CHAPTER XXI
A CAPTURE
When Rathburn rode away from Sautee's quarters he galloped up thestreet straight for the road which led west out of town. He pulled hishorse down to a trot when he reached the Carlisle cabin and madeanother brief inspection which showed that the place was deserted.Then he struck into the trail behind the cabin and began the ascenttoward the Dixie Queen.
He rode slowly through the timber, depending upon his mount to keep tothe dim trail, but in the open stretches in meadows and on the crestof ridges where the timber thinned, he made better time. On thisoccasion one would not have noted an attitude of uncertainty about hismanner or movements. He had paid strict attention to the barn man'sdescription of this trail, and he had determined general directionsthe day before. Rathburn was not a stranger to the art of followingnew trails; nor was he the kind to become confused in a locality withwhich he was not familiar unless he became absolutely lost. In thisinstance it would be a hard matter to become lost, for the ridges rosesteadily upward toward the summits of the high mountains, the town wasin the narrow valley below, and the foothills ranged down to thedesert in the east.
He was halfway to the mine when he saw the gleam of an automobile'slights in the road far below.
"Sautee got busy right quick," he said aloud. "I 'spect they'rehustlin' up to head me off at the hogback. They're figuring I'd try togo back the way I come in."
He smiled grimly in the soft moonlight, and his gaze turned toward theeast, where the stars glowed over the shadowy reaches of desert whichhe could not see, but the very thought of which stirred something inhis soul.
Then he pushed on up the trail toward the mine. For more than an hourhe rode, and then, when he came to the crest of a ridge just below theDixie Queen, he saw the lights of an automobile in the road to theright of him.
"Now what?" he ejaculated. "They ain't figurin' I'd come up here!"
He sat his horse with features again wreathed in perplexity. Hescowled at the approaching gleam of light. In the direction of thehogback he could see nothing. Nor could he see the horsemen already onthe trail below him and on the ridge trail to eastward.
The little mine village was directly below him. The few buildingshuddled together below the big mine dump were dark. The minebuildings, too, were dark. A faint glow showed in the east--harbingerof the dawn.
The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in thelittle street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front ofthe car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out thefamiliar form of Sautee, the mine manager.
He saw Sautee and another leave the car and walk toward a building atthe lower end of the street. He could see them fairly well in themoonlight and realized that in a comparatively short time it would bedaylight. He turned his horse down the slope.
When he reached the rear of the few buildings which formed the miningvillage, catering to the wants of the Dixie Queen workers, Rathburnedged along to the lower end where he left his horse in the shadow ofa building directly across from the one which Sautee and his companionhad entered, and in the windows of which a light now shone.
He stole across the street. Peering in one of the windows he saw thatthe room was an office. Sautee was standing before a desk, talking toanother man. Rathburn quickly surmised that this man had accompaniedSautee from the town. Even as he looked, Sautee finished his speech bystriking a palm with his fist, and his companion strode toward thedoor.
Rathburn darted around the side of the building into the shadow as theman came out and hurried up a wide road toward the mine buildingsabove. Then Rathburn ran around to the front of the building andquietly opened the door.
Sautee had seated himself at the desk, and he swung about in his chairas he heard the door open. He looked again into the black bore ofRathburn's gun. His eyes bulged, and this time they shone with genuineterror.
"It was sure in the pictures for us to meet again, Sautee," saidRathburn easily. "Our business wasn't finished. We ain't throughyet."
"There isn't any more money," Sautee gasped out. "There's no money uphere at all."
"Oh, yes, there is," said Rathburn with a mirthless smile. "There'stwenty-odd thousand dollars in my right-hand coat pocket. Now I wonderwhat you've got in yours. It don't stand to reason you'd start outthis time without a gun. Stand up!"
Sautee rose. His face was ashen. He held his hands high as Rathburnpressed his weapon against his chest and relieved him of the automaticwhich he carried. Rathburn felt his other pockets and then smiledagreeably. He tossed the automatic on the desk.
"All right, we'll get goin'," he announced, indicating the open door."We'll have to hurry, for I take it you've sent for somebody from themine."
"Where are we going?" asked Sautee without moving.
"We're goin' for a little mornin' walk, if you act reasonable,"replied Rathburn. "That was my intention. But if you don't want togo----"
He shrugged, and as Sautee looked fixedly at him, he cocked his gun.
Sautee hurried toward the door with Rathburn following him closely.When they were outside Rathburn directed Sautee across the street.When they reached Rathburn's horse Rathburn quickly mounted andmotioned to the mines manager to precede him into the timber behindthe little village. When they gained the shelter of the timber theygradually circled around until they struck a trail which led up abovethe mine. They started up this, Sautee leading the way on foot withRathburn following on his horse and keeping his gun trained on themines manager's back.
"Don't worry," Rathburn crooned. "I won't shoot you in the back,Sautee. That wouldn't be accordin' to my ethics. But I'd have to stopyou if you made a break to leave the present company."
Sautee plodded on, his breath coming in gasps, the perspirationstanding out on his forehead.
The trail joined with another well-worn path a short distance abovethe mine. The eastern sky now was light, and Rathburn saw a stonebuilding above them. He also saw that they were on the steep slope ofthe big mountain on which the Dixie Queen was located, and that therewas a rift in this mountain to the left which indicated the presenceof a pass there.
In a few minutes they reached the stone building. It had an iron dooracross which was painted the legend:
DANGER POWDER--DYNAMITE KEEP AWAY
Rathburn dismounted and tossed the reins over his horse's head so theanimal would stand.
"That place looks like a natural jail," he commented.
"It's the mine's powder house," said Sautee, wiping his wet forehead.
"Sure," Rathburn rejoined, "that's just what it is. I expect there'senough powder in there to blow half this mountain off."
He walked to the door and took out his gun as he examined thepadlock.
"What are you going to do?" asked Sautee excitedly.
"I'm goin' to blow the lock off," said Rathburn coolly.
"Don't do it!" cried Sautee. "There's high-percentage dynamite inthere and T N T caps that we use on road work--dozens of boxes of it.You might set it off!"
Rathburn looked at the quaking mine manager speculatively. "That'sright," he said finally, turning aside to grin to himself. "I guessany little jar might start it workin'. It goes off easy, I've heard."
"There are caps and detonators in there, too," said Sautee quickly."You might shoot into them some way, you never can tell. Well, itwould be as bad for you as for me." He uttered the last sentence in anote of triumph.
Rathburn was looking at the far-flung view below. He turned a hardgaze on Sautee. "What difference do you suppose it would make to me ifthat stuff in there goes off?" he demanded in a harsh voice. "Lookdown there!"
Sautee looked and drew in his breath with a gasp.
In the clear light of the blossoming dawn the whole panorama of thelower mountain country was spread out before them. To the left, underthe towering peaks of the divide, the rounded crest of the hogback wasdiscernible, and a black spot marked the location of Mannix'sautomobile.
"There's a car over t
here," said Rathburn, noting the direction ofSautee's gaze.
Almost directly below them a number of mounted men filed over a ridgeand again disappeared in the timber. Off to the right more horsemenwere to be seen.
"Looks like there was a posse or two out this morning," said Rathburnin a forbidding voice. "I reckon I ain't such a fool as not to knowwho they're lookin' for, Sautee. Now maybe you can figure out why Iain't as scared of that powder house as you are."
"I can stop them!" cried Sautee in a shaking voice.
"Sure," Rathburn agreed. "You can say you lied about me takin' themoney----"
"I'll tell 'em you gave it back!" said Sautee hoarsely. "I'll tell 'emyou brought it on up to the mine and that it's in the safe. I'llsquare it----"
"But you can't square the rewards that are out for The Coyote," saidRathburn sternly. "You've stepped into a bigger game than youthought, Sautee, an' it's got plumb out of your hands."
He turned on the mine manager fiercely. "Whatever happens, rememberthis: Once a man gets a bad reputation in a country like this or thecountry I come from, he's got it for keeps. He can't get away from itno matter how he acts or what he does. Mine has drove me away from theplace where I belong; it's followed me here; I can't lose it; an' theway things has been going, by glory, I don't know if I _want_ to loseit!"
Sautee cowered back under the fierceness in Rathburn's manner.
"An' you can tell 'em, if you ever have a chance to talk again, that Iearned my reputation square! I ain't involved nobody else, an' I ain'tstole from any poor people, an' I never threw my gun down on a man whodidn't start for his first."
The deadly earnestness and the note of regret in Rathburn's tonecaused Sautee to forget his uneasiness temporarily and stare at theman in wonder. Rathburn's eyes were narrowed, his gaze was steel blue,and his face was drawn into hard, grim lines as he looked out upon thefar-flung, glorious vista below them, broken here and there by themovement of mounted men.
"Maybe I--I----" Sautee faltered in his speech. His words seemedimpotent in the face of Rathburn's deadly seriousness.
Rathburn turned abruptly to the powder house door.
"Wait!" cried Sautee.
The mines manager dug frantically into his pockets and drew out abunch of keys.
"There are some locks on this property to which there are only twokeys," he explained nervously. "This is one of them, and I carry thesecond key. Here!"
He held out the key ring with one key extended.
Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In amoment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door,exposing case after case of high explosive within the stonestructure.
Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension.
Rathburn pointed toward the rift in the mountain on the left abovethem. Sautee looked and saw a man and a boy riding down the trail.
"That looks to me like the man that held me up last night," saidRathburn. "He looks like one of the men, anyway. Maybe he's found outhe didn't get much, eh? Maybe he's coming back because he didn't haveenough to make a get-away with. Maybe he thinks he was double crossedor something."
Sautee's features were working in a spasm of fear and worry. Suddenlyhe turned on Rathburn.
"Why don't you get away?" he asked in eager pleading. "That trail willtake you out of the mountains and down into the desert country. You'refrom the desert, aren't you? You can make it. You've made a good haul.Go! It'll be better for me and all of us!"
Rathburn laughed bitterly. "I can't go because I'm a worse fool thanyou are," he said acridly. "Get in there. Sneaking lizards, man, can'tyou see I'm tempted to put a shot into one of them boxes and blow usboth to kingdom come?"
Sautee shrank back into the powder house, and Rathburn slammed thedoor.
As Rathburn snapped the padlock and thrust the keys into his pockethis eyes again sought the trail to the left above him. No one was insight. The man and the boy had disappeared in a bend or depression inthe trail.
But when he looked down toward the hogback he saw a car coming up theroad toward the mine. A number of horsemen had taken its place on thehogback.
Rathburn ran for his horse.
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