The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  The mob leader turned to the Tennessean. "Young man, I don't know who you are, but if you mean to butt into a quarrel that ain't yours all I've got to say is that you're hunting an early grave."

  "We'll know about that later, seh."

  "You stand pat, do you?"

  "Well, seh, I draw to a pair that opens the pot anyhow," answered Larry, with a slight motion of his weapons.

  Dunke fell back into the mob, a shot rang out into the night, and the crowd swayed forward. But at that instant the door behind Fraser swung open. A frightened voice sounded in his ear.

  "Quick, Steve!"

  The ranger slewed his head, gave an exclamation of surprise, and hurriedly threw his prisoner into the open passage.

  "Back, Larry! Lively, my boy!" he ordered.

  Neill leaped back in a spatter of bullets that rained round him. Next moment the door was swung shut again.

  "You all right, Nell?" asked Fraser quickly of the young woman who had opened the door, and upon her affirmative reply he added: "Everybody alive and kicking? Nobody get a pill?"

  "I'm all right for one," returned Larry. "But we had better get out of this passage. I notice our friends the enemy are sending their cards through the door after us right anxious."

  As he spoke a bullet tore a jagged splinter from a panel and buried itself in the ceiling. A second and a third followed.

  "That's c'rect. We'd better be 'Not at home' when they call. Eh, Nell?"

  Steve put an arm affectionately round the waist of the young woman who had come in such timely fashion to their aid and ran through the passage with her to the room beyond, Neill following with the prisoner.

  "You're wounded, Steve," the young woman cried.

  He shrugged. "Scratch in the hand. Got it when I arrested him. Had to shoot his trigger finger off."

  "But I must see to it."

  "Not now; wait till we're out of the woods." He turned to his friend: "Nell, let me introduce to you Mr. Neill, from the Panhandle. Mr. Neill, this is my sister. I don't know how come she to drop down behind us like an angel from heaven, but that's a story will wait. The thing we got to do right now is to light a shuck out of here."

  His friend nodded, listening to the sound of blows battering the outer door. "They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the wind seven ways for Sunday."

  "What I'd like to know is whether there are two entrances to this rat-trap. Do you happen to know, Nell?" asked Fraser of his sister.

  "Three," she answered promptly. "There's a back door into the court and a trap-door to the roof. That's the way I came."

  "And it's the way we'll go. I might a-known you'd know all about it give you a quarter of a chance," her brother said admiringly. "We'll duck through the roof and let Mr. Dunke hold the sack. Lead the way, sis."

  She guided them along another passageway and up some stairs to the second story. The trap-door that opened to the flat roof was above the bed about six feet. Neill caught the edges of the narrow opening, drew himself up, and wriggled through. Fraser lifted his sister by the waist high enough for Larry to catch her hands and draw her up.

  "Hurry, Steve," she urged. "They've broken in. Hurry, dear."

  The ranger unlocked his prisoner's handcuffs and tossed them up to the Tennessean.

  "Get a move on you, Mr. Struve, unless you want to figure in a necktie party," he advised.

  But the convict's flabby muscles were unequal to the task of getting him through the opening. Besides which, his wounded hand, tied up with a blood-soaked rag, impeded him. He had to be pulled from above and boosted from behind. Fraser, fit to handle his weight in wildcats, as an admirer had once put it, found no trouble in following. Steps were already heard on the stairs below when Larry slipped the cover to its place and put upon it a large flat stone which he found on the roof for that purpose. The fugitives crawled along the roof on their hands and knees so as to escape the observation of the howling mob outside the house. Presently they came into the shadows, and Nell rose, ran forward to a little ladder which led to a higher roof, and swiftly ascended. Neill, who was at her heels, could not fail to note the light supple grace with which she moved. He thought he had never seen a more charming woman in appearance. She still somehow retained the slim figure and taking ways of a girl, in conjunction with the soft rounded curves of a present-day Madonna.

  Two more roofs were crossed before they came to another open trap-door. A lamp in the room below showed it to be a bedroom with two cots in it. Two children, one of them a baby, were asleep in these. A sweet-faced woman past middle age looked anxiously up with hands clasped together as in prayer.

  "Is it you, Nellie?" she asked.

  "Yes, mother, and Steve, and his friend. We're all right."

  Fraser dropped through, and his sister let herself down into his arms. Struve followed, and was immediately handcuffed. Larry put back the trap and fastened it from within before he dropped down.

  "We shall have to leave at once, mother, without waiting to dress the children," explained Fraser. "Wrap them in blankets and take some clothes along. I'll drop you at the hotel and slip my prisoner into the jail the back way if I can; that is, if another plan I have doesn't work."

  The oldest child awoke and caught sight of Fraser. He reached out his hands in excitement and began to call: "Uncle Steve! Uncle Steve back again."

  Fraser picked up the youngster. "Yes, Uncle Steve is back. But we're going to play a game that Indians are after us. Webb must be good and keep very, very still. He mustn't say a word till uncle tells him he may."

  The little fellow clapped his hands. "Goody, goody! Shall we begin now?"

  "Right this minute, son. Better take your money with you, mother. Is father here?"

  "No, he is at the ranch. He went down in the stage to-day."

  "All right, friends. We'll take the back way. Tennessee, will you look out for Mr. Struve? Sis will want to carry the baby."

  They passed quietly down-stairs and out the back door. The starry night enveloped them coldly, and the moon looked down through rifted clouds. Nature was peaceful as her own silent hills, but the raucous jangle of cursing voices from a distance made discord of the harmony. They slipped along through the shadows, meeting none except occasional figures hurrying to the plaza. At the hotel door the two men separated from the rest of the party, and took with them their prisoner.

  "I'm going to put him for safe-keeping down the shaft of a mine my father and I own," explained Steve. "He wouldn't be safe in the jail, because Dunke, for private reasons, has made up his mind to put out his lights."

  "Private reasons?" echoed the engineer.

  "Mighty good ones, too. Ain't that right?" demanded the ranger of Struve.

  The convict cursed, though his teeth still chattered with fright from the narrow escape he had had, but through his prison jargon ran a hint of some power he had over the man Dunke. It was plain he thought the latter had incited the lynching in order to shut the convict's mouth forever.

  "Where is this shaft?" asked Neill.

  "Up a gulch about half a mile from here."

  Fraser's eyes fixed themselves on a young man who passed on the run. He suddenly put his fingers to his lips and gave a low whistle. The running man stopped instantly, his head alert to catch the direction from which the sound had come. Steve whistled again and the stranger turned toward them.

  "It's Brown, one of my rangers," explained the lieutenant.

  Brown, it appeared, had just reached town and stabled his horse when word came to him that there was trouble on the plaza. He had been making for it when his officer's whistle stopped him.

  "It's all over except getting this man to safety. I'm going to put him down an abandoned shaft of the Jackrabbit. He'll be safe there, and nobody will think to look for him in any such place," said Fraser.

  The man from the Panhandle drew his friend to one side. "Do you need me any longer? I left Miss Kinney right on the edge of that mob, and I expect I better look a
round and see where she is now."

  "All right. No, we don't need you. Take care you don't let any of these miners recognize you. They might make you trouble while they're still hot. Well, so-long. See you to-morrow at the hotel."

  The Tennessean looked to his guns to make sure they hung loose in the scabbards, then stepped briskly back toward the plaza.

  CHAPTER VIII

  WOULD YOU WORRY ABOUT ME?

  Margaret Kinney's heart ceased beating in that breathless instant after the two dauntless friends had flung defiance to two hundred. There was a sudden tightening of her throat, a fixing of dilated eyes on what would have been a thrilling spectacle had it not meant so much more to her. For as she leaned forward in the saddle with parted lips she knew a passionate surge of fear for one of the apparently doomed men that went through her like swift poison, that left her dizzy with the shock of it.

  The thought of action came to her too late. As Dunke stepped back to give the signal for attack she cried out his name, but her voice was drowned in the yell of rage that filled the street. She tried to spur her horse into the crowd, to force a way to the men standing with such splendid fearlessness above this thirsty pack of wolves. But the denseness of the throng held her fixed even while revolvers flashed.

  And then the miracle happened. She saw the door open and limned in a penumbra of darkness the white comely face of a woman. She saw the beleaguered men sway back and the door close in the faces of the horde. She saw bullets go crashing into the door, heard screams of baffled fury, and presently the crash of axes into the panels of the barrier that held them back. It seemed to fade away before her gaze, and instead of it she saw a doorway full of furious crowding miners.

  Then presently her heart stood still again. From her higher place in the saddle, well back in the outskirts of the throng, in the dim light she made out a figure crouching on the roof; then another, and another, and a fourth. She suffered an agony of fear in the few heart-beats before they began to slip away. Her eyes swept the faces near her. One and all they were turned upon the struggling mass of humanity at the entrance to the passage. When she dared look again to the roof the fugitives were gone. She thought she perceived them swarming up a ladder to the higher roof, but in the surrounding grayness she could not be sure of this.

  The stamping of feet inside the house continued. Once there was the sound of an exploding revolver. After a long time a heavy figure struggled into view through the roof-trap. It was Dunke himself. He caught sight of the ladder, gave a shout of triumph, and was off in pursuit of his flying prey. As others appeared on the roof they, too, took up the chase, a long line of indistinct running figures.

  There were other women on the street now, most of them Mexicans, so that Margaret attracted little attention. She moved up opposite the house that had become the scene of action, expecting every moment to hear the shots that would determine the fate of the victims.

  But no shots came. Lights flashed from room to room, and presently one light began to fill a room so brilliantly that she knew a lamp must have been overturned and set the house on fire. Dunke burst from the front door, scarce a dozen paces from her. There was a kind of lurid fury in his eyes. He was as ravenously fierce as a wolf balked of its kill. She chose that moment to call him.

  "Mr. Dunke!"

  Her voice struck him into a sort of listening alertness, and again she pronounced his name.

  "You, Miss Kinney-- here?" he asked in amazement.

  "Yes-- Miss Kinney."

  "But-- What are you doing here? I thought you were at Fort Lincoln."

  "I was, but I'm here now."

  "Why? This is no place for you to-night. Hell's broke loose."

  "So it seems," she answered, with shining eyes.

  "There's trouble afoot, Miss Margaret. No girl should be out, let alone an unprotected one."

  "I did not come here unprotected. There was a man with me. The one, Mr. Dunke, that you are now looking for to murder!"

  She gave it to him straight from the shoulder, her eyes holding his steadily.

  "Struve?" he gasped, taken completely aback.

  "No, not Struve. The man who stood beside Lieutenant Fraser, the one you threatened to kill because he backed the law."

  "I guess you don't know all the facts, Miss Kinney." He came close and met her gaze while he spoke in a low voice. "There ain't many know what I know. Mebbe there ain't any beside you now. But I know you're Jim Kinney's sister."

  "You are welcome to the knowledge. It is no secret. Lieutenant Fraser knows it. So does his friend. I'm not trying to hide it. What of it?"

  Her quiet scorn drew the blood to his face.

  "That's all right. If you do want to keep it quiet I'm with you. But there's something more. Your brother escaped from Yuma with this fellow Struve. Word came over the wire an hour or two ago that Struve had been captured and that it was certain he had killed his pal, your brother. That's why I mean to see him hanged before mo'ning."

  "He did kill my brother. He told me so himself." Her voice carried a sob for an instant, but she went on resolutely. "What has that to do with it? Isn't there any law in Texas? Hasn't he been captured? And isn't he being taken back to his punishment?"

  "He told you so himself!" the man echoed. "When did he tell you? When did you see him?"

  "I was alone with him for twelve hours in the desert."

  "Alone with you?" His puzzled face showed how he was trying to take this in, "I don't understand. How could he be alone with you?"

  "I thought he was my brother and I was helping him to escape from Fort Lincoln."

  "Helping him to escape! Helping Wolf Struve to escape! Well, I'm darned if that don't beat my time. How come you to think him your brother?" the man asked suspiciously.

  "It doesn't matter how or why. I thought so. That's enough."

  "And you were alone with him-- why, you must have been alone with him all night," cried Dunke, coming to a fresh discovery.

  "I was," she admitted very quietly.

  A new suspicion edged itself into his mind. "What did you talk about? Did he say anything about-- Did he-- He always was a terrible liar. Nobody ever believed Wolf Struve."

  Without understanding the reason for it, she could see that he was uneasy, that he was trying to discount the value of anything the convict might have told her. Yet what could Struve the convict, No. 9,432, have to do with the millionaire mine-owner, Thomas J. Dunke? What could there be in common between them? Why should the latter fear what the other had to tell? The thing was preposterous on the face of it, but the girl knew by some woman's instinct that she was on the edge of a secret Dunke held hidden deep in his heart from all the world. Only this much she guessed; that Struve was a sharer of his secret, and therefore he was set on lynching the man before he had time to tell it.

  "They got away, didn't they?" she asked.

  "They got away-- for the present," he answered grimly. "But we're still hunting them."

  "Can't you let the law take its course, Mr. Danke? Is it necessary to do this terrible thing?"

  "Don't you worry any about it, Miss Kinney. This ain't a woman's job. I'll attend to it."

  "But my friends," she reminded him.

  "We ain't intending to hurt them any. Come, I'll see you home. You staying at the hotel?"

  "I don't know. I haven't made any arrangements yet."

  "Well, we'll go make them now."

  But she did not move. "I'm not going in till I know how this comes out."

  He was a man used to having his own brutal way, one strong by nature, with strength increased by the money upon which he rode rough-shod to success.

  He laughed as he caught hold of the rein. "That's ridiculous!"

  "But my business, I think," the girl answered sharply, jerking the bridle from his fingers.

  Dunke stared at her. It was his night of surprises. He failed to recognize the conventional teacher he knew in this bright-eyed, full-throated young woman who fronted him so sure of he
rself. She seemed to him to swim brilliantly in a tide of flushed beauty, in spite of the dust and the stains of travel. She was in a shapeless khaki riding-suit and a plain, gray, broad-brimmed Stetson. But the one could not hide the flexible curves that made so frankly for grace, nor the other the coppery tendrils that escaped in fascinating disorder from under its brim.

  "You hadn't ought to be out here. It ain't right."

  "I don't remember asking you to act as a standard of right and wrong for me."

  He laughed awkwardly. "We ain't quarreling, are we, Miss Margaret?"

  "Certainly I am not. I don't quarrel with anybody but my friends."