by Unknown
"Plumb fagged out, kid?" he asked.
"I am tired. Is it far?"
"About four miles. Stick it out, and we'll be there in no time."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me sir. Call me Bucky."
"Yes, sir."
Bucky laughed. "You're ce'tainly the queerest kid I've run up against. I guess you didn't scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I did. You're too soft for this country." He let his firm brown fingers travel over the lad's curly hair and down the smooth cheek. "There it is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I'll bet a biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your life."
"No, sir," murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a little, chuckling laugh.
"Well, you ought to be ashamed of it. When come back from old Mexico I'm going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You're going to ride the range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the bronc and you disagrees. Oh, I'll bet all you need is training. I'll make a man out of you yet," the ranger assured his charge cheerfully. "Will you?" came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the sense of being laughed at.
"Yes, I 'will you,' sissy," he retorted, without the least exasperation. "Don't think you know it all. Right now you're riding like a wooden man. You want to take it easy in the saddle. There's about a dozen different positions you can take to rest yourself." And Bucky put him through a course of sprouts. "Don't sit there laughing at folks that knows a heap more than you ever will get in your noodle, and perhaps you won't be so done up at the end of a little jaunt like this," he concluded. And to his conclusion he presently added a postscript: "Why, I know kids your age can ride day and night for a week on the round-up without being all in. How old are you, son?"
"Eighteen."
"That's a lie," retorted the ranger, with immediate frankness. "You're not a day over fifteen, I'll bet."
"I meant to say fifteen," meekly corrected the youth.
"That's another of them. You meant to say eighteen, but you found I wouldn't swallow it. Now, Master Frank, you want to learn one thing prompt if you and I are to travel together. I can't stand a liar. You tell the truth, or I'll give you the best licking you ever had in your life."
"You're as bad a bully as he is," the boy burst out, flushing angrily.
"Oh, no, I'm not," came the ranger's prompt unmoved answer. "But just because you're such a weak little kid that I could break you in two isn't any reason why I should put up with any foolishness from you. I mean to see that you act proper, the way an honest kid ought to do. Savvy?"
"I'd like to know who made you my master?" demanded the boy hotly.
"You've ce'tainly been good and spoiled, but you needn't ride your high hawss with me. Here's the long and the short of it. To tell lies ain't square. If I ask you anything you don't want to answer tell me to go to hell, but don't lie to me. If you do I'll punish you the same as if you were my brother, so long as you trail with me. If you don't like it, cut loose and hit the pike for yourself."
"I've a good mind to go."
Bucky waved a hand easily into space. "That's all right, too, son. There's a heap of directions you can hit from here. Take any one you like. But if I was as beat as you are, I think I'd keep on the Epitaph road." He laughed his warm, friendly laugh, before the geniality of which discord seemed to melt, and again his arm went round the other's weary shoulders with a caressing gesture that was infinitely protecting.
The boy laughed tremulously. "You're awfully good to me. I know I'm a cry-baby, sissy boy, but if you'll be patient with me I'll try to be gamer."
It certainly was strange the way Bucky's pulse quickened and his blood tingled when he touched the little fellow and heard that velvet voice's soft murmur. Yes, it surely was strange, but perhaps the young Irishman's explanation was not the correct one, after all. The cause he offered to himself for this odd joy and tender excitement was perfectly simple.
"I'm surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid," he told himself grimly.
But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even madness.
Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to set out for any point where he was needed.
Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at it, and voiced his perplexity.
"Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better ship you back to the Rocking Chair."
"I don't want to go back there. He'll come out again and find me after you leave."
"Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in the convent school here," he reflected aloud.
Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth's cheeks. "Why can't I go with you?" he asked shyly.
The ranger laughed. "Mebbe you think I'm going on a picnic. Why, I'm starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble's shoulder. Like as not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky's scalp down in manyana land. No, sir, this doesn't threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion."
"If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I'm awful good at making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native."
"Sho! You don't want to go running your neck into a noose. It's a jail-break I'm planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we get back to God's country--if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then some, for there's a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as your uncle happens to know from reliable information."
"Two can always work better than one. Try me, Bucky," pleaded the boy, the last word slipping out with a trailing upward inflection that was irresistible.
"Sure you won't faint if we get in a tight pinch, Curly?" scoffed O'Connor, even though in his mind he was debating a surrender. For he was extraordinarily taken with the lad, and his judgment justified what the boy had said.
"I shall not be afraid if you are with me."
"But I may not be with you. That's the trouble. Supposing I should be caught, what would you do?"
"Follow any orders you had given me before that time. If you had not given any, I would use my best judgment."
"I'll give them now," smiled Bucky. "If I'm lagged, make straight for Arizona and tell Webb Mackenzie or Val Collins."
"Then you will take me?" cried the boy eagerly.
"Only on condition that you obey orders explicitly. I'm running this cutting-out expedition."
"I wouldn't think of disobeying."
"And I don't want you to tell me any lies."
"No."
Bucky's big brown fist caught the little one and squeezed it. "Then it's a deal, kid. I only hope I'm doing right to take you."
"Of course you are. Haven't you promised to make a man of me?" And again Bucky caught that note of stifled laughter in the voice, though the big brown eyes met his quite seriously.
They took the train that night for El Paso, Bucky in the lower berth and his friend in the upper of section six of one of the Limited's Pullman cars. The ranger was awake and up with the day. For a couple of hours he sat in the smoking section and discussed politics with a Chicago drummer. He knew that Frank was very tired, and he let him sleep till the diner was taken on at Lordsburg. Then he excused himself to the traveling man.
"I reckon I better go and wake up my pardner. I see the chuck-wagon is toddling along behind us."
Bucky drew aside the curtains and shook the boy gently by the shoulder. Frank's eyes opened and looked at the ranger with that lack of comprehension peculiar to one roused suddenly from deep sleep.
"Time to get up, Curly. The nigger just gave the first call for the chuck-wagon."
An understanding of the situation flamed over the boy's face. He snatched the curtains from the Arizonian and gathered them tightly together. "I'll thank you not to be so
familiar," he said shortly from behind the closed curtains.
"I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself announced and craved an audience, I reckon," was Bucky's ironic retort; and swiftly on the heels of it he added. "You make me tired, kid."
O'Connor was destined to be "made tired" a good many times in the course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as to his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of embarrassment to brush his teeth before his fellow passengers. Nor did it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of innocence in the lad tied his tongue.
"Blame it all, I'm getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest," he admitted to himself ruefully. "Just when something comes up that needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his, and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. I've got to quit trailing with him, or I'll be joining the church first thing I know. He makes me feel like I want to be good, confound the little swindle."
Notwithstanding the ranger's occasional moments of exasperation, the two got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in delving into the other's unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into one of those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and man. Some subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the hearts of each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have explained what lay at the roots of it, but O'Connor admitted that he was "buffaloed" when he attempted an analysis of his unusual feeling.
From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them to Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso. Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded in their object.
At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their chances.
"It isn't a very gay outlook," Bucky admitted cheerfully to his companion, "but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican officials weren't slower than molasses in January it might have been better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of Hardman's confession. But it would take them two or three years to come to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at the last, then. Course I've got the law machinery grinding, too, but I'm not banking on it real heavy. We'll get him out first any old way, then get the government to O. K. the thing."
"How were you thinking of proceeding?"
"I expect it's time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon you happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there's usually a revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those for the government and those ferninst. The 'ins' stand pat, but the 'outs' have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there's mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody has to be shot, and it's always so much to the good if they can line up gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it's an Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens to be Mickey O'Halloran, an old friend of mine. I'm going to put it up to Mick to find a way."
"But it isn't any affair of his. He won't do it, will he?"
"Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish."
"Well?"
"And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his fist out of the hive when there's such a gem of a chance to get stung?"
It had been Frank's suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The reason for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as soon as they were alone Frank explained.
"It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well, we'll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we shall be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors. It will give us a great deal more liberty."
"Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less. What's your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?"
"We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we could easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes."
"You would be a gipsy lad?"
The youngster blushed. "A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband."
"I'm no play actor, even if you are," said Bucky. "I don't want to be your husband, thank you."
"All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy enough."
"And you think you could pass for a girl? You're slim and soft enough, but I'll bet you would give it away inside of an hour."
The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O'Connor under his long lashes. "I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years. Nobody ever suspected that I wasn't."
"We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part."
"Leave that to me. I'll buy some to-day while you are looking the ground over for our first assault an the impregnable fortress."
"I don't know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the things, and we'll see how you look in them. Better not get all the things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around."
They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials he needed, and O'Connor to look up O'Halloran and get a permit to visit the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.
"I'm altering this to fit me and fixing it up," he explained.
"Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?" asked Bucky, in surprise.
"My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?"
"You bet I did, and didn't. Mickey was out, but I left him a note. The other thing I pulled off all right. I'm to be allowed to visit the prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure There's nothing like a pull, son."
"Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.
"No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery made?"
"A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I'm just making a few changes. Do you want to try on your suit?"
"Is THIS mine?" asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt the rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.
"Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we'll see how it fits."
Bucky returned a few minutes later in his gipsy uniform, with a deprecating grin.
"I'll have to stain your face. Then you'll do very well," said Frank, patting and pulling at the clothes here and there. "It's a good fit, if I do say it that chose it. The first thing you want to do when you get out in it is to roll in the dust and get it soiled. No respectable gipsy wears n
ew clothes. Better have a tear or two in it, too."
"You ce'tainly should have been a girl, the way you take to clothes, Curly."
"Making up was my business for a good many years, you know," returned the lad quietly. "If you'll step into the other room for about fifteen minutes I'll show you how well I can do it."
It was a long half-hour later that Bucky thumped on the door between the rooms. "Pretty nearly ready, kid? Seems to me it is taking you a thundering long time to get that outfit on."
"How long do you think it ought to take a lady to dress?"
"Ten minutes is long enough, and fifteen, say, if she is going to a dance. You've been thirty-five by my Waterbury."