Part 12

He went to his desk, and with shaking fingers he opened a drawer and took out a revolver, which he put in his pocket. He unbuttoned his vest, disclosing a narrow strap across his bosom, attesting to the fact that he was wearing a shoulder-holster. Then he sat down, trying to think just what to do.

“I’ve got to find Tex Alden,” he told himself. “Tex saw me put that money in my safe. —— him, he paid his debt before a witness, and then took it back—took everything in the safe. If he don’t give it back to me, I’ll kill him.”

He flung the two valises behind his desk and walked to the door. Al Porter was coming toward the office. Barnhardt tried to appear indifferent, although he knew Porter would question him. As Porter neared the office, Marion Taylor, Jimmy Legg and Sleepy came riding down the street. Porter came up to Barnhardt, but did not speak, and they watched the riders draw up in front of them.

“Good morning, Mr. Barnhardt,” said Marion. “We looked for you at the depot a while ago. Did you decide to not go away?”

Barnhardt nodded dumbly, because he dared not speak.

“Where’s the tall feller?” asked Porter.

“He went away on the train,” said Sleepy, beginning the manufacture of a cigaret.

“Went away, eh? Gone to stay?”

“No-o-o; just to Encinas.”

Barnhardt swallowed heavily and tried to smile.

“That’s where Al’s girl lives,” he offered.

“He may see her,” replied Sleepy seriously.

Porter stared at Sleepy, wondering if this innocent-eyed cowboy meant anything by that remark.

“We came in pretty early,” said Marion, “and I wonder if the sheriff will let me in the jail.”

“He’s in the office,” growled Porter. “I reckon he will.”

They moved on toward the jail, and Porter turned angrily to Barnhardt.

“That was a —— of a remark to make! You ain’t got no interest in my girl, have yuh?”

“Not a particle.”

“Then never mind about her; _sabe_? You monkey with my business and you’ll get worse than Tex Alden gave yuh.”

“Did you come up here to pick a fight?” queried Barnhardt.

“Any old time I look for trouble, I won’t pick out a —— wide-mouthed lawyer, that’s a cinch.”

Porter turned on his heel and went to the stable, where he saddled his horse and rode out of town.

Barnhardt waited until the three riders had left the sheriff’s office, and then went down there. The sheriff looked quizzically at him.

“I thought you was goin’ away this mornin’, Lee.”

“Changed my mind,” said Barnhardt. “May go tomorrow.”

The sheriff nodded and looked at some papers on his desk.

“Hartley went away this mornin’,” offered Barnhardt.

The sheriff looked up.

“Yeah, they said he did; went to Encinas.”

“Yes. I guess he expected me to go on the same train.”

“Prob’ly did. I told him yuh was goin’ away this mornin’.”

Barnhardt went back to his office, his mind still traveling in circles. He knew what would happen if he accused Tex Alden of opening the safe. Tex was hotheaded, and Barnhardt knew he could never best Tex in any kind of a fair fight. If he accused Tex of theft, he’d never get his money and papers back.

So Barnhardt decided to wait and see, even if the waiting did gall his soul. No one, except himself and the man who opened the safe, knew that such a thing had been done. He had thought of having Tex arrested, but decided that his evidence against Tex only consisted of Tex’s knowing that the eight thousand was in the safe. Barnhardt had counted the package of money, when he was alone, and it contained that amount of currency.

Sleepy, Jimmy and Marion did not ride back to the ranch on the road, but circled through the hills. It was early morning, and they were in no hurry to return. A coyote invited them to a race, and they gave him what he was looking for. Only a barrier of mesquite, into which he sped like a gray shadow, saved him from Sleepy’s loop.

Flocks of white-wing doves hurtled past them, heading for the water-holes; quail called from the slopes; a deer broke from a thicket, and after a few short, stiff-legged jumps, headed up a slope, head cocked back, walking jerkily.

They were nearing the ranch when they described a flock of buzzards, circling low over a little ravine, like scraps of black paper, caught in the grip of a whirlwind.

“Somebody lost a cow,” said Sleepy, “and it’s eatin’ time for Mr. Buzzard.”

“I hope it isn’t any of our stock,” said Marion. “We can’t afford to feed any buzzards this year.”

Jimmy evinced a desire to investigate; so he and Sleepy rode down to the ravine, while Marion circled higher on the hill. The air suddenly filled with flapping buzzards, croaking hoarsely; possibly swearing in their own language on being interrupted at their morning meal.

It was not a cow, but a horse, which lay at the bottom of the ravine; a gray horse, partly eaten by buzzards, but with the brand still showing. Sleepy quickly noticed that its right fore leg was broken about half-way between knee and hock. Further investigation showed that the animal had been shot through the head, and that the shooter had held his gun so close that the powder had scorched the hair.

“Broke a leg and had to be shot,” said Sleepy. “Not so very long ago.”

They mounted and rode back to Marion, who had waited for them. Sleepy explained what caused the buzzards to congregate.

“What brand was on the animal?” she asked. Sleepy rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Well, it happens to be a Double Bar 8.”

“One of our horses?”

“Yeah—a gray. Weigh about a thousand. Got some dark spots on the rump, and its fetlocks are almost black.”

“Why, that horse belonged to Buck! He didn’t ride it often. But I never heard Buck say anything about shooting it.”

“And pretty close to home, too,” observed Jimmy.

The little ravine where the horse lay was not over an eighth of a mile from the Double Bar 8 stable.

“If the wind had blown down from that direction, we’d ’a’ knowed it before this,” grinned Sleepy.

The discovery of this horse interested Sleepy. He felt sure that Buck would have mentioned it at the ranch. The horse had either fallen into the ravine and broke a leg or stepped into a hole. It was also very evident that the rider had mercifully put the animal out of its misery. And Sleepy wondered who, except some of the Taylor outfit, would be riding a Double Bar 8 horse so near the ranch.

He rode to Blue Wells that evening and met Hashknife, whom he told about the dead horse. They found the sheriff at his office, and he let them in to see Buck Taylor. Buck was glad to see them, but denied knowing anything about the horse being dead.

“I ain’t seen that horse for quite a while,” he said. “He wasn’t exactly a good cow-horse; so I let him drift. Plenty of speed, but he never seemed to _sabe_ what it was all about. Who do yuh reckon killed him?”

“Somebody must ’a’ borrowed him, I s’pose,” said Hashknife.

“Well, I wish we was out of here,” sighed Buck. “With all this shootin’ and dynamitin’, I sure hate to stay here. I’d like to find the dirty snake that’s doin’ it all.”

Hashknife and Sleepy left the jail and went to the livery-stable, where they had left Hashknife’s horse that morning. Hashknife had nothing to say about his trip to Encinas, and Sleepy knew that questions were useless. Hashknife always worked on the theory that a secret is safe only with one person.

It was about ten o’clock when they approached the Double Bar 8, riding silently. There was a light in the ranch-house window, and as they drew closer they heard Jimmy’s and Marion’s voices blended in “After the Ball,” accompanied by the old upright organ. The two cowboys drew rein and listened. Off to the left of them a horse nickered softly. They peered in that direction, thinking it was a loose horse.

Then they went on, their horses making little noise in the sandy road, and drew up just outside the patio entrance. They could hear Marion and Jimmy laughing, as Marion tried to strike the right chord on the old organ.

Something prompted Hashknife to walk from his horse to the patio entrance, where he stopped quickly. A man’s voice snapped a warning, a streak of flame flashed toward him, and a bullet crashed into the corner of the entrance.

Two men were running toward the broken place in the wall, stumbling over the débris. Hashknife drew his six-shooter and fired twice, yelling at Sleepy to circle the wall. Another bullet whined off the adobe wall near him, as he started across the patio, heading for where the men had gone out.

Sleepy had dismounted, and he did not think to mount and ride. In fact, he hardly knew what it was all about. He ran around the wall and almost collided with Hashknife, who sprang out through where the dynamite had wrecked the wall.

“What the —— was it?” panted Sleepy.

“Sh-h-h-h-h!” whispered Hashknife. “Listen.”

They stood against the ruined wall, straining their ears for the slightest sound. Then they heard the distant thud of running horses, growing fainter and fainter, as the riders faded away in the hills.

Hashknife swore softly, as he told Sleepy of the two men. Some one had extinguished the lamp in the ranch-house, and Sleepy called, telling them that everything was all right.

They found Marion and Jimmy on the back porch, and told them about the two men who had shot at Hashknife.

“Oh, I’m a fine guard!” said Jimmy bitterly. “Sleepy told me to keep an eye open. But we started singing, and—”

“Oh, it’s all right,” laughed Hashknife. “Nobody hurt. If we’d only gone over and investigated, when that horse nickered, Sleepy, we’d ’a’ had ’em cinched. But I didn’t look for ’em to come back so soon. That’s sure a puzzle. The further I go into this thing, the worse the fog gets.

“They wasn’t over here by the house. They could ’a’ looked in the window and seen who was in there. They might ’a’ been waitin’ for us to come back, but if they were, why did they let us walk in on ’em? I heard one of ’em snap a warnin’; so it kinda looks as though they didn’t expect us just then.”

“Do you think you hit either one of them?” asked Jimmy nervously.

Hashknife laughed.

“I was shootin’ for general results. A man runnin’ in the dark, jumpin’ through a broken wall, is a hard target. And when yuh hit a man with a .45 in any spot, except his hands, arms, or the end of his nose, he won’t go far; so I’ll admit that I missed ’em.”

For the next two nights Hashknife and Sleepy guarded the place, but no one came. The sheriff visited them, but they did not mention anything about the latest development. Hashknife was very thoughtful all the while, but admitted that he was getting nowhere in his deductions. He talked with Marion about Tex Alden and Le Moyne, and she seemed surprized when he told her that it was the general opinion that there was a rivalry over her between Tex and Le Moyne.

“Why, that is ridiculous,” she told Hashknife. “Mr. Le Moyne used to drop in here once in a while, but he hasn’t been here for over a month, except when they all came out to see the ruins of our bunk-house.”

“As far as Tex is concerned, the opinion ain’t far off, is it?”

Marion flushed.

“I liked Tex all right,” she admitted. “He is nice, as long as his temper doesn’t run away with him. Tex has a bad temper, you know.”

“And he hates Jimmy Legg, because Jimmy Legg happens to be here,” observed Hashknife.

Marion looked at Hashknife, her eyes puzzled. Then—

“You don’t think Tex was the one—” she hesitated.

“That tried to kill Jimmy?” Hashknife finished for her.

“Oh, Tex couldn’t do a thing like that, Hashknife!”

“No?” Hashknife smiled slowly. “Yuh don’t think so?”

Marion shook her head quickly.

“Not even if he was mad. He might be mad enough for a moment to kill some one, but not to shoot from ambush.”

“Well,” grinned Hashknife, “I’ll have to mark Tex Alden off my list of customers. It seems that Tex lost eight thousand dollars to Antelope Neal, in a poker game. This was before we came here. Now I’ve been wonderin’ how Tex could afford it.”

“Yes, I heard about it, Hashknife. Tex works on a salary—the salary of a foreman—and he surely couldn’t afford to lose that amount of money. In fact, I don’t see where he got it.”

“I know where he got it,” smiled Hashknife. “But I don’t see where he’ll ever be able to pay it back.”

Further than that Hashknife would not say, although Marion was curious to hear more about Tex Alden.

That evening Hashknife and Sleepy decided to visit Blue Wells, and talked things over with Jimmy.

“We may be back late,” explained Hashknife. “There’s a two-barreled shotgun in the house, and I saw some shells on a shelf in the kitchen. You load that gun, Jimmy, and keep it handy. Lock all the doors, and be sure that every curtain is down. I don’t look for any trouble, but yuh never can tell.”

“I’ll take care of everything,” declared Jimmy. “And I’m not afraid. If anybody comes fooling around here tonight, I’ll give them a surprize. I’ll make it a point to keep awake.”

They rode to Blue Wells after dark that night, and found the three boys fiom the AK at the Oasis. Being Saturday night, there was quite a crowd in town, and the games were flourishing. Johnny Grant, Oyster Shell and Eskimo Swensen welcomed Hashknife and Sleepy with open arms.

Tex Alden, Plenty Goode and Ed Gast were in from the X Bar 6. Tex was cordial, and talked with Hashknife about the dynamiting. Hashknife knew that Tex was wondering where Jimmy Legg was, and finally Tex asked him if Marion wasn’t afraid to stay at the ranch with only the Indian woman.

“Jimmy’s out there,” said Hashknife.

“Do yuh call that protection, Hartley?”

Hashknife smiled, but said nothing. He was thinking of Jimmy and the short, ten-gauge Parker. Le Moyne and several of the men from the Santa Rita mine were in town. In the course of the evening Hashknife sat in on a poker game, in which Tex Alden, Plenty Goode, Johnny Grant, Scotty Olson and Antelope Neal tried to outguess each other in the pastime. Sleepy and Oyster Shell quarreled for hours over a bottle-pool game, which was being refereed by Eskimo Swensen, who had an injured hand, and was unable to play.

It was within an hour of daylight when Hashknife drew out of the poker game. He had won enough to make it worth his while, and Antelope Neal said he had never been more willing to cash in any man’s chips and have his luck out of the game.

Sleepy was glad to go home.

“I’ve walked a hundred miles around that darned pool table,” he declared, as they left the Oasis. “A pile of blankets will look like a bank-roll to me.”

There was a cold breeze blowing as they rode back to the Double Bar 8, and the crimson glow of the rising sun painted the crests of the eastern hills, as they rode in at the stable and put up their horses.

“Well, it don’t look like any more dynamitin’ had been done since we left,” observed Sleepy, as they walked across the patio toward the rear door of the ranch-house.

“All is serene,” said Hashknife, and as he spoke Nanah came to the doorway.

The Indian woman was a pitiful sight. Her face was streaked with blood, her dress torn, and she staggered wearily.

“For —— sake!” gasped Hashknife. He took her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong, Nanah? What happened to you? Where’s Marion and Jimmy?”

There was blood on her hair, and Hashknife could see that a livid welt ran from her right temple and disappeared in her mop of disheveled black hair.

“I do’ know,” she choked. “Men come,” she brushed her hand across her eyes, as though to clear her vision. “Have rag on faces. Knock Jimmy down. Take Marion, go that way.” She leaned one shoulder heavily on Hashknife and pointed east.

“Yuh mean that masked men came and took Marion?”

She nodded dumbly. Hashknife led her to a chair and made her sit down. The room showed signs of a struggle, and there were a number of blood stains on the floor and walls.

“What does it mean, Hashknife?” queried Sleepy anxiously.

“Where’s Jimmy?” asked Hashknife. Nanah shook her head. She didn’t know where he was.

“I hear much noise,” she said dumbly. “I come. Jimmy on floor. I run to door. Man hit me.” Her hand went to her head. “I fall on floor. I do’ know. I look from window, I see.”

“You saw ’em goin’ that way?”

“Yes.”

“How many men, Nanah?”

“I do’ know. I can’t see very good. Too much blood.”

“How long ago, Nanah?”

“I do’ know. Pretty sick in head.”

“She got an awful wallop,” said Sleepy. “Prob’ly got to the window, saw ’em pullin’ out, and collapsed. What’s the program?”

Hashknife ran through the house and came back.

“The shotgun is gone,” he said. “They’ve taken Marion toward Broken Cañon, but the devil only knows just where. Nanah, are you all right? We’ve got to get help. You stay here.”

“Pretty good,” she said. “You go quick.”

They ran back to the stable and saddled their horses. The horses seemed to sense the need of speed, and the two boys mounted on the run. Sleepy stood in his stirrups, his lips opened in a soundless yell. This was action. They swung around the point of a hill, heading up through a swale, a mile or more from the ranch-house. Hashknife spurred in close to Sleepy.

“Get the sheriff and all the boys yuh can get together, and head for Broken Cañon, Sleepy. I’m goin’ back.”

Sleepy did not question him. He had spent too many years with Hashknife to question any action of the tall cowboy. He merely nodded, drew his hat down over his brow and headed for Blue Wells to gather a posse, while Hashknife drew rein, turned around and went back.

The poker game had just broken up, when Sleepy dropped off his horse at the door of the Oasis, and panted out his story.

“Good ——!” exclaimed Tex Alden. “There’s more than one hole-in-the-ground in Broken Cañon! Let’s go!”

Scotty Olson, the sheriff, got his horse, and they rode out of Blue Wells, nine strong; Olson, Sleepy, Tex, Gast, Goode, Johnny Grant, Eskimo and Oyster Shell. There was nothing for them to work on, except that Nanah had said that the men had gone toward Broken Cañon.

XIII—CAPTURED

It would have been difficult for any of Jimmy’s friends to have recognized him, unless they examined him closely. His face was plastered with gore, one eye swelled shut and his lip cut. He had no hat, one sleeve of his shirt flapped behind him, like a streamer tied to his shoulder. He had no saddle. In the crook of one elbow he carried the heavy, double-barrel shotgun. That was the extent of his armament. It was the first time he had ever ridden a bareback horse, and he was having plenty of difficulty in staying on the animal’s back.

Jimmy was still in a daze—but a very determined sort of a daze. All night long he had stayed awake, guarding the ranch-house. Dawn was in sight when he dozed, only to be awakened by a knock on the back door.

“Is that you, Hashknife?” he had asked, and it seemed to him that an affirmative reply had been given. At any rate he had opened the door, only to find himself confronted by three masked men. And before he had time to move, one of the men struck him across the head with a gun barrel, knocking him down. But the blow was a glancing one, and did not knock him out.

Badly dazed he got to his feet, trying to fight, and one of the men drove several smashing blows to his head and face, knocking him out. He had little idea of what happened after that, until returning consciousness gave him a blurred vision of these men taking Marion out of the house. He had tried to get up, but his limbs refused to function.

He saw Nanah crawl to a window, where she managed to look out, before she crumpled to the floor. It seemed years to him before he could get to the window, but his vision had cleared sufficiently to enable him to see the riders going away.

Summoning up every bit of his courage, he secured the shotgun, and managed to stagger to the stable, where he bridled a horse, crawled on its back, and followed them. He was like a man riding through a fog. He had no idea of direction. With his right hand he tried to wipe the blood out of his eyes, but gave it up.

He remembered that there were three men. But that did not matter. He had two cartridges in that shotgun, and he could use the gun as a club, after those shots were gone, he decided. He was no longer the smiling James Eaton Legg, but Jimmy Legg—cowboy. The bookkeeper was gone entirely, and in his place was a bloody-faced young man, who wanted to kill somebody with a shotgun.

Jimmy did not know how long he had ridden. The sun was shining, and his head ached badly. He wanted to stop and lie down, but he kept on going, laughing grimly to himself. The horse stopped, and Jimmy realized that it was standing on the edge of a cañon. He did not know that this was Broken Cañon. Names meant nothing to him. The horse turned to the right and followed the cañon rim. At times they swung far to the right, passing around the head of tributary cañons, but always coming back to the main cañon rim.

Jimmy’s reason was coming back to him now, but it only made the incidents more vivid in his mind. He realized that he had left his six-shooter at the ranch, and that the two cartridges in his gun were all he had.

The horse picked its way among a piled-up mass of big rocks and tangled brush, and came out on sort of mesa. The cañon widened here, its depths purple and gold in the rising sun. On the far side of the cañon were sandstone minarets, gleaming gold-like at the top, banded with red, fading into a deep purple below the sun-line.

But Jimmy had no eyes for the beauties of the sunrise. He could see several people near the cañon rim, a quarter of a mile away, their horses etched in relief against the gray of a huge upthrust slab of gray stone. Then he saw two of the riders turn and ride directly away from the cañon, going at a swift gallop.

He saw the others ride out of sight, as if going down into the cañon. Jimmy felt sure that the first two were men, and if Marion was one of the party, she must have been one of those to go into the cañon. He spurred his horse down through the tangle of brush, heading for that huge gray slab, regardless of mesquite, cactus and other thorny things that tore at his legs.

He reached the spot, and found that a trail led down into the cañon, partly masked by the granite cliff. He could see where it disappeared around a sharp corner, and he wondered how any one could ride down there without being scraped off. But he knew there was only one thing to do—and that was to head down the trail. Clutching the mane of the horse in one hand, and holding his precious shotgun close to his body, he spurred the horse down the narrow trail, leaning away from the cañon depth, but letting the horse take its own gait.

Jimmy had little time to do any observation work. In fact, he had almost forgotten that he was following any one, as his mind was wholly taken up in fear of this rough trail. Suddenly he realized that he was almost at the bottom. He could see the piled-up boulders in the bottom, the glint of a small stream.

His horse slipped, and its pawing hoofs sent a shower of stones off the trail, crashing down through the dry foliage, rattling off the rocks at the bottom. Jimmy had slipped to its rump, but managed to claw his way back. He had dropped his reins, but was not making any effort to recover them for fear of frightening the horse.

Suddenly he felt a tug at his leg, and the horse seemed to fairly fall from under him, while the crash of a shot echoed back and forth from the sides of the cañon. Jimmy sprawled above the horse, falling across his shotgun. For several moments he did not move. Then he drew up his left leg. The bullet had scored him slightly just above the knee-cap, doing little damage.