by Brand, Max
"You been useful to me," said Drummon, "but advice is something that I don't like and I don't want, no matter what you done for me."
"What I've done is nothing," said the Mexican. "What I'm going to do is the important thing."
"More important than catching that piece of wildfire?" asked Drummon, pointing to Silvertip.
The captive turned his head as he lay on the floor, and regarded Bandini. The Mexican stepped to him and kicked the prostrate, helpless body, not hard, but as a gesture of infinite contempt.
"Aye, Silver," he said. "I can do more than handle you. Brains, Silver; brains, Senior Silver. That's what a man needs to beat you. You have a fairly good head-but not strong enough in brains, Silvertip. And that's why I've picked you up in the hollow of my hand and closed the fingers on you one by one. You can listen to what my brains are working on now. Monterey-you came to fight for him. You'd take the place of his son. You'd be the hero, eh? Oh, you're a hero, well enough-but Bandini undoes all that you've tried to do-in one day!"
He turned back to Drummon, who was leaning forward in his chair, scowling with incredulity.
"I give you the Monterey house and all the people in it-at my own price! You understand?" said Bandini.
"Price?" shouted Drummon. "Price? I'll sell my soul and give you the price of that! Open the house of Monterey to me? Can you do that?"
"Aye," said Bandini, "and all that I want is part of the price of the things that are inside."
"Tell me what," said the other. "Speak out, you fool, before I burn up!"
"The price," said Bandini, "is all in one room. An old safe, Drummon. I want the lining of it!"
"You'll have it," said Drummon. He paused suddenly with a groan of distress.
"I know what you mean," he said. "It's the safe where the old man has piled up his money for twenty-five years. And you're to get that? It'll make you rich-it would make the whole Drummon tribe rich, too. But that's no matter.
What I want is to put an end to twenty-five years of waitin'. And the end may be comin' now! You mean what you say? You can open the house to us?"
"You give your word?" demanded Bandini.
"Give my word? Yes, and my hand with it! Here!"
Drummon stretched out his massive arm, but the other pushed it aside rudely.
"Call in the rest," he demanded. "I want witnesses. I want the crew of 'em to be witnesses."
Drummon's voice rose to the bellow of a bull; and all the pattering of feet and the noise of voices that had moved toward the house at the summons from the supper gong now focused like the sound of a storm toward the chief's room.
They came in a flood to answer him, the big, burly, heavy-faced men standing shoulder to shoulder, thronging around their wounded leader. And they stared hungrily down at Silvertip, stretched on the floor.
They seemed to think that the moment for ending him had surely come at last.
But Hank Drummon was shouting: "Here's Bandini wants witnesses that I swear to give him the safe of Monterey and every dollar that's in it, and I swear it now, in front of the whole of you. You hear me talk? Here's my right hand!" He raised it. "I'll give the safe to Bandini if he shows us the way into the Monterey house!"
"Into the house?" rumbled the chorus.
"Yes, into the house!" said Bandini. "There's an old door that leads to the cellar at the bottom of the cliff. It was walled up. But it's not walled up now, my friends. It's ready to be opened from the outside. I worked a few hours to-day, and the wall that used to block it up is gone."
They shouted. They smote each other on the shoulders. They looked about them with glimmering, drunken eyes. And the outcry which they had raised spread as if in strangely distorted echoes through the house, where women and children began to laugh and shout.
Presently Drummon cried: "We'll start now!"
"It's the best time," said Bandini. "They're weak as ' children over there at the Monterey house. They're expecting the sky to fall, and they're ready to run at a whisper since they've lost this Silvertip, this Senior Silvertip, as they love to call him. Bah! The girl's white as a sheet, and shaking. Loves you, Silver, does she? Lost her heart to the great gringo, eh? Well, if you ever see her again, it will have to be in another world. Because you'll kill him before we start?"
He turned to Hank Drummon as he spoke the last words.
But Hank Drummon pursed out his lips and then shook his head.
"There ain't time to do the job right, and when this gent dies, he's goin' to die right."
He added, rolling from side to side in the chair: "Take me out of this. Rig that litter up. I'm goin' to be on hand when the Monterey house goes down. I'm goin' to be there. Here, Runt. You stay and take care of this gent- this Silvertip. Make sure of him."
"And leave me out of the big party?" shouted the Runt.
"Listen, Senor," said Bandini to the Runt. "To take care of Silvertip might be a harder job than to capture the Monterey house."
Chapter XXIV
The Time to Die THE rage and the despair of Runt was a thing frightful to watch when he saw the rest of the Drummons throng out of the room. Hank Drummon himself could be heard cursing violently all the way to the outside of the house, where the horse litter was brought up for him, and the yelling of the Drummons went up through the brain of Silvertip like so many towering columns of flame.
It was the end of the Montereys, he knew. Suddenly he looked up to the ceiling of the room and wondered, desperately, how Heaven could permit him to lie there helpless while the Drummons rolled on, like so many wild beasts, to the accomplishment of their purpose.
The Runt stood over him with hands that moved and twisted like two great, hairy spiders.
"I ain't goin' to stay here!" said the Runt. "I won't be left out of the killin' of the Montereys! I'm goin' to get over there if I gotta wring your neck before I go-your damn neck!" he repeated through his teeth, and, leaning, he fixed his grasp on the throat of Silvertip.
The whole massive body of Silver was lifted lightly in the frightful grasp of the Runt.
But as the shoulders of Silvertip were heaved high, his long arms gave him the chance he wanted. Too late, the Runt felt the weight of the revolver slipped out of the holster on his thigh.
He released his hold, and Silvertip fell heavily back upon the floor. A shower of red sparks flashed in front of his eyes, but through them he was seeing the Runt and covering him carefully. And the Runt moaning, trembling with eagerness to attack, hung on tiptoe, controlled by the small, dark mouth of the gun.
"Pick me up," said Silvertip.
"You mean it?" asked the Runt.
"I mean it. Pick me up and carry me in your arms."
"I'll see you damned first," said the Drummon.
"D'you think I'll hesitate about shooting, Runt?" said Silvertip. "Pick me up, and handle me with care. You're strong enough for the job. Put me astraddle on your back, because I can't stand. And move slowly-my finger's on the trigger all the time."
Cursing through his teeth in long, whispering, frothing sounds, the Runt lifted that burden and shuddered under it. But the pressure of the muzzle of the gun against his body ruled him.
He opened the side door and carried Silvertip out into the open night.
There was little danger for the moment.
The men of the Drummons were, without exception, journeying through the night; slowly, because the horse litter that supported Hank Drummon could not be moved rapidly. And as for the women and children, they were gathered inside the big house, celebrating in anticipation of the ending of the long feud.
So the Runt got Silvertip safely to the barn. His back against the manger, Silver directed the choice of a horse and the saddling of it, and finally he was lifted up and his feet fitted into the stirrups, and then tied there, and the rope passed beneath the belly of the horse.
If there were a fall, he would be killed by the rolling of the horse; but there must be no fall.
At the door of the barn he
gathered the reins and let the Runt step back.
"Don't follow me, Runt," he said. "It's no use. I'll be safely off before you can have a nag saddled and get a gun. Run for your own life, because when Hank Drummon knows that you've let me get away, he'll flay you again the way you were flayed once before. But this time you won't live through it."
Then he loosed the reins, and the horse fled through the dark.
Every swing of that gallop was a torture to the rider. And his battered legs refused to take and sustain a hold, so that his weight kept slipping to one side and then to the other. With his hands on the pommel, he had to right himself, and the strength even of his arms began to give way.
He reached the river. Its bright face was a blurred flash, tarnished by the pain he endured.
The dashing of the water wet him to the shoulders, and was a blessing of assuaging coolness.
And then he went on, until faintness kept him gasping for breath. Twice he lurched far to the side, and the exquisite pain that he felt was all that rallied his senses.
But his head was bowed on the mane of the horse when, at last, he heard voices not far away, and looked up with amazement to find himself directly before the house of Monterey.
It seemed to him that there was a roaring of tumult in the air, and he thought that the battle must be in progress. But then he realized that it was only the pounding and the thundering of the blood in his own ears.
He came closer to lights. A voice shouted, and then many others joined in a chorus. Men walked beside him, supporting him. Others led his horse. He tried to stare through the bright mist and make out faces vainly. Then he heard the shrill, musical cry of Julia Monterey as the peons lifted him tenderly to the ground.
At that his brain cleared suddenly.
He could not stand. His whole body below the shoulders was limp.
"The outer door at the bottom of the cliff-the cellar door-Bandini has unwalled it from the inside to-day! D'you hear me, Julia? Bandini, and the whole crowd of the Drummons are down there, or almost there. Call the men and turn them loose. Start Tonio-where's Tonio? Where's Juan Perez?"
There was a rush of the party for the house, a storming of footfalls wending down into the cool dimness of the cellars.
He saw Arturo Monterey come for an instant into sight, then disappear into the house, calling orders loudly to his men. He saw Julia Monterey from a corner of his eye, he hardly knew where.
Those who supported him had dropped his body to rush after their master, Monterey. He lay sprawling. He raised himself to his hands and shouted out the name of the one man who, he felt, might come to him before all others.
"Juan Perez! Juan Perez!"
There was no answer.
It seemed to Silver that all the vast effort had been in vain, and that the oath he had breathed silently above the dead man in Cruces had been taken to no end, for now that the greatest need of Pedro Monterey's aid had come, his substitute had to sit sprawling on the pavement of the patio of the house, helpless.
"Juan Perez!" he screamed.
Then he looked up and saw Perez standing by him. Other feet were running close by. That was Julia Monterey. He looked at her face as through a fog. There was no need of women at a time like this. Men had died in this cause, and more men were about to die unless the premonition in his mind were very wrong indeed.
"Lift me, Perez-help me!" he said.
The strong hands of the Mexican raised him suddenly to his feet. Where the hands touched his wounded body, they burned him with fiery pain. But he was all one wound, and therefore the pain was not strange.
"I shall take you to a safe place," Perez was saying. "And I shall not leave you. Have no fear, senior!"
"Safe place?" groaned Silver. "Take me down into the cellars. Take me down into the old mine. I have a gun and I can still use it. Perez, lend me your strength and take me where I can help!"
"I shall!" cried Juan Perez. "Oh, that there should be such a man in the world!"
"Perez! He's dying now!" cried the voice of the girl.
She tried to break in between them.
"Leave him-only help me take him to a bed," she commanded.
"Away with her-she's only a woman-there's no place for 'em now!" shouted Silver. "While we talk the fighting has started!"
"He shall have his way!" cried Perez to Julia Monterey.
"It will be murder, not fighting, if you go down among the guns!" she pleaded, turning to Silver.
"I tell you," said Silver in a frenzy, "this is the time to die!"
"It is the time to die!" echoed Perez, and began to help Silver strongly forward.
More help came to that wounded, half-naked body from the other side. He looked in bewilderment, and saw that it was Julia Monterey who had passed an arm around him and placed her strong shoulder beneath his. A good part of his weight she was supporting.
They passed through the door of the house. She it was who picked up a lantern, never relaxing her efforts to help sustain the half-benumbed body of Silver.
Juan Perez pulled open the tall door that led to the cellar. Out from the dimness came a medley of departing shouts that sank deeper and deeper into the gloom.
"Go back, Julia!" commanded Silver. "You're not needed. I don't want you! Go back!"
"No," she said. "Steady, Juan Perez! The steps are slippery."
"Julia, go back!" shouted Silver.
"It is the time to die," she answered. "Heaven knows how willingly I come to that time!"
"Perez!" cried Silver as he was taken swiftly down the first flight of the steps and into the gloom of a great gallery.
"Yes, senior," said Perez, already panting.
"Send the girl back! It is no place for her."
"Alas, senior," said Juan Perez, "she is a Monterey, and their women are as the men, ever ready for death."
Before them, out of what seemed an infinite distance, came explosions that struck with rapid impacts against the ear of Silver. And he knew that he was too late to be in the forefront of the battle. The men of Drummon already had come through the river door, and the shooting had commenced.
Chapter XXV
The Battle As the sound of the firing stopped their progress, with a silent assent, Silver said: "Julia, you know a place, perhaps, where they're apt to come if there's a retreat of Monterey's men. Is there one place they're apt to pass?"
"Two places, where big shafts join together," she said. "Ah!"
She cried out at a nearer echo of a death yell that rang out far away.
"Take me to one of the two places. No, tell Juan Perez how to go there, and then run back!"
"Turn to the right-here," said the girl. "Quickly, Juan Perez! There may not be time. The Drummons are so many devils, and our men cannot stop them. Quickly- quickly-if we are to reach the place in time where we may fight. Now to the left-now down these steps."
"Julia, tell us the way and go back!" shouted Silver.
"Am I a child?" she panted. "I shall not leave you. If you die, there is one of the Montereys ready to die with you. Juan Perez-faster-faster!"
They reached the bottom of a long descent, and then hurried forward to a place where several galleries converged in a meeting point powerfully sustained by great buttresses of the living rock. The lantern light glimmered brightly over the moisture that covered the stone.
"Now!" said the girl breathlessly. "If we place the lantern here in this gap-so!-the light shines down the passages they may come by. And we are left in shadow. Juan Perez, have you a second gun? I can shoot, also!"
They had placed Silver where he sat with his back against a wall, his legs sprawled out helplessly before him. With the lantern put in an adjoining corridor, it flung its light straight on down a mighty hall, where the pick marks showed on all sides, and left the three of them in the darker shadow.
"I have a second gun," said Juan Perez, "but that is for the senor. There is no way for you to help us now. Go back, senorita."
"Go back! Go ba
ck!" yelled Silver desperately. "There is no way that you can help here. Go back to the house- they are coming, Julia! Are you to stay here and drive us mad?"
"I am going," answered the girl quietly. "Juan Perez, guard him with your life!"
She was gone from the sight of Silver.
He heard Perez murmuring: "I have already sworn it. My life for yours, senor, and your life for mine. And that is the way that dying is easy. They are coming! Now we shall mow them down!"
"Look sharp!" answered Silver. "It may be that they are the men of Monterey retreating. Listen!"
For wild cries in Spanish now broke on their ears as the approaching tumult swept around an adjacent corner of the tunnels. And then the lantern light struck on a mob of frantic faces-the men of the house of Monterey in headlong flight, reaching out their hands before them as they dashed through the gloom, screeching out the names of their patron saints.
"Curse them!" groaned Juan Perez. "Oh, dogs who betray the hand that fed them. Look-the master is among them-he beats them-but they will not turn and fight!"
For yonder was the silver hair and the white beard of Monterey as he was borne headlong by the current of the flight.
From the rear came the bawling voices of the Drum-mons in the height of their victory.
Now, behind the place where Silver sat, with a gun in either hand, and Juan Perez kneeling beside him in desperate readiness, he heard the shrill voice of Julia crying:
"Turn back! There is help here! Senior Silver is here- and Juan Perez-and great help! The fight is ours! Turn back, cowards! Turn back and face the bullets with me! Senior Silver is here, and he cannot die alone!"
He heard the girl's shouting as the leaders of the Drummon throng poured around the next bend of the hallway. He saw their faces gleaming white in the dull light of the lantern, like sickly creatures of the sea seen deep down in the shadowy water.
Right into the faces of those charging men Silver and Juan Perez poured a deadly fire.
He saw one man fall. He saw another pitch sidewise. He saw a third leap upward like a wounded deer, yelling. And the whole rout slowed, wavered.
A gap opened. In the rear he had a glimpse of the great form of Hank Drummon, borne on his litter by several pairs of hands. He had stripped himself to the waist, naked, like a sailor going into action on a battleship of the old days, and as though he expected to bathe in blood. In his hands were weapons. About his head was the broad white bandage. He seemed like a pirate picture out of the past.