CHAPTER XI
CHAD DECIDES TO GET BUSY
After his failure to stop Yeager's escape, Culvera lost no time beforestarting a party in pursuit. He knew there was small chance of findingthe American in that rolling sea of hills, but there was at least noharm in making the attempt.
As he walked to Pasquale's headquarters to make a report of the affair,Culvera's mind was full of vague suspicions. How had this man escaped?Had the old general freed him for some purpose of his own? Ramon hadseen condemned prisoners released by his chief before. Always within ashort time some enemy or doubtful friend of Pasquale had died a violentdeath. Was it his turn now? Could it be that Pasquale was anticipatinghis treachery?
To learn that the general was out at three o'clock in the morning lentno reassurance to his fears. After a moment's consideration the youngman turned his steps toward the house where Yeager had been confined.But before starting he stopped in the shadow of a barn to see that hisrevolvers were loose in the scabbards and in good working order. Nor didhe cross the moonlit open direct, but worked to his destination by aseries of tacks that kept him almost all the time in the darkness.
The seventeen-year-old sentry was still doing duty outside the prison.At sight of Culvera he stopped rolling a cigarette to snatch up hisrifle and fling a challenge at him.
"How is it that you have let your prisoner escape?" demanded the officerin Spanish after he had given the countersign.
"Escape? No, senor. Listen. Do you not hear him move?" replied in theboy in the same tongue. "I think the Gringo is having a fit. Forten--twenty--minutes he has beat on the floor and kicked at the walls.To die at daybreak is not to his liking."
"Mil diablos! I tell you I saw him ride away. It is some one else inthere."
"Some one else! But, no--that is impossible. Who else could it be?" Ashe asked the question the boy's jaw fell slack. A horrible suspicionpushed itself into his mind.
"Estupido!" he continued in growing terror. "Can it be--the general?"
"We shall see."
Culvera stepped to the door. It was locked and the key gone. He calledaloud. His only answer was a strange, muffled sound like a groan and thebeating of feet upon the floor.
With the butt of the sentry's rifle he hammered in the door at the lockand by exerting all his strength forced the fastening. Lying in themiddle of the room, bound hand and foot, with his furious face upturnedto the moonlight, was Gabriel Pasquale. Culvera asked no foolishquestions, wasted no time. Kneeling beside his superior officer, he cutthe handkerchief that gagged him and the ropes that tied his limbs.Together Ramon and the guard lifted him to his feet and held him for amoment until his legs regained their power.
"What devil has done this outrage?" asked Ramon.
For a time Pasquale could only swallow and grunt. When the power ofspeech returned, he broke into fierce and terrible maledictions. Hislieutenant listened in silence, extreme concern in his respectful face,an unholy amusement bubbling up behind the deferential exterior.
"Then it was the Gringo?" he asked when his chief ran out of breath andfor the moment ceased cursing.
The insurgent leader went off into another explosion of rage. He wouldcut his heart out while the American devil was still alive. He wouldstake him out on the desert to broil to death beneath a Mexican sun.
Culvera showed the hat that he had punctured with his bullet. "Thus nearI came to avenging you, general. See! One inch lower and I would havetaken off the top of his head. Already Fuentes is pursuing him. Perhapsthis Yeager may be dragged back to justice."
Culvera asked no questions as to why the general was alone with acondemned man at such an hour nor as to how the American had succeededin overpowering him. He understood that his chief's wounded vanity wastorturing the man enough to render curiosity unsafe. But the boyishsentry did not know this. He ventured on a sympathetic question.
"But, senor, Your Excellency, how did this Gringo devil, who wasunarmed, take away your revolver and tie you?"
Pasquale, teeth clenched, whirled upon him. "You--dog of a peon--letyour prisoner walk away without a challenge and then dare to question_me_!"
The old soldier's fist shot out like a pile-driver. The blow lifted theboy from his feet and flung him like a sack of meal against the wall.His body hung there a moment, then dropped to the ground. A faint groanwas the only sound that showed he was not unconscious.
The general strode from the room, Culvera at his heels. The brown maskof his face told no stories of how the younger man was enjoyinghimself.
Before he slept, Ramon had one more pleasant task before him. He rousedHarrison to tell him the news. He sat smiling on the foot of the bed,his eyes mocking the startled face of the prizefighter.
"I come to bring you good news, senor," he jeered. "Your countryman hasescaped."
Harrison sat up in bed. "What's that? Escaped, did you say? Where to?"
The Mexican swept one arm around airily. "How should I know? He'sgone--broke out. He's taken a horse with him."
"A horse!" repeated Harrison stupidly.
"Just so--a horse. To ride upon, doubtless, since he was in somewhat ofa hurry. Odd that a horse happened to be waiting saddled for him at twoin the morning. Not so?"
The American groped toward the point. "You mean--that he had friends,that some one helped him to get away?"
The other man shrugged his shoulders. "Do I? Quien sabe? Anyhow, he'sgone. Must be very disappointing to you, since you had promised yourselfto see his translation to heaven at sunrise."
Harrison expressed himself bitterly in language emphatic and profane.
Meanwhile Culvera smiled pleasantly and sympathetically. "You runPasquale a close second. He cursed the roof off when he found breath."
"I'm not through with Yeager yet. Believe _me_, he'll have oneheluvatime before I'm done," boasted the prizefighter savagely.
"You're still in entire accord with the chief. Yet our friend the Gringorides away in safety and laughs at you both. Ramon Culvera takes his hatoff to Senor Yeager. He has played a winning game with courage andbrains."
"I beat his fool head off when he joined the Lunar Company--the very dayhe joined. When I meet up with him again, I'll repeat," Harrisonbragged, hammering the pillow with his clenched fist.
The Mexican looked politely incredulous. "Maybeso. This I say only.Yeager has played one game with Pasquale, one with you, and one with me.He comes out best each time. Of a sureness he is a strong man, wise,cool, resourceful. Is it not so?"
The prizefighter sputtered with wounded vanity. "Him! The boob's nothingbut a lucky guy. You'd ought to 'a' seen him after I fixed his map thatfirst day. Down and out he was, take my word for it."
"If Senor Harrison says so," assented Culvera with polite mockery. "Butas you say, he laughs best who laughs last. And that reminds me. Heleft a note to be forwarded a friend. Pasquale was too crazy mad to seeit, so I put it in my pocket."
He handed to the other man the note Steve had written for Threewit. Theprizefighter read it in the dim light laboriously.
"It was written, you perceive, before Pasquale shoved his big head intoa trap and gave him a chance to escape," explained the insurgentofficer.
As Harrison read, certain phases of the situation arranged themselvesbefore his dull mind. He was acutely disappointed at the escape of hisenemy, since it was not likely the man would ever be caught again soneatly. But now he forced himself to look beyond this to theconsequences. Yeager would tell all he knew when he reached Los Robles.With the troopers warned against him Harrison knew he could no longermove to and fro as freely on the American side. The very fact that hewas a suspect would greatly hamper his dealings. The Seymours wouldprobably turn against him for betraying the man who had risked his lifeto save Phil from the effects of his folly. And what about Ruth? He knewhe held her by fear of trouble to Phil and by means of a sort ofmagnetic clamp he had always imposed upon her will. Would she throw himover now after she heard the story of the cowpuncher?
His eyes were still fastened sulkily on the note while he was slowlyrealizing these things. One line seemed to stand out from the rest.
_Bust up that marriage if you can._
Harrison ground his teeth with impotent rage. This range-rider alwayshad interfered with his affairs from the first moment he had met him. Ifever he got the chance again to stamp him out--! The strong fingers ofthe man worked with the nervous longing to tighten on the throat of thegay youth who had worsted him in the duel the prizefighter had forcedupon him. The cowpuncher had introduced himself by knocking him down. Afew hours later he had turned a bruised and bleeding face up to him andlaughed without fear as if it were of no consequence.
Yeager had stolen from him his reputation as a daring rider and a goodshot. He had driven him from the Lunar Company. Now he was going back tospoil his plans for making money by rustling American stock and sendingcontraband goods across the line. Not only that; he was going to takefrom him the girl he was engaged to marry.
"By God! I'll give him a run for it," the prizefighter announcedsavagely and suddenly.
"For what?" asked Culvera maliciously.
"My business," retorted Harrison harshly, reaching for his clothes.
Half an hour later he was galloping toward the north. If he could reachLos Robles before Yeager did, he would turn a trick that would stillleave the odds in his favor.