Helen"s cheeks blanched at this.
"I do realize it." There was a slight quaver in the Senator"s voice, although he tried to speak with easy grace. "I a.s.sure you, I do and I shall be very grateful to you"--his anxiety was crowding out his discretion--"if you will help me to save my daughter...."
"I say just what I said before," Helen interposed, courageous to the last. There is, many times, in the woman a finer fiber of courage than runs in the man.
Dorothy regarded the Senator scornfully, her feminine intuition a.s.suring her that he was weakening. She no longer doubted that he knew; she was certain of it and happy to feel that she had only to press him harder to wring the truth from him.
"Grateful? For helping you? I am not trying to help you. You deserve any punishment that could be inflicted upon you, I would say that, even if you had not insulted me and lied about me. You are an evil man. I am offering you your safety, so far as I can grant, only for the sake of Mr. Wade. If it were not for him, I should not have come here at all."
Her sense of approaching triumph had carried her a little too far. It aroused Helen to bitter resentment, and when she began to speak Dorothy was sorry that she had not kept silent.
"Father, don"t do it!" Miss Rexhill burst out. "It is insufferable that this woman should threaten us so. I would rather run any risk, I don"t care what, than give in to her. I won"t tolerate such a thing."
"You may be urging him to his death," Dorothy warned her. "I will not stop at anything now. If I tell the cattlemen what I know they will go wild. I mean what I say, believe me!"
"I know you will not stop at anything. I have seen that," Helen admitted. "A woman who can do what you"ve already done...."
"Helen!" The Senator was carrying with him a sense of grat.i.tude toward Dorothy, and in the light of her spirit he was a little ashamed of the part he had played against her. "Let"s try to forget what has past. At least, this young woman is offering us a chance."
"Listen!" Dorothy cried out suddenly.
Outside, in the street, a galloping horseman was shouting to some one as he rode. The girl ran to the window and raised the shade to look out.
The l.u.s.ty voice of the horseman bore well into the room. "They"ve caught Bailey at Sheridan. He"ll be here to-morrow."
"Senator Rexhill," said Dorothy, turning away from the window, "you"d better take the chance I"ve offered you, while you can. Do it for the sake of the old friendship between you and Gordon Wade, if for no other reason. No matter how bitter he may feel toward you, he would not want you in Crawling Water when Tug Bailey confesses. It would be too awful."
She shuddered at the thought. "Tell me where he is and get out of town at once."
"Bailey hasn"t confessed yet," Helen cut in gamely.
"No; but he will," Dorothy declared positively. "They"ll put a rope around his neck, and he"ll confess. Such men always do. Try to remember the position you are in. You"d be sorry if your father were lynched. Go with him, while you can. I know these people better than you do."
The Senator swallowed hard and mopped his damp forehead with his handkerchief. There was nothing to do but follow the girl"s advice, and that quickly, he knew. After all, in the face of death, financial ruin seemed a mere bagatelle.
"So far as I have been informed, Wade is confined at Coyote Springs, somewhere in the mountains," he said bluntly. "That"s all I know of the matter. I hope you will find him all right there. He ought to be very proud of you."
Dorothy caught her hands to her breast in a little gesture of exultation, and the expression on her face was a wonderful thing to see.
"You"ll go?"
"In the morning," Senator Rexhill answered.
Eager as Dorothy was to reach the big pine with her message, she could not leave without giving Helen such a glance of triumph as made her wince.
Then, hurrying to her pony, she rode rapidly out of town into the black night which cloaked the trail leading to the pine. She knew that her mother would miss her and be anxious, but the minutes were too precious now to be wasted even on her mother. She did not know what peril Gordon might be in, and her first duty was to him. She was almost wild with anxiety lest the courier should not be at his post, but he was there when she dashed up to the pine.
"Take me to Mr. Trowbridge. Quick!" she panted.
"He"s somewhere between Bald k.n.o.b and Hatchet Hill," the man explained, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "It"s some dark, too, miss, for ridin"
in this country. Can"t you wait until morning?"
"I can"t wait one second. I have found out where Mr. Wade is, and I mean to be with you all when you find him."
"You have, eh?" The man, who was one of Trowbridge"s punchers, swung into his saddle. "That bein" so, we"d get there if this here night was liquid coal."
CHAPTER XVIII
A RESCUE AND A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE
At the end of an hour, or so, the lion withdrew and Wade thought he had seen the last of it. He began to pace up and down the fissure once more, for now that his thin shirt was damp with perspiration, set flowing by the nervous strain he had been under, he began to get chilly again. He had just begun to warm up, when he heard the animal returning. He crouched back against the cavern wall, but the lion had evidently lost the zest for such impossible prey. It walked about and sniffed at the edges of the fissure for some minutes; then it sneaked off into the timber with a cat-like whimper.
The exhausted ranchman kept his feet as long as he could, but when the first rays of the morning sun cast purple shadows into the depths of the hole, he could no longer keep awake. With his hands, he drifted the loose sand about him, as travelers do when exposed to a snow-blizzard, and slept until Goat Neale aroused him, in broad daylight. The Texan performed this service by deftly dropping a small stone upon the sleeping man"s face.
"I just stepped over to inquire what you-all"d like for breakfast this mornin"," he said with a grin. "Not that it matters much, "cause the dumb-waiter down to where you be ain"t waitin" to-day, but it"s manners, kinder, to ask."
Wade looked up at him grimly, but said nothing. Just awake as he was, his healthy stomach clamored for food, but since none would be given him, he knew that he might as well try to be patient.
"Mebbe you"d like to step over to our hotel an" take your meals, eh?"
The Texan went on, after a short pause. "I"ve got a pot of coffee bilin"
an" a mess o" bacon fryin". No?" He grinned sardonically. "How"d you like me to give you some o" this here cabareet stuff, while you"re waitin"? I ain"t no great shucks as a entertainer, but I"ll do what I can. Mebbe, you"d like to know how I happened to catch you that clump on the head yesterday. Huh?
"I was up in the low branches of a thick pine, where you was moseyin"
along. You was that busy watchin" the ground, you never thought to raise them eyes o" yourn. I just reached down and lammed you good with a piece of stick, an" here you be, safe an" sound as a beetle in a log. Here you"ll stay, too, likely, on-less you get some sense, and I don"t know when that there dumbwaiter"ll get to runnin". It"s a shame, too, if you ask me, "cause a man needs his three or four squares a day in this here climate."
"How much do you want to give me a hand out of here, Neale?" the cattleman demanded abruptly, tired of listening to the fellow"s monotonous drawl; and after all the chance was worth taking.
The eyes of the Texan glittered.
"Got the money on you?"
"You"d get the money all right."
"Sure, son, I know that--if you had it! I"d just hold my gun on you, an"
you"d toss the roll up here, without puttin" me to the trouble o" givin"
you no hand." He chuckled in appreciation of his own humor. "But I know you ain"t got it on you--we frisked you down yonder in the timber--an" I don"t deal in no promises. This here is a cash game. If I thought tha...."
He whirled about suddenly, looking behind him and seemed to listen for an instant; then his hand dropped to the gun at his hip. He never drew the weapon, however, for with a horrible facial grimace, as his body contorted under the impact of a bullet, he threw his arms into the air and reeled over the edge of the hole. A second afterward the report of a rifle came to Wade"s ears.
"h.e.l.lo!" the rancher shouted, springing from under the Texan"s falling body. The instant it struck the sand, Wade s.n.a.t.c.hed Neale"s revolver from its holster and waited for him to try to rise; but he did not move.
A b.l.o.o.d.y froth stained his lips, while a heavier stain on his shirt, just under the heart, told where the bullet had struck. The man was dead.
"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!" Wade shouted repeatedly, and discharged the revolver into the sand. He realized that, although a friend must have fired the rifle, there was nothing to show where he was. "h.e.l.lo!"
"h.e.l.lo!" The hail was answered by the newcomer, who, thus guided, approached the spot until his voice was near at hand. "h.e.l.lo!"
"h.e.l.lo! Come on!" The prisoner threw his hat up out of the hole. "Here I am!"