by Unknown
"I reckon I'll not wait for your father's report, Miss Lee. I work independent of other men. That is how I get the wonderful results I do."
His conceit nettled her; also, it stung her filial loyalty. "My father was the best sheriff this county ever had," she said stiffly.
He smiled satirically. "Still, I reckon I'll handle this my own way--unless your father's daughter wants to go partners with me in it."
She gave him a look intended to crush his impudence. "No, thank you."
He ate a breakfast which she had the cook prepare hurriedly for him, and departed on the horse for which she had telephoned to the nearest livery stable. Melissy was a singularly fearless girl; yet she watched him go with a decided relief, for which she could not account. He rode, she observed, like a centaur--flat-backed, firm in the saddle with the easy negligence of a plainsman. He turned as he started, and waved a hand debonairly at her.
"If I have any luck, I'll bring back one of the Roaring Fork bunch with me--a present for a good girl, Miss Melissy."
She turned on her heel and went inside. Anger pulsed fiercely through her. He laughed at her, made fun of her, and yet called her by her first name. How dared he treat her so! Worst of all, she read admiration bold and unveiled in the eyes that mocked her.
Half an hour later Flatray, riding toward town with his prisoner in front of him, heard a sudden sharp summons to throw up his hands. A man had risen from behind a boulder, and held him covered steadily.
Jack looked at the fellow without complying. He needed no second glance to tell him that this man was not one to be trifled with. "Who are you?" he demanded quietly.
"Never mind who I am. Reach for the sky."
The captured outlaw had given a little whoop, and was now loosening the rope from his neck. "You're the goods, Cap! I knew the boys would pull it off for me, but I didn't reckon on it so durn soon."
"Shut up!" ordered the man behind the gun, without moving his eyes from Flatray.
"I'm a clam," retorted the other.
"I'm waiting for those hands to go up; but I'll not wait long, seh."
Jack's hands went up reluctantly. "You've got the call," he admitted.
They led him a couple of hundred yards from the trail and tied him hand and foot. Before they left him the outlaw whom he had captured evened his score. Three times he struck Flatray on the head with the butt of his revolver. He was lying on the ground bleeding and senseless when they rode away toward the hills.
Jack came to himself with a blinding headache. It was some time before he realized what had happened. As soon as he did he set about freeing himself. This was a matter of a few minutes. With the handkerchief that was around his neck he tied up his wounds. Fortunately his hair was very thick and this had saved him from a fractured skull. Dizzily he got to his feet, found his horse, and started toward Mesa.
Not many people were on the streets when the sheriff passed through the suburbs of the little town, for it was about the breakfast hour. One stout old negro mammy stopped to stare in surprise at his bloody head.
"Laws a mussy, Mistah Flatray, what they done be'n a-doin' to you-all?" she asked.
The sheriff hardly saw her. He was chewing the bitter cud of defeat and was absorbed in his thoughts. He was still young enough to have counted on the effect upon Melissy of his return to town with one of the abductors as his prisoner.
It happened that she was on the porch watering her flower boxes when he passed the house.
"Jack!" she cried, and on the heels of her exclamation: "What's the matter with you? Been hurt?"
A gray pallor had pushed through the tan of her cheeks. She knew her heart was beating fast.
"Bumped into a piece of bad luck," he grinned, and told her briefly what had occurred.
She took him into the house and washed his head for him. After she saw how serious the cuts were she insisted on sending for a doctor. When his wounds were dressed she fed him and made him lie down and sleep on her father's bed.
The sun was sliding down the heavens to a crotch in the hills before he joined her again. She was in front of the house clipping her roses.
"Is the invalid better?" she asked him.
"He's a false alarm. But he did have a mighty thumping headache that has gone now."
"I've been wondering why you didn't meet Lieutenant O'Connor. He must have taken the road you came in on."
The young man's eyes lit. "Is Bucky here already?"
"He was. He's gone. I was greatly disappointed in him. He's not half the man you think he is."
"Oh, but he is. Everybody says so."
"I never saw a more conceited man, or a more hateful one. There's something about him--oh, I don't know. But he isn't good. I'm sure of that."
"His reputation isn't of that kind. They say he's devoted to his wife and kids."
"His wife and children." Melissy recalled the smoldering admiration in his bold eyes. She laughed shortly. "That finishes him with me. He's married, is he? Well, I know the kind of husband he is."
Jack flashed a quick look at her. He guessed what she meant. But this did not square at all with what his friends had told him of O'Connor.
"Did he ask for me?"
"No. He said he preferred to play a lone hand. His manner was unpleasant all the time. He knows it all. I could see that."
"Anyhow, he's a crackerjack in his line. Have you heard from your father since he set out?"
"Not yet."
"Well, I'm going to start to-night with a posse for the Cache. If O'Connor comes back, tell him I'll follow the Roaring Fork."
"You'll not go this time without a gun, Jack," she said with a ghost of a smile.
"No. I want to make good this trip."
"You did splendidly before. Not one man in a hundred would have done so well."
"I'm a wonder," he admitted with a grin.
"But you will take care of yourself--not be foolish."
"I don't aim to take up residence in Boot Hill cemetery if I can help it."
"Boone and his men are dangerous characters. They are playing for high stakes. They would snuff your life out as quick as they would wink. Don't forget that."
"You don't want me to lie down before Dunc Boone, do you?"
"No-o. Only don't be reckless. I told father the same."
Her dear concern for him went to Jack's head, but he steadied himself before he answered. "I've got one real good reason for not being reckless. I'll tell you what it is some day."
Her shy, alarmed eyes fled his at once. She began an account of how her father had gathered his posse and where she thought he must have gone.
After dinner Jack went downtown. Melissy did some household tasks and presently moved out to the cool porch. She was just thinking about going back in when a barefoot boy ran past and whistled. From the next house a second youngster emerged.
"That you, Jimmie?"
"Betcherlife. Say, 've you heard about the sheriff?"
"Who? Jack Flatray! Course I have. The Roaring Fork outfit ambushed him, beat him up, and made him hit the trail for town."
"Aw! That ain't news. He's started back after them again. Left jes' a little while ago. I saw him go--him 'n' Farnum 'n' Charley Hymer 'n' Hal Yarnell 'n' Mr. Bellamy."
"Bet they git 'em."
"Bet they don't."
"Aw, course they'll git 'em, Tom."
The other youngster assumed an air of mystery. He swelled his chest and strutted a step or two nearer. Urbane condescension oozed from him.
"Say, Jimmie. C'n you keep a secret?"
"Sure. Course I can."
"Won't ever snitch?"
"Cross my heart."
"Well, then--I'm Black MacQueen, the captain of the Roaring Fork bad men."
"You!" Incredulity stared from Jimmie's bulging eyes.
"You betcher. I'm him, here in disguise as a kid."
The magnificent boldness of this claim stole Jimmie's breath for an instant. He was two years younger than his friend, b
ut he did not quite know whether to applaud or to jeer. Before he could make up his mind a light laugh rippled to them from behind the vines on the Lee porch.
The disguised outlaw and his friend were startled. Both fled swiftly, with all the pretense of desperate necessity young conspirators love to assume.
Melissy went into the house and the laughter died from her lips. She knew that either her father's posse or that of Jack Flatray would come into touch with the outlaws eventually. When the clash came there would be a desperate battle. Men would be killed. She prayed it might not be one of those for whom she cared most.
CHAPTER IV
THE REAL BUCKY AND THE FALSE
Number seven was churning its way furiously through brown Arizona. The day had been hot, with a palpitating heat which shimmered over the desert waste. Defiantly the sun had gone down beyond the horizon, a great ball of fire, leaving behind a brilliant splash of bold colors. Now this, too, had disappeared. Velvet night had transformed the land. Over the distant mountains had settled a smoke-blue film, which left them vague and indefinite.
Only three passengers rode in the Pullman car. One was a commercial traveler, busy making up his weekly statement to the firm. Another was a Boston lady, in gold-rimmed glasses and a costume that helped the general effect of frigidity. The third looked out of the open window at the distant hills. He was a slender young fellow, tanned almost to a coffee brown, with eyes of Irish blue which sometimes bubbled with fun and sometimes were hard as chisel steel. Wide-shouldered and lean-flanked he was, with well-packed muscles, which rippled like those of a tiger.
At Chiquita the train stopped, but took up again almost instantly its chant of the rail. Meanwhile, a man had swung himself to the platform of the smoker. He passed through that car, the two day coaches, and on to the sleeper; his keen, restless eyes inspected every passenger in the course of his transit. Opposite the young man in the Pullman he stopped.
"May I ask if you are Lieutenant O'Connor?"
"My name, seh."
The young man in the seat had slewed his head around sharply, and made answer with a crisp, businesslike directness.
The new-comer smiled. "I'll have to introduce myself, lieutenant. My name is Flatray. I've come to meet you."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Flatray. I hope that together we can work this thing out right. MacQueen has gathered a bunch that ought to be cleaned out, and I reckon now's the time to do it. I've been reading about him for a year. I've got a notion he's about the ablest thing in bad men this Territory has seen for a good many years."
Flatray sat down on the seat opposite O'Connor. A smile flicked across his face, and vanished. "I'm of that opinion myself, lieutenant."
"Tell me all about this affair of the West kidnapping," the ranger suggested.
The other man told the story while O'Connor listened, alert to catch every point of the narrative.
The face of the lieutenant of rangers was a boyish one--eager, genial, and frank; yet, none the less, strength lay in the close-gripped jaw and in the steady, watchful eye. His lithe, tense body was like a coiled spring; and that, too, though he seemed to be very much at ease.
With every sentence that the other spoke, O'Connor was judging Flatray, appraising him for a fine specimen of a hard-bitten breed--a vigilant frontiersman, competent to the finger tips. Yet he was conscious that, in spite of the man's graceful ease and friendly smile, he did not like Flatray. He would not ask for a better man beside him in a tight pinch; but he could not deny that something sinister which breathed from his sardonic, devil-may-care face.
"So that's how the land lies," the sheriff concluded. "My deputies have got the pass to the south blocked; Lee is closing in through Elkhorn; and Fox, with a strong posse, is combing the hills beyond Dead Man's Cache. There's only one way out for him, and that is over Powderhorn Pass. Word has just reached us that MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the night. I've arranged for us to be met at Barker's Tank by a couple of the boys, with horses. We'll drop off the train quietly when it slows up to water, so that none of his spies can get word of our movements to him. By hard riding we'd ought to reach Powderhorn in time to head him off."
The ranger asked incisive questions, had the topography of the country explained to him with much detail, and decided at last that Flatray was right. If MacQueen were trying to slip out, they might trap him at the pass; if not, by closing it they would put the cork in the bottle that held him.
"We'll try it, seh. Y'u know this country better than I do, and I'll give y'u a free hand. Unless there's a slip up in your calculations, you'd ought to be right."
"Good enough, lieutenant. I'm betting on those plans myself," the other answered promptly, and added, as he looked out into the night: "By that notch in the hills, we'd ought to be close to the tank now. She's slowing up. I reckon we can slip out to the vestibule, and get off at the far side of the track without being noticed much."
This they found easy enough. Five minutes later number seven was steaming away into the distant desert. Flatray gave a sharp, shrill whistle; and from behind some sand dunes emerged two men and four horses.
"Anything new?" asked the sheriff as they came nearer.
"Not a thing, cap," answered one of them.
"Boys, shake hands with the famous Lieutenant O'Connor," said Flatray, with a sneer hid by the darkness. "Lieutenant, let me make you acquainted with Jeff Jackson and Buck Lane."
"Much obliged to meet you," grinned Buck as he shook hands.
They mounted and rode toward the notch in the hills that had been pointed out to the ranger. The moon was up; and a cold, silvery light flooded the plain. Seen in this setting, the great, painted desert held more of mystery, of beauty, and less of the dead monotony that glared endlessly from arid, barren reaches. The sky of stars stretched infinitely far, and added to the effect of magnitude.
The miles slipped behind them as they moved forward, hour after hour, their horses holding to the running walk that is the peculiar gait of the cow country. They rode in silence, with the loose seat and straight back of the vaquero. Except the ranger, all were dressed for riding--Flatray in corduroys and half-knee laced boots; his men in overalls, chaps, flannel shirts, and the broad-brimmed sombrero of the Southwest. All four were young men; but there was an odd difference in the expressions of their faces.
Jackson and Lane had the hard-lined faces, with something grim and stony in them, of men who ride far and hard with their lives in their hands. The others were of a higher type. Flatray's dark eyes were keen, bold, and restless. One might have guessed him a man of temperament, capable of any extremes of conduct--often the victim of his own ungovernable whims and passions. Just as he looked a picture of all the passions of youth run to seed, so the ranger seemed to show them in flower. There was something fine and strong and gallant in his debonair manner. His warm smile went out to a world that pleased him mightily.
They rode steadily, untired and untiring. The light of dawn began to flicker from one notched summit to another. Out of the sandy waste they came to a water hole, paused for a drink, and passed on. For the delay of half an hour might mean the escape of their prey.
They came into the country of crumbling mesas and painted cliffs, of hillsides where greasewood and giant cactus struggled from the parched earth. This they traversed until they came to plateaus, terminating in foothills, crevassed by gorges deep and narrow. The cañons grew steeper, rock ridges more frequent. Gradually the going became more difficult.
Trails they seldom followed. Washes, with sides like walls, confronted them. The ponies dropped down and clambered up again like mountain goats. Gradually they were ascending into the upper country, which led to the wild stretches where the outlaws lurked. In these watersheds were heavy pine forests, rising from the gulches along the shoulders of the peaks.
A maze of cañons, hopelessly lost in the hill tangle into which they had plunged, led deviously to a twisting pass
, through which they defiled, to drop into a vista of rolling waves of forest-clad hills. Among these wound countless hidden gulches, known only to those who rode from out them on nefarious night errands.
The ranger noted every landmark, and catalogued in his mind's map every gorge and peak; from what he saw, he guessed much of which he could not be sure. It would be hard to say when his suspicions first became aroused. But as they rode, without stopping, through what he knew must be Powderhorn Pass, as the men about him quietly grouped themselves so as to cut off any escape he might attempt, as they dropped farther and farther into the meshes of that forest-crowned net which he knew to be the Roaring Fork country, he did not need to be told he was in the power of MacQueen's gang.