CHAPTER V
AN AIDER AND ABETTOR
Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time ortemper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors Westwhich plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were inhostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiableconversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these theyavoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say aboutrustling.
Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning afterbreakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might havetraveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any morecompetent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode withstraight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasionaldrawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when theyhave something to say.
The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinionwas seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony,expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation.
Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'mgiving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little pieceto the boys."
"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed intothe store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused uponhim.
Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see hiscurly head in the stamp window.
"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdenedhimself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson."
Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed itsternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two forhim.
"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail.
"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly toher newspapers.
"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire."
"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety."
"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife youlost."
She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed throughthe window. "I didn't know it was lost."
"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last,ma'am?"
"I lent it to a friend two days ago."
"Oh, to a friend--two days ago."
His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of somesignificance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her.
"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?"
He asked it casually, but his question irritated her.
"I didn't say, sir."
"That's so. You didn't."
"Where did you get it?" she demanded.
He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to."
Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convictedcriminal. "It's of no importance, sir."
"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson."
She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into theprivate boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiositydemanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteeredinformation.
"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix astirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me."
"Your brother?"
"Yes."
He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I foundit near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on hisway there."
"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily.
She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell backfrom the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more thanhe wanted to know.
Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, butwith an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day,Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You'vearrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'"
Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. Herelaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to restthemselves without dismounting.
"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably.
"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feelawful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm whenKeller touched him on the shoulder.
"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me thetime," he said.
Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wantsyou, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us."
"I won't, Brill."
The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. Atthe corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under theshade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowedhimself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him thatseemed to ally him further with the enemy.
"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?"
"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her andtrouble?" the other demanded abruptly.
"I expect."
"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sisterlent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, ifso, who."
"What for?"
It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards.
"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cowin the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlersmust have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived.In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the manwho had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you whoone of the Malpais rustlers is."
Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he broughtit back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously.
"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his necksays don't go far before a court."
"I expected you to say about that."
"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with coldhostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you couldspring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yourstook twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tellyou, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throwthe blame on a boy I've known all my life."
"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himselfsuggest.
Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point."
"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help."
"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself."
"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongueand help me clear young Sanderson?"
"I sure will--if you prove it to my satisfaction."
Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Readthese."
When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "Thatclears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. Mymind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't _look_ like a waddy. It'slucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet."
"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained.
"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh."
"Then find out the truth about the knife."
Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to helpyou bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it,either."
The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear theboy."
"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back.
Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliageof the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like aball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itselfup in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face withbeady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftl
y it scampered across thepaddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at thefront door.
"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't Itell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering foryou. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle."
'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George WashingtonAbraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stablelike a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchenpresided over by his rotund mother, Becky.
His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From therocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him.
"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebentytimes seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"
"I wanter see Miss Phyl."
"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to foolaway on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable,where you belong."
'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into thatpart of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Beckystared after him in amazement.
"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.
Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left thestore in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool roomfinished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She wassitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.
She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington AbrahamLincoln Randolph?"
"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de liveoak at the corral."
"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----"
"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream itnerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they callKeller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler,and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."
"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazingindignation.
"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by thedead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."
"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot bloodof Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted tostrike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he hadgiven to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person shecould best use for her instrument.
Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender youngamazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in thedusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this youngwoman of many moods.
"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."
The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.
"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the doorhad closed on him.
The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his owntracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----"
"We have," she broke in.
"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager----"
"Jim lied. I asked him to."
"You--what?"
"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jimwas not to blame."
"But--why?"
She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don'tknow. Because he was wounded, I suppose."
"Wounded! Then I did hit him?"
"Yes. In the arm--a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite.After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?"
"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up.
"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer.
"Yes. I'm a fool."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well."
"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down,Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she criedvindictively.
"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was notpleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why."
"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him andkept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed.
"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan ofhis with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn'tpay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log."
Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minuteshad organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours laterat Seven Mile.
At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed withrifles and revolvers, ready for grim business.
From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself thatshe was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooterwho had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as thehours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likelythan that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. Shecould not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sentagainst the one.
There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and herfather were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice hadher horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet herposse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and afterventuring a short distance she would return for fear they might arrivein her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars wereout long before she got back the second time. Nine--ten--eleven o'clockstruck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited.
At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded andwith his hands tied.
"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he wasriding on a wave of triumph.
"I see you have."
Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, andnever had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than thisone. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had nottaken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him.Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had ahandkerchief tied round his head.
As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains ofblood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hairon the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and hischeeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and facewere scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant,as if he had come at the head of a conquering army.
"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically.
She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healycurse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of histriumph.
"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice.
"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had onlyhis bare fists."
"How about him? Is he hurt?"
"I don't know--or care," the man answered sullenly.
"But he must be looked to."
"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up."
"I didn't say it _was_ your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But anyone can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust.They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and Iwill look after him."
"No need of that. Slim will fix him up."
She shook her head. "No, Brill."
His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace.
"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time.I'm not taking chances on him."
"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll bethere in a few minutes."
When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on thelounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. Theprisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at thecorners of his mouth.
"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, DoctorSanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little seancewith your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all goodmixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of hisswollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses heremembered:
"There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."
"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress toldher, ignoring the man's blithe folly.
"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," hecontinued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blameMr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents ofmine."
"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told himdarkly.
"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimesexpectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly.
"Not this time, I think."
Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that thelatter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she didnot know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessarydirections to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on thehead washed and bandaged did she address Keller.
"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor leftit here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said.
"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy itseemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understandingbetween them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, forthat and for everything else you've done for me."
Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. Shewent directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, andit had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of.Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her armsacross the sill.
Two men met beneath her window.
"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.
While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slimspoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that,it won't take us long."
"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.
There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."
"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."
"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."
"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."
"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight forhis life."
They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowingred in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid.They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she hadbeen told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. Whilethe confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticedsubconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.
What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her inthe trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way nomatter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed therustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He hadknown while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him todeath, and he had not even reproached her.
Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it werepossible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course hewas guarded.
She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed alongit to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside.She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have himoutdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or theymight have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. Ifthe latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe placeunder lock and key.
Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted thehouse at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranchriders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creepingclose to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. Infront of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almostupon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.
"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.
It was Tom Dixon.
Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you areguarding the prisoner."
"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.
"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably cannow. I suppose I was nervous."
"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'llguarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!"
She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?"
"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course Ihadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in awhile."
Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about hertiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tomand his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He wasonly a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, heranger against him was all burnt out.
"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded.
"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as hemust.
"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.
She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once insideshe fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hunga key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from therenoiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way withouta light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked.This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storingsupplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went toanother stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight ornine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole,fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.
The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the doorcreaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like atrip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.
"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.
"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.
"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."
She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, andpresently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward tillthey found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at theknots before she remembered a swifter way.
"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case wherepocketknives were kept.
Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.
He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.
"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs.Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute,and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.
The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fenceof the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.
"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.
"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on myhead. Now, go."
"Not till I know why you betrayed me."
"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because youare what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager thisafternoon. Why don't you go?"
"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"
"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."
"Did Yeager tell you that?"
"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there isstill a chance."
"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what Isaid."
A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his handstill on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.
"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.
"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."
Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.
"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caughtunexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.
"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before hewent out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don'tforget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as aclam till you say the word."
With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girlturned on Keller.
"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."
"Will you ask Yeager?"
"Yes, if you'll go."
"All right. I'll go."
Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him fromhis feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers,soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheekwhen she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had sethim trembling strangely.
"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.
He snatched himself away.
But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides.Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands inhis, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swingof the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyesby the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.
"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding herin waves.
"Why are you saving me, girl?"
"I--don't know. I've told you why."
"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while youthink me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"
He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. Ittold her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happenedshe could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, hiskiss tingling through her blood like wine.
She thrust him from her--and he was gone.
She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob withexcitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just nowher whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension forthis prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timedhis steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have ituntied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded thesentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay theopen road, the hills, and safety.
A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat ofrunning feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenlybecome vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered herface with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imaginationconjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while ahuddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.