“I must run along back now,” she explained. “Papa will be wondering what has become of me.”
“Yes,” said Bridge, and let her go. He would have been glad to tell her the truth; but he couldn’t do that without betraying Billy. He had heard enough to know that Francisco Villa had been so angered over the bold looting of the bank in the face of a company of his own soldiers that he would stop at nothing to secure the person of the thief once his identity was known. Bridge was perfectly satisfied with the ethics of his own act on the night of the bank robbery. He knew that the girl would have applauded him, and that Grayson himself would have done what Bridge did had a like emergency confronted the ranch foreman; but to have admitted complicity in the escape of the fugitive would have been to have exposed himself to the wrath of Villa, and at the same time revealed the identity of the thief. “Nor,” thought Bridge, “would it get Brazos back for Barbara.”
It was after dark when the vaqueros Grayson had sent to the north range returned to the ranch. They came empty-handed and slowly for one of them supported a wounded comrade on the saddle before him. They rode directly to the office where Grayson and Bridge were going over some of the business of the day, and when the former saw them his brow clouded for he knew before he heard their story what had happened.
“Who done it?” he asked, as the men filed into the office, half carrying the wounded man.
“Some of Pesita’s followers,” replied Benito.
“Did they git the steers, too?” inquired Grayson.
“Part of them — we drove off most and scattered them. We saw the Brazos pony, too,” and Benito looked from beneath heavy lashes in the direction of the bookkeeper.
“Where?” asked Grayson.
“One of Pesita’s officers rode him — an Americano. Tony and I saw this same man in Cuivaca the night the bank was robbed, and today he was riding the Brazos pony.” Again the dark eyes turned toward Bridge.
Grayson was quick to catch the significance of the Mexican’s meaning. The more so as it was directly in line with suspicions which he himself had been nursing since the robbery.
During the colloquy the boss entered the office. He had heard the returning vaqueros ride into the ranch and noting that they brought no steers with them had come to the office to hear their story. Barbara, spurred by curiosity, accompanied her father.
“You heard what Benito says?” asked Grayson, turning toward his employer.
The latter nodded. All eyes were upon Bridge.
“Well,” snapped Grayson, “what you gotta say fer yourself? I ben suspectin’ you right along. I knew derned well that that there Brazos pony never run off by hisself. You an’ that other crook from the States framed this whole thing up pretty slick, didn’tcha? Well, we’ll—”
“Wait a moment, wait a moment, Grayson,” interrupted the boss. “Give Mr. Bridge a chance to explain. You’re making a rather serious charge against him without any particularly strong proof to back your accusation.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” exclaimed Bridge, with a smile. “I have known that Mr. Grayson suspected me of implication in the robbery; but who can blame him — a man who can’t ride might be guilty of almost anything.”
Grayson sniffed. Barbara took a step nearer Bridge. She had been ready to doubt him herself only an hour or so ago; but that was before he had been accused. Now that she found others arrayed against him her impulse was to come to his defense.
“You didn’t do it, did you, Mr. Bridge?” Her tone was almost pleading.
“If you mean robbing the bank,” he replied; “I did not, Miss Barbara. I knew no more about it until after it was over than Benito or Tony — in fact they were the ones who discovered it while I was still asleep in my room above the bank.”
“Well, how did the robber git thet there Brazos pony then?” demanded Grayson savagely. “Thet’s what I want to know.”
“You’ll have to ask him, Mr. Grayson,” replied Bridge.
“Villa’ll ask him, when he gits holt of him,” snapped Grayson; “but I reckon he’ll git all the information out of you thet he wants first. He’ll be in Cuivaca tomorrer, an’ so will you.”
“You mean that you are going to turn me over to General Villa?” asked Bridge. “You are going to turn an American over to that butcher knowing that he’ll be shot inside of twenty-four hours?”
“Shootin’s too damned good fer a horse thief,” replied Grayson.
Barbara turned impulsively toward her father. “You won’t let Mr. Grayson do that?” she asked.
“Mr. Grayson knows best how to handle such an affair as this, Barbara,” replied her father. “He is my superintendent, and I have made it a point never to interfere with him.”
“You will let Mr. Bridge be shot without making an effort to save him?” she demanded.
“We do not know that he will be shot,” replied the ranch owner. “If he is innocent there is no reason why he should be punished. If he is guilty of implication in the Cuivaca bank robbery he deserves, according to the rules of war, to die, for General Villa, I am told, considers that a treasonable act. Some of the funds upon which his government depends for munitions of war were there — they were stolen and turned over to the enemies of Mexico.”
“And if we interfere we’ll turn Villa against us,” interposed Grayson. “He ain’t any too keen for Americans as it is. Why, if this fellow was my brother I’d hev to turn him over to the authorities.”
“Well, I thank God,” exclaimed Bridge fervently, “that in addition to being shot by Villa I don’t have to endure the added disgrace of being related to you, and I’m not so sure that I shall be hanged by Villa,” and with that he wiped the oil lamp from the table against which he had been leaning, and leaped across the room for the doorway.
Barbara and her father had been standing nearest the exit, and as the girl realized the bold break for liberty the man was making, she pushed her father to one side and threw open the door.
Bridge was through it in an instant, with a parting, “God bless you, little girl!” as he passed her. Then the door was closed with a bang. Barbara turned the key, withdrew it from the lock and threw it across the darkened room.
Grayson and the unwounded Mexicans leaped after the fugitive only to find their way barred by the locked door. Outside Bridge ran to the horses standing patiently with lowered heads awaiting the return of their masters. In an instant he was astride one of them, and lashing the others ahead of him with a quirt he spurred away into the night.
By the time Grayson and the Mexicans had wormed their way through one of the small windows of the office the new bookkeeper was beyond sight and earshot.
As the ranch foreman was saddling up with several of his men in the corral to give chase to the fugitive the boss strolled in and touched him on the arm.
“Mr. Grayson,” he said, “I have made it a point never to interfere with you; but I am going to ask you now not to pursue Mr. Bridge. I shall be glad if he makes good his escape. Barbara was right — he is a fellow-American. We cannot turn him over to Villa, or any other Mexican to be murdered.”
Grumblingly Grayson unsaddled. “Ef you’d seen what I’ve seen around here,” he said, “I guess you wouldn’t be so keen to save this feller’s hide.”
“What do you mean?” asked the boss.
“I mean that he’s ben tryin’ to make love to your daughter.”
The older man laughed. “Don’t be a fool, Grayson,” he said, and walked away.
An hour later Barbara was strolling up and down before the ranchhouse in the cool and refreshing air of the Chihuahua night. Her mind was occupied with disquieting reflections of the past few hours. Her pride was immeasurably hurt by the part impulse had forced her to take in the affair at the office. Not that she regretted that she had connived in the escape of Bridge; but it was humiliating that a girl of her position should have been compelled to play so melodramatic a part before Grayson and his Mexican vaqueros.
Then, too,
was she disappointed in Bridge. She had looked upon him as a gentleman whom misfortune and wanderlust had reduced to the lowest stratum of society. Now she feared that he belonged to that substratum which lies below the lowest which society recognizes as a part of itself, and which is composed solely of the criminal class.
It was hard for Barbara to realize that she had associated with a thief — just for a moment it was hard, until recollection forced upon her the unwelcome fact of the status of another whom she had known — to whom she had given her love. The girl did not wince at the thought — instead she squared her shoulders and raised her chin.
“I am proud of him, whatever he may have been,” she murmured; but she was not thinking of the new bookkeeper. When she did think again of Bridge it was to be glad that he had escaped— “for he is an American, like myself.”
“Well!” exclaimed a voice behind her. “You played us a pretty trick, Miss Barbara.”
The girl turned to see Grayson approaching. To her surprise he seemed to hold no resentment whatsoever. She greeted him courteously.
“I couldn’t let you turn an American over to General Villa,” she said, “no matter what he had done.”
“I liked your spirit,” said the man. “You’re the kind o’ girl I ben lookin’ fer all my life — one with nerve an’ grit, an’ you got ’em both. You liked thet bookkeepin’ critter, an’ he wasn’t half a man. I like you an’ I am a man, ef I do say so myself.”
The girl drew back in astonishment.
“Mr. Grayson!” she exclaimed. “You are forgetting yourself.”
“No I ain’t,” he cried hoarsely. “I love you an’ I’m goin’ to have you. You’d love me too ef you knew me better.”
He took a step forward and grasped her arm, trying to draw her to him. The girl pushed him away with one hand, and with the other struck him across the face.
Grayson dropped her arm, and as he did so she drew herself to her full height and looked him straight in the eyes.
“You may go now,” she said, her voice like ice. “I shall never speak of this to anyone — provided you never attempt to repeat it.”
The man made no reply. The blow in the face had cooled his ardor temporarily, but had it not also served another purpose? — to crystallize it into a firm and inexorable resolve.
When he had departed Barbara turned and entered the house.
CHAPTER XII. BILLY TO THE RESCUE
IT WAS nearly ten o’clock the following morning when Barbara, sitting upon the veranda of the ranchhouse, saw her father approaching from the direction of the office. His face wore a troubled expression which the girl could not but note.
“What’s the matter, Papa?” she asked, as he sank into a chair at her side.
“Your self-sacrifice of last evening was all to no avail,” he replied. “Bridge has been captured by Villistas.”
“What?” cried the girl. “You can’t mean it — how did you learn?”
“Grayson just had a phone message from Cuivaca,” he explained. “They only repaired the line yesterday since Pesita’s men cut it last month. This was our first message. And do you know, Barbara, I can’t help feeling sorry. I had hoped that he would get away.”
“So had I,” said the girl.
Her father was eyeing her closely to note the effect of his announcement upon her; but he could see no greater concern reflected than that which he himself felt for a fellow-man and an American who was doomed to death at the hands of an alien race, far from his own land and his own people.
“Can nothing be done?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he replied with finality. “I have talked it over with Grayson and he assures me that an attempt at intervention upon our part might tend to antagonize Villa, in which case we are all as good as lost. He is none too fond of us as it is, and Grayson believes, and not without reason, that he would welcome the slightest pretext for withdrawing the protection of his favor. Instantly he did that we should become the prey of every marauding band that infests the mountains. Not only would Pesita swoop down upon us, but those companies of freebooters which acknowledge nominal loyalty to Villa would be about our ears in no time. No, dear, we may do nothing. The young man has made his bed, and now I am afraid that he will have to lie in it alone.”
For awhile the girl sat in silence, and presently her father arose and entered the house. Shortly after she followed him, reappearing soon in riding togs and walking rapidly to the corrals. Here she found an American cowboy busily engaged in whittling a stick as he sat upon an upturned cracker box and shot accurate streams of tobacco juice at a couple of industrious tumble bugs that had had the great impudence to roll their little ball of provender within the whittler’s range.
“O Eddie!” she cried.
The man looked up, and was at once electrified into action. He sprang to his feet and whipped off his sombrero. A broad smile illumined his freckled face.
“Yes, miss,” he answered. “What can I do for you?”
“Saddle a pony for me, Eddie,” she explained. “I want to take a little ride.”
“Sure!” he assured her cheerily. “Have it ready in a jiffy,” and away he went, uncoiling his riata, toward the little group of saddle ponies which stood in the corral against necessity for instant use.
In a couple of minutes he came back leading one, which he tied to the corral bars.
“But I can’t ride that horse,” exclaimed the girl. “He bucks.”
“Sure,” said Eddie. “I’m a-goin’ to ride him.”
“Oh, are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“I’m goin’ with you, miss,” announced Eddie, sheepishly.
“But I didn’t ask you, Eddie, and I don’t want you — today,” she urged.
“Sorry, miss,” he threw back over his shoulder as he walked back to rope a second pony; “but them’s orders. You’re not to be allowed to ride no place without a escort. ’Twouldn’t be safe neither, miss,” he almost pleaded, “an’ I won’t hinder you none. I’ll ride behind far enough to be there ef I’m needed.”
Directly he came back with another pony, a sad-eyed, gentle-appearing little beast, and commenced saddling and bridling the two.
“Will you promise,” she asked, after watching him in silence for a time, “that you will tell no one where I go or whom I see?”
“Cross my heart hope to die,” he assured her.
“All right, Eddie, then I’ll let you come with me, and you can ride beside me, instead of behind.”
Across the flat they rode, following the windings of the river road, one mile, two, five, ten. Eddie had long since been wondering what the purpose of so steady a pace could be. This was no pleasure ride which took the boss’s daughter— “heifer,” Eddie would have called her — ten miles up river at a hard trot. Eddie was worried, too. They had passed the danger line, and were well within the stamping ground of Pesita and his retainers. Here each little adobe dwelling, and they were scattered at intervals of a mile or more along the river, contained a rabid partisan of Pesita, or it contained no one — Pesita had seen to this latter condition personally.
At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut. Eddie gasped. It was Jose’s, and Jose was a notorious scoundrel whom old age alone kept from the active pursuit of the only calling he ever had known — brigandage. Why should the boss’s daughter come to Jose? Jose was hand in glove with every cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within a radius of two hundred miles of his abode.
Barbara swung herself from the saddle, and handed her bridle reins to Eddie.
“Hold him, please,” she said. “I’ll be gone but a moment.”
“You’re not goin’ in there to see old Jose alone?” gasped Eddie.
“Why not?” she asked. “If you’re afraid you can leave my horse and ride along home.”
Eddie colored to the roots of his sandy hair, and kept silent. The girl approached the doorway of the mean hovel and peered within. At one end sat a bent ol
d man, smoking. He looked up as Barbara’s figure darkened the doorway.
“Jose!” said the girl.
The old man rose to his feet and came toward her.
“Eh? Senorita, eh?” he cackled.
“You are Jose?” she asked.
“Si, senorita,” replied the old Indian. “What can poor old Jose do to serve the beautiful senorita?”
“You can carry a message to one of Pesita’s officers,” replied the girl. “I have heard much about you since I came to Mexico. I know that there is not another man in this part of Chihuahua who may so easily reach Pesita as you.” She raised her hand for silence as the Indian would have protested. Then she reached into the pocket of her riding breeches and withdrew a handful of silver which she permitted to trickle, tinklingly, from one palm to the other. “I wish you to go to the camp of Pesita,” she continued, “and carry word to the man who robbed the bank at Cuivaca — he is an American — that his friend, Senor Bridge has been captured by Villa and is being held for execution in Cuivaca. You must go at once — you must get word to Senor Bridge’s friend so that help may reach Senor Bridge before dawn. Do you understand?”
The Indian nodded assent.
“Here,” said the girl, “is a payment on account. When I know that you delivered the message in time you shall have as much more. Will you do it?”
“I will try,” said the Indian, and stretched forth a clawlike hand for the money.
“Good!” exclaimed Barbara. “Now start at once,” and she dropped the silver coins into the old man’s palm.
It was dusk when Captain Billy Byrne was summoned to the tent of Pesita. There he found a weazened, old Indian squatting at the side of the outlaw.
“Jose,” said Pesita, “has word for you.”
Billy Byrne turned questioningly toward the Indian.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 403
