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Snow had already fallen above timber line, and the horseman, struggling over the summit, looked eagerly down into the broad valleys below, dark with evergreens. There was half an hour more of sunshine, but by the time he had ridden through the belt of lodge-pole pines, those stubborn marchers up to the mountaintops, a stiffening north wind had sheeted the sky from horizon to horizon with clouds.
Even before the rain began he put on his slicker to turn the edge of the gale, but, as he came out of the pines and into the more open and gently rolling lands beyond, the rain was beginning to drive down the valley. The lower he dropped toward the bottom lands the lower dropped the storm clouds above him, until the summits were quite lost in rolling gray masses and a mist of thin rain slanted across the trail.
The mare turned her head sideways to it, taking the brunt on one flattened ear and from time to time shaking off the drops of moisture. Between her and the rider there existed an almost conversational intimacy, it seemed. He had spread out the skirt of his slicker so as to cover as great a portion of her barrel as possible; as the chill of the rain increased, he encouraged her with talk. She replied with a slight pricking of her ears from time to time and often threw up her head in that way horses have when they wish to see the master the more clearly.
Meanwhile, she descended the precipitous trail with such cat-footed activity that it was plain she had spent her life among the mountains. The rider made little effort to direct her but allowed her to follow her own fancy, as though confident that she would take the quickest way to the bottom of the slope. This, indeed, she did, sometimes slackening her pace for a moment to study the lay of the land ahead, sometimes taking a steep down pitch on braced legs, sometimes wandering in easy loops to one side or the other.
In such a manner she came in the dusk of that late, stormy afternoon to the almost level going of the valley floor. Now it was possible to see her at her best, for she sprang out in a smooth and stretching gallop with such easily working muscles that her gait was deceptively fast. Here, again, the rider simply pointed out the goal and then let her take her own way toward it.
That goal was the only building in sight. Perhaps for miles and miles it was the only structure, and the face of the rider brightened as he made out the sharp angle of the roof. The ears of the mare pricked. Their way across the mountains had been a long one; they had been several hours in the snows above timber line; and this promise of shelter was a golden one.
But it was a deceptive promise, for when they came in the face of the driving storm they found that the tall building was not a ranch house but merely a ruined barn. It had once been a portion of a large establishment of some cattle owner, but the house proper and its outlying structures had melted away with the passage of time and the beating of such storms as that of this day. The sheds were mere crumbling ridges; the house was a ragged mound from which rotting timber ends projected. Only the barn subsisted.
It was of vast size. Hundreds of tons of loose hay could have been stored in its mow; scores of horses could have been stalled along its sides. And it had been built with such unusual solidity that, whereas the rest of the buildings had disintegrated, this one kept its original dimensions intact through half of its length. The south front was whole. Only the northern portion of the building had crushed in. But for some reason this combination of ruin and repair was more melancholy than the utter destruction of the rest of the ranch.
The horseman regarded this sight with a shake of the head and then looked again up the valley. But it would be difficult to continue. By this time it must have been sunset, and the storm dimmed the earth to the colors of late twilight. Every moment the wind freshened out of the north, picking up the drifts of rain and whirling them into gray ghost forms. To continue down a blind trail in the face of this gale, with no definite destination, was madness. The horseman resigned himself with a sigh to staying in the ruined barn until dawn.
He rode the mare, therefore, through a fallen section of the south front of the structure and into what had once been the mow. Stale scents of moldy straw still lingered in it.
Once inside, there was barely sufficient light to show the wanderer the dim outlines of the barn, and it was even more imposing in dimensions from within than from without. To the roof was a dizzy rise. A broad space extended on either side to the supporting walls. Half a regiment might bivouac here. Most important of all, the north gable was almost entirely blocked. That end of the building, though fallen, had not yet crumbled to the ground, and the broken roof formed a sort of enormous apron extending against the wind.
As soon as he had discovered this, the wanderer began at once to make systematic preparations for spending the night. He first rode the mare back into the open air to a rain rivulet, where she was allowed to drink. Then he returned, dismounted, gathered some fragments of wood, and lighted a fire.
The first leap of the yellow light transfigured the gloomy place. It started a shudder and dance of great shadows among the network of rafters above and in the corners of the building; it also showed the mare, from which the traveler now removed the saddle and rubbed her down— a bit of work of which most of the other riders of the Rocky Mountains would not have thought. He dried her as well as he could, and, before paying the slightest attention to his own wants, he produced from his saddle bags a mixture of chopped hay and crushed barley, a provision for his horse which he carried with him wherever he went. His glance wandered affectionately over her, for truly she was a beautiful creature.
In color she was a rich bay. Her stature was rather less than the average, for she was not more than fifteen hands and three inches in height; but what she lacked in height she made up in the exquisite nicety of her proportions. At first glance she looked rather too fine for hard mountain work, but a little closer examination showed ample girth at the cinches, nobly sloped shoulders, and quarters to match. In fact, she could have carried a heavyweight, and the bulk of her owner was a trifle for her strength.
He proved a slenderly made fellow as he turned away from the mare and threw more wood on the fire— a man of medium height and in no way imposing physically. His carriage alone struck the eye. He was erect as a whipstock, bore his head high and proudly, and moved with a light, quick step, as though he had been forced to act quickly so often that the habit had formed and hardened on him. That alert and jaunty carriage would in itself have won him some respect, even if his name had not been Ronicky Doone, whose fame in the more southerly ranges was already a notable thing. Horse-breaker, mischief-maker, adventurer by instinct, and fighter for sheer love of battle, he carried on his young body enough scars to have decked out half a dozen hardy warriors of the mountains, but the scars were all he had gained. The quarrels he fought had been the quarrels of others; and, since he was a champion of lost causes, the rewards of his actions went to others.
Now he rolled down his blanket beside the fire, which he had built for the sake of warmth and good cheer rather than for cooking. His fare consisted of hard crackers and was finished off with a draft of cold water from his canteen; then he was ready for sleep.
He found shelter at the north end of the mow. Here a great section of the disintegrating roof had fallen and stood end up, walling away a little room half a dozen paces in length and something more than half of that in width. By the vague light cast from the fire, which was rapidly blackening under the downpour of the rain, he took up his new abode for the night, and Lou followed him into it, unbidden.
He was wakened, after how long an interval he could not guess, by the sound of Lou getting to her feet, and a moment later he heard voices sounding in the big mow of the barn. Other travelers had taken refuge from the storm, it seemed. Ronicky Doone, glad of a chance to exchange words with men, rose hastily and walked to the entrance his quarters.
As he did so, a match was lighted, revealing two men standing beside their horses in the center of the great inclosure.
"A fine place for a meeting," said he who held the match. "How come we got to ride out here to the end of the world?"
His companion answered: "Maybe you'd have us meet up in a hotel or something, where the sheriff could scoop the whole bunch of us in. Is that your idea, Marty?"
Ronicky Doone had already advanced a step toward the newcomers, but as he heard these speeches he slipped back again, and, putting his hand over the nose of Lou, he hissed a caution into her ear. And glad he was that he had taught her this signal for silence. She remained at his back, not daring to stir or make a sound, and Ronicky, with a beating heart, crouched behind his barrier to spy on these strangers.
"All I say, 'Baldy' McNair," said Marty, "Is that the old man is sure stepping out long and hard to make things seem as mysterious as he can. Which they ain't no real need to come clean out here. This makes fifty miles I've rode, and you've come nigher onto eighty. What sense is in that, Baldy?"
The match burned out. Baldy spoke in the dark.
"Maybe the work he's got planned out lies ahead— lies north."
"Maybe. But it sure grinds in on me the way he works. Never no reasons. Just orders. 'Meet here today after sunset.' That's all he says. I up and asks him: "Why after sunset, Jack? Afraid they'll be somebody to see us out there— a coyote or something, maybe?' But he wouldn't answer me nothing. 'You do what I say, ' says he, 'and figure out your reasons for yourself.' That's the way he talks. I say: Is it fit and proper to talk to a gent like he was a slave?"
"Let's start a fire," said his companion. "Talk a pile better when we get some light on the subject."
In a minute or two they had collected a great pile of dry stuff; a little later the flames were leaping up in great bodies toward the roof and puffing out into the darkness.
The firelight showed Ronicky two men who had thrown their dripping slickers back from their shoulders. Marty was a scowling fellow with a black leather patch over his right eye. His companion justified his nickname by taking off his hat and revealing a head entirely and astonishingly free from hair. From the nape of his neck to his eyebrows there was not a vestige or a haze of hair. It gave him a look strangely infantile, which was increased by cheeks as rosy as autumn apples.
"Now," went on Baldy McNair, "let me put something in your ear, Lang. A lot of the boys have heard you knock the chief. Which maybe the chief himself has heard."
"He's give no sign," muttered Marty.
"Son," said Baldy, who was obviously much younger than the man of the patched eye, but who apparently gained dignity by the baldness of his head, "when Jack Moon gives a sign, it's the first sign and the last sign all rolled into one. First you'll hear of it will be Moon asking you to step out and talk to him. And Moon'll come back from that talk alone and say that you started out sudden on a long trip. You wouldn't be the first. There was my old pal 'Lefty' and 'Gunner' Matthews. There was more, besides. Always that way! If they start getting sore at the way he runs things, he just takes them out walking, and they all go on that long journey that you'll be taking one of these days if you don't mind your talk, son! I'm telling you because I'm your friend, and you can lay to that!"
"What I don't see," answered Marty Lang, "is why the chief wants to hang on to a gent forever. You make it out? Once in the band, always in the band. That ain't no sense. A gent don't want to stick to this game forever."
"Oh, ho!" chuckled Baldy. "Is that the way of it? Well, son, don't ever let the chief hear you say that! Sure we get tired of having to ride wherever he tells us to ride, and we want to settle down now and then— or we think that we want to— and lead a quiet life and have a wife and a house and a family and all that. For that matter, there's nothing to keep us from it. The chief don't object."
"Don't object? How can a gent settle down at anything when he's apt to get a call from the chief any minute?"
"Wrong again. Not more'n once every six months. That's about the average. And then it's always something worth while. How long you been with us?"
"Four years."
"Ever gone hungry for four years?"
"No."
"When you was sick, two years back, were you took care of?"
"Sure."
"What did you have when the chief picked you up?"
"Nothing."
"All right. You were down to zero. He picked you up. He gave you a chance to live on the fat. All you got to do in return is to ride with him once in six months and to promise never to leave the band. Why? Because he knows that if ever a gent shakes clear of it he'll be tempted to start talking some day, and a mighty little talk would settle the hash of all of us. That's the why of it! He's a genius, Moon is. How long d'you think most long riders last?"
"I dunno. They get bumped off before long."
"Sure they do. Know why? Because the leaders have always kept their men together in a bunch most of the time. Moon seen that. What does he do? He gets a picked lot together. He gets a big money scheme all planned. Then he calls in his men. Some of 'em come fifty miles. Some of 'em live a hundred miles away. They all come. They make a dash and do the work. Soon's it's done they scatter again. And the posse that takes the tracks has five or six different trails to follow instead of one. Result? They get all tangled up. Jack Moon has been working twenty years and never been caught once! And he'll work twenty years more, son, and never be caught. Because why? Because he's a genius! Steady up! Who's that?"
Straight through the entrance to the mow came two riders.
"Silas Treat and the chief himself," said Lang.
What Ronicky Doone saw were two formidable fellows. One, mounted on a great roan horse, was a broad-shouldered man with a square-cut black beard which rolled halfway down his chest. The other was well-nigh as large, and when he came into the inner circle of the firelight Ronicky saw one of those handsome, passionless faces which never reveal the passage of years. Jack Moon, according to Baldy, had been a leader in crime for twenty years, and according to that estimate he must be at least forty years old; but a casual glance would have placed him closer to thirty-three or four. He and his companion now reined their horses beside the fire and raised their hands in silent greeting. The black-bearded man did not speak. The leader, however, said:
"Who started that fire?"
"My idea," confessed Baldy. "Matter of fact, we both had the same idea. Didn't seem anything wrong about starting a fire and getting warm and dry."
"I seen that fire a mile away," said the leader gloomily. "It was a fool idea."
"But they's nobody else within miles."
"Ain't there? Have you searched all through the barn?"
"Why— no."
"How d'you know somebody didn't come here?"
"But who'd be apt to come this way?"
"Look at those cinders over there. That shows that somebody lately has been here and started a fire. If they come here once, why not again?"
"I didn't notice that place," said Baldy regretfully. "Sure looks like I've been careless. But I'll give the barn a search now."
"Only one place to look," said Jack Moon, "and that's behind that chunk of the roof where it's fallen down yonder."
"All right!" The other nodded and started straight for the hiding place of Ronicky Doone.
The latter reached behind him and patted the nose of the mare, Lou, in sign that she must still preserve the utmost silence. Then he drew his revolver. There was no question about what would happen if he were discovered. He had been in a position to overhear too many incriminating things. Unlucky Baldy, to be sure, would be an easy prey. But the other three? Three to one were large odds in any case, and every one of these men was formidable.
Straight to the opening came Baldy and he peered in, though he remained at a distance of five or six paces. Ronicky Doone poised his gun, delayed the shot, and then frowned in wonder. Baldy had turned and was sauntering slowly back toward his companions.
"Nothing there," he said to the chief, as he approached.
Ronicky hardly believed his ears, but a moment of thought explained the mystery. It was pitch dark behind that screening wall, and the darkness was rendered doubly thick by Baldy's probable conviction that there must be nothing to see behind the fallen roof section. He had come there prepared to find nothing, and he had found the sum of his expectations and no more.
"Sure there ain't?" and Jack Moon nodded. "Which don't mean that you wasn't a fool to light a fire and give somebody a light to shoot you by in case they was somebody lying around. Now, into the saddle both of you. We got a hard ride ahead."
"Something big on hand?" asked Marty Lang.
"There's a lesson for yaller-livered sneaks on hand," said Jack Moon, his deep bass voice floating smoothly back to the ear of Ronicky. "Hugh Dawn has come back to Trainor. We're going to drop in and call on him and ask him what he's been doing all these ten years."
The low, growling murmur of the other three rolled away in the rush of rain beyond the door of the barn. The four horsemen disappeared, and Ronicky stepped out into the light of the dying fire. He had hardly taken a step forward when he shrank back against the wall.
Straight into the door came Jack Moon, who peered uneasily about the barn. Then he whirled his horse away and disappeared into the thick downpour. He had seen nothing, and yet the true and suspicious instinct of the man had brought him back to take a final glance into the barn to make sure that no one had spied on the gathering of his little band.
Small things are often more suggestive, more illuminating, than large events. All that Ronicky had heard Baldy say about Jack Moon and his twenty years' career of crime had not been so impressive as that sudden reappearance of the leader with all the implications of his hair-trigger sensitiveness. Ronicky Doone was by no means a foolish dreamer apt to be frightened away from danger by the mere face of it, but now he paused.
Plainly, Hugh Dawn was a former member of the band, and this trip of Moon's was undertaken for the purpose, perhaps the sole purpose, of killing the offender who had left his ranks. Ronicky Doone considered. If Hugh Dawn had belonged to this crew ten years before, he had probably committed crimes as terrible as any in the band. If so, sympathy was wasted on him, for never in his life had Ronicky seen such an aggregation of dangerous men. It scarcely needed the conversation of Lang and Baldy to reveal the nature of the organization. Should he waste time and labor in attempting to warn Hugh Dawn of the coming trouble?
Trainor, he knew, was a little crossroads village some twenty miles to the north. He might outdistance the criminal band and reach the town before them, but was it wise to intervene between such a man as Jack Moon and his destined victim? Distinctly it was not wise. It might call down the danger on his own head without saving Dawn. Moreover, it was a case of thief against thief, murderer against murderer, no doubt. If Dawn were put out of the way, probably no more would be done than was just.
And still, knowing that the four bloodhounds were on the trail of one unwarned man, the spirit of Ronicky leaped with eagerness to be up and doing. Judgment was one thing, impulse was another, and all his life Ronicky Doone had been the creature of impulse. One man was in danger of four. All his love of fair play spurred him on to action.
In a moment more the saddle was on the back of the mare, he had swung up into his place, flung the slicker over his shoulders, and cantered through the door of the barn.
He turned well east of the trail which wound along the center of the valley. This, beyond question, the band would follow, but inside of half an hour Ronicky estimated that his mount, refreshed by her food and rest, would outfoot them sufficiently to make it safe to drop back into the better road without being in danger of meeting the four.
Such, accordingly, was the plan he adopted. He struck out a long semicircle of half a dozen miles, which carried him down into the central trail again; then he headed straight north toward Trainor. The rain had fallen off to a mere misting by this time, and the wind was milder and came out of the dead west, so that there was nothing to impede their progress. The mountains began to lift gloomily into view, the walls of the valley drew steadily nearer on either side, and at length, at the head of the valley, he rode into the town of Trainor.
With the houses dripping and the street a river of mud under the hoofs of Lou, the town looked like a perfect stage for a murder. Ronicky Doone dismounted in front of the hotel.
There was no one in the narrow hallway which served as clerk's office and lobby. He beat with the butt of his gun against the wall and shouted, for there was no time to delay. At the most he could not have outdistanced Jack Moon by more than half an hour, and that was a meager margin in which to reach the victim, warn him, and see him started in his flight.
Presently an old fellow with a goat beard stumbled down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.
"And what might you want this late, partner?" he inquired.
"Hugh Dawn," said Ronicky. "Where does Hugh Dawn live?"
"Hugh Dawn?" said the other, his eyes blank with the effort of thought. Then he shook his head. "Dunno as I ever heard about any Hugh Dawn. Might be you got to the wrong town, son."
It was partly disappointment, partly relief that made Ronicky Doone sigh. After all, tie had done his best; and, since his best was not good enough, Hugh Dawn must even die. However, he would still try.
"You're sure there's no Dawn family living in these parts?"
"Dawn family? Sure there is. But there ain't no Hugh Dawn ever I heard of."
"How long you been around here?"
"Eight years come next May Day."
'Very well," said Ronicky brusquely, recalling that it was ten years before that Hugh Dawn, according to Jack Moon, had disappeared. "Where is the Dawn house?"
"Old Grandpa Dawn," said the proprietor, "used to live out there, but he died a couple of years back. Now they ain't nobody but Jerry Dawn."
"The son?"
"It ain't a son. She's a girl. Geraldine is her name. Most always she's called Jerry, though. She teaches the school and makes out pretty good and lives in that big house all by herself."
"And Where's the house, man?" cried Ronicky, wild with impatience.
"Out the east road about a couple of miles. Can't help knowing it, it's so big. Stands in the middle of a bunch of pines and—"
The rest of his words trailed away into silence. Ronicky Doone had whipped out of the door and down the steps. Once in the saddle of Lou again, he sent her headlong down the east road. Would he be too late, after this delay at the hotel and the talk with the dim-minded old hotel proprietor?
The house, as he had been told, was unmistakable. Dense foresting of pines swept up to it on a knoll well back from the road, and over the tops of the trees, through the misting rain and the night, he made out the dim triangle of the roof of the building. In a moment the hoofs of the mare were scattering the gravel of the winding road which twisted among the trees, and presently he drew up before the house.
The face of it, as was to be expected at this hour of the night, was utterly blank, utterly black. Only the windows, here and there, glimmered faintly with whatever light they reflected from the stormy night, the panes having been polished by the rain water. As he had expected, it was built in the fashion of thirty or forty years before. There were little decorative turrets at the four comers of the structure and another and larger turret springing from the center of the room. He had no doubt that daylight would reveal much carved work of the gingerbread variety.
A huge and gloomy place it was for one girl to occupy! He sprang from the saddle and ran up the steps and knocked heavily on the front door. Inside, he heard the long echo wander faintly down the hall and then up the stairs, like a ghost with swiftly lightening footfall. There was no other reply. So he knocked again, more heavily, and, trying the knob of the door, he found it locked fast. When he shook it there was the rattle of a chain on the inside. The door had been securely fastened, to be sure. This was not the rule in this country of wide-doored hospitality.
Presently there was the sound of a window being opened in the story of the house just above him. He looked up, but he could not locate it, since no lamp had been lighted inside.
"Who's there?" called a girl's voice.
It thrilled Ronicky Doone. He had come so far to warn a man that his life was in danger. He was met by this calm voice of a girl.
"Who I am doesn't matter," said Ronicky Doone. "I've come to find Hugh Dawn. Is he here?"
There was a slight pause, a very slight pause, and one which might have been interpreted as meaning any of a dozen things. Then: "No, Hugh Dawn is not here."
"Lady," said Ronicky Doone, "are you Geraldine Dawn?"
"Yes," said the voice. "I am she."
"I've heard of you," said Ronicky; "and I've heard of Hugh Dawn. I know that he's in this house. What I want to do is—"
"Whatever you want to do," broke in that amazingly mild voice, "you will have to wait till morning. I am alone in this house. I do not intend to have it entered before daylight comes. Hugh Dawn a not here. If you know anything about him, you also know that he hasn't been here for ten years."
And there was the sound of a window being closed with violence.
To persist in efforts at persuasion in the face of such a calm determination was perfect folly. Besides, there were many explanations. Perhaps Jack Moon had heard simply that Hugh Dawn was coming back to his home, and the traitor to the band had not yet arrived at his destination. Perhaps at that moment the leader was heading straight for a distant point on the road to lay an ambush. "Dawn is in Trainor," he had said, but that might be a metaphorical statement. It might simply mean that he was on the way toward the town. Or perhaps the fugitive had received a warning and had already fled. At any rate, Ronicky Doone felt that he had done more than enough to free his conscience.
But there was one thing that upset this conviction as Ronicky swung back into his saddle and turned the head of weary Lou back down the road through the pines. This was the memory of the voice of the girl. There is no index of character so perfect and suggestive as the voice, and that of Jerry Dawn was soft, quiet, steady. It had neither trembled with fear nor shrilled with indignation. If any of the blood of Hugh Dawn ran in her veins, then surely the man could not be altogether bad.
Of course, this was wild guesswork at best, but it carried a conviction to Ronicky, and when, halfway down to the main road, he remembered how Jack Moon had returned to the door of the barn to investigate a suspicion which was based on nothing but the most shadowy material— when, above all, he recalled how justified that suspicion was— Ronicky Doone determined to imitate the maneuver. For were there not reasons why the girl should refuse to admit that this man Hugh Dawn— her father, perhaps— had returned to his house?
No sooner had the determination come to Doone than he turned the head of his horse and swerved back toward the house for a second time. He now rode off the noisy gravel, walking Lou in the silent mold beneath the trees; and so he came back again to the edge of the clearing. Here he tethered the mare, skirted under shelter of the trees halfway around the house, and then ran swiftly out of the forest and up to the steep shelter of the wall of the dwelling. Here he paused to take breath and consider again what he had done and the possibilities that lay before him.
He could have laughed at the absurdity of what he had done. He was, in reality, stalking a big house which contained no more than one poor girl, badly frightened already, no doubt, in spite of that steady and brave voice. What he was actually doing was spying on the possibility of Hugh Dawn— trying to force himself on the man in order to save his life!
Very well. He would be a sane and thinking man once more. The devil might now fly away with Hugh Dawn for all of him. Let there be an end of this foolishness, Ronicky Doone would turn his back on Dawn and all connected with him. His own path led otherwhere.
He had made up his mind to this point and was turning away, when he heard that within the house which made him stop short and flatten his ear against the wall.
It has already been said that sound and echoes traveled easily in that frame building, with its time-dried wood. And now what Ronicky Doone heard was a slow repetition of creaking sounds one after another, moving through the second story of the building. He recognized the intervals; he recognized the nature of the squeaking and straining. Some very heavy person was moving by stealth, slowly, down one of the upper halls.
Certainly it was not the girl who had spoken to him. Could it be Hugh Dawn? Or was it a member of Moon's band, who might have slipped into the building from the rear, say?
Ronicky Doone intended to investigate.
He began at once to search for a means of entrance. Ordinarily he would have attempted to get in through one of the windows of the basement, but when he tried them, he found every one staunchly secured from within, and when he attempted to turn the catch with the blade of his knife, he could not succeed. The locks had been rusted strongly in place.
Since he could not take the bottom way in, he would take an upper. Yonder, the turret which projected from the upper corner of the building was continued all the way to the ground through the three stories of the house in a set of bow windows. The result was that between the angle of the projecting windows and the wall of the house itself there were scores of footholds, precarious and small to an inexpert climber, but to athletic Ronicky Doone as safe as walking up a stairway.
The chance to use his muscles, moreover, after this chilling wait, was welcome to him, and he went up with the agility of a monkey until he reached the smaller window on the third story of the structure. Here he clambered onto the projecting sill and tried to lift the window. It was locked as securely as those of the basement. There was only the chance that it might have been used more recently and had not been rusted into place.
Accordingly, he opened his stout-bladed knife again and inserted it in the crack between the upper and the lower sash, feeling along toward the center until he reached the little metal crossbar which made the windows secure. It resisted the first tentative pressure. But the second and more vigorous effort made the lock give with a faint squeaking sound. In another instant Ronicky had raised the window and thrust his head into the room.
His whole body followed at once, and, lowering himself cautiously into the room, he found himself at last definitely consigned to the adventure, whatever it might bring forth.
A new atmosphere had at once surrounded him. The air was warmer, less fresh, drier. But more than all these things, it was filled with the personality, so to speak, of human beings. The darkness had a quality not unlike that of a human face. It watched Ronicky Doone; it listened to him as he crouched by the wall and waited and listened.
For now, no matter how innocent his errand, the people of the house, if indeed there were more than the girl present, would be amply justified in treating as a criminal a man who had forced his way into their home. If he were shot on sight the law would not by the weight of a single finger attempt to punish the slayers. And still he persisted in the adventure.
Eventually, by whatever uneasy light filtered from the night and through the window, he made out that the room in which he stood was utterly bare of furniture of any kind. It was deserted. By the soft feel of dust beneath his shoe he shrewdly guessed that it had been deserted a matter of many years, and when he tried the boards with his weight his conjecture was further reinforced by the whisper which replied, and which would have grown into a prodigious squeak had he allowed his whole weight to fall.
This particular made his exit from the room a delicate matter. He managed it without noise only by staying close to the edge of the wall, where the flooring, being here firmly attached, could not possibly have any great play. Facing out to the center of the room, since in this manner he could slide closest to the wall, he managed to get to the hall door of the room and thence into the hall without making a whisper loud enough to have caught the attentive ear of a cat.
Once there he paused again, swaying a little, so lightly was he poised, with the rhythm of his breathing. The house below was still as the grave, but presently it was filled with murmurs. For the wind had freshened and was now striking the house with a renewed vigor. His thought flashed back to Lou, standing patiently in the shelter of the pines, and then he turned again to the work before him.
It was peculiarly embarrassing. He could not simply stand in the hall and shout his good intentions and his warnings. That would be sheer madness. There remained nothing but to hunt through the house and hope to find Hugh Dawn, surprise him, perhaps cover him with a gun, and then deliver his tidings at its point. For otherwise Hugh Dawn, no doubt in terrible fear of his old band, would shoot the first stranger on sight.
Ronicky began to slip down the hall. The noise of the wind, starting a thousand creaks in the house, favored his progress immensely. It covered other footfalls, to be sure, but it also covered his own. In order that the noise he made might be completely blanketed by the shakings of the wind, he waited for flurries of the storm and took advantage of them to make swift progress forward, then paused through the intervals of comparative silence.
So he rumbled down the upper hall balustrade until it swerved to the right and down, leading him onto the stairs. In this way he came down to the second story, where, he was sure, he had first heard the footfalls. It was in utter darkness. Yet by striving continually to pierce the wall of shadow he had so far accustomed his eyes to the strain that he could make out the vague proportions of that wide and lofty hall.
Where the stairs turned easily onto the hall flooring he paused a moment, in a lull of the gale, to wait for the next flurry and the crashing of the rain against the roof. The moment it began he started once more, turning to the right, determined to try each door he came to and so start a gradual examination of the house. But he had hardly taken a step on his way when a light click sounded close behind him, and then a shaft of light struck past his head.
Ronicky Doone whirled and dived down, not away from the direction of the light, but toward it, whipping out his revolver as he fell upon his supporting left arm. The shaft of light, launched from a pocket electric torch, was wandering wildly. Behind it he caught the dimly outlined figure of a man. Then the light fell on him as he gathered himself for another leap, and a revolver roared straight before him.
There was a twitch at the shoulder of his coat— the bullet had come as close as that!— then Ronicky Doone sprang, animallike, from hands to knees, swerving out of the flash of the light as the gun spoke again and missed again. He struck with his left hand as he shot in. All his force, multiplied threefold by nervous ecstasy, went into that whipping punch, and the knuckles crunched home against bone. It was a solid impact. The jar of it left his arm numb to the shoulder, and the vague outline of the man behind the light collapsed.
As he did so, the electric torch fell from his hand, spinning and filling the hall with wild flashings until it struck the floor. The revolver crashed to the boards an instant later, and Ronicky, scooping up the light, turned it down into the face of his victim.
It was a big body, lying with the long arms thrown out crosswise, so completely stunning had the blow been. Ronicky, estimating the power in that now inert bulk, was grateful that his first punch had struck home. In a struggle hand to hand he would not have had a chance for victory.
Somewhere in the distance there was a woman's shrill cry of terror. Ronicky paid little heed to it, for he was too busy examining that upturned face. His victim was a man of about forty-five, with a seamed and lined face, clean shaven, rather handsome, and sadly worn by the passage of time and many troubles, no doubt. But the expression was neither savage nor sneaking. The forehead was broad and high with noble capacity for thought. The nose was strongly but not cruelly arched. The mouth was sensitive. If this were Hugh Dawn, he was by no means the criminal type as Ronicky Doone knew it, and in his wanderings he had known many a yegg, many a robber.
The knocked-out man began to revive and came suddenly to his senses, sitting up and blinking at the dazzling shaft of light. Then he reached for his fallen gun, but the foot of Ronicky stamped over it at the same instant.
All this, of course, from the first snapping on of the light, had filled only a few seconds. Now the calling of the girl broke out clearly upon them as she threw open a door. Ronicky saw her form rushing down toward them and heard the rustling of her clothes. There was the dim flicker of a gun in her hand.
"Lady," said Ronicky, holding the electric light far from him, but still keeping it focused on the face of the other man so that his own body would be in deep comparative shadow. "I'm here for no harm. But mind your gun. If this is Hugh Dawn— if he means anything to you— mind what you do. I've got him covered!"
"Oh, dad!" cried the girl excitedly. "Are you—"
"I'm not hurt," replied the other. "They've got me, that's all. Stand up?"
"Stand up," said Ronicky. "Are you Hugh Dawn?"
The other rose. He was even larger than he had seemed when he was lying on the floor, and his glance wistfully sought his fallen revolver.
"I'm Hugh Dawn, right enough," he said. "I don't figure that you knew that?" And he sneered mockingly at Ronicky. The girl, despite the warnings of Ronicky, had slipped to his side. Now he caught the revolver out of her hand and glared at his captor.
"I see the gun," said Ronicky. "Don't try any play with it, Mr. Dawn. I'm sure watching you close. Understand?"
The other nodded and swallowed. But there was a desperate determination about his face that made Ronicky uneasy.
"Where's— the chief?" gasped Hugh Dawn. "Where's he?"
And his glance rolled up and down the hall.
"Not here," said Ronicky, "but coming."
The other quaked and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Well?"
"Get me straight," said Ronicky. "I've not come here to get you. If I wanted to do that I could shoot you down now. I want something else."
"I know what you want," shouted the other, "but you won't get it! Not if I have to die ten times! Never!"
"What you're talking about," said Ronicky, "I don't know. Here's my yarn; believe it or not, as you want to! I lay out in a barn tonight, heard Jack Moon and his crew plot to come here and grab you, and rode on around them to give you a warning. That's why I'm here. I tried to get through the door. The lady, here, wouldn't talk to me. I played a hunch that you might be here, anyway. I came back, shinnied up the wall, opened a window, and here I am. Does that sound like straight talk to you?"
"Straight enough," said the other gloomily. "Except that it's a lie. Moon and you and the rest— I know I'm through with my trail. I know that I got my back agin' the wall, but I don't care a rap for you all! I won't beg, and I won't tell you where Purchass hid his stuff. That's final! Bring on Moon. I'll tell him the same thing!"
What it all meant Ronicky could only vaguely guess. It was not only the death of Dawn that Moon wished. The renegade also possessed a secret which the outlaws considered beyond price, and for the retention of this secret the man was willing to lay down his life. Naturally enough, the man refused to believe that Ronicky was not an agent of the leader.
"Partner," said Ronicky, "my name's Doone. I ain't very well known up around these parts of the range, but down farther south they'll tell you that I'm a tolerable square shooter. Maybe I ain't any wonder, but nobody that walks on two feet ever accused me of lying. And I give you my word of honor that I got nothing to do with Jack Moon or whatever his name is— him and his men. I've come here to tell you the straight of what I heard tonight. I rode ahead to warn you to start on your way if you want to start without being salted down with lead."
The other was staggered a little.
"How come you to beat out Moon?" he asked.
"I've got the fastest trick in the line of hossflesh that ever packed a saddle," said Ronicky proudly. "I got half an hour to the good on Moon. But you've used up most of that time already. I say, Dawn, if you want to save your life and your secret, whatever that is, start riding now!"
"And jump into the hands of Moon the minute I leave the house?" cried Dawn, the perspiration streaming down his face. "No, sir."
For the first time the girl turned from her father and faced Ronicky. She was not beautiful, but she was very pretty. Her hair was sand-colored and further faded by the sun. Constant exposure had tanned her dark bronze. But her big gray eyes were as bright and as steady as the torch in Ronicky's hand. There was something wonderfully honest and wonderfully feminine about her whole body and the carriage of her head. Ronicky guessed at once that here was a true Western girl who could ride like a man, shoot like a man, perhaps, and then at the end of the trail be gentleness itself. She was tensed with excitement as she looked to Ronicky now.
"Dad," she cried suddenly, "I believe every word he's spoken. His name is Doone. He has nothing to do with the band. And he's come here out of the honest goodness of his heart to warn you of Moon's intentions."
"Thanks, lady," said Ronicky. "It sure does me proud to hear you say that! Dawn, will you come to and see that what she says is the truth? I'll go one further. Now, Dawn, we're on even terms. Would one of Moon's men put you there?"
Hugh Dawn was staggered, for Ronicky had slipped his revolver back into his holster at his right hip. It was worse than an even break for Doone, because Dawn held in his hand, bared of the leather, the light thirty-two-caliber revolver which he had taken from the girl.
"Jerry," he said, "I dunno— I dunno. Moon's more full of tricks than a snake is of poison. But maybe this is square. Maybe this gent ain't got a thing to do with Moon."
"Then," cried Ronicky Doone, with a sudden passion, "for Heaven's sake act on it! Jump out of this house, saddle your hoss, and ride! Because Moon's coming!"
There was such honest eagerness in his voice that Hugh Dawn started as though to execute the suggestion. He only hesitated to say: "How come you to do all this riding and talking for me? What d'you get out of it? What am I to you?"
"You're a gent with four crooks on your heels," said Ronicky calmly. "I heard them talk. I couldn't let a murder be done if I could keep you from it. That's why I'm here."
The other shook his head. But the girl cried: "Don't you see, dad? He's simply— white! For Heaven's sake, believe him— trust in my trust. Get your things together. I'll saddle the gray and—"
The storm of her excited belief swept the other off his feet. He flashed one glance at Ronicky Doone, then turned on his heel and ran for his room.
The girl raced the other way, clattering down the stairs. Perhaps when she sprang outside into the night Jack Moon and his men would already be there. But she had never a thought for danger.
Ronicky Doone only delayed to run into the front room on that floor— the room from which the girl had spoken to him when he tried the front door— and there he lighted the lamp and placed it on the table near the window. After that he sped down the stairs, untethered Lou from her tree at the side of the house, and hurried with her to the back of the house and the old, tumble-down horseshed which stood there.
Lantern light showed there, where the girl was saddling a tall, gray gelding. She was working the cinch knots tight as Ronicky appeared, so fast had been her work, and now her father came from the house at a run, huddling himself into his slicker.
"How could they find out that I come here?" he asked. "After ten years!"
"No time for questions," his daughter said, panting. "Oh, dad, for Heaven's sake use the spurs tonight. Go back. Never return!"
"And leave you here alone?" asked Ronicky sternly. "Not when Moon and his gang are on the way. I seen their faces, lady, and they ain't a pretty lot! Leave you to be found by them? Not in a thousand years."
She grew a little pale at that, but she still kept her head high. "I've nothing to fear," she said. "They wouldn't dare harm me."
"I'll trust 'em dead, not living," said Ronicky. "You're going to ride with your father and on that hoss yonder!"
There was a companion to the gray, hardly so tall, but even better formed.
"He's right," said Hugh Dawn. As he spoke he caught saddle and bridle from their hooks and slapped them onto the horse. "I ain't thinking right tonight. I ain't understanding things. Doone, you put shame on me! Of course I ain't going to leave her alone!"
Ronicky heard these remarks with only half an ear.
He called from the door of the shed, where he had taken his stand: "Now put out the lantern! No use calling them this way with a light!"
He was hastily obeyed. Through the darkness they led out the two grays beside Lou.
"And you, Doone," said Hugh Dawn, who seemed to have been recovering his poise rapidly during the past seconds, "ride down the east road. We'll go over the hills. Tomorrow Jerry can come back, when it's safe. And— Doone, shake hands! I forgive that punch that knocked me cold. Some day we—"
"Shut up," whispered Ronicky Doone impolitely and with savage force. "There they come!"
Four ghostly, silent figures, stooping low, advancing with stealthy stride, came out of the pines and slid toward the house. They could not be distinguished individually. They were simply blurs in the mist of rainfall, but for some reason their very obscurity made them more significant, more formidable. Ronicky Doone heard a queer, choked sound— Hugh Dawn swallowing a horror that would not down.
"And— and I near stayed there in the house and waited— for this!" he breathed.
Ronicky Doone jerked up a threatening fist. Not that there was a real danger that they might be overheard at that distance, but because he had odd superstitions tucked away in him here and there, and one of those superstitions was that words were more than mere sounds. They were thoughts that went abroad in an electric medium and possessed a life of their own. They might dart across a great space, these things called words. They might enter the minds and souls of men to whom they were not addressed. The idea had grown up in Ronicky Doone during long periods of silence in the mountains, in the desert where silence itself is a voice.
That raised fist brought the hunted man's teeth together with a snap. Then the gesture of Ronicky commanded them to go forward, on foot, leading their horses. He himself went last and acted as the rear guard while they trudged out past the horse-shed— blessing the double night of its shadow!— and up the grade, then swerving around among the trees on the narrow uptrail which would eventually take them over the hills. They came even with the side of the house.
"Good Lord!" breathed Dawn. "They sure ain't got up that high already— but— they's a light in the front room— your room, Jerry!"
"I left that lamp," Ronicky Doone told them, grinning. "I thought it'd keep 'em nice and quiet for a while and make 'em sneak up to that door slow and easy, slow and easy— then pop! wide goes the door, and they run in and find— nothing!"
He laughed fiercely, silently— no sound coming save the light catching of his breath.
"You got a brain," said the rescued man.
"Heaven bless you!" whispered his daughter.
"We can climb the hosses now," said Ronicky, who seemed to have been admitted into the post of commander. "No danger of being seen. But ride slow. Things that move fast are seen a pile quicker than things that stand still. Now!"
He gave the example of swinging into the saddle on Lou. The girl, as she imitated, went up lightly as a feather, but Hugh Dawn's great bulk brought a loud grunt from the gray he bestrode, and the three sat a moment, straining in fear. But there was no sound. The four shadows had melted into the greater shadow of the house.
They began at a walk. They climbed higher on the swinging trail among the trees until they were above another eminence and looked down. The house seemed as near as ever, the trail had zigzagged so much to make the altitude. They could see the front of the building clearly, and suddenly the light wobbled, flashed to the side, and almost went out; then it grew dimmer in the center of the apartment.
"They've found out the trick," said Ronicky Doone, speaking in a natural voice and chuckling.
"Hush!" panted the girl.
"We can talk out now, long's we don't do no shouting. They've sprung the trap, and they've got nothing! Not a thing!" He laughed again.
"Thanks to you, partner," said Hugh Dawn. "Thanks to you, lad!" There was a ring to his low voice.
The girl added a pleasant grace note to what her father had said: "To think," she said, "that when you spoke from the door— such a little time ago!— I was paralyzed with fear. I thought you were they. I thought they had come for dad! And— well, every day that he lives from now on, is a day due to you, Mr. Doone; and he will never forget. I will never forget."
For some reason that assurance that she would never forget meant more to Ronicky Doone than any assurance from the grown man.
"Look here," he said, "you don't owe nothing to me. It's Lou that done it. It's Lou that outfooted their hosses and give me the half hour's head start. She piled that up inside of twenty miles' running, too, and after she'd gone a weary way yesterday. Yep, if you got anything to thank, it's Lou. Me, I just done what anybody'd do. I'll leave you folks here," he added, as he got to the top of the crest of the hills with them.
"Leave us? Oh, no!" cried the girl and added hastily: "But of course. You see, I forget, Mr. Doone. It seems that so many things have happened to the three of us tonight that we are all bound together."
"I wish we were," said Hugh Dawn. "But you got your business, lad. Besides, I bring bad luck. Stay clear of me, or you'll have the back luck, too!"
Ronicky's esteem of the man rose up the scale.
"Folks," he said kindly, "I'm one of them with nothing on my hands but a considerable lot of time and an itch for action. Seems to me that there may be some more action before this game's done and over, and I'd sort of like to horn in and have my say along with you, Dawn— if you want me and need me, I mean!"
Dawn answered: "It's on your own head, if you do. Doone, I'm in fear of death. But— need you? Why, man, I have the greatest thing in the world to do, and I'm single-handed in the doing of it. That's all. But if you'll take the chance, why, I'll trust you, and I'll let you in on the ground floor. But if you come with me, lad, you'll be taking the chances. You'll be playing for millions of dollars. But you'll be putting up your life in the gamble. How does that sound to you? But remember that if you come along with me, you get Jack Moon and his tribe of bloodhounds on your trail, and if they ever come up with you, you're dead. Understand?"
"Dad," cried the girl, "I'm burning with shame to hear you talk—"
"It's his concern!" declared her father. "Let him talk out. D'you know what I'm talking about? Millions, girl, millions— not just mere thousands! Millions in bullion!"
"Millions of fun," and Ronicky Doone laughed. "That's what it sounds like to me."
"Then," said the older man eagerly, "suppose we shake on it!"
"No, no!" cried Jerry Dawn. She even rode in between them.
"What d'you mean, Jerry?" asked her father impatiently.
"Oh," she said, "every one has tried the cursed thing, and every one has gone down; and now you take in the one generous and kind and pure-hearted man who has ever come into our lives. You take him, and you begin to drag him down in the net. Oh, Dad, is this a reward for him? Is this a reward for him?"
There was almost a sob in her voice.
"Lady," said Ronicky Doone, "you're sure kind, but I've made up my mind. Remember that story about Bluebeard's wife? She had all the keys but one, and she plumb busted her heart because she couldn't get that one key and see inside that one room. Well, lady, the same's true with me. Suppose I had the key to everything else in the world and just this one thing was left that I could get at; well, I'd turn down all the other things in the world that I know about and take to this one thing that I don't know anything about, just because I don't know it. Danger? Well, lady, danger is the finest bait in the world for any gent like me that's fond of action and ain't never been fed full on it. That's the straight of it."
"Then," said the girl sadly, "Heaven forgive us for bringing this down on your generous heart!" And she drew her horse back.
The two men reached through the dark night and the rain. Their wet, cold hands fumbled, met, and closed in a hard grasp. It was like a flash of light, that gripping of the hands. It showed them each other's minds as a glint of light would have shown their faces.
As the trio plodded on steadily through the night, many things about the father and daughter impressed Ronicky Doone favorably.
There was something so fine, sat naturally well-bred about their whole attitude, that he felt his heart warming to both; and yet there were reasons enough for him to maintain an attitude of suspicion and caution so far as the pair was concerned. He was calling the girl "Jerry" before the ride was ended; both father and daughter were calling him "Ronicky." Those were the chief conversational results of the night.
The ride lasted all the night and well on into the morning. Lou, great-heart that she was, bore up wonderfully. She had the endurance of an Arab horse, and indeed she resembled an Arab in her staunch and tapering build. The big grays struck a hard pace and kept to it, but Lou matched them with her smooth-flowing gait. Her head went down a little as time passed, but when the dawn came, gray and cold under a rainless sky, it showed her still with an ample reserve of strength, while the grays were well-nigh as fagged as though they had covered all her distance of miles in the past twenty-four hours.
For the sake of Ronicky's horse, knowing the distance the mare had covered, the Dawns would have stopped the journey for rest, but Ronicky would not hear of it. As he pointed out, Jack Moon could not attempt to pick up the trail until the morning; and then he probably would only be able to locate it by striking out in a great circle with the house as the center of his sweeping radius. If they pushed straight ahead, stopping only when they had put a solid day's march behind them, they would doubtless pass well beyond the reach of that radius, particularly since the outlaws would be looking for the signs of two horses instead of three. These reasons were so patent that they were accepted, and so the party held on its way.
By midmorning they came in sight of a village among the hills to their left. Ronicky— because he would not be recognized by Moon's scouts in case they inquired after Dawn in that place— rode down into the town and bought supplies; then he rejoined the group on the trail four miles out from the village, and they pressed on for another hour. The sight of a little ruined shack here proved too strong a temptation for them, and they determined to make their day's halt. They were too tired to prepare a meal. Canned beans, crackers, and coffee were their portion. They slept wrapped in their blankets.
At four in the afternoon Ronicky wakened to find that Hugh Dawn was already up. He had kindled a fire in the wrecked stove which, without a chimney, stood in one corner of the shack; and now he sat beside it, his hands wrapped about his knees, a big black pipe clenched between his teeth, and his eyes fixed, through the doorway, upon the south trail. The broad shoulders, which could not be pulled forward even by the draw of the arms in this position; the forward thrust of the heavy head and the powerful neck; the solemn and alert expression of the face— all of these things went to convince Ronicky, as he lay unstirring for a moment in his blankets, that his new-found companion was by no means a soft variety of adventurer. The night before he had shown himself in the most unfavorable, and almost a cowardly, light. But no doubt that was explained as a result of a long hounding— explained by the fact that he was returning from safety into a region where his life would constantly be in danger.
Ronicky could not help admiring the quiet with which the man had been able to light the fire and break up wood and handle the noisy plates of the stove without making sufficient disturbance to waken either him— a remarkably light sleeper at all times— or the girl.
She lay in the position she had taken when she first wrapped herself in the blankets, her face turned up and pillowed in the tumbled masses of her hair. But on her lips, strangely enough, there was the smile of complete happiness and joyous dreams. Ronicky saw the face of the father, as it turned for an instant to the girl, soften wonderfully and lose every stern line. Again his heart warmed to the man.
He sat up in his blankets, was greeted by a smile and a silent raising of the hand, and, after folding his blanket, went outside to find water. He discovered a place a hundred yards away, where a little freshet had pooled its waters in a small lake, and that tempted him to a swim. He came back from his bath and shave, and saw that the father had not changed his position. Only iron muscles and a mind wrapped in the profoundest meditations could have kept him in that cramping posture.
At sight of Ronicky he rose, and, crossing the rotted boards of the floor with marvelous softness, considering his bulk, he came out to greet his new friend.
"What I been thinking," he said, after he had drawn Ronicky far enough away to be out of earshot of the girl, "is that we better get ready for a start and go on, leaving Jerry a note to say that she's better at the house than she is with us. What do you think of that?"
"Only one thing," said Ronicky Doone, after a moment of consideration. "Does Jerry know where you're bound?"
"In a general way she does."
"Then," said Ronicky, "if she knows in a general way, she's apt to follow on and try to find us. Or, if she doesn't do that, she'll go back to the big house and die of loneliness, wondering what's happening to you. And at the house, who knows if Moon won't drop in on her, and take some means of finding out from her where you've gone— eh?"
"It'd take torture to get that out of her."
"That's just what I mean."
Hugh Dawn started.
Ronicky explained: "I only saw his face once. You must know him a pile better than I do. But I got this to say, that if ever I saw a cold-blooded devil in the form of a man, Jack Moon is him. Am I right?"
"A thousand times right!" and Hugh Dawn sighed. "But I've been so long away— I've looked back on the West as a place where women at least are sacred— that I plumb forgot what a fiend Moon is. Ronicky, you're correct. We can't leave the girl. But if we take her with us, won't she run into the same danger?"
"No, because if she's with us she'll not have any information to give Moon— nothing to be browbeaten about or hurt. I take it that if he finds us where we're going, he'll know everything."
"I guess so," said the older man, knotting his brows anxiously.
"Unless," suggested Ronicky, "you can afford to send her back and get the protection of the law for her; but I gather that you don't want to bring yourself to the notice of the law much more than you want to bring yourself to the notice of Jack Moon."
"Right!" The big man nodded sadly. "That's just the place I stand in. Poor Jerry! Ronicky, they's a curse on this treasure we're after. Maybe Jerry's right. I was all wrong to bring you in on it. But, playing my lone hand, I was pretty sure I could never beat Moon. With you I figured that we'd all have a chance— of being rich!"
Ronicky nodded.
"And I suppose you want to know something, Ronicky, about me and the treasure and Moon and all?"
"I want to know just as much as comes easy for you to tell me, Dawn."
"To begin with, what d'you know already?"
"Only bits that I gathered, which round up to something like this: That once you belonged to Moon's crowd. That you broke away from the crowd ten years ago. That in Moon's crew the punishment for desertion is death. That you ran out of the country to keep clear of him. That he worked hard to get on your trail all the time. That the minute you got back, he learned about it. That he's trying to kill you now. That you came back here partly because you wanted to see the girl. That another thing brought you back, which was this treasure you talk about. That's much as I know, or think I know. Am I right? Mind you, I ain't asking for a thing that comes hard for you to tell. Every gent has shadowy places in his life. I have 'em. Everybody has 'em." The other man drank in the words hungrily.
"What you've said," he declared eagerly, "makes it plumb easy to talk to you compared with anybody else I've ever knowed. I've only got this to say, that I'm going to make a clean breast of everything to you. It'll take time, but we got time. Jerry needs another hour for rest. Girls ain't like men. They get plumb no-good unless they have their sleep. Speaking of Jerry, I got to say that she don't know the half of what I'm going to tell you— and I don't expect her ever to learn anything more from you."
"Partner," said Ronicky, "I understand."
Dawn cast about in his mind for an easy method of opening a rather difficult narrative. It was essential that he should not lose the respect of his new-found ally; for he sensed at once the vital truth that Ronicky Doone could not work for an instant with a companion whom he did not trust.
At length he hit upon a lucky beginning and pointed down the hillside.
"You see that old pine tree down there on the side of the hill among the rocks?" he said.
"Yes."
"And you see that other one on the level shoulder? Well, one of 'em is packed in among rocks and hasn't a square chance to grow; and even when it grows, it pitches out to the side, all crooked. And the other goes up big and straight as a king, eh? Ronicky, it's the same way with humans. Take two men of the same kind and give one a chance and one a hard row. One of 'em goes straight, the other goes crooked. Well, Ronicky, that's my case.
"My father built that big house you saw last night, and I grew up in it. He was a moneymaker, an easygoing fellow, too, and he liked to spend money as well as he liked to make it. Mines were his meat, and you know how cheap you regard gold that you dig out of dirt. He treated me the same way he treated himself. I grew up just the way I felt like growing. He didn't make me do anything. I didn't feel like going off to school, and he didn't make me. Result was that I just ran wild, got to be a man, married the finest girl that ever stepped, had a girl born— and then the mines went smash, and dad went smash with them. Left me stranded. I didn't have any occupation. I didn't know anything about ranch work, even. And how was I to support my family? Then came a hard winter. My father and my wife died and left me with the baby girl to take care of. That hit me pretty hard. When your wife goes hungry it's bad enough; but when a kid cries for food, it sure cuts you up.
"I started out to get coin. And I got it! Tried my hand at gambling, and I had a beginner's luck that lasted me two years. Then that luck petered out, and I was flat as ever— and nothing saved of all the money I'd made.
"When I was down and out, Jack Moon met me. He'd been watching me for a long time like the fox that he is. He saw me going downhill and he waited for the right time. When it came, he was ready. He put up his game to me, and I fell for it. I was desperate, you see? And the way he told me was that I wouldn't have to ride with him more'n a couple of times a year. The only hard thing was that, once in the band, I had to stay with it all my life. But even that I was willing to do, because there was Jerry, nearly eight years old, pretty as a picture, and needing a pile of things to keep her happy. So I gave Moon my word and went in with him.
"He didn't call on me for six months. Meantime, he gave me money, kept me easy, and built up a big debt that I owed him. End of the six months he called on me. It was a safe-blowing job. I rode with Moon and two others, and I didn't do much but look on; but afterward I got a split on the profits. Well, Ronicky, that night when I saw the soup explode and the door of the safe blown off, it seemed to me I was seeing the whole power of the law blown to the devil. It was more'n I could stand. I got Moon aside and told him that I was pretty well tired of the whole thing and I wanted to turn in my share to pay off my debts to him and get myself out of the band. But Moon only laughed at me. He said that every man was a little hard hit his first time out, but afterward he got used to it. Besides, he said that I had the makings of a new leader, if anything happened to him; and he tried to flatter me into being happy.
"It didn't work, but he said enough to show me that he'd never let me get out of his control. That started me thinking faster and harder than I'd ever thought before.
"About two months later he called on me. I can see now that he simply wanted to test me out. He said he knew that I was a hard rider and a good shot, and he said, too, that he was going to honor me by giving me the job of running down a skunk that had tried to double-cross his band. This was the story that Moon told me, and I'll try to give you every point just as he gave 'em to me.
"A good many years back, they made the gold strikes along the Jervey River— you've heard about 'em?"
"Of course!" Ronicky nodded.
"Well, those strikes were about the richest ever made, according to what Moon told me. The boys dug out the gold like dirt. They got it by the millions. It was all surface stuff, and the claims gave out quick; but while they lasted— about two years and a half— they were mints. The chief trouble with the mines along the Jervey was that they wasn't any railroad within three hundred miles, and the gold had to be carted out on mules and hosses along the trails across the mountains. Naturally there was a lot of robbing and holdups going on— such a pile of it that nobody could say how much gold was lost or how many men murdered in the business. But Jack Moon says that out of about sixty millions taken from the Jervey claims, not more'n twenty millions ever was got across the mountains by them that shipped it out!
"Forty millions was lost. Think of that! You'd think that losses like that would have brought out the whole United States army to look after things. But the whole army wasn't very big in those days, and it was tolerable busy with the Indians. Besides, when the stories got East, they weren't believed; or if they were believed, nobody cared very much. They were used to hearing all kinds of wild tales about gold coming out of the West, and most generally they figured that the gold diggers were a set of rascals, one about as bad as the other. So nothing was done till the miners done it.
"They bore up for a long time, until after a while pretty nigh none of the gold ever got across the mountains. Then they stopped digging and got ready to fight, and they were about as good at one thing as the other. They meant trouble, and they meant trouble in heaps. In a couple of weeks something broke. They sent out a fake gold convoy. There wasn't any gold, but there were ten mules and only ten men— and behind the ten came close to fifty with rifles. Sure enough, the ten were jumped, there was a big fight, and half a dozen of the robbers were shot down. The miners were so mad that they didn't leave 'em live long. But one gent kept a spark of life, and he lived long enough to tell 'em that the whole system of robbing was run under one head, and that that head was the gent that was sheriff of the district where the mines was! The skunk had worked a double game and won both ways. His name was Hampden.
"Them fifty men went back to the claims and rounded up Hampden. At first he put up quite a talk; but they faced him with the dying gent, and he weakened. He was smooth as oil, but there was some things that he couldn't answer. When they searched his cabin and found under the flooring some guns that was known to belong to gents that had been murdered on the gold trails, they give that sheriff a short time for living.
"His nerve held good till they tied the knot around under his ear and got him ready for the swing, and then he buckled. He begged 'em to give him a chance. He swore that he wasn't any more than a tool, and that the gent that had planned all the organized robbery was really to blame, and that if they'd spare his life he'd take them to that gent and they could not only get him that was the root of the whole affair, but they could get the gold that had been stolen— a third or half of it, anyway, because that was the share, he said, that the master kept for himself.
"Of course the vigilantes figured this talk to be just plumb fear. Hampden wanted to live, and so he was lying and putting the blame on somebody that didn't exist. Anyway, they cut him short by kicking the box from under him, and Hampden swung still trying to talk and explain as long as he had a breath in him.
"Now let's go back to Jack Moon. He heard about this story; and he had an idea that they was something in it. Seems he hunted around for ten years trying to locate who the master mind had been, if there was such a man; and finally he hit on a gent named Boyd Cosslett that lived in a cabin right up on a cliff over the Cunningham River. He was a queer old gent with yards of white beard, and always packing the Bible around and living quiet. What started the suspicions of Moon was that no letters and no money ever come in for old Boyd Cosslett, but every now and then he went down to town and bought supplies, and what he paid down was always raw gold or dust!
"Well, Moon had him watched for nigh onto a year, trying to see if the old boy would ever leave his cabin and go out to his treasure— if he really had a treasure buried some place. But nothing happened, so one day he took a couple of the boys, Whitwell and another, and rushed Cosslett's shack at night.
"The old miser must of had the ears of a fox. He heard 'em coming. When they smashed through the door, they found him closing something into an iron box on the table. Moon shot him twice with his revolver, but Cosslett lived long enough to snap his box shut and throw it into the river. Then he turned around and laughed and shook his fist at Moon and dropped.
"They looked out the window and saw that the box must of fallen straight over the cliff and down into the lake, because that's the place where the Cunningham River widens out and fills the ravine and makes Cunningham Lake.
"Cosslett lived about an hour, and Moon tried to make him talk; but the old boy just lay reading his Bible out loud and waiting for death.
"After he died, they buried him all proper. Moon's a stickler for things like that. Then they went down and dragged the lake to get the iron box, because they figured that it must contain something they could use as a clue to finding the treasure. But the bottom of that lake was thick with mud, and they got nothing but tired arms for their work.
"Now, about a month after this Whitwell disappeared, and they didn't find him for a long time. And he stayed away so long that Moon knew he had quit the band. After a while they pick up his trail and find him not far from Cosslett's cabin. And there they find him dragging the lake!
"It's easy to figure what he was doing. He was trying to get his hands on that iron box of old Cosslett's and he wanted to get it for himself and not have to share up with the band. Moon let him stay on there for a month, hoping that maybe Whitwell would find the box; and then they'd kill Whitwell and take the box from him. But Whitwell didn't have any luck, it seemed, so finally Moon came to me and gave me the job of killing Whitwell.
"I tried to beg out of it, but there was nothing to do but go and kill or else get killed myself. That was the rule under Jack Moon, and that's the rule under him still.
"When I reached Cunningham Lake, I found that Whitwell was gone; but I picked up a fresh trail and followed it two days. It brought me up at last to an old deserted camp, and there I nailed Whitwell. There wasn't anything to it. He was sound asleep in a chair. When he woke up, I had my gun shoved under his chin.
"Well, he didn't even so much as blink. He just sat up and grinned at me. First thing he said was: 'I'm ready to divvy up, if that's what you want. '
"'Divvy up on what?' I asked him.
"'The box, ' says he. 'I found it.'
"That took my breath. I'd heard so much from Moon, he seemed so sure that that box held the clue to the treasure, that I gaped at Whitwell. He went on to talk smooth and easy. He figured that I'd come along for him. He admitted that I had him, and that I could blow his head off, but what was the good? I told him, and I told him true, that I couldn't kill him, that the job had been forced on me, and that I hated Moon and the rest of his band. That was music to Whitwell. He told me the whole story right off. He'd found the box by dragging. But it was heavy; weighed forty pounds, even if it was small. He tried to break it open, but he didn't have a sledge hammer; and while he was trying to smash the lock against a rock he saw somebody coming up the river road. He took his glasses and made out that it was me.
"He knew, of course, why I was after him. He saddled and jumped onto his horse. But he couldn't take that heavy box with him, so he left it behind at Cosslett's house and then tore off across the hills. What he intended to do was to shake me off the trail, get some giant powder, return and blow up the box, and then see what was to be seen.
"Now he offered to share everything with me. I thanked him, and we were shaking hands to seal the bargain when a gun was fired through the window, and Whitwell was shot out of his chair.
"Of course Moon had just been trying me out, and when he sent me on the trail he sent a tried man after me to see what I did. He had orders to simply kill me if I tried to dodge the work. And that was what his man tried to do, because the second Whitwell spilled out of his chair, another shot was sent at me and just clipped through my hair. I dropped to the floor beside Whitwell. My ear was close to his lips. I heard him whisper: 'Under the veranda, ' and then he was dead.
"In the meantime, the front door of the cabin opened, and big Si Treat came in. He figured that he'd killed us both with those two shots, from the way we'd both dropped. There was nothing for it but to get him out of the way. I shot for his legs, saw him go down, and then I scrambled through the door and rode like mad for Cunningham Lake.
"But I never got there. Treat hadn't come alone. Moon and two others were with him, and they rode like devils to cut me off. They did it and turned me into the south mountains. For a month they hunted me, and for a month I managed to keep out of bullet range. By that time I was away south, and I saw that the country was too hot for me. I could never get back to Jerry. They'd watch around her and lay for me. There was only one thing left and that was to get as far away as I could, start to work, and support Jerry.
"I couldn't send for her, because the minute she left that devil Moon would trail her to me. I just had to live where I was and work and send her the money to live on. And that's what I did. Ten years of it, lad, without ever seeing her face. But I gave her enough for an education. Then when she was independent I made up my mind that I'd come back and risk the chance to get Cosslett's gold. I came back then, told Jerry simply that I was in danger from Moon and his band, and started to plan to get to Cunningham Lake and Cosslett's old shack. But before I got well started, you know what happened. You arrived in time to drag me out to safety. You arrived in time to give me a fighting chance at that money— and give yourself a chance at the same thing!"
"And Jerry knows—"
"Only that we're trying to get that iron box. She knows the story behind that, and how Moon killed the old man. She knows that I can't call down the law on the head of Moon because there are complications; but just what those complications are, she can't say. Is it all clear to you now, Ronicky, just how we stand?"
"All clear, I guess," said Doone. "But it looks to me as though there's a trail of crimson, spilled all around that gold of Cosslett's. First men were killed so that he could get his hands on it. Then other gents were bumped off because they were his agents. Then Cosslett was killed because he had the gold; and then several other gents were killed because they were trying to find out where Cosslett hid the stuff. Now here we go, you and me, and take your girl with us; and all three of us walk up and rap at the same door. Well, Dawn, it looks like black business to me!"
"You're losing heart, Ronicky?" asked the elder man gloomily.
"I'll stay with it as long as the next man," declared Ronicky. "One thing I'd like to know. Won't Moon suspect that we're heading for Cosslett's old shack? Won't he be apt to drive straight for that place and wait for us there?"
"It's a chance," said Hugh Dawn, "but that's a chance we got to take. Moon don't know Whitwell's secret. I'm the only one that knows it except you and Jerry."
"But if he strikes around blind for the trail and doesn't find it," said Ronicky, "he might start straight for Cosslett's, and then we'd simply be running into the trap. Besides, maybe he guesses that you know something."
"He guesses that Whitwell knew something, and that Whitwell told me. What it is, he can't guess. But if he's at Cosslett's— then that's fate. And if fate's agin' us, well be beat any way we look at it. But we won't be beat, son. I feel lucky! We can get to Cosslett's inside of two hours of hard riding. And Moon ain't apt to get there as quick as that. Then a look under the veranda—"
"But what if somebody else has looked there in the last ten years?"
"Not a chance. That veranda was built close to the ground. If Whitwell put it there, he must have put it there because he knew nobody'd look there."
"Then, Hugh, well start."
"Yes. Jerry has rested enough by this time!"
It seemed to Ronicky that there was more than an ordinary admixture of superstition in the nature of Hugh Dawn. If fate aided him, he would get Cosslett's gold. If fate were against him, he would get death instead. So he went ahead blindly trusting in luck. He had made only one sensible provision to meet danger, and that was enlisting the aid of another man, Ronicky himself. The more Ronicky thought of the affair, the more of a wild-goose chase it seemed to him.
Yet he knew that it was madness to attempt to dissuade Hugh Dawn, and he dared not let the big fellow go on with his daughter to face Moon. And face the outlaw chief he knew they would, before the adventure was finished.
Returning to the cabin, they found Geraldine Dawn already up, and they found, moreover, that she had reached the conclusion to which they had already come. She dared not go back and live alone in the big house of her father; a thousand times she would rather continue the trip and face whatever lay before them, than make the return.
Only one thing upset her— what would the people of Trainor say when she did not appear to teach the school? But there was, in the village, a girl who had substituted for her once before during an illness. Therefore the classes would be taken care of. With that scruple cared for— how slight a thing it seemed to Ronicky Doone!— she was ready to face the adventure.
They started on within a few minutes, swerving now to the left and striking through rougher mountain trails. Hugh Dawn had correctly estimated the distance. In the early evening they came upon Cosslett's cabin.
It stood in an imposing place on the cliff above Cunningham Lake. On all sides the ground sloped back. There were no trees near, though in all other directions the forest stepped down from the mountaintops to the very edge of the lake.
"You see?" exclaimed Hugh Dawn. "The old boy picked a place where he could look on all sides of him. He wouldn't trust a forest where gents could sneak up on him."
Ronicky smiled to himself. Such reasoning simply proved that Dawn had already convinced himself, and was willing to pick up minute circumstances and weave them into the train of proof.
They climbed the slope and found that ten years had dealt hard with the little house. The roof was smashed in. The sides caved out, as though the pressure of time were overcoming them. But the first place to which they ran, the veranda, showed no opening beneath its floor and the ground.
Hugh Dawn looked at it in despair. The ground, indeed, was flush with the top of the flooring.
"I must of remembered wrong," he muttered, "but it seems to me that in the old days they used to be a space between the floor and the hill. I dunno how this come!"
Ronicky had been surveying the site carefully.
"Maybe the house had settled," he suggested. "We'll tear up the boards and see."
It was easily done. The rotted wood gave readily around the nail-heads, and in a minute or two every board had been torn up. But they saw beneath no sign of such a thing as a forty-pound iron chest. Hugh Dawn was in despair.
"Maybe somebody else has lived here and found it and—"
He could not complete the sentence, so great was his disappointment. Ronicky, expecting nothing at all, was quite unperturbed. He looked at Jerry Dawn. She was as calm as he, but something of pity was in her eyes as she looked to her father. Was it possible that she, too, saw through the whole hoax and had simply undertaken the ride to appease the hungry eagerness of her father?
"We'll go inside," she suggested.
They entered the cabin through the front doorway, stepping over the door itself, which had fallen on the inside. All within was at the point of disintegration. The cast-iron stove was now a red, rusted heap in a corner. The falling of a rafter had smashed the bunk where it was built against the wall. The boards of the floor gave and creaked beneath their steps. In the corners were little yellowed heaps of paper— old letters, they seemed. And on the floor beneath the bunk Jerry Dawn found, face down, and yet with every page intact, the Bible which was always mentioned whenever the name of Cosslett was brought into conversation.
When she raised the book, it seemed that she raised the ghost of the old white-bearded hermit at the same time. In spite of the ruin, the terrible scene rushed back upon the memory of each of the three— Jack Moon and his men tumbling through the door— the two explosions of guns— the hurling of the casket through the window— the fall of the hermit.
Suddenly Hugh Dawn shouted in alarm. Making a careless step with his great weight, he had driven his foot crashing and rending through the flooring where rain had rotted away the wood except for a mere shell. He scrambled out of his trap, half laughing and half alarmed.
"The old gent had a cellar," said Ronicky, "judging by the way your leg went through that floor."
Jerry Dawn looked up from the Bible, whose yellowed, time-stained leaves she had been turning with reverent fingers. The awe went out of her eyes, and bright interest came in its place.
"A cellar?" she asked. "Then let's look at it. Perhaps that's the place where he hid all the gold, dad?"
Her father snorted.
"Are you trying to make a joke out of this?" he asked heavily. "Hide the gold in the cellar! Hide fifteen or twenty million dollars' worth of gold in a cellar!"
"Twenty millions?" gasped Ronicky, beginning to fear for the sanity of his companion. "Are you serious about that, Dawn?"
"Why not? The band must of took a clean forty millions, and out of everything that they took, that old hawk, according to Hampden, got fifty per cent. He was a business man, right enough! And what's half of forty? Twenty millions, boy!"
That hungry glittering came into his glance again, and Ronicky shook his head.
"But we'll see about the cellar." He nodded to Jerry Dawn.
She leaned to see him put his fingers through a gaping crack between boards, work them to a firm grip, and then rip up the whole length of the plank. Below them opened the black depth of the cellar. Ronicky lighted a match and dropped it into the aperture.
"Six foot of hole," he announced. "Down I go!"
Two more boards were torn away, and he prepared to lower himself.
"But what good does all that foolishness do?" groaned the despairing fortune hunter. "If the box ain't under the veranda—"
"Ladies bring luck," answered Ronicky, grinning. "I'm going to follow her orders every time I get a chance."
And down he dropped into the hole.
"Ever hear of such crazy work?" growled the father.
But Jerry was becoming interested in the fate of her own suggestion.
"Who'd put a box like that in a cellar!" exclaimed Hugh Dawn. "Who'd do that— put it right out in plain view!"
"Plain view? Who suspected a cellar under a house like this until you put your foot through the floor?"
Ronicky was lighting matches in the darkness below. Presently he called: "I see how come the veranda to be down to the ground level. All the stringers holding up the floor on this side are rotten and smashed over sidewise. And—"
He stopped.
"We're beat," said Hugh Dawn, "before we get fairly started. I've come back and put my head into the mouth of the lion for nothing. That skunk Whitwell aimed to make a fool of me, that was all! Why should he of told me the truth, anyway?"
"Because dying men don't lie!" shouted Ronicky Doone through the hole in the floor, and at the same time he cast up what looked like a great, rectangular chunk of rust. It fell with a crash onto the floor, the jar of the impact knocking off from its sides long flakes of the red dust, so that the metal looked forth from beneath.
Ronicky vaulted up through the hole and stood exultant beside them.
"He did put it under the veranda!" he cried. "He put it so far under that it rolled right on down into the cellar. And there it's laid ever since!"
They stood about it in trembling excitement, Jerry so agape with astonishment that it was plain she had considered, up to this point, that the whole story was a myth. Hugh Dawn was beyond use of his muscles. Only Ronicky Doone had not been incapacitated by wonder and excitement.
For unquestionably it was the "forty-pound box" so often referred to. Even Ronicky Doone was convinced. Of course there was no reason to think that the box proved anything, or that its discovery lead to important things. But as it stood there in the center of the three, a mass of red rust, its presence verified one step in the story of the Cosslett treasure, and thereby the whole trail seemed to be the truth. The rotting strong box was like a fourth presence. Its silence was more eloquent than a voice.
"It's heavy enough to have a tidy bunch of gold in it," said Ronicky. "Let's get her open. Did you bring a sledge hammer, Dawn?"
The latter looked at him reproachfully.
"Figure I'd come on a trip like this without getting a pack ready long before? Nope, Ronicky, I had my pack under my arm when I left the house on the run last night, and the things in the pack are a pick and a shovel and a chisel and an eight-pound sledge."
As he enunciated the last word Ronicky disappeared through the door. Hugh Dawn picked up the strong box and, carrying it outside, had braced it firmly, lock up, between two big stones ready for the hammering which was to open it. Ronicky came a moment later with the hammer.
"Now," Hugh cried, brandishing the hammer about his head, "look sharp!"
He loosed a terrific blow which landed fairly and squarely upon the lock. But the hammer, after crunching through the rust, rebounded idly. The lock had not even been cracked. He whirled it again, again, and again. His back went up and down, and the sledge became a varying streak of light that struck against the box, always hitting accurately on one spot. Ronicky Doone looked on in amazement, and the girl's eyes shone in delight at the prowess of her father, when there was a slight sound of cracking; at another blow the box flew open.
Inside there were exposed a few scraps of paper, and nothing else!
Ronicky Doone gasped with excitement. Was it true, then, that what the box was used for was to guard a secret and not money?
Hugh Dawn, panting with labor and joy, gathered the paper fragments in trembling fingers.
"Read 'em, Jerry," he said. "I— my eyes are all blurred. Where's the map, first off?"
There were three slips of paper, apparently fly leafs of books torn off, and the girl examined them.
"There's no map," she said. "I'm sorry, dad."
"No map!" he shouted. "Let me see! Let me see!"
He snatched them from her, glaring; then he crumpled the paper into a ball and cast it to the ground.
"No wonder Cosslett died with a smile," he groaned. "It was only a joke that he locked up in that box and threw away so careful. If ghosts walk the earth, he's somewhere in the air now laughing at me." He looked up as though he half expected to see the old face take form out of the empty atmosphere.
"Nothing but a list of names and some figuring," the girl said with a sigh. "I'm afraid it was only a jest."
Ronicky Doone alone had not seen the writing. He ran a few steps after the ball of paper as it rolled along in the breeze, picked it up, and smoothed out the separate bits. What he found was exactly what had been reported. First there were two slips covered with a list of names and dates:
H. L. L.— September 22.
Gregory— May 9.
Scottie— August 14.
The list continued, each separate name followed by dates ranging through two years until October of the second year. With this month the dates were crowded together. Half of the first slip and all of the second were covered with names and dates of that month. And last of all was the name "Hampden, October 19."
It struck a faint light in Ronicky's groping imagination.
"Hampden was the gent that run the affair for Cosslett, wasn't he?" he asked.
"What of it?"
"Here's his name the last of the lot."
"And what does that mean?" Hugh Dawn asked.
Jerry Dawn came and peered with interest over the shoulder of Ronicky.
"It goes to prove that we're working on more than hearsay," the girl said. "Goes to prove that there was really a connection between Cosslett and Hampden, and in that case, why, Cosslett is simply a murderous old miser who used other men to do killings so that he could get gold, and who then sat down with his Bible and thought about his ill-gotten gains."
"I knew all that before," declared her father. "But this is a blank trail, Jerry. Cosslett's gold will rest and rot. No man'll ever find it— all them millions!"
Ronicky turned to the third slip. It was a compact jumble of figures. He read as follows:
(1, 1, 3, 2; 1, 1, 6, 5; 1, 1, 9, 1; 1, 1, 12, 5) (2, 9, 1, 13; 2, 9, 1, 4; 2, 9, 3, 6)
So it ran on through line after line of bracketed numbers with commas and semicolons interspersed.
Ronicky Doone dropped the paper to his side. "Dawn," he said, "I figure that every word you've said is right, except where you begin to give up hope. But this mess of figures— I dunno what could have been in Cosslett's head when he started to make it up. Anyway, it can't do us any good."
He was about to throw the papers to the wind, but the girl stayed his hand.
"Just a moment," she said hastily, and, taking the slip which contained the figures, she perused it carefully.
Ronicky and her father anxiously turned toward her. Since both of them were convinced that the trail to the treasure began at the shack of Cosslett, and since there was no possible clue save that piece of paper and the list of numbers, they hoped against hope that Jerry could make something out of it.
"If they's any sense to it," said her father, "Jerry'll get at it. She always was a wonder at puzzles, even when she was no bigger'n a minute."
The girl raised her fine head, and now the gray eyes were glinting with excitement.
"It's a message of some kind written in a code," she announced. There's no doubt about that."
The two men crowded about her.
"You see?" she pointed out. "There are thirteen of those bracketed groups. Inside the brackets the numbers are separated with commas and grouped with semicolons. I counted the groups set off by the semicolons, and altogether there are fifty-eight of them. Well, the average length of a word is about five letters. Five goes into fifty-eight eleven times and a little over. That's near enough. Fifty-eight letters to make up eleven words. And those eleven words— since they were locked up so carefully in the strong box— may they not form the directions to the place where the treasure is buried? I admit that I don't see how he could have written complete directions with so few words; but at least it gives us a new hope, doesn't it?"
The cheer from the two men was answer enough.
"After all," said Ronicky, "that leaves us almost as much in the dark as ever. See any way you can get at the code?"
"I don't know," said the girl, shaking her head. "It looks hard. But then, most puzzles seem hard until you get at them, you know; and, once they're deciphered, they seem so simple that everyone is surprised he didn't see through the thing before. There are lots of ways of making up codes, of course. The oldest way is the worst. You simply substitute particular characters for the different letters. In that way you simply have a new alphabet."
"That sounds hard enough to suit me," said her father, peering anxiously over her shoulder at the paper.
"But, you see," explained Geraldine, "that there are ways of distinguishing letters by the frequency with which they are used. E is used much more than any other letter. Then come T, A, N, O, I, et cetera, in that same order. And—"
"Where in the world," broke in Ronicky Doone, "did you learn all that?"
"She's had a pile of schooling," replied the proud father.
"Not schooling," Jerry Dawn said, with a laugh. "It's just that I've always been interested in puzzles, and I've picked up odds and ends of information that way. But to come back to this conundrum. It obviously isn't one of the simple types of codes. I'm certain that each group inside a semicolon represents a letter, and not one of the groups is identical with another. So the 'substituted alphabet' code isn't used at all. Outside of that code, there are scores of others, of course. Anyone can make up a code with a little forethought, and probably each code will be quite unlike, in several features, any other code in the world."
"Then we're through," said her father bitterly. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Please give me a chance to think," pleaded the girl, with a touch of irritation. "It isn't absolutely hopeless. At least there's room for work. For instance, inside of each bracket the first letter of each group is the same. And in each succeeding bracket the first letter is one larger. The characters of the first bracket run one, one, three, two; one, one, six, five; et cetera. In the second bracket they run two, nine, one, thirteen; two, nine, one, four, et cetera. And this continues right down to the last bracket, where the first character is thirteen."
"But what on earth does that show?"
"It shows an amateur maker of codes," said the girl firmly. "He could have left out the first character in every instance and found it simply by getting the number of the bracket in each case. Isn't that clear? But let's look at some other interesting features. The first character in each group is the same throughout the individual bracket. The second character is also identical throughout each bracket. In the first bracket the second character is everywhere one; in the second it is nine; in the third it is eighteen; in the fourth it is six. Each group is made up of four characters. The first two are regular throughout and follow some definite plan. The third character varies in the first two brackets only. In the first it is three, six, nine, twelve. In the second it is one, one, three. But after that the third character also becomes regular. In the third bracket it is always two, and in the fourth bracket it is always two; while in other brackets other numerals are used, but each is constant throughout the individual bracket. But the fourth character in each group is the variant. It changes continually."
"It all sounds like Greek to me," said Ronicky.
"I suppose it does," said the girl, "but that's simply because you haven't worked over things like this before. The regularity of the first three characters of the groups shows me that they are intended as guides. But the actual distinguishing element in each group is the last or fourth character. All of this, I admit, goes for nothing unless I get at some clue to the problem."
"Maybe we can help," suggested Ronicky, "when it comes to clues."
"They are of all kinds," said the girl, "these clues I refer to. They come out of the character and life of the man who makes the code, as a rule. This man, so far as I know, was a clever criminal. He also was fond of isolation and the Bible. Perhaps he thought he could read his way out of guilt and responsibility for his sins. At any rate, I'm going to think over what I know about him. The whole thing may clear up in a moment."
And she walked away meditatingly tapping the Bible which had belonged to the dead Cosslett.
"She's got book, chapter, and verse," Ronicky Doone remarked, with a grin, "and, as long as she's that far along she'll find the words pretty soon."
These words were hardly out of his mouth when the girl turned on him in a flash.
"Do you mean that seriously?" she cried eagerly.
"Excuse me," murmured Ronicky. "I was only joking, and if—"
"Why not?" she exclaimed, more to herself than to him.
Then, to their astonishment, she pushed the paper into the hand of Ronicky and opened the Bible.
"Read the first group!" she commanded.
"One, one, three, two," said Ronicky obediently.
"Book one. That's Genesis. Chapter one, third verse, second word— 'God. ' Ronicky, perhaps we have it, but I mistrust that beginning. People don't begin codes with the word God. But no! What he'd used would be merely the first letter of the word. That must be it. The first letter is G. Next?"
"One, one, six, five," read Ronicky dutifully, but his voice was uneven with his excitement.
"Book one, chapter one, sixth verse, fifth word!" translated Jerry Dawn. "And the word is 'there. ' Oh, Ronicky, we're lost! There isn't a word in the English language that begins with Gt. But go on."
"One, one, nine, one. And don't give up. We're on the track of something!"
Hugh Dawn said nothing. He sat on a rock with his head buried in his hands, hardly able to endure the tension.
"Ninth verse, first word, 'A. ' Gta. Ronicky, we're lost, indeed. That isn't the beginning of any word!"
"Wait a minute," urged Ronicky, as she closed the book with a slam. "Count off the letters in the verses instead of the words. First book, first chapter, third verse, second letter. What does that give you?"
"N."
"Now sixth verse and fifth letter."
"O."
"Ninth verse and first letter."
"A."
"Twelfth verse and fifth letter."
"H. It spells N-O-A-H! Ronicky, we have it!"
A groan of happiness came from Hugh Dawn, who rose and came stumbling to them. Steadily the spelling went on, Ronicky, scribbling down the letters as fast as the girl located them.
In conclusion he read:
Noah and the crescent in line with ravenhead and the vixen twenty down.
"Noah and the crescent in line with ravenhead and the vixen twenty down," repeated Hugh Dawn sourly. "And what the devil good does all the work do when it only brings us to this? Noah and the crescent— twenty down!"
He groaned again.
"Just a minute more," said his daughter, more eagerly than ever. "Doesn't it strike you that those words are like names of places? Noah may be the name of a town. Then The Crescent, ' and 'Ravenhead, ' and The Vixen. '"
"But what good do four jumbled names do us," asked the father.
"I have it!" cried Ronicky. "It's sure plain now that it's down in black and white. 'Get Noah and The Crescent in line, and then get The Vixen and Ravenhead in line. And at the point where the lines cross, dig down twenty feet!"
Both father and daughter shouted as the whole riddle became clear.
"Heaven bless that iron box!" cried Hugh Dawn.
"And the hammer that busted it!" Ronicky supplemented.
"We're rich," went on Hugh Dawn. "The money's as good as ours. We can start planning how to spend twenty millions. Don't I know the old Ravenhead Mountain? And don't I know The Crescent? And maybe they's a couple of smaller mountains around them parts that are called The Vixen and Mount Noah. I dunno. But well start right now for old Ravenhead Mountain!"
In that determination, however, he was ruled down by Ronicky and Jerry Dawn. For now the twilight was deepening, and the way toward Ravenhead, over rough trails and twenty miles away, according to Dawn's recollection, would make bitter work in the darkness. It was determined, therefore, to wait until the morning. With the first gray of dawn they would start, and by that light they should easily manage to get over the trail to Ravenhead by midmorning.
Ronicky Doone estimated the time at their disposal.
"We ought," he said, "to have the stuff located by tomorrow night, and while we're working Jerry can ride over the hills and get a wagon and a team of hosses from the nearest town. We'll load and start straight back, and when we get near civilization we can hire enough gents to hold off Moon and his three."
"His three?" Hugh Dawn groaned. "His thirty, more like! He's got 'em scattered through the country, son, and he has ways of getting in touch with 'em pronto. If he got excited about this trail, he might have the whole crowd out combing the country for me inside of twenty-four hours. Still, I think we got time. He'll spend most of today hunting by himself. Tonight he'll send out his call. Tomorrow they'll spend getting together. And day after tomorrow in the morning he'll be ready to send out his search parties. I've seen him work that way before. But when he sends 'em out, well already be snaking south for the railroad, hit it, and slide off east! Ronicky, for the first time in his life Moon is going to be beat! Not a chance in a million that he'll ever connect me up with the old Cosslett treasure. Not a chance that he'll think I'm hunting for it. He'll figure me to be lying out in the hills waiting for a few days. And he'll comb the country around Trainor before he steps out farther."
The matter was allowed to rest there. Before the shack of Cosslett they built a fire of the wood which had been torn from the little veranda floor, and there they cooked their evening meal.
It was dark before they had ended. Afterward they went inside the shack. It was possible to clear the bunk and prop up its broken side after removing the fallen rafter. That made a comfortable bed for the girl. As for Ronicky and Hugh Dawn, they would sleep on the floor.
In the meantime, after putting down their blankets, Ronicky declared his intention of taking a ride on Lou by way of a nightcap. For he declared that he could not possibly sleep so soon after their rest of the midday. Father and daughter had too much to talk over to object strenuously. And a moment later he left the cabin. They heard his mare whinny a greeting to him, and then the roll of her gallop passed down the hill and out of hearing. Hugh Dawn listened to the disappearing sound, his head cocked upon one side.
"There," he said, "goes a queer one!"
"Queer?" echoed Jerry, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
"That's what I said. Never saw the like of him yet, and I've seen a pile of men, rough and smooth and all kinds."
"Of all the kinds I've known," said his daughter hotly, "he's the the finest, the bravest, the most generous."
"Sure, sure! He's all of that and more. I'm not holding it against him. But he's a wild one, if ever I saw a man!"
"Wild?"
"What d'you call it when a fellow hears news about somebody he's never heard mentioned before, and then rides twenty miles and takes his life in his hands to give a warning?"
"You haven't told me yet— so many things have been happening— how you came to catch him in the hall of the house."
"I was at the window in the hall. I saw Ronicky climb up the side of the house, but the distance and the dark made it a hard job to shoot from where I was, even though I was sure that he was one of Moon's men come for me. I sneaked around into the place in front of the stairs where they turn into the hall on the second floor, and when he came down I flashed the electric torch at him and shot. How I missed, I don't know. But he changed into a wild cat the minute the light hit him. He jumped here and there like a flash, and before I could land him he swung on me and knocked me out. Where he got the muscle to do it out of those skinny arms of his, beats me; but it ain't the only thing about him that beats me. Look at the way he talks to his hoss like she was human. Look at the way he goes off riding alone by night!"
"I can understand everything you mention," replied his daughter.
"Sure you can," and Hugh Dawn grinned. "That's because he's smiled at you a couple of times today."
"Do you mean to infer—" began Jerry.
"Don't be proud," chuckled her father.
"I never heard of anything so absurd," said Jerry indignantly. "Why, I— I don't know the man! He's a stranger!"
"Sure. That's why you're blushing like this. You are your mother all over again, my dear, and she was always forming quick likes and dislikes. Heaven bless her! But me, I take more time to think things and folks over. You'll find out that it pays, Jerry, in the long run."
"I don't know what all the talk's about," said the girl a trifle uneasily. "If you think that I've been forward with Mr. Doone—"
"There you go!" Her father laughed as he spoke. "I will ask you to stop climbing mountains, and you jump over a cliff instead. I don't mean nothing, except for you to watch your ways with Ronicky. You ain't an ordinary girl, Jerry, dear. You got more looks than most. Not that you're the most beautiful I ever seen, but you got a downright pleasing way, and when you smile your whole face lights up a lot."
"Of course all this is absurd," said Jerry. "But if I choose to be courteous to a man who saved your life— both our lives, perhaps— is there anything wrong in it?"
"Courtesy is one thing; it ain't what I'm talking about," said her father gravely.
"And the other thing?"
"Well, Jerry, I'd a pile rather see you dead than get seriously interested in a gent like Ronicky Doone."
She stared at him, almost frightened.
"I see," said he, very grave, "that you've been thinking even more than I suspected."
"Dad," she cried, "this is insufferable. Oblique expressions like these only serve to—"
"Tie them big words up, brand 'em, and keep 'em for the fancy markets," said her father gruffly. "I don't foller 'em easy. Talk plain. I'm a plain man. And I tell you plainly that I love you too much to see you throw away time on one like Doone. For why? Because he's a will-o'-the-wisp, my dear. He's one of these gents who go through life without ever settling down to one thing. He's about what? Twenty-five, I'd take him to be. Well, Jerry, he's crammed ten times more fighting inside his twenty-five years than I've put inside forty-five. A fighting man is like a fighting wolf— they'd better hunt alone!"
"You don't mean," she said, "that he's a gun fighter!"
"Don't I? Well, honey, you got to learn to use your eyes! What does it mean when a gent carries his holster slung away down low on his right hip so's it's just within twitching distance of his finger tips? Ain't that to have it ready for a fast draw? And what does it mean when a gent's left hand is all pale from being in a glove, and when his right hand is brown as a berry?"
"Because the left hand is the bridle hand."
"Because the right hand is the gun hand, Jerry!"
She winced at his surety.
"I'm as sure of it," said her father, blowing a great cloud of smoke from his pipe, "as I am that my name is Hugh Dawn. And watch his hands. Long and slender and nervous. No flesh on 'em. He's never made a living by work. No calluses on those hands. Nothing to keep them from being fast as a flash of light— like the hands of a musician, they look to me. Always doing something with that right hand of his. His left hand is used to hanging steady on the reins, and it's always lying still. But his right hand ain't never still. It's always jumping about and rapping on something, or going here and there and everywhere just for the sake of being under way. I'll tell you why: Because that's the right hand that's saved the life of Ronicky Doone more'n once! It's the hand that's got his trigger finger! It's his fortune!"
"You mean," breathed the girl, "that he's a professional gunman— a murderer?"
"Not a bit! He wouldn't take advantage of his skill with a gun— not to hurt anybody. But I'll wager he's got his man before now. I'll wager that before he dies he'll get a pile more. It's wrote in big letters all over him."
"He'll change," said Jerry Dawn feverishly. "I know that he'll change!"
"Maybe you could do the changing?" said her father.
Her flush was at least a partial admission that she had had the thought.
"Some girls," said he, "are so plumb good that they marry a man for the sake of being close to him and reforming him. Sometimes they do. Ronicky Doone is a fine gent. Brave, honest as the day's long, generous. But he ain't meant for a girl to love. I'm putting it strong. I don't mean that you feel anything like that for him yet. I'm just warning you. Because if you just give a gent like that a kind look, you may set him on fire; he starts making love like a fire in a storm; first thing you know, you're engaged. And that's the end. Jerry, you'll watch out?"
As he leaned earnestly toward her he saw her face whiten, saw her eyes widen. There was a ghost-seeing look about her, and instantly Hugh Dawn knew that a horror was standing in the door of the cabin. Instinctively he measured the distance to his gun. Like a fool he had hung it with his belt on a nail against the wall. It was hopelessly out of arm's length.
He turned his head with a convulsive jerk, and there in the door he saw Jack Moon.
There was no gun in his hand, and yet the man radiated danger. His silent coming, the very smile with which he looked down on them, were filled with terror-inspiring qualities. As for Hugh Dawn, he uttered a faint groan and then whirled out of his chair and stood upon his widely braced feet. Even when Dawn reeled back within reaching distance of his gun on the wall and made a motion toward it, the tall man in the door did not offer to draw his own weapon, but the smile hardened a little on his mouth, and his eyes grew fixed.
Jerry knew that it was Jack Moon. She had never seen his face, never even heard it accurately described; but somehow she knew that the man there in the doorway was the root of all evil.
Suddenly she leaped from the bunk and cast herself before her father. That sudden motion had brought the revolver into the hand of Moon, but it was instantly restored to its holster. The double movement had been merely a flash of light. Such speed of hand was uncanny.
"Steady," said the outlaw. "No cause for jumping in front of the sneak, lady. I ain't going to shoot him right away. Not right away. Maybe never. All depends on how him and me come to agree. Or maybe well agree to disagree. Just you sit down yonder where you were, miss. No harm'll come to you." He removed his hat and bowed to her, and in so doing he half turned his back on her father.
She knew that the devilish brain of the man had inspired this maneuver to tempt her father into action. But Hugh Dawn was in no condition to fight. His will was paralyzed. He could not fight any more than the bird can escape from the hypnotic eye of the snake.
"They tell hard tales about Jack Moon," went on the big man, thus announcing himself, "but they never yet whispered a story about him laying a finger on a woman, young or old. I can tell you to lay to it that you're as safe with me as if you was a six-months-old baby in the arms of your mother. It ain't you I aim to talk to— it's that!"
He indicated her father with a jerk of his thumb. But for some reason his contempt did not degrade Hugh Dawn. The man would fight willingly enough against odds which were at all even. But he recognized the madness of a bulldog attacking a lion. Even as great as this was the contrast, it was not that Moon was so much larger in physical dimensions. But he was made bigger by an inward lordliness that overflowed. The poise of his head was that of a conqueror. His spirit towered above her father like the young Achilles over some nameless Trojan warrior.
"I seen the box outside," said Jack Moon. "What was in it, Dawn?"
There was no resistance in Dawn. He pointed sullenly to the slip of paper lying on the bed— the paper on which had been written the directions for reaching the site of the treasure.
The bandit strode across the room and reached for it, but the girl, with a lightning movement, forestalled him. She swept it up, leaped away from Moon, who followed with a startled exclamation, and, balling the paper to a hard knot as she ran, she reached the window above the lake and threw the paper as far as her strength allowed. The wind was blowing in that direction, and the precious slip would be wafted down to the waters of the lake.
The hand of Jack Moon was checked in the very act of falling on her shoulder and turning her around. But when she faced him, white and drawn about the lips, he was smiling again.
"That took nerve," he said, "seeing the reputation I got around these parts. But I got to tell you this, lady. It don't do even for ladies to fool with Jack Moon. I don't handle 'em the way I handle men, but most generally I find ways of makin' 'em behave. Now"— and here he turned on Hugh Dawn—"tell me what was on that paper!"
"No, no," shouted the girl. "Don't you see, dad, that it's the price of your own head?"
"There you are again," said Jack Moon sternly, seeing that the exclamation had sealed the lips of Dawn as the latter was about to speak. "You'll have to learn better than that, lady, before you're with me long. Dawn, will you open up and tell me?"
The gun gleamed in his hand. He thrust it against the breast of Dawn.
"Now talk quick," he muttered. "I know everything, Dawn. Treat heard you and Whitwell, but I want to get the yarn out of your own mouth. I'll tell you this, Dawn: if you open up, maybe they'll be a way out for you!"
"Don't talk, don't talk!" cried Jerry Dawn. "Don't trust him, dad!"
"If you care for your rotten soul," said Jack Moon, "come out with it, Dawn!"
The latter groaned: "What price d'you pay, Moon?"
"Price? What sort of a price d'you ask?"
"Freedom," said Dawn. "And your word on it."
"Would you trust him?" moaned Jerry.
"Be quiet, Jerry," said her father. "No matter what else Moon is, he's a man of his word. It's never been broke yet."
"But it's seldom given," replied Moon coolly. "Why should I give it to you now?"
"How high," retorted Dawn, "d'you put the price on my life?"
"Prices? I dunno. Prices change. I've known gents I'd shoot as soon as I'd kill a dog. I've known some that would have to pay thousands to buy themselves off. But for a gent that's double crossed me the way you've done— well, it'd have to be high!"
Hugh Dawn nodded.
"How high?" he asked.
"Everything you got," said the outlaw, "would be enough."
To the astonishment of the girl, her father shook his head, puzzled.
"You can make your choice," said Moon. "Either you turn over the whole Cosslett stuff to me or—"
"I haven't got the Cosslett money. You know that!"
"You've got the plan to show where it is."
"Suppose the plan turns out wrong?"
The admission implied in this question made the eyes of Jack Moon blaze.
"By the gods," he whispered, "you did get it!"
"You lied to me, then," growled Dawn. "Treat didn't hear Whitwell talk about the box and what he thought was in it!"
"Treat didn't hear anything. But now that I know you've got the plan inside your head, come out with it, Dawn, and you and me will make a dicker. Wait! Here's something that the rest of the boys have got to vote on. You can thank your stars that I've got the majority of the crew with me!"
He whistled, a shrill, fluting sound long prolonged, and there was a rushing of horses' hoofs up the slope to the crest of the hill. Presently the door and the windows were packed with ominous faces, and there was everywhere the glittering of drawn guns. Nearly a dozen men had gathered around the little ruined shanty in the space of a few seconds. Well indeed had