by Grey, Zane
"Mebbe we can slick it over," replied Smoky, smoothly. "If we win all the boss's money--an' he'll shore be easy now with thet gurl on his mind--I reckon there won't be any sense in tellin' at all. Eh, Jim?"
"I don't make any rash promises, Smoky," returned Jim. "I admire you a lot, Slocum, but I'm thinking you run this into the ground.
In all justice these men ought to be told something."
"Damn you, Wall!" flashed Smoky, but he was not venomous.
Lincoln leaped up and hissed like a snake. His rage was confirmation of suspicions. Smoky laid a restraining hand on him.
"It sorter r'iled me, Brad. But take my word for it, it's a case of choosin' between the cards an' bein' told."
"I say cards. You fellers can't keep it forever," rejoined Lincoln, darkly.
From that hour dated the grim and passionate gambling in which they all participated. With one man on lookout duty, the others spent most of the daylight hours sitting at Happy Jack's table of cottonwood poles. Hays was a gambler by nature; he gambled with everything, particularly life and death.
Jim had separated his money into two parts--one consisting of the bills of large denomination, and the other of small. The former was very much in excess of the latter. While on guard up on the bluff Jim sewed his considerable sum in the lining of his coat and vest. He had a premonition that he would need it some day. The other he kept out for gambling, intending to quit when it was lost.
But fortune was fickle. He did not lose it. Instead, he won steadily. There was no hope of his getting out of the game so long as he was ahead. He wanted to watch, think, plan. Luck changed eventually, and he lost all he had won. Then he seesawed for a day, before he struck another streak of losing, and lost everything.
"I'm cleaned," he said, rising. "But, by gosh! I gave you a run."
"Jim, you shore had rotten cards lately," replied Hays. "But you can't be clean busted."
"No. I've saved out a little, and I'm going to hang on to it."
"I'm way ahead. I'll lend you some," offered Hays, generously.
"No, thanks. I'm glad to get off this well. I'll go up to the rock and send Mac down. From now on I'll do most of the lookout work. I like it."
"Thet's civil of you, Jim. . . . How many cards, Jeff? . . . Say, Smoky, don't you ever talk no more? I can't read your mind."
"Hell of a good thing you can't," replied Slocum, glumly. Gambling roused the worst in him, as indeed in all of them. Hays was loud, merry, derisive when he won, and the reverse when he lost.
Jim was glad this phase of his connection with the outfit was past.
He had played for days, won and lost, all in the interest of the scheme fermenting in his mind. He wanted to be alone. If nothing else intervened, this gambling would lead to the inevitable quarrel. Whether Hays won all the money or lost what he had, there would be a fight. Daily the stakes had grown higher, the betting more reckless, the bitterness or elation more pronounced. There was too much cash in the possession of these robbers. It had been begotten in evil and only in evil could it end.
Mac was so glad to be relieved of his lonely duty in the hot sun that he ran like an overgrown boy down the slope and back to camp.
But Jim welcomed the change. The sun had no terrors for him.
Nevertheless, he had packed up a bundle of thick brush and three long trimmed poles, with which he essayed to erect a shelter. This proved not an easy job, for the reason that there was no place to stick the poles. However, by carrying up stones he finally accomplished his design, and took his well-earned seat in the shade.
And at once a restless, baffled, hurried condition of mind seemed to leave him. To face those men hour after hour, day after day, hiding his thoughts, had engendered irritation. Happy Jack was an agreeable and likable man, who really had no business among these robbers. He had no force. He veered like the wind, and the person who last had his ear convinced him. Smoky Slocum was the salt of the earth, if such tribute could be paid one of Hank Hays' band.
The others, however, had palled upon Jim. When the split came and the shooting began Jim wanted to be around. He would help it along considerably.
He plied the glasses as diligently as before, sweeping all the hazy distances, the purple canyons, the white washes and valleys of green from which heat veils rose like smoke, and the mounds and ridges of red stone. Then he would watch the gamblers for a while.
Often he would take a long look at the tent shelter where the girl spent her weary days. Savage as Jim was to precipitate eruption and catastrophe, here he had the sagacity and stamina to wait.
Time was a conspirator with him. As surely as the sun shone blazingly down upon Robbers' Roost by day and the stars pitilessly by night, just as surely would tragedy decimate the gang. Every day brought that hour closer.
The season of storms arrived and showers of rain fell almost every day. Dust cleared out of the air; the heat diminished; and flowers and grass sprang up out of the earth.
Jim kept his slicker at the lookout, in expectation of a long, drenching rain, but seldom did he put it on. Often he stood out from under the brush shelter to let the rain beat upon him. He loved the smell of the hot stone, the sand, the dust after they had been wet. In the mornings the sky would be clear and azure blue, except round the peaks of the Henrys, where the storms formed.
About noonday or later the white clouds would sail up on all sides, and they would darken and swell and gloom. Then streaky curtains of rain, gray as steel, would wind down from the clouds and move across the desert. Here would be sunshine, and here shadow, and in between, rainbows of gorgeous vividness, of transparent, ethereal delicacy, or dark, sinister, ruddy hue, and of every shape that was possible for a curve.
One day in midsummer when Jim was returning to camp somewhat before sunset he heard a shot. It startled him. Gunshots, except his own while hunting rabbits and antelope, had been marked by their absence. And this one either had a spiteful ring or so it sounded to Jim's sensitive ears. He listened for others. None came.
The moment he entered the oval to see Hays striding for the cabin, his hair standing up, and his men grouped outside of the camp shelter, Jim knew that there had been trouble. It had been long in coming, but it had arrived. Jim hoped Hays had not shot Smoky or Happy Jack. Any one of the others would be one less.
Presently Smoky detached himself from the group and came to meet Jim. He walked slowly, his head down. They met at the rise of ground opposite the little cove where Hays had erected the cabin.
"What now, Smoky?"
"Hank did fer Brad."
"How? Why? . . . You don't mean Hays beat Lincoln to a gun?"
"He did, Jim. By Gawd he did!" ejaculated Slocum, his eyes gleaming strangely. "But Hank was at the end of the table an' had a free throw. You know thet bench Jack fixed on the side next to the fire? Wal, Brad was sittin' on it an' his gun bumped the table. Thet gave Hank the edge. He bored Brad. I was the only feller who seen it. The rest was duckin' to beat hell."
"What was it about, Smoky?"
"Wal, Brad has been gittin' sorer every day, an' today we cleaned him. Hank had a bad run, too. But you know he was way ahead, an' most on Brad's money. Brad opened up on Hank, no doubt meanin' to call him fer fair. But Brad didn't git goin' good before Hank hissed an' went fer his gun."
"Smoky, he had his mind made up," declared Jim, tensely.
"Shore. That's the queer part of it. Hank was not goin' to let Brad spit out much. . . . An', friend Jim, that's a hunch fer us."
"You and me?"
"So I take it."
"Hays can't beat me to a gun," rejoined Jim, with a cold ring in his voice.
"Nor me, either. Thet's a safe bet."
"Does Hays KNOW that?"
"Wal, he orter know it, leastways about me," replied Smoky, in perplexity. "But he's grown so cocky lately thet mebbe he's damn fool enough not to believe it."
"Shall I call him out?"
"Hell, no!" flashed Smoky, with a passionate gesture
. "After all, Brad was to blame. . . . But, Jim, I jest can't advise you no more. We both gotta paddle our own canoes."
"Well, I'm not so squeamish," declared Jim, with meaning. "I like you, Smoky. I reckon you're the one real, square man in this bunch. And if you want my advice you're welcome to it."
"Jim, I've sorta cottoned to you," admitted Smoky. "But honest to Gawd I'm afeared to ask you anythin'."
"What're you afraid of, Smoky?"
"I don't know. Mebbe it's a queer hunch Hank has busted us over this gurl."
They reached the camp. Lincoln lay face down over the table, his right arm hanging low, and his gun lying near his hand.
"Fellers, if I'm gonna cook your supper, you'll hold obsesquees fer our departed pard," observed Jack.
"Wonder who'll go next?" queried Mac, gloomily, twisting his lean hands.
"Lend a hand, some of you," ordered Slocum, peremptorily.
They carried Lincoln, face down, across the oval to the lower side of the cottonwood grove, where he had his bed and pack.
"I'll search him," said Slocum. "Mac, you go through his pack.
Jim, fetch the ax an' anythin' we can dig with."
In half an hour Lincoln had been consigned to the earth, and his possessions divided among the men who buried him.
"Grave number two?" speculated Smoky. "Fellers, it runs in my mind thet Robbers' Roost in these next twenty years will be sprinkled all over with graves."
"How so, when nobody has any idee where it is?"
"Heeseman will find it, an' Morley, an' after them many more," concluded Slocum, prophetically.
"Let's rustle out of the damned hole," suggested Bridges.
It was dark by the time Happy Jack called them to supper. Jim carried over an armload of brush to make a bright fire. By its flare Hays was seen approaching, and when he drew near he said, "Jim, did they tell you straight how I come to draw on Brad?"
"Reckon they did," replied Jim, coldly.
"Anythin' to say?"
"No. I don't see how you could have acted any differently."
"Wal, you've coppered it with the ace. The second Brad jumped me I seen in his eyes he meant to egg me on to draw. So I did it quick. . . . Jack, what you got fer supper?"
By tacit consent and without a single word the men avoided Happy Jack's table that night and ate around the camp fire. Hays stood up, Smoky sat on a stone, Jim knelt on one knee, and the others adopted characteristic poses reminiscent of the trail.
"Cool after the rain," remarked Hays, after he had finished. And he took up a blazing fagot of wood. "Reckon I'll make a little fire fer my lady prisoner."
He stalked away, waving the fagot to keep it ablaze.
"I call thet nervy," declared Smoky. "What you think, Jim?"
"Just a bluff. Watch him."
"Hank's gone dotty," snorted Happy Jack, for once affronted. "Thet gurl hates his very guts."
"Men, what this Herrick girl thinks or feels is nothing to Hays," chimed in Jim, ringingly.
"I seen her last night when he called me to fetch her supper," said Jack. "Fust time I'd had a peek at her face lately. Seemed a ghost of thet other gurl."
"Yes, and you fellows saw only a ghost of the money Hays got from the Herricks," retorted Jim, divining the moment for revelation had come.
An angry roar arose. Smoky threw up his hands and left the camp fire. Then Jim, in brief, cold terms, exposed the machinations of their chief. After the first outburst they accepted the disclosure in astounded and ominous silence. Jim left the poison to brew and paced off into the darkness.
The fire Hays had built in front of the shelter cast a bright light, showing the girl walking to and fro. Jim kept in the shadow of the cliff and stole within a couple of hundred feet, then sat down on the grassy bench. If the girl spoke, when Hays brought her food, it was too low to hear. Jim quivered when she faced in his direction and at the end of her short walk gazed across at the camp fire. It was too long a gaze to be casual.
Jim had a feeling that he could not much longer stay his hand.
Right then if he had seen Hays as much as touch the girl he would have shot him and risked having it out with the men. But the chief sat there, a fading figure in the dusk. Finally Helen went into her tent. Jim grasped at that break in the tension of the hour and stole away to his bed. Tomorrow! He could wait through tomorrow.
There would be a row and anything might happen. Hays was in no mood to tolerate inquiry or criticism. Most of them all, he had answered to a vitriolic devastation of character through crime. He wanted that money, that which he had kept, and all of theirs. He wanted it for more than gambling. Robbers' Roost was a hiding- place only; Utah had grown too small for him. So Jim Wall's divining mind whirled on, until slumber claimed him.
Sometime during the night Jim was awakened. He opened his eyes.
Above him arched an opal starry sky. The moon had gone down, yet its radiance still dominated that of the stars. Pearly tints crowned the high bluffs. The hour was late and wolves were mourning in the distance. Perhaps they had roused him. Still, there was something mysterious and melancholy in the moment, as if he had been under the influence of a dream.
As he closed his eyes again a soft hand touched his cheek and a whisper brought him wide awake, transfixed and thrilling.
"Jim! . . . Wake up. It is I."
Helen knelt beside him. Jim sat up with a violent start.
"YOU! . . . What is it?--Has that devil--"
"Hush! Not so loud. Nothing has happened. . . . But I couldn't sleep--and I must talk to you--or go out of my mind."
In the starlight her face had the same pearl-white tint as the clouds, and her eyes were like great black gulfs peering down upon him. After a moment he could see more clearly.
"All--right. Talk--but it's risky," he whispered huskily. His hand rested upon the blanket. She put hers on it, as if in her earnestness to assure him of her presence and her feeling.
She bent lower, so that her face was closer, and she could whisper very softly.
"First I want to tell you how cruelly it has come home to me--my ignorance, my failure to believe and trust you, even after you--so-- so rudely insulted me that day upon the mountain trail. If I had only had faith in you then! It's too late. But I want you to know I have the faith NOW."
"Thanks. I'm glad, though I didn't kiss you--handle you that day-- just to frighten you. I fell!"
"I don't believe that altogether. No matter. If I had listened to you I would not now be in this terrible predicament. The fear--the suspense are wearing me out."
"But you are well--all right still? . . . He has not harmed you?
HELEN!"
"No he has not harmed me, and I am not ill. I'm losing flesh because I can't eat. But that's nothing. . . . Lately I don't sleep because I'm horribly afraid he will come--and--smother me--or choke me--so I can't cry out. I've slept some in the daytime. . . .
Jim the thing is I--can't stand it much longer." Jim smothered a violent curse. "He has not tried--lately," she went on. "I swore I would jump over the cliff. I think I frightened him. But I can see--I can feel--Oh! Jim, for God's sake, do something to end--this horror--"
She leaned or fell forward in the weakness of the moment, her head against him. He stroked it gently, his reaction as far from that passionate and mocking embrace at Star Ranch as could have been possible.
"Helen, don't give up," he replied. "You have been brave. And it has gone--better than we could hope. . . . Only a little while longer!"
"We might steal away--now."
"Yes. I've thought of that. But only to get lost and starve--or die of thirst in these brakes."
"That almost--would be better--for me."
"If you can't stick it out we'll plan and go--say tomorrow night.
We must have food, horses. . . . It's only honest, though, to tell you the chances are a hundred to one against us. . . . We've got an even break if we wait."
"How can you--think that?"
"This gang is about ready to go up in smoke. There'll be a terrible fight. Hays surely will be killed. And just as surely, more than he. That will leave a proposition I can handle without risk to you."
"Even then--we still have to find a way out of this awful place."
"Yes, but I'd have time, and I could pack water and food. . . .
Helen, trust me, it's the best plan."
"If you take me back to my brother, I'll give you the ransom."
"Don't insult me," he replied, bitterly.
At that she drew up suddenly, and threw her hair back from her face. "Forgive me. . . . You see I have lost my mind. That never occurred to me before. But I'll reward you in some way."
"To have saved you will be all the reward I ask--and more than I deserve. . . . You've forgotten that I love you."
"Yes--I had," she whispered. Her great eyes studied him in the starlight, as if the fact had a vastly different significance here than it had had at Star Ranch.
"The proof of it is that I'm one of this robber gang--yet ready to betray them--kill their chief and any or all of them. Except Smoky. I've worked on him so that he's our friend. He is a real man, as you'll see when the break comes. . . . If you were an American, you'd be human enough to grasp the situation and help me through with it."
"I am human and I--I've as much courage as any American girl," she flashed, stung by his caustic words. "You--you talk of love as freely as you Westerners talk of horses--guns--death. . . . But surely you don't mean that it's because you love me you'll save me?"
"I'm afraid it is."
"I cannot believe you. . . . I never accepted you as a desperado."
"Miss Herrick, all that doesn't matter," he rejoined, almost coldly. "We are wasting time--risking--much--"
"I don't care. That is WHY I had to come to you. I knelt here for moments before awakening you. It helped me somehow--and it is easing my nerves to talk."
"Well, talk then. But make it low. . . . You must have crept very softly to my side. I sleep with one eye open."
"Indeed you don't. Both yours were tight shut. And your lips were stern. A strange thought came to me. I wondered if you had not had a good mother, and sister perhaps."
