by Unknown
"This afternoon?" asked one.
"Not an hour ago."
"Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently.
"Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not care to express.
One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager. Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so? Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe."
The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling the cigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved.
"A white woman this time, Pablo says."
The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comes to the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"--He whispered a bit of slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.
The peons guffawed with delight. This kind of joke was adapted both to their prejudices and their lack of intelligence. They were as ignorant of the world as children, fully as gay, irresponsible, and kindhearted. But they had, too, a capacity for cruelty and frank sensuousness that belongs only to the childhood of a race.
Presently Yeager arose, yawned, and drifted inconspicuously toward the stable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process of throwing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out of sight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of the house where Pasquale was putting up.
The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager's second arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did his appearance now mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Steve was inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubious acquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.
He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big house the insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light was shining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there came faintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs and hysteria struggled.
By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little back porch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room, he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black eyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.
The woman broke out into violent protest.
"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are, you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"
At the sound of that voice Yeager's heart jumped. He would have known it among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain and left him for the moment dizzy and trembling.
There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teeth showed behind the lifted lips.
"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine--"
"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," she protested, fighting against hysterical fears.
"So? But Señor Harrison says you were engaged to him."
"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than--"
Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionate protest.
Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders and turned to Harrison.
"You see. The lady has changed her mind, señor. What will you?"
"What's that got to do with it? She's mine. Send for a priest and have us married," the other man demanded bluntly.
"Not so fast, amigo," remonstrated Pasquale softly. "Give her time--a few days--quien sabe?--she may change her mind again."
Harrison choked on his anger. He was suspicious of this suavity, of this sudden respect for a girl's wishes. Since when had the old despot become so scrupulous as to risk offending one who had served him a good deal and might aid him in more serious matters? The prizefighter could guess only one reason for the general's attitude. His jealousy began to smoke at once.
"She can change her mind afterward just as well. If we're married now, then I'm sure of her," the prizefighter insisted doggedly.
Impulsively the girl swept into that part of the room within the view of Steve. She knelt in front of Pasquale and caught at his hand.
"Send me home--back to my mother. I'm only a girl. You don't make war on girls, do you?" she pleaded.
Had she only known it, the very sweetness of her troubled youth, the shadows under the starry eyes edging the wild-rose cheeks, the allure of her lines and soft flesh, fought potently against her desire for a safe-conduct home. The greedy, treacherous little eyes of the insurgent chief glittered.
He shook his head. "No, señorita. That is not possible. But you shall stay here--under the protection of Gabriel Pasquale himself. You shall have choice--Señor Harrison if you wish, another if you prefer it so. Take time. Perhaps--who knows?" He smiled and bowed with the gallantry of a bear as he kissed her hand.
"No--no. I want to go home," she sobbed.
"Young ladies don't always know what is best for them. Behold, we shall marry you to a soldier, one of rank. From the general down, you shall have choice," Pasquale promised largely.
Harrison scowled. He did not at all like the turn things were taking. "Not as long as I'm alive," he said savagely. "She's mine, I tell you."
The Mexican looked directly at him with a face as hard as jade. "So you don't expect to live long, señor. Is that it? We shall all mourn. Yes, indeed." He turned decisively to the white-faced girl. "Go to sleep, muchacha. To-morrow we shall talk. Gabriel Pasquale is your friend. All shall be well with you. None shall insult you on peril of his life. Buenos!"
With a gesture of his hand he pointed the door to Harrison.
The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the American that finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce his commands and the other knew he would not hesitate to use it.
The prizefighter slouched out of the room with the general at his heels.
With a little gesture that betrayed the despair of her sick heart the girl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook her slender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave of the blanket upon which she lay.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TEXAN
Steve tapped gently on the window pane with the ball of his middle finger. Instantly the sobbing was interrupted. The black head of hair lifted from the pillow to listen the better. He could guess how fearfully the heart of the girl was beating.
Again he tapped on the glass. With a lithe twist of her body the girl sat up on the bed. She waited tensely for a repetition of the sound, not quite sure from where it had come.
Her questing eyes found at last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold back the light while she peered through the glass into the darkness without.
Over to the left she made out the contour of a face, a brown Mexican face with quick, eager eyes that spoke comfort to her. Her first thought was that it belonged to a friend. Hard on the heels of that she gave a little cry of joy and began with trembling fingers to raise the window.
"Steve!" she cried, laughing and crying together.
And as soon as she had adjusted the window she caught his hand between both of hers and pressed it hard. Steve was here. He would save her as he had before. She was all right now.
"Ruth! Little Ruth!" he cried softly, in a whisper.
"Did you hear? Do you know?" she asked.
&nb
sp; "Only that he brought you here, the hellhound, and that Pasquale--"
He stopped, his sentence unfinished. There was no need to alarm her about that old philanderer. Time enough for that if she scratched the surface and found the savage beneath.
"--Won't let me go home," she finished for him.
"But what are you doing here? How did Harrison trap you?"
"I had been strolling with Daisy Ellington after supper. It was not late--hardly dark yet. She stopped at the hotel to talk with Miss Winters and I started to walk home alone. I took the short cut across the empty block just below Brinker's. He was waiting among the cottonwoods there--he and two Mexicans. As soon as he stepped into the light I was afraid."
"Why didn't you cry out?"
"I didn't like to make a scene about nothing. And after that first moment I had no time. He caught hold of me and put his hand across my mouth. Horses were there ready saddled. He lifted me in front of him and kept my mouth covered till we were clear of the town. It didn't matter how much I screamed when we had reached the desert."
"I didn't think even Harrison had the nerve to kidnap an Arizona girl and bring her across the line. If he had happened to meet a bunch of cowpunchers--"
"He didn't start after me. It was you he wanted. But he found out you weren't in town and took me instead. All the way down he talked about you--boasted how he would marry me in spite of you and how he would take you and have Pasquale flay you alive."
Yeager lifted a warning finger. "Remember you have a friend here. Good-night."
He lowered himself quickly, slid down the porch post, and disappeared into the darkness almost instantly.
Ruth heard voices. One gave commands, the others answered mildly with "Si, Excellency." Dim figures moved about below, one heavy, bulky, dominating. He gestured, snapped out curt directions, and presently vanished. Two guards were left. They paced up and down beneath her window. She understood that Pasquale was providing against any chance of escape. Half an hour ago she would have shuddered. Now she could even smile faintly at his precautions. Steve would evade them when the right time came.
Her confidence in him, since it looked only to the results, was greater than that he felt in his own power. The range-rider saw the difficulties before him. He was alone in a camp of wild, ignorant natives who moved at the nod of Pasquale. When he let himself think of Ruth as a prisoner at the mercy of that savage old outlaw's whim, the heart of Steve failed him. What could one man do against so many?
He felt that she was perfectly safe for the present, but Yeager found it impossible to sleep in the stable. Taking his blankets with him, he slipped noiselessly out to the cottonwood clump back of Pasquale's headquarters. Here, at least, he could see the light in her window and be sure that all was well with her.
As he moved noiselessly from one tree to another which gave a better view of the window, Steve stumbled against the prostrate body of a man.
Some one ripped out a sullen oath and a grip of steel caught at the ankle of the cowpuncher.
Taken by surprise, Yeager was dragged to the ground.
"What are you doing here?" demanded a voice Steve recognized instantly as belonging to Harrison.
The prisoner made no resistance. He ran into a patter of frightened, apologetic Spanish.
"What's your name?"
"Pedro Cabenza, señor," replied the owner of that name. "It is so hot in the stable. So I bring my blankets here and sleep."
"Hmp!" Harrison took time for reflection. "Know where I put up?"
"Si, señor."
The prizefighter gave him a dollar. "Stay here. Keep an eye on that lighted window upstairs. If anything happens--if you hear a noise--if a woman screams, come and knock me up right away. Understand?"
The docile Cabenza repeated his instructions like a parrot.
"Good enough," Harrison nodded. "I'll give you another dollar when you come. But don't wake me for nothing."
"No, señor."
"And you'd better keep your mouth shut unless you want your head beat off," advised the white man as he left.
The one who had given his name as Cabenza grinned to himself. He was now Harrison's hired watcher. Both of them were in league to frustrate any deviltry on the part of Pasquale. He wondered what the prizefighter would give to know that he had his enemy so wholly in his power, that he had only to lay hands on him and cry out to doom him to a painful and a violent death.
Yeager dozed and wakened and dozed again. Always when he looked the light was still burning. Toward morning he saw the figure of Ruth in the window. When she turned away the light went out. He judged she had put her anxieties from her and given herself to sleep at last. But not until the camp began to stir with the renewal of life for another day did he leave his post and return to the stable.
During the morning he slept under a cottonwood and made up arrears of rest lost while on guard. About noon Harrison came down the street and stopped at sight of him. The man was livid with anger. Yeager could guess the reason. He had spent a stormy ten minutes with old Pasquale demanding his rights and had issued from the encounter without profit. From the place where Steve was sitting he had heard the high, excited voices. It had occurred to him that the protest of Harrison had gone about as far as it could be safely carried, for Gabriel was both a ruthless and a hot-tempered despot.
Harrison sat down sullenly without speaking and stared straight in front of him. He was boiling with impotent fury. Pasquale had the whip hand and meant to carry things his own way. Of that he no longer had any doubt. In bringing Ruth to Noche Buena he had made a great mistake.
"Do you want to make some money, you--what's your name?" he presently rasped out.
Yeager answered with the universal formula of the land. "Si, señor. And my name is Cabenza--Pedro Cabenza."
The prizefighter glanced warily around, then lowered his voice. "I mean a lot of money--twenty dollars, maybe."
"Gold?" asked the peon, wide-eyed.
"Gold. How far would you go to earn that much?"
"A long way, señor."
Harrison caught him by the wrist with a grip that drove the blood back. "Listen, Cabenza. Would you go as far as the camp of Garcia Farrugia?" The close-gripped, salient jaw was thrust forward. Black eyes blazed from a set, snarling face.
So, after all, the man was trafficking with the Federal governor all the time just as he was with the Constitutionalists. Yeager had once or twice suspected as much.
"To the camp of Governor Farrugia," gasped Cabenza. "But--what for, señor?"
"To carry him a letter. Never mind what for. You will get your pay. Is it not enough?"
"And--Pasquale?"
"Need never know. You can slip away this afternoon and be back by to-morrow night."
Cabenza shook his head regretfully. "No. I am one of the horse wranglers. My boss would miss me if I was not here. I cannot go."
The other man swore. At the same time he recognized the argument as effective. He must find a messenger who could absent himself without stirring up questions.
"Then keep your mouth clamped," ordered Harrison. "I may be able to use you here. Anyhow, I want you to be ready to help if I need you."
He slipped a dollar into the brown palm of the peon and left him.
Steve looked after him with narrowed eyes. "Mr. Harrison is liable to bump into trouble if he don't look out. He's gone crazy with the heat, looks like. First thing, he'll pick on the wrong greaser and Mr. Messenger will take the letter to Pasquale instead of Farrugia. That's about what'll happen."
Something else happened first, however, that distracted the attention of Mr. Yeager, alias Cabenza, from this regrettable possibility. A man rode into camp, followed by a Mexican leading a pack-horse. The first rider was straight, tall, and wide-shouldered; also he was deep-chested and lean-loined, forty-five or thereabout, and had "Texan" written all over his weather-beaten face and costume. At sight of him Steve gave a silent whoop of joy. A white man had come to Noche Buena, a
Texan (he was ready to swear), and he wore his big serviceable six-guns low. Also, he carried on his face and in his bearing the look of reckless competence that comes only from death faced in the open fearlessly and often.
Inside of five minutes Cabenza had gathered information as follows: Adam Holcomb was a soldier of fortune who had fought all over South America and Mexico. During the Spanish War he had been a Rough Rider in Cuba and later had been a volunteer officer in the Philippines. The army routine had no attraction for him. What he liked was actual fighting. So the outbreak of the Revolution had drawn him across the border, where he had done much to lick the Constitutionalist troops into shape. Now he had come to Noche Buena to teach the artillery of the Legion how to shoot straight, after which they would all march south and take the great city with the golden gates. Personally this Gringo was a devil, of course, but Pasquale was a prince of devils whose business it was to keep all lesser ones in order. So, in the Spanish equivalent of our American slang, they should worry. Thus a comrade explained the Texan and his presence to Pedro.
