Kitabı oku: «Rimrock Trail», sayfa 17

"What's this?" demanded Keith angrily, suspicion rife in his voice.

"I picked him up three mile' back, hoofin' it. He was headin' fo' Bitter Flats but he wanted the ranch," said the cowboy to Sandy, ignoring Keith. "We burned wind an' leather comin' in, seein' Jim Plimsoll an' some of his gang have made off with Miss Molly!"

"Where'd this happen?" demanded Sandy. "Sam, go git Pronto fo' me an' saddle up."

"That's the hell of it," said the rider. "The pore damn fool don't know. Plumb loco! Scared to death. Been wanderin' round sence afore noon."

Donald Keith sagged suddenly and Sandy picked the lad up in his arms. Weariness and fright, thirst, the changed altitude, had overtoiled his endurance. Sandy strode with him to the car and laid him on the cushions.

"Git some water," he ordered Keith. "We've got no licker on the ranch. Here's one of the times Prohibition an' me don't hitch."

Keith bent, opened a shallow drawer beneath the seat and produced a silver flask. He unscrewed the top and poured some liquor into it. It was Scotch whisky of a pre-war vintage. The aroma of the stuff dissolved in the rare air, vaguely scenting it. The nose of the wooden-faced chauffeur wrinkled. Sandy raised the boy's head and lifted the whisky to his pallid lips, gray as his face where the flesh matched the powdery alkali that covered it.

"Pinch his nose," he said to Keith. "He's breathin' regular. Stroke his throat soon as I git the stuff back of his teeth. So. Now then."

The cordial trickled down and Donald's eyes opened. Almost immediately color came back into his cheeks and lips and he tried to sit up. Sandy helped him.

"Now, sonny," he said. "Tell us about it. How'd this happen an' where? An' when, if you can place that?"

Donald nodded.

"Just a second," he whispered and closed his eyes. They were bright when he raised the lids again.

"Whisky got me going," he said. "I'd have given a whole lot for that flask two or three hours ago, Dad."

"Never mind the whisky, where did you leave Molly?" demanded Sandy.

"I don't know just where. I wasn't noticing just which way we rode. She did the leading. I don't know how I ever got back."

"Didn't she tell you where you were makin' fo'?"

"She didn't name it. It was a little lake in some cañon where Molly said there used to be beavers."

"Beaver Dam Cañon," said Sandy exultantly. "You left here 'bout seven. How fast did you trail?"

"We walked the horses most of the time. It was all up-hill. And I looked at my watch a little before it happened. It was a quarter of eleven. Molly said we'd be there by noon."

"Where were you then? What kind of a place? Near water?"

"We'd just crossed a stream."

"Willer Crick, runs out of Beaver Dam Lake. You c'udn't foller that up, 'count of the falls. Now, jest what happened?"

"We saw some men ahead of us. Molly wondered who they could be. Then they disappeared. We were riding in a pass and two of them showed again, coming out of the trees ahead of us. One of them, on a big black horse, held up his hand."

"Jim Plimsoll!"

"Yes. Molly recognized him and she spoke to him to get out of the trail. It was brush and cactus either side of us and we'd have had to crowd in. Grit was trailing us. Plimsoll wouldn't move. I heard more horses back of us and I turned to look. Two more men were coming up behind. They had rifles. So did the man with Plimsoll. He had a pistol under his vest. We couldn't go back very well and I could see from the way Plimsoll grinned that he was going to be nasty. Molly spurred Blaze on and cut at Plimsoll with her quirt. He grabbed her hand with his left. Grit sprang up at him and he got out his gun from the shoulder sling and shot him."

"Shot the dawg? Hit him?"

"Yes, in the leg. He fired at him again, but Grit got into the brush."

"Jest what were you doin' all the time?" Sandy knew the lad was a tenderfoot, knew he would have been small use on such an occasion, but the thought of Grit rising to the rescue, falling back shot, brought the taunt.

"The two men behind told me to throw up my hands," said young Keith, his face reddening. "What could I do?"

"Nothin', son. You c'udn't have done a thing. Go on."

"Plimsoll twisted Molly's wrist so that the quirt fell to the ground. The man who was with him tossed his rope over her and they twisted it round her arms. I had the muzzle of a rifle poked into my ribs. They made me get off my horse. And they made me walk back along the trail. They fired bullets each side of me and laughed at me when I dodged. They told me if I looked back they'd shoot my damned head off." Donald's eyes were filled with tears of self-pity and the remembrance of his helpless rage. "They kept firing at me until I'd passed the stream. I hid in the willows, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even see the men who had been firing at me.

"I didn't know what to do. I couldn't rescue Molly without a horse. I only had a revolver against their rifles and I'm not much of a shot. I tried to get back here but it was hard to find the way. I knew it was east but the sun was high and I wasn't sure which way the shadows lay. I was all in when your man found me."

"All right, my son. Keith, I'm goin' to borrow that flask of yores. Might need it."

He jumped from the car, flask in hand, and ran to the ranch-house. Kate Nicholson met him as he entered. "Has anything happened to Molly?" she gasped.

"That's what I'm goin' to find out," Sandy answered. "Mormon, git me my cartridge belt an' some extry shells fo' my rifle."

"I got to go git me my hawss," demurred Mormon who had followed him in. "Becos' I'm goin' on this trail."

"You can come erlong with Sam when the Brandon outfit shows. Or, if they don't show, you can bring erlong our own boys soon's they come in. But I'm hittin' this alone."

As he spoke he rummaged in a drawer and brought out the first-aid kit he always kept handy.

"You ain't takin' Sam?" asked Mormon, returning with the cartridge belt, Sandy's rifle and a box of shells. "I know you're goin' to ride hard an' fast, Sandy, but you got to go slow after you git tryin' to cut sign. Plimsoll's likely taken her over to the Waterline range country. They got a place over there somewhere they call the Hideout. It's where they hide their hawsses when they want 'em out of sight an' I reckon it's hard to find. I c'ud keep within' sight of you till you start cuttin' sign, Sandy, an' then catch up."

"Sam ain't comin'," said Sandy, filling his rifle magazine and breech, stowing away extra clips. "I'm goin' in alone. Mo'n one 'ud be likely to spoil sign, Mormon, mo'n one is likely to advertise we're comin'. They're liable to leave a lookout. Know we'll miss Molly some time. Figgered young Keith might git back some time. Plimsoll's clearin' out of the country an' I'm trailin' him clean through hell if I have to. Ef he's harmed Molly I'll stake him out with a green hide wrapped round him an' his eyelids sliced off. I'll sit in the shade an' watch him frizzle an' yell when the hide shrinks in the sun. This is my private play, Mormon. You an' Sam can back it up, but I'm handlin' the cards. I'll leave sign plain fo' you to foller from Willer Crick. They must have crossed at the ford below the big bend."

He left the room and they saw him covering the ground in a wolf trot to where Sam, astride his own favorite mount, held Pronto ready saddled. They saw Sam's protest, Sandy's vigorous overruling of it, and then Sandy was up-saddle and away at a brisk lope with Sam gazing after him disconsolately. Keith's car was turning for the trip to Hereford, spurning the dust of the Three Star Ranch forever – and not lamented.

"Ain't it jest plumb hell – beggin' yore pardon, marm – but that's what it is – plain hell!" cried Mormon. Tears of mortification were in his eyes, his voice was high-pitched and his chagrin was so much like that of an overgrown child that Kate Nicholson felt constrained to laugh despite the seriousness of the situation. "Me, I been punchin' cows, ridin' a hawss fo' a livin' fo' nigh thirty years," said Mormon. "I ain't what you'd call sooperannuated yit, if I am bald. I'm healthy as a woodchuck. But I'm so goldarned, hunky-chunky, hawg-fat I can't ride a hawss no mo' – not faster 'n a walk or further than two mile', fo' fear of breakin' his back. So I git left home to sit in a damn rockin' chair! Hell and damnation!"

"You're going to follow him, aren't you?"

"That was jest Sandy's way of lettin' me down easy. Sam'll go, but I'll stay to home. I'm goin' to give away my guns an' learn milkin'. Sandy's got about three hours of daylight. He'll go 'cross lots on the hawss, fur as he reckons the sign shows safe, an' no man can read sign better'n Sandy. Then he'll play snake an' he can beat an Indian at takin' cover. He'll drift over open country 'thout bein' spotted an', up there in the range, they'll never see, smell or hear him till he's on top of 'em an' his guns are doin' the talkin'. You ought to see him in action. I've done it. I've been in action with him, me an' Sam. Now all I'm good fo' is a close quarters ra'r an' tumble. He w'udn't take Sam erlong fo' fear of hurtin' my feelin's though even Sam 'ud be some handicap to Sandy on this trip of scoutin'.

"Sam can't take cover extra good, though he shoots middlin'. Sandy, he shoots like lightnin' fast an' straight."

"But there are four against him, at least."

"Fo' what?" asked Mormon with a look of scorn. "Plimsoll an' three of his cronies. Mebbe one or two mo' chucked in fo' good measure. What of it? Yeller, all of 'em, yeller as the belly of a Gila River pizen lizard. On'y way the odds 'ud be even w'ud be fo' them to git the drop on Sandy an' it can't be done. He's got his fightin' face on an' that means hands an' heart an' eyes an' brain an' every inch of him lined up to win. Sandy fights with his head an' he's got the heart to back it. Hell's bells, marm, beggin' yo' pardon ag'in, I ain't worryin' none erbout Sandy! I ain't seen him lose out yet. I'm cussin' about me– warmin' an armchair an' waddlin' round like a fall hawg."

Mormon slammed his hat on the floor and jumped on it and Miss Nicholson fled, a little reassured by Mormon's eulogy, anxious to talk it over with Sam.

Sandy, his eyes like the mica flakes that show in gray granite, his humorous mouth a stern line, little bunches of muscles at the junction of his jaws, held the pinto to a steady lope that ate up the ground, drifting straight and fast across country for the opening in the mesa that he had marked as the short-cut to the spot described by Donald Keith. Through gray sage and ferny mesquite Pronto moved, elastic of every sinew, springy of pastern, without fret or fuss though he had not been ridden for two days. Even as the man fitted the saddle, counterbalanced every supple movement of his steed, so Sandy's will dominated that of Pronto, making his mood his master's, telling him the occasion was one for best efforts with no place for wasted energy.

"We're goin' to cross a hard country, li'l' hawss," said Sandy. "But I figger we can make it. Got to make it, Pronto. An' we're sure goin' to. Doin' it fo' her."

Every now and then he talked his thoughts aloud, as the lonely rider will and, if the pinto could not understand, he listened with pricked ears.

"Grit must have been hurt pritty bad, I'm afraid. Still he might have trailed her 'stead of comin' back. Sun's gettin' to'ards the no'th."

He glanced at the luminary, slowly descending. "But the moon's up already an' she's full." He looked to where a wan plate of battered silver hung in the east. "We got some luck on our side, Pronto, after all.

"Wonder who the three were with Plimsoll? They've gone to the Hideout an' we got to find it, li'l' hawss. Some job, I reckon. But Plimsoll's goin' to be mighty sorry fo' himse'f befo' long."

As they neared the foot-hills of the range he lapsed to silence. He was taking chances, crossing country this fashion. He knew it fairly well, and he guessed at what lay behind the visible contours from the experience of years. Deep barrancas might crop up in their path, massed thickets of cactus that had to be ridden around for loss of time. The mesa, looking like a solid block of rock at a distance, was, he knew well, broken into tortuous ravines and cañons, eroded into wild thrusts of the mother rock, its central part eaten away by time and weather.

Part of the Three Star range, shared by two ranches, ran over the southern part of the mesa and it was close to its boundary fence that Sandy was heading. Then came the range of Plimsoll's Waterline, a rough country, unknown to Sandy, with scant food for many cattle, but sweet grass enough for a horse herd and containing pockets where the slicktails sometimes came.

Sandy struck the first rise. He was now a crucible filled with glowing white fury. Thoughts of what Plimsoll might achieve in insult and injury to Molly could not be kept out of his mind and they but added fuel. It was not Sandy Bourke of the Three Bar, riding his favorite pinto, but a desperate man on a horse infected with the same grim determination, a man with a face that, despite the fiery heat within, blazing from his eyes, would have chilled the blood of any meeting him.

He did not spare Pronto nor did Pronto attempt to spare himself, going at the task set before him with all the superb coordination of muscle and tendon and bone that he possessed. They slid down the sides of ravines that were almost as steep as a wall, the pinto squatting on its tail; they climbed the opposing banks with the surety of a mountain goat, a rush, a scramble of well-placed hooves, a play of fetlocks; then, with a heave of spreading ribs and hammer-strokes of a gallant heart under Sandy's lean thighs, they were over the top and away, with Sandy's eyes searching the land for the shortest, most practical way.

The place it had taken Molly and young Keith nearly three hours to reach in leisurely fashion, Sandy gained in one, splashing through the shallows of Willow Creek at the ford below the big bend and giving Pronto the chance to cool his fetlocks and rinse out his mouth in the cold water.

Ahead lay the chimney ravine that led around into Beaver Dam Lake, in which Molly and the boy had been attacked. Sandy viewed the chaparral, the trees that covered the lesser slopes, the stark cliffs above. Part of this lay in the Waterline territory. The chances that Plimsoll had left some one on guard were not to be slighted. But he rode on down the narrow trail. Once in a while he broke a branch and left it swinging as a guide to Sam when he should follow with the riders from the ranch. They would be coming in now and in a few minutes would start on remounts. Perhaps Brandon had come? Sandy wasted little time on surmise.

The tracks of Molly's Blaze and the horse Donald had been riding were plain as print to Sandy. He even noticed the slot of Grit's pads here and there in softer soil. He had picked them up at the coming-out place of the ford. Two more sets of hoofs came out of the chaparral and from there on the sign was badly broken. But Sandy knew the story and the interpretation was sufficient.

The shadows were getting longer, half the eastern side of the ravine was in shadow that steadily crept down as if to obliterate the telltale imprints. The moon was slowly brightening. Sandy's eyes, burning steadily, were untroubled by doubt.

The place of the struggle was plain. The brush was trampled. To one side of the trail there was a clot of blood, almost black, with flies buzzing attention to it. It must have come from Grit. He caught sight of another fleck of it on some leaves where Grit had raced into the brush out of the way of the crippling fire.

"I'll score one fo' you, Grit, while I'm about it," muttered Sandy as he dismounted and carefully surveyed the sign. He even picked up Donald's returning shoemarks. Six horses had gone on, one led.

Sandy swung up the heavy stirrups and tied them above the saddle seat. He stripped the reins from the bridle and pulled down Pronto's wise head.

"Hit the back-trail fo' home, li'l' hawss," he said. "If I need me a mount to git back I'll borrow one. I got to go belly-trailin' pritty soon."

He gave the pinto a cautious slap on the flank and Pronto started off down the trail. So far Sandy believed he had not been seen. If he had, a rifle-shot would have been the first warning. With the experience of a man who has seen shooting before, he had chanced a miss, knowing the odds on his side. It was twenty to one Plimsoll and his men had hurried off to the Hideout.

A buzzard hung in the early evening sky, circling high and then suddenly dropping in a swoop.

"Looks like Grit's cashed in," thought Sandy. "That bird was a late comer, at that."

But it was not Grit.

The ravine curved, forked. One way led to Beaver Dam Lake, the other rifted deep through rocky outcrop, leading to the Waterline Range. The boundary fence crossed it. Two posts had been broken out, the wire flattened. Through the gap led the sign that Sandy followed. He carried his rifle with him and he moved cautiously but swiftly through the half light, for the cleft was in shadow. The walls lowered, the incline ended, became a decline, leading down. The clouds were assembling for sunset overhead, the moon just topped the eastern cliffs, beginning to send out a measure of reflected light. A beam struck a little cylinder, the emptied shell of a thirty-thirty rifle. There was another close by. And scanty soil was marked with more hoofs. Sandy halted, wondering the key to the puzzle. Did it mean a quarrel between Plimsoll's men? Altogether he figured there had been a dozen horses over the ground. It was only a swift guess but he knew it close to the mark. Had Plimsoll been joined or attacked? And…?

His practised eyes, roving here and there, saw still more cartridge shells. Walking cat-footed, he made no sound but suddenly three buzzards rose on heavy wings and he went swiftly to where they had been squatting. A dead man lay up against the cliff, a saddle blanket thrown over his face. This had held off the carrion birds. The body was limp and still warm, it had been a corpse only a short time. Sandy took off the blanket.

It was Wyatt! Wyatt, whom he had seen not much more than four hours before, riding on the main street in Hereford, threatening vengeance on Plimsoll. A bullet had made a small hole in his skull by the right temple and crashed out through the back of his head in a bloody gap!

CHAPTER XIX
THE HIDEOUT

The row that had culminated at the Waterline Ranch, ending in the trouble between Plimsoll and Wyatt, had brewed steadily. It had been a reckless crowd at the horse ranch, practically outlaws by their actions though not yet so adjudged, yet knowing their tenure of immunity was growing short. There had collected, besides Plimsoll's riders, Butch Parsons, Hahn's and others of Plimsoll's following who had been forced from their livelihood as gamblers. They still hung together, waiting for Plimsoll to make a clean-up of his horses and move to places where they were less discredited.

Meantime they made their own crude liquors and drank them freely. They gambled and caroused late. There were some women at the ranch. There was little fellowship.

Plimsoll had lost caste as a leader. His moods were morose or bragging. His ascendancy was gone. The crowd clung to him like so many leeches, waiting for a split of the proceeds of the sale of horses that no one appeared eager to buy in quantity. Ready cash was short. There were frequent quarrels; through it all there worked the leaven of Wyatt's jealousy, fermenting steadily. There were men among them who had fought with gunplay and who had killed but, as they were cheats, so they were cravens, at heart.

When the split came, after an all-night session with cards and liquor, following the refusal of a dealer to buy the herd, it was not merely a matter between Wyatt and Plimsoll. Sides were taken and the weaker driven from the ranch. Preparations were made for departure. The frightened women fled back to Hereford.

"It's a rotten mess," declared Butch Parsons. "Wyatt or one of the others'll tell all they know. You ought to have shot straighter, Plimsoll. Just like cuttin' our own throats to let 'em get away."

"You did some missing on your own account," retorted Plimsoll.

"It was the rotten booze. You started it. If you'd plugged Wyatt right it would have ended it. Now we've got to clear out."

"There isn't two hundred dollars of real money in the crowd," said Plimsoll. "If Taylor had taken the herd…"

"He was afraid to touch it. We'll go south. That's my plan. You can find a buyer in Tucson. Put the horses in the Hideout. Leave one or two to look out for 'em an' turn 'em over later. We can arrange for a delivery if we make a sale."

"Who in hell's goin' to stay behind?" asked one of the men.

"We'll cut cards for it."

"Not me."

"What's the use of fighting among ourselves again?" suggested Hahn smoothly. "We can settle who's to stay later. There's grub in the Hideout and a safe place to lay low if anything goes wrong. They'll have a fine time proving up the horses are stolen. We've got to take a chance. Butch is right. We can't take them with us. There's a good chance of a sale in Tucson. Meantime we've got to figure on Wyatt. He'll likely try to get in touch with that Brandon outfit."

"Or that chap who said he was from Phoenix," put in Butch. "You made a misplay, there, Plimsoll. That chap was a ringer."

"You talk like a fool," retorted Plimsoll. "He sold us the bunch cheap enough. He never raised horses he'd let go at that price. He lifted 'em, like he said."

"Just the same, he didn't act like a rustler."

"It was his first trick. Young vouched for him."

"This ain't getting us anywhere," said Hahn. "Let's make for the Hideout and talk it out there. This place ain't safe."

Within an hour the herd, already corralled for the chance of a quick sale, was being driven to the glen known as the Hideout, a little mountain park with water and good feed where Plimsoll placed the horses that his men drove off from far-away ranches, or Plimsoll bought from other horse dealers of his own sort, keeping them there until their brands were doctored and possible pursuit died down. There were two entrances to the Hideout, one through a narrow gut almost blocked by a fallen boulder, with only a passage wide enough to let through horse and rider single file, a way that could be easily barricaded or masked so that none would suspect any opening in the cliff. The second led by a winding way through a desolate region, over rock that left no sign and wound by twists and turns that none but the initiated could follow. The place, accidentally discovered, was perfect for its purpose.

There were some horses now in the Hideout, the lot purchased from the man from Phoenix, whom Butch suspected. But Parsons was of a suspicious disposition and the rest had overruled him, though the purchase had taken most of the cash at their disposal, until they could make the sale that had fallen through at the last minute. There was feed enough for the entire herd for a month. There was a cabin in a side gully of the park, near the blocked entrance, the whole place was honeycombed with caves, in the towering sidewalls and underground.

Five of the nine left of the Waterline outfit drove the herd. Hahn and Parsons could both ride, but they were not experts at handling horses. They chose to go with Plimsoll and the outfit-cook, while the rest took the long way round to the other way in. The four lingered to give the rest a start. There was some liquor left and this they started to dispose of. At noon the cook got a farewell meal and they mounted.

"I hate leaving the country without evening up some way with the Bourke outfit," said Plimsoll. "Damn him and the rest of them, they broke the luck for us. As for the girl, if…?"

"Oh, quit throwing the bull con about that, Jim," said Parsons bluntly. "Sandy Bourke's a damn good man for you to leave alone an' you know it. Talk ain't goin' to hurt him."

"I'm coming back some time," said Plimsoll with a string of oaths. "Then you'll see something besides talk."

Parsons jeered at him. Plimsoll was no longer the leader and he knew it. But he hung on to the semblance of authority that an open quarrel with Butch might shatter. Butch was a bully, but Plimsoll respected his shooting. And Hahn sided with him. The cook did not count.

Plimsoll carried with him a fine pair of binoculars and, as they rode leisurely on and reached a vantage-point, he swept the tumbled horizon for signs of any strange riders. It was the caution of habit as much as actual fear of a raid. There were no Hereford County horses in his herd save those he had bred himself and he did not think Wyatt or the others who had left the outfit would be able to stir up sentiment against him in Hereford. It would take time to get in touch with Brandon. But they made it a point to be sure that no casual rider noticed them on the way to the Hideout, or coming from it.

At times Plimsoll rode aside from the trail to a ridge crest for wider vision. At last, coming up the pass of Willow Creek, he sighted Molly and Donald with Grit trotting beside them. It was the dog that confirmed his first surmise. He had heard that Molly had returned, but he had not dared a visit to the Three Star. Who the rider with her was he did not care. That it was a tenderfoot was plain by his clothes and by his seat. As he adjusted the powerful glasses to a better focus Plimsoll's face twisted to an ugly smile. He had a flask in his hip pocket and he swigged at it before he rode to catch up with Parsons and Hahn.

"I'll show you if I do nothing but talk," he said to Butch after he told them of his discovery. "We'll wait for them along the trail. We'll send the chap with her back afoot."

"And what'll you do with her?" asked Hahn. "We've had enough of skirts, Plimsoll. This is no time to be mixed up with them."

"Isn't it?" The drink had given Plimsoll some of his old swagger, and the prospect of hatching the revenge over which he had brooded so long took possession of him. "Then you're a bigger fool than I thought you, Hahn. That particular skirt, aside from my personal interest in her, represents about a quarter of a million dollars – maybe more. She's got a quarter interest and a little better in the Molly Mine. The Three Star owns another quarter. How much will they give up to have her back? Bourke's her guardian, remember. I think the chap with her may be young Keith. We won't monkey with him. He'll do to tell what happened. But we'll take the girl along and we'll send back word of how much we want to let her go. After I'm through with her. She may not go back the same as she came, but they won't know that and they'll pay enough to set us up and to hell with the herd."

Parsons and Hahn looked at each other, greed rising in their eyes. They had no love for the partners of the Three Star nor for Molly Casey. A big ransom was possible if it was handled right.

"You'll have the whole county searching the range," objected Parsons. "There's a lot know something about the Hideout and they'll use Wyatt to show 'em the way. Bourke'll guess where she is."

"Let him. Wyatt don't know about the caves, does he? We can take her some other place to-morrow. We won't say anything now to the kid about a ransom. We'll mail a letter after we fix details. But we'll take the girl into the Hideout now. That tenderfoot'll be lucky if he drifts back to the Three Star by nightfall afoot. We'll be out of the place long before that. And we'll put her where they can't find her till they come through. I'm running this."

The cook had ridden on ahead. Now he was waiting for them, looking back. Parsons shrugged his shoulders.

"How do we split?" asked Hahn.

"Three ways," said Plimsoll. "We'll take her to the cabin. The rest'll be at the other end. We'll keep Cookie with us – for the present. No need for the boys to know about it. We can manage that all right. Three ways, and I handle the girl."

Butch Parson grinned at him.

"I thought you'd lost all your nerve, Jim, but I guess I was wrong. All right, it goes as it lays. You handle the lady. You ought to know how. Now then, how'll we bring it off?"

Plimsoll talked glibly, convincingly. Butch Parsons had no extra share of brains, those he had had never been developed beyond the ordinary. Hahn was a good faro dealer. There his intelligence specialized and ended. Plimsoll was the master-mind of his crowd; they appreciated and acknowledged his capacity for details. That he had been unsuccessful of late they set down to his lack of nerve, dissipated in his encounter with Sandy. Their present lack of cash, the doubtfulness of being able to sell and deliver the horses, made ransom a glittering possibility. Hahn had some objections, but Plimsoll overruled them plausibly enough.

"I don't see the sense of letting the kid go," questioned Hahn. "He's good for a big split as well as the girl."

"You're a fool when it comes to looking ahead, Hahn. You always were," answered Plimsoll. What with the chance of revenge in sight over which he had brooded until it became a part of his consciousness, and the liquor still stirring potently within him, he felt that his ascendancy had become reestablished, "Keith – the old man – is too big a fish to monkey with. Got too many pulls and connections. He'd have the whole country out and the trick played up big in every dinky newspaper. That's part of his business – publicity. We've got one fish – or will have – no sense straining the net. We don't want the kid. Let him string along back best way he can. We'll get all the start we need. What else would you do with him?"

"Stow him away somewhere and send a tip where they can find him in a day or two."

Plimsoll shot a look of contempt at Butch, making the proposal.

"You and Hahn make a good team," he said. "No. One's enough. He may get lost – we'll take his horse – and that won't be our fault. He may make Three Star late this afternoon. I wish I could be with him when he tells what he knows. Time they locate the Hideout, we'll be miles away through the south end and they'll have one hell of a time trailing us over the rocks. The boys weren't over-keen about staying with the herd and they can vamose. We'll tell them it's best to scatter for a bit and name a meeting-place. The horses can stay in the park. If we put this deal over right we don't need to bother about horse-trading. We can get clean out of the country with a big stake, go down to South America and start up a place. There are live times and good plays down there, boys. All right, Cookie, we're coming. I'm going to take another look. It's ten to one they're making for Beaver Dam Lake – on a picnic."