CHAPTER XVIII
HARRISON OVERPLAYS HIS HAND
Through the barred window Farrar watched the guard drag Cabenza back. Hewas very despondent. They had been prisoners now nearly a week and couldsee no termination of their jail sentence in sight. The food given themwas wretched. They were anxious, dirty, and unkempt. Though he would notadmit it even to himself, the camera man was oppressed by the shadow ofa possible impending fate. The whim of a tyrant regardless of human lifemight at any hour send them to a firing squad.
Threewit sat gloomily on the stool, elbows on knees and chin resting onhis fists. He could have wept for himself almost without shame. Forforty-five years he had gone his safe way, a policeman always withincall. Not once had life in the raw reached out and gripped him. Not oncehad he faced the stark probability of sudden, violent death. Clubs andafter-theater suppers and poker and golf had offered him pleasantdiversion. And now--a cruel fate had thrown him in the way of abarbarian with no sense of either justice or kindness. He felt himselftoo soft of fiber to cope with such elemental forces.
"Look! What is that, Threewit?"
Farrar was pointing to something on the table that gleamed white in themoonlight. He stepped forward and picked it up. The article was a stonearound which was wrapped a paper tied by a string.
"The Mexican must have thrown it in with the dirt. It wasn't therebefore," replied the director quickly.
Farrar untied the string and smoothed out the paper, holding it towardthe moonlight. "There's writing on it, but I can't make it out. Strike amatch for me."
His companion struck on his trousers a match and the camera man read byits glowing flame.
Keep a stiff upper lip. Cactus Center is on the job. Don't know when my chance will come, but I'm looking for it. _Chew this up._
S. Y.
Farrar gave a subdued whoop of joy. "It's old Steve. He hasn't forgottenus, good old boy. I'll bet he has got something up his sleeve."
"Hope that greaser doesn't give us away to Pasquale or Harrison."
"He won't. Trust Cactus Center. He's bridle-wise, that lad is. I feel alot better just to know he has got us on his mind."
"What do you suppose he is planning?"
"Don't know. Of course he has to lie low. But he pulled off his owngetaway and I'll back him to figure out ours." The camera man wasnothing if not a loyal admirer of the range-rider.
They talked in whispers, eager and excited with the possibility ofrescue that had come. Somehow, of all the men they had known, theybanked more on Steve Yeager in such an emergency than any other. It wasnot alone his physical vigor, though that counted, since it gave him socomplete a mastery over himself. Farrar had seen him once stripped in aswimming-pool and been stirred to wonder. Beneath the satiny skin themuscles moved in ripples. The biceps crawled back and forth like livingthings, beautiful in the graceful flow of their movement. Whatever hehad done had been done easily, apparently without effort. This reservepower was something more than a combination of bone and sinew and flesh.It was a product of the spirit, a moral force to be reckoned with. Ithelped to make impossible things easy of accomplishment.
* * * * *
The panic of Cabenza vanished as soon as he was out of sight of theguards. As he turned down toward the sandy river-bed a little smile layin his eyes.
From the place where it was buried beneath the root of a cottonwood, hedug out a bandanna handkerchief containing several bottles, littlebrushes, and a looking-glass. Sitting there in the moonlight, he workedbusily renewing the tints of his hands and face and also of thecoffee-colored patch of skin that peeped through his torn trouser leg.
This done, he sauntered back to the little town and down the adobestreet. A horseman cantered up to the headquarters of the general justas Pasquale stepped out with Culvera. The latter snapped his fingerstoward Cabenza and that trooper ran forward.
"Hold the horse," ordered the officer in Mexican.
Cabenza relieved the messenger, who stepped forward and delivered whathad been given him to say. The hearing of the man holding the horse wasacute and he listened intently.
"Senor Harrison sends greeting to the general. He is in touch with theplay-actor Lennox and hopes soon to get the Gringo Yeager. If Lennoxplays false...."
The words ran into a murmur and Cabenza could hear no more.
The messenger was dismissed. Cabenza stooped to tie a loose lace in hisshoe. Pasquale and Culvera passed back from the end of the porch intothe house. As they went the trooper heard another stray fragment in thevoice of the general.
"If Harrison crosses the line after him at night...."
That was all, but it told Cabenza that Harrison was negotiating withLennox for the delivery of Yeager in exchange for Threewit and Farrar.The leading man was, of course, playing for time until Steve, under theguise of Cabenza, could arrange to win the freedom of the prisoners.
This would take time, for success would depend upon several dove-tailingfactors. To attempt a rescue and to fail would be practically to signthe death-warrant of Farrar and Threewit.
Yeager, alias Cabenza, returned to the stable where he and a score ofpatriots of the Northern Legion had sleeping-quarters. He would muchhave preferred to take his blankets out into the pure night air and tobed under the stars. But he was playing his part thoroughly. He couldnot afford to be nice or scrupulous, for fear of calling specialattention to himself.
As for the peons beside him, they snored peacefully without regard tothe lack of cleanliness of their bedroom. The first day of his arrivalYeager had knocked a hole in the flimsy wall and had given it out asthe result of a chance kick of a bronco. This served to let air into abuilding which had no other means of ventilation. It also allowed somesmall percentage of the various concentrated odors to escape.
The Arizonian was a light sleeper. But like some men in perfect trim hehad the faculty of going to sleep whenever he desired. Often he hadtaken a nap in the saddle while night-herding. Fatigued from eighteenhours of wrestling the cattle to safety through a bitter storm, he hadlearned to fall easily into rest the instant his head hit the pillow. Itwas a heritage that had come to him from his rugged, outdoor life. So heslept now, a gentle, untroubled slumber, until daylight sifted throughthe hole in the wall at his side.
He was on duty that day herding the remuda, and it was not until lateafternoon that he returned to camp. From a distance, dropping down intothe draw which formed the location of the town, he saw a dust cloudmoving down the street. At the apex of it rode a little bunch oftravelers, evidently just in from the desert. Incuriously his eyeswatched the party as it moved toward the headquarters of Pasquale. Someimpulse led him to put his scarecrow of a pony at a canter.
The party reached the house of Pasquale and the two leaders dismounted.Yeager was still at some distance, but he had an uncertain impressionthat one of them was a woman. They stood on the porch talking. Thelarger one seemed to be overruling the protest of the other, so far asSteve could tell at that distance. The two passed together into thehouse.
It was not at all unusual for women to go into that house, according tothe camp-fire stories that were whispered in the army. Pasquale was anunmoral old barbarian. If he liked women and wine the Legion made nocomplaint. The women were either camp-followers or visitors from thenearest town. In either case they were not of a sort whose reputationwas likely to suffer.
Yeager cooked his simple supper and ate it. He sat down with his back toan adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool ofthe evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his ownthoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out ofhis indifference. The word was the name of Harrison.
"This afternoon?" asked one.
"Not an hour ago."
"Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently.
"Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not car
e toexpress.
One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "ThisHarrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager.Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so?Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe."
The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling thecigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved.
"A white woman this time, Pablo says."
The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comesto the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"--He whispered a bitof slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.
The peons guffawed with delight. This kind of joke was adapted both totheir prejudices and their lack of intelligence. They were as ignorantof the world as children, fully as gay, irresponsible, and kindhearted.But they had, too, a capacity for cruelty and frank sensuousness thatbelongs only to the childhood of a race.
Presently Yeager arose, yawned, and drifted inconspicuously toward thestable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process ofthrowing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out ofsight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of thehouse where Pasquale was putting up.
The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager'ssecond arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did his appearancenow mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Stevewas inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubiousacquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.
He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big housethe insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light wasshining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there camefaintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs andhysteria struggled.
By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little backporch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room,he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, wasin the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showedboth in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insistingupon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the generalturned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little blackeyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.
The woman broke out into violent protest.
"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are,you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"
At the sound of that voice Yeager's heart jumped. He would have knownit among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on hisforehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain andleft him for the moment dizzy and trembling.
There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teethshowed behind the lifted lips.
"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine--"
"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," sheprotested, fighting against hysterical fears.
"So? But Senor Harrison says you were engaged to him."
"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than--"
Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionateprotest.
Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders andturned to Harrison.
"You see. The lady has changed her mind, senor. What will you?"
"What's that got to do with it? She's mine. Send for a priest and haveus married," the other man demanded bluntly.
"Not so fast, amigo," remonstrated Pasquale softly. "Give her time--afew days--quien sabe?--she may change her mind again."
Harrison choked on his anger. He was suspicious of this suavity, of thissudden respect for a girl's wishes. Since when had the old despot becomeso scrupulous as to risk offending one who had served him a good dealand might aid him in more serious matters? The prizefighter could guessonly one reason for the general's attitude. His jealousy began to smokeat once.
"She can change her mind afterward just as well. If we're married now,then I'm sure of her," the prizefighter insisted doggedly.
Impulsively the girl swept into that part of the room within the view ofSteve. She knelt in front of Pasquale and caught at his hand.
"Send me home--back to my mother. I'm only a girl. You don't make war ongirls, do you?" she pleaded.
Had she only known it, the very sweetness of her troubled youth, theshadows under the starry eyes edging the wild-rose cheeks, the allure ofher lines and soft flesh, fought potently against her desire for asafe-conduct home. The greedy, treacherous little eyes of the insurgentchief glittered.
He shook his head. "No, senorita. That is not possible. But you shallstay here--under the protection of Gabriel Pasquale himself. You shallhave choice--Senor Harrison if you wish, another if you prefer it so.Take time. Perhaps--who knows?" He smiled and bowed with the gallantryof a bear as he kissed her hand.
"No--no. I want to go home," she sobbed.
"Young ladies don't always know what is best for them. Behold, we shallmarry you to a soldier, one of rank. From the general down, you shallhave choice," Pasquale promised largely.
Harrison scowled. He did not at all like the turn things were taking."Not as long as I'm alive," he said savagely. "She's mine, I tell you."
The Mexican looked directly at him with a face as hard as jade. "So youdon't expect to live long, senor. Is that it? We shall all mourn. Yes,indeed." He turned decisively to the white-faced girl. "Go to sleep,muchacha. To-morrow we shall talk. Gabriel Pasquale is your friend. Allshall be well with you. None shall insult you on peril of his life.Buenos!"
With a gesture of his hand he pointed the door to Harrison.
The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the Americanthat finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce hiscommands 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 thegirl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook herslender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave ofthe blanket upon which she lay.
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