CHAPTER VI
PLUCKING A PIGEON
Steve slept almost around the clock. He lost breakfast, but was therepromptly for luncheon with the appetite of a harvest hand. During thetwo days' drive he had missed the good home cooking of Mrs. Seymour andhe intended to make up for it.
Orman and Shorty had reached town some time about daylight and hadspread the story of the holdup, so that the dining-room was humming withexcitement. A dozen questions were flung at Steve before he had welltaken his seat. He threw up his hands in surrender.
Before he had finished telling his edited story, Shorty drifted in anddivided the interest. The little extra promptly took the stage away fromYeager, whereupon Daisy Ellington absorbed the attention of Steve. Sheasked a sharp question or two which he answered blandly. It was not hisintention to communicate any suspicions he happened to have.
They were waiting for the dessert. Daisy put her lean, pretty elbows onthe table and her chin in her little doubled fists. A provocativeaudacity was in the tilted smile she flashed at him.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Breeze on, Steve. You're doin' fine. Next scene."
"That's all."
"Say, do I look like I was born yesterday? See any green in my eye,Cactus Center?"
He grinned. "You're sure wise, compadre. But the rest is mostlysuspicions."
"I'm listening," she nodded.
"You're such a Sherlock Holmes I'd hate to go out with the boys if I wasmarried to you."
"I'm your friend and wouldn't wish any such bad luck on you," shecountered gayly. Then, in a lower voice, with a sudden gravity: "Is itHarrison, Steve?"
Amazement sparkled for a moment in his eyes. "With your imagination,Daisy,--" he was beginning when she cut him short.
"You gotta tell me what's on your chest, you transparent kid."
He knew she could keep a secret like a well. Looking round guardedly,his voice fell to a whisper. "If I'd reached town ten minutes earlierI'd 'a' beat him in and showed him up. Threewit won't hear to it, ofcourse, but the man that held me up was Chad Harrison. Take it or leaveit. Just the same it's a fact."
Daisy nodded rapidly several times. "I take it, Steve. Always did knowthere was something shady about the big stiff. And I'll tell yousomething else you don't know. It's through that wild young colt brotherof hers that he's got a strangle hold on Ruth."
Yeager set his lips to a noiseless whistle. "You mean--?"
She flung his question aside with an impatient wave of her hand. "Ican't tell you what I mean. I've got no evidence. But it's true. She'sridiculously fond of that young scamp Phil. Somehow--in someway--Harrison has got the whip hand over him."
His eyes fell on the slender girl waiting on the table at the other endof the room. Her look met his. It almost seemed as if she knew they hadbeen talking about her, for the milky cheek took on a shell-pink tinge.The long lashes fluttered down and she busied herself at once about herwork.
"If she was my sister--"
Daisy did not need a completed sentence to understand his meaning. "Canyou beat it?" she asked with a shrug. "Any gink that knows enough tocome in out of the rain could tell that Chad Harrison is a bad egg. Givehim the once over and you can see that."
After Ruth had arranged the tables for dinner she stole out to the porchfor a breath of fresh air. Already the approach of an Arizona summer wasbeginning to make itself felt during the middle of the day. Yeager satbeneath the wild cucumber vines pleating a horsehair hatband for DaisyEllington.
Ruth liked this brown, lithe cowpuncher, all sinew and bone and muscle.His smile was so warm and friendly, his manner so boyish and yet socompetent. To look into his kind, steady eyes was to know that he couldbe trusted.
She moved in his direction shyly, a touch of pink blooming in her softcheeks. Ruth was charmingly unsure of herself. It was always easy todisturb her composure. Even a casual encounter with the slim,brown-faced range-rider was an adventure for her. Now her pansy eyesdeepened in color with excitement, with the tremulous fear of what shewas to learn.
"Mr. Yeager, I--wanted to ask you about--about the holdup."
"What about it, Miss Ruth?"
"Did you--know any of them?"
"How could I? They were masked." His eyes had taken on a film ofwariness that blotted out for the moment their kindness.
"I didn't know--I thought, perhaps,--" She tried a new start. "Did yousay that three of them were Mexicans?"
"Two of them," he corrected.
There was the least quiver of her lip. "The others were--both big men,didn't you say?"
"I didn't say."
A footstep sounded on the crisp gravel walk. Steve looked up, in time tocatch the flash of warning menace Harrison sent toward the girl.
"Mr. Yeager has been having a pipe-dream, Ruth. Don't wake him up,"jeered the heavy.
Ruth fled unobtrusively and left the men alone.
"Hear you're going on a vacation," said Harrison gruffly.
"You've heard correct." Yeager pleated his hatband with steady fingers.His voice was even and placid.
Harrison looked him over with indolent insolence. "Some folks find thisclimate don't agree with them. Some folks find it better to drift out,casual-like, y' understand?"
"Yes?"
"I'm tellin' it to you straight."
"That you're going to leave? The Lunar Company will miss you," suggestedthe range-rider politely.
"Think you're darned clever, don't you? It's you that's leaving thecompany, Mr. Yeager."
"For a week."
"For good."
"Hadn't heard of it. News to me," answered Steve lightly.
"I'm givin' you the tip. See?"
"Oncet I knew a fellow who lived to be 'most ninety minding his ownbusiness," observed the cowpuncher to the world in general as he held upand examined his work.
"It ain't considered safe to get gay with me. I'm liable to lam yourhead off," threatened the big man sullenly.
"And then again you're liable not to. I'm not freightin' with youroutfit, Mr. Harrison. Kindly lay off of me and you'll find we get alongfine."
Steve rose and passed on his way to the street. Harrison was in twominds whether to force an issue again with him, but something in thecontour of that close-gripped jaw, in the gleam of the steady eyes, wasmore potent than the dull rage surging in him. He let the opportunitypass.
Four Bits carried Yeager away from Los Robles at a road gait. Horse andrider were taking the border trail. It led them through a desolatecountry of desert where the flat-leafed prickly pear and the occasionalpudgy creosote were the chief forms of vegetable life. Now and again aswift might be seen basking on a rock or a Gila monster motionless onthe hillside. The ominous buzz of a rattler more than once made the ponysidestep. Mesa and flat and wash succeeded each other monotonously.
It was after sunset when they drew up at a feed corral in Arixico. Stevelooked after his horse and sauntered down the little adobe street to aChinese restaurant which ostentatiously announced itself as the "NewYork Cafe." This side of the business street was in the territory ofUncle Sam, the other half floated the Mexican flag. After he had eaten,the young man drifted across to one of the gambling-houses that invitedthe patronage of Americans and natives alike.
He found within the heterogeneous gathering usually to be observed insuch a place. Vaqueros brushed shoulders with Chinese laundrymen,cowpunchers with soldiers, peons with cattlemen from Arizona and Texas.Here were miners and soldiers of fortune and plain tramps. More than oneof the shining-eyed gamblers had a price upon his head. Several wereoutlaws. A score or more had taken part in the rapine and the pillage ofthe guerrilla warfare that has of late years been the curse of thecountry. It would have been hard in a day's travel to find an assemblywhere human life was held at less value.
Among these lawless, turbulent siftings of the continent Yeager wasvery much at home. He merged inconspicuously into the picture, a quiet,brown-faced man with cool, alert eyes. Nobody paid t
he least attentionto him. He might be a horse-thief or an honest cowpuncher. It was amatter of supreme indifference to those present. Experience in thatoutdoor frontier school which always keeps open session had taught themthat a man lived longer here when he minded his own business.
Steve stood close to the bar. A prospector leaned against it and talkedto an acquaintance while they drank their beer.
"This here's how I figure it," he was saying. "I had a little dough whenI begun digging gopher holes in these here hills. Not much--say fifteenhundred, mebbe. I sure ain't got it now. Lost it in a hole in theground. Well; I reckon I'll go on looking for it where I lost it."
Casually Yeager sauntered over to the roulette table. A fat man in ducktrousers--he was the agent for a firm of rifle manufacturers, Stevelearned later--was bucking the wheel hard. In front of him lay a pile ofgold-pieces and several stacks of chips. He was very red in the facefrom excitement and cocktails. The range-rider put a half-dollar on thered and won. He let it ride, won again, and shifted the chips to theblack. Once more the goddess of luck favored him. He divided his pile.Half went on the red, the rest on the first number his eye caught. Ithappened to be seventeen. The croupier spun the wheel again. The ballwhirled round, dipped down once or twice, and plumped into thecompartment numbered seventeen.
"Enough's a-plenty. Here's where I cash in," announced Steve cheerfully.
He stuffed the bills carelessly into his pocket and strolled over to thefaro table. Yeager had come on business, not for pleasure. He intendedto play just enough to give a colorable reason for his presence.
His roving eye settled upon the poker table at the rear of the room.Five men were playing. Two were Mexicans, three white. Two of theAmericans were dismissed from Steve's mind with a casual glance. Theywere negligible factors. The third had his back to the observer, but thefigure had a slender, boyish trimness that spoke of youth. The Mexicansitting to his right was a square-built fellow of forty with a scar onthe cheek running from mouth to ear. There was on his face a certainugliness of expression, a furtive cruelty. That there was anunderstanding between him and the man opposite soon became apparent toYeager. They cross-raised the boy, working together to mulct him of thepile of chips in front of him.
It was the Mexican who sat with his back to the wall that drew and heldthe cowpuncher's eye. He too was slender, not much past thirty, but withthe youth long since stamped out of his face. Sleek and black, adominant personality, he sat there warily as a rattlesnake, dark eyesgleaming from a masked, smiling countenance.
The boy was the pigeon, and it was the Mexicans that were plucking him.So much Steve learned within two minutes. He had cut his eye teeth atpoker, and he saw at a glance that this was no game for a youngster.Quietly he moved a step or two closer along the wall. He observed theplay without appearing to do so.
The tension of the game was relieved with casual conversation. The twonegligibles, playing about even, contributed mostly to it. The bulkyMexican added his quota. The boy, a heavy loser, concealed his feelingsunder the bravado expected of a good sport.
They were playing jack pots with a stripped deck, the joker going as afifth ace or to fill a straight or a flush. Several hands were dealtwithout any stayers. The slender Mexican was dealing when the sensationof the game was handed out.
One of the negligibles opened the pot. The bulky Mexican stayed.
In the slow, easy drawl of the Southwest the boy spoke. "Me, I reckonI'll have to tilt it. Got to protect your hand from these wolves, Dave."He pushed in a stack of blue chips.
The third American did not stay. It was now up to the dealer--his name,it appeared, was Ramon Culvera. After a moment's hesitation he measureda stack of blues by those the boy had put in the pot and added to itanother pile of yellows. With a grunt of protest the older Mexicanstayed. The man who had opened the pot dropped out.
"Enough's a-plenty. Me, I got no business trailing along with youhyenas," he explained.
"Different here," commented the boy. "My cards look good enough foranother hike."
Culvera examined his hand carefully, met the raise, and picked up thedeck.
The Mexican with the scar interposed. "But one moment, senor. Let usmake it a good pot." He pushed in all the chips in front of him.
Yeager, standing against the wall, caught the swift flash of surprise inthe eyes of the boy. He counted the chips of the Mexican and then hisown. These he added to the small fortune in the center of the table.
"Call it. I'm fifty-three shy," he said in an even voice.
The range-rider knew without being told that this hand had been dealtfrom a cold deck for the express purpose of cleaning out the boy. Fromthe tenseness of the lithe body, which had become, as it were, a coiledspring, he knew that the lad's suspicions were stirring to life.
The greedy little eyes of Culvera fastened on the boy. He made his firstmistake. "How much you play back, Pheelip?"
The youngster answered. "I said a hundred bucks. I've got fifty-three inthe pot now. That leaves forty-seven."
Culvera's raise was forty-seven dollars. The big Mexican shrugged. "Toosteep for Jesus Mendoza." He threw his cards into the discard.
The boy who had been called Philip laid his cards face down on the tablein front of him.
"Call it," he announced hoarsely. His eyes were fastened steadily on thenimble brown fingers of the dealer.
"Cards?" asked Culvera with an indolent lift of his eyebrows.
Philip hesitated. He had the nine, ten, and jack of clubs, the queen ofhearts, and the joker. This counted as a king-high straight. Steve,standing back and to one side of him, guessed the boy's dilemma. Shouldhe stand pat on his straight or discard the heart and draw to hisstraight flush? Culvera's play had shown great strength and wouldprobably beat the pat hand. The lad took a chance and called for onecard.
Culvera drew two. He left them lying on the table while he discardedleisurely.
"You're all in, Pheelip. It's a showdown. What you got?"
Philip had drawn the six of clubs. He spread his hand with a sweepinggesture. "All blue."
The Mexican shrugged. "Beats me unless I helped." He showed threeeights, then faced the two cards he had drawn. The first was a king ofdiamonds, the second the fourth eight.
"Hard luck, Pheelip," he said, and all his teeth flashed in a friendlysmile as he opened both arms to rake in the chips.
Philip sat silent, his mind seething with suspicions. Culvera had playedhis hand very strangely, unless--unless he had known that a fourth eightwas waiting for him in the deck. The boy looked up, in time to catch avanishing smile on the face of Mendoza.
"Just a moment, Ramon," he called sharply, covering the chips with hishands. "That play--it don't look good to me. A man don't play threes sostrong as that."
Culvera still smiled blandly, though his eyes were very watchful. "Me, Ihave what you call a hunch, Pheelip."
Yeager took two steps forward. "You bet he did. Cold deck, kid. Theother one is in his right-hand coat pocket."
The suavity went out of Culvera's face as a light does from a blowncandle. Snarling, he rose from his seat and faced the cowpuncher.
"Liar! Cabrone!" he hissed, reaching for his gun.
Already the revolver of Mendoza was flashing in the air.
Like a streak Steve's arm swept up. Twice his revolver sounded. Therewas a crash of breaking glass from the incandescent lights. Yeager flunghimself against the table and drove it against Culvera who reeled backagainst the wall and dropped his weapon. The sound of more shots, of mendodging their way to safety, of a sharp cry followed by groans, hadtrodden so swiftly on the heels of the range-rider's action that when heturned a moment later he saw in the semi-darkness a smoke-filled room inthe confusion of chaotic movement.
Philip stood close to him, a smoking .38 in his hand, while Mendoza,clutching at his chair for support, sank slowly to the ground.
Close to the boy's ear spoke Steve. "Beat it. Make your getaway throughthat door. Meet me at Johanson's corral
."
The boy plunged through the doorway into the darkness outside. Towardthe exit after him backed the cowpuncher. Already scattered shots werebeing flung in his direction, but the dim light served him well. Thelast thing he saw before he vanished through the door was Culveragroping for his weapon.