Doble's other hand went into his pocket. He drew out a flat package of currency bound together with rubber bands. His sharp teeth drew off one of the rubbers. From the bundle he stripped four fifty-dollar bills and handed them to Otero.
"Peel this kid off'n my leg and hit the trail, Juan. I don' care where you leave him so long as you keep an eye on him till afternoon."
With difficulty the Mexican dragged the boy from his hold on Doble and carried him to a horse. He swung to the saddle, dragged Keith up in front of him, and rode away at a jog-trot. The youngster was screaming at the top of his lungs.
As his horse climbed toward the notch, Otero looked back. Doble had picked up his prisoner and was carrying her into the house.
The Mexican formulated his plans. He must get out of the country before the hue and cry started. He could not count on more than a few hours before the chase began. First, he must get rid of the child. Then he wanted to go to a certain tendejon where he would meet his sweetheart and say good-bye to her.
It was all very well for Doble to speak of taking him to town or to the road. Juan meant to do neither. He would leave him in the hills above the Jackpot and show him the way down there, after which he would ride to meet the girl who was waiting for him. This would give him time enough to get away safely. It was no business of his whether or not Doble was taken. He was an overbearing brute, anyhow.
An hour's riding through the chaparral brought him to the watershed far above the Jackpot. Otero picked his way to the upper end of a gulch.
"Leesten, muchacho. Go down—down—down. First the gulch, then a cañon, then the Jackpot. You go on thees trail."
He dropped the boy to the ground, watched him start, then turned away at a Spanish trot.
The trail was a rough and precipitous one. Stumbling as he walked, Keith went sobbing down the gulch. He had wept himself out, and his sobs had fallen to a dry hiccough. A forlorn little chap, tired and sleepy, he picked his way among the mesquite, following the path along the dry creek bed. The catclaw tore his stockings and scratched him. Stone bruises hurt his tender feet. He kept traveling, because he was afraid to give up.
He reached the junction of the gulch and the cañon. A small stream, which had survived the summer drought, trickled down the bed of the latter. Through tangled underbrush Keith crept to the water. He lay down and drank, after which he sat on a rock and pitied himself. In five minutes he would have been asleep if a sound had not startled him. Some one was snoring on the other side of a mesquite thicket.
Keith jumped up, pushed his way through, and almost stumbled over a sleeping man. He knelt down and began to shake the snorer. The man did not awaken. The foghorn in his throat continued to rumble intermittently, now in crescendo, now in diminuendo.
"Wake up, man!" Keith shouted in his ear in the interval between shakes.
The sleeper was a villainous-looking specimen. His face and throat were streaked with black. There was an angry wheal across his cheek. One of the genus tramp would have scorned his charred clothes. Keith cared for none of these details. He wanted to unload his troubles to a "grown-up."
The youngster roused the man at last by throwing water in his face. Shorty sat up, at the same time dragging out a revolver. His gaze fastened on the boy, after one swift glance round.
"Who's with you, kid?" he demanded.
Keith began to sniffle. "Nobody."
"Whadya doin' here?"
"I want my daddy."
"Who is yore daddy? What's yore name?"
"Keith Crawford."
Shorty bit off an oath of surprise. "Howcome you here?"
"A man brought me."
The rustler brushed the cobwebs of sleep from his eyes and brain. He had come up here to sleep undisturbed through the day and far into the night. Before he had had two hours of rest this boy had dragged him back from slumber. He was prepared to be annoyed, but he wanted to make sure of the facts first.
As far as he understood them, the boy told the story of the night's adventures. Shorty's face grew grim. He appreciated the meaning back of them far better than the little fellow. Keith's answers to his questions told him that the men figuring in the episode must be Doble and Otero. Though the child was a little mixed as to the direction from which Otero had brought him, the man was pretty sure of the valley where Doble was lying hid.
He jumped to his feet. "We'll go, kid."
"To daddy?"
"Not right away. We got hurry-up business first."
"I wanta go to my daddy."
"Sure. Soon as we can. But we'll drift over to where yore sister's at first off. We're both wore to a frazzle, mebbe, but we got to trail over an' find out what's bitin' Dug."
The man saddled and took the up-trail, Keith clinging to his waist. At the head of the gulch the boy pointed out the way he and Otero had come. This confirmed Shorty's opinion as to the place where Doble was to be found.
With the certainty of one who knew these hills as a preacher does his Bible, Shorty wound in and out, always moving by the line of least resistance. He was steadily closing the gap of miles that separated him from Dug Doble.
CHAPTER XLIII
JUAN OTERO IS CONSCRIPTED
Crawford and Sanders rode rapidly toward Malapi. They stopped several times to examine places where they thought it possible Otero might have left the road, but they looked without expectation of any success. They did not even know that the Mexican had started in this direction. As soon as he reached the suburbs, he might have cut back across the plain and followed an entirely different line of travel.
Several miles from town Sanders pulled up. "I'm going back for a couple of miles. Bob was telling me of a Mexican tendejon in the hills kept by the father of a girl Otero goes to see. She might know where he is. If I can get hold of him likely I can make him talk."
This struck Crawford as rather a wild-goose chase, but he had nothing better to offer himself in the way of a plan.
"Might as well," he said gloomily. "I don't reckon you'll find him. But you never can tell. Offer the girl a big reward if she'll tell where Doble is. I'll hustle to town and send out posses."
They separated. Dave rode back up the road, swung off at the place Hart had told him of, and turned up a valley which pushed to the roots of the hills. The tendejon was a long, flat-roofed adobe building close to the trail.
Dave walked through the open door into the bar-room. Two or three men were lounging at a table. Behind a counter a brown-eyed Mexican girl was rinsing glasses in a pail of water.
The young man sauntered forward to the counter. He invited the company to drink with him.
"I'm looking for Juan Otero," he said presently. "Mr. Crawford wanted me to see him about riding for him."
There was a moment's silence. All of those present were Mexicans except Dave. The girl flashed a warning look at her countrymen. That look, Sanders guessed at once, would seal the lips of all of them. At once he changed his tactics. What information he got would have to come directly through the girl. He signaled her to join him outside.
Presently she did so. The girl was a dusky young beauty, plump as a partridge, with the soft-eyed charm of her age and race.
"The señor wants to see me?" she asked.
Her glance held a flash of mockery. She had seen many dirty, poverty-stricken mavericks of humanity, but never a more battered specimen than this gaunt, hollow-eyed tramp, black as a coal-heaver, whose flesh showed grimy with livid wounds through the shreds of his clothing. But beneath his steady look the derision died. Tattered his coat and trousers might be. At least he was a prince in adversity. The head on the splendid shoulders was still finely poised. He gave an impression of indomitable strength.
"I want Juan Otero," he said.
"To ride for Señor Crawford." Her white teeth flashed and she lifted her pretty shoulders in a shrug of mock regret. "Too bad he is not here. Some other day—"
"—will not do. I want him now."
"But I have not got him h
id."
"Where is he? I don't want to harm him, but I must know. He took Joyce Crawford into the hills last night to Dug Doble—pretended her father had been hurt and he had been sent to lead her to him. I must save her—from Doble, not from Otero. Help me. I will give you money—a hundred dollars, two hundred."
She stared at him. "Did Juan do that?" she murmured.
"Yes. You know Doble. He's a devil. I must find him … soon."
"Juan has not been here for two days. I do not know where he is."
The dust of a moving horse was traveling toward them from the hills. A Mexican pulled up and swung from the saddle. The girl called a greeting to him quickly before he could speak. "Buenos dios, Manuel. My father is within, Manuel."
The man looked at her a moment, murmured "Buenos, Bonita," and took a step as though to enter the house.
Dave barred the way. The flash of apprehension in Bonita's face, her unnecessary repetition of the name, the man's questioning look at her, told Sanders that this was the person he wanted.
"Just a minute, Otero. Where did you leave Miss Crawford?"
The Mexican's eyes contracted. To give himself time he fell again into the device of pretending that he did not understand English. Dave spoke in Spanish. The loafers in the bar-room came out to listen.
"I do not know what you mean."
"Don't lie to me. Where is she?"
The keeper of the tendejon asked a suave question. He, too, talked in
Spanish. "Who are you, señor? A deputy sheriff, perhaps?"
"No. My name is Dave Sanders. I'm Emerson Crawford's friend. If Juan will help me save the girl he'll get off light and perhaps make some money. I'll stand by him. But if he won't, I'll drag him back to Malapi and give him to a mob."
The sound of his name was a potent weapon. His fame had spread like wildfire through the hills since his return from Colorado. He had scored victory after victory against bad men without firing a gun. He had made the redoubtable Dug Doble an object of jeers and had driven him to the hills as an outlaw. Dave was unarmed. They could see that. But his quiet confidence was impressive. If he said he would take Juan to Malapi with him, none of them doubted he would do it. Had he not dragged Miller back to justice—Miller who was a killer of unsavory reputation?
Otero wished he had not come just now to see Bonita, but he stuck doggedly to his statement. He knew nothing about it, nothing at all.
"Crawford is sending out a dozen posses. They will close the passes. Doble will be caught. They will kill him like a wolf. Then they will kill you. If they don't find him, they will kill you anyhow."
Dave spoke evenly, without raising his voice. Somehow he made what he said seem as inevitable as fate.
Bonita caught her lover by the arm and shoulder. She was afraid, and her conscience troubled her vicariously for his wrongdoing.
"Why did you do it, Juan?" she begged of him.
"He said she wanted to come, that she would marry him if she had a chance. He said her father kept her from him," the man pleaded. "I didn't know he was going to harm her."
"Where is he? Take me to him, quick," said Sanders, relapsing into
English.
"Si, señor. At once," agreed Otero, thoroughly frightened.
"I want a six-shooter. Some one lend me one."
None of them carried one, but Bonita ran into the house and brought back a small bulldog. Dave looked it over without enthusiasm. It was a pretty poor concern to take against a man who carried two forty-fives and knew how to use them. But he thrust it into his pocket and swung to the saddle. It was quite possible he might be killed by Doble, but he had a conviction that the outlaw had come to the end of the passage. He was going to do justice on the man once for all. He regarded this as a certainty.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE BULLDOG BARKS
Joyce fainted for the first time in her life.
When she recovered consciousness Doble was splashing water in her face.
She was lying on the bunk from which she had fled a few minutes earlier.
The girl made a motion to rise and he put a heavy hand on her shoulder.
"Keep your hand off me!" she cried.
"Don't be a fool," he told her irritably. "I ain't gonna hurt you none—if you behave reasonable:"
"Let me go," she demanded, and struggled to a sitting position on the couch. "You let me go or my father—"
"What'll he do?" demanded the man brutally. "I've stood a heap from that father of yore's. I reckon this would even the score even if I hadn't—" He pulled up, just in time to keep from telling her that he had fired the chaparral. He was quite sober enough to distrust his tongue. It was likely, he knew, to let out some things that had better not be told.
She tried to slip by him and he thrust her back.
"Let me go!" she demanded. "At once!"
"You're not gonna go," he told her flatly. "You'll stay here—with me.
For keeps. Un'erstand?"
"Have you gone crazy?" she asked wildly, her heart fluttering like a frightened bird in a cage. "Don't you know my father will search the whole country for me?"
"Too late. We travel south soon as it's dark." He leaned forward and put a hand on her knee, regardless of the fact that she shrank back quivering from his touch. "Listen, girl. You been a high-stepper. Yore heels click mighty loud when they hit the sidewalk. Good enough. Go far as you like. I never did fancy the kind o' women that lick a man's hand. But you made one mistake. I'm no doormat, an' nobody alive can wipe their feet on me. You turned me down cold. You had the ol' man kick me outa my job as foreman of the ranch. I told him an' you both I'd git even. But I don't aim to rub it in. I'm gonna give you a chance to be Mrs. Doble. An' when you marry me you git a man for a husband."
"I'll never marry you! Never! I'd rather be dead in my grave!" she broke out passionately.
He went to the table, poured himself a drink, and gulped it down. His laugh was sinister and mirthless.
"Please yorese'f, sweetheart," he jeered. "Only you won't be dead in yore grave. You'll be keepin' house for Dug Doble. I'm not insistin' on weddin' bells none. But women have their fancies an' I aim to be kind. Take 'em or leave 'em."
She broke down and wept, her face in her hands. In her sheltered life she had known only decent, clean-minded people. She did not know how to cope with a man like this. The fear of him rose in her throat and choked her. This dreadful thing he threatened could not be, she told herself. God would not permit it. He would send her father or Dave Sanders or Bob Hart to rescue her. And yet—when she looked at the man, big, gross, dominant, flushed with drink and his triumph—the faith in her became a weak and fluid stay for her soul. She collapsed like a child and sobbed.
Her wild alarm annoyed him. He was angered at her uncontrollable shudders when he drew near. There was a savage desire in him to break through the defense of her helplessness once for all. But his caution urged delay. He must give her time to get accustomed to the idea of him. She had sense enough to see that she must make the best of the business. When the terror lifted from her mind she would be reasonable.
He repeated again that he was not going to hurt her if she met him halfway, and to show good faith went out and left her alone.
The man sat down on a chopping-block outside and churned his hatred of Sanders and Crawford. He spurred himself with drink, under its influence recalling the injuries they had done him. His rage and passion simmered, occasionally exploded into raucous curses. Once he strode into the house, full of furious intent, but the eyes of the girl daunted him. They looked at him as they might have looked at a tiger padding toward her.
He flung out of the house again, snarling at his own weakness. There was something in him stronger than passion, stronger than his reckless will, that would not let him lay a hand on her in the light of day. His bloodshot eyes looked for the sun. In a few hours now it would be dark.
While he lounged sullenly on the chopping-block, shoulders and head sunken, a sound bro
ught him to alert attention. A horseman was galloping down the slope on the other side of the valley.
Doble eased his guns to make sure of them. Intently he watched the approaching figure. He recognized the horse, Chiquito, and then, with an oath, the rider. His eyes gleamed with evil joy. At last! At last he and Dave Sanders would settle accounts. One of them would be carried out of the valley feet first.
Sanders leaped to the ground at the same instant that he pulled Chiquito up. The horse was between him and his enemy.
The eyes of the men crossed in a long, level look.
"Where's Joyce Crawford?" asked Dave.
"That yore business?" Doble added to his retort the insult unmentionable.
"I'm makin' it mine. What have you done with her?" The speech of the younger man took on again the intonation of earlier days. "I'm here to find out."
A swish of skirts, a soft patter of feet, and Joyce was beside her friend, clinging to him, weeping in his arms.
Doble moved round in a wide circumference. When shooting began he did not want his foe to have the protection of the horse's body. Not even for the beat of a lid did the eyes of either man lift from the other.
"Go back to the house, Joyce," said Dave evenly. "I want to talk with this man alone."
The girl clung the tighter to him. "No, Dave, no! It's been … awful."
The outlaw drew his long-barreled six-shooter, still circling the group.
He could not fire without running a risk of hitting Joyce.
"Hidin' behind a woman, are you?" he taunted, and again flung the epithet men will not tolerate.
At any moment he might fire. Dave caught the wrists of the girl, dragged them down from his neck, and flung her roughly from him to the ground. He pulled out his little bulldog.
Doble fired and Dave fell. The outlaw moved cautiously closer, exultant at his marksmanship. His enemy lay still, the pistol in his hand. Apparently Sanders had been killed at the first shot.
Gunsight Pass Page 24
