by Unknown
There were challenging stars of deviltry in Bonita's eyes when they met those of Rutherford over the shoulder of Alviro while she danced, but the color was beating warm through her dark skin. The lift of her round, brown throat to an indifferent tilt of the chin was mere pretense. The languorous passion of the South was her inheritance, and excitement mounted in her while she kept time to the melodious dance.
Alviro was master of ceremonies, and Wadley found his chance while the young Mexican was of necessity away from Bonita. Rutherford bowed to her with elaborate mockery.
"Come. Let us walk in the moonlight, sweetheart," he said.
Bonita turned to him with slow grace. The eyes of the man and the woman met and fought. In hers there was a kind of savage fierceness, in his an insolent confidence.
"No," she answered.
"Ah! You're afraid of me--afraid to trust yourself with me," he boasted.
She was an untutored child of the desert, and his words were a spur to her quick pride. She rose at once, her bosom rising and falling fast. She would never confess that--never.
The girl walked beside him with the fluent grace of youth, beautiful as a forest fawn. In ten years she would be fat and slovenly like her Mexican mother, but now she carried her slender body as a queen is supposed to but does not. Her heel sank into a little patch of mud where some one had watered a horse. Under the cottonwoods she pulled up her skirt a trifle and made a moue of disgust at the soiled slipper.
"See what you've done!" Small, even teeth, gleamed in a coquettish smile from the ripe lips of the little mouth. He understood that he was being invited to kneel and clean the mud-stained shoe.
"If you're looking for a doormat to wipe your feet on, I'll send for Tony," he jeered.
The father of Bonita was Anglo-Saxon. She flashed anger at his presumption.
"Don't you think it. Tony will never be a doormat to anybody. Be warned, señor, and do not try to take what is his."
Again their eyes battled. Neither of them saw a man who had come out from the house and was watching them from the end of the porch.
"I take what the gods give, my dear, and ask leave of no man," bragged Wadley.
"Or woman?"
"Ah! That is different. When the woman is Bonita, muchacha, I am her slave."
He dropped to one knee and with his handkerchief wiped the mud from the heel of her slipper. For a moment his fingers touched lightly the trim little ankle; then he rose quickly and caught her in his arms.
"Sometime--soon--it's going to be me and you, sweetheart," he whispered.
"Don't," she begged, struggling against herself and him. "If Tony sees--"
His passion was too keen-edged to take warning. He kissed her lips and throat and eyes. The eyes of the watcher never wavered. They were narrowed to shining slits of jet.
"Why do you come and--and follow me?" the girl cried softly. "It is not that you do not know Tony is jealous. This is not play with him. He loves me and will fight for me. You are mad."
"For love of you!" he laughed triumphantly.
She knew he lied. The instinct that served her for a conscience had long since told her as much. But her vanity, and perhaps something deeper, craved satisfaction. She wanted to believe he meant it. Under his ardent gaze the long lashes of the girl drooped to her dusky cheeks. It was Tony she loved, but Tony offered her only happiness and not excitement.
A moment later she gave a startled little cry and pushed herself free. Her dilated eyes were fixed on something behind the cattleman.
Rutherford, warned by her expression, whirled on his heel.
Tony Alviro, knife in hand, was close upon him. Wadley lashed out hard with his left and caught the Mexican on the point of the chin.
The blow lifted Tony from his feet and flung him at full length to the ground. He tried to rise, groaned--rolled over.
Bonita was beside him in an instant. From where she knelt, with Tony's dark head in her arms pressed close to her bosom, she turned fiercely on Wadley.
"I hate you, dog of a gringo! You are all one big lie through and through--what they call bad egg--no good!"
Already half a dozen men were charging from the house. Jumbo pinned Wadley's arms by the elbows to prevent him from drawing a revolver.
"What's the rumpus?" he demanded.
"The fellow tried to knife me in the back," explained Rutherford. "Jealous, because I took his girl."
"So?" grunted Wilkins. "Well, you'd better light a shuck out o' here. You came on yore own invite. You can go on mine."
"Why should I go? I'll see you at Tombstone first."
"Why?" Jumbo's voice was no longer amiable and ingratiating. "Because you gave Tony a raw deal, an' he's got friends here. Have you?"
Wadley looked round and saw here and there Mexican faces filled with sullen resentment. It came to him swiftly that this was no place for his father's son to linger.
"I don't push my society on any one," he said haughtily. "If I ain't welcome, I'll go. But I serve notice right here that any one who tries to pull a knife on me will get cold lead next time."
Jumbo, with his arm tucked under that of Wadley, led the way to the house. He untied the rein of Rutherford's horse and handed it to the son of his boss.
"Vamos!" he said.
The young man pulled himself to the saddle. "You're a hell of a friend," he snarled.
"Who said anything about bein' a friend? I'm particular about when I use that word," replied Wilkins evenly, with hard eyes.
Wadley's quirt burned the flank of the cow-pony and it leaped for the road.
When five minutes later some one inquired for Tony he too had disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII
RUTHERFORD MAKES A MISTAKE
Rutherford Wadley struck across country toward the rim-rock. Anger burned high in him, and like the bully he was he took it out of his good horse by roweling its sides savagely. He plunged into the curly mesquite, driving forward straight as an arrow. Behind him in the darkness followed a shadow, sinister and silent, out of sight, but within sound of the horse's footfall. It stopped when Wadley stopped; when he moved, it moved.
Midnight found young Wadley still moving straight forward, the moon on his left. Painted Rock was ten miles to the west. Except for the stage station there, and the settlement he had left, there was no other habitation for fifty miles. It was a wilderness of silence.
Yet in that waste of empty space Rutherford "jumped up" a camper. The man was a trader, carrying honey and pecans to Fort Worth. He was awakened by the sound of a raucous curse, he testified later, and in the bright moonlight saw the young cattleman beating his horse. Evidently the young animal had been startled at sight of his white-topped wagon.
An angry sentence or two passed between the men before the cattleman moved over the hill-brow. As the trader rolled up again in his sugun, there came to him faintly the sound of another horse. He was not able to explain later why this struck him as ominous, beyond the strangeness of the fact that two men, not in each other's company, should be traveling so close together in the desert. At any rate, he rose, crept forward to a clump of Spanish bayonet, and from behind it saw a young Mexican pass along the swale. He was close enough almost to have touched him, and in the rich moonlight saw the boyish face clearly.
By the time Wadley reached the rough country of the cap-rock, the young day was beginning to awaken. A quail piped its morning greeting from the brush. A gleam of blue in the dun sky flashed warning of a sun soon to rise. He had struck the rim-rock a little too far to the right, and deflected from his course to find the pocket he was seeking. For half a mile he traveled parallel to the ridge, then turned into a break in the wall. At the summit of a little rise he gave a whistle.
Presently, from above a big boulder, a head appeared cautiously.
"Hello, out there! Who is it?"
"Ford."
The rider swung to the ground stiffly and led his horse forward down a sharply descending path to a little draw. A lank,
sallow man with a rifle joined him. With his back to a flat rock, a heavy-set, broad-shouldered fellow was lounging.
"'Lo, Ford. Didn't expect you to-night," he grumbled.
"Drifted over from the dance at Tomichi Creek. Beat up a young Mexican and had to get out."
"You're such a sullen brute! Why can't you let folks alone?" Pete Dinsmore wanted to know.
He was annoyed. Rutherford Wadley was not a partner in the business on hand to-night, and he would rather the man had been a hundred miles away.
"He got jealous and tried to knife me," explained the heir of the A T O sulkily.
"You durn fool! Won't you ever learn sense? Who was it this time?"
"Tony Alviro. His girl's crazy about me."
The keen, hard eyes of Dinsmore took in the smug complacency of the handsome young cad. He knew that this particular brand of fool would go its own way, but he wasted a word of advice.
"I don't guess you want any pearls o' wisdom from me, but I'll onload some gratis. You let Bonita Menendez alone or Tony will camp on yore trail till he gits you."
"Sure will," agreed Gurley, setting down his rifle. "Them Mexicans hang together, too. We need their friendship in our business. Better lay off them."
"I don't remember askin' your advice, Gurley."
"Well, I'm givin' it. See?"
Another sharp whistle cut the air. Gurley picked up the rifle again and climbed the lookout rock. Presently he returned with a dismounted horseman. The man was the one who had introduced himself to Arthur Ripley a few hours earlier as Bill Moore.
"Howdy, boys. Got the stuff all safe?" he asked cheerfully.
From behind Wadley Pete Dinsmore was making a series of facial contortions. Unfortunately the new arrival did not happen to be looking at him, and so missed the warning.
"Never saw anything work prettier," Moore said with a grin as he put down his saddle on a boulder. "Ridley hadn't ought to be let out without a nurse. He swallowed my whole yarn--gobbled down bait, sinker an' line. Where's the gold, Pete?"
"In a sack back of the big rock." Pete was disgusted with his brother Homer, alias Bill Moore. They would probably have to divide with young Wadley now, to keep his mouth shut.
Rutherford jumped at the truth. His father had told him that he was going to give Art Ridley a try-out by sending him to the fort for a payment of gold. Probably he, Rutherford, had mentioned this to one of the gang when he was drunk. They had held up the messenger, intending to freeze him out of any share of the profits. All right--he would show them whether he was a two-spot.
"Bring out the sack. Let's have a look at it," he ordered.
Gurley handed the sack to Pete Dinsmore, and the men squatted in a circle tailor-fashion.
"Smooth work, I call it," said Homer Dinsmore. He explained to Wadley why he was of this opinion. "Steve heard tell of a wagon-train goin' to Tascosa to-day. If Ridley slept overnight at the fort he would hear of it an' stay with the freight outfit till he had delivered the gold to yore dad. We had to get him started right away. So I pulled on him a story about hearin' the boys intended to hold him up. He hired me as a guard to help him stand off the bad men. Whilst I was keepin' watch I fixed up his six-shooter so's it wouldn't do any damage if it went off. Best blamed piece of work I ever did pull off. I'd ought to get a half of what we took off'n him instead of a third."
"A third! Who says you get a third?" asked Wadley.
"Three of us did this job, didn't we?" cut in Gurley.
"Sure. You took what belongs to me--or at least to my dad," protested young Wadley. "Tried to slip one over on me. Guess again, boys. I won't stand for it."
The jade eyes of the older brother narrowed. "Meanin' just what, Ford?"
"What do you take me for, Pete? Think I'm goin' to let you rob me of my own money an' never cheep? I'll see you all in blazes first," cried Wadley wildly.
"Yes, but--just what would you do about it?"
"Do? I'll ride to town an' tell Cap Ellison. I'll bust you up in business, sure as hell's hot."
There was a moment of chill silence. Three of the four men present knew that Rutherford Wadley had just passed sentence of death upon himself. They had doubted him before, vaguely, and without any definite reason. But after this open threat the fear that he would betray them would never lift until he was where he could no longer tell tales.
"How much of this money do you think is comin' to you, Ford?" asked Pete quietly.
"It's all mine, anyhow. You boys know that." Rutherford hesitated; then his greed dominated. He had them where they had to eat out of his hand. "Give me two thirds, an' you fellows divide the other third for your trouble. That's fair."
"Goddlemighty, what's eatin' you?" Gurley exploded. "Think we're plumb idjits? You 'n' me will mix bullets first, you traitor!"
The Dinsmores exchanged one long, significant look. Then Pete spoke softly.
"Don't get on the prod, Steve. Ford sure has got us where the wool's short, but I reckon he aims to be reasonable. Let's say half for you, Ford, an' the other half divided among the rest of us."
Wadley had refreshed himself out of a bottle several times during the night. Ordinarily he would have accepted the proposed compromise, but the sullen and obstinate side of him was uppermost.
"You've heard my terms, Pete. I stand pat."
Again a significant look passed, this time between Pete Dinsmore and Gurley.
"All right," said Homer Dinsmore shortly. "It's a raw deal you're givin' us, but I reckon you know yore own business, Wadley."
The money was emptied from the pigskin belt and divided. Rutherford repacked his two thirds in the belt and put it on next his shirt.
"I don't know what you fellows are goin' to do, but I'm goin' to strike for town," he said. "I aim to get back in time to join one of the posses in their hunt for the outlaws."
His jest did not win any smiles. The men grimly watched him saddle and ride away. A quarter of an hour later they too were in the saddle.
CHAPTER IX
MURDER IN THE CHAPARRAL
To Jack Roberts, engaged at the Delmonico restaurant in the serious business of demolishing a steak smothered in onions, came Pedro Menendez with a strange story of a man lying dead in the rim-rock, a bullet-hole in the back of his head.
The Mexican vaquero came to his news haltingly. He enveloped it in mystery. There was a dead man lying at the foot of Battle Butte, out in the rim-rock country, and there was this wound in the back of his head. That was all. Pedro became vague at once as to detail. He took refuge in shrugs and a poor memory when the Ranger pressed him in regard to the source of his information.
Roberts knew the ways of the Mexicans. They would tell what they wanted to tell and no more. He accepted the news given him and for the moment did not push his questions home.
For twenty-four hours the Ranger had been in the saddle, and he was expecting to turn in for a round-the-clock sleep. But Pedro's tale changed his mind. Captain Ellison was at Austin, Lieutenant Hawley at Tascosa. Regretfully Roberts gave up his overdue rest and ordered another cup of strong coffee. Soon he was in the saddle again with a fresh horse under him.
The Panhandle was at its best. Winter snows and spring rains had set it blooming. The cacti were a glory of white, yellow, purple, pink, and scarlet blossoms. The white, lilylike flowers of the Spanish bayonet flaunted themselves everywhere. Meadowlarks chirruped gayly and prairie-hens fluttered across the path in front of the rider.
Battle Butte had received its name from an old tradition of an Indian fight. Here a party of braves had made a last stand against an overwhelming force of an enemy tribe. It was a flat mesa rising sharply as a sort of bastion from the rim-rock. The erosions of centuries had given it an appearance very like a fort.
Jack skirted the base of the butte. At the edge of a clump of prickly pear he found the evidence of grim tragedy which the circling buzzards had already warned him to expect. He moved toward it very carefully, in order not to obliterate any footprints. T
he body lay face down in a huddled heap, one hand with outstretched finger reaching forth like a sign-post. A bullet-hole in the back of the head showed how the man had come to his death. He had been shot from behind.
The Ranger turned the body and recognized it as that of Rutherford Wadley. The face was crushed and one of the arms broken. It was an easy guess that the murder had been done on the butte above and the body flung down.
Jack, on all fours, began to quarter over the ground like a bloodhound seeking a trail. Every sense in him seemed to quicken to the hunt. His alert eyes narrowed in concentration. His fingertips, as he crept forward, touched the sand soft as velvet. His body was tense as a coiled spring. No cougar stalking its prey could have been more lithely wary.