by Max Brand
CHAPTER 34
It was not yet noon when he entered the gulch, he was part way up theravine when something moved at the top of the high wall to his right. Heguessed at once that it was a lookout signaling the main party of theapproach of a stranger, so Andrew stopped Sally with a word and held hishand high above his head, facing the point from which he had seen themovement. There was a considerable pause; then a man showed on the topof the cliff, and Andrew recognized Jeff Rankin by his red hair. Yetthey were at too great a distance for conversation, and after waving agreeting, Rankin merely beckoned Andrew on his way up the valley.Around the very next bend of the ravine he found the camp. It was of themost impromptu character, and the warning of Rankin had caused them tobreak it up precipitately, as Andrew could see by one length oftarpaulin tossed, without folding, over a saddle. Each of the four wasready, beside his horse, for flight or for attack, as their outlook onthe cliff should give signal. But at sight of Andrew and the bay mare amurmur, then a growl of interest went among them. Even Larry la Rochegrinned a skull-like welcome, and Henry Allister actually ran forward toreceive the newcomer. Andrew dropped out of the saddle and shookhands with him.
"I've done as you said I would," said Andrew. "I've run in a circle,Allister, and now I'm back to make one of you, if you still want me."
Allister, laughing joyously, turned to the other three and repeated thequestion to them. There was only one voice in answer.
"Want you?" said Allister, and his smile made Andrew almost forget thescar which twisted the otherwise handsome face. "Want you? Why, man, ifwe've been beyond the law up to this time, we can laugh at the law now.Sit down. Hey, Scottie, shake up the fire and put on some coffee, willyou? We'll take an hour off."
Larry la Roche was observed to make a dour face.
"Who'll tell me it's lucky," he said, "to have a gent that starts out bymakin' us all stop on the trail? Is that a good sign?"
But Scottie, with laughter, hushed him. Yet Larry la Roche remained ofall the rest quite silent during the making of the coffee and thedrinking of it. The others kept up a running fire of comments andquestions, but Larry la Roche, as though he had never forgiven Andrewfor their first quarrel, remained with his long, bony chin dropped uponhis breast and followed the movements of Andrew Lanning withrestless eyes.
The others were glad to see him, as Andrew could tell at a glance, butalso they were a bit troubled, and by degrees he made out the reason.Strange as it seemed, they regretted that he had not been able to makehis break across the mountains. His presence made them more impregnablethan they had ever been under the indomitable Allister, and yet, morethan the aid of his fighting hand, they would have welcomed the tidingsof a man who had broken away from the shadow of the law and made good.For each of the fallen wishes to feel that his exile is self-terminable.
And therefore Andrew, telling his story to them in brief, found thatthey were not by any means filled with unmixed pleasure. Joe Clune, withhis bright brown hair of youth and his lined, haggard face of wornmiddle age, summed up their sentiments at the end of Andrew's story:"You're what we need with us, Lanning. You and Allister will beat theworld, and it means high times for the rest of us, but God pityyou--that's all!"
The pause that followed this solemn speech was to Andrew like an amen.He glanced from face to face, and each stern eye met his ingloomy sympathy.
Then something shot through him which was to his mind what red is to theeye; it was a searing touch of reckless indifference, defiance.
"Forget this prayer-meeting talk," said Andrew. "I came up here foraction, not mourning. I want something to do with my hands, notsomething to think about with my head!"
Something to think about! It was like a terror behind him. If he shouldhave long quiet it would steal on him and look at him over his shoulderlike a face. A little of this showed in his face; enough to make thecircle flash significant glances at one another.
"You got something behind you, Andy," said Scottie. "Come out with it.It ain't too bad for us to hear."
"There's something behind me," said Andrew. "It's the one really decentpart of my life. And I don't want to think about it. Allister, they sayyou never let the grass grow under you. What's on your hands now?"
"Somebody has been flattering me," said the leader quietly, and all thetime he kept studying the face of Andrew. "We have a little game ahead,if you want to come in on it. We're shorthanded, but I'd try it withyou. That makes us six all told. Six enough, boys?"
"Count me half of one," said Larry la Roche. "I don't feel lucky aboutthis little party."
"We'll count you two times two," replied the leader. He added: "You boysplay a game; I'm going to break in Lanning to our job."
Taking his horse, he and Andrew rode at a walk up the ravine. On the waythe leader explained his system briefly and clearly. Told in short, heworked somewhat as follows: Instead of raiding blindly right and left,he only moved when he had planned every inch of ground for the advanceand the blow and the retreat. To make sure of success and the size ofhis stakes he was willing to invest heavily.
"Big business men sink half a year's income in their advertising. I dothe same."
It was not public advertising; it was money cunningly expended where itwould do most good. Fifty per cent of the money the gang earned was laidaway to make future returns surer. In twenty places Allister had hispaid men who, working from behind the scenes, gained pricelessinformation and sent word of it to the outlaw. Trusted officials ingreat companies were in communication with him. When large shipments ofgold were to be made, for instance, he was often warned beforehand.Every dollar of the consignment was known to him, the date of itsshipment, its route, and the hands to which it was supposed to fall. Or,again, in many a bank and prosperous mercantile firm in the mountaindesert he had inserted his paid spies, who let him know when the safewas crammed with cash and by what means the treasure was guarded.
Not until he had secured such information did the leader move. And hestill delayed until every possible point of friction had been noted,every danger considered, and a check appointed for it, every method ofadvance and retreat gone over.
"A good general," Allister was fond of saying, "plans in two ways: foran absolute victory and for an absolute defeat. The one enables him tosqueeze the last ounce of success out of a triumph; the other keeps afailure from turning into a catastrophe."
With everything arranged for the stroke, he usually posted himself withthe band as far as possible from the place where the actual work was tobe done. Then he made a feint in the opposite direction--he showedhimself or a part of his gang recklessly. The moment the alarm wasgiven--even at the risk of having an entire hostile countryside aroundhim--he started a whirlwind course in the opposite direction from whichhe was generally supposed to be traveling. If possible, at the ranchesof adherents, or at out-of-the-way places where confederates could act,he secured fresh horses and dashed on at full speed all the way.
Then, at the very verge of the place for attack, he gathered his men,rehearsed in detail what each man was to do, delivered the blow, securedthe spoils, and each man of the party split away from the others andfled in scattering directions, to assemble again at a distant point on acomparatively distant date. There they sat down around a council table,and there they divided the spoils. No matter how many were employed, nomatter how vast a proportion of the danger and scheming had been borneby the leader, he took no more than two shares. Then fifty per cent ofthe prize was set aside. The rest was divided with an exact care amongthe remaining members of the gang. The people who had supplied therequisite information for the coup were always given their share.
From this general talk Allister descended to particulars. He talked ofthe gang itself. They were quite a fixed quantity. In the last halfdozen years there had not been three casualties. For one thing, he chosehis men with infinite care; in the second place, he saw to it that theyremained in harmony, and to that end he was careful never to be temptedinto forming an unwieldy crew, no ma
tter how large the prize. Of thepresent organization each was an expert. Larry la Roche had been acounterfeiter and was a consummate penman. His forgeries were works ofart. "Have you noticed his hands?"
Scottie Macdougal was an eminent advance agent, whose smooth tongue wasthe thing for the very dangerous and extremely important work of tryingout new sources of information, noting the dependability of thosesources, and understanding just how far and in what line the tools couldbe used. Joe Clune was a past expert in the blowing of safes; not onlydid he know everything that was to be known about means of guardingmoney and how to circumvent them, but he was an artist with the "soup,"as Allister called nitroglycerin.
Jeff Rankin, without a mental equipment to compare with his companions,was often invaluable on account of his prodigious strength. Under thestrain of his muscles, iron bars bent like hot wax. In addition he hadmore than his share of an ability which all the members of the gangpossessed--an infinite cunning in the use of weapons and astar-storming courage and self-confidence.
"And where," said Andrew at the end of this long recital, "do I fit in?"
"You begin," said Allister, "as the least valuable of my men; before sixmonths you will be worth the whole set of 'em. You'll start as mylieutenant, Lanning. The boys expect it. You've built up a reputationthat counts. They admit your superiority without question. Larry laRoche squirms under the weight of it, but he admits it like the rest of'em. In a pinch they would obey you nearly as well as they obey me. Itmeans that, having you to take charge, I can do what I've always wantedto do--I can give the main body the slip and go off for advance-guardand rear-guard duty. I don't dare to do it now.
"Do you know why? Those fellows yonder, who seem so chummy, would be ateach other's throats in ten seconds if I weren't around to keep them inorder. I know why you're here, Lanning. It isn't the money. It's thecursed fear of loneliness and the fear of having time to think. You wantaction, action to fill your mind and blind you. That's what I offer you.You're the keeper of the four wildcats you see over there. You start inwith their respect. Let them lose their fear of you for a moment andthey'll go for you. Treat them like men; think of them as wild beasts.That's what they are. The minute they know you're without your whip theygo for you like tigers at a wounded trainer. One taste of meat is allthey need to madden them. It's different with me. I'm wild, too."
His eyes gleamed at Andrew.
"And, if they raise you, I think they'll find you've more iron hiddenaway in you than I have. But the way they'll find it out will be in anexplosion that will wipe them out. You've got to handle them withoutthat explosion, Lanning. Can you do it?"
The younger man moistened his lips. "I think this job is going to proveworth while," he returned.
"Very well, then. But there are penalties in your new position. In apinch you've got to do what I do--see that they have food enough--gowithout sleep if one of them needs your blankets--if any of 'em gets introuble, even into a jail, you've got to get him out."
"Better still," smiled Andrew.
"And now," said the leader, "I'll tell you about our next job as we goback to the boys."