by Unknown
Houck's revolver flashed into the air. He fired across the shoulder of the man whom he was using as a screen. The rifleman on the store porch sat down suddenly, his weapon clattering to the ground.
"Another of 'em," Houck said aloud with a savage oath. "Any one else lookin' for it?"
Walker moved forward with the horses. Afraid that general firing would begin at any moment, Ferril dropped the sack and ran for the shelter of the wagons. His flight was a signal for the others who had been marshaled out of the bank. They scattered in a rush for cover.
Instantly Houck guessed what would follow. From every side a volley of bullets would be concentrated on him and his men. He too ran, dodging back into the bank.
He was not a tenth part of a second too soon. A fusillade of shots poured down. It seemed that men were firing from every door, window, and street corner. Bandy Walker fell as he started to run. Two bullets tore through his heart, one from each side. The big cowpuncher never stirred from his tracks. He went down at the first volley. Five wounds, any one of which would have been mortal, were later found in his body and head.
All told, the firing had not lasted as long as it would take a man to run across a street. Bear Cat had functioned. The bank robbers were out of business.
The news spread quicker than the tongue could tell it. From all directions men, women, and children converged toward the bank. In the excitement the leader of the bandits was forgotten for a minute or two.
"What about the third fellow?" a voice asked.
The question came from Dud Hollister. He had reached the scene too late to take any part in the battle, much to his chagrin.
"Went into the bank," Blister said. "I s-saw him duck in just before the shooting began."
The building was surrounded and rushed. Houck was not inside. Evidently he had run out of the back door and made for the willows by the river. A boy claimed that he had seen a man running in that direction.
A crowd of armed men beat the willows on both banks for a distance of a mile both up and down the stream wherever there was cover. No trace of the outlaw could be found. Posses on horseback took up the search. These posses not only rode up and down the river. They scoured the mesa on the other bank all day. When night fell Houck was still at large.
CHAPTER XLI
IN A LADY'S CHAMBER
The drama of the hold-up and of the retribution that had fallen upon the bandits had moved as swiftly as though it had been rehearsed. There had been no wasted words, no delay in the action. But in life the curtain does not always drop at the right moment. There was anticlimax in Bear Cat after the guns had ceased to boom. In the reaction after the strain the tongues of men and women were loosened. Relief expressed itself in chatter. Everybody had some contributing incident to tell.
Into the clatter Dud Hollister's voice cut sharply. "Some one get Doc Tuckerman, quick."
He was bending over the wounded man on the platform, trying to stop the flow of blood from a little hole in the side.
Mollie stepped toward him. "Carry Art into the hotel. I'll have a bed ready for him time you get there. Anybody else hurt?"
"Some one said Ferril was shot."
"No. He's all right. There he is over there by the wagons. See? Lookin' after the gold in the sack."
Blister came to the door of the bank in time to hear Mollie's question. "McCray's been s-shot--here in the bank."
"Bring him in too," ordered Mollie.
The wounded men were given first aid and carried into the hotel. There their wounds were dressed by the doctor.
In the corridor outside Bob and his partner met June coming out of one of the rooms where the invalids had been taken. She was carrying a towel and some bandages.
"Got to get a move on me," Dud said. "I got in after the fireworks were over. Want to join Blister's posse now. You comin', Bob?"
"Not now," Dillon answered.
He was white to the lips. There was a fear in his mind that he might be going to disgrace himself by getting sick. The nausea had not attacked him until the shooting was over. He was much annoyed at himself, but the picture of the lusty outlaws lying in the dust with the life stricken out of them had been too much.
"All right. I'll be hustlin' along," Dud said, and went.
Bob leaned against the wall.
June looked at him with wise, understanding mother-eyes. "It was kinda awful, wasn't it? Gave me a turn when I saw them lying there. Must have been worse for you. Did you--hit ..?"
"No." He was humiliated at the confession. "I didn't fire a shot. Couldn't, somehow. Everybody was blazin' away at 'em. That's the kind of nerve I've got," he told her bitterly.
In her eyes the starlight flashed. "An' that's the kind I love. Oh, Bob, I wouldn't want to think you'd killed either of those poor men, an' one of them just a boy."
"Some one had to do it."
"Yes, but not you. And they didn't have to brag afterward about it, did they? That's horrible. Everybody going around telling how they shot them. As if it was something to be proud of. I'm so glad you're not in it. Let the others have the glory if they want it."
He tried to be honest about it. "That's all very well, but they were a bad lot. They didn't hesitate to kill. The town had to defend itself. No, it was just that I'm such a--baby."
"You're not!" she protested indignantly. "I won't have you say it, either."
His hungry eyes could not leave her, so slim and ardent, all fire and flame. The sweetness of her energy, the grace of the delicate lifted throat curve, the warmth and color of life in her, expressed a spirit generous and fine. His heart sang within him. Out of a world of women she was the one he wanted, the lance-straight mate his soul leaped out to meet.
"There's no one like you in the world, June," he cried. "Nobody in all the world."
She flashed at him eyes of alarm. A faint pink, such as flushes the sea at dawn, waved into her cheeks and throat.
"I've got to go," she said hurriedly. "Mollie'll be expectin' me."
She was off, light-footed as Daphne, the rhythm of morning in her step.
All day she carried with her the treasure of his words and the look that had gone with them. Did he think it? Did he really and truly believe it? Her exaltation stayed with her while she waited on table, while she nursed the wounded men, while she helped Chung wash the dishes. It went singing with her into her little bedroom when she retired for the night.
June sat down before the small glass and looked at the image she saw there. What was it he liked about her? She studied the black crisp hair, the dark eager eyes with the dusky shadows under them in the slight hollows beneath, the glow of red that stained the cheeks below the pigment of the complexion. She tried looking at the reflection from different angles to get various effects. It was impossible for her not to know that she was good to look at, but she had very little vanity about it. None the less it pleased her because it pleased others.
She let down her long thick hair and combed it. The tresses still had the old tendency of her childhood to snarl unless she took good care of them. From being on her feet all day the shoes she was wearing were uncomfortable. She slipped them off and returned to the brushing of the hair.
While craning her neck for a side view June saw in the glass that which drained the blood from her heart. Under the bed the fingers of a hand projected into view. It was like her that in spite of the shock she neither screamed nor ran to the door and cried for help. She went on looking at her counterfeit in the glass, thoughts racing furiously. The hand belonged to a man. She could see that now plainly, could even make out a section of the gauntlet on his wrist. Who was he? What was he doing here in her room?
She turned in the chair, deliberately, steadying her voice.
"Better come out from there. I see you," she said quietly.
From under the bed Jake Houck crawled.
CHAPTER XLII
A WALK IN THE PARK
June was the first to speak. "So you're here. You didn't get away."
"I'm here," Houck growled. "No chance for a getaway. I ran out the back door of the bank an' ducked into the hotel. This was the first door I come to, an' I headed in."
She was not afraid of him. The power he had once held over her was gone forever. The girl had found resources within herself that refused him dominance. He was what he always had been, but she had changed. Her vision was clearer. A game and resourceful bully he might be, but she knew one quiet youth of a far finer courage.
"They're lookin' for you along the river," she said.
The muscles of his jaw hardened. "They'd better hope they don't find me, some of 'em," he bragged.
"So had you," she said significantly.
He took her meaning instantly. The temper of Bear Cat was on edge for a lynching. "Did they die, either o' those fellows I shot?" the bandit demanded.
"Not yet."
"Fools, the pair of 'em. If that bank teller hadn't grabbed for his gun we'd 'a' got away with it fine."
She looked at him with disgust, not untouched with self-scorn because she had ever let him become an overpowering influence in her life. He could no more help boasting than he could breathing.
"As it is, you've reached the end of your rope," the girl said steadily.
"Don't you think I'm at the end of a rope. I'm a long ways from there."
"And the men with you are gone."
"How gone? Did they get 'em?"
"Neither of them ever moved out of his tracks."
"When I heard the shootin' I figured it would be thataway," Houck said callously.
She could see in him no evidence whatever of regret or remorse for what he had done. This raid, she guessed, was of his planning. He had brought the others into it, and they had paid the penalty of their folly. The responsibility for their deaths lay at his door. He was not apparently giving a thought to that.
"You can't stay here," she told him coldly. "You'll have to go."
"Go where? Can you get me a horse?"
"I won't," June answered.
"I got to have a horse, girl," he wheedled. "Can't travel without one."
"I don't care how far you travel or what becomes of you. I want you out of here. That's all."
"You wouldn't want me shootin' up some o' yore friends, would you? Well, then. If they find me here there'll be some funerals in Bear Cat. You can bet heavy on that."
She spoke more confidently than she felt. "They can take care of themselves. I won't have you here. I'll not protect you."
The outlaw's eyes narrowed to slits. "Throw me down, would you? Tell 'em I'm here, mebbe?" His face was a menace, his voice a snarl.
June looked at him steadily, unafraid. "You needn't try to bully me. It's not worth wasting your time."
To look at her was to know the truth of what she said, but he could not help trying to dominate the girl, both because it was his nature and because he needed so badly her help.
"Sho! You're not so goshalmighty. You're jes' June Tolliver. I'm the same Jake Houck you once promised to marry. Don't forget that, girl. I took you from that white-livered fellow you married--"
"Who saved you from the Utes when nobody else would lift a finger for you. That comes well from you of all men," she flung out.
"That ain't the point. What I'm sayin' is that I'll not stand for you throwin' me down."
"What can you do?" She stood before him in her stockings, the heavy black hair waving down to her hips, a slim girl whose wiry strength he could crush with one hand.
Her question stopped him. What could he do if she wanted to give him up? If he made a move toward her she would scream, and that would bring his enemies upon him. He could shoot her afterward, but that would do no good. His account was heavy enough as it stood without piling up surplusage.
"You aimin' for to sell me out?" he asked hoarsely.
"No. I won't be responsible for your death." June might have added another reason, a more potent one. She knew Jake Houck, what a game and desperate villain he was. They could not capture him alive. It was not likely he could be killed without one or two men at least being shot by him. Driven into a corner, he would fight like a wild wolf.
"Tha's the way to talk, June. Help me outa this hole. You can if you're a mind to. Have they got patrols out everywhere?"
"Only on the river side of the town. They think you escaped that way."
"Well, if you'll get me a horse--"
"I'll not do it." She reflected a moment, thinking out the situation. "If you can reach the foothills you'll have a chance."
He grinned, wolfishly. "I'll reach 'em. You can gamble on that, if I have to drop a coupla guys like I did this mornin'."
That was just the trouble. If any one interfered with him, or even recognized him, he would shoot instantly. He would be a deadly menace until he was out of Bear Cat.
"I'll go with you," June said impulsively.
"Go with me?" he repeated.
"Across the park. If they see me with you, nobody'll pay any attention to you. Pull your hat down over your eyes."
He did as she told him.
"Better leave your guns here. If anyone sees them--"
"Nothin' doing. My guns go right with me. What are you trying to pull off?" He shot a lowering, suspicious look at her.
"Keep them under your coat, then. We don't want folks looking at us too curiously. We'll stroll along as if we were interested in our talk. When we meet any one, if we do, you can look down at me. That'll hide your face."
"You going with me clear to the edge of town?"
"No. Just across the square, where it's light an' there are liable to be people. You'll have to look out for yourself after that. It's not more than two hundred yards to the sagebrush."
"I'm ready whenever you are," he said.
June put on her shoes and did up her hair.
She made him wait there while she scouted to make sure nobody was in the corridor outside the room.
They passed out of the back door of the hotel.
Chung met them. He grunted "Glood-eveling" with a grin at June, but he did not glance twice at her companion.
The two passed across a vacant lot and into the park. They saw one or two people--a woman with a basket of eggs, a barefoot boy returning home from after-supper play. June carried the burden of the talk because she was quicker-witted than Houck. Its purpose was to deceive anybody who might happen to be looking at them.
It chanced that some one was looking at them. He was a young man who had been lying on the grass stargazing. They passed close to him and he recognized June by her walk. That was not what brought him to his feet a moment later with a gasp of amazement. He had recognized her companion, too, or he thought he had. It was not credible, of course. He must be mistaken. And yet--if that was not Jake Houck's straddling slouch his eyes were playing tricks. The fellow limped, too, just a trifle, as he had heard the Brown's Park man did from the effects of his wounds in the Ute campaign.
But how could Houck be with June, strolling across the park in intimate talk with her, leaning toward her in that confidential, lover-like attitude--Jake Houck, who had robbed the bank a few hours earlier and was being hunted up and down the river by armed posses ready to shoot him like a wolf? June was a good hater. She had no use whatever for this fellow. Why, then, would she be with him, laughing lightly and talking with animation?
Bob followed them, as noiselessly as possible. And momentarily the conviction grew in him that this was Houck. It was puzzling, but he could not escape the conclusion. There was a trick in the fellow's stride, a peculiarity of the swinging shoulders that made for identification of the man.
If he could have heard the talk between them, Bob would have better understood the situation.
Ever since that memorable evening when Bear Cat had driven him away in disgrace, Houck had let loose the worse impulses of his nature. He had gone bad, to use the phrase of the West. Something in him had snapped that hitherto had made him value the opinions of men. In the old
days he had been a rustler and worse, but no crime had ever been proved against him. He could hold his head up, and he did. But the shock to his pride and self-esteem that night had produced in him a species of disintegration. He had drunk heavily and almost constantly. It had been during the sour temper following such a bout that he had quarreled with and shot the Ute. From that hour his declension had been swift. How far he had gone was shown by the way he had taken Dillon's great service to him. The thing rankled in his mind, filled him with surging rage whenever he thought of it. He hated the young fellow more than ever.
But as he walked with June, slender, light-swinging, warm with young, sensuous life, the sultry passion of the man mounted to his brain and overpowered caution. His vanity whispered to him. No woman saved a man from death unless she loved him. She might give other reasons, but that one only counted. It was easy for him to persuade himself that she always had been fond of him at heart. There had been moments when the quality of her opposition to him had taken on the color of adventure.