by Max Brand
"I trusted you once before," said Hugh Dawn, "and near got my gullet opened for it. No more of that, Moon. I ain't a plumb fool!"
"No use trying to argue you out of that," said Moon, "if you've got your mind all set that way. But you'll see how it comes out. The boys'll roast you out of the shack. But that's up to you. Meantime, give me Kent's body, and I'll take it back and Heaven help you for what's coming!"
Hugh Dawn raised the dead man and gave the burden to the waiting arms of the leader, who now turned his back and trudged slowly away, bearing his grisly load.
Then Dawn turned with a gray face to Ronicky. "I'd forgot the danger of fire," he said. "D'you think he'll use it?"
"He'll use anything, if he can get at us. But we got to wait and see. How much water have we here?"
Hugh Dawn raised his canteen and shook it. There was a sound of water slushing inside the tin.
"One quart," he said.
That was their total supply.
Chapter Twenty-three. Moon's Sincerity.
Covered by the forest, three men watched the hut which was the fortress of Dawn and Ronicky. Eight remained to receive the leader and his burden, Bud Kent's body. Behind the shelter of the shacks which cut them away from the sight and the guns of Ronicky and Dawn, the outlaws stood in a loosely formed circle and stared silently down into the face of Kent. There was no expression of sorrow from those fierce fellows. They had seen too many companions drop before. But there was a universal turning of eyes to the direction of hidden Ronicky and his companion.
Jerry Dawn, her face hidden in her hands, leaned almost fainting against a tree near by, with Silas Treat, her guard, close to her.
"Si," ordered the commander, "take Miss Dawn away. Give her a walk through the trees."
She submitted to Treat's touch, and they disappeared among the forest's shadows.
"Now, boys," said Jack Moon, "you see the luck that's followed us?"
A dead and ominous silence greeted his speech.
"Are you set on giving the house a rush?" he asked.
"Why not fire?" suggested the crafty Baldy McNair.
"Why not a torch and a signal fire to call everybody in the mountains this way?" the leader countered, with a sneer.
It was something the others had not thought of. But now Baldy returned on a different tack.
"We can get close to them in the shack that stands alongside of theirs. There won't have to be no forest fire. We can throw burning sticks onto the roof of their house and rout them out that way, and then the rest of us can stand by and plug them when they try to run. Ain't that simple enough?"
"Mighty simple!" again Jack Moon sneered. "Too simple. The logs of that shack are soaked as wet as they can be from the rains of the last week. And there's been too much shade over the house for the rain to get all dried out again. Most you could do would be to start a slow fire smoldering, and we can't wait for a slow fire to eat into that cabin."
The argument seemed unanswerable.
"But," persisted McNair, "we got to do something. Otherwise, we'll be a laughing stock. What's mostly kept us safe all of this time? The fact that nobody knew our faces or what we were like. It was just known that Jack Moon and his band were worse than the devil, and that we couldn't be follered and found. But if gents get to know that we've let two men sift through our fingers, and if those two gents go out and give a description of what we look like and all that, how long d'you think we'll last? Boys, we'll be signing our own death warrant if we let them two go free! They got to die. And they got to die, even if it costs the chief the good liking of that girl yonder!"
"Boys," said Moon, "let's do the wise thing. I ain't going to stay here and waste words talking and arguing with Baldy McNair about his crazy idea that I want the girl. I'm willing to admit that we'd ought to make a final try at the cabin, and we'll attempt to plug the gents that's in it.
"We'll work out a way of getting at it somehow or other, and then we'll try to finish up Doone and Hugh. But I warn you, it ain't going to be any easy job. If we fail, I'm for starting back over the hills as fast as we can travel, carrying the girl with us, as a hostage, and then, after we get a little distance off, I'm for splitting up and each man going for his home. Does that sound like good sense to the rest of you?"
They all had to admit that it was the best plan. To wait to burn wet logs would be foolish. It might take them two days. To attempt to lay a long siege to the hut which sheltered the two enemies, was even more insane. But by a single rush, using weight of sheer numbers, they might do much. Then, as the leader had suggested, the possession of the girl might prove a point of the utmost importance, if they failed to capture the hut; for, while she was in their hands during their flight, Doone and Hugh, even though they followed, certainly would not dare to call up the powers of the law to run down the outlaw band.
"Baldy," said the leader, "you and the boys put your heads together and lay a plan. I'm going out to get Si Treat. And when I come back I'll go over the scheme with you. We've got to make the plan and try it out before dawn. By daylight we've got to be on our way north!"
Yet the preparations of Jack Moon, considering the fact that he had just arranged for an attack, were most singular. First he slipped around to the rearmost hut of the three which faced the clearing on this side, opposite to the one in which Doone and Hugh were.
Behind this shack he found in the woods the two tall grays which the girl and her father had ridden out onto the trail. Tall and long of limb they were, and in a pinch it would go hard indeed if the common cow ponies of the band could keep pace with the big fellows.
These two horses he saddled, putting the girl's saddle upon one and his own upon the other. But his preparations did not stop there. From the rest of the horses he selected the two which combined the greatest speed and strength. Then, having saddled them, he packed upon them his own three shares of the gold, shares which he had weighed out so cunningly that in reality there was the weight of four, and close to a hundred thousand dollars' worth of the precious metal was included in the double load.
Still he was not content. Slipping into the next shack, unobserved all this time by the grave council which was deliberating on ways and means of attacking the house of Ronicky, he brought forth another load of the gold, the share of what member of the band he could not tell. This burden he divided carefully between the two grays, putting more than two thirds of it in the saddle-bags of the girl. Before he had ended, he had given to each of the four horses a well-apportioned load equal in weight to a very heavy rider. This done, he advanced, leading the four straight into the wood, making what speed he could, because time was infinitely precious five minutes saved now might mean four horse-loads of gold saved later on.
He advanced until he was far up on the side of the hill, where he tethered the four horses to a tree of conspicuous size, easily located from a distance. Then he turned back, and after a few minutes of search he found the girl and Silas Treat, who, with stolid obedience, had taken her well on into the forest and was now keeping her in a little clearing.
"Go back to the boys," said the leader to Treat, "and tell them that I'm going to dispose of the girl and then follow later on."
"How is it that you can leave the girl off here and come back yourself?" asked Treat curiously.
"I'll manage that," said the leader. "There are lots of ways of managing."
"This?" queried Treat, and with a broad grin he passed his forefinger across his throat.
It was done with such inhuman complacence that even the hard heart of Jack Moon revolted.
"Maybe that way," he admitted, eager simply to get rid of his gigantic follower and be alone with the girl. "Now get back, Si, and tell the boys to watch sharp, because Ronicky may start a rush. That's his kind. He don't like inaction, and when he starts he'll do enough to keep all of you warm."
Jerry had not made an effort to escape during the conversation while the two men had turned their backs to her. Instead, she sat on a
fallen log with her head supported in both hands, and the leader, approaching, had time even in his rush of thoughts, even in his eagerness to get away, to mark the slenderness of the fingers against her hair.
"Jerry!" he called softly.
She raised her head and stared at him blankly. But even now, after all she had seen and heard, there was no sign of hysterical terror about her. From the first, when a crisis came, she had made no outcry, no noisy appeals, but like a man of firm nerve she had waited for events to develop before she made her decisions, before she moved. She was waiting still as she faced the outlaw, and the big man admired her from the bottom of his heart and pitied her for the lie which he was about to tell.
"Jerry," he went on, "I've come to ask you to trust in me another time."
Her answer was a smile, no more, but the smile was of greater import than a thousand words of scorn, contempt, accusation. Moon winced before her, but he went on as smoothly as possible: "Wait till I get through talking before you make up your mind. Jerry, you know my place in the world. You know how I've fought to gain it. You know that up here in the mountains I'm as good as a king, with a kingdom and followers. Well, I've decided to give it all up for your sake!"
He waited for that point to tell.
But she said: "So you've hemmed in my father. You've set your bloodhounds around him. And any moment, perhaps now, your men are sneaking up to set fire to his hiding place and shoot him as he runs out. You've done that also for my sake, Jack Moon?"
He wondered at her calmness, until he saw that her hands were gripped. In a man such calm would have preceded a fierce attack. He said: "This'll go to show how wrong it is for folks to make up their minds about other gents until they know! Now listen to what's really happened. My boys want to kill, and they want to kill your father. I guess you know that."
She nodded.
"They were so dead set against him that I didn't dare let them see you around while I was talking to 'em. Seeing you would of made 'em think more and more about Hugh and made 'em wilder and wilder to get at him. That's why I sent you away with Si Treat so's I could have a chance to be alone with 'em and try to make 'em talk sense and see sense. Well, when you were gone, I tried a high hand with 'em. I knew right enough that they could burn out your father and Ronicky like rats out of a hole. But because of you I had to stop 'em. So I piled up the difficulties and made it look bad to try. Anyway, I made 'em change their minds, which I couldn't of done if you'd been there to sort of urge 'em on to get at Hugh. I made 'em promise to get away as soon as they could and follow after me. So they're going to stay behind me and "
"And you and I?" queried the girl, vaguely groping toward his meaning.
"And you and I, Jerry, won't be on the north road at all! We'll be driving west as fast as the spurs will send the hosses! Ain't it clear, and ain't it a beauty? There was your father and Doone no better'n dead men, and here I've gotten 'em off free and sound!"
It was all clear to her. Suddenly she cried, with a great impulse of thanksgiving: "Heaven bless you for it!"
"Let them bless you," said the outlaw. "Because, except for you, they'd of been finished sure!"
"But you and I ride west, and your men ride north Jack Moon, does it mean that you've broken away from them, that you never intend to ride with them again, that you've given up your life of crime?"
"It's all according to what you want it to mean."
"Ah," she murmured, "if I could only trust you for half a minute! If I could only be sure of the thoughts that are going on in that wild, cruel mind of yours! Tell me, are you speaking true?"
"Can you ask that?" he said, dodging her swiftly. Then he cried with utter sincerity: "I'd make myself over a thousand times if one shape of me would get a single smile out of you, Jerry. Will you believe that?"
"After what I've seen "
"You've seen nothing. Neither you nor anybody else has ever seen a thing! My real self is a buried self, girl! And they's only one thing in the world that can make me what I ought to be."
"I think I know what you mean," she said faintly. "And and in spite of myself I think you mean what you say. Otherwise, how could you dare to leave your men to betray them in order to ride with me? Because, Jack Moon, if you have left them, if you are speaking the truth to me, there are some of them who will never leave your trail until they have run you down and killed you like a dog! You know that!"
"Ay, if they could run me down. But they can't. That west road I start on is going to swing off to an east road before long, and you and I are going "
"Back to Trainor?"
He winced, but then he went on glibly: "We're going to follow it wherever you want it to be followed. But the first thing now is for you and me to get onto our hosses and ride as we never rode before. Will you come?"
"I'll come."
"And trust me?"
"What else can I do?"
"Then," cried the outlaw, "I've started a new life."
And, for the first time in his wild life, he meant what he said!
Chapter Twenty-four. Preparations.
All unconscious of the fact that their leader, so long trusted, had at last betrayed them, the band of Jack Moon gathered around Silas Treat when the black-bearded giant strode out of the trees and stood before them.
"Where's Moon?" asked one.
"Back with the girl. Going to put her out of the way while we plan to tackle the house. I told him he'd better knife the filly. That's what he'll do."
"You're a fool, Treat," said Baldy McNair, who took greater liberties in his speech and manner than any other in the band. "You're a fool and a swine. But the chief's right. He'll tie up the girl and leave her in the woods. No use having her around when we rush the house. And no use having her so near she can hear any yells. Has he got her far enough back so's she won't hear much?"
"Pretty near," said Si Treat. "Back there in that little clearing up the hill. The trees would cut off most of the noise near the ground from this direction."
"How long'll it take him?"
"Not long, and he says for us to keep right on planning till he shows up."
"We've made our plan. We're going to scatter and rush the shack from all sides at once. The old boy," Baldy went on to explain, "always figures that we ain't got the gumption to do anything or plan anything while he's away. Like as not he's lying back there in the brush and laughing to himself because we sit around and do nothing, with dead Bud Kent lying here to urge us along. Well, boys, let's up and show lack Moon that with him or without him we can get along. It's time he was showed that, anyway! I say, let's scatter. Best place to start from is the shack beside Ronicky's. Well, let's half of us get in there and the rest scatter out sort of promiscuous and get ready for the run. We'll call in the other gents that are watching now, and then we'll let drive. If them two in the shack ain't got nine lives apiece, well salt 'em away and plant 'em under ground. Are you with me?"
There was a grumble of sullen acquiescence in answer, and the eight began to spread swiftly around the edges of the clearing, taking advantage of all shelter of the trees until they should be within short sprinting distance of the shack.
That hut, in the meantime, remained as silent and as black as though the two men who formerly occupied it had long since taken to flight, melting unseen into the forest by mysterious stealth.
As a matter of fact, they had been hard at work during most of the past hour. It was Ronicky who possessed the feverish urge to get out of the confining quarters of the shack and strive to break through the lines of the enemy by a surprise attack. But the sober warnings of his companion deterred him. As Hugh Dawn repeatedly pointed out, they were being watched all the time, no matter how hushed the silence around the clearing might be. They were being watched by eyes that squinted down the deadly length of rifle barrels, and if they left their shelter and the thick log walls which were strong enough to stop a revolver bullet at least, they would certainly go down before they had taken more than two steps f
rom their place of refuge.
Ronicky Doone submitted.
"But it sure galls me," he had remarked through his teeth, "to think of lying here and getting trapped like a rat! It sure galls me, Hugh. I'd rather die ten times fighting in the open than once behind the walls of a cage!"
The other had nodded, and, reaching through the darkness of the shack, he had laid his hand on the shoulder of his young friend and pressed it with a reassuring firmness. Indeed, Hugh was a rock of unperturbed strength during the entire crisis.
"We got the strong position," he kept assuring Ronicky.
"But suppose they rush us? It ain't more'n a couple of jumps to that nearest hut."
"That's right. But a gent can do a pile of shooting while somebody else is taking a couple of steps."
"In the night?"
"That makes it bad, all right. But I don't think they'll rush your guns, Ronicky! We might hang out the lantern after lighting it. That'd give us some light on one side of the house, anyway."
Ronicky merely laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.
"They'd smash the lantern to bits with a couple of shots."
"Didn't think of that."
"How much oil is in that lantern?" asked Ronicky suddenly.
"It's a big one. About a quart of oil in it, I guess."
"And what's that old mattress in the corner stuffed with?"
"I dunno."
Ronicky crossed the floor and ripped open the small section of mattress which had once served on the corner bunk. An instant later he muttered a low exclamation of satisfaction and came back with a liberal armful of the waste with which the mattress had been stuffed.
"Now lemme have the lantern," he suggested.
It was given him, and to the astonishment of the elder man Ronicky opened the bottom of the tin support and thoroughly wet large portions of the waste with the kerosene.
"And what in Sam Hill," muttered Hugh Dawn, "d'you figure to win by wasting all that oil, son?"
"I'll show you in a minute."
He continued by lighting the lantern and taking off the chimney. Then he turned down the wick, so that there was only a quivering tongue tip of flame visible.
