Brower entered the room quickly but very quietly, and at once came to me. His eyes were staring, his eyelids twitched, his hands shook. I recognized the symptoms.
"Have you got it? Have you got it with you?" he whispered, feverishly.
"It"s all right. I can fix you up. Untie me first," I replied.
He began to fumble with the knots of my bonds too hastily and impatiently for effectiveness. I was trying to stoop over far enough to see what he was doing when my eye caught the shadow of a moving figure outside. An instant later Tim Westmore, the English groom attached to the Morgan stallion, came cautiously through the door, which he closed behind him. I attempted un.o.btrusively to warn Brower, but he only looked up, nodded vaguely, and continued his fumbling efforts to free me.
Westmore glanced at us all curiously, but went at once to the big windows, which he proceeded to swing shut. Then he came over to us, pushed Brower one side, and most expeditiously untied the knots. I stood up stretching in the luxury of freedom, then turned to perform a like office for Miss Emory. But Brower was by now frantic. He seized my arm and fairly shook me, big as I was, in the urgence of his desire. He was rapidly losing all control and caution.
"Let him have it, sir," urged Westmore in a whisper. "I"ll free the young lady."
I gave Brower the hypodermic case. He ran to the wash bowl for water.
During the process of preparation he uttered little animal sounds under his breath. When the needle had sunk home he lay back in a chair and closed his eyes.
In the meantime, I had been holding a whispered colloquy with Westmore.
"He sneaked in on me at dark, sir," he told me, "on foot. I don"t know how he got in without being seen. They"d have found his tracks anyway in the morning. I don"t think he knew quite what he wanted to do. Him and me were old pals, and he wanted to ask me about things. He didn"t expect to stay, I fancy. He told me he had left his horse tied a mile or so down the road. Then a while back orders came to close down, air tight.
We"re used to such orders. n.o.body can go out or come in, you understand.
And there are guards placed. That made him uneasy. He told me then he was a hop fiend. I"ve seen them before, and I got uneasy, too. If he came to the worst I might have to tie and gag him. I know how they are."
"Go ahead," I urged. He had stopped to listen.
"I don"t like that Cortinez being so handy like out there," he confessed.
"Hooper told him he could sleep. He"s not likely to pay attention to us.
Miss Emory and I have been talking aloud."
"I hope not. Well, then, Ramon came by and stopped to talk to me for a minute. I had to hide Artie in a box-stall and hope to G.o.d he kept quiet. He wasn"t as bad as he is now. Ramon told me about you being caught, and went on. After that nothing must do but find you. He thought you might have his dope. He"d have gone into the jaws of h.e.l.l after it.
So I came along to keep him out of mischief."
"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, who had kicked off her slippers and had been walking a few paces to and fro.
"I don"t know, ma"am. We"ve got to get away."
"We?"
"You mean me, too? Yes, ma"am! I have stood with the doings of this place as long as I can stand them. Artie has told me some other things.
Are you here of your free will, ma"am?" he asked, abruptly.
"No," she replied.
"I suspected as much. I"m through with the whole lot of them."
Brower opened his eyes. He was now quite calm.
"Hooper sold the Morgan stallion," he whispered, smiled sardonically, and closed his eyes again.
"Without telling me a word of it!" added Tim with heat. "He ain"t delivered him yet."
"Well, I don"t blame you. Now you"d better quietly sneak back to your quarters. There is likely to be trouble before we get through. You, too, Brower. n.o.body knows you are here."
Brower opened his eyes again.
"I can get out of this place now I"ve had me hop," said he, decidedly.
"Come on, let"s go."
"We"ll all go," I agreed; "but let"s see what we can find here first.
There may be some paper--or something----"
"What do you mean? What sort of papers? Hadn"t we better go at once?"
"It is supposed to be well known that the reason Hooper isn"t a.s.sa.s.sinated from behind a bush is because in that case his killers are in turn to a.s.sa.s.sinate a long list of his enemies. Only n.o.body is sure: just as n.o.body is really sure that he has killers at all. You can"t get action on an uncertainty."
She nodded. "I can understand that."
"If we could get proof positive it would be no trick at all to raise the country."
"What sort of proof?"
"Well, I mentioned a list. I don"t doubt his head man--Ramon, I suppose, the one he"d trust with carrying out such a job--must have a list of some sort. He wouldn"t trust to memory."
"And he wouldn"t trust it to Ramon until after he was dead!" said the girl with sudden intuition. "If it exists we"ll find it here."
She started toward the paper-stuffed desk, but I stopped her.
"More likely the safe," said I.
Tim, who was standing near it, tried the handle.
"It"s locked," he whispered.
I fell on my knees and began to fiddle with the dial, of course in vain.
Miss Emory, with more practical decision of character, began to run through the innumerable bundles and loose papers in the desk, tossing them aside as they proved unimportant or not germane to the issue. I had not the slightest knowledge of the constructions of safes but whirled the k.n.o.b hopelessly in one direction or another trying to listen for clicks, as somewhere I had read was the thing to do. As may be imagined, I arrived nowhere. Nor did the girl. We looked at each other in chagrin at last.
"There is nothing here but ranch bills and accounts and business letters," she confessed.
I merely shook my head.
At this moment Brower, whom I had supposed to be sound asleep, opened his eyes.
"Want that safe open?" he asked, drowsily.
He arose, stretched, and took his place beside me on the floor. His head c.o.c.ked one side, he slowly turned the dials with the tips of fingers I for the first time noticed were long and slim and sensitive. Twice after extended, delicate manipulations he whirled the k.n.o.b impatiently and took a fresh start. On the proverbial third trial he turned the handle and the door swung open. He arose rather stiffly from his knees, resumed his place in the armchair, and again closed his eyes.
It was a small safe, with few pigeon holes. A number of blue-covered contracts took small time for examination. There were the usual number of mine certificates not valuable enough for a safe deposit, some confidential memoranda and accounts having to do with the ranch.
"Ah, here is something!" I breathed to the eager audience over my shoulder. I held in my hands a heavy manila envelope, sealed, inscribed "Ramon. (To be destroyed unopened.)"