless his eyes were blinded by the glamour of love, he saw the
sweetest vision of loveliness he had known. Such a surpassing miracle
of soft, dainty curves, such surplusage of beauty in bare throat,
speaking eye, sweet mouth, and dimpled cheeks! But Bucky was a lover,
and perhaps no fair judge, for in that touch of vagueness, of
fairy-land, lent by the moonlight, he found the world almost too
beautiful to believe. Did she look _nice?_ How beggarly words were to
express feelings, after all.

The vaquero with them rode forward and pointed to the valley below,
where the ranch-house huddled in a pellucid sea of moonlight.

“That’s the Rocking Chair, sir.”

Presently there came a shout from the ranch, and a man galloped toward
them. He passed Bucky with a wave of his hand and made directly for
Henderson.

“Dave! Dave, old partner,” he cried, leaping from his horse and
catching the other’s hand. “After all these years you’ve risen from the
dead and come back to me.” His voice was broken with emotion.

“Come! Let’s canter forward to the ranch,” said Bucky to Frances and
the vaquero, thinking it best to leave the two old comrades together
for a while.

Mrs. Mackenzie and Alice met them at the gate. “Did you bring him? Did
you bring Dave?” the older lady asked eagerly.

“Yes, we brought him,” answered Bucky, helping Frances to dismount.

He led the girl to her mother. “Mrs. Mackenzie, can you stand good
news?”

She caught at the gate. “What news? Who is this lady?”

“Her name is Frances.”

“Frances what?”

“Frances Mackenzie. She is your daughter, returned, after all these
years, to love and be loved.”

The mother gave a little throat cry, steadied herself, and fell into
the arms of her daughter. “Oh, my baby! My baby! Found at last.”

Quietly Bucky slipped away to the stables with the ponies. As quietly
Alice disappeared into the house. This was sacred ground, and not even
their feet should rest on it just now.

When Bucky returned to the house, he found his sweetheart sitting
between her father and mother, each of whom was holding one of her
hands. Henderson had retired to clean himself up. Happy tears were
coursing down the cheeks of the mother, and Webb found it necessary to
blow his nose frequently. He jumped up at sight of the ranger.

“Young man, you’re to blame for this. You’ve found my friend and you’ve
found my daughter. Brought them both back to us on the same day. What
do you want? Name it, and it’s yours, if I can give it.”

Bucky looked at Frances with a smile in his eyes. He knew very well
what he wanted, but he was under bonds not to name it yet.

“I’ll set you up in the cattle business, sir. I’ll buy you sheep, if
you prefer. I’ll get you an interest in a mine. Put a name to what you
want.”

“I’m no robber. You paid the expenses of my trip. That’s all I want
right now.”

“It’s not all you’ll get. Do you think I’m a cheap piker? No, sir.
You’ve got to let me grub-stake you.” Mackenzie thumped a clinched fist
down on the table.

“All right, seh. You’re the doctor. Give me an interest in that map and
I’ll prospect the mine this summer, if I can locate it.”

“Good enough, and I’ll finance the proposition. You and Dave can take
half-shares in the property. In the meantime, are you open to an
engagement?”

“Depends what it is,” replied Bucky cautiously.

“My foreman’s quit on me. Gone into business for himself. I’m looking
for a good man. Will you be my major-domo?”

Bucky’s heart leaped. He had been thinking of how he must report almost
immediately to HurryUp Millikan, of the rangers. Now, he could resign
from that body and stay near his love. Certainly things were coming his
way.

“I’d like to try it, seh,” he answered. “I may not make good, but I
sure would like to have a chance at it.”

“Make good! Of course you’ll make good. You’re the best man in Arizona,
sir,” cried Webb extravagantly. He wheeled on his new-found daughter.
“Don’t you think so, Frankie?”

Frances blushed, but answered bravely: “Yes, sir. He makes everything
right when he takes hold of it.”

“Good. We’re not going to let him get away from us after making us so
happy, are we, mother? This young man is going to stay right here. We
never had but one son, and we are going to treat him as much like one
as we can. Eh, mother?”

“If he will consent, Webb.” She went up to the ranger and kissed his
tanned cheek. “You must pardon an old woman whom you’ve made very
happy.”

Again Bucky’s laughing blue eyes met the brown ones of his sweetheart.

“Oh, I’ll consent, all right, and I reckon, ma’am, it’s mighty good of
you to treat me so white. I’ll sure try to please you.”

Webb thumped him on the back. “Now, you’re shouting. We want you to be
one of us, young man.”

Once more that happy, wireless message of eyes followed by O’Connor’s
assent. “That’s what I want myself, seh.”

Bucky found a surprise waiting for him at the stables. A heavy hand
descended upon his shoulder. He whirled, and looked up into the face of
Sheriff Collins.

“You here, Val?” he cried in surprise.

“That’s what. Any luck, Bucky?”

They went out and sat down on the big rocks back of the corral. Here
each told the other his story, with certain reservations. Collins had
just got back from Epitaph, where he had been to get the fragments of
paper which told the secret of the buried treasure. He was expecting to
set out in the early morning to meet Leroy.

“I’ll go with you,” said Bucky immediately.

Val shook his head. “No, I’m to go alone. That’s the agreement.”

“Of course if that’s the agreement.” Nevertheless, the ranger formed a
private intention not to be far from the scene of action.




CHAPTER XXI.
THE WOLF PACK


“Good evening, gentlemen. Hope I don’t intrude on the festivities.”

Leroy smiled down ironically on the four flushed, startled faces that
looked up at him. Suspicion was alive in every rustle of the men’s
clothes. It breathed from the lowering countenances. It itched at the
fingers longing for the trigger. The unending terror of a bandit’s life
is that no man trusts his fellow. Hence one betrays another for fear of
betrayal, or stabs him in the back to avoid it.

The outlaw chief had slipped into the room so silently that the first
inkling they had of his presence was that gentle, insulting voice. Now,
as he lounged easily before them, leg thrown over the back of a chair
and thumbs sagging from his trouser pockets, they looked the picture of
schoolboys caught by their master in a conspiracy. How long had he been
there? How much had he heard? Full of suspicion and bad whisky as they
were, his confident contempt still cowed the very men who were planning
his destruction. A minute before they had been full of loud threats and
boastings; now they could only search each other’s faces sullenly for a
cue.

“Celebrating Chaves’ return from manana land, I reckon. That’s the
proper ticket. I wonder if we couldn’t afford to kill another of
Collins’ fatted calves.”

Mr. Hardman, not enjoying the derisive raillery, took a hand in the
game. “I expect the boys hadn’t better touch the sheriff’s calves, now
you and him are so thick.”

“We’re thick, are we?” Leroy’s indolent eyes narrowed slightly as they
rested on him.

“Ain’t you? It sure seemed that way to me when I looked out of that
mesquit wash just above Eldorado Springs and seen you and him eating
together like brothers and laughing to beat the band. You was so clost
to him I couldn’t draw a bead on him without risking its hitting you.”

“Spying, eh?”

“If that’s the word you want to use, cap. And you were enjoying
yourselves proper.”

“Laughing, were we? That must have been when he told me how funny you
looked in the ‘altogether’ shedding false teeth and information about
hidden treasure.”

“Told you that, did he?” Mr. Hardman incontinently dropped repartee as
a weapon too subtle, and fell back on profanity.

“That’s right pat to the minute, cap, what you say about the
information he leaks,” put in Neil. “How about that information? I’ll
be plumb tickled to death to know you’re carrying it in you vest
pocket.”

“And if I’m not?”

“Then ye are a bigger fool than I had expected sorr, to come back here
at all,” said the Irishman truculently.

“I begin to think so myself, Mr. Reilly. Why keep faith with a set of
swine like you?”

“Are you giving it to us that you haven’t got those papers?”

Leroy nodded, watching them with steady, alert eyes. He knew he stood
on the edge of a volcano that might explode at any moment.

“What did I tell yez?” Reilly turned savagely to the other disaffected
members of the gang. “Didn’t I tell yez he was selling us out?”

Somehow Leroy’s revolver seemed to jump to his hand without a motion on
his part. It lay loosely in his limp fingers, unaimed and undirected.

“_Say that again, please_.”

Beneath the velvet of Leroy’s voice ran a note more deadly than any
threat could have been. It rang a bell for a silence in which the clock
of death seemed to tick. But as the seconds fled Reilly’s courage oozed
away. He dared not accept the invitation to reach for his weapon and
try conclusions with this debonair young daredevil. He mumbled a
retraction, and flung, with a curse, out of the room.

Leroy slipped the revolver back in his holster and quoted, with a
laugh:

“To every coward safety,
And afterward his evil hour.”


“What’s that?” demanded Neil. “I ain’t no coward, even if Jay is. I
don’t knuckle under to any man. You got a right to ante up with some
information. I want to know why you ain’t got them papers you promised
to bring back with you.”

“And I, too, señor. I desire to know what it means,” added Chaves, his
eyes glittering.

“That’s the way to chirp, gentlemen. I haven’t got them because Forbes
blundered on us, and I had to take a _pasear_ awful sudden. But I made
an appointment to meet Collins to-morrow.”

“And you think he’ll keep it?” scoffed Neil.

“I know he will.”

“You seem to know a heap about him,” was the significant retort.

“Take care, York.”

“I’m not Hardman, cap. I say what I think.

“And you think?” suggested Leroy gently.

“I don’t know what to think yet. You’re either a fool or a traitor. I
ain’t quite made up my mind. When I find out you’ll ce’tainly hear from
me straight. Come on, boys.” And Neil vanished through the door.

An hour later there came a knock at Leroy’s door. Neil answered his
permission to enter, followed by the other trio of flushed beauties. To
the outlaw chief it was at once apparent with what Dutch courage they
had been fortifying themselves to some resolve. It was characteristic
of him, though he knew on how precarious a thread his life was hanging,
that disgust at the foul breaths with which they were polluting the
atmosphere was his first dominant emotion.

“I wish, Lieutenant Chaves, next time you emigrate you’d bring another
brand of poison out to the boys. I can’t go this stuff. Just remember
that, will you?”

The outlaw chief’s hard eye ran over the rebels and read them like a
primer. They had come to depose him certainly, to kill him perhaps.
Though this last he doubted. It wouldn’t be like Neil to plan his
murder, and it wouldn’t be like the others to give him warning and meet
him in the open. Warily he stood behind the table, watching their
awkward embarrassment with easy assurance. Carefully he placed face
downward on the table the Villon he had been reading, but he did it
without lifting his eyes from them.

“You have business with me, I presume.”

“That’s what we have,” cried Reilly valiantly, from the rear.

“Then suppose we come to it and get the room aired as soon as
possible,” Leroy said tartly.

“You’re such a slap-up dude you’d ought to be a hotel clerk, cap.
You’re sure wasted out here. So we boys got together and held a little
election. Consequence is, we—fact is, we—”

Neil stuck, but Reilly came to his rescue.

“We elected York captain of this outfit.”

“To fill the vacancy created by my resignation. Poor York! You’re the
sacrifice, are you? On the whole, I think you fellows have made a wise
choice. York’s game, and he won’t squeal on you, which is more than I
could say of Reilly, or the play actor, or the gentlemen from
Chihuahua. But you want to watch out for a knife in the dark, York.
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ you know.”

“We didn’t come here to listen to a speech, cap, but to notify you we
was dissatisfied, and wouldn’t have you run the outfit any longer,”
explained Neil.

“In that event, having heard the report of the committee, if there’s no
further new business, I declare this meeting adjourned _sine die_.
Kindly remove the perfume tubs, Captain Neil, at your earliest
convenience.”

The quartette retreated ignominiously. They had come prepared to gloat
over Leroy’s discomfiture, and he had mocked them with that insolent
ease of his that set their teeth in helpless rage.

But the deposed chief knew they had not struck their last blow.
Throughout the night he could hear the low-voiced murmur of their
plottings, and he knew that if the liquor held out long enough there
would be sudden death at Hidden Valley before twenty-four hours were
up. He looked carefully to his rifle and his revolvers, testing several
shells to make sure they had not been tampered with in his absence.
After he had made all necessary preparations, he drew the blinds of his
window and moved his easy-chair from its customary place beside the
fire. Also he was careful not to sit where any shadow would betray his
position. Then back he went to his Villon, a revolver lying on the
table within reach.

But the night passed without mishap, and with morning he ventured forth
to his meeting with the sheriff. He might have slipped out from the
back door of his cabin and gained the canyon, by circling unobserved,
up the draw and over the hogback, but he would not show by these
precautions any fear of the cutthroats with whom he had to deal. As was
his scrupulous custom, he shaved and took his morning bath before
appearing outdoors. In all Arizona no trimmer, more graceful figure of
jaunty recklessness could be seen than this one stepping lightly forth
to knock at the bunk-house door behind which he suspected were at least
two men determined on his death by treachery.

Neil came to the door in answer to his knock and within he could see
the villainous faces at bloodshot eyes of two of the others peering at
him.

“Good mo’ning, Captain Neil. I’m on my way to keep that appointment I
mentioned last night I’d ce’tainly be glad to have you go along.
Nothing like being on the spot to prevent double-crossing.”

“I’m with you in the fling of a cow’s tail. Come on, boys.”

“I think not. You and I will go alone.”

“Just as you say. Reilly, I guess you better saddle Two-step and the
Lazy B roan.”

“I ain’t saddling ponies for Mr. Leroy,” returned Reilly, with thick
defiance.

Neil was across the room in two strides. “When I tell you to do a
thing, jump! Get a move on and saddle those broncs.”

“I don’t know as—”

“_Vamos!_”

Reilly sullenly slouched out.

“I see you made them jump,” commented the former captain audibly,
seating himself comfortably on a rock. “It’s the only way you’ll get
along with them. See that they come to time or pump lead into them.
You’ll find there’s no middle way.”

Neil and Leroy had hardly passed beyond the rock-slide before the
others, suspicion awake in their sodden brains, dodged after them on
foot. For three miles they followed the broncos as the latter picked
their way up the steep trail that led to the Dalriada Mine.

“If Mr. Collins is here, he’s lying almighty low,” exclaimed Neil, as
he swung from his pony at the foot of the bluff from the brow of which
the gray dump of the mine straggled down like a Titan’s beard.

“Right you are, Mr. Neil.”

York whirled, revolver in hand, but the man who had risen from behind
the big boulder beside the trail was resting both hands on the rock
before him.

“You’re alone, are you?” demanded York.

“I am.”

Neil’s revolver slid back into its holster. “Mornin’, Val. What’s new
down at Tucson?” he said amiably.

“I understood I was to meet you alone, Mr. Leroy,” said the sheriff
quickly, his blue-gray eyes on the former chief.

“That was the agreement, Mr. Collins, but it seems the boys are on the
anxious seat about these little socials of ours. They’ve embraced the
notion that I’m selling them. I hated to have them harassed with
doubts, so I invited the new majordomo of the ranch to come with me. Of
cou’se, if you object—”

“I don’t object in the least, but I want him to understand the
agreement. I’ve got a posse waiting at Eldorado Springs, and as soon as
I get back there we take the trail after you. Bucky O’Connor is at the
head of the posse.”

York grinned. “We’ll be in Sonora then, Val. Think I’m going to wait
and let you shoot off my other fingers?”

Collins fished from his vest pocket the papers he had taken from
Scotty’s hat and from Webster. “I think I’ll be jogging along back to
the springs. I reckon these are what you want.”

Leroy took them from him and handed them to Neil. “Don’t let us detain
you any longer, Mr. Collins. I know you’re awful busy these days.”

The sheriff nodded a good day, cut down the hill on the slant, and
disappeared in a mesquit thicket, from the other side of which he
presently emerged astride a bay horse.

The two outlaws retraced their way to the foot of the hill and
remounted their broncos.

“I want to say, cap, that I’m eating humble-pie in big chunks right
this minute,” said Neil shamefacedly, scratching his curly poll and
looking apologetically at his former chief. “I might ’a’ knowed you was
straight as a string, all I’ve seen of you these last two years. If
those coyotes say another word, cap—”

An exploding echo seemed to shake the mountain, and then another. Leroy
swayed in the saddle, clutching at his side. He pitched forward, his
arms round the horse’s neck, and slid slowly to the ground.

Neil was off his horse in an instant, kneeling beside him. He lifted
him in his arms and carried him behind a great outcropping boulder.

“It’s that hound Collins,” he muttered, as he propped the wounded man’s
head on his arm. “By God, I didn’t think it of Val.”

Leroy opened his eyes and smiled faintly. “Guess again, York.”

“You don’t mean—”

He nodded. “Right this time—Hardman and Chaves and Reilly. They shot to
get us both. With us out of the way they could divide the treasure
between them.”

Neil choked. “You ain’t bad hurt, old man. Say you ain’t bad hurt,
Phil.”

“More than I can carry, York; shot through and through. I’ve been
doubtful of Reilly for a long time.”

“By the Lord, if I don’t get the rattlesnake for this!” swore Neil
between his teeth. “Ain’t there nothin’ I can do for you, old pardner?”

In sharp succession four shots rang out. Neil grasped his rifle,
leaning forward and crouching for cover. He turned a puzzled face
toward Leroy. “I don’t savvy. They ain’t shooting at us.”

“The sheriff,” explained Leroy. “They forgot him, and he doubled back
on them.”

“I’ll bet Val got one of them,” cried Neil, his face lighting.

“He’s got one—or he’s quit living. That’s a sure thing. Why don’t you
circle up on them from behind, York?”

“I hate to leave you, cap—and you so bad. Can’t I do a thing for you?”

Leroy smiled faintly. “Not a thing. I’ll be right here when you get
back, York.”

The curly-headed young puncher took Leroy’s hand in his, gulping down a
boyish sob. “I ain’t been square with you, cap. I reckon after
this—when you git well—I’ll not be such a coyote any more.”

The dying man’s eyes were lit with a beautiful tenderness. “There’s one
thing you can do for me, York.... I’m out of the game, but I want you
to make a new start.... I got you into this life, boy. Quit it, and
live straight. There’s nothing to it, York.”

The cowboy-bandit choked. “Don’t you worry about me, cap. I’m all
right. I’d just as lief quit this deviltry, anyhow.”

“I want you to promise, boy.” A whimsical, half-cynical smile touched
Leroy’s eyes. “You see, after living like a devil for thirty years, I
want to die like a Christian. Now, go, York.”

After Neil had left him, Leroy’s eyes closed. Faintly he heard two more
shots echoing down the valley, but the meaning of them was already lost
to his wandering mind.

Neil dodged rapidly round the foot of the mountain with intent to cut
off the bandits as they retreated. He found the sheriff crouching
behind a rock scarce two hundred yards from the scene of the murder. At
the same moment another shot echoed from well over to the left.

“Who can that be?” Neil asked, very much puzzled.

“That’s what’s worrying me, York,” the sheriff returned.

Together they zigzagged up the side of the mountain. Twice from above
there came sounds of rifle shots. Neil was the first to strike the
trail to the mine. None too soon for as he stepped upon it, breathing
heavily from his climb, Reilly swung round a curve and whipped his
weapon to his shoulder. The man fired before York could interfere and
stood watching tensely the result of his shot. He was silhouetted
against the skyline, a beautiful mark, but Neil did not cover him.
Instead, he spoke quietly to the other.

“Was it you that killed Phil, Reilly?”

The man whirled and saw Neil for the first time. His answer was
instant. Flinging up his rifle, he pumped a shot at York.

Neil’s retort came in a flash. Reilly clutched at his heart and toppled
backward from the precipice upon which he stood. Collins joined the
cowpuncher and together they stepped forward to the point from which
Reilly had plunged down two hundred feet to the jagged rocks below.

At the curve they came face to face with Bucky O’Connor. Three weapons
went up quicker than the beating of an eyelash. More slowly each went
down again.

“What are you doing here, Bucky?” the sheriff asked.

“Just pirootin’ around, Val. It occurred to me Leroy might not mean to
play fair with you, so I kinder invited myself to the party. When I
heard shooting I thought it was you they had bushwhacked, so I sat in
to the game.”

“You guessed wrong, Bucky. Reilly and the others rounded on Leroy.
While they were at it they figured to make a clean job and bump off
York, too. From what York says Leroy has got his.”

The ranger turned a jade eye on the outlaw. “Has Mr. Neil turned honest
man, Val? Taken him into your posse, have you?” he asked, with an edge
of irony in his voice.

The sheriff laid a hand on the shoulder of the man who had been his
friend before he turned miscreant.

“Don’t you worry about Neil, Bucky,” he advised gently. “It was York
shot Reilly, after York had cut loose at him, and I shouldn’t wonder if
that didn’t save your life. Neil has got to stand the gaff for what
he’s done, but I’ll pull wires to get his punishment made light.”

“Killed Reilly, did he?” repeated O’Connor. “I got Anderson back
there.”

“That makes only one left to account for. I wonder who he is?” Collins
turned absent-mindedly to Neil. The latter looked at him out of an
expressionless face. Even though his confederate had proved traitor he
would not betray him.

“I wonder,” he said.

Bucky laughed. “Made a mistake that time, Val.”

“I plumb forgot the situation for a moment,” the sheriff grinned.
“Anyhow, we better be hittin’ his trail.”

“How about Phil?” Neil suggested.

“That’s right. One of us has ce’tainly got to go back and attend to
him.”

“You and Neil go back. I’ll follow up this gentleman who is escaping,”
the ranger said.

And so it was arranged. The two men returned from their grim work of
justice to the place where the outlaw chief had been left. His eyes lit
feebly at sight of them.

“What news, York?” he asked.

“Reilly and Hardman are killed. How are you feelin’, cap?” The
cow-puncher knelt beside the dying outlaw and put an arm under his
head.

“Shot all to pieces, boy. No, I got no time to have you play doctor
with me.” He turned to Collins with a gleam of his unconquerable
spirit. “You came pretty near making a clean round-up, sheriff. I’m the
fourth to be put out of business. You’d ought to be content with that.
Let York here go.”

“I can’t do that, but I’ll do my best to see he gets off light.”

“I got him into this, sheriff. He was all right before he knew me. I
want him to get a chance now.”

“I wish I could give him a pardon, but I can’t do it. I’ll see the
governor for him though.”

The wounded man spoke to Collins alone for a few minutes, then began to
wander in his mind He babbled feebly of childhood days back in his
Kentucky home. The word most often on his lips was “Mother.” So, with
his head resting on Neil’s arm and his hand in that of his friend, he
slipped away to the Great Beyond.




CHAPTER XXII.
FOR A GOOD REASON


The young ladies, following the custom of Arizona in summer, were
riding by the light of the stars to avoid the heat of the day. They
rode leisurely, chatting as their ponies paced side by side. For though
they were cousins they were getting acquainted with each other for the
first time. Both of them found this a delightful process, not the less
so because they were temperamentally very different. Each of them knew
already that they were going to be great friends. They had exchanged
the histories of their lives, lying awake girl fashion to talk into the
small hours, each omitting certain passages, however, that had to do
with two men who were at that moment approaching nearer every minute to
them.

Bucky O’Connor and Sheriff Collins were returning to the Rocking Chair
Ranch from Epitaph, where they had just been to deposit twenty-seven
thousand dollars and a prisoner by the name of Chaves. Just at the
point where the road climbed from the plains and reached the summit of
the first stiff hill the two parties met and passed. The ranger and the
sheriff reined in simultaneously. Yet a moment and all four of them
were talking at once.

They turned toward the ranch, Bucky and Frances leading the way. Alice,
riding beside her lover in the darkness, found the defenses upon which
she had relied begin to fail her. Nevertheless, she summoned them to
her support and met him full armed with the evasions and complexities
of her sex.

“This _is_ a surprise, Mr. Collins,” he was informed in her best
society voice.

“And a pleasure?”

“Of course. But I’m sorry that father has been called to Phoenix. I
suppose you came to tell him about your success.”

“To brag about it,” he corrected. “But not to your father—to his
daughter.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. Will you begin now?”

“Not yet. There is something I have to tell you, Miss Mackenzie.”

At the gravity in his voice the lightness slipped from her like a
cloak.

“Yes. Tell me your news. Over the telephone all sorts of rumors have
come to us. But even these were hearsay.”

“I thought of telephoning you the facts. Then I decided to ride out and
tell you at once. I knew you would want to hear the story at first
hand.”

Her patrician manner was gone. Her eyes looked their thanks at him.
“That was good of you. I have been very anxious to get the facts. One
rumor was that you have captured Sir Leroy. Is it true?”

It seemed to her that his look was one of grave tenderness. “No, that
is not true. You remember what we said of him—of how he might die?”

“He is dead—you killed him,” she cried, all the color washed from her
face.

“He is dead, but I did not kill him.”

“Tell me,” she commanded.

He told her, beginning at the moment of his meeting with the outlaws at
the Dalriada dump and continuing to the last scene of the tragedy. It
touched her so nearly that she could not hear him through dry-eyed.

“And he spoke of me?” She said it in a low voice, to herself rather
than to him.

“It was just before his mind began to wander—almost his last conscious
thought. He said that when you heard the news you would remember. What
you were to remember he didn’t say. I took it you would know.”

“Yes. I was to remember that he was not all wolf to me.” She told it
with a little break of tears in her voice.

“Then he told me to tell you that it was the best way out for him. He
had come to the end of the road, and it would not have been possible
for him to go back.” Presently Collins added gently: “If you don’t mind
my saying so, I think he was right. He was content to go, quite game
and steady in his easy way. If he had lived, there could have been no
going back for him. It was his nature to go the limit. The tragedy is
in his life, not in his death.”

“Yes, I know that, but it hurts one to think it had to be—that all his
splendid gifts and capabilities should end like this, and that we are
forced to see it is best. He might have done so much.”

“And instead he became a miscreant. I reckon there was a lack in him
somewhere.”

“Yes, there was a great lack in him somewhere.”

They were silent for a time. She broke it to ask about York Neil.

“You wouldn’t send him to prison after doing what he did, would you?”

“Meaning what?”

“You say yourself he helped you against the other outlaws. Then he
showed you where to start in finding the buried money. He isn’t a bad
man. You know how he stood by me when I was a prisoner,” she pleaded.

He nodded. “That goes a long way with me, Miss Mackenzie. The governor
is a right good friend of mine. I meant to ask him for a pardon. I
reckon Neil means to live straight from now on. He promised Leroy he
would. He’s only a wild cow-puncher gone wrong, and now he’s haided
right he’ll pull up and walk the narrow trail.”

“But can you save him from the penitentiary?”

Collins smiled. “He saved me the trouble. Coming through the Cañon Del
Oro in the night, he ducked. I reckon he’s in Mexico now.”

“I’m glad.”

“Well, I ain’t sorry myself, though I helped Bucky hunt real thorough
for him.”

“Father will be pleased to know you got the treasure back,” Alice said
presently, after they had ridden a bit in silence.

“And your father’s daughter, Miss Alice—is she pleased?”

“What pleases father pleases me.” Her voice, cool as the plash of ice
water, might have daunted a less resolute man. But this one had long
since determined the manner of his wooing and was not to be driven from
it.

“I’m glad of that. Your father’s right friendly to me,” he announced,
with composure.

“Indeed!”

“Sho! I ain’t going to run away and hide because you look like you
don’t know I’m in Arizona. What kind of a lover would I be if I broke
for cover every time you flashed those dark eyes at me?”

“Mr. Collins!”

“My friends call me Val,” he suggested, smiling.

“I was going to ask, Mr. Collins, if you think you can bully me.”

“It might be a first rate thing for you if I did, Miss Mackenzie. All
your life you haven’t done anything but trample on sissy boys. Now, I
expect I’m not a sissy boy, but a fair imitation of a man, and I
shouldn’t wonder but you’d find me some too restless for a door-mat.”
His maimed hand happened to be resting on the saddle horn as he spoke,
and the story of the maiming emphasized potently the truth of his
claim.

“Don’t you assume a good deal, Mr. Collins, when you imply that I have
any desire to master you?”

“Not a bit,” he assured her cheerfully. “Every woman wants to boss the
man she’s going to marry, but if she finds she can’t she’s glad of it,
because then she knows she’s got a man.”

“You are quite sure I am going to marry you?” she asked gently—too
gently, he thought.

“I’m only reasonably sure,” he informed her. “You see, I can’t tell for
certain whether your pride or your good sense is the stronger.”

She caught a detached glimpse of the situation, and it made for
laughter.

“That’s right, I want you should enjoy it,” he said placidly.

“I do. It’s the most absurd proposal—I suppose you call it a
proposal—that ever I heard.”

“I expect you’ve heard a good many in your time.

“We’ll not discuss that, if you please.”

“I AM more interested in this one,” he agreed.

“Isn’t it about time to begin on Tucson?”

“Not to-day, ma’am. There are going to be a lot of to-morrows for you
and me, and Tucson will have to wait till then.”

“Didn’t I give you an answer last week?”

“You did, but I didn’t take it. Now I’m ready for your sure-enough
answer.”

She flashed a look at him that mocked his confidence. “I’ve heard about
the vanity of girls, but never in my experience have I met any so
colossal as this masculine vanity now on exhibit. Do you really think,
Mr. Collins, that all you have to do to win a woman is to look
impressive and tell her that you have decided to marry her?”

“Do I look as if I thought that?” he asked her.

“It is perfectly ridiculous—your absurd attitude of taking everything
for granted. Well, it may be the Tucson custom, but where I come from
it is not in vogue.”

“No, I reckon not. Back there a boy persuades girl he loves her by
ruining her digestion with candy and all sorts of ice arrangements from
soda-fountain. But I’m uncivilized enough to assume you’re a woman of
sense and not a spoiled schoolgirl.”

The velvet night was attuned to the rhythm of her love. She felt
herself, in this sea of moon romance, being swept from her moorings.
Star-eyed, she gazed at him while she still fought again his dominance.

“You _are_ uncivilized. Would you beat me when I didn’t obey?” she
asked tremulously.

He laughed in slow contentment. “Perhaps; but I’d love you while I did
it.”

“Oh, you would love me.” She looked across under her long lashes, not
as boldly as she would have liked, and her gaze fell before his. “I
haven t heard before that that was in the compact you proposed. I don’t
think you have remembered to mention it.”

He swung from the saddle and put a hand to her bridle rein.

“Get down,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I say so. Get down.”

She looked down at him, a man out of a thousand and for her one out of
a hundred million. Before she was conscious of willing it she stood
beside him. He trailed the reins of the ponies, and in two strides came
back to her.

“What—do you—want?”

“I want you, girl.” His arm swept round her, and he held her while he
looked down into her shining eyes. “So I haven’t told you that I love
you. Did you need to be told?”

“We must go on,” she murmured weakly. “Frances and Lieutenant
O’Connor—”

“—Have their own love-affairs to attend to.

“We’ll manage ours and not intrude.”

“They might think—”

He laughed in deep delight, “—that we love each other. They’re welcome
to the thought. I haven’t told you that I love you, eh? I tell you now.
It’s my last trump, and right here I table it. I’m no desert poet, but
I love you from that dark crown of yours to those little feet that tap
the floor so impatient sometimes. I love you all the time, no matter
what mood you’re in—when you flash dark angry eyes at me and when you
laugh in that slow, understanding way nobody else in God’s world has
the trick of. Makes no difference to me whether you’re glad or mad, I
want you just the same. That’s the reason why I’m going to make you
love me.”

“You can’t do it.” Her voice was very low and not quite steady.

“Why not—I’ll show you.”

“But you can’t—for a good reason.”

“Put a name to it.”

“Because. Oh, you big blind man—because I love you already.” She
burlesqued his drawl with a little joyous laugh: “I reckon if you’re
right set on it I’ll have to marry you, Val Collins.”

His arm tightened about her as if he would hold her against the whole
world. His ardent eyes possessed hers. She felt herself grow faint with
a poignant delight. Her lips met his slowly in their first kiss.