"Miss Kent!" he said. "You--you"re making a very serious----"
"Oh, I know!" she interrupted. "I expect you to deny it. But a great deal of money--my money--has been used, and Mr. Pratt has run the line--with myself and my brother--yesterday--so we know that you"ve either been fooled or you"ve cheated."
Lawrence had risen. His face was scarlet.
"Upon my word!" he said. "Pratt, you and your friend I can order from the office! The lady----"
"You can"t order anything!--not a thing!" said Beth. "Glen! Mr.
Pratt!--you"ve got to stay and help! I know the truth--and it"s got to be confessed! Mr. Van Buren----"
"I can leave myself, since you insist upon remaining," interrupted Lawrence, taking his hat and striding towards the door, in a panic to get to McCoppet for much-needed aid. "Such an utterly unheard of affront as this----"
"Glen! run and find Mr. Van Buren!" Beth broke in excitedly. "Don"t let him go, Mr. Pratt!"
Lawrence had reached his outer office and was almost at the door. Beth was hastening after, with Glen at her heels. All were abruptly halted.
Van and the sheriff appeared in the door, before which idlers were pa.s.sing. Beth was wild with joy.
"Van," she cried, "Oh, Mr. Van Buren, I"m sure this man has cheated you out of your claim! We ran the line ourselves--my brother, Mr. Pratt, and I--yesterday--we finished yesterday! We found the claim is not inside the reservation! My money was used--I"m sure for bribery! But they"ve got to give you back your claim, if it takes every penny I"ve got! I was sending Glen to let you know. I asked Mr. Lawrence to confess! You won"t let him go! You mustn"t let him go! I am sure there"s something dreadful going on!"
It was a swift, impa.s.sioned speech, clear, ringing, honest in every word. It thrilled Van wondrously, despite the things that had been--her letter, and subsequent events. He all but lost track of the business in hand, in the light of her sudden revelations. He did not answer readily, and Lawrence broke out in protestation.
"It"s infamous!" he cried. "If anyone here except a woman had charged--had been guilty of all these outrageous lies----"
Half a dozen loiterers had halted at the door, attracted by the shrill high tones of his voice.
"That"s enough of that, Lawrence," Van interrupted quietly. "Every word of this is true. You accepted twenty thousand dollars to falsify that line. Your chief was murdered to get him out of the way, because it was _known_ you could be bribed. I came here to get you, and I"ll get all the crowd, if it kills half the town in the fight." With one quick movement he seized his man by the collar. "Here, Bill, hustle him out," he said to Christler. "We"ve got no time to waste."
Lawrence, the sheriff, and himself were projected out upon the sidewalk by one of his quick maneuvers. A crowd of men came running to the place. Above the rising murmur of their voices, raised in excitement, came a shrill and strident cry.
"Van! Van!" was the call from someone in the crowd.
It was lean old Gettysburg. Dave and Napoleon were pantingly chasing where he ran.
"Van!" yelled Gettysburg again. "It"s Barger!--Barger!--dead in the tent--it"s Barger--up there--dead!"
Barger! The name acted as swiftly on the crowd as oil upon a flame.
It seemed as if the wave of news swept like a tide across the street, down the thoroughfare, and into every shop.
Two automobiles were halted in the road, their engines purring as they stood. Their drivers dismounted to join the gathering throng. One of the men was Bostwick, down from the hills. He had searched for Beth at Mrs. d.i.c.k"s, and then had followed here.
"Barger! Barger"s dead in camp and the "Laughing Water" claim was stolen--and Culver killed!" One man bawled it to the crowd--and it sped to Bostwick"s ears.
One being only departed from the scene--Trimmer, the lumberman, swiftly seeking McCoppet.
Van, in his heat, had told too much, accusing the prisoner in hand. He silenced Gettysburg abruptly and started to force aside the crowd.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, move aside," he said. "I"ve got--by Jupe!
there"s Bostwick!"
It was Bostwick fleeing to his car that Van had discovered. Searle had seen enough in the briefest of glances. He had heard too much. He realized that only in flight could the temper of the mob be avoided.
He had seen this mob in action once before--and the walls of his stomach caved.
Like a youthful Hercules in strength and action, Van went plunging through the crowd to get his man. But he could not win. Bostwick had speeded up his motor in a panic for haste and his car leaped away like a dragon on wings, the m.u.f.fler cut-out roaring like a gattling.
Van might perhaps have shot and killed the escaping man who held the wheel, but he wanted Searle alive.
A roar from the crowd replied to the car. A score of men ran madly in pursuit. None of them knew the details of the case, but they knew that Bostwick was wanted.
They drifted rearward from the hurtling car like fragments of paper in its wake. The few down street who danced for a moment before the modern juggernaut, to stop it in its course, sprang nimbly away as it rocketed past--and Searle was headed for the desert.
One wild, sweeping glance Van cast about, for a horse or something to ride. Suvy was stabled, unsaddled, up the street. Bostwick and his cloud of dust were dropping away in a swiftly narrowing perspective.
And there stood a powerful, dusty-red car--empty--its motor in motion!
There was no time to search for its owner. There were half a dozen different cars with which Van Buren was familiar. He ran to it, glanced at its levers, wheel, and clutch, recognized the one type he had coveted, and hurled himself into the seat.
"Here! You!" yelled the owner, fighting through the crowd, but three big miners fell upon him and bore him to the earth. They hoped to see a race.
They saw it begin with a promptness incredible.
One--two changes of the snarling gears they heard before the deafening cut-out belched its explosions. Then down the street, in pursuit of the first, the second machine was fired.
The buildings, to Van, were blended in grayish streaks, on either side, as his gaze was fastened on the vanishing car ahead. He shoved up his spark, gave her all the gas, froze to the wheel like a man of steel--and swooped like a ground-skimming comet out upon the world.
The road for a distance of fully five miles was comparatively level.
It was rutted by the wheels of heavy traffic, but with tires in the dusty ruts a car ran unimpeded.
Both, for a time were in the road, flaying up a cloud of smoke like a cyclone ripping out its path.
Searle had not only gained a half-mile lead, but his car was apparently swifter. He knew its every trick and ounce of power. He drove superbly. He was reckless now, for he had not missed the knowledge that behind him was a meteor burning up his trail.
Like a leaping beast--a road-devouring minotaur--the car with Van shot roaringly through s.p.a.ce. He could not tell that Searle, ahead, was slipping yet further in the lead. He only knew that, come what might, till the mechanism burst, or the earth should split, he would chase his man across the desert. The dust in the air from Bostwick"s car drove blindingly upon him. Far, far away, a mere speck on the road, he beheld a freight-team approaching--a team of twenty animals at least, that he and Bostwick must encounter.
A sudden memory of road conditions decided him to move. The ruts where he was were bad enough--they were worse where the team must be pa.s.sed.
He did not reduce his speed to take to the brush. The car beneath him flung clean off the ground as he swung to climb out of the grooves. It landed with all four wheels a-spin, but only struck on two. A sudden swerve, far out of the course, and the monster righted abruptly.
Another sharp turn, and away it went again, crushing the brush and flinging up the sand in a track of its own that paralleled the road, but rougher though free from the ruts.
The brush was small, six inches high, but the wheels bounced over it madly. The whole car hurtled and bounded in a riot of motion. It dived, it plunged nose upward, it roared like a fiend--but it shot with cannon-ball velocity across the desert"s floor.
Five minutes later Bostwick"s car was almost fronting the team in the road, with its score of dusty mules. He dared not take the ruts at speed, and groaned as he slowed to climb the bank. He lost but little time, however, since once on the side he was going ahead again like mad; nevertheless, he cast a glance behind and saw that his gap had narrowed. Moreover, he would not attempt to return to the ruts as before, as a second of the teams was coming a mile or so away.
Like two pitching porpoises, discharging fiery wrath and skimming the gray of the desert sea, the two devices raced upon the brush. And nerve began to tell. Van was absolutely reckless; Searle was not. The former would have crowded on another notch of speed, but Bostwick feared, and shut off a trifle of his power. Even then he was rocking, quivering, careening onward like a star escaped from its course; and the gains Van made were slow.
The man on the second team paused to see them pa.s.s. In smoke and dust and with war"s own din they cleaved the startled air. And the man who saw the look that had set on Van"s hard-chiseled face was aware that unless his car should fail there was nothing on earth he could not catch.
Bostwick had begun to weaken. The pace over sage-brush, rocks, and basins of sand was racking both the car and the nerves that held the wheel. How long such a flight could be continued he dared not guess.
Even steel has limitations. To what he was fleeing he could scarcely have told, since the telegraph would send its word throughout the desert-land, and overhaul him finally.