Jeff Keith had been listening with bent head. Now he looked up. "You went through that rather than betray me?"
"Shucks, I was allus a bad loser," the puncher replied. "Besides, tellin' him wouldn't 'a' helped me."
"No wonder you stopped me just now," the young man said. "It seems I'm just the headstrong blunderer I've always been. I owe you a lot, Mister Green."
"My friends use my first name," Sudden told him, holding out a hand.
Keith grasped it eagerly. "Thank you--Jim," he replied, and then, "What are we going to do?"
"Smash up Hell City. Will yore fellas take a hand, Merry?"
"Will they?" the rancher cried. "All I'm worth wouldn't keep 'em out of it, an' that goes for yore crowd, eh, Frosty?" The Double K man hesitated a moment and Sudden answered for him. "Shore, an' I'm bettin' we can count on help from Dugout, 'specially when it's knowed who downed the Colonel. I'm wonderin' whether the sheriff o' Red Rock would sit in?"
He was watching Keith's face as he spoke, but if the boy felt alarm at the suggestion he did not show it. On the contrary, he was the first to approve.
"Dealtry's a good man to have at your back," he said, adding with a ghost of a smile, "that is, unless he's wanting you."
"He struck me as square," the puncher went on. "I'll ride over an' have a talk with him. Meantime, we gotta keep mighty silent, an' Jeff, yu must stay holed-up--they won't look for yu here."
The young man's face fell; he had been hoping to meet Joan again, but he made no demur. The others sensed a change in him; the bitter, rebellious attitude had disappeared, leaving a quiet determination. They put it down to the infamous attempt upon his father's life, never guessing at a still more potent factor.
"We're takin' on a man-sized job an' can't afford to overlook bets," was Sudden's final warning.
Chapter XXIII
Satan's fury, when he learned that his victim had escaped sent Silver, who brought the news, cowering to a corner, whence he watched, terrified. Never before had he seen his dreaded master so completely lose control of himself. Striding to and fro, uttering fearful blasphemies, he poured vitriolic curses upon the unknown person who had robbed him of revenge, and promised punishment which turned the timorous listener's blood to ice.
Presently, at the end of another wild tirade, he snatched out his revolvers and Silver thought his last moment had come. But the madman fired at the picture of the gunman, bullet after bullet, until the face was no more than tattered fragments of canvas. Only when the weapons were empty did he fling them to the floor and sink, panting with passion, into a seat. Silence ensued, and this, to the solitary spectator of the wierd scene, seemed even more dreadful. Fascinated, he could not look away from the blood-red mask, out of which the rage-glazed eyes stared into space. Suddenly bandit stood up; the paroxysm had passed.
"What are you doing there, you coward?" he growled. "Go, make enquiries, find out something, blast you. And send me a boy--one who can ride."
When the fellow had scuttled out, he sat down and wrote a note, slowly, carefully. The result appeared to satisfy him, for after studying it critically, he nodded.
"That will bring her, and she will bring him," he reflected aloud. "With the old man dead, I shall hold all the cards."
At the Double K ranch-house, Joan had just relinquished her duties in the sick-room, leaving the patient in the capable hands of Mandy, who had hurried to the bedside of her old master as soon as she heard the news.
"Go foh a ride, honey," the negress said. "Yo is all tuckered out. We-all suah hab yo on our han's mighty soon, an' 01' Massa tak' de hide off'n mah back when he git well." So the girl got her horse and had just mounted when the foreman approached. He was not in a happy frame of mind these days; the "accident" to his employer had jarred him. Recalling Satan's enquiries as to the Colonel's visits to Dugout, he could not credit the current story. On the other hand, he found it just as difficult to believe that a son, however unjustly treated, could deliberately endeavour to slay his father, and coarse-natured as he was, the possibility sickened him. If Jeff had indeed sunk to that level ... The unfinished thought prompted him to give the girl a warning.
"Shouldn't go far, Miss Joan. Queer things is happenin' an' the country is a heap unsettled."
"Thank you, Steve," she smiled. "I'll be careful."
His gaze followed her as she shot away, trim figure swaying easily with the movement of the beast beneath her, a picture to take and hold the eye of any horseman.
"Hell, that boy must 'a' bin loco," was his comment.
It was only after she had ridden a mile or more that Joan awoke to the fact that she was travelling in the direction of the Glue-pot.
"Sugar, you must be a mind-reader," she told her mount laughingly. "It's a good thing you haven't the gift of speech, too, or you might betray secrets."
She pulled up as she saw a rider approaching, a mere lad of eleven or twelve, astride the back of an unkempt, shaggy pony. He stopped when he reached her and dragged off his wreck of a hat. He was not prepossessing, his thin features having a crafty expression out of keeping with his age. "I reckon yo're Miss Joan Keith," he said.
"Your reckoning is correct," she smiled. "And where do you come from?"
"Way over," he replied, jerking a thumb to the northward, and she knew that was all she would learn. "I got a letter for you --a stranger asked me to fetch it; said for me to give it to yoreself."
He dived into the pocket of his ragged overalls. Joan took the envelope and one glance at the superscription quickened the beating of her heart. But she would not open it yet.
"What was he like, this stranger?"
"Dressed like a cow-wrastler, with blue eyes an' a mark on his chin," the boy replied. "He gimme four bits." The girl's face was flushed, her eyes sparkling. She had been sure before--the writing had told her, but she could not resist the desire to prolong her pleasure. "So if I give you another four you will have a whole dollar," she said.
"Betcha life," he agreed, and putting the coins carefully away, banged his heels against the ribs of his steed and scampered off. Only then did she open the envelope.
DEAR JOAN, I shall be at the mouth of Coyote Canyon about three today. I must see you. Don't fail me.
YOUR JEFF.
Not very romantic, perhaps, but what young girl ever criticized her first love-letter? She read it three times, tucked it into the pocket of her shirt-waist, and turned towards the rendezvous.
"Joan Keith, you are an idiot," she assured herself withmock severity. "Sugar's hoof-beats are not saying `Your Jeff.' "
She reached the spot in good time, but it appeared to be deserted. After waiting a little while, it occurred to her that she might be seen by one of the Double K riders, and not wishing this, she rode a short way up the ravine, where the undergrowth would screen her from view. No sooner had she taken up this new position than she became aware of movement and five horsemen burst from the bushes and encircled her. A look sufficed to show that she was in the hands of Satan's infamous "Imps." That she had been trapped was not at first clear to her.
"What does this mean?" she asked indignantly.
The leader, whom she now recognized as the brute who had insulted her at Black Sam's, rode forward, a smirk on his disfigured countenance.
"Jeff, the Chief, that is, couldn't come hisself so he sent us to take you to him," he explained.
The statement almost stunned her. So the treasured letter was no more than a bait to lure her into the clutches of the Boss of Hell City. Furtively she crushed and let it fall; she could not keep such a vile thing. Then the horror of her position swept over her, and, spurring her pony, she made a desperate bid to break through, hoping they would not dare to pursue into the open. But ere she had gone a few feet, two of them grabbed the reins and jerked her horse back on its haunches.