"There's no fire in the gulch yet," Harrow said, "so we haven't seen them. But they'll show. Ace and Jeb Donnelly are up on top at my house—"
He broke off and shot a startled glance at Judge Eaton. Stovers dropped the untasted whiskey and the glass clattered on the rubbish-littered floor as he bolted outside. The others ran out, pushing away to the opposite side of the street and looking up over the tops of the building. Shots had come from up there.
"By God, I guess Kerrigan made the try and fell into a trap," Harrow said excitedly. "Knowing Jeb and Ace as I do, they probably got him—"
"The hell they did!" screamed the Cherokee as sharp cries broke out. "Don't tell an Injun like me what's up there. Them's 'Paches!"
"Loco's band," Tom Harrow said and men caught the sudden fear in his voice. It was always that way. Just mention the name of the "human tigers" and men who had seen firsthand evidence of their butchery turned cold inside.
"Horses running," the judge said, listening. "Saunders and Jeb Donnelly must have caught them flat-footed when they approached the house and scattered them long enough to get outside to their horses. They're coming down the road now."
Joe Stovers looked across the street to where three women stood near the stage, faces upturned to the windows beginning to blaze from the mansion. He turned and walked over to them.
"Why, Joe, what are you doing up here?" Clara said in relieved tones. "We thought— Joe, what is it up there? What's happened?"
"Just offhand I'd say it's Loco coming in to collect interest on an overdue bill Tom Harrow owes him. He's burning the mansion first and he'll probably not stop there. How he missed that coach and all of you in it I'll never know. Must have come in from the west."
"They didn't plan this alone," Eaton said with conviction. "I see the fine hand of Kerrigan."
"That's a lie," Clara exclaimed passionately. "How can you say such a thing? Haven't you and Harrow done enough to Lew already?"
"Not as much as they'd like to, Clara," Joe Stovers spoke up grimly. "Eaton is crazy, Clara. I've always thought so. Now I'm certain of it."
"Kerrigan was captured and then freed by Loco, wasn't he?" Eaton snapped back. "He came up here with one of the band, didn't he? It would have been easy to make contact with signal fires, wouldn't it? Of course he planned it!"
"I don't give a damn who planned what," Sam the Cherokee replied. "Listen! Take a look down in the lower end of town. They're firing it to drive us out, and when we go we'll be pounced on and cut to pieces. Joe, you're the only man here I've got any respect for, even if you did allus make things rough for my customers. What's the best thing to do now?"
"Here comes Ace and Jeb Donnelly with their shirttails flying," Stovers grunted as two running horses crashed their way in among the shacks and made the street.
Donnelly hauled up hard on the bloody mouth of his white horse and almost flung himself from the saddle. He'd torn off the bandage and his hairy face was livid with fear.
"Tom, Apaches all over the place!" he gasped out. "We were hid inside the house in the dark, waiting for Kerrigan to show, when about six of them rose right up out of the ground and lit torches. We shot two of them and then broke for our horses."
"They've fired the lower end of the town, in case you ain't noticed," Ace Saunders said to Stovers. "I told Kerrigan down in Pirtman I still had ice up and down my back after we saw 'em down south early this mornin'. I reckon right now it's froze cold and stiff." He seemed to see the three women for the first time and wheeled on Harrow. "What in God's name are those women doing here?" he asked savagely. "Who brought them?"
"They wanted to come, and they're here," Harrow said coolly. "Nobody asked them to come."
"Sam," Joe Stovers ordered, "Get over there and douse the lights in that dive of yourn. The rest of you inside quick and bar the doors."
Harrow's three guards, including the coach driver, had come out of hiding and stood waiting uneasily. These men had stolen horses and been guilty of many other crimes where lack of courage would have been fatal. But they were scared now because of one word burning inside their thoughts: Apaches!
"What about the coach and team?" the driver asked hoarsely. Stubb Holiday had driven that coach and Stubb was dead. Pete Orr had taken over the job and now Pete was dead, too. With a bunch of yelling Apaches coming up from the lower end of town at a run, the man was so frightened he barely could speak.
"Leave them!" snapped Joe Stovers. "Inside everybody and douse the lights. All right, Sam!" he bellowed across the street. "Get set with that bunch of drunks and give 'em hell! Maybe we can get out of this thing yet."
Ace Saunders scattered chairs provided for courtroom spectators in a run back into the judge's small kitchen and living quarters. The door was a good strong one and there were no windows. Judge Eaton had stipulated that when Harrow ordered the place built for him. His Honor had taken no chances of being shot to death some night as he slept in the single bunk.
Ace slammed the bar into place and shoved in the safety peg. He turned to find Kitty standing in the curtained opening. He had bent to blow out the lamp but suddenly straightened and looked at her. She was trembling like a child.
"No need to get scared," he said to her. "They ain't got us yet. Kerrigan talked to you in your room down at Pirtman, huh?"
"You've got a badge on," she said.
"Deputy U.S. Marshal," he grunted. "What did Kerrigan say?"
"He said the sheriff is holding some cattle money for him. He wanted me to take some of it and go back East alone."
"Then what are you doing up here tonight, Kitty?"
"I came with Tom," she said simply.
"After what he did to you, throwing you over to marry another woman?"
"He's not going to marry her—ever. He's going to marry me."
"And you believed him, of course," the gunman said savagely.
"I'm not going back East!" Kitty cried out desperately.
He bent and blew into the top of the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. "Stay in here," he said roughly, and thrust her aside. "Kerrigan and his bronco Apaches will be here any minute."
He made his way back into the courtroom as the second lamp in there went out. He heard the crash of broken glass as Joe Stovers used his six-shooter barrel. Ace went over and knelt beside the sheriff at the opening. The drum of galloping hoofs shod in rawhide was coming closer now and the screams out there sounded like a pack of catamounts gone mad. Up on the hill, in plain view from the two windows, Harrow's magnificent home was a blazing inferno.
"There goes a funeral pyre to the memory of Bear Paw Daly," Stovers said, his eyes on the distant fire high above the gulch. "And as long as Lew didn't set it, I'm glad to see it burn."
"I don't suppose anybody will really ever know if this strike turned out to be old man Adams' lost diggings men have been hunting for ever since the Apaches wiped out part of his party," the gunman said. "I hear tell our friend Harrow actually has quite a pile of gold buried up there around that house. You reckon old Bear Paw's ghost is up there poking around in the flames trying to find some of the gold Tom stole from him after he murdered the old man here at their first camp in the gulch?" he added with a sardonic chuckle.
He chuckled again as an angry snarl came from the darkness over on the other side of the door, below the window. Stovers said grimly, "I wouldn't know about things like that, mister. But one thing I do know: unless you shoot straighter now than you ever did with that hired gun there'll be some more ghosts around here in a damn' few seconds. Here they come!"