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

by Unknown

The range-rider knew without being told that this hand had been dealt from a cold deck for the express purpose of cleaning out the boy. From the tenseness of the lithe body, which had become, as it were, a coiled spring, he knew that the lad's suspicions were stirring to life.

  The greedy little eyes of Culvera fastened on the boy. He made his first mistake. "How much you play back, Pheelip?"

  The youngster answered. "I said a hundred bucks. I've got fifty-three in the pot now. That leaves forty-seven."

  Culvera's raise was forty-seven dollars. The big Mexican shrugged. "Too steep for Jesus Mendoza." He threw his cards into the discard.

  The boy who had been called Philip laid his cards face down on the table in front of him.

  "Call it," he announced hoarsely. His eyes were fastened steadily on the nimble brown fingers of the dealer.

  "Cards?" asked Culvera with an indolent lift of his eyebrows.

  Philip hesitated. He had the nine, ten, and jack of clubs, the queen of hearts, and the joker. This counted as a king-high straight. Steve, standing back and to one side of him, guessed the boy's dilemma. Should he stand pat on his straight or discard the heart and draw to his straight flush? Culvera's play had shown great strength and would probably beat the pat hand. The lad took a chance and called for one card.

  Culvera drew two. He left them lying on the table while he discarded leisurely.

  "You're all in, Pheelip. It's a showdown. What you got?"

  Philip had drawn the six of clubs. He spread his hand with a sweeping gesture. "All blue."

  The Mexican shrugged. "Beats me unless I helped." He showed three eights, then faced the two cards he had drawn. The first was a king of diamonds, the second the fourth eight.

  "Hard luck, Pheelip," he said, and all his teeth flashed in a friendly smile as he opened both arms to rake in the chips.

  Philip sat silent, his mind seething with suspicions. Culvera had played his hand very strangely, unless--unless he had known that a fourth eight was waiting for him in the deck. The boy looked up, in time to catch a vanishing smile on the face of Mendoza.

  "Just a moment, Ramon," he called sharply, covering the chips with his hands. "That play--it don't look good to me. A man don't play threes so strong as that."

  Culvera still smiled blandly, though his eyes were very watchful. "Me, I have what you call a hunch, Pheelip."

  Yeager took two steps forward. "You bet he did. Cold deck, kid. The other one is in his right-hand coat pocket."

  The suavity went out of Culvera's face as a light does from a blown candle. Snarling, he rose from his seat and faced the cowpuncher.

  "Liar! Cabrone!" he hissed, reaching for his gun.

  Already the revolver of Mendoza was flashing in the air.

  Like a streak Steve's arm swept up. Twice his revolver sounded. There was a crash of breaking glass from the incandescent lights. Yeager flung himself against the table and drove it against Culvera who reeled back against the wall and dropped his weapon. The sound of more shots, of men dodging their way to safety, of a sharp cry followed by groans, had trodden so swiftly on the heels of the range-rider's action that when he turned a moment later he saw in the semi-darkness a smoke-filled room in the confusion of chaotic movement.

  Philip stood close to him, a smoking .38 in his hand, while Mendoza, clutching at his chair for support, sank slowly to the ground.

  Close to the boy's ear spoke Steve. "Beat it. Make your getaway through that door. Meet me at Johanson's corral."

  The boy plunged through the doorway into the darkness outside. Toward the exit after him backed the cowpuncher. Already scattered shots were being flung in his direction, but the dim light served him well. The last thing he saw before he vanished through the door was Culvera groping for his weapon.

  CHAPTER VII

  STEVE TELLS TOO MUCH TRUTH

  Yeager ducked into the night. From the door through which he had just come bullets spat aimlessly. He crouched as he ran, dodging in zigzag little rushes. Voices pursued him, fierce and threatening. Men poured from the gambling-house as seeds are squirted from a squeezed lemon.

  Into a vacant lot behind a store Steve swerved, finding shelter among some empty drygoods boxes. He was none too soon, for as he sank to cover, the rush of feet padded down the sidewalk. Stealthily he crept to the fence, vaulted it lightly, and found a more secure hiding-place in the lumber yard beyond. From the top of a pile of two by fours he watched, every sense alert to catch any warning of danger.

  Soon his pursuers returned in little groups to their interrupted games. Now that the first excitement of the chase was over, few of them wanted to risk a battle with desperate men in the dark. That was what the rurales and the rangers were for.

  The cowpuncher slid down cautiously and left the lumber yard by way of the alley in the rear. He followed a barb-wire fence which bounded a pasture, and at the next corner crossed the street warily into United States territory. By alleys and back ways his feet took him to Johanson's stable. Noiselessly he crept toward it from the rear. Some one was inside saddling a horse. So much he could gather from the sounds. Was it Phil? Or was it some one getting ready for the pursuit? He moved a step nearer. A stick cracked beneath his foot.

  The man saddling the bronco whirled, revolver in hand. "Who is it?" demanded a tense voice.

  "All right, Phil." Steve moved forward, breathing easier. "Glad you made it. We'd better light a shuck out of here. They'll stir up the rurales to get after us, I reckon."

  Already he was busy saddling Four Bits.

  "Do you ... do you think I killed him?" jerked out the boy, a strangled sob of over-strained emotion in his throat.

  "Don't know. He was asking for it, wasn't he?" answered Yeager in a matter-of-fact voice. He did not intend by an expression of sympathy to aid in any breakdown here. That could come later when they had put many miles between them and Arixico.

  They led their horses out of the stable and swung to the saddles not a minute too soon. A man came running toward them.

  "Hold on," he called. "Just a moment. I'm the sheriff. They say a man has been killed."

  The fugitives put spurs to their broncos. The animals jumped to a canter. Over his shoulder Steve looked back. The sheriff was standing undecided. Before it penetrated his brain that these were the men he wanted they were out of range.

  For a time they rode in silence except for the clicking of the hoofs. Yeager turned, his hand on the rump of his pony.

  "Don't hear anything of them. We've made a clean getaway, looks like. But they'll keep the wires warm after us--if Mendoza is dead."

  The boy broke down, sobbing. "My God, I couldn't help it. What else could I do? He was shooting when I fired."

  "Sure he was, but that won't help you if they take you back to Mexico. My advice is for you to get into a hole and draw it in after you, for a few days anyhow. Where do you live?"

  "At Los Robles--when I'm at home."

  "Then you are Phil Seymour?"

  "Who told you?" flashed the boy.

  "I board with your mother. I'm a rider for the Lunar Company."

  "Then you know Chad Harrison. Chad will get me out of this. He'll fix it."

  "How'll he fix it?" demanded Yeager bluntly. "Back there across the line they're going to call this by an ugly name--if Mendoza cashes in his checks. Harrison can't fix murder, can he?"

  A film of hard wariness covered the eyes of the boy as he looked across in the darkness at the other man. "He's got friends," was the dry, noncommittal answer that came to the range-rider after a moment's distinct pause.

  Yeager asked no more questions. There had been a "No trespass" sign in Phil's manner. But as they rode silently toward Los Robles Steve's mind groped again with the problem of Harrison's relation to those in power across the border. Was the man tied up with old Pasquale? Or was he an agent of the Huerta Government? Just now the Federals had control of this part of the border. Did the boy mean that it was among them that Harrison had friends? It looked t
hat way, and yet--The cowpuncher could not get it out of his head that the stolen cattle had been for old Pasquale. Huerta's lieutenants were too wary to stock their pantry from the United States in that fashion.

  They rode into Los Robles in the first gray stirrings of dawn, long before anybody in the little town was afoot.

  "Where are you going to hide? First place they'll look for you will be at home," suggested Yeager.

  "There's a haystack out in the Lunar pastures. I'll lay low there. Tell Chad when you see him, and have Ruth fix me up something to eat."

  They parted, each of them to get in what sleep was possible before day. When Steve was awakened by the sound of some one stirring in the next room it seemed as though he had been in bed only a few minutes.

  He walked up to the hotel before breakfast and saw Harrison as the actor was going into the dining-room. The big man stopped in his tracks and shot out a heavy jaw at him.

  "Thought you was giving our eyes a rest for a while," he growled.

  Yeager declined to exchange compliments with him. "There's a friend of yours on the haystack in the pasture. He wants to see you soon as it's convenient."

  The eyes of the pugilist narrowed. "Put a name to him."

  "Phil Seymour."

  "What's he doing here?" demanded Harrison blackly.

  "Perhaps you'd better ask him." Steve turned on his heel and walked back to his boarding-house.

  His arrival at the breakfast table was greeted with a chorus of exclamations. What was he doing back so soon? Had he got homesick? Had he run out of money already?

  He let them worm out of him that he had ridden away and forgotten his purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,--who was manifestly incredulous about his explanation,--and he accepted their hilarious repartee with the proper amount of sheepish resentment.

  After the meal was over he lingered to see Ruth, who had just sat down to eat.

  "Can I see you alone, Miss Ruth?"

  She flashed a quick look at him, doubtful and apprehensive. "In the pergola, almost right away."

  The girl reached the vine-draped entrance of the pergola shortly after Yeager. Manifestly her fears had been growing in the interval since he had left her.

  "What is it?" And swift on the heels of that, "Is it about Phil?"

  "Yes."

  "He's in trouble ... again?" she breathed.

  He nodded assent. "The boy's out in the pasture. He wants you to send him breakfast."

  The dread that was always lying banked in the hearts of herself and her mother found voice. "What has he done now?"

  The range-rider chose his words carefully. "There was some trouble--just across the border. He had to shoot ... and a man fell."

  Her face mirrored terror. "You mean ... dead?"

  "I don't know," he answered gravely.

  "Tell me all about it, please,--the circumstances, everything."

  "He will tell you himself. I'll just say this--the shooting was forced on him. He fired in self-defense."

  She wrung her hands. "I knew ... I knew something dreadful would happen. Mr. Harrison promised me--he said he would look out for Phil."

  Steve looked her straight in the eyes. "Harrison's a crook. He's been using your love for Phil as a lever. It's up to you and the boy to shake him off."

  A swift, upblazing anger leaped to her face. "How dare you say that! How dare you!"

  His blue eyes met her dark, stormy ones quietly and steadily. "I'm telling you the truth. Can't you see he's been leading Phil into deviltry? You're afraid of him, afraid of his influence over the boy. That's why you knuckle down to him."

  "I'm not afraid. He's Phil's friend. You're against him just because he--he--"

  "Say it, Miss Ruth. Just because he gave me the whaling of my young life. Nothing to that, nothing a-tall. My system can absorb a licking without bearing a grudge. But he ain't on the level. 'Course you'll hate me for saying it, but some one's got to tell you."

  "It's none of your business. I dare say it was you that was with Phil when he--when he--got into trouble."

  "Yes."

  "I thought so." A sob swelled up in her throat. "You come here and make trouble. I do hate you if you want to know."

  With that she turned tempestuously and went flying back to the house.

  Steve smiled ruefully. He did not know much about women, but he had read somewhere that they were capable of injustice. She had plenty of spirit, anyhow, for all that she looked so demure and shy.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE HEAVY GETS HIS TIME

  Threewit came to Steve while Cummings was preparing the stage set for a dissolve.

  "Wish you'd look over this scenario, Yeager. The old man sent it out to me to see if we can pull off the riding end of it. Scene twenty-seven is the sticker. Here's the idea: You've been thrown from your horse and your foot's caught in the stirrup. You draw your gat to shoot the bronch and it's bumped out of your hand as you're dragged over the rough ground. See? You save your life by wriggling your foot out of your boot. Can it be done without taking too many chances?"

  The rider considered. "I reckon it could if a fellow's boot was fixed so he could slip his foot out at the right time. I'll take a whirl at it."

  "There's another scene where you save Maisie by jumping from your horse to a wild steer that's pursuing her. You'll have to twist its head and throw the brute after you straddle it."

  "All right. When you want to pull it off?"

  "We can do the stirrup one to-day, before you go--if you still want to go."

  "Got an answer yet from Arixico?"

  "Just got it. Mendoza's still alive, but mighty badly hurt. I've sent the kid out to the animal farm. He'll lie low, and they won't find him there."

  "I'm still curious about that bunch of cattle we lost. If you can spare me I'll run down and see if old Pasquale hasn't got 'em. It ain't likely we'll ever get hide or hair of 'em, but there's one thing I'd like to find out."

  "Still got that notion about Harrison?"

  "Maybe I have. Maybe I haven't. Anyhow, folks that are blind can't see. I'll keep my notions in my own fool haid for a while."

  "Harrison has some friends across the line. He's going to try and fix it for the kid if they run him down."

  "That's fine," commented Yeager dryly. "He sure must have influential friends."

  "All ready, Mr. Threewit," called out Cummings.

  The director lit a cigar and moved forward to the stage. "Lennox, you're too far up stage. Register fear, Daisy. That's the idea. Now, then, Miss Winters. Keep your eyes on Daisy as you come into the room. No--no--no! That won't do at all."

  Yeager left them to their rehearsal troubles and strolled back to his boarding-house. He would not be needed till afternoon.

  He spent a half-hour softening the leather of his right boot around the ankle. A man cannot tumble from a running horse, let himself be dragged forty yards, and then slip his foot from the stirrup of a cowpony that has become frightened without taking a big chance. But it was his business to take chances. He always had taken them. And he knew that they could be minimized by careful preparation, expertness, and cool skill of execution.

  As it turned out, Yeager had to make his fall twice. The ground selected for the set was a bit of level space just at the foot of a hillside. The rider went down hard on his shoulder at exactly the spot selected, but he had miscalculated slightly and the force of the fall dragged his foot from the boot at once. His calculations worked better at the second attempt. Hanging on by a toe-hold, he was dragged bumping over the rough ground. His revolver came out on schedule time and flew into the air. When Farrar gave the word,--which was at the moment the galloping horse was opposite the camera,--Steve worked his foot free, leaving the boot still clinging to the stirrup.

  Yeager got to his feet rather unsteadily. The fall had been an unusually hard one, and it had not helped any to be dragged at full speed over the bum
py ground. Maisie Winters ran forward and slipped an arm around his waist to support him.

  "You dandy man! I never did see one so game as you, Steve."

  The cowpuncher grinned. He liked Maisie Winters. There was about her a boyish, slangy camaraderie that made for popularity.

  "Says the extra to the star, 'Much obliged, ma'am.'"

  "You're no extra. In your own line you're as big a star as we've got. I know there isn't a rider in the country like you. You're a jim-dandy."

  "He's quite a family pet," contributed Harrison sourly.