by Max Brand
“I seen the box outside,” said Jack Moon. “What was in it, Dawn?”
There was no resistance in Dawn. He pointed sullenly to the slip of paper lying on the bed—the paper on which had been written the directions for reaching the site of the treasure.
The bandit strode across the room and reached for it, but the girl, with a lightning movement, forestalled him. She swept it up, leaped away from Moon, who followed with a startled exclamation, and, balling the paper to a hard knot as she ran, she reached the window above the lake and threw the paper as far as her strength allowed. The wind was blowing in that direction, and the precious slip would be wafted down to the waters of the lake.
The hand of Jack Moon was checked in the very act of falling on her shoulder and turning her around. But when she faced him, white and drawn about the lips, he was smiling again.
“That took nerve,” he said, “seeing the reputation I got around these parts. But I got to tell you this, lady. It don’t do even for ladies to fool with Jack Moon. I don’t handle ’em the way I handle men, but most generally I find ways of makin’ ’em behave. Now”—and here he turned on Hugh Dawn—”tell me what was on that paper!”
“No, no,” shouted the girl. “Don’t you see, dad, that it’s the price of your own head?”
“There you are again,” said Jack Moon sternly, seeing that the exclamation had sealed the lips of Dawn as the latter was about to speak. “You’ll have to learn better than that, lady, before you’re with me long. Dawn, will you open up and tell me?”
The gun gleamed in his hand. He thrust it against the breast of Dawn.
“Now talk quick,” he muttered. “I know everything, Dawn. Treat heard you and Whitwell, but I want to get the yarn out of your own mouth. I’ll tell you this, Dawn: if you open up, maybe they’ll be a way out for you!”
“Don’t talk, don’t talk!” cried Jerry Dawn. “Don’t trust him, dad!”
“If you care for your rotten soul,” said Jack Moon, “come out with it, Dawn!”
The latter groaned: “What price d’you pay, Moon?”
“Price? What sort of a price d’you ask?”
“Freedom,” said Dawn. “And your word on it.”
“Would you trust him?” moaned Jerry.
“Be quiet, Jerry,” said her father. “No matter what else Moon is, he’s a man of his word. It’s never been broke yet.”
“But it’s seldom given,” replied Moon coolly. “Why should I give it to you now?”
“How high,” retorted Dawn, “d’you put the price on my life?”
“Prices? I dunno. Prices change. I’ve known gents I’d shoot as soon as I’d kill a dog. I’ve known some that would have to pay thousands to buy themselves off. But for a gent that’s double crossed me the way you’ve done—well, it’d have to be high!”
Hugh Dawn nodded.
“How high?” he asked.
“Everything you got,” said the outlaw, “would be enough.”
To the astonishment of the girl, her father shook his head, puzzled.
“You can make your choice,” said Moon. “Either you turn over the whole Cosslett stuff to me or—”
“I haven’t got the Cosslett money. You know that!”
“You’ve got the plan to show where it is.”
“Suppose the plan turns out wrong?”
The admission implied in this question made the eyes of Jack Moon blaze.
“By the gods,” he whispered, “you did get it!”
“You lied to me, then,” growled Dawn. “Treat didn’t hear Whitwell talk about the box and what he thought was in it!”
“Treat didn’t hear anything. But now that I know you’ve got the plan inside your head, come out with it, Dawn, and you and me will make a dicker. Wait! Here’s something that the rest of the boys have got to vote on. You can thank your stars that I’ve got the majority of the crew with me!”
He whistled, a shrill, fluting sound long prolonged, and there was a rushing of horses’ hoofs up the slope to the crest of the hill. Presently the door and the windows were packed with ominous faces, and there was everywhere the glittering of drawn guns. Nearly a dozen men had gathered around the little ruined shanty in the space of a few seconds. Well indeed had it been for Hugh Dawn that he had not attacked the leader when the latter was seemingly alone.
“Boys,” said Jack Moon to the dark faces which waited silently, all turned toward Dawn and his daughter, “I’ve run him down, but it seems that he can offer a price. I want to know what figure you’d put on his head?”
“Whitwell was my pal,” said a voice sternly. “What price was he given a chance to pay? I say shoot the skunk and have it done with.”
Another voice growled: “What price was Gandil given a chance to pay? Wasn’t he a better man than Dawn ever dreamed of being? I say shoot the skunk!”
“Wait a minute, boys,” said the leader, raising his hand. “You got as good a right to vote on this as I have. And you’re going to have your way. You know I always see to that. But first I want you to know the whole facts. The price that Dawn can pay is the whole Cosslett treasure.”
That astonishing news brought a gasp from every member of the band. Evidently Moon had talked about that accumulation of wealth enough to have filled the fancies of his wild followers.
“Are you sure of that?” asked a number of voices.
“I’m sure he’s got the plan.”
“And if we don’t find the stuff?”
“Then Dawn dies. That’s easy, ain’t it? We give him our word that if we get the gold, he goes scot-free. If we don’t get it, he dies. Are you with me, boys?”
“How much,” said another voice, “d’you figure that gold would come to?”
“Five millions at least, and maybe anything up to twenty. Hard to believe all the yarns they told about that gold. Sometimes they got so excited they multiplied everything by four. Sometimes they got so careless about gold, and so used to it, that they understated things. I dunno how the Cosslett treasure stands, but I figure on five millions as the least we’d get. Think it over, boys! You and me! altogether, make fourteen. Add three more shares for me, which is only my right, and that makes seventeen. Seventeen into five million—how much does that make? Close to three hundred thousand dollars apiece, lads. Close to three hundred thousand! Put that out at seven per cent. That gives you twenty thousand a year. Think it over! That’s the price that Hugh Dawn can offer for his life. The biggest haul that was ever made in the mountains. Twenty thousand dollars to every one of you every year of your lives. Is it worth his life to you, boys?”
There was a moment of bewildered silence, and then a mutter of astonishment. Those eyes were calculating, spending, already.
“Cut all that down by one third,” said Hugh Dawn suddenly. “I’ve just thought of something.”
Moon turned on him with a snarl of anger.
“Are you going to bargain with me about it?” he asked. “Ain’t you satisfied with having your ratty life?”
For the first time Hugh Dawn did not shrink. He met the eye of Jack Moon steadily.
“Tell you how it is,” he said. “I can buy you off with my share of the stuff, and Jerry’s share. But she and me ain’t the only ones. They’s another gent that has to be figured in. ’Twasn’t for him we’d never be here. It was him that warned me you was coming, him that got us safely up here, and him that helped us work out the puzzle. Moon, you got nothin’ agin’ him, and he’s got to come in for a third of everything you get! Understand?”
The girl was amazed. Her heart had been sinking, her blood growing cold, in the feeling that her father had from first to last in this encounter played the part of a coward. This sudden defiance of Jack Moon bewildered her. Then she began to make out the reasons for it. It was not the actual danger that terrified her father; he was simply paralyzed by the name and the presence of Moon. The outlaw was as amazed as any one could have been by this resistance, and by the revelation of these secrets.<
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“The gent that warned you?” he echoed. “Warned you I was coming?”
“He heard everything. He was in the barn. He rode around you and got to me and fought his way into the house to tell me you was coming.”
“I got a lot to thank this gent for,” said the leader calmly. “Him and me ought to be able to come to an understanding. What’s his name?”
“Ronicky Doone, he called himself. And he’s sure a square shooter.”
“Ronicky Doone?” echoed the outlaw. “Well, I’ll pass the word to the boys that if a gent shows up pretty soon, they’re not to take a pot shot at him. They got a habit of using up ammunition plumb careless that way. Si!”
Treat strode through the door.
“You remember how Dawn plugged you through the leg? Now you stay here and watch him, Si, and see he don’t get loose from you. Understand?”
The teeth of Treat showed through the tangles of his black beard and mustache. Calmly he drew his revolver and sat down with the weapon balanced on his knee and pointing toward Hugh Dawn.
The leader left the shack and with a gesture gathered half a dozen of his men around him.
“Baldy, you take charge. Take these gents along with you. Post ’em scattering out along the hillside so’s to cover every direction. You heard the name of the gent that’s up here along with Hugh?”
“Nope.”
“Ronicky Doone! Ever hear of him?”
“Seems like I have, sort of in patches, somewhere.”
“If you’d ever been down South you’d of heard a pile more than patches about him. He’s the most nacheral gun fighter that ever drilled a gent full of lead. Baldy, go out on the hill and watch. Don’t shoot till you get him close. And then don’t ask no questions. Just blaze away. I’m going back inside and tell ’em that I’ve arranged for a nice quiet reception for Doone. When you’ve dropped him, I’ll go busting out and raise the devil, like I’d give you strict orders not to do any shooting. Understand?”
Baldy whispered an assent.
“If you want to have something to give you a grudge agin’ him, I can tell you that this is the gent that overheard us in the barn, and that rode ahead and warned Dawn we were coming. Now scatter out yonder, and mind you shoot low.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bargain
“We’ll go on with the dicker,” explained Jack Moon, returning to the cabin, “as soon as this Doone comes along. We’ll settle down all nice and peaceable and get to an agreement like friends. Which there ain’t any reason why we shouldn’t be friends, Dawn; and so far as you’re concerned, I don’t see no reason why I couldn’t fix you up with one of my shares of the stuff before we’re through.”
Jerry studied the man with the most intense curiosity. Certainly he was a person of varying moods. Now, when he talked again, she noted that he paid more and more attention to her and less and less to her father, as though he recognized in her a force which had to be reckoned with. According to his explanation, everything would work out smoothly. As soon as Ronicky Doone approached, they would sit down and come to an understanding. He had already sent out his men, he said, to watch for the coming of Doone, and he would be brought in to share the discussion on equal terms. It might be difficult to induce his men, he said, to consent to so large a share as one third going to Doone. But no doubt they could compromise handsomely, and every one would be satisfied.
Yet, while he talked, she branded every one of his words as a lie. Not that she hated him. There was a mixture of respect with the fear with which she regarded him, and where respect enters in, there is never a complete detestation. But it was respect for his cool prowess rather than for his moral qualities. What gave her the chief doubt was that he, having so manifestly the upper hand, should be so carefully considerate of others as he was pretending to be of Dawn, herself, and the absent Ronicky Doone. How greatly would the whole problem of the division be simplified, for instance, if a bullet should strike down Ronicky Doone!
No sooner had the idea occurred to her than she was reasonably sure that it had occurred to the bandit also, and she began to strain her ear painfully for the first sound of the sand and gravel under the hoofs of the approaching Lou. In the meantime, Hugh Dawn had recovered his mental poise to a large degree, and when the leader spoke to him, he was able to answer calmly. He even entered into some details of his experiences in the East since he left Trainor, and told of the hard work which had enabled him to make enough money to support his girl from the distance and send her to school.
“But what beats me,” said Jack Moon, “is that you didn’t send for her. Why not, Hugh?”
“Because,” said the other quietly, “I knew pretty well that you were watching her close all the time, and that the minute she made a move out of the country you’d follow her on the chance that she might be trying to get to see me. If I sent for her, I’d be doing the same thing as sending for you.”
Jack Moon shook his head.
“You see,” he complained to the girl, “they’s some folks that never get over being suspicious. Follow a girl trying to get back to her father? I leave it to you, Miss Dawn, if I look to be that sort of a—”
Here she lost track of his words, because far off she heard the hoofs of a horse crunching into the gravel at the bottom of the hill on which Cosslett’s shack stood. The horse came at a steady and swinging gallop. The picture of Ronicky Doone on the lively mare rushed into her mind. Suddenly she started to her feet and shouted: “Ronicky! Danger!”
Far away through the night thrilled her voice. Before an echo could pick it up, there was the crash of half a dozen firearms. Then came the rushing of the galloping horse withdrawing, and last of all a far-flung yell of defiance. Ronicky Doone had escaped.
The girl turned from the window.
“Is this the square deal you’d planned for Ronicky Doone?” she asked fiercely. “Is this what you did? Ah, I read your mind all the while.”
The bandit was shaking his head as though bewildered.
“How come all this, I dunno. Maybe when Doone heard you yell he fired, and my boys answered him. That’s human nature, and you can’t blame them for doing it, I guess. Eh?
She smiled scornfully.
“Treat!” called the leader.
When the black-bearded man entered, Jack Moon left the cabin hastily. “I’ll make out if the fools have done any harm to him,” he called back to Jerry Dawn.
Once outside, however, he broke into a run, cursing under his breath, and so came to the group of Baldy’s men making slowly back toward the cabin. Jack Moon plunged through their midst until he came to his lieutenant, whose shoulder he gripped with fingers of iron.
“Curse you for a fool!” he said bitterly. “I told you to hold your fire till you were sure of him!”
“Then why didn’t you keep that she-devil from screeching? He was about in point-blank range. I was all ready to give the signal, and then she yelled, and he turned.”
“Did you drill him at all?”
“What chance did I have in this light? Even the stars are dim. And he started his hoss swerving. No more chance of dropping him than there was of killing a cloud shadow. He was gone, and that was all there was to it.”
Jack Moon cursed again, and without further speech he turned on his heel and strode back for the cabin.
But he was smiling again when he got to the place.
“Just as I figured,” he said. “When you yelled you scared Doone into pulling his gun and shooting at the first shadow he saw, and my boys figured he was shooting at them, so they gave him a volley. That was all they was to it. But he got off without being hurt.” He went on soberly: “But this messes things up. Most likely this Ronicky Doone will send back for help to get you folks free. That being the case, we got not a ghost of a chance to get to the treasure. He knows the secret, and he’ll lead all the men he can raise straight to the spot and keep me off; and that, Dawn, makes it pretty hard on you, I’d say—pretty hard!”
> His eyes bored cruelly into the eyes of his intended victim.
“There goes your price that you was going to pay,” he continued. “There it goes up in smoke. Before morning Doone will have fifty men headed for the place!”
Hugh Dawn raised a hand.
“Gimme one minute alone with you,” he urged.
The leader assented, and Dawn stepped out of the door and into the darkness.
“You don’t need to have no fear of Doone,” he said, as soon as they were safely out of earshot of the girl. “He knows that I ain’t much more of a friend to the law than you are. He knows that I can’t have a sheriff asking me questions. He knows, besides, that I was a member of your crowd once.”
“You think, for your sake, he’ll let five million dollars go?”
“I don’t think. I know,” replied the other. “That’s the kind of a gent he is. Not ordinary by no means, Moon.”
“What d’you figure on doing now? What am I to do? Take a chance that this man-killing Doone, that I’ve heard about, won’t call in a crowd to clean up on me? From what I’ve heard about him, Dawn, he’d rather find a fight than a million, and when he gets a chance for fighting and money at the same time, why, he’ll just start and run amuck. I’m talking to you straight, son, because I dunno how to figure. You know him, and I don’t.”
“I’ll tell you this,” said Hugh Dawn, knowing that in spite of the quiet of Moon, the subject up for discussion was whether or not he, Dawn, should be killed and left or whether the outlaw should bargain his life against his secret. “I’ll tell you this: Ronicky Doone won’t make a move to get help, because he knows that the minute he shows up with a crowd behind him, the first thing you’ll do will be to plug me.”
