Steve Yeager

by Raine, William MacLeod

  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.

  "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.

  Cabenza contrived to be in the way when someone was wanted to fill the water-jug of Holcomb. Ochampa, who for the moment had charge of the artillery officer, swooped down upon the peon and put him temporarily at the service of his guest to fetch and carry at his orders. So Pedro unpacked the belongings of the American officer and prepared what had to serve as the substitute for a bath. He was so adept at this that the captain privately decided to requisition him for his servant.

  Having finished this and laid out towels, Cabenza brushed the boots of the captain outside while that gentleman splashed within the cabin. He chose the time while he was arranging the shaving-outfit on the table to convey a piece of information to Holcomb.

  "What's that? An American woman—held captive at his house by Pasquale," repeated the soldier of fortune, astonished.

  "A girl, not a woman. About eighteen, maybe," supplemented Cabenza, in Mexican, of course.

  "A woman from the street, I reckon. And if you look into it you'll find she's here of her own free will."

  Steve was now stropping a razor. His back was toward the officer, but without turning he could see him by looking in the glass.

  "You've got the wrong steer, captain. She's as straight a girl as ever lived," answered Yeager in perfectly good English.

  Holcomb sat up straight. "Turn round, my man," he ordered crisply.

  The range-rider did as he was told. The light, blue-gray eyes of the officer bored into his.

  "You're no Mexican," charged the Texan.

  "No. Arizona is where I hang up my hat."

  "What are you, then? A spy?"

  "I reckon, maybeso." Steve admitted the thrust lightly. "Got time to hear all about it, captain?"

  "Go ahead."

  The range-rider told it, the whole story, so far as it could be related by him. Such details as his modesty omitted Holcomb's imagination was easily able to supply.

  The Texan paced up and down the room with the long, light, military stride.

  "And you say Pasquale has been with her all day—that he ate lunch with her and is riding with her now?"

  "Yes. Just watch his eyes when he looks at her if you're in doubt about the old villain. There's a tiger look in them, and something else that's worse." Yeager chanced to glance out of the window. "Here they come now back from their ride. Why not meet them as they alight?"

  The captain reached for his hat and led the way down the street. Cabenza followed him, a step or two in the rear. They reached headquarters just as Pasquale lifted Ruth from the saddle. He held her for a moment in his strong arms and grinned down at her frightened, fascinated eyes.

  "Adios, chatita!" he murmured, his little eyes dancing with triumph.

  She fled from him into the house, terror giving speed to her limbs.

  Upon Holcomb the dictator turned eyes that had grown cold and harsh again.

  "Welcome, captain, welcome, to the Northern Legion," he said brusquely, offering a gauntleted hand.

  They went into the house together, Pasquale's arm across the shoulder of the Texan.

  "Dios, I'm glad to see you, captain," the insurgent chief ran on quickly. "This riff-raff of mine can't hit a hillside. Hammer the artillery into shape and I'll say gracias."

  "Yes. I see you have a countrywoman of mine visiting you," the American said quietly.

  "From Arizona." The Mexican laughed harshly. "We should get together more, your country and mine. We should bind the States and the Republic together by closer ties. A man without a wife is but a half man. Captain, I shall marry."

  It was common knowledge of the camp that in his outlaw days Pasquale had a wife and family. The sons were grown up now. The rumor ran that the wife had found a more congenial mate and was separated from Gabriel by common agreement. Holcomb made no reference to this free-and-easy arrangement.

  "Congratulations, general. Is the lady some high-born señorita?"

  "The lady you have just seen is my choice—the young woman from Arizona," answered Pasquale, flashing from under his heavy grizzled brows a sharp, questioning look at the Texan.

  "Indeed! I shall be happy to meet the lady and wish her joy," replied Holcomb lightly.

  "You shall, captain. She's a little reluctant yet, but Gabriel has a way of overcoming that. I shall be married on Saturday."

  "Ah!"

  The face of the Texan had as much expression as a piece of flint. Pasquale, watching him warily, wondered what he was thinking behind those hard, steel-gray eyes.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XX

  NEAR THE END OF HIS TRAIL

  Harrison strode up and down the room furiously. "Who in Mexico is this Pasquale?" he demanded, and then answered his own question: "Scum of the earth, a peon whipped for stealing whiskey, a hill robber and murderer. In my country they'd take the scoundrel and hang him by the neck."

  "True, amigo,—all true," assented Culvera suavely, examining his cigarette as he spoke. "But it is well to remember that wa
lls have ears, and therefore to whisper—when one speaks of Gabriel."

  "I'm not afraid of him," boasted the American, but his voice fell.

  "I am," differed Culvera frankly. "Ramon is fond of Ramon, so he chooses a safe time to pay his debts—and he does not advertise in advance that he is going to settle."

  "Bah! You sit still and do nothing. But I—By God! I'll not stand it. He has given it out he will be married Saturday. We'll see about that. Maybe he'll be buried that day instead."

  The dark eyes of the Mexican swept him with a sidelong glance. If he could do it without incurring responsibility himself, he was very willing to spur on the fierce passion of this man.

  "Be careful, señor. Pasquale is dangerous."

  "You know he is dangerous—to Ramon Culvera. Why don't you strike and be done with it?"

  "The time is not ripe. Some day—perhaps—" He let a shrug of his shoulders finish the sentence for him.

  "It's always mañana with you Mexicans," sneered Harrison with a savage lift of the lip. "You want to play it safe all the time. Why don't you take a chance?"

  "I play my own cards, señor," returned Ramon equably.

  "You play 'em darned close to your stomach. Me, I go out on a limb oncet in a while."

  "Be sure you don't stay out there—at the end of a rope," smiled the Mexican.

  "They haven't grown the hemp yet that will hang Chad Harrison." The prizefighter leaned toward him, eyes shining. "If I pull it off and make my getaway—what then? Will you send the girl to me, wherever I am?"

  "You mean, if you—"

  "—Give Pasquale what's been coming to him for a long time."

  The eyes of Culvera were slits of light. His face was a brown mask that covered an alert and wary attention.

  "I didn't hear what you said, amigo. It is better that I shouldn't. But if I had charge of the army instead of General Pasquale my policy would be different. I would return this Arizona girl to her home."

  "To her home!" broke in Harrison harshly.

  "To her husband," amended the Mexican significantly, adding after an instant—"who is a good friend of mine."