"That the guns are to be brought in to-night. He has sent out a guard to bring them in safely to him. If he gets them, our game is up, me son, and you can bet your last nickle on that."
"If he gets them! Is there a chance for us?"
"Glory be! there is. You see, he doesn't know that we know what he has done. For that reason he sent out only a guard of forty men. If he sent more we would suspect what he was doing, ye see. That is the way the old fox reasoned. But forty—they were able to slip out of the city on last night's train in civilian's clothes and their arms in a couple of coffins."
"Why didn't he send a couple of hundred men openly, and at the same time arrest you all?"
"That doesn't suit his book at all. For one thing, he probably doesn't know all of us, and he doesn't want to bag half of us and throw the rest into immediate rebellion. It's his play not to force the issue until after the election, Bucky. He controls all the election machinery and will have himself declared reelected, the old scamp, notwithstanding that he's the most unpopular man in the State. To precipitate trouble now would be just foolishness, he argues. So he'll just capture our arms, and after the election give me and my friends quiet hell. Nothing public, you know—just unfortunate assassinations that he will regret exceedingly, me bye. But I have never yit been assassinated, and, on principle, I object to being trated so. It's very destructive to a man's future usefulness."
"And so?" laughed the ranger.
"And so we've arranged to take a few lads up the line and have a train hold-up. I'm the robber-in-chief. Would ye like to be second in command of the lawless ruffians, me son?"
Bucky met his twinkling eye gaily. "Mr. O'Connor is debarred from taking part in such an outrageous affair by international etiquette, but he knows a gypsy lad would be right glad to join, I reckon."
"Bully for him. If you'll kindly have him here I'll come around and collect him this evening at eight-thirty sharp."
"I hope you'll provide a pleasant entertainment for him."
"We'll do our best," grinned the revolutionist. "Music provided by Megales' crack military band. A lively and enjoyable occasion guaranteed to all who attend. Your friend will meet some of the smartest officers in the State. It promises to be a most sumptuous affair."
"Then my friend accepts with pleasure."
After the conspirator had gone, Frank spoke up. "You wouldn't go away with him and leave me here alone, would you?"
"I ce'tainly shouldn't take you with me, kid. I don't want my little friend all shot up by greasers."
"If you're going, I want to go, too. Supposing—if anything were to happen to you, what could I do?"
"Leave the country by the next train. Those are the orders."
"You're always talking about a square deal. Do you think that is one? I might say that I don't want YOU shot. You don't care anything about my feelings." The soft voice had a little break in it that Bucky loved.
He walked across to his partner, that rare, tender smile of his in his eyes. "If I'm always talking about a square deal I reckon I have got to give you one. Now, what would you think a square deal, Curly? Would it be square for me to let my friend O'Halloran stand all the risk of this and then me take the reward when Henderson has been freed by him? Would that be your notion of the right telling?"
"I didn't say that, though I don't see why you have to mix yourself up in his troubles. Why should you go out and kill these soldiers that haven't injured you?"
"I'm not going to kill any of them," he smiled "Besides, that isn't the way I look at it. This fellow Megales is a despot. He has made out to steal the liberty of the people from them. President Diaz can't interfere because the old rascal governor does everything with that smooth, oily way of his under cover of law. It's up to some of the people to put up a good strong kick for themselves. I ain't a bit sorry to give them the loan of my foot while they are doing it."
"Then can't I go, too? I don't want to be left alone here and you away fighting."
Bucky's eyes gleamed. He dared an experiment in an indifferent drawl. "Whyfor don't you want to stay alone, kid? Are you afraid for yourself or for me?"
His partner's cheeks were patched with roses. Shyly the long, thick lashes lifted and let the big brown eyes meet his blue ones. "Maybe I'm afraid for both of us."
"Would you care if one of their pills happened along in the scrimmage and put me out of business? Honest, would you?"
"You haven't any right to talk that way. It's cruel," was the reply that burst from the pretty lips, and he noticed that at his suggestion the roses had died from soft cheeks.
"Well, I won't talk that way any more, little partner," he answered gaily, taking the small hand in his. "For reasons good. I'm fire-proof. The Mexican bullet hasn't been cast yet that can find Bucky O'Connor's heart."
"But you mustn't think that, either, and be reckless," was the next injunction. The shy laugh rang like music. "That's why I want to go along, to see that you behave yourself properly."
"Oh, I'll behave," he laughed; for the young man found it very easy to be happy when those sweet eyes were showing concern for him. "I've got several good reasons why I don't aim to get bumped off just yet. Heaps of first-rate reasons. I'll tell you what some of them are one of these days," he dared to add.
"You had better tell me now." The gaze that fell before his steady eyes was both shy and eager.
"No, I reckon I'll wait, Curly," he answered, turning away with a long breath. "Well, we better go out and get some grub, tortillas and frijoles, don't you think?"
"Just as you like." The lad's breath was coming a little fast. They had been on the edge of some moment of intimacy that Bucky's partner both longed for and dreaded. "But you have not told me yet whether I can go with you."
"You can't. I'm sorry. I'd like first-rate to take you, if you want to go, but I can't do it. I hate to disappoint you if you're set on it, but I've got to, kid. Anything else you want I'll be glad to do."
He added this last because Frank looked so broken-hearted about it.
"Very well." Swift as a flash came the demand: "Tell me these heaps of first-rate reasons you were mentioning just now."
Under the sun-tan he flushed. "I reckon I'll have to make another exception, Curly. Those reasons ain't ripe yet for telling."
"Then if you are—if anything happens—I'll never know them. And you promised you would tell me—you, who pretend to hate a liar so," she scoffed.
"Would it do if I wrote those reasons and left them in a sealed envelope? Then in case anything happened you could open it and satisfy that robust curiosity of yours." He recognized that he had trapped himself, and he was making the best bargain left him.
"You may write them, if you like. But I'm going to open the letter, anyway. The reasons belong to me now. You promised."
"I'll make a new deal with you, then," he smiled. "I'll take awful good care of myself to-night if you'll promise not to open the envelope for two weeks unless—well, unless that something happens that we ain't expecting."
"Call it a week, and it's a bargain."
"Better say when we're back across the line again. That may be inside of three days, if everything goes well," he threw in as a bait.
"Done. I'm to open the letter when we cross the line into Texas."
Bucky shook the little hand that was offered him and wished mightily that he had the right to celebrate with more fervent demonstrations.
That afternoon the ranger wrote with a good deal of labor the letter he had promised. It appeared to be a difficult thing for him to deliver himself even on paper of those good and sufficient reasons. He made and destroyed no less than half a dozen openings before at last he was fairly off. Meanwhile, Master Frank, busy over some alterations in Bucky's gypsy suit, took pleasure in deriding with that sweet voice the harassed correspondent.
"It might be a love letter from the pains you take with it. Would you like me to come and help you with it?" the sewer railed merrily.
"I ain't
used to letter writing much," apologized the scribe, wiping his bedewed brow, which had suddenly gone a shade more flushed.
"Apparently not. I expect, from the time you give it, the result will be a literary classic."
"Don't you disturb me, Curly, or I'll never get done," implored the tortured ranger.
"You're doing well. You've only been an hour and a half on six lines," the tormentor mocked.
Womanlike, she was quite at her ease, since he was very far indeed from being at his. Yet she had a problem of her own she was trying to decide.
Had he discovered, after all, that she was not a boy, and had his reasons—the ones he was trying to tell in that disturbing letter—anything to do with that discovery? Such a theory accounted for several things she had noticed in him of late. There was an added respect in his manner for her. He never now invaded the room recognized as hers without a specific invitation, nor did he seem any longer to chafe at the little personal marks of fastidiousness that had at first appeared to annoy him. To be sure, he ordered her about, just as he had been in the habit of doing at first. But it was conceivable that this might be a generous blind to cover up his knowledge of her sex.
"How do you spell guessed—one s or two?" he presently asked, out of the throes of composition.
She spelled it, and added demurely: "Adore has only one d"
Bucky laid down his pen and pretended to glare at him. "You young rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you young imp, and you'll never grow up to be a gentleman."
Their glances caught and held, the minds of each of them busy over that last prediction of his. For one long instant masks were off and both were trying to find an answer to a question in the eyes opposite. Then voluntarily each gaze released the other in a confusion of sweet shame. For the beating of a lash, soul had looked into naked soul, all disguise stripped from them. She knew that he knew. Yet in that instant when his secret was surprised from him another secret, sweeter than the morning song of birds, sang its way into both their hearts.
CHAPTER 10. THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER
Agua Negra is twelve miles from Chihuahua as the crow flies, but if one goes by rail one twists round thirty sinuous miles of rough mountainous country in the descent from the pass to the capital of the State. The ten men who slipped singly or by twos out of the city in the darkness that evening and met at the rendezvous of the Santa Dolorosa mission did not travel by rail to the pass, but followed a horseback trail which was not more than half the distance.
At the mission O'Halloran and his friend found gathered half a dozen Mexicans, one or two of them tough old campaigners, the rest young fellows eager for the excitement of their first active service.
"Is Juan Valdez here yet?" asked O'Halloran, peering around in the gloom.
"Not yet; nor Manuel Garcia," answered a young fellow.
Bucky was introduced to those present under the name of Alessandro Perdoza, and presently also to the two missing members of the party who arrived together a few moments later. Juan Valdez was the son of the candidate who was opposing the reelection of Megales, and Manuel Garcia was his bosom friend, and the young man to whom his sister was engaged. They were both excellent types of the honorable aristocratic young Mexican. They were lightly built, swarthy your men, possessed of that perfect grace and courtesy which can be found at its best in the Spanish races. Gay, handsome young cavaliers as they were, filled with the pride of family, Bucky thought them almost ideal companions for such a harebrained adventure as this. The ranger was a social democrat to the marrow. He had breathed in with the Southwest breezes the conviction that every man must stand on his own bottom, regardless of adventitious circumstance, but he was not fool enough to think all men equal. It had been his experience that some men, by grace of the strength in them, were born to be masters and others by their weakness to be servants. He knew that the best any civilization can offer a man is a chance. Given that, it is up to every man to find his own niche.
But though he had no sense of deference to what is known as good blood, Bucky had too much horse sense to resent the careless, half-indifferent greeting which these two young sprouts of aristocracy bestowed on the rest of the party. He understood that it was the natural product of their education and of that of the others.
"Are we all here?" asked Garcia.
"All here," returned O'Halloran briskly. "Rodrigo will guide the party. I ride next with Senor Garcia. Perdoza and Senor Valdez will bring up the rear. Forward, gentlemen, and may the Holy Virgin bring a happy termination to our adventure." He spoke in Mexican, as they all did, though for the next two hours conversation was largely suspended, owing to the difficulty of the precipitous trail they were following.
Coming to a bit of the road where they were able to ride two abreast, O'Connor made comment on the smallness of their number. "O'Halloran must have a good deal of confidence in his men. Forty to ten is rather heavy odds, is it not, senor?"
"There are six more to join us at the pass. The wagons have gone round by the road and the drivers will assist in the attack."
"Of course it is all in the surprise. I have seen three men hold up a train with five hundred people on it. Once I knew a gang to stick up a treasure train with three heavily armed guards protecting the gold. They got them right, with the drop on them, and it was good-by to the mazuma."
"Yes, if they have had any warning or if our plans slip a cog anywhere we shall be repulsed to a certainty."
By the light of a moon struggling out from behind rolling clouds Bucky read eleven-thirty on his watch when the party reached Agua Negra. It was still thirty minutes before the Flyer was due, and O'Halloran disposed his forces with explicit directions as to the course to be followed by each detail. Very rapidly he sketched his orders as to the present disposition of the wagons and the groups of attackers. When the train slowed down to remove the obstacles they placed on the track, Garcia and another young man were to command parties covering the train from both sides, while Rodrigo and one of the drivers were to cover the engineer and the fireman.
O'Halloran himself, with Bucky and young Valdez, rode rapidly in the direction of the approaching train. At Concho the engine would take on water for the last stiff climb of the ascent, and here he meant to board the train unnoticed, just as it was pulling out, in order to emphasize the surprise at the proper moment and render resistance useless. If the troopers were all together in the car next the one with the boxes of rifles, he calculated that they might perhaps be taken unawares so sharply as to render bloodshed unnecessary.
Concho was two miles from the summit, and when the three men galloped down to the little station the headlight of the approaching engine was already visible. They tied their horses in the mesquit and lurked in the thick brush until the engine had taken water and the signal for the start was given Then O'Halloran and Bucky slipped across in the darkness to the train and swung themselves to the platform of the last car. To Valdez, very much against his will, had fallen the task of taking the horses back to Agua Negra Since the track wound round the side of the mountain in such a way as to cover five miles in making the summit from Concho, the young Mexican had ample time to get back to the scene of action before the train arrived.
The big Irishman and Bucky rested quietly in the shadows of the back platform for some time. Then they entered the last car, passed through it, and on to the next. In the sleeper they met the conductor, but O'Halloran quietly paid their fares and passed forward. As they had hoped, the whole detail of forty men were in a special car next to the one containing the arms consigned to Michael O'Halloran, importer of pianos.
Lieutenant Chaves, in charge of the detail sent out to see that the rifles reached Governor Megales instead of the men who had paid for them, was finding his assignment exceedingly uninteresting. There was at Chihuahua a certain black-eyed dona with whom he had expected to enjoy a pleasant evening's flirtation. It was confounded luck that it had fallen to him to take charge of the e
scort for the guns. He had endured in consequence an unpleasant day of dusty travel and many hours of boredom through the evening. Now he was cross and sleepy, which latter might also be said of the soldiers in general.
He was connected with a certain Arizona outfit which of late had been making money very rapidly. If one more coup like the last could be pulled off safely by his friend Wolf Leroy he would resign from the army and settle down. It would then no longer be necessary to bore himself with such details as this.
There was, of course, no necessity for alertness in his present assignment. The opposition was scarcely mad enough to attempt taking the guns from forty armed men. Chaves devoutly hoped they would, in order that he might get a little glory, at least, out of the affair. But of course such an expectation would be ridiculous. No, the journey would continue to be humdrum to the end, he was wearily assured of that, and consequently attempted to steal a half hour's sleep while propped against a window with his feet in the seat opposite.
The gallant lieutenant was awakened by a cessation of the drumming of the wheels. Opening his eyes, he saw that the train was no longer in motion. He also saw—and his consciousness of that fact was much more acute—the rim of a revolver about six inches from his forehead. Behind the revolver was a man, a young Spanish gypsy, and he was offering the officer very good advice.
"Don't move, sir. No cause for being uneasy. Just sit quiet and everything will be serene. No, I wouldn't reach for that revolver, if I were you."
Chaves cast a hurried eye down the car, and at the end of it beheld the huge Irishman, O'Halloran, dominating the situation with a pair of revolvers. Chaves' lambs were ranged on either side of the car, their hands in the air. Back came the lieutenant's gaze to the impassive face in front of him. Taken by and large, it did not seem an auspicious moment for garnering glory. He decided to take the advice bestowed on him.
"Better put your hands up and vote with your men. Then you won't be tempted to play with your gun and commit suicide. That's right, sir. I'll relieve you of it if you don't object."
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