The sleeper stirred uneasily beneath her touch. She felt stifled, wanted to shout out her fears in a scream. Far beyond the need of proof she knew now that something was very wrong, though she still could not guess at what the dreadful menace was.
But Joyce had courage. She was what the wind and the sun and a long line of sturdy ancestors had made her. She leaned forward toward the awakening man just as he turned in the bunk.
A hand fell on her wrist and closed, the fingers like bands of iron. Joyce screamed wildly, her nerve swept away in a reaction of terror. She fought like a wildcat, twisting and writhing with all her supple strength to break the grip on her arm.
For she knew now what the evil was that had been tolling a bell of warning in her heart.
CHAPTER XLI
HANK BRINGS BAD NEWS
The change in the wind had cost three lives, but it had saved the Jackpot property and the feed on the range. After the fire in San Jacinto Cañon had broken through Hart's defense by its furious and persistent attack, nothing could have prevented it from spreading over the plains on a wild rampage except a cloudburst or a decided shift of wind. This last had come and had driven the flames back on territory already burnt over.
The fire did not immediately die out, but it soon began to dwindle. Only here and there did it leap forward with its old savage fury. Presently these sporadic plunges wore themselves out for lack of fuel. The devastated area became a smouldering, smoking char showing a few isolated blazes in the barren ruin. There were still possibilities of harm in them if the wind should shift again, but for the present they were subdued to a shadow of their former strength. It remained the business of the fire-fighters to keep a close watch on the red-hot embers to prevent them from being flung far by the breeze.
Fortunately the wind died down soon, reducing the danger to a minimum.
Dave handed back to Shorty the revolver he had borrowed so peremptorily from his holster.
"Much obliged. I won't need this any more."
The cowpuncher spoke grimly. "I'm liable to."
"Mexico is a good country for a cattleman," Sanders said, looking straight at him.
Shorty met him eye to eye. "So I've been told."
"Good range and water-holes. Stock fatten well."
"Yes."
"A man might do worse than go there if he's worn out this country."
"Stage-robbers and rustlers right welcome, are they?" asked Shorty hardily.
"No questions asked about a man's past if his present is O.K."
"Listens good. If I meet anybody lookin' to make a change I'll tell him you recommended Mexico." The eyes of the two men still clashed. In each man's was a deep respect for the other's gameness. They had been tried by fire and come through clean. Shorty voiced this defiantly. "I don't like a hair of yore head. Never did. You're too damned interferin' to suit me. But I'll say this. You'll do to ride the river with, Sanders."
"I'll interfere again this far, Shorty. You're too good a man to go bad."
"Oh, hell!" The outlaw turned away; then thought better of it and came back. "I'll name no names, but I'll say this. Far as I'm concerned Tim Harrigan might be alive to-day."
Dave, with a nod, accepted this as true. "I guessed as much. You've been running with a mighty bad pardner."
"Have I?" asked the rustler blandly. "Did I say anything about a pardner?"
His eye fell on the three still figures lying on the hillside in a row. Not a twitching muscle in his face showed what he was thinking, that they might have been full of splendid life and vigor if Dug Doble had not put a match to the chaparral back of Bear Cañon. The man had murdered them just as surely as though he had shot them down with a rifle. For weeks Shorty had been getting his affairs in order to leave the country, but before he went he intended to have an accounting with one man.
Dillon came up to Sanders and spoke in an awed voice. "What do you aim to do with … these, Sanders?" His hand indicated the bodies lying near.
"Send horses up for them," Dave said. "You can take all the men back to camp with you except three to help me watch the fire. Tell Mr. Crawford how things are."
The men crept down the hill like veterans a hundred years old. Ragged, smoke-blackened, and grimy, they moved like automatons. So great was their exhaustion that one or two dropped out of line and lay down on the charred ground to sleep. The desire for it was so overmastering that they could not drive their weighted legs forward.
A man on horseback appeared and rode up to Dave and Shorty. The man was Bob Hart. The red eyes in his blackened face were sunken and his coat hung on him in crisped shreds. He looked down at the bodies lying side by side. His face worked, but he made no verbal comment.
"We piled into a cave. Some of the boys couldn't stand it," Dave explained.
Bob's gaze took in his friend. The upper half of his body was almost naked. Both face and torso were raw with angry burns. Eyebrows had disappeared and eyes were so swollen as to be almost closed. He was gaunt, ragged, unshaven, and bleeding. Shorty, too, appeared to have gone through the wars.
"You boys oughtta have the doc see you," Hart said gently. "He's down at camp now. One of Em's men had an arm busted by a limb of a tree fallin' on him. I've got a coupla casualties in my gang. Two or three of 'em runnin' a high fever. Looks like they may have pneumonia, doc says. Lungs all inflamed from swallowin' smoke…. You take my hawss and ride down to camp, Dave. I'll stick around here till the old man sends a relief."
"No, you go down and report to him, Bob. If Crawford has any fresh men I'd like mine relieved. They've been on steady for 'most two days and nights. Four or five can hold the fire here. All they need do is watch it."
Hart did not argue. He knew how Dave stuck to a thing like a terrier to a rat. He would not leave the ground till orders came from Emerson Crawford.
"Lemme go an' report," suggested Shorty. "I wanta get my bronc an' light out pronto. Never can tell when Applegate might drap around an' ask questions. Me, I'm due in the hills."
"All right," agreed Bob. "See Crawford himself, Shorty."
The outlaw pulled himself to the saddle and cantered off.
"Best man in my gang," Dave said, following him with his eyes. "There to a finish and never a whimper out of him. Dragged a man out of the fire when he might have been hustling for his own skin."
"Shorty's game," admitted Hart. "Pity he went bad."
"Yes. He told me he didn't kill Harrigan."
"Reckon Dug did that. More like him."
Half an hour later the relief came. Hart, Dave, and the three fire-fighters who had stayed to watch rode back to camp.
Crawford had lost his voice. He had already seen Hart since the fire had subsided, so his greeting was to Sanders.
"Good work, son," he managed to whisper, a quaver in his throat. "I'd rather we'd lost the whole works than to have had that happen to the boys, a hundred times rather. I reckon it must 'a' been mighty bad up there when the back-fire caught you. The boys have been tellin' me. You saved all their lives, I judge."
"I happened to know where the cave was."
"Yes." Crawford's whisper was sadly ironic. "Well, I'm sure glad you happened to know that. If you hadn't…." The old cattleman gave a little gesture that completed the sentence. The tragedy that had taken place had shaken his soul. He felt in a way responsible.
"If the doc ain't busy now, I reckon Dave could use him," Bob said. "I reckon he needs a li'l' attention. Then I'm ready for grub an' a sleep twice round the clock. If any one asks me, I'm sure enough dead beat. I don't ever want to look at a shovel again."
"Doc's fixin' up Lanier's burnt laig. He'd oughtta be through soon now. I'll have him 'tend to Dave's burns right away then," said Crawford. He turned to Sanders. "How about it, son? You sure look bunged up pretty bad."
"I'm about all in," admitted Dave. "Reckon we all are. Shorty gone yet?"
"Yes. Lit out after he'd made a report. Said he had an engagement to meet a man. Expect he meant he had an
engagement not to meet the sheriff. I rec'lect when Shorty was a mighty promisin' young fellow before Brad Steelman got a-holt of him. He punched cows for me twenty years ago. He hadn't took the wrong turn then. You cayn't travel crooked trails an' not reach a closed pocket o' the hills sometime."
For several minutes they had heard the creaking of a wagon working up an improvised road toward the camp. Now it moved into sight. The teamster called to Crawford.
"Here's another load o' grub, boss. Miss Joyce she rustled up them canteens you was askin' for."
Crawford stepped over to the wagon. "Don't reckon we'll need the canteens, Hank, but we can use the grub fine. The fire's about out."
"That's bully. Say, I got news for you, Mr. Crawford. Brad Steelman's dead. They found him in his house, shot plumb through the head. I reckon he won't do you any more meanness."
"Who killed him?"
"They ain't sayin'," returned the teamster cautiously. "Some folks was guessin' that mebbe Dug Doble could tell, but there ain't any evidence far's I know. Whoever it was robbed the safe."
The old cattleman made no comment. From the days of their youth Steelman had been his bitter enemy, but death had closed the account between them. His mind traveled back to those days twenty-five years ago when he and the sheepman had both hitched their horses in front of Helen Radcliff's home. It had been a fair fight between them, and he had won as a man should. But Brad had not taken his defeat as a man should. He had nourished bitterness and played his successful rival many a mean despicable trick. Out of these had grown the feud between them. Crawford did not know how it had come about, but he had no doubt Steelman had somehow fallen a victim in the trap he had been building for others.
A question brought his mind back to the present. The teamster was talking: "… so she started pronto. I s'pose you wasn't as bad hurt as Sanders figured."
"What's that?" asked Crawford.
"I was sayin' Miss Joyce she started right away when the note come from
Sanders."
"What note?"
"The one tellin' how you was hurt in the fire."
Crawford turned. "Come here, Dave," he called hoarsely.
Sanders moved across.
"Hank says you sent a note to Joyce sayin' I'd been hurt. What about it?"
"Why would I do that when you're not hurt?"
"Then you didn't?"
"Of course not," answered Dave, perplexed.
"Some one's been stringin' you, Hank," said Crawford, smiling.
The teamster scratched his head. "No, sir. I was there when she left.
About twelve o'clock last night, mebbe later."
"But Sanders says he didn't send a note, and Joyce didn't come here. So you must 'a' missed connections somewhere."
"Probably you saw her start for home," suggested Dave.
Hank stuck to his guns. "No, sir. She was on that sorrel of hers, an' Keith was ridin' behind her. I saddled myself and took the horse to the store. They was waitin' there for me, the two young folks an' Juan."
"Juan?"
"Juan Otero. He brought the note an' rode back with her."
The old cattleman felt a clutch of fear at his heart. Juan Otero was one of Dug Doble's men.
"That all you know, Hank?"
"That's all. Miss Joyce said for me to get this wagonload of grub out soon as I could. So I come right along."
"Doble been seen in town lately?" asked Dave.
"Not as I know of. Shorty has."
"Shorty ain't in this."
"Do you reckon—?"
Sanders cut the teamster short. "Some of Doble's work. But I don't see why he sent for Keith too."
"He didn't. Keith begged to go along an' Miss Joyce took him."
In the haggard, unshaven face of the cattleman Dave read the ghastly fear of his own soul. Doble was capable of terrible evil. His hatred, jealousy, and passion would work together to poison his mind. The corners of his brain had always been full of lust and obscenity. There was this difference between him and Shorty. The squat cowpuncher was a clean scoundrel. A child, a straight girl, an honest woman, would be as safe with him as with simple-hearted old Buck Byington. But Dug Doble—it was impossible to predict what he would do. He had a vein of caution in his make-up, but when in drink he jettisoned this and grew ugly. His vanity—always a large factor in determining his actions—might carry him in the direction of decency or the reverse.
"I'm glad Keith's with her," said Hart, who had joined the group. "With Keith and the Mexican there—" His meaning did not need a completed sentence.
"Question is, where did he take her," said Crawford. "We might comb the hills a week and not find his hole. I wish to God Shorty was still here. He might know."
"He's our best bet, Bob," agreed Dave. "Find him. He's gone off somewhere to sleep. Rode away less than half an hour since."
"Which way?"
"Rode toward Bear Cañon," said Crawford.
"That's a lead for you, Bob. Figure it out. He's done—completely worn out. So he won't go far—not more than three-four miles. He'll be in the hills, under cover somewhere, for he won't forget that thousand dollars reward. So he'll be lying in the chaparral. That means he'll be above where the fire started. If I was looking for him, I'd say somewhere back of Bear, Cattle, or San Jacinto would be the likeliest spot."
"Good guess, Dave. Somewheres close to water," said Bob. "You goin' along with me?"
"No. Take as many men as you can get. I'm going back, if I can, to find the place where Otero and Miss Joyce left the road. Mr. Crawford, you'd better get back to town, don't you think? There may be clues there we don't know anything about here. Perhaps Miss Joyce may have got back."
"If not, I'll gather a posse to rake the hills, Dave. If that villain's hurt my li'l' girl or Keith—" Crawford's whisper broke. He turned away to conceal the working of his face.
"He hasn't," said Bob with decision. "Dug ain't crazy even if his actions
look like it. I've a notion when Mr. Crawford gets back to town Miss
Joyce will be there all right. Like as not Dug brought her back himself.
Maybe he sent for her just to brag awhile. You know Dug."
That was the worst of it, so far as any allaying of their fear went. They did know Doble. They knew him for a thorough black-hearted scoundrel who might stop at nothing.
The three men moved toward the remuda. None of them had slept for forty-eight hours. They had been through a grueling experience that had tried soul and body to the limit. But none of them hesitated for an instant. They belonged to the old West which answers the call no matter what the personal cost. There was work to do. Not one of them would quit as long as he could stick to the saddle.
CHAPTER XLII
SHORTY IS AWAKENED
The eyes that looked into those of Joyce in the gloom of the cabin abruptly shook off sleep. They passed from an amazed incredulity to a malicious triumph.
"So you've come to old Dug, have you, my pretty?" a heavy voice jeered.
The girl writhed and twisted regardless of the pain, exerting every muscle of the strong young arm and shoulder. As well she might have tried to beat down an iron door with her bare hands as to hope for escape from his strong grip. He made a motion to draw her closer. Joyce flung herself back and sank down beside the bunk, straining away.
"Let me go!" she cried, terror rampant in her white face. "Don't touch me! Let me go!"
The force of her recoil had drawn him to his side. His cruel, mirthless grin seemed to her to carry inexpressible menace. Very slowly, while his eyes taunted her, he pulled her manacled wrist closer.
There was a swift flash of white teeth. With a startled oath Doble snatched his arm away. Savage as a tigress, Joyce had closed her teeth on his forearm.
She fell back, got to her feet, and fled from the house. Doble was after her on the instant. She dodged round a tree, doubled on her course, then deflected toward the corral. Swift and supple though she was, his long strides brough
t him closer. Again she screamed.
Doble caught her. She fought in his arms, a prey to wild and unreasoning terror.
"You young hell-cat, I'm not gonna hurt you," he said. "What's the use o' actin' crazy?"
He could have talked to the waves of the sea with as much effect. It is doubtful if she heard him.
There was a patter of rapid feet. A small body hurled itself against Doble's leg and clung there, beating his thigh with a valiant little fist.
"You le' my sister go! You le' my sister go!" the boy shouted, repeating the words over and over.
Doble looked down at Keith. "What the hell?" he demanded, amazed.
The Mexican came forward and spoke in Spanish rapidly. He explained that he could not have prevented the boy from coming without arousing the suspicions of his sister and her friends.
The outlaw was irritated. All this clamor of fear annoyed and disturbed him. This was not the scene he had planned in his drink-inspired reveries. There had been a time when Joyce had admired the virile force of him, when she had let herself be kind to him under the impression she was influencing him for his good. He had misunderstood the reaction of her mind and supposed that if he could get her away from the influence of her father and the rest of his enemies, she would again listen to what he called reason.
"All right. You brought the brat here without orders. Now take him home again," directed Doble harshly.
Otero protested fluently, with gestures eloquent. He had not yet been paid for his services. By this time Malapi might be too hot for him. He did not intend ever to go back. He was leaving the country pronto—muy pronto. The boy could go back when his sister went.
"His sister's not going back. Soon as it gets dark we'll travel south. She's gonna be my wife. You can take the kid back to the road an' leave him there."
Again the Mexican lifted hands and shoulders while he pattered volubly, trying to make himself heard above the cries of the child. Dug had silenced Joyce by the simple expedient of clapping his big hand over her mouth.
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