by Max Brand
The knocked-out man began to revive and came suddenly to his senses, sitting up and blinking at the dazzling shaft of light. Then he reached for his fallen gun, but the foot of Ronicky stamped over it at the same instant.
All this, of course, from the first snapping on of the light, had filled only a few seconds. Now the calling of the girl broke out clearly upon them as she threw open a door. Ronicky saw her form rushing down toward them and heard the rustling of her clothes. There was the dim flicker of a gun in her hand.
"Lady," said Ronicky, holding the electric light far from him, but still keeping it focused on the face of the other man so that his own body would be in deep comparative shadow. "I'm here for no harm. But mind your gun. If this is Hugh Dawn if he means anything to you mind what you do. I've got him covered!"
"Oh, dad!" cried the girl excitedly. "Are you "
"I'm not hurt," replied the other. "They've got me, that's all. Stand up?"
"Stand up," said Ronicky. "Are you Hugh Dawn?"
The other rose. He was even larger than he had seemed when he was lying on the floor, and his glance wistfully sought his fallen revolver.
"I'm Hugh Dawn, right enough," he said. "I don't figure that you knew that?" And he sneered mockingly at Ronicky. The girl, despite the warnings of Ronicky, had slipped to his side. Now he caught the revolver out of her hand and glared at his captor.
"I see the gun," said Ronicky. "Don't try any play with it, Mr. Dawn. I'm sure watching you close. Understand?"
The other nodded and swallowed. But there was a desperate determination about his face that made Ronicky uneasy.
"Where's the chief?" gasped Hugh Dawn. "Where's he?"
And his glance rolled up and down the hall.
"Not here," said Ronicky, "but coming."
The other quaked and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Well?"
"Get me straight," said Ronicky. "I've not come here to get you. If I wanted to do that I could shoot you down now. I want something else."
"I know what you want," shouted the other, "but you won't get it! Not if I have to die ten times! Never!"
"What you're talking about," said Ronicky, "I don't know. Here's my yarn; believe it or not, as you want to! I lay out in a barn tonight, heard Jack Moon and his crew plot to come here and grab you, and rode on around them to give you a warning. That's why I'm here. I tried to get through the door. The lady, here, wouldn't talk to me. I played a hunch that you might be here, anyway. I came back, shinnied up the wall, opened a window, and here I am. Does that sound like straight talk to you?"
"Straight enough," said the other gloomily. "Except that it's a lie. Moon and you and the rest I know I'm through with my trail. I know that I got my back agin' the wall, but I don't care a rap for you all! I won't beg, and I won't tell you where Purchass hid his stuff. That's final! Bring on Moon. I'll tell him the same thing!"
Chapter Five. His Hat in the Ring.
What it all meant Ronicky could only vaguely guess. It was not only the death of Dawn that Moon wished. The renegade also possessed a secret which the outlaws considered beyond price, and for the retention of this secret the man was willing to lay down his life. Naturally enough, the man refused to believe that Ronicky was not an agent of the leader.
"Partner," said Ronicky, "my name's Doone. I ain't very well known up around these parts of the range, but down farther south they'll tell you that I'm a tolerable square shooter. Maybe I ain't any wonder, but nobody that walks on two feet ever accused me of lying. And I give you my word of honor that I got nothing to do with Jack Moon or whatever his name is him and his men. I've come here to tell you the straight of what I heard tonight. I rode ahead to warn you to start on your way if you want to start without being salted down with lead."
The other was staggered a little.
"How come you to beat out Moon?" he asked.
"I've got the fastest trick in the line of hossflesh that ever packed a saddle," said Ronicky proudly. "I got half an hour to the good on Moon. But you've used up most of that time already. I say, Dawn, if you want to save your life and your secret, whatever that is, start riding now!"
"And jump into the hands of Moon the minute I leave the house?" cried Dawn, the perspiration streaming down his face. "No, sir."
For the first time the girl turned from her father and faced Ronicky. She was not beautiful, but she was very pretty. Her hair was sand-colored and further faded by the sun. Constant exposure had tanned her dark bronze. But her big gray eyes were as bright and as steady as the torch in Ronicky's hand. There was something wonderfully honest and wonderfully feminine about her whole body and the carriage of her head. Ronicky guessed at once that here was a true Western girl who could ride like a man, shoot like a man, perhaps, and then at the end of the trail be gentleness itself. She was tensed with excitement as she looked to Ronicky now.
"Dad," she cried suddenly, "I believe every word he's spoken. His name is Doone. He has nothing to do with the band. And he's come here out of the honest goodness of his heart to warn you of Moon's intentions."
"Thanks, lady," said Ronicky. "It sure does me proud to hear you say that! Dawn, will you come to and see that what she says is the truth? I'll go one further. Now, Dawn, we're on even terms. Would one of Moon's men put you there?"
Hugh Dawn was staggered, for Ronicky had slipped his revolver back into his holster at his right hip. It was worse than an even break for Doone, because Dawn held in his hand, bared of the leather, the light thirty-two-caliber revolver which he had taken from the girl.
"Jerry," he said, "I dunno I dunno. Moon's more full of tricks than a snake is of poison. But maybe this is square. Maybe this gent ain't got a thing to do with Moon."
"Then," cried Ronicky Doone, with a sudden passion, "for Heaven's sake act on it! Jump out of this house, saddle your hoss, and ride! Because Moon's coming!"
There was such honest eagerness in his voice that Hugh Dawn started as though to execute the suggestion. He only hesitated to say: "How come you to do all this riding and talking for me? What d'you get out of it? What am I to you?"
"You're a gent with four crooks on your heels," said Ronicky calmly. "I heard them talk. I couldn't let a murder be done if I could keep you from it. That's why I'm here."
The other shook his head. But the girl cried: "Don't you see, dad? He's simply white! For Heaven's sake, believe him trust in my trust. Get your things together. I'll saddle the gray and "
The storm of her excited belief swept the other off his feet. He flashed one glance at Ronicky Doone, then turned on his heel and ran for his room.
The girl raced the other way, clattering down the stairs. Perhaps when she sprang outside into the night Jack Moon and his men would already be there. But she had never a thought for danger.
Ronicky Doone only delayed to run into the front room on that floor the room from which the girl had spoken to him when he tried the front door and there he lighted the lamp and placed it on the table near the window. After that he sped down the stairs, untethered Lou from her tree at the side of the house, and hurried with her to the back of the house and the old, tumble-down horseshed which stood there.
Lantern light showed there, where the girl was saddling a tall, gray gelding. She was working the cinch knots tight as Ronicky appeared, so fast had been her work, and now her father came from the house at a run, huddling himself into his slicker.
"How could they find out that I come here?" he asked. "After ten years!"
"No time for questions," his daughter said, panting. "Oh, dad, for Heaven's sake use the spurs tonight. Go back. Never return!"
"And leave you here alone?" asked Ronicky sternly. "Not when Moon and his gang are on the way. I seen their faces, lady, and they ain't a pretty lot! Leave you to be found by them? Not in a thousand years."
She grew a little pale at that, but she still kept her head high. "I've nothing to fear," she said. "They wouldn't dare harm me."
"I'll trust 'em dead, not
living," said Ronicky. "You're going to ride with your father and on that hoss yonder!"
There was a companion to the gray, hardly so tall, but even better formed.
"He's right," said Hugh Dawn. As he spoke he caught saddle and bridle from their hooks and slapped them onto the horse. "I ain't thinking right tonight. I ain't understanding things. Doone, you put shame on me! Of course I ain't going to leave her alone!"
Ronicky heard these remarks with only half an ear.
He called from the door of the shed, where he had taken his stand: "Now put out the lantern! No use calling them this way with a light!"
He was hastily obeyed. Through the darkness they led out the two grays beside Lou.
"And you, Doone," said Hugh Dawn, who seemed to have been recovering his poise rapidly during the past seconds, "ride down the east road. We'll go over the hills. Tomorrow Jerry can come back, when it's safe. And Doone, shake hands! I forgive that punch that knocked me cold. Some day we "
"Shut up," whispered Ronicky Doone impolitely and with savage force. "There they come!"
Four ghostly, silent figures, stooping low, advancing with stealthy stride, came out of the pines and slid toward the house. They could not be distinguished individually. They were simply blurs in the mist of rainfall, but for some reason their very obscurity made them more significant, more formidable. Ronicky Doone heard a queer, choked sound Hugh Dawn swallowing a horror that would not down.
"And and I near stayed there in the house and waited for this!" he breathed.
Ronicky Doone jerked up a threatening fist. Not that there was a real danger that they might be overheard at that distance, but because he had odd superstitions tucked away in him here and there, and one of those superstitions was that words were more than mere sounds. They were thoughts that went abroad in an electric medium and possessed a life of their own. They might dart across a great space, these things called words. They might enter the minds and souls of men to whom they were not addressed. The idea had grown up in Ronicky Doone during long periods of silence in the mountains, in the desert where silence itself is a voice.
That raised fist brought the hunted man's teeth together with a snap. Then the gesture of Ronicky commanded them to go forward, on foot, leading their horses. He himself went last and acted as the rear guard while they trudged out past the horse-shed blessing the double night of its shadow! and up the grade, then swerving around among the trees on the narrow uptrail which would eventually take them over the hills. They came even with the side of the house.
"Good Lord!" breathed Dawn. "They sure ain't got up that high already but they's a light in the front room your room, Jerry!"
"I left that lamp," Ronicky Doone told them, grinning. "I thought it'd keep 'em nice and quiet for a while and make 'em sneak up to that door slow and easy, slow and easy then pop! wide goes the door, and they run in and find nothing!"
He laughed fiercely, silently no sound coming save the light catching of his breath.
"You got a brain," said the rescued man.
"Heaven bless you!" whispered his daughter.
"We can climb the hosses now," said Ronicky, who seemed to have been admitted into the post of commander. "No danger of being seen. But ride slow. Things that move fast are seen a pile quicker than things that stand still. Now!"
He gave the example of swinging into the saddle on Lou. The girl, as she imitated, went up lightly as a feather, but Hugh Dawn's great bulk brought a loud grunt from the gray he bestrode, and the three sat a moment, straining in fear. But there was no sound. The four shadows had melted into the greater shadow of the house.
They began at a walk. They climbed higher on the swinging trail among the trees until they were above another eminence and looked down. The house seemed as near as ever, the trail had zigzagged so much to make the altitude. They could see the front of the building clearly, and suddenly the light wobbled, flashed to the side, and almost went out; then it grew dimmer in the center of the apartment.
"They've found out the trick," said Ronicky Doone, speaking in a natural voice and chuckling.
"Hush!" panted the girl.
"We can talk out now, long's we don't do no shouting. They've sprung the trap, and they've got nothing! Not a thing!" He laughed again.
"Thanks to you, partner," said Hugh Dawn. "Thanks to you, lad!" There was a ring to his low voice.
The girl added a pleasant grace note to what her father had said: "To think," she said, "that when you spoke from the door such a little time ago! I was paralyzed with fear. I thought you were they. I thought they had come for dad! And well, every day that he lives from now on, is a day due to you, Mr. Doone; and he will never forget. I will never forget."
For some reason that assurance that she would never forget meant more to Ronicky Doone than any assurance from the grown man.
"Look here," he said, "you don't owe nothing to me. It's Lou that done it. It's Lou that outfooted their hosses and give me the half hour's head start. She piled that up inside of twenty miles' running, too, and after she'd gone a weary way yesterday. Yep, if you got anything to thank, it's Lou. Me, I just done what anybody'd do. I'll leave you folks here," he added, as he got to the top of the crest of the hills with them.
"Leave us? Oh, no!" cried the girl and added hastily: "But of course. You see, I forget, Mr. Doone. It seems that so many things have happened to the three of us tonight that we are all bound together."
"I wish we were," said Hugh Dawn. "But you got your business, lad. Besides, I bring bad luck. Stay clear of me, or you'll have the back luck, too!"
Ronicky's esteem of the man rose up the scale.
"Folks," he said kindly, "I'm one of them with nothing on my hands but a considerable lot of time and an itch for action. Seems to me that there may be some more action before this game's done and over, and I'd sort of like to horn in and have my say along with you, Dawn if you want me and need me, I mean!"
Dawn answered: "It's on your own head, if you do. Doone, I'm in fear of death. But need you? Why, man, I have the greatest thing in the world to do, and I'm single-handed in the doing of it. That's all. But if you'll take the chance, why, I'll trust you, and I'll let you in on the ground floor. But if you come with me, lad, you'll be taking the chances. You'll be playing for millions of dollars. But you'll be putting up your life in the gamble. How does that sound to you? But remember that if you come along with me, you get Jack Moon and his tribe of bloodhounds on your trail, and if they ever come up with you, you're dead. Understand?"
"Dad," cried the girl, "I'm burning with shame to hear you talk "
"It's his concern!" declared her father. "Let him talk out. D'you know what I'm talking about? Millions, girl, millions not just mere thousands! Millions in bullion!"
"Millions of fun," and Ronicky Doone laughed. "That's what it sounds like to me."
"Then," said the older man eagerly, "suppose we shake on it!"
"No, no!" cried Jerry Dawn. She even rode in between them.
"What d'you mean, Jerry?" asked her father impatiently.
"Oh," she said, "every one has tried the cursed thing, and every one has gone down; and now you take in the one generous and kind and pure-hearted man who has ever come into our lives. You take him, and you begin to drag him down in the net. Oh, Dad, is this a reward for him? Is this a reward for him?"
There was almost a sob in her voice.
"Lady," said Ronicky Doone, "you're sure kind, but I've made up my mind. Remember that story about Bluebeard's wife? She had all the keys but one, and she plumb busted her heart because she couldn't get that one key and see inside that one room. Well, lady, the same's true with me. Suppose I had the key to everything else in the world and just this one thing was left that I could get at; well, I'd turn down all the other things in the world that I know about and take to this one thing that I don't know anything about, just because I don't know it. Danger? Well, lady, danger is the finest bait in the world for any gent like me that's fond of action an
d ain't never been fed full on it. That's the straight of it."
"Then," said the girl sadly, "Heaven forgive us for bringing this down on your generous heart!" And she drew her horse back.
The two men reached through the dark night and the rain. Their wet, cold hands fumbled, met, and closed in a hard grasp. It was like a flash of light, that gripping of the hands. It showed them each other's minds as a glint of light would have shown their faces.
Chapter Six. A Pause for Rest.
As the trio plodded on steadily through the night, many things about the father and daughter impressed Ronicky Doone favorably.
There was something so fine, sat naturally well-bred about their whole attitude, that he felt his heart warming to both; and yet there were reasons enough for him to maintain an attitude of suspicion and caution so far as the pair was concerned. He was calling the girl "Jerry" before the ride was ended; both father and daughter were calling him "Ronicky." Those were the chief conversational results of the night.
The ride lasted all the night and well on into the morning. Lou, great-heart that she was, bore up wonderfully. She had the endurance of an Arab horse, and indeed she resembled an Arab in her staunch and tapering build. The big grays struck a hard pace and kept to it, but Lou matched them with her smooth-flowing gait. Her head went down a little as time passed, but when the dawn came, gray and cold under a rainless sky, it showed her still with an ample reserve of strength, while the grays were well-nigh as fagged as though they had covered all her distance of miles in the past twenty-four hours.
For the sake of Ronicky's horse, knowing the distance the mare had covered, the Dawns would have stopped the journey for rest, but Ronicky would not hear of it. As he pointed out, Jack Moon could not attempt to pick up the trail until the morning; and then he probably would only be able to locate it by striking out in a great circle with the house as the center of his sweeping radius. If they pushed straight ahead, stopping only when they had put a solid day's march behind them, they would doubtless pass well beyond the reach of that radius, particularly since the outlaws would be looking for the signs of two horses instead of three. These reasons were so patent that they were accepted, and so the party held on its way.