Bucky was at the telephone half an hour. In the middle of the next afternoon his reward came in the form of a Western Union billet. It read:

"Eastern man says you don't want what is salable here."

The lieutenant cut out every other word and garnered the wheat of the message:

"Man you want is here."

The telegram was marked from Epitaph, and for that town the ranger and the sheriff entrained immediately.

Bucky's eye searched in vain the platform of the Epitaph depot for Malloy, of the Rangers, whose wire had brought him here. The cause of the latter's absence was soon made clear to him in a note he found waiting for him at the hotel:

"The old man has just sent me out on hurry-up orders. Don't know when I'll get back. Suggest you take in the show at the opera house to-night to pass the time."

It was the last sentence that caught Bucky's attention. Jim Malloy had not written it except for a reason. Wherefore the lieutenant purchased two tickets for the performance far back in the house. From the local newspaper he gathered that the showman was henceforth to be a resident of Epitaph. Mr. Jay Hardman, or Signor Raffaello Cavellado, as he was known the world over by countless thousands whom he had entertained, had purchased a corral and livery stable at the corner of Main and Boothill Streets and solicited the patronage of the citizens of Hualpai County. That was the purport of the announcement which Bucky ringed with a pencil and handed to his friend.

That evening Signor Raffaello Cavellado made a great hit with his audience. He swaggered through his act magnificently, and held his spectators breathless. Bucky took care to see that a post and the sheriff's big body obscured him from view during the performance.

After it was over O'Connor and the sheriff returned to the hotel, where also Hardman was for the present staying, and sent word up to his room that one of the audience who had admired very much the artistic performance would like the pleasure of drinking a glass of wine with Signor Cavellado if the latter would favor him with his company in room seven. The Signor was graciously pleased to accept, and followed his message of acceptance in person a few minutes later.

Bucky remained quietly in the corner of the room back of the door until the showman had entered, and while the latter was meeting Collins he silently locked the door and pocketed the key.

The sheriff acknowledged Hardman's condescension brusquely and without shaking hands. "Glad to meet you, seh. But you're mistaken in one thing. I'm not your host. This gentleman behind you is."

The man turned and saw Bucky, who was standing with his back against the door, a bland smile on his face.

"Yes, seh. I'm your host to-night. Sheriff Collins, hyer, is another guest. I'm glad to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Signor Raffaello Cavellado," Bucky assured him, in his slow, gentle drawl, without reassuring him at all.

For the fellow was plainly disconcerted at recognition of his host. He turned with a show of firmness to Collins. "If you're a sheriff, I demand to have that door opened at once," he blustered.

Val put his hands in his pockets and tipped back his chair. "I ain't sheriff of Hualpai County. My jurisdiction don't extend here," he said calmly.

"I'm an unarmed man," pleaded Cavellado.

"Come to think of it, so am I."

"I reckon I'm holding all the aces, Signor Cavellado," explained the ranger affably. "Or do you prefer in private life to be addressed as Hardman—or, say, Anderson?"

The showman moistened his lips and offered his tormentor a blanched face.

"Anderson—a good plain name. I wonder, now, why you changed it?" Bucky's innocent eyes questioned him blandly as he drew from his pocket a little box and tossed it on the table. "Open that box for me, Mr. Anderson. Who knows? It might explain a heap of things to us."

With trembling fingers the big coward fumbled at the string. With all his fluent will he longed to resist, but the compelling eyes that met his so steadily were not to be resisted. Slowly he unwrapped the paper and took the lid from the little box, inside of which was coiled up a thin gold chain with locket pendant.

"Be seated," ordered Bucky sternly, and after the man had found a chair the ranger sat down opposite him.

From its holster he drew a revolver and from a pocket his watch. He laid them on the table side by side and looked across at the white-lipped trembler whom he faced.

"We had better understand each other, Mr. Anderson. I've come here to get from you the story of that chain, so far as you know it. If you don't care to tell it I shall have to mess this floor up with your remains. Get one proposition into your cocoanut right now. You don't get out of this room alive with your secret. It's up to you to choose."

Quite without dramatics, as placidly as if he were discussing railroad rebates, the ranger delivered his ultimatum. It seemed plain that he considered the issue no responsibility of his.

Anderson stared at him in silent horror, moistening his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. Once his gaze shifted to the sheriff but found small comfort there. Collins had picked up a newspaper and was absorbed in it.

"Are you going to let him kill me?" the man asked him hoarsely.

He looked up from his newspaper in mild protest at such unreason. "Me? I ain't sittin' in this game. Seems like I mentioned that already."

"Better not waste your time, signor, on side issues," advised the man behind the gun. "For I plumb forgot to tell you I'm allowing only three minutes to begin your story, half of which three has already slipped away to yesterday's seven thousand years. Without wantin' to hurry you, I suggest the wisdom of a prompt decision."

"Would he do it?" gasped the victim, with a last appeal to Collins.

"Would he what? Oh, shoot you up. Cayn't tell till I see. If he says he will he's liable to. He always was that haidstrong."

"But—why—why—"

"Yes, it's sure a heap against the law, but then Bucky ain't a lawyer. I don't reckon he cares sour grapes for the law—as law. It's a right interesting guess as to whether he will or won't."

"There's a heap of cases the law don't reach prompt. This is one of them," contributed the ranger cheerfully. He pocketed his watch and picked up the .45. "Any last message or anything of that sort, signor? I don't want to be unpleasant about this, you understand."

The whilom bad man's teeth chattered. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Now, that's right sensible. I hate to come into another man's house and clutter it up. Reel off your yarn."

"I don't know—what you want."

"I want the whole story of your kidnapping of the Mackenzie child, how came you to do it, what happened to Dave Henderson, and full directions where I may locate Frances Mackenzie. Begin at the beginning, and I'll fire questions at you when you don't make any point clear to me. Turn loose your yarn at me hot off the bat."

The man told his story sullenly. While he was on the round-up as cook for the riders he had heard Mackenzie and Henderson discussing together the story of their adventure with the dying Spaniard and their hopes of riches from the mine he had left them. From that night he had set himself to discover the secret of its location, had listened at windows and at keyholes, and had once intercepted a letter from one to the other. By chance he had discovered that the baby was carrying the secret in her locket, and he had set himself to get it from her.

But his chance did not come. He could not make friends with her, and at last, in despair of finding a better opportunity, he had slipped into her room one night in the small hours to steal the chain. But it was wound round her neck in such a way that he could not slip it over her head. She had awakened while he was fumbling with the clasp and had begun to cry. Hearing her mother moving about in the next room, he had hastily carried the child with him, mounted the horse waiting in the yard, and ridden away.

In the road he became aware, some time later, that he was being pursued. This gave him a dreadful fright, for, as Bucky had surmised, he thought his pursuer was Mackenzie. All night he rode southward wildly, but still his follower kept on his trail till near morning, when he eluded him. He crossed the border, but late that afternoon got another fright. For it was plain he was still being followed. In the endless stretch of rolling hills he twice caught sight of a rider picking his way toward him. The heart of the guilty man was like water. He could not face the outraged father, nor was it possible to escape so dogged a foe by flight. An alternative suggested itself, and he accepted it with sinking courage. The child was asleep in his arms now, and he hastily dismounted, picketed his horse, and stole back a quarter of a mile, so that the neighing of his bronco might not betray his presence. Then he lay down in a dense mesquit thicket and waited for his foe. It seemed an eternity till the man appeared at the top of a rise fifty yards away. Hastily Anderson fired, and again. The man toppled from his horse, dead before he struck the ground. But when the cook reached him he was horrified to see that the man he had killed was a member of the Rurales, or Mexican border police. In his guilty terror he had shot the wrong man.

He fled at once, pursued by a thousand fears. Late the next night he reached a Chihuahua village, after having been lost for many hours. The child he still carried with him, simply because he had not the heart to leave it to die in the desert alone. A few weeks later he married an American woman he met in Sonora. They adopted the child, but it died within the year of fever.

Meanwhile, he was horrified to learn that Dave Henderson, following hard on his trail, had been found bending over the spot where the dead soldier lay, had been arrested by a body of Rurales, tried hurriedly, and convicted to life imprisonment. The evidence had been purely circumstantial. The bullet found in the dead body of the trooper was one that might have come from his rifle, the barrel of which was empty and had been recently fired. For the rest, he was a hated Americano, and, as a matter of course, guilty. His judges took pains to see that no message from him reached his friends in the States before he was buried alive in the prison. In that horrible hole an innocent man had been confined for fifteen years, unless he had died during that time.

That, in substance, was the story told by the showman, and Bucky's incisive questions were unable to shake any portion of it. As to the missing locket, the man explained that it had been broken off by accident and lost. When he discovered that only half the secret was contained on the map section he had returned the paper to the locket and let the child continue to carry it. Some years after the death of the child, Frances, his wife had lost the locket with the map.

"And this chain and locket—when did you lose them?" demanded Bucky sharply.

"It must have been about two months ago, down at Nogales, that I sold it to a fellow. I was playing faro and losing. He gave me five dollars for it."

And to that he stuck stoutly, nor could he be shaken from it. Both O'Connor and the sheriff believed he was lying, for they were convinced that he was the bandit with the red wig who had covered the engineer while his companions robbed the train. But of this they had no proof. Nor did Bucky even mention his suspicion to Hardman, for it was his intention to turn him loose and have him watched. Thus, perhaps, he would be caught corresponding or fraternizing with some of the other outlaws. Collins left the room before the showman, and when the latter came from the hotel he followed him into the night.

Meanwhile, Bucky went out and tapped another of his underground wires. This ran directly to the Mexican consul at Tucson, to whom Bucky had once done a favor of some importance, and from him to Sonora and Chihuahua. It led to musty old official files, to records already yellowed with age, to court reports and prison registers. In the end it flashed back to Bucky great news. Dave Henderson, arrested for the murder of the Rurales policeman, was still serving time in a Mexican prison for another man's crime. There in Chihuahua for fifteen years he had been lost to the world in that underground hole, blotted out from life so effectually that few now remembered there had been such a person. It was horrible, unthinkable, but none the less true.



CHAPTER 6. BUCKY MAKES A DISCOVERY

For a week Bucky had been in the little border town of Noches, called there by threats of a race war between the whites and the Mexicans. Having put the quietus on this, he was returning to Epitaph by way of the Huachuca Mountains. There are still places in Arizona where rapid transit can be achieved more expeditiously on the back of a bronco than by means of the railroad, even when the latter is available. So now Bucky was taking a short cut across country instead of making the two train changes, with the consequent inevitable delays that would have been necessary to travel by rail.

He traveled at night and in the early morning, to avoid the heat of the midday sun, and it was in the evening of the second and last day that the skirts of happy chance led him to an adventure that was to affect his whole future life. He knew a waterhole on the Del Oro, where cows were wont to frequent even in the summer drought, and toward this he was making in the fag-end of the sultry day. While still some hundred yards distant he observed a spiral of smoke rising from a camp-fire at the spring, and he at once made a more circumspect approach. For it might be any one of a score of border ruffians who owed him a grudge and would be glad to pay it in the silent desert that tells no tales and betrays no secrets to the inquisitive.

He flung the bridle-rein over his pony's neck and crept forward on foot, warily and noiselessly. While still some little way from the water-hole he was arrested by a sound that startled him. He could make out a raucous voice in anger and a pianissimo accompaniment of womanish sobs.

"You're mine to do with as I like. I'm your uncle. I've raised you from a kid, and, by the great mogul! you can't sneak off with the first good-for nothing scoundrel that makes eyes at you. Thought you had slipped away from me, you white-faced, sniveling little idiot, but I'll show you who is master."

The lash of a whip rose and fell twice on quivering flesh before Bucky leaped into the fireglow and wrested the riding-whip from the hands of the angry man who was plying it.

"Dare to touch a woman, would you?" cried the ranger, swinging the whip vigorously across the broad shoulders of the man. "Take that—and that—and that, you brute!"

But when Bucky had finished with the fellow and flung him a limp, writhing huddle of welts to the ground, three surprises awaited him. The first was that it was not a woman he had rescued at all, but a boy, and, as the flickering firelight played on his face, the ranger came to an unexpected recognition. The slim lad facing him was no other than Frank Hardman, whom he had left a few days before at the Rocking Chair under the care of motherly Mrs. Mackenzie. The young man's eyes went back with instant suspicion to the fellow he had just punished, and his suspicions were verified when the leaping light revealed the face of the showman Anderson.

Bucky laughed. "I ce'tainly seem to be interfering in your affairs a good deal, Mr. Anderson. You may take my word for it that you was the last person in the world I expected to meet here, unless it might be this boy. I left him safe at a ranch fifty miles from here, and I left you a staid business man of Epitaph. But it seems neither of you stayed hitched. Why for this yearning to travel?"

"He found me where I was staying. I was out riding alone on an errand for Mrs. Mackenzie when he met me and made me go with him. He has arranged to have me meet his wife in Mexico. The show wouldn't draw well without me. You know I do legerdemain," Frank explained, in his low, sweet voice.

"So you had plans of your own, Mr. Anderson. Now, that was right ambitious of you. But I reckon I'll have to interfere with them again. Go through him, kid, and relieve him of any guns he happens to be garnished with. Might as well help yourself to his knives, too. He's so fond of letting them fly around promiscuous he might hurt himself. Good. Now we can sit down and have a friendly talk. Where did you say you was intending to spend the next few weeks before I interrupted so unthinking and disarranged your plans? I'm talking to you, Mr. Anderson."

"I was heading for Sonora," the man whined.

What Bucky thought was: "Right strange direction to be taking for Sonora. I'll bet my pile you were going up into the hills to meet some of Wolf Leroy's gang. But why you were taking the kid along beats me, unless it was just cussedness." What he said was:

"Oh, you'll like Epitaph a heap better. I allow you ought to stay at that old town. It's a real interesting place. Finished in the adobe style and that sort of thing. The jail's real comfy, too."

"Would you like something to eat, sir?" presently asked Frank timidly.

"Would I? Why, I'm hungry enough to eat a leather mail-sack. Trot on your grub, young man, and watch my smoke."

Bucky did ample justice to the sandwiches and lemonade the lad set in front of him, but he ate with a wary eye on a possible insurrection on the part of his prisoner.

"I'm a new man," he announced briskly, when he had finished. "That veal loaf sandwich went sure to the right spot. If you had been a young lady instead of a boy you couldn't fix things up more appetizing."

The lad's face flushed with embarrassment, apparently at the ranger's compliment, and the latter, noticed how delicate the small face was. It made an instinctive, wistful appeal for protection, and Bucky felt an odd little stirring at his tender Irish heart.

"Might think I was the kid's father to see what an interest I take in him," the young man told himself reprovingly. "It's all tommyrot, too. A boy had ought to have more grit. I expect he needed that licking all right I saved him from."

When Bucky had eaten, the camp things were repacked for travel. Epitaph was only twenty-three miles away, and the ranger preferred to ride in the cool of the night rather than sit up till daybreak with his prisoner. Besides, he could then catch the morning train from that town and save almost a day.

So hour after hour they plodded on, the prisoner in front, O'Connor in the center, and Frank Hardman bringing up the rear. It was an Arizona night of countless stars, with that peculiar soft, velvety atmosphere that belongs to no other land or time. In the distance the jagged, violet line of mountains rose in silhouette against a sky not many shades lighter, while nearer the cool moonlight flooded a land grown magical under its divine touch.

The ranger rode with a limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid stiffness.

It must have been well past midnight that he caught the long breath of a sigh behind him. The trail had broadened at that point, for they were now down in the rolling plain, so that two could ride abreast in the road. Bucky fell back and put a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of the boy.

"Plumb fagged out, kid?" he asked.

"I am tired. Is it far?"

"About four miles. Stick it out, and we'll be there in no time."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't call me sir. Call me Bucky."

"Yes, sir."

Bucky laughed. "You're ce'tainly the queerest kid I've run up against. I guess you didn't scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I did. You're too soft for this country." He let his firm brown fingers travel over the lad's curly hair and down the smooth cheek. "There it is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I'll bet a biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your life."

"No, sir," murmured the youth, and Bucky almost thought he detected a little, chuckling laugh.

"Well, you ought to be ashamed of it. When come back from old Mexico I'm going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You're going to ride the range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the bronc and you disagrees. Oh, I'll bet all you need is training. I'll make a man out of you yet," the ranger assured his charge cheerfully. "Will you?" came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the sense of being laughed at.

"Yes, I 'will you,' sissy," he retorted, without the least exasperation. "Don't think you know it all. Right now you're riding like a wooden man. You want to take it easy in the saddle. There's about a dozen different positions you can take to rest yourself." And Bucky put him through a course of sprouts. "Don't sit there laughing at folks that knows a heap more than you ever will get in your noodle, and perhaps you won't be so done up at the end of a little jaunt like this," he concluded. And to his conclusion he presently added a postscript: "Why, I know kids your age can ride day and night for a week on the round-up without being all in. How old are you, son?"

"Eighteen."

"That's a lie," retorted the ranger, with immediate frankness. "You're not a day over fifteen, I'll bet."

"I meant to say fifteen," meekly corrected the youth.

"That's another of them. You meant to say eighteen, but you found I wouldn't swallow it. Now, Master Frank, you want to learn one thing prompt if you and I are to travel together. I can't stand a liar. You tell the truth, or I'll give you the best licking you ever had in your life."

"You're as bad a bully as he is," the boy burst out, flushing angrily.

"Oh, no, I'm not," came the ranger's prompt unmoved answer. "But just because you're such a weak little kid that I could break you in two isn't any reason why I should put up with any foolishness from you. I mean to see that you act proper, the way an honest kid ought to do. Savvy?"

"I'd like to know who made you my master?" demanded the boy hotly.

"You've ce'tainly been good and spoiled, but you needn't ride your high hawss with me. Here's the long and the short of it. To tell lies ain't square. If I ask you anything you don't want to answer tell me to go to hell, but don't lie to me. If you do I'll punish you the same as if you were my brother, so long as you trail with me. If you don't like it, cut loose and hit the pike for yourself."

"I've a good mind to go."

Bucky waved a hand easily into space. "That's all right, too, son. There's a heap of directions you can hit from here. Take any one you like. But if I was as beat as you are, I think I'd keep on the Epitaph road." He laughed his warm, friendly laugh, before the geniality of which discord seemed to melt, and again his arm went round the other's weary shoulders with a caressing gesture that was infinitely protecting.

The boy laughed tremulously. "You're awfully good to me. I know I'm a cry-baby, sissy boy, but if you'll be patient with me I'll try to be gamer."

It certainly was strange the way Bucky's pulse quickened and his blood tingled when he touched the little fellow and heard that velvet voice's soft murmur. Yes, it surely was strange, but perhaps the young Irishman's explanation was not the correct one, after all. The cause he offered to himself for this odd joy and tender excitement was perfectly simple.

"I'm surely plumb locoed, or else gone soft in the haid," he told himself grimly.

But the reason for those queer little electric shocks that pulsed through him was probably a more elemental and primeval one than even madness.

Arrived at Epitaph, Bucky turned loose his prisoner with a caution and made his preparations to leave immediately for Chihuahua. Collins had returned to Tucson, but was in touch with the situation and ready to set out for any point where he was needed.

Bucky, having packed, was confronted with a difficulty. He looked at it, and voiced his perplexity.

"Now, what am I going to do with you, Curly Haid? I expect I had better ship you back to the Rocking Chair."

"I don't want to go back there. He'll come out again and find me after you leave."

"Where do you want to go, then? If you were a girl I could put you in the convent school here," he reflected aloud.

Again that swift, deep blush irradiated the youth's cheeks. "Why can't I go with you?" he asked shyly.

The ranger laughed. "Mebbe you think I'm going on a picnic. Why, I'm starting out to knock the chip off Old Man Trouble's shoulder. Like as not some greaser will collect Mr. Bucky's scalp down in manyana land. No, sir, this doesn't threaten to be a Y. P. S. C. E. excursion."

"If it is so dangerous as that, you will need help. I'm awful good at making up, and I can speak Spanish like a native."

"Sho! You don't want to go running your neck into a noose. It's a jail-break I'm planning, son. There may be guns a-popping before we get back to God's country—if we ever do. Add to that, trouble and then some, for there's a revolution scheduled for old Chihuahua just now, as your uncle happens to know from reliable information."

"Two can always work better than one. Try me, Bucky," pleaded the boy, the last word slipping out with a trailing upward inflection that was irresistible.

"Sure you won't faint if we get in a tight pinch, Curly?" scoffed O'Connor, even though in his mind he was debating a surrender. For he was extraordinarily taken with the lad, and his judgment justified what the boy had said.

"I shall not be afraid if you are with me."

"But I may not be with you. That's the trouble. Supposing I should be caught, what would you do?"

"Follow any orders you had given me before that time. If you had not given any, I would use my best judgment."

"I'll give them now," smiled Bucky. "If I'm lagged, make straight for Arizona and tell Webb Mackenzie or Val Collins."

"Then you will take me?" cried the boy eagerly.

"Only on condition that you obey orders explicitly. I'm running this cutting-out expedition."

"I wouldn't think of disobeying."

"And I don't want you to tell me any lies."

"No."

Bucky's big brown fist caught the little one and squeezed it. "Then it's a deal, kid. I only hope I'm doing right to take you."

"Of course you are. Haven't you promised to make a man of me?" And again Bucky caught that note of stifled laughter in the voice, though the big brown eyes met his quite seriously.

They took the train that night for El Paso, Bucky in the lower berth and his friend in the upper of section six of one of the Limited's Pullman cars. The ranger was awake and up with the day. For a couple of hours he sat in the smoking section and discussed politics with a Chicago drummer. He knew that Frank was very tired, and he let him sleep till the diner was taken on at Lordsburg. Then he excused himself to the traveling man.

"I reckon I better go and wake up my pardner. I see the chuck-wagon is toddling along behind us."

Bucky drew aside the curtains and shook the boy gently by the shoulder. Frank's eyes opened and looked at the ranger with that lack of comprehension peculiar to one roused suddenly from deep sleep.

"Time to get up, Curly. The nigger just gave the first call for the chuck-wagon."

An understanding of the situation flamed over the boy's face. He snatched the curtains from the Arizonian and gathered them tightly together. "I'll thank you not to be so familiar," he said shortly from behind the closed curtains.

"I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself announced and craved an audience, I reckon," was Bucky's ironic retort; and swiftly on the heels of it he added. "You make me tired, kid."

O'Connor was destined to be "made tired" a good many times in the course of the next few days. In all the little personal intimacies Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the experience of the ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man himself, and rather nice as to his personal habits, but it did not throw him into a flame of embarrassment to brush his teeth before his fellow passengers. Nor did it send him into a fit if a friend happened to drop into his room while he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of innocence in the lad tied his tongue.

"Blame it all, I'm getting to be a regular old granny. What Master Frank needs is a first-class dressing-down, and here the little cuss has got me bluffed to a fare-you-well so that I'm mum as a hooter on the nest," he admitted to himself ruefully. "Just when something comes up that needs a good round damn I catch that big brown Sunday school eye of his, and it's Bucky back to Webster's unabridged. I've got to quit trailing with him, or I'll be joining the church first thing I know. He makes me feel like I want to be good, confound the little swindle."

Notwithstanding the ranger's occasional moments of exasperation, the two got along swimmingly. Each of them found a continued pleasure in delving into the other's unexplored mental recesses. They drifted into one of those quick, spontaneous likings that are rare between man and man. Some subtle quality of affection bubbled up like a spring in the hearts of each for the other. Young Hardman could perhaps have explained what lay at the roots of it, but O'Connor admitted that he was "buffaloed" when he attempted an analysis of his unusual feeling.

From El Paso a leisurely run on the Mexican Central Pacific took them to Chihuahua, a quaint old city something about the size of El Paso. Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded in their object.

At a distance it had seemed an easy thing to plan the escape of David Henderson and to accomplish it by craft, but a sight of the heavy stone walls that encircled the prison and of the numerous armed guards who paced to and fro on the walls, put a more chilling aspect on their chances.

"It isn't a very gay outlook," Bucky admitted cheerfully to his companion, "but I expect we can pull it off somehow. If these Mexican officials weren't slower than molasses in January it might have been better to wait and have him released by process of law on account of Hardman's confession. But it would take them two or three years to come to a decision. They sure do hate to turn loose a gringo when they have got the hog-tie on him. Like as not they would decide against him at the last, then. Course I've got the law machinery grinding, too, but I'm not banking on it real heavy. We'll get him out first any old way, then get the government to O. K. the thing."

"How were you thinking of proceeding?"

"I expect it's time to let you in on the ground floor, son. I reckon you happen to know that down in these Spanish countries there's usually a revolution hatching. There s two parties among the aristocrats, those for the government and those ferninst. The 'ins' stand pat, but the 'outs' have always got a revolution up their sleeves. Now, there's mostly a white man mixed up in the affair. They have to have him to run it and to shoot afterward when the government wins. You see, somebody has to be shot, and it's always so much to the good if they can line up gringoes instead of natives. Nine times out of ten it's an Irish-American lad that is engineering the scheme. This time it happens to be Mickey O'Halloran, an old friend of mine. I'm going to put it up to Mick to find a way."

"But it isn't any affair of his. He won't do it, will he?"

"Oh, I thought I told you he was Irish."

"Well?"

"And spoiling for trouble, of course. Is it likely he could keep his fist out of the hive when there's such a gem of a chance to get stung?"

It had been Frank's suggestion that they choose rooms at a hotel which open into each other and also connect with an adjoining pair. The reason for this had not at first been apparent to the ranger, but as soon as they were alone Frank explained.

"It is very likely that we shall be under surveillance after a day or two, especially if we are seen around the prison a good deal. Well, we'll slip out the back way to-night, disguised in some other rig, come boldly in by the front door, and rent the rooms next ours. Then we shall be able to go and come, either as ourselves or as our neighbors. It will give us a great deal more liberty."

"Unless we should get caught. Then we would have a great deal less. What's your notion of a rig-up to disguise us, kid?"

"We might have several, in case of emergencies. For one thing, we could easily be street showmen. You can do fancy shooting and I can do sleight-of-hand tricks or tell fortunes."

"You would be a gipsy lad?"

The youngster blushed. "A gipsy girl, and you might be my husband."

"I'm no play actor, even if you are," said Bucky. "I don't want to be your husband, thank you."

"All you would have to do is to be sullen and rough. It is easy enough."

"And you think you could pass for a girl? You're slim and soft enough, but I'll bet you would give it away inside of an hour."

The boy laughed, and shot a swift glance at O'Connor under his long lashes. "I appeared as a girl in one of the acts of the show for years. Nobody ever suspected that I wasn't."

"We might try it, but we have no clothes for the part."

"Leave that to me. I'll buy some to-day while you are looking the ground over for our first assault an the impregnable fortress."

"I don't know. It seems to me pretty risky. But you might buy the things, and we'll see how you look in them. Better not get all the things at the same store. Sort of scatter your purchases around."

They separated at the door of the hotel, Frank to choose the materials he needed, and O'Connor to look up O'Halloran and get a permit to visit the prison from the proper authorities. When the latter returned triumphantly with his permit he found the boy busy with a needle and thread and surrounded by a litter of dress-making material.

"I'm altering this to fit me and fixing it up," he explained.

"Holy smoke! Who taught you to sew?" asked Bucky, in surprise.

"My aunt, Mrs. Hardman. I used to do all the plain sewing on my costumes. Did you see your friend and get your permit?"

"You bet I did, and didn't. Mickey was out, but I left him a note. The other thing I pulled off all right. I'm to be allowed to visit the prison and make a careful inspection of it at my leisure There's nothing like a pull, son."

"Does the permit say you are to be allowed to steal any one of the prisoners you take a fancy to? asked Frank, with a smile.

"No, it forgot to say that. When do you expect to have that toggery made?"

"A good deal of it is already made, as you see. I'm just making a few changes. Do you want to try on your suit?"

"Is THIS mine?" asked the ranger, picking up with smiling contempt the rather gaudy blouse that lay on a chair.

"Yes, sir, that is yours. Go and put it on and we'll see how it fits."

Bucky returned a few minutes later in his gipsy uniform, with a deprecating grin.

"I'll have to stain your face. Then you'll do very well," said Frank, patting and pulling at the clothes here and there. "It's a good fit, if I do say it that chose it. The first thing you want to do when you get out in it is to roll in the dust and get it soiled. No respectable gipsy wears new clothes. Better have a tear or two in it, too."

"You ce'tainly should have been a girl, the way you take to clothes, Curly."

"Making up was my business for a good many years, you know," returned the lad quietly. "If you'll step into the other room for about fifteen minutes I'll show you how well I can do it."

It was a long half-hour later that Bucky thumped on the door between the rooms. "Pretty nearly ready, kid? Seems to me it is taking you a thundering long time to get that outfit on."

"How long do you think it ought to take a lady to dress?"

"Ten minutes is long enough, and fifteen, say, if she is going to a dance. You've been thirty-five by my Waterbury."

"It's plain you never were married, Mr. Innocent. Why, a girl can't fix her hair in less than half an hour."

"Well, you got a wig there, ain't you? It doesn't take but about five seconds to stick that on. Hurry up, gringo! I'm clean through this old newspaper."

"Read the advertisements," came saucily through the door.

"I've read the durned things twice."

"Learn them by heart," the sweet voice advised.

"Oh, you go to Halifax!"

Nevertheless, Mr. Bucky had to wait his comrade's pleasure. But when he got a vision of the result, it was so little what he had expected that it left him staring in amazement, his jaw fallen and his eyes incredulous.

The vision swept him a low bow. "How do you like Bonita?" it demanded gaily.

Bucky's eyes circled the room, to make sure that the boy was not hidden somewhere, and came back to rest on his surprise with a look that was almost consternation. Was this vivid, dazzling creature the boy he had been patronizing, lecturing, promising to thrash any time during the past four days? The thing was unbelievable, not yet to be credited by his jarred brain. How incredibly blind he had been! What an idiot of sorts! Why, the marks of sex sat on her beyond any possibility of doubt. Every line of the slim, lissom figure, every curve of the soft, undulating body, the sweep of rounded arm, of tapering waist-line, of well-turned ankle, contributed evidence of what it were folly to ask further proof. How could he have ever seen those lovely, soft-lashed eyes and the delicate little hands without conviction coming home to him? And how could he have heard the low murmur of her voice, the catch of her sobs, without knowing that they were a denial of masculinity?

She was dressed like a Spanish dancing girl, in short kilts, red sash, and jaunty little cap placed sidewise on her head. She wore a wig of black hair, and her face was stained to a dusky, gipsy hue. Over her thumb hung castanets and in her hand was a tambourine. Roguishly she began to sway into a slow, rhythmic dance, beating time with her instruments as she moved. Gradually the speed quickened to a faster time. She swung gracefully to and fro with all the lithe agility of the race she personified. No part could have been better conceived or executed. Even physically she displayed the large, brilliant eyes, the ringleted, coal-black hair, the tawny skin, and the flashing smile that showed small teeth of dazzling ivory, characteristic of the Romanies he had met. It was a daring part to play, but the young man watching realized that she had the free grace to carry it out successfully. She danced the fandango to a finish, swept him another low bow, and presented laughingly to him the tambourine for his donation. Then, suddenly flinging aside the instrument, she curtsied and caught at his hand.

"Will the senor have his fortune told?"

Bucky drew a handful of change from his pocket and selected a gold eagle. "I suppose I must cross your palm with gold," he said, even while his subconscious mind was running on the new complication presented to him by this discovery.

He was very clear about one thing. He must not let her know that he knew her for a girl. To him she must still be a boy, or their relation would become impossible. She had trusted in her power to keep her secret from him. On no other terms would she have come with him; of so much he was sure, even while his mind groped for a sufficient reason to account for an impulse that might have impelled her. If she found out that he knew, the knowledge would certainly drive her at once from him. For he knew that not the least charm of the extraordinary fascination she had for him lay in her sweet innocence of heart, a fresh innocence that consisted with this gay Romany abandon, and even with a mental experience of the sordid, seamy side of life as comprehensive as that of many a woman twice her age. She had been defrauded out of her childish inheritance of innocence, but, somehow, even in her foul environment the seeds of a rare personal purity had persistently sprung up and flourished. Some flowers are of such native freshness that no nauseous surroundings can kill their fragrance. And this was one of them.

Meanwhile, her voice ran on with the patter of her craft. There was the usual dark woman to be circumvented and the light one to be rewarded. Jealousies and rivalries played their part in the nonsense she glibly recited, and somewhere in the future lay, of course, great riches and happiness for him.

With a queer little tug at his heart he watched the dainty finger that ran so lightly over his open palm, watched, too, the bent head so gracefully fine of outline and the face so mobile of expression when the deep eyes lifted to his in question of the correctness of her reading. He would miss the little partner that had wound himself so tightly round his heart. He wondered if he would find compensating joy in this exquisite creature whom a few moments had taken worlds distant from him.

Suddenly tiring of her diversion, she dropped his hand. "You don't say I do it well," she charged, aware suspiciously, at last, of his grave silence.

"You do it very well indeed. I didn't think you had it in you, kid. What's worrying me is that I can never live up to such a sure enough gipsy as you."

"All you have to do is to look sour and frown if anybody gets too familiar with me. You can do that, can't you?"

"You bet I can," he answered promptly, with unnecessary emphasis.

"And look handsome," she teased.

"Oh, that will be easy for me—since you are going to make me up. As a simple child of nature I'm no ornament to the scenery, but art's a heap improving sometimes."

She thought, but did not say, that art would go a long way before it could show anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he could whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after seeing how surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the emergency that sifts men, and she had seen him rise to several with a readiness that showed the stuff in him.

That evening they slipped out unobserved in the dusk, and a few minutes later a young gipsy and his bride presented themselves at the inn to be put up. The scowling young Romany was particular, considering that he spent most nights in the open, with a sky for a roof. So the master of the inn thought when he rejected on one pretense or another the first two rooms that were shown him. He wanted two rooms, and they must connect. Had the innkeeper such apartments? The innkeeper had, but he would very much like to see the price in advance if he was going to turn over to guests of such light baggage the best accommodations in the house. This being satisfactorily arranged, the young gipsies were left to themselves in the room they had rented.

The first thing that the man did when they were alone was to roll a cigarette, which operation he finished deftly with one hand, while the other swept a match in a circular motion along his trousers leg. In very fair English the Spanish gipsy said: "You ce'tainly ought to learn to smoke, kid. Honest, it's more comfort than a wife."

"How do you know, since you are not married?" she asked archly.

"I been noticing some of my poor unfortunate friends," he grinned.



CHAPTER 7. IN THE LAND OF REVOLUTIONS

The knock that sounded on the door was neither gentle nor apologetic. It sounded as if somebody had flung a baseball bat at it.

O'Connor smiled, remembering that soft tap of yore. "I reckon—" he was beginning, when the door opened to admit a visitor.

This proved to be a huge, red-haired Irishman, with a face that served just now merely as a setting for an irresistible smile. The owner of the flaming head looked round in surprise on the pair of Romanies and began an immediate apology to which a sudden blush served as accompaniment.

"Beg pardon. I didn't know. The damned dago told me—" He stopped in confusion, with a scrape and a bow to the lady.

"Sir, I demand an explanation of this most unwarrantable intrusion," spoke the ranger haughtily, in his best Spanish.

A patter of soft foreign vowels flowed from the stranger's embarrassment.

"You durned old hawss-stealing greaser, cayn't you talk English?" drawled the gipsy, with a grin.

The other's mouth fell open with astonishment He stared at the slim, dusky young Spaniard for an instant before he fell upon him and began to pound his body with jovial fists.

"You would, would you, you old pie-eating fraud! Try to fool your Uncle Mick and make him think you a greaser, would you? I'll learn yez to play horse with a fullgrown, able-bodied white man." He punctuated his points with short-arm jolts that Bucky laughingly parried.

"Before ladies, Mick! Haven't you forgot your manners, Red-haid?"

Swiftly Mr. O'Halloran came to flushed rigidity. "Madam, I must still be apologizing. The surprise of meeting me friend went to me head, I shouldn't wonder."

Bucky doubled up with apparent mirth. "Get into the other room, Curly, and get your other togs on," he ordered. "Can't you see that Mick is going to fall in love with you if he sees you a minute longer, you young rascal? Hike!"

"Don't you talk that way to a lady, Bucky," warned O'Halloran, again blushing vividly, after she had disappeared into the next room. "And I want to let yez have it right off the bat that if you've been leading that little Mexican senorita into trouble you've got a quarrel on with Mike O'Halloran."

"Keep your shirt on, old fire-eater. Who told you I was wronging her any?"

"Are you married to her?"

"You bet I ain't. You see, Mick, that handsome lady you're going to lick the stuffing out of me about is only a plumb ornery sassy young boy, after all."

"No!" denied Mick, his eyes two excited interrogation-points. "You can't stuff me with any such fairy-tale, me lad."

"All right. Wait and see," suggested the ranger easily. "Have a smoke while you're falling out of love."

"You young limb, I want you to tell me all about it this very minute, before I punch holes in yez."

Bucky lit his cigar, leaned back, and began to tell the story of Frank Hardman and the knife-thrower. Only one thing he omitted to tell, and that was the conviction that had come home to him a few moments ago that his little comrade was no boy, but a woman. O'Halloran was a chivalrous Irishman, a daredevil of an adventurer, with a pure love of freedom that might very likely in the end bring him to face a row of loaded carbines with his back to a wall, but Bucky had his reticencies that even loyal friendship could not break down. This girl's secret he meant to guard until such time as she chose of her own free will to tell it.

Frank returned just as he finished the tale of the knife episode, and Mick's frank open eyes accused him of idiocy for ever having supposed that this lad was a woman. Why, he was a little fellow not over fifteen—not a day past fifteen, he would swear to that. He was, to be sure, a slender, girlish young fellow, a good deal of a sissy by the look of him, but none the less a sure enough boy. Convinced of this, the big Irishman dismissed him promptly from his thoughts and devoted himself to Bucky.

"And what are yez doing down in greaser land? Thought you was rustling cows for a living somewheres in sunburnt Arizona," he grinned amiably.

"Me? Oh, I came down on business. We'll talk about that presently. How's your one-hawss revolution getting along, Reddy? I hope it's right peart and healthy."

O'Halloran's eyes flashed a warning, with the slightest nod in the world toward the boy.

"Don't worry about him. He's straight as a string and knows how to keep his mouth shut. You can tell him anything you would me." He turned to the boy sitting quietly in an inconspicuous corner. "Mum's the word, Frank. You understand that, of course?"

The boy nodded. "I'll go into the next room, if you like."

"It isn't necessary. Fire ahead, Mike."

The latter got up, tiptoed to each door in turn, flung it suddenly open to see that nobody was spying behind it, and then turned the lock. "I have use for me head for another year or two, and it's just as well to see that nobody is spying. You understand, Bucky, that I'm risking me life in telling you what I'm going to. If you have any doubts about this lad—" He stopped, keen eyes fixed on Frank.

"He's as safe as I am, Mike. Is it likely I would take any risks about a thing of that sort with my old bunkie's tough neck inviting the hangman?" asked O'Connor quietly.

"Good enough. The kid looks stanch, and, anyhow, if you guarantee him that's enough for me." He accepted another of the ranger's cigars, puffed it to a red glow, and leaned back to smile at his friend. "Glory, but it's good to see ye, Bucky, me bye. You'll never know how a man's eyes ache to see a straight-up white man in this land of greasers. It's the God's truth I'm telling ye when I say that I haven't had a scrimmage with me hands since I came here. The only idea this forsaken country has of exchanging compliments is with a knife in the dark." He shook his flaming head regretfully at the deplorably lost condition of a country where the shillalah was unknown as a social institution.

"If I wasn't tied up with this Valdez bunch I'd get out to-morrow, and sometimes I have half a mind to pull out anyhow. If you've never been associated, me lad, with half a dozen most divilishly polite senors, each one of them watching the others out of the corner of his slant eyes for fear they are going to betray him or assassinate him first, you'll never know the joys of life in this peaceful and contented land of indolence. Life's loaded to the guards with uncertainties, so eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you hang, or your friend will carve ye in the back with a knife, me old priest used to say, or something like it. 'Tis certain he must have had in mind the Spanish-American, my son."

"Which is why you're here, you old fraud," smiled Bucky. "You've got to grumble, of course, but you couldn't be dragged away while there's a chance of a row. Don't I know you of old, Reddy?"

"Anyway, here I am, with me neck so near to the rope it fairly aches sometimes. If you have any inclinations toward suicide, I'll be glad to introduce ye to me revolutionary friends."

"Thank you, no. The fact is that we have a little private war of our own on hand, Mike. I was thinking maybe you'd like to enlist, old filibuster."

"Is the pay good?"

"Nothing a day and find yourself," answered Bucky promptly.

"No reasonable man could ask fairer than that," agreed O'Halloran, his grin expanding. "Well, then, what's the row? Would ye like to be dictator of Chihuahua or Emperor of Mexico?"

"There's an American in the government prison here under a life sentence. He is not guilty, and he has already served fifteen years."

"He is like to serve fifteen more, if he lives that long."

"Wrong guess. I mean to get him out."

"And I'm meaning to go to Paradise some day, but will I?"

"You're going to help me get him out, Mike."

"Who told ye that, me optimistic young friend?"

"I didn't need to be told."

"Well, I'll not lift a finger, Bucky—not a finger."

"I knew you wouldn't stand to see a man like Henderson rot in a dungeon. No Irishman would."

"You needn't blarney me. I'm too old a bird to be caught with chaff. It's a dirty shame, of course, about this man Henderson, but I'm not running the criminal jurisprudence of Mexico meself."

"And I said to Webb Mackenzie: 'Mickey O'Halloran is the man to see; he'll know the best way to do it as nobody else would.' I knew I could depend on you."

"You've certainly kissed the blarney stone, Mr. O'Connor," returned the revolutionist dryly. "Well, then, what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing much. Get Henderson out and help us to get safely from the country whose reputation you black-eye so cheerfully."

"Mercy of Hiven! Bring me the moon and a handful of stars, says he, as cool as you please."

The ranger told the story of Henderson and Mackenzie's lost child in such a way that it lost nothing in the telling. O'Halloran was moved. "'Tis a damned shame about this man Henderson," he blurted out.

Bucky leaned back comfortably and waved airily his brown hand. "It's up to you," his gay, impudent eyes seemed to say.

"I don't say I won't be able to help you," conceded O'Halloran. "It happens, me bye, that you've dropped in on me just before the band begins to play." He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "There's a shipment of pianos being brought down the line this week. The night after they arrive I'm looking for music."

"I see. The piano boxes are filled with rifles and ammunition."

"You have a mind like a tack, Bucky. Rifles is the alias of them pianos. They'll make merry music once we get them through."

"That's all very well, but have you reckoned with the government at Mexico? Chihuahua isn't the whole country, Mickey. Suppose President Diaz takes a hand in the game and sends troops in on you?"

"He won't," answered the other, with a wink. "He's been seen. The president isn't any too friendly to that old tyrant Megales, who is now governor here. There's an election next week. The man that gets most votes will be elected, and I'm thinking, Bucky, that the man with most rifles will the most votes. Now, says Diaz, in effect, with an official wave of his hand, 'Settle your own rows, gintlemen. I don't give a damn whether Megales or Valdez is governor of Chihuahua, subject, of coorse, to the will of the people.' Then he winks at Valdez wid his off eye as much as to say: 'Go in an' win, me boy; me prayers are supporting ye. But be sure ye do nothing too illegal.' So there ye are, Bucky. If ould Megales was to wake up election morning and find that the polling-places was in our hands, his soldiers disarmed or bought over, and everything contributing smoothly to express the will of the people in electing him to take a swift hike out of Chihuahua, it is likely that he might accept the inevitable as the will of fate and make a strategic retreat to climes more healthy."

"And if in the meantime he should discover those rifles, or one of those slant-eyed senors should turn out a Benedict Arnold, what then, my friend?"

"Don't talk in that cruel way. You make me neck ache in anticipation," returned O'Halloran blithely.

"I think we'll not travel with you in public till after the election, Mr. O'Halloran," reflected Bucky aloud.

"'Twould be just as well, me son. My friends won't be overpopular with Megales if the cards fall his way."

"If you win, I suppose we may count Henderson as good as a free man?"

"It would be a pity if me pull wouldn't do a little thing like that," scoffed the conspirator genially.

"But, win or lose, I may be able to help you. We need musicians to play those pianos we're bringing in. Well, the most dependable men we can set to play some of them are the prisoners in the fortress. There's likely to be a wholesale jail delivery the night before the election. Now, it's just probable that the lads we free will fight to keep their freedom. That's why we use them. They HAVE to be true to us because, if they don't, WHICHEVER SIDE WINS back they go to jail."

"Of course. I wish I could take a hand myself. But I can't, because I'm a soldier of a friendly power. We'll get Henderson out the night before the election and leave on the late train. You'll have to arrange the program in time for us to catch that train."

O'Halloran looked drolly at him. "I'm liking your nerve, young man. I pull the chestnuts out of the fire for yez and, likely enough, get burned. You walk off with your chestnut, and never a 'Thank ye' for poor Mickey the catspaw."

"It doesn't look like quite a square deal, does it?" laughed the ranger. "Well, we might vary the program a bit. Bucky O'Connor, Arizona ranger, can't stop and take a hand in such a game, but I don't know anything to prevent a young gipsy from Spain staying over a few days."

"If you stay, I shall," announced the boy Frank.

"You'll do nothing of the kind, seh. You'll do just as I say, according to the agreement you made with me when I let you come," was Bucky's curt answer. "We're not playing this game to please you, Master Frank."

Yet though the ranger spoke curtly, though he still tried to hold toward his comrade precisely the same attitude as he had before discovering her sex, he could not put into his words the same peremptory sting that, he had done before when he found that occasionally necessary. For no matter how severely he must seem to deal with her to avoid her own suspicions as to what he knew, as well as to keep from arousing those of others, his heart was telling a very different story all the time. He could see again the dainty grace with which she had danced for him, heard again that low voice breaking into a merry piping lilt, warmed once more to the living, elusive smile, at once so tender and mocking. He might set his will to preserve an even front to her gay charm, but it was beyond him to control the thrills that shot his pulses.



CHAPTER 8. FIRST BLOOD!

Occasionally Alice Mackenzie met Collins on the streets of Tucson. Once she saw him at the hotel where she was staying, deep in a discussion with her father of ways and means of running down the robbers of the Limited. He did not, however, make the least attempt to push their train acquaintanceship beyond the give and take of casual greeting. Without showing himself unfriendly, he gave her no opportunity to determine how far they would go with each other. This rather piqued her, though she would probably have rebuffed him if he had presumed far. Of which probability Val Collins was very well aware.

They met one morning in front of a drug store downtown. She carried a parasol that was lilac-trimmed, which shade was also the outstanding note of her dress. She was looking her very best, and no doubt knew it. To Val her dainty freshness seemed to breathe the sweetness of spring violets.

"Good morning, Miss Mackenzie. Weather like this I'm awful glad I ain't a mummy," he told her. "The world's mighty full of beautiful things this glad day."

"Essay on the Appreciation of Nature, by Professor Collins," she smiled.

"To be continued in our next," he amended. "Won't you come in and have a sundae? You look as if you didn't know it, but the rest of us have discovered it's a right warm morning."

Looking across the little table at him over her sundae, she questioned him with innocent impudence. "I saw you and dad deep in plans Tuesday. I suppose by now you have all the train robbers safely tucked away in the penitentiary?"

"Not yet," he answered cheerfully.

"Not yet!" Her lifted eyebrows and the derisive flash beneath mocked politely his confidence. "By this time I should think they might be hunting big game in deepest Africa."

"They might be, but they're not."

"What about that investment in futurities you made on the train? The month is more than half up. Do you see any chance of realizing?"

"It looks now as if I might be a false prophet, but I feel way down deep that I won't. In this prophet's business confidence is half the stock in trade."

"Really. I'm very curious to know what it is you predicted. Was it something good?"

"Good for me," he nodded.

"Then I think you'll get it," she laughed. "I have noticed that it is the people that expect things—and then go out and take them—that inherit the earth these days. The meek have been dispossessed."

"I'm glad I have your good wishes."

"I didn't say you had, but you'll get along just as well without them,'' she answered with a cool little laugh as she rose.

"I'd like to discuss that proposition with you more at length. May I call on you some evening this week, Miss Mackenzie?"

There was a sparkle of hidden malice in her answer. "You're too late, Mr. Collins. We'll have to leave it undiscussed. I'm going to leave to-day for my uncle s ranch, the Rocking Chair."

He was distinctly disappointed, though he took care not to show it. Nevertheless, the town felt empty after her train had gone. He was glad when later in the day a message came calling him to Epitaph. It took him at least seventy-five miles nearer her.

Before he had been an hour at Epitaph the sheriff knew he had struck gold this time. Men were in town spending money lavishly, and at a rough description they answered to the ones he wanted. Into the Gold Nugget Saloon that evening dropped Val Collins, big, blond, and jaunty. He looked far less the vigorous sheriff out for business than the gregarious cowpuncher on a search for amusement.

Del Hawkes, an old-time friend of his staging days, pounced on him and dragged him to the bar, whence his glance fell genially on the roulette wheel and its devotees, wandered casually across the impassive poker and Mexican monte players, took in the enthroned musicians, who were industriously murdering "La Paloma," and came to rest for barely an instant at a distant faro table. In the curly-haired good-looking young fellow facing the dealer he saw one of the men he had come seeking. Nor did he need to look for the hand with the missing trigger finger to be sure it was York Neil—that same gay, merry-hearted York with whom he used to ride the range, changed now to a miscreant who had elected to take the short cut to wealth.

But the man beside Neil, the dark-haired, pallid fellow from whose presence something at once formidable and sinister and yet gallant seemed to breathe—the very sight of him set the mind of Collins at work busily upon a wild guess. Surely here was a worthy figure upon whom to set the name and reputation of the notorious Wolf Leroy.

Yet the sheriff's eyes rested scarce an instant before they went traveling again, for he wanted to show as yet no special interest in the object of his suspicions. The gathering was a motley one, picturesque in its diversity. For here had drifted not only the stranded derelicts of a frontier civilization, but selected types of all the turbid elements that go to make up its success. Mexican, millionaire, and miner brushed shoulders at the roulette-wheel. Chinaman and cow-puncher, Papago and plainsman, tourist and tailor, bucked the tiger side by side with a democracy found nowhere else in the world. The click of the wheel, the monotonous call of the croupier, the murmur of many voices in alien tongues, and the high-pitched jarring note of boisterous laughter, were all merged in a medley of confusion as picturesque as the scene itself.

"Business not anyways slack at the Nugget," ventured Collins, to the bartender.

"No, I don't know as 'tis. Nearly always somethin' doing in little old Epitaph," answered the public quencher of thirsts, polishing the glass top of the bar with a cloth.

"Playing with the lid off back there, ain't they?" The sheriff's nod indicated the distant faro-table.

"That's right, I guess. Only blue chips go."

"It's Wolf Leroy—that Mexican-looking fellow there," Hawkes explained in a whisper. "A bad man with the gun, they say, too. Well, him and York Neil and Scott Dailey blew in last night from their mine, up at Saguache. Gave it out he was going to break the bank, Leroy did. Backing that opinion usually comes high, but Leroy is about two thousand to the good, they say."

"Scott Dailey? Don't think I know him."

"That shorthorn in chaps and a yellow bandanna is the gentleman; him that's playing the wheel so constant. You don't miss no world-beater when you don't know Scott. He's Leroy's Man Friday. Understand they've struck it rich. Anyway, they're hitting high places while the mazuma lasts."

"I can't seem to locate their mine. What's its brand?"

"The Dalriada. Some other guy is in with them; fellow by the name of Hardman, if I recollect; just bought out a livery barn in town here."

"Queer thing, luck; strikes about as unexpected as lightning. Have another, Del?"

"Don't care if I do, Val. It always makes me thirsty to see people I like. Anything new up Tucson way?"

The band had fallen on "Manzanilla," and was rending it with variations when Collins circled round to the wheel and began playing the red. He took a place beside the bow-legged vaquero with the yellow bandanna knotted loosely round his throat. For five minutes the cow-puncher attended strictly to his bets. Then he cursed softly, and asked Collins to exchange places with him.

"This place is my hoodoo. I can't win—" The sentence died in the man's throat, became an inarticulate gurgle of dismay.

He had looked up and met the steady eyes of the sheriff, and the surprise of it had driven the blood from his heart. A revolver thrust into his face could not have shaken him more than that serene smile.

Collins took him by the arm with a jovial laugh meant to cover their retreat, and led him into one of the curtained alcove rooms. As they entered he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Leroy and Neil were still intent on their game. Not for a moment, not even while the barkeeper was answering their call for liquor, did the sheriff release Scott from the rigor of his eyes, and when the attendant drew the curtain behind him the officer let his smile take on a new meaning.

"What did I tell you, Scott?"

"Prove it," defied Scott. "Prove it—you can't prove it."

"What can't I prove?"

"Why, that I was in that—" Scott stopped abruptly, and watched the smile broaden on the strong face opposite him. His dull brain had come to his rescue none too soon.

"Now, ain't it funny how people's thoughts get to running on the same thing? Last time I met up with you there you was collecting a hundred dollars and keep-the-change cents from me, and now here you are spending it. It's ce'tinly curious how both of us are remembering that little seance in the Pullman car."

Scott took refuge in a dogged silence. He was sweating fear.

"Yes, sir. It comes up right vivid before me. There was you a-trainin' your guns on me—"

"I wasn't," broke in Scott, falling into the trap.

"That's right. How come I to make such a mistake? Of cou'se you carried the sack and York Neil held the guns."

The man cursed quietly, and relapsed into silence.

"Always buy your clothes in pairs?"

The sheriff's voice showed only a pleasant interest, but the outlaw's frightened eyes were puzzled at this sudden turn.

"Wearing a bandanna same color and pattern as you did the night of our jamboree on the Limited, I see. That's mightily careless of you, ain't it?"

Instinctively a shaking hand clutched at the kerchief. "It don't cut any ice because a hold-up wears a mask made out of stuff like this."

"Did I say it was a mask he wore?" the gentle voice quizzed.

Scott, beads of perspiration on his forehead, collapsed as to his defense. He fell back sullenly to his first position: "You can't prove anything."

"Can't I?" The sheriff's smile went out like a snuffed candle. Eyes and mouth were cold and hard as chiseled marble. He leaned forward far across the table, a confident, dominating assurance painted on his face. "Can't I? Don't you bank on that. I can prove all I need to, and your friends will prove the rest. They'll be falling all over themselves to tell what they know—and Mr. Dailey will be holding the sack again, while Leroy and the rest are slipping out."

The outlaw sprang to his feet, white to the lips.

"It's a damned lie. Leroy would never—" He stopped, again just in time to bite back the confession hovering on his lips. But he had told what Collins wanted to know.

The curtain parted, and a figure darkened the doorway—a slender, lithe figure that moved on springs. Out of its sardonic, devil-may-care face gleamed malevolent eyes which rested for a moment on Dailey, before they came home to the sheriff.

"And what is it Leroy would never do?" a gibing voice demanded silkily.

Scott pulled himself together and tried to bluff, but at the look on his chief's face the words died in his throat.

Collins did not lift a finger or move an eyelash, but with the first word a wary alertness ran through him and starched his figure to rigidity. He gathered himself together for what might come.

"Well, I am waiting. What it is Leroy would never do?" The voice carried a scoff with it, the implication that his very presence had stricken conspirators dumb.

Collins offered the explanation.

"Mr. Dailey was beginning a testimonial of your virtues just as you right happily arrived in time to hear it. Perhaps he will now proceed."

But Dailey had never a word left. His blunders had been crying ones, and his chief's menacing look had warned him what to expect. The courage oozed out of his heart, for he counted himself already a dead man.

"And who are you, my friend, that make so free with Wolf Leroy's name?" It was odd how every word of the drawling sentence contrived to carry a taunt and a threat with it, strange what a deadly menace the glittering eyes shot forth.

"My name is Collins."

"Sheriff of Pica County?"

"Yes."

The eyes of the men met like rapiers, as steady and as searching as cold steel. Each of them was appraising the rare quality of his opponent in this duel to the death that was before him.

"What are you doing here? Ain't Pica County your range?"

"I've been discussing with your friend the late hold-up on the Transcontinental Pacific."

"Ah!" Leroy knew that the sheriff was serving notice on them of his purpose to run down the bandits. Swiftly his mind swept up the factors of the situation. Should he draw now and chance the result, or wait for a more certain ending? He decided to wait, moved by the consideration that even if he were victorious the lawyers were sure to draw out of the fat-brained Scott the cause of the quarrel.

"Well, that don't interest me any, though I suppose you have to explain a heap how come they to hold you up and take your gun. I'll leave you and your jelly-fish Scott to your gabfest. Then you better run back home to Tucson. We don't go much on visiting sheriffs here." He turned on his heel with an insolent laugh, and left the sheriff alone with Dailey.

The superb contempt of the man, his readiness to give the sheriff a chance to pump out of Dailey all he knew, served to warn Collins that his life was in imminent danger. On no hypothesis save one—that Leroy had already condemned them both to death in his mind—could he account for such rashness. And that the blow would fall soon, before he had time to confer with other officers, was a corollary to the first proposition.

"He'll surely kill me on sight," Scott burst out.

"Yes, he'll kill you," agreed the sheriff, "unless you move first."

"Move how?"

"Against him. Protect yourself by lining up with me. It's your only show on earth."

Dailey's eyes flashed. "Then, by thunder, I ain't taking it! I'm no coyote, to round on my pardners."

"I give it to you straight. He means murder."

Perspiration poured from the man's face. "I'll light out of the country."

The sheriff shook his head. "You'd never get away alive. Besides, I want you for holding up the Limited. The safest place for you is in jail, and that's where I'm going to put you. Drop that gun! Quick! That's right. Now, you and I are going out of this saloon by the back door. I'm going to walk beside you, and we're going to laugh and talk as if we were the best of friends, but my hand ain't straying any from the end of my gun. Get that, amigo? All right. Then we'll take a little pasear."

As Collins and his prisoner reappeared in the main lobby of the Gold Nugget, a Mexican slipped out of the back door of the gambling-house. The sheriff called Hawkes aside.

"I want you to call a hack for me, Del. Bring it round to the back door, and arrange with the driver to whip up for the depot as soon as we get in. We ought to catch that 12:20 up-train. When the hack gets here just show up in the door. If you see Leroy or Neil hanging around the door, put your hand up to your tie. If the coast is clear, just move off to the bar and order something."

"Sure," said Hawkes, and was off at once, though just a thought unsteady from his frequent libations.

Both hands of the big clock on the wall pointed to twelve when Hawkes appeared again in the doorway at the rear of the Gold Nugget. With a wink at Collins, he made straight for the cocktail he thought he needed.

"Now," said the sheriff, and immediately he and Dailey passed through the back door.

Instantly two shots rang out. Collins lurched forward to the ground, drawing his revolver as he fell. Scott, twisting from his grasp, ran in a crouch toward the alley along the shadow of the buildings. Shots spattered against the wall as his pursuers gave chase. When the Gold Nugget vomited from its rear door a rush of humanity eager to see the trouble, the noise of their footsteps was already dying in the distance.

Hawkes found his friend leaning against the back of the hack, his revolver smoking in his hand.

"For God's sake, Val!" screamed Hawkes. "Did they get you?"

"Punctured my leg. That's all. But I expect they'll get Dailey."

"How come you to go out when I signaled you to stay?"

"Signaled me to stay, why—"

Collins stopped, unwilling to blame his friend. He knew now that Hawkes, having mixed his drinks earlier in the evening, had mixed his signals later.

"Get me a horse, Del, and round up two or three of the boys. I've got to get after those fellows. They are the ones that held up the Limited last week. Find out for me what hotel they put up at here. I want their rooms searched. Send somebody round to the corrals, and let me know where they stabled their horses. If they left any papers or saddle-bags, get them for me."

Fifteen minutes later Collins was in the saddle ready for the chase, and only waiting for his volunteer posse to join him. They were just starting when a frightened Chinaman ran into the plaza with the news that there had been shooting just back of his laundry on the edge of town and that a man had been killed.

When the sheriff reached the spot, he lowered himself from the saddle and limped over to the black mass huddled against the wall in the bright moonlight. He turned the riddled body over and looked down into the face of the dead man. I was that of the outlaw, Scott Dailey. That the body had been thoroughly searched was evident, for all around him were scattered his belongings. Here an old letter and a sack of tobacco, its contents emptied on the ground; there his coat and vest, the linings of each of them ripped out and the pockets emptied. Even the boots and socks of the man had been removed, so thorough had been the search. Whatever the murderers had been looking for it was not money, since his purse, still fairly well lined with greenbacks, was found behind a cactus bush a few yards away.

"What in time were they after?" frowned Collins. "If it wasn't his money—and it sure wasn't—what was it? I ce'tainly would like to know what the Wolf wanted so blamed bad. Guess I'll not follow Mr. Leroy just now till my leg is in better shape. Maybe I had better investigate a little bit round town first."

The body was taken back to the Gold Nugget and placed on a table, pending the arrival of the undertaker. It chanced that Collins, looking absently over the crowd, glimpsed a gray felt hat that looked familiar by reason of a frayed silver band found it. Underneath the hat was a Mexican, and him the sheriff ordered to step forward.

"Where did you get that hat, Manuel?"

"My name is Jose—Jose Archuleta," corrected the olive-hued one.

"I ain't worrying about your name, son. What I want to know is where you found that hat."

"In the alley off the plaza, senor."

"All right. Chuck it up here."

"Muy bien, senor." And the dusty hat was passed from hand to hand till it reached the sheriff.

Collins ripped off the silver band and tore out the sweat-pad. It was an off chance—one in a thousand—but worth trying none the less. And a moment later he knew it was the chance that won. For sewed to the inside of the discolored sweat-pad was a little strip of silk. With his knife he carefully removed the strip, and found between it and the leather a folded fragment of paper closely covered with writing. He carried this to the light, and made it out to be a memorandum of direction of some sort. Slowly he spelled out the poorly written words:

From Y. N. took Unowhat. Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight feet direckly west. Fifty yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke. Then eighteen to nerest cotonwood. J. H. begins hear.

Collins read the scrawl twice before an inkling of its meaning came home to him. Then in a flash his brain was lighted. It was a memorandum of the place where Dailey's share of the plunder was buried.

His confederates had known that he had it, and had risked capture to make a thorough search for the paper. That they had not found it was due only to the fact that the murdered man had lost his hat as he scurried down the streets before them.

The doctor, having arrived, examined the wound and suggested an anaesthetic. Collins laughed.

"I reckon not, doc. You round up that lead pill and I'll endure the grief without knockout drops."

While the doctor was probing for the bullet lodged in his leg, the sheriff studied the memorandum found in Dailey's hat. He found it blind, disappointing work, for there was no clearly indicated starting-point. Bit by bit he took it:

From Y. N. took Unowhat.

This was clear enough, so far as it went. It could only mean that from York Neil the writer had taken the plunder to hide. But—WHERE did he take it? From what point? A starting-point must be found somewhere, or the memorandum was of no use. Probably only Neil could supply the needed information, now that Dailey was dead.

Went twenty yards strate for big rock. Eight feet direckly west. Fifty yards in direcksion of suthern Antelope Peke. Then eighteen to nerest cotonwood.

All this was plain enough, but the last sentence was the puzzler.

J. H. begins hear.

Was J. H. a person? If so, what did he begin. If Dailey had buried his plunder, what had J. H. left to do?

But had he buried it? Collins smiled. It was not likely he had handed it over to anybody else to hide for him. And yet—

He clapped his hand down on his knee. "By the jumping California frog, I've got it!" he told himself. "They hid the bulk of what they got from the Limited all together. Went out in a bunch to hide it. Blind-folded each other, and took turn about blinding up the trail. No one of them can go get the loot without the rest. When they want it, every one of these memoranda must be Johnny-on-the-spot before they can dig up the mazuma. No wonder Wolf Leroy searched so thorough for this bit of paper. I'll bet a stack of blue chips against Wolf's chance of heaven that he's the sorest train-robber right this moment that ever punctured a car-window."

Collins laughed softly, nor had the smile died out of his eyes when Hawkes came into the room with information to the point. He had made a round of the corrals, and discovered that the outlaws' horses had been put up at Jay Hardman's place, a tumble-down feed-station on the edge of town.

"Jay didn't take kindly to my questions," Hawkes explained, "but after a little rock-me-to-sleep-mother talk I soothed him down some, and cut the trail of Wolf Leroy and his partners. The old man give me several specimens of langwidge unwashed and uncombed when I told him Wolf and York was outlaws and train-robbers. Didn't believe a word of it, he said. 'Twas just like the fool officers to jump an innocent party. I told Jay to keep his shirt on—he could turn his wolf lose when they framed up that he was in it. Well, sir! I plumb thought for a moment he was going to draw on me when I said that. Say he must be the fellow that's in on that mine, with Leroy and York Neil. He's a big, long-haired guy."

Collins' eyes narrowed to slits, as they always did when he was thinking intensely. Were their suspicions of the showman about to be justified? Did Jay Hardman's interest in Leroy have its source merely in their being birds of a feather, or was there a more direct community of lawlessness between them? Was he a member of Wolf Leroy's murderous gang? Three men had joined in the chase of Dailey, but the tracks had told him that only two horses had galloped from the scene of the murder into the night. The inference left to draw was that a local accomplice had joined them in the chase of Scott, and had slipped back home after the deed had been finished.

What more likely than that Hardman had been this accomplice? Hawkes said he was a big long-haired fellow. So was the man that had held up the engineer of the Limited. He was—"J. H. begins hear." Like a flash the ill-written scrawl jumped to his sight. "J. H." was Jay Hardman. What luck!

The doctor finished his work, and Collins tested his leg gingerly. "Del, I'm going over to have a little talk with the old man. Want to go along?"

"You bet I do, Val"—from Del Hawkes.

"You mustn't walk on that leg for a week or two yet, Mr. Collins," the doctor explained, shaking his head.

"That so, doctor? And it nothing but a nice clean flesh-wound! Sho! I've a deal more confidence in you than that. Ready, Del?"

"It's at your risk then, Mr. Collins."

"Sure." The sheriff smiled. "I'm living at my own risk, doctor. But I'd a heap rather be alive than daid, and take all the risk that's coming, too. But since you make a point of it, I'll do most of my walking on a bronco's back."

They found Mr. Hardman just emerging from the stable with a saddle-pony when they rode into the corral. At a word from Collins, Hawkes took the precaution to close the corral gate.

The fellow held a wary position on the farther side of his horse, the while he ripped out a raucous string of invectives.

"Real fluent, ain't he?" murmured Hawkes, as he began to circle round to flank the enemy.

"Stay right there, Del Hawkes. Move, you redhaided son of a brand blotter, and I'll pump holes in you!" A rifle leveled across the saddle emphasized his sentiments.

"Plumb hospitable," grinned Hawkes, coming promptly to a halt.

Collins rode slowly forward, his hand on the butt of the revolver that still lay in its scabbard. The Winchester covered every step of his progress, but he neither hastened nor faltered, though he knew his life hung in the balance. If his steely blue eyes had released for one moment the wolfish ones of the villain, if he had hesitated or hurried, he would have been shot through the head.

But the eyes of a brave man are the king of weapons. Hardman's fingers itched at the trigger he had not the courage to pull. For such an unflawed nerve he knew himself no match.

"Keep back," he screamed. "Damn it, another step and I'll fire!"

But he did not fire, though Collins rode up to him, dismounted, and threw the end of the rifle carelessly from him.

"Don't be rash, Hardman. I've come here to put you under arrest for robbing the T. P. Limited, and I'm going to do it."

The indolent, contemptuous drawl, so free of even a suggestion of the strain the sheriff must have been under, completed his victory. The fellow lowered his rifle with a peevish oath.

"You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Mr. Collins."

"I guess not," retorted the sheriff easily. "Del, you better relieve Mr. Hardman of his ballast. He ain't really fit to be trusted with a weapon, and him so excitable. That Winchester came awful near going off, friend. You don't want to be so careless when you're playing with firearms. It's a habit that's liable to get you into trouble."

Collins had not shaved death so closely without feeling a reaction of boyish gaiety at his adventure. It bubbled up in his talk like effervescing soda.

"Now we'll go into a committee of the whole, gentlemen, adjourn to the stable, and have a little game of 'Button, button, who's got the button?' You first, Mr. Hardman. If you'll kindly shuck your coat and vest, we'll begin button-hunting."

They diligently searched the miscreant without hiding anything pertaining to "J. H. begins hear."

"He's bound to have it somewhere," asseverated Collins. "It don't stand to reason he was making his getaway without that paper. We got to be more thorough, Del."

Hawkes, under the direction of his friend, ripped up linings and tore away pockets from clothing. The saddle on the bronco and the saddle-blankets were also torn to pieces in vain.

Finally Hawkes scratched his poll and looked down on the wreckage. "I hate to admit it, Val, but the old fox has got us beat; it ain't on his person."

"Not unless he's got it under his skin," agreed Collins, with a grin.

"Maybe he ate it. Think we better operate and find out?"

An idea hit the sheriff. He walked up to Hardman and ordered him to open his mouth.

The jaws set like a vise.

Collins poked his revolver against the closed mouth. "Swear for us, old bird. Get a move on you."

The mouth opened, and Collins inserted two fingers. When he withdrew them they brought a set of false teeth. Under the plate was a tiny rubber bag that stuck to it. Inside the bag was a paper. And on it was written four lines in Spanish. Those lines told what he wanted to know. They, too, were part of a direction for finding hidden treasure.

The sheriff wired at once to Bucky, in Chihuahua. Translated into plain English, his cipher dispatch meant: "Come home at once. Trail getting red hot."

But Bucky did not come. As it happened, that young man had other fish to fry.



CHAPTER 9. "ADORE HAS ONLY ONE D."

After all, adventures are to the adventurous. In this prosaic twentieth century the Land of Romance still beckons to eager eyes and gallant hearts. The rutted money-grabber may deny till he is a nerve-racked counting-machine, but youth, even to the end of time, will laugh to scorn his pessimism and venture with elastic heel where danger and mystery offer their dubious hazards.

So it was that Bucky and his little comrade found nothing of dulness in the mission to which they had devoted themselves. In their task of winning freedom for the American immured in the Chihuahua dungeon they already found themselves in the heart of a web of intrigue, the stakes of which were so high as to carry life and death with them in the balance. But for them the sun shone brightly. It was enough that they played the game and shared the risks together. The jocund morning was in their hearts, and brought with it an augury of success based on nothing so humdrum or tangible as reason.

O'Connor carried with him to the grim fortress not only his permit for an inspection, but also a note from O'Halloran that was even more potent in effect. For Colonel Ferdinand Gabilonda, warden of the prison, had a shrewd suspicion that a plot was under way to overthrow the unpopular administration of Megales, and though he was an office-holder under the present government he had no objection to ingratiating himself with the opposition, providing it could be done without compromising himself openly. In other words, the warden was sitting on the fence waiting to see which way the cat would jump. If the insurgents proved the stronger party, he meant to throw up his hat and shout "Viva Valdez." On the other hand, if the government party crushed them he would show himself fussily active in behalf of Megales. Just now he was exerting all his diplomacy to maintain a pleasant relationship with both. Since it was entirely possible that the big Irishman O'Halloran might be the man on horseback within a very few days, the colonel was all suave words and honeyed smiles to his friend the ranger.