CHAPTER XIX.

THE STAGE FROM MONTEGORDO.

“What’s yer name, anyhow?” asked Lonesome Pete.

The man in the “boiled” shirt, the red vest, and the tight trousers coughed and looked embarrassed.

“I almost hate to tell you,” said he.

“Whoa-up, thar, yeh gangle-legged Piute!” yelled Chick Billings, the stage-driver, reaching for the off-leader with his whip-lash. “Calls hisself a hoss, that critter does,” he added to Pete and the stranger; “but he acts more like a blame’ coyote.”

“Thar’s a hull lot o’ folks out hyer as kinder fergits what their names useter be,” went on Pete, addressing the stranger. “A feller’s got a right ter change his name when he crosses the Missoury, comin’ West, if so be he thinks proper.”

“Not me--not on your life!” exclaimed the stranger hastily. “My record is clear----”

“Every ole hardshell in these parts, some on ’em with half a dozen notches, ’ll say that,” cut in Pete, with considerable sarcasm.

The stranger laughed. He had a pink-and-white complexion, and his laugh was mixed up with a vivid blush.

“Sakes alive!” muttered Pete dismally. “If ye had on a sunbunnit, ye’d look like er schoolgal.”

“You see,” and the stranger’s laugh became a trifle more masculine, “my name is Reginald----”

“Wow!” grunted Pete.

“De Bray, Reginald de Bray,” finished the speaker. “I don’t think there’s much in a name, you know, but everybody out in this country sort of pokes fun at mine.”

Lonesome Pete threw back his head, filled his lungs with air, and released his voice with a roaring “He-haw, he-haw!” after the fashion of a restive mule.

Chick Billings laughed.

Reginald de Bray pulled a little note-book from his pocket and made a mark in it with a lead-pencil.

“What’s that fur?” asked Chick Billings.

“I’m just keeping track,” answered the young man softly, as he put away the pencil and the book.

“Keepin’ track o’ what?” asked Lonesome Pete distrustfully.

“Why, of the number of times that ‘he-haw’ racket has been worked on me when I’ve told my name. Your performance was the thirty-sixth time.”

Reginald de Bray heaved a long breath of patient resignation.

The Montegordo stage--which was nothing more than a mountain-wagon drawn by four horses--was well on the road to Sun Dance.

Pete and De Bray were riding with the driver. On the seat behind was a woman--a slender figure of a woman she was, with her face closely veiled. The woman’s seatmate was a rough-and-ready miner named Hotchkiss.

The seat behind the woman and Hotchkiss was occupied by Little Cayuse.

These six--the driver, Pete, De Bray, the woman, Hotchkiss, and the Indian boy--comprised the load. Around the Indian was heaped a carpetbag, two grips, and a mail-pouch.

The woman had not spoken a word since leaving Montegordo. Hotchkiss was almost as silent, being thoughtful and busying himself with his pipe. The Indian was like a graven image, so far as talking was concerned; but, unlike an image, nothing in his vicinity escaped his keen eyes and ears.

Conversation was confined entirely to the three on the driver’s seat.

“Ho-hum!” yawned Lonesome Pete, stretching his long arms. “This hyer ride is plumb tiresome. _Mister_ De Bray,” he added, with elaborate politeness, “the sight o’ such a gent as yerself, in these parts, is almost as uncommon as the sight of a lady,” and his eyes shifted over his shoulder significantly. “Mind tellin’ what yer bizness is in this section?”

“Just looking around the West, that’s all,” replied Reginald de Bray buoyantly.

“Ain’t seen much of it yit, hev ye?”

“Just started.”

“So I reckoned,” muttered Lonesome Pete. “Them clothes o’ your’n is a danger-signal. A real collar an’ a b’iled shirt, say nothin’ of a red vest, is purty nigh a death-warrant fer a man in these parts. The cimiroons what inhabit this hyer waste don’t like sich displays. As soon as we git ter Sun Dance, I’d advise ye ter duck inter a store an’ git inter a rig less noticeable.”

“Why--why,” fluttered De Bray, “I hadn’t any idea that--that----”

“Course ye didn’t,” interrupted Lonesome Pete soothingly. “Ye’re plumb tender in the feet, an’ yer clothes give ye away. Arter takin’ yer sizin’, the hull camp would want ter hev fun with ye, an’ ye kin bank on it that it ’u’d be rough fun.”

“I heard that Mr. Buffalo Bill was in Sun Dance,” said De Bray, “and I have long wanted to meet him. That’s principally why I came this way from Montegordo.”

“He’s thar, all right,” said Pete. “That’s one o’ his pards on the back seat--Leetle Cayuse, they calls him.”

“By Jove!” muttered De Bray, turning squarely around and staring in awe at the Piute boy. “I’ve heard of that Indian,” he went on, facing about. “He don’t look very dangerous, though, does he?”

“He’s retirin’, an’ about the size of a minner, when thar’s nothin’ doin’, but when he digs up the hatchet an’ hits the war-path, he looks like er whale.”

“Is Dauntless Dell in Sun Dance, too?”

“Big as life! An’ Nick Nomad is thar, an’ likewise Wild Bill.”

“Oh, oh!” murmured Reginald de Bray, in a spasm of excitement. “I wonder if the king of scouts would take my little hand in his and lead me off to where the reds and the white outlaws are thickest? Do you think he would?”

There was something in the words that brought Pete’s eyes with a start to the tenderfoot’s face.

“Give it up,” said Pete gruffly. “’Pears ter me, _Mister_ De Bray, that the best place fer you is behind a bomb-proof shelter some’r’s. S’posin’, now, we was ter meet up with a lot o’ highwaymen? S’posin’ they was ter come out from behind the rocks, reg’lar fire-eatin’ handy-boys that ye dassen’t say ‘No’ to. How’d ye like _that_?”

“Br-r-r!” shivered Reginald de Bray. “You--you don’t think there’s any chance of that happening, do you?”

“As long as that pirate, Cap’n Lawless, is loose in the country, anything’s li’ble ter happen.”

The woman on the seat behind leaned forward, and asked, with some apprehension:

“Robbers? Is it possible, sir, that we shall meet with any?”

“I don’t want to alarm ye none, madam,” answered Lonesome Pete, who was merely talking for the effect his words would have on De Bray, “so don’t take what I say too much ter heart.”

“I have a hundred dollars with me,” faltered the woman, “and--and if I do not find the--the person I am looking for in Sun Dance, I shall have to use the money to take me to some other place. It would be hard for a woman to find herself without funds in this dreary country!”

“That’s so!” averred Lonesome Pete sympathetically.

“Pete, thar, is only gassin’,” struck in Hotchkiss, knocking the ashes from his pipe and slowly filling it again, “He’s tryin’ ter string the Easterner, mum, so don’t be in a takin’.”

“But my money!” murmured the woman. “I believe I will hide it, just to be on the safe side.”

“I’ve got a hundred dollars, too,” said Reginald de Bray. “When I get through looking around in Sun Dance, and travel back to Montegordo, there’ll be a draft there for me; but it would be mighty awkward to lose that hundred.”

The woman, taking a handkerchief from the bosom of her dress, had untied one corner and removed a roll of crumpled bills. For a few moments she sat thoughtfully, the bills in her hand. At last she lifted her hands, removed her hat--at the same time being very careful not to displace the veil that covered her face--and took the hat on her lap. The hat was covered with millinery folderols, none too new and all very dusty. In among the feathers and artificial flowers she stowed her hundred dollars, and Hotchkiss chuckled as he watched.

“Good place, mum,” averred Hotchkiss. “Purvidin’ thar was really goin’ ter be a hold-up, ye couldn’t find a better.”

“How would you like to put my money with yours, madam?” asked Reginald de Bray.

“I shall be glad to oblige you, sir,” answered the woman.

Hotchkiss glared at De Bray, and Lonesome Pete shifted disquietly. The woman had a soft, low voice, and it looked rather brutal for the tenderfoot to unload the responsibility of caring for his own money upon such a person.

However, De Bray’s hundred was passed over, and the woman tucked it into the foliage and replaced the hat on her head.

“Now,” she said, with a relieved sigh, “if the worst should happen, I have done what little I could to save my money.”

“I don’t think ye need ter worry none,” said Hotchkiss, glaring at Pete for having started the talk about road-agents.

After this there was silence in the mountain-wagon for a good half-hour. De Bray lighted a cigarette. He also tried to talk, but his attempts were met with chilling silence. Pete, Chick Billings, and Hotchkiss had marked him down in their minds as about the poorest specimen of a tenderfoot they had ever met, and they wanted nothing more to do with him.

At the end of a half-hour a surprise was sprung. The stage-trail, winding along toward the rim of Sun Dance Cañon, entered a stretch where great heaps of boulders massed themselves along each side.

Suddenly a shout, grimly menacing, rang from behind one of the boulders.

“Halt!”

Everybody in the stage gave a startled jump. The unexpected had happened.

Over the tops of the boulders, on each side of the trail, appeared masked faces and leveled rifles.

Chick Billings, recovering from the first shock of surprise, seized his lines in a firmer grip and raised his whip.

“Don’t be a fool, driver!” went on the voice of the unseen speaker. “The leaders are covered, and you and every one in the stage are under our muzzles. You can’t fight, and you can’t run away. Throw up your hands, all of you!”

Lonesome Pete swore under his breath; Hotchkiss muttered angrily; Chick Billings, with a resigned oath, dropped the lines and shoved his hands into the air; De Bray was queerly quiet--considering the fact that he was a recent importation, and the woman, collapsing back in her seat, made not a sound.

As for Little Cayuse, he had vanished from the rear seat, but in the general excitement this fact had not been noticed.

Immediately following his last command, the leader of the road-agents presented himself, riding around a barricade of boulders.

He was well mounted, and, taken altogether, was a striking figure of a man.

His face was concealed by a silk handkerchief, tied just under his eyes. He wore a black sombrero, short, black velvet jacket, with silver-dollar buttons, dark corduroy trousers, and knee-boots of patent leather, with silver spurs at the heels. A gaudy sash about his waist supported a pair of revolvers.

With the guns on each side of the trail drawing a bead on the leaders of the team, and on those in the wagon, the chief of the highwaymen did not find it necessary to draw his own weapons.

Pulling his horse to a halt at one side of the wagon, opposite the front seat, the leader’s black eyes calmly surveyed those whom the rest of his gang held at his mercy.

“Cap’n Lawless!” muttered Lonesome Pete.

With a low laugh, the leader of the robbers pulled the silk handkerchief from his face and thrust it into his pocket.

“I see that I am recognized,” said he coolly. “Very well. It will neither help nor harm matters, as I should probably be suspected of this hold-up, anyway. Throw your property out here in front of me, beside the trail.”

“You ought to know bloomin’ well,” said Chick Billings, “that the driver of this ’ere stage hasn’t any _dinero_ about his clothes. I got a bar o’ chewin’, but----”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” cut in Lawless, “but to the others. The man on your left, who seems to have met me before--I’d like to hear from him first.”

“Shucks!” returned Pete; “I’m just comin’ back from Montegordo, whar I’ve been ter see the sights. How kin ye expect me ter hev any money?”

Lawless pulled out a watch and studied its face.

“I’ve got just three minutes to make a clean-up,” he scowled; “and if I’m not done by that time, my men will open up on the lot of you. You ought to have some consideration for the lady, seems to me.”

“See how much consideration _you’ve_ got fer her!” snapped Hotchkiss, throwing a well-worn wallet on the ground, in front of Lawless.

“Any jewelry?” asked the robber.

“Do I look like a feller that kerried it?” sneered the miner.

Pete pulled a handful of silver money out of his pocket, and threw it after Hotchkiss’ pocketbook.

“Now, you,” went on Lawless, nodding to De Bray.

“Honest,” quavered De Bray, “I haven’t got more’n a couple of dollars about me!”

“What the blazes is a man dressed like you doing in this country with no more than that? That won’t do. If you don’t want to be sent back East in a box, you’ll strip yourself, and be quick about it. It looks to me as though you thought I didn’t mean business.” Lawless’ passive face twisted itself into a demoniacal expression, and he jerked one of his six-shooters from his sash and leveled it. “I’ll give you just a minute, my friend,” he added, “before I shoot you off that seat!”

“Don’t be too quick with your shooting,” begged De Bray, and immediately began pulling his pockets inside-out.

One of the pockets contained two silver dollars. De Bray flung them down at the trailside.

“I told you!” he exclaimed.

“You’ve got more than that!” snapped Lawless. “Fork over, or I’ll shake a load out of this gun!”

De Bray’s eyes grew glassy, and he shivered.

“I--I did have a little more,” he answered; “but--but----”

“But what?” roared Lawless. “Do you think I’m going to stay here all day, palavering with you?”

He made a threatening gesture with his six-shooter.

“I gave it to the lady behind me,” said De Bray desperately. “She hid it among the flowers in her hat, along with----”

Hotchkiss swore a great oath.

“Kill him, Lawless! He ain’t fit ter live!”

Lonesome Pete reached over with a clenched fist, and Chick Billings turned half-around in the seat, with the evident intention of hurling De Bray into the trail.

“Steady, there, all of you!” ordered Lawless. “Keep your places, and hold up your hands. Who’s bossing this game, anyhow? I don’t care a rap what you do with the tenderfoot after I get away from here, but just now it’s my innings. The Easterner has saved his life--you can’t blame him for that.” He spurred his horse a step forward. “Madam,” he added, to the trembling woman, “I’ll trouble you to take your money from the hat and throw it into the road. Did this tenderfoot speak the truth?”

“Y-y-yes!” gasped the woman.

“Then give me the money.”

“Oh, sir,” pleaded the woman, stretching out her hands supplicatingly, “let me keep what’s mine, and----”

“I’m a man of business, and not of sentiment,” said Lawless harshly, “and I may add that I’m not in this dangerous business for my health. The money, quick!”

With a sob, the woman lifted her shaking hands to her hat, tore away the roll of bills, and dropped it beside the rest of the plunder on the ground.

“The meanest coyote thet ever skulked around these hyer hills,” cried the indignant Hotchkiss, “stacks up purty high alongside o’ _you_, Cap’n Lawless!”

“Another yaup like that,” said Lawless savagely, “and I’ll give you your ticket!”

Life is dear to every man, and Hotchkiss, knowing that another word from him would spell his doom and not result in any benefit to the woman, or any one else, smothered his righteous wrath and glared at the man on the horse.

Hot words had also been on Pete’s lips, but he held them back.

“Lawless,” he said, “the rest o’ us aire men, an’ what we got we kin lose, but this hyer happens ter be a woman, an’----”

“Cork!” interrupted Lawless sententiously. Then, again facing the woman, he went on: “Any rings?”

“One,” she whispered; “just one!”

“Throw it after the money!”

“Have you no heart?” wailed the woman. “Spare me the ring!”

“Throw it on the ground!”

Lawless, when he so willed, could be fair-spoken and act the gentleman; but at heart he was a demon, and Hotchkiss’ taunt had driven him to do his worst.

The ring, a plain gold band and plainly a wedding-ring, was dropped on the ground.

“There’s a locket at your neck,” pursued Lawless relentlessly, flashing his fiercely mocking eyes at the scowling Hotchkiss, “and I must have that.”

The woman tore away her veil, revealing a middle-aged face that must once have been very beautiful, and was even now comely withal the lines of sorrow and suffering that crossed it.

A pair of hazel eyes pleaded for the locket, pleaded even more than lips could have done, but fruitlessly.

Slowly the woman unclasped the golden chain, half-stretched the round locket toward Lawless, then drew back the hand and pressed the trinket to her bosom.

“No, no!” she gasped; “I would rather you took my life!”

Leaning suddenly forward in his saddle, Lawless caught the locket away with brutal force.

“This is no time to go against my orders,” he snapped, as the woman, utterly unnerved, sank back in her seat and covered her face with her hands. “Drive on, you!” he added to the driver of the stage. “Don’t stop until you have gone two miles, and don’t one of you dare to look back while you are within gunshot of this place. You’ll be covered as long as you’re within range--mark that!”

Chick Billings stooped down and picked up his lines.

“G’lang, ye pack o’ buzzards!” he spat out at the horses. “Git us out o’ hyer in a hurry, or I’ll be cuttin’ loose an’ makin’ a fool o’ myself.”

Snap, snap went the whip about the leaders’ ears, and the four-horse team bounded away.

Agreeably to orders, no one looked backward; but the final words of the scoundrelly Lawless followed them:

“Buffalo Bill is in Sun Dance. Tell him how Captain Lawless made his clean-up; and tell him that if he wants to follow me and my men, and make a clean-up of his own, we’re only too anxious for him to try!”

What those in the wagon thought was not made known. Hotchkiss, Lonesome Pete, and Chick Billings were furious; Reginald de Bray was quiet and filled with a strange calm; the woman was crying softly in her hands.

The trail made a curve at that point, to avoid a shallow offset of Sun Dance Cañon. When the stage had got well around this curve, two miles from the scene of the hold-up, and almost opposite it, Billings jerked back on the bits, and brought his team to a stop.

“Why,” cried De Bray, starting up from his seat and looking backward, “what’s become of the little Indian, Buffalo Bill’s pard?”

But Chick Billings was not thinking of Little Cayuse just then; nor was Lonesome Pete, nor Hotchkiss.

“You ornery whelp!” breathed Billings, gripping De Bray about the shoulders, “hyer’s whar ye gits yours, an’ git it plenty! Thar’s a rope under the seat, Pete. Lay holt o’ it, an’ reave a noose in the end. We ain’t fur from a tree hyer, an’ I reckons we know what ter do!”

Without a word, the irate Pete reached under the seat.