# High-Grade

Extracted from Black Cat magazine, October 1920, pp. 42-63. A Western novelette.
Chapters: II — III — IV — V — VI
HIGH-GRADE
By J. ALLAN DUNN
Entered in the Black Cat Novelette Contest
A MAN on a rangy roan came out of a clump of pines and reined in on the edge of the steep slope, looking down into the little valley with eyes puckered at the corners from much gazing in the sun, eyes that were as gray as the rocks, cropping out here and there on the rim of the valley and on the sides, where they were not covered with clumps of quaking asp, scrub oak and choke cherry. There was a hard glint to those eyes, like the mica that showed in the granite, and they took in every detail of the landscape as horse and man stood motionless in the shadow of the trees.
The horse, for all its quietness, showed no signs of having come a lengthy journey. The man sat leaning forward in the saddle, both hands folded on the horn, in easy pose. He wore a blue flannel shirt, open at the lean but not scrawny neck, that was tanned, with his face and hands, dark brown. He wore leather chaparajos above his brown jeans, tucked into the high-heeled boots that proclaimed him cowman and professional rider. He was deep of chest and wide of shoulder, lean of flank and long of leg, a fitting mate for his mount. Neither carried an ounce of superfluous flesh; both were in prime condition. The horse was roman-nosed; so was its master. From the man’s belt there swung two bolstered Colts. His chin projected forcibly, with a crease between it and the firmly closed lips of a mouth that, though stern, quirked up at the corners, a mouth that could smile on occasion, a mouth, nevertheless, that looked as if it did not utter many unnecessary words. His hat, shoved back to show close-cropped black hair, was a many seasoned Stetson.
The valley was almost a perfect oval, about three miles in length and half that distance in width. A road ran diagonally across its lower end, cutting off a third of the territory, that had not been cleared but showed dark with first growth pine. A stream looped several times across the road, disappearing in the trees. Its source was the same cut in the valley walls through which the road entered. One of its loops enclosed some fenced-off patches of alfalfa, vividly green against the browner pasture grass of the larger portion of the holding. At the head of the creek’s bend stood a ranch-house with its outbuildings. Fence lines ran here and there, but there was no stock visible, with the exception of half a dozen horses in a corral, clustered under the shade of a cottonwood tree. Other trees helped to shade the land immediately about the house and a little garden. The sun was four hours high, the sky cloudless and in the rare air of the five thousand foot altitude, the topographic details were plainly visible, enhanced by light and shade. The shadow of a soaring buzzard drifted over the slope just below the rider, but the man did not look up. It was very still, except for the whirring chorus of the cicadas. Back of what appeared to be the main barn, a tall rock jutted up for nearly a hundred feet.
The man’s eyes seemed like the lenses of cameras, registering every square yard of the view in photographic detail on his mental film. His lower lids were straight and the upper ones formed wide-angled V’s, through which the gray eyes gleamed unwinking.
Seemingly satisfied, he straightened in his saddle and his knees pressed the roan, which commenced to descend the slope with the sure-footedness of the mountain-bred animal, sliding here and there down steep declivities on its haunches. Man and mount seemed one. Reaching the comparative level, the roan broke into a rocking-horse lope that was deceptive as to the real speed with which it covered the ground. Once, in a while the man opened up primitive gates in the wire and closed them again without effort, the horse taking position to make the work easiest, as if thoroughly accustomed to such expeditions.
The horses in the corral whinnied as the pair went by and the man looked them over rapidly but searchingly. He could have named the points and markings of each, with their brands, and a good guess at their good and bad qualities, before he had passed them and halted in front of the house veranda.
There was a slightly puzzled expression on his face that cleared as he called out the usual salutation in a deep but clear voice:
“Hello, the house!”
He repeated it and, at the lack of any answer from within, the puzzled look came back. The silence appeared to give him cause for wonderment, for a momentary indecision. Then he swung from the saddle and walked up on the veranda, leaving the roan anchored to trailing reins. He had to bend his head as he entered the door, which had been built to accommodate people of only average height. The house was well built of logs with a sod roof, without especial regard to proportion or beauty, but the interior was furnished in a manner that belied its outer indications. The door opened directly into a large room that was apparently used for both living and dining room. There was a big fireplace built of stone with well filled bookcases on either side and deep-seated Morris chairs faring the hearth. The wide mantel had specimens of Indian pottery and basket work. Above it rifles were laid on antlers. Navajo rugs were on the walls and on the floor. There were one or two pictures. The table was of oak, as were the chairs about it, four of them drawn up for a meal. And the meal itself, laid on a white cloth with a display of good china and silverware, seemed to have been just served. From one platter ham and eggs had been dished out and the yolks were unbroken. Biscuits had not been split, all four of the cups were filled with coffee in which cream had been poured but which had not been tasted. The knives showed no signs of use. Two napkins lay on the table, one on the floor and another on a chair. The chairs were set back a little, as if for rising.
Somewhere, in another room, a clock ticked. Two doors opened to one side off the main room, another at the back. The man, walking cat-footed, though without apparent effort at secrecy, surveyed the table, opened the doors, a vertical line deepening between his brows. Two of the rooms were used for sleeping. The beds were of enameled iron, the linen, blankets and counterpanes of good material. They were unmade. Two pairs of pajamas were in each room and, behind curtains of brown denim, articles of men’s clothing. The man handled these swiftly without disturbing them from their hooks. He seemed to be taking inventory. The fourth room was a kitchen. There was a built-in cupboard and a bunk, a table, two chairs and a stove. He lifted a lid and examined the glowing fire. A kettle was hissing. A frying pan held some sliced potatoes, a little overbrowned.
He went back to the main room and picked up a pipe from the mantel board. Its bowl was slightly warm and it was carved into the shape of a cup held by four claws, one of which had been broken off. The briar was polished and stained by long use, the edges of the bowl charred. There was tobacco in a glass humidor and he smelled it, his eyes widening as he recognized its quality.
He took out a package of granulated tobacco from the pocket of his shirt and swiftly rolled a cigarette, inhaling it gravely as he smoked it to the last inch, before he threw the butt into the fire place.
“Took me fifteen minutes to ride down,” he said aloud. “I was five, giving the place the once over. They must have lit out just before I came out of the pines. But why? What for?—with a fine breakfast all ready. Cook gone, too. That was a Chink’s blouse atop, that kitchen bunk. Looks like something had scared ’em worse ’n a ha’f grown cottontail with a coyote sayin’ good mornin’. They cud hardly have seen me come out of the pines. No winders that way. Nothin’ about me to send ’em off with empty stomachs. Main point is, where did they go? Too much of a hurry to saddle up. If they’d kep’ to the trees I might not have seen ’em,” he added reflectively, moving towards the door.
Then he stiffened and his hands sought his gun butts as he stooped and peered out of a window towards the road. Five men, riding fast in a cloud of dust, were coming towards the house. The last two, abreast, carried rifles across their saddles; on the chest of the leader, riding a flea-bitten gray at a gallop, a star gleamed.
“Well,” said the man, “here’s more visitors. Now we may learn something.” He rolled another cigarette and made himself comfortable in one of the Morris chairs. There was no hail from the outside as the horsemen checked their horses and dismounted. The man with the star on his shirt came swiftly into the room, a gun covering the other who lolled in the chair. Two of his companions followed closely. The two with rifles remained outside.
“Put up your hands. Quick!” said the leader. The man in the chair obeyed. There was something like a twinkle in his gray eyes as he stretched his arms upwards, resting them along the back cushions. His voice drawled as he answered:
“Anything to accommodate a man who’s got the drop on me. What’s the idea?”
“Get his guns, boys.” The two men whisked the long Colts from the holsters.
“Make yourselves quite at home, gents,” said the captive. “I ain’t hungry or I’d ask to join you. Grub’s a mite cold, but it’s all ready to serve. Regular free cafeteria. Hot coffee out there on the kitchen stove.”
The leader scowled at him,
“Your tongue’s hinged too free,” he said. “I’ll do the talking.”
“I’m agreeable. Ears wide open. You ain’t answered my question yet. What’s the idea?” His voice hardened a little. “Can I put down my hands? You’ve got my battery. I’m harmless as a knittin’ spinster.” He folded his hands in his lap as the other nodded.
“What’s your name?” demanded the man with the sheriff’s star. “No use lyin’, ’cause I know all four of ’em, five includin’ the Chink. Which one are you?”
“Rightly speakin’, my name ain’t none of your business, but, to show I’m willin’ to sit in sociable, it’s Jud Steele. Full brand Judson J. Second J bein’ for Jeffries. That’s my roan outside an’ I’ve rode over from the Twin Knob ranch this mornin’ to say howdy to my nearest neighbors, never havin’ made their acquaintance. They warn’t home. Seemed to have lost their appetite, sudden. Mebbe you know a reason. I don’t.”
“That’s a lie! There’s no one livin’ at Twin Knob ranch. It belongs to Bill Sangster. He’s over to Flivver Creek, to the mines. Been there four months.”
Jud Steele’s eyes glinted.
“Sheriff,” he said. “I take it you aim to call yourself sheriff?”
“You see my star.”
“I’ve bin admirin’ it. More’n I do its owner. It ain’t polite to call a man a liar at any time, an’ when you’ve got that man covered, it may be safe, but it’s a dirty yeller trick. Before you an’ me say the final fare-you-well to each other I figger you’ll announce it was a hasty remark an’ one you’re willin’ to take back. I’m tellin’ you, for the third time, you ain’t answered my question. What’s the idea of stickin’ me up?”
The sheriff sneered.
“I suppose you don’t know. I’m goin’ to ask all the questions, J. J. Steele. You can’t stall any longer. Which way’d your pardners go?”
“Search me, Sheriff.” Steele straightened up, his long body growing tense. “I’m gettin’ a bit tired of this. I—”
“Oh!” The two followers turned at the sound of the new voice. The sheriff flung a glance over his shoulder but brought it back swiftly to Steele.
“You sit still. Come in, marm.”
“A girl entered, young and slim. She was not a mountain girl, but a product of the cities, dressed in a gray corduroy riding suit, her breeches ending in tan boots, spurred with tiny silver rowels. She was blonde and her face, flushed with surprise and excitement, was untanned.
“Was you lookin’ for anyone, Miss?” the sheriff went on as she advanced into the room. Better shut that door, Jim,” he added. “Maybe this gent in the chair was expectin’ you?”
“I don’t know him,” said the girl slowly. “Why have you shut that door? I am looking for my brother. I—”
“I see, Miss. I reckon he’s just stepped out. You was meanin’ Frank Deming?”
“That is his name. I have come from Denver to see him.”
Steele liked the way she answered, the spirit in her voice. She had come well into the room and was standing near the mantel board. Suddenly her eyes dilated, the smooth contours of her face seemed pinched and the color ebbed from her lips. Steele saw that she was looking with something akin to dismay at the pipe with the clawed bowl, He saw her lips tighten and their color return. There was a flash in her eyes as she turned to answer the sheriff’s next query.
“Was he expecting you, Miss? Your brother, I mean. Sent for you, maybe?”
“That,” she said, “is my business.”
“Ah! An’ mebbe it’s mine. I’m goin’ to look for your brother an’ some friends of his. You’d better stick around till I come back.”
“I intend to, until he comes back,” she answered composedly, and turned to the bookshelves, pulling out a volume here and there and glancing carelessly through it. Steele saw that her hands trembled slightly though she strove to conceal her nervousness.
The sheriff looked at her with the suspicion of a snarl.
“My name is Hines,” he said. “Sheriff Hines. If you should happen to see your brother, Miss, before I do, you give him a bit of advice from me. You tell him to come clean. The more he talks the less he’ll get.”
The girl’s chin went up and she turned her back on Hines.
“Reckon that advice ’ud work fine for you, Sheriff,” drawled Steele. “If you take it backwards.” Hines wheeled and advanced threateningly.
“Another word out of you,” he stormed, “and I’ll put a gag on you.”
“Which won’t prevent my thinkin’.” Hines glared at him but turned away with a swagger.
“Better make up your mind to come through, too, J. J., as you call yourself,” he said. “I won’t promise to make it easier for you, but I’ll sure make it harder if you don’t. Jim, you an’ Pete stay here an’ chaperon this couple. I’m goin’ with Red and Shorty to pick up the trail. We’re likely to get back a bit late, because we aim to get ’em, one way or another.”
Steele saw the girl’s shoulders quiver for a second. He shifted in his chair and the man called Jim immediately raised his gun.
“You ought to be comfortable in that chair,” he warned. “Jest set thar—an’ set damned still.”
“Your mouth needs washin’,” retorted Steele.
Jim shoved the muzzle of his gun at Steele’s face, but the latter’s unflinching, contemptuous gaze made him pause and lower the weapon. Hines went out of the door, closing it behind him. Murmurs of his talk to the two men outside reached the room faintly. In a few minutes there was a scuffle of horses’ hoofs and Steele looked out of the front window, thinking the sound loud for three mounts. He saw the six horses that had been in the corral sweep by and then his own horse and a pinto that he guessed had been ridden by the girl, the pair led by Hines and one man, the other man herding the loose ponies down the fenced-in road. Steele said nothing. The lines that stretched from nose to mouth corner deepened and his lips settled in a grim line. The girl, now in a chair, seemingly absorbed in a book, did not look up.
II
THE morning wore on slowly. Steele occasionally shifted gently in his chair, more freely as the attention of his guards wavered, though they kept their weapons ready and were alert enough. His own Colts had been kept by the sheriff. Jim smoked, and Steele, after a marked request as to whether it inconvenienced the girl, rolled an occasional cigarette, with the permission of the two deputies. They evidently sized him up as a dangerous customer.
Noon came and passed without sign of Hines. A clock in the kitchen struck one—then two. The girl read on, though Steele was fairly certain that she could not have told the plot of the story she was perusing. Once or twice he caught her looking at him doubtfully, shifting her glance immediately she thought he noticed it. She seemed, he fancied, to be appraising him.
“I wouldn’t wonder,” he told himself, “whether she don’t think I am a pal of the man who owns that pipe. If so, I’m in wrong.”
“Jim,” he said, at last. “No sense in goin’ hungry, is they, with a house full of grub? I reckon there’s more ham and eggs an’ coffee, anyway.”
“By gun!” said Pete, hitherto so silent as to suggest he might be a mute, “he’s right. I cu’d eat the hind laig of’n a mule.”
Jim looked dubious, but he also looked hungry. He licked his lips.
“I kin cook,” said Pete.
“I’ll get a meal for you,” said the girl. Steele looked up with surprise at the offer. He read the answer in the look in her eyes. She was snatching desperately at a chance to get away. But her voice had been a little too eager.
“Not you,” growled Jim. “There’s knives in that kitchen, I reckon. An’ a back door.”
“Then, I can clear the table off in here. I’m hungry, too.”
Grit, clean through, Steele told himself.
“Don’t suppose I’ll even be ’lowed to wash the dishes,” he said.
“You set still,” said Jim. “If we give you enny grub it’ll be a sandwich. An’ it’ll be brung to you. Go out an’ prospect around, Pete. I’ll keep my eyes on ’em.”
He sat with his attention divided between the girl and Steele. As she moved round the table after removing the used plates, waiting for Pete to give her a fresh supply, she straightened out the cutlery. She came round one corner with her back to Jim. Steele had been waiting for her to get in line. His lips moved, forming distinct syllables:
“Give me the pepper.”
Her eyes stared into his. He did not doubt their comprehension. He had already measured her and now he saw she was once more measuring him, looking deep into his gray eyes, searching for truth, wondering whether she could trust him. She barely slowed up, moving on, touching a napkin here, a knife there. Steele made no attempt to follow her movements. If she was going to ally herself with him he knew he could trust her wits. Pete came out of the kitchen with an armful of plates, one hand bristling with knives and forks. The smell of ham and eggs preceded him.
“Ready in a jiffy,” he said. “How d’ye like your aigs, Miss? Straight up?”
“I think so. How about your’s, Mr.—”
“Steele,” Jud answered. She had one hand clenched, he noticed, and she gave him a meaning glance. He let his own hand slip leisurely over the arm of the Morris chair.
“His’ll be a ham-and sandwich,” said Pete. “The plates is warm, Miss. I’ll put the chuck on a big dish.” He set down his burden and went out. The girl laid three plates and walked around the table, arranging the fresh knives and forks. None of those originally laid had been used, but she made no comment. Passing Steele, she dropped a fork. Jim looked up sharply for a moment. She stooped to retrieve the fork and, as she straightened, her hand touched Steele’s and he palmed the glass pepper castor.
Slowly, though he knew the moments were precious, he folded his hands in his lap and unscrewed the top, letting the contents fall into his left palm. Now the issue was in the laps of the gods. If Pete came in before he could carry out his plan it would be half defeated, if not useless. The girl came to his rescue.
“Will you sit here, Mr. Jim,” she said, “opposite me?” She smiled at the deputy and he smirked back.
“Ruther not have my back to Steele,” he said. “Better you take this chair.” He laid his left hand on the back of it, the gun in his right, next to Steele. Steele rose from his lounging position, effortless, swift as uncoiled springs. He dashed the pepper full in the face of the luckless Jim, dropping his left hand to the deputy’s right wrist while his own right fist crashed against the angle of Jim’s jaw. Jim’s knees gave way; his nerves and muscles failed to coordinate, the connection short-circuited by the short-armed jolt; and Steele caught his body and swung it into the chair he had vacated. With the deputy’s gun in his hand he leaped towards the kitchen door and stood to one side of it. He was just in time. Pete came in, with a kick of his foot to the half-latched door, a platter of seaming food in his hands. The look on his face was ludicrous as he faced the barrel of the pistol.
“If you drop it,” said Steele, “I’ll kill you. Take it from him, Miss Deming, and Pete, you elevate.”
He took away the second gun and backed the still astounded Pete into the high fireplace where he was forced to crouch in the opening while Steele gave brief attention to the unconscious figure of Jim, sprawled in the chair.
“Miss Deming, there’s a barn out back. Will you slip out there and see if you can find a rope or two for our friends here. If you run across some baling wire—know what that is?—that’ll be better. Take a look to see if Hines is in sight. If not, we’ll have our meal before we light out.” She left, with a backward glance in which he read amusement, admiration, but not a bit of nervousness. Pete squatted amid the ashes like a giant toad, his eyes rolling fearfully. Steele smiled at him and took the ham and egg sandwich from the platter.
“Chew on this,” he said. “It’ll keep you from worryin’.”
Jim groaned and showed signs of coming to life. Steele faced the pair of them, a gun in each hand. When Jim’s eyes lost their gaze and began to glare, Steele talked to him.
He had achieved a few surly answers when the girl came running in, and there was a grim smile of satisfaction on his face.
“You’d make a bum witness,” he said to John. “You don’t git your facts assembled. You talk like a bobtail flush.”
She had brought a bale of soft wire and displayed a pair of pliers.
“There’s no one in sight,” she said.
“Good. Can you handle a gun, Miss Deming?”
“Yes.”
“Not afraid to shoot it?”
“Not if it’s necessary.”
“It is. Plug Pete there if he tries to hop while I attend to Jim.”
She took the revolver and balanced it in a way that showed she had held and fired a pistol. Her mouth and chin were very determined and the look she settled upon the cramping Pete was in accord. There was small doubt but that she would pull the trigger, around which she crooked one slender finger.
“That’s my gun,” said Pete. “It shoots easy, Miss. Look out for it.”
“I’m looking out for you,” she answered, and her voice was cold.
Steele bound Jim’s arms behind him with the baling wire, twisting it securely with the pliers. He fastened strands about his knees and his ankles and finally gagged him with a table napkin, laying him in the Morris Chair which he set back to the full extent of the rods.
“You next, Petie,” he said.
Pete emerged clumsily, stiff from his crouch, to be treated in the same way.
“Now you’ve got front seats,” said Steele. “You can watch the performance. Will you bring in the coffee, Miss Deming?” While she was in the kitchen he stepped outside and scanned the landscape carefully. He clambered quickly to the top of the tall rock for a more comprehensive view. From his eyrie he could command all the valley and the gap through which the road entered. Satisfied, he stooped and examined the ends of several cigarettes.
“Tailor mades,” he muttered and tossed them away.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he told the girl as he reentered the house.
She laughed up at him, five-foot-four to his six-feet-two, but the laugh was not in her eyes. They were serious.
“I warmed up the food while you were gone,” she said. “Is it all right? I confess I’m hungry.”
“Watch me,” he answered. The eyes of the deputies rolled in envious anger as Steele and the girl ate their meal.
“We won’t stay to wash the dishes,” he said, “though it’s against my bachelor principles to stack ’em. Lucky you chaps brought along some extra cartridges, we might need ’em,” he went on, as he buckled on the cartridge belt he had removed from Jim and filled his trouser pockets with the shells from that of Pete. “I’m out of smokin’,” he continued. “This ain’t like the Bull brand but it’ll do.” He stuffed his shirt pocket from the humidor on the mantel and, unperceived by the girl, picked up something which he concealed inside his shirt.
“Now then, we’re off,” he said.
“Our horses are gone,” she told him.
“Hines is a horse thief as well as sheriff,” he answered. “We’ll have to hoof it. My regards to Hines, Jim. Pete, you should have shared that sandwich with him. It’s a serious fault to be greedy. Adios, hombres.”
Outside the girl looked at him doubtfully.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You want to find your brother, I take it?” She nodded her answer.
“I’ll help you. I’m hopin’ for a little chat with Hines, on the side. He stole my horse, not to mention yours. I set a sight by that horse. I’d hate to think of him keepin’ compn’y with Hines. He’ll get corrupted an’ I’ve spent a heap of time trainin’ him proper. Besides, Hines called me a liar an’ it’s agen my principles to allow any man to call me a liar, star or no star. I don’t lie.
He led her around the house, towards the sentinel rock.
“You don’t seem to take things very seriously,” she said.
Steele paused and looked at her.
“I was never more serious in my life,” he replied gravely. And she saw that his eyes matched his name.
“I saw some sign when I was out here before,” he said. “And I want to take another look before we travel.”
Again he mounted the rock and the girl watched the combined strength and agility with which he climbed. He came quickly down.
“All clear,” he announced. “We’ll start.”
“Where?”
“Satisfied for me to lead this party?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to do the best I can for both of us. Understand that. You may have to trust me against appearances. I can’t tell. We want to get in touch with your brother before Hines does. There’s one or two things up at Twin Knobs I wouldn’t want Hines to find, an’ he might take a notion to go there. That can wait. Your brother smokes tailor-mades? I mean the kind of cigarettes that comes in a box?”
“Yes.”
“Straw tips?”
“Yes.” She answered this with a little reserve.
“Then he was up on top of that rock. I’ve a notion he saw Hines an’ his bunch comin’ through the cut yonder. For some reason they stopped, mebbe to water their horses. Likely that. For some reason your brother didn’t like the look of Hines, for which I don’t blame him. Seems like he was watchin’ while chow was bein’ fixed. When he tipped off the cheerful news the crowd faded, Chinese cook an’ all. On foot. They’ve hid out. Hines is after ’em.”
Her face looked old and weary as she faced him.
“I’ll have to ask you to trust me too,” she said slowly. “If Hines is after them it means they are outlaws. My brother went with them.”
“If they are outlaws, so are we. Don’t you worry over much about Hines.”
“But you tied up his deputies. And you helped me get away. I think they made a mistake about you. But my brother—”
“Shucks! They made the mistake of not tyin’ me. I ain’t losin’ flesh over them.” He seemed persistently to avoid her references to herself.
“But I don’t want you to get in trouble over my affairs—and my brother’s.”
“I’ve made ’em mine. You’re a woman, an’ a good woman.”
“How do you know that? You don’t know anything about me.”
“Shucks!” The wisdom in his glance waved aside the question. “’Sides,” he went on, “’twouldn’t make no difference. You’re in trouble, whether it’s the fault of your brother or not. I’m a trouble breaker. Let’s foller the crick down a ways. We’ll keep in the timber. I’ve a notion Hines an’ his pardners worked back along this way after they got rid of them extry horses. We’ll see. One advantage of bein’ afoot is we can keep out of their sight better than they can out of ours.”
“But—I am in trouble,” she said hurriedly as if she wanted to say something that was forced to utterance. “My trouble is my brother’s. I don’t know what it is. I only suspect something is wrong from—from things he wrote to me. He is younger than I am and he is easily led. Not really bad. Only—”
“Does you credit. He ought to have sense enough to savvy your brand. A kid is apt to trail someone he thinks is smart. Don’t stop to think an’ gits in too deep. But, even if he can’t swim, maybe someone’ll give him a helpin’ hand—like you. Shucks, you ought to know the foolishness I pulled off afore my horns grew.”
“That is just what happened. Then he went away on this trip. There is someone who has influence over him. Frank said he was done with him. He promised me.”
“Mebbe this chap is holdin’ somethin’ over him, or pretends he is.”
“Yes. And I was afraid that he was here, that he persuaded Jack to come. Then—”
Steele took her by the elbow and led her into a grove of willows.
“One of these monkey-cats, I reckon,” he said, “wanted Jack to paw out the chestnuts. Took good care he wouldn’t be burned. You were afraid he was here an’ then you were sure of it, when you saw this.”
He pulled the pipe from inside his shirt and showed it to her. She shrank from it.
“That is Wes—the other man’s pipe. How did you know?”
“Shucks! I’ve got eyes in my head. An’ I’m usin’ ’em most of the time they ain’t shut. Ears too—listen!”
She saw him stiffen, his face intent. Then she caught the faint sound of galloping hoofs, deadened by turf or soft ground.
“Hines,” he said softly. “comin’ this way. An’ comin’ back. By the sound I don’t believe he’s bringin’ anybody back with him.”
He drew her back into a thicket, where they crouched, silent, watchful. The clop—clop grew more distinct and soon Hines came into sight, riding fast, his face set in a frown. Behind him followed the deputies with the rifles. They pounded fast, making for the ranch house.
“Didn’t want to interview him this trip,” said Steele. “He’ll keep. But I’d give a dobe dollar to hear what happens to Jim an’ Pete. Here is where we burn the wind. Come on.”
He moved fast, trailing the tracks made by Hines. The girl kept up with him, striding freely as a boy in her riding togs.
III
“YOU see,” said Steele to the girl, “I figger our friend Hines had some reason for bein’ up this way. Found some sort of trail an’ lost it, I wouldn’t wonder. Someone in that crowd along with your brother knows how to cover tracks. We’ll see if we can do any better. It’s a better bet than runnin’ blind an’ I’ve a little more than a hunch they follered the stream, myself. They’ve hid out somewhere. I reckon you’d like to git your brother by himself, to have a talk with him. If he ain’t in too deep, you figger to help him wade ashore, prevent him from catchin’ cold an’ keep dry from now on?”
They were walking side by side now. The girl flashed a look at him, saw his brows raised in query, noted that his eyes were kindly.
“That is just what I want to do,” she said. “But I can’t imagine why you should do all this for me. You’ve got yourself in trouble with the law. You’ve helped me to escape, you’re trying to help my brother and you don’t know a thing about me.”
“Shucks! My trouble with the law, you mean, is tyin’ up that Jim an’ Pete. That kind is better haltered than loose. As for Hines, he horned in on my affairs. I ain’t worryin’ about that part of it. As for the rest I don’t aim to see any woman put in a calaboose or otherwise imprisoned by the kindest-hearted sheriff that ever signed a warrant. An’ that’s a long way from describin’ Hines. You”—he gave her a look that held cordial goodfellowship but was shrewd with world wisdom—“if I figger I know any thing about humans, an’ I do, it bein’ in a way in my line of business, I know a thoroughbred from a bad cross. Placin’ you that way, as I do, I figger your brother bein’ blooded. May be a throwback, but with’ good blood. An’ that counts. It may ran a bit hot but it’ll cool, likely, give it time. This chap with the pipe, he’s another breed, I take it. You don’t have to tell me no more of your affairs. But mebbe we can find a way to separate your brother from this herd. He ain’t branded yet.”
She flashed him a look of gratitude. Her eyes were moist and her voice trembled a little.
“The man’s name is Burton. He has always had plenty of money, good clothes, a car. He is the sort to attract a boy like Frank. He isn’t exactly flashy, but he dresses well; his manners, on the surface, are well enough.”
“Interfere with you any, Miss?”
“Once. He won’t again.” Her eyes flashed. “He was always telling Frank he was a fool to settle down to work for a salary. Talked about using one’s brains. This is what happened, to make me know what he was. He proposed that Frank should pose in Denver as a cattle rancher, open an account at the bank. Then there was to be a draft presented, after others had gone through.”
“Savvy,” said Steele. “You needn’t go into details. This Burton was to be the monkey, your brother pussy. Draft was forged. If it went through Burton would get most of it, your brother a quarter, mebbe. If it went wrong, your brother would be caught. Burton figgered him for the kind who wouldn’t peach. Knew he had honor an’ the blood. An’ Burton would fade. If it was pulled off, your brother would have to fade too. He’d be under Burton’s thumb. Mebbe Burton might try to interfere with you again, havin’ a drag, you see, ’count of your brother.”
“That is just what I have thought. But I know Frank. I saw he was worried. He broke down one night and told me everything. Then came this letter from Burton inviting him up here. I suspected something and came on. I don’t see how you have guessed it all. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t try. Haven’t done much yet. There are more Burton’s than one roamin’ loose on the range, slicked up coyotes with their mangy hair curled. There’s a bounty on their scalps, too.”
He halted, pointing out tracks.
“Here’s where Sheriff Hines giv’ up,” he said. “See where they milled around. Now we’ll take a cast.”
They were close by the stream, fringed heavily with willows and cottonwoods. On either bank the ground, after a level strip, partly turf, partly shingle, sloped upwards, thick with quaking asps and undergrowth. Ahead, the valley closed in to the bed of the creek that fell in a cascade over a medley of rocks, a broken stairway some fifty feet high. Below the fall was a fairly deep pool, then it flowed on in a channel broken by smooth boulders, bleached under the sun. The current was swift, the depth apparently about five feet in the center.
Only the natural noises blended in a murmur of rushing water, softly waving branches, the whirr of cicadas. The girl looked at Steele with wide, attentive eyes as he moved hurriedly but without a wasted effort. He showed her where two horses had been ridden into the stream and out again, marked by displaced shingle, still a little moist.
“They’ve mussed up the original trail,” he said, speaking softly. I’ve seen a sign now an’ then but—”
He leaped easily from where they stood to the almost level surface of a rock that topped others, more irregular, standing well clear of the water. He stooped, then knelt, examining the surface of the rock. Then he closely examined the upstream sides of the pile. She saw his puzzled expression clearing a little. In two jumps he made the other side of the creek and began casting along the banks, bending double, suggesting a hound on trail. Once he seemed to pick up something. Returning, he repeated his tactics to the foot of the fall, climbed up it a little way, crossed back to her side, springing from rock to rock, and came to where she sat on a shingle bar set with tall weeds.
“There’s a scratch on that rock,” he said, “made by hobnails. Hines and his pals wear cowboy boots, same as me. An’ I found this.” He showed a soaked cigarette stub, straw tipped.
“Your brother smokes too much for his health,” he said drily. “I reckon he snitched this smoke on Burton. You see it’s only ha’f smoked. Chucked it away when Burton looked round. Shows they came up stream. Took to the water about here—or to the rocks. They could keep dryshod and clamber all the way up the fall. They’ve fooled Hines. They’d ’ve fooled me if I hadn’t picked up the trail above the fall. There’s another thing—but it don’t amount to much,” he broke off.
“I shouldn’t like you to be trailing me, if I had done anything wrong,” said the girl. “Are you a cowman?”
“I’ve sat leather, roped, branded an’ ridden herd for fifteen years, fairly steady,” he answered. “Why?”
“You trail like—like a—”
“A what? A sleuth? Shucks, Miss Deming, a cowman natcherally has to learn trail. It’s a part of his job. I’m goin’ up above the fall. Won’t be long. No sense in you comin’. Here—”
He handed her one of the guns taken from the two deputies.
“Why?” she asked.
“No especial reason. Just as well to go ahead. Hines might take a notion to come back. If you see a cottontail or willow grouse, try your luck for supper.”
“Supper? I had forgotten about food.”
“It don’t pay. You see”—he viewed her closely—“you see, Miss Deming, if we’re goin’ to find your brother—why—we’ll likely have to camp out to-night. I might have taken you over to the Twin Knobs house where you could be comfortable, but Hines is more ’n likely to take a trip over thataway an’ camp there himself. Pretty soft quarters for him to overlook. Won’t be safe for us to try.”
“I thought you said you had some papers there you didn’t want him to find.”
“Did I say papers? I’ve got to let that go for a while. I’ve got things tucked away. There’s a bottle or two of real Scotch whiskey up there an’ while I sure hate to think of it bein’ wasted on Hines an’ his pals, it may keep ’em occupied a bit. Now, if I don’t find anything up above, this is as good a place to camp as any. Sun’s gettin’ down. If you don’t shoot anything I aim to trail back to the house after dark an’ rustle some grub an’ blankets.”
She saw him looking at her quizzically, wondering, she fancied, whether she was going to show herself a prude, bothered about the proprieties in an emergency like this. He had taken her on trust. She felt that she could trust him, without reservation.
“It’s a risk, isn’t it, going back for food and blankets? We could get along without them for once. I’ve camped out before.”
A smile softened the stern look of his mouth and his eyes. For the first time she heard him laugh, showing his white teeth, a whole-hearted laugh that sounded like a boy’s. It made her feel as if she had known him and trusted him for a long while.
“I won’t take any risk I can’t git away with,” he assured her; “just rustle some grub an’ coverin’ an’ git back my own guns. I’ve a hunch Hines may have loaned ’em to Jim an’ Pete, seein’ they’re shy of hardware. But it’ll have to be after dark. We may be right hungry before we eat. You won’t be afraid to be left in the dark?”
She shook her head, smiling, and he laughed again.
“I reckon you’re what my friend Sangster, who owns Twin Knobs, calls a Three-P woman.”
“What’s that?”
“Somethin’ sort of rare, like the difference between free ore an’ fool’s gold. Pal, pardner an’ playmate! Bill Sangster’s lucky. He married one of that kind. She’s up to the mines, to Flivver Creek, now; playin’ mascot, or workin’ at it, rather.”
His eyes, absolutely frank, precluded any suggestion that he was trying to establish closer relations between them. The girl accused herself for harboring the idea. To cover her confusion, she spun the cylinder of the gun, examining it.
“Not so complicated as a typewriter,” he said, standing in front of her.
“How did you know I was a stenographer?”
“Didn’t. Guessed. You’d prefer to play with a gun, mebbe.”
“To play with what it stands for, free life and fresh air.”
He gave her a little friendly nod and strode off. She watched him clambering up the fall, disappearing over the top, her eyes a little hazy, a little dreamy. “You couldn’t call this man rough,” she told herself. Roughness suggested something unfinished, a machine before it is assembled. He might lack paint and varnish but he was most eminently efficient, sound, altogether a man.
It was over half an hour before Steele came back. Already shadows were deepening in the little gulch between the hills. His face was hard set. He had not found any sign though he had been thorough in his swift survey. He did not climb down the cascade but detoured through the aspens, coming out close to where he had left the girl. There was no sign of her.
Frowning, he beat about. He saw tracks to indicate where she had gone down to the creek. And that was all. Working swiftly, he made certain there was no other indication. She had vanished, her trail lost as had been that of her brother and Burton, and the rest of the little household.
He surveyed the stream. Once more he landed on the flat rock where he had seen the distinct scratches of a heavily nailed sole that had scored on landing. Again he bent and narrowly observed the borders of the upstream rocks, rising with a frown in two deep lines between his brows. Straightened, he covered every inch of the clear water. A gleam shot from his eyes and he sat on the big rock, lowered himself to the water and waded down the channel to where a bar broke it into riffles. There he picked up something, brought it up stream in the palm of his hand, tossed it into the water in half a dozen places, watching it slowly sink and go skipping lightly over the bot tom, swayed in the sub-currents, to land at last in the same spot from which he had first retrieved it.
He held it in his hand for a moment before he tucked it away in the pocket of his shirt, searching the gulch meanwhile. It was a celluloid hairpin. He rolled a cigarette, smoked it to the end, pinched out the stub, then threw it on one side as if abandoning caution as unnecessary.
Then he struck the trail back to the house, going swiftly, silently through the gathering dusk, alert as an Indian, his face grim.
IV
JUD STEELE was not the type that wastes time over theories that prove untenable or cannot be worked out to a legitimate conclusion. He arrayed facts as he found them, fitted them together and, if they did not solve the puzzle, waited for more facts to be evolved.
One idea, that Hines might have returned and carried off the girl while he was above the fall, was soon exploded. Hines was unable to move without leaving a trail; there was no trail. The girl had vanished just as her brother and his companions had vanished—save for one thing. They had obliterated themselves voluntarily; he was not so sure about the girl. It was a mystery that he could immediately solve; he had other to do.
The sunset flamed and began before he cautiously approached the house once more. He could see a light moving in the living-room. It settled, a figure moved in front of it. Steele went around to the barn, cat-footed. Two horses were in the stalls. He did not bother with them. For the present he preferred to trust to his legs.
He snooped about the barn and found, at the end of an alley, between empty swingracks for cows, a feed-room. It was substantially built, without a window, with a sturdy door that fastened with a good padlock. There were bins built in, partly filled with grain. Satisfied, he left the barn and approached the back of the house. There was a light in the kitchen. He advanced under the cover of bushes close to the window, then snaked his way up to the logs of the house, rising, inch by inch, until he could peer in. The man Jim was busy at the stove with a frying pan. Steele grinned.
“It’s a shame to cheat ’em out of another meal,” he said softly to himself as he crawled off, rose and went round to the front. But he did not say it with conviction.
Reaching for the veranda rail, concealed in a thick vine, ready to climb to the porch, he heard the door open, a creak on the planks. A man came out and walked in his direction, then stood as if listening. Steele froze. Someone was taking advantage of the last of the daylight to watch for just such an invasion as he contemplated. Then came the scratch of a match, the scent of tobacco, which he recognized as the mixture from the jar on the mantel. That would be Jim. He waited.
A voice called from the inside, the voice of Pete.
“Chuck’s ready. All set. See anything?”
“Nope.” Came the sound of retreating footsteps, the closing of the door. Covering his own sounds of movement with these, Steele swung up and over the rail. The planks did not creak under his feet as he tiptoed to a window. Jim stood by a chair, pipe in mouth. Pete waved a knife over a smoking platter. Steele gently tried the latch of the door. He was sure it was not bolted. Jim and Pete were not past masters of their profession. Steele shifted the gun in his holster, tried the door slowly, opening it a fraction at a time, ready to swing it wide. He wanted to hear, if he could, what the pair would say before he disturbed them. If only they were busy with the food? They should be hungry, and, with men of their calibre, the appetites always dulled the mental faculties, he reasoned.
The door swung slowly out until the merest film of light began to show. He heard the sound of cutlery on the plates, the clink of cup and saucer, little noises that told of crude table manners. Then—
“Hines has sure got one hell of a temper.” This from Pete. He knew their voices apart.
“To hell with him and his temper,” answered Jim. “He may be running this show but, when it comes to payin’ off, that’s another matter. Your a good cook, Pete. This ham is prime.”
Pete chuckled.
“I’ll say it is. Wonder what Hines struck up to Twin Knobs?”
“Meanin’ grub? They’ve jest about reached there by now.”
“Meanin’ grub, yes; also the stuff. If this chap Steele was in cahoots with the bunch they may have hid it out there. Don’t stand to reason they’d vamoose and leave it here to be turned up.”
“’Less they took it with ’em. I don’t, believe Steele is in with ’em. He took things too easy. Hines said Steele wasn’t any one of their names.”
“Suppose he’ll give the right one? Have some more ham. I cooked a plenty.”
Steele had learned what he most wanted to know. Hines was at Twin Knobs with the other two men. And the roan was there also. He swung the door wide and, as the two eaters turned peering into the darkness beyond the threshold, he stepped into the light, his gun covering them.
“Sorry to disturb you, hombres. But I gave you one helping of grub. Keep your hands above the table cloth.”
His gun spat viciously as Jim dropped his right hand, farthest from the door, to his holster, and brought it up again. Jim screamed an oath. A gun, one of Steele’s own blued Colts, thumped on the table. Blood spurted across the cloth from Jim’s knuckles shattered by the shot.
“If you’ve spoiled that ham and eggs I’ll make you eat it one-handed, with the salt cellar sprinkled over it to lessen your freshness.” The raillery in Steele’s steady voice was undershot with grim earnestness.
“Git up, both of you, grab for the ceilin’. Never mind your hand, Jim. Your own fault. I never bluff with a gun. Now stand still.”
They stood while he appropriated both his own weapons, putting away the third in his hip pocket, handling the guns with the dexterity of a juggler while they eyed every movement.
“Now, you Pete, tie up his hand with one of them napkins. I’m not going to bale you up this time. Pete, step back of Jim, hand on each shoulder. Lock step to the door, not too fast.”
He set the muzzle of a gun to Pete’s back and marched them under the fading afterglow to the barn and down into he feed-room, where he slammed the door in their faces, snapped the padlock, listened to their muffled threats with a mocking smile and chose one of the two horses, saddling it swiftly and leading it to the back of the house where he anchored it with trailing reins.
“Three’s all of ’em I care to use,” he told himself as he entered the kitchen. He ate quickly, with front and back doors open, listening intently all the time, a napkin spread over the offending blood spots. In some ways Steele was more fastidious than others. “Ham and eggs twice a day ain’t too much,” he said aloud as he finished what remained of the hot coffee. Then he sat back deliberately, rolled a cigarette and smoked it slowly, thinking, while his face, relaxed during the meal, hardened to determination again. Once a little smile crept round his lips.
He swung himself into the saddle, grinning at the pounding of Jim and Pete on the stout walls of their prison, and set his mount to a lope. Steele knew a trail once he had passed over it, and he rode without hesitation across the valley and set the horse at an angle to the slopes, reaching the rim within a few feet of where he had come out of the pines in the morning. This time he did not hesitate but rode on, through the trees in the darkness, trusting to the eyes of his mount, to his own sense of general direction, striking a bare ridge and loping steadily on until he once more turned down grade and, in half a mile, struck a road. Along this he galloped, testing the speed of the horse, which was a good one. He turned off at a gate, entered, left the dirt road for turf at the side, reined up back of some outbuildings, left the saddle and walked down a cattle lane between a corral and a barn. A half moon was lifting over some hills, tangled in trees. Two rounded knobs, parked with bushes, with some tall pines atop, saddled by a ridge, rose a short distance away. On the short ridge showed the blurry outline of a long, low house. Two oblongs of orange light glowed steadily. Steele chuckled softly.
“At home,” he said. “They won’t feel that way in a minute. I hope they haven’t finished all the Scotch.”
A whinny came from the corral. He looked through the bars at a bunch of horses moving in its far corner. He gave a low whistle and one of them came forward, slowly, then with an eager nicker. It was the roan.
“All right, you old pie-eater,” said Steele in a low voice. “I’ll be round for you presently. Hope you’ve had a good feed.”
He spun the cylinders of his own guns, balancing them in his hands with satisfaction, then made straight for the ridge and the Twin Knobs that gave the name to the holding of Bill Sangster, now absent with his wife at the recent strike at Flivver Creek. There had been some attempt to beautify the approach by trimming the natural growth; the scent of garden flowers came to him, wet and dewy as he threaded a path, knowing the way, gained the pergola that ran along the front of the house, and once more spied through unscreened glass.
He saw Hines, with his other two men, Red and Shorty, seated in front of a fire, smoking cigars—Steele’s own cigars. Two bottles were on the table with glasses, one bottle empty, the other containing about a third of its original quantity. A gun in his left hand, Steele opened the door, passed in, his second pistol coming out of the holster in a flash of blue steel as he kicked the door shut behind him and smiled at the astonished trio, starting to rise from their chairs and reaching for their guns.
“No sentry, Hines? Careless. Be seated gents. I’ve come to talk business.” He had the drop on them. Hines dropped back in his seat with a nod to his deputies, who followed his example.
“Ready to talk turkey, are you, J. J.?” asked Hines. “You know what you say may be used against you. I’m not promising anything.”
“You can rope the bull, Hines. Never mind that kind of chatter. I’ll have something to say along that line presently. We can work together. But the favor is on my side, don’t forget that.”
The two men measured glances. Each felt an increased measure of respect, made a new estimate of the other.
“I’ve underrated you, Hines,” said Steele. “You can carry a bluff. But I’ve read your hand. Mine’s all trumps.”
“You pack two aces,” said Hines coolly.
“I know how to play them.”
“Have a drink?”
“Thanks,” said Steele. “I see you’ve helped yourselves,”
“To Sangster’s liquor, not yours.”
“That ain’t the first error you’ve made, Hines. I’ll have a drink, but I’ll trouble you to pour it. You do it, Red,” he added to the taller deputy of the two, whose hair, what was left of it in straggly wisps, had evidently given him his title. “There’s a clean glass in the sideboard over there.” Red glanced at his leader and got up surlily. Steele sat backwards astride a chair, watching every move of the three men, his wrists on his knees, guns in his hands.
“Particular, ain’t you?” growled Red.
“Always have been, since a mere child,” replied Steele. “Thanks. You needn’t hand it to me. Set it down on the table an’ shove over the cigars.” He helped himself to the whiskey glass, and then a cigar, with one hand, one Colt still covering the trio. He bit the end off a cigar, produced a match and flicked it to a light under his nail.
“Now then,” he said, “we’ll talk. Me first.”
“I’m goin’ to make you a damned good offer, Hines,” he went on. “Bear that in mind. I’m figgerin’ you savvy how to read your own hand, as well as how to play it. Also when to lay down a poor one—or get out of a game before you git in too deep. I’ve come up quite recent from Arizony, at the suggestion of a friend of mine, an’ you don’t know a darn thing about me, ’cept that I pack two guns. I know a heap about you, from a friend—same friend. You got no light to sit at this game, Hines, an’ you know it. I’m givin’ you a chance to git out—not because I’m what they call a philanthropist but because I’m figgerin’ on usin’ you,”
Red and Shorty were looking at him astounded, equally so at Hines, who sat imperturbable, his cigar cocked in the corner of his mouth, his eyes intent on Steele, listening to every word with an interest that was manifest enough, for all his pose.
“Go on,” he said. “If you ain’t no philanthropist I ain’t no object of charity, neither.”
“All right, Hines. There are some things I like about you. Your manners to’ards ladies need parin’, bad; an’ your judgment concernin’ ’em is mighty poor. But that’s mebbe the result of your bringin’ up. Now then, Red an’ Shorty is in this game, bein’ interested in your stake money; an’ me needin’ ’em after a bit. Jim an’ Pete, they’re out of it. Thrown up their hands. Go easy, gents,” he rapped out sharply as Red shifted in his seat and a dull red flushed under Hines’s skin. “I ain’t talkin’ just to listen to myself. I’m goin’ to show you a few of my cards, Hines. Make it stud poker ’stead of draw.”
“Ten years ago there was quite a strike of low grade ore nigh to here, they tell me. Petered out—an’ they called the place Flivver Creek. Last year someone strikes again, high grade this time, and the diggin’ don’t flivver. Takin’ out sylvanite worth five thousand a ton up, way up. So high up that a feller could snitch a chunk or two of it, say on’y a few pounds, an’ call it a day. Some folks have been doin’ that. Sangster’s lost some of that rich ore. They figgered there was a regular gang of men workin’ this high-grade racket, takin’ it here one time, out of bins way off the next. Mebbe there was. There’s a reward put up for the capture of the robbers. One thousand dollars. Amount of ore stolen nigher twenty thousand dollars. Might be double that. Hard to tell.
“Naturally, any strangers round here are suspected; that way you suspected me, right off; that way you suspected one or more of the men livin’ over to the valley ranch that neighbors this, where you run in on me this mornin’. Aimed to arrest ’em for high-gradin’. Thought I was one of the gang. Well, I’m not, Hines. Git that. More’n that, I’d like to handle that thousand bucks reward myself. I can use it, more ways than one. You-all trailed those four fellers an’ their Chink up the stream an’ lost ’em. So did I. You come over to Twin Knobs thinkin’ I may trail over here with the lady, an’ you make yourselves considerable to home. Now I’m here.
“Hines, I don’t see you’ve got even a pair in sight. I know you ain’t got a thing buried. I have. Before I turn up I’ll tell you what I want. I’ve got a hunch I can find that high-gradin’ crowd. I’ve got a hunch they’d be out of the country to-night if you hadn’t taken their horses. They ain’t the kind used to walkin’, cept mebbe the Chink, an’ one man, who’s a miner, by the look of his boots. Also they hate to leave the stuff where they’ve cached it. It’s heavy to tote. I can handle ’em easier with you three. It’s hard to git the drop on five men all to once an’ take care of a lady at the same time.”
“She’s with ’em, is she?” said Hines.
“I’m bettin’ that way.”
“You want us to help round ’em up, so you can git that reward?”
Steele only nodded.
“Don’t even want to split it?”
“I’ll give you whatever part of it you feel you’re justified in takin’,” said Steele.
The three sheriffs looked at each other uncertainly, then at Steele. Hines winked at his deputies.
“All right, that goes,” he said. “We’ll help you, seein’ you figger you know where they are. Suppose we-all split the thousand three ways an’ you take the girl.”
Steele’s little finger, flicking at the ash of his cigar, stiffened. The forefinger of the other hand curled about the trigger of the gun. His eyes gleamed as they moved between the lids, menacing in the triangles that showed gray and cold as shadow ice.
“I told you once about parin’ your manners, Hines,” he said. “Clip your words when you talk of ladies, unless you want me to use lead scissors. Savvy?”
Hines forced a laugh.
“No offence meant. Git down to business. When do you aim to lead us to these high-graders?”
“Now. Give me your gun, Hines, an’ hand me your cartridge belt.”
“What in hell do you take me for?”
“A wise man. Hand ’em over or I’ll come an’ take ’em. You Red an’ Shorty, likewise. Pronto!” Steele rose to his feet lithely as a cougar rises from a crouch, his two guns with their muzzles slightly raised, muscles flexed, man and weapons ready for instant action, backed by a will that made itself felt. “Do you suppose I am sucker enough to fall for your idea, Hines?” he said. “Expect you to help me hold up these high-graders without your givin’ me the double-cross? I’m goin’ to give you back your guns—unloaded. They’ll do just as well for a bluff. I can shoot straight enough an fast enough to take care of what shootin’ may be necessary. You can ask Jim about that when you see him. One at a time, now. Lay the belts down on that end of the table. Hold the guns by the barrels.”
“You’ve got the drop on us,” said Hines sulkily. “But, talkin’ about suckers, what kind of poor fish do you fancy we are to take a chance with empty guns in your game?”
“Weak fish, Hines. Stand back.” Steele swept belts and the shells he had ejected from the guns into a drawer of the table. His voice held authority, crisp and resolute. “Come over to this desk, Hines,” he ordered and Hines obeyed. “Don’t try to make a break for that table, Red or Shorty,” he warned. “You’ll never touch the handle of the drawer. Hines, I was afraid you might have rummaged around a bit, but I see you stopped at the whiskey and the cigars. Now I’ll turn up my buried cards. Take a look at those letters on top of the little drawer to the right as you open the desk. There’s a paper or two that may interest you.”
“I thought you said your name was Steele,” said Hines sullenly, after he had gone through the papers.
“It is, up here,” answered Steele. “The other one got in the papers once or twice. If you still feel justified in claimin’ any of that thousand, Hines, you can have it. Otherwise, I play as I said I would. I give you a chance to git out of this game you’ve set into, losin’ nothin’.”
Hines hesitated.
“You called me a liar, once, Hines. I ain’t had any apology for that—yet. If I was you, I wouldn’t double up that apology. I’m givin’ you five minutes to tell Red an’ Shorty just where you find yourself. Then you can saddle up your horses. I’ll saddle mine an’ Miss Deming’s. We’ll take the others along. Saddles for them left over to the other house, I reckon. We can get along without ’em. One saddle on the horse I borrowed from Jim, or Pete. Pick up your guns an’ git busy.”
He finished the Scotch and selected another cigar while the three talked in whispers. Only two of the minutes were needed for decision. Red and Shorty were surly, but cowed. Hines regarded Steele with a reluctant look of tribute. Ten minutes later the four men, Steele on his roan, rode out of the Twin Knobs gate and proceeded along the road that led to the valley holding. Red herded the four unsaddled horses. Shorty led the girl’s.
They turned off where the creek first looped across the road and loped at an angle across country. All dismounted. Two lariats, fastened to convenient trees, made a picket line to which the horses were attached by bridles and halters. With Steele directing the three in front of him, they made their way to the bank of the gulch through which ran the creek. The quarter moon shone on the waterfall. Steele stationed them in the trees. By this time they obeyed him willingly enough. They held knowledge that made them content to trust to his proposition, since there was no comfortable alternative.
Steele snaked out into the open, creeping in the hollows between the shingle bars, peering through the rank weeds at the water, working down close to the edge. He did not go into the stream, nor did he leap to the flat rock, but wriggled back after awhile, his face showing satisfaction. He had found no fresh sign and he had not wanted to.
“See that big flat rock,” he said. “Watch it. Probably have to skin your eyes on it until after sunup. Split the time, if you like. Two sleep and one watch.”
“How about you?” asked Hines.
“Me? I’ll be about. No smokin’, mind. If anything breaks foller my lead. Flash your guns if I tell you to. An empty gun is often as good as a full one—and a damned sight safer.”
V
DAWN painted the rim rock bright coral, a ribbon of light that widened and crept steadily down the hills, chasing the shadows from the canyons, the valleys and the gulches, shining on the stream below the waterfall. A blue jay flew screaming from wood to wood. High up, a buzzard sailed, gaining elevation, seeing the sun long before the earthfolk.
Steele, leaving the dark of the trees before the valley began to lighten, leaving his three recently enlisted henchmen awake and ready for signal or emergency, crept down the creek and, none too willingly, took a position between two boulders that hid him from view of all but the birds, provided he lowered his body flat into the chilly water.
It was the only place from which he could view the downstream edge of the flat rock. This level-faced boulder rested on others that left little interstices between them. Those openings that looked down the current, in the general direction of the gulch, were the only ones in which Steele was interested. He had taken up a position that might easily become ridiculous in case of failure and there were a good many ifs connected with it; also a good many probabilities, certain small clues that were straws to show which way the wind was blowing, or so he believed. Hines and his two satellites were in the edge of the aspens, covered by brake, but he could watch them. He believed them cemented strongly to his own action by self-interest, the strongest of motives, self-interest that included their own personal safety. If one of them attempted to steal away, he had promised, in no uncertain terms, to see that he got no farther than a wounded rabbit could hop.
Half of him soaked, the cold water a sorry substitute for breakfast, he kept his vigil, striving to prevent his teeth from chattering, his whole body from being shaken by a chill, regretting that he had not brought along the last of the Scotch instead of drinking it the night before.
The sun lifted, began to gain warmth, to scorch down between his boulders, and still he saw no sign of what he believed must happen. The others were comparatively comfortable in the shade, couched on the coarse fern. The thought of Jim and Pete immured in the stuffy feed bin equalized matters a little. The mountain water was bitterly cold, all reaction had ceased and he began to fear a cramp. He could not stick to it much longer, he told himself; and there was but one other way, a way not so sure nor so to his liking.
Then, between two of the supporting rocks, he saw the glitter of a pair of eyes, surveying the gulch downstream. They were too large for any animal that might crawl under that ledge to its lair. Steele lost all sense of cold, his blood surged strongly through his body, but he did not stir. The eyes vanished. Slowly the flat rock began to revolve on a pivot, out to one side, gliding over the smooth, rounding top of a large boulder. The figure of a man appeared, coming up out of what seemed solid stone. The figure was dressed in blue blouse and pantaloons of a dark shade, stuff that looked like a cheap grade of sateen, the clothes of a Chinaman. Steele saw the flat-cheeked, yellow face turn to right and left, the body change position, while he lay motionless, wondering whether he would be able to do what he had planned—to get up swiftly from his watery bed, move quickly as a lizard moves and make his strike before the man (surely the Chinese cook at the valley ranch) could take alarm.
The Chinaman carried a bucket. He clambered over the edge of the opening made by the sliding rock, stepped down to the pool, stooped, holding the bucket by bottom and rim, and plunged it into the stream. He did not lift it. Resting on one knee, he suddenly looked up. He had not heard anything, but he had sensed something, a shadow that fell upon the water. His almond eyes, glittering with suspicion, crafty, evil, gazed full into the muzzle of Steele’s gun, saw the tall dripping figure back of the Colt, with its grimly resolute face, its steely glance.
For a split second they made this tableau while Hines and the two deputies stole softly out of the aspens and down to the edge of the creek, wading through to the pile of rocks.
Steele saw the top of a rude ladder showing in the head of a vertical shaft that the flat rock had covered and he spoke quickly, out of a corner of his lips.
“Let the bucket go down stream, softly, you heathen pirate, softly. Good! Now stick up your hands.” The Chinaman hesitated, his yellow skin darkening with anger.
“Me no savvy,” he answered, but he answered in a whisper. Steele said nothing. But, as his trigger finger tightened, the light in his eyes changed, heightening, and, with an indrawn hiss of breath, the Chinaman tossed up his hands, the arms crooked at the elbows. Too swiftly for the eye to follow a knife flashed in his right hand, taken from the back of his collar. Came a shriek that died to a whimper of agonized fear as the muzzle of Steele’s pistol sharply rapped the elbow on what satirists call the funny bone. The knife described a shining parabola to the pool, cutting into it with a sharp splash, as if a fish had leaped.
“Tell Burton to come up. Sabe? Call him up to look at something.”
Hate still lingered in those black eyes, bruised with pain, but deadly fear was in the brain back of them. The Chinaman had seen death before, had dealt it, now he read his own in the hard gray eyes of this man who had risen out of the creek.
“Mister Bu’ton, you come up along me,” he called down. “I want you look see something.”
There was a pause. It was silent in the little gulch, as Hines and Red closed in at a signal from Steele. Shorty deftly frisked the Chinaman for another weapon. There was a step on the ladder. Steele and his aides crouched, and the Chinaman felt Steele’s gun muzzle in his ribs. Steele had let him lower his hand for the moment.
The man who came up the shaft was dressed in a gray flannel shirt, riding breeches and puttees above his well made shoes. A gun swung from a holster on his handsome belt of leather. He was dark, almost swarthy, good-looking in a cocksure way with his hair slicked back, a crisp mustache between aquiline nose and full lips.
“Hands up, Burton!” said Steele quietly. “No noise, please.”
Burton’s eyes widened in astonishment as he saw the four opposed to him, the Chinaman crestfallen.
“Double-crossed me, Ling, did you?” he said in an ordinary tone, “I’ll remember that, later, when you need the black smoke, you yellow mongrel.” He held up his arms and Steele frisked him of the gun, throwing it where the knife had gone, smiling at the look on Hines’s face.
“I’m collecting the guns, Hines,” he said, “just to be on the safe side. There’ll be no dope where you and Ling are going, Burton, They are fussy at Canyon City. You can have your pipe back if you like.” He handed the carved bowl to its astonished owner. “Now then, call up the next man, please. Hines, cover Ling and take him ashore.”
Hines, with a wink at Steele that the prisoners could not interpret, prodded Ling with his weapon, taking him off.
“Next man, Burton,” said Steele. “The jig’s up. Clever hiedout, but your pal with the nails in his brogans left a trail all over the shop. Let’s have him next. Call him.”
“I’ll see you in hell first!” exclaimed Burton with a savage flash of temper.
“You may have to wait some time but you’ll be there sooner than you expect if you’ve made any trouble for Miss Deming.”
“Out on her account, are you?”
“Out for you and the ore, Burton. Lookin’ out for her at the same time.” Burton began to laugh silently.
“You can have her, whoever you are, and welcome. I’ve tamed one or two, but I swear I’d have set her and that fool brother of hers outside hours ago if I wasn’t afraid he’d give us away. He’d have run right into a posse first thing. And his sister has the tongue of a spitfire.” He called down the shaft. “Miss Deming, you and your brother come up. There’s a friend—” Steele gripped him by the throat, shutting off further warning.
“If there’s a back way out of there, Burton,” he said. “I’ll settle with you for that.”
There were light steps below, and the girl coming hurriedly up the ladder, a young man behind her. Steele released his grip. Burton nursed his bruises. Red took him in charge, marched him ashore, lined him up with Ling. The girl’s eyes lighted up as she saw Steele.
“Ling and Burton seized me when you vent over the fall,” she said. “I was picking chokecherries. I couldn’t use the gun.”
“I guessed that,” he said. “You left a clue behind that helped me. This your brother?” The youngster who faced Steele sullenly, showed plainly his relationship in his features.
“Look here,” he said. “My sister told me about you. I wasn’t in on this. They tried to make me; maybe they would have, but—”
“I’ll take your sister’s word for it, later,” said Steele. “Got a gun on you? I’ll have to have that.”
“They took his away last night,” said the girl. “He tried to fight for me, to get us out.”
“Burton start anything?” She flushed.
“No. I think I gave him no chance.” Steele permitted himself to smile in recollection of Burton’s statement.
“Who’s down there now?”
“Arkwright, a miner—he’s a rough sort—and Hull, an assayer.”
“Got the ore down there? The high-grade stuff?” Steele interrogated.
“Yes, we kept it there. They did. I was to make arrangements with the smelter to sell it. But—”
“Never mind that. Your tale’ll keep. Arkwright! Hull! The game’s up. Come along.” There was no answer.
“You are not going down after them?” asked the girl anxiously. “It’s a timbered shaft with a sharp turn. Arkwright built it. It goes under the stream. They’ll kill you if you go down.”
“I’ll send a messenger,” said Steele. “Arkwright, if you don’t come up I’ll bust up your entrance an’ drown the pair of you. Givin’ you one minute before I start in.”
He took out a gunmetal watch, studied the racing seconds. Forty—fifty, passed. Then a deep voice called out.
“We’re comin’.”
“Arms up, hands empty, don’t rush,” commanded Steele. “Shorty, stand by.”
A big man, enormous of shoulder, bowed of leg, bearded heavily, a gun at each hip, came out slowly, forcing a grin. Steele relieved him of his weapons, gave one to the girl, tossed the other into the creek. Followed a sandy-haired man with the face of a trapped fox: Hull, the assayer. He had an automatic in each back pocket.
“One of those is mine,” claimed young Deming.
“You’re better off without one, son,” said Steele, and the automatic splashed into the pool. “One more gun to account for. Keep your arms up, Arkwright. He felt about the giant’s middle and found the gun he had given the girl tucked under the miner’s waistband.
“Deming, you and Shorty here bring up that ore. I reckon it’s sacked. I’ll handle these chaps. Can you make the jump ashore, Miss Deming?” The girl made the leap neatly. The prisoners were lined up at the edge of the aspen wood. Steele turned to Hines.
“You don’t carry handcuffs, do you, Sheriff?”
Hines flushed as he shrugged his shoulders.
‘You should, you know,” admonished Steele. The girl looked at him, wondering where the jest lay. “Part of any real sheriff’s outfit,” went on Steele; “goes with the star. Well, I’ve got some in my saddle bags, as it happens. Link up.”
He deftly joined Burton to Hines, left hand to right, Arkwright to Red, Hull and Ling together. Shorty he ordered to help Deming bring ashore the small but heavy bags of coarse canvas.
“Are you backswipin’ us?” asked Hines, surveying his manacled wrist askance.
“Of course not; sheriff and prisoner, deputy and prisoner. All according to Hoyle an’ Billy Pinkerton. I’m playin’ square, Hines,” he added in a different tone. Suddenly Burton reached out, snatched at the gun that hung by Hines’ side, whirled him round, and pointed the pistol point-blank at Steele. The girl gasped a warning. Steele was bending over the bags of ore, untieing the cord that fastened the mouth of the sack. She struck at the gun as Burton pulled the trigger. It snapped. Snapped again.
“Not loaded, Burton,” said Steele. He caught the girl as she staggered, her face white. She had jumped directly into the line of fire. In the reaction faintness grasped her.
Steele laid her tenderly on the shingle, raced to the creek, scooped up water in his Stetson and spilled it on her face. She was already reviving as the cold drops struck her.
“I’m all right,” she said, sitting up, struggling to her feet, Steele helping her. “It missed fire. I thought he’d kill you.”
“You’re the pluckiest girl I ever met,” said Steele emphatically. “You didn’t know it was unloaded. Usually it’s the other way round,” he jested. “Just the same as if I owed you my life.”
She reddened under his look.
“If you owe me anything,” she said, “after all you have done for me, believe my brother when he says he has done nothing in all this. I will vouch for him. Do not arrest him. I don’t quite understand who you are—”
“No need for mystery any longer,” said Steele. “My right name is Kennedy, Bert Kennedy of Arizona, one-time sheriff; came up here on request of Bill Sangster to look into the high-grading goin’ on at Flivver Creek. Bill’s a friend of mine. So’s his wife. You’ll meet ’em an’ like ’em. No danger about them not likin’ you.”
“Then you and Hines were both working for the same thing.”
“Not exactly.” He grinned at Hines. “Hines and Red there, likewise Shorty, are my deputies, sworn in last night. Hines was just playin’ at bein’ sheriff. That star of his is a trick star. Got all the sacks, Deming? Good; we’ll load ’em on the horses. Your’s is back a way, Miss Deming. You hombres’ll hoof it to the ranch house. Then we’ll let Jim an’ Pete out of the barn an’ git Jim to cook us some breakfast.”
VI
“YOU see,” said Steele to the girl later, “I spotted Hines for a fake almost as soon as I saw him. That star of his is out of date, for one thing. He got on to the combination soon as I did. I’ve an idea that fox-faced Hull got scared and was playin’ double, but I ain’t goin’ too deep into that. Hines aimed to make a mock arrest and clean out with the high-grade stuff himself. He didn’t know me from Adam until I got a chance to tell him. I needed him, specially as they had corraled you. He’s done nothin’ worse than impersonate a sheriff this trip, so I made a bargain with him.
“I’m goin’ to leave you an’ your brother to Twin Knobs while I deliver my crowd at Flivver Creek. Hines an’ the rest’ll be heroes an’ I’m goin’ to let ’em split the thousand reward. I’m paid well over an’ above that on a percentage of what I got back in this ore.”
“Are you a detective, then?”
“I hope not. Just a sheriff an’ a pal of Bill Sangster.”
“How did you find out about that tunnel?”
“It just had to be. They couldn’t fly. I found that cigarette end of your brother’s. I found scratches on the rocks from Arkwright’s shoes and I found the clue you dropped.”
He showed her the hairpin, then put it away again.
“Don’t mind if I keep that for a souvenir?” he asked.
“I wish I could give you something better. Anything.”
“That’s a rash promise. If I ever come to Denver I may look you up and redeem it.” There was something in his voice that brought quick roses to her cheeks, made the lashes veil her eyes. Steele noted it and went on quickly. “And don’t you worry none about that brother of yours. I’ve had a bit of talk with him. He’ll go all right. You see, he’s the same stuff as you. Won’t assay so high, mebbe, but he’ll pan out average.
She took the brown, greasy bit of rock he handed her, marveling at its weight in her palm.
“I am like this?” she asked him.
“That’s the way I figger you. High grade!”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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