"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said.
"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for that and for everything else you've done for me."
Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms across the sill.
Two men met beneath her window.
"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.
While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, it won't take us long."
"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.
There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."
"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."
"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."
"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."
"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for his life."
They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.
What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to death, and he had not even reproached her.
Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he was guarded.
She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place under lock and key.
Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.
"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.
It was Tom Dixon.
Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are guarding the prisoner."
"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.
"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can now. I suppose I was nervous."
"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!"
She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?"
"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a while."
Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her anger against him was all burnt out.
"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded.
"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he must.
"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.
She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.
The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.
"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.
"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.
"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."
She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the knots before she remembered a swifter way.
"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where pocketknives were kept.
Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.
He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.
"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.
The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.
"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.
"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my head. Now, go."
"Not till I know why you betrayed me."
"You can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this afternoon. Why don't you go?"
"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"
"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."
"Did Yeager tell you that?"
"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is still a chance."
"I'm not going—not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I said."
A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.
"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.
"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."
Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.
"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught unexpectedly. "It's—it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.
"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a clam till you say the word."
With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl turned on Keller.
"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."
"Will you ask Yeager?"
"Yes, if you'll go."
"All right. I'll go."
Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex w
as upon him and had set him trembling strangely.
"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.
He snatched himself away.
But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.
"What—what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her in waves.
"Why are you saving me, girl?"
"I—don't know. I've told you why."
"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"
He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his kiss tingling through her blood like wine.
She thrust him from her—and he was gone.
She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the open road, the hills, and safety.
A cry rang out in the stillness—and another. A shot, the beat of running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination conjured—a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.
* * *
CHAPTER VI
A GOOD FRIEND
How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a lantern one held in his hand.
"Did—did he get away?" the girl faltered.
The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner.
"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?"
Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks.
"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen cellar, Phyllie?" he asked.
"Ye-es."
He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, who Mr. Keller's friend in need is."
"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had just come in and was listening.
Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill."
"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me out to run him down."
"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?"
"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he jeered.
Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the kitchen."
"He was just going," she protested.
"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate."
"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her hands.
"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.
"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly.
"And you think?"
Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape twice."
"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.
"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.
"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."
The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," she murmured with mock humility.
"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.
"He sure has—clean as a whistle."
"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an innocent man."
"Prove it," cried Healy.
Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to take my word for it."
"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his father announced promptly.
Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."
"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before your indorsement," Healy sneered.
"That's your privilege, Brill."
"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with intent to conciliate.
"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice.
The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.
"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill."
"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your reasons, though, not mine."
"You've said it. They're my reasons."
"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on his friend?"
The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow that with the rest."
With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house.
"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?"
"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised.
"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said."
"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?"
"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?"
"He said so. I believe him."
She sighed softly, as if she would have liked
to feel as sure. "The reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it."
Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that."
The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're a good friend, Jim."
"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl."
"Yes—yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart just now was very warm to him.
"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good—something else."
She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean——"
"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that."
"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that way."
"Maybe you might some day."
She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will."
"Is there—someone else, Phyl?"
If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her face.
"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl."
"It ain't Brill then?"
"No. It's—it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his camp. "And I don't believe you care for me—that way. It's just a fancy."
"One I've had two years, little girl."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I do like you, better than any one else. You know that, dear old Jim."
He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night."
Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she added, "I'm so sorry."
"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. Buenos noches, nina."
He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, swung to the saddle, and rode into the night.
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