by Unknown
"He'll surely kill me on sight," Scott burst out.
"Yes, he'll kill you," agreed the sheriff, "unless you move first."
"Move how?"
"Against him. Protect yourself by lining up with me. It's your only show on earth."
Dailey's eyes flashed. "Then, by thunder, I ain't taking it! I'm no coyote, to round on my pardners."
"I give it to you straight. He means murder."
Perspiration poured from the man's face. "I'll light out of the country."
The sheriff shook his head. "You'd never get away alive. Besides, I want you for holding up the Limited. The safest place for you is in jail, and that's where I'm going to put you. Drop that gun! Quick! That's right. Now, you and I are going out of this saloon by the back door. I'm going to walk beside you, and we're going to laugh and talk as if we were the best of friends, but my hand ain't straying any from the end of my gun. Get that, amigo? All right. Then we'll take a little pasear."
As Collins and his prisoner reappeared in the main lobby of the Gold Nugget, a Mexican slipped out of the back door of the gambling-house. The sheriff called Hawkes aside.
"I want you to call a hack for me, Del. Bring it round to the back door, and arrange with the driver to whip up for the depot as soon as we get in. We ought to catch that 12:20 up-train. When the hack gets here just show up in the door. If you see Leroy or Neil hanging around the door, put your hand up to your tie. If the coast is clear, just move off to the bar and order something."
"Sure," said Hawkes, and was off at once, though just a thought unsteady from his frequent libations.
Both hands of the big clock on the wall pointed to twelve when Hawkes appeared again in the doorway at the rear of the Gold Nugget. With a wink at Collins, he made straight for the cocktail he thought he needed.
"Now," said the sheriff, and immediately he and Dailey passed through the back door.
Instantly two shots rang out. Collins lurched forward to the ground, drawing his revolver as he fell. Scott, twisting from his grasp, ran in a crouch toward the alley along the shadow of the buildings. Shots spattered against the wall as his pursuers gave chase. When the Gold Nugget vomited from its rear door a rush of humanity eager to see the trouble, the noise of their footsteps was already dying in the distance.
Hawkes found his friend leaning against the back of the hack, his revolver smoking in his hand.
"For God's sake, Val!" screamed Hawkes. "Did they get you?"
"Punctured my leg. That's all. But I expect they'll get Dailey."
"How come you to go out when I signaled you to stay?"
"Signaled me to stay, why--"
Collins stopped, unwilling to blame his friend. He knew now that Hawkes, having mixed his drinks earlier in the evening, had mixed his signals later.
"Get me a horse, Del, and round up two or three of the boys. I've got to get after those fellows. They are the ones that held up the Limited last week. Find out for me what hotel they put up at here. I want their rooms searched. Send somebody round to the corrals, and let me know where they stabled their horses. If they left any papers or saddle-bags, get them for me."
Fifteen minutes later Collins was in the saddle ready for the chase, and only waiting for his volunteer posse to join him. They were just starting when a frightened Chinaman ran into the plaza with the news that there had been shooting just back of his laundry on the edge of town and that a man had been killed.
When the sheriff reached the spot, he lowered himself from the saddle and limped over to the black mass huddled against the wall in the bright moonlight. He turned the riddled body over and looked down into the face of the dead man. I was that of the outlaw, Scott Dailey. That the body had been thoroughly searched was evident, for all around him were scattered his belongings. Here an old letter and a sack of tobacco, its contents emptied on the ground; there his coat and vest, the linings of each of them ripped out and the pockets emptied. Even the boots and socks of the man had been removed, so thorough had been the search. Whatever the murderers had been looking for it was not money, since his purse, still fairly well lined with greenbacks, was found behind a cactus bush a few yards away.
"What in time were they after?" frowned Collins. "If it wasn't his money--and it sure wasn't--what was it? I ce'tainly would like to know what the Wolf wanted so blamed bad. Guess I'll not follow Mr. Leroy just now till my leg is in better shape. Maybe I had better investigate a little bit round town first."
The body was taken back to the Gold Nugget and placed on a table, pending the arrival of the undertaker. It chanced that Collins, looking absently over the crowd, glimpsed a gray felt hat that looked familiar by reason of a frayed silver band found it. Underneath the hat was a Mexican, and him the sheriff ordered to step forward.
"Where did you get that hat, Manuel?"
"My name is Jose--Jose Archuleta," corrected the olive-hued one.
"I ain't worrying about your name, son. What I want to know is where you found that hat."
"In the alley off the plaza, senor."
"All right. Chuck it up here."
"Muy bien, senor." And the dusty hat was passed from hand to hand till it reached the sheriff.
Collins ripped off the silver band and tore out the sweat-pad. It was an off chance--one in a thousand--but worth trying none the less. And a moment later he knew it was the chance that won. For sewed to the inside of the discolored sweat-pad was a little strip of silk. With his knife he carefully removed the strip, and found between it and the leather a folded fragment of paper closely covered with writing. He carried this to the light, and made it out to be a memorandum of direction of some sort. Slowly he spelled out the poorly written words:
From Y. N. took Unowhat. Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight feet direckly west. Fifty yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke. Then eighteen to nerest cotonwood. J. H. begins hear.
Collins read the scrawl twice before an inkling of its meaning came home to him. Then in a flash his brain was lighted. It was a memorandum of the place where Dailey's share of the plunder was buried.
His confederates had known that he had it, and had risked capture to make a thorough search for the paper. That they had not found it was due only to the fact that the murdered man had lost his hat as he scurried down the streets before them.
The doctor, having arrived, examined the wound and suggested an anaesthetic. Collins laughed.
"I reckon not, doc. You round up that lead pill and I'll endure the grief without knockout drops."
While the doctor was probing for the bullet lodged in his leg, the sheriff studied the memorandum found in Dailey's hat. He found it blind, disappointing work, for there was no clearly indicated starting-point. Bit by bit he took it:
From Y. N. took Unowhat.
This was clear enough, so far as it went. It could only mean that from York Neil the writer had taken the plunder to hide. But--WHERE did he take it? From what point? A starting-point must be found somewhere, or the memorandum was of no use. Probably only Neil could supply the needed information, now that Dailey was dead.
Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight feet direckly west. Fifty yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke. Then eighteen to nerest cotonwood.
All this was plain enough, but the last sentence was the puzzler.
J. H. begins hear.
Was J. H. a person? If so, what did he begin. If Dailey had buried his plunder, what had J. H. left to do?
But had he buried it? Collins smiled. It was not likely he had handed it over to anybody else to hide for him. And yet--
He clapped his hand down on his knee. "By the jumping California frog, I've got it!" he told himself. "They hid the bulk of what they got from the Limited all together. Went out in a bunch to hide it. Blind-folded each other, and took turn about blinding up the trail. No one of them can go get the loot without the rest. When they want it, every one of these memoranda must be Johnny-on-the-spot before they can dig up the mazuma. No wonder Wo
lf Leroy searched so thorough for this bit of paper. I'll bet a stack of blue chips against Wolf's chance of heaven that he's the sorest train-robber right this moment that ever punctured a car-window."
Collins laughed softly, nor had the smile died out of his eyes when Hawkes came into the room with information to the point. He had made a round of the corrals, and discovered that the outlaws' horses had been put up at Jay Hardman's place, a tumble-down feed-station on the edge of town.
"Jay didn't take kindly to my questions," Hawkes explained, "but after a little rock-me-to-sleep-mother talk I soothed him down some, and cut the trail of Wolf Leroy and his partners. The old man give me several specimens of langwidge unwashed and uncombed when I told him Wolf and York was outlaws and train-robbers. Didn't believe a word of it, he said. 'Twas just like the fool officers to jump an innocent party. I told Jay to keep his shirt on--he could turn his wolf lose when they framed up that he was in it. Well, sir! I plumb thought for a moment he was going to draw on me when I said that. Say he must be the fellow that's in on that mine, with Leroy and York Neil. He's a big, long-haired guy."
Collins' eyes narrowed to slits, as they always did when he was thinking intensely. Were their suspicions of the showman about to be justified? Did Jay Hardman's interest in Leroy have its source merely in their being birds of a feather, or was there a more direct community of lawlessness between them? Was he a member of Wolf Leroy's murderous gang? Three men had joined in the chase of Dailey, but the tracks had told him that only two horses had galloped from the scene of the murder into the night. The inference left to draw was that a local accomplice had joined them in the chase of Scott, and had slipped back home after the deed had been finished.
What more likely than that Hardman had been this accomplice? Hawkes said he was a big long-haired fellow. So was the man that had held up the engineer of the Limited. He was--"J. H. begins hear." Like a flash the ill-written scrawl jumped to his sight. "J. H." was Jay Hardman. What luck!
The doctor finished his work, and Collins tested his leg gingerly. "Del, I'm going over to have a little talk with the old man. Want to go along?"
"You bet I do, Val"--from Del Hawkes.
"You mustn't walk on that leg for a week or two yet, Mr. Collins," the doctor explained, shaking his head.
"That so, doctor? And it nothing but a nice clean flesh-wound! Sho! I've a deal more confidence in you than that. Ready, Del?"
"It's at your risk then, Mr. Collins."
"Sure." The sheriff smiled. "I'm living at my own risk, doctor. But I'd a heap rather be alive than daid, and take all the risk that's coming, too. But since you make a point of it, I'll do most of my walking on a bronco's back."
They found Mr. Hardman just emerging from the stable with a saddle-pony when they rode into the corral. At a word from Collins, Hawkes took the precaution to close the corral gate.
The fellow held a wary position on the farther side of his horse, the while he ripped out a raucous string of invectives.
"Real fluent, ain't he?" murmured Hawkes, as he began to circle round to flank the enemy.
"Stay right there, Del Hawkes. Move, you redhaided son of a brand blotter, and I'll pump holes in you!" A rifle leveled across the saddle emphasized his sentiments.
"Plumb hospitable," grinned Hawkes, coming promptly to a halt.
Collins rode slowly forward, his hand on the butt of the revolver that still lay in its scabbard. The Winchester covered every step of his progress, but he neither hastened nor faltered, though he knew his life hung in the balance. If his steely blue eyes had released for one moment the wolfish ones of the villain, if he had hesitated or hurried, he would have been shot through the head.
But the eyes of a brave man are the king of weapons. Hardman's fingers itched at the trigger he had not the courage to pull. For such an unflawed nerve he knew himself no match.
"Keep back," he screamed. "Damn it, another step and I'll fire!"
But he did not fire, though Collins rode up to him, dismounted, and threw the end of the rifle carelessly from him.
"Don't be rash, Hardman. I've come here to put you under arrest for robbing the T. P. Limited, and I'm going to do it."
The indolent, contemptuous drawl, so free of even a suggestion of the strain the sheriff must have been under, completed his victory. The fellow lowered his rifle with a peevish oath.
"You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Mr. Collins."
"I guess not," retorted the sheriff easily. "Del, you better relieve Mr. Hardman of his ballast. He ain't really fit to be trusted with a weapon, and him so excitable. That Winchester came awful near going off, friend. You don't want to be so careless when you're playing with firearms. It's a habit that's liable to get you into trouble."
Collins had not shaved death so closely without feeling a reaction of boyish gaiety at his adventure. It bubbled up in his talk like effervescing soda.
"Now we'll go into a committee of the whole, gentlemen, adjourn to the stable, and have a little game of 'Button, button, who's got the button?' You first, Mr. Hardman. If you'll kindly shuck your coat and vest, we'll begin button-hunting."
They diligently searched the miscreant without hiding anything pertaining to "J. H. begins hear."
"He's bound to have it somewhere," asseverated Collins. "It don't stand to reason he was making his getaway without that paper. We got to be more thorough, Del."
Hawkes, under the direction of his friend, ripped up linings and tore away pockets from clothing. The saddle on the bronco and the saddle-blankets were also torn to pieces in vain.
Finally Hawkes scratched his poll and looked down on the wreckage. "I hate to admit it, Val, but the old fox has got us beat; it ain't on his person."
"Not unless he's got it under his skin," agreed Collins, with a grin.
"Maybe he ate it. Think we better operate and find out?"
An idea hit the sheriff. He walked up to Hardman and ordered him to open his mouth.
The jaws set like a vise.
Collins poked his revolver against the closed mouth. "Swear for us, old bird. Get a move on you."
The mouth opened, and Collins inserted two fingers. When he withdrew them they brought a set of false teeth. Under the plate was a tiny rubber bag that stuck to it. Inside the bag was a paper. And on it was written four lines in Spanish. Those lines told what he wanted to know. They, too, were part of a direction for finding hidden treasure.
The sheriff wired at once to Bucky, in Chihuahua. Translated into plain English, his cipher dispatch meant: "Come home at once. Trail getting red hot."
But Bucky did not come. As it happened, that young man had other fish to fry.
CHAPTER 9.
"ADORE HAS ONLY ONE D."
After all, adventures are to the adventurous. In this prosaic twentieth century the Land of Romance still beckons to eager eyes and gallant hearts. The rutted money-grabber may deny till he is a nerve-racked counting-machine, but youth, even to the end of time, will laugh to scorn his pessimism and venture with elastic heel where danger and mystery offer their dubious hazards.
So it was that Bucky and his little comrade found nothing of dulness in the mission to which they had devoted themselves. In their task of winning freedom for the American immured in the Chihuahua dungeon they already found themselves in the heart of a web of intrigue, the stakes of which were so high as to carry life and death with them in the balance. But for them the sun shone brightly. It was enough that they played the game and shared the risks together. The jocund morning was in their hearts, and brought with it an augury of success based on nothing so humdrum or tangible as reason.
O'Connor carried with him to the grim fortress not only his permit for an inspection, but also a note from O'Halloran that was even more potent in effect. For Colonel Ferdinand Gabilonda, warden of the prison, had a shrewd suspicion that a plot was under way to overthrow the unpopular administration of Megales, and though he was an office-holder under the present government he had no objection t
o ingratiating himself with the opposition, providing it could be done without compromising himself openly. In other words, the warden was sitting on the fence waiting to see which way the cat would jump. If the insurgents proved the stronger party, he meant to throw up his hat and shout "Viva Valdez." On the other hand, if the government party crushed them he would show himself fussily active in behalf of Megales. Just now he was exerting all his diplomacy to maintain a pleasant relationship with both. Since it was entirely possible that the big Irishman O'Halloran might be the man on horseback within a very few days, the colonel was all suave words and honeyed smiles to his friend the ranger.
Indeed he did him the unusual honor of a personally conducted inspection. Gabilonda was a fat little man, with a soft, purring voice and a pompous manner. He gushed with the courteous volubility of his nation, explaining with great gusto this and that detail of the work. Bucky gave him outwardly a deferent ear, but his alert mind and eyes were scanning the prisoners they saw. The ranger was trying to find in one of these scowling, defiant faces some resemblance to the picture his mind had made of Henderson.