"Why?" asked Tom. "Does it surprise you?"
"It shore does," replied Jeff.
"Is courage a matter of geography, then?" Tom inquired.
"I—I—pardner, you've got me there," Jeff admitted, looking puzzled. "Yet, somehow, I never looked for much courage in a fellow who hailed from east of the Mississippi."
George Ashby had been looking on during the last few moments, his eyes glittering strangely. Yet, as he said nothing, the attention of the others had turned from him.
Jeff Moore happened to turn just in time to see the muzzle of the shotgun turned fully on Tom Reade's waist line, and Ashby's forefinger resting on one of the triggers.
Bang! spoke the gun, a sheet of flame leaped forth.
Tom Reade did not even start. All his nerve had come to the surface in that instant. He was unharmed, for Jeff's sweeping arm had knocked aside the muzzle of the gun and the shot had entered the leg of one of the raiders.
"What'd you do that for, Jeff?" groaned the injured man, sinking to the alkali dust.
But Moore was busy with the mad hotel keeper, having clinched with him, and now being engaged in taking away the shotgun, one barrel of which was still loaded.
"Stand back there, friends," warned Rafe Bodson, who still held his revolver in his right hand. "We don't want to see any more of the party hurt."
Jeff had the gun in a moment, despite the insane fury with which Ashby fought.
"Take care of this, Rafe," requested Jeff, turning over the gun, which Bodson received with his left hand.
Ashby, momentarily free, sprang at the new bolder of the weapon, but Moore tripped him and fell upon him.
The other men stood by as though fascinated, not interfering. Perhaps they felt that their safety depended upon Ashby's being disarmed.
There was a short, sharp scuffle on the ground after which Moore rose, leaving the hotel man with his hands tied behind his back.
"And I request," remarked Moore, "that no gentleman present cut the knots that I have tied. It'll be a favor to me to have Ashby left alone for the present."
"Now, then, Rafe or Jeff," spoke the gambler, mustering up what remained of his courage, "since you two have taken charge of affairs, won't you be good enough to inform us what your pleasure is?"
"We're not in charge," retorted Bodson sullenly. "All we've undertaken to do is to look out for the square deal that you promised, Duff, and which you didn't exhibit in a way that we liked. As for the rest, go ahead when you like—but don't do any more hitting with your fists."
"We'll go ahead with the lariat, then?" hinted Duff eagerly.
"If that's the pleasure of the gentlemen," Bodson agreed, bowing slightly.
To the gambler it seemed the opportune moment to rush matters.
"Bring up lariats, two of you," Duff ordered, turning around to the others. "And don't waste time over it."
The rawhide ropes were brought. The gambler himself tied the nooses, testing them to see that they ran freely.
"Bring Reade and Hazelton under the trees," was Duff's next order, which was obeyed. Bodson and Moore, their weapons still in their hands, followed, keeping keen watch over the way the affair was conducted.
"Any choice of trees Reade?" inquired Jin Duff.
"None," answered Tom shortly. His face was pallid and set, though he did not show any other sign of fear.
"Hazelton?"
"One tree is as good as another," Harry answered in a strangely quiet voice.
In the midst of an impressive silence, and with motions that seemed oddly unreal to the tended victims, Duff placed the two young engineers. A lariat was thrown over a low limb of each of the trees. Then, with slightly trembling hands the gambler adjusted a over the neck of each bound boy.
CHAPTER XXII. TOM AND HARRY VANISH
"How d'ye like that, Rafe?" queried Jeff Moore, as Jim Duff stepped back and viewed the young engineers with a diabolical smile before giving the fatal signal.
"I don't like it," muttered Bodson.
"No more do I."
"Shall we stop it?"
"Yes. I'm sick of Jim Duff. This night has turned me against the smooth-tongued coward."
"Get busy, then, Rafe!"
"Shall we stand the crowd off and set the boys free?"
"Pump both of your shooting-irons loose into the air—I'll do the rest," replied Moore.
Cr-r-r-rack! Pointing his weapons skyward, Bodson had quickly obeyed Moore's command.
"Now, what—" began one of the raiders, wheeling instantly.
"Rafe's going to give 'em a proper send off," grinned one of Duff's men.
"No!" shouted the other. "That's a bluff. He and Jeff are trying to queer the whole game."
With cries of anger, several of the men sprang toward Jeff, who had bared his sheath knife and was about to free Tom and Harry.
"Here—stop that, you traitors!" roared Duff, leaping forward.
"I've four shots left, Jim," remarked Rafe Bodson calmly, as he ceased firing. "Call me names, if you think it wise."
Like a flash Duff drew one of his own revolvers. Before he had time to fire, however, three men threw themselves between Bodson and the gambler.
"Stop talking gun play, Rafe," warned one of the three. "Act like a gentleman."
"I've forgotten how to do that," Rafe remarked. "I've traveled with this outfit too long."
"Put up your guns. Then we'll attend to this pair of youngsters."
"My guns remain in my hands," Bodson declared coolly. "I expect to die with my boots on to-night. I reckon Jeff has figured it out the same way."
"I have," Moore answered coolly, as he stepped over beside Bodson. Then deliberately, yet with an indescribably swift motion, he drew two revolvers.
"Stand out, Jim Duff! Be a man, for once in your miserable career," ordered Rafe Bodson. "Don't try to protect yourself by hiding behind the bodies of men who don't know any better than to follow your lead."
Jim Duff didn't accept the challenge. Instead, he crouched behind two of his followers, taking deliberate aim with his revolver at Bodson.
But he never fired that cowardly shot. Like a flash from the sky came an interruption that created panic among the assembled scoundrels.
"Here we have 'em, gentlemen," announced the steady voice of Superintendent Hawkins from the western end of the gully. "Get 'em all rounded up. If they've done Mr. Reade and Mr. Hazelton any injury then don't let one of them get away alive."
The low sand piles near by seemed swarming with men. The steel barrels of firearms glistened even in the darkness.
The scout had been sent out to the eastward. None had thought of watching the western approach to the gully.
"Shoot, boys!" screamed Jim Duff, wheeling in a sudden frenzy of desperation. He fired straight in the direction of Hawkins's voice.
In another instant the air was rent with the sound of shots. Flashes from many revolvers lit up the darkness almost as well as torches could have done.
Jim Duff, having started his followers to firing, stole off in the darkness, leaving them to bear the brunt of the return fire of Hawkins and his men.
George Ashby lay on the ground bound as he had been left, his sawed-off shotgun not far away and his belt full of shells.
"Rouse yourself, Ash!" muttered the gambler, as he slashed the hotel man's bonds with his knife. "Get your gun, but don't use it now. Move quickly, and we'll get away from here and take Reade and Hazelton with us. Put your mind on your work, Ash, and follow my orders. Don't try to think too much for yourself. Here, this way!"
The scene of the fighting had already shifted from the immediate neighborhood of the twin trees. Duff guided his mad companion along in the darkness until they halted close to where the two engineers stood bound, powerless to join in the fray.
"Shall we shoot them here and now?" whispered Ashby, a wild light glittering in his eyes.
"No," returned Duff. "We'll sneak up behind them, club them with revolvers and carry, them off. The
n we can do as we please with them. You quiet Hazelton and I'll attend to Reade."
The two scoundrels crept up behind their victims.
A moment later Duff quickly cut the lariat about the neck of Tom Reade, who had been rendered unconscious from the terrific blow dealt him by the gambler. Ashby had been equally successful in "quieting" Hazelton.
"Now hustle," ordered Duff. "You pick up Hazelton. I'll take Reade. Carry 'em over your shoulder—that's the way to do. Now, follow me and don't make a sound. We'll please ourselves this night with what we'll do to the meddling pair!"
With Tom Reade over his shoulder, senseless and inert, Duff started off in the darkness, while the rattle of firearms continued.
George Ashby, muttering to himself, followed with Harry Hazelton.
The gambler staggered slightly under the weight of his human burden. Yet he moved rapidly, a strange eagerness lighting up his eyes.
Jim Duff knew that he would never again dare to enter the town of Paloma, yet the gambler thirsted, before fleeing to new scenes, to be revenged on Tom Reade. With that object in view, Duff was willing to take great risks.
As for Ashby, who, still clutching his shotgun in his left hand, staggered along under the burden of Hazelton's weight, the hotel man was no longer responsible for his actions. Rage and wickedness had made him a maniac, who might be restrained but could not be punished by law.
Within two minutes the firing behind them died out. Soon there were distant sounds of searching. Plainly Hawkins and the other friends of the young engineers were hunting diligently for Tom and Harry.
"Dump your man, Ashby," commanded Jim Duff, halting at last. "It will be a mistake to go too far. Their friends won't expect to find 'em so close, and they'll soon be searching farther away."
So Ashby dropped Harry on to the sand beside Tom. Then the wickedest possible gleam came into the hotel man's eyes as he loaded his shotgun.
"We'll fill 'em full of lead right here and now," whispered the hotel keeper. "Then we'll be sure that they can't get away from us again."
"Not so fast!" retorted Duff warningly. "We can't shoot now. If we do, there'll be no way to get out of this alive. Look yonder!"
Duff swung his mad friend around, pointing to a gleam of light that shone out over the desert.
"An automobile," muttered the gambler. "And there's another—and another! There must be six or eight of them out to-night, and all of 'em crammed with fighting men. A shot would bring two or three carloads of ugly fellows down upon us."
"What are we going to do, then?" demanded the hotel keeper, in a menacing tone.
"Wait awhile," urged the gambler. "You're seeing what the plan of the enemy is. They're circling about, but they're further out from the gully than we are. The cars will go on cutting larger and larger circle, and all the time getting farther away from us. In half an hour the cars and the men will be so far away that we need give no thought to them. Then we can attend to Reade and Hazelton."
"What are you going to do with them?" demanded Ashby in a whisper, his cunning eyes lighting with a fire of added eagerness.
"We'll get 'em awake, first of all," nodded Jim Duff. "Then we'll attend to them."
"Remember, they ruined my business!" whispered the hotel man.
"Well, didn't they ruin my business, too?" snarled Duff. "Didn't they cant like a pair of hypocrites, and turn hundreds of their workmen against coming in to play in my place? Didn't these young hounds keep me from winning thousands of dollars of railroad money? Ash, I tell you, these young fellows have hit me hard! First, they broke up my games. Next, they talked their men out of going into Paloma and spending money for drink. Why, Ash, next thing you know, they would have brought missionaries to Paloma to convert men and to build churches!"
As Ashby glared at the unconscious boys from under his black brows he looked as though he believed them capable of all the wickedness that Jim Duff's imagination had charged against them.
"I can't wait!" groaned the hotel man. "Just one barrel of shot apiece into each of 'em!"
"No, no, no, Ash! Haven't I always been your good friend?"
"You surely have, Jim Duff," admitted the mad hotel man. "You're the one man alive to-night that I'd trust."
"Then trust me a little further," coaxed the gambler virtuously. "Trust to my brains tonight, George, and you'll feast on revenge!"
"But you keep me waiting so long for it!" complained the lunatic.
"Don't you trust me, George?"
"You know I do, Jim Duff."
"Then trust me a little longer. Be quiet, and be patient."
"But—"
"Sh!" warned Duff suddenly, throwing himself flat on the ground. "Down with you, Ash!"
"What is it?" whispered the hotel man in the gambler's ear as he too sank to the ground.
"Sh!" once more warned the gambler. "Use your eyes, George. Look out over the sand in the darkness. Do you see two men prowling this way?"
"Yes," assented the hotel man, after a pause.
"They're looking for us—enemies, George. Use all your cunning. Above all, be silent and lie low! Don't make a move, unless I tell you to do so. Show your trust in me, Ash, as you've never shown it before. If you don't, we'll be cheated out of our revenge!"
CHAPTER XXIII. RAFE AND JEFF MISCALCULATE
The two men whom the craven gambler had sighted were coming slowly onward, their movements suggesting a good deal of care and watchfulness.
Nor did they come in a wholly straight line. That they did not suspect the nearness of Jim Duff and his mad companion was plain at a glance.
"Burrow in the sand!" whispered the gambler in Ashby's ear. "Quiet! Be ready, but don't do anything unless I give you the word."
"When you do give me the word," trembled the hotel man, "I'll kill 'em both."
"Not unless we have to do so—remember!" ordered the gambler. "We want, if possible, to take 'em alive."
Let us now go back to the two men whom Duff and Ashby were watching so closely.
They were Rafe Bodson and Jeff Moore.
Both had come out of the recent fighting unharmed. Neither Rafe nor Jeff had fired a shot at the invading forces led by Hawkins. Instead, the pair had slipped stealthily away, until they had gotten out of the immediate zone of the hot firing. Then they hid under some bushes.
"An hour ago I'd have felt like a sneak, not standing by the gang any better," whispered Jeff uneasily.
"Same here," Rafe admitted. "In fact, I'm wondering whether I acted straight in running off like this."
"Aren't you sure about it in your own mind?" asked Jeff slowly.
"Almost," Rafe returned. "All that bothers me is not sticking by the same crowd that we started out with to-night. As for Jim Duff—"
"He's poison, and deadly poison at that," broke in Jeff.
"That's just what he is, pardner."
"Yet I used to like Duff pretty well."
"So did I," nodded Jeff. "But that was when I thought he had some sand."
"The fellow's a skulking coyote!"
"A coyote is brave, compared with Jim Duff," contended Jeff Moore.
"Reade and Hazelton showed the real sand!"
"I never thought tenderfeet could be as brave," glowed Moore.
"Jeff, I reckon Reade and Hazelton aren't real tenderfeet any more. They've been west some time. But, then, such fellows wouldn't be tenderfeet even if they lived in New Jersey all the time. Courage belongs in some fellows, no matter where they work."
"The fighting seems to be over," observed Jeff Moore.
"Then the friends of the two engineers must have found them," suggested Bodson.
"It doesn't sound like it over there. The newcomers seem to be doing a lot of hunting in the gully."
"Let's move in closer," proposed Rafe.
Crawling on their stomachs, the pair moved in closer. As they arrived, unseen, they were in time to see the late fighting men clamber into their automobiles. Hawkins could be heard giving directions fo
r the further search for Reade and Hazelton.
Then the cars started away.
"What do you reckon?" demanded Jeff, looking at Bodson.
"I reckon some of Duff's crowd slipped out of the fight, got the two youngsters, and slipped away with them," Bodson answered.
"Then it was Duff—he was one of 'em," returned Jeff, with a strong conviction. "From what I've seen of Duff to-night he'd rather do a running trick than a fighting one."
"It would take two to carry both youngsters away. Who was the other one?" Rafe wondered aloud.
"Most likely the fellow who'd mind Duff best."
"That must mean poor George Ashby."
"Let's slip into the gully and see what we can find."
One fact learned in the gully astonished both investigators. Despite the volleys that had been fired no dead or wounded men lay about. Of course Hawkins could have taken any injured men away in the automobiles. Plainly the raiders had been equally fortunate in getting their wounded away on their horses. Mounted men familiar with the desert would know many paths where horses could travel, but where automobiles could not follow.
"Our hosses are gone," discovered Jeff a few moments.
"Of course," nodded Rafe. "The crowd we were out with wouldn't be slow in a simple little piece of every-day honesty like stealing hosses!"
"I'm through with any such gang after this, Rafe. How about you?"
"I'm shore going to be careful about the kind of company I pick. But, Jeff, we'll have to travel away from these parts. No good company around here would welcome us. They wouldn't like the only references we could give, Jeff."
"Oh, shore, we'll have to travel," agreed Moore. "That is, if the sheriff doesn't take up our tickets before we get started."
"All this talk isn't showing us what became of Reade and Hazelton," remarked Rafe Bodson. "Let's go back under the trees and see if we can find what has become of Reade and Hazelton. Before I change my post-office box I'm going to try to do those two youngsters a good turn."
So the pair had started off. Yet, like the automobile searchers, Jeff and Rafe did not expect to run across Tom and Harry and their captors so close to the gully.
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