Jimmy Lovell would have all of their fortune now, and no doubt he was spending some of the half million amazing the people in his home town. For that was the style of Jimmy. That was the size of his heart and his head. He was a fox, but he was a little fox. He would rather startle people by the spending of five-dollar bills than the squandering of thousands.
No, he would be back there at Rusty Gulch, as Phil Bray was sure, and in Rusty Gulch he would probably be at Dillon's place. K only the three could reach that spot before the news of their break from prison could come to the ears of the guilty partner who had betrayed them!
So they rode hard and reached Dillon's place outside of Rusty Gulch. It was night. The smell of the pines made the air seem honest and sweet. The stars were brighter than ever they had been, except when they were striving to show three fugitives on the roof of the Atwater prison. The three men dismounted among the trees near the road house and came slowly forward toward the light that burst out of the windows.
Dillon's place was almost more famous for its lights than for its beer. There was a big gasoline lamp hanging in chains outside the front door to light up the watering troughs and all beneath the awning. There was another gasoline lamp of the same proportions hanging from the ceiling of the barroom. Men said that those lamps were dangerous affairs, that they might explode at any time, that if they exploded, every man within reach of the disturbance would be instantly killed by the terrible fumes, if not by the flames. Men complimented themselves on their brave willingness to endure such danger. They felt that Dillon himself was quite a hero.
Phil Bray, going ahead of his two companions, paused outside of the side window of the saloon with a strong shaft of the lamplight in his face.
He paused there and looked into the room with a strange expression of happiness in his eyes, as though he were drinldng in a scene of surpassing beauty. He seemed to be listening to the sweetest music, also, though what he actually heard was a nasal tenor blatting out a cheap song in praise of whisky.
And what Phil Bray saw was a little red-headed man with a whimsical face capering on the top of a table with a whisky bottle in his hand, while a dozen other men leaned their elbows on the edge of the bar and laughed at the antics and the singing of the entertainer.
Phil Bray beckoned his two companions to approach. And at his shoulder they stood, agape, Uke him, with a sort of incredulous joy. For they recognized the singer as their former companion, the little traitor, Jimmy Lovell.
The three looked at one another speechlessly. They listened to the song. And they watched the flying feet of Jimmy Lovell. They had seen that dance before. Perhaps Jimmy would learn another sort of a dance step before long!
A sense of fate was on all three of them, for they felt that their delivery from the prison had been a continued miracle, and that they had been given their freedom so that they could work their just vengeance on rat-faced Jimmy Lovell.
A rider came to the front of the saloon at full gallop, halted his mustang with a jerk announced by the rattling of many pebbles, and came into the barroom. He was big, red-faced, red-necked. He came bustling in with the air of a person who has something important to announce, but he paused for a moment close to the doorway to grin at the capering picture of Jimmy Lovell.
As Jimmy ended his song and dance there was a great applause. Dillon, from behind the bar, was leaning his body to this side and to that, encouraging and inviting and multiplying the applause, closing his eyes and shaking his head, and laughing very heartily to indicate that he considered this fellow Lovell one of the most amusing chaps in the world.
"Stay up there, Jimmy!" cried Dillon. "You stay up there and sing us another, and then I'U set up two rounds for the whole house."
"Lemme kill him now!" breathed Joe Mantry. "Right now—to paste him in the mouth with a slug of lead. To turn that laugh of Junmy's red. Come on, lemme finish him off."
"He's gotta see us. He's gotta know what's coming," said Phil Bray. "Hold your horses, Joe. Jimmy wouldn't know what hit him. And what would be the fun in that?"
Mantry did not argue, for the point was too patent.
Now the red-faced fellow who had just come in sauntered toward the bar, saying:
"Got some news, boys. I been down in Chester Lake, and the news, it just come in over the wire. There's been hell raised in the Atwater penitentiary! Three gents busted right loose!"
"Three!" cried the shrill, anxious voice of Jimmy Lovell. "What three? Three that was to hang yesterday morning— is that the three you mean?"
"Hey, how did you know that?" asked the newcomer.
"I guessed it!" shouted Jimmy Lovell. "The blockheads, they had those three in the death house. Couldn't they keep 'em there?"
"Why," said the red-faced man, "they got their hands on the warden through the bars of their cell, and they just about killed him, and they got the keys off of him. They jimmied up the lights and got down to the yard "
Phil Bray said quietly: "Mantry, take the window. This window here. Dave, take the back door. I'll take the front door. We'll let Jimmy see us, and then we'll paste him. I wanted to wait till we could get our hands on him —but after he gets this news, he's going to run like a jack rabbit and never stop running."
Bray left the window and hurried around the front of the building. Behind the wall he could hear the voice of the news bringer continuing:
"They get out to the gate and stick up the gatekeeper. They make him open up the gate, and they get through. By that time the warden was able to talk, and he gives the alarm. They start the bell ringing. The guard on top of the wall sees the three of them bolt from the gate, and starts shooting "
Phil Bray stepped into the light of the doorway with a revolver in his hand.
On the table, Jimmy Lovell kept slowly prancing, lifting up his knees in an agony of anxiety as he heard the tidings.
"But they got guardhouses and searchlights up on the hills all around the Atwater pen," cried Lovell. "Nobody ever got out of the place. Nobody ever could. They got guardhouses and searchlights, and there's men and horses all ready at every one of the places. How could they get away?" He made an eloquently appealing gesture with the whisky bottle.
"They charged right at the first guardhouse. One of 'em shot the guard behind 'em off the wall. They smashed the light in the guardhouse and "
This speech was cut short by a blood-chilling screech from the lips of Jimmy Lovell. His pointed face opened wide, and out of his throat the yell came swelling, louder and louder.
For in the lighted doorway he had seen Phil Bray and the pointed revolver. He glanced to the side and saw Joe Mantry. He jerked his head over his shoulder and observed tall Dave Lister standing in the rear doorway.
He was cornered. He was tasting the perfect dread of death for half a second before it would strike him down. Then, whirling as if to leap, he hurled the bottle in his hand right into the gasoline lamp.
There was a booming explosion, with a harsh tinkling of glass in it. One wave of mingled light and shadow dashed through the room. Utter darkness followed with the yelling of frightened men and the groaning of the injured.
But there was no fire following the explosion. The violence of the outburst seemed to have extinguished all the flames. Or was it some strange accident that had kept the liberated gasoline from flaring up?
Phil Bray, knocked backward by surprise and the effect of the explosion, recovered himself and peered in vain into the turmoil of the dark, where figures were swaying here and there.
But he could make out nothing. He could not see one from another, only vague and fantastic shadows leaping. Two men rushed out the door and charged past him. One of them was small, very active, and dodged right and left like a snipe as he sprinted.
Jimmy Lovell?
Bray turned and went after him fast. The little figure darted around the comer of the building. Bray followed, saw the small form spring onto a horse on the farther side of the glimmering watering trough, and then the f
ugitive darted down the street.
It was Jimmy Lovell, riding for his life.
Bray stepped out into the street, leveled his Colt with care, and emptied it. Three times he was sure that the bullets must have hit the mark. But the rider went on. Had Bray missed, after all?
He lowered the gun. Two men were charging toward him, demanding what he was up to.
"Taking a crack at the dirty swine that smashed that lamp," said Bray coolly, and, detaching himself from the others, he went back to the place where the horses had been left.
Mantry and Dave Lister were already there.
Lister was gibbering softly to himself, half out of his wits with rage and disappointment. Joe Mantry said nothing at all. They got into the saddle and rode back through the trees until they found an open trail. There they paused a moment, shoulder to shoulder.
"I done it," Bray said. "We should 'a' socked him full of lead as soon as we seen him. But I hoped that we could get our hands on him first and make him show us where he's hidden out the loot. Then I thought at least that we'd let him see what was coming to him before it arrived. I was all wrong all the way through."
"Drop it," said Mantry. "I would 'a' done the same. Where'll Jimmy go?"
"Into the deepest cover any gent ever found in the world," said Dave Lister. "I saw it in his eyes when he stood there on the table, screaming. I saw that he'd keep on running till he came to the end of the world."
"All right," said Bray. "We'll start for the end of the world. I don't want anything else out of life. I just want to get my hands on Jimmy Lovell."
IX—LOVELL'S IDEA
Lovell had bolted right along the out trail away from Rusty Gulch. Bullets followed him. He rode for five minutes in a frenzy before he was able to look back and make sure that no one was pursuing him. Then he cut off from the trail, rounded back through open country, and came down into Rusty Gulch from the north.
The shack in which he was living sat back from the road a little distance. When he came up behind it he dismounted; then he crawled through the fence into the long grass of the back yard. The grass was wet with dew. The cold wetness soaked through his clothes, but the dew was not so cold as his heart.
The three of them must know where he lived. That was why they had not followed him up the road in their savage eagerness. They had simply turned back to his house, and there they were waiting for him.
But the house could be damned, for all of him. He only wanted to get to the well in the back yard.
He crawled on through the long grass. Dave Lister, he knew, had ears as keen as the ears of a fox. Dave would hear the slightest sound. Perhaps he had detected the rustling in the grass. So Jimmy Lovell went on an inch at a time, until he came out of the high grass into view of the well.
Bad luck again!
The Murphys, next door to him, were still sitting around the dining-room table. The window was open. He could see old Murphy sitting with the sleeves of his shirt turned up to the elbow, and the sleeves of the red flannel undershirt turned down to the wrist. Old Murphy believed that red flannel keeps away rheumatism.
But what was important was that a dim pallor of lamplight was shed through the open window, and stole across the very face of the well and its wooden cover.
Lying stretched out on the ground trembling, Lovell waited for a time. Three men and three guns might be, must be waiting for him in the black darkness of his house; but half a million dollars was inside that well!
He crawled on. Life was worth a lot, but what man's life was worth as much as half a million dollars?
He got into the field of the lamplight. Fear sickened him. As he crawled forward, his arms kept sagging and shudddering at the elbows. Then he reached the well.
He hoped that he could push up the edge of the wooden cover and reach down inside. But the cover was stuck in place. He had to rise to his knees in order to get greater lifting power. And when he rose, three guns might speak from the blackness of the empty door of his shack.
Suddenly he stood up. If voices hailed him, he would say that he was simply there to get a drink. Then he would run.
He gripped the edge of the wooden well cover, and lifted it, rolled it to the side. He dropped flat, reached down inside the well, and found the loose stone at the side, six inches above the level of the water. He pulled that stone out, laid it on the ground beside him, and reached into the cavity that appeared to his touch. The slickness of oiled silk rubbed against the tips of his fingers.
He pulled out the parcel with a sick feeling that it was about to drop from his fingers into the deep waters of the well. Then he dared not lift his head for fear he should see three dark figures standing beside him.
One of them would laugh. That would be Joe Mantry. One of them would grab him by the back of the neck. That would be Phil Bray. He remembered the hands of Phil Bray, and how the fingers were square at the tips, and how the hair grew thick down to the first joints. It was a saying that no man in the world was stronger than Phil Bray in the hands.
Lovell raised the treasure to the groimd level. He lifted his head—and there was no one near!
Suddenly a vast confidence came over him.
He got up, walked into his shack, into the dreadful, thick, warm darkness, lighted a lamp, and looked around him with a silent, sneering laugh.
No one else was there. He was in no danger. He felt as though it had been another man who had crawled with those trembling precautions through the cold of the grass like a snake.
That was what the three would call him in their thoughts—a snake! Well, snakes are hard to catch. They know how to go to earth. He would show them some more snaky tricks before he was through with them. And now what should he do?
Well, the mountains were deep and wild.
But the patience of Phil Bray would be more endless than the greatness of the wilderness.
He could flee to a seaport and take ship.
But Phil Bray would probably be waiting for him at the dock!
He could go and surrender the money and get the protection of the law. But how could the law protect him unless it closed him behind thick walls?
Besides, he knew that he would rather die than give up the money. Out there by the well he had suddenly known that with all the might of his soul. He would rather die. He would a lot rather die than give it up.
He sat down on the side of his bunk and took his face in his hands.
"I gotta think!" he whispered. "I gotta thmk of a smart 11 thing."
For Bray was smart, and Bray knew all about him. Bray was the brains of the party, and always had been. Joe Mantry and Dave Lister were clever enough, but most of their wits were in their hands. Bray was the one to scheme and plan deeply, more deeply than other men. Above all, Bray knew Jimmy Lovell, despised him profoundly, but understood him.
Bray was the one who always used to say: "You fellows leave off jumping on Jimmy Lovell. Jimmy can do more than any of us—now and then."
Lovell grinned all over his rat face when he remembered that remark. In the finish he had showed them what he could do.
Bray, in spite of the protection he gave to Jimmy, was the one that Lovell had always specially hated, because j Bray was the one who understood. Lovell, therefore, used | to go to him now and then and say: "You're the one I buckle to, Phil. You're the one that I like. I don't like many people, but I like you. You'll see in the wind-up."
Yes, Bray had been able to see in the wind-up!
The other two, Mantry and Dave Lister, they would give up the hunt after a time. It was Bray who would never give it up and who would keep the others to the trail. There must be some shelter against Bray. But the law would not provide protection, and flight would not provide protection eventually.
It was a question of finding fire to fight fire.
Then a wild thought lifted Lovell slowly to his feet and made him stretch out his arms in welcome to it. For he had thought of a fire so great and strong that, compared with it, all the force
of Phil Bray was no more than the flicker of an uncertain candle flame.
The rumor was strong in Rusty Gulch that, somewhere in the neighborhood of Iron Mountain, somewhere in the entangled forest, or above timber line among the lonely ravines, great Jim Silver was lurking in the solitudes. A wandering prospector was said to have seen him, and though Jim Silver fled at once from human eyes, the golden sheen of the stallion he rode had betrayed him still more. And the way that horse bounded up a slope and disappeared over the next ridge had proved that he must be Parade. The prospector had seen a gray form go through the brush on the trail of Jim Silver, and perhaps that was his tamed wolf. Frosty.
Suppose that Jimmy Lovell went to Silver and managed to find him? Suppose that Jimmy Lovell begged the great man's protection?
Well, Silver was the sort of a fool who found it hard to say "No." And once he extended the mantle of his protection over Lovell, what could even Bray and his two desperate companions accomplish to break through and get at their prey?
Lovell went to the cupboard in which he kept his food. He got a small sack of flour, part of a side of good bacon with plenty of streaks of the lean in it, some sugar, coffee, and a cooking kit. He put in salt and some hard-tack.
He got a Winchester and plenty of ammunition for it. How long he would be in the wilderness he could not tell. A month, two months, or as long as he could manage to cling to the side of the great Jim Silver.
Then he went out to his horse, mounted, and headed out of Rusty Gulch.
In the east the stars were growing dim. Presently the moon pushed up its triangle of fire, rose with a golden rim, rolled its wheel up the shaggy side of a mountain, and then detached itself from the earth and floated up into the open sky.
Silver was like that, thought the hunted man. He was detached from the world, and he moved above the concerns of ordinary mortals. And his light overwhelmed common men.
Brand, Max - Silvertip 06 Page 5
