THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE

THE RIDER OF THE MOHAVE

PROLOGUE—HE RIDES BY NIGHT

It was three in the morning, but Geerusalem had not yet closed its eyes. There was too much undug gold in the hills; it was too handy—too easy come, easy go; the days, too short; the pleasures, too wanton, too alluring. The camp of Geerusalem promenaded, gambled, danced, fought, debauched the night away, waiting for to-morrow. Far out on desolate Soapweed Plains, rose the intermittent, yelping wail-bark of a coyote.

The back door of a little store that fronted on the main street opened cautiously. The interior of what was a kitchen was dark; the flower-garden yard into which it gave, was also dark. The shadowy form of a man emerged and halted; he peered carefully about through the gloom. A smaller figure followed, pausing on the threshold—a woman, her white apron and snowy hair quite visible. The man turned, took her in his arms impulsively, and held her close to his breast.

“Don’t you worry, ma. I’ll be droppin’ round again, two weeks from to-night—sure’s sic ’em!” he whispered, as he kissed her.

The woman wept softly. “Oh, Jerome, darling, why don’t you quit this awful thing?” she sobbed, clinging to him. “Don’t you know how my heart’s just breaking?”

“Too late, ma. I oughter’ve quit ’fore I begun. If I started quittin’ now, they wouldn’t let me, would they? But I’m tellin’ you; don’t think about me. They can’t ketch me. I’ve bin goin’ it three years, ain’t I? Well, then, when you see Tinnemaha Pete, tell him to leave you a chunk of that ore. An’ see that he don’t tell nobody about findin’ it. I figger it’s a bonanza. Mebby, that’ll mean better days. Well, we’ll see what’s doin’. Now, I’d better be scootin’, honey. An’ don’t you worry, see?” He kissed her again, tenderly, many times, breathing his last injunction into her ear.

A few seconds later he had slipped like a shadow across the yard and was stealing out of an alleyway between two adobe buildings, heading for the back street. That street was black, deserted, the nocturnal population of the camp confining itself to the bright lights and attractions that converted the one business thoroughfare into a brilliant avenue, noisy with ribald merrymaking and adventure.

Near by stood his horse. He reached it and, with a vigilant glance about, threw back one of the flaps of his saddlebags and plunged a rummaging hand inside. It came forth with a folded piece of wrapping paper and several nails he had placed there the day before.

With a reckless chuckle, he wound his bandanna around his face leaving only his eyes exposed; then he mounted and rode off to the next cross street, and thence to the brilliantly lighted hub of the town. The bulletin board of the Geerusalem Searchlight, an afternoon newspaper, loomed big and black on the edge of the sidewalk, in the full glare of window lights. It was one of those moments when the immediate vicinity was clear of promenaders.

Seeing this, the rider spurred over to the bulletin board, unfolded the sheet of wrapping paper, and nailed it on the black surface with the butt of his six-shooter. Then, he caracoled his horse about, fired a volley into the air and, throwing the whole strength of his lungs into a wild howl, waved his hat to a crowd of men standing before the Miners’ Hotel, and dashed away around the nearest street corner, bound for the lonely, trailless reaches of the Mohave Desert far to the south.

The horde of curious night revelers swarming to the spot, a few seconds later, read with varying degrees of emotion the rough printed notice on the bulletin board:

I bin lookin three year for Sheriff Warburton an cant find him. Ill give $5,000 to git akquainted with the county fameous detektive.

Your lovin bandit,

Billy Gee.

CHAPTER I—MANIA AND DREAMS

Lemuel Huntington had told himself a thousand times that his Dot must have an education. He had long since become infatuated with the notion. It had him gripped as tenaciously as the seductive toils of romance had the imaginative Dot enmeshed. It was a consuming mania with him.

“If I got to steal the money, she’s goin’ to college—the dream of her darlin’ dead mother. S’help me, I’ll turn thief if I got to!”

Lemuel, the failure, was fifty-one—the age when most men begin to slow down, whether they want to or not. Twenty years before, he and his little bride had left a perfectly good living in Iowa to try a short cut to fortune in California. The fact that more often than not distance is a most captivating beckoner, did not occur to these happy newlyweds until they reached the Golden State and found that a tremendous army—also seeking sudden wealth—had preceded them, and was daily being augmented by regiments of recruits from the four corners of the globe.

The discovery appalled them—their capital being alarmingly small; and nearly two years of drifting from little town to little town, just managing to get by, took the heart out of them.

Then, one day, Lemuel brought home news of a tract of government land known as Soapweed Plains, on the north rim of the Mohave Desert, with enticing reports of rich mineral belts in the adjacent mountain ranges. It looked like the opportunity for which they had waited. They would homestead, and in a few years Huntington would be a name indelibly branded on the cattle industry of the State. And there was the further golden prospect of rich mines!

Packing their few belongings, husband and wife bought tickets to the dismal wind-whipped station of Mirage, on the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad, and spent two everlasting days shooing a trinity of stubborn burros over a hell waste, into the new land of promise. But again the captivating beckoner had tricked them. Soapweed Plains was a sweltering realm of sagebrush, sand and sidewinders, twenty-five miles wide, divided off from the rest of the desert universe by a horseshoe barricade of saw-edge peaks and table mountains that abutted a sky-line mesa to the south—and by serenading coyotes by night.

In despair, the Huntingtons filed on two quarter sections of sand and rubble, the west side of their claims overlapping a bunch-grass hill; the narrow strip on the east was handy to those scant benefits of irrigation so grudgingly bestowed by the tepid disappearing-reappearing Mohave River. Here, at least, they might coax a living out of the soil, said Lemuel dolefully. It was a permanent anchorage, if nothing more, sighed his wife. And they started grubbing away a site for a home and killing the sidewinding rattlesnakes.

Soon, they found that the potato thrived, as did the melon and alfalfa; found, too, that it was a paradise for bees. They contrived to get a cow and heifer, a span of desert-broke horses, and a rattletrap buckboard. Prospectors learned about the Huntington ranch and, finding it handier to go there after certain commodities than to far-off Mirage, began patronizing it. Its popularity grew. As a result, Lemuel added a stock of bacon, beans, condensed milk, sugar, matches, and such staple supplies to his assorted farm products, and reaped a comfortable profit therefrom.

Then Dot came—and the lonely brush ranch became the nucleus of Lemuel and Emily’s resurrected hopes, for they began planning wonderful things for their first-born, and, not the least among these things, an education that would make her a great lady of accomplishments some day.

But the years dragged by, one after the other, in that out-of-the-way land, so woefully lacking in transportation—empty-handed years almost, that held out scarcely more than a possibility at any time that those precious plans of theirs would ever be fulfilled. It would take a fat purse indeed to send Dot to select Longwell Seminary in San Francisco and keep her there in becoming luxury until she blossomed forth a chosen daughter of California’s élite.

When Dot was twelve her brave little mother died, and for a long time afterward, Lemuel went about like a man desperately searching for something he had lost without knowing just what it was. His resurrected hopes died with her, and were buried. Everything slowed down to a point where he merely held on to a bare living for himself and his child.

To-day, he was a failure, that child eighteen, while the only remaining echo of the precious plans to make Dot a grand lady was this secret wild mania of his, seething in the core of his brain, to see that daughter educated before they laid him beside the trim little grave in the garden.

Perhaps it was this same mania of his that now led him to haunt the nearest place where brains forgathered—the gold camp of Geerusalem, four miles northeast of the Huntington ranch—and to get to hobnobbing with its insolent brotherhood of mining engineers, promoters, assayers, and attorneys—a type of individual that looms up in the mind of the crude Southwest as prodigious as totem poles, omniscient and omnipotent.

Whatever it was that made Lemuel enjoy being the butt of this uppish fraternity’s quips and sneers, and come back regularly for more, hardly matters. Month in and month out, as often as he could get away from the ranch, he would saddle a horse and ride to Geerusalem, and spend the day strutting around with the forty-five caliber brains of the camp. Accordingly, day after day, Dot, the imaginative, was left to herself and the weaving of her wistful, romantic dreams.

She was a bright little body, this eighteen-year-old daughter of Lemuel, the failure; face so frank and sensitive, hair so soft and wavy and glossy, throat so round and smooth. Her eyes were large and brown, and sometimes quite sad from gazing too long into the monotonous distances out of whose blue haze nothing of living substance ever came. She had grown to charming young womanhood, but she still retained the fanciful mind of her pinafore days—the little story-teller had survived as her playmate, Frank Norris would have said—with all a youngster’s fascination for impossible stories of impossible beings.

She would sit by the hour dreaming of handsome blond heroes rescuing beautiful maidens from the clutches of Tatarian villains, with wicked flowing black mustaches and bushy eyebrows, of magnificent daredevil bandits succoring helpless widows and orphans, of notorious Billy Gee even, about whose wild, desperate exploits up and down the Mohave and Colorado Deserts she had heard so much, of hairbreadth escapes, furious bloody duels, and brilliant weddings.

The isolated ranch was an ideal spot for the painting of just such thrilling mind pictures. She could sit on the front porch and look across the gray desolation of plain that stretched to the violet and yellow scallop of range twenty miles eastward, and visualize in that void of undulating air currents every scene her fertile imagination conjured up for her. She lived those scenes, every one of them. They were big moments in her life; palpitating, vivid moments—moments that made her dreary, humdrum existence worth while to her.

“Nothing ever happens out here,” she would sometimes murmur to the eternal sameness of the plains. “Nobody ever comes this way, even. I wish daddy would sell the ranch and move to Geerusalem or somewhere—where things happen, where people laugh and talk and visit.”

On a number of occasions, Lemuel had found her sitting on the front porch, musing into the solitudes, eyes brilliant, cheeks aglow, her parted lips moving.

“Gosh, what a pity!” he had lamented to himself each time, as he went tiptoeing away. “It’s them fine brains of hers workin’. I tell you, Em’ly, wife, she’s goin’ to be the great lady you figgered on, if I got to sell my soul to do it. I’m jest watchin’ for a chanct. You wait an’ see!”

It was well on toward noon of an August day. A fiery sun was churning the floor of Soapweed Plains into a stormy ocean of heat waves. Lemuel had gone to Geerusalem on his customary hobnobbing expedition. Dot, her housework completed, sat reading in the shade of the passion-flower vine that trellised the porch, a novel borrowed from Mrs. Agatha Liggs, a widow who kept a small dry goods store in the camp.

Suddenly, breaking on the dead silence like muffled shots, came the sound of hoofs. Dot dropped her book and sprang to her feet expectantly, for the riders who passed that way, bound to and from the unimportant desert station of Mirage, were few indeed and far between. The next instant she was staring at a lone horseman approaching, not along the road but from across country, from the direction of the violet and yellow scallop of range that formed the magical setting of all her romantic dreams!

She stared in unbelief, amazed for the moment. Then she noticed that he was hatless, that the whole side of his head, the whole front of his dirty, white shirt, were crimson with blood, that he reeled drunkenly, lifelessly in the saddle.

Aghast at the spectacle, she gazed on, rooted to the spot, until the exhausted horse stumbled up to the barred gate and stopped, drooping, rocking on quivering legs. Out of the gate she darted then, threw down the bars and led the animal up to the house, her heart fluttering with excitement and horror.

The rider was in a half swoon, mumbling thickly. Above his right ear was a long, bloody furrow, like the plow of a bullet. The bandanna he had had for a bandage had slipped down over his face, neglected. It was saturated. He had been bleeding for hours, was her horrifying thought. A glance told her that he was a stranger. That same glance informed her that he was probably twenty-five, fairly good-looking even through his coating of dust and blood, and that he wore a double cartridge belt and a brace of six-shooters, one of which he still held gripped in his hand.

Ordinarily, she would have been quite unable to handle the dead weight he represented, but now she managed to drag him out of the saddle and into the house without being particularly conscious of the effort. She got him on the parlor lounge finally and plunged into the work of bathing his wound and dressing it. Then she tore away his sodden shirts, replaced them with two of her father’s, and brought a dipper of water and poured it in little swallows down his throat.

Seating herself in a chair beside him, she looked him over curiously, studied him. Who was he? What was he? The wound? Under less shocking circumstances, it was quite probable he would have proved a big treat to her vivid imagination. But now there somehow seemed to be too much tragic reality about him to make her care to commit him and his plight to the wild flings of fancy.

At last he opened his eyes and stared up at her vaguely. They were blue eyes. There was an odd, hunted glint in them, a smolder of recklessness, a shadow of sadness, exhaustion. He raised an uncertain hand to his bandaged head. He glanced around the room, then back at her, his wits clearing suddenly.

“Where am I? Whose—whose place is this?” he jerked out, with an effort.

“This is Lemuel Huntington’s ranch. I’m his daughter, Dot.” She thought a queer interest leaped into his eyes at the information. “You must be quiet, now. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but you’ll be all right,” she went on, when he did not speak. “If I fixed you something, could you eat?” She rose from her chair.

But he detained her, in a sudden spasm of apprehension. “My—my saddlebags! I—they——” he faltered hoarsely.

“They’re safe outside,” she nodded. “Do you want them?”

“Please, sister. Bring ’em here. Hurry! I—I want ’em handy.”

She ran out of the front door to the horse which still stood, untethered, on sagging legs. Unfastening the leather containers, she carried them into the house. She remarked that while they were not especially heavy, they bulged to capacity, their flaps buckled securely. She remarked also the man’s relief at sight of them and how profusely he thanked her. Then he instructed her to stow them under the head of the lounge and asked her for a drink of water. But when she returned with a dipperful, she found him sunk into a sleep of exhaustion. Whereupon she darkened the room, closed the door quietly behind her, and went outside again to look after the spent horse.

Watering the animal, she tied it in a stall in the barn to feed. Then she inspected the stranger’s saddle carefully. It was typical of the parts, without an identifying mark of any kind upon it, except splashes of dried blood. Presently she fastened the barn door and reëntered the house. Her mysterious patient still slept. It was a few minutes past noon, and she sat down to her customary warmed-over meal in the kitchen, but she could not eat.

CHAPTER II—THE MAN HUNTER

As has been said, Dot Huntington was, notwithstanding her eighteen years, a child of romance. She had been “living scenes” ever since her mother told her the first bed-time story in the long, long ago. She had wished so many, many times in the past that something really thrilling might happen to her—a big, exciting adventure. At this moment she felt that that thrilling something had at last happened. Here was that big, exciting adventure begun. It was all like one of her tremendous, wonderful dreams come true.

She quivered rapturously in the realization that she was a flesh-and-blood factor in some great tragic mystery, that, hero or villain, this sick, wounded man was her patient, dependent on her. A surge of pity swept suddenly into her heart at the thought; an odd sense of responsibility followed, bringing with it a subtle gratification she keenly welcomed.

She told herself that this stranger had ridden in out of that vast mystic horizon where all her dreams had taken shape—like any one of the impossible beings she visualized—looking for attention, care, succor. Yes, she would heed his call—whether he was good or bad. Why, indeed, should she question the moral status of a man half dead? She sat for a long time, her warmed-over meal cold, ruminating thus. How he must have suffered out in that awful wilderness of sand and furnace heat!

Then again came the sound of approaching hoofs.

Starting up out of her chair, she listened. It was the gait of a fresh horse. If it were her father returning early from camp? If it were somebody else? She had not given this phase of the matter a thought. She had lost sight of embarrassing consequences developing. Now vague fears she could not analyze began to assail her.

The hoofs had fallen into a trot, had come to a halt out on the road, ere she flitted through the house, reached the front door and peered cautiously out. A man had just dismounted at the gate. He also was a stranger, a big, broad man about fifty, wearing a split-crown sombrero, unusually wide of brim, and baggy trousers stuffed into high-heeled boots. He too was coated with the dust of long riding, his iron-gray mustache almost invisibly white with it, his six-shooter holsters standing out from his hips.

In the act of lowering the bars, he stooped to examine something on the ground. His appearance, coupled with this last suspicious move, sufficed to stamp him an officer of the law, even though he was not wearing his identifying star of authority.

Dot watched him a few seconds, reasoning that were he an officer, he undoubtedly hailed from San Buenaventura, the county seat, as she was well acquainted with the constable and deputy sheriffs who made their headquarters in Geerusalem. With this decision, she closed the door, locked it, and rushed into the parlor. Her patient was sleeping heavily. She shook him by the shoulder.

“Wake up! Wake up! There’s a—a sheriff outside!” she whispered hoarsely into his ear.

He scrambled off the lounge in a panic, wild-eyed, groggy, a curse bursting from his lips.

“Y’sure? Why in hell—— Git back, an’ let me at him! I’ll give him——” He fumbled feebly for his six-shooters, reeled off his balance, and tumbled over backward on the lounge. His gaze fastened on her, horrible with appeal. “You wouldn’t feed me to that buzzard—this way—would you, sister? Gimme an even break with the——” he gasped out.

A strange ominous fire was playing in Dot’s eyes. She was pale, but dangerously calm. She leaned over him and caught him quickly around the middle with her right arm.

“Come! Stand up! He won’t dare go into my room.”

He blundered to his feet, then through the small dining room and into her own quarters, adjoining the kitchen, she finally staggered with him and helped him onto her bed.

“Not a sound, now!” she warned.

“I’ll never ferget you for this, Miss—Miss Huntington,” he said hoarsely.

She closed the door after her as she went out, locked it, and hurriedly arranged her appearance before the wall glass in the kitchen. Then she threw on a sunbonnet and took a glistening something out of a drawer in the cupboard. She walked out of the back door, just as the stranger, having finished his investigations at the gate, approached along the driveway, leading his horse. He touched his hat to her as she came in view around the corner of the house, one hand hidden in the folds of her skirt.

“I jest dropped in to get a swaller of water for Chain Lightnin’—if you don’t mind,” he said pleasantly. “It’s right hot travelin’.”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Help yourself.” She indicated the trough near by. She looked him over, with obvious suspicion.

While his horse drank, the visitor’s eyes wandered apparently aimlessly over the vicinity; they took in the girl, the buildings, the fresh hoofprints in the mud around the trough. He even hearkened to the munching of an animal in the barn—hungry munching, that was. Presently he sauntered back to her and halted a step away.

“You didn’t happen to see a feller ride by this way an hour or so ago, miss? Mighta looked shot—bleedin’ bad?” he said, watching her narrowly.

She nodded. “About two hours ago—yes. Are you——”

“By that you mean, he come an’ went—is that it?”

“I said he was here, not he is here, sir,” she parried, with emphasis.

He burst into a heavy chuckle, mopped his red face, but kept his hawklike eye riveted on her. “I see. Of course, if he was here you’d jest nacherly out with it, sence they ain’t no reason why you shouldn’t, eh?”

“Well, I declare! You’re awfully clever. You’ve read my mind—almost,” she exclaimed, giving him a radiant, tantalizing smile.

He winced and changed his tactics. When he spoke again it was in a well-assumed, worried confidential tone.

“Poor Bill! He bled like a stuck pig. I see it out by the gate. Y’see, miss, me an’ him’s old pals. He gets in a little scrimmich las’ night, an’ a depity sheriff whangs away at him. I bin’ tryin’ to ketch up with him sence about nine this mornin’. I’m dead anxious to——”

“It’s too bad,” interrupted Dot. “Really, if I’d known that, I’d have insisted on him waiting for you.” He caught the sly derision in her voice, and his jaws set.

“I see you got his hoss in the barn. I s’pose you presented him with a fresh one an’ fixed him up so’s he could go on comf’table?”

“Why, yes! I bandaged his head for him. That was the Christian thing to do, don’t you think? And that poor horse couldn’t have lasted him into Geerusalem. But how in the world did you ever guess——”

“How far is that?”

“Geerusalem? Four miles.”

“That’s about where he’s steerin’ for, don’t you reckon?” he asked shrewdly.

She flashed him another smile. “That’s just what I was going to ask you. How should I know his business? Being his old pal, you’re doing a lot of funny questioning, it seems to me.”

He flushed angrily. “You know consid’rable more than you let on, miss,” he said harshly, his eyes narrowing to pin points. “They ain’t no hoss went out that gate sence he come in here. Somebody ridden out before, but you helped this galoot outer the saddle an’ tramped over the other tracks. You can’t make no sucker outer me. Come through, now!”

She laughed daringly. “There’s more than one way of getting off this ranch—fast, stranger. I’ve had bother enough with one scamp already, without wasting breath on his partner.” She took a sudden step away from him, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her skirt came forth, holding a revolver. “Travel! Get out and hunt for your friend, before I give you a place to bandage!”

The unexpectedness of her action took him quite by surprise. He gazed hard at her for a few seconds, then he changed fronts with amazing rapidity. He began to grin broadly.

“Of co’se, you don’t know who you’re talkin’ to, miss, or you wouldn’t jerk a gun——”

“I’m talking to another scalawag. Are you traveling, or do you want what the deputy sheriff gave him?”

There was no doubting her earnestness. Firmness of purpose was stamped on her face, shone from her eyes. The man saw it.

“Why, I’m Sheriff Warburton, of San Buenaventura County, young lady,” he said rather awkwardly.

Dot had been looking straight at him, hard, inimically. Now, as he made known his identity, she also changed front. She wavered suddenly, amazement, pleasure, unbelief struggling across her face. She lowered the revolver and broke into a musical laugh.

“Sheriff Bob Warburton! Are you really? Sheriff? I’m Lemuel Huntington’s daughter, Dot.”

His eyes flew wide open. A snort of astonishment burst from him. His ruddy countenance expanded into a great warm smile.

“Lem’s daughter!” he exploded. “Get away! Well, I’ll be reediscongariconficated! Not that leetle knee-high tike I seen in Jupiter—le’s see, how many years ago was that? Well now, wouldn’t that bust you!” He grabbed her hand. “An’ this is Lem’s ranch, eh? Bless his heart! Where’s the good ol’ hoss thief?”

Presently she said: “Won’t you come inside, Sheriff Warburton, and let me fix you a little bite? You must be hungry——”

“By George! I jest hate to refuse that, Dot. I sure am hungry, but I got to git along.” He grinned slyly as he added: “My time’s all took up chasin’ this pardner of mine who you was so horspitable to.”

“Never mind. You’re liable to get shot gallivanting over the plains without your star and telling such awful whoppers to defenseless young women,” she warned him, with mock gravity.

“I’m more liable to, wearin’ it an’ tellin’ the truth, Dot. This galoot is a stick-up—bad clean through. I hear he’s got folks in these parts an’ I figgered you might be—well, mebby his sister. You’ll forgive my bein’ a leetle rough, Dot, but I——”

“If you’ll forgive my taking care of a wounded man and asking no questions, Sheriff Warburton. You were quite correct about him not leaving by the front gate. But there’s another gate in the north corner of the field, opening on the road between Geerusalem and Colony Town.”

“I was dead sure I was right. You can’t fool me on hoss tracks, Dot. Well, I’m goin’ on into Geerusalem first, to dig up a posse. Reckon I might see Lem. Anyway, tell him I’m comin’ out before I go back, to see how he’s behavin’ hisself.”

As he was riding out along the driveway he turned in his saddle and grinned at her.

“You got too big a heart, Dot. If you’d a-hung onto that pardner of mine, you’d ’a’ collected ten thousand dollars reeward—cash down.” He tapped the breast pocket of his corduroy coat as he spoke.

CHAPTER III—IN WHICH WILLS COLLIDE

For a long time after Sheriff Warburton rode away, Dot followed him with her eyes. Not until he was but a wisp of dust in the gray distance, did she turn to reënter the house. She was considerably shaken by the ordeal, relieved that it was over. Ten thousand dollars reward, he had said. A fortune! What a store of untold pleasures it would buy—surcease of worry, regeneration! Thoughtfully she walked to her room and unlocked the door. The fearful eyes of the fugitive fastened on hers questioningly.

“He’s gone. It was Sheriff Warburton. He’s hunting for you—to arrest you.” She said this in quiet tones.

“I—I don’t know how to thank you, Miss Huntington,” he stammered huskily. “My—my own mother couldn’t ’a’ done more. I ain’t deservin’. I’m no good. I’ll never ferget you as long as I live.” A strange spasm crossed his face. He settled feebly back on the bed, the tears coursing down his cheeks in little rivulets.

“There now! Don’t think about it,” she said gently. “I’ll fix you something to eat. Then you can sleep. But my father must not even suspect that you are here, understand? To-night, when you’re stronger, I’ll help you out of the house. I’ll spread a few blankets in the hayloft for you. You’ll be safe there.”

She made to leave the room, but he stopped her.

“Would you mind gettin’ me them—them saddlebags ag’in, Miss Huntington? An’—an’ keep ’em by me, won’t you? I got things in ’em I—I can’t afford to lose, so to speak.”

For the second time Dot obeyed his request, bringing the bulging twin leather pouches from under the parlor lounge and storing them under the head of the bed. Now, she began to wonder curiously what they contained. While she prepared him his meal she still wondered. Of a sudden it dawned on her that in her nervousness and excitement she had forgotten to ask Sheriff Warburton about the fugitive—who he was, the nature of his crime, everything. What if she should be harboring a murderer? The thought chilled the blood in her veins. It filled her with apprehension, misgivings—horrified her. She turned it over in her mind, deciding finally that she would not allow herself to believe it. He was not the type who would kill a man, of that she became firmly convinced. A murderer must have something of viciousness stamped on his face, she fancied. The result of these reflections made her resolve to ask her patient about himself. There was no great hurry. He could not leave inside of several days anyway.

Later that afternoon she gathered together a number of old blankets and quilts, and spread a bed for the wounded fugitive in an obscure corner of the hayloft under the eaves of the barn. She hid the blood-spattered saddle. Then she drove the exhausted horse to wander with their handful of stock in the far end of the field.

Around five o’clock she made out her father galloping home along the road from camp. Giving the outlaw a few specific instructions she ran out beyond the gate to meet Lemuel as was her custom. But Huntington had no smile for his daughter to-day. She marked the ill humor in his face, the hard, accusing look he gave her, and half suspected the reason.

A tall, angular, wiry man was Lemuel Huntington, a sprinkle of gray in his hair and mustache, a countenance more pathetic than aggressive. Association with Geerusalem’s uppish fraternity had inspired him to assume its dashy swagger garb—stiff-brim gray Stetson, corduroy suit, his trousers stuffed into yellow, laced, three-quarter boots resplendent with steel buckles, his coat, box-pleated and belted à la Norfolk. Just now, as he rode up, scowling on Dot, he looked more the prosperous mining man of sectional influence than the humble, unimportant rancher he really was.

“What’s this talk of you side-kickin’ it with a bandit, Dot?” he began sharply as he dismounted.

“I suppose you’ve met Sheriff Warburton, and he’s told you——”

“Yes, I did. He says you helped Billy Gee git away, patched him up, give him a hoss, an’——”

“Billy Gee!” she gasped aloud. Her patient was the notorious desperado who, for years, had terrorized the border settlements far to the south!

“Yes—Billy Gee. He stuck up the paymaster’s car of the Mohave & Southwestern last night at a gradin’ camp east of Mirage an’ skinned out with twenty thousand dollars. Bob Warburton was on his trail when he done it. Posses are out thicker’n fleas—three from Geerusalem alone. The country’s all riled up. What d’you mean by actin’ that fool way, Dot? Ain’t you got no sense?”

“How did I know he was Billy Gee, daddy? Please be a little reasonable.” She spoke, a tinge of impatience in her voice, her eyes on the ground.

“He must ’a’ acted suspicious, didn’t he? An’ he was winged, to boot.”

“He was about dead. Father, would you have me run a dying man off the place, brutally—like a dog? Is that the kind of daughter you want to be proud of?” She was looking steadily at him now.

Lemuel was silent a moment. He glanced down at the buckles on his boots.

“By gosh, honey! I reckon you’ve got the ol’ man holed up,” he admitted rather ruefully. “But can’t you see, if it’d bin any one else, ’cept Bob Warburton, we’d have a tough time provin’ we wasn’t in cahoots with this thievin’ kiyote. It’s mighty ticklish business, I’m tellin’ you. He was bad hit, eh?”

She gave him a detailed account of the fugitive’s arrival at the ranch, but very carefully omitted to mention that she had taken him into the house. Adroitly, also, she evaded saying that he had departed. She dwelt in particular on the seriousness of his condition because of his loss of blood and his need of immediate care. Lemuel said no more following this explanation, though it was quite plain to her that some thought still troubled him.

While he attended to his chores Dot went into the kitchen and started getting supper ready. Now she was afire with excitement. Billy Gee, that terrible personage of whom she had heard such wild, thrilling things, was locked in her room—lying on her bed! Her prisoner! Her romantic brain reeled with ecstasy at the realization. And Sheriff Warburton, posses galore, were frantically beating brush the length and breadth of Soapweed Plains for Billy Gee, in pursuit of a ten-thousand-dollar reward. She had outwitted them—she, Dot Huntington!

The whole situation struck her as ridiculously funny. She leaned against the kitchen table and choked with silent laughter. This indeed was the big, exciting adventure she had longed for all these past years—infinitely big and exciting, pregnant with thrilling possibilities.

Then she remembered her father saying that Billy Gee had stolen twenty thousand dollars just the night before. She grew anxiously grave. From reflecting on the robbery she presently interpreted the cause of her patient’s singular concern over the safety of his saddlebags. They contained his stealings—currency, most likely; twenty thousand dollars in bills would make a bulky package, she believed.

Lemuel sauntered in from the barn some minutes afterward. He prepared to wash.

“I don’t see his horse, Dot,” he began abruptly, as he poured a dipperful of water into the basin.

“I turned it out with the rest—after I fed it. The poor thing was——”

“You give him Baldy, I s’pose?”

“No. Sheriff Warburton appeared to get the notion from what I said that I traded horses, and I didn’t tell him different. I didn’t see why I should,” she explained frankly.

Lemuel, in the act of rolling up his sleeves, glanced around at her. He frowned.

“Are you meanin’ to tell me, Dot, that a dyin’ man with a sheriff at his heels’d resk a get-away on foot—pertickler, a hard case like this here Billy Gee? D’you think I’m a fool, Dot?”

“Well, count your stock if you don’t believe me, daddy. You’re—you’re doubting everything I say, to-day. I don’t know why. You’ve never done that before.”

She spoke in such a meek, sorrowful voice that it moved him to cross the room to her side and kiss her tenderly on the cheek.

“Lord bless you, hon!” he murmured in loving tones. “I ain’t aimin’ to doubt my leetle gal never. You know that.” He laughed. “The on’y thing I got to say is, it’ll be good-by, Billy Gee, ’fore the week’s up, if he don’t git somepn faster’n two laigs under him. He must ’a’ left his saddle an’ everythin’, eh?” he added craftily.

“Everything,” nodded Dot, in a very decisive manner.

Lemuel went back to the basin and silently proceeded with his washing, but he said to himself: “No bandit livin’ would do sech a crazy thing—shot up, into the bargain. You might fool Bob Warburton, daughter, but you can’t fool yore ol’ man. There’s ten thousand dollars hidin’ on this ranch this minute.”

After supper, Lemuel composed himself in his favorite chair and smoked his pipe and mused as usual. It was a quiet night—exceptionally quiet, thought Dot, who, mindful that only a thin board partition separated her room from the kitchen, grew more and more fearful as the evening dragged on, in the knowledge that an accidental sound or movement by her outlaw patient would lead her father to investigate. She trembled at the consequences to herself. By the hour she kept busy with the noisy task of scouring pots and pans, giving the cupboard a thorough overhauling, burnishing the stove, making all the distracting sounds possible, and wishing and wishing that Lemuel might go to bed. But he had no such inclination.

“At three dollars a day, a man’d work over twenty years for twenty thousand dollars, Dot,” he observed pointedly, breaking a long silence. “An’ this Billy Gee gits it overnight.”

“Yes, daddy. But he doesn’t enjoy it. How can he?” she replied, vigorously rubbing at the stove lids. “Think of him being hunted from place to place like a wild animal, the target for any man’s gun, without home or any one to care for him when he’s sick. Think of such a terrible existence!”

“When a feller tries an’ tries till the heart’s kicked outer him, ’tain’t hard to tempt him. That’s how I feel about it.” There was an ugly, suggestive note in his voice.

She paused in her scrubbing and gave him a quick, searching look. Some grim expression she saw in his face, a dangerous flicker in his eyes, filled her with sudden misgivings.

“I mean that!” he said harshly, with a vicious jerk of his head. He had taken the pipe from his mouth; his gaze was fastened on her accusingly. “Look at me! I bin kicked an’ kicked! Year in an’ year out I bin a-goin’ it, till I’m bruck down—petered out, an’ not a cussed thing to show for it. An’ look at other men who ain’t half as deservin’! What’ve I got, eh? What’ve you got?” He stiffened in his chair, gulped out suddenly in tones that reverberated through the silent little house: “An’ I’ve tried—God Almighty knows! An’ yore poor ma she—she died a-tryin’ an’ skimpin’ an’ dreamin’——”

“Father!” cried Dot aghast. Her face was white, drawn; her eyes wide with alarm.

Sitting there in the yellow lamplight, Lemuel Huntington was wild to behold; his features distorted into hideous lines; his hands clenched, his whole body trembling spasmodically. He burst into a horrible laugh.

“To-day, you doctor up a low-down murd’rous skunk that’d cut our throats to-morrow for the fun of it. An’ ten thousand dollars gits by us, eh? D’you hear that! D’you hear that? Ten thousand dollars for Billy Gee, dead or alive! D’you know what that means to us? An’ d’you reckon I’m goin’ to sit still an’ let you——”

“Blood money!” she broke in, gasping out the words. “Daddy, would you want to buy your food and drink—mine—our clothes, pleasures—would you be so inhuman as to find happiness at the expense of a miserable fellow creature?”

“It’s the law—like the ten-dollar bounty on the hide of the kiyote. Money is money,” he slung in savagely. “I want you to c’nsider me, yoreself, our c’ndition. I bin wantin’ to give you an edjucation, to carry out yore ma’s dyin’ wish. I want you to be somebody. We bin livin’ like dogs too long. I’m damn sick of it! Outside o’ Agatha Liggs, look at how them town hussies treat you! An’ them edjucated shysters who ain’t fit to grease my boots—what do I git from them? We need money. We got to git money—now. Right off, see? An’ if you can’t help me git it honest, ’cordin’ to law, I’ll start out to steal it! I’ll turn bandit, an’ it’ll be for you to hide me out an’ take care of me! What d’you say to that, eh? What’re you goin’ to do?”

He had risen to his feet as he spoke. He crossed the kitchen to her side and stood now, glowering down on her, cupidity, fury, desperation flaming from his eyes. Terrified, she stared at him. She knew at last the reason for the marked change in him, what he intimated. There was no way for her to dodge the issue.

“You think I know where Billy Gee is——” she began with an effort.

“You got him hid out, an’ don’t lie to me!” he roared. “He’s too sick to ride, an’ you’re nursin’ him some place on this ranch. You can’t make no damn fool out of me, young lady. Where is he? You’re goin’ to tell me, or by hell, I’ll——” He raised his clenched fists menacingly above her head.

CHAPTER IV—LEMUEL YIELDS

Lemuel Huntington, as has been suggested, was not a forceful character. Even in this desperate moment when the strength of his life’s mania was being directed to gain that which would make the fulfillment of that mania possible, he lacked the stubbornness of will, the blind conquering egoism, to win his demands at all costs. He had never had occasion to present such a furious front to his daughter before. That he was doing it now, exerted a disconcerting influence upon him, embarrassed him, made him a little uncertain as to the fairness of his methods.

On the other hand, he had never even so much as suspected the existence of a broad strain of high-spiritedness in Dot’s nature and that firmness of purpose which he himself did not have. The launching of his threat roused her like the sting of a whip. Her terror vanished and left her cold. She strode up close to him now and let her eyes burn into his.

“Father! Another word from you, and I’ll leave the house. And I’ll never come back!”

He did not answer. He looked at her in a queer, dumb frenzy. Then slowly, amazement, incredulity, indecision grew on his face. He had never seen her so dreadfully calm, so white before. She had never threatened such a fearful thing before! A long minute dragged by.

From out in the darkness came the weird shriek of a predacious nighthawk. Presently, he turned away from her, walked back to his chair, and began filling with clumsy, trembling fingers his forgotten pipe. His mouth was distorted with what seemed to be some forlorn grief; his breath broke from his lungs in low distressful gasps.

It grew very quiet. The old clock on the shelf ticked tiredly. Some time afterward he heard a sob and, glancing around, saw Dot leaning against the wall, her face buried in her hands. Thereupon he put down his pipe and went over and took her in his arms. Hungrily he held her to his breast, and there was in his eyes the reflection of the fierce struggle that was taking place in his soul.

“Your poor, lonesome leetle heart,” he said, in a voice that shook with sobs. “I didn’t aim to act so cussed, darlin’. God knows, I wouldn’t do nuthin’ to hurt you, Dot! You know yore dad’d do anythin’ to make you happy. Don’t you, honey? I’d go through fire an’ brimstone, I’d die for your daughter, Emily, like I always said,” he added, his face turned to the rafters under the roof.

Some time afterward, as he lighted his candle to go to his room and kissed her good night, he reassured her gently. “I jest git so disapp’inted with myse’f, dearie. Yore poor ma an’ me used to plan so many big things for our leetle gal. I’ve wanted to do so much for you an’ I ain’t done nuthin’. Anyway, Dot, we’ll ferget all about this here Billy Gee. It ain’t worth quarrelin’ over, it ain’t worth it, hon.”

Dot lingered in the kitchen until she was sure he had gone to bed. Then she began hurried preparations to spirit her outlaw patient out of the house. Filling a bottle with hot coffee, she threw some bread and meat into a paper bag. After this she tiptoed to her room, stealthily unlocked the door, closed it behind her, and lit the candle on the bureau.

One glance, and she saw that her bed was empty, the window open. Billy Gee was gone; so were his saddlebags!

For an instant she stood perplexed. But she breathed easier, vastly relieved that he had thus chosen to steal out of the house without her aid. Stepping over to the window she flashed the candle outside and listened into the quiet night. There was no sign of him, no sound. He must have found his way into the hayloft, she told herself, recalling the fact that she had described the location of his new hiding place to him that afternoon. But from reflecting on his weak condition she became more and more concerned about him, resolving finally to investigate his whereabouts and take him the food.

It was only a matter of four feet from the window sill to the ground, and a far safer means of exit from the house at this late hour, particularly after her father’s furious outburst, so unexpected and ominous. She put out the light and let herself down noiselessly into the strip of garden outside, and flitted off like a shadow for the barn. With a subdued little cough to herald her coming to the fugitive, she climbed the short flight of steps to the loft and struck a match.

He was there, standing knee-deep in the loose hay, spectral, sinister, a six-shooter glinting in his hand. At sight of her, he lowered the weapon and clutched a tie beam for support. Ere the match went out, she reached his side.

“I was leary it’d go hard on you if he ketched me in there, so I sneaked out,” he explained in low tones. “I heerd it all an’ I’m sorry I got you in so much trouble. I’m goin’ to resk it, to-night.”

“No, no! You mustn’t,” she whispered quickly. “The plains are alive with posses. You’d never escape.”

He chuckled softly. “Wunst I git a-goin’, I’ll be orright. The moon’s comin’ up, an’ I got folks livin’ handy.”

“Here’s something for you to eat. You must be terribly hungry—weak.” She thrust the bottle and the paper bag into his hand as she spoke. “I’d counted on you staying till you were stronger—three days, anyway. You’d be perfectly safe here. I’d see that you were. Why don’t you?”

“Yore dad’s too sespicious. He’ll start huntin’ me up; you see if he don’t.” He broke off, resuming: “I—I won’t ever ferget what you’ve done for me, Miss Huntington. An’ you wouldn’t give me away, would you? An’ you’re desp’rate for money. I ain’t ever had anybody give me such a square deal—chuck over a fortune to help——” His voice trailed off into silence.

“You poor, wounded wild animal!” said Dot gently. “Even a coyote is better off than you. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know any different? Is it so much easier to be bad, so much more pleasing to have a pack of legalized killers always on your heels? Or don’t you care?” She paused and added: “Do you really want to repay me for everything I’ve done for you?”

Through a square hole under the eaves, the first white beams of the moon were just struggling in. She could see the man’s face indistinctly; the white bandage around his head.

“I do. Say it! Anythin’ you want done, Miss Huntington,” he nodded.

“Then, quit this miserable life. Be a man. Go far away, where no one will ever recognize you, and start fresh. Be honorable—somehow. You can do it, if you want to. But will you? To pay me back?” There was a strange, dramatic note in her voice.

He caught her hand suddenly, fervently. “I’ll do it, Miss Huntington. Listen! You turned down ten thousand dollars; you stuck by me. I’m goin’ to show you what I kin do for you. Some of these days you’re goin’ to hear from me.”

“I’m so glad,” she breathed. “I’d be so proud to know that I helped remake the wild animal, Billy Gee, into a God-fearing human being.”

A short, heavy silence fell. From somewhere in the ground floor of the barn, a board expanding with the cool night air snapped sharply.

“I come up here to take a coupla these old blankets, sence I can’t lug my saddle; it’s too heavy,” he announced, after a little while. “Would you mind fixin’ ’em for me?”

She found them half folded, made a neat roll of them, and looped them for slinging over the shoulders with strips she tore from her calico apron. As she prepared to leave him, he spoke again.

“Miss Huntington, I’d sorter like you to know that I ain’t near’s bad as they tell it around. I ain’t never killed a man—wounded ’em, yes, an’ only jest when I had to. An’ with all I’ve got away with, I’m next thing to broke this minute. That’s honest——”

“But you held up the paymaster’s car last night, didn’t you?” she interrupted.

“Yes’m. But I didn’t hold onto the money, bein’ wounded, an’ Warburton——”

“What was in your saddlebags that you said you couldn’t afford to lose?”

“My mother’s pitcher, some clothes, an’ a lot of leetle doodads I’m keepin’. I always have ’em along with me. But I want to tell you ag’in that I ain’t fergettin’ yore kindness. You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time. An’—an’ I hope you’ll be proud, like you jest said.”

Dot crept down the steps shortly afterward, shut the barn door behind her, and darted across the moonlit yard. Climbing back into her room she cautiously lowered the window. Then, with a sigh of relief and satisfaction, she went to bed. For the remainder of the night, she lay wide-eyed, snug in the bewitching embraces of romance and imagination.

Following her departure, Billy Gee remained in the hayloft for a long interval and leisurely ate the food she had brought him. Periodically, he looked at his watch by the aid of a moonbeam streaming in through a crack in the boards. When one o’clock came, he got carefully to his feet, took up the roll of blankets, and started downstairs.

From far out on Soapweed Plains, rose the wail-bark of a foraging coyote. There was no other sound. That semiarid land lay mute and mysterious and teaming with tragic potentialities.

“Creepy,” he muttered under his breath. “Reckon I’m a leetle flighty—leaked too much blood.”

He reached the ground floor and noiselessly made his way toward the rear door of the barn, heading for the field and his horse. As he fumbled in the dark for the hasp an invisible figure emerged from under the steps back of him. He felt the sharp dig of a six-shooter between his shoulders. A voice hissed in his ear.

“Steady, pardner! Make a move, an’ I’ll kill you!”

In a twinkling, he was stripped of his guns. Then his captor—Lemuel Huntington—unhasped the barn door and herded him outside and down a narrow lane between two corrals, until they stood in the open field.

“Turn yore face to the moon, an’ let’s git a squint of you, Billy Gee,” said Lemuel. He studied the outlaw a few seconds. “So my gal was passin’ up ten thousand dollars for the likes of you, eh? Well, I won’t! Now, listen clost an’ don’t make no mistake about what I tell you! Me an’ you’s goin’ on into Geerusalem right off, see? Warburton wants you dead or ’live, an’ it’s up to you how you care to be deelivered to him. I don’t. Savvy! Now, march acrosst to them hosses!”

CHAPTER V—THE WHEREWITHAL

When Dot awoke next morning, after a fitful few hours’ sleep, it was nine o’clock. She sprang out of bed and hurried through her dressing, certain that her father was considerately waiting his breakfast rather than disturb her, late though the hour was. But upon entering the kitchen, she found that he had not yet been about. This fact at first astonished, then filled her with alarm. She ran to his door and rapped sharply, calling him, and experienced a feeling of deep relief when she heard him yawn out a reply.

Nevertheless, as she walked back into the kitchen and began scraping the ashes out of the grate, she reflected on the usual circumstance of Lemuel oversleeping; for not in many years—and then only on the several rare occasions that they had been out late together the night before, attending a party at some neighboring ranch—had he failed to have the fire in the stove going for her. Later on she told herself that it was quite probable their quarrel had disturbed him, that worry had kept him awake, and out of this conviction was born an acute feeling of remorse which determined her to make no reference to the time of day or to anything that might recall the unhappy scene of the night.

For that matter, he also was silent on the subject. He came into the kitchen, stretching himself tremendously, grinning, in the best spirits she had seen him in for many months. She could not help but notice a remarkable change in him, but attributed it to his desire to have her forget their recent differences. So she met him halfway in the effort and laughed merrily when he jested about the professional fraternity he hobnobbed with in camp and at his sly insinuations that Agatha Liggs would make an adorable stepmother for some girl. As he picked up his hat to look after his chores he caught her in his arms, told her how fondly he loved her, and that her happiness meant everything in the world to him.

But alone, back of the barn, his display of buoyancy vanished. He gazed down the lane between the two corrals and reënacted in his mind’s eye his brave capture of the notorious train robber, Billy Gee, and the way he had marched the outlaw into Sheriff Warburton’s room in the hotel before daybreak and turned his prisoner over to the astounded, sleepy-eyed official. Again, he felt an ecstatic thrill over the realization that he had the certified check of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad for ten thousand dollars in his pocket that very moment!

Nor could he subdue the wild surge of elation that swept through his breast at thought that his Dot was to receive the long-cherished education, that here at last, after long, trialsome years of waiting, was the crystallization of his dead wife’s precious dreams all but fulfilled. Why couldn’t this sacred woman of his heart have lived to enjoy this great moment of happiness with him, to know that all her trying and skimping and dreaming had not been done in vain? Yes, he decided, Dot would be educated “to the queen’s taste;” nothing would be spared, nothing would be left undone to make her the wonderful lady of accomplishments Emily had so desired.

But with all the deep sense of gratification that his reavowal of intentions gave him and the delight he got from planning the glorious future, he could not put out of his mind Billy Gee’s last words to him in Warburton’s room that morning—what Billy Gee had said, the look in his eyes as he spoke.

“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!”

There had been something so frightful, so murderously frightful, in the threat as it fell from the outlaw’s tight-drawn lips. Try as he would, Lemuel had not been able to forget the hatred in the man’s fiery eyes, the icy cut in his voice. He was doomed to be haunted by them, to have memory rehearse them over and over to him.

True, Billy Gee was even now being taken out of the country, southwest to the county seat, San Buenaventura, heavily shackled, under the hawklike eye of Bob Warburton; and countless things would happen ere the train robber served out the long prison sentence that confronted him. But the mere fact that he would serve it out, that he would be free some time, was an overshadowing menace that laid a firm, clammy hand on Lemuel’s heart.

For many minutes he stood and stared across the plains. Doubtless Billy Gee would hunt him up and kill him, he told himself nervously. A vicious bandit of Billy Gee’s ilk would stop at nothing to get revenge. He shook his head, feeling strangely insecure. After a little, he recalled Dot’s interest in the fellow. One thing was certain; she must not even so much as suspect what her father had done. Not until the episode was old and forgotten must she know what had happened to the fugitive.

He knew it was not love for Billy Gee that had prompted her to hide him, help him to escape. Dot was sentimental, romantic; she was just sorry for the scamp. Most women were that way. But after their quarrel last night she must never surmise how he had treacherously spied on her, seen her go into the barn, and lain in wait to capture the man she was trying to save.

So while Dot prepared their breakfast her father made plans whereby she might not know for years to come just what had befallen the magnificent bandit who had ridden into her life out of the magical violet and yellow scallop of hills. In the first place, Lemuel was determined to hurry her out of the locality that she might not hear of the heroic leading rôle he had played; secondly, he cast about for a logical explanation of how he came to have sufficient money to afford a journey such as he contemplated. He knew Dot was too familiar with his affairs not to question his sudden acquisition of any considerable amount of money. He struck upon a happy solution.

During the meal he mentioned rather casually that he was going to Geerusalem to see if he could negotiate a loan from Bob Warburton, and he backed up the propriety of his action by declaring that he had once come to the sheriff’s assistance when the latter was financially down and out.

Dot was interested. To her query as to how much he intended borrowing, Lemuel grinned confidently:

“A coupla thousand dollars, anyway. An’ I’m purty sure to git it, at that.”

She stared across the table at him, perplexed for the moment. What in the world possessed her father this morning? He was so changed, so self-confident, so resolute—as if he were laboring under some suppressed emotion, some unusual good tidings that he was with difficulty keeping to himself. The strange way in which she studied him made him hasten to put at rest any suspicion she may have entertained.

“I bin thinkin’ it all over, Dot, an’ I decided that what me an’ you needs most is a leetle more pleasure an’ not so much stickin’ to a cussed ol’ ranch year in an’ year out like we bin doin’. So I’m goin’ to borry some real money off Bob, an’ we’re takin’ a trip—Frisco, Noo York, or any place you say. Le’s be good an’ happy wunst anyway, an’ see how it feels. What d’you say?”

She brightened instantly. Her eyes widened, sparkled with expectation. “It’d be just wonderful, daddy,” she cried. “But—but you’d have to pay the money back some time, and it would be so hard——”

“We ain’t goin’ to stop to think o’ that, hon. We’re out for one grand cut-up, me an’ you. Leave it to me. I’ll do the worryin’. If I git it you’ll go, won’t you?”

“Go?” she echoed joyously. “Oh, daddy! I’ve been wishing and wishing and wishing, months and months and years, to see cities and orchards and rivers and steamers and street cars and the ocean, and——”

They talked on, Lemuel controlling by a desperate effort the wild enthusiasm that consumed him, Dot giving her eagerness unbridled play, planning and scheduling an itinerary with a dispatch and thoroughness that made him fairly marvel at her cleverness. Shortly afterward, however, as he was galloping toward camp he laughed aloud to the boundless desolation of plain over the shrewd way in which he had deceived his daughter, clever though she was.

Dot stood on the front porch looking after him. She watched him out of sight, her brain in a delicious stupor at the glorious prospect of seeing for the first time in her life the great fairyland far to the north, that wonderful region she had read and dreamed so much about. For a long interval she reveled in the thought, until her eyes turned to the violet and yellow scallop of range in the distance. Her mind swung back to the present, then to Billy Gee. How was he faring?

The day was hot, similar to yesterday. It was very silent, too. Presently it began dawning on her that to-day was different from any she had ever known. She glanced over the garden. It seemed lonesome; she had never thought it lonesome before. The feel of the ranch, too, filled her with an odd depression. Everything looked so colorless, so uninteresting, so awfully the same. Her eyes went back to the violet and yellow scallop of hills again. That bleak playground of mirages where she had visualized the figments of her imagination, appeared to have lost its magic. The whole range seemed faded, so wrinkled, so woefully unattractive, like the bleached outlines of some shabby old crayon. She turned into the house and entered the parlor.

For many seconds she stood and gazed down at the lounge and began reviewing, as she had done a number of times, her meeting with the notorious Billy Gee, from the moment of his coming, until she bade him good-by in the half light of the hayloft.

“He isn’t the terrible person they say,” she told the parlor lounge. “There are a lot of worse men in Geerusalem who wear white collars and polish their shoes every morning. They know how to rob according to law. They haven’t the courage to take to the open with a six-shooter. Poor fellow! He was so grateful, and his voice was so lonely, so gentle.”

She walked into her bedroom, still thinking of him, and it came to her suddenly that she had hidden the worst criminal of the generation in that bedroom, that he had occupied her bed even! She halted in the middle of the floor and blushed furiously over the reflection. What would her father say if he knew? And her dear old lady friend, the good Mrs. Agatha Liggs? Or Sheriff Warburton? The utter recklessness of her act now struck her with full force.

But the next instant she was defending herself with the argument that Billy Gee was bent on mending his ways. He had promised her he would reform. She believed him. If he were captured——

For some reason she felt no anxiety on that score. He had been too confident of his ability to evade the posses, had shown no alarm over the information that they were out in numbers; besides, he had mentioned having relatives living close at hand, denoting that he would find safety with them until such time as he could leave the country.

“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington, some time,” he had said.

She experienced a strange little thrill when she recalled that he was giving up his vicious career solely because she had asked him to. It was such a satisfying thought, such a proud conceit, to feel that she, Dot Huntington, had exerted an influence over this elusive terror of the Southwest who laughed at the law and recognized nothing binding upon him save the fulfillment of his own personal desires. Yet, she told herself, she would look forward from now on, hopefully, with keen anticipation, to the day when she would hear from him.

While thinking thus, she had been standing near her bed, gazing abstractedly at the old-fashioned bureau opposite. Now her eyes became attracted to a narrow edge of green showing just over the top of the middle drawer. Thoughtfully, she reached down and plucked at it with thumb and forefinger. She drew it out—a ten-dollar greenback. For one long instant she stared dumfounded at it. Then she pulled out the drawer and fell back with a low cry, gazing at the interior in wide-eyed, fearful amazement. The drawer was piled high with a disordered mass of currency of all denominations.

CHAPTER VI—AFTERMATH

Geerusalem was a camp of many people of many waspish dispositions. The engrossing business of making money and spending it kept this isolated desert settlement steering a more or less wabbly, law-abiding course, for, like frontier camps the world over, it had its furious six-shooter forays, stealthy knifings, mob uprisings, its denizens of dive and den. These things were simply because civic unity was an unknown quality at the time, the population of the fly-by-night variety, and the county officials too busy serving the communities where the majority vote held forth to concern themselves with the “scattering returns.”

Established before the “blue-sky” law was written into the statute books of California, this metropolis of Soapweed Plains was the Mecca of the “wildcatter”—that thrifty, gentlemanly rascal who tempts gullible men and women of other climes to invest their nest eggs in mining stock fit only to start the kitchen fire. These gentry were the leading citizens of Geerusalem, though their neighbors knew them for what they were; autocratic, pompous fellows, skimming just under the surface of the law, clever swindlers who paid homage to none save the mining engineer and the occasional moody geologist who dropped unannounced into camp. A mineralogist’s O. K. was a valuable thing to have on a stock prospectus.

The .45-caliber brains with which Lemuel Huntington hobnobbed, belonged, for the most part, to these wildcatters—promoters, they styled themselves. He was their standing joke, their dub, the something at which they could sling the garbage of their talk. From which it may be surmised that he did not rank very high in the estimation of this fraternity. Yet, heretofore, he had felt oddly gratified over the thought that he could associate with them; they were “big guns,” financially powerful, influential to a great degree, and they had seemed, to his way of thinking, to be exemplars of education and refinement.

This morning, however, as he rode into camp from his ranch, on what he had led Dot to believe was a borrowing expedition, his viewpoint had undergone a change. He was a far different Lemuel Huntington from the tolerant, good-natured dub of yesterday. He had captured the terrible, much-feared desperado, Billy Gee. He had won a comfortable fortune by his bravery. His Dot was going to receive that long-dreamed-of education. His breast was filled with it; his head reeled with his own importance.

Geerusalem was seething with excitement. The main street was clogged with men, discussing Huntington, Billy Gee, the holdup of the paymaster’s car, the dramatic entry at daybreak of captor and captive while shotgun posses scoured the country over a fifty-mile radius. It was a monumental “catch,” unprecedented in Southwestern history.

As Lemuel rode into view, some one recognized him. News of his presence in camp spread like wildfire. A crowd surged after him, gathering in size. He had not expected an ovation of such an enthusiastic nature, and it embarrassed him. He wished now that he had come in by a back street. His face flaming red, flustered, he looked about over the heads of that stream of humanity that soon packed the thoroughfare from sidewalk to sidewalk, acclaimed him as he rode along.

He spied Mrs. Agatha Liggs. She was standing in the doorway of her little dry-goods store watching his approach. As he came opposite her he smiled and raised his hat. Then he grew abashed. She had not acknowledged the salutation. In the belief that she had not seen the action he bowed again.

She was looking straight at him, and he thought that her thin, pathetic face was unusually pale and drawn, that her fragile little body was more stooped, that her lips were strangely pursed. She looked at him fixedly with an expression in her old eyes so icy, so accusing, as to make him feel foolish and uncomfortable. That look of hers flattened out his conceit as nothing else could have done. He rode on up the street to the bank, dismounted, and went inside, wondering just why Mrs. Liggs had snubbed him.

The huge crowd that had followed him, collected before the building, and watching him through the doors and windows, saw him cash the Mohave & Southwestern’s ten-thousand-dollar certificate check. As he came out the door, acquaintances began hailing him lustily. He heard flattering comments of his valor on every hand.

“Gritty chap. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?”

“Brought him in single-handed. Fine work, pardner!”

“Done overnight what a hundred posses couldn’t do in ten years.”

“Good boy, Lem! Oh, you Nick Carter!”

Crimson as a turkey gobbler, sweat streaming down his face, he led his horse to a livery stable. Then he strutted down the plank sidewalk, the mob stringing out behind him. Presently he entered an auto-stage office, talked to the ticket seller about mileage and rates, and ended by paying down the rental of a machine, to be ready in an hour. Ten minutes later found him swaggering big-chested into the U. & I. saloon—hangout of the .45-caliber brains of Geerusalem. He glanced boldly around at the uppish fraternity, posed about, fastidious and blasé, deigned them a nod and ordered a drink. This was the red-letter hour in Lemuel Huntington’s life.

He leaned luxuriously against the bar, peeled off a bill from his great wad, and to those who came up to congratulate him on his daring feat, remarked with considerable loftiness: “Yes, I reckon it takes somepin’ better’n edjucation to handle a man like Billy Gee.”

Downing his drink, he was turning to make his stately way out of the place, when he heard his name called, and a familiar hand was laid on his arm. He recognized a young mining engineer friend, a recent arrival from San Francisco. With him was a tall sharp-eyed man, twenty-seven or thereabouts, pleasing of face, and with a grave courtesy that instantly marked him in Lemuel’s mind as a total stranger to desert life. He was dressed in a whipcord suit that was partly concealed beneath a voluminous dust coat. On his head was a golf cap, a pair of goggles thrust up over the visor, and he carried driving gauntlets in one hand.

“Mr. Huntington, meet Mr. Sangerly,” said the mining engineer. The two shook hands. “Mr. Sangerly’s father is Western manager of the Mohave Southwestern, and he wanted to thank you in person for your splendid service to his company by your capture of this desperado, Billy Gee.”

Lemuel rubbed his chin in awkward fashion. “There wasn’t nuthin’ much to it, Mr. Sangerly,” he muttered.

“Indeed there was,” declared the other. “Why, this outlaw has robbed our trains eight times in the last three years. Besides our losses, Wells Fargo has suffered greatly. You’ve done us what I candidly look upon as an immeasurable service, and the general office is being thoroughly informed on the matter.” He paused. “There was a side issue relative to your capture that I wished to take up privately with you, Mr. Huntington—if you have time, and if Mr. Lennox,” glancing at his friend, “will excuse us.”

Three minutes later, they were seated across from each other in a booth at the rear of the saloon, a table between them, the waiter departing with their order.

“Now, to start at the beginning, Mr. Huntington,” said Sangerly, coming directly to the point, “Billy Gee robbed our paymaster’s car at a grading camp a few miles east of the station of Mirage. This you doubtless already know. Well, Sheriff Warburton, who had been in close touch with our Los Angeles office ever since he got on the bandit’s trail a week ago, wired us the same night of the robbery. From the tone of his message Billy Gee was heading north and his capture would be affected within ten hours. That was the gist of the thing. Anyhow, I started by auto yesterday morning. As it happened, you beat Warburton to the honors. You brought Billy Gee in, but the twenty thousand dollars he stole from our paymaster is missing.”

“I’d thought about that,” Lemuel replied. “On our way into camp this mornin’, I asked him in pertick’lar what’d become of it, an’ he said it was in safe hands.”

Sangerly lit a cigarette. “That’s what he told Warburton and that’s what’s keeping me here. I’m going to find out, if possible, who has that money. I intend to arrest the party as an accomplice and try to get him—or her—a jail sentence. There’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that this unknown person has been harboring the outlaw in the past and has profited at the expense of our company. You heard, of course, that he is supposed to have relatives somewhere on Soapweed Plains?”

“I don’t believe it,” said Lemuel. “That’s what Bob Warburton was tellin’ me. He said the only reason that folks got that idee, was because after robbin’ a train, Billy Gee’d always head this way an’ disappear. But look at how far it is to the railroad! That’s all talk.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Huntington! Don’t forget that this is the nearest point of habitation. Now, let me explain something to you.” Sangerly took a pencil from his pocket and began mapping off the table roughly. “According to the sheriff, with whom I had a long talk before he left for San Buenaventura this morning, he followed Billy Gee’s trail over every foot of the way—fifty-odd miles, and barren desert all of it. By barren, I mean flat, sandy country, and lacking those landmarks which would tempt any outlaw, hard-pressed, to hide his plunder. Moreover and most important, Billy Gee was wounded—shot by one of the paymaster’s crew as he was riding away. My opinion is, therefore, that he brought the money direct to your ranch and——”

“I can’t see how you figger that out, Mr. Sangerly,” broke in Lemuel hurriedly. “Ain’t you kinder insinuatin’ a leetle that I’m in cahoots with a train robber?” he added in measured tones.

Sangerly hastened to correct the impression. He caught the other’s hand, shook it laughingly. “The furthest thing from my mind, my friend,” he declared. “Certainly, I couldn’t imagine an accomplice doing what you did. It’s not reasonable. It would be ridiculous. But just follow me and you’ll agree with me that my theory is correct as to fact. Now, this is the exact situation: Here we have Billy Gee with Sheriff Warburton at his heels—not over two hours behind, mind you! Billy Gee is wounded, bleeding badly. He is traveling over a country as flat as this table, where there is no chance of hiding his booty with any assurance of ever being able to find it again—lack of landmarks, you understand? And all the time he is becoming weaker from loss of blood. From what little I saw of him to-day it is a question in my mind whether he would have risked getting off his horse to cache his stealings if he had had a chance, through fear of not being able to mount again.

“Anyhow, it is certain he was far more concerned over getting his wound attended to than he was about the money. So he must have pressed forward as rapidly as his horse could carry him, particularly since Warburton said that he had him in sight after daybreak and up to the time he dropped off the mesa onto the plains. Now, Mr. Huntington, the paymaster’s crew told the sheriff that Billy Gee stuffed the twenty thousand dollars—currency, all of it—into his saddlebags, and you brought him in without his saddlebags, I believe.”

“That’s c’rrect,” agreed Lemuel, with a troubled frown. “I found he’d crawled in my barn. Afterward, I located his hoss in the far end of the field. But, it seems to me——”

“I questioned the sheriff carefully on that point, but he said that all he knew was just what you told him,” interrupted Sangerly. “His theory was that the fellow turned his horse into your field when no one was watching and took the opportunity also of hiding his saddle and saddlebags, later on finding his way into the barn to wait until night when he might reach the home of his friend or relative unobserved. That’s what I believe, Mr. Huntington. I am quite convinced that Billy Gee cached that money on your ranch. He could lie low at this rendezvous of his, and some dark night when the whole affair had blown over, he’d simply slip out there and dig up the treasure. A very natural step to take, in my opinion.”

Lemuel nodded slowly. “It sounds reas’nable, at that. An’ you aim to look over the ground, I reckon, to see if you kin locate the cache.”

“Precisely. Warburton has promised me he’ll try to sweat the bandit into confessing. Meanwhile, I’ll work on this end with two railroad detectives whom I’ve brought with me. You’ll have no objections, of course, if we spend a few days snooping around the place, Mr. Huntington?” he asked smilingly.

“Not at all. Me an’ my daughter’s leavin’ for a two-week trip to-day, but I’ll stick the key under the front doormat, an’ you kin make yoreself to home.”

Sangerly thanked him. They left the booth and walked out to the street together. As they parted, Lemuel said:

“When do you figger you’ll be out to the ranch, Mr. Sangerly?”

“This afternoon, some time. Be assured we’ll not abuse your hospitality, and I hope to see you again on your return. By the way,” he added, as an afterthought, “I understand you have a daughter. Did she see Billy Gee, or have any idea of his presence before his capture? I mean, had she noticed anything that would have led her to suspect the presence of a stranger in the neighborhood?”

“No, sir,” said Lemuel, with a positive shake of his head. “She was surprised when I told her. I had to show her the check I got, ’fore she would believe me. I think you got it sized up about right; this Billy Gee party jest watched his chanct, reckonin’ on a clean get-away. He turned his hoss out along with mine to throw off sespicion, an’ buried his swag where he could come an’ git it unbeknown to anybody.” He laughed. “You don’t know my Dot, Mr. Sangerly. If ever there was a real honest-to-goodness little lady, she’s it—even if I do have to say it. I want you to meet her when we git back.”

CHAPTER VII—STARTLING PREDICAMENTS

That talk with the son of the Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad did not set well on Lemuel’s mind. Even the fact that the Geerusalem Searchlight’s bulletin board, with chalky eloquence, fairly bristling with superlatives, made bold to proclaim him “California’s Bat Masterson,” carried little if any thrill for him. Sangerly’s words sounded like trouble in disguise. Sangerly’s keen deduction of what had happened to the paymaster’s money seemed alarmingly correct. It seemed more, for on the heels of its apparent certitude, came the distressing suspicion that Dot, having assisted Billy Gee during his whole period at the ranch, must know something about the disappearance of his saddlebags. Sangerly was right. No man in the bandit’s condition would have lost precious moments trying to hide his stealings, particularly in a trackless, changeable sand waste such as lay to the south. It would have been the height of folly, a useless piece of work, for he never could have found his cache again. There was not the slightest doubt but that that twenty thousand dollars was on the Huntington Ranch.

So thought Lemuel, and then he recalled that Sangerly had mentioned the presence of two railroad detectives who were to aid him in the search. What if they should dig up evidence involving Dot? Sheriff Warburton had not so much as hinted about her having harbored the bandit, from what Sangerly had said; yet Warburton must surely have suspected it. Bob Warburton certainly was a good friend.

The longer Lemuel reviewed the situation, the more he became convinced that he must get Dot out of the country before these detectives began their investigations. He shuddered at the fearful disgrace were her name mentioned, even in the remotest way, with the whole ugly affair. He would pack her out of Soapweed Plains immediately. Later on he would question her. He was fully convinced that she would give him all the details on the subject without hesitation when he asked her.

He had still a few minutes left before the time he must report back to the stage office. These he devoted to hiring a man who would look after the ranch during their absence. Afterward, he sought the quiet and seclusion of a back street and wandered aimlessly about, his mind busy with this new disturbing angle that threatened to sully the clean name of Huntington. So preoccupied was he, that he entirely overlooked his intention of paying Mrs. Liggs a visit to inquire the reason for her cold treatment of him shortly before.

He found the rented machine ready and waiting for him. Clambering in beside the driver, he was soon whirling out of camp toward home. A strange sense of security came to him. Sangerly and his sleuths were left behind, and it would be only a matter of a few short hours ere he and Dot would be lost in the confusion and bustle of traveling thousands. The proverbial needle in the haystack would be as easy to find as they, he told himself.

When within a mile of the ranch he chanced to glance in the direction of the low line of chromatic hills across which his acreage extended. A man was trudging along through the greasewood brush, steering diagonally for the road. He was less than a quarter of a mile off, and Lemuel squinted at him curiously.

“Who’s that sun lizard? Kin you make him out?” he asked the driver.

The latter looked. “Sure. That’s old Tinnemaha Pete, a prospector. You must know him. Hangs around Mrs. Liggs’ store a lot. She’s bin grubstaking him for years, I hear. Some one was telling me he used to be her husband’s partner.”

Lemuel nodded. “Come to think of it now, I did meet him there wunst.”

“Poor old devil! If it weren’t for her he’d have starved to death long ago,” said the driver. “The gold fever sure gets ’em, don’t it? He’s been going it all his life and never found anything. Never will, I reckon. One of these days, he’ll go out and the old desert’ll pick his bones clean. That’s how most of these granddads end up.”

The machine sped on, its dust cloud trailing across the flat, enveloping the bent, shriveled form of Tinnemaha Pete, rocking pathetically along on his unsteady legs, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, bound for Geerusalem. Like some misshapen wraith, born of the grotesqueness and deformity of that wild, mystic desolation, he fled on, his long gray beard whisking about in the hot breeze, his baggy clothes bulging and shrinking in the wrench and flip of its frolicking.

A few minutes later the automobile stopped before the Huntington gate, and Lemuel sprang out and hurried up the walk toward the house. Dot, attracted by the approach of the car, had come to the front door. She greeted her father with an expression of blank amazement.

“What in the world, daddy——” she began.

“Git ready to travel, hon!” he cried out excitedly, as he put an arm around her and drew her into the house. “Looket! Looket! We got money. What d’you think o’ that?” He fished out a handful of bills and waved them before her face. He broke into a gleeful laugh, so well assumed that it deceived her. “What’d I tell you, eh? Bob Warburton come through like a leetle major. Loaned me two thousand dollars on my note. Think o’ that! Ain’t that jest dandy? Come on, now! Chuck some duds in a valise. We’re startin’ right out on a big blow-out. We’re goin’ to see the world—me an’ you.” He romped around the room with her, like an overjoyed schoolboy.

“But, daddy,” she protested in bewilderment, “how can I? Why, you don’t give me time to——”

“You don’t need nothin’. I’m goin’ to tog you out complete with a hull bran’-new outfit, soon’s we hit the city. Hurry up! We ain’t got all day to talk about it, Dot. We’re strikin’ south to Mirage. I’m on’y takin’ a shirt an’ a pair o’ socks, myself.” He headed for his room.

“But who’s to look out after the place, the chickens and stock and——”

“I got it all fixed for a man to come this afternoon—Billy Higgins,” he called out. “He’ll ride over from camp every day an’ look around. Come on, hon! Do’s I say, can’t you? That driver is chargin’ fifteen dollars an hour.”

Dot capitulated. She hurried into her room and closed the door after her. Hesitating an instant, she locked it cautiously; then she dragged a suit case out of the closet and spread it open on the bed. For some seconds, she stood motionless, undecided, in troubled thought. In the middle drawer of her bureau lay a fortune in stolen money. During her father’s absence in camp she had carefully counted it over to satisfy her suspicions that it was stolen money, and she had found that it reckoned up to the amount Lemuel had told her was stolen by Billy Gee from the paymaster’s car of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company—twenty thousand dollars.

What must she do with it? Here she was the custodian of a great sum, ill gotten, placed in her hands without her knowledge or consent, without a word or hint as to what was expected of her. She had been made an innocent accomplice. She knew that, in the circumstances, were the house to be searched for this missing booty of Billy Gee, she would have a desperate time, if the officers should discover that drawerful of bills, to account for the presence of an amount of money the same as that lost by the railroad company.

Until her father had burst in upon her, urging this uncalled-for hurried departure that for some unexplained reason he had given her not the slightest hint about, she had quite decided that the best course for her to pursue was to go to Geerusalem and turn the booty over to the constable or the postmaster, stating simply that she had found it and wished it returned to its rightful owners. This she had determined to do in person; for if there was one thing on which she had firmly settled her mind, it was that Lemuel should be kept in ignorance about the money. After his display of desperation last night and the fearful threats he had made, she shrank from telling him of her discovery, lest in a moment of recklessness he might be tempted to force her to surrender the treasure to him, and appropriate it to his own uses. She had grown sick at the terrifying thought.

Another thing—one that had impressed her more deeply than she really knew at the time—was the realization that Billy Gee had left her this fortune out of appreciation for the little she had done for him. The act bespoke the character of man he was at the core—plunder though this fortune represented. It was about as big a gift as he could have made to her. He had risked his life to get it—been shot and bled white in the bargain. While she and her father had been quarreling over him he had lain in the darkness of her room, listening. He had learned that they were very poor, that the dream of the Huntingtons had been to give their daughter an education, that, notwithstanding their financial straits, that daughter was not in favor of surrendering him—outlaw, though he was—to gain the comforts that ten thousand dollars’ reward would bring. She also knew that later, in the hayloft, he had purposely misled her as to the contents of his saddlebags, in order to make his secret gift certain of acceptance.

Just now she stood in her room and pondered over what she should do with this unwelcome gift, since her father’s impetuousness had upset her plans. She reasoned that it would be nothing short of folly to leave the money hidden until their return, thus risking its loss by fire or theft. There seemed no other way except to take it along with her. They wouldn’t be gone but a few days, perhaps two weeks at the longest. Once back home she could carry out her original intention of putting it in the hands of the Geerusalem authorities for transmission to the general offices of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad.

So thinking, she opened the bureau drawer and hurriedly wrapped up the stacks of bills in her mother’s old silk shawl, tied the bundle securely with string, and packed it into the suit case along with some articles of clothing. Then she began dressing, in a growing fury of joyful anticipation and excitement, for her long-wished-for trip to a big city was at hand, her longing of years to be gratified at last.

Half an hour after Lemuel arrived from camp he was locking the front door of his home and placing the key under the mat for Sangerly. He walked slowly down the gravel path to the gate and crossed the garden toward the trim little grave under the drooping pepper tree. Wistfully he gazed down at it, and the moisture crept into his eyes when he saw Dot kneel and kiss the tips of her fingers and press them gently on the mound.

“Little angel mother,” she breathed. “How I wish you were going with us. How I wish you were here, darling.”

The chauffeur, sitting in the machine outside the gate, averted his head and looked away into the gaunt desolation of the plain.

Shortly afterward, father and daughter were comfortably settled in the rear seat and, like two children embarking on some glorious adventure, began their journey down the hot sandy floor of Soapweed Plains, bound for the dreary railroad station of Mirage. They reached there around four o’clock, ate dinner in the combination saloon-store-restaurant, and boarded the northbound train at dark.

It so happened that, owing to the joyous anticipation and breathless conjecture with which the trip itself engrossed her, not until the conductor came down the aisle to collect the tickets was Dot suddenly reminded that she had not asked her father how long he contemplated being gone. The uniformed person had passed on when she broached the subject.

“Are we going to be away very long, daddy?” she asked.

“We sure are,” said Lemuel cheerfully. “We’re out for a big time. What I mean—big. An’ we’re goin’ to see everything worth seein’, you kin gamble on that, Dot. If there’s anything your little heart desires, jest say so.”

“But how long—about a week or so?” she persisted. “There was something I wanted to attend to when I get back.”

“Get back?” laughed Lemuel. “Now listen here, hon! Furst, me an’ you’s goin’ to have the fling of our young lives. Then——” He broke off and, looking fixedly at her, grinned oddly. “You’ve seen the last of Soapweed Plains, Dot, for anyway three years. I’m toggin’ you up like a queen, an’ you’re sailin’ into Longwell’s Seminary for to be edjucated. That’s the main reason why I borried the money.”

Dot stared at him incredulously. Then, marking the strange set to his jaws, the triumphant glint in his habitually mild eyes, cold fear gripped her heart suddenly.

“Three years!” she choked. “Daddy, you’ve—you’ve deceived me. You’ve lied to me——”

“I’ve done it for your own good, Dot. ’Tain’t wrong to lie when it’s to help some one you love.” He paused. “You say you got somepn to ’tend to. Is that why you want to git back home?” he asked, his mind on the missing paymaster’s money.

“Not altogether. But—but it’s one of the reasons.”

“An’ it’s important, ain’t it, honey?” As he spoke he bent his head and gazed up into her face, his expression crafty, knowing.

“Not so important as caring for you, daddy,” she returned brokenly. “Nothing in this world matters so much as that.”

He did not press the subject. He sat back in his seat and studied his horny hands wistfully.

Shortly afterward, Dot began arguing against this decision of his to send her to school. They talked for two straight hours, she objecting on every ground she could think of, he countering stubbornly, now besting her, again being himself bested. Spiritedly she protested. She was too old to go to school; they needed the money for other purposes; she wouldn’t leave him to live alone on the ranch; she didn’t want an education. But all her vehemence and tears and supplications were of no avail. There was no shaking the determination of Lemuel Huntington.

So, in sheer exhaustion, she finally gave up and, lapsing into silence, devoted herself to the solution of the momentous problem of what she should do with the stolen treasure she was bringing along with her, wrapped in her mother’s old silk shawl.

After long reflection she concluded she would turn it over to the San Francisco authorities on her arrival, reasoning that it really did not matter which civil authorities received it, since it would be forwarded to the railroad company anyway. Having relieved her mind thus, her thoughts drifted to Billy Gee, and she found herself wondering lingeringly about him and if the wound in his head were giving him much trouble, where he might be in that great, lonely void of desert far to the south, if he were thinking of her. Foolish, vagrant little thoughts, they were; but somehow, they seemed to her to be very serious indeed, and so pleasing as to bring a warmth to her cheeks, and so tragic as to cause the tears to form in her eyes.

Lemuel sat and also reflected, but his thoughts were of another sort, a legion of sleep-dispelling meditations that crowded his brain, clamoring for review. He was so jubilant with himself and the fulfillment of the big dream of his life. His mind in a riot of joyous anticipation, he sat planning to make his brief stay in San Francisco an epochal event.

He threw back his head against the high back of his plush seat and chuckled silently at the clever manner in which he had enticed Dot into leaving the ranch, how splendidly his lie about borrowing two thousand dollars from Sheriff Warburton had worked out, how successfully he had manipulated affairs so that Dot would possibly never know that her father had played the sneak to effect the capture of Billy Gee. Yes, and there was also considerable satisfaction for him in the knowledge that he, Lemuel, had spirited his Dot out of the country before Sangerly and his bloodhounds could even see her, not to mention interview her.

He told himself that if for no other reason than to insure her against annoyance he would likewise keep her whereabouts secret. No one would know that she was attending the Longwell Seminary until the search for the missing twenty thousand dollars had come to an end. Meanwhile, he would contrive to question her and find out what she knew about those saddlebags and their contents. Dot would tell him, of that he felt quite sure; and some day perhaps, when the whole thing was ancient history, and she had graduated with high honors, he would tell her how her father had captured, single-handed, the far-famed daring desperado, Billy Gee, and why he had done it.

Morning found him still wide-eyed, staring unseeingly out of the car window at the multiplying miles of rich San Joaquin Valley acreage flashing by. Around seven o’clock the train stopped for a few minutes at Tracy, a junction town, and passengers from the north began piling in.

A newsboy came hurrying down the aisle, clamoring his wares excitedly. Lemuel hailed the youngster and bought a paper. Dot still slept and, seeing this, he settled himself comfortably in the seat to read. The following instant he caught his breath in sudden alarm, and sat bolt upright. His face paling through its tan, he glared with bulging eyes at the three words printed in large display type across the top of the first page.

DESPERATE BANDIT ESCAPES!

Billy Gee Attacks Sheriff, Plunges From Fast-moving Train Near Burbank.

For a long moment, Lemuel continued to glare fearfully at those headlines, then he sank limply back in his seat.

He felt Dot stir and, looking guiltily at her, saw that she was waking. Whereupon, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and presently rose and walked unsteadily out of the coach, heading for the smoking car. From that instant forward, he carried day and night in his mind a picture of Billy Gee standing in Sheriff Warburton’s room in Geerusalem and he heard again the bandit’s ominous threat:

“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!”

CHAPTER VIII—LAVENDER AND OLD LACE

Alexander Sangerly—“Lex” Sangerly, his friends called him—was a democratic type of Californian, who did not believe that the fact of his father being Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad system should of necessity mean that that father’s son must take any exalted credit unto himself. So, notwithstanding the fact that Lex held the important post of division superintendent of the road, he was not above meeting the rank and file of his departments on their own plane, mixing with them, addressing them by their given names, and conducting himself generally in business as well as social affairs very much like any red-blooded human.

Incidentally, it might be well to mention that, although only twenty-seven years old, he was already blossoming out into a prominent railroad figure, with the likelihood of making good future presidential timber for some transcontinental road.

The gold camp of Geerusalem was Lex’s first acquaintance with a desert bonanza settlement, that is, one in the high noon of its prosperity, its mines giving up great fortunes, its people drunk with success scattering their wealth prodigally, its night life unlicensed, violent with rashness and lust; yet Geerusalem with all its lawlessness gripped him with a compelling fascination, the fascination one feels who looks for the first time on something horribly real, incredible of human toleration, though tolerated and upheld by a civilized population that drops back to the primitive when the law is weak.

However, apart from his curiosity and interest in this wild, waspish desert camp, Lex had by chance discovered, on the very day of his arrival, a far more important reason why he was glad he had come to Geerusalem. As he was driving his high-powered roadster up the main street his eye alighted on a modest little signboard nailed above a tiny store, crowded between two large adobe buildings. It read: “Mrs. Agatha Liggs, Dry Goods.”

He had read that modest little sign, with a thrill of joy. There could be but one Agatha Liggs in the whole wide world, he told himself, and that was the dear little woman whom he had known far back in his boyhood days—the mother of his chum and pal, Jerome Liggs.

His earliest memory of Mrs. Liggs and her son dated back to when he was five years old, living in the archaic town of San José, with his parents, during the dark period of his father’s striving to rise out of the rut of clerkship. The two families had been next-door neighbors for a number of years, and he remembered Jerome’s father as a big jovial man, who used to drive a truck by day and play cards with the elder Sangerly by night.

Jerome and Lex attended the same school. Mrs. Liggs’ son was a sturdy, fearless youngster, the dunce of his class. Lex, on the other hand, was timid and delicate, studious and a star scholar. Singularly enough, they had formed a great friendship, perhaps because of their very contrariness of character one to the other and their natural tendency to lean on each other, as it were. Lex never really knew how many times doughty Jerome had stepped in and thrashed a boy bully for him, but he did know that these services more than amply repaid him for the innumerable times that he had helped his champion with problems in arithmetic, grammar, spelling, and the rest of the educational mysteries. Nor could he ever remember the number of occasions he had shared Jerome’s bed overnight; nor had he ever forgotten the countless fat slices of Mrs. Liggs’ pumpkin pie he had devoured.

Up to the age of twelve, this Damon-Pythias comradeship had continued uninterruptedly. Then came the day when Sangerly, senior, had invented a cold-storage system that had promptly found marked favor with the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad, with the result that, besides purchasing his patents, it employed him to oversee the installation of the apparatus in its refrigerator cars.

In the years following the departure of the Sangerlys from San José, the Liggs’ family had dropped out of sight. Lex had once heard from a mutual friend that Jerome’s father had been killed in an accident, and that the widow had moved to the southern part of the State. But though he had never found out what had become of him, he always retained a tender memory of his boy chum, and there seemed nothing that could ever blot out his respect for the lowly pumpkin pie. Now here at last, he had suddenly discovered, in this uproarious frontier settlement of Geerusalem, of all places, the motherly little Mrs. Liggs.

It is scarcely to be wondered at then, that after his talk with Lemuel Huntington in the U. & I. saloon, and before he began his search for the vanished twenty thousand dollars, he must first pay a visit to that diminutive dry-goods store on the main street. At the very moment that Dot’s father was speeding out of town in the automobile that was to take him and his daughter on the first leg of their journey to San Francisco, Lex brought his roadster to a stop before Mrs. Liggs’ establishment.

He found to his surprise that the place was to all appearances closed for the day, the blind drawn down over the display window. Nevertheless, he knocked sharply and peered into the dark interior through the small glass panel in the upper half of the door. Presently the door in the rear of the store opened, and, after a short hesitation, the proprietress herself came walking slowly forward, wiping her eyes on her apron, arranging her white hair and smoothing out her immaculate, stiffly-starched dress. The next moment she was standing in the doorway, looking inquiringly at him through her spectacles.

“Mother Liggs! Bless your dear old heart!” he cried out in a voice vibrant with feeling. “Don’t you know me? Lex Sangerly!” He beamed on her, while she, squinting up at him, searched his face with infinite gravity, a trace of suspicion in her look.

She was a tiny, tired-out mite of a woman, around sixty-five, her hair like snowy silk, her eyes a faded blue, large, and just now showing indications of recent tears. Her dress, muslin and rather old-fashionedly made, was the most correct thing in feminine attire worn in the camp; at least, so declared the godless population of Geerusalem.

She studied her visitor for a few seconds, then her eyes lighted up like twin stars. “Lex—Lex Sangerly! You dearest, dearest boy. Of all things—Lex Sangerly! Oh, I’m so—so glad to see you, Lex. So awful glad to see you——” She choked suddenly.

Clutching his hand, she led him inside, locked the door and, chattering her joy, escorted him to the little living room back of the store. She insisted on his occupying her best chair, fixed a footstool for him under his feet, and sat close beside him, feasting her gaze on him, listening hungrily while he talked. And this he did, regaling her with a summary of what he and his family had been doing since she last saw them. It was a dazzling recital of achievement, with happiness and success through every portion of it, one of those inspiring narratives that makes one’s failures seem more prodigious than they really are.

“And now,” he concluded, “the old man has ordered me to camp out here on this desert until I find out what Billy Gee—the notorious outlaw who was captured last night—did with the twenty thousand dollars he stole from our company. I guess you’ve heard all about it.”

She had taken up her knitting while he talked, her fingers manipulating the needles mechanically, though her eyes never left his face. She stopped now to disentangle a snarl and bent her head over it, plucking nervously at the yarn.

“Yes, I’ve heard,” she said, at last. “Have you any idea, Lex——”

“Not the slightest. I’m making a search of Mr. Huntington’s ranch. That’s where he was caught, you know. By the way, you must know Huntington—a rancher, south of here?”

She nodded as she resumed her knitting. “He made ten thousand dollars mighty easy. The easiest money Lem Huntington ever made—bringing in a dying man.” There was a strain of bitterness in her tones.

“He has rendered the community a great service, Mother Liggs; we can’t overlook that fact,” said Lex. “This wretched scoundrel, Billy Gee, has held up M. & S. trains for the past three years, robbed passengers, and laughed at every posse that ever took up his trail. He’s always been invincible, I hear, managing to slip his pursuers whenever he wanted to. He’s been a menace.”

“That might all be, Lex, but there’s some good in the worst of us. You’ll admit that, won’t you?”

He smiled. “You’re not very familiar with this crook’s exploits, I can see that, Mother Liggs. Why, trainmen who have brushed up against him say he’d as soon kill a man as look at him.”

An audible gasp broke from her. Her thin face paled and set ever so little, while into her faded eyes rose a flickering fire.

“It ain’t true. It’s—it’s sinful for any one to say such a thing. Lex, I want to tell you something about Billy Gee that you can believe, because I never lie, and that is—he’s given away every cent he ever stole. Don’t ask me how I know. Ask any man on the street, and he’ll tell you that there’ll be more broken hearts and empty cupboards now that Billy Gee is—is gone, than if the Geerusalem mines shut down to-morrow.” She paused, then added: “I know it don’t sound just right, Lex, but I wish—I wish he’d never been caught.”

Sangerly regarded her curiously for a moment. Some appealing, subtle sadness he saw in her face caused him to burst out with a merry laugh and lean over and take her in his arms.

“I wouldn’t try to disillusion you for the world, you darling,” he cried, as he kissed her. “You nor any other woman could condemn a man of Billy Gee’s type. You all feel for the wayward man. You pity him. You want to help him, for that is the blessed mission of this wonderful mother love of yours.” He digressed, with a broad smile: “Before I forget, I want to take you out for some real joy rides in a new roadster I have; which means, of course, that you must introduce me around among the first families of Geerusalem. I want to be initiated into the mysteries of bacon and beans and sour dough bread.”

She returned his smile and looked at him, admiration in her eyes. “Did you meet Dot—Lem Huntington’s daughter?” she asked presently.

“No. She’s one of the belles of the camp, I suppose?”

“Dot Huntington is one of the finest girls in the West, Lex.”

“Whew! You’re some little booster. Pretty?”

“Pretty as a picture, and sensible. That’s a combination you don’t often find, Lex, and you know it. She’s a girl any man would kneel to,” she said solemnly.

“Mother Liggs, you interest me. You must tell me more about this charming young lady. I want to meet her. You see, I’ve always believed my San Francisco girl was the prize winner, but it just may be that this fair daughter of Geerusalem is—well, I’ll tell you after I see her.” He paused, then resumed seriously: “Right now, I want to hear about your own affairs. How have you been getting along all these years? And you haven’t even mentioned Jerome. Where is he?”

It was very quiet in Mrs. Liggs’ living quarters, quite like a sanctuary; the three rooms flanked on either side by drab adobe walls and overlooking a back yard of some size, cut up into little plots—the only flower garden in Geerusalem, with a patch of vegetables growing in one corner. A gate opened into a narrow alleyway that led to the rear street.

“Jerome?” echoed Mrs. Liggs, after a short silence. She was gazing intently at her knitting. “Jerome is dead, Lex.” She spoke slowly, haltingly.

“Dead!”

He looked hard at the snowy bowed head a moment. Then he drew her gently to him again and laid his cheek against hers.

“I am so sorry to hear that,” he said in a voice that was tenderly sympathetic. “How long ago——”

“Lex, deary!” she broke in sobbingly. “Don’t let’s talk about it—please! The wound is too fresh, the pain in my heart is too—I can’t explain. Some of these days maybe, I’ll tell you the story. There ain’t many that would understand—that would believe. I know you could, ’cos—’cos you and Jerome were such good friends. When I saw you, you looking so—so happy and prosperous, I just—I just couldn’t help thinking that my boy——” She couldn’t finish. Burying her face in her apron, she wept disconsolately as if her heart would break.

Some time afterward, she told him about herself from the day fifteen years ago, that the Sangerlys moved from San José, and he remarked that it was much the same tale of striving that any of thousands of American mothers might relate—the indomitable, ceaseless struggle to get ahead.

“Then, after Mr. Liggs’ death, we drifted north to Marysville,” she concluded wearily. “I went into the delicatessen business and did well. One day, Jerome—it was a hard battle alone, Lex, but I managed to save money, and afterward I came to Geerusalem and opened this store. I’m the only woman in business here, and every one patronizes me. The boys won’t allow anybody to run opposition to me,” she added, with a faint smile.

Two hours passed quickly, considering that Mrs. Liggs insisted that Lex have lunch with her, disregarding his attempts to explain that he had an appointment with his two detectives at one o’clock.

So it was early afternoon when he finally picked up his hat and prepared to leave. At that juncture, a sharp knock sounded on the kitchen door, and the following moment, Mrs. Liggs was ushering forward an outlandish, shriveled-up, old fellow of seventy, who halted suddenly in the center of the room and fastened a pair of watery blue eyes suspiciously on Lex.

“This is Tinnemaha Pete, Lex,” said Mrs. Liggs. “He’s my prospector, and some day we’re going to strike it rich. Ain’t we, Pete? This is Mr. Sangerly. I knew him when he wore long curls, Pete, and he used to cuddle up in my lap and go to sleep. Didn’t you, Lex?”

“I see that ornery skunk, Lem Huntington, sashayin’ round in a ottermobile—too cussed lazy to drive hisself,” cackled the funny, little old man. “Hell burn his rotten hide! I’d like to—— Hoo, hoo! I’ll fix the stink-cat. See ef I don’t! What’s yore business, Mr. Spangaree? You’re sorter high-toned, ain’t you? City duck, what?” He tossed a bulging canvas sack he carried on his shoulder into a corner of the room. “There’s some rock, Agatha—tol’rable good, tol’rable good.”

Tinnemaha Pete was a horrible example of what the Southwestern desert does to men who sneer at its death-dealing forces and flirt with its snares too long. His body was warped, twisted, broken, his skin dry and tough as weathered leather, his eyes rheumy, burned out by sun glare. A pathetically few thin long hairs of beard still remained to him, and a scanty rim of gray circling the back of his bony, bald head, were the only evidences of a once shaggy brown thatch with which nature had endowed him.

Tinnemaha Pete, however, knew the Mohave Desert from center to circumference better than any man of those times, it was freely conceded. Whatever that gaunt, fiery, dead land had done to him, however hard it had striven to lay him a paralyzed heap to roast alive on its molten bosom, it had not killed the questing spirit of the prospector in him. Winter and summer, for a quarter of a century and more, he had searched and searched and searched that vast solitude for the undiscovered treasures which his experience told him must be somewhere embedded in those countless, chromatic ranges that crisscrossed that untrodden principality.

Through his years of wandering he had come to know the face of the Mohave as intimately as he knew the vile, black, short-stemmed pipe he smoked. What was equally, if not more, important, he had taught Billy Gee what he knew of that desert, thereby making the bandit invincible when fleeing over this no man’s land, with posses yelping at his heels.

A few minutes after the arrival of Tinnemaha Pete, Lex took his departure. Mrs. Liggs saw him to the street door and stood watching him wistfully as he drove away up the street. Then she shuffled tiredly back to the living room, dropped into a chair, and buried her face in her hands. Tinnemaha Pete peered hard at her, his lips moving, guttural sounds issuing from his throat.

“What ails ye?” he cried out. “What ails ye, Agatha?”

And because he surmised and was powerless to help her, he started a wild falsettoed string of abuse leveled at Lemuel Huntington, Sheriff Warburton, and that destiny to whose exactions all men must yield themselves.

“Jerome, son!” sobbed Mrs. Liggs forlornly. “Why couldn’t you have been like him? Dear God, what have I done that I should suffer like this? My burden is so heavy. Lord, so awful heavy. Pete—Pete, that was Jerome’s chum, his boyhood chum. And I—I had to tell him Jerome was—was dead. I—I just couldn’t tell him the—the truth.”

The queer old desert rat broke into a gale of insane laughter. “Mark me! Cuss-durn me, you mark me, Agatha!” he squeaked excitedly, his watery eyes afire. He trotted up to her side and shook a dried claw of a finger into her face. “Mark ye! Let Jerome boy git clear of that scalawag politician sheriff, an’ he’ll be off like a jackrabbit! Hain’t I learned him how to hide an’ go seek in that sand pile? Eh, hain’t I? Glory be, she’s a grand sand pile, Agatha! An’ he knows her, Jerome does—every hide-out, every water hole, the ol’ Injun trails, the ornery tricks of her an’—an’ there’s scores on scores of box cañons, that he knows, that he kin crawl out of an’ give Mr. Sheriff the hoss laugh. Yes, he kin. An’ nobody knows ’em, but me an’ him. Wommin! He’ll be off like a jackrabbit, I tell ye, wunst he’s in the clear.” He paused, glaring about the room. The canvas sack he had thrown in the corner caught his eye. “There’s the rock he asked you to have me git him, Agatha. It’s lousy—plumb lousy with gold, d’ye mark? An’ the ledge’ll go down to hell, she’s that true. I’ve called her the ‘Billy Geerusalem,’” he added in a furious whisper.

CHAPTER IX—EVIDENCE TO CONVICT

Meanwhile, Lex Sangerly met the two railroad detectives and, after a short conference in the hotel office, the three motored out to the Huntington ranch. It was around four o’clock when they admitted themselves into the house with the key Lemuel had placed under the doormat. The sleuths, Ray Coates and Harry Tyler—former plain-clothes men of the Los Angeles police department—began an exhaustive investigation of the grounds and outhouses. They found the tracks of Billy Gee approaching the ranch from across the plains and even traced the outlaw’s progress into the dwelling. It required painstaking effort to do this last, and the continued use of a magnifying glass by which they followed the disconnected, faint trail of blood specks, from the spot where Dot had dragged the wounded bandit out of the saddle until she finally got him indoors. These two Mohave & Southwestern bloodhounds also established the incriminating fact that Billy Gee had occupied the parlor lounge. To them, it was a cinch case, circumstantial evidence pointing conclusively to the outlaw having received aid either from Lemuel or his daughter.

As for Lex, he had lingered inside. He had made two discoveries, both impressive ones. Wandering into Huntington’s room, he had come upon a photograph of a girl. It was standing on the bureau—a photograph of Dot taken a year before in Geerusalem and showing her in the first full bloom of charming womanhood. He picked up the picture and looked at it for a long time. It engrossed him in an odd way, for he was struck by the freshness and sensitiveness of the face, by the wholesome, gentle expression in the great eyes, withal, by that indefinable charm that attaches only to things of desert life, be they a humble wild flower, a mocking bird’s nest in a cactus, or a daughter of the range.

Curiosity led him at last to steal a glance into the room this remarkably pretty girl occupied. He entered it rather hesitatingly and surveyed its interior. It was a clean little room, plainly furnished, but there were artistic touches of color here and there that gave it a peculiar cheer and warmth, and in a frame against the wall was a picture of Mrs. Agatha Liggs! The sight of that picture pleased him. It did more. The longer he gazed at it, the greater became that pleasure and, though he did not pause to ascertain the cause, he felt himself grow kindly inclined toward this stranger girl, as if, in some unknown way, he already knew her.

Presently he made his second discovery. Inspecting the scarcely visible, bloody finger prints of a man on the window sill, he straightway satisfied himself that their owner had climbed out of Dot’s room through the window. Further investigation of the soft soil of the garden beneath that window revealed not only a man’s tracks, but a woman’s, the latter’s showing that she had both left and reëntered the house by the same route.

For some moments Lex stood and thought gravely over this new angle in the case. There was no blinking the fact that Billy Gee had been befriended and that his benefactor was quite obviously Dot Huntington. It seemed incredible, judging from the high praise Mrs. Liggs had accorded the girl—and he knew Mrs. Liggs’ stanch regard for the truth.

Yet here was irrefutable proof pointing to a wounded man escaping from the house, assisted by a woman, who—it was a natural deduction in the circumstances—after she had seen him safely away, returned to her room by a route plainly intended to conceal her actions; and the only apparent reason for secrecy, as far as he could see, appeared to be fear of discovery by some one in the house, that some one being Lemuel Huntington. Granting this were true, it was more than probable that a love affair existed between this notorious desperado and the rancher’s daughter, of which her father was ignorant; for, Lex argued, no girl, unless she were deeply interested in him, would be so indiscreet as to clamber through a window, out of her own bedroom, with a man, shot and bleeding, a man, whose presence in the house she dared not reveal to her father.

The footsteps of the two detectives on the back porch, disturbed his train of thought. Presently he heard the pair tramping about the kitchen. A few moments later, Coates—a hard-eyed, poker-faced individual, never without a cigar in his mouth—threw open the door and walked in.

“We found the saddlebags, saddle and bridle, Mr. Sangerly. They’re smeared over with blood. Somebody hid ’em pretty carefully,” he announced, with a cocksure jerk of his head.

“Where?”

“In the barn. The bags were in the loft, covered over with hay. The saddle, Tyler dug up from under a pile of old gunny sacks. There’s a bed been made in the loft, and somebody ate lunch there not later’n yesterday. There’s soft bread crumbs layin’ around.”

“Then our theory that Billy Gee cached the money here is about right, isn’t it?” said Lex quietly.

“I’ll tell the world,” sniggered Coates. “And what’s more, he had a swell little accomplice to help him put it over.”

Tyler entered the room at this juncture. He was a ferretlike, wiry man, smileless and resolute of eye, with a close-cropped, iron-gray mustache and a permanent frown.

“There’s nothing to it, Mr. Sangerly. We’ve got enough evidence to pinch Huntington and his daughter on suspicion,” he said crisply. “It’s a cinch Billy Gee got all kinds of help here. We’ve established the fact he rode up here from across country and was dragged into the house by a woman who doctored him on the parlor couch. At the back of the barn, just outside the door, we find a coupla rolled-up blankets tied for slinging over the shoulder with this,” holding up two strips of calico for the other’s inspection; “and in the kitchen is the apron this cloth was torn from. Now my theory is that Huntington’s daughter——”

“I can’t see that it makes much difference, now that this bandit has been captured, whether he received aid or not,” interrupted Lex. “It’s not improbable that he was given help. When a man is wounded, people as a rule don’t stop to ask questions. But I don’t think it follows that Billy Gee would tell any one what was in his saddlebags. You seem to forget you’re dealing with a cold-blooded professional highwayman with a price on his head, not a sentimental novice. This chap isn’t a movie bad man. He’s the real thing, as we have good reason to know. If he cached that money on this ranch, he did it alone——”

“I was going to say, Mr. Sangerly,” broke in Tyler respectfully, in his turn, “that we can’t be too awful sure of this girl not being wise. Billy Gee’s record shows he’s a damn fool with his coin—gives it away like a drunken Indian, that’s what they say around camp.”

“After we have satisfied ourselves completely that the money cannot be found, it will be time enough to confront the girl, Tyler. It doesn’t seem quite fair to me to accuse people of a thing of this sort, to brand them accomplices of a criminal, when they have opened their home to us as hospitably as the Huntingtons have. Besides, Huntington is the man whom we have to thank for capturing Billy Gee when every one else failed. You might as well say that this rancher made a double clean-up—got away with the bandit’s swag and also collected the reward.”

“That’s just exactly what I’ve been thinking,” declared Coates stoutly; “and I agree with Tyler that the girl is in on the deal. There’s some pretty slick birds among these desert rats, Mr. Sangerly, let me tell you. It’s damned funny to me why they beat it out of the country, so all of a sudden. It’s the Bunker Hill, if you want my opinion on the matter.”

Lex gazed thoughtfully across the room, at the picture of Mrs. Liggs.

“And supposing they’re sweethearts, sir,” ventured Tyler. “It ain’t impossible. The police records are crammed with stranger cases than that. If they’re intimate, she’d be in on the game, wouldn’t she? And it’d be the easiest thing going for her to hide that twenty thousand where nobody’d find it. Another thing, Billy Gee, according to all reports, has either relatives or mighty close friends in Soapweed Plains.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, men,” said Lex finally. “I’m going back to town to-night, and I’ll ascertain all about Miss Huntington—if she has a sweetheart, the type of girl she is, everything regarding the family. In the meantime, drop this accomplice business and settle down to a systematic, thorough search.”

It was dusk when Lex stopped his machine before Mrs. Liggs’ dry-goods store. The night life of Geerusalem was beginning to waken, stretching itself like some blinking giant making ready to be off on his rampant adventuring. For five crooked blocks down the wide gulch which sloped gently out of the hills, onto the smooth floor of Soapweed Plains, the main street was ablaze with lights, pouring from business houses, saloons, gambling houses, and dance halls. Already the sidewalks were packed with as heterogeneous a stream of humanity as may be seen only in those out-of-the-way places of earth where men have discovered fabulous wealth bursting from the rock.

Here swaggered the hordes of miners coming off shift from a hundred working properties in the neighboring hills, grimy, spattered with candle grease, and adding to the bustle and confusion of the gold-mad crowd, was the torrent of traffic that surged up and down the rough, rocky thoroughfare—wagons of every description from the slim rattletrap buckboard, up through the various stages of all known vehicles, great freighter’s outfits, horse-drawn hacks, carts, automobiles; all these contributed to the bedlam that roared through the hills from early dawn to midnight, incessantly from one day to another.

Lex stepped out of the roadster and began shouldering his way across the sidewalk to Mrs. Liggs’ store. He suddenly noticed that the place was open, the display window brilliantly lighted up, and he made out over the heads of the throng, the figure of the little proprietress bustling energetically about behind the counter, waiting on customers. The marked difference between his visit that afternoon, when he had found the establishment closed and its owner showing traces of prolonged grief, and his present one, caused him to wonder curiously. The next moment, however, an unlooked-for incident drove the thought from his mind.

He had almost cleared the jam on the sidewalk and was within a step of the store entrance, when a man collided heavily with him. As he staggered back into the arms of one of the crowd, a coarse voice yelled in his ear:

“What the hell! Look where you’re going, you poor fish!”

Lex got his feet and stood blocking the other’s way, gazing steadily at him. The press of men around them, sensing trouble, scattered like magic, for it was no unusual thing for revolvers to flash at the least provocation.

The man before him was big and powerfully built, forty-five or thereabouts, with heavy face and piercing, arrogant, coal-black eyes. His clothes—Norfolk suit of the finest whipcord, silk shirt, jaunty, stiff-brimmed Stetson and nap-a-tan half boots of superior quality—his whole bearing, in fact, stamped him a person of wealth and prominence.

There was a tragic silence. In that brief interval, the center of the street was a solid mass of staring humanity, the two principals standing alone, the hub of a wide circle. Even Mrs. Liggs, attracted by the sudden commotion, stood watching now, pale and trembling, from the rear of the store, her eyes riveted on the contestants facing each other before her door.

“Perhaps you’d better look where you’re going, neighbor,” said Lex finally, in a dangerously quiet tone.

The other’s lip curled, and his eyes flamed with contempt. He sneered. “I see you don’t know who you’re talking to——”

“I don’t care and have no desire to know,” cut in Lex. “What I want to know is, are you looking for trouble?”

The man regarded him hatefully before he spoke, then he said in low, sibilant tones, intended only for Lex’s ears. “One word from me—one signal—and you’d be riddled with bullets where you stand. I don’t like you, stranger, because you’re just that, a stranger. But I admire an equal, able and willing to fight for his rights. You say you don’t care to know me. You ask me if I’m looking for trouble. You haven’t got a chance in the world against me. Look for yourself!”

Without averting his gaze from Lex’s face, he raised his voice: “Hey, gang! Quintell men come forward!”

A sudden movement ran over the multitude. The open circle began filling rapidly, as scores of hitherto curious onlookers obeyed the order. They halted, silent and ominous—members of that army of undesirables which forms a large percentage of the population of every new mining camp—and focused their hard eyes on Lex.

The man chuckled easily. “You’re a stranger in camp and don’t appreciate what it means to brush up against Jule Quintell. I hope we understand each other—that we’ll spare each other future embarrassment,” he said, with biting emphasis.

Dismissing his followers with a wave of his hand, he turned on his heel and strode away. Lex, furious with chagrin, looked after him for some seconds, then he entered the little dry-goods store.

“Oh, deary!” burst out Mrs. Liggs, hurrying up to him. She closed and locked the front door, and taking his hand in her own trembling one, started leading him toward the rear of the place. “I nearly fainted with fright, Lex. Do you know who he was? Jule Quintell, honey, the awfulest man. He’s the worst crook, controls the camp, and is that powerful he just laughs at law and order. Men are killed off like flies, and they say Jule Quintell is back of every murder. Oh, it’s terrible, Lex! Nobody is safe, and he’s got spies all around, and they jump mining claims, and if the owner shows fight, they shoot him like a dog. I was just scared to death.”

She made him comfortable in the cozy living room and chattered on, recounting the lawless deeds of “Boss” Quintell and his gangster following.

“One of these days he’ll get what’s coming to him, Mother Liggs. He’ll pick on the wrong man at the right time,” said Lex slowly.

A little later, they had dismissed the subject and their talk drifted to the search being made on the Huntington ranch.

“Developments have brought about a rather unusual situation,” he told her, “and I have come to you, hoping you might be able to clear it up. In the first place, I want to ask you a question, because I know you are an intimate friend of the Huntingtons. I saw your picture occupying a prominent place out there. Has Miss Huntington a sweetheart? Have you ever known her to be interested in any man?”

Mrs. Liggs thought a moment, then shook her head decidedly. “No, and what’s more, she never speaks of men in that way, Lex. She’s different from any girl I’ve ever met, for her age—she’s eighteen. She’s studious and likes to read novels and—well, dream. She sits and spins yarns to me every time we visit one another. Yarns she’s made up, mind you, and they’re as clever as any you ever read. But I’m positive she never kept company with a man in her life. I’d know if she did, Lex.”

He looked across the room, puffing his cigarette in silence.

“The reason I ask, Mother Liggs, is that our investigations lead us to believe that she helped Billy Gee, provided him with food, a bed and——”

“She did!” burst out the little old lady, in sudden excitement.

“Yes, and from all appearances, hid him in her room. I want to be sure of their relations to each other, for it is quite probable that if he knew her he would tell her about the stolen money and either confide in her where he had hidden it or have her conceal it for him.” He followed by giving Mrs. Liggs a detailed account of the search and what it had revealed.

She listened intently, eagerly, drinking in every word, a strange, exultant light that he did not note gleaming far back in the depths of her faded blue eyes, her cheeks tinged with a faint rosiness that heightened the charm of her kindly countenance.

“And if you don’t find this money, Lex, I hope you don’t intend to arrest Dot!” she cried suddenly. “Why, that would be a terrible outrage—horrible. That girl is a dear, sweet, innocent child who wouldn’t do wrong for anything. Why, that’s just like her to help him—wounded and bleeding and all that!”

He smiled at her vehement defense of the girl. “I don’t think we will have occasion to go that far in the matter, Mother Liggs,” he said reassuringly. “As I was driving in from the ranch it struck me that, confronted with what evidence we have and more that we’ll get, showing that Miss Huntington presumably aided him, Billy Gee will confess—make a clean breast of everything, rather than have her incriminated. Any man would, out of a sense of gratitude, if for no other reason.” He paused and added slowly: “Personally, from everything you’ve told me about her I don’t believe a young woman of Miss Huntington’s standing would stoop to such a thing as keeping stolen money—supposing, of course, that Billy Gee turned it over to her. Isn’t that so?”

Mrs. Liggs did not reply. She studied him curiously for a few seconds, then she said gravely:

“You haven’t seen the bulletin board this afternoon, have you? Well, Billy Gee escaped from Sheriff Warburton and—and got away, Lex. If you’ll stay to supper I’ll tell you all about it. And I’ve got—what do you think, deary? Pumpkin pie! Only it’s made out of canned pumpkin.” Laughing, she took both his hands in hers and drew him into the kitchen.

A hundred miles southwest of Geerusalem, where the Mohave Desert grudgingly recedes and the great arable belt, rich in orange and lemon groves, orchard and vineyard, follows the coast line unswervingly, north and south, a dozen posses were scouring the country for one man.

Four hours before, Billy Gee had turned on Sheriff Warburton in the lavatory of the smoking car and struck him down with the heavy “bottle-cuffs” that shackled his hands. He had taken the key from the unconscious official’s pocket, unlocked the manacles, slipped them on Warburton, and gagged him so that he could not cry out. Then he had leaped through the lavatory window, while the train was straining on an upgrade, out of the desert.

At the next station, a brakeman had discovered the sheriff lying helpless on the floor. The train was stopped, the wires tapped, and the alarm broadcasted around for hundreds of miles.

Sheriff Warburton, overwhelmed with humiliation, raging impotently, mustered a posse and began combing the neighborhood where his prisoner had broken for freedom. Other posses were organized. A dragnet, twenty-five miles in diameter, started closing in. Hour after fruitless hour passed. On the evening of the same day that he had left Geerusalem with the notorious bandit in custody, Sheriff Warburton, baffled, discomfited, offered one thousand dollars for the man’s capture, dead or alive.

At ten o’clock that night, when it seemed certain that Billy Gee had dropped from sight, Warburton wrapped up his gold-filled star of authority, together with his credentials and a letter, resigning as sheriff of San Buenaventura County. These he mailed to the chairman of the board of supervisors, but he did not abandon his hunt for Billy Gee. On the contrary, he prosecuted that hunt with a persistence bordering on frenzy, spending days and nights in the saddle, sleeping and eating only when exhaustion threatened to put him out of the running, and he registered a violent oath against the outlaw, if they ever should meet again.

Two weeks later the newspapers carried a story about the finding of a dead man in a lonely desert cañon, some distance from the little town of Burbank. Authorities differed as to the length of time the man had been dead. Identification proving quite impossible, it was, nevertheless, decided that the remains were those of Billy Gee. Ex-Sheriff Warburton alone would not believe it. He continued his relentless, indefatigable search.

CHAPTER X—A DISCLOSURE

Dot Huntington found San Francisco to exceed her wildest imaginings of what a great city really was. Born of the desert and having been an intimate part of that desert all her life and, until the establishment of Geerusalem, knowing nothing of those centers where men forgathered and schemed and battled and died in a fury of commercial competition, she had always pictured a metropolis as similar to an ant hill for life and activity; but she had never thought it so spectacular, so dynamic in potentialities, so gigantic a thing as that architectural pile which greeted her eyes on that memorable morning when she and her father crossed the seven miles of green bay from Oakland, toward the picturesque horizon of buildings rising step on step, miles long and wide, tier on tier, up the steep slopes of hills that hid their crests in a low-lying, fleecy bank of fog.

And Market Street, Mississippian in its aspect, flowing full with its surging, irresistible stream of pedestrians and traffic, appalled her. The chaotic blockade of street cars at the Ferry terminal, the deafening thunder and shriekings of the busy Embarcadero, the mad confusion of it all, bewildered her—and bewildered Lemuel still more.

It was during the period when the Golden West Hotel was to the country people of California what the Congress, in Chicago, is to the political world of the nation—the one and only caravansary. Accordingly, Lemuel set his blind course for the Golden West Hotel. He did this after making a number of inquiries on how to reach his destination, regarding with considerable suspicion each one of his informants, for he had heard about the suaveness of confidence and bunko men and their artful way of misdirecting their victims to dens of iniquity, abounding in trapdoors and subterranean dungeons and murderous gangsters, and he felt that he was just a trifle too smart to fall a prey to the sly brotherhood.

“Them slick fellers’s got to git up purty early in the mornin’ to beat yore dad, Dot,” he grinned proudly, as they started off in a taxi. “I ain’t up on city ways, but I’m kinder foxy myself. That’s what comes of knockin’ around with Lennox, the minin’ engineer, an’ the rest of them Geerusalem sports, like I’ve done.”

But with all Lemuel’s belief in his own sagacity, when it was a matter of pitting his wits against the other fellow’s, he failed to notice that, ever since their arrival at the Ferry terminal, he and Dot had been the object of intense secret interest on the part of a man who, once his sharp eyes rested on them as they came in sight with the rest of the passengers, trailed them about until they entered the taxi.

He was a broad-shouldered, powerful individual, perhaps in the late thirties, with a red, coarse face and expressionless blue eyes. His clothes were cut along flashy lines, his shoes of glittering patent leather, his hat worn jauntily. But his very appearance, particularly when he walked, somehow impressed one that he was more at home in the hills than in the city. As Dot and her father began their slow progress up Market Street the stranger sprang into another taxi and instructed the driver to follow the first.

Arriving at the hotel, Lemuel and his daughter registered and were shown to a cheerful little suite overlooking the street. They sat down in the parlor and stared at each other.

“My!” exclaimed Dot breathlessly. “Isn’t this just—just wonderful?”

“Geerusalem ain’t got nuthin’ on this burg, has it? Sounds like ol’ hell broke loose—an’ I’m not cussin’ when I say that, Dot,” chuckled Lemuel.

Her eyes kindled, and she rose from her chair and went over and threw her arms around his neck. “It’s such a glorious adventure. I—I only wish poor mother was with us. Don’t you, daddy?”

He didn’t answer for some seconds, then he said in a strained voice: “That’s the one thing that spoils it all for us, honey—her not bein’ here. All her life, she looked for’ard to this hour, when me an’ her’d bring you to Frisco to go to school. Thank God, the hour’s come—anyway!”

During the next two days they devoted themselves almost entirely to getting acquainted with the vicinity of the hotel. Then they began taking short tours of investigation, growing bolder and bolder until they were finally promenading the miles of streets which form the downtown business section, even venturing a trip to the Cliff House where they spent hours gazing in speechless amazement across the Pacific—the first ocean they had ever seen.

Having become thus partially inured to metropolitan conditions, they found time to think of other matters. Naturally enough, it was Lemuel’s desire to get his daughter an outfit; the best that money could buy would be none too good, he told himself. That daughter, like any woman, was not averse to being prettily clothed, so they started window shopping, staring at the gorgeous displays along lower Grant Avenue, trying to decide on what would be not alone stylish, but attractive and worth the money as well.

But by the end of the fourth day it became quite apparent to them both that choosing a young lady’s first wardrobe destined to give her the required distinction demanded by so select an institution as Longwell’s Seminary was clearly not a job for the uninitiated. They repaired to their little parlor to study over the problem. Lemuel was smoking his after-dinner cigar and frowning at his new tight shoes.

“I have it, daddy!” burst out Dot suddenly, breaking a long silence. “Telegraph to Mrs. Liggs and ask her to come. You can pay her fare and expenses. You remember, she used to live in San José and she knows all about what is proper and tasty in dress. She can get somebody to take care of the store for a few days. I’m sure she’ll come.”

But Lemuel shook his head severely. “We don’t want Mrs. Liggs pickin’ out yore things, Dot, an’ that settles it,” he said shortly.

“Why not? She’s in the dry-goods business and knows all about clothes.”

“She’s old-fashioned, that’s why, an’ she wouldn’t talk to me when I seen her——”

“She is not old-fashioned, daddy, and you know it,” cried Dot spiritedly. “Didn’t she make me that pretty pink dress last summer, and everybody admired it? You said yourself it was nicer than anything you’d seen on me. I know that if we try to buy a wardrobe ourselves, they’ll—— Well, we’ll have to take what they tell us is the latest style, because we don’t know any better. Can’t you see that you’ll save money and everything by having Mrs. Liggs come? Please send for her, daddy!”

They discussed the matter for upward of an hour, and because her father’s objections were weak and unconvincing, Dot argued all the more strenuously in an effort to have her way. Nor was Lemuel so greatly opposed to her plan as he pretended to be. He firmly believed that Mrs. Liggs was the very person who could discriminate between what was modish and what was not in a young lady’s apparel, and that, furthermore, she would not hesitate to close up her store for a week and board the first train north if she knew that Dot required her services in a matter of such moment.

What he was endeavoring to do was make up his mind whether he should tell his daughter how he had captured Billy Gee, confess his perfidy, and send for Mrs. Liggs, or object flatly to her and, thereby, throw himself on the tender mercies of some clerk trained in the subtle art of selling goods; for he realized only too well, that were their little old friend to come, she would lose no time in telling Dot about the sensational capture of the bandit, and how he, Lemuel, had been lionized by the population of Geerusalem. Under other circumstances he would have rather welcomed this, but to have his daughter learn how treacherously he had acted, was something he dreaded. He felt that she would not be able to understand his object back of the act. Again, Mrs. Liggs’ unaccountable treatment of him that morning when he rode into Geerusalem rankled considerably. Of course, he told himself, there was always the possibility that she had not recognized him, for her eyes were not as keen now as he had once known them to be.

So, after finding himself being slowly convinced by Dot almost against his will that they were absolutely dependent on Mrs. Liggs to solve the wardrobe problem for them, he finally yielded to his half-formed notion to tell his daughter everything—except the fact that Billy Gee had threatened his life; for he would not awaken unnecessary fears in her lest she might refuse to attend school.

He cleared his throat presently and said: “I’m goin’ to tell you somepn, Dot—because I’d ruther you heard it from me than an outsider—an’ I want you to forgive me for carin’ more for yore future than for yore opinion of yore old dad.” He paused and glanced anxiously at her. “I ketched Billy Gee as he was leavin’ the barn that night, an’—an’ I c’llected the ten thousand dollars reeward.”

She had been sitting on the arm of his chair, smoothing his thin, gray hair, idly. Now she started suddenly, and a hard gasp escaped her. Rising from her seat, she came around in front of him and stood looking sharply down into his face.

“You turned him over—over to Sheriff Warburton?” she asked hoarsely.

“I did, Dot—to git the money to give you an edjucation. I had to lie to you, much as it hurt. But—but he got away. He jumped off the train an’ they ain’t bin able to find hide or hair of him,” he added, grinning expectantly at her.

“He got away! He got away—again—from Sheriff Warburton!”

“Yeh. An’ plumb disappeared. I bin watchin’ the papers. Poor Bob was so bruck up over losin’ him, he quit the sheriff job.”

She stared intently at him a moment, then threw back her head and laughed aloud—a silvery, daring laugh.

“I’m glad! Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, a catch in her throat.

Lemuel was gazing narrowly at her, missing nothing; and he noticed the warm flush come and go in her cheeks. He had never seen such a brilliant light in her eyes before. He marveled vaguely.

“Well, I ain’t glad, that’s sure,” he said at last, with a hollow chuckle, but the significance of his words was lost on her.

“Tell me all about it, daddy. And you got all that money for—for capturing him? And he’s free? I’ll forgive you, then.”

Whereupon, he began an apologetic confession, relating how he had suspected that she knew the hiding place of the bandit, how he had spied on her, followed her from the house and seen her mount the steps into the hayloft, on that memorable night; how he had surprised Billy Gee and delivered him over to Warburton; how he had returned home by way of the field and climbed into bed.

Dot listened in silence, her eyes averted, an odd sympathy in her face; but she fairly gloated over the paper which Lemuel had carefully preserved, giving the stirring particulars of the outlaw’s subsequent escape.

“You’ll notice it says that the twenty thousand dollars he stole from the paymaster is missin’,” said Lemuel pointedly. Her obvious interest in Billy Gee disturbed him. “Ain’t it funny how it’s got lost? What d’ye reckon could ’a’ happened to it, eh, Dot?”

She glanced up from her reading and found him studying her strangely. She thought there was deep suspicion in his look. Or was it craftiness, greed?

The recollection of that wild outburst of his in the kitchen, back home, flashed into her mind. Much as she despised herself for the feeling of distrust that kindled in her breast, she decided she couldn’t be sure of him, that he was not to be relied on. Regardless of the fact that he now had money, might he still not be tempted—particularly since no one had the remotest inkling of the whereabouts of the bandit’s loot—to keep it, if she confided in him that Billy Gee had left it for her and that she was only waiting an opportunity to return it to its rightful owners? It was a frightful thought, she knew—a base, horrible thought for a daughter to entertain toward a father so self-sacrificing and loving as he was—but try as she would she could not rid herself of it.

“It is funny, isn’t it? Don’t you suppose, though, that they’ll make a search for it?” she asked, her innocence well assumed. There was a curious interest back of the last question, but he failed to notice it, watching as he was for some sign of nervousness or apprehension in her face.

“They already started. A young feller named Sangerly—his old man’s manager of the road—he’s bin on the job sence the day we left. He’s got a coupla high-class deetectives along. ’Cordin’ to what he was tellin’ me he aims to make it poorty hot for somebody.” He said this significantly.

She laughed. “You don’t mean that he suspects who has the money? That’s——”

“He’s got it figgered out that Billy Gee had it with him when he come to our place—an’ he’s dead right, let me tell you. When I deelivered that—the cuss to Bob Warburton that mornin’, he didn’t have no more’n five dollars on him. I know, ’cos I seen Bob search him. Sangerly says he cached the twenty thousand on the ranch.” He paused and added in low, confidential tones: “Say, Dot, you don’t happen to know about it, do you? You seen his saddlebags, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied evenly. “He had his saddlebags with him, and when I asked him what they contained, he said simply that he always carried his mother’s picture and some keepsakes along with him. He may have left them in the barn—forgotten them. I really couldn’t say. Did you look?”

“No, goldarn it! I wisht now I’d hunted around for ’em. I reckon Sangerly’ll find them. But, anyhow I’m glad you ain’t goin’ to git mixed up in this mess, hon. It’d be turrible! The paper’d print yore name, an’ mebby yore pitcher’d git in, an’—jest think what a disgrace it’d be! Like as not, you’d git chucked out o’ school. Folks’d talk awful, you bein’ c’nnected up with a train robber. An’ no matter what you’d say wouldn’t do no good. People’d turn up their nose an’ say, ‘She’s no better’n he is.’” He glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “All right, we’ll send for Agatha. What’ll we tell her?”

Between them they worded the telegram, Dot writing it; and presently he left the room with it, bound for the hotel office.

Once alone, the girl began again to ponder on what she should do with the fortune she had wrapped in her mother’s old silk shawl. Ever since their arrival in San Francisco, her interest in other things had, for the time being, surmounted the responsibility and concern she felt as the unwilling custodian of this large sum of stolen money. Her father’s words now recalled the question to her in a most vivid way.

It had all seemed so easy on the train—merely the inconvenience of going to the police station, sheriff’s office, or postmaster, turning the loot over to one of the three, with the information that it represented what Billy Gee had stolen from the paymaster of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad, and that she wished it returned to the company.

Here and now, however, amidst all this great city’s mad rush and confusion, she shrank from taking this step. After due reflection, it struck her that in all probability she would be closely questioned, and the fearful notion grew on her that there was more than a likelihood that she would be arrested as an accomplice; she had heard of just such things having been done. And, even as her father had said, there was the notoriety she was of a certainty to receive in the newspapers. Yes, everybody would believe she was a friend of this man whose name stood for lawlessness. They might believe she was—— She shivered at the thought. What, then, must she do to save the romantic situation for herself?

Racking her brains, she sat down and finally hit on another solution. She would wait until Mrs. Liggs arrived. She would confide in this dear little old lady, who had been like a mother to her, tell her everything, and ask her advice. Mrs. Liggs would understand and help her.

Shortly afterward, Lemuel returned with the proposal that they attend a theater, and finish the night with a sight-seeing trip through Chinatown.

“I bin hearin’ them Geerusalem sports braggin’ around about some new-fangled game called chop sueys, that the chinks play, an’ I’m goin’ to take a whirl at it ’fore I go back, even if I lose,” he said, as he entered his room.

They were in the midst of their dressing, when the hall doorbell rang. Lemuel answered it and fell back with a gasp of amazement when he recognized the smiling face of his visitor.

“Dick Lennox! Why, you ol’ son of a gun! What’re you doin’? When, in heck, did you git in?” he exploded, grasping the other by the hand and drawing him into the room.

“This afternoon. Awfully glad to see you, Lem. I’ve been on your trail ever since you left.”

Lemuel eyed him sharply. “How’s that? Anythin’ gone wrong?”

“Not a thing in the world that I know. Just a matter of urgent business,” said Lennox.

He removed his nobby overcoat as he spoke, and arranged his tie with fastidious care, smiling genially at the other the while.

He was a tall, wiry chap of twenty-eight, the stamp of college days still on him, rather prepossessing of features, with shrewd blue eyes, and blond hair slicked back. Lemuel noticed that he had changed his corduroys and half-boots of Geerusalem vogue for a snappy gray suit.

“Say, Lem, I’m about the luckiest cuss you ever heard of,” he cried, throwing himself in a chair and lighting a cigarette. “I combed the camp, as the detectives say, but couldn’t get a line where you’d gone. Then I butted into the guy that drove you to Mirage. He thought you’d come to Frisco—overheard you talking, I guess. But Frisco is some bigger than Geerusalem, and I was euchred. I was just figuring I’d have to give up and wait till you returned, when I just happened to remember you once mentioned the Golden West Hotel as the place you’d stop at if you ever hit the city. I took a chance, and here you are. Can you beat it?”

“I’d call it clever work, myself,” laughed Lemuel.

“Clever? Why, you old rascal, nothing is clever alongside of what you did the other night—bringing in Billy Gee, single-handed! Honest, I never thought it was in you, Lem. The camp is still excited over it.”

Lemuel crossed his legs with dignity and hooked his thumbs in his armpits.

“I don’t guess there was as much to it as they think,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Of course, a man was akcherly takin’ his life in his hands every minute, so to speak, but you got to c’nsider I growed up fightin’ just sech hard-boiled eggs. It’s all in knowin’ how to handle ’em.”

“Oh, certainly! Experience is a great teacher,” conceded Lennox seriously and coughed into his handkerchief to hide a grin.

Dot, attired for the street, joined them at this juncture, and Lemuel presented Lennox.

“You remember me tellin’ you about Dick Lennox, the minin’ engineer—the chap who introdooced me to Mr. Sangerly? This is him, Dot. He come all the way from Geerusalem to see—— You said somepn about business, Dick. What was it?”

“I believe that Miss Huntington is going out for the evening,” said Lennox, with a glance at Dot. “My errand can wait until to-morrow.”

“Wait—nuthin’, son—not after you come all the way from Soapweed Plains! We got time galore. Come on, what’s on yore mind?”

Lennox brought up a chair for the girl, seated himself and said briskly: “What do you hold your ranch at, Mr. Huntington?”

The other stared. “You mean, what’ll I sell fur?”

“Precisely—just as it stands.”

“Why—why, I don’t know as I ever figgered on a price, Dick. I’ve always looked on it as home, an’ a man gene’lly don’t——”

“I appreciate the way you feel—a place to hang your hat and go to when you can’t go anywhere else,” broke in Lennox genially. “But if you were offered a—well, a handsome price. You’ll agree with me that three hundred acres of it is worthless desert, while most of the remaining twenty is little better than pasture.”

“Just what do you c’nsider a handsome price?” asked Lemuel skeptically.

His visitor thoughtfully flicked the ash off his cigarette, into a tray.

“Say, seventy-five hundred dollars.”

“Seventy-five hundred!” burst out Lemuel. He opened his mouth to laugh but, observing the seriousness in the other’s face, the keenness with which the blue eyes were studying him, closed it again and rubbed his chin reflectively.

“You’ll admit that’s about double its value,” went on Lennox, in matter-of-fact tones. “To be perfectly frank, I have made inquiries, and find that you just might turn it for fifteen dollars an acre—providing you found the sort of person who would put up with the discomforts of the desert, some one looking for solitude and plenty of sun. So far as a man making a living there, why——”

“D’ye mean cash down? I don’t go much on this proposition of payments,” broke in the rancher.

“Cash—certainly. Furthermore, I’ve been authorized to give you a substantial sum to bind the bargain, our only stipulation being that the transfer be made as soon as possible.”

A short silence fell.

“May I inquire, Mr. Lennox, the reason for this flattering offer?” said Dot, speaking for the first time. “Perhaps I should not ask the question but I can’t help being curious——”

“You’re quite entitled to know, and I welcome the opportunity to explain, Miss Huntington,” the man replied affably. “You see, several of us have organized what we call the Geerusalem Amusement Company. Among a number of other prospective enterprises, we intend to establish a resort—a place of recreation a few miles out of camp, where people can come and enjoy themselves. We have had some choice places in view as a likely site—the Las Animas Ranch and the Cañon Spring Ranch, for instance—but we decided that your father’s was the logical one, since it was the nearest from town and correspondingly more available to the public.”

“That’s a poorty slick idea,” said Lemuel, with an approving nod at Dot. “The ranch sure is handy, an’—— Funny I hadn’t thought of that before.”

“This resort, Mr. Lennox, what would it be like? you certainly can’t mean a picnic ground or a place for outings,” probed Dot, unable to visualize anything of a particularly attractive nature about her desert home.

Lennox shook his head. “I’m afraid you didn’t quite catch my meaning. For one thing, we expect to erect a bathhouse. By sinking wells in the bed of the Mohave River, which passes through the property, we feel satisfied we will strike a large subterranean flow of water. We might even put in a concrete pool, if the amount of water warrants it. Anyhow, bathing facilities would be our big drawing card. Added to it, of course, would be a saloon, dance hall, gambling, doubtless a hotel, should business demand it. In a word, we are looking to construct a modern resort in the middle of the desert. It’ll cost a barrel of money, but we believe the venture a good one.”

Lemuel, in high spirits over the prospects of disposing of his land for a price that, even as Lennox had stated, was double its market value, rubbed his hands with ill-concealed gratification.

“Dick, as the feller says, nuthin’ ventured’ll git you nuthin’. Bein’ that you’ve bin out in the open with me—laid yore hand on the table, so to speak—I’ll jest call you. You give me seventy-five hundred fur them two quarter sections, an’ they’re yourn——”

“Just one moment, father!” interrupted Dot.

During Lennox’s explanation of what the contemplated resort was to be, she had sat with her eyes fixed on the carpet at her feet, listening in silence. Now she rose and stood before the two men, her face set and just a trifle pale.

“You’re not going to sell the place, father,” she continued, her voice low but firm. “You’re not going to let them turn that clean spot into a filthy hangout for the class of men and women who’ll patronize it—where they’ll stagger around drunk and curse and gamble and murder one another.”

Lemuel’s brows knit with impatience. “But can’t you see, hon, this here’s big money. Dick knows it an’ he knows I know it. We’ll never git another chanct like it ag’in. An’ it’ll make us independent, an’ we won’t ever have to go back there ’cept we want to.”

“I really wouldn’t let my scruples stand in the way of this deal, Miss Huntington,” advised Lennox suavely. “While what you say may be perfectly true, in a sense, at the same time you have too much to gain to allow mere sentiment to swerve you from what is clearly a duty you owe to yourselves—disposing of the ranch for what is actually a ridiculously high price.”

“Mere sentiment!” she echoed, her eyes flashing with an odd light. “Of course, Mr. Lennox, you don’t understand. You don’t know the reason I’m objecting. With you, it’s a cold business proposition.” She turned to Lemuel, watching her now with obvious ill-humor. “Father, would you always like to think that the drunkards and outcasts of Geerusalem were merrymaking on the land where poor mother worked and hoped and died? That they were cursing and dancing and carousing within hearing of her grave? That their drunken feet were stumbling over it, desecrating it, day and night, night and day? Would you like to think that, for—for seventy-five hundred dollars——” Her voice broke and she stood gazing at him beseechingly through her tears.

For one instant, Lemuel stared aghast at her, then sudden pain started in his eyes, twitched down his face to his lips, and set them quivering. He swallowed hard, looked guiltily at one callous hand, and bowed his head.

“My God, Dick, she’s right!” he said hoarsely. “I’d—I’d plumb forgot. I’m—I’m sorry, but I reckon nobody’s got enough money to buy that ranch—not fur a reesort, leastways. I sure—I sure forgot. Dot, hon, you know I wouldn’t do sech an awful thing, don’t you?”

Some minutes later, Lennox walked out of the hotel and down the street. At the corner, a man joined him—the same mysterious individual who had followed Dot and her father from the Ferry terminal on the morning they arrived in the city.

“I expect he fell heavy, eh?” laughed the fellow, falling into step beside the other.

“No. He wouldn’t part with the place, Rankin,” said Lennox quietly.

“He wouldn’t! Not for seventy-five hundred! What in hell does the old bum want for nothing? What was his reason?”

“Just didn’t care to sell, that was all.”

Rankin gave a nasty chuckle. “Wait till Jule hears about it. He’ll make that old buzzard sweat blood, let me tell you! He’ll be glad to sell—for nothing. Why, say, for all that coin, he ought to have throwed in the skirt for good measure. Maybe, Jule could use her—as his stenographer.”

Lennox stopped suddenly and confronted the other.

“What was that, Rankin?” he asked, peering hard at him.

“I said the Huntington kid might have to go to work for Jule as a stenographer, before he’s through with her father,” was the surly response.

“Miss Huntington does not enter into this thing. Do you understand that?” said Lennox harshly.

They continued in silence down the street and came to a halt before the Western Union telegraph office.

“I’m taking the morning train back to Geerusalem,” announced Rankin. “Before I go, I want to say one thing, and that is—I didn’t know you were interested in Dot Huntington or I wouldn’t have made the crack I did.” He paused and added meaningly: “I don’t think Jule did either, or he certainly wouldn’t have sent you to put through this deal. It’ll be up to you to convince him why it fell through when it shouldn’t have. You get me, don’t you?” With a curt nod, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Lennox looked after him for a moment, then he entered the telegraph office. As he prepared to send a wire to Jule Quintell he muttered to himself: “I don’t blame them for refusing. She’s a wonderful little girl.”

CHAPTER XI—OUTWITTED

On the day following Billy Gee’s spectacular escape from Sheriff Warburton, Coates and Tyler, the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad detectives, temporarily abandoned their search for the suspected cache on the Huntington ranch, and motored away over the fifty-odd miles to the station of Mirage, backtracking the bandit’s course to the distant grading camp where he had robbed the paymaster’s car.

At Lex Sangerly’s request, the Geerusalem constable—an official regarded more as an ornament than as a legal necessity in the township—detailed a number of his deputies to guard the ranch against the possibility of Billy Gee’s return; for Sangerly was more convinced now than ever that the disappearance of the twenty thousand dollars centered around the Huntington place. He reasoned, therefore, that the bandit, if alive, would come back after it.

The morning after Lemuel sent the telegram to Mrs. Liggs asking her to join him and Dot in San Francisco, for the purpose of selecting the girl’s wardrobe, the little dry-goods storekeeper had informed Lex, when he voiced his surprise at her trunks and suit cases being loaded on a freight wagon, that she was leaving for the metropolis to be gone an indefinite period. A few days later, however, he learned that Mrs. Liggs had sold out her business. He wondered vaguely, regretfully, over this. It seemed to him that she at least might have told him of her plans. He couldn’t understand it. It was not like her—certainly, not like the Mrs. Liggs he had known in the past, the wistful little woman whom he had found again and still loved, second only to his dead mother.

Meanwhile, Coates and Tyler back from their painstaking, arduous investigation of the route Billy Gee had taken from the grading camp into Soapweed Plains, reported to Sangerly that, even as Warburton had stated, there was not the remotest likelihood that the outlaw had hidden his stealings on the way. They had found that he had not dismounted once throughout his long heartbreaking ride.

This discovery simply served to strengthen all the more the theory that the ranch was the site of the missing loot, and again these two sleuths set diligently to work to find it, making an exhaustive hunt of the premises, exploring the barn from mudsill to rafter, prying into every nook and corner of the house, wielding the pick and shovel in the garden, the corrals, the field, questing with the ardor of bloodhounds each spot or locality where a man would be tempted to conceal a stolen fortune.

After a week of this, they talked the matter over between themselves and they agreed that by all the signs Lemuel Huntington knew more about the disappearance of the money than any other living man—not even excepting Billy Gee. They were absolutely convinced that, while his daughter might have acted solely from humanitarian reasons in giving aid to the wounded outlaw, her father unquestionably had not only collected the reward for capturing the fellow but had succeeded in getting possession of the contents of the saddlebags as well.

It was obvious, they argued, that since Huntington had taken Billy Gee into custody so easily—desperadoes, their experience told him, did not submit without a struggle—he had doubtless been shrewd enough to study the bandit’s movements for some time prior to getting the drop on him. Such being apparently the case, it followed then that Dot’s father had seen the outlaw cache his stealings; and after delivering his prisoner to Warburton, he had returned home and robbed the cache, feeling himself secure in the belief that Billy Gee would, in all probability, go to jail without divulging the hiding place of a treasure whose value was such as to assure him of a comfortable stake against the day of his release, providing, of course, it was never found. Moreover, Coates and Tyler began to discern where Huntington’s hurried trip to San Francisco was the result of sudden panic, brought on by the haunting thought that in some way suspicion might fasten on him and that he might be made the object of a rigid examination which, he felt, he could not undergo. Coupled with this notion, was their prevailing belief that Huntington had taken the twenty thousand dollars away with him.

However, Coates and Tyler said nothing of all this to Sangerly. They were of the opinion that Lex was altogether too lenient in his judgment of Lemuel Huntington; that he was letting Huntington’s seeming hospitality stand in the way of those suspicions which, they were positive, he must have entertained against the rancher. Secretly, they began to regard their superior with a sort of pitying scorn for his obvious gullibility. Their criminal-hunting instincts, too, started rebelling at being held in leash, at being hindered in their functioning by the dictations of a man whose faith in human nature was, to all intents and purposes, destined to bring about the ultimate failure of the case—immunity for Huntington, the loss of the money.

Brooding thus, becoming more and more disgusted with their fruitless search of the ranch, these two conscientious investigators resolved to take matters in their own hands, at the risk of incurring Sangerly’s displeasure and receiving a reprimand into the bargain. They decided that, unknown to him, they would arrest Lemuel on his return, charge him with having made away with the twenty thousand dollars, threaten him with disgrace—anything that would terrorize him, wring a confession from him.

But inquiry of the man who was caring for the ranch during the absence of the Huntingtons brought the disturbing information that, not only was he ignorant of the family’s whereabouts in San Francisco, but he had not the slightest idea when Dot and her father would return. Coates and Tyler, their plans balked at the outset, went back to their half-hearted search, waiting grimly for the arrival of their victim.

Meanwhile, Lex had likewise been giving considerable thought to the mysterious disappearance of his company’s money. He also was beginning to recognize the necessity of carefully questioning Lemuel, as well as his daughter, on the entire Billy Gee episode. While he did not believe they were accomplices of the bandit in any sense of the word, or even knew him for that matter, he felt convinced that it was quite possible that their stories would shed some light on Billy’s movements which would facilitate the search Coates and Tyler were making, resulting probably in immediately locating the whereabouts of the outlaw’s cache, for, though he would not admit it to himself, he saw where their quest was rapidly reaching an end, that it had seemingly been for naught.

Ever since the departure of Dot and her father, Lex had made it his business to ascertain the standing of the Huntingtons, in order to fully satisfy his mind as to the type of persons they were. He had done this quietly, so as not to arouse suspicion, and had found that without exception the community regarded Lemuel as a sterling, though simple, character, and held Dot in no less high esteem than did Mrs. Liggs. About the only weakness that the father had, was an inordinate worship of education and educated people, which found reflection in a consuming passion to provide his daughter with those advantages that would make her a woman of superior culture and refinement, so the camp said. And this, to Lex’s mind, was an unerring sign of probity in any man, a native genteelness that could not go far wrong.

One morning, two weeks after the Huntingtons had left for San Francisco, Lex motored from the ranch into Geerusalem. He had said nothing to Coates and Tyler about what he now contemplated doing, merely instructing them to await his return. Once in camp, however, he had the constable send a wire to the San Francisco chief of police requesting him to locate if possible the hotel at which Lemuel and Dot were registered. Around six o’clock that afternoon a reply was received, naming the Golden West.

Without loss of time, Lex sprang into his roadster and drove to the railroad, where he caught the night train for the North. After due reflection, he had decided to have a quiet talk with Huntington and his daughter, one in which the detectives would have no part; for somehow he rather resented their thinly veiled insinuations and coarse remarks toward a man against whom they possessed not a vestige of incriminating evidence. In fact, he was certain he could get more from the Huntingtons through a friendly discussion, than might be gained by the intimidating, browbeating methods employed by inquisitors of the Coates and Tyler type.

Besides, manlike, he was just a little bit curious to meet this girl, Dot, of whom he had heard such flattering reports, whose picture he had gazed on so many times during his fortnight at the ranch, who was so close to his dear little old friend, Mrs. Liggs.

But in one particular, his plans miscarried, for it so happened that while he was en route to San Francisco, Lemuel—having sight-seen the metropolis to his entire satisfaction, as well as gratified the desire of his life by settling Dot in Longwell Seminary for her first year—was on his way back to Geerusalem, with a headful of progressive ideas calculated to make him in the next decade, through the early purchase of a herd of stock cattle, the principal cowman of southern California. Their trains passed each other in the night.

The following day when Lemuel reached home, he was confronted by Coates and Tyler and learned to his bewilderment and dismay that he was under arrest for no less a crime than knowingly appropriating to himself twenty thousand dollars belonging to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company. They ordered him into the kitchen and began grilling him—bombarding him with questions, disputing his answers, tripping him up, now and again hurling their accusations at him, cajoling him in one breath, threatening him in the next.

Hour after hour, they kept it up untiringly, mercilessly, and because he could not give a convincing story of how he had known that Billy Gee was hiding in the hayloft—fearing as he did to mention even so much as his daughter’s name in conjunction with the case—they decided to hold him on the John Doe warrant they had procured from the local judge, pending further investigation.

At dark, Coates mounted one of Lemuel’s horses and rode into Geerusalem and communicated by telephone with Sangerly, senior, Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern in Los Angeles. He gave a brief account of the failure which had attended their search and ended with the declaration that it was the professional opinion of himself and Tyler that Lemuel Huntington was the thief. Stating simply that Lex had gone to San Francisco, Coates informed Mr. Sangerly that they desired to remove their prisoner to the county jail for further questioning and asked for official sanction in the matter.

This being granted, he rushed the usual legal formalities necessary to take a prisoner out of the jurisdiction of the Geerusalem courts and sped away for the ranch in a rented machine, his object being to get Lemuel out of the district before Lex returned; for now there was not the remotest doubt in the mind of those two man-hunters that Dot’s father was the sensational catch of their careers.

It was a bright, starry night, warm and quiet, and it was nine o’clock, when the driver brought the car to a halt before the Huntington ranch. Coates sprang out and was presently pounding on the front door.

“Who’s there? That you, Ray?” shouted Tyler from inside.

“Yes. Open up! Everything’s jake. We’re on our way.”

The next moment the door was thrown open and Coates entered, gazing in amazement at his partner, grim of face, six-shooter in hand. Back of him, in the hall, stood Lemuel, his sunburned, leathery cheeks yellow with alarm, his eyes bulging wildly.

“See anybody outside?” asked Tyler.

“Only the driver of the machine. What’s eating you anyhow? You look like you been shot at and missed.” He chuckled roughly.

“Yeh? Well, come on in the kitchen and I’ll show you something’ll make your hair curl.” Turning the key in the lock, Tyler led the way toward the rear of the house. On the oil-cloth covered table lay a soiled old envelope containing a lead-pencil scribble. He picked it up and handed it to Coates, who read:

I jest cum to take my saddle an bags an pack off the 20,000 that you dicks aint bin able to find. After this better close the window so folks cant lissen. An dont show yore nose outside cos Im shootin tonite.

Coates stared at his colleague, the yellow lamplight showing his face drawing into hard, cruel lines. A furious curse burst from him. “Billy Gee!” he shouted.

“Yes, damn him!” growled Tyler. “Half an hour ago I heard a knock out front. I thought it was you coming back. That’s what I found shoved under the door.” He indicated the envelope. “While we were quizzing the old duffer, like a coupla rummies, Billy was getting an earful at the window. Kids us about it, you’ll notice.”

Coates’ withering eyes rested on the other. “He beats it with the swag, you notice that, too, don’t you? And you’ve stuck inside here, like a big walrus, and let him. What the hell kind of a free-lunch detective——”

“Say, soft-pedal that stuff, pal!” flared Tyler menacingly. “I don’t see you busting no records—except it’s slipping the bull. If you think I’m tearing out after this wild and woolly yegg, so’s he can pot-shot me first flop out of the box, you’re cuckoo. Maybe I ought’ve taken the lamp and looked under the rosebushes for him, eh?”

Coates made no reply. Raging silently he paced the floor. Some seconds afterward he halted before Tyler.

“This is certainly some swell mess. That’s all I got to say. I phoned the chief, got his O. K., talked my head off to get the papers signed, and rented a machine for the trip. For what? We’ve put in two weeks in this hole for nothing. The money’s gone. Get me? Gone! We might as well sling onto our grips and report back to headquarters for a damn fine panning. Hot dog!”

Tyler laughed. “Rave on! To hear you say it I’m the whole show, ain’t I? I’m supposed to pull a fancy moving-picture stunt, while you stand on the side lines rooting for me. Pretty soft! Sure, I get you! You’re trying to slip out from under—make me the goat. Say, bo, any time you think——”

“Aw, cut it out! Let’s get out after this wise bird, see if we can’t pick up his tracks. I got the car outside. If we don’t get a line on him, we’ll shoot to camp and phone the old man,” cut in Coates surlily. He turned to Lemuel, standing near the stove, rubbing his bony hands in hopeless apprehension. “Mr. Huntington, we’re letting you go on probation. But don’t leave the country till we tell you, d’you understand? Take care of our traps for a few days. If we don’t come back we’ll send for them. Come on, Tyler, we’ll——”

He broke off abruptly, interrupted by the furious honking of the horn of the machine waiting out on the road, the thunderous roar of its open muffler.

With Tyler at his heels he dashed for the front door. Clearing the porch in one bound they sped down the garden walk, gripping their revolvers, straining their eyes toward the car, looming black against the sky horizon of the plains.

“I’m cutting for the field. Watch your shots!” panted Coates in low tones, swinging off on a tangent through the garden.

But he had barely cleared the walk when the automobile suddenly leaped away; and simultaneously its headlights flashed on, boring twin avenues of white flame through the darkness in the direction of distant Mirage. Alongside the driver, the silhouette of a man was now visible. He megaphoned back with his hands at the two detectives:

“Thanks for the machine, fellers. Noo York service I call it. Give my reegards to old Law an’ Order.”

Coates and Tyler emptied their six-shooters wildly at the car. Cursing frantically, they sprang in pursuit, loading and firing their weapons as they ran. But the machine, speeding on like the wind, whirled out of range and went on and on, plunging and careening over the uneven road, vanished into the vastness of the desert night.

“That squares us. You had your fling at him,” said Tyler to Coates.

CHAPTER XII—REPUTATIONS AT STAKE

Dot Huntington, though fascinated with Longwell Seminary on the one hand, scorned it on the other. As an institution of learning she believed it quite perfect, all that could be desired; but she resented its strict discipline, those rigid rules which deprived her of certain privileges which she had, with parental consent, enjoyed all her life, chiefly, the right to come and go unchaperoned whenever she wished and to read any book that pleased her fancy.

However, a sudden overwhelming appetite for education seized her, and this very readily reconciled her to the loss of her personal liberty, for while she inherited none of her father’s passion for culture, her ambition and pride were such as to impel her to set for her goal those high honors for which the seminary was noted. So, brought face to face with tomes of fact and instruction, she threw herself whole-heartedly into the task of mastering them in order to attain that grade of erudition which her age and matureness of mind made necessary. In order to bring this last about, Lemuel had made special arrangements that she take instructions from a private teacher in order that she might go more rapidly forward.

Again, displeased as she was with the institution’s system of discipline, she was deeply interested in its student body. She had never known the companionship of girls of her age before, and here there were scores of them, and not a few daughters of the most prominent families of the West. Having a prepossessing personality that attracted people to her, she made friends; and these vivacious newfound companions, added to the fascination with which her studies gripped her, contributed greatly in causing her to put aside that one haunting worry that had periodically harrassed her ever since she left Geerusalem, for she was still the unwilling custodian of the white-elephant fortune in bills. Mrs. Liggs had not arrived, nor had she answered Lemuel’s telegram for that matter. Dot could not imagine what had happened to their little old friend, on whom she depended to solve the problem for her.

Three days after Lemuel had wired Mrs. Liggs, asking her to come to San Francisco, they had given up hope of hearing from her. Considerably mystified, they had been finally driven into visiting the manager of one of the big stores and confessing that Dot was going to attend a select seminary and needed a complete wardrobe. As a result, Dot was now the proud possessor of as dainty and chic a collection of gowns, expensive lingerie, hats and shoes, as had been displayed in Longwell’s in more than a decade.

However, Mrs. Liggs’ strange absence and silence remained a mystery; and, as a consequence, the twenty thousand dollars remained wrapped in the old silk shawl in Dot’s room, which she shared with the daughter of a shipbuilder of Portland, Oregon. Yet, let it not be assumed that Dot was for one moment unmindful of the ultimate disposition of this money. On the contrary, she was determined that it should eventually find its way back to its rightful owners. The thing is, that her first nervousness had left her. Constant reflection on a subject of fearful moment in due time robs that subject of its alarms.

She now calmly reasoned that since Mrs. Liggs had failed her she would simply abide the coming of that hour when she could get up sufficient courage to write to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company, telling them she had Billy Gee’s loot and explaining the entire situation in such a way as to protect herself from the possibility of subsequent newspaper notoriety. This, she made up her mind to do; and then suddenly, a day or two after, she remembered with a thrill of joy, Bob Warburton, her father’s friend. Why had she not thought of Warburton before? He was the very man who could and would return this ill-gotten treasure to its owners and in all probability even go so far as to withhold her name in the case.

It was late one afternoon when the happy thought struck her. She was in her room and she immediately sat down and wrote out a telegram to Warburton, asking him to come to San Francisco at once, as she had something of the utmost importance to tell him.

Then she ran downstairs and stole away across the garden to a secluded arbor in the far corner of the seminary grounds. On a small ledge beneath one of the old rustic benches, among a mass of other clandestine correspondence, she placed the message and the money for the coachman—a sympathetic individual who, because of the handsome tips he enjoyed from his precluded side line, was a stanch advocate of drastic academic rules against letter writing.

Dot, having taken the first definite step to rid herself of the responsibility which had weighed her down since the morning she had opened her bureau drawer and discovered the prodigality of Billy Gee’s gratitude, hurried back through the garden. As she reached a point where she could command a view of the walk leading from the street to the seminary’s front door, she came to an abrupt halt. Slowly approaching along the walk came a familiar figure, that of a little old woman, dressed in a neat, correct street dress. One glance, and the girl gave a glad cry. It was Mrs. Liggs! Shrilling her name, Dot raced toward her.

“Mrs. Liggs! Mrs. Liggs! Where have you been? We waited so long. We didn’t know what—— You darling!” she cried. She caught the frail form in her strong young arms and hugged and kissed her until the pale-blue eyes glistened with joy.

Locked in each other’s arms they stood on the seminary’s steps for some minutes talking in a fury of happy excitement. It developed that Mrs. Liggs had come to the city a few days after she had received Lemuel’s telegram. She had not been able to meet them as she had intended because of a sudden change of plans, which had required her presence in the southern part of the State prior to journeying north. Inquiry at the Golden West Hotel on her arrival elicited the information that Dot’s trunks had been checked out to Longwell’s Seminary, but Mrs. Liggs had postponed her visit until she got settled in a quiet place, away from the nerve-racking noise of the city’s business district. She told the girl all this in a hesitant, wistful voice, much as if she were relating something that was not entirely to her liking.

Presently, Dot led the way inside and thence into one of the gloomy parlors, grim in its austere furnishings, high ceiling and scrupulous cleanliness. On one of the walls, in a plain black mahogany frame, the stern visage of one of the Longwell sisters glared icily down on them. Authorization to conduct the Longwell Seminary as an educational institution was strikingly displayed in a gold-bordered parchment, bearing the seal of the State of California, and a hundred words of beautiful handwriting painfully difficult to decipher under the most favorable conditions.

As they were about to seat themselves a maid attired in severe black made her noiseless appearance at the door and, with a cautious glance over her shoulder, motioned hurriedly to Dot.

“Something terrible has happened, Miss Huntington,” she whispered, when the girl joined her in the hall. “Miss Jessie Longwell phoned the trustees, and they’re holding a meeting in the office now, about——” She broke off, her eyes seeking the floor.

“Go on, Mary! They’re holding a meeting, you say, and it’s over me, isn’t it?” said Dot quietly.

The maid nodded. “They’re trying to decide whether to expel you or not.”

“Expel me? Why—why, you surely must be mistaken. I can’t imagine——”

“It’s something that’s in the afternoon papers. I haven’t been able to see it. I heard them talking about it. Miss Longwell’s taken all of them and given strict orders for us not to allow any more in the seminary until further notice from her.”

Bewilderment, then anxiety struggled in Dot’s face. Her thoughts flashed to her father.

“Are you sure, Mary? Did you hear what it was over? Was anything said?” she asked, trusting herself to speak finally.

“I only heard them mention your name, Miss Huntington, and—and something about disgrace,” said the maid. “I tried to catch what they accused you of, but Miss Longwell closed the door. I’m so sorry—if there’s any trouble.”

Dot thanked her and went back to Mrs. Liggs. The old lady studied her narrowly as she resumed her seat.

“It’s bad news, ain’t it, Dot? I can see it in your face, so don’t story to me, deary. And it’s about your father and—and Billy Gee, ain’t it?” She drew up her chair as she spoke, and took the girl’s hand affectionately in her own.

Dot told her what the maid had said, and Mrs. Liggs nodded comprehendingly.

“Well, that’s what it is—an account of Billy Gee and your dad, sweetheart,” she said. “The papers are full of it, and that’s why I come to-day to see you. I wanted you to know the truth.”

“But—but what has happened?” cried Dot, pale and starting to tremble.

“Nothing, honey, and that’s the worst of it. If it was true I wouldn’t care, ’cos it couldn’t be helped. It’s just a whole lot of rot that them reporters glory to write about.”

Thereupon, she gave the girl the details of a sensational first-page story telling of Billy Gee’s sudden reappearance at the Huntington ranch, after the authorities of San Buenaventura County had conclusively stated that he had perished on the desert following his escape from Warburton; how he had made away in the railroad detective’s automobile, and an account of Lemuel’s arrest on suspicion of having appropriated the stolen funds of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company, and his subsequent release pending further investigation, as a result of the note written by the outlaw declaring that he had dug up and taken with him the twenty-thousand-dollar cache.

Dot listened attentively throughout that simple recital, an odd admiration she could not subdue dancing in her eyes at this latest of Billy Gee’s reckless exploits. Even while her little old friend was speaking, she understood the reason for this daring bandit’s action; her father had been suspected of the theft, and Billy Gee had lied to save him. Moreover, Billy Gee had lied to make wholly secure his twenty-thousand-dollar gift to her! Her heart beat fast; she could hear it pounding in her ears. Billy Gee had not forgotten, was not forgetting her. He was magnificent, romantically magnificent in his outlawry.

“And no matter how I’ve hated your dad, Dot, I know he never took that money,” resumed Mrs. Liggs, after a short pause. “He’s honest and wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“You’ve hated dad?” echoed the girl, staring incredulously at the bowed gray head.

She thought there was something infinitely pathetic in the appearance of that small figure before her, the droop of its narrow shoulders, the forlornness of its pose. This was not the sprightly, merry, little storekeeper she had known these last three years in far-off Geerusalem.

“I did, yes. But that’s all passed now. I’ve been happy to forget—and forgive, Dot.”

“Why, Mother Liggs! I won’t believe it. You and father have always been such good friends.”

The older woman nodded uncertainly at the carpet. She did not answer at once. The faint flush of excitement, which her cheeks had worn until now, vanished. Her gentle face was white and drawn; her lips were twitching.

“I’ve—I’ve come to tell you something, honey—not because I want to, but because he asked me to. I’m—I’m Billy Gee’s mother, Dot.” Her whisper, broken, scarcely audible, penetrated to the farthest recess of that cold, silent room.

She turned brimming eyes to the girl now, and there was an appeal in them that could not be misunderstood—a dumb, fearful eagerness, a hungry waiting for a word, a touch, a smile; a look like that of some wretched penitent craving mercy. A painful, tragic pause ensued.

“You’re his mother?” repeated Dot slowly at last. She gazed almost in ludicrous unbelief at the withered, wistful, old countenance raised to hers. Then suddenly an ineffable tenderness suffused the girl’s face, poured from her eyes. She fell on her knees beside Mrs. Liggs and gathered her close in her arms. “You’re a wonderful little mother, and I love you better for being his mother—because I know it,” she breathed, half sobbing, and kissed the aged cheeks again and again, and fondled the thin, tired hands against her bosom.

For the next quarter of an hour Mrs. Liggs opened her heart, laid it bare of its secrets—for the first time since the criminal career of her only child, Jerome, had darkened the future for her and filled her life with fears and heartaches. Weeping softly, she told that tragic story, from that awful morning in Marysville, three years before, when the police came to the Liggs home searching for Jerome—charged by City Treasurer Gene Miles with embezzlement of city funds—up to the day of his capture by Lemuel Huntington.

As any mother would, she tried to excuse her wayward boy for everything he had subsequently done in defiance of law, by pointing out that the criminal authorities had hounded him, made him a social outcast, thereby forcing him to pursue his desperate calling as a means of living. Nor was she wholly wrong in her accusation, as any ex-convict will straightway affirm. A penitentiary record—though Billy Gee had never known the interior of a prison cell—is a full brother to guilt forever after, in the eyes of the law’s bloodhounds.

Society seems to forget that the man who pays the debt it imposes on him regains, by every moral principle, his standing among the ranks of righteous humankind. Instead, breaking faith with the very justice it presumes to mete out, it claps the stigma of ignominy on the wrongdoer and never removes it; once a jailbird, always a jailbird, is the tenor of its smug opinion, and being itself ruthless in the exercise of its self-bestowed powers, it gives to men of the Coates and Tyler type authority to apprehend law-breakers. Incompetency and political patronage rule the system of law enforcement, making it a stupid, clumsy institution whose methods of operation serve rather to increase than decrease the commission of crime.

Mrs. Liggs was still speaking when a sharp rap sounded on the parlor door. It was the maid, coming to inform Dot that Miss Jessie Longwell, president of the seminary, wished to speak with her in the office. The girl thought for a moment; then, insisting that her little old friend accompany her, she escorted Mrs. Liggs out of the room and down the spacious hall to another apartment, fitted with correct businesslike furnishings, including a large flat-top oak desk before which sat the head of the school.

Miss Longwell was, at a glance, a most unattractive specimen of middle-aged person, haughty, self-contained, precision itself, and thin as a lath. She sat rigid as a steel spring in her straight-back chair, and let her stony, gimlet eyes back of their immense shell-rimmed glasses, rest icily on Dot; then she focused them inquiringly on Mrs. Liggs.

“Miss Huntington,” she began, in a quick, crisp voice, “I said, I believe, that I wished to speak with you privately.”

“This is Mrs. Liggs, Miss Longwell, a very dear friend of mine,” returned Dot, by way of explanation, at the same time going through the formalities of introduction. “Whatever must be said may be done so in her presence. I think I know the nature of the interview,” she added.

Miss Longwell’s lips tightened, then she got up very decidedly and closed the door. On her way back to her desk she halted before Dot.

“I regret very much, Miss Huntington,” she said, speaking in slow impressive tones, “that an unfortunate condition has arisen which makes it quite impossible for you to continue as a student of Longwell Seminary. Indeed, it distresses me greatly to have to make this fact known to you. Your conduct has been most exemplary in the short time you have been here, and as to your application and progress in the several lines of study you have taken up, you have exceeded our fullest expectations. But——”

“What is this condition you just mentioned, Miss Longwell?” broke in Dot.

“Why—er—it concerns your father. Now, while I have not the slightest doubt that the—er—thing is simply a newspaper canard, still the long-standing reputation of Longwell’s Seminary as an institution of high ideals cannot be placed in jeopardy under any circumstances. Why, your father, Miss Huntington, I am very grieved to state is accused of possible complicity in a—in a theft.”

Dot flushed angrily. The manner of the speaker as she pronounced the word was insulting, she thought.

“But you have met my father, Miss Longwell. Do you absolutely think he’s that kind of man?” she asked quietly.

“To be frank with you, I don’t. Still, as you must certainly realize, that does not alter the case. The mere accusation is so serious as to cause unfavorable comment, if not cast discredit on this institution, did we allow you to remain a member of our student body. This was the unanimous verdict of our board of trustees at a meeting which just now adjourned. Acting under its instruction, I am wiring your father. You will get your effects together, preparatory to leaving. I would add that I am extremely sorry, Miss Huntington——”

“I’m not!” interrupted Dot suddenly. She drew her slim figure up with queenly defiance, her eyes glittering dangerously. “And what is more, Miss Longwell, I do not want your sympathy. I am glad that I have at least found out just how really elevating a school of this kind is. You pride yourselves on building up character. You help ruin reputations as readily, I notice. By sending me home, you advertise to the world that Lemuel Huntington is a thief, that I, his daughter, am the child of a thief—a person too low to attend so pure and undefiled an institution as——”

“Oh, deary, you mustn’t say such awful things!” burst out Mrs. Liggs nervously.

“Miss Huntington, the interview is over,” snapped the preceptress, a flush mantling her prominent high cheek bones. “You will retire to your room, where you will await my orders.”

“Your orders?” cried Dot. “Madam, I’m serving notice on you that I’m leaving your spotless institution just as soon as I can pack my belongings! And you will please return me the balance of my tuition fee before I go.”

Reluctantly she allowed pacifying little Mrs. Liggs to lead her from the room and back into the parlor. Burning with shame and indignation, she paced the floor for some minutes, while the older woman talked, counseling her against the reënactment of the scene in the office when she applied to Miss Longwell for her money. Presently, they had arranged it between them that Dot was to stop with her friend until word could be got to Lemuel. Within the hour, they were descending the front steps, the tuition fee in Dot’s purse, the sympathetic maid instructed to send the girl’s baggage to Mrs. Liggs’ home.

As they took their seats in a taxi, and Dot kissed sprightly fingers at Longwell’s Seminary, another machine came to a stop on the opposite side of the street. The lone passenger, on the point of getting out, stopped and stared after the other cab now whirling rapidly away. It was Lex Sangerly. He had been told at the Golden West Hotel that Lemuel had departed for Geerusalem, after presumably having entered his daughter in Longwell Seminary. Whereupon, Lex had decided to visit the girl, introduce himself through the medium of Mrs. Liggs’ friendship, and question her in the hope that she might throw some light on the mysterious disappearance of the contents of Billy Gee’s saddlebags.

From this it may be deduced that Lex had not read the sensational newspaper story that day, incriminating Lemuel Huntington in the affair. Just now, he gazed in growing amazement at the taxi speeding down the street.

“By George! If that isn’t Mrs. Liggs, I’ll——” he burst out and ended by shouting hurried instructions to the chauffeur. The next moment he had started in pursuit of the cab.

CHAPTER XIII—SINISTER FOREBODINGS

Mrs. Agatha Liggs occupied a neat cozy four-room cottage in the residential section of San Francisco, known as Richmond District. A well-kept garden, colorful with blossoming plants, flanked and fronted it; and there was a Cherokee rose which spread its wild luxuriant arms across the length of the porch and festooned it thick with its pink, floppy flowers during the early spring. Six blocks away, across a field of lupins, the waves of the blue Pacific lapped a narrow stretch of beach under the shadow of crumbling shale cliffs. The Presidio fortifications loomed here and there along the heights, frowning, formidable piles of concrete out of which peeped the grim noses of long-range guns turned seaward, reminding one of dogs of war everlastingly on the alert for the first scent of danger.

It was a mile or more from the Longwell Seminary to Mrs. Liggs’ home, and on the way there, Billy Gee’s mother found time to finish telling Dot her story, which the maid had interrupted when she came to summon the girl before the preceptress. This had to do principally with the fact that the bandit, after his escape, had written her a letter which she had received the same day Lemuel’s telegram reached her. He told her where he was in hiding and, following a night of harrowing thought—fearful that he might risk a trip to Geerusalem to see her, and be captured—she had decided to dispose of her dry-goods store and move away from Soapweed Plains. Learning that Dot was to enter school in San Francisco, and having no definite plans as to where to establish her residence, she had chosen the metropolis, happy in the knowledge, she said, that she would be near her friend whom she would see often, besides feeling certain that her outlaw son could make his home with her, secure in the crowded confines of a great city, and abandon forever his lawless calling.

Selling her store, she had boarded a train and gone south with Tinnemaha Pete, and under the guidance of the old desert prospector, had found Billy Gee’s hiding place—a lonely desert cave, in a lonelier cañon of the Calico Range. But the outlaw was absent, and though they waited several days for him, until the provisions they had brought along were gone, he did not return. At last, filled with misgivings, she had come away at the instance of Tinnemaha Pete who, after accompanying her to the nearest settlement, went back to acquaint her son with her plans when he came. Arriving in the city, she had rented the cottage and written Billy Gee, giving her new address, and had received a long letter from him the day before.

“And it’s the blessedest letter I ever got from him, Dot,” she concluded, her old eyes swimming. “I think he’s—I think he’s quit the awful life. I’m praying God every, every night, to give him strength.”

Dot made no reply. Her arm stole around the other, and she gazed ahead, an odd light in her eyes.

The taxi drew up to the cottage, and they got out. Mrs. Liggs led the way along the narrow walk, pausing every few steps to point out to the girl the glories of the garden. As they were about to go in the house, Lex Sangerly’s machine arrived. He came bounding through the gate, shouting out a merry greeting to Mrs. Liggs.

“You should know better than try to sneak away from me, Mother Liggs,” he cried, as he halted before her, wringing her hands and laughing at her bewilderment. “That was a shameless way to treat a fellow—not even tell him you were selling out. I absolutely demand an apology—and a pumpkin pie. I followed you all the way from the seminary.”

“Goodness me, Lex, what in the world—— It was all so sudden, Lex, that I——” she began, with a tremulous pathetic smile. “You’ve got to forgive me. Sometimes things don’t go just right for folks, and they act without thinking. This is Mr. Sangerly, Dot. And you’ve heard me speak of Miss Huntington, Lex.”

“Indeed, yes,” he smiled pleasantly. “Mrs. Liggs has said some very flattering things about you, Miss Huntington. I am always delighted to meet a good friend of hers.”

Here Mrs. Liggs briefly explained to Dot that the Sangerlys had once been neighbors of hers in San José and gave a number of humorous instances to prove Lex’s shocking capacity for pumpkin pie. Laughing, they entered the cottage and, while the visitor waited in the parlor, the women went through the prosaic process of removing their street clothes and donning house dresses. A little later, Mrs. Liggs bustled off for the kitchen—for they must have a cup of her favorite tea, she merrily announced—and Dot joined Lex.

They sat opposite each other and, as they talked, the man admitted to himself that this girl, inhabitant of the desert though she was, surpassed in many respects the young women with whom he was acquainted in such cultured California centers as Pasadena and Burlingame. There was a native refinement about her, a charming grace of movement—little subtle characteristics of elegance—that caused him to marvel and to conclude that she must have inherited them from her mother, since her father certainly lacked them. But what particularly impressed him was the fresh, striking beauty of her, the spirit and frankness and deep strain of sympathy in her face, and that elusive something that marked her at a glance a daughter of the waste lands.

They talked on. Yes, he had heard she was attending Longwell Seminary, and she had been informed that his father was Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad. They both liked Geerusalem. She told him a number of things about herself, chiefly how she loved to read and how greatly she wanted to write stories—gripping stories of adventure. He sat and listened to her and confidentially affirmed to himself that here was a girl who would have fitted into his life as perhaps no other would—not even his petite, brown-eyed fiancée, daughter of the steamship company’s president whose guest he was during his stay in San Francisco.

Doubtless it was this strong appeal which Dot’s personality had for him that made it quite impossible for him to explain his mission to her. He shied at opening the subject, and as for deliberately cross-examining her, he felt that it was out of the question. She was too obviously not the type of girl to have anything to do with an illegal act of any kind; of that he was assured. Rather, he believed, she was the sort who would have reported to Warburton at the time whatever suspicions she might have had regarding Billy Gee’s movements. However, he presently contrived to turn the conversation to the outlaw’s escape and he noted a new interest flash up in her eyes, as he did so. It puzzled him.

“Perhaps, I’m biased, Miss Huntington, because of my association with the M. & S., but nothing would make me happier than to hear that he was lodged in a San Quentin dungeon for life, or shot down by a posse,” he replied slowly, in answer to her questions as to his opinion of the outlaw’s exploits. “Rather brutal, isn’t it?”

“Altogether brutal, Mr. Sangerly,” she said frankly. “But then, I’m also biased. You see, I owe him considerable, in a way, and won’t allow myself to forget it.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “If my father had not captured him and gotten the reward, I wouldn’t be in San Francisco to-day, with the opportunity of an education before me—the chance of seeing something outside of Soapweed Plains and Geerusalem all my life. I am candid in telling you this. It’s true.” Her expression changed. “Sometimes the thought sickens me. It’s like blood money.”

He broke into a hearty laugh. “Nonsense, Miss Huntington! Why, if we were to stop and consider the history of the dollar—the grief, misery, degradation, filth that each almighty dollar has been the means of creating—we’d be too nauseated to look at it, to say nothing of buying our daily bread with it and dropping it in the collection plates!”

“There may be a lot in that, but in my case the evidence is right before me—staring me out of countenance. To me, it’s just like selling a soul. And because I feel that way about it, I know I’m deeply indebted to Billy Gee——”

“Bosh!” cried Lex. “He’s a law-breaker—a dangerous desperado. He robs men, seizes other men’s belongings, appropriates to himself what isn’t his, threatens men’s lives to do it. Miss Huntington, anybody who captures such an animal, who rids the world of such an animal, deserves far more than your father received from the M. & S.” He had spoken brusquely, animated by a conscientious detestation of crime and criminals in any form. She was watching him, studying him curiously. “The only regret I have,” he added, “is that he had to die. I would rather see such a man wearing out his soul in prison.”

“He’s dead, did you say? Why, father wrote me that Mr. Warburton was of the opinion that——” A faint smile hovered about her lips, a tantalizing smile.

“Bob Warburton is a person of foresight; usually he knows what he’s talking about. But in this case—— Why, if Billy Gee were alive, Miss Huntington, we would have heard from him long ago. He was one of those ugly customers who have a mania for seeing their names in print. Isn’t it significant that our trains have not been robbed—not even molested—since the day of his capture? Billy Gee was a bred-in-the-bone crook, Miss Huntington, the type that never reforms. He perished on the desert, and I’m saying that with all due respect to the opinion of our good friend, Warburton.”

Dot did not reply. Her mind went back to the night she had parted with Billy Gee in the dark hayloft, the moon shining through the hole under the eaves, showing him standing knee-deep in the loose hay, reflecting on the bloody bandage around his head. She heard his voice again, saying:

“You’re goin’ to hear from me, Miss Huntington—some time. An’—an’ I hope you’ll be proud, like you jest said.” It was the sound of his voice, the way he had spoken those words, that remained ever vivid in her memory. To-day, she had met the mother of Billy Gee!

At this juncture Mrs. Liggs entered the parlor to announce that luncheon was ready. They seated themselves at the table in the cool little dining room, and their hostess poured the tea and led the conversation, which ran the gamut from reminiscences of bygone days in San José to a series of interesting episodes in and around Geerusalem. But she steered carefully clear of any mention of lawlessness, being fearful of bringing the name of her bandit son into the discussion and hearing Lex’s criticism of him—the chum he believed dead.

“You men folks think us women don’t know anything about business,” she laughed gayly. “But there’s some of us do, Lex, and I’m one of them. Of course, you’ll say that when it comes to selling overalls and socks and cotton shirts I’m fine, but that I ain’t got any idea about big business—real big business. Now, won’t you?”

The talk had turned to a speculation of Geerusalem’s future, Lex taking issue with Mrs. Ligg’s statement that as a gold-producer it would surpass both the Nevada camps of Goldfield and Tonopah.

“No, I wouldn’t say that, Mother Liggs,” he replied. “Honestly, I believe you have keen foresight. I’d rather take your opinion than that of many mining engineers I know. But it really seems an exaggeration to say that——”

“I’m agreeing with you, Mother Liggs,” broke in Dot enthusiastically, and added in serious tones: “Geerusalem, Mr. Sangerly, is only in its infancy, as you know, and yet, look at its mines! They’re enormously rich, and new prospects are being uncovered right along. The only thing that’s keeping it back is the unscrupulous type of men that have control—rule it. Have you heard of the terrible power they wield—the awful acts they commit?”

Lex nodded, his mind going back to his encounter with Boss Quintell that evening before Mrs. Liggs’ dry-goods store, the scene in the street when Quintell’s henchmen rallied, surrounded him, glowering and menacing, at the sound of their master’s voice.

“I haven’t the slightest doubt but that Geerusalem has a flattering future,” he admitted presently. “As a matter of truth, it is so certain of being a permanent camp that the M. & S. is about to begin surveying for a spur track into it, from the Mirage station. That goes to prove the company’s confidence in it. And I may say, Miss Huntington, that your father’s ranch, from what I’m able to learn, is quite likely to be on the right of way.”

A glad cry broke from Dot. “Oh, won’t that be wonderful! Just imagine, Mother Liggs, sitting on the front porch, watching the trains go by!”

“In my opinion, it will increase the value of the property to an appreciable degree,” said Lex. “I’ve been wondering why your father hasn’t gone in for cattle raising——”

He ceased speaking. An audible little gasp had escaped Mrs. Liggs. He looked at her and saw that her pale-blue eyes were fixed on him, wide with excitement and dismay.

“Good heavens!” she burst out. “It just come to me who told me about that branch line, Lex. There’s a scheme on to stop it. They’re going to keep it out of Geerusalem if they got to kill and murder to do it.”

A short silence fell. Lex regarded her curiously a moment before he spoke.

“I think you must be mistaken, Mother Liggs,” he said finally. “I don’t think any one would oppose a spur into Geerusalem. It would help make the camp. Who do you mean by they?”

“Jule Quintell and his crowd. Listen! About a month ago, George Harrison—he’s Quintell’s private secretary—came into my store to buy something. I’ve known him ever since he arrived in camp; that’s about two years. He’d been drinking this afternoon. We got talking, and I asked him if there was anything new—sociablelike, you know. And he said they’d been tipped off that a railroad company was figuring on building a track into camp from the main line.

“I told him I thought it’d be just the thing we needed. He laughed—oh, so nasty!—and leaned over the counter and said: ‘Mrs. Liggs, railroads generally get their own way, but they won’t in this neck of the woods. We’re going to draw a line in the sand and tell them they’ll go that far and no further.’ ‘You sure ain’t going to stop them, Mr. Harrison?’ I asked. ‘We’re going to make them come to us. And if they try their strong-arm tactics we’ll give them all they’re looking for. If it’s a case of fight we’ll make Soapweed Plains look like a slaughterhouse.’ I seen that he’d been drinking considerable and I figured he might he bragging, and I never thought nothing more about it till just now when you mentioned the spur track.”

Lex lit a cigarette and gave her a smile. “I think you’ll find he was doing that very thing, Mother Liggs—bragging. Admitting that this fellow Quintell is a power in Geerusalem and that his word is law—why, if he so much as voiced an objection to so important a factor to the camp’s progress, as a railroad, his most trusted followers would turn against him. Men nowadays appreciate the value of transportation facilities. They may buck the railroad companies on every issue and all that sort of thing, but they can’t get along without trains and they know it. Quintell wouldn’t dare put a single, solitary obstacle in the way of a spur track. On the contrary, he’ll peel off his coat and help us.”

“Don’t you be too sure about that,” said Mrs. Liggs, with a warning shake of her head. “You don’t know him, Lex. Old Nick ain’t any trickier than he is, and when it comes to being real dirty and cruel and murderous, he’s worse than the devil and all his fiends. He just plays with men—like a cat does with a mouse. Any man that crosses him is as good as gone. If Quintell can’t crush him to the wall, ruin him, run him out of camp, he has his throat cut; the buzzards finish him. And it’s all done quietly. There’s no proof or nothing. And all the time it’s getting stronger and stronger, the Quintell machine is working day and night, growing bolder, reaching out here and there and grabbing mining property, deliberately stealing it. I’ve heard that a lot of good men have been forced to join the gangsters, ’cos they’re afraid if they don’t stand in, they’ll lose their mines—if they don’t turn up missing themselves, some morning.”

Lex gave a short laugh. “I remember you warned me that evening I met him in front of your store,” he said easily; “and I’m going to repeat what I told you. It’s this: He’ll meet the wrong man—at the right time, Mother Liggs. But tell me, his power lies in the slum element of the camp only, doesn’t it?”

“You see that!” she cried triumphantly. “You ain’t got the least idea how he works, how cunning he is. No, it doesn’t! There’s mining engineers, brokers, and assayers—influential rascals—in his clique. They’re the brains of the gang. The slum element, as you call it, are just the tools and they do what they’re told—all the claim-jumping and fighting and killing. Quintell, as anybody’ll tell you, is the boss. They control the constable and the courts, and no matter what one of the gang does, he ain’t even arrested. I tell you, Lex, he’s dangerous, as deadly as sin. He’s always put me in mind of a big, horrible, poisonous spider that gets fat killing little bugs and eating them.”

“Well, there’s one satisfaction, Mother Liggs,” he replied, as he reached over and patted her hand: “The career of a bad man is usually short. He’s like a mosquito—he stings one time too many. There was Billy Gee, for example. Never was there a more contemptible scoundrel ever lived than that miserable renegade——”

“Pardon me for interrupting you, Mr. Sangerly, but are you in the mood for a surprise?”

It was Dot who spoke. While Mrs. Liggs and Lex were talking she had quietly left the table and gone into the bedroom. She stood now just inside the door, her face sightly flushed, her eyes shining with an odd light. In her hand, she held the loot of the M. & S., wrapped in her mother’s old silk shawl. Mrs. Liggs, her snowy head resting on her hand, gazed listlessly into her plate.

“A surprise is always in order, Miss Huntington,” laughed Lex. “Providing, of course, it is a pleasant one.”

“I’m going to leave you to judge whether this one is or not,” said Dot.

She went over to his side of the table, cleared away the dishes, and placed the neatly-bound sheaf of bills before him.

A dramatic silence fell. He looked, then stared in blank astonishment at the green and yellow pile for a long moment. Dot was watching him with dancing eyes. As for Mrs. Liggs, her face was a study in stark bewilderment.

“What—what’s this? You can’t really mean—is it possible, Miss Huntington, that——” stammered Lex, and stopped.

“Dot, darling!” burst like a sob from Mrs. Liggs’ parted lips.

“Yes, Mr. Sangerly, those are the actual bills—the exact amount—that your company lost, twenty thousand dollars,” said Dot in clear, ringing tones. “I am returning it to you for Billy Gee. I have one request to make, and that is that you exonerate my father from the ridiculous charge your detectives have placed against him. If there has been an accomplice in this matter it is I.” She paused, then resumed with a smile: “I’ll relate the facts to you and let you decide for yourself. First, however, in order that you may not labor under a misapprehension—Billy Gee is alive.”

CHAPTER XIV—AN EPISODE IN THE HILLS

It seldom happens that a sheriff, or any peace officer for that matter, ever regains the confidence of the public, much less his popularity, once he loses a prisoner of such supposed badness as was Billy Gee. Somehow, it is difficult for the voters to believe that a really efficient official may be caught unawares and outwitted by a criminal, particularly if that criminal is unarmed and handcuffed into the bargain. So the conscientious wielder of the franchise goes to the polls, and on the strength of his theory that a sworn servant of the people should be invincible and superior to mistake and oversight, very gravely ousts the incumbent candidate in favor of the untried timber on the ballot.

The voters of San Buenaventura County, California, were of another sort, however. Sheriff Bob Warburton had proved up to their ideals for two terms—even if he hadn’t been able to hold onto the will-o’-the-wisp bandit of the Mohave. He was sincere, always on the job, a good fellow, dependable. That he had slipped once, should not condemn him, asserted the electorate. What man does not slip once?

Regardless of the fact, then, that Warburton had resigned his office and that his political enemies made a great to-do about the Billy Gee incident, the people went to the polls strong for Warburton and reinstated him to office by an avalanche vote. And, as if to confirm their trust in him, on the very day that he resumed his gold star he issued a statement to the newspapers in which he vowed to capture Billy Gee and get him the maximum sentence under the law—imprisonment for life.

It was a week after election. During that week Warburton received Dot’s telegram requesting him to come to San Francisco. On the day following its receipt, while he debated whether he should make the trip or wire her for particulars, he got an unexpected message from Lex Sangerly, stating in so many words that the M. & S. money had been recovered and urging that information be kept secret for the time being.

Warburton puzzled over the matter for hours. He began to ask himself if it were not just possible that there existed a clandestine love affair between Dot and Billy Gee. Because of his intimate knowledge of Lex’s movements in the case, Warburton was certain that Sangerly had gone to San Francisco to interview the girl and had found her in possession of the outlaw’s loot. This, he reasoned, would explain her telegram that she had something of importance to tell him. Love alone could have moved Billy Gee to part with twenty thousand dollars, was the sheriff’s firm conviction.

“’Twouldn’t be the first good woman fell for a scalawag,” he muttered grimly, as he holstered his six-shooters and picked up his rifle.

It was at that season of the year when the desert region of southern California was beginning to feel the atmospheric influences caused by the early sprinkle of rain descending on the timbered highlands to the north—the violent gustiness of the wind whipping the sand into great clouds, the strange sultriness of the nights, the blood-red sunsets.

Unknown to any member of his office, except his second in command, Undersheriff Hodgson, Warburton stole out of the county seat one evening on a still hunt of weeks, and there was in his heart the kind of determination that stops at nothing to achieve its purpose.

Aside from his desire to merit the faith of the people, there was a personal angle which made his meeting with the bandit a thing of vital moment. Any one familiar with the man-hunting game will tell you that if there is one thing an officer of the law never forgets, it is a bodily injury received at the hands of a prisoner; also, that he never quite forgives himself for losing a prisoner. Either is, loosely speaking, a professional disgrace, but it is more than that. An officer appreciates only too well that he is the custodian of the law, that his voice is the voice of the commonwealth, that his body is as sacred as it is possible for a human body to be sacred. Sheriff Warburton cherished this belief with pride. Had Billy Gee held him up at the point of a gun and stripped him of his valuables, the act would have been more or less forgivable alongside of striking the sheriff down, shackling the sheriff with the sheriff’s handcuffs, and making his escape.

The memory of that hurt had burned itself into Warburton’s brain like some corroding acid. It permeated his being with the deadliness of a vicious poison. His determination to capture Billy Gee came to be a mania with him, a mania similar in intensity to that which had gripped Lemuel Huntington to see Dot educated before he died.

To-day, Sheriff Warburton was out to “get” Billy Gee—not Billy Gee dead, but Billy Gee alive. He wanted to bring the outlaw into the county seat of San Buenaventura, so that the people might see that he had lived up to their expectations as a sheriff, to vindicate his honor, the pride he felt in himself and his position. Anybody could sneak up behind a desperado and shoot him down, but few had grit enough to confront that desperado and take him alive. Warburton was going to herd Billy Gee into the county seat alive or perish in the attempt. So he swore to himself at the time.

A-straddle of a mule, driving a pack burro before him, went the grim sheriff of San Buenaventura County, looking for all the world like a prospector in his patched-up overalls, old gray hat, and boots worn down at the heels. A rough mat of whiskers which he had let flourish untrimmed, disguised him against the possibility of recognition.

Setting out from the town of Burbank, he steered a little north of east and began a painstaking, systematic visit to every water hole, spring, and tank on his slow, lonely journey across the north rim of the Mohave Desert. There were few of these blessed oases—bright green patches in that universe of gaunt desolation—and many hopeless miles separated them. A man could never live in that near-hell without water, and Warburton knew it.

Toward the end of August—a few weeks after Billy Gee’s spectacular flight from the Huntington ranch in the rented car—Warburton reached Blue Mud Spring, a forlorn, seldom-visited trickle of water lost in a topsy-turvy hill country some three miles west of Lemuel’s quarter sections. Warburton camped there four whole wretched days, waiting; he had found a rather significant clew, as he thought.

Carved on the flat surface of a soft lime boulder, a few rods away from the spring was the legend, “Dot H., Aug. 20, 1913.” It had been done by a man, the work of an idle jackknife. The date was the one on which Warburton had trailed Billy Gee to the Huntington ranch. It was the one on which the bandit had met Dot, reasoned the sheriff.

Inspection of the ground back of the boulder showed that the owner of the jackknife had lain there for some time. The imprint of a cartridge belt appeared in the dirt. A short distance up a near-by shallow gulch, his horse had pawed a hole in the loose gravel during intervals of hunger or impatience.

On the evening of Warburton’s fourth day of solitary vigil, while he was preparing his supper prospector fashion, the first person he had seen since leaving the railroad hove in sight from around a bend in the gulch. Warburton recognized him. It was none other than Tinnemaha Pete. The old desert rat came pattering forward, driving his two shying burros before him, urging them onward with wild, falsetto cries. As he neared the muddy seepage of spring he shooed them over to drink and toddled up to the sheriff.

“Howdy, stranger!” he piped. “Kinder sultry weather, the last day or so. Better’n that damn wind we bin havin’. You bin out in it? Lookit my eyes!” He lifted his rheumy red lips at the other for inspection, at the same time squinting craftily at him. But he couldn’t penetrate the thick disguise of beard.

“They sure are alkalied,” said the sheriff. “That’s tough. You’re jest in time for a feed, friend. Sit in. Where’re you headed?”

“I got claims ’crosst the hills yonder,” said Pete, waving his skinny arm toward Geerusalem. “Sometimes I come here, sometimes I hike to camp for water. Prospectin’?”

“That’s my middle name. Lookin’ for rock with one eye an’ watchin’ for that two-gun chap, Billy Gee, with the other. ’Tain’t pleasant, let me tell you.”

Tinnemaha Pete broke into a wild cackle. “A big walloper like you skeart of a kid! Say, you’re a tenderfoot, ain’t you?” He leered suddenly. “Yer hands’re soft. I jest seen the inside of one of ’em. You can’t fool me, mister.”

“I ain’t tryin’ to, dad,” grinned Warburton. “This here is my first trip out for nigh on a year. I bin bartendin’ for McGregor, over to Twenty-nine Palms. You know ‘Gold-tooth’ McGregor, the locoed Scotchman, wears a clean boiled shirt every day, an’——”

“Do I know that ol’ hoss thief? An’ you bin sellin’ booze for him? Better man never lived’n—— D’ye happen to have what’s good for snake bite?” he tittered.

The sheriff dug a bottle out of his pack and passed it to him. “’Tain’t as fine’s it might be, but it beats nothin’,” grimaced Tinnemaha Pete, as he wiped his mouth. “An’ after you workin’ in that rough-house joint of McGregor’s, you’re leery of Billy Gee! Say, d’ye know that boy’s a genius! He’s a cat for lives an’ a fox for tricks. He’s showed up ag’in. Ain’t you heerd? Lordy! Hell burn my soul, if he ain’t writ another notice an’ stuck it up on the blackboard of the Searchlight! Yes, he did—night afore last. ‘Warburton, I’m glad you’ve been reëlected sheriff. You’re the only man for the job. I mean it.’ That’s what the notice said. Ain’t that the tantalizin’ young devil?” Tinnemaha’s old eyes snapped proudly.

Warburton’s teeth set under their cover of beard. He began apportioning the fried rashers of bacon into two tin plates.

“One of these days Mr. Sheriff’ll nab that galoot. Jest you watch,” he replied slowly. “An’ when he does——”

“If he does,” hooted the old man, “he’s a Jim Dandy. If it hadn’t bin for Lem Huntington, the dirty——”

He broke off in his eccentric way, trotted over to his pack animals, and started throwing off their loads. Presently he had them hobbled for the night and was back at the fire, squatting on the ground, his heaping plate in his lap. They ate in silence, Warburton studying his guest curiously, listening to him mumbling over his food.

When the dishes had been washed and stacked away in a kyack, and the two men had filled and lighted their pipes, Sheriff Warburton returned to the subject uppermost in his mind.

“Yessir, jest like you said, dad, if it hadn’t been for this rancher Huntington gittin’ the drop on Billy Gee, the sheriff would ’a’ never——”

“Lem Huntington’s a ornery skipjack—a louse,” cried Tinnemaha Pete in sudden fury. “He togs up like a tinhorn gambler an’ smokes seegars now, an’ he’s bought a bunch of cows an’ is plantin’ a patch in alfalfee. The cussed scrub! The ring-necked buzzard! I know, stranger! They can’t fool old Tinnemaha Pete. Leetle Miss Dot—there’s a angel for you, mister! She hid out Billy Gee that day, an’ her dad nails him for the reeward. The t’rantula!”

It had grown quite dark. The purple sky was brilliant with stars; a warm, fragrant breeze purred down upon the night camp from over the shattered crests of the rocky hills. In the leaping firelight, Tinnemaha’s wizened features were distorted with senile rage. His black, short-stemmed pipe trembled in his bony, clawlike hand.

“You ain’t never met up with Billy Gee, eh?” he asked. “I did. Yes, siree, I know him! They ain’t a finer boy no place, they ain’t. An’ along comes this yaller snake, Lem Huntington, an’——”

“How d’you know that Miss Huntington hid Billy Gee?” interrupted Warburton casually. “You’re jest mebby guessin’ at it. You don’t know for sure.”

“Guessin’!” shrilled Tinnemaha Pete. “Guessin’, yore gran’mother. Mrs. Liggs told me, an’ I figger she oughter know.”

“Why?”

“’Cos Lem Huntington—yes, he told her, that’s why. You wait till me an’ him tangle. I found mineral on his ground an’—damn him, he’d better not try no shenanigans with me! Not with ol’ Peter Boyd. Mark me, stranger! I’ll cut him up. Sure’n scat, I’ll cut him up!”

Puffing frantically at his wheezing cold pipe, he bobbed his gray head at the fire, his puckered-up eyes flickering with a mad light.

Warburton tossed a snarl of sagebrush on the coals. As the flames leaped up, he glanced keenly at the queer little shriveled figure across from him. After an interval, he said:

“You reckillect the time las’ summer when Billy Gee nailed that there other sign on the Searchlight’s bulletin board, sayin’ he’d bin huntin’ for Warburton for three year, an’——” Tinnemaha brightened suddenly and gave a wild laugh. “Well, the sheriff told me that he got a-hold of that paper notice,” continued Warburton slowly. “It ’pears like it was a fancy sort o’ wrappin’ paper, an’ Warburton he mosied ’round Geerusalem till he found the store that used that pertickler kind. It was a dry-goods store, run by a woman—Mrs. Agatha Liggs.

“The sheriff didn’t do nothin’ about it then, figgerin’ that Billy Gee mighta jest bought suthin’ there an’ used the paper to write on. Now——” He paused. Trained to read men’s minds by their change of facial expression, he had been quick to note the look of suspicion which flashed across Tinnemaha’s wrinkled countenance. He finished his recital with a wild guess. “What is Mrs. Liggs to Billy Gee—aunt or mother?”

The old man chuckled mirthlessly. He drew a brand out of the fire and lit his pipe. “I ain’t ever goin’ to tell you, mister. I ain’t got no way of knowin’. Mark ye! I don’t keep cases on other folks’ business. Ol’ Tinnemaha Pete’s got too much of his own to ’tend to. Am I right or wrong—what?”

“Aunt or mother, dad?” smiled the sheriff indulgently. “Come on now, you ain’t foolin’ me one bit. I’ve heerd for years as how Tinnemaha Pete knows most everythin’ on the Mohave——”

“The hell you say!” exploded the desertarian. He thrust his skinny neck across the camp fire, and concentrated the gaze of his red-rimmed eyes on Warburton’s whiskered face. “I don’t ever reckillect seein’ you afore—not with that crop. Mebby I’d know you shaved. What’s yore name?”

“Jack Sangerly,” lied Warburton.

“Spangaree? Seems to me I met—— Yessir! Agatha give me a knockdown to a dude feller, tol’rable sort—had on ’bout five hunderd dollars o’ sporty togs. That’s the name—Spangaree. But he was a ol’ friend of the fambly, she said.”

Warburton smiled. “That’s my brother, Lex, you met,” he said blandly. “Lex’s bin edjicated in Frisco, an’ I reckon he knew her there. Say, come to think of it, I b’lieve he did tell me she was Billy Gee’s mother! Sure’s shootin’! It was over to the grading camp where Billy held up the paymaster of the M. & S., some time after.” He nodded gravely at the flames, but he was watching the other, hawklike.

Tinnemaha Pete gave vent to a paroxysm of hysterical laughter. “’Tain’t like yore brother to lie to you, is it, Spangaree?” he cackled, and resumed a vigorous puffing at his pipe. Thus for some seconds, then he added abstractedly: “But Agatha she knowed the whole Spangaree fambly, an’ said as how the dude feller I met an’ Jerome was kids together.”

“Jerome—Liggs!” gasped Warburton. In a twinkling, he remembered the embezzlement of the Marysville city funds!

Tinnemaha Pete did not hear him. The little old fellow’s faded blue eyes, now snapping with a malicious fire, were riveted on him.

“If you’re a deteckitive, stranger, God Almighty help ye!” he went on. “Billy Gee hangs out here. Like as not, he’s out in the dark yonder, takin’ it all in. Mark what I say! Close yore damn trap!” He spoke in a heavy, cracked whisper, and Warburton cast a furtive eye over the vicinity.

It was black night beyond the small circle of firelight, the desert hills tragically still, a subtle warning in Tinnemaha Pete’s voice and manner. A short silence fell. The desertarian broke it with a rough chuckle and shook his head at his pipe.

“But he ain’t,” he ruminated, half to himself. “Lem Huntington knows where he is. Gol ding his flea-bitten hide! I hope Billy cuts him up, like I aim to. Jest let him try robbin’ ol’ Peter Boyd of them Billy Geerusalem claims, an’ I’ll fetch him. I’ll turn a knife into him. I’ll cut him up—chop him to pieces. Jest nacherly make hash outer the skunk. I sure will. Jest nacherly make hash outer him——”

He mumbled on for a spell, then dropped off to sleep, looking for all the world—sitting there before the dying fire—like a little pile of discarded old clothes thrown over a stump.

Warburton waited a few minutes, gazing thoughtfully at him. At last, getting cautiously to his feet, he saddled the mule and struck out for the Huntington ranch. Tinnemaha Pete had given him enough of a clew to go on. More important still, Jerome Liggs and Billy Gee were one and the same. Jerome Liggs, who had disappeared three years ago as if the earth had opened and swallowed him, was alive, here, on the point of capture! Warburton rode slowly, warily along. This was the biggest hour of his whole life. He was on the eve of the greatest triumph of his career.

“I’m a-goin’ to git you, Billy Gee. I’m a-goin’ to git you!” he murmured into the night.

CHAPTER XV—THE POTENT INFLUENCE

As has been said, Geerusalem was at the time the Mecca of the gregarious creatures designated as wildcatters—ruthless, scoundrelly gentlemen who wax fat by selling worthless blocks of fabulous mining stock to gullibles and trusting innocents in far-away places, women being for the most part their easier victims. To-day, they were the power in Geerusalem, and Mrs. Liggs in her talk with Lex Sangerly had not exaggerated the methods of these money-grabbing rascals one whit. They controlled the camp and the representatives of the law. They had the respectable citizenry figuratively by the throat, the newspapers truckling to their wishes. Briefly, they did what they pleased; not altogether openly, however. There was a grand jury down at the county seat, a hundred miles or so away, that might happen to train an eye in their direction, and certain State officials who might start an investigation.

Everything then that was done unlawfully was done under a veneer of mystery, or lacking that, “framed” so cleverly as to deceive the wiliest inquisitor, should such a rare bird appear on the ground.

In the first place, the master mind of this invisible organization was Jule Quintell. He was a formidable character physically and mentally, merciless at the base, diplomatic and rash by turns; in many ways a dual personality who could be trusted to put over whatever he undertook. His was the gift to scheme, to set the stage, to spring the trap, to wrest the holdings from the victim, whether by eviction or the six-shooter, for property—mining property—was what Quintell and his confederates wanted and were getting. Individual claims and groups of claims were piling in on them, and as fast as they were acquired they were parceled off, given a name, put through the process of incorporation, and the stock floated. Exquisitely engraved certificates found their way across the continent to the gullibles and trusting innocents, who dreamed in vain of enormous dividends which would set them on Easy Street in short order.

Claims that gave promise of paying were never thus exploited, however. They were carefully prospected, “dressed up” if they did not fulfill expectations, and through the medium of glowing reports published in the subsidized newspapers, they sold for fancy prices; for there were always rich suckers drifting into this infant prodigy of gold camps, looking to invest.

Boss Quintell’s associates, whom Mrs. Liggs had designated as the “brains” of the element were, even as she had said, assayers, mining engineers, surveyors, stockbrokers. There were more than a score of them; as smug and high-handed a coterie of crooks as ever sidestepped the penitentiary. Against their influence and methods, the reputable competitor was promptly starved out, forced to seek a living in other fields. The monopoly of swindling was perfected to a point where the professions most intimately affiliated with mining were included, these being amply represented in the trusted membership of the magic circle.

And yet, taken as a whole, this aggregation of grafters which had its tentacles spread out across the entire Geerusalem mining district, slowly killing the spirit of industry and discovery without which no camp can live, were of themselves not only lacking in strength but devoid of the necessary courage to defy the decent element of the town, had the latter voiced objection to their tactics. Whatever influence the Quintell crowd possessed, the very success of their lawless enterprise, in fact the death grip they had on the camp—these things they owed to that majority of population that seems as much a part in the founding of a settlement in the wilderness, as its tents and rock huts—the underworld.

Here had forgathered the undesirable from the four winds—gunmen, thieves, criminals of high and low degree, and they kept flocking in and plied their vicious trades without fear of interruption. And flocking in, also, came the type of woman that men know best and fall easier prey to because they do, while added to these denizens of the city’s slums, were the drifters, adventurers, and saloon hangers-on, all bent on getting their share of gold at some other fellow’s expense.

With this formidable army of undesirables at its back, the Quintell crowd ruled Geerusalem, and from it, chose its tools who went out at night and beat up men, drove them off their claims, killed them if they proved too troublesome. These tools got money for their work. The element as a whole got protection—license to carry on as its membership saw fit without interference from the local authorities, whom Quintell, through bribe and political influence, held in the hollow of his hand. Crime thrived accordingly, and the remote cases that did come up for trial in the courts proved ridiculous farces conducted more to impress the County Bar Association at the distant county seat that jurisprudence was on the job, than as a matter of stern equity.

Now, on the very day that Lemuel Huntington had brought Billy Gee a prisoner into camp, Quintell’s field men reported that Tinnemaha Pete had discovered a rich gold ledge on the Huntington ranch. Late that afternoon, while Lex Sangerly and Detectives Coates and Tyler were searching for the outlaw’s loot at the ranch house half a mile away, Quintell experts were investigating the ground with a view of determining the extent of the deposit and estimating its value.

They returned, bringing word that the find was a bonanza from the grass roots, that the hill on the west end of the Huntington ranch carried the croppings of three parallel ledges that apparently were a continuation of the Geerusalem mineral belt. Tinnemaha Pete’s location notices were made out in the names of Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs.

Jule Quintell and his confederates held a two-hour meeting that evening. They listened to the reports of the experts, heard them voice the opinion that the new discovery promised to be a monumental strike, eclipsing anything ever opened up before in the district. They sat silent, grim of face, ominous, and blew wreaths of smoke toward the ceiling. Presently they began discussing the matter.

They must acquire this ground. The Geerusalem mines were good producers, but here was something far better. Moreover, a sister camp on the same mineral belt, only four miles distant, meant that its owners would be millionaires overnight. It was not a proposition of doing business with Tinnemaha Pete and Jerome Liggs. Whoever these desert rats were did not enter into the issue, for though they had found and located the deposit, they had no legal claim to it. Lemuel Huntington owned the ground; it was patented ground. Lemuel Huntington was the man they must deal with—Lem used to hobnob with the crowd before he captured Billy Gee and got a start in the world.

The meeting was held in Boss Quintell’s spacious private office in the Brokers’ Exchange Building, a three-story frame structure that housed the elaborate publicity and advertising departments—so essential to successful wildcatting—of three of Geerusalem’s most prominent stockbrokers.

Messengers began arriving, one to say that Huntington and his daughter had left for San Francisco, another with the information that railroad detectives were occupying the ranch house.

Quintell advanced the scheme to be followed for the acquisition of the bonanza strike. “Big George” Rankin, owner of the Northern Saloon and dominant figure in the camp’s underworld, was in San Francisco on business. He was wired to meet Huntington and his daughter at the ferry terminal, follow them, and telegraph back the name of the hotel they put up at. Dick Lennox, a young mining engineer—one of the lesser lights of the gang, but more intimate with the rancher than any member of it—was chosen to go to the metropolis and try to bargain for the purchase of the ranch. The thing was to see Huntington before he returned to Geerusalem, for, as Quintell pointed out, it was just possible that Dot’s father, once back in the country, would hear rumors of the discovery of mineral on his ground and refuse to sell except at his own terms. Lemuel, then, must not surmise there was one pennyweight of gold on his land. The land must be bought for a song, as it were.

Receipt by Quintell of Lennox’s telegram telling of his failure to turn the deal, along with Rankin’s report charging Lennox with betraying the gang to win favor with Dot, infuriated the boss of Geerusalem and his associates, made the mining engineer a marked man, whose arrival in camp was awaited by gunmen with instructions to “bump him off” as quietly as they could. But Lennox, returning unexpectedly, got word of his danger from a member of the gang, who, yielding to the other’s entreaties, hid him in a rear office room, Lennox agreeing to leave as soon as it was dark.

Terrified at the startling predicament in which he found himself and not daring to risk flight by train or automobile, Lennox in his extremity thought of Lex Sangerly, who he remembered was conducting an investigation at the Huntington ranch. If Sangerly was there, he knew he could prevail on him to drive him to Mirage; if he was not, the ranch because of its isolation would furnish him a secure hiding place until such time as he could find his way in safety out of the country.

With nightfall then, he struck out afoot for the ranch. He held to the deserted back streets and went fast, stumbling along in his feverish haste, glancing over his shoulder. When he reached the outskirts of camp, where the rough rock cabins of the squatters began to thin out and the vast emptiness of Soapweed Plains became discernible through the wide mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, he breathed easier and slackened his pace. He had eluded the assassins. He was safe!

But though he had been one of the Quintell crowd, Lennox had never realized the depth of perfidy in its ranks. The very man who had warned him and given him shelter, had done so merely to deliver him into the hands of the killers. Therefore, no sooner had he reached a lonely point beyond the camp’s confines, where the sagebrush and greasewood rose thick on each side of the road, than he heard the quick patter of running feet behind him. The moon was shining. As Lennox turned, he made out four men bearing down on him less than a hundred yards away.

“Hey, Lennox, hold on a minute! The gang’s straightened things out. The boss wants you to come back,” called out a jovial voice.

The fugitive halted undecidedly for an instant. Then, recognizing his pursuers as uncouthly dressed fellows whom he was sure he did not know, he took to his heels. Instantly a volley of shots roared out, and a hail of bullets went screaming past him. In the grip of terror, he redoubled his speed, dashing desperately onward, gazing about him for some means of escape. Presently his eyes lighted on a shack looming black against the background of hill, a few yards to one side of the road. Just as he discovered it his pursuers sent another swarm of bullets after him. This time they got him. His leg suddenly buckled under him, and he pitched headlong to the ground.

“Help! Help!” he cried frenziedly, making a futile effort to get to his feet.

An answering shout broke from the quartet. Lennox glared around and saw them coming, racing toward him. He could hear the gravel crunching nearer with every footfall. He knew that they would shoot him where he lay, without mercy, as they would shoot a dog, and his horrible thought picked him off the road and sent him crawling madly for the shack.

He reached the door and pounded on it.

“Open! They’re going to murder me. Open, in God’s name!” he panted distractedly.

There was a movement inside the cabin; then the door opened.

“Come in!” said a man’s voice out of the darkness.

Lennox dragged himself inside and lay half-fainting on the floor, gasping for breath.

Outside he could hear the sounds of the Quintell men approaching the shack. Then the voice of his unknown deliverer broke quietly through the place.

“Stop where you are, strangers!”

A heavy silence followed his words.

“We’re deputy sheriffs, pal. You’ve got a man in there we want,” said one of the men gruffly.

“Let’s see yore authority. Depities kin always flash a tin buzzer. Let’s see yourn.”

“Never mind the authority. Do you turn him over or not?”

The occupant of the shack gave a low chuckle. “You sure talk like a depity, sport,” he said in genial tones. “But don’t you never let Sheriff Warburton hear you make a crack like that——”

The deafening crash of revolvers cut him short, as, without warning, the gunmen fired. The bullets tore through the partly opened door, and a shower of splinters fell on Lennox.

“Get him, fellows! Get the——” cursed the spokesman.

“At yore risk, men!” called out the unknown. He threw the door wide and began shooting with a rapidity that set the mining engineer, wounded and terrified though he was, marveling vaguely.

The battle ended as suddenly as it had begun. A deep silence followed. Soon Lennox heard his deliverer moving through the dark interior and got a glimpse of him as he walked out into the moonlight. He returned presently and halted in the gloom.

“You hurt bad?” he asked. He spoke calmly, his voice pleasingly low.

“My leg is broken,” said Lennox. “I don’t know that I can ever repay you for saving my life, friend.”

“I ain’t takin’ pay for savin’ a man’s life. I know what it is to be a mouse with the cat after it. I’ll fix up yore leg the best I kin in the dark. ’Tain’t safe to make a light. You got to have a doctor, I reckon.”

“Not from Geerusalem. It would be signing my own death warrant. Quintell and his gang are after me.”

“Huh! So, that’s who they were, eh? Purty hard-boiled bunch, that. Now let’s see that busted leg.”

Kneeling on the floor beside Lennox, he began bandaging above and below the wound to stop the flow of blood. He worked in the dark dexterously, tearing long strips of cloth and binding them tightly around the fractured limb. At the end of ten minutes he rose to his feet and lit a cigarette and stood for a moment at the door, listening.

“Why’re they tryin’ to git you?” he asked abruptly.

“They sent me to Frisco to buy a ranch—the Huntington ranch; you must know it. Anyway, I couldn’t turn the deal, and they blamed me. Say, do you suppose there’s any danger of blood-poisoning?”

The other did not reply. Lennox, propped on his elbow, waited anxiously, a new alarm creeping into his heart. Silhouetted statuelike in the rectangle of moonlight formed by the open door, stood the stranger. He stood thus, motionless, for a short interval. Then he inhaled deeply of his cigarette, tossed it away, and came over to Lennox.

“You give me an idea,” he said, with an odd chuckle. “I’ll git you to the Huntington ranch. I figger I kin hustle up a doctor who won’t talk.” He dropped to his haunches beside the other. “Here, ketch me ’round the neck. I’m packin’ you! My hoss is down the gulch a ways.”

With the wounded man clinging to his back, he padlocked the door and struck out through the brush.

“What happened to them—the four, you know?” asked Lennox, glancing about over the ground. “It isn’t possible they escaped, and——”

“Sometimes, it’s healthy to keep yore front yard clean, pardner. Folks are’ awful curious—if you know what I mean,” was the quiet reply.

The unknown’s horse stood tethered in a small draw. Helping Lennox into the saddle, the man climbed on behind. They rode on in silence for many minutes, following the deeply rutted, dusty road that wormed its way among the windrows of sand and boulders which dotted Soapweed Plains at this point. Behind them the Geerusalem hills rose into the sky—a jumbled, massive gray pile, looking like some great, nameless monster crouching in the night.

“What they want the ranch for?” said the stranger, breaking the long silence.

“It’s immensely rich—in mineral. I hear it’s the richest gold strike in the district. But they wouldn’t sell.”

“By they, you mean Lem Huntington, don’t you?”

“He was willing enough, at first. But his daughter——Well, to tell the truth, it was a dirty scheme. I was to tell them the ranch was wanted for a resort—one of those free-and-easy hangouts for the sporting crowd. It seems as if there’s a grave in the garden—her mother’s grave. And the girl wouldn’t—I certainly understand how she feels.”

“Her mother’s grave,” repeated the unknown very slowly.

The horse jogged along with its double burden. Far ahead, a tiny blur of black showed the location of the Huntington ranch.

“My leg is hurting me fearfully,” said Lennox at last. “Damn them! You don’t think there’s danger of blood-poisoning, do you?”

“I’ve heard a lot about Miss Huntington. They say she’s a mighty fine gal. I’d kinder like to know the pertick’lars if you don’t mind tellin’ ’em. No, I don’t guess there’s danger o’ blood-poisonin’. You’ll be all right in a month or two, mebby.”

Lennox groaned at the cheerless prospect that confronted him.

Presently, however, he began the story of the efforts of the Quintell gang to purchase the Huntington holdings. His indignation over their treatment of him loosened his tongue, caused him to overlook not one detail that might go to illustrate the infamous methods by which they operated. From their discovery that the two prospectors, Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs, had located the bonanza claims, how he had been delegated to talk Huntington into selling, his meeting with Big George Rankin in San Francisco and later with Dot and her father in the Golden West Hotel; all this he related and concluded with the quarrel he and Rankin had had on the street following his failure to buy the ranch.

“An’ he said that—that Quintell mebby could use her, as his stenographer?” said the stranger. His voice was like ice in the other’s ear.

“Yes, and about as nasty as a man could say it.”

“Ain’t this Rankin the feller that owns the Northern Saloon—big walloper with a red face, sorter straw boss o’ the Stingeree bunch?”

“That’s he. I’ve heard he was bad clean through, one of the worst characters——”

“I know all about them kind, pal. They sure kin squeal, when you start workin’ on ’em. Use her as his stenographer, eh?” he repeated, as if to himself.

They rode along in silence after that, save for the occasional groan of suffering that broke from Lennox. Within a few hundred yards of the Huntington ranch, the stranger drew rein and slid to the ground.

“I’m goin’ to let you make it in alone,” he said in low tones. “You’ll find two detectives there—Sangerly’s men. Jest holler, an’ they’ll come out. Don’t tell nobody about meetin’ me or about the shootin’ or anythin’. You understand? If they ask questions, jest say Quintell’s men shot you, an’ that a friend took you in, an’ give you a hoss.”

“I’ll certainly never forget you, old man, for what you’ve done,” replied the other. “My name is Dick Lennox. I’m a mining engineer, and any time I can be of service to you, why——But who am I indebted to? What is your name?”

“There’ll be a doctor out here in an hour. You kin trust him. If you’ll hang the bridle rein over the horn of the saddle, she’ll come back to me. Mollie, git a-goin’!” he added, slapping the animal on the flanks.

A few minutes later, when Detective Coates came out to turn the horse into the field, after he and his partner had carried Lennox into the house, he found it gone. In the distance, toward Geerusalem, he heard it galloping along, and concluded that, in obedience to its natural instincts, it was returning home.

CHAPTER XVI—THE HAND OF QUINTELL

The Lennox episode threw the forces that governed Geerusalem into a vengeful attitude, not unmixed with doubt, and set working the stealthy brotherhood under Big George Rankin to ascertain who had aided the mining engineer, not only in escaping assassination and mysteriously disappearing, but in killing four of the element’s most daring and dependable gunmen. But far-reaching and thorough though the investigation proved, not the least light was shed on the matter. All that there seemed to be to the incident was that the four had been found dead on the road, near the mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, a hundred yards or more from a deserted cabin, and that Lennox, unarmed, according to the statement of the man who had given him temporary refuge in his office, had got away.

What gave the occurrence a sinister aspect and set the Quintell gang guessing, was the fact that this was the first time a plot of theirs had miscarried, with such disastrous results—the first time their assassins had been wiped out to the last man. Lennox, it was argued, given guns and ammunition could not have possibly shot four men without being killed. Besides, it was known that he was ignorant in the use of firearms. He had received help then. Doubtless, he had led the four into a trap to be slaughtered. By whom? Could it be possible that the decent citizenry of the camp had organized, that they had launched a secret war of extermination with a view of shattering the power of the element? Was the Quintell dictatorship threatened? These and other questions were discussed by the brains of the camp’s control at a conference held in the Brokers’ Exchange Building and laughed at by their big, arrogant leader.

“Let them organize!” he whipped out harshly, his hard eyes sweeping the circle seated around the conference table. “Let them start heckling the combination, if they think they’re lucky! We’ll take them down the line! If they’re looking for blood we’ll swim the camp in it. I’m handling the thing, see? We’re going to ascertain conditions, then we’ll strike suddenly. They won’t have a chance. The first matter to be cleared up is Lennox, the damned traitor knows too much. He must be found and stopped. It’s worth five thousand dollars to us to put him where he can’t talk. I have his Pasadena home address, and men will leave on the night train to get him, if he’s gone there. Others are investigating the scene of the killing to see if they can pick up his trail. We’ll get him. We have to get him, or he’ll get us. Once he begins spouting and that moss-back grand jury begins digging around up here, we may as well begin jumping into Mexico.”

At the conclusion of the meeting and just as his confederates were preparing to depart, Quintell said:

“Huntington has returned home, and the two railroad detectives are in camp with their baggage. I’ve been informed by the Western Union night operator they were wired to return to Los Angeles. Huntington is alone at the ranch. That means, the ranch is ours. I’ll have the quit-claim by midnight to-night. In the morning, Rankin will rush a bunch of men out there to attend to Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs. By the way, does anybody know where Huntington’s daughter is staying in Frisco? Well, no matter. I’ll find out. If the old bum don’t come through decent, he gets the limit. The new strike, gentlemen, is as good as ours.”

When they were gone, Quintell sat back in his swivel chair and began glancing through a fistful of that day’s mail. He halted over one letter, frowned at it a moment, and pressed the buzzer under the edge of his desk. That letter bore the signature: “Lex Sangerly, Division Superintendent, M. & S. R. R. Co.”

The door leading into the outer offices opened, and a tall hawk-eyed, middle-aged man entered. He came forward with long, noiseless strides, watching his employer over his glasses.

“Harrison, how about this?” snapped Quintell, handing over Sangerly’s letter to the other. “The date! Look at the date! It’s ten days since we received——”

“Permit me, Mr. Quintell,” broke in Harrison suavely. “You instructed me to file it, pending receipt of certificates of record from the county recorder, if you will remember. They came to-day, sir. The surveyors will complete their work this afternoon, I understand. In fact, the only thing remaining to be done is to draw up papers of incorporation of the Lucky Boy Placer Company, if that is the name you have decided on for the group.”

“Draw them up immediately! Rush them through! That name will do as well as any other. On your way out, send me in a stenographer to take dictation.”

“Pardon, Mr. Quintell.” The man hesitated. “But if you intend to answer Mr. Sangerly’s letter—er—you were in conference, sir, and I wouldn’t disturb you. He’s out there, waiting to speak with you.”

The other stared, then rose slowly to his feet. “Sangerly? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. Division superintendent of the——”

A curse broke from Quintell. He stood with his powerful hands resting on the desk, his penetrating coal-black eyes playing slowly over the room for a few moments.

“I want them to find gold on the Lucky Boy, Harrison, understand?” he said in low, harsh tones, gazing intently at the man. “I want you to go out there this evening, see? You know the vicinity of the proposed right of way. Salt it! The thing must be done thoroughly, cleverly. Salt it, in patches, on either side of the bench marks. Mark those patches. When I take Sangerly out there in the morning, you come along with us. It’ll be up to you to take samples of the ground. Those samples must wash gold, understand?

“I’m leaving this matter to you, Harrison. If we put over this deal you get a thousand-dollar bonus and a substantial salary increase. But there must be no slip. When you do business with a railroad company you’re going against the real thing. Remember that! They’ve got the dough and they’re wise as hell.” He turned abruptly and, going over to a large safe on the opposite side of the room, took from its interior a wide-mouthed bottle containing several ounces of placer gold. “Here’s your salt. Use it all if you have to, but make a good job of it,” he added, giving Harrison the bottle. “You have your instructions. See that you follow them. Now, show him in.”

The man bowed respectfully and left the room.

Lex Sangerly, in obedience to a telegram received from his father, had left San Francisco hurriedly and arrived in Geerusalem that morning. Motoring out to the Huntington ranch, he found Coates and Tyler preparing to leave for the south, temporarily called away from the Billy Gee chase to take up some work of more immediate importance. Lex had a long talk with Lennox, as the latter lay stretched out in bed, his leg in a plaster cast, and from what the mining engineer told him, concluded that far from exaggerating the ruthlessness and power of the Quintell combination, Mrs. Liggs, in her warning to him had quite obviously given him but the barest glimpse of existing conditions. Lemuel, attired in a rakishly-cut corduroy suit and the best that money could buy in buckled boots, smoked his cigar with amazing dignity and talked cattle raising with Lex, like the owner of ten thousand herds.

Driving the two detectives to camp, Sangerly bade them good-by and steered his roadster up through the jam of traffic to the Brokers’ Exchange Building. Now, at Harrison’s invitation, he entered Quintell’s inner office and waited, while the boss of Geerusalem, without deigning his visitor so much as a glance, finished perusing his mail. He sat back finally and trained his piercing, black eyes on the other.

“Mr. Sangerly, I presume,” he began, with cold business courtesy, and paused awkwardly as he recognized in his caller the stranger with whom he had collided on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Liggs’ store one evening some weeks before.

He got up out of his chair now and approached Lex, smiling deprecatingly, his hand extended.

“Mr. Sangerly, I owe you my humblest apology as regards my rude behavior on the occasion of our first meeting. I have worried considerably about it and have made inquiries in an effort to learn your name and whereabouts. The fact that I had been drinking does not, of course, excuse my conduct. However, I sincerely hope you will forgive me for insulting you as I did. I am extremely sorry, sir.”

“The incident is past and, so far as I am concerned, forgotten, Mr. Quintell,” said Lex pleasantly. “I, in turn, am sorry that you let it bother you for, to be candid, I haven’t given it a second thought.”

Quintell drew up a chair before his desk, motioned the other into it, and resumed his own. He brought out a box of choice cigars and held a lighted match for his visitor.

“You doubtless surmise my errand, Mr. Quintell,” said Lex presently. “It is in relation to——”

“For the second time, I must ask you to bear with me,” broke in Quintell, picking up the letter he had discussed with Harrison. “Through a regrettable oversight on the part of my secretary, your communication was not called to my attention until fifteen mintes ago. You should have had an answer a week since.”

“It hardly matters. I have been away from the office since I wrote you,” said Lex and added: “To get down to business, Mr. Quintell, I see that your surveyors are going ahead, that you seem disposed to block construction of a branch line into Geerusalem.”

“Discourage the coming of the railroad!” burst out the other. “Why, Mr. Sangerly, I’m not altogether a madman! I want the railroad. The camp is a unit for it. It spells progress, greater industry, greater opportunity!”

Lex nodded. “My father, who is Western manager of the road, instructed me to speak with you quite plainly on the matter. To begin, every landowner along the entire fifty-three miles of proposed line, from the station of Mirage to Geerusalem, has granted us the privilege of a right of way for the asking. Coöperation has been extended to us on every hand. We were encouraged and we proceeded with construction. Almost twenty miles of track have been laid out of Mirage.

“To-day, at this end, we are confronted with a situation that, were it not so grave in its ultimate results, would be ridiculous to a degree. I refer to that old, abandoned group of claims—the Lucky Boy group, I believe you called them in your letter—which has suddenly come to life. As we both know, they are located across the mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, boasting as their only improvements a dilapidated twelve-foot-square shack. We have learned that you and seven other men have quite recently filed on these claims, as placer ground. Since the proposed branch must cross this ground of yours to reach the terminal site here in camp, we assume your action was taken with the deliberate intention of making us come to you. Now, the point is, Mr. Quintell, do you gentlemen propose to grant us the same right of way privileges we have been receiving, or are you simply out to hold us up?”

It was a blunt question, but Quintell laughed it away in his gayest manner.

“My dear Mr. Sangerly, you are utterly in error. You don’t seem to view the situation from the right angle. In much the same way, not being a railroad man, I myself cannot fully appreciate your method of reasoning. Just for instance, what would you say if I told you that the Lucky Boy group is perhaps one of the richest placer-gold deposits discovered in California in the last twenty years?”

He had risen and was standing before his visitor, his hands thrust into his pockets, his shrewd eyes fixed on Lex.

“Of course,” he qualified impressively, “when I say richest, please don’t mistake my meaning. Indications on the surface are such as to leave no doubt that gold is present in enormous quantities. This, Mr. Sangerly, is an actual fact. Moreover, I will prove the truth of my statement whenever it suits your convenience.”

Lex regarded him in silence for some seconds. “How long since you made this discovery?” he asked at last.

“About two weeks ago. We’ve been keeping it quiet—which is a hard thing to do in a mining camp. We’ve had men looking up the records to be certain that we were not going up against a hang-fire title and subsequent litigation. To-morrow we intend to plaster the front pages of the newspapers with the story. Armed guards will be placed on the property to protect it from claim jumpers.” He paused, dropped back into his chair, and nursed one knee in his hands. “So, Mr. Sangerly, you surely must appreciate our reluctance in complying with your company’s request for permission to lay tracks across this ground. It is far too valuable, we believe. Frankly, it is a question of money with us, and you can scarcely criticize us if we regard the matter from a purely financial standpoint. But to say that we are deliberately trying to hold your people up, that statement, Mr. Sangerly, is both uncalled for and unkind.”

Lex lit his cigar thoughtfully. He frowned at the elaborate rug at his feet. Quintell watched him intently.

“Of course, if my company desired a right of way over the Lucky Boy group badly enough you would grant it the privilege of purchase—for a reasonable figure?” said Lex presently. “You just stated that the railroad would prove a big asset to the camp.”

“In view of the fact that my partners and myself have interests here that would be indirectly benefited by better transportation facilities, yes, we would be glad to consider such a purchase. You must understand, Mr. Sangerly, that we have no fight with your company. The whole thing is a cold business proposition. If you know the difference between lode and placer mining you must realize that the latter’s workable area is strictly surface. Such being the case, a railroad bed passing over gold-bearing gravel——”

“Approximately, what would it stand us to get a single-track right of way over this ground, Mr. Quintell? I would like to wire immediate word to my people,” broke in Lex.

The other rubbed his heavy chin thoughtfully. “The price would have to be based on the valuation per cubic yard of pay dirt over which the roadbed must of necessity have to pass. This strip, as you can readily see, would be lost to development; we could not work it. Samples of the gravel would be taken and a thorough assayer’s test made to ascertain its average gold-bearing value. On the whole, Mr. Sangerly, we want only what is legitimately coming to us—no more, no less.”

Lex rose to go. “In my opinion, you should encourage the construction of this branch line rather than place an obstacle in the way of its building. At best it is only a venture, depending entirely on the continued prosperity of Geerusalem, and it is costing more per mile than any strip of road the company has laid in years. I’d like to look over this placer ground, Mr. Quintell—that is, take samples of the gravel. When would it be convenient for you to accompany me?”

“I was about to suggest that you come here about—say, ten o’clock, to-morrow morning. A party of us are motoring down there, and I’d be happy to have you join us,” said Quintell genially, getting to his feet. “Allow me also to extend to you the hospitality of my home while you are here, Mr. Sangerly. The hotels are abominable. I have a modern little bungalow, an extra room, and all the city’s conveniences—including a Japanese chef, who is really a culinary artist.” He laughed.

“That’s indeed a tempting invitation, and I’d snap it up if it weren’t for the fact that I’m pretty comfortably established at the Huntington ranch,” said Lex.

Quintell’s black eyes opened in genuine surprise. “Well! So you’re a friend of old Lem’s, too? There’s a corking fine type of Westerner for you, Sangerly. Too bad it’s dying out, going the way of the traditional hospitality of the West. While I think of it, how is Miss Dot getting on?”

“Remarkably well. She has taken up a number of special summer courses at the University of California and is forging right ahead.” Lex paused and added with a smile: “She’s bent on immortalizing Geerusalem and Soapweed Plains. She’s writing a novel.”

“A novel?” echoed Quintell, interested.

“Nothing less, and on no more romantic a personage than Billy Gee, the bandit. There are other notables in the story, for instance, yourself, myself, the wildcat bunch, Mrs. Agatha Liggs, who used to keep the little dry-goods store, Sheriff Warburton, and a lot of others. I’ll wager she’ll dispose of five thousand copies in this section alone. Besides, it is quite probable my company will purchase several thousand for advertising purposes.”

Quintell looked pleased. “She can count on me for five hundred; you may tell Lem that. Your mention of Mrs. Liggs reminds me—do you happen to know if she’s related to a Jerome Liggs?”

Lex stopped in the act of putting on his hat. The other was quick to note the odd look that came into his eyes.

“Jerome was her son,” he said slowly. “Why do you ask? I’m just a little curious.”

“Do you mean that he’s dead? You said—was her son?” countered Quintell adroitly. But his manner was plainly skeptical, and Lex saw it.

“That is what I’ve been told. It isn’t possible that you’ve heard——”

“Oh, no! Some days ago I happened to run across an old transaction in which his name appeared. There was a sum of money involved—nothing to speak of, though,” lied Quintell glibly.

But Sangerly did not believe him. As he walked out of the Brokers’ Exchange Building, he reviewed the matter in his mind and decided to reopen the subject with Quintell in the morning. Could Mrs. Liggs have deceived him regarding Jerome’s death? Could it really be that she had deliberately lied—Mrs. Liggs, the most upstanding, the best little woman he had ever known? He would not allow himself to believe it. The very thought was a sacrilege. And yet he remembered now that she had never so much as mentioned Jerome’s name, since the day he met her at the store, when, seated in the living room, he had inquired after his boyhood chum. Indeed, now that he recalled that meeting, it did seem as if she had acted strangely and that she had scarcely referred to her son as a bereaved mother would; and if any mother ever loved her son, it was Mrs. Liggs.

Thinking thus, he made his way down the crowded street to the Miners’ Hotel, called for his mail, and arranged with Merriman, the proprietor, to hold his room for him as headquarters for railroad officials who would visit the camp from time to time. As he turned to walk out of the hotel office, a copy of that afternoon’s Searchlight lying on the desk caught his eye. He glanced at it idly, then stared; and his bewilderment grew as he read the double column of black-face type, announcing what was reported to be a rumor that Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome Liggs, prospectors, had made the sensational gold strike of the year. The account, conforming with the style so popular among certain newspapers to swell their sales, was staggering to the eye but hazy as to details, and merely hinted that the new bonanza was situated in a range southwest of camp.

Now, while the coincidental appearance of the name of the man of whom he had just been thinking, dumfounded Lex for the moment, it had a diametrically opposite effect on Jule Quintell when he saw it.

Following Sangerly’s departure, the boss of Geerusalem had settled back in his chair and fallen into moody reflection.

“It just might be that this old fossil, Tinnemaha Pete, entered the son’s name in those claim notices, instead of the mother’s,” he muttered to himself. “Sangerly says he’s dead, and he spoke as if he knew. Well, nothing like being sure.” He reached for a pencil and pad and wrote:

Jerome Liggs, wanted for robbery of Marysville city treasury three years ago, is operating claims on Lemuel Huntington ranch near Geerusalem.

Leaving the note unsigned he read it over grimly and rang for Harrison. That individual came bolting into the room almost instantly, carrying in one outflung hand a copy of the Searchlight and banging the door after him.

“McQuaid’s spilled the beans!” he cried. “Look at this, sir! He published the story of the strike—the Huntington ranch story, sir!”

Quintell glared at his secretary in unbelief; then his big body stiffened, and his face purpled with rage. He tore the paper from the other’s grasp and skimmed through the account with flaming eyes. A frightful oath burst from him.

“Damn him! The bonehead! Another traitor!” he sputtered savagely. “I’ll teach the fool a lesson. He’ll pay for this——” He snatched the receiver off the telephone and called up the Searchlight editorial rooms. A man’s voice answered presently.

“Hello! This you, McQuaid?”

“Mr. McQuaid is no longer here. Is there anything I can do——”

“What do you mean—no longer there? Say, who is this talking? I said, McQuaid—the editor. Tell him Quintell wants him.”

“I got you the first time, friend,” was the quiet reply. “Mr. McQuaid sold out this morning. The Searchlight is under new management.”

Quintell took a slow breath. His rage cooled. “This is rather unexpected news. I wasn’t prepared for it. May I ask who bought him out?”

“Los Angeles people. We are reorganizing the paper, making a change in policy, and all that sort of thing.”

“I see,” said Quintell and added: “Is there any truth to that Boyd and Liggs gold-strike story? I see you’ve featured it.”

“Why, we’re trying to verify the report. I’d say it looks the goods.”

Quintell chuckled, but his eyes were smoldering venomously. “Who started the rumor—got any idea?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Quintell, but we do not divulge our sources of information,” said the other.

“Oh, certainly—certainly. Beg pardon. I should have known better. I assume you’re the new editor?”

“Yes—Babcock. I have heard a lot about you, Mr. Quintell, and hope to have the pleasure of meeting you——”

“The pleasure will be mutual, Mr. Babcock,” said Quintell significantly, as he hung up.

For some moments the boss of Geerusalem sat motionless, his gaze riveted on that prominently displayed first-page story which he and his confederates had guarded so carefully for weeks past against circulation, while they bided their time until Lemuel Huntington should return to the solitude of his ranch and, under the influence of their power, be forced to part with his holdings. Quintell knew positively that whoever tipped the story off to the Searchlight’s new management was well aware that the strike was on Huntington’s land. An attempt to verify the rumor would result, Quintell was certain, in the location of the bonanza and all the details appearing, possibly in the very next issue of this paper over which he and his gang had, with mysterious suddenness, lost all control. Huntington would see the account, public attention would be focused on the Huntington ranch, and Quintell & Co. would have to pay a fancy price if they hoped to acquire the property.

Following a short interval of black reflection, Quintell sprang out of his chair and stormed about his office. Harrison stood, toying nervously with a pencil, watching his master.

“McQuaid sold us out—the rat!” roared the broker. “He had the details. He got his price and crossed us, the cur! Jumped out of camp before we could——”

“He may not have, sir,” interrupted the secretary suavely. “McQuaid never impressed me as being that type.”

“No? Who, then? Who, then? These prospectors, who have no legal rights? What a chance!”

“You forget, Mr. Quintell, that Dick Lennox also knew, and he evaded capture.”

The other stopped in his furious pacing and wheeled, fastening his penetrating black eyes on Harrison. He started to speak, then changed his mind. His lips parted in a cold, triumphant smile.

“If Lennox is still in the country I’ll know it in half an hour,” he said at last. “Wherever he is, I’ll know. I should have thought of this before—fool, that I am!” He strode over to his desk, picked up the unsigned note he had written, and handed it to the secretary. “Here, wire this to Sheriff Warburton, at the county seat! See that it can’t be traced back to us. Get Rankin up here as soon as you can. This cocky new editor will never print the verification of that story, Harrison. You can gamble on that! And listen: Don’t forget that little job you have at the Lucky Boy to-night. I’m driving out to Huntington’s around eight and I’ll be coming away from there not later than nine thirty. If you’ll wait for me I’ll pick you up on my way in. We’re putting over these two propositions, Harrison—possession of the new strike claims and sale of the Lucky Boy group—if we have to go to hell to do it.”

“I quite agree with you, sir,” said the other as he left the room.

True to his boast, half an hour afterward—following a brief talk with the town constable over the telephone—Quintell got proof that Lennox was in hiding in the district. The official reported in person to say that, as the broker had suggested, he had gone to the post office and, representing that Lennox was being investigated in connection with a felony charge and that he wished to ascertain the fellow’s whereabouts, had learned from the postmaster that the mining engineer’s mail had been turned over to Lex Sangerly that very afternoon, on presentation by the latter of a written request signed by Lennox.

Since Sangerly had told him that he was staying at the Huntington ranch, Quintell decided that it was the logical place to look for the man who had betrayed the confidence of the gang.

CHAPTER XVII—ONE SILENT NIGHT

On the evening that Sheriff Warburton left Tinnemaha Pete slumbering beside the camp fire at Blue Mud Spring and rode off for the Huntington ranch, Lemuel prepared supper early for himself and Lennox in order that he might have as much time as possible to devote to the laborious task of writing Dot a letter.

In a large pantry off the kitchen, which prior to Lennox’s coming had served as a storeroom, the mining engineer lay on a cot, helpless; his broken leg was mending as rapidly as could be expected, according to the doctor who had made his clandestine visits under cover of darkness.

Around sundown, Lex Sangerly had returned from Geerusalem, following his talk with Quintell, and stopping long enough to leave the mail, motored away to the railroad construction camp, thirty miles distant, declaring he would not be back until late.

So, after he had washed the dishes, Lemuel began elaborate preparations, calculated to usher in becomingly his penmanship ordeal. He trimmed the tall kitchen-table lamp, polished its chimney carefully, got out a writing tablet, envelope, pen and ink, filled and lighted his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and finally squared himself firmly before the table and started, after a long interval of painful reflection.

He had so much to tell Dot. He must notify her that Lex was making the ranch his headquarters; that Dick Lennox was there also, after nearly having been killed by the Quintell gang; that the Geerusalem branch of the Mohave & Southwestern was due to pass in front of the ranch-house door; that he had sold four tons of alfalfa; that her pet cow, Bess, was a proud mother, and that he had collected forty-three eggs that day.

After considerable feinting with the pen, he got under way. It was a warm, quiet night. The pen scratched and scratched hesitatingly. The patient old clock on the wall tick-ticked on and on tirelessly. A contented bullfrog out in the cool garden began a hoarse pæan, a dedication to the silence, and broke off midway in a measure. Lemuel finished his second page, then sat back and fired his pipe. With a critical eye, he read what he had written:

Geerusalem, Aug. 29.

My own deares dorter: I jest got yore welcom leter an was orful glad to heer you bin doin so fine in skule. Lex Sangerly he tol me all about you givin him the $20,000. I allus knowed you was as hones as the day is long, sweethart, an I tol him so an he sed you sure was the fines gal he ever seen. An I sed they didn make em no better, an I was proud of you. You orter herd us. You sure wood a-bin stuck on yoreself. But lissen, honey, an I want that you should bare in mind that bein yore ol dad Im allus lookin out for yore interes. An that is, you gotter fergit this Billy Gee galoot. I dont know why he give you that money xcept that Sangerly sez it was to help us out. But you gotter figger hes a outlaw, an aint no good nohow. So help me Moses, if I git another chanct at him I sure will drag him off to the calaboose.

Grinning proudly, Lemuel picked up his pen again, dipped it in the ink, and started on his third page. Then he stopped. The kitchen doorknob was squeaking. He stared at it and saw to his dismay that it was moving. Some hand was trying it. His heart quickened suddenly. He remembered that he had not turned the key!

It was some distance to the door; but his rifle stood in the corner, just out of reach. He slid cautiously out of his chair to get the weapon. At that very moment, however, the door had opened and closed, and a man stood in the room, his six-shooter covering Lemuel.

“Pull down the shades, Huntington! Git a hustle on you!” the intruder commanded quietly, as he locked the door.

The rancher gazed at him, horror growing in his eyes. His visitor was Billy Gee! Arrived at last was the hour he had so long dreaded, though he had believed it indefinitely postponed; for he had been certain the outlaw would hesitate to make an overt move against him while Lennox and Sangerly were there. But his Nemesis had come, and now Lemuel vividly recalled the fellow’s dire threat, made on that eventful morning in Warburton’s room in Geerusalem. He grew faint with terror and, trembling violently, lost no time in obeying the other’s order.

“Now, sit down!” directed Billy Gee. He waited until Lemuel slumped weakly into his seat, then he drew up a chair to the opposite side of the table, holstered his gun and, his eyes never leaving the rancher’s face, got out the makings and flipped a cigarette together.

Lemuel watched him in fearful fascination, trying to fathom his intentions, hoping in vain that by some means, Lennox, helpless though he was in the grip of the plaster cast, might rescue him from his awful predicament. After a moment, it began to dawn on him that Billy Gee was not displaying those evidences of rage and hatred that he felt certain should forecast revenge. In fact, he thought the outlaw seemed friendly, notwithstanding the steely glitter in his eyes. At any rate, he told himself, the fellow looked well-fed, well-groomed, handsome indeed, compared to that wan, hollow-eyed, half-dead wretch he had delivered to Bob Warburton on that never-to-be-forgotten morning.

“What’re you shakin’ about?” asked Billy Gee presently. “I had an idea you was gritty, the way you acted that time you herded me into camp.” He showed his even teeth in a hard grin. “I promised I’d make you pay, Huntington. You remember that? I ain’t forgot it, but I ain’t ready yet. I jest dropped in to have a quiet leetle chat with you. I see Lex Sangerly is stoppin’ here with you, an’ the minin’ engineer, Lennox. How’s he gettin’ along?”

“He—what d’you want? I’m busy. I’m—I’m writin’,” burst out Lemuel nervously.

“I hear Miss Dot is doin’ fine at the university,” said the other, with a glance at the letter. “I wish you’d give her my best reegards. You sure got a lady for a daughter, Huntington, an’ it ain’t from yore side of the fam’ly either.”

A short, painful silence fell. Billy Gee’s glance wandered to the storeroom where Lennox lay.

“Grab the lamp! I want to see how he’s makin’ out,” he said, rising to his feet as he spoke.

Preceded by Lemuel bearing the light, he crossed the kitchen and entered the little room. Halting beside the cot he smiled down at its occupant.

“Hello, pard! How’re you feelin’?”

Lennox regarded him curiously a moment, then grinned. “You’re the man who saved my life, aren’t you? I’m feeling better than I did that night. My leg is knitting, but it’s hell lying here.”

“It sure must be. I reckon you’ll come out all right, though. Say, I’d lay poorty low if I was you! The Quintell bunch’s after you, red hot.”

“But why?” argued Lennox. “I’m not in Geerusalem. They’ve run me out. I’ve quit.”

Billy Gee nodded. “That’s jest it. They’re skeert you’ll talk. You know too much about their leetle game. I got the straight tip. They’re set on gettin’ you.”

Alarm crept into the other’s face. “And I’m flat on my back, unable to protect myself. That’s certainly cheerful news.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t give you nothin’ better,” said Billy Gee simply. Some moments later he turned to leave the room. “Me and Huntington’s got business together if you’ll excuse us. Hope you’ll come out all right.”

Once back in the kitchen, the table between them, the outlaw studied Lemuel speculatively for a few seconds.

“What did them two railroad detectives do the night I rambled off in their automobile? Sorter jolted ’em, didn’t it?” he asked finally.

“They didn’t do nothin’. They was sore, of course, an’ started quarrelin’ among themselves. I s’pose you knowed they left here to-day?” Lemuel paused and added: “I—I oughter mebby thank you for doin’ me a favor. They was goin’ to arrest me.”

Billy Gee laughed softly. “I heerd ’em gabbin’ about it. Miss Dot turned the money back to Lex Sangerly, didn’t she? I’m glad she did—now.” He shifted in his chair, placed his elbows on the table, and covered the rancher with an intense look. “I come to ask a favor off o’ you, Huntington. It ain’t a favor either. You owe it to me. I give you yore start, so to speak. You made ten thousand dollars off o’ me—sold me like you would one of yore cows. I’ll never forget that. You’re goin’ to pay heavy for it some o’ these days. See if you don’t! Right now I’m askin’ what’s part mine, savvy? I want you to give Tinnemaha Pete a deed o’ gift to that hill on the far end of the ranch.”

Lemuel sat bolt upright, then a hoarse exclamation burst from him. He paled through his sunburn. “Good Lord, man! You don’t aim to take the leetle I got?” he choked.

“If that hill was bringin’ you in anythin’, I wouldn’t ask it, Huntington—bad as I’d like to hurt you,” said Billy Gee evenly. “But it ain’t. A steer’d starve to death for the grass that’s on it, and you know it. Tinnemaha is lookin’ to do some prospectin’ an’ he don’t figger to deevelop another man’s property. He’ll be here to see you to-morrow or nex’ day. An’ you see that you give him a deed, see, or—well, I’ll be back, you kin gamble on that!”

“But can’t you see, I got two full quarter sections, an’ cuttin’ off that strip’ll ruin ’em?” cried Lemuel, in desperation. “An’ there’s my poor, leetle gal tryin’ to git a edjucation, an’——”

“Miss Dot’ll manage fine an’ dandy, I reckon,” asserted the bandit. “I hear she’s livin’ with Mrs. Liggs, an’ I don’t know of a better woman in the world than her. Mind what I’m a-tellin’ you, Huntington! You give ol’ Tinnemaha Pete a quit-claim title to that there hill, an’ don’t lose no time doin’ it. D’you understand? I’m goin’ to keep cases on you, an’ if I find out you ain’t done it, God help you!”

He broke off short and flapped his hat suddenly at the lamp, plunging the kitchen in darkness. His trained ear had caught a sound outside the house. The next instant he had flitted around the table and was standing over Lemuel.

“Don’t move! Don’t answer, no matter what!” he whispered into the rancher’s ear.

Approaching from the direction of Geerusalem, now came the gentle purring of an automobile. Lemuel in the grip of mixed emotions waited breathlessly. He waited for Billy Gee to speak. He was not sure where the outlaw was. He strained his ears through the darkness, listening. The machine came to a stop before the ranch. That could not be Sangerly, he knew. Who then? Ah, the doctor!

“You’d better git outside if you’re goin’ to do any shootin’,” Lemuel said in subdued tones, addressing the gloom. “That’s Doc Porter comin’ to see Lennox. Don’t go to killin’ him.”

There was no reply.

Heavy footfalls sounded on the kitchen porch. They stopped and went suddenly blundering down the back steps and on through the garden, bound for the front of the house. A revolver began roaring savagely; a strident voice boomed on the night, commanding a halt. Lemuel reached out a cautious hand for the outlaw, feeling for him, but found he was no longer standing beside him. He sprang to his feet, then caught up his rifle out of the corner, and groped his way toward the front door.

“Mr. Huntington, what was that? Is that them after me? Huntington, are you—— Give me a gun, man! Don’t let me die like a rat,” cried Lennox wildly, his voice ringing through the house.

“Rat, be damned!” called back Lemuel. “It’s the bandit friend of yourn I’m after. The skunk! Here’s where he gits what’s a-comin’ to him.”

He charged along the dark hall and got to the front door. It stood wide open. Billy Gee had fled. Halting undecidedly on the threshold, his rifle held ready, Lemuel glared about. The automobile stood at the gate, its headlights blazing. He heard the man of the heavy footfalls plunging down the gravel walk, then his harsh, authoritative tones.

“Stick up yore hands, in the name of the law! Up with ’em, I said, or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!” A dramatic pause, then: “Now march over to the house! Thought you could visit round free an’ easy, eh? Well, yore visitin’ days is about over, sport. Git a hustle on you!”

“This is an outrage, officer. You’ve got the wrong man,” protested the prisoner indignantly.

“Yeh? Well, we’ll see about that. You put it over pretty on the train, kid, but you ain’t never doin’ it ag’in, let me tell you. If you don’t shet yore face, I will. Hey, Lem! Make a light in there. This is Bob Warburton.”

The sheriff, following the clew given him by Tinnemaha Pete—that Billy Gee was at the Huntington ranch—had ridden direct from Blue Mud Spring. Creeping onto the kitchen porch, he had heard the outlaw and Lemuel talking. He had seen the light suddenly extinguished, and had heard the approaching machine. Racing around the house, he had caught sight of a man dodging into the gloom of the garden shrubbery and had apprehended him.

Now, at the sheriff’s words, Lemuel hurried back into the kitchen and lit the lamp. Presently Warburton appeared herding his captive unceremoniously before him. Lemuel stared blankly at the latter, and the official, giving him one look, burst into a torrent of curses. His prisoner was Jule Quintell, pale, unnerved, but furious over the rough reception he had received.

“Isn’t this rather cheap comedy for the sheriff of San Buenaventura County to pull?” sneered the broker. His attitude was one of contempt and defiance.

The sheriff, in the act of hurrying out to make a search of the premises, wheeled, flushing with rage. “Say that ag’in, mister!” He spoke in a voice that Lemuel, in the many years he had known him, had never heard him use before.

“I’m Jule Quintell, of Geerusalem, Sheriff Warburton. I protest emphatically against this sort of treatment,” began the man, assuming an air of resentful dignity.

“Oh, you are! Well, let me tell you somepn, Quintell: You jest make another crack like that, an’ see what happens. I’ve heerd you’re the big I-am over in these parts,” continued Warburton, glowering at the other. “An’ they tell me you got all kinds of pull. But don’t you ever git in my way, Quintell. D’you understand?”

The broker extracted a cigarette from his dainty gold case. “That’s more of an order than a threat, isn’t it, sheriff?” he asked coolly.

“You can find that out for yoreself,” retorted Warburton.

Quintell chuckled. “Very well, sheriff. Should the opportunity ever present itself, I most certainly will make the test. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to take up a small business matter with Mr. Huntington here.” He turned toward Lemuel. “And how have you been, Lem? I hear that Billy Gee is at large again. How unfortunate—after you went to all the trouble and danger of capturing him!”

Warburton’s face flamed under the thrust. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it hard over his set teeth. Turning on his heel, he walked out of the kitchen, gripping his six-shooter in a hand that shook with rage.

CHAPTER XVIII—SKULKING SHADOWS

Meanwhile, Billy Gee had reached his horse tethered conveniently near by and struck out across the plains. It was still early evening, the sky thick-strewn with brilliant stars. He rode along for a short distance, then stopped and listened for sounds of pursuit. He waited for some time and, convincing himself that Sheriff Warburton had not believed a night pursuit worth while, set his course for Geerusalem. From the distant camp came the thunder of stamp mills grinding loose the yellow treasure from the clinging pulp. A foraging coyote, miles off, yelped dismally.

As he galloped on, Billy Gee laughed. Again he had outwitted the doughty sheriff of San Buenaventura County. There was a reckless pride in the thought. He felt the spur of hazard over the achievement—an urge to do something rash for the mere pleasure of doing it, to make those denizens of Soapweed Plains sit up and take notice and marvel at his daringness. It was a consuming, impelling fascination.

He gazed up at the stars. It was a “large” night out, he told himself, and he felt fit as a fiddle. Yes, sir, he would ride into Geerusalem and give it the once over, before returning to Blue Mud Spring and the faithful companionship of old Tinnemaha Pete.

Anyway, he reflected complacently, he had arranged it so Tinnemaha would get possession of the bonanza hill. Poor old Tinnemaha, his one friend, had worked hard, slaved for what he had found. And they were partners—partners of the richest ground in the district! In the last two days they had uncovered a pay chute that the desertarian vowed was rich beyond the conception of prospectordom. They would sell the claims outright, fifty-fifty the money, and leave Soapweed Plains forever.

There were a lot of fairer and more congenial climes to which he himself could go. Sheriff Warburton would never let him alone, would never stop until he had tracked him down and headed him for the penitentiary. And yet, he was going straight now, had been going straight ever since that wonderful night in the Huntington hayloft, when Dot had called him a “poor, wounded wild animal.” Funny how he had needed just that one little bit of interest from a girl to make him change. He had promised her and he had made good, thanks to that grand old wheel horse Tinnemaha Pete, and that grandest little mother who stuck to him heroically, though he had blighted her life with heartaches. He had been such a no-account cur these last three years.

He reached the road, turned into it, and followed it, musing. He recalled that his mother had written him that Dot was working on a novel about Billy Gee. As he let his mind dwell on the thought, he felt the blood warm in his veins. His heart beat faster. Yes, sir, he decided, Dot must surely get an education—for was not an education necessary to write books? He was pretty certain it was, considering it was a painful piece of work for him to write so common a thing as a letter. And there must be a girl in that novel. Who was she? Did Billy Gee come wounded to the ranch, and was he cared for by the girl friend of his mother? There was the arrival of that persistent sheriff, Bob Warburton. And did the wonderful girl hide the wounded bandit in her room?

From speculating thus, he presently became possessed with the desire to see Dot. He wanted to hear her voice again, those musical tones of hers that he had never forgotten. His being craved for the pity she poured out to him, her splendid sympathy for him, her understanding of him. Besides, he knew he could give her so many interesting sidelights into Billy Gee’s career, that he was sure she could use to advantage in her novel. For instance, how he had risked two trips to San Francisco to inquire after her; how he had called on his mother one night, while Dot was asleep, and confessed his love for the girl; how he had met his boyhood chum, Lex Sangerly, on the branch-road line of survey a few days ago, and conversed with him for half an hour without being recognized; how he was keeping his promise—going the straight and narrow for her sake.

The staccato sound of an open muffler in the distance back of him, interrupted his trend of thought. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the twin lights of an automobile coming from the direction of the Huntington ranch. He was not certain whose car it was. Sangerly, he knew, had driven toward Mirage at sundown, for he had been watching from afar and had seen him go. He believed that the oncoming car was the one which had stopped at the ranch while he was making his escape. Doubtless Warburton, by some means or another, had discovered the way he went and was seeking——No, that couldn’t be it. More than likely, it was Warburton hurrying to camp to organize a posse. That would be the average sheriff’s method of working; never single-handed—always twenty to one, playing safe.

He looked ahead. He had reached the mouth of Geerusalem Gulch. A mile or so away, a few scattered lights twinkled, indicating the outskirts of the settlement. The old rock shack, where he had rescued Lennox from the Quintell gunmen, lay within pistol-shot distance. It was a little too far off to make it unobserved, for it just might be that the powerful headlights of the approaching machine would reveal him. He could not afford to take a chance.

Spurring out of the road, he steered for a thick patch of brush near by. He brought his horse to a halt behind it, swung from the saddle, and waited, screened by the heavy foliage. The machine came dashing up the road. As it got abreast of the hiding place, it slowed down, and the headlights were switched off.

Mystified, Billy Gee crouched low to the ground, watching the blue-black sky line, and gripped his revolver. Presently he heard the crunch of gravel underfoot. He saw the shadowlike figure of a man pass stealthily over the wash and vanish into the gloom.

“That you, Mr. Quintell?” suddenly came the low voice of another man, some distance away.

A curse broke from the newcomer. “You damn boob! Are you trying to advertise this thing? Come over here!”

A short pause followed, broken only by the sound of footsteps blundering over the rocky wash.

Quintell spoke again: “Is it all right? Did you do exactly as I said—the width of two claims?”

“Yes, sir. But I’m not—I did the best I could about marking the spots. It’s too dark to see, and a pile of stones might excite suspicion. I was afraid to strike matches.”

“Did you use up all the dust? How many spots are there?”

“Twenty-two. Yes, I used it all. That ought to be enough for an assay test, I’d imagine—taking a little from each, you understand. I distributed it so as to lead one to conclude that the entire gulch prospects.”

“Let’s see one of the spots,” said Quintell curtly. “This business has to go through without a hitch. The slightest hesitation would mean failure. He’d become suspicious. You’ll have to go about the job of picking the test gravel naturally. Make it appear that you’re doing it haphazardly.”

Billy Gee heard them moving about, and curious to ascertain more concerning what he knew to be a deliberate “salting” of worthless ground for the purpose of selling it to some tenderfoot, he crept after them. Soon he had made his way to within a few yards of them. They were fumbling among the boulders. The broker growled impatiently and struck a match. He shielded it with his hands so that the light flashed downward, showing a diminutive monument of two rocks, one laid upon the other. The match went out.

“That’ll do fine,” muttered Quintell. “They’re all like that, are they? Now, as I said, Harrison, you’re to take charge of the samples. I might not be able to get word to you to-morrow. Follow the right of way, as near as possible. That’ll be the first test. The other can be taken from any part of the gulch. I’m not dead sure of this fellow, see? I found out this afternoon that he’s been making inquiries about Jerome Liggs. It may be that he’s wise to the strike and that he’s after the Huntington ranch, as a side issue. Just because he’s a railroad man, don’t mean that he’d pass up a bonanza, by any means.”

“You saw Huntington, of course?” said Harrison. “I dare say you had matters all your own way?”

“I certainly did not—damn him! He laughed at me. I offered him ten thousand for his brush ranch—think of that!—and he fussed and giggled, and ended finally by telling me that his daughter and he had agreed not to sell. I’ve seen the time when the old devil would have sold his soul for a copper penny, if he could have jammed his girl through college. He’s got a few beans, to-day, and—by the way, Harrison, she’s a fancy skirt, and I hear she’s writing a novel with your Uncle Dudley as one of the characters. Believe me, I’m dropping in on her the very next trip to Frisco! Nothing like evincing interest, you know.

“At that, I might have put the screws to Huntington and forced the sale, if it hadn’t been for Sheriff Warburton. He was there, the big bonehead. He rambled in while I sat there, check book in hand, and eyed me like something the cat dragged in. He hates me for fair. Let’s get to camp. I’m starting the boys after Huntington. I’ve given him his chance. Now he takes what he gets.”

Billy Gee, listening, heard the two men moving off toward the car, and followed them cautiously through the darkness.

“The proper thing, sir,” agreed Harrison. “By the way, did you ascertain if Lennox is stopping there?”

“I’m not certain. That will be for Rankin to find out. But here’s the situation, so far as Warburton and Huntington are concerned: As I was going into the ranch, Billy Gee, the bandit—he’s back in the country—was coming out. I don’t know what he was doing—talking to Huntington, I imagine. Warburton was snooping around the house after him and nailed me instead of him. The point is, we’ll circulate the news that Billy Gee was staying at the ranch—hiding out, you understand. In other words, we’ll frame Huntington, make him out the outlaw’s friend, and the long hairs of the camp won’t make a cheep at the action of a vigilance committee. If we work it smoothly, we’ll have them with us. Here comes a machine. Quick! Run! Follow me!”

Speeding down the road from the direction of the settlement, the lights of an automobile appeared, visible now and again over the boulders and clumps of brush. Quintell and his secretary dashed for their car, sprang in, and went careening off for camp. Billy Gee stood and watched the two machines whirl by each other. He stood in the grip of conflicting emotions. The broker’s insulting reference to Dot had been sufficient in itself to whip him into a murderous fury, but the very urge he had felt to kill the fellow on the spot had been restrained by an overwhelming discovery which he had made a moment before.

Just now, he gazed vaguely through the night after the tail light disappearing in the gloom of Geerusalem Gulch. Presently he tore his eyes away from it to look at the other machine. It was approaching at moderate speed, bouncing and swaying over the rough road. Of a sudden, as it went bowling past him, a girl’s silvery laughter smote his ears. The sound electrified him. He caught his breath, and his body stiffened like steel. He thought he could make out the forms of two women in the rear seat; the man driving wore the regulation chauffeur’s cap.

The machine whirled on, and for many minutes he stared after it, until it was swallowed up in the darkness toward the Huntington ranch. He roused himself finally. It must be she, and that was his mother with her. But why had they come? His heart began singing within him. He threw back his head and smiled up at the stars. It was a “large” night out, sure enough; but there was nothing in Geerusalem to attract him.

Then his mind turned to what he had just overheard between Quintell and Harrison, and a low whistle broke from him as he realized the vast importance of the information he possessed. “This powerful rogue, Jule Quintell, was preparing to sell salted ground to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company. To rob that company—not openly as he had done—but stealthily, perfidiously, under the guise of fair dealing. To-night, Quintell proposed to crush Huntington too, to drive Dot’s father out of the country—probably kill him, as had been done to others. He wanted the Billy Geerusalem claims, did he? So, Mister Quintell believed it would be as easy as all that—simply a matter of taking over the ranch and ousting Tinnemaha Pete and himself? After they had found this big bonanza, Quintell intended grabbing it, eh?”

He walked over to his horse presently and mounted. He was chuckling harshly. He held Jule Quintell in the hollow of his hand. The one menace now was Sheriff Warburton. Yes, Warburton was a menace, but there was a way of winning him over, the only way. He turned his horse about and went spurring off through the darkness for Blue Mud Spring.

That voice! That face he had glimpsed by the light of the match!

“It’s a large night out, believe me!” he muttered grimly.

CHAPTER XIX—AN ENEMY IN THE RANKS

This particular August evening was destined to be the most eventful one in Lemuel Huntington’s life, for hardly had he recovered from the shock occasioned by Billy Gee’s visit, ere he received a glorious surprise—Dot’s unannounced arrival from San Francisco. She came bounding into the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs, caught her astonished father in an ecstatic embrace, stifled his ejaculations with kisses, and told him breathlessly the reason for her return home. Even Warburton, scowling and furious over the outlaw’s escape, came in for his share of Dot’s effusiveness and forgot for the time the responsibilities of his office.

It appeared that Mrs. Liggs having received a letter from Tinnemaha Pete, containing the disturbing news that Sheriff Warburton was again in the neighborhood, presumably searching for her son, that loyal little mother after consulting with Dot decided on returning to Soapweed Plains and, regardless of Billy Gee’s intentions to see that his old friend obtained ultimate possession of the new gold strike, try to persuade him to leave the country and take up his residence with her in the metropolis. Since the trip would not occupy longer than a week, Dot had made up her mind to go along—so Mrs. Liggs would not be lonesome, she had said. Though the truth was, she felt a consuming desire to meet and talk again with this romantic hero of her girlish dreams, to see how he looked and acted in the full flush of health, to find out if he had forgotten that tragic day of his advent at the ranch. She was curious to know how he would treat her, what he would say to her, and she secretly told herself that, once having met him, she could bring back with her certain happy memories which would do much to make her studies at the university more apparently worth while. Besides, there was the novel she was writing around this knight of Soapweed Plains, without knowing just exactly his character.

But Dot said nothing of all this to her father. According to the agreement she made with Mrs. Liggs, the girl simply told Lemuel that the little old lady had some important business to transact in Geerusalem, and that she, Dot, had taken advantage of the opportunity to pay a visit home. She went on to say that Lemuel must accompany them back to San Francisco. He must see the adorable bungalow where she and Mrs. Liggs lived. Then he would have to spend a day at the University of California, and—— Oh, he must hear what she had written on her novel!

She talked on breathlessly, recounting her adventures, plying him with questions. Lemuel listened, open-mouthed, replying vaguely, his eyes brilliant with admiration. She looked queenly and so thoroughly refined, he thought, and she was prettier and far more vivacious than he had ever seen her before.

Once he leaned over and whispered into Sheriff Warburton’s ear: “Bob, you notice them big words she’s slingin’? Hear ’em? That’s one of ’em—conspicuously. That’s what edjucation does. Listen to that, will you! Rattles ’em off, like nuthin’.”

It was an epochal homecoming. Until after midnight, Dot regaled them with incidents and painted glowing pictures of San Francisco for them. Around one o’clock, Sheriff Warburton suddenly recalled that the unexpected arrival of the two women robbed him of his chances of a bed for the night.

Reluctantly he struck out for his own blankets at Blue Mud Spring, getting a little comfort out of the thought that, although Billy Gee had eluded him, he would be able to grill Tinnemaha Pete on the habits and the probable whereabouts of the bandit the first thing in the morning. None the less gratifying was the fact that Mrs. Liggs was back in the district, where he could reach her when he needed her. Why had she returned, he wondered? Unquestionably, her presence had to do with Billy Gee. But what? Well, no matter. He’d force it out of Tinnemaha Pete. The old fellow would give him a straightforward story, or go to jail. Too bad, but he, Warburton, had to do his duty.

However, when Sheriff Warburton reached Blue Mud Spring, the camp fire was ashes, stone cold, and Tinnemaha Pete and his pair of burros were gone. Warburton looked back undecidedly through the gloom of the cool desert night in the direction of the Huntington ranch. After an interval, he dismounted, unsaddled his mule, spread out his blankets on the ground, and turned in, cursing. Billy Gee had outwitted him a second time. The third time was a charm, he told himself as he dropped off to sleep.

Lex Sangerly, however, was not so fortunate as Warburton. He could not compose himself to rest. Shortly after the sheriff left the ranch, he had driven in from his trip to the railroad construction camp and found Lemuel waiting up for him, entertaining Lennox with a detailed account of Billy Gee’s career of crime. After relating to Lex the stirring events of the night, including the unannounced arrival of Dot and Mrs. Liggs, the rancher concluded with a dissertation on the virtues of education as manifested by the ease with which his daughter handled words, that he proudly declared were “jaw-breakers” of an unusual type.

Just now, Lex lay in Lemuel’s bed and tossed about nervously in the grip of disturbing thoughts. From the parlor lounge across the hall came sonorous evidence of Huntington’s blissful state of mind, rumbling rhythmically through the house. The night was tomblike.

Lex rehearsed again and again the talk he had had that afternoon with Jule Quintell, and on the heels of this there paraded before his mind’s eye the damaging information he had gathered against the broker from confidential sources in Geerusalem. These had substantiated all that he had heard heretofore, and briefly, went to describe Quintell as a tricky, unscrupulous wildcatter, associated with a coterie of other like gentry, polished crooks all, whose sole aim was to fleece the unwary, and who exercised their power in camp by their manipulation of the ruthless “stingaree” element and control of the civil authorities.

This meant to Lex nothing less than that Quintell and his placer-claim partners were banded together to make the Mohave & Southwestern Company pay heavily for the privilege of laying its tracks across their ground. In other words, the broker’s reference to fabulous gold-bearing gravel existing in Geerusalem Gulch was true, but owing to the fact only that the ground had been salted to show the existence of gold. He had heard of many cases where worthless mines had been sold by the employment of such tactics. Why not in this instance? He was suspicious of the whole matter, and had there been another likely approach into the camp, he would have urged abandonment of the gulch route. But there was not.

The Quintell forces held the gates of Geerusalem, as it were. Though his surmise might be correct that they were faking their representations to make his company meet their demands, how could he prove it? How could he find out that they had salted those claims? They had doubtless done it cunningly, secretly, for proof of such an act laid them liable to arrest and prosecution.

Complicating the situation still more was the telegram he had received that same day from his father, directing that negotiations with Quintell be hastened, and details as to terms wired at the earliest possible moment. Quite the contrary, it seemed as if the broker was sparring for time. He had stated that the valuation of the ground to be covered by the right of way must be determined by the content of gold per cubic yard of gravel occupied by the roadbed. This meant assaying the gulch, and assaying took time. And it followed that the richer the ground, the greater would be the price demanded. Lex sensed the scheme and writhed at the realization that he was powerless to frustrate it. The mining laws of California favored the owner who could show mineral in paying quantities.

His gloomy reflections were startlingly interrupted by a violent pounding on the front door. Of a sudden, the silent night roared out with a bedlam of men’s voices. From the rear of the house came the crack of a revolver, the crash of glass from one of the kitchen windows, Lennox’s terrified cry.

Lex sprang out of bed, pulled a curtain aside, and peered into the darkness. The porch was jammed with men. He could hear the hurried tramp of boots on the driveway leading to the barn, the blows of an ax wielded on the barn door, breaking its padlock. The pounding at the front of the house was resumed, accompanied by kicks.

“Huntington, open up or we’ll bust her in!” shouted a man, with an oath.

Lex groped about for matches and lighted a lamp. “Hold on there a minute!” he yelled back. He began hurrying into his clothes. A strange nervousness seized him. Vigilantes—a mob—had crept up and surrounded the place. They had come to exact some tribute, to wreak vengeance, to enforce summary justice. Which, and on whom? He heard Dot’s voice in the hall, vibrant and fearless.

“What do you want?”

“Bust down the door!” chorused the crowd.

“We want the man who’s been befriending Billy Gee,” cried the first speaker. “Are you opening this door or do we break it in?”

At this juncture Lex stepped into the hall. Lemuel stood half dressed, pale with fright, holding a candle in one trembling hand. Dot, clad in a dressing gown, her thick, wavy hair tumbled charmingly over her shoulders, her eyes glinting with a strange fire, was standing before the door, firmly gripping a six-shooter. Huddled up against the wall, some distance back, was Mrs. Liggs wringing her thin hands distractedly.

“The man who tries to come in here, dies! Do you understand that?” called out the girl in harsh tones.

A wild jeer went up. The mob howled for action, and heavy shoulders started heaving against the panels. Dot fired. The bullet tore through the lintel, whined spitefully over the heads of the crowd.

“Atta boy! Now, altogether! Get the back door, Shorty!” bellowed the leader.

The front door bulged and creaked under a second attack, and again Dot fired. A howl of rage broke from one of the men. There was a mad scramble out of range.

“Smoke ’em out! Smoke ’em out!” rose the furious cry.

“Good Lord! They’re goin’ to burn down the house,” wailed Lemuel hysterically.

“Say, men!” shouted Lex. “There’s some mistake. This is Sangerly of the Mohave & Southwestern speaking. I’ll vouch for Mr. Huntington. He’s never had any friendly relations with this outlaw——”

“Is that so, Sangerly?” sneered the leader of the mob. “Well, you’re not such a wise guy as you think you are. Huntington was entertaining Billy Gee here this evening. He’s been hanging out at this ranch right along. Say, Huntington, are you delivering yourself up, or do we burn you out?”

Lennox, listening fearfully from his cot in the little room off the kitchen, recognized the speaker as Big George Rankin, czar of Geerusalem’s underworld.

“Why, that’s ridiculous,” cried Lex. “Mr. Huntington captured Billy Gee and turned him over to the authorities——”

The roar of voices which had ceased during the brief parley, rose again now, violent and menacing.

“It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I ain’t bin friends with the measly skunk,” moaned Lemuel. Mrs. Liggs was staring at him, in a dumb, bewildered way.

Dot still watched the door. Her eyes were glittering dangerously, her whole manner betokening cool, desperate determination. Lex, unused to frontier crises of this kind, had left his revolver in his room. He now ran in to get it and found that the men on the porch were trying the windows. He had barely discovered this fact, when a revolver ripped suddenly down through the panes, showering him with glass. At the same instant, he heard the kitchen door fall in with a crash. Rushing back into the hall, he was just in time to come under a bristling array of leveled guns in the hands of bandanna-masked men, trained on the Huntington household.

In a trice, Dot was disarmed and Lemuel hurled into his room to dress. The place was quickly overrun by the mob, rummaging and ransacking bureaus, closets, trunks. Even the cupboard was swept clean. To Lex, it seemed as if they went about their work with a thoroughness that was almost painstakingly vicious. It was as if they were following out some plan to render the house untenantable, to strip its owner of his belongings.

Rankin, big and burly, his cruel eyes fiery over his red mask, stopped before Dot.

“You be on your way out of the country before morning, kid! Get me?” he growled. “And take this old dame along with you,” indicating the half-fainting Mrs. Liggs whom the girl held in her arms. “Get out and stay out!” He turned to Lex. “As for you, Mr. Sangerly, you’ve got a room in the Miners’ Hotel. See that you occupy it, if you’re not looking for a coat of tar. Outside, gang, and clean up the works!”

The majority of the mob went trooping away in obedience to the command, and presently Lex heard sounds which proclaimed the destruction of the outbuildings, coupled with the frantic clamor of the occupants of coop and sty.

A man hurried in from the kitchen and beckoned Rankin to one side. “Lennox’s layin’ in there with a busted leg,” he whispered.

“Hell he is! Well, you know your orders, Shorty. Bump him off, but wait till we leave, see? Tell Logan to help you. Make a good job of it.”

A number of men dragged Lemuel from his room. He was in a state of collapse. Dot relinquished Mrs. Liggs to Lex, and rushing forward, threw her arms around her father’s neck, begging, pleading hysterically with Rankin, to no purpose. Sangerly began an impassioned appeal also, and received a brutal blow in the face for his interference.

Out through the front door they hustled Lemuel. They bundled him on a horse and set a guard over him, while Rankin rounded up his gang preparatory to departing. At last, with a parting six-shooter volley into the air and a chorus of wild shouts, the mob spurred away. The first faint shafts of light were beginning to silver the eastern sky. Soapweed Plains had never seemed so tragically silent, so filled with woe and frightful foreboding.

Out on the front porch, Lex stood holding Mrs. Liggs. The little old lady was moaning pitifully, clutching Dot’s hand in her own trembling one. The girl was, for the moment, stricken dumb by the suddenness of it all—the destruction of the ranch, the bold abduction of her father, horror over his possible fate at the hands of that lawless crowd. Then she roused herself and darted into the house. The next instant she reappeared, hatted and cloaked, and sped down the steps and along the walk leading to the rear of the premises. Alarmed at her action, Lex helped Mrs. Liggs to a porch chair and hurried after her. He overtook her as she was scrambling through the wire fence into the field.

“Miss Huntington, where are you going?” he panted.

“I’m following them. Please help me catch a horse!” she cried wildly. “Oh, the beasts! The beasts! They’re——” She broke off and listened frantically into the night. “Hear them? They’re taking him toward camp, but there is a trail branching off. They’re going that way. I heard one of them say they intend to set him afoot in Lone Mountain Pass. He’ll die out there. Quick! Mr. Sangerly, I——”

“My car,” he burst out. “If they haven’t destroyed it—tampered with it.” He grasped her arm, and together they raced for the roadster standing to one side of the driveway. “But we ought to run into camp and report the matter to the authorities. We can’t hope to do anything alone, Miss Huntington. It would be madness to oppose them,” he argued, as they sprang into the machine.

By a streak of good fortune—which that arch-plotter Jule Quintell could have easily explained, considering that he felt confident of putting over the right of way deal—the night riders had left the roadster severely alone.

Dot made no reply, and Lex started turning the roadster around in the wide space of yard. At this juncture, two shots rang out inside the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs’ terrified scream from the front porch. A hoarse cry broke from Lex. He brought the car to a sudden halt.

“My God—Lennox! I’d forgotten him. They’ve killed——”

There was a sound of blundering footfalls across the bare kitchen floor. The next instant, a man staggered out of the back door, toppled down the steps, and pitched headlong to the ground, in the full glare of the headlights. Blood was issuing from his mouth.

Then, while Dot and Lex gazed horrified at the prostrate form, a shriveled-up little figure appeared in the kitchen door, clutching a revolver in one bony hand. It was Tinnemaha Pete.

“That you, Spangaree?” he cackled excitedly at the roadster. “Son of a gun! Got ’em both—first pop. They was goin’ to drill Mr. Lummox, an’ I dropped ’em. Poorty as ye please. First pop. Son of a gun! Ain’t killed a man afore, either. That’s one of ’em. First pop, Spangaree. Agatha! Looket, Agatha——” He went trotting through the house, calling to Mrs. Liggs.

Dot, staring at the dead man, shivered.

Lex got the roadster under way. It sped out of the driveway and into the road, gathering speed; plunging and swaying along, the sand rattling like machine-gun fire against the under side of the fenders. The girl, wide-eyed, her face bloodless, drawn with fear, watched in awful suspense for sight of the mob.

“We’d better drive to camp, Miss Huntington, and get out the constable—have him lead a posse after them. It’s the safest course, all around,” said Lex presently.

A sob broke from her. “Oh, what terrible thing are they going to do!” she cried in anguish. “We’ll have to save him. Can’t you see? We can’t leave him. It’ll take time to get help. Oh, Mr. Sangerly——”

“It’s a terrible situation, I know,” he interrupted gently; “but you must understand that these ruffians will hesitate at nothing. When they would plan to murder poor Lennox, lying in bed, unable to defend himself, what consideration would they give us?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” she moaned. “Perhaps you’re right. I can’t think clearly. Merciful Father, have pity on——” She broke off, glaring intently ahead. “There they are! There they are!”

As she spoke, the galloping mass of the night riders came into view. The roadster bore down on it rapidly, and the powerful rays of the headlights growing brighter and brighter, startled the horses. Those in the rear began bolting in fright, swerving sharply, unmanageable for the instant. But that instant proved sufficient in which to throw the entire body into confusion. It split, scattering to either side of the road, and Lex, a cold hand clutching his heart, steered the car into the breach, stepping on the gas as he did so.

A deafening roar went up from the cavalcade. A hail of bullets riddled the radiator. Racing alongside, several of the riders thrust their six-shooters down on Lex and the girl, commanding a halt. Dot got a fleeting glimpse of her father, bareheaded, his face ashen with terror. He sat astride a horse, his hands tied behind him. Lex brought the machine to a stop, and the mob surrounded it.

“Out of that buzz wagon, partner!” cried Big George Rankin, spurring forward. “It seems to me you’re itching for that coat of tar I promised you. You can’t monkey with a law-and-order bunch in these parts without getting your feet wet. Kid,” addressing Dot, “you hop out of there, too. I suppose, Mr. Sangerly, you were on your way to spread the alarm, eh? Well, we’ll attend to you before we do anything else. You’re a pretty wise bird—in Los Angeles,” he added significantly.

The whole troop was by now drawn around the roadster—a grim company, surely, what with their grotesque, blood-red handkerchief masks and attitude of lawless abandon. Lex and Dot stood on the ground near the roadster. The girl was weeping audibly, gazing with distracted eyes through the press of horsemen for sight of Lemuel.

“Father!” she cried again and again, her agonized voice rising above the chorus of menacing suggestions as to what should be done with the meddlers of the night’s business. But she got no answer to her passionate cry.

Day was breaking fast, as is usual on the Southwestern deserts. Soapweed Plains lay cold and gray and mysterious to the eye, its vast stretches of brush and sand resembling some gigantic crazy-quilted design. The Geerusalem Hills rose near at hand, looking like a great dab of mixed paint—a vividly mineralized pile of granite and porphyritic rock.

Rankin and two other men were conversing in low animated tones, trying to arrive at some decision concerning the disposal of Dot and Lex. They were not agreeing.

Suddenly a shot rang out from beyond the circle, followed by the gurgling cry of a man. There was a wild scamper of hoofs, then the sharp crack of a quirt across a horse’s withers. A volley screamed over the roadster. The riders clustered around it hesitated an instant. Another volley scattered them like chaff, dropping three of their number. This way and that they dashed madly, every man for himself. Rankin roared out a command, hurling a string of oaths after them.

“If you’re lookin’ for Billy Gee, here he is. Come take him! Come on, you brave wallopers! You—Rankin!” shouted a lone horseman, sitting his mount some distance away. He fired, and the leader’s hat went sailing off his head. Emptying his revolver wildly at the other, Rankin, fuming with rage, swung his horse about and sped after his followers.

A wild thrill swept Dot. She stared in blank amazement at the erect slim figure of their rescuer. Far behind him, racing across the plains like mad, went another rider, her father, and Billy Gee, the outlaw, the hero of her romantic dreams, was covering his retreat, holding in nervous indecision two score ruffians who faltered at the mere mention of that magic name, which stood for open defiance of law! She knew that Billy Gee must have been a member of that mob, that he had joined it with the express purpose of liberating her father at the first opportunity.

While she gazed at him these things flashed through her mind; and into her bosom came an ecstasy, sweeter than any she had ever known. Out there in the cold gray dawn of Soapweed Plains, was the man she loved, alone, dauntlessly challenging a heavily armed cavalcade that had visited its wrath on the Huntington home because of him, a cowardly crew whom he had dispersed with a dozen shots!

On and on, dashed Lemuel, horse and rider growing smaller and smaller in the distance. The enemy, under Rankin’s repeated abuse and threats, had drawn rein a few hundred yards away. It began a cautious approach, firing as it came. Billy Gee waited. Dot, becoming alarmed at his inactivity, now noticed that, besides being out of revolver range, he gripped a rifle. In that he had a decided advantage—one which he proceeded to put to use with demoralizing effect.

He brought up the weapon suddenly. There was a flash, and one of the horsemen slumped in the saddle. Again and again the rifle cracked. The morale of the mob ebbed in the face of that unerring marksmanship. The outlaw reloaded, and with something of that dare-devil spirit which had made him the terror of the region, dug spurs to his horse and charged straight for the nearest group of riders, firing with deadly precision as he rode. The group made to stand its ground, but the very fact that this advancing foe was the dreaded bandit of the Mohave, whose past death-defying exploits had set them agog with awe and wonder, proved too much for their vaunted temerity. They whirled about in a panic, and after them went the remaining members of the band, the rifle bullets whining in their ears.

Billy Gee reined in his horse and watched the rout he had caused. Then the very thing he could have predicted came to pass. The horsemen stopped a quarter of a mile off, congregated to talk over a plan of action. Rankin was not for giving up. Billy could hear him bellowing out commands, urging his fellows with curse and taunt back to the attack and the extermination of the outlaw.

CHAPTER XX—GEERUSALEM STIRS

Billy Gee galloped up to the roadster. Dot and Lex had been standing back of it, watching in silence the ridiculous debacle of the Quintell mob caused by this lone knight of the road. The outlaw jerked his horse to a stop before the two, and glanced first at Lex, then at the girl. He smiled at her, an odd, expectant light in his eyes, and swept off his hat cavalierly.

“Yore father is headin’ for Blue Mud Spring, Miss Huntington. Warburton is campin’ there, as you mebby know. I reckon he’ll be safer.” He spoke in low, gentle tones.

She regarded him for a moment with an eagerness that she could not hide. The early morning light was on his face, its subtle rosiness softening it, showing a lingering loneliness and sympathy in the flashing eyes, a boyishness of feature, a charming recklessness of expression. He sat his horse gracefully, his figure garbed in whipcord, flowing white chaps covering his legs, his hat a splendid huge thing of gray felt, while about his neck hung the bandanna handkerchief that had recently served him as a mask.

She blushed, approval and admiration in her eyes, and held out her hand to him.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Billy Gee,” she said simply, a quiver in her voice.

“You don’t never need to, Dot. I owe you a bigger favor, you reckillect. I jest happened to fall in with the gang as it was ridin’ out here, an’ heerd what they were goin’ to do. But I’d not have got away with it, if you hadn’t come along in yore auto, Mr. Sangerly—that is, not easy,” he added, with a look at Lex. “Of course, you know this here’s Quintell’s doin’s. He’s payin’ pretty for it, let me tell you.”

Dot was gazing fixedly at him, a wistful light in her eyes that her heavy lashes concealed.

“Are you sure of that—that Quintell is at the bottom of this thing?” asked Lex, watching the other narrowly.

“Positive. All that talk about Huntington hiding me out was a bluff. They framed it so’s to git hold of him. I’m mighty glad Warburton’s in the country.”

Sangerly smiled. “I also want to thank you for what you’ve done for us, Billy Gee.” He added: “And for leaving our trains alone.”

“A man’ll do a thing right along, Mr. Sangerly, an’ his own mother won’t be able to change him. Then he jest nacherly changes.” He said this soberly, throwing a glance at the distant horsemen as he spoke.

They had begun to ride forward again slowly, in open formation, scattering to the flanks as they came, in a wide enveloping movement calculated to get the bandit in a crossfire that would make his escape impossible.

Dot noted the maneuver and looked at Billy Gee, mute entreaty in her eyes. He met her gaze and laughed easily.

“You an’ Mr. Sangerly better wait till they start chasin’ me, then go on into camp an’ arrange to quit the ranch. ’Tain’t safe to live there,” he said, as he gathered up the reins. “Quintell aims to drive you out of the deestrict, but he won’t. An’ say, Sangerly! I wisht you’d visit him to-night. How about eight o’clock? I want you to hear somepn for yoreself. There’s stick-up men who don’t use a gun like yours truly. Good-by, Dot! I want powerful much to have a long chat with you, some day. Did you see where Jerome Liggs struck it rich?” With a glance at Lex, he smiled at Dot, swept off his hat and went galloping away.

Wild yells broke from the advancing vigilantes. Their revolvers began to roar, and with quirt and spur they quickened their speed in pursuit of their quarry. Sangerly and Dot crouched down behind the roadster to avoid the hail of bullets that now screamed around them. Presently the cavalcade swept by, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, hanging motionless on the still morning air. Lashing their animals madly, they tore away across the plains, bending every energy to apprehend and vent their vengeance on the man who single-handed had frustrated their sinister plans.

It was now quite light, the eastern horizon glowing red and orange with the first shafts of the invisible sun.

Billy Gee headed straight for the Huntington ranch. His wiry little horse, trained to just such desperate get-aways as this, swept over the ground like the wind. Dot, her small hands clenched, her face flushing and paling by turns with what Lex believed was anxiety, watched the pursuit in silence. Now and again, through a rift in the cloud of dust, she caught sight of the lone rider. He sat his horse with the grace of a fleeing centaur, and she noticed that he was outdistancing his pursuers by degrees—saving his own animal, she thought. Once she saw him rise in his stirrups and wave his hat. She wrenched a white scarf she wore around her neck and waved back. After that, he kept gaining and gaining rapidly.

“What a wonderful horse!” exclaimed Lex, breaking a long silence. “Look! He’s gone past the ranch. They’ve given up. See? They’ve stopped. I’ve never seen such a remarkable exhibition of pluck in all my life, Miss Huntington. He’s an extraordinary bandit.”

Billy Gee, half a mile in the lead of the cavalcade, flashed by the Huntington gate. His mother and Tinnemaha Pete had witnessed the race. They stood just inside the fence, trembling, breathless.

“Jerome, my darling!” cried Mrs. Liggs wildly.

“I’m all right, honey,” Billy Gee called back, throwing her a smile. “I’ve headed Huntington for Blue Mud Spring. Dot an’ Sangerly got by. See you soon.”

“The sheriff—look out for that pesky critter, Warburton!” shrilled Tinnemaha Pete. “He’s lookin’ for you. Pop it to him, d’you hear! Pop it to him——”

“Jerome—the sheriff!” screamed Mrs. Liggs.

Billy Gee, out of hearing, nodded reassuringly, wondering what they had said.

A quarter of a mile beyond the ranch, he pulled his horse down to a walk. Pursuit had been abandoned. He laughed, sitting sidelong in the saddle, gazing back. Suddenly, as if in his very ear, a man’s voice rang out, saying:

“I got a bead on yore heart, Billy. Don’t look around. I don’t want to have to kill you, Billy.”

His horse was brought to a stop, and an expert hand reached up and disarmed him.

“Hullo Bob! Much obliged for bein’ so consid’rate,” said the outlaw, his head averted. “You’re jest the man I want to see.”

“I’ll bet I am,” chuckled Sheriff Warburton grimly. “Le’s see yore hands! All set, now.” He snapped the handcuffs on his prisoner.

Billy Gee turned and looked at his captor. He was afoot. Some distance off, his mule stood partially hidden by a clump of brush.

“If you don’t figger on losin’ me, we better start. That roarin’ layout is the Quintell bunch. They’re after me. They all but dynamited the Huntington place last night,” said Billy Gee evenly.

Warburton scowled. “What’s this you’re givin’ me?”

He glanced toward the ranch and made out the tiny figure of Mrs. Liggs standing in the garden, her face buried in her hands, and the scarecrow one of old Tinnemaha Pete, arms waving above his head, raging about in insane fashion.

The mob had collected and, slouching in its saddles, listened to Big George Rankin’s reasons why the chase should not be continued. Daylight had brought the leader of Geerusalem’s underworld face to face with the gravity of the night’s activity. Masked men were likely to fall into the toils of the law, even in so lawless a locality as this. Rankin did not relish being identified with the Huntington job. He had too much to lose. He did not care to take any unnecessary risks. What he told his confederates, however, was that they would be wasting time trying to track down an outlaw who, besides riding superior horseflesh, knew every square foot of the vast Mohave Desert.

At last, they started on their return to camp, tired, hungry, in no genial mood. Their raid had in great measure been for naught. Their plans to intimidate Lemuel Huntington into leaving the country, had been frustrated by the unexpected interference of Billy Gee. They had to confront Jule Quintell and his clique and admit miscarriage of those plans.

From discussing the matter among themselves, their bitterness toward Huntington, and every one who had to do with Huntington, increased. Lex Sangerly, Dot, and Mrs. Liggs came under a new scheme of persecution which they presently determined on, as they rode along. They would raid the ranch again that night, declared Rankin, and burn it to the ground, and they would take precautions that no Billy Gee would be about to defeat their aims. It is not strange that, with other more important matters in contemplation, the absence of Shorty and Logan—delegated to kill Lennox—was not noted. In fact, Shorty and Logan were not missed until late that afternoon.

For some reason that Lex Sangerly could not understand, it was with manifest reluctance that Dot finally agreed to accompany him into Geerusalem. She favored returning to the ranch, in the face of the knowledge that they would have to pass the disgruntled night riders approaching along the road.

“Mrs. Liggs will be safe until we come back,” argued Lex, as they went whirling away. “This fellow, Billy Gee, doesn’t seem like a man who would harm a defenseless old lady. Wasn’t that the most spectacular rescue, Miss Huntington?”

“I am sure he wouldn’t harm her,” said Dot slowly. “He’s wonderful! One man against forty cowardly curs. Didn’t I tell you in San Francisco what an extraordinary person he was?”

“He certainly isn’t what I’ve always pictured a bandit to be. He’s got character in his face. A good eye. A rather likable fellow, I’d say.”

She looked at him. “You’re going to meet him to-night, Mr. Sangerly. I know you’re going to admire Billy Gee hereafter. Hasn’t it struck you as odd that he is trusting you? What assurance has he that you won’t have him placed under arrest?”

“My understanding was that I was to visit Quintell. I didn’t suppose that I was to meet him there, also,” said Lex coldly. “Keeping an appointment with a criminal, Miss Huntington, is not exactly——”

“Mr. Sangerly, please don’t ask me how I know, but this meeting will be to your interest. I am positive of it. I feel it, with a woman’s intuition. Can’t you see that he is really risking his liberty so that you may hear something for yourself? That’s just what he said. He knows who you are—all about you. And you must bear in mind that there have been no more holdups on the Mohave & Southwestern. He has reformed. Please don’t smile. He has. I want to ask this favor of you: Meet him to-night, as you would keep any appointment, but not with an officer at your elbow. Will you do that?”

She had spoken rapidly, a strange, eager, pleading note in her voice. Her eyes, fixed on him, held an animated light, her cheeks the faintest tint of red. They were just turning into Geerusalem Gulch, the rays of the rising sun silvering the windows of the camp a mile away.

For a long moment, Lex stared at her, searching her pretty face. Then he broke into a laugh.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were—well, an ardent admirer of this far-famed train robber, and that would be putting it mildly. But your arguments are reasonable. I’ll do it. I promise to meet him under those conditions—this one time. You appear to know a lot about Billy Gee, don’t you, Miss Huntington?” he added curiously.

“I don’t mind confessing to you that I do,” she admitted in a naïve way that quite amazed him. “I can tell you that your road will never be robbed again by him.”

“Are you serious about that?” he asked. “It seems to me that a young woman of your standing wouldn’t be in a position to——”

“I was never more serious in my life, Mr. Sangerly, and as far as position is concerned, there are no social planes in this great land of sun, sand and silence. We are all human beings, some more fortunate than others, but no better under the skin.”

She met his look with a candor that caused him to gaze ahead, frowning at the road. There was a short silence.

“It—it isn’t possible that you have—influenced him?” he said hesitatingly, after a little.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t just call it that. I told you how he hid the twenty thousand dollars in my bureau drawer, unknown to me? Well, during the talk I had with him, I asked him if he would do something to repay me for taking care of him. He replied that he would—anything. And I exacted his promise that he would quit leading the life of a bandit. It was all done in one thrilling moment—one midnight. Posses were scouring the country for him at the time. He promised me, as you’ve just promised me. He’s made good. I think he’s magnificent.”

As Lex brought the roadster to a stop before the Miners’ Hotel, he said: “By the way, Billy Gee mentioned Jerome Liggs as though he knew him. Does he happen to be a relative of Mrs. Liggs? She had a son——”

“He is, and I know him.” She regarded Lex intently as she spoke.

“But that was her son’s name. We were kids together—chums.”

“It is he,” she said slowly.

Lex sat bolt upright, forgetting to clamber out of the roadster. Just then he was oblivious of the fact that a crowd was gathering on the sidewalk, and that Dot was the object of many eyes.

“Why, she told me he was dead!” he burst out. “I saw in the paper yesterday that he struck it rich. Where is he——”

The increasing buzz of voices around him made him glance up. He saw the throng of staring men. They packed the sidewalk, spilled into the street, partly surrounding the machine. There was something inimical in their manner, a bold severity in their scrutiny of Dot. Lex’s sudden display of astonishment and pleasure passed at sight of that menacing crowd. He sprang out of the car and threw open the door for the girl.

The hostility in the faces of the men had not been lost on Dot. It struck her instantly that this was not the elemental type of ruffian who had wrecked her home some hours before. These grim accusing individuals were substantial business men—the commercial backbone of Geerusalem. She grew pale.

Clinging to Lex’s arm, she entered the hotel, the crowd parting to let them pass. Once inside and with Mr. Merriman, the proprietor, hurrying toward them, she breathed easier. He beckoned them into a little writing room that adjoined the office.

“Is Mr. Huntington in camp?” he asked in low, excited tones.

Dot shook her head. “Get word to him not to show up here—to keep away,” he went on rapidly. “The report has got around that he’s been hiding Billy Gee, the outlaw. He is accused of being an accomplice, of being the relative or friend that the bandit was generally supposed to have on the plains. The camp is furious—ready to riot. They held a mass meeting last night and decided to——”

“That’s ridiculous, Mr. Merriman. It’s persecution,” cried Lex. “I just came from the ranch with Miss Huntington. I’ve been staying there. I know what I’m talking about. The report is a lie. Who circulated it?”

“I don’t know. But Jule Quintell acted as chairman of the meeting and did most of the speaking. Whether it’s true or not, the camp believes it. They’re backing Quintell to a man. They won’t stop at anything——”

“The beast!” broke in Dot, her eyes fiery with suppressed rage. “He sent a gang of his hoodlums out to our home last night, and they all but destroyed it, Mr. Merriman.” She turned to Sangerly. “Would you please send a machine out after Mrs. Liggs? We must not leave her alone out there. Tinnemaha Pete can look after—you know, the sick man. And do try to reach Sheriff Warburton at Blue Mud Spring. Mr. Merriman, have you a messenger we can trust? I’m going to have Quintell arrested.”

CHAPTER XXI—THE LAW AND THE LAWLESS

When Lex was gone, Dot gave the sympathetic hotel man the details of the raid on the ranch, omitting nothing except the fact of her father’s abduction and subsequent rescue; for she believed it unwise at this time when Lemuel was being accused of having friendly relations with Billy Gee, to mention the important part—heroic and praiseworthy though it was—the latter had played in the night’s events. She was positive that the raiders themselves would keep silent on the matter, if for no other reason than to cover up the lawlessness of their own act.

“But have you any proof that Quintell is at the bottom of this persecution, Dot?” asked Merriman, when she concluded.

“No. Not direct proof, but——”

“In that case, I wouldn’t make any rash move. If you have him arrested, it will simply aggravate the situation. You’d be worse off for it. Right now, Quintell is a power in Geerusalem. He is the new president of the Mining Exchange, besides. His clique is in absolute control. You couldn’t get a person to believe your charges. I’d advise you to wait—talk it over with Warburton first.”

“But, Mr. Merriman, this whole thing is a plot to ruin us,” cried the girl. “I don’t know why. We have never had dealings with the people of this camp, except to patronize the stores, and all our bills are paid. In the light of what happened last night, would you have us fold our hands and let them do what they seem bent on doing—force us to leave the country?”

Merriman patted her shoulder paternally. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, Dot,” he said with a smile. “Things will adjust themselves, I know. Right now, the prudent course to pursue is to say nothing and see that your father remains away for a while.”

Dot gazed significantly at him a moment, then she said: “Quintell was out to see father early last evening. He wanted to buy the ranch. He offered better than thirty dollars an acre—ten thousand dollars. Would you pay that much for the Huntington ranch, Mr. Merriman, just as it stands?”

The man’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He whistled softly and replied, with a shrewd nod of his head: “So that’s it! I think I see the scheme, Dot—and it is a scheme. Something about your father’s ranch has made it valuable to Jule. And it’s mineral—nothing less. I’d say it was pretty good, because he never bothers with anything that isn’t pretty good. He’s liable to go the limit, Dot. Perhaps I shouldn’t say it, but he can be mighty dirty in his methods.”

“You might be right, but I don’t think he wants the ranch for the mineral that may be on it,” said the girl. “I am sure he has some other object. Did you ever hear talk of a resort, to be established a few miles out of camp?”

“Do you mean a summer resort?”

“Yes, something on that order.”

He smiled. “I was discussing with Harrison, Quintell’s secretary, some weeks ago, the possibility of starting such an enterprise. He seemed interested—enthusiastic, I might say. I believe we mentioned your father’s ranch as one of the sites. Of course, you understand, we were just speculating. While a resort would be a veritable mint once it got going, the initial investment would be prohibitive so far as I’m concerned. Why do you ask?”

Dot’s eyes glowed on him. “Mr. Merriman, if I entertained any doubts as to whether Quintell had a hand in last night’s outrage, you have dispelled them,” she said. Thereupon, she related to him the particulars of Dick Lennox’s visit to her and Lemuel at the Golden West Hotel in San Francisco.

They were still talking when Lex returned. He announced that he had dispatched a machine to bring Mrs. Liggs to camp, and instructed the driver to tell Warburton—in the event the latter was at the ranch—that Dot wished to see him immediately. Moreover, he had sent a cowboy riding for Blue Mud Springs, with a letter counseling Lemuel to remain in hiding, as well as requesting Warburton’s presence in Geerusalem.

While Dot and Lex were at breakfast in the hotel dining room, six horsemen rode singly out of camp. They were armed. They were old in the game of hip-shooting—practiced in the grim art of killing. They could keep a can dancing in midair as long as loaded six-shooters held out. In the pocket of each was a neat little roll of bills, slipped there by Jule Quintell’s right bower, Harrison. Their instructions were to seize the hill on the Huntington ranch, destroy the location monuments and notices on what were known as the Billy Geerusalem group of claims—locators, Tinnemaha Pete Boyd and Jerome Liggs—and relocate over their own signatures.

Reposing in Quintell’s safe in the Broker’s Exchange Building were deeds signed in advance by the six, which transferred what they intended to get possession of to the boss of Geerusalem and his associates. The deep motive beneath this move, however, was the death of Jerome Liggs and Tinnemaha Pete. That Dot’s father escaped a similar sentence was due, not entirely to Quintell’s hesitation to take so rash a step, as to the fact that, after hearing the report of the vigilantes’ work as given by Big George Rankin, the broker—following a furious scene in his office—had arrived at the conclusion that the havoc wrought at the ranch coupled with the terror with which Huntington and his daughter must be now inspired, sufficed to force them into a position to meet his terms for the purchase of the ranch.

But of his contemplated cold-blooded murder of the discoverers of the rich Billy Geerusalem strike, Quintell said nothing to his associates. Their putting away had nothing directly to do with this obvious act of dispossession. As has been said, Huntington owned the land on which the bonanza find had been made; the broker knew this and, in consequence, realized only too well that legal right to it must come from its owner, who, it must be remembered, had not the remotest idea of the fabulous treasure buried in the bleak, solitary hill west of his home.

Meanwhile, Quintell was busy stirring up public sentiment in the camp against Huntington. He had called a meeting the night before and charged that Billy Gee, the outlaw, had been found in hiding on the Huntington ranch. While he had not seen the bandit, Quintell gave a graphic account of an exciting chase after that elusive person, which had terminated when Sheriff Warburton mistook him for Billy Gee in the darkness, and dragged him into the house, resulting in the outlaw’s escape.

His whole story was a clever network of lies, convincingly told, and calculated to brand Dot’s father as an undesirable resident, if nothing worse; one who was scarcely as honest as Billy Gee, since Quintell made him appear as an accomplice who had been masquerading for years in the rôle of a reputable, law-abiding rancher. Moreover, he assailed Warburton by pointing to the latter’s friendship for Huntington, and intimated that Billy Gee’s sensational get-away from the sheriff, following Lemuel’s delivery of his prisoner to the official, was framed for the purpose of getting the reward which, he gave as his opinion, had been divided equally among the three. And because Quintell had a smooth tongue and a way of putting things over, Geerusalem believed his charges.

At the appointed hour—ten o’clock—Lex Sangerly left Dot in the hotel parlor and stepped over to Quintell’s office to accompany the broker on an inspection tour of the Lucky Boy placer claims. He went with reluctance, feeling more keenly than on the day previous his suspicions of Quintell in regard to the right of way matter, to which was added a profound indignation and rage against this wildcatter who was, from all Lex could hear, the cause of the Huntington raid.

A few minutes after Lex’s departure, Mrs. Liggs and Sheriff Warburton arrived in camp, and, as the result of a short talk he had with Dot, Warburton prevailed on her to take no immediate action looking to the arrest of Quintell, until he had investigated the case. Leaving the two women, he strolled out of the hotel and stood listening to a discussion going on among the members of a crowd of men standing before the entrance. Lemuel Huntington was being roundly condemned. There were ominous grumblings, threats being voiced; mob law was being openly fomented. To Warburton, wise in the psychology of crime and the natures of men, darkness alone was needed to spread the flame of lawlessness over that wild desert settlement. It would sweep through the underworld section, and thence from one mine bunk house to another, calling out the habitués of the dens and the grimy underground workers to mass in one vicious, formidable army, that, venting its violence on the Huntington ranch and its household, might finish out the night with an orgy of destruction and murder in the camp itself.

He looked up and down the street. Groups of men were everywhere. His eyes rested on the gilt sign bearing Quintell’s name, on the Brokers’ Exchange Building. A grim smile parted his lips. Quintell was surely a power in Geerusalem, he told himself. Presently his eye fell on the dapper figure of the town constable. The fellow, in correct mining camp attire—the rakish cut approved by the ranking element—stood spread-legged on the sidewalk, complacently smoking a cigarette. Warburton’s jaws set. He strode over to the man.

“Hullo, Mitchell!” he said gruffly.

The other glanced at the sheriff’s face with its two weeks’ growth of bristly whiskers, at the dirty shirt and overalls, then back at their owner’s face.

“It isn’t possible that it’s Sheriff Warburton?” he began, with a grin.

“It is. When I’m doin’ my duty, Mitchell, I don’t tog up. I’d like to talk to you a minute.” He led the way to the hotel office, halting just inside the entrance. “What’re you goin’ to do about this thing—all this lynch-law stuff they’re cookin’ up?” he asked.

The constable chuckled. “Do? Why, I’m powerless to do anything. A man would be crazy to interfere. The sentiment of the camp is such that if I butted in, they’d swear I was trying to protect Huntington and——”

“What’re you sportin’ that tin buzzer for,” broke in Warburton, with a contemptuous nod at the silver star on the breast of Mitchell’s tailored coat.

The man flushed angrily. “Say, Warburton, what’s eating you, anyhow?” he asked defiantly. “I’m constable of this township and——”

“You’ll find out what’s eatin’ me, in jest about ten minutes,” snapped the sheriff. “You git on the job or, by God, you’ll wisht you had! I’m tellin’ you somepn, Mitchell.” Glaring at the other, he turned and walked out of the door.

Mitchell’s rough laugh followed him.

Raging inwardly, cursing to himself, Warburton halted on the sidewalk. Word of his presence in camp had traveled like magic, and the crowd before the hotel was fast filling the street from curb to curb. It was an ominous crowd, the dregs of the settlement mingling with the army of mine workers, with here and there one of Quintell’s associates, circulating through the ranks whispering words of advice. Standing there in full view of the multitude, glancing it over, Warburton marked the hostility in its look and attitude. Caustic remarks began to be directed at him.

“Where’s your bandit friend, sheriff?”

“Hey, fellers, there’s Huntington’s bodyguard!”

“Billy Gee’s duck-hunting on the Huntington ranch, Warburton. Why don’t you go get him?”

Warburton’s jaw set. His eyes flickered dangerously. A few yards away, grouped together on the sidewalk, stood a dozen or more cow-punchers—members of the Las Animas ranch, a large principality of fertile range on the north rim of Soapweed Plains—their great hats and gaudy silk neckerchiefs conspicuous in that sea of drab sameness. Having nothing in common with the men of the mines, they stood, curious spectators of the drama that was being enacted before them, maintaining a strictly neutral attitude in an affair of which they knew absolutely nothing. They had arrived in camp an hour before for a three-day lark and, true to the traditions of their kind, were willing to accept whatever fate tendered them—so long as it promised a departure from the usual humdrum of their daily existence.

Warburton gave them a significant look, then he faced the crowd again and raised his hand for silence.

So it was, that, as Quintell, accompanied by Lex Sangerly, Harrison, and two other men drove down the street in a machine bound for the Lucky Boy placer claims, they found the greatest throng ever assembled in Geerusalem gathered before the Miners’ Hotel, listening to Sheriff Warburton’s defense of Lemuel Huntington. The official was speaking vehemently, angrily, looking massive and potential from his elevated position on a hotel chair.

Quintell, who was driving, steered the car through the jam of men to a point opposite the speaker. He was pale, his eyes blazing with hatred. Warburton was just bringing his talk to a conclusion.

“An’ that’s how I happen to be in these parts. I’ve swore to git Billy Gee, dead or alive, an’ that’s what I aim to do. I was at the ranch last night from start to finish—like I jest said. An’ the man that says Lem Huntington is in cahoots with Billy Gee is a damn liar.”

Quintell slipped out from back of the steering wheel and stood up. Neatly groomed, his appearance—compared with the sheriff’s—at once dignified and impressive, he merited in every particular the title he had earned—boss of Geerusalem. With a sharp glance over the crowd, he began in a slow, ringing voice:

“Men of Geerusalem! I want you to all know that, regardless of what this sheriff of San Buenaventura County has said, he is not only an intimate friend of Lemuel Huntington, but the very man who has let Billy Gee slip through his fingers twice. There stands efficiency for you.” He leveled an accusing finger at Warburton. “There’s the stripe of official the taxpayers of this county are supporting—an official who has the audacity to address an intelligent audience of this kind in an endeavor to whitewash the shrewdest crook who ever betrayed the trust of the good people of this camp and section. Gentlemen, it’s this official’s word against mine. I charge Lemuel Huntington with being on intimate terms with an outlaw. Whom are you going to believe?”

A wild, deafening roar went up, increasing in volume as Warburton, his face purple with fury, made an attempt to speak.

“Lynch him! Lynch him! Get Huntington!” howled the multitude.

They swarmed about Quintell’s machine, clamoring their approval of the broker. The din and excitement grew. Sheriff Warburton stood deserted, ignored, outraged. The veins on his forehead and neck were swelled to bursting, his big hands opened and shut with an odd, slow movement. Lex Sangerly, sitting in the seat beside Quintell, watched him curiously. From behind the curtains of a second-story window, Dot and Mrs. Liggs looked down terrified at the mob of infuriated men.

Warburton’s eyes sought the group of cow-punchers again. He stepped down off the chair and reached them in two strides. A few curt words sent them hurrying off to a stable around the nearest corner. Then, his jaw set determinedly, the sheriff elbowed his way through the crowd to the side of Quintell’s machine.

“I’m warnin’ every man here ag’in startin’ anything,” he shouted. “As sheriff of this county, I’ll enforce the law if I got to shoot to do it. Understand that! An’ if I can’t do it, there’s national guards that kin. Keep away from Huntington an’ his ranch, if you ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” He turned to Quintell, who stood eying him venomously. “As for you, Mr. Man, if you don’t want to be throwed in for inspirin’ violence, you’d better git a-goin’. Drive on, or I’ll show you what kind of an official you got to deal with!”

Quintell hesitated; then he slid reluctantly into his seat. As the car started moving off, he fastened his fiery gaze on Warburton.

“We’ll meet again, sheriff,” he snarled back. “You can’t bluff me. You may protect a crook, but you won’t get away with it—not if I can stop it! Huntington goes. Remember that!”

The cow-punchers of the Las Animas ranch came spurring into the street at that moment, and at Warburton’s orders began dispersing the crowd. A little later, while Constable Mitchell was indignantly condemning the sheriff’s action to a group of Quintell’s supporters in the hotel office, Warburton entered and placed him under arrest and marched him off to the camp’s jail. Relieving him of his keys, the sheriff locked the fellow in a cell and placed two riders on guard.

“This ain’t very formal, Mitchell,” he said grimly, “’cos I ain’t got time to monkey with warrants and citations. You kin take yore pick whether you turn in yore star or git yanked up before the grand jury.”

CHAPTER XXII—A SHOWDOWN

The day passed slowly. It was a day throbbing with threat and tragedy on the eve of happening. Night fell, but there was no noticeable change in the situation. Legitimate places of business closed early; and singularly enough the usual crowds that streamed up and down the main street were absent, the dance halls and gambling hells deserted, the camp strangely, ominously peaceful.

For one thing, public sentiment against Lemuel Huntington had crystallized rather than abated. Sheriff Warburton’s drastic action together with his threat to call for the militia in the event he could not handle the disorder, stirred the Quintell forces to violent hatred. What inflamed them most was the fact that he had dispatched a number of his deputized cow-punchers to guard the Huntington ranch. That the official was protecting a criminal and not taking steps to capture that criminal, became the burden of the Quintell element’s cry in order to win over to their side the minority law-abiding population of the town.

During the afternoon a number of incidents had occurred which did anything but relieve the tension. The first of these was the arrival of a desperately wounded horseman. He came riding up the street, half hanging out of his saddle, semiconscious, a gaping wound in his side. He proved to be one of the six expert gunmen sent by Quintell to dispossess and murder the discoverers of the Billy Geerusalem bonanza strike. He died, and the name of his slayer died with him. Quintell, raging in his office, waited for the return of the other five. When they did not report, he had Big George Rankin take two automobile loads of men to the scene, with instructions to seize the claims at all cost. Rankin came back an hour later, stating that they had been stopped by a body of armed cowboys patrolling the plains in the neighborhood of the Huntington ranch.

Another significant move, traceable to the emergency methods and industry of Sheriff Warburton, was the sudden appearance in Geerusalem of a growing army of these self-same cowboys. They began arriving at intervals, throughout the afternoon, riding up the street singly and in pairs, in dozens and by the score. They came heavily armed, delegation after delegation of them, grim-faced, wiry, silent men who feared neither man nor devil. Every ranch in that far-flung, fertile hill territory—known as the Green Range—to the north of Soapweed Plains, became represented as the day wore on. For Warburton had dispatched Las Animas riders speeding through the desert, appealing to the ranch owners for help to nip in the bud the reign of rioting and bloodshed which threatened to sweep the camp.

In the midst of this menacing state of affairs, Lex Sangerly had returned from an inspection of the Lucky Boy placer group, at the mouth of Geerusalem Gulch, the conviction now firm in his mind that the Quintell outfit had salted the ground over which the proposed branch line of the Mohave & Southwestern must of necessity pass to reach its terminal in the settlement. He had watched Harrison taking samples of the gravel, here and there, and had seen those samples turned over to the assayer—himself retaining duplicates of each, for purposes of a check-up.

It had all seemed part of a clean transaction, except when he had manifested the desire of himself choosing a second test of the ground. To this Quintell politely demurred, going so far as to declare that he and his associates were in no wise eager for a track to cross the claims, since it would interfere greatly with the extensive work they planned. He pointed out, too, that the matter of purchase had come from the railroad company, that he and his partners had made no overtures with a view to disposing of a right of way.

While Lex was waiting at the Miners’ Hotel for the assayer’s report on the samples, his father—Western manager of the road—arrived from Los Angeles unexpectedly. Sangerly, senior, a clean, sharp-eyed man of fifty, with a close-cropped mustache and thick, stiff, iron-gray hair, was accompanied by the State traffic manager, a Mr. Hudson, a quiet, mild type of person whose one distinctive trait was his ability to listen and say nothing. Lex’s father, it seems, had determined, following receipt of his son’s telegram the day before, on taking a personal hand in the negotiations for the purchase of the Lucky Boy right of way.

After spending some time in a happy renewal of his old friendship with little Mrs. Liggs and a talk with Dot, Mr. Sangerly, accompanied by Hudson and Lex, held a conference with the owners of the placer claims in Jule Quintell’s offices. The certificates of assay showed the ground to be rich—thanks to Harrison’s precision in the old-time art of salting. As Lex had surmised, the price demanded by the Lucky Boy coterie for the privilege of laying the M. & S. tracks across their fabulous claims was correspondingly large. It was excessive, staggering in the circumstances—fifty thousand dollars.

The conference came to an end without an agreement being reached. The railroad men would take the proposition under advisement, they said. The coterie smiled pleasantly; they had the company in the hollow of their hand. It would have to buy. There was no other way to enter Geerusalem except through Geerusalem Gulch.

Briefly, when night settled on that waspish little desert gold camp, Quintell and his circle were apparently in command of the situation. First, they had the population thoroughly aroused against Lemuel Huntington—the man himself was in hiding for his life—and it would be only a question of time before he could be induced to dispose of his holdings in a community inimical to him. Again, they had the Mohave & Southwestern in a position where it must either meet their terms or build the terminal out on a rocky wash far beyond the confines of the camp. As for Sheriff Warburton, Quintell cursed him, laughed at his hick methods, boasted to his confederates that he was considering having the official ridden out of town on a rail.

However, with the success of his double plots all but realized, Jule Quintell worried. He wondered whether Tinnemaha Pete and Jerome Liggs had been dispatched. He couldn’t believe that the other five expert gunmen had suffered the fate of the one who had died without speaking.

As has been said, it was mysteriously quiet in Geerusalem on this night. Few were about, and save for the tramp of horses’ hoofs, announcing to listening ears the presence of Warburton’s cow-punchers patrolling the settlement, and the din of orchestras from the brilliantly lighted dance halls, one would have readily affirmed that the sheriff’s summary action had restored law and order to a hitherto unknown degree. The truth was, Geerusalem waited in the security of its home, restless and vengeful, thirsting to riot—waited on orders from Big George Rankin and watched the clock. The dynamite squad was abroad.

Shortly before eight, a little old man came stumping out of the darkness of a side street. He paused in the flood of light pouring out of a saloon. It was Tinnemaha Pete. He looked about him, confused. Though he knew the vast Mohave Desert as a child did its rudimentary A B C’s, he knew little or nothing about Geerusalem, particularly by night. Just now, he gazed timidly into the saloon, stroking his thin beard with a tremulous hand. A man came out of the place presently, and the desertarian stopped him to ask where Jule Quintell lived.

Having got his directions, he stumbled away through the dark and found the neat, rock bungalow built on the crest of a small hill that partially overlooked the camp. Light shone through the spacious windows, and the sound of an operatic selection being played on a phonograph came to his ears. He fixed the location of the house firmly in his capricious old brain and hobbled back the way he had come. Not remembering having ever seen the man Jule Quintell, he wondered curiously what this popular broker, the boss of Geerusalem, looked like.

At about the same time, Dot, in the parlor of the Miners’ Hotel, was reminding Lex Sangerly that he had an appointment with Billy Gee at the home of Jule Quintell. But Lex was wrought up over the uncompromising attitude of the broker in the matter of the right of way transaction and held out against giving him even the satisfaction of a visit.

“But I wanted to accompany you, Mr. Sangerly, and we’ll ask your father to go along, too,” she urged.

He looked at her in surprise. Then he laughed. “Why, you wouldn’t think of such a thing, Miss Huntington, and I know it! You just want me to meet Billy Gee, and——”

She shook her head. “But I do. I’m going to confront him. I’m going to accuse him of having inspired the work of that mob last night.” She broke off, then resumed in another voice: “My poor father hiding at Blue Mud Spring, like a criminal, both of us driven from home, dreading to go back to that ruined house! Don’t you understand how I feel?” She looked at him, and he noted the tragic, hunted expression in her eyes. “I feel, Mr. Sangerly, that something must come of this visit. I can’t tell you just why, but I have a premonition that you are going to be indebted to—to Billy Gee.”

Lex gazed soberly at her for some seconds. “Very well, we’ll go,” he said at last; “and I promised you I’d not have an officer at my elbow, didn’t I?”

A little later, accompanied by the elder Sangerly, Lex and Dot set out for the Quintell bungalow, the hotel porter leading the way. The spacious windows were still ablaze, the phonograph still executing its operatic serenade. Harrison, Quintell’s man Friday, opened the door for them, and ushered them into the large living room, furnished with a magnificence so wholly unexpected in this desert as to bewilder visitors.

Quintell entered shortly from the library where he sat reading. He was dressed in a rich lounging robe and smoked a long calabash pipe. He greeted them with his most winning smile and, seating himself, let his eyes rest on Dot. As the preliminary talk proceeded, he kept glancing at her frequently, his look one of undisguised approval and admiration.

“I am deeply interested in the novel I hear you’re writing, Miss Huntington,” he said. “I am informed you’ve paid me the honor of using me as a character in the book. Mr. Sangerly has perhaps told you that I’ll purchase five hundred copies.”

“Rest assured the character will be true to life, at any rate,” replied Dot simply.

“Ah—yes, doubtless!” smiled Quintell, and went on: “I regret very much to hear that you suffered at the hands of that mob, last night, Miss Huntington. Personally, I’m opposed to violence of that sort. It would seem to me that in this case where your father has been found to be on intimate terms with Billy Gee, instead of venting its spite by such destructive methods, the populace should insist——”

Dot flushed with anger at the palpable deceit in the man’s demeanor. “Pardon me, Mr. Quintell,” she broke in, “but I understand from a reliable source that you were instrumental in this violence which you now pretend to deprecate. I came here this evening to find out if you are man enough to show your hand.” Her eyes were on him fixedly, fiery.

He calmly removed his calabash from his mouth. “My dear young lady,” he replied in measured tones, “it strikes me that you might have visited me at my office, instead of disturbing the peace of my home in this manner. However, allow me to tell you that, having nothing to gain and not harboring any ill feeling against your father, I certainly would not urge the action taken by that mob. Perhaps you’ll now tell me who your reliable source of information was?”

The girl was silent, studying him wrathfully.

“Billy Gee told us,” asserted Lex, speaking for the first time; “and he seemed to know what he was talking about,” he added significantly. His father turned wide, horrified eyes on him.

“Billy Gee!” cried Quintell. He threw back his head and laughed aloud. “In Heaven’s name! Is it possible that the officials of the Mohave & Southwestern are also involved along with Lem Huntington in the heroic exploits of this romantic train robber? Tell me,” he continued tauntingly, “have these reported train holdups I’ve read so much about been a little stunt to advertise your road, similar to ‘Death Valley’ Scott’s transcontinental run a few years ago—to snare the gullible tourists to California?”

Lex winced at the insult. “You may draw whatever conclusion you choose, Quintell,” he said coolly. “The point is that Miss Huntington is here to speak with you about——”

“I have already answered Miss Huntington’s question,” cut in the other, and there was a trace of a sneer in his voice. “I don’t feel myself called upon to refute the statement of a common criminal. Another thing, the citizens’ committee, of which I am chairman, decided at a meeting this afternoon to give Mr. Huntington twenty-four hours—or until six o’clock to-morrow evening—to dispose of his property, settle up his affairs, and leave Soapweed Plains. We have found him undesirable. We do not want him here. What steps will be taken, should he fail to comply with the order——”

A cry of horror burst from Dot. She rose to her feet, pale and trembling. She stared wildly, dumbly, from Lex to his father, then fearfully at the broker.

“Good God, Quintell!” gasped young Sangerly. “You certainly aren’t going to be a party to this atrocity? It’s unjust—it’s criminal, man! Huntington is as innocent of these charges as you are. It’s a damnable frame-up. I’ll stake my life on his honesty.”

Quintell resumed his pipe, lit it, and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m not the whole show here. The ruling was made in open meeting, by unanimous vote. So far as the disposal of the property is concerned, I’ll buy it off of him—even though he turned me down, once. But I won’t pay a fancy price for it—it’s not worth it.” He blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t touch it, if you turned down the right of way purchase. I couldn’t. Money is tight right now.”

Dot, struck speechless by this appalling announcement, now found her voice. Defiance flashed from her eyes; her pretty face set with a furious purpose. “Mr. Quintell,” she cried, “you and your committee may continue to issue orders. You may make whatever decisions you wish. I defy you to put them into execution. I’ll take it personally on myself to see that my father leaves the plains in the morning. But I remain. Do you understand? I remain! I want to see how many men in Geerusalem will take sides against a woman. And when it suits me to sell the Huntington ranch——”

“I’ll buy it!” snapped out the elder Sangerly. He said it harshly, violently.

A sudden tense silence fell. Quintell straightened noticeably in his chair. His teeth clenched hard over the calabash. The Western manager of the Mohave & Southwestern was watching him, with the sagacious, estimating look of the hard-headed business man.

For a long moment, both men eyed each other steadily. Then a cynical smile parted the broker’s lips.

“Assuming that you’ll buy it, Mr. Sangerly, may I ask what you propose doing with it—particularly when you realize that your purchase of the Huntington ranch means our absolute refusal to grant your company right of way privileges across the Lucky Boy ground into Geerusalem?” He paused, his smile vanishing, his eyes narrowing as he disclosed his hand. “And right here, let me say that you may consider our negotiations held up pending the complete settlement of the Huntington scandal and the final disposition of this ranch.”

Harrison, sitting in an obscure corner of the room, caught his breath, amazed at his master’s rash move. Sangerly represented a powerful corporation.

The railroad manager chuckled deep down in his throat. Open opposition and threat were what he delighted to cope with; and in the present case it was simply a matter of outwitting the enemy with its own knowledge of facts.

“Since you have taken such a bold stand in this thing, why not go on and tell us your underlying motive, Mr. Quintell? Why not enlighten us, for instance, with the information that, having learned of an immensely rich gold strike on the land owned by Miss Huntington’s father, you are reaching out after it—trying to get possession by methods not much better than those employed by your rascally friend, the claim jumper?”

Quintell sprang from his chair with an oath. His face was drawn with fury. He took one step toward Mr. Sangerly, then halted irresolutely.

Dot stared at the speaker in blank astonishment. Lex had risen and stood watching Quintell, while Harrison made preparations to go to his employer’s assistance at the first sign of trouble.

The elder Sangerly, now got deliberately to his feet. He pointed an authoritative finger at the boss of Geerusalem and shot out in sharp tones: “I’m buying that ranch, Quintell. You may consider the right of way negotiations ended, absolutely. There’ll be no M. & S. terminal in Geerusalem. If Geerusalem wishes to do business with my road, it can haul its freight and stage its passengers to and from our trains. If we can’t do any better, we’ll erect our depot and establish our yards on the Huntington ranch, and you people can bridge the four-mile gap the best way you see fit——”

“Oh, we can, can we?” broke in Quintell nastily. “Let me tell you something, Sangerly! You just start that Hawthorne, Nevada, game of giving this town the go-by, and I’ll see that your gangs’ll never drive another spike.”

“I’ll take that challenge,” said the other. “And now, let me tell you something. The Billy Geerusalem claims are so rich that the new camp of Liggs, that I propose to start on the Huntington ranch, will be the metropolis of Soapweed Plains inside of a month. Do you happen to know Mrs. Agatha Liggs?”

Quintell did not reply. There was a crafty, triumphant glint in his eyes that somehow did not blend with his uncertainty of manner.

“Well, I do,” went on Lex’s father. “And I’ve had a talk with her. That’s how I know why you want that ranch. That’s why you’ll never get it, Quintell. Do you know who owns the Searchlight now?”

Here, the broker found an opening. He had regained much of his poise. “I always get what I go after, Sangerly,” he said grimly. “Buy, and I start legal action. You’re not dealing with a hick, don’t forget that! I have deeds showing transfer of those mining claims by the locators—the original locators. I’ll tie your operations up by injunction, as tight as a drum.”

Mr. Sangerly fixed his steely eyes on him. “Was one of those original locators Jerome Liggs?” he asked.

“Jerome Liggs is a criminal at large—wanted for the robbery of the Marysville city treasury. I don’t deal with criminals except to notify the sheriff, and——” He broke off.

Standing facing the door leading into the hall, a movement of one of the portières attracted his eye. He stared at the gleaming barrel of a six-shooter that suddenly flashed into view, covering him, and at the tall, slim figure of the man back of it. His eyes widened, remained fixed in fearful fascination on the newcomer.

The latter advanced into the room and paused a few steps away from the broker. His glance swept the room. It rested a moment on Dot and returned to Quintell. The boss of Geerusalem paled, crumpled under it. Dot’s breath came fast, and a blush rose to her cheeks as her eyes rested, for the second time that day, on the hero of her romantic dreams.

“I’m Billy Gee, Miles,” said the outlaw laconically, gazing steadily at Quintell.

CHAPTER XXIII—THE UPRISING

“You don’t look awful glad to see an old friend, Miles,” said Billy Gee suavely, after a short pause. “An’ so you’re Jule Quintell, the boss of Geerusalem, I’ve heerd so much about, eh? They tell me you bin runnin’ things to suit yoreself, an’ gettin’ away with it. Like you got away with it that other time, eh, Miles? Oh, Pete!” he called out suddenly. “Come on in an’ see who’s here!”

Out of the hall behind him trotted Tinnemaha Pete. He stopped, squinting at the visitors.

“Oho! If it ain’t you, Dot! What’re ye doin’—an’ Mr. Spangaree, or I’m a liar! That’s yore ol’ man, ain’t it?” His glance fell on Quintell, then he shuffled up to him and peered boldly into his face. “Billy,” he burst out, giggling, “you ol’ son-of-a-gun, you ketched him! Kill him! Go on an’ kill him——”

The outlaw raised his hand restrainingly. “I bin watchin’ around for you ever since that time, Miles,” he said, addressing the broker. “I oughter shoot you, jest like Pete says. Folks think I’m a pretty tough cuss. Mebby I am. Anyhow, I’m puttin’ you over the hurdles. Now, you tell these people the name you know me by. Go on!”

“His—Jerome Liggs,” faltered Quintell, with an effort.

“Jerome!” gasped Lex. He took a quick step toward the bandit and stared at him with wide eyes. The elder Sangerly frowned bewilderedly. The man who had, for three years, rifled the trains of the M. & S.!

“Now, Miles, tell ’em what you done to the Lucky Boy claims last night!” went on Billy Gee grimly. He jammed the menacing six-shooter into the man’s midriff. “Tell ’em how you salted ’em—everything!”

While the broker began in a reluctant, hesitating voice, Harrison edged quietly out of the room. He sped out through the back door of the bungalow and thence down the dark hillside, racing like mad for the main street to arouse the camp.

Meanwhile, Miles, alias Jule Quintell, confessed. His audacity, self-assurance, arrogance, vanished with that confession. Confronting him, holding him at the point of a gun, was a man who held a long-standing grudge against him, none other than the notorious desperado, Billy Gee, the man on whom he had shunted the crime of robbing the Marysville city treasury.

Billy Gee now turned to Dot and the two Sangerlys. “Folks,” he said evenly. “Miles here jest told you that Jerome Liggs robbed the Marysville city treasury. That’s why I’m Billy Gee. To-night I’m turnin’ him over to Sheriff Warburton, an’ Tinnemaha Pete—who used to be janitor of the Marysville city hall—he’ll swear he saw Treasurer Miles actin’ mighty suspicious in his office, round one o’clock one night.”

“Will I? Will I?” cried the old desert rat jubilantly. “Reckillect, Billy, what I told you? I seen him puttin’ a package——Kill him, Billy! Why don’t you go on an’ kill him! Don’t be a damn fool! D’ye hear?”

Shortly afterward, the door of Quintell’s desert mansion opened, and its owner stepped onto the veranda. Behind him came Billy Gee, followed by the rest. They set out down the terraced grounds for the street—a strange procession surely, five men and a girl. Dot reached the outlaw’s side and touched his arm.

“Jerome,” she whispered. “I’m afraid. You must not take the risk. You must not meet Sheriff Warburton. He’s looking for you. Don’t you understand, Jerome?” There was a little catch in her voice.

“There’s no need worryin’,” he replied. “If I have to skip out sudden tell Lex I want to see him at the ranch the furst thing in the mornin’. An’ you come along, won’t you? That other chap musta sneaked out after help, but we’ll fool him,” he added.

She kept pace with him, Quintell moodily plodding on before them. Once she looked up at Billy Gee. There were fine lines in his face, she thought, despite the fact that she could only just make out his features in the uncertain light reflecting from the business thoroughfares, some blocks away. Presently, she found herself thrilling over the realization that she was walking beside a popularly supposed “bad man” in action, one who, through her influence, had abandoned his lawless career to get back into the ranks of the law-abiding. But the strange surge of pride she felt was fleeting. The utter hopelessness of the effort struck her with full force. He was a fugitive. He would remain a fugitive until he was captured; even now, Sheriff Warburton was in the country to capture him. Again, she laid her hand on his arm—clutched it.

“Jerome, please! For—for my sake, Jerome, don’t meet Warburton. Let this wretch go. It is too late for revenge. Please—Jerome!” she urged wildly.

He looked down at her and smiled. He opened his mouth to speak but the words were never uttered. A deafening explosion on the main street ahead, broke horribly on the still night, shook the ground under their feet, and brought them to a sudden halt. Quintell, seizing the opportunity to escape, started forward, then stopped in his tracks as his captor’s revolver prodded him in the back.

At that moment, a two-story stone building standing in the brilliantly illuminated center of the camp crumpled before their eyes, crashed into ruins with a muffled roar. A great cloud of dust shot into the air.

“The Searchlight! They’ve—they’ve dynamited the Searchlight!” cried Lex aghast.

“Good heaven!” burst out the elder Sangerly. “Babcock—the men, Lex! They might have been at work—some of them.” A furious cry broke from him. He sprang at Quintell and caught him by the throat. “You devil!” he panted. “Not content with trying to rob us, you destroy our property—the newspaper we wrested from your filthy clutches. You miserable——”

“Father!” Lex dragged the other back forcibly. “Listen! This is no time for that sort of thing. We are in danger, without making matters worse. The camp is backing him, backing him to a man.”

Quintell overheard him. “I’m glad you appreciate that fact, Mr. Sangerly,” he remarked with a harsh chuckle. “If I may be permitted to say it, you’re all in imminent danger of your lives. I would advise you to see that I’m set free. Otherwise, I won’t be responsible for consequences. This man is a criminal. It is ridiculous to believe that he will turn me over to the sheriff—to the very man who is looking for him. He’s bluffing.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Billy Gee curtly. “Come on—get a-goin’! If yore friends start shootin’, so do I. I’ve bin waitin’ for this chance too long, Miles. I’m goin’ through with it now. Better you take the sidewalk, Dot,” he added gently. “There’s trouble comin’, I reckon. Tell Lex to hurry on ahead to the Miners’ Hotel an’ notify Warburton we’re on our way. He’ll know where to meet us. Take down this back street, Miles, an’ watch yore step!”

The street he indicated was a deserted back thoroughfare paralleling the main one of the camp. The rear of the Miners’ Hotel faced it, and a little distance farther on, was the gate leading into the yard back of the dry-goods store through which Billy Gee had flitted on many a midnight to visit his mother.

With Quintell obeying the outlaw’s command, the group turned to enter the side street. Their footfalls rang out sharply on the rocky ground. Following the explosion, a profound silence had fallen on the settlement, broken only by the sound of galloping hoofs as Warburton’s deputies dashed for the scene of destruction.

Suddenly a wild shout rose out of the gloom of the side street. It swelled into a roar, coming from all directions. In a twinkling, the thoroughfare became alive with men, pouring from every conceivable hiding place in the vicinity. Lex and his father cried out a warning. The former caught Dot by the arm.

“Come! Run! They’ll trample us!” he shouted.

But she shook him off, her eyes flashing with a resolute fire. “I’m all right. Take care of your father and Pete. Get them away!” Her voice was harsh, commanding.

The outlaw gave a short laugh. Lex hesitated an instant, then started off on a run for the sidewalk, dragging his father with him. They collided with the onrushing horde of furious men and went wallowing. Tinnemaha Pete, his old brain grasping the peril of the situation at the first alarm, escaped the crush and fled like mad for the Miners’ Hotel.

Meanwhile, Billy Gee’s disengaged hand had fastened on Quintell’s coat collar. He jerked the boss around out of the treacherous darkness and headed him for the brilliantly lighted main street, a block away. His six-shooter was boring into his prisoner’s back, cutting into the flesh.

“Talk to ’em, Miles!” he hissed into the other’s ear. “Talk to ’em fast, Miles, or I let go!”

Quintell put up a trembling hand. His face was ashen, drawn with fear. “Men, he’s got me. Stop, men! He’s got me! Can’t you see? Stand back! For God’s sake, men, stand back!” he panted wildly.

The mob halted its forward rush—frenzied, baffled. It circled just out of arm’s reach of the trio, a solid mass of surging, lawless humanity that itched for the letting of blood, gripping their murderous weapons, filling the night with their cries and curses. Like stampeded cattle, they milled and strained around the three, shouting their foul threats and insults at the girl and the outlaw, reassuring their master, waiting with wolfish eagerness for the moment when they could fall upon their prey and destroy it.

“Fellers,” proclaimed Billy Gee, his tones cool and deliberate, “this here is a personal matter ’twixt me an’ him. His name ain’t Quintell. It’s Gene Miles. He robbed the Marysville city treasury three years ago an’ laid the job on me. Gangway, men, gangway!” he added, starting Quintell onward.

“He lies! He lies!” cried Harrison, shouldering his way to the front. “This is Billy Gee, the bandit. He held us up—burglarized Jule Quintell’s home. He’s taking him down to the office to make him open the safe. Are you going to let him get away with it, men? Are you letting him pull off this rough stuff before your eyes, in a civilized community? One man against a thousand? Are you going to stand for——”

“Talk to ’em, Miles! Talk to ’em!” threatened Billy Gee. “Tell ’em to fall back an’ let us through. You’ll go before I do, Miles. I got a bead on yore heart. I’ll be good for one bullet—maybe more.”

Again, the broker called on that frantic crowd, supplicated it vehemently in an agony of terror. Snarling its hatred, its ranks parted grudgingly, then closed in behind where Dot brought up the rear with Billy Gee’s other revolver tight gripped in her hand.

Carried away by the desperateness of the outlaw’s plight, Dot had whisked the six-shooter from the holster of her romantic hero, resolved to back him in his fight, to perish with him, if necessary. Just now, she kept her gun trained on the bank of vicious faces that crowded after her. There was a fire in her eyes and a determination on her pretty face, far more eloquent than any words.

They turned into the main street finally, and continued on down, moving slowly, the multitude pressing in on them, raging around them, menacing them still. They passed the great heap of débris which had once represented the home of the Geerusalem Searchlight. As they reached the corner, out of the cross street dashed a troop of cow-punchers, with Sheriff Warburton at their head. Others followed, thundering down upon the mob from front and rear, scores of the grim-faced riders of the range waiting only for the signal to open fire on the enemy.

“Men of Geerusalem, as sheriff of San Buenaventura County, I order you to disperse!” shouted Warburton in ominous tones.

The mob halted. It stood hemmed in by mounted men, surrender being the only alternative left it, save that of bloody resistance. There was a tense, heavy silence.

Billy Gee, followed by Dot, thrust Quintell forward until he stood at the sheriff’s stirrup.

“Hullo, Billy!” said Warburton curtly.

“Hullo, Bob!” replied Billy Gee. “Here’s yore man. What d’you want done with him?”

“Herd him on down to the hotel, an’ I’ll——”

“This is an outrage, sheriff,” broke from Quintell.

“Collusion!” cried Harrison, at the top of his lungs. “Warburton, I demand the arrest of Billy Gee, notorious outlaw and criminal at large. Men, they’re in cahoots! It’s a frame-up! A political frame-up!”

A sudden wave of fury swept over the massed body of the mob. Big George Rankin’s face glared murderously for one instant out of its depths.

“Altogether, gang! Give the cow-chasers hell!” he yelled, opening fire on the nearest riders as he spoke.

In a twinkling, the battle was on. The street was converted into a bloody arena reverberating with the roar of blazing six-shooters and the shouts and curses of frenzied men. Taking advantage of the moment, Billy Gee thrust Dot in front of him, and with Quintell leading the way, fled in a hail of bullets for the Miners’ Hotel. The conflict raged on fiercely, the mob fighting with desperate abandon to break through the cordon of mounted deputies. Up and down the main street dashed terrified horses, riderless. Other cow-punchers, thirsting to avenge their fellows’ deaths, filled up the ranks. The street became littered with dead and dying. Stubbornly, furiously, the Quintell element fought. Then Big George Rankin passed out, a curse on his lips.

Sheriff Warburton raised his voice over the tumult:

“Las Animas an’ Bar-G men, close in there! Ride ’em down!”

The two cow-puncher outfits swung into line and set spurs to their horses. Into the mob they drove, head on, hurling it back, trampling its members under hoof. Like some irresistible tide, they swept on recklessly, fatally; and the rioters began to give way, to retreat, slowly at first, then with increasing haste, before the savage advance. Presently they broke and fled for the security of the sidewalks, pouring into saloon and dance hall and gambling den, availing themselves of every means of escape. The street cleared as if by magic. In the dust lay the dead, Big George Rankin and Harrison among them. Through the camp sped bodies of horsemen bearing the sinister message:

“Lights out! Keep inside or be shot on sight!”

Warburton, bleeding from a nasty scalp wound, reached the hotel finally. He was in a fiery mood. He rushed Quintell upstairs to a room, handcuffed him, and put a guard over him. Then he came down again, wiping the blood from the side of his face, and walked over to where Billy Gee and Dot were standing.

“You know what we agreed, Billy? I got to git patched up an’ I’ll be busy most o’ the night,” he said tersely.

The outlaw nodded. “I’m goin’ out to the Huntington ranch to-night, Bob. The agreement stands.”

“You kin expect me there round noon, Billy,” said Warburton, turning away.

“You’ll find me waitin’, sheriff.”

“Send them cow-punchers in. Tell ’em to report here.”

Half an hour later, a hostler brought two saddle horses up to the hotel entrance. Lex Sangerly and his father stood on the sidewalk along with Mrs. Liggs, and watched as Billy Gee and Dot mounted and rode down the quiet street, bound for the lonely, desolate ranch on Soapweed Plains. Mrs. Liggs was weeping disconsolately into her handkerchief, a pathetic little figure, bent and broken with a sorrow she had never earned.

The moon was just rising, flooding the gaunt land with its soft, compassionate glow. There was a subtle charm in that desert realm; a strange beauty in the night. But Dot was oblivious to these enchantments, ideal though they were for tender words of love, for the delicious ecstasies of that first embrace, that first kiss. Her heart was brimful of grief, weighed down with an overwhelming sadness greater than she had ever known. Billy Gee was surrendering to the law in the morning. He was passing out of her life, forever.

CHAPTER XXIV—WARBURTON GETS SQUARE

Walking their horses down Geerusalem Gulch, they went, riding side by side. Neither spoke. They passed the lonely, dilapidated rock hut where Lennox, wounded, had applied for help on that exciting night of his flight from camp, and crossed the monumented gravel bar that was to be known thereafter as Quintell’s Unlucky Boy. Ahead of them spread the great, gray floor of Soapweed Plains, looking under the sheen of the moon like some placid ghostly sea. From out of the immeasurable distances came the pitiful howl of a wild dog foraging hopelessly for food.

As they reached the point in the gulch where it began to spill its rocky bottom over the bosom of the plains, Dot turned her head and looked at Billy Gee. Her face was pale, her lips drawn.

“Why did you ever do it, Jerome?” she asked in dead tones.

He bent a sharp glance at her. Her cheeks shone wet in the moonlight.

“I’m glad now I did, Dot,” he said simply. “But he had me dead to rights—arrested. I couldn’t help it. It was my only way out. An’ I wanted to save you folks, an’ there was Lex bein’ swindled on that placer proposition. I wouldn’t stand for——”

“How did you know?”

“I seen him. It was right out yonder,” he said, pointing back up the wash where he had overheard Quintell and Harrison discussing the salting of the Lucky Boy group the night before. He explained the incident briefly to her. “He lit a match, an’ I got a look at his face an’ knowed him. You can’t ever guess how I felt about it, Dot,” he went on, in a harsh voice. “Here was the man who had made me a bandit, the man I bin huntin’ and huntin’ for three years. When he planted that evidence against me to clear himself an’ make me out the thief, I was one of his clerks, an’ I’d already bin talked about to run against him at the next election. That’s why he done it, I reckon. Well, it’s all over now.”

“But Pete knew all about it. Oh, Jerome, why didn’t you let him swear out a warrant for Quintell’s arrest!” cried Dot miserably.

“Poor ol’ Pete! He’s scary an’ funny, an’ more’n likely they’d think he was jest imaginin’ things. No, Dot! It’s better the way it turned out.” He paused, then continued in slow, plaintive tones: “After I got away from them night riders this mornin’, I kept lookin’ back. I was afraid they’d drop in at the ranch ag’in—an’ my mother was there. An’—well, you was out yonder, too, Dot. Anyway, I was worried an’ wasn’t watchin’ for Warburton. That’s how he come to git me.

“He took me over to Blue Mud Spring, an’ me an’ him an’ yore dad rode back to the ranch together. Then I told him about the Marysville robbery, an’ Pete tells his story of how he seen Miles leavin’ the city hall with a valise, round one o’clock, the night before the robbery. There was a lot more said, for instance, how Miles, or Quintell, as he calls himself, was tryin’ to drive you folks out o’ the country, an’ how he’d salted these claims to hold up the railroad comp’ny. Then I got the idea to git Miles, myself. I told Warburton I figgered that much was comin’ to me, seein’ as how Miles had made me a criminal. Yore dad took sides with me, Dot. Yes, he did. An’ Warburton agreed. He put me on my honor.”

He laughed. “Everything’s turned out dandy. An’ the Billy Geerusalem claims is goin’ to be split three ways, between Pete, my mother, an’ yore dad. That’s all bin fixed, Dot, an’ better days are comin’.”

As he finished speaking, he reached out suddenly, and his hand closed hard over hers. Her face was averted, streaming with silent tears. She was gazing mutely toward the boundless stretches of desolation beyond which lay the now invisible violet and yellow scallop of range that had formed the background of all her past romantic dreams. She faced him suddenly, a sob bursting from her, clutching his hand spasmodically.

“It’s not too late, Jerome. It’s not too late,” she cried. “You can escape. You have to! He must not take you. Do you know what it’ll mean? The penitentiary for life! Dear God! Never to get free! To count the long, long years passing, to grow old and wasted, to die and find your freedom in the grave. Jerome, he must not take you. You owe it to yourself, to your mother, to me! Jerome, for my sake, if for no other reason!”

She jerked her horse to an abrupt stop. Gone was her restraint. She was weeping passionately, appealingly, with hysterical abandon. He reined in beside her, leaned out of the saddle, caught her in his arms, and drew her to him. His breath was coming from him in great gasps.

“Dot—darling!” he choked hoarsely.

Her heart opened then, and she poured into his ear the strength of her love for him, all her secret hopes, her fears, her mounting despair, in one desperate outpouring of entreaty.

“Don’t you remember, Jerome, dearest?” she sobbed distractedly. “‘You poor, wounded wild animal,’ I called you. I wanted you then. You wandered out of my dreamland, a part of my dreams. You came living—dying, to me. You belonged to me. You belong to me now—now that my heart is breaking for you, dear.” She stroked his face fiercely with her hands. “To-night, I’ll speak to father. You must be on your way to the Mexican border by midnight. We’ll sell the ranch and the claims and follow, with your mother as soon as——”

She broke off. Through the dead silence, bearing down on them from the rear, came the sound of mad hoofs, the pop of a quirt against an animal’s flanks mingling with the wild, weird cries of a man. Then, into view loomed a diminutive rider. It was Tinnemaha Pete astride one of his little burros. Like some grotesque goblin of the night he came speeding up to them, cackling and sputtering incoherently.

“They tell me ye give up—quit like a dollar watch. Quit like a——” he screeched insanely, jerking his puffing burro to a stop. “Say it’s a danged lie, Billy! Billy, d’ye hear? Don’t tell me ye ain’t got the guts. Don’t tell me, my Billy boy ain’t got the guts. The son of Agatha! D’ye mark that, Dot? D’ye want—d’ye want to—d’ye want to kill me, Billy? To know—to know the buzzards’ll be peckin’ my innards outer me, sooner’n they oughter?”

He waved his skinny arms, a curious spasm of emotion sweeping over him, racking his shriveled little body.

“Jerome, did you hear? Oh, how can you refuse? How can you—— And Sheriff Warburton would understand. He is so good and generous. Please, Jerome, darling! Do as I say,” pleaded Dot passionately.

It was nearly midnight when Lemuel Huntington admitted them. Dot was pale and drawn of face, her eyes filled with suffering. Tinnemaha Pete puffed furiously at his old pipe and muttered endlessly to himself. Billy Gee sat down, bowed his head, and stared at the floor. Presently the girl brought up a chair and, taking her place close beside him, leaned her cheek against his arm and wept.

Lemuel, clad in an old-fashioned night robe, stood and blinked at them soberly. Throughout that day he had been repairing, where he could, the damage wrought by the night riders, so that, lacking certain pieces of furniture destroyed beyond all hope of restoration, the interior of the house looked much the same as it always had.

Standing thus, watching the trio, he presently nodded gravely to himself; for he recalled the agreement Billy Gee had entered into with Bob Warburton, and he knew without being told that Jule Quintell’s activities were at an end. Moreover, he was witnessing the verification of a long-standing suspicion that his Dot was in love with this outlaw. Without a word, he tiptoed into the little closet where Lennox lay and closed the door after him.

“It’s hell,” he whispered to the mining engineer, after they had discussed the situation. “But she’ll ferget it, soon’s she gits back to her edjucation. That’s one blessing. But ain’t it too bad, Lennox? You see, he saved my life to-day, when them kiyotes were takin’ me——”

“He saved mine, too,” broke in the other with a sigh.

The next day dawned finally. The sun rose, gloriously bright, and a playful little breeze came frolicking merrily out of the northwest. A lone mocking bird had lingered for one whole hour in the elderberry tree in the garden, pouring out a beautiful pæan, heralding to the desolate world its love of life and freedom.

Billy Gee was still at the ranch. He sat on the front porch with Dot. They sat facing the distant island of chromatic hills where nestled the camp of Geerusalem, watching the white thread of road that led to it. Sheriff Warburton would come by that road. Now and again, the girl would moan pitifully and wring her hands in silent agony. Every little while, Billy Gee would clasp her close, and he would kiss her hungrily and whisper fierce words of endearment into her ear.

Seated on a bench at one end of the porch, was Tinnemaha Pete. Like a faithful dog grown old and purblind and helpless, he kept his rheumy eyes riveted on this youthful partner of his who was determined to keep his promise with the “keys of the penitentiary.” Never, never had Tinnemaha Pete felt so broken-hearted, so near death, so desperate. A dark, awful resolution had found a sanctuary in his fanatical old brain. In the back pocket of his voluminous overalls lay a loaded revolver.

“An’ they kin hang me after,” he murmured to himself, over and over. “An’ they kin hang me after. I’ve lived long enough—what? He ain’t. An’ they kin hang me after. Betcha life, they kin—an’ I’ll laugh at ’em.”

From the direction of the barn came the sounds of Lemuel’s hammer, restoring the ravages of the mob. He was unusually solemn and thoughtful. Presently he threw down the hammer and perched himself on the top rail of the corral and watched the road to Geerusalem.

The hours dragged by, heavy, tragic hours. Eight, nine, ten, eleven o’clock came and went. At half past eleven, an automobile suddenly made its appearance out of the far-away island of hills. It approached at a wild rate. The driver proved to be Lex Sangerly—alone. He brought the car to a stop, leaped out and dashed up to the front porch. Tinnemaha Pete got to his feet and one clawlike hand reached into his overalls pocket.

“Compliments from Sheriff Warburton,” cried Lex jubilantly. “He’s attending to some official business and couldn’t get here at the appointed hour. He asked me to deliver this message to Jerome Liggs.” He flourished a yellow sheet of paper, a telegram, which he read aloud as Lemuel came hurrying up:

“L. S. Sangerly, senior, Manager M. & S. R. R.

“Your wire relative to Billy Gee’s parole considered and approved. Withdrawal of charges against him by your company and your personal concern in his case make me feel keenly interested in his redemption. Your views are directly in line with my own. As you must know I am inaugurating the honor system in the penal institutions of this State. Kindest regards to yourself and family. I am informing the sheriff of San Buenaventura County of my action.

“Hiram Bronson, Governor,

“State of California.”

A hysterical cry of joy burst from Dot. Tinnemaha Pete dropped the revolver back into his pocket and staggered blindly to the bench and made curious, choking noises in his throat.

Later that day, while Lemuel sat smoking on the porch and grinning contentedly to himself, Billy Gee came out of the house and confronted him.

“Huntington!” he said shortly. “You reckillect that mornin’ I told you I was goin’ to pay you back for sellin’ me out to Sheriff Warburton?”

The rancher took his pipe from his mouth and stared soberly at the other. He did not reply.

“Well, you’re payin’, old sport. Me an’ Dot’s goin’ to git married nex’ Sunday, whether you like it or not. That’s how I square up with you.”

Before Lemuel could reply there was a heavy footfall in the hall and a strident voice boomed heartily:

“Hold on there, a minute, kid! I got somepn to say about this.” They turned to see Sheriff Warburton standing in the doorway, a bandage around his head. Back of him stood Dot, her pretty face wreathed in smiles. The sheriff got out his handcuffs and approached the two men, his eye on Billy Gee. Lemuel catching the meaning of the action grinned broadly.

“I always told myself, that I’d hang these nickel-plated doodads on you some time, young feller,” said the sheriff gravely. “I’m goin’ to, right now—perticular on account of what you jest said. Come here, Dot!” He reached out and took the girl by the arm and brought her alongside of Billy Gee. With a deft movement, he handcuffed them together. “After Sunday, Billy, that’s the awful fix you’ll be in, an’ that’s how I square up with you. He’s a lucky dog, Dot,” he added laughingly.

Tinnemaha Pete, watching the proceedings with Mrs. Liggs, burst into a loud cackle of mirth.

“Son of a gun, Agatha! Did ye mark that? He ain’t sech a measly skunk, as I thought he was. What’re cryin’ about, Agatha?”

“I’m—I’m so happy, Pete,” she breathed, turning away.

In the months that followed, the Huntington ranch vanished, save for two fenced-in acres that held the house, outbuildings, and the cool, old-fashioned garden with the trim little grave in one corner. The townsite of Liggs sprang up mushroomlike and took its proud place on the map of San Buenaventura County. The Billy Geerusalem claims blossomed out, bonanzas, and the camp of Geerusalem lost its ranking as the metropolis of Soapweed Plains. It never knew a railroad—even as the elder Sangerly had avowed to Jule Quintell, now languishing in the State penitentiary.

Prosperity can never change the sterling members of the human family, no more than may the powers of alchemy convert slag into gold. They are still the same humble dwellers of the vast Mohave—Tinnemaha Pete, quaint, timid old desert rat; Sheriff Bob Warburton, big of soul and purposeful; achieving, ambitious Lex Sangerly; Dick Lennox, mining engineer of merit.

The dark days of uncertainty still remain green in the mind of Lemuel Huntington. They remain green, too, in the mind of his daughter, whose romantic brain worked out the destiny of her own happiness. Nor can the shy little mother, who lived and suffered for her wayward son, ever forget; nor that son, who found the turning point in the realization that the price for a hunted animal could not tempt her compassionate heart.

All this and more has been narrated by Dot in her novel, which she called “Billy Geerusalem,” and lovingly dedicated to the man who came to her out of the violet and yellow scallop of hills which had formed the background of all her romantic dreams.