CHAPTER X
JACK GOES TO THE HEAD OF THE CLASS
She trailed the bridle reins, went up the porch steps, and drew off hergauntlets. Her hand was outstretched to open the door when her gaze fellupon a large bill tacked to the wall. Swiftly she read it through, and,having read it, remained in suspended motion. For the first time she fullyrealized the danger and the penalty that confronted her.
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS Will Be Paid By Thomas L. Morse For the arrest and conviction of each of the men who were implicated in the robbery of the Fort Allison stage on April twenty-seventh last. A further reward of $1000 will be paid for the recovery of the bullion stolen.
This was what she read, and her eye was running over it a second time whenshe heard the jingle of a spur approaching.
"We're red-hot after them, you see, Miss Lee," a mocking voice drawled."If you want to round up a thousand plunks, all you've got to do is totell me who Mr. Hold-up is."
He laughed quietly, as if it were a joke, but the girl answered with aflush. "Is that all?"
"That's all."
"If I knew, do you suppose I would tell for five thousand--or tenthousand?"
For some reason this seemed to give him sardonic amusement. "No, I don'tsuppose you would."
"You'll have to catch him yourself if you want him. I'm not in thatbusiness, Mr. Flatray."
"I am. Sorry you don't like the business, Miss Lee." He added dryly: "Butthen you always were hard to please. You weren't satisfied when I was arustler."
Her eyes swept him with a look, whether of reproach or contempt he was notsure. But the hard derision of his gaze did not soften. Mentally as wellas physically he was a product of the sun and the wind, as tough andunyielding as a greasewood sapling. For a friend he would go the limit,and he could not forgive her that she had distrusted him.
"But mebbe you'd prefer it if I was rustling stages," he went on, lookingstraight at her.
"What do you mean?" she asked breathlessly.
"I want to have a talk with you."
"What about?"
"Suppose we step around to the side of the house. We'll be freer frominterruption there."
He led the way, taking her consent for granted. With him he carried achair for her from the porch.
"If you'll be as brief as possible, Mr. Flatray. I've been in the deserttwo days and want to change my clothes."
"I'll not detain you. It's about this gold robbery."
"Yes."
She could not take her eyes from him. Something told her that he knew hersecret, or part of it. Her heart was fluttering like a caged thrush.
"Shall we begin at the beginning?"
"If you like."
"Or in the middle, say."
"If only you'll begin anywhere," she said impatiently.
"How will this do for a beginning, then? 'One thousand dollars will bepaid by Thomas L. Morse for the arrest and conviction of each of the menwho were implicated in the robbery of the Fort Allison stage on Apriltwenty-seventh last.'"
She was shaken, there was no denying it. He could see the ebb of bloodfrom her cheeks, the sudden stiffening of the slender figure.
She did not speak until she had control of her voice. "Dear me! What hasall that to do with me?"
"A good deal, I'm afraid. You know how much, better than I do."
"Perhaps I'm stupid. You'll have to be a great deal clearer before I canunderstand you."
"I've noticed that it's a lot easier to understand what you want to thanwhat you don't want to."
Sharply a thought smote her. "Have you seen Phil Norris lately?"
"No, I haven't. Do you think it likely that he would confess?"
"Confess?" she faltered.
"I see I'll have to start at the beginning, after all. It's pretty hard tosay just where that is. It might be when Morse got hold of your father'sclaim, or another fellow might say it was when the Boone-Bellamy feudbegan, and that is a mighty long time ago."
"The Boone-Bellamy feud," echoed the girl.
"Yes. The real name of our friend Norris is Dunc Boone."
"He's no friend of mine." She flamed it out with such intensity that hewas surprised.
"Glad to hear it. I can tell you, then, that he's a bad lot. He was drivenout of Arkansas after a suspected murder. It was a killing from ambush.They couldn't quite hang it on him, but he lit a shuck to save his skinfrom lynchers. At that time he was a boy. Couldn't have been more thanseventeen."
"Who did he kill?"
"One of the Bellamy faction. The real name of T. L. Morse is----"
"--Richard Bellamy."
"How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.
"I've known it since the first day I met him."
"Known that he was wanted for murder in Arkansas?"
"Yes."
"And you protected him?"
"I had a reason." She did not explain that her reason was Jack Flatray,between whom and the consequences of his rustling she had stood.
He pondered that a moment. "Well, Morse, or Bellamy, told me all about it.Now that Boone has recognized him, the game is up. He's ready to go backand stand trial if he must. I've communicated with the authorities inArkansas and I'll hear from them in a day or two."
"What has this to do with the hold-up?"
"That's right, the hold-up. Well, this fellow Boone got your father todrinking, and then sprung it on him to rob the stage when the bullion wasbeing shipped. Somehow Boone had got inside information about when thiswas to be. He had been nosing around up at the mine, and may haveoverheard something. O' course we know what your father would have done ifhe hadn't been drinking. He's straight as a string, even if he does go offlike powder. But when a man's making a blue blotter of himself, thingsdon't look the same to him. Anyhow he went in."
"He didn't. I can prove he didn't," burst from Melissy's lips.
"Be glad to hear your proof later. He ce'tainly planned the hold-up. JimBudd overheard him."
"Did Jim tell you that?"
"Don't blame him for that. He didn't mean to tell, but I wound him up sohe couldn't get away from it. I'll show you later why he couldn't."
"I'm sure you must have been very busy, spying and everything," she toldhim bitterly.
"I've kept moving. But to get back to the point. Your father and Boonewere on the ground where the stage was robbed _either at the time or rightafter_. Their tracks were all over there. Then they got on their horsesand rode up the lateral."
"But they couldn't. The ditch was full," broke from the girl.
"You're right it was. You must be some observing to know when that ditchis full and empty to an hour. I reckon you've got an almanac of tides," hesaid ironically.
She bit her lip with chagrin. "I just happened to notice."
"Some folks _are_ more noticing than others. But you're surely right. Theycame up the ditch one on each side. Now, why one on each side, do youreckon?"
Melissy hid the dread that was flooding her heart. "I'm sure I don'tknow. You know everything else. I suppose you do that, too, if they reallydid."
"They had their reasons, but we won't go into that now. First off whenthey reach the house they take a bunch of sheep down to the ditch to waterthem. Now, why?"
"Why, unless because they needed water?"
"We'll let that go into the discard too just now. Let's suppose yourfather and Boone dumped the gold box down into the creek somewhere afterthey had robbed the stage. Suppose they had a partner up at thehead-gates. When the signal is given down comes the water, and the box iscovered by it. Mebbe that night they take it away and bury it somewhereelse."
The girl began to breathe again. He knew a good deal, but he was still offthe track in the main points.
"And who is this partner up at the canal? Have you got him located too?"
"I might guess."
"Well?"--impatiently.
"A young lady hailing from this _hacienda_ was out gathering flowers all
mo'ning. She was in her runabout. The tracks led straight from here to thehead-gates. I followed them through the sands. There's a little break inone of the rubber tires. You'll find that break mark every eight feet orso in the sand wash."
"I opened the head-gates, then, did I?"
"It looks that way, doesn't it?"
"At a signal from father?"
"I reckon."
"And that's all the evidence you've got against him and me?" she demanded,still outwardly scornful, but very much afraid at heart.
"Oh, no, that ain't all, Miss Lee. Somebody locked the Chink in duringthis play. He's still wondering why."
"He dreamed it. Very likely he had been rolling a pill."
"Did I dream this too?" From his coat pocket he drew the piece of blackshirting she had used as a mask. "I found it in the room where your fatherput me up that first night I stayed here. It was your brother Dick's room,and this came from the pocket of a shirt hanging in the closet. Now, whodo you reckon put it there?"
For the first time in her life she knew what it was to feel faint. Shetried to speak, but the words would not come from her parched throat. Howcould he be so hard and cruel, this man who had once been her best friend?How could he stand there so like a machine in his relentlessness?
"We--we used to--to play at hold-up when he was a boy," she gasped.
He shook his head. "No, I reckon that won't go. You see, I've found thepiece this was torn from, _and I found it in your father's coat_. I wentinto his room on tiptoe that same hour. The coat was on the bed. He hadgone downstairs for a minute and left it there. Likely he hadn't found agood chance to burn it yet." Taking the two pieces, he fitted themtogether and held them up. "They match exactly, you see. Did your fatherused to play with you too when he was a boy?"
He asked this with what seemed to her tortured soul like silken cruelty.She had no answer, none at least that would avail. Desperately shesnatched at a straw.
"All this isn't proof. It's mere surmise. Some one's tracks were found byyou. How do you know they were father's?"
"I've got that cinched too. I took his boots and measured them."
"Then where's the gold, if he took it? It must be somewhere. Where isit?"
"Now I'm going up to the head of the class, ma'am. The gold--why, that's adead easy one. _Near as I can make out, I'm sitting on it right now._"
She gave a startled little cry that died in her throat.
"Yes, it's ce'tainly a valuable wash-stand. Chippendale furniture ain't init with this kind. I reckon the king of England's is ace high against astraight flush when it bucks up against yours."
Melissy threw up her cards. "How did you find out?" she asked hoarsely.
The deputy forced her to commit herself more definitely. "Find out what?"
"Where I put the box."
"I'll go back and answer some of those other questions first. I might aswell own up that I knew all the time your father didn't hold up thestage."
"You did?"
"He's no fool. He wouldn't leave his tracks all over the place where hehad just held up a stage. He might jest as well have left a signed notesaying he had done it. No, that didn't look like Champ Lee to me. Itseemed more likely he'd arrived after the show than before. It wouldn't belike him, either, to go plowing up the side of the ditch, with his partneron the other side, making a trail that a blind man could follow in thenight. Soon as I knew Lee and Boone made those tracks, I had it cinchedthat they were following the lateral to see where the robber was going.They had come to the same conclusion I had, that there wasn't any way ofescape _except by that empty lateral_, _assuming it had been empty_. Theonly point was to find out where the hold-up left the lateral. That's whythey rode one on each side of it. They weren't missing any bets, yousee."
"And that's why they drove the sheep down to water--to hide thewheel-tracks. I couldn't understand that."
"I must 'a' been right on their heels, for they were jest getting thetrotters out of the corral when I reached the place where your rig leftthe water. 'Course I fell back into the brush and circled around so as tohit the store in front."
"But if dad knew all the time, I don't see--surely, he wouldn't have comeright after me and made plain the way I escaped."
"That's the point. He didn't know. I reckon he was sort of guessing aroundin the dark, plumb puzzled; couldn't find the switch at all at first. Thenit come to him, and he thought of the sheep to blind the trail. If I'dbeen half a hour later he would have got away with it too. No, if he hadguessed that you were in the hold-up, him and Boone would have hiked rightout on a false trail and led us into the Galiuros. Having no notion of itat first, he trails you down."
"And the gold--how did you find that?"
"I knew it was either right around the place or else you had taken it onwith you when you went to the head-gates and buried it up there somewhere.Next day I followed your tracks and couldn't find any place where youmight have left it. I knew how clever you were by the way you planned yourgetaway. Struck me as mighty likely that you had left it lying around inplain view somewhere. If you had dumped it out of the box into a sack, thebox must be somewhere. You hadn't had time to burn it before the stage gotback. I drifted back to your kindling pile, where all the old boxes fromthe store are lying. I happened to notice a brass tack in one near theend; then the marks of the tack heads where they had pressed against thewood. I figured you might have substituted one box for another, and insideof ten minutes I stumbled against your wash-stand and didn't budge it.Then I didn't have to look any further."
"I've been trying to get a chance to move it and haven't ever found one.You were always coming around the corner on me," she explained.
"Sorry I incommoded you," he laughed. "But it's too heavy for a lady tolift alone, anyhow. I don't see how you managed it this far."
"I'm pretty strong," she said quietly.
She had no hope of escape from the net of evidence in which he hadentangled her. It was characteristic of her that she would not stoop totricks to stir his pity. Deep in her heart she knew now that she hadwronged him when she had suspected him of being a rustler. He _could_ notbe. It was not in the man's character. But she would ask no mercy of him.All her pride rose to meet his. She would show him how game she could be.What she had sown she would reap. Nor would it have been any use tobeseech him to spare her. He was a hard man, she told herself. Not even afool could have read any weakness in the quiet gray eyes that looked sosteadily into hers. In his voice and movements there was a certaindeliberation, but this had nothing to do with indecision of character. Hewould do his duty as he saw it, regardless of whom it might affect.
Melissy stood before him in the unconscious attitude of distinction sheoften fell into when she was moved, head thrown back so as to bare therounded throat column, brown little hands folded in front of her, erectlygraceful in all her slender lines.
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.
His stone-cold eyes met hers steadily. "It ain't my say-so. I'm going toput it up to Bellamy. I don't know what he'll do."
But, cold as his manner was, the heart of the man leaped to her courage.He saw her worn out, pathetically fearful, but she could face him withthat still little smile of hers. He longed to take her in his arms, totell her it would be all right--all right.
"There's one thing that troubles me. I don't know how father will takethis. You know how quick-tempered he is. I'm afraid he'll shoot somebodyor do something rash when he finds out. You must let me be alone with himwhen I tell him."
He nodded. "I been thinking of that myself. It ain't going to do him anygood to make a gun-play. I have a notion mebbe this thing will unravelitself if we give it time. It will only make things worse for him to gooff half-cocked."
"How do you mean it may unravel itself?" she asked.
"Bellamy is a whole lot better man than folks give him credit for being.I expect he won't be hard on you when he knows why you did it."
"And why did I do it?" she asked quietly.
"Sho! I know why you did it. Jim Budd told you what he had heard, and youfigured you could save your father from doing it. You meant to give themoney back, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I can't prove that either in court or to Mr. Bellamy."
"You don't need to prove it to me. If you say so, that's enough," he saidin his unenthusiastic voice.
"But you're not judge and jury, and you're certainly not Mr. Bellamy."
"Scrape Arizona with a fine-tooth comb and you couldn't get a jury toconvict when it's up against the facts in this case."
At this she brightened. "Thank you, Mr. Flatray." And naively she addedwith a little laugh: "Are you ready to put the handcuffs on me yet?"
He looked with a smile at her outstretched hands. "They wouldn't stayon."
"Don't you carry them in sizes to fit all criminals?"
"I'll have to put you on parole."
"I'll break it and climb out the window. Then I'll run off with this."
She indicated the box of treasure.
"I need that wash-stand in my room. I'm going to take it up thereto-night," he said.
"This _isn't_ a very good safety deposit vault," she answered, and,nodding a careless good-night, she walked away in her slow-limbed,graceful Southern fashion.
She had carried it off to the last without breaking down, but, once in herown room, the girl's face showed haggard in the moonlight. It was onething to jest about it with him; it was another to face the facts as theystood. She was in the power of her father's enemy, the man whose profferof friendship they had rejected with scorn. Her pride cried out that shecould not endure mercy from him even if he wished to extend it. Surelythere must be some other way out than the humiliation of begging him notto prosecute. She could see none but one, and that was infinitely worse.Yet she knew it would be her father's first impulsive instinct to seek tofight her out of her trouble, the more because it was through him that ithad fallen upon her. At all hazards she must prevent this.