CHAPTER XXVII
BURGLARY
Merely because he believed that the well-known all was over betweenMolly Dale and himself, Racey did not relinquish his plans for thefuture.
He rode to Marysville as he had intended. That is, he rode to thevicinity of Marysville. For, arriving at a hill five miles outside oftown in the broad of an afternoon, he stopped in a hollow under thecedars and waited for night. Daylight was decidedly not appropriatefor the act he contemplated.
"I wonder," he muttered, as he lay with his back braced against a treeand stared at the bulge in his slicker, "I wonder if I ought to useall them sticks at once. I never heard that miner man say how much ofan argument a safe needed. I s'pose I better use 'em all."
Luke Tweezy was a bachelor. His office was in his four-room house, andhe did not employ a housekeeper. Further than this, Racey Dawsonknew nothing of the lawyer's establishment. But he believed that hisknowledge was sufficient to serve his purpose.
About midnight Racey Dawson removed himself, his horse, and hisdynamite from the hollow on the hill to where a lone pine grew almostdirectly in the rear of and two hundred yards from the residence ofLuke Tweezy. He had selected the tall and lonely pine as the bestplace to leave his horse because, should he be forced to run forit, he would have against the stars a plain landmark to run for.He thoroughly expected to be forced to run. Six sticks of dynamiteletting go together would arouse a cemetery. And Marysville was alively village.
Racey, taking no chances on the Lainey horse stampeding at theexplosion, rope-tied the animal to the trunk of the pine. After whichhe removed his spurs, carefully unwrapped the dynamite and stuck threesticks in each hip-pocket. The caps, in their little box, he put inthe breast-pocket of his shirt. With the coil of fuse in one hand andthe bran sack given him by Lainey in the other he walked toward thehouse of Tweezy.
The house was of course dark. Nor were there any lights in theirregular line of houses stretching up and down this side of thestreet. The neighbours had apparently all gone to bed. Through anopening between two houses Racey saw a brightly lighted window in ahouse an eighth of a mile away. That would be Judge Allison's house.The Judge, then, was awake. Two hundred and twenty yards was not along distance even for a portly man like Judge Allison to cover atspeed. And Racey had known Judge Allison to move briskly on occasion.
Racey, moving steadily ahead, slid past someone's barn and opened upa view of the dance hall. It had previously been concealed from hissight by the high posts and rails of three corrals. The dance hall wasgoing full blast. At least all the windows were bright with light. Hewas too far away to hear the fiddles.
The dance hall! He might have known it would still be operating atmidnight. But it was almost twice as far from the Tweezy house to thedance hall as it was from the Judge's house to Tweezy's. That wassomething. Indeed it was a great deal. But he would have to workfast. All the neighbours would come bouncing out at the crash of theexplosion.
Racey paused to flatten an ear at the kitchen door. He heard nothing,and tiptoed along the wall to the window of the room next the kitchen.The ground plan of the house was almost an exact square. There was aroom in each angle. The office, which Racey knew contained the safe,was diagonally across from the kitchen.
Racey, halting at the window of the room next the kitchen, wassomewhat surprised to find it open. He stuck in his head and saw afaint glow beyond the half-closed door of the office. The glow seemedto be brighter near the floor. Racey listened intently. He heard afaint grumble and now and then a squeak.
He crouched beneath the window and removed his boots. Then he crawledover the sill and hunkered down on the uncarpeted floor. The floorboards did not creak. Still crouching, his arms extended in front ofhim, he made his way silently across the room, skirting safely in theprocess two chairs and a table, and stood upright behind the crack ofthe door.
Looking through the crack he perceived that the glow he had seen fromthe window emanated from a tin can pierced with several holes. Thedim, uncertain light revealed the figure of a tall and hatless mankneeling beside the safe. The man's back was toward the lighted tincan. One of the tall man's hands was slowly turning the knob of thecombination. The side of the man's head was pressed against the frontof the safe near the combination. Racey could not see the man's face.
Across the window of the room two blankets had been hung. The doorinto the other front room was open. Then suddenly the doorway was nolonger a black void. A man stood there--a fat man with a stomach thathung out over the waistband of his trousers. There was something veryfamiliar about the figure of that fat man.
The fat man leaned against the doorjamb and pushed back his wide blackhat. The light in the tin can illumined his countenance dimly. ButRacey's eyes were becoming accustomed to the half darkness. He wasable to recognize Jacob Pooley--Fat Jakey Pooley, the register of thedistrict, whose home was in Piegan City.
"You ain't as fast as you used to be," observed Fat Jakey in a softwhisper.
"Shut up!" hissed the kneeling man, and turned his face for an instanttoward Fat Jakey, so that the light shone upon his features.
It was Jack Harpe.
"What's biting your ear?" Fat Jakey asked, good-naturedly.
"I've told you more'n once to let what's past alone," grumbled JackHarpe.
"Hell, there's nobody around."
"Nemmine whether they is or not. You get out of the habit."
"Rats," sneered Fat Jakey.
"What was that?" Jack Harpe's figure tautened in a flash.
"Rats," repeated Fat Jakey.
"I thought I heard something," persisted Jack Harpe.
"You heard rats," chuckled Fat Jakey. "You're nervous, that's what'sthe matter, or else you ain't able to open the safe."
"I can open the safe all right," growled Jack Harpe, bending again tohis work.
"I wonder what he did hear," Racey said to himself. "I thought I heardsomething, too."
Whatever it was he did not hear it again.
"There she is," said Jack Harpe, suddenly, and threw open the safedoor.
It was at this precise juncture that a voice from the darkness behindFat Jakey said, "Hands up!"
Oh, it was then that events began to move with celerity. Fat JakeyPooley ducked and leaped. Jack Harpe kicked the tin can, the candlefell out and rolled guttering in a quarter circle only to beextinguished by one of Fat Jakey's flying feet.
There was a slithering sound as the blankets across the window wereripped down, followed by a scraping and a heaving and a grunting astwo large people endeavoured to make their egress through the samewindow at the same time.
"So that window was open alla time," thought Racey as he prudentlywaited for the owner of the voice in the other room to discoverhimself. But this the voice's owner did not immediately do. Raceycould not understand why he did not shoot while the two men werestruggling through the window. Lord knows he had plenty of time andopportunity.
Even after Jack Harpe and Fat Jakey had reached the outer air andpresumably gone elsewhere swiftly, there was no sound from the otherroom. Racey, his gun ready, waited.
At first his impulse had been incontinently to flee the premises asJack and Jake had done. But a saving second thought held him wherehe was. It was more than possible that the mysterious fourth man haddesigns on the contents of the safe. In which event--
Racey stood pat.
He heard no sound for at least a minute after Jack and Jake had left,then he heard a soft swish, and a few stars which had been visiblethrough the upper half of the window were blotted out. The blanketswere being readjusted.
A match was struck and a figure stooped for the candle that had beendashed out by the foot of Fat Jakey Pooley. A table shielded thefigure from Racey. Then the figure straightened and set the flaringmatch to the candle end. And the face that bent above the light wasthe face of one he knew.
"Molly!" he whispered, and slipped from his ambush.
At which Molly dropped candle and match and sq
ueaked in affright. Buther scare did not prevent her from drawing a sixshooter. He heard theclick of the hammer, and whispered desperately, "Molly! Molly! It'sme! Racey!"
He struck a match and retrieved the candle and lit it quickly. By itslight he saw her staring at him uncertainly. Her eyes were bright withconflicting emotions. Her sixshooter still pointed in his generaldirection.
"Put yore gun away," he advised her. "We've got no time to lose. Holdthe candle for me! Put it in the can first!"
Automatically she obeyed the several commands.
He knelt before the open safe and, beginning at the top shelf, hestuffed into his bran sack every piece of paper the safe contained.Besides papers there were two sixshooters and a bowie. These he didnot take.
When the safe was clean of papers Racey tied the mouth of the bransack, took Molly by the hand, and blew out the candle.
"C'mon," he said, shortly. "We'll be leavin' here now."
Towing her behind him he led her to the window of the rear room.Holding his hat by the brim he shoved it out through the window. Noblow or shot followed the action. He clapped the hat on his head, andlooked out cautiously. He satisfied himself that the coast was clearand flung a leg over the sill.
When he had helped out Molly he gave her the sack to hold and pulledon his boots.
"Where's yore hoss?" he whispered.
"I tied him at the corner of the nearest corral," was the answer.
"C'mon," said he and took her again by the hand.
They had not gone ten steps when she stumbled and fell against him.
"Whatsa matter?"
"Nothing," was the almost breathless reply. "I'm--I'm all right. Ijust stepped on a sharp stone."
"Yore shoes!" he murmured, contritely. "I never thought. Why didn'tyou say something? Here."
So saying he scooped her up in his arms, settled her in place with dueregard for the box of caps in his breast-pocket, and plowed on throughthe night. Her arms went round his neck and her head went down on hisshoulder. She sighed a gentle little sigh. For a sigh like that Raceywould cheerfully have shot a sheriff's posse to pieces.
"I left my shoes in my saddle pocket," she said, apologetically. "I--Ithought it would be safer."
There was a sudden yell somewhere on Main Street. It sounded as if itcame from uncomfortably close to the Tweezy house. Then a sixshootercracked once, twice, and again. At the third shot Racey was running astight as he could set foot to the ground.
Encumbered as he was with a double armful of girl and a fairly heavysackful of papers he yet made good time to the corner of the nearestcorral. The increasing riot in Main Street undoubtedly was a mostpotent spur.
"Which way's the hoss?" he gasped when the dark rail of the corralfretted the sky before them.
"You're heading straight," she replied, calmly. "Thirty feet more andyou'll run into him. Better set me down."
He did--literally. He turned his foot on a tin can and went downker-flop. Forced to guard his box of caps with one hand he could notsave Molly Dale a smashing fall.
"Ah-ugh!" guggled Molly, squirming on the ground, for she had struckthe pit of her stomach on a round rock the size of a football and thewind was knocked out of her.
Racey scrambled to his feet, and knowing that if Molly was able towriggle and groan she could not be badly hurt, picked up the sack andscouted up Molly's horse. He found it without difficulty, and tied thesack with the saddle strings in front of the horn. He loosed the horseand led it to where Molly still lay on the ground. The poor girl wassitting up, clutching her stomach and rocking back and forth andfighting for her breath with gasps and crows.
But there was not time to wait till she should regain the full use ofher lungs--not in the face of the shouts and yells in Main Street.Lord, the whole town was up. Lights were flashing in every house.Racey stooped, seized Molly under the armpits, and heaved her bodilyinto the saddle.
"Hang onto the horn," he ordered, "and for Gosh sake don't make somuch noise!"
Molly obeyed as best she could. He mounted behind her, and of coursehad to fight the horse, which harboured no intention of carryingdouble if it could help itself. Racey, however, was a rider, and hejerked Molly's quirt from where it hung on the horn. Not more thansixty seconds were wasted before they were travelling toward the lonepine as tight as the horse could jump.
At the pine Racey slipped to the ground and ran to untie his horse.
"Can you hang on all right at a trot if I lead yore hoss?" he queried,sharply, his fingers busy with the knot of the rope.
"I cue-can and gug-guide him, too," she stuttered, picking up herreins and making a successful effort to sit up straight. "Lul-look! AtTut-Tweezy's huh-house!"
He looked. There were certainly three lanterns bobbing about in theopen behind the house of Luke Tweezy. He knew too well what thoselights meant. The Marysville citizens were hunting for a hot trail.
He swung up with a rush.
"Stick right alongside me," he told her. "We'll trot at first tillwe get behind the li'l hill out yonder. After that we can hit thelandscape lively."
She spoke no word till they had rounded the little hill and weregalloping south. Then she said in her normal voice, "This isn't theway home."
"I know it ain't. We've got to lose whoever follows us before we skipfor home."
"Of course," she told him, humbly. "I might have known. You alwaysthink of the right thing, Racey."
All of which was balm to a hitherto tortured soul.
"That's all right," he said, modestly.
"And how strong you are--carrying me and that heavy sack all thatdistance." Both admiration and appreciation were in her tone. Anyman would have been made happy thereby. Racey was overjoyed. And thedaughter of Eve at his side knew that he was overjoyed and was madeglad herself. She did not realize that Eve invariably employed thesame method with our grandfather Adam.
He reached across and patted her arm.
"Yo're all right," he told her. "When we get out of this yo're goingto marry me."
Her free hand turned under his and clasped his fingers. S6 they rodefor a space hand-in-hand. And Racey's heart was full. And so was hers.If they forgot for the moment what dread possibilities the future heldwho can blame them?
The Heart of the Range Page 27