I think not. I should be a wicked woman if I were to wish evil to him, wretched as he has made me. I am a wretched woman, whichever way I turn. But I should be less than human if I could say that to me your death would not be a cruel, cruel blow."
There was a moment of silence. "d.i.c.ksie understood you to say that you were in doubt as to whether you ought to go away with him when he asked you to go. That is why I was unsettled in my mind."
"The only reason why I doubted was that I thought by going I might save better lives than mine. I could willingly give up my life to do that. But to stain it by going back to such a man--G.o.d help me!"
"I think I understand. If the unfortunate should happen before I come back I hope only this: that you will not hate me because I am the man on whom the responsibility has fallen. I haven"t sought it. And if I should not come back at all, it is only--good-by."
He saw her clasp her hands convulsively. "I will not say it! I will pray on my knees that you do come back."
"Good-night, Marion. Some one is at the cottage door."
"It is probably Mr. McCloud and d.i.c.ksie. I will let them in."
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
WICKWIRE
McCloud and d.i.c.ksie met them at the porch door. Marion, unnerved, went directly to her room. Whispering Smith stopped to speak to d.i.c.ksie and McCloud interposed. "Bob Scott telephoned the office just now he had a man from Oroville who wanted to see you right away, Gordon," said he.
"I told him to send him over here. It is Wickwire."
"Wickwire," repeated Whispering Smith. "Wickwire has no business here that I know of; no doubt it is something I ought to know of. And, by the way, you ought to see this man," he said, turning again to d.i.c.ksie. "If McCloud tells the story right, Wickwire is a sort of protege of yours, Miss d.i.c.ksie, though neither of you seems to have known it. He is the tramp cowboy who was smashed up in the wreck at Smoky Creek. He is not a bad man, but whiskey, you know, beats some decent men." A footstep fell on the porch. "There he comes now, I reckon. Shall I let him in a minute?"
"Oh, I should like to see him! He has been at the ranch at different times, you know."
Smith opened the door and stepping out on the porch, talked with the new-comer. In a moment he brought him in. d.i.c.ksie had seated herself on the sofa, McCloud stood in the doorway of the dining-room, and Whispering Smith laid one arm on the table as he sat down beside it with his face above the dark shade of the lamp. Before him stood Wickwire. The half-light threw him up tall and dark, but it showed the heavy shock of black hair falling over his forehead, and the broad, thin face of a mountain man.
"He has just been telling me that Seagrue is loose," Whispering Smith explained pleasantly. "Who turned the trick, Wickwire?"
"Sheriff c.o.o.n and a deputy jailer started with Seagrue for Medicine Bend this morning. Coming through Horse Eye Canyon, Murray Sinclair and Barney Rebstock got a clean drop on them, took Seagrue, and they all rode off together. They didn"t make any bones about it, either.
Their gang has got lots of friends over there, you know. They rode into Atlantic City and stayed over an hour. c.o.o.n tracked them there and got up a _posse_ of six men. The three were standing in front of the bank when the sheriff rode into town. Sinclair and Seagrue got on their horses and started off. Rebstock went back to get another drink. When he came out of the saloon he gave the _posse_ a gun-fight all by himself, and wounded two men and made his get-away."
Whispering Smith shook his head, and his hand fell on the table with a tired laugh. "Barney Rebstock," he murmured, "of all men! Coward, skate, filler-in! Barney Rebstock--stale-beer man, sneak, barn-yard thief! Hit two men!" He turned to McCloud. "What kind of a wizard is Murray Sinclair? What sort of red-blood toxin does he throw into his gang to draw out a spirit like that? Murray Sinclair belongs to the race of empire-builders. By Heaven, it is pitiful a man like that should be out of a job! England, McCloud, needs him. And here he is holding up trains on the mountain division!"
"They are all up at Oroville with the Williams Cache gang, celebrating,"
continued Wickwire.
Whispering Smith looked at the cowboy. "Wickwire, you made a good ride and I thank you. You are all right. This is the young lady and this is the man who had you sent to the hospital from Smoky Creek," he added, rising. "You can thank them for picking you up. When you leave here tell Bob Scott to meet me at the Wickiup with the horses at eleven o"clock, will you?" He turned to d.i.c.ksie in a gentle aside. "I am riding north to-night--I wish you were going part way."
d.i.c.ksie looked at him intently. "You are worried over something," she murmured; "I can see it in your face."
"Nothing more than usual. I thrive, you know, on trouble--and I"m sorry to say good-night so early, but I have a long ride ahead." He stepped quietly past McCloud and out of the door.
Wickwire was thanking d.i.c.ksie when unwillingly she let Whispering Smith"s hand slip out of her own. "I sh.o.r.e wouldn"t have been here to-night if you two hadn"t picked me up," laughed Wickwire, speaking softly to d.i.c.ksie when she turned to him. "I"ve knowed my friends a long time, but I reckon they all didn"t know me."
"I"ve known you longer than you think," returned d.i.c.ksie with a smile.
"I"ve seen you at the ranch-house. But now that we really do know each other, please remember you are always sure of a home at the ranch--whenever you want one, Mr. Wickwire, and just as long as you want one. We never forget our friends on the Crawling Stone."
"If I may make so bold, I thank you kindly. And if you all will let me run away now, I want to catch Mr. Whispering Smith for just one minute."
Wickwire overtook Smith in Fort Street. "Talk quick, Wickwire," he said; "I"m in a hurry. What do you want?"
"Partner, I"ve always played fair with you."
"So far as I know, Wickwire, yes. Why?"
"I"ve got a favor to ask."
"What is it--money?"
"No, partner, not money this time. You"ve always been more than liberal with me. But so far I"ve had to keep under cover; you asked me to. I want to ask the privilege now of coming out into the open. The jig is up so far as watching anybody goes."
"Yes."
"There"s n.o.body to watch any more--they"re all to chase, I reckon, now. The open is my kind of a fight, anyway. I want to ride out this manhunt with you."
"How is your arm?"
"My arm is all right, and there ought to be a place for me in the chase now that Ed Banks is out of it. I want to cut loose up on the range, anyhow; if I"m a man I want to know it, and if I ain"t I want to know it. I want to ride with you after Seagrue and Sinclair and Barney Rebstock."
Whispering Smith spoke coldly: "You mean, Wickwire, you want to get killed."
"Why, partner, if it"s coming to me, I don"t mind--yes."
"What"s the use, Wickwire?"
"If I"m a man I want to know it; if I ain"t, it"s time my friends knowed it. Anyhow, I"m man enough to work out with some of that gang.
Most of them have put it over me one time or another; Sinclair pasted me like a blackbird only the other day. They all say I"m nothing but a d.a.m.ned tramp. You say I have done you service--give me a show."
Whispering Smith stopped a minute in the shadow of a tree and looked keenly at him. "I"m too busy to-night to say much, Wickwire," he said after a moment. "You go over to the barn and report to Bob Scott. If you want to take the chances, it is up to you; and if Bob Scott is agreeable, I"ll use you where I can--that"s all I can promise. You will probably have more than one chance to get killed."
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
INTO THE NORTH
The moon had not yet risen, and in the darkness of Boney Street Smith walked slowly toward his room. The answer to his question had come.
The rescue of Seagrue made it clear that Sinclair would not leave the country. He well knew that Sinclair cared no more for Seagrue than for a prairie-dog. It was only that he felt strong enough, with his friends and sympathizers, to defy the railroad force and Whispering Smith, and planned now, probably, to kill off his pursuers or wear them out. There was a second incentive for remaining: nearly all the Tower W money had been hidden at Rebstock"s cabin by Du Sang. That Kennedy had already got hold of it Sinclair could not know, but it was certain that he would not leave the country without an effort to recover the booty from Rebstock.
Whispering Smith turned the key in the door of his room as he revolved the situation in his mind. Within, the dark was cheerless, but he made no effort to light a lamp. Groping his way to the side of the low bed, he sat down and put his head between his hands to think.
There was no help for it that he could see: he must meet Sinclair. The situation he had dreaded most, from the moment Bucks asked him to come back to the mountains, had come.