"All right, Hank," replied Billy.
He went to his "room," and buckled on a heavy belt; then descended the steep stairs. The bar-room was lighted and filled with men. Some of them were drinking and eating; others were strapping provisions into portable form. Against the corner of the bar a tall figure of a man leaned smoking--a man lithe, active, and muscular, with a keen dark face, and black eyebrows which met over his nose. Billy walked silently to this man.
"What is it?" he asked, shortly. "This yere ain"t in th" agreement."
"I know that," replied the stranger.
"Then leave yore dust and vamoose."
"My dust is there," replied Black Hank, placing his hand on a buckskin bag at his side, "and you"re paid, Billy Knapp. I want to ask you a question. Standing Rock has sent fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks to Spotted Tail. The messenger went through here to-day. Have you seen him?"
"Nary messenger," replied Billy, in relief. "Stage goes empty."
Charley had crept down the stairs and into the room.
"What in h.e.l.l are yo" doin" yere, yo" ranikaboo ijit?" inquired Billy, truculently.
"That thar stage ain"t what you calls _empty_," observed Charley, unmoved.
A light broke on Billy"s mind. He remarked the valise which the stranger had so carefully guarded; and though his common-sense told him that an inoffensive non-combatant such as his guest would hardly be chosen as express messenger, still the bare possibility remained.
"Yo"re right," he agreed, carelessly, "thar is one tenderfoot, who knows as much of ridin" express as a pig does of a ruffled shirt."
"I notes he"s almighty particular about that carpet-bag of his"n,"
insisted Charley.
The man against the counter had lost nothing of the scene. Billy"s denial, his hesitation, his half-truth all looked suspicious to him.
With one swift, round sweep of the arm he had Billy covered. Billy"s hands shot over his head without the necessity of command.
The men ceased their occupations and gathered about. Scenes of this sort were too common to elicit comment or arouse excitement. They knew perfectly well the _laissez-faire_ relations which obtained between the two Westerners.
"Now," said Black Hank, angrily, in a low tone, "I want to know why in h.e.l.l you tried that monkey game!"
Billy, wary and unafraid, replied that he had tried no game, that he had forgotten the tenderfoot for the moment, and that he did not believe the latter would prove to be the sought-for express messenger.
One of the men, at a signal from his leader, relieved Billy"s heavy belt of considerable weight. Then the latter was permitted to sit on a cracker-box. Two more mounted the stairs. In a moment they returned to report that the upper story contained no human beings, strange or otherwise, except the girl, but that there remained a small trunk. Under further orders, they dragged the trunk down into the bar-room. It was broken open and found to contain nothing but clothes--of the plainsman"s cut, material, and state of wear; a neatly folded Mexican saddle showing use, and a raw-hide quirt.
"h.e.l.l of a tenderfoot!" said Black Hank, contemptuously.
The outlaws had already scattered outside to look for the trail. In this they were unsuccessful, reporting, indeed, that not the faintest sign indicated escape in any direction.
Billy knew his man. The tightening of Black Hank"s close-knit brows meant but one thing. One does not gain chieftainship of any kind in the West without propping his ascendency with acts of ruthless decision.
Billy leaped from his cracker-box with the suddenness of the puma, seized Black Hank firmly about the waist, whirled him into a sort of shield, and began an earnest struggle for the instant possession of the outlaw"s drawn revolver. It was a gallant attempt, but an unsuccessful one. In a moment Billy was pinioned to the floor, and Black Hank was rubbing his abraded fore-arm. After that the only question was whether it should be rope or bullet.
Now, when Billy had gone downstairs, the stranger had wasted no further time at the window. He had in his possession fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks which he was to deliver as soon as possible to the Spotted Tail agency in Wyoming. The necessary change of stage lines had forced him to stay over night at Billy Knapp"s hotel.
The messenger seized his bag and softly ran along through the canvas-part.i.tioned room wherein Billy slept, to a narrow window which he had already noticed gave out almost directly into the pine woods. The window was of oiled paper, and its catch baffled him. He knew it should slide back; but it refused to slide. He did not dare break the paper because of the crackling noise. A voice at his shoulder startled him.
"I"ll show you," whispered the red-cheeked girl.
She was wrapped loosely in a blanket, her hair falling about her shoulders, and her bare feet showed beneath her coverings. The little man suffered at once an agony of embarra.s.sment in which the thought of his errand was lost. It was recalled to him by the girl.
"There you are," she whispered, showing him the open window.
"Thank you," he stammered, painfully, "I a.s.sure you--I wish----"
The girl laughed under her breath.
"That"s all right," she said, heartily, "I owe you that for calling old whiskers off his bronc," and she kissed him.
The messenger, trembling with self-consciousness, climbed hastily through the window; ran the broad loop of the satchel up his arm; and, instead of dropping to the ground, as the girl had expected, swung himself lightly into the branches of a rather large scrub-oak that grew near. She listened to the rustle of the leaves for a moment as he neared the trunk, and then, unable longer to restrain her curiosity in regard to the doings below, turned to the stairway.
As she did so, two men mounted. They examined the three rooms of the upper story hastily but carefully, paying scant attention to her, and departed swearing. In a few moments they returned for the stranger"s trunk. Nell followed them down the stairs as far as the doorway. There she heard and saw things, and fled in bitter dismay to the back of the house when Billy Knapp was overpowered.
At the window she knelt, clasping her hands and sinking her head between her arms. Women in the West, at least women like Nell, do not weep. But she came near it. Suddenly she raised her head. A voice next her ear had addressed her.
She looked here and there and around, but could discover nothing.
"Here, outside," came the low, guarded voice, "in the tree."
Then she saw that the little stranger had not stirred from his first alighting-place.
"Beg yore pardon, ma"am, fer startling you or fer addressing you at all, which I shouldn"t, but----"
"Oh, never mind that," said the girl, impatiently, shaking back her hair. So deprecating and timid were the tones, that almost without an effort of the imagination she could picture the little man"s blushes and his half-sidling method of delivery. At this supreme moment his littleness and lack of self-a.s.sertion jarred on her mood. "What"re you doin" there? Thought you"d vamoosed."
"It was safer here," explained the stranger, "I left no trail."
She nodded comprehension of the common-sense of this.
"But, ma"am, I took the liberty of speakin" to you because you seems to be in trouble. Of course, I ain"t got no right to _ask_, an" if you don"t care to tell me----"
"They"re goin" to kill Billy," broke in Nell, with a sob.
"What for?"
"I don"t jest rightly make out. They"s after someone, and they thinks Billy"s cacheing him. I reckon it"s you. Billy ain"t cacheing nothin", but they thinks he is."
"It"s me they"s after, all right. Now, you know where I am, why don"t you tell them and save Billy?"
The girl started, but her keen Western mind saw the difficulty at once.
"They thinks Billy pertects you jest th" same."
"Do you love him?" asked the stranger.
"G.o.d knows I"m purty tough," confessed Nell, sobbing, "but I jest do that!" and she dropped her head again.