"You've got nerve, Sudden," the man admitted, as he replaced his weapon and stood up. "Mebbe we'll find another way o' persuadin' you." He slouched away and the prisoner leaned back against his tree; only just in time had the kidnapper remembered that a dead body could tell them nothing. But the prospect was not heartening--there would be other ordeals. Telling himself that it was no good climbing hills till you came to them, he went to sleep.
A slight commotion in the camp awakened him some hours later. A man on a black horse had just arrived, leading another animal on which was a woman; her hands were tied behind and she was blindfolded. Amid deep-throated mirth, one of the gang lifted her from the saddle and removed the handkerchief; it was Lora Lesurge. He had but little time for speculation. The man who had threatened him with death brought the woman to where he sat.
"Told you we'd find another way," he jeered. "Here's a friend o' yores who'll mebbe get you to see things different--for her sake. I'll leave you to chew it over." Lora sank down wearily; she was utterly exhausted. The supercilious, self-assured woman, serenely conscious of her charm had, for the time being, receded, leaving only a frightened girl.
"God I never was so pleased to see anyone," she cried. "But how come yu to be here?" Sudden asked.
"I came to visit you--for Paul," she explained. "I rode towards your claim, but before I reached it I heard a shot from up on the hill-side, and just afterwards, a rider came out ofsome bushes ahead of me. Before I could utter a sound he gripped my throat and squeezed it till I lost consciousness. I recovered on the way here, to find myself packed like a piece of merchandise on the back of my horse." Incredible as the story seemed, Sudden could not but believe it; those cruel, livid marks on the slender white neck were real enough. He had already decided that his leggings and hat had been taken for some purpose but it could not be this--they could not have known of the girl's errand.
"But why are you here?" she questioned, and, noticing the battered condition of his face, "What have they been doing to you?"
"We had a li'l argument 'bout my comin'," the puncher told her, with a lopsided grin, "but there was too many of 'em an' they persuaded me." He gave a sketchy account of his adventure, including--as an experiment--the question he had been asked. The result was disappointing; unfeigned admiration was all he could find in her face, and that was not what he wanted.
"Why didn't you promise?" she cried. "It isn't your gold-mine."
"Snowy trusted me," he said simply.
"You could have taken them to the wrong place." He looked at her quizzically. "Yeah, it don't matter much where a fella is buried." She was silent for a while, fighting to regain her self-control. Apparently she succeeded, for when the leader of the gang approached again she faced him boldly.
"I suppose you know me?" she said, and when he nodded, "My brother will have a hundred men out searching, and if you are caught you will hang, every one of you."
"We're givin' you the shack," he said gruffly. "Better turn in an' git some sleep. I'll speak with you in the mornin'."
"I prefer to stay here," she replied.
"Do I have to carry you?" he asked.
"Good night--Jim," she said.
Chapter XIII
Sudden's disappearance caused consternation in the cabin of the gold-dealer, and Gerry's first job in the morning was to interview Bizet. The proprietor of the Paris could only tell him that the puncher had left early, sober and alone.
"I warn him to be careful," he said. "He have made enemy, you understan'?" One or two men remembered meeting him in the street, heading for home, and that was all he could learn. On the way back from his futile quest, his plainsman's eye noted the signs of a scuffle near the big bush, turf torn up, stones dislodged, and, in one place, a splash of blood. The ground behind was trodden flat and littered with cigarette stubs. A little way off, horses had waited. Gerry swore.
"Damnation! They laid for him," he growled. "I oughtn't to 'a' let him go alone." He tried to follow the hoof-prints, but soon had to give it up as hopeless. He returned to Jacob and told him what he feared.
"He ain't gone willin'--the marks show that," he concluded. "An' he'd never leave Nigger behind."
"We can only wait," the old man said. "I've great faith in your friend; if he's in trouble, he'll get out of it." But two days passed and there was no news of the missing man, and then Gerry got a shock. He was in the Paris, talking to Bizet and Hickok, when a half-drunken miner lurched up and said sneeringly:
"Still mournin' that pardner o' your'n? Well, you needn't to worry 'bout him. He's holed up somewheres handy an' he's the swine who's killin' an' robbin' we'uns of our dust, one at a lick. But mebbe I ain't bringin' you news?" For a moment the cowboy did not comprehend; then the full import of the accusation came to him, and he acted. His left fist swung out, caught the speaker full in the mouth and sent him sprawling on the sanded floor. When, spitting out curses and blood from badly gashed lips, he started to rise, he found Gerry's gun slanted on him.
"Own yo're a liar," the boy gritted, his face pale with fury. The blow and the threat sobered the miner. "Mebbe, but I'm on'y tellin' you the common talk," he said sullenly.
Hickok put a hand on Gerry's arm. "Let him get up an' we'll hear what he has to say," he suggested.
The man climbed to his feet. "There was a digger shot an' cleaned out two days back an' a fella wearin' leggin's, a 'two-gallon' hat, ridin' a black hoss, was seen around just before," he said. "This arternoon another is clubbed, an' dies, but not before he's able to say one word, 'Sudden.' Them's fac's, mister," he concluded triumphantly.
"My partner is not the killer," Gerry retorted angrily. "I know Jim."
"You may, but there's a-plenty in this city as don't, an' if he's catched he'll take the high jump, I'm tellin' you. He wears the duds an' rides a black."
"Which has been in Jacob's corral the whole time," the boy pointed out.
"Havin' bin left as a blind," suggested a bystander, and earned a look from the gunman which sent him sidling towards the door.
"I too know Green," Hickok said loudly. "He is not the kind to commit cowardly crimes." This pronouncement finished the discussion so far as the Paris was concerned, but in the other saloons the matter was being fiercely commented on and the puncher was already adjudged guilty and condemned. The only other topic which vied with it in importance was the disappearance of Miss Lesurge. At first Paul had accepted her absence with a quiet confident smile.
"Lora can take care of herself," he said.
But when the second day passed and he learned that Green was also missing, he became uneasy, and sent out searchers to comb the district; they returned without news.
"Mebbe they've run away to git hitched," Snowy suggested. Paul's eyes flashed, but he smiled. "Forty dollars a month wouldn't keep Lora in shoe-leather," he said. "But of course, he knows where your mine is." The old man looked alarmed for a moment, and then replied stoutly, "Jim wouldn't do a thing like that--he's white."
"According to what they're saying in town he's as black as Satan's soul," Lesurge contradicted.
Though he had scoffed at it, Snowy's guess returned to him when he was alone, and brought a heavy frown to his brow. Pacing up and down the room, he weighed the pros and cons, and knowing Lora's tempestuous nature, had to admit that it was possible.
"She wouldn't dare," he muttered, and knew he lied.
Meanwhile, in the kidnappers' camp, the prisoners were playing for time. In the morning, their leader paid Sudden another visit, bringing the lady with him. The night's rest, a wash in a nearby spring, a few deft touches to hair and dress, had transformed her into a different person, and the puncher saw admiration in their gaoler's eyes when she greeted her companion in captivity with a gay smile. But the fellow's voice was gruff when he asked: