“Never mind that now. You died to save me. Always I’ll remember that.”
“Onct you ’most loved me.... But it wouldn’t have done. I’m a wolf and you’re a little white lamb. Is Flatray the man?”
“Yes.”
“Thought so. Well, he’s square. I rigged it up on him about the rustling. I was the man you liked to ’a’ caught that day years ago.”
“You!”
“Yep.” He broke off abruptly. “I’m going, girl.... It’s gittin’ black. Hold my hand till—till——”
He gave a shudder and seemed to fall together. He was dead.
Melissy heard the sound of rubble slipping. Some one was lowering himself cautiously down the side of the cañon. A man dropped to the wash and strutted toward her. He kept his eyes fixed on the lifeless form, rifle ready for action at an instant’s notice. When he reached his victim he pushed the body with his foot, made sure of no trap, and relaxed his alertness.
“Dead as a hammer.”
The man was MacQueen. He turned to Melissy and nodded jauntily.
“Good evening, my dear. Just taking a little stroll?” he asked ironically.
The girl leaned against the cold wall and covered her face with her arm. She was sobbing hysterically.
The outlaw seized her by the shoulders and swung her round. “Cut that out, girl,” he ordered roughly.
Melissy caught at her sobs and tried to check them.
“He got what was coming to him, what he’s been playing for a long time. I warned him, but the fool wouldn’t see it.”
“How did you know?” she asked, getting out her question a word at a time.
“Knew it all the time. Rosario brought his note to me. I told her to take it to you and keep her mouth shut.”
“You planned his death.”
“If you like to put it that way. Now we’ll go home and forget this foolishness. Jeff, bring the horses round to the mouth of the gulch.”
Melissy felt suddenly very, very tired and old. Her feet dragged like those of an Indian squaw following her master. It was as though heavy irons weighted her ankles.
MacQueen helped her to one of the horses Jackson brought to the lip of the gulch. Weariness rode on her shoulders all the way back. The soul of her was crushed beneath the misfortunes that oppressed her.
Long before they reached the ranch houses Rosario came running to meet them. Plainly she was in great excitement.
“The prisoners have escaped,” she cried to MacQueen.
“Escaped. How?” demanded Black.
“Some one must have helped them. I heard a window smash and ran out. The young ranger and another man were coming out of the last cabin with the old man. I could do nothing. They ran.”
They had been talking in her own language. MacQueen jabbed another question at her.
“Which way?”
“Toward the Pass.”
The outlaw ripped out an oath. “We’ve got ’em. They can’t reach it without horses as quick as we can with them.” He whirled upon Melissy. “March into the house, girl. Don’t you dare make a move. I’m leaving Buck here to watch you.” Sharply he swung to the man Lane. “Buck, if she makes a break to get away, riddle her full of holes. You hear me.”
A minute later, from the place where she lay face down on the bed, Melissy heard him and his men gallop away.
* * *
CHAPTER VIII
AN ESCAPE AND A CAPTURE
Far up in the mountains, in that section where head the Roaring Fork, One Horse Creek, and the Del Oro, is a vast tract of wild, untraveled country known vaguely as the Bad Lands. Somewhere among the thousand and one cañons which cleft the huddled hills lay hidden Dead Man’s Cache. Here Black MacQueen retreated on those rare occasions when the pursuit grew hot on his tracks. So the current report ran.
Whether the abductors of Simon West were to be found in the Cache or at some other nest in the almost inaccessible ridges Jack Flatray had no means of knowing. His plan was to follow the Roaring Fork almost to its headquarters, and there establish a base for his hunt. It might take him a week to flush his game. It might take a month. He clamped his bulldog jaw to see the thing out to a finish.
Jack did not make the mistake of underestimating his job. He had followed the trail of bad men often enough to know that, in a frontier country, no hunt is so desperate as the man-hunt. Such men are never easily taken, even if they do not have all the advantage in the deadly game of hide and seek that is played in the timber and the pockets of the hills.
And here the odds all lay with the hunted. They knew every ravine and gulch. Day by day their scout looked down from mountain ledges to watch the progress of the posse.
Moreover, Flatray could never tell at what moment his covey might be startled from its run. The greatest vigilance was necessary to make sure his own party would not be ambushed. Yet slowly he combed the arroyos and the ridges, drawing always closer to that net of gulches in which he knew Dead Man’s Cache must be located.
During the day the sheriff split his party into couples. Bellamy and Alan McKinstra, Farnum and Charlie Hymer, young Yarnell and the sheriff. So Jack had divided his posse, thus leaving at the head of each detail one old and wise head. Each night the parties met at the rendezvous appointed for the wranglers with the pack horses. From sunrise to sunset often no face was seen other than those of their own outfit. Sometimes a solitary sheep herder was discovered at his post. Always the work was hard, discouraging, and apparently futile. But the young sheriff never thought of quitting.
The provisions gave out. Jack sent back Hal Yarnell and Hegler, the wrangler, to bring in a fresh supply. Meanwhile the young sheriff took a big chance and scouted alone. He parted from the young Arkansan at the head of a gulch which twisted snakelike into the mountains; Yarnell and the pack outfit to ride to Mammoth, Flatray to dive still deeper into the mesh of hills. He had the instinct of the scout to stick to the high places as much as he could. Whenever it was possible he followed ridges, so that no spy could look down upon him as he traveled. Sometimes the contour of the country drove him into the open or down into hollows. But in such places he advanced with the swift stealth of an Indian.
It was on one of these occasions, when he had been driven into a dark and narrow cañon, that he came to a sudden halt. He was looking at an empty tomato can. Swinging down from his saddle, he picked it up without dismounting. A little juice dripped from the can to the ground.
Flatray needed no explanation. In Arizona men on the range often carry a can of tomatoes instead of a water canteen. Nothing alleviates thirst like the juice of this acid fruit. Some one had opened this can within two hours. Otherwise the sun would have dried the moisture.
Jack took his rifle from its place beneath his legs and set it across the saddle in front of him. Very carefully he continued on his way, watching every rock and bush ahead of him. Here and there in the sand were printed the signs of a horse going in the same direction as his.
Up and down, in and out of a maze of crooked paths, working by ever so devious a way higher into the chain of mountains, Jack followed his leader. Now he would lose the hoofmarks; now he would pick them up again. And, at the last, they brought him to the rim of a basin, a bowl of wooded ravines, of twisted ridges, of bleak spurs jutting into late pastures almost green. It was now past sunset. Dusk was filtering down from the blue peaks. As he looked a star peeped out low on the horizon.
But was it a star? He glimpsed it between trees. The conviction grew on him that what he saw was the light of a lamp. A tangle of rough country lay between him and that beacon, but there before him lay his destination. At last he had found his way into Dead Man’s Cache.
The sheriff lost no time, for he knew that if he should get lost in the darkness on one of these forest slopes he might wander all night. A rough trail led him down into the basin. Now he would lose sight of the light. Half an hour later, pushing to the summit of a hill, he might find it. After a time there twinkled a second beside the first. He
was getting close to a settlement of some kind.
Below him in the darkness lay a stretch of open meadow rising to the wooded foothills. Behind these a wall of rugged mountains encircled the valley like a gigantic crooked arm. Already he could make out faintly the outlines of the huddled buildings.
Slipping from his horse, Jack went forward cautiously on foot. He was still a hundred yards from the nearest hut when dogs bayed warning of his approach. He waited, rifle in hand. No sign of human life showed except the two lights shining from as many windows. Flatray counted four other cabins as dark as Egypt.
Very slowly he crept forward, always with one eye to his retreat. Why did nobody answer the barking of the dogs? Was he being watched all the time? But how could he be, since he was completely cloaked in darkness?
So at last he came to the nearest cabin, crept to the window, and looked in. A man lay on a bed. His hands and feet were securely tied and a second rope wound round so as to bind him to the bunk.
Flatray tapped softly on a pane. Instantly the head of the bound man slewed round.
“Friend?”
The prisoner asked it ever so gently, but the sheriff heard.
“Yes.”
“The top part of the window is open. You can crawl over, I reckon.”
Jack climbed on the sill and from it through the window. Almost before he reached the floor his knife was out and he was slashing at the ropes.
“Better put the light out, pardner,” suggested the man he was freeing, and the officer noticed that there was no tremor in the cool, steady voice.
“That’s right. We’d make a fine mark through the window.”
And the light went out.
“I’m Bucky O’Connor. Who are you?”
“Jack Flatray.”
They spoke together in whispers. Though both were keyed to the highest pitch of excitement they were as steady as eight-day clocks. O’Connor stretched his limbs, flexing them this way and that, so that he might have perfect control of them. He worked especially over the forearm and fingers of his right arm.
Flatray handed him a revolver.
“Whenever you’re ready, Lieutenant.”
“All right. It’s the cabin next to this.”
They climbed out of the window noiselessly and crept to the next hut. The door was locked, the window closed.
“We’ve got to smash the window. Nothing else for it,” Flatray whispered.
“Looks like it. That means we’ll have to shoot our way out.”
With the butt of his rifle the sheriff shattered the woodwork of the window, driving the whole frame into the room.
“What is it?” a frightened voice demanded.
“Friends, Mr. West. Just a minute.”
It took them scarce longer than that to free him and to get him into the open. A Mexican woman came screaming out of an adjoining cabin.
The young men caught each an arm of the capitalist and hurried him forward.
“Hell’ll be popping in a minute,” Flatray explained.
But they reached the shelter of the underbrush without a shot having been fired. Nor had a single man appeared to dispute their escape.
“Looks like most of the family is away from home to-night,” Bucky hazarded.
“Maybe so, but they’re liable to drop in any minute. We’ll keep covering ground.”
They circled round toward the sheriff’s horse. As soon as they reached it West, still stiff from want of circulation in his cramped limbs, was boosted into the saddle.
“It’s going to be a good deal of a guess to find our way out of the Cache,” Jack explained. “Even in the daytime it would take a ’Pache, but at night—well, here’s hoping the luck’s good.”
They found it not so good as they had hoped. For hours they wandered in mesquit, dragged themselves through cactus, crossed washes, and climbed hills.
“This will never do. We’d better give it up till daylight. We’re not getting anywhere,” the sheriff suggested.
They did as he advised. As soon as a faint gray sifted into the sky they were on the move again. But whichever way they climbed it was always to come up against steep cliffs too precipitous to be scaled.
The ranger officer pointed to a notch beyond a cowbacked hill. “I wouldn’t be sure, but it looks like that was the way they brought me into the Cache. I could tell if I were up there. What’s the matter with my going ahead and settling the thing? If I’m right I’ll come back and let you know.”
Jack looked at West. The railroad man was tired and drawn. He was not used to galloping over the hills all night.
“All right. We’ll be here when you come back,” Flatray said, and flung himself on the ground.
West followed his example.
It must have been half an hour later that Flatray heard a twig snap under an approaching foot. He had been scanning the valley with his glasses, having given West instructions to keep a lookout in the rear. He swung his head round sharply, and with it his rifle.
“You’re covered, you fool,” cried the man who was strutting toward them.
“Stop there. Not another step,” Flatray called sharply.
The man stopped, his rifle half raised. “We’ve got you on every side, man.” He lifted his voice. “Jeff—Hank—Steve! Let him know you’re alive.”
Three guns cracked and kicked up the dust close to the sheriff.
“What do you want with us?” Flatray asked, sparring for time.
“Drop your gun. If you don’t we’ll riddle you both.”
West spoke to Jack promptly. “Do as he says. It’s MacQueen.”
Flatray hesitated. He could kill MacQueen probably, but almost certainly he and West would pay the penalty. He reluctantly put his rifle down. “All right. It’s your call.”
“Where’s O’Connor?”
The sheriff looked straight at him. “Haven’t you enough of us for one gather?”
The outlaws were closing in on them cautiously.
“Not without that smart man hunter. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“The devil you don’t.”
“We separated early this morning—thought it would give us a better chance for a getaway.” Jack gave a sudden exclamation of surprise. “So it was Black MacQueen himself who posed as O’Connor down at Mesa.”
“Guessed it right, my friend. And I’ll tell you one thing: you’ve made the mistake of your life butting into Dead Man’s Cache. Your missing friend O’Connor was due to hand in his checks to-day. Since you’ve taken his place it will be you that crosses the divide, Mr. Sheriff. You’d better tell where he is, for if we don’t get Mr. Bucky it will be God help J. Flatray.”
The dapper little villain exuded a smug, complacent cruelty. It was no use for the sheriff to remind himself that such things weren’t done nowadays, that the times of Geronimo and the Apache Kid were past forever. Black MacQueen would go the limit in deviltry if he set his mind to it.
Yet Flatray answered easily, without any perceptible hesitation: “I reckon I’ll play my hand and let Bucky play his.”
“Suits me if it does you. Jeff, collect that hardware. Now, while you boys beat up the hills for O’Connor, I’ll trail back to camp with these two all-night picnickers.”
* * *
CHAPTER IX
A BARGAIN
Melissy saw the two prisoners brought in, though she could not tell at that distance who they were. Her watch told her that it was four-thirty. She had slept scarcely at all during the night, but now she lay down on the bed in her clothes.
The next she knew, Rosario was calling her to get up for breakfast. The girl dressed and followed Rosario to the adjoining cabin. MacQueen was not there, and Melissy ate alone. She was given to understand that she might walk up and down in front of the houses for a few minutes after breakfast. Naturally she made the most of the little liberty allowed her.
The old squaw Sit-in-the-Sun squatted in front of the last hut, her back against the lo
g wall. The man called Buck sat yawning on a rock a few yards away. What struck Melissy as strange was that the squaw was figuring on the back of an old envelope with the stub of a lead pencil.
The young woman walked leisurely past the cabin for perhaps a dozen yards.
“That’ll be about far enough. You don’t want to tire yourself, Miss Lee,” Buck Lane called, with a grin.
Melissy stopped, stood looking at the mountains for a few minutes, and turned back. Sit-in-the-Sun looked quickly at her, and at the same moment she tore the paper in two and her fingers opened to release one piece of the envelope upon which she had been writing. A puff of wind carried it almost directly in front of the girl. Lane was still yawning sleepily, his gaze directed toward the spot where he presently expected Rosario to step out and call him to breakfast. Melissy dropped her handkerchief, stooped to pick it up, and gathered at the same time in a crumpled heap into her hand the fragment of an envelope. Without another glance at the squaw, the young woman kept on her way, sauntered to the porch, and lingered there as if in doubt.
“I’m tired,” she announced to Rosario, and turned to her rooms.
“Si, señorita,” answered her attendant quietly.
Once inside, Melissy lay down on her bed, with her back to the window, and smoothed out the torn envelope. On one side were some disjointed memoranda which she did not understand.
K. C. & T. 93
D. & R. B. 87
Float $10,000,000 Cortes for extension.
That was all, but certainly a strange puzzle for a Navajo squaw to set her.
She turned the paper over, to find the other side close-packed with writing.
Miss Lee:
In the last cabin but one is a prisoner, your friend Sheriff Flatray. He is to be shot in an hour. I have offered any sum for his life and been refused. For God’s sake save him somehow.
Simon West.
Jack Flatray here, and about to be murdered! The thing was incredible. And yet—and yet—— Was it so impossible, after all? Some one had broken into the Cache and released the prisoners. Who more likely than Jack to have done this? And later they had captured him and condemned him for what he had done.
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